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Crawling Back On The Gyllenwagon. Kind Of.

2012-01-26T19:00:00.001+08:00

Those of you unfortunate enough to have been acquainted with me and this blog back in 2008 will probably remember the extremely intense, protracted, disturbing, only slightly ironic and (hopefully intentionally) hilarious phase during which my universe revolved around Jake Gyllenhaal. It was a time which birthed truly epic posts, the likes of which I may never create again, simply because I cannot remember how I managed to muster that level of fanatic attachment to this one man.

Oh. I think I remember now.

Luckily for all of us, that phase eventually passed, and I learned to dole out healthy doses of obsession among a wide and varied collection of unattainable famous boyfriends. But Jake of the Gyllenhaals will forever remain the biggest and most influential celebrity crush of my young life, and recently I found myself wondering what he might be up to these days, and that maybe I should go catch up with him, for old times' sake.

And then I see this.

WHAT IS THIS FUCKERY, JACOB.

Now, I admit I was kind of aware of the fact that they were allegedly dating, but the news never really registered in my mind, for some reason. I was ready for the outbreak of blog posts which would eventually reveal one of three things :

1. They were just good friends, and the whole thing was being misconstrued by the gossip media.
2. It was an opportunistic PR stunt to promote his new movie and her new album.
3. The whole thing was an elaborately crafted Photoshop hoax, designed to make me cry (I didn't).

Fortunately, they did break up at some point while I still wasn't looking, but not before all this nonsense took place. Behold :

a. Walking romantically down the street in a ridiculously inconvenient fashion.

What do you two clowns think you're doing? What is this? Why does your hand need to be draped so senselessly across his chest like that, Taylor? Why would you two choose to stroll down this lovely city sidewalk in the manner most restrictive to your physical mobility? Does (the illusion of) romance take such precedence over normal human movement? What happened to walking side by side, and maybe holding hands? Why do let yourselves walk so stupidly, Gooberballs?

Much better. Idiots.

b. Buying hipster coffee, all hipsterishly.

Ugh.

c. Contaminating Maggie Gyllenhaal's universe.

You really overstepped the line here, Swift. This is an outrage. Mack on Jake all you want, but this? This is Maggie Gyllenhaal we're talking about. You can't just touch her kid, or her grocery shopping, or breathe her air, or be seen with her in public. Do you know how disgusted - oh. She actually looks...happy to have you around. I don't...I can't.... Is she also a part of all this? Did she get roped into this performance? How am I supposed to carry on when I can't place my faith in a Gyllenhaal any longer? What has this family come to??

After all this foolishness, came the news that Jake had broken up with Taylor over the phone.

And so all the pretty princess unicorns wept.

And I was ever more convinced that this was nothing more than a publicity thing taken a bit too far. I have nothing against Taylor Swift as a person, even if I do think her music is vapid, albeit catchy, and her overall image perpetuates a few things I simply cannot stand (princess culture nonsense and a fair amount of slut-shaming in her videos, not to mention the perpetual virginal-white-dress-of-purity). This whole debacle, whatever it was, seemed far too staged, too odd, and generally did not make sense. I guess I just cannot see what a guy like Jake could find attractive in a girl like Taylor (as opposed to a girl like, oh I don't know, ME). I suppose she's pretty. But what did they even talk about while they were dating? Taylor Swift, from what I can tell, is a 22 year-old with the mindset and world view - romantically, at least - of a 15 year old. Everything about this screams "PR sham".

edit : These days I'm more convinced that Swift is actually much shrewder and smarter than I gave her credit for, and that all her musical pandering to the fairy-dust-teardrops-on-my-guitar brand of eternal high school romance is just her evil genius way of winding her core audience firmly around her little finger. But that's another post for another day.

No; if anything, this has brought Jake down a few pedestals in my eyes. It's one thing to date a younger woman, but another story entirely to do it in the interests of a PR-friendly hookup (which is most likely the case here). For shame, Jacob. I honestly thought you were made of better stuff than that. And why, really? Why, Jacob? Both you and Taylor are perfectly prolific, marketable and attractive on your own terms. Why together? Why you? Fire your publicist, child. I should never have taken my eyes off you, post-Reese Witherspoon. I didn't like that much either, but at least she was a grown-ass woman who knew what she was doing and was less likely to be in the grip of romantic fairy dust high school delusions.

You know I'm serious when I actually start yearning for the old days of yore when GyllenSpoon was all the rage (GyllenSpoon. Heh).

But then I hopped over to Youtube and watched some new interviews of you, and by god Jake. you are as charming, hilarious, sensitive, sincere, dorky and adorable as you ever were. Consider myself half-smitten again, Jacob. But the road to redemption is a long and rocky one, and I've got one eye planted firmly on you from this day forth. So don't try anything shady. Now buckle up and get ready for that awful, awful, awful song that is going to be written about you any day now.

edit : This is evidently ancient news, but I had actually drafted this post up last September, and having come across it today, decided to publish it anyway. Why waste a perfectly good Gyllenblogging opportunity, amiright?

We Will Not Have This Orwellian Bullshit.

2012-01-21T00:30:00.007+08:00

[image courtesy of Stereogum and my interweb piracy skillz. Come get me, Washington]

These last few days, I have felt a little like I have been living in a rather alarming science fiction scenario. One government controlling the world's Internetz? A single, self-serving entity which will determine what we can read, watch, talk about, share, buy, engage with, and decide what we are allowed to know and say? An institution which can erase my blog from existence, this little slice of pixellation I call my place in the Internet, for simply having too many pictures of Jake Gyllenhaal from Jarhead, particularly that scene in which he dances around naked with a Santa hat on his boyparts? And by deleting my site, effectively erase my voice and entire online identity, with no explanation, no justification, and no prior warning?
How dystopian. How utterly ridiculous. And in all honesty, how terrifying.

Fuck that shit. Fuck SOPA [Stop Online Piracy Act]. Many many other worthy users of the web have come forward to say and do their part, far more eloquently than I will ever be able to do.

Here is why you should know what SOPA (and its sister bill, also currently making its way through the US legislative system, PIPA, or Protect Intellectual Property Act] are all about. Here is why you need to care, even if you're on the other side of the planet (HELLO MALAYSIANS). Here's why you need to quit whining about how you can't ~~half-ass~~ ~~copypaste~~ complete your final assignments because Wikipedia went all black and "this is so inconvenient lah you guys".

Here is the breakdown of both SOPA and PIPA by Pajiba.com. With profanity.

Here is Cracked.com's hilarious but also sobering account of how, eventually, just about anyone is going to be able to abuse both SOPA and PIPA.

Here is Sue Fyenn's wonderful run through of all the implications of both acts (should they be passed in United States Of America Headquarters). Long, but easy to understand, and totally worth it. And yes, she articulated the situation so effectively that I was pretty much shitting my pants by the end.

Here is Wikipedia's own explanation, including its blackout protest initiative.

Here is a GIF about SOPA, starring a koala, a goat, and Oprah and Jesus on a jetski, in true Oatmeal comic style.

Here is an open letter signed by a group of musicians, artists, actors, authors and other creators of original content (including MGMT, Neil Gaiman, and one Mythbuster), sent to Washington, detailing how both SOPA and PIPA will end up causing more harm than good to themselves and their audience in the long run.

This Internet, it is a glorious one. It has allowed us to share and engage with the world in a way that was unthinkable just a few years ago. The Internet has given us so much, including this long-overdue recipe for unicorn shit cookies.

Imagine if, say, I don't know...Universal Studios suddenly decides this is a threat to copyright, and pulls this site down, and my blog as well, simply for linking to it. I don't know about you, but I don't want to live on a planet where even unicorns must live in fear of copyright infringement. Screw you, SOPA.

Now let's all go sign some petitions.

More Love and Less Pushing, Because I Am Honestly Too Old To Deal With This Bullshit [Foster The People Live In KL, 13 January 2012]

2012-01-14T02:11:00.021+08:00

After two months of giddy anticipation, Foster The People finally came down to this part of the world for an unexpected but very welcome addition to their Asian tour dates. Here is a slightly muddled recap of the good, the bad, and the shitloads of plain ugly that went down on Friday night.

Sue Fyenn and I managed to make friends with some adorable first time concert-goers while waiting in line, which was lovely, because meeting new people who love the same things you do is never not awesome.
The sound system was fairly good, but could have done with more work ; the synths and vocals on some tracks were far too soft, and the bass and drums were often a little overpowering. The band gave it their all and had some terrific energy though, so I am ready to forgive.
The cover of Weezer's Say It Ain't So, and two non-album tracks, Ruby and Broken Jaw, ended up being the highlights of the night for me. For one thing, those were three songs where you could actually hear Mark Foster's voice, which is most excellent, because that boy can sing. Nay, that boy can saaaaang.
Let us now talk about the crowd. I have always heard about gig experiences that were otherwise ruined by an asshole or two, and now I finally understand the utter frustration that comes from a large group of people who all collectively decide to behave in the shittiest way possible. I'm talking to you, a large portion of ticket holders of the front section of the Fanatic Zone area. Yes, you.
I am not talking about your standard gig moshing. I am talking about pushing, elbowing, shoving and falling over even before the gig started, which obviously got that much more worse when the band actually took to the stage. I am talking about the entire front section of that crowd stampeding to the left and right, to follow Mark Foster across the stage.
I am talking about Mark Foster himself having to take a few moments in between songs, early in the set, to call out that section of the audience for aforementioned pushing and shoving, and ask everyone to please give everyone else some space, "because it's all fun and games until someone dies, guys".
I am talking about people who continued to behave like dicks even after being called out by Mark Foster himself. I was so relieved when he actually tried to get people to stop shoving. So relieved. Because people who love Mark Foster and his music so much would obviously pay heed and listen to him, no? No. No such shit. But thanks for your concern, Mark. Didn't work, but much appreciation anyway.
I have been to my fair share of gigs of the moshing variety, and never once have I ever genuinely feared for my life, the way I did last night. I am talking about people in the front rows being pressed against metal barricades so hard, they couldn't breathe. I am talking about flat-out panic. For those of us in possession of any amount of gig etiquette knowledge, it wasn't fun. It wasn't wild. It wasn't whack, you guys. It was scary, it was annoying beyond all comprehension, and it robbed us of the musical experience we should have enjoyed that night.
You know what else I'm talking about? I am talking about that girl I have never met who passed out next to me, while I was trying my hardest to hold on to her arm and not let her drop to the floor, where I would definitely lose her in the darkness and confusion. I am talking about the people who were ready to climb over her to get closer to the stage, and I am talking about having to scream DO NOT FUCKING MOVE at everyone within a three-foot radius to make sure that kid did not get trampled, while the band went on
playing whatever song it was they were playing at that point.
I am talking about first-time concert goers who were pretty much in tears, claiming that this would be their first and last gig, because nothing could be worth this much physical and emotional trauma.
I missed almost all of Houdini because some bitch was screaming and yanking at my hair with both hands. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?
And to those obnoxious, entitled pre-teen girls standing behind me before the gig started? If you know you're short and will have problems seeing the stage, come early and pick out a good spot. It is in no way your god-given right to elbow and bulldoze your way to the front. It is not your god-given right to keep elbowing me in the back and the side of my left boob, expecting me to take the hint. It is not awesome to actually use your elbow to wedge out a space between me and the girl next to me. I do not have the memory span of a goldfish, which means that after you're done poking me, you can't just sweetly ask me to "please swap places, pleeeeeease?", because you girls haven't exactly been endearing yourselves to me for the past twenty minutes.

It is not cool to keep elbowing, shoving, smushing, making very loud and pointed passive-aggressive remarks and leaning your entire weight on everyone around you, especially me, when you have been repeatedly told to kindly fuck the hell off. If you had actually started off with a polite request to have me give you some space closer to the stage, I would have been nice and totally let you move up front, no problem. It only became a big, obnoxious, shitty deal because you turned it into one.
To the folks I met there who were actually nice, and who looked for out each other and spent a few minutes after the show going around and asking everyone if they were okay, thank you. Thank you. I never learned your names, but you are all a collective beacon of hope in the crumbling ruins of my shattered faith in the inherent goodness of humanity.
To the people who have been going all "Well, that's just the gig environment for you, totally normal, happens all the time", or "You bought tickets to the FANATIC zone, what were you expecting?". Fuck that shit. What was I expecting? I was expecting a fun, rowdy, boogie-down time. I expected some roughness, some pushing, some degree of having people get all up in my grill. I wasn't expecting to stand there fearing serious, permanent damage to my internal organs while Pumped Up Kicks played in the background. I wasn't expecting to constantly have to check on people next to me, to make sure they were still breathing. I wasn't expecting to have to type out a barely sort-of gig review with next to nothing I can actually say about the music. I wasn't expecting to walk out of that hall feeling shitty beyond belief, angrier than I have been in a long time, and on the verge of tears. Normal gig behaviour? I'm sorry, but what happened on Friday night was pure lunacy. I understand the passion, the euphoria, the insane mob mentality that comes over people in that situation. It does not make that behaviour acceptable on any planet. Justifying that behaviour or even expecting and accepting dickishness at a concert, is crossing a line with me. Delegitimizing my experience in there by insinuating that I was being an oversensitive prude who couldn't deal with a bunch of clearly overexcited teenage girls, that I am overreacting, is not cool either.
By the fifth song, I was seriously considering trying to catch the attention of a security guard and getting the hell out of there, but I came up with the much better and wiser decision of moving as far back into the crowd as possible. Eventually I came across a pocket of people who were very calm, happy and clearly just there to have a good time. Not to mention they had the sense to give everyone at least half a foot of dancing space. Once there, I was able to enjoy the last seven or eight songs in the set, which was highly fortunate for me. I still feel incredibly bad for the people who were trapped up there in the first few rows with nowhere to go and absolutely no way of being genuinely able to enjoy this gig.
All in all, I would feel really bad if I crowned this as the worst gigging experience of my life, because Foster The People themselves were on top form, were incredibly nice, and did nothing to merit the undeniably shitty behaviour that surfaced that night. They deserved better fans than this ; anyone would expect more love and positivity from fans of such a happy dancey band. And hell, people like me who showed up to have a good time, only to be almost entirely robbed of that experience by other people in attendance, also deserved much better. I can also personally testify that not everyone in Hall 4, KLCC, that night were assholes, but all the same? Shame on us, Kuala Lumpur gig-goers. Shame on us.

I offer a sincere apology to you, Foster The People, for the collective lunacy of a crowd that was more interested in letting you know (as loud as humanly possible) how much they wanted you to fuck them, a crowd perfectly willing to kill each other over their race to get prime stage-front spots, rather than listening to anything you had to say that night. For a far more heartfelt and eloquent apology, head over to read Sue Fyenn's open letter to the band. And here's to purging all the worst memories from Friday night, and looking forward to the next rocking, fun and positive, palate-cleansing concert experience.

I'm glad I was fortunate enough to have been able to safely enjoy the last half of the night, but all the same, I'll just listen to MGMT and Phoenix until I stop feeling a physical ache in my chest every time I hear a Foster The People track.

edit :
It has recently come to my attention that the management and security were pretty crap as well - most people from various ticket sections got mixed up at the entrance, a dividing gate/barricade/thingy was left open so that people from the back could come charging up towards the stage, which obviously did not help matters. Also, a video screen was placed on the back wall of the auditorium, instead of somewhere in front, or the sides. You know, where people would actually be able to see it. How are these people allowed to manage events? How?

All in all, worst concert experience of my life to date, and it was never, at any point, the band's fault. I cannot stress this enough, because Foster and his People did a fabulous job. In any case, a million thanks to the band for coming all the way here, and if the guys ever decide to pay a visit to KL again, I know where I'll be ; safely in the middle of the venue, having my own personal boogie-down time and not getting punched in the head.

moar edits :

I really don't want to be superficial here, but yes, Mark Foster is insanely good-looking up close. It is a testament to his total nom-liciousness that even in the midst of being tossed around like a rag doll, I had the time to look up at the stage and register this thought : "Fucking hell, he is fine". You gotta appreciate the little things, you know.

Some Resolutions For 2012 Which I May or May Not Decide To Keep. They're My Resolutions, After All.

2012-01-08T11:58:00.007+08:00

1. Start reading books for pleasure again. Or at least try to enjoy my compulsory reading list for next semester (and how could I not? There's some good shit on that!). It's just that much harder when you know authority figures are making you read Dickens and Wordsworth.

2. Read more books, the way I used to. Curl up on the couch with chocolate biscuit fuel, and power through the pages like a maniac. Laugh, gasp, frown, and "WTF" at all the appropriate places. Savour the feel of paper under fingers, read particularly delicious sentences several times over. Finish. And then flip back and start all over again (to look for clues I may have missed, because there is no way I wasn't smart enough to see that twist coming).

3. Eat more food I have never tried before, so I can once and for all decide if I like it or not. Start with sushi. No, I'm not kidding. I've never had sushi.

4. Buy nice clothes and shoes. There will come a point in life where I will no longer be able to get by on band T-shirts, jeans and sneakers every day. Unless I get a job at a music magazine. OMG PLEASE LET THIS HAPPEN.

5. Make mixed CD covers from scratch.

6. Write more ; blogs, emails, letters. Sometimes I even long for those days when I could sit down and write really bad poetry commemorating the weekend football scores.

7. Actually keep track of how much I spend on lunch every day. I need a better budget plan than "if there's still a five ringgit note in the wallet by Friday, we're good".

8. Having said that, indulge in garlic and cheese naan for lunch more often. That thing is sublime.

9. Catch up on season 7 of Supernatural. The show doesn't look like it will ever return to the brilliance of its early years, but I am far too emotionally and spiritually invested in the characters to jump ship at this point. Plus I really like and respect (and sometimes lust for) the writers and actors, and the wonderful relationship they have fostered with the online fandom. Even if this goes on for another 7 seasons, you can bet I will be standing right there at the bloody, fiery end, weeping next to the inevitable train wreck of plot and characterization. I will never let you go, show. I will cling to you like a clingy thing that clings.

Also I am not done laughing at the CW's LOLarious photoshop skillz. You go, CW. Why would anyone want to end the show now, and deprive us of all this promo poster ridiculousness?

10. I will not hit the snooze button more than 6 times every morning. Also, find out if my phone actually spells snooze as "snoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooze". It would be hilarious if it actually did that, but I can never trust my eyesight first thing in the morning.

11. SAVE UP FOR GIGS. It's bad enough that I already have to pass on the Laneway Festival in Singapore this February, with a line up which includes a large portion of the acts in my best albums of 2011 list ( Austra, M83, and until recently, WU LYF). My soul still aches over this.

12. Become rich when I grow up, so I can fly out to all the Laneway festivals everywhere. Also, fuck you Singapore. Fuck you and your indie cred.

In other news, the growl-mumbler musicians from Manchester, WU LYF, are here to bring meaning to my life. They appeared on the Letterman show a couple of days ago, performing one of my favourite songs of last year, and proceeded to blow my socks off in a most spectacular fashion.

If you're watching, be sure to stick till the end for the band's hilariously awkward exit.

Also, Ellery Roberts? Despite your horrible enunciation and reputation for being a dickhead, I kind of really really want you right now. You sort of look like the psychotic Mancunian love child of Alexander Skarsgard and Kristian Mattsson. This pleases me and my ladyparts. Call me and we'll work something out. Kiss kiss.

BAP's 25 Favourite Songs and Albums of 2011

2011-12-28T11:19:00.000+08:00

This year, I've decided to take a leaf out of Allison's list-making book, and compile a collection of not only my favourite albums, but also the songs I love best from those records, and why they are special to me. It's been an odd year for albums, personally ; I found myself gravitating and growing more attached to individual tracks, as opposed to full records. All the same, the songs listed below pretty much correspond to the albums I enjoyed the most over the year (and perhaps all too predictably, Bon Iver is somewhere in there). You can check out my mid-year best albums list over here.

BAP's 25 Favourite Songs and Albums [And Some EPs] of 2011, In No Particular Order, But At Least All of These Were Actually Released in 2011, And There Are Pretty Pictures, So That Totally Merits Some Plus Points For Effort.

* all song titles link to a Youtube video. I trust you guys to be a bunch of Internet-savvy mofos, but if you run into any trouble tracking down a song or a band, let me know and I'll do what I can to help.

1. James Blake [James Blake] // The Wilhelm Scream

James Blake and his ridiculously sexy voice are responsible for making some seriously sexy music. This song in particular is a perfect example of that ; odd, repetitive blocks of sonic loops, plenty of bleeps and bloops that sound like they're coming from under the ocean or something, and with the same three or four lines of lyrics being repeated over and over and over again ( I don't know about my dreams/I don't know about my dreaming anymore/All that I know is that I'm falling, falling, falling, falling/Might as well fall) until they start to feel like a mantra you've always known but only remember when Mr. Blake sings them to you. It's stunningly hypnotic, surprisingly comforting, and I for one would be happy if this song just never ended. Ever.

2. Kurt Vile [Smoke Ring For My Halo] // Runner Ups

Every review I've read of Kurt Vile's 2011 release makes some mention of his music being the epitome of slacker folk , almost as if "Bob Dylan had gone shoegaze". Vile himself makes a self-deprecating reference to with this line from Runner Ups: "When I walk in, my head is practically dragging". Don't be fooled though ; music this intricate and meditative takes a great deal of love and care and attention to detail, and it shows through in songs like this one. Every pick of the guitar sounds achingly, clearly gorgeous, and there are some terrific lyrics in there, masked by a voice that sounds, on occasion, like a zoned-out drone. This album takes some work to really get into, but is ultimately one of my most rewarding listens of the year.

3. Of Monsters And Men [My Head Is An Animal] // Six Weeks

Credit goes to Allison of Flying Buttresses for alerting me to the existence of this delightful folk-rock act from Iceland. My familiarity with Icelandic music starts with Sigur ros and ends with Bjork, so it was a nice surprise to discover that these guys sound more like the joyfully feral godchildren of Arcade Fire. The guitars in Six Weeks are exuberant, the communal refrains and choruses are emphatic and ferociously life-affirming. The 2:23 mark in particular makes me feel like I should be running barefoot across a glacial Icelandic landscape with Icelandic wind in my hair and this song playing on full-ass volume in the background and shit. It's impossible to be unhappy when you're listening to this. Impossible, I say.

4. The Rural Alberta Advantage [Departing] // Barnes' Yard

I knew from the first time I gave this album a digital spin that Barnes' Yard would end up being my favourite track at the end of the year. Clocking in at barely two and a half minutes, it deals with all the band's usual themes of hometowns and parents and lovers and highways and escaping. Add that to the jangly, up-tempo beat and this knockout of a couplet (We're broken down lovers at the side of the road/We're broken down lovers in the city of oil) and I am a complete and total goner for this song, this album, and this whole entire band. If you can hear me all the way in Rural Alberta, I LOVE YOU GUISE.

5. Typhoon [A New Kind Of House EP] // Summer Home

First of all, Kyle Morton's voice is so clear and so lush that makes me want to cry just thinking about it. If I could, I would totally hire him as my personal lullaby singer. When he sings, it hurts. I don't know where that ache comes from, but this guy brings it. Typhoon's songs deal largely with death, sin, mortality and humanity, and they still manage to work as many handclaps, trumpets and sing-along choruses into the mix as they possibly can. And for a band with 12 musicians in it (there are only 10 in the picture above - it's really hard to keep track) they do a hell of a job at sounding larger than life, using mainly acoustic instruments. Summer Home takes its time getting started, but by the time Kyle's voice kicks in, you know you're in for a treat. And when he quiveringly inquires "Can we hold out for summer again?" it's pretty much all I can do not to want to fall at his feet and be all, "Dude, Kyle, I would wait a THOUSAND summers if that's what you really want". These guys are something special, and I can't wait to hear what comes next.

6. David Wax Museum [Everything Is Saved] // Yes, Maria, Yes

These guys were in my mid-year best of list, and here's what I said about them back then : "Irresistibly infectious countrified folk rock with large doses of Mexican influences and enough handclaps to make anyone giddy. Also they use a donkey's jawbone as part of their percussion because that's not creepy at all."

I am glad to say I don't love them any less than I did in June. As for what makes Yes Maria Yes my favourite of the bunch, let's just put it this way : handclaps + accordion. Also it's hard not to love a band that throws some delicious phonetic wordplay at you now and then (I talktalktalk you don't listen/ I talktalktalk you don't listen).

7. M83 [Hurry Up, We're Dreaming] // Steve McQueen

The major flaw first : as Beckeye has pointed out in her own list, Hurry Up We're Dreaming really does not need to be a double album. There is only so much swirling synth and ethereal vocal harmony that one mortal listener can stomach. Taken in small doses though, there are some seriously standout tracks on this record. My initial favourite was the saxophone-filled goodness of Midnight City, but Steve McQueen started growing on me more with every listen. I would have never imagined describing a song built almost entirely on synths and keyboards and an 80s sound template to be EPIC, but that is exactly what this song is. It's HUGE ; the drums are thunderous, the keyboards and synths swirl and explode like they are their own cosmic event, the lyrics are grandiose as all hell. I am not much of a fan of electronica, but when I meet an album and a song as transcendent as this, I really just have to swallow my prejudices, sit back, and enjoy the experience.

8. The Lonely Wild [Dead End EP] // Dead End

This song in particular is a boy/girl harmony combo, which doesn't have much room on my musical taste template. But these two sound like they were pretty much born to sing together, and with no one else, and it's hard not to melt just a little. The melody is gorgeous, the guitar riff is stunning, the harmonies are of course perfect beyond all fault, and there is just the right amount of aching steel guitar working away in the background. Understated, classy, and just plain beautiful. Also, yes, lead singer dude is fairly easy on the eye. Not that physical appearance matters when it comes down to good music, but a pretty guy with a pretty voice singing pretty songs never hurt anybody, I say. Pretty on, Lonely Wild dude.

9. Fleet Foxes [Helplessness Blues] // Helplessness Blues

I'm probably in the minority when I say I enjoyed the Fleet Foxes' debut more than this release, but Helplessness Blues (the track) is right up there on my list of favourite songs...of forever, maybe. Again, the harmonies are killer. The acoustic guitar is positively jubilant and almost on the verge of snapping under the weight and intensity of Robin Pecknold's existential crisis. If you were to ask me to pick a snippet of my favourite lyrics from this one, I would not be able to do it ; every word and every turn of phrase is perfection.

10. James Vincent McMorrow [Early In The Morning] // We Don't Eat

Bon Iver comparisons have been inevitable and relentless for Irishman Mr. McMorrow, who also shut himself away in a woodland cabin to compose songs of heartbreak, in isolation. But where Bon Iver's debut initially did nothing but put me to sleep, James' lush, soulful voice and gorgeous instrumentation caught my attention immediately. This is just pretty, you guys. Woodland cabin aside, the only thing this man has in common with Justin Vernon is that falsetto, and a healthy amount of folk-beard. We Don't Eat is a slow-burner of gently growing gorgeousness and building strings and subtle harmonies, topped with one of my favourite choruses of the year : "We don't eat until your father's at the table/We don't drink until the devil's turned to dust". This man needs more love, and you can start right here, right now.

11. Arctic Monkeys [Suck It And See]// Suck It And See

It was a joy and a pleasure to see 2011 provide a return to my favourite flavour of Monkeys. These guys can rock out just as hard as the hipsterest of them, but to me they are at the top of their game when they're sweet, melodious, funny, tender, when they bring in the irresistible hooks, and when Alex Turner's remarkably witty, pithy and downright adorable lyrical prowess is given the chance to shine ( You're rarer than a can of dandelion and burdock/And those other girls are just post-mix lemonade). I've said before that the title track is probably the most gorgeous thing Turner and co. have ever recorded to date, and this sentiment still holds true now, at the end of the year.
This is an album I have been steadily falling (and remaining) in love with throughout 2011, and there is absolutely no sign that my affection for this set of 12 songs is going to fade any time soon. If I had arranged this list by rank, Suck It And See would be number one, without a shadow of a doubt. It was too much trouble sorting out numbers 2 to 25 though, so you'll have to settle for this.
O Arctic Monkeys, we've come such a long way since those dark days when I shunned you because of your accents, and then again because of the widely-maligned Humbug. Forgive me my youthful follies, and let us promise to never ever ever break up ever again.

12. Zola Jesus [Conatus] // Vessel

Zola Jesus is the 22-year old (there we go again with the talented young people making me feel inadequate) Russian-American songwriter Nika Roza Danilova. Mixing large amounts of electronica with some sort of goth-opera to taste, Vessel is a wide, sparse and very dark sonic landscape of synths, ghostly electronic bloops and creaks, and chillingly chopped up vocals. Other songs on the album provide dashes of piano and even strings, but the end product is always minimalistic, almost but-not-quite to the point of being skeletal. Conatus is not an easy listen, but it's always hauntingly beautiful in its own creepy way, and more importantly, never boring.

13. Patrick Wolf [Brumalia EP] // Pelicans

Here's the thing ; I did not enjoy Patrick's 2011 full-length release, Lupercalia. I did like some parts of it, and as an indie pop product it wasn't horrible. But Patrick Wolf was happy, content and perfectly joyous when he wrote the songs on that album, and while I am happy that Patrick is happy, Lupercalia ended up being far, far, far less interesting, mysterious and enthralling than his usual work, and it was chock-full of the most sugary-sweet romantic sentiments, and lyrics so generic I had to stop myself physically cringing at times. The Magic Position was also an extremely pop-based album, but at least that contained more than enough sinister tones and subject matter to make sure the songs never came close to becoming trite. Lupercalia was a crushing disappointment.
I still worship the man, but fortunately Brumalia came along to appease me. The handful of songs it carries contains enough darkness, strings, multiple-Patrick harmonies and distorted, chopped-up electronica to make them sound like they could have very easily fit into Patrick's two earliest (and my personal favourite) albums, Lycanthropy and Wind in the Wires. The guy is allowed to make happy music if he wants to, but this EP pretty much solidified the fact that I like my Patrick Wolf darker, angstier, bloodier and way more melodramatic.

14. WU LYF [Go Tell Fire To The Mountain] // Heavy Pop

It was quite a task picking one standout track from an album full of cathartic, euphoric anthems, but Heavy Pop wins out in the end. WU LYF (or World Unite! Lucifer Youth Foundation - yeah I have no idea why either. Pretentious assholes). WU LYF are a bit of an acquired taste in the sense that lead singer Ellery Roberts' voice never evolves beyond a full-throated, animalistic roar most of the time. Depending on where you're coming from, that either means he can't be arsed to enunciate properly, or that the songs are meant to communicate such a primal level of emotion and pure, hands-in-the-air euphoria that it will never matter what the lyrics are, anyway. I particularly like Consequence of Sound's description of his vocal stylings : "Ellery James Roberts, lead singer of WU LYF, talks in the same voice he sings in, which is a cross between Tibetan monk throat singers and a 20-something Tom Waits". If this seems appealing to you, dig right in!

Like M83, these guys have more than earned the label EPIC - the album was even recorded in a church. Heavy Pop is probably the epitome of what these guys do best ; every song has that soaring guitar, those EARTH-SHATTERING drums, Ellery Roberts' frantic yowling (the only thing you'll be able to make out is "I wanna feel at home" ), and the organ music, which gives a lovely cathedral-esque, larger than life atmosphere. The track takes it time getting warmed up, and by the time that distant harmonica introduces itself at around the 2-minute mark, and the EARTH-SHATTERING drums kick in, you're probably starry-eyed and completely, shamelessly sold (if you're anything like me, that is). Check out a terrific Blogotheque version of the track over here.

15. The Cave Singers [No Witch] // No Prosecution If We Bail

Folk-rock has never sounded so badass. Like our friend the divisive Ellery Roberts, The Cave Singers are also fronted by a singer with a feral, yowly voice, but to this guy's credit, he actually enunciates more. He can also sound, by turns, tender, nostalgic, and like on this track I've chosen, pretty much ready to kick your teeth in, effortlessly transitioning between yelping, growling, and his normal register. I am still not sure what exactly he's singing about, but this song is rowdy, dirty fun, and hell, even a little sexy.

16. Foster The People [Torches] // Helena Beat

Like most people, my first introduction to Foster The People was the chilled-out, bass-alicious sounds of Pumped Up Kicks. After listening to the full album a few times, however, I realized that judging Foster and co. by that one breakout track was not only unfair to the dudes, but also not an accurate representation of what these guys actually sound like. Tracks like Helena Beat, Houdini and Call It What You Want totally (and unexpectedly, for me) blow Kicks right out of the proverbial water. They're not mindblowingly original and are unlikely to be hailed as groundbreaking pioneers of electronica or indie pop (they totally win my award for CUTEST BAND EVER though, giggle giggle), but they're fun, they're catchy, and they're refreshing. Call them MGMT-lite if you will, but sometimes all you need is something to dance to. I'm super excited to be seeing them live in about a couple weeks' time. If you're reading this and you're going to be in the KL area in the second week of January, what are you waiting for? GO GET TICKETS before that shit's sold out!

17. Frightened Rabbit [A Frightened Rabbit EP] // Scottish Winds

It may seem a bit like cheating to have a tiny little 3-song EP on a best albums list, but everything Frightened Rabbit does is flawless. FLAWLESS. If they had released nothing this year save for a sample of a three-chord progression, it would have probably made this list, and perhaps even topped it. What I have for these guys is mad mad love, kay? The three songs on this release are typical mist-and-rain drenched Scottish misery, with the usual lush instrumentation, and Scott Hutchison's melancholy brogue seemingly wrenching every word from the depths of his talented, long-suffering guts. Scottish Winds in particular wins for having some of the most gorgeous lyrics I have had the pleasure of hearing in 2011, and for making me feel more patriotic than any national anthem I have ever come across, including Italy's. And the Italian anthem is pretty damned stirring and all, so you know I mean business.

"Come burl around my body Scottish blood
I'll try not to spill a drop, I'm sure you've spilled enough
And the English fucking rule will mean nothing to these towns
Run forever in my veins bold Scottish blood"

18. Beirut [The Rip Tide] // Goshen

If I could, I would also totally hire Zach Condon to be my personal lullaby singer. It's like every sound that comes out of this guy's mouth is designed to make me melt. I love the stripped-down, minimal approach he has taken with The Rip Tide, which showcases the gorgeous gorgeous melodies, and Zach's even more gorgeous voice. Like East Harlem, Goshen centres around the same verses and chorus being repeated over slowly-building harmonies and drums and (for once, understated) trumpets. By the time this song has hit the 2-minute mark, I am already a puddle of gooey happy on the floor.

19. Florence + The Machine [Ceremonials] // What The Water Gave Me

Florence's second album is even more bombastic, grandiose and massive than her first, which is a feat I did not think she was capable of accomplishing. Her songs rarely go into subject matter more profound than boys and falling in love and breaking up, but all these are akin to cosmic events in Miss Welch's emotional spectrum, and the songs reveal this. The hooks are massive, the string section is filled to overflowing, the drums are thunderous and tribal, and her voice still soars over it all like some fiery-haired avenging angel.

Despite this, my favourite track off the album is the one with the most restraint, the most control, and as a result the most sophistication in songwriting and production. This is dark, sexy, compelling stuff. And unlike her usual dynamics of LOUD-soft-LOUDER-soft-LOUDEST, this track actually builds upon itself with a purpose and a tension, before finally breaking out into that crazy final section of crashing drums and harp and electric guitar. As much as I love Florence when she is loud and unabashed and excessive, What The Water Gave Me is a testament to how good she can be when she holds back. Time to take some pointers from yourself, girlfriend.

20. Frank Turner [England Keep My Bones] // Glory Hallelujah

Ever since I first met Frank Turner in a mixed CD sent to me by the always awesome Badtempered Zombie, I was unreasonably convinced that the guy was Canadian. Imagine my surprise when I finally found out that he is very English, and that his most recent album is a glorious meditation on Shakespeare,mortality and the very essence of Englishness. Glory Hallelujah, although probably not the best track on this album, is my favourite nonetheless ; it reminds me of everything I have learned to love about Mr. Turner. In four and a half minutes, and with the simplest of lyrics, he manages to defy God, divine intervention and organized religion, which may sound like atheist propaganda. But this track does more; it celebrates everything large and small about the beauty and freedom and joy of simple human existence, and on top of that he's got us clapping our hands and tapping our feet. Regardless of your opinions on God, this is just a great jam, you guys. And for a guy who spends so much time singing about death, Frank Turner makes some of the most life-affirming music I have ever heard in my still-young life.

21. Lykke Li [Wounded Rhymes] // Love Out Of Lust

Lykke Li's debut album was far too cutesy and precious for me to get into, so I truly welcomed the change in her sound this year. The new Lykke is edgy, angry, intense. Her voice is used to its full depth and volume, and what a voice it is. The tracks blend everything from synths to booming tribal drums to 60s girl group vocal stylings, and Lykke herself is by turns aggressively sexual and tenderly vulnerable. She is sassy and sensual on Get Some, where even her seduction sounds more like a death threat. But is when she gets melancholy and soft that she appeals to me the most ; Love Out Of Lust is gorgeous - the pounding drums are still there, but there is a longing, haunted quality to every instrument, down to that high-pitched, soaring whistle-thing that comes in during the chorus. "We will live longer than I will/We will be better than I was/We can cross rivers with our will/We can do better than I can". Badass Lykke Li is amazing, but this song is the most vulnerable and open she allows herself to become, and I can't help but love her all the more for it.

22. Ezra Furman & The Harpoons [Mysterious Power] // Teenage Wasteland

It's probably a bit much for a bunch of guys well out of college to keep singing about rebellious teenage apathy, but Ezra and his Harpoons do such a damn fine job of it, it's really hard to fault them. They are able to perfectly and hilariously articulate every angst-filled concern anyone has ever felt about their identity and place in the world (and failed relationships, for good measure) during the years of teenage-hood and the early twenties, and then couple that with noisy, raucous, harmonica-driven punkish rock that sonically encapsulates all the frustration and restlessness of that period of life. These guys make existential dilemmas FUN, and frankly I never want them to stop, because who knows what they've got in store for the mid-life crisis albums.

23. Bon Iver [Bon Iver, Bon Iver] // Holocene

Bon Iver and a kitty!

This album is still taking its time to grow on me, but I much prefer the more electric-based Bon Iver to the acoustic leanings of his debut which - and I have said this many times over many posts - initially succeeded only in putting me to sleep every time I tried to give it a shot. I've learned to appreciate the Justin Vernon vibe since then, but having said that, it's the single, almost 100% acoustic track Holocene that won me over. It's just a flat-out beautiful song in every way, and even the music video was filmed in Iceland. You don't get much prettier than Iceland, I tell you.

24. Lia Ices [Grown Unknown] // Daphne (featuring Justin Vernon)

Lia Ices' (which is evidently not her real name ; I should Google this shit) album is full of floaty, dreamy, string-drenched and handclap-adorned forest-esque folk. Tracks like the Bon Iver-supported and approved Daphne, and Ice Wine make me feel like I am being serenaded by a wood nymph or something. Every instrument has this air of ethereal sorrow about it, and it says a great deal that I find her voice the most beautiful and moving when she isn't singing words at all ; check out the 2:00 minute mark on Daphne and justify my feelings, dammit. Also this Justin Vernon douche is like, all over the place, isn't he? But the track really picks up and ascends into a higher level of gorgeousness once his unmistakable falsetto joins in, with drums and piano and electric guitar thrown in for good measure. Brings a tear to my eye, this does.

25. Austra [Feel It Break] // Lose It

Less creepy than the aforementioned Zola Jesus, Austra still comes armed with massive synth hooks and enough dark lyrical imagery to remind me of a less ethereal Bat For Lashes. While Beat and the Pulse would probably win the award for the most badass intro to any song I've heard this year, the wordless chorus in Lose It is simply the epitome of an earworm. It's fun and catchy, and for a track on an album with so much synth and electronica and cold robot sounds, it manages to be warm and wonderfully enchanting despite itself. Well played, Canadians.

"Piss and Moan, You Let The Devil In Your Home"

2011-12-13T01:13:00.008+08:00

One of my favourite finds of the week, made all the more lovely by the fact that I had no idea these guys had even released any new material in 2011.

I love this. More bands should all shack up together and play board games on the floor and do homework and stuff. There's something wonderful about the joyful, organized chaos of a 17-piece band (yes dudes, seventeen. Or at least that's where they stopped the last time I checked). They have this air of having played together for so long that they know exactly where every handclap and horn and keyboard goes, and the raucous sing-along chorus at the end is nothing short of cathartic, as anyhing with a nice, hearty "Hallelujah!" in it is bound to be.

In the spirit of positivity, here are more of my favourite things this week.

1. Gardenia's butterscotch bread. Sweet gooey buttery breakfast goodness.

2. Maxis' mobile broadband connection, because holy shit University of Malaya, your wi-fi connection is horrendous. The youth of this country weep for your sub-par technological infrastructure. Weep.

3. Sufjan Stevens' obsessive affinity for Christmas carols. Where else will we find five hundred different versions of Once In Royal David's City to play while we put up our ~~pagan~~ ~~commercialized~~ Christmas tree?

4. David Tennant in Places He Shouldn't Be, a.k.a my favourite new single topic Tumblr ever. O Tenth Doctor, how I miss you.

5. Men in cravats. If I ever get a man, I am totally making him wear one in bed, during kinky times. Those neckcloths sure can get a girl all hot and bothered.

Sexaaaay.

O lawd, have mercy.

Real Men Wear Cravats : BAP's List of Literary Crushes.

2011-11-30T13:04:00.001+08:00

I'll be the first to admit that when it comes to fictional boys, the bulk of my attention is reserved for those on screen, but doubt not the fact that I have had my share of infatuations with men who dwell in lands of ink and paper as well. And considering the fact that I am majoring in English Literature, dammit, I'd say this list was a long time coming.

Before I go any further, I'd just like to get mushy for a bit and quickly mention that my aunt was probably the single largest influence on my reading habits as a kid. She would take me by the hand into a bookstore every time she came over to visit, and turn me loose in the children's section with a “Take whatever you want, and however many you like”. I was a good kid, and honestly lousy at taking advantage of people, so I'd never go beyond a RM15 purchase if I could help it. My aunt rectified this by piling more books into my arms anyway ; everything she had remembered reading and loving during her own childhood, she wanted me to read and love. There was never such a thing as a budget when it came to these special shopping trips.

And it's largely thanks to her that these days I cannot imagine going through life without a book within arm's reach whenever possible. Consequently, she's a part of the reason that I'm doing an English degree at all, and it's a fucking shame that she is never going to see me graduate. And perhaps unsurprisingly, she's the one who introduced me to and/or bought me pretty much every book on this list. We fangirled over all the Austen heroes any chance we got. We walked into a person's house and immediately (and unfairly) judged them based on how many books they had in the place. Every time I pick up a novel to read, it is because of her, and it is for her, and I owe her big time for that.

Here we go, in no particular order, and with many pretty pictures from various TV and film adaptations, where available, to make up for the fact that this is one long-ass post :

1. Julian Kirrin [The Famous Five series, Enid Blyton]

Enid Blyton's Famous Five series was my first foray into the world of proper full-length books, as a wide-eyed eight year old. This was where I met the big brother in the mystery-solving Famous 5 gang, and I was completely taken in by his bossiness, protectiveness and adorable arrogance fueled by what I now recognize as the male ego. And although the kid who played him in the 1996 TV adaptation looked incredibly dopey :

He kind of got really hot in the space of roughly 15 years :

'Sup Julian.

2. Laertes [Hamlet, William Shakespeare]

Here's the thing – I had a crush on Hamlet first. I had this picture in my mind of a tortured, conflicted Scandinavian ~~supermodel~~ prince with really great cheekbones. Like this.

To be hot, or to be hotter?

For the first few acts, I was completely smitten with Hamlet and his tragic predicaments. And then he just got whinier, angstier and ever more spineless. I found myself reading monologue upon monologue of him waxing philosophical about mortality and sin, which is all well and good, but damn I wished he would just go and kill someone already. And on top of all that, he decides to take out his frustrations on the only other character even more vulnerable than himself - Ophelia. What a dick.

It was only then that Laertes, brother of Ophelia and Dude Who Works As A Something For The Danish Monarchy But I Don't Remember What, began to seem far more appealing. Laertes, while perhaps nowhere near as intelligent or poetic as Hamlet Prince Of Emo, was most definitely noble, courageous, honorable, and devoted to his family and duty. His adoration for his sister was heart-melting, and it is utterly tragic that he had to lose his entire family and then his own life, for no other reason than the fact that Hamlet was taking too long to make up his mind. Also if a ghost had appeared to Laertes in Act I and told him to kill someone in the name of righteous revenge, Laertes would have marched right up there with this sword and taken down names and chopped off some heads by Act II.

3. Fitzwilliam Darcy [Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen]

Mr. Darcy was my introduction to the world of brooding, silent heroes, and to the world of Jane Austen, and consequently led to my fascination with anything labelled "British", "period" and with the word "cravat" mentioned somewhere. While Austen novels and their adaptations provide plenty of great fodder to analyze through the lens of class, social structure and gender issues, I won't lie ; it is the brooding hot men of the (mostly) upper classes, who once in a while will threaten to loosen a cravat or unbutton a shirtsleeve or two, that keep me holding on. The ones with the seemingly icy, douchey, self-important exteriors, the ones that appear harsh, obsessed with propriety and have no time for the frivolities of lower class women and their insistence on having dances for no reason all the time. The ones who hide boiling passions, good hearts and noble, sensitive souls beneath their impeccably-mannered, coolly dismissive, exquisitely coiffed and cravat-ed facades (I really like cravats okay). And Darcy was the original. I won't get into much detail here, since there are and have been far too many women throughout history who have been extolling his hot, hot virtues. While many other fictional men, of the Austenian persuasion or otherwise, have come and gone, Fitzwilliam Darcy always has a place in my otherwise oh-so-fickle heart.

We'll always have Pemberley, sir.

4. St.John Rivers [Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë]

I'm sorry, but Edward Rochester does not hold a candle to the celibate sex bomb that is St.John Rivers. He is every bit as intense, charismatic and smouldering as Rochester, if not more. He is also not likely to lie about locking up his poor, insane wife in an attic, or be an immoral, selfish opportunist. His source of intense broodery is his deep and passionate love for a young local lady, which he denies himself on account of his dedication to religion and bodily purity. Edward Cullen, this is how you make abstinence HOT.

Sure, St.John has every intention of marrying Jane and then running off to Africa together to do the Lord's missionarying, but at least he is completely direct and forthright about it. Also, he's HOT. He also sees Jane as his intellectual and emotional equal, something Rochester was never able to do, and if not for him and his sisters our heroine would never have developed and strengthened both her individuality and her position in a class-obsessed society. And what does she do? Why, run back to Rochester of course, albeit now as a strong self-made woman. But back to Rochester. Ugh. Not even casting Michael Fassbender in that role is likely to change my opinion of the character, and mind you, someone has already done that.

On a more Rochester-positive note, The Fassbender is totally working those mutton chops. You go gurrrl.

5. Mr. Charles Bingley [Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen]

There is a tendency for adaptations of this novel to turn him into the bumbling, slightly foolish source of comic relief. In reality though, Bingley is sweet, sensitive, sunny, trusting, generous, bright, utterly lovable, quite incapable of disliking anyone or anything, and basically free of both pride and prejudice (suck it, Darcy). The only drawbacks to his character are his self-admitted short attention span, a certain lack of initiative in matters of the heart, and his habit of losing his backbone around his sisters, who are a couple of snooty, pushy,manipulative and vile little bitches. He is a delightfully refreshing change to the dark, complicated, brooding romantic hero with seemingly shady secrets. The nice guys of literature deserve some cred too, you guys.

Also, pretty ginger men. I demand more pretty ginger men in my 19th century literary adaptations.

6. Robbie Turner [Atonement, Ian McEwan]

I will admit that I was only interested in reading this after learning of the existence of the film adaptation starring my Scrawny Scottish Sex God, James McAvoy. I even got the movie tie-in edition of the novel , with James on the cover, because who says you can't enjoy award-winning serious-business LITERATURE! and nomworthy boys at the same time amiright? Reading and watching Atonement is a devastating experience of guilt, lies , lives being torn apart and the futile search for - well, for atonement, set against the backdrop of World War II. And if you know me, you know that soldier stories make me cry, but especially this one, because ~~James McAvoy~~ Robbie Turner spends all his time in the war hanging on to his intense and pure love for ~~Kiera Knightley~~ Cecilia Tallis to keep his humanity intact in the face of the unspeakable hell he needs to deal with every day. And when that final reveal comes towards the end of the book, and the enormity of everything you have just read about Robbie and his life really hits you? If you don't weep just a little bit, then you are surely not human.

Bonus James McAvoy in an emotionally devastating suit.

7. Remus Lupin [~~All of the~~ Most of the Harry Potters, J.K Rowling]

Most internet fangirlism energies are concentrated on three of Harry Potter's ultimate bad boys ; Sirius Black, Severus Snape, and Draco Malfoy (hahaha what?). They were misunderstood, conflicted, tortured, and gave birth to millions of angst-ridden (read:slash) fan fiction. But I developed a crush on everyone's favourite werewolf right about three sentences after he first appears in Prisoner Of Azkaban. Gentle, firm, composed, lonely, obviously intelligent and evidently hiding something, Lupin was probably the most compelling adult character in the books (right after Dumbledore of course, who sometimes made me apprehensive and nervous in ways Voldemort never managed to).

I was especially touched to find out that J.K Rowling saw him as the best teacher she never had , and that he was one of her favourite characters. Everything about Lupin breaks my heart, to put it simply. Sure he was just as tortured and tragic and conflicted as say, Sirius Black was. And lonely, oh so very lonely. But what really got me was how good Lupin was, despite all the shit he had to deal with in life – that quiet determination to always do the right thing, to place faith in people who needed it, and to always believe the best of the kids under his care. It's tough for a girl not to melt just a little bit. This man deserves a lot more love than he's getting.

10. John Ridd [Lorna Doone, Richard Doddridge Blackmore]

I first read Lorna Doone in 1999, and I still have no idea how my 9 year-old self managed to understand anything of what happened in that story, let alone what any of the characters were saying. All I knew was that one day, I too wanted a boy who would love me enough to scale a waterfall barefoot to save me from my evil oppressors.

11. Mr. Knightley [Emma, Jane Austen]
Mainly because I picture him in my head as Richard Armitage (take note, casting directors of the earth). But Mr. Knightley is just refined, mature, bossy, kind, loving, intelligent, manly, sensitive and hella sexy enough to make me resist the overwhelming urge to punch Emma Woodrow in the mouth every time I so much as think about her character. And when I think about her, all I see is Gwyneth Paltrow, so perhaps the character is not all to blame in this case.

This is Richard Armitage. He's really hot when he's wearing a cravat, loosening a cravat, or taking off a cravat. These credentials are indisputable. Make another Emma and put him in it, stat.

12. Michael Moscovitz [The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot]
The Princess Diaries found a special place in my girly heart all those years ago when I first read it as a 13 year-old who had just watched the trite, predictable Disney adaptation, and wanted to get in on the book series [and when I say trite, I mean it – instead of the protagonist's father being a survivor of testicular cancer, the film just decided to kill him off and turn him into this mythical, inspirational dispenser-of-paternal-wisdom-through -journal-entries. Like Mufasa, only his head doesn't appear in clouds.] And let me tell you that the movies have not come anywhere close to doing the source material any justice. Meg Cabot transcended puerile princess culture with heavy doses of wit and intelligence, with an awkward, pop-culture savvy heroine determined to become her own individual, surrounded by characters you wanted to have as best friends, or your crazy neighbours. If I ever end up with a young teenage niece or cousin hankering for some fluffy princessy chick-litty stuff, these are the books I'll be putting in her hands.

But I digress. Anyway, the crushworthy character in question is the Most Perfect Boy in New York, Michael Moscovitz. He writes his own songs. He codes his own computer programs. He knows all the Star Wars movies by heart. He is romantic in an incredibly low-key, sweet way. He runs his own webzine. He makes prototype robotic limbs. He's sensible, mature, level-headed, and for a teenage boy, that is a big deal. He's usually perceptive to others' feelings (he has his numbskull moments but he's so perfect in every other way that it wouldn't be fair to punish him for those rare lapses in his usually pristine state of... perfection). All this, may I add, by the time he got into his first year at college. In other words, Hottest Geekboy Who Never Existed. We should all be so lucky to find our own Michael Moscovitzes in life.

13. Faramir [Lord of the Rings, J.R.R Tolkien]
I could never understand the infatuation with Aragorn's character; not in the book, and certainly not in the films, where pretty much all I felt was a strong and non-erotic desire to give the rightful King Of Gondor a good shampooing. Faramir, on the other hand, is where it's at. Gentle, noble , sensitive and tragic , with an appreciation for poetry and song. He is like the Renaissance man of Middle Earth (I'm pretty sure they have a term for that). And unless I am very much mistaken, he was one of the very few people in the books who could actually resist the evil lure of the ring, because he is that freaking pure of heart, you guys. Not even Frodo could pull off that shit. I could never understand why Faramir got so little attention, and was utterly thrilled to see him get together with my other most favourite person in LOTRdom, Eowyn The Bad ass. And to be fair, David West is pretty easy on the eye.

Y U NO HAVE MORE FANGIRLS, FARAMIR?

14. Captain Frederick Wentworth [Persuasion, Jane Austen]

The fictional character responsible for The. Most. Romantic. Thing. Ever. Written.

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.

"I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never."

Brb, swooning forever.

But no, seriously. On top of that letter, they (they being the BBC) go ahead and cast Rupert Penry-Jones in the role for the TV adaptation, cravat and shirtsleeves and all. Have you no mercy, British people and your hot hot culture?

15. Atticus Finch [To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee]

Everyone knows Atticus Finch. Everyone knows that he is the closest thing to a perfect human being that could ever exist. There are no words to describe his wisdom and compassion and courage and extra-hot DILFness. Instead I give you bonus young Gregory Peck, in uniform.

Guuuuuhhhh.

A notable exception here would be the ultimate Byronic hero, Heathcliff. I do still enjoy reading Wuthering Heights for its intensity, complexity, creepiness, fucked-up relationship dynamics and stockpile of "Holy shit that did NOT just happen!" moments. But Heathcliff, that abusive, intimidating, foul-tempered, vile, bitter, manic-depressive, necrophiliac puppy-murderer? I DON'T THINK SO, EMILY BRONTE. I DON'T THINK SO.

Also guys, feel free to steal this, like I did, and post your own lists at your leisure. Our love for hot men who don't exist but really should must always be shared. I leave you with one last luscious tidbit of literary wisdom which Google Images saw fit to throw in my direction this evening, and I share it now with you.

You're damn right they do.

"Men Seldom Make Passes, At Girls Who Wear Glasses"

2011-10-28T09:45:00.006+08:00

The makeover reality show (reality makeover show?) Plain Jane is something that flew under my radar a little bit when I first caught the opening episode earlier this year. There were several things about it that bugged me, but I wasn't able to fully articulate them until now, when I managed to sit through two or three episodes of the second season (who keeps renewing all the shit shows anyway?).

To put things in context ; each week, British fashion expert and self-professed "fairy godmother"Louise Roe takes one average-looking, socially awkward young woman in her early twenties, and gives her a head-to-toe, inside-to-outside makeover. At the end of the show, the no-longer-so-Plain Jane is put into heels and a tight dress, and sent tottering down a dramatic staircase to confess her love to the guy she's been secretly pining over for years.

1. Being a "plain" girl is bad.

First of all, here's just one example of what this show considers to be an unattractive woman.

Right.

These girls, to me, look and are perfectly fine. Sure, they could all use some polish here and there, but the show takes it several steps further. The girls are made out to be walking fashion disasters, completely socially inept, and general failures at being women at all. It's patronising and insulting, and for a show meant to be empowering and feel-good, it does exactly what everything else in mainstream media already does for women ; it emphasizes a certain beauty ideal and constantly reminds you of how inadequate you are until and unless you change the way you look so drastically that cute boys will finally want to actually speak to you, let alone have voluntary sexy timez with you.

Second of all, it's really striking to note how there really isn't a male equivalent for the term Plain Jane. It seems to be in a category of derogatory words apparently created exclusively for women (slut, spinster, ~~bitter old cat lady~~) that somehow don't apply to men. As my Gender & Sexuality lecturer is all too fond of saying ; "That is really something you need to think about".

2. Being a true woman means you need to like makeup, cute shoes, and doing your hair.

No plaid shirts, sweats, ponytails or comfortable shoes for you, young lady. Nope. Because what will people (read : your super cute crush) think?? Not at all - you must be an expert at slathering three different kinds of foundation on your face, you must sashay down sidewalks like a goddess in strappy high heels, you must have impeccable hair. Do you enjoy playing football, eating pizza with your fingers, conducting scientific experiments, and reading lots of books? Well aren't you the tomboy. All that will have to change, or at least be tucked away long enough for your crush to not notice. Plain Jane is here to help you embrace your womanity and turn you into A REAL GIRL dammit.

3. Flirting is the most important life skill you will ever learn.

Or at least, that's what the people over at Plain Jane will have you know. There is a segment of the show devoted to teaching our Jane how to flirt properly ; how to be coy, how to giggle, how to keep the conversation "light and fun". She is usually set up at a restaurant or a park, with a string of fine young gentlemen she is meant to impress within a certain time limit. Which leads me very nicely into :

4. Electrocution is TOTALLY ACCEPTABLE in the noble mission of imparting the art of flirtation to sad, lonely, desperate plain women.

I'm not even kidding. The girls on this show are fitted with a device that will administer a mild electric shock (but still an electric shock) if they do anything wrong during their crash course in Flirting 101. The fairy godmother hostess Louise Roe ensconces herself nearby, out of sight, armed with a hidden camera and advice from an expert in body language or psychology, and presses the electrocution button at any sign of bad flirtation behaviour. These transgressions include everything from laughing too loudly (how unladylike), being "goofy" or "dorky" (oh god forbid) or asking the guy what he does for a living and whether he enjoys it (so unsexy).

5. It is completely appropriate to stalk your crush when Louise Roe makes you do it.

Here's the thing ; the crush in question is usually someone the girl already knows, and is pretty good friends with. So the unrequited loving is not a case of admiring the dude from a tortured, pining distance, while he goes on with his life without a clue that our Plain Jane even exists. He knows her, and clearly likes her enough to be her friend and hang out and stuff.

Which makes it that much creepier when Louise Roe insists that "I simply must have a look at this crush of yours!" and immediately employs all sorts of inappropriate fairy godmother ninja moves, like stalking him at the park from inside a large black SUV with tinted windows. Or skulking around shelves at the campus library, trying to get a glimpse of him through stacks of dusty books. The crush is oblivious, and carries on drinking his coffee or perusing his astrophysics textbook or tossing his Frisbee around (this is not a euphemism for...anything). And as our Plain Jane candidate gets ever more nervous and flustered, Louise Roe is all like "Why are you freaking out?" and I'm like BECAUSE YOU'RE MAKING HER ACT LIKE EVERY BAD GUY IN EVERY SPY MOVIE EVER. And also like Edward Cullen.

6. Going skydiving (once) will give you self-confidence.

Plain Jane isn't all about external beauty. Nope. Once per episode it tries really hard to pretend that it also cares about other things, like how our Jane might be afraid of taking risks, resists change, finds it difficult being spontaneous, or is afraid of snails. The prescribed cure is usually one round of some sort of extreme activity which involves jumping out of a plane in mid-air, or variations thereof. And voila! Self-esteem!

Okay.

The only good thing I can say about this stage of the makeover is that it's the closest the show ever comes to acknowledging the women's own personality or interests. The rest of the time, Plain Jane is just too busy glamming these girls up to really care.

7. Getting the guy at the end.

And therein lies my biggest problem with this show - the ultimate prize, the final goal, the greatest incentive to go through with the entire makeover process, is the promise of True Love at the end of it all. Louise Roe can yammer on all she wants about how it's not just about the guy; the fact is that the show is packaged that way. Every stage of the makeover is somehow designed with "What will Ty/Benny/Matt/etc. think?" in mind. It's real life packaged as a romantic comedy - awkward geeky girl in glasses, handsome and seemingly unattainable love interest, makeover montage with the help of an impossibly glamorous fashion fairy, all sorts of slapstick shenanigans courtesy of our heroine's inherent clumsiness/social awkwardness, culminating in a romantic fantasy of transforming into a beautiful, stylish, confident and desirable woman who will finally clinch the affections of the long-time crush.

The one redeeming quality of this show is most definitely the Plain Jane girls themselves. All of them seem sweet, genuine, goofy, funny, smart, and the kind of people I wouldn't mind hanging out with at all. None of them come across as fame-hungry young things jonesing for their 15 minutes in the spotlight. They seem to really want the help they've asked for, and there is not a whiff of pretentiousness to be found anywhere. And in a reality TV climate so full of rich, entitled, vapid, stupid people becoming famous for no reason at all, this is refreshing indeed.

Here's an entire episode of Plain Jane condensed down into three and a half minutes, so you can experience it for yourselves, and also witness Louise Roe's incredibly frightening, spindly, insect limbs of evil.

It's Just A Life Story, So There's No Climax/ No More New Territory, So Put Away The IMAX

2011-10-23T15:57:00.006+08:00

I turn 21 in a couple of days, and I'm still waiting to see if it's going to feel particularly milestone-y. I know for a fact that it will not be a night of drunken debauchery ; I will be in classes from 8am to 6pm, followed by a pizza dinner with the family back home. But who knows, if I'm feeling really wild, I might toss in an all-night Supernatural marathon. I'm such a crazy kid, you guys!

"These are the best years of your life, appreciate them while you still can" is something I've been hearing a lot lately, and though I understand the sentiment, I hope like hell it isn't true. Sure, I see where the philosophy comes from ; we are technically adults, but without any actual adult responsibilities just yet. Not much responsibility beyond getting to classes on time, remembering to feed yourself, and writing an essay or two. And maybe showering twice a week. This is when we're meant to make mistakes, try insane new things, learn to do all the chores we never bothered doing properly at home (and somehow still get it all wrong), and stay up till six in the morning reading slash fan fiction just because we bloody well can.

But here's the thing - I sincerely do not want my university years to be the best times I will ever have. I'm having fun, but if my life is really going to peak by the time I'm 24? That's just depressing. If all goes well, I have decades and decades of time left, and there are plenty of things to see and do and experience and learn as I get older. Seriously (certain) adults, stop insinuating that every year of my life, post-graduation, is going to be some long downhill slog into the realms of existential despair, regret, bitterness and resentment. I'm still trying to get used to the fact that there is no longer the need to say "____teen" when telling anyone how old I am.

Let me just add that as I was discussing these matters of life and growing up with Sue Fyenn some weeks ago, this Okkervil River song (containing the lyrics which make up the title of this post) immediately started playing on the good old shuffle playlist. Way to get me down. iTunes is such a troll sometimes.

Rugbying Update :Today was the final of the rugby World Cup, and New Zealand won, just like I wanted them to. It's only the second time they have clinched the trophy in nearly 25 years, and a well-deserved victory it was.

CONFETTI! FLAMES! ~~EVERYONE GET IN MY BED!~~

New Zealand, I congratulate you on this tremendous achievement. I congratulate you on your discipline, persistence, sportsmanship, heart, athleticism and courage. I also congratulate you on having the highest concentration of players I really want to bone, out of any rugby team on the planet. Especially Dan Carter.

Um dude, seriously. Get off that bench, take the rest of your clothes off, call your extremely sexually attractive friends over, and bring the exotic oils. It's fun time, mofo.

I should also mention that their opponents, France, put up a highly commendable fight (and actually probably deserved to win on the day) and also introduced to me Francois Trinh-Duc. He is very pretty, in that really French way, if you know what I mean. He is very good at kicking rugby balls, and sometimes also running with the ball. He is extra good at looking pretty while running and/or kicking a rugby ball.

That's Francois on the right. I don't know who those two guys in the other frame are, or if they are on the French rugby team, but they are tres chic and I like their man-bags and their fashionable nonchalance.

Francois is also of Vietnamese heritage, which is something the ESPN commentators kept mentioning throughout the game. It's all nice and interesting, but after a while I just got the impression that ESPN thought we were obligated to love the guy on principle, because HE IS ASIAN AND EXOTIC JUST LIKE US. I facepalm at you, ESPN. Also, I do like Francoise Trinh-Duc, but not because of his ethnic heritage ; I like him because he is so goddamned pretty, 25% South-East Asian blood or not. So there.

A Guide To The 2011 Rugby World Cup : For N00bs, by a N00b.

2011-10-02T22:14:00.023+08:00

I initially thought it would not be ideal to have two sports-related posts so close together, but as the Rugby World Cup is moving on to the business end of the tournament (quarter-final fixtures await us this weekend, and I am actually quite excited about it), I thought now would be a good time to share some of the knowledge I have gathered over the last two weekends or so of incessant rugbying. Sit back and prepare to be enlightened.

1. Basic rules of rugbying.

Rugby rules are insanely complicated, detailed and full of technicalities, so I'm just sticking with the very basic principles of the game which I've managed to pick up so far.

Players

15 players from each team take to the pitch, with substitutions taking place as needed, with little or no fuss. But because everyone is so bloody huge, it looks like there are about 70 of them running around, and it is very scary. There are also extremely weird playing positions like scrum half, loose head prop and someone called a hooker. Don't worry, his job is just to hook balls during scrums. Which actually sounds a lot dirtier than it is.

Passing
These guys must then pass the rugby ball to each other, while either totally avoiding tackles or trying to survive attempts to crush them to death (sometimes by their own team mates), and try to score by carrying said ball over their opponent's goal line. But here's the catch ; they're not allowed to pass forwards - only backwards, or to another player on a level position. Occassionally kicking the ball forwards, however, is acceptable. It took me a while to understand why these idiots didn't just throw the damned ball straight in front and make everyone's lives easier.

Tackling

It's pretty much a free-for-all brawl, where anything and everything except attacking above the neck is allowed. So this means scratching, punching, elbowing, kicking, grabbing, pulling, nipple-twisting, pummelling, choking (well okay maybe not that), and lying on top of someone until they let you have the ball, is totally legit. I don't even understand how the referee manages to call out a foul or a penalty in the midst of this testosterone-fuelled stampede, because to my n00b eyes, everyone on that pitch is trying to kill everyone else. Blood is common, injuries are aplenty, which naturally leads to heroic, manly displays of "I will ignore this waterfall of blood cascading down my nose/this very possibly broken ankle/these intestines spilling out my stomach/etc. and play on for my COUNTRY". And I won't lie ; sometimes...sometimes...it's kind of hot.

Scoring
Carrying the ball over the opponent's goal line and "grounding" it, is called a "try" (or what the Americans refer to as a "TOUCHDOWWWNN!") and is worth 3 points. Or was it 2? Maybe 5. I don't remember. Once a team has scored a try, they are then given the chance to "convert" the try to gain additional points.

This conversion comes in the form of a free and open shot at goal, a task usually undertaken by the team's designated kicker. The kicker, whose primary job it is to kick the ball a lot (as you can imagine) also has the least physical role on a rugby pitch, which means he is typically much smaller and leaner than everyone else, and not bulked up to caveman-esque proportions. As a rule he is also the best-looking guy on the field. I really like kickers. As you can imagine.

This exquisite specimen you see here is Irish kicker Ronan O'Gara. He kicks rugby balls for Ireland, and looks delicious the whole time he's doing it.

Scrums

I am still not entirely sure what a scrum is all about, but it involves a certain number of players from each team all crouching together and bending over each other, and then attempting to physically bulldoze the other guys away from the ball and as far across the field as possible before everyone collapses on each other and the punching and pulling and flailing starts. I'm sure there is a point to all this.

Mauls
Again, I'm not too sure what a maul is. And I don't think I really want to see one. I can assure you that it is probably extremely violent, though.

2. Rugby jerseys
Even the n00biest of you would have noticed that rugby players don extremely tight, body-hugging clothes. I assume it serves some practical purpose, like making it harder for an opponent to grab a fistful of your shirt and pull you down or whatever. Or, you know,making it easier for people like me to objectify rubgy player asses.

3. Sonny Bill Williams

This is Sonny Bill Williams. He has lots of tattoos, plays for New Zealand, and is supermegafoxyawesomehot. You're welcome.

Oh Sonny. You had me at ripped shirt.

For the record, New Zealand probably has the most attractive team still left in the competition. Meet Dan Carter, for example.

I know. You're welcome.

4. Rugby players are really nice.
Rugby players, for all their barbaric violence, are actually an extremely refined lot, with a great sense of respect for authority, especially when compared to football players. You won't hear any swearing directed at match officials (only "Yes sir"s, "No sir"s and "I apologize, sir"s). They are generally calm, approachable, even-tempered, and only rarely allow frustration or anger to get the best of them. Faking injuries to gain penalties or other benefits is pretty much unheard of - if you're injured in a rugby game, it had better mean you're swimming in a pool of your own blood, preferably with a limb or two dangling out of the sockets.

When these guys shake hands with opposing players, there is eye contact and a real sense of mutual respect. Their post-game interview answers are well-thought out, considerate, soft-spoken and articulate. They actually acknowledge the supporters, regardless of the game's result (and to give credit where it is due, the rugby crowd is also an extremely lovely, affable, friendly lot). Despite the black eyes, cut lips, missing teeth, ripped shirts and saliva-drenched mouth guards, I just get the impression that these guys all go back to their team changing rooms and drink jasmine tea from china cups with their pinky fingers sticking out. So precious.

5. The Haka
Most of the Pacific Island national teams (Tonga, Samoa) have the tradition of performing tribal war dances to intimidate their opponents before every match. It has become sort of a cultural institution within international rugby, and it's easily one of my favourite things about this year's tournament. The only remaining team that still performs the Haka is New Zealand (it is also 37% of the reason why I'm backing them to win ; the other 42% is because of the ridiculously sexy all black outfits, and the remaining 21% is for Sonny Bill Williams. Mmmm Sonny Bill Williams).

Call it cheesy, outdated or irrelevant. You cannot deny the badassery. Especially since these guys legitimately do kick asses left and right, so they've pretty much earned the right to do all the goddamned dancing they want.

6. The teams.
Eight teams remain, and I will be extending my long-distance moral support to the Irish, the Kiwis, and maybe England (it's a bit of a stretch though). Australia, South Africa, France, Wales and Argentina make up the rest of the final eight, and what little knowledge I have of rugby tells me that the Aussies and South Africans are utter powerhouse legends in the sport, and the odds favour them heavily.
But New Zealand should totally win because they are so hot - I mean so talented, so talented.

I'm actually enjoying the sport of rugby a great deal more than I ever thought I would, and I find myself already wondering what I'll be doing with myself when the tournament is over.

edit : On another note, let us all mourn the groin injury of New Zealand flyhalf Dan Carter, which has effectively ruled him out of the rest of the tournament. Say goodbye to these pecs (and other parts) for the next four years, you guys.

It's not fair. He gets bruised, battered and pummelled for a living and he is still that pretty?

Here Are Six Really Convincing Reasons To Start Watching German Football. Really.

2011-09-09T00:51:00.000+08:00

If you are a fan of the soccerball in Malaysia, like myself, it's very likely that the British league holds 99% of your attention, with the Spanish and Italian leagues hovering somewhere on the fringes of your sports-related consciousness. It is the English teams that sell the most (fake) merchandise, have the largest legions of fans proclaiming eternal loyalty to a different team every two months, and it is the English game scores that dominate all school and workplace conversations come Monday morning.

Over the holidays, however, my brother developed an affinity for the German football league, or the Bundesliga, which I did not even know we had on satellite TV. I recognized quite a few members of the German national team from the World Cup, and decided to give one or two games a shot. At the end of that month, I decided that the Bundesliga, despite the slightly hilarious name, was definitely something worth investing in, and here's why;

1. The German league is not astronomically famous, so the concept of having superstars on Beckham-esque levels hasn't really set in. The very German philosophy of "the star is the team" can be seen right down to the jersey designs for most football clubs there, where the players' names are printed on the bottom of the shirts, and the team's name on the top. Or indeed, the fact that the team's name is on the back of the jersey at all. I dig it.

Or maybe that's just how shirts are traditionally made in Germany, I don't know. But this attitude of never putting an individual player on too high of a pedestal seems to have resulted in a very significant observation ; there appears to be fewer entitled arrogant douchebags on the pitch, and consequently also much fewer occurrences of entitled arrogant douchebag behaviour.

2. After 10 years or so, I would think even the most die-hard follower of the English leagues would be bored and just a little bit jaded by now ; the same famous faces every season, the same teams dominating, the same teams losing, the same drama. If you're new to German football, it really is a very refreshing experience. It's unpredictable and a real competition in every sense ; there have been three different title winners in the last three years alone. It is literally anyone's game in Germany, and the fact that you can never place a sure bet on the same team every season is hella exciting.

3. In the Bundesliga, the fan is king. Ticket prices and fan attendance are the lowest and highest, respectively, of any soccerball league in Europe. Even if you don't watch the sport at all, massive respect is due for the way these people run their business. It's also something that seems to have seeped into the players as well ; I have rarely seen this happen in an English league match.

However insignificant the match is in the larger scheme of things, the winning team goes over to whichever end of the stadium in which their supporters are camped out, and shows some much deserved love and appreciation. I was very impressed when I first saw this happen. Also I may or may not have been completely overwhelmed by warm fuzzies.

4. Mats Hummels . He is the 23 year old defender for Borussia Dortmund, widely hailed as one of the best young players in his position -
Oh no, I'm sorry. Let me just skip ahead to the relevant bit.

This is what he looks like. And don't lie, you know this is what you're here for.

~~Hey baby, did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?~~

Mats is friggin' adorable, you guys. Not that there is a lack of cute players in other national leagues, but I happen to be completely smitten with this young man, and for the next few weeks or so, no other male on the planet is going to cut it for me. That dimpled smile, that hair you just want to run your fingers through... I bet it has the texture of heavenly clouds shot through with celestial silk woven by the angels or something. I admit I wasn't feeling the love in the beginning - he looked more than a little sleazy. But a few Google sessions later and I was completely sold. This guy has the distinction of quite literally making me squeal audibly every time he smiles, and I don't squeal. Ever. I did not even squeal at Michael Fassbender in that black turtleneck. This is serious business.

Such a goddamn boss. Of adorableness.

To be fair (and less superficial) Mats is also very good at his full-time job (preventing goals from happening) and his part-time job (sometimes making goals happen) and his life-time job (being delicious).

Orlando Bloom, is that you?

Welcome to my ever-growing list of unattainable husbands, Mr. Hummels. I really hope he makes it on the senior German national team by the next World Cup, because he deserves it, and also because we can never have enough hotnessess to look at during major sports tournaments.

Apparently he's so hot he breathes steam, oh my lord.

5. Mario Gomez. Because that is totally a German name. He is the striker for Bayern Munich and the German national team, which means we have met before, but I never got the chance to really sit down and stare at his German-Spanish (Gernish?) ass until very recently, and I think I like what I see.

Mario Gomez is somewhat disappointing at his full-time job (making goals happen), satisfactory at his part-time job (sometimes stopping goals from happening) and completely ace at his life-time career of being sex on a Deutsche stick (did I use that word right? Does it matter? He's hot).

I have heard a professional male commentator once refer to him as an Adonis. I kid you not. It was hilarious. Also, it's rather easy to spot a Mario Gomez after the match ; he'll most likely be the only one traipsing around with a bare torso, sweat-drenched shirt slung over one shoulder. Not that I mind. Not that I mind at all.

Back away from my man, No.10.

6. I can't really think of a sixth reason, so here are some members of the German national team (including Mats! HI MATS!) indulging in some dorky yet delicious breakfast-themed product placement. Cute footballers and chocolate hazelnut concoctions! But this is ridiculous! That Nutella is spread on all the wrong places here. Bread? For shame. Like, I'm talking Nutella on German footballers. Nutella all over German footballers. A naked filthy goddamned Nutella shower. Am I right? Hells yeah!! You're not doing it right, advertisers.

It is my professional opinion that this ad campaign needs less clothes.

So concludes my extremely convincing post on why German league football is worth your time, soccer fans. Shirtless Sexy Rock-climbing Mats says auf Wiedersehen, and promises to grace the rest of our days with his talent and Teutonic beauty.

Where Are All The Flamethrowers When You Need Them?

2011-08-26T11:53:00.006+08:00

Last night, I discovered how truly terrified I am of flying cockroaches. Especially when no one else is around to save me.

So there I was, minding my own damned business, working on summarizing a stack of journal articles for one of my lecturers, when at around two in the morning, it started to rain. And here's the thing about my aunt's house ; when it rains at night, all the bugs that live out in the back alley crawl up the drains and emerge in the bathroom, and then escape to the rest of the house. So you could end up with anything from a small swarm of cockroaches to like, a foot-long centipede. I don't mind the bugs when they are the kind that stay on the ground. It's the flying ones that instill true terror of the black night into my soul.

Yes. So there I was, tapping away at the keyboard, Beck playing on low volume, when I heard an ominous, insecty flapping sort of noise. I turned around, and there it was. A vile, disgusting, massive flying cockroach. On top of the microwave. RIGHT BEHIND MY HEAD. My first instinct was to go all "Ohmygod I cannot deal with this right now" and run over to the other side of the table, which is exactly what I did. And then I decided to be brave and go to the kitchen, where all the flying demons lived, and get the bug spray. I would have been much happier if we actually owned one of these, though.

KILL IT. KILL IT WITH HOLY FIRE.

So I got the bug spray, planted myself about a full five feet away from the winged monstrosity, and sprayed. It kind of backfired on me, because instead of having the decency to die immediately, the unspeakable brown horror started full-on zooming all over the freaking room in some sort of drunken death dance. Bug spray still in hand, I cowered under the dining table, in case the vile abomination decided to fly straight into my hair or land on my face - which is honestly what scares me the most about flying cockroaches. Eventually it flew into the kitchen and started flapping about on the mat, so I decided to leave it to its fate and get on with my work. Until two more of its disgusting comrades decided to start flying around as well.

That was when I snapped. One cockroach of the flying variety, I could handle. Three? That was it. I gave up on getting any more work done that night. I had considered going into my brother's room, shaking him awake, and making him come out and kill the vicious airborne scum for me, but no. Too embarrassing. I, a grown-ass woman (kind of) should be able to handle (sort of) adult stuff on my own ; going to the bank! Paying university fees! Buying my own food! Remembering to set the alarm clock! Having rational conversations about why 30 Seconds to Mars is nowhere near as good as some people think it is! Taking the bus! Dealing with the damned cockroaches! So I unplugged the laptop, grabbed my phone and got ready to make a run for the safety of my room. I didn't even bother brushing my teeth or going to pee - bodily functions and personal hygiene could bloody well wait until the sun came up.

So now all I had to do was switch off the lights, and run. And I couldn't. One malicious cockroach had planted itself on the top of a framed painting on the wall , no doubt preparing to fly straight into my hair and get itself tangled there the second I turned off the light. Another one was on the floor, against the wall, obviously ready to scurry up my leg in the dark. I would have to walk past both of them to get to my door. I actually stood there with my hand hovering over the switch for a full ten minutes, trying to work up the courage to get to my room in the dark, with the ninja assassin flying bugs waiting to do horrible things to me. Eventually I actually did turn off the light and walked as fast as I possibly could (without actually running full-tilt) straight into my room, where I spent another 15 minutes checking my sheets for ninja killer bugs.

And then I woke up this morning and there were no more cockroaches and I had muffins for breakfast and everything was okay.

So that's my cockroach story. You're welcome.

Here's a picture of an otter to make us all feel better, because otters are the shizznit.

In Other News, My Scandinavian-Man Candy-Detector Still Functions Impeccably.

2011-08-18T13:25:00.002+08:00

Meet my new boyfriend, Joel Kinnaman. Say hello, everybody.

You'd make an excellent medieval serial killer, darling.

I've been seeing previews of AMC's The Killing all over my TV, in line with its premiere in this here country on Sunday night, and Allison had told me good things about the positive gender representations of the characters, which piqued my interest greatly. And so, in a very not superficial state of mind, I decided to go look up the show online to see exactly what it was about (high school girl Rosie Larsen is killed, and the whole season plays out as the search for her murderer) , and then I ran into Joel Kinnaman.

Hellooo Joel Kinnaman. From what I can tell, Joel plays a skeevy, filthy-looking, pasty, very possibly drug-addicted undercover narc cop (who also sports some extremely questionable facial hair) making the transition into the homicide department of the Seattle P.D. Luckily, he cleans up good in real life.

And apparently uses invaluable photo shoot hours to ponder the mysteries of the universe. Hotly.

I can't really pin down exactly what I find attractive about him, especially since he looks so different in every photograph, and I have to stare really hard to make sure I've got the right person. Let's just call it charisma, or innate magnetism, and leave it at that.

One look at some out-of-character photos of him convinced me that he is almost definitely not all American, despite the impeccable accent he pulls off in what little I have seen of The Killing previews, and I noticed that he bears a very strong resemblance to the super Scandinavian Alexander Skarsgard. And guess what? Joel Kinnaman is TOTALLY HALF SWEDISH. I impress myself sometimes. An Inbuilt Hot Swedish Man Radar is, after all, the most important and useful tool one could possibly possess in life.

edit : I have watched the double-episode pilot/premiere thing, and here are some thoughts I thought about the show and where it could be heading in the next 11 or so episodes ;

1. I don't know if it actually rains that much in Seattle, but I love the moodiness of the whole thing ; the bleak greys and greens and blues, and the wide shots of steely cold lakes and ominous-looking trees and cloudy skies. It looks utterly gorgeous, and the giant TV in my aunt's house certainly does justice to the pretty.

My mom also pointed out that "This looks like that place in the vampire movie" (Twilight is also set in Washington) and I had to spend the entire span of the opening credits thinking about whether or not to be put off completely by this observation. I decided to be a mature young woman and just let it go.

2. The idea of an "anti-procedural", where one murder case is stretched out over an entire season and every episode is one day in the detectives' lives, is admittedly fascinating. Not to mention it's an interesting change from the usual format of TV shows, crime-based or not, where you have your exposition, development, conflicts, red herrings, and your plot resolved and tied up in an average of 45 minutes. This may end up being good or not-so-good in The Killing's case, but for now I welcome the idea of getting to properly stew around in the details of this one case, all the suspects' lives, and how the investigative process affects all those involved.

3. The characters wear minimal makeup and unflattering sweaters and hoodies. I welcome pretty police officers, sure, but it is also refreshing to not have your protagonists' attractiveness be a focal part of their identities, high heels and perfect hair and all. Sarah Linden is a stoic, practical, gum-smacking woman who is excellent at her job, is a good if sometimes neglectful mom, and is in a healthy long-distance relationship. None of these things take precedence over the other ; she isn't more mother than detective, or vice versa, if that makes sense. And best of all, there is exactly zero sexual tension between her and partner, Stephen Holder. There is nothing coy, flirty or anything resembling repressed attraction here, because that is not what the show is about, and the characters seem to have more to offer than that. The question of will they/ won't they never comes up, because the answer is thrown at you first ; they won't.

4. The pace is slow-burning, or maybe even glacial, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was never outright bored at any point. It's a good thing the premiere was a double episode, because it takes quite a while to get properly invested ; the body is only discovered at the end of the pilot episode. For such a slow-moving show, it succeeds well enough in holding my attention, and I must admit I was quite impressed at a couple of the revelations that came at the end of the second episode - one of them was worthy of a jaw-drop and a "No waaaaaaaaaaaaaay!".

5. It's probably a good thing I have never seen the original Danish series, because judging by how good everyone says it is, I'd be a lot less impressed with the US version (which apparently declines in quality with each episode, if the majority of reviews are to be believed). Then again, I am seriously considering just watching it all online, because Malaysian TV will censor all the good parts. I'm convinced I already missed out on a scene in which Holder flashes the middle finger at a junkie on the street. It's probably not a vital- to-the-plot type of moment, but it's the small things that make a difference, I find. Damn you, censorship.

6. Joel Kinnaman. Hi. I can't tell if it's personal bias, but this guy is somehow capable of making an undoubtedly skeevy and more than a little creepy character incredibly compelling to watch. Something is so definitely up with Stephen Holder, and I can't wait to find out what it is. So yes, hella great acting. Please go make more movies or something and get slightly more famous so I won't have to look at the same bunch of pictures every time I google image search you, and trust me when I say I've been doing that quite a bit lately.

Why don't you come over here and tell me all about your tattoos, Joel? I'll let you take off your clothes in my house and everything.

The Zombie Apocalypse Playlist Meme.

2011-08-12T12:29:00.007+08:00

Because one should never pass up an opportunity to put zombies and music together. Seriously.

Put your media player of choice on shuffle, and we are ready to go. Play along, peasants!

The first song is the overall theme for the apocalypse.

Hard Times // Patrick Wolf

You bet it is. Time to break out the fluorescent neon war paint, people. This is srz bizness right here.

The second song is what plays when you kill your first zombie.

Pleasure Sighs // Morning Benders

The third song plays when you're getting chased by a horde. (of zombies, right? Just checking).

Focker // Late Of The Pier

The fourth song plays when you have to kill your loved one.

Brain Burner // No Age

The fifth song plays when you find a group of survivors.
Are You Lightning // Nada Surf

The sixth song plays when you meet a new love interest.
Mushaboom // Feist

The seventh plays when you have to make a final stand.

The Eleventh Doctor's Theme // Murray Gold

OH MY GOD how perfect. Also, yes there is Doctor Who music on my computer. It's there to make my life seem more badass than it actually is. Sometimes I like to play it when I'm trying to finish an essay by the deadline and pretend I'm in a trailer for a high-stakes espionage film. Set in outer space, duh.

The eighth song plays when you think you've survived it all.
It's My Party // Amy Winehouse

The ninth song plays when you discover a bite mark on you.
Airline To Heaven // Billy Bragg & Wilco

The tenth song plays over the end credits.
I Feel Better // Frightened Rabbit

Now all we need is a movie for this glorious soundtrack. Someone call Ryan Gosling and tell him he's my new zombie-slaying love interest. My new shirtless zombie-slaying love interest, that is.

Of course you can, Baby Goose. It's my movie, and I'm not complaining.

I Bring You Tales From Driving School

2011-08-10T11:30:00.008+08:00

Today, I drove a car for the first time in my twenty one years of life. It wasn't pretty.

When I wasn't spending all my time driving smack in the middle of a two-lane road, I was swerving either to the left (into people's rose bushes) or to the right (into telephone poles). I brought the car to a juddering, screeching halt about 25 times in two hours. There were many many times when I came dangerously close to crashing into INNOCENT PARKED CARS, which would have made for a hilarious movie montage, if nothing else. I never went beyond second gear, even when the instructor was trying to get me to go higher, because, hello, I cannot keep the damned car straight on first gear and you want me to go faster? Do we really want to kill someone today? My list of weaknesses are seemingly endless ; I grip the steering wheel too tightly, I forget to actually look at the road when changing gears, I can't seem to coordinate all my limbs at the same time. And I thought driving was supposed to be easy.

The courses and theory parts were simple enough, and I passed the computerized test on the first try like a boss (after all, I ace exams for a living). And I thought of all my friends and peers who already had licenses ; some of them can't double-space documents on MS Word, but they can drive. They don't know what an Adolf Hitler is, but they can drive. They can't fry an egg, but they can drive. Some of them had driven themselves home after their first lesson. So yeah, how difficult could it possibly be? Plenty difficult, apparently. Or at least it seems to be, for me. So here I am, unable to drive straight on a straight road or hit the brakes without killing the engine, and tomorrow I am supposed to learn how to park and do a three-point turn. Help.

I told my dad I need him to take me to some empty stretch of road and teach me how to do this shit without destroying public property or murdering small animals, since I will not be allowed to take the actual driving test until my instructor is certain that it's safe to have me out there on the streets. It's most likely a confidence issue for me. I spent the whole time visualizing being a terrible driver, and look how today turned out. I even came home and cried a little in the shower, out of sheer frustration. How emo.

So I need to get myself into a decent state of mind, and get this done. Driver's license, you guys. I've survived just fine on public transport and my two feet for all the years, but I'd rather get the license part out of the way, even if I never drive again and it's just to stop people raising their eyebrows and going all "You're 21 and you don't have a license yet??", like I have failed at my job of being a human. Then one day I will be awesome and rich and have my own personal full-time chauffeur. I will make him wear a kilt, and play The Smiths' songs all the time.

And on the way to the driving school in the morning, we passed by a young lady who had somehow managed to drive her car straight into the side of a house (she wasn't hurt, luckily). A portend of my Epic Fail, perhaps? Not exactly a confidence booster, in any case.

Also, Learner Driver Llama is now my best friend.

edit : Yeah okay so maybe I'm not as bad as these people. These people suck.

double edit : This song contains the prettiest use of electric guitar I have heard in a long long time. I'm going to play this on full volume, have some fruit salad, and go recover from my automobile-induced emotional trauma.

Decisions, Decisions.

2011-07-11T17:13:00.020+08:00

Next semester, I will have enough credit hours to take up a few extra, unrelated courses, and I am seriously considering making room for a language class. This is naturally a big decision, considering the level of commitment it is going to take to learn how to speak, read and write a foreign tongue from scratch. So I've drawn up a little list to help me decide which sexy foreign language would be the best option.

French

If I am not greatly mistaken, this is one of the most widely spoken languages in Europe and it would be a natural advantage if I ever decide to go on a backpacking trip around the continent.
I would increase my knowledge and ability of speaking French beyond adding "le" to the beginning of every other English word in conversation (which, admittedly, is very funny, but also not very classy).
Think also of all the great French philosophers ; Sartre and Comte, just to name a couple. I'd be able to read their works in the original French, and then you know, show off.
And then one day when I'm out ordering baguettes for breakfast in some chic French bakery, some sexy French dude will notice me, and we will get French married and have sex forever. And by French dude I mean him ;

Smoking is so le chic and le ladyboner-inducing when the French do it.
And if it doesn't work out with the French dude, there is always Canada.

Italian

Pasta!
Go backpacking. Impress sexy Italian dude with my linguistic abilities. Acquire sexy Italian dude.

So Paolo Nutini is technically Scottish by nationality, but really. Such trivialities.

German

I've heard a lot about German being a rather aesthetically unpleasing language ; Sylvia Plath likened it to "barbed wire" in one of the poems we studied last semester, and I remember someone else having written that the language sounded like a typewriter eating aluminium. But I've always been fascinated by how similar it is to English, which could also be an advantage when it comes to learning vocabulary.
Also, backpack around Germany. Acquire sexy German dude.
Or if I'm really lucky, the entire German national Under-21 football squad. I'm pretty sure all of them are over 18 at least. I think.

Or I'll settle for Michael Fassbender. Really, it's no trouble. No trouble at all.
Also it has come to my recent attention that I apparently have a cigarette smoke kink. Damn all these hot famous people and their bad habits.

Spanish

You know the drill by now, yes? Travel Spain, perhaps South America. Acquire sexy Spanish dude. I don't really care about the all the Spanish-language literature I could be reading (go fly a kite, Pablo Neruda).

Meet Xabi Alonso ; footballer, all-round classy motherfucker, my favourite Spanish person ever, and world champion nonchalant shirt-cuffs-adjusting/watch-promoting wall-leaner. I am coming for you with my Spanishes, Xabi.

Russian

I've heard that learning the Cyrillic alphabet can be a real bitch, but think about how inspired I'd be to actually finish Anna Karenina, and then read it in its original language. Maybe those long-ass names won't annoy me so much, either. Seriously Tolstoy/translators, after the 35th time you've referred to Sergius Ivanich Koznyshev by his full name, I think we'd already have a pretty good grasp on who he is, thanks.
Come to think of it, there's a barrel of other Russians to be tackled as well ; Nabokov, Dostoevsky, Chekhov. So in terms of Teh Literatures, there's plenty that learning Russian could do to enhance my learning experiences.
Also ; travel Russia, acquire sexy Russian dude.

Misha Collins. American, but Russian enough. Which means I'll just have to travel Chicago or wherever it is he's living now.

Japanese

This would obviously be the toughest, with Japanese really having the least similarity with any other language I already speak. Not to mention having to learn to write from scratch too ; I dumped a Mandarin class halfway once, being the good 10-year old coward I was back then. Tonal languages are way intimidating, you guys.
Traveling around Japan would be awkward, since I would be presumably be the only brown person around for miles, but my ability to speak the language may make things like acquiring sexy Japanese dudes much easier.

Takeshi Kaneshiro, who is technically half-Taiwanese, but it's a good thing we're not keeping score or anything. Hotness is universal after all.

So this really hasn't helped much with the decision-making, to be honest. But at least we all got some global-flavoured eye candy, am I right? Right. You're welcome.

BAP's 20 Favourite Albums Of 2011 So Far, Which Includes Many Albums Released In 2010, But I Don't Care Because I Am A Fearless Bastard.

2011-06-27T15:47:00.019+08:00

It's half-year music list season! And yes, 20 is a lot. The first few months of the year were a godsend in terms of crazy good music, and it will be interesting to see how many of these records age well enough to hold their spots in my end-of-year list. As usual, this is arranged in no particular order.

21 , Adele
There are so many moments in this record which remind me strongly of a female Paolo Nutini (especially her inflections) and I must say I approve muchly. This classy lady has certainly set herself apart from the Duffys and Winehouses aplenty in the music scene. Also I wish I were the kind of 21-year old to sit down and write a Grammy-winning album in my free time. WTF talented kids. Stop making me look inadequate.

Hunger And Thirst, Typhoon
A quirky little band made up of anywhere between 7 and 17 members (I lost count), this album is a treasure trove of handclaps and massive folkjammy sing-alongs, and at least 4 songs made cry a little bit. Damn the emotional manipulation.

Sidewalks, Matt & Kim
So cute. Matt & Kim have gone for a more polished, produced sound this time, and it's like I'm one of the few people who don't find this a big deal. They still sound great, everything is catchy as hell, and it wonderfully evokes the feeling of walking down busy sidewalks on sunny days.

Suck It And See, Arctic Monkeys
I was one of the many who flat out hated the Monkeys' last release, Humbug (and it really was Humbug in every sense of the word). So you can only imagine my pure, unadulterated joy when I discovered that the new Arctic Monkeys record is the most perfectest possible combination of their old selves and their desire to break new musical ground ; the witty, pithy, sharp-as-tacks wordsmithery of Alex Turner meshes wonderfully with the more 60s psychedelic leanings of Humbug. And it is beautiful, and it makes me so happy I want to cry just thinking about how the Arctic Monkeys have made me fall in love with them all over again. I'll even go so far as to say that the title track (despite the crude-sounding name) may actually be the most gorgeous thing they've ever put to record. Well played, Monkeys. Well played. I'm all yours again.

No Color , The Dodos
It is lovely to see The Dodos scale back and return to their simpler, prettier roots of jangly guitar, aggressive frantic percussion and lilting melodies. Not to mention they've enlisted the eternal goddess Neko Case on backing vocals duty. It's noisy, foot-tappy, joyful and pretty much perfection.

King Of Limbs , Radiohead
This album was initially way too experimental for my tastes, having been spoiled by the relative accessibility of In Rainbows. But as the case always is with me and Radiohead, all it took was a few extra months for the songs to grow on me, and what do you know, Radiohead made my list. Again.

Wounded Rhymes, Lykke Li
If I had to pick out an early favourite for my personal album of the year, this would probably be it. Gone is the cutesy Lykke Li of the past ; now she's sharp, edgy, hurt, and full of Womyn Rage. Her voice is massive and soaring, even if the songs are not always lyrically spectacular. The songs are by turn aggressively sexual and painfully tender, and it's one of those times when I understand what it means when it is said that someone bleeds for their art. Don't let the synths fool you. Wounded rhymes, indeed.

Early In The Morning, James Vincent McMorrow
Beardy man who pulled of a Bon Iver, locked himself up in a cabin somewhere in the Irish countryside, and wrote a bunch of really pretty heartbreaky falsetto-ey songs. He is exceedingly poppy-sounding for a man with so much beard, but he already has brownie points for not making me fall asleep the first few times I gave his album a spin.

Bon Iver Bon Iver , Bon Iver
It's Bon Iver, bitches. Dig it or get out.

Mighty EP, Lord Huron
I don't know what sort of folk under which you'd categorize this, but I always get the impression of a bunch of happy animals frolicking around a watering hole in Africa. Also, it is beardy. Very beardy. If this is just the EP then I await with much anticipatory anticipation for the full-length release.

Everything Is Saved , David Wax Museum
Irresistibly infectious countrified folk rock with large doses of Mexican influences and enough handclaps to make anyone giddy. Also they use a donkey's jawbone as part of their percussion because that's not creepy at all.

The David Wax Museum - Yes, Maria, Yes by theericschuman

Romance Is Boring, Los Campesinos!
I'm suprised at how little love this record has been getting since its release in early 2010. It's absolutely fierce and bursting with the energy of drunken lovesick youth, machine-gunned lyrics about vodka vomit and orgasms (among other things) and violently melodic explosions of delicious indie rock sounds. It's no wonder they insist on the exclamation mark in their name ; they do absolutely nothing halfway, and it's spectacular.

Los Campesinos! - The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future by Arts & Crafts

Go Tell Fire To The Mountain , WU LYF
The weird shouty Kings Of Leon-ish vocals (you know what I mean) kind of rubbed me the wrong way at first, but I have learned to embrace the glorious messiness of it all. At times this record resembles some sort of exhilarating sonic collage of voices and echoey instruments rather than a straightforward piece of music, but it's weird and different and most importantly, fun.

Departing , The Rural Alberta Advantage
To them haters who have been saying how this is nowhere near as good as Hometowns, you are not right. Because this is some good shit right here [although admittedly I'd like to hear more harmonies with Amy Cole].

Love Remains , How To Dress Well
Not being much into R&B , I was rather dubious about Tom Krell's music at first. The fact that Pitchfork was drooling all over him didn't do much to change my mind either. But I am glad I eventually did, because this is sexy, stripped back, ethereal and completely addictive.

Mysterious Power, Ezra Furman & The Harpoons
Armed with his trusty harmonica and guitar, the eternally college-aged and angsty Ezra Furman returns with a set of songs that are everything we expect of him ; noisy, poignant, witty and far more intelligent than his years.

Smoke Ring For My Halo, Kurt Vile
This just makes me want to grow my hair out even more and wear baggy clothes and chill out in the back of a tour bus with a cigarette and some Kafka and talk about intelligent shit like postmodernism. Hells yeah, stoner folk jams.

Epic, Sharon van Etten
Utterly gorgeous and haunting and painful and liberating, and the only thing wrong with it is that there are only 7 tracks. MORE, Sharon, MORE.

Fading Parade, Papercuts
This is a strange one, because apart from Do What You Will (which is a terrific cut, by the way), I'd be hard-pressed to remember what any of the other songs sound like unless I'm actually listening to them. So maybe it's not really the kind of thing that sticks or makes an impression beyond vague memories of reverb-drenched melodies and breathy soaring vocals and dreaminess, and despite all that I still kind of adore this album. It remains to be seen whether or not I'll still want these songs in my music library by the end of the year, but for now it's all good.

James Blake , James Blake
So James Blake's voice is ridiculously sexy, let's establish that first. It's definitely the one thing that kept me invested in this odd collection of sampled beats and loops and endlessly repeated words and unclear structures and long gaps within songs, filled with nothing but silence. Bald-faced, audacious silence. After a few listens though, it becomes rather fascinating. Like The XX, this dude gets that sometimes the empty, audio-free spaces are just as important as actual sound. It also feels incredibly light and refreshing after plunging through albums by so many bands determined to play as many instruments as humanly possible per song (not that I'm complaining, but it's a nice change).

Also James, there is no limit to my love. So feel free to come over anytime and we can make sweet sweet Pitchfork-approved dubstep together.

Pretty.

2011-06-22T00:03:00.011+08:00

A fantastic piece by Katie Makkai, defining the word "Pretty" and all its implications, on the pressures placed upon women to be pretty, and to find and place value in physical appearance. Every girl and woman you know should watch this.

I am fortunate enough to have parents who never insisted on me doing or wearing anything that was designed to make me a pretty little girl. I've always hated dresses and skirts and necklaces, and it wasn't until a few years ago that I made allowances for stuff like nail polish and dangly earrings, but never more than that. I was a happy kid, though. Puberty hit me extremely hard. I went for years and years before finally being diagnosed, at 18, with PCOS or Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, a fairly common but pretty much never-discussed reproductive problem. PCOS basically involves a whole bunch of tiny growths in my lady parts that mess with hormones and result in me missing periods for quite literally years at a time (ngehh...too much information, you think?).

The physical symptoms of PCOS include skin pigmentations, excessive body hair growth plus hair loss - generally a very fucked up cocktail of almost too-balanced male and female hormones. It's not a curable disease so much as a lifelong condition ; as far as doctors can say, I'll be on the Pill for the foreseeable future to regulate my lady processes. And for the longest time, before I knew enough to put a name to my condition, I felt exceedingly strange, and very ugly. I have been mistaken for a boy far too many times than I can care to remember, and I somehow felt not worthy enough of being female, and I hid within baggy jeans and men's shirts and short hair. I had a hard time understanding why anyone would want to be friends with a creature like myself, while at the same time I took pleasure and comfort in other things I knew I was good at ; I was smart, and I was funny, I knew that. I could read three Jane Austen books in one day flat. I had impeccable taste in music and pop culture (durrr). I was nice. But oh boy, oh no, I was just too hideous to live. I wasn't skinny like other girls, I could barely fit into off-the-rack clothes, my voice was way too gravelly and deep to ever be considered feminine, I walked with a very pronounced slouch, eyes forever glued to the floor, because I was so much taller and bigger than everyone else. I didn't have my periods every month, like every other girl did. I looked so different from what I thought the acceptable image of a Real Girl should be, and as a result I hated being touched, I hated having my picture taken, I hated having to look at myself in any way or form. I wasn't girl enough. And I certainly wasn't pretty enough, and I hated myself for that as well.

Pretty was important to me. Being pretty would finally validate my status as female. Or failing to be pretty, to at least not be physically repulsive (physically repulsive is essentially how I saw myself in the mirror from ages 12 to 18). I wasn't right, I thought my parents would be terribly embarrassed at my failure to be a proper teenage girl. It didn't help when other girl cousins of mine were complimented on their looks and I got praise for my endless strings of A's. What was academic nerdery compared to being able to wear a cute blouse and look nice in it? It didn't help not knowing what was wrong with me ; years of so-called alternative herbal therapy and pills and being told "Don't worry it will work itself out" and that one time we seriously considered some weirdshit form of electrical acupuncture.

I can't tell you exactly when things changed, or how. Perhaps it was the comfort of knowing that whatever was wrong with me could be handled by a little yellow pill, or maybe it was just maturity. Whatever it was, my skin cleared up, I grew out my hair, and I stopped worrying. I stopped taking Pretty as the ultimate definition of womanhood, or femininity. I still feel a mite insecure around those seriously gorgeous girls who always have perfect hair and can pull of a miniskirt like woah, but I've stopped looking in the mirror and going "Ugh" at myself. I look like what I look like. Once in a while I get super dressed up and then I'm all "Hey, I clean up pretty good". I still get mistaken for a dude now and then, but these days it doesn't mean the end of the world. I wear nail polish and jewelry and nice clothes because I like them and I want to, and I no longer see them as items reserved for Real Girls Who Have Periods And Never Get Asked Stuff Like "Hey, Are You Just A Guy With Boobs Or What?" (true story [I was fifteen], and I have had much worse than that).

When I join in with the girlfriends on another round of Holy Crap, The Cramps Are Murdering Me Lah, it's always with a mixture of gratitude that I can actually be a part of this distinctly female monthly occasion, but also with the desire to tell them to quit whining because they have no idea how easy they have it (in the reproductive sense, anyway). And I suppose, most of all, I learned not to judge by appearance, pretty person or not. I know I risk sounding Hallmarkish and cheesy, but it's true. I'm a constant reminder of it myself, and I'm forever grateful to the people who were willing to look beyond my *gasp* PHYSICALLY REPULSIVE EXTERIOR (kidding, I'm not ugly, really) and see the personality and the everything else I already had but didn't notice because I was so busy trying to find a way to be pretty. Pretty, not to stand out from the crowd, but the kind of pretty I thought would finally make me normal, and regular, and just a girl. I cannot tell you how glad I am to have gotten over that period (HA) in my life. It's still a struggle, and it's not as though I am completely free of doubt and insecurity. What is good is that I'm in a much more positive place mentally, and not constantly beating myself up for failing to be a woman by my apparent inability to look like one. And that's a fine place to start.

In other news ; Fassbending continues. I'm slowly working my way through his (good and not embarrassing) films, and I watched Fish Tank just last week. It's a fabulous piece of work, a depressing and unflinching look at life for the British lower classes, and achieving womanhood, and escaping your circumstances. Michael Fassbender gives a very impressive performance in this one.

Very impressive.

No, actually he's a terrific actor and (usually) picks fabulous movies, so I won't have to constantly justify myself with "Oh but he's so pretty".

Up next in my Spree of Fassbendage is 2008's Hunger in which he ~~also appears nekked~~ plays Irish republican hunger striker Bobby Sands.

Fassbending. So Much Fassbending.

2011-06-14T15:55:00.022+08:00

Potential SPOILERS for the recently released X-Men : First Class

Here is my overall impression of the film.

Hnnnggguuuuuuhhhh.

Here are some of my other thoughts about the film, but with more words.

1. Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy, two of my favourite British men ever, in the same film. It is still rather odd to see them as leading men in a summer blockbuster comic book movie, and part of my brain refuses to accept it. But still. Fassbender. McAvoy. Together. McBendering. Fassavoying. It's too much for a girl to take. Both of them are easily the backbone of the film, and carry the plot and the entire supporting cast effortlessly, while delivering fabulous individual performances and having mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad chemistry with each other. Acting-wise, totally solid.

2. Speaking of mad, mad, mad, mad ,mad chemistry, the gay subtext within the Charles Xavier- Erik Lensherr friendship (intentional, according to the screenwriters) stopped being subtext and became plain text about 12 seconds after the title card. Even James McAvoy in an interview expressed mock surprise that the two didn't simply get married by the end. I can attest to the fact that he's not exaggerating; the Erik/Charles slash fiction pretty much writes itself.

You see? I mean sure, there's a winged topless woman in front of them, but they are in bed together. As if the Internet needs any more encouragement than that.

3. The entire thing could have just been Michael Fassbender Wears Nice Suits And Kills Nazis While Speaking Four Languages And Doing Funny Things To My Ladyparts, and I would have been just as happy. Happier, in fact.

4. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what the plot was - it wasn't the strongest of storylines but it served its purpose, I suppose. Russians something something CIA something Cuban Missile Crisis something something mutants are DIFFERENT something something January Jones' boobs something. The important thing was that it didn't feel contrived or overly-hammed up, and more importantly, it was a heck of a lot of fun.
But most importantestly (this is now a real word, okay?), Michael Fassbender sexes sexily around the X-mansion, wearing a turtleneck. Of SEX.

5. The women in the movie aren't exactly portrayed in the best light. CIA agent Moira McTaggart is down to her bra and panties within seconds of the audience meeting her (but guys, those were her government-approved stripper club stakeout clothes, they were for WORK dammit), January Jones did nothing but walk around in tight suits with her chest hanging out. The mutant Angel chooses to join the "bad guys" almost as soon as her character is established, which means she had pretty much no lines or any development for the rest of the movie.And then there was that line about why women shouldn't be in the CIA. It's hard to tell if stuff like this was meant to reflect the rampant misogyny of the story's 1960s setting, or if it's just what it is - blatant sexism that's present in nearly all forms of modern media which goes unnoticed so much of the time. But let's forget about all that because here is Michael Fassbender in a suit again.

6. I have not seen a single episode of Mad Men, and therefore cannot comment on January Jones' acting in that show, but holy crap was she completely wooden and uncharismatic and unappealing as Emma Frost. She had a couple of pretty snarky lines that would have worked wonderfully if delivered well, but meh. But that's okay though, because while January Jones was not-acting, Michael Fassbender was providing enough intensity, complexity, vulnerability and charisma to run a nuclear power plant. If you could run a nuclear power plant on intensity, complexity, vulnerability and charisma, that is.

And on top of all that, he was also providing the HOT. Such selfless talent.

7. As Grace pointed out, the so-called villains in this instalment were one-dimensional, paper-thin and completely dispensable. Kevin Bacon's evil ex-Nazi character started off with promise but by the end had been reduced to the cartoonish "let's blow up the world" brand of super villain. His minions fared much much worse - they barely had any lines, and I don't think anyone so much as mentioned Riptide's name.

8. One-note bad guys aside, this film does a great job of fleshing out Magneto's character and origin story (cause let's face it, this is Michael Fassbender's movie and everyone else is there to be pretty wallpaper [except McAvoy, he co-owns this movie. And my heart]). Wait, what? Oh yes, this film does a great job of fleshing out Magneto's character and origin story in a way that made him somehow sympathetic and also not entirely evil/wrong. His Holocaust experiences and the way they shaped his future bitterness, anger, and his vengeful nature did not feel contrived or overdone in the slightest. And where the previous X-Mens seemed fairly contented to leave us with the Professor X = Bald and Good/Magneto = Caped and Bad dynamic, this one gives us more shades of grey, and spade upon spade of sexy.

Fassy darling, you seem to have forgotten your shoes. Don't worry though, I'll help you put them on, so you don't have to stop that intense-staring-into-the-vaguely-off-camera-distance thing you're doing so well there.

9. The focus is placed more on making it a character study of Erik Lensherr and Charles Xavier, and not so much on the flashy CGI or explosions. However, the special effects, when they did show up, were effective and suitably dignified with the proper dosage of badassitude. This scene with the missiles, for instance, was crazy hot.

I don't know how much it had to with the hundreds of phallic weapons dangling in the air right in front of him, or the fact that in this particular scene Michael Fassbender suddenly develops a very prominent Irish accent broad enough to drive several trucks through, but I wanted to bone him so hard at that moment, unflattering helmet or not.

10. I can't think of anything else to say, so here's some more Fassbender. It is a truly great man indeed, who can steal the boiling, frothing oceans of my lust away from James McAvoy.

Sweet Jesus help me.

In conclusion:

Fassbender.

Well okay, in all seriousness, X-Men : First Class, while it has its share of flaws, is a tremendous amount of fun, and in no way a waste of a couple of hours and fourteen bucks. It definitely surpasses it predecessors in terms of quality and storytelling (and hotness) and if any sequels are indeed planned, I for one will be looking forward to them. Also, Fassbender. All fangirl-style objectification aside, the man is a ridiculously good actor, and it's nice to see him (and McAvoy) get some major recognition from the masses, so people can cast him in more movies and I can go sit in dark cinemas and squeal (inwardly) for many years to come.

Excuse me while I just sit here and swoon a thousand times over.

Just a quick afterthought ; another thing that really bugged me was how Charles Xavier had to put two fingers to his temple to let us know every time he was using his mad mutant psychic skillz. Someone needs to come up with a new way for telepaths to do their telepathing, because way to be subtle, Captain Obvious.

After-afterthought : How is it that nobody in Hollywood has cottoned on to the undeniable truth that Fassbender needs to be the next James Bond? Because if he were, I would actually watch one of those damned movies. Many times. In a row. Also someone should appoint me as Head Boss Queen Leader of Hollywood because no one in that town knows what they're doing.

The Unpopular Opinions Challenge

2011-05-30T16:56:00.015+08:00

Snagged from Tumblr:

"To be answered and completed with grace and understanding on both sides of opinions expressed: Let your opinions pour out, but you don’t have to be a dick about it now do you? And you may severely disagree with someone but are you really going to unfollow or bug them about it? That said, answer and read at your own discretion. "

1. A selection of television programs you do not care for.

Plenty, most which include a CSI in the title, and also NCIS, which my brother insists on calling NCISucks (real mature, I know) but I've decided to go for the one show I actually used to care for quite a bit ; Glee. I enjoyed the first half of season 1 immensely, but it has fell quickly and thoroughly from my favour, while at the same time the number of self-professed Gleeks around me seem to be growing by the day. If I really sat down to think it through, my beef with Glee would possibly take up a blog of its own, but instead, here are some of the issues off the top of my head.

Things About Glee That Bug the BAP (based on my having sat through the whole of season 1, and then a handful of season 2 episodes)

a.) No continuity. I'm willing to turn a blind eye to a lapse or two, but sometimes when you sit down to watch Glee it feels like last week's episode never even happened. What about the aftermath of Kurt's Beyoncelicious entrance into the football team? What about Artie and Tina's brief flirtation/betrayal, which was never touched upon after the episode in question, as far as I know? QUINN'S BABY, HELLO? Characters make huge breakthroughs, there are major plot upheavals, and then after that it's like none of that stuff ever happened,until another episode suddenly decides to bring it up again, and then the character/incident in question is conveniently brought back to the light. And it pisses me off.

b.) The show seems more interested in who the next big-name celebrity guest star will be, or which chart-topping song of the week will feature in an episode. I am not calling "sell-out", not at all ; by all means, bring on the famous people (the more Neil Patrick Harris the better). But what annoys me is that having a coherent or relevant plot appears to have taken a backseat in the process. In other words, they work the story (any story, whatever story, however repetitive or contrived) around the song choices, instead of having a good solid storyline with song choices that complement it.

c.) The songs performed on the show (with a few exceptions) are pretty much the studio recorded versions of the originals, but with different vocals. A little reinvention or re-interpretation wouldn't kill anyone, would it? I haven't been really truly impressed since the pilot episode's Don't Stop Believing, and then The Warblers' version of Train's ridiculously annoying Hey Soul Sister (but then I like everything The Warblers do; those matching blazers are HOT).

d). I simply cannot like any one of the characters, with the exceptions of Sue Sylvester, Puck, and maybe Kurt's dad. Based on my personal TV-viewing history, having a truly great character or two (and by "great character" I don't just mean "capable of inducing lady-boners") can redeem a show in my eyes, even if everything else about the programme has apparently gone down the toilet (hey there Supernatural). But no one on Glee fits that role. The Glee club in itself is meant to a be a refuge from the rest of the school, a haven of acceptance from the outside world which judges traits like being fat, or being an over-achiever, or being disabled, or having the wrong skin colour. But when the Glee kids themselves are giving each other shit for petty reasons , how am I supposed to muster any level of empathy for any of them? I don't get the impression that any of the Glee kids like or even enjoy being in each others' presence. The writers themselves are guilty of pushing certain characters into the background; for practically the entire first season, the character of Mike Chang was known as "Other Asian Kid", which was kind of funny but oh wow did it drive me up the wall. So when these kids get on stage and sing an empowering song at the end of the week's episode and are suddenly all bonding and everything, I'm supposed to buy it? Yeah. Not happening. I'm not asking for anything Hallmarkian and trite or High School Musical-ey (in which EVERYONE loves EVERYONE else); of course the Glee kids can have their competitions and conflicts. But the way it's being done now is making pretty much everyone (except Puck, because he is as adorable as he has always been) come across to me as being way too mean, selfish, bitchified and petty. And that's not cool.

2. A selection of musical artists you do not care for.
30 Seconds To Mars comes almost immediately to mind. I don't feel very strongly about them either way, and while I never change the channel if one of their songs comes up, they do leave me with an incredibly overwhelming feeling of "meh".

3. A selection of celebrities you couldn’t care less about.
Do you have all day? This could take a while.

4. A hobby you “don’t get”.
I am quite lax when it comes to what people choose to do in their leisure hours. Whether it be collecting umbrellas, or plane-watching,or Facebook-stalking, or cataloguing your DVDs by year of release, if it makes you happy for some reason, I am totally cool with it. Unless it involves something creepy like a scrapbook of historical serial killers. Which is actually pretty cool, so never mind.

5. A habit you find disgusting.
Dog-earing books. So it's not disgusting, exactly, but it is something that horrifies me, and as such I am exceedingly stingy about lending my books out to anyone. If you manage to be one of the lucky few, I will regale you with very serious and extremely specific instructions regarding how to treat my books-no lying them face-down, hold them at a specific angle so you don't crease or damage the spine, and yes, no dog-earing. Yeah I don't know how I still have friends, either.

6. Something in school you really liked doing that everyone else bitched over.
When we had to fill out reports on how many books we had read each school year. and the person who had read the most number of books would get a prize every month. I never won, but I didn't hate filling out those reports the way most of my classmates did.

7. Your favorite household chore.
Sweeping the floors. It's the most incredibly fulfilling (also the easiest) thing you could do in the house, and it makes me happy. Just for the record, my least favourite household chore is washing the dishes, because I hate having to touch other people's leftovers.

8. Popular video games that make you go “meh”.
I don't play video games (not since Street Fighter in 1998) so pretty much all of them make me go "meh".

9. PC or MAC?
Never used a MAC. I clearly have not done enough to earn my place in 21st century society.

10. A sport you don’t like, for whatever reason.
I tolerate Formula One racing, at best. My family digs it, and I keep up with it so I'll know what people on campus are talking about after a race weekend. To me it's nothing but noisy vehicles going round and round a track for two hours, during which something interesting may or not happen, like someone crashes and there's a fire, or a tire explodes, or a puppy walks out into the middle of the track (one can always hope). The only redeeming quality to F1 racing is that now and then someone reeeeeeally cute takes off his helmet (either because he won the race or his steering wheel dislodged and hit him in the face and now he has to stop racing [has that ever happened? No?]) and then I can ogle him and then google him and ogle some more. Everything has its upside. Everything.

11. A sport you really like, for whatever reason.
I like all the usual sports, I suppose, and know enough about all them all in order to carry on a conversation. Recently, however, my brother introduced me to the world of WWE Smackdown. I had always stayed away from wrestling, assuming it was juvenile, trashy, vulgar, fake and had too many smoothly-waxed men in colourful tight undies running around for me to be comfortable enough with it, and it definitely didn't qualify as a true sport, no matter how many times it was shown on ESPN, the manliest and sportiest of all manly sports channels. It was only a few weeks go that I gained appreciation for what wrestling is ; a beautifully orchestrated, highly entertaining, hilariously violent and very dramatic athletic soap opera. There are rivalries, and friendships, and betrayals and heartbreak, and plots so dense it would send Christopher Nolan himself reeling (well okay not really).Unfortunately no one in it could be called good-looking, which is a shame, since I can't think of anything else on ESPN with so much man-flesh on liberal display for your viewing pleasure.

12. Television programs you love but have gotten shit for liking.
Supernatural, because it has two ridiculously hot guys in it, which makes it like, I don't know, a superficial, half-baked, uninspired version of The X-Files. Vampire Diaries, because it's like Twilight but with Ian Somerhalder in it. Basically I get shit because there are extremely good-looking people in the shows I choose to watch and love, and that somehow makes me shallow and not at all interested in the plot, or metaphors, or subtext, or character development, or story arcs, or postmodernist narratives or serious stuff like that.

Clearly, I watch for the plot. Clearly.

13. Musical artists you love but have gotten shit for liking.
None. I have excellent taste in music, and everyone knows it. Except for that one time when I was 15 and people at school got on my case because I liked Sarah McLachlan and she was just so sappy.

14. A hobby you have/find interesting that other people bother you over/make fun of.
None. I have excellent taste in hobbies and everyone knows it. Except for that one time when - wait...No. I have excellent taste in hobbies and everyone knows it.

15. A habit you have that other people bug you over.
I'd like to think that my habits aren't particularly offensive to anyone (nail-biting, reading newspapers back-to-front, not talking to anyone in the mornings until at least 45 minutes after I have showered and breakfasted). One thing I don't do, however, is shave my legs often enough to be deemed fit to be seen in public. Being Indian, I already have a genetic propensity to be hairier than the average non-brown female, and I wear jeans most of the time, so I almost never bother with wax or razors or depilatory creams, except for maybe twice a year when I really feel like being silky-smooth for a few weeks. I've always been deeply embarrassed about it though, as if my extra follicles were somehow an offense in the eyes of the freshly-shaved, and a disgrace to womanity. My aunt's friends would constantly bring it up, and it was only this year that I learned to stop letting it bother me. When another aunt looked down at my shorts-clad legs, clucked, and asked "Girl, how often do you shave your legs?", I just shrugged and went (as politely as I could manage) "When I feel like it". The look on her face was the best thing ever.

16. Something in school you hated doing and it felt like everyone else loved.
Physical Education. I hated having to change in a narrow stinky bathroom, and then having to get all sweaty in the mornings and play some stupid game like netball in the mud and then go back to class all sticky (no showers, you guys) and have to somehow find the will to concentrate on Additional Mathematics. The horror. And everyone else had so much fun, it made me sick. I cannot count the number of times I left my tracksuit at home just so I could get out of Phys.Ed .

17. The household chore that makes you want to shoot your own face off.
Shoot my own face off? That's a bit much. I'm quite alright with most household chores, so no complaints. Nothing drastic enough to merit suicide, anyway. Seriously, it's just housework. I'll get over it.

18. A selection of video games that you enjoy that perhaps you really shouldn't.
Hey remember what I said earlier about not playing any video games since 1998? Yeah, that.

19. A celebrity crush that maybe even you don’t understand.
I take pride in the knowledge that I understand all my celebrity crushes perfectly (you could call it a hobby). So instead let's have my most recent TV crush, who some of you may or may not recognize as one of the contestants on Masterchef Australia 2.

This is Callum, he is 20 (a child! a child I tell you!), has a slight lisp and the most adorable smile I've seen on television in a long time. It is indeed a pleasure to curl up alone at the end of the day with a hot drink, after everyone else has left/gone to bed, and watch this piece of irresistible cuteness flitting around making a carrot zucchini bread with candied ginger or some other piece of fancy gourmet nonsense which I never get to taste. Food and cute Australian boys. Highlight of my holidays so far.

20. Free rant on whatever grinds your gears at the moment.
Cats. I could really do without cats right now. There are about 200 stray ones in the back alley of my aunt's house, and I don't mind it so much when they just laze around being quiet and furry and cute and meowing for leftover fish now and then. But it so happens to be Cat Sex season now, and I am sick of all the cat-sex sounds that go on at all hours of the day and night. Also all the noisy cat-fucking happens right in view of my kitchen window (which needs to be open while cooking or else we'll all die of Indian-spice inhalation) which means I need to watch cats get raped while I'm slicing onions or whatever. It's horrible.

I suppose the whole point of the Unpopular Opinions Challenge is to have really radical, contradicting-the-mainstream opinions, but what can I say? Apparently I am a big fat lazy conformist, most of the time.

A Blog Update...In Your Pants.

2011-05-21T15:16:00.003+08:00

So once again I disappeared off the face of the blogging world, seemingly for no good reason. It's just that the last couple of months have been taken up completely with projects, finals, and coming home for the holidays to help my mom look after my aunt, who is in the final stages of ovarian cancer. We've moved into my aunt's (Internetless) house, and between dealing with the hundreds of visitors pouring in, and doing what little I can to help around, the shiny world of the Interwebs has held very little appeal for me over the past few weeks. I could probably wax philosophical about mortality and loss and things like that, but I'm not going to. It's hard enough trying to deal with the fact that my aunt has entrusted me with the honour of composing her eulogy. "You write it", she says "and it'll be a good one". I hope I can deliver.

So instead of watching adorable animals on Youtube, I've been spending my days catching up on my reading (some nice controversial Salman Rushdie for starters), like a good student of Literature should, and learning how to cook. Not just instant noodles, mind you, but the formidable and spice-drenched world of good proper Indian cooking, with its peppers and mustard seeds and cardamoms and chilli paste. And onions. Dear god, so much onion. Why, India?

In any case I have just acquired one of those mobile broadband wireless thingies, so I'll be able to surf the Net for at least a couple of hours a day, and be a better blogger and blogbuddy. Before getting into my usual foot-long posts, though, I thought I'd bring us all a litte bit of much-needed cheer by resurrecting my favouritest blog meme of forever ; the In Your Pants game. Feel free to play along, peasants. Just grab your iPod or other media player of choice, put it on shuffle, and add the words "...in your pants" to the end of the first 20 song titles that come up.

1. Benediction in my pants.
2. Summer In The City in my pants.
3. Southern Radio in my pants.
4. Sin-Eaters in my pants.
5. To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High) in my pants.
6. Valerie in my pants.
7. In The Middle in my pants.
8. Sunday Sunny Mill Valley Groove Day in my pants.
9. Hardship Acres in my pants.
10. Five Little Rooms in my pants.
11. There Was Light in my pants. (No. Kidding.)
12. Boys You Won't Remember In My Pants.
13. Corner Of The Sky in my pants.
14. Don't Stop in my pants.
15. Dull Life in my pants.
16. You're Going Back in my pants.
17. Hush in my pants.
18. Helplessness Blues in my pants.
19. Norway in my pants.
20. Pumpkin Soup in my pants.

Oh the joy of pants.

So There's This Rule That Says You Can't Talk About Tumblr Anywhere Other Than Tumblr. Guess What I'm Doing Today, Then.

2011-04-07T17:06:00.001+08:00

I acquired a Tumblr page a couple of months ago, and although the initial excitement has passed (I don't think I'll be posting 70 times in 3 days ever again) it's still an extremely interesting exercise. It makes a nice change from the foot-long posts I put up here once every 3 weeks or so, I like the almost complete anonymity of it, and the fact that Tumblr isn't very audience-based at all, unless you have joined for the express purpose of attracting a wider readership or fanbase. I had to get used to the concept of brevity though ; I'm not exactly used to posting only three or four sentences at a time, or no words at all, sometimes. Also, Tumblr has taught me that people on the Internet really like cats, Nutella, "artistic" shots of naked women and polaroid-esque city skylines, all of which I can dig to certain degrees. But Tumblr, quite literally, has something for everyone, however niche or ridiculous your interests may be. Here are just some of my favourite one-topic blogs I've discovered to date :

I Love Charts

A veritable treasure trove of charts, graphs, pictograms, squiggly lines, tables, diagrams, maps and visual representations of pretty much any goddamned topic in the world.

One of my favourites, The Process of Elimination Map.

Real Men Wear Suits

Exactly what it says on the label - pictures of pretty men wearing pretty suits. Tuxedos and three-pieces, top hats and canes, bowties and neckties, young and old. It's like my equivalent of porn, but you know, classier.

Fuck Yeah Ghost Towns

A collection of images of abandoned towns, buildings, rooms and entire cities, with a little snippet of historical background included. Endlessly fascinating and sometimes seriously creepy.

Bookshelf Porn

Pictures of shelves and stacks and stacks of books from homes and libraries all over the world. This is what I spend many minutes staring at once I'm bored with the men in suits. Also I wish the library on campus looked like this, but it doesn't.

Black and WTF

I'm a sucker for black and white photography, so combine that with a generous dose of vintage flavoured ridiculousness and I am sold.

Reasoning With Vampires

Possibly the most dedicated Twilight-hater in existence, this Tumblrer (Tumblrererer?) diligently and passionately dissects and rips apart every flaw, inconsistency, grammatical error and nonsensical detail within every page in every book of Stephenie Meyer's sorry excuse of a literary product. Few things make me happier than a dose of snarkily-executed Twilight-bashing in the breakfast hours.

Awesome People Hanging Out Together

Again, exactly what it says on the label ; rare and not-so-rare photographs of awesome people hanging out together.

Here we have Anthony Perkins and Audrey Hepburn.
And like, a deer.

Hot Guys Reading Books

Taken from the blog description : There are plenty of attractive men in the world, but unfortunately few of them that are avid readers. Welcome to "Hot Guys Reading Books" the blog that scours the internet for examples of luscious literary men and gathers the evidence in one place.

So yes ; hot, regular, non-famous boys hanging around reading books in the bus, on the train, at restaurants, on the beach, at home, at the park, and virtually everywhere else in between. This Tumblog is so inspiring and life-affirming, I tell you.

Iceland Wants To Be Your Friend

The only country, as far as I know, which has its own Tumblog. Iceland, as you may expect, is adorable, polite, accomodating, friendly, and full of gentle and interesting advice, not to mention some seriously too-cool-for-school music and film recommendations, as well as tutorials on "How To Knit Like An Icelandic Man". I can't wait to visit you in a metal flying machine and walk all over your volcanic plains, Iceland.

Halló, this is Iceland.

I do not know why, but many humans like to climb on me. Here is one of them.

Bless bless,
- Iceland

Minimal Movie Posters

I've recently developed a thing for re-designed film posters with a minimalistic twist to them, and this site hosts a collection of the very bestest.

Fuck Yeah Scandinavian Men

Hey Scandinavian man. Let's go bone on a glacier.

p.s I know I haven't linked you to my own Tumblr, but I haven't updated the thing in yonks and it's sort of embarrassing. I will share when I am ready. Also, please to be recommending other awesome Tumblrs, Tumblrererers and Tumblogs I should be following.

Since You Have Nothing To Do With Your Hands, You Might As Well Pray.

2011-04-06T17:31:00.011+08:00

Just a quick update on things that have been making me happy over the last couple of weeks, because the urge to blog is always strongest when I actually have other, more important things to do (like a Phonetics test to study for). And I'm afraid the song lyric (see No.6 below) I chose for the post title probably hinted at a blog entry of serious, profound matters. But that's not happening, is it?

1. Richard Armitage

A friend of mine got me re-hooked into BBC period dramas with the miniseries adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's North & South (Leticia, if you're reading this, I love you), and easily the best thing to have happened as a result is my (re)discovery of the fine specimen of Man that is Richard Armitage. More on him in a later post, but suffice to say that his glorious, aristocratic nose? HOT. His habit of darkly brooding near windows? HOT. Yelling at the working class of the Yorkshire cotton mills in his deep, luscious, voice of sex? HOT. That one time when he loosened his cravat? HOT. Dammit, you seducing seducer of seductiveness.

That profile. Richard, has anyone told you look like a bigger-nosed, more bone-able Hugh Jackman?

2. Nutella

I often saw Tumblr overflowing with pictures of Nutella sandwiches, and always thought it was some sort of obscure hipster thing I would probably not like, anyway. Then I found out that my local supermarket stocked shelf after shelf of the melted chocolatey mess, so I thought I'd give it a try. And you know what Tumblr? I get what the big deal is now. Nutella is like a blob of sweet happiness in your mouth. Screw the sandwiches though ; I spend most of the time just eating it out of the jar.

Kitties and Nutella, Tumblr's two favourite things of forever.

3. This.

BFM always always plays this song on Sunday nights when I'm on the way back to campus, and it just makes me so inexplicably happy.So happy that I want to make it my official theme song or something. Last year the same airplay slot was filled by Bon Iver's Skinny Love, and a little while before that was Arcade Fire's Wake Up. I love this radio station to death, I tell you.

4. Armie Hammer being cast as the Prince in one of the 275 Snow White movies being made soon.

Revamping fairy tales to make them edgier and sexier seems to be the trend to replace vampirism in pop culture at the moment, and while I don't much care for these stories receiving the Twilight treatment, I have always felt that Armie Hammer ,of The Social Network fame, looks like a super-sized, Abercrombie & Fitched-up Ken doll (but in a nice, I-would-still-totally-bone-him way) and thus, was born to play some variation of a Prince Charming at some point, preferably before he loses his hair. And my dream has come true so fast I think I barely had time to dream it properly. Tarsem Singh directs this fairy tale "reboot" (oh how I hate that word), and the man has a great eye for visuals and stuff like that, so there better be plenty of shirtless Prince Charming up in those magical woods.

You know what would make me happier? If this Prince Charming has a TWIN BROTHER. It would be genius, Hollywood. Armie has pretty established credentials in twin-acting. And think about it, you wouldn't even have to go casting around for another pretty 20-something former model boy to make up the other end of the inevitable love triangle that will be the central plot point of your movie.

5. There is only a week (and then some) left before the end of semester.

Exams come after that, and then I will have officially completed my first year of university. I'll probably feel all wiser and world-wearier by that time.

6. Good music.

No seriously. Why are there so many terrific albums out already? And it's only March! I feel spoiled. Spoiled rotten. There is a massive handful of contenders for my end-of-year lists already (The Rural Alberta Advantage, Lykke Li, Fleet Foxes and Kurt Vile, just to name four) and I can only hope that the rest of the year continues to overflow with the auditory goodness.

This is my current folk jam. It has Biblical metaphors. And HANDCLAPS. Set to vintage summer vacation videos, naturally.

7. Creepypasta

I think this just may be my favourite Internet meme of forever. It's essentially a collection of possibly thousands of fictional paranormal stories written by Internetters, with some sort of mindbending twist ending, which are then copypasted around to freak people out on comment threads and forums. The majority are genuinely poorly written, although once in a while you come across a piece that makes you just a little bit too uncomfortable to leave your room and go pee at 2 in the morning. Don't you laugh at me. I was especially freaked out that day because I had come back from class early and spent the entire afternoon alone in my dorm room, reading creepypasta while a thunderstorm raged outside. I jumped at every little noise, convinced that a deranged axe murderer had climbed in through the balcony on the other end of the building and was now tapping on the door with the blade he would soon use to cleave my skull in half.
Um, yeah.
My personal favourite story of all has got to be "The Day Of All The Blood", though. Capslock included.

"THIS IS THE STORY OF A DAY WHERE THERE WAS ALL THIS BLOOD. A MAN WAS WALKING AROUND AND BLOOD STARTED COMING OUT OF HIM EVERYWHERE. THERE WAS SO MUCH BLOOD THAT IT FILLED UP AN ELEVATOR. HE WENT TO THE STORE AND THERE WAS JUST BLOOD ALL OVER THE PLACE! PEOPLE WERE SLIPPING IN IT AND THEY WERE ALL GROSSED OUT. HE TRIED TO GO SWIMMING AND ALL OF THE SHARKS WENT NUTS AND BITTENED EVERYBODY. HE GOT CHASED BY ALL THE VAMPIRES EVER. ONE TIME THE BLOOD GOT A KID AND A DOG. AT THE END OF THE DAY EVERYONE DECIDED THEY WOULD SEND HIM TO SPACE SO THAT HE WOULD STOP GETTING BLOOD EVERY WHERE. THE SCARIEST PART IS THAT THE MAN WAS YOU!!! (OR HE WAS A LADY IF YOU ARE A LADY) AND YOU FORGOT THAT THIS HAPPENED. "

The profundity never fails to take my breath away.

BAP's Musical Evolution, Pitchfork Style.

2011-03-13T16:55:00.021+08:00

So, hipster god Pitchfork's terrific 5-10-15 feature asks artists and bands to list down and talk about music they loved at 5-year interval points throughout their lives. Allison over at Flying Buttresses decided to adopt this idea for a blog post of her own, so I tagged along and wrote up a 5-10-15-20-25 list myself.

Since I'm still but a child, I've gone for 2-year intervals instead of 5. And I can't seem to settle on one single defining album or artist for each year, so I'll just talk about a bunch of them instead.

Age 8 / The Year Of ABBA

When I was 8, Sunday mornings were my favourite thing in the whole world. My brother and I would attend Sunday School at some ungodly hour in the early morning, like good little Catholics, and make it home just in time for the hour when everyone else would have breakfast. My mother would be in the kitchen, making something delicious like banana pancakes or omelettes or rolled appam (Indian pancakey things, rolled, with coconut filling, and they were green. So rad) , and my dad would put on an ABBA album and my brother and I would go dancing on the lawn until it was time to eat. And go dance some more after that. I didn't really know much about music then, except that the songs made us all happy and dancey, and I was fascinated by the vocal harmonies, and also by the band's blondness. I like to think of it as the beginning of my Scandinavian love affair.

Age 10 (and slightly beyond that)/ The Year Of Listening To Everything My Parents Loved, With A Side Of The Spice Girls

My dad, being a huge music fan, always made sure every house we lived in had the best sound system we could possibly afford. We have lived in five houses altogether -we moved four times in four years before I hit my 10th birthday, but all within the same city, so it wasn't as bad as it sounds . Anyway, my dad usually got off work by 4pm, and once he was home he would put on all his records and listen to them while drinking black coffee and tell us all about how he was making us listen to good music and that we should be grateful for it. Our house would be full of the sounds of Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston (I was always a little bit scared of her), Dire Straits, Eric Clapton, George Michael, The Beatles, Sade, Johnny Cash, Madonna, the Grease soundtrack and yes, ABBA. And of course there was the staple collection of old Hindi songs, especially this one. I still find the video rather hilarious, but the nostalgia still slays me everytime I hear it.

My introduction to the Spice Girls came from the son of some dear family friends. My mother came down with a bad case of hypertension and was hospitalized for a week, so I would spend every afternoon after school at this kid's house. We played Street Fighter on the computer (this is also how I developed a massive crush on Ryu - because he was hot for a videogame character) and read books to each other and followed his mother to the garden centre, and jumped on bean cushions. And then one day he put on a Spice Girls record and my little 9.5 year old life changed. This was something that sounded fresh and sassy and fun and I could actually sing along to it. After that I would squeal with joy everytime that "Stop-right-now-thank-you-very-much" song would come on the radio in the car on the way to school. My parents, thankfully, approved of my infatuation with the Spicey World, despite their bare midriffs and piercings and all.

Age 12/The Year Of Britney & Boybands

Age 12 marked a decrease in standards for me. I think puberty messed me up for a while. It was around this time that I started getting into, and really into, Britney Spears and all the boybands that cropped up at around the same time. I had binders of pictures and lyrics and name cards and stickers with their faces on it, like every other girl in my class at the time. It was our other obsession, when we weren't busy making those cutesy little friendship bracelets out of coloured thread and popsicle sticks.

Westlife stands as my first ever affiliation with the world of boybands (biggest crush; Mark whatshislastname,who turned out to be gay), closely followed by the Backstreet Boys (biggest crush ; Nick Carter. Yeah, I know) and Blue (biggest crush ; Lee Ryan. And to be perfectly honest I may still jump his bones today), Boyzone (biggest crush ; Stephen Gately, rest in peace you lovely lovely man) with N'Sync running a distant fifth (biggest crush ; JC Chasez. Yeah, I know). I believe Backstreet Boys performed at some awards ceremony or other this year, and I was kind of half-horrified and half-giddy to discover that I can still sing along to Larger Than Life. And right on, too, because that song is bad ass. And you can't deny it.

I may or may not have owned this record at some point in my life.

+ Age 13/ This kind of messes up the 2-year interval thing, but I suppose it is worth mentioning that when I was 13 I tried desperately to pretend that I enjoyed rap and R&B music because that's what my friends liked and I didn't want to feel left out when they were talking about Eminem's new album or something at recess. What I really liked at the time, though, was Enya and The Corrs and Sarah McLachlan, with a little bit of Matchbox 20. So it was sort of my Celtic-pop-woman phase. And Matchbox 20.

Age 14/The Year of Coldplay & Britpop

The ages of 14 to 15 were probably my prime emo years, and I had a great soundtrack to go with the moping ; Coldplay, Keane, Travis and Snow Patrol. These guys were my early adolescent lifeblood. They had the sensitive, emotionally-in-tune singers, the lovely melodies and the anthemic poprockyness that the British do so well. When I stopped emo-ing long enough to dig deeper I found people like Oasis and Blur and The Verve and Supergrass, and even Radiohead (the more easily digestible stuff). There was also Dido, who I still kind of adore to this day.

Age 16/ The Year of Grace Wong Music Guru, & The Internet

I was late into my 15th year of life when we finally had dial-up Internet service set up at our house, and I had no idea you could like, actually find music on the Internet. Until the next year when I met Grace in the school library during my afternoon librarian shift (yeah, I know), and in between re-enactments of the Lord Of The Rings and giggling over limericks in the Dictionary of Quotations (yeah, I know), she provided me with a list of music blogs, blog aggregators and Internet radio sites plus a litany of bands I really should have been listening to. She also filled up my shiny new mp3 player with everything from The Smiths to The Shins to Arcade Fire, from Death Cab for Cutie to The Decemberists to The Stills to Belle & Sebastian.

I was mindblown, to put it lightly. I knew music existed beyond what I heard on radio and saw on TV (I was already a fledgling Sigur ros fangirl by this time) but I had no idea there was so much of it out there. Most of which I liked almost on the first listen. I wanted to get out there and devour everything I could get my hands on (musically speaking) and the next two years was a delight in trial-and-error, taste-testing, impulse-judging and genre-experimenting. I found things I adore to this very day (Regina Spektor, Patrick Wolf, The National, The Strokes, Sufjan Stevens) and stuff that didn't quite work out (sorry, LCD Soundsystem)

Age 18/ The Year Of The Mellow & The Jangly

In terms of sound, I think this was roughly the time when I found out my heart beats for folk music, or anything mellow and jangly, really. This was the year I swooned over Iron & Wine, and Jose Gonzales. I heard Josh Ritter's Thin Blue Flame for the first time and I can't even begin to tell you how that felt. This was the year of Ryan Adams and Basia Bulat and Scott Matthews and The Avett Brothers, among many many others. This was also the year of The Tallest Man On Earth, or Kristian Matsson as he is known to his mother, and I've already waxed fangirlical over him considerably, so suffice to say that the man is pretty much My Own Personal Pencil-Moustached-Fingerpicking-Troubadouring Jesus.

Hallelujah Scandinavia.

Age 20 Going On 21/The Year of Right Now

Quite a few bands defined last year for me - Frightened Rabbit comes almost immediately to mind, as do The National and Arcade Fire. This year however, I seem to more accepting of the kind of music I usually deliberately avoided in the past because I just didn't like the way I imagined it would sound like. I've taken in more dream-pop into my aural space (Papercuts and The Raveonettes) and more synth-based stuff (Cut Copy, MGMT) and Lykke Li (I just always found her creepy, okay). I've even made space in my music library for Kurt Vile, the man I never listened to before this because I sort of disapproved of his hair. My music selection criteria isn't always the best, I admit. Also, it may be a bit early to say, but I think The Rural Alberta Advantage's Departing may a 2011-defining album. The triple serving of Stamp, Tornado '87 and Barnes' Yard may just be my favourite 9 1/2 minutes of music on any record this year. So far, that is.

So there you have it, my musical journey of 2-year interval points. This really was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. What were you guys listening to at 8-10-12-14-16-18, peasants? Or 5-10-15-20. Or 3-6-9-12. It's all good.

"We Got No Money But We Got Heart". Also, Some Thoughts On The Oscars.

2011-03-01T17:28:00.012+08:00

This week marked the first time in my life I wasn't home to watch the Academy Awards, although I woke up for a super early breakfast so I could live stream the red carpet and all the annoying presenters and stuff on my laptop. I have still not seen the full ceremony, so I can't really comment on James Franco's hosting chops. This saddens me, because having James Franco host the Oscars happens to have been a lifelong dream of mine (and by lifelong, I mean two years ago).

The consensus seems to be that he was stoned, or pretty much sucked, or both, and there seems to be an air of general annoyance. I can understand how his ubiquitousness would get on some people's nerves ; the guy has been everywhere. Published a book, had his paintings featured in several art galleries, hosted SNL, got nominated for the Oscars, hosted the Oscars, and established a college course on James Franco, about James Franco, through the medium of James Franco videos, taught by James Franco. So he's either as incredibly talented as his body of work suggests he is, or his head really is that far up his ass, or he's playing some sort of epic meta-joke on us all. Whatever the case, he still looks indecently delicious in a suit.

Yeap. I'd still hit that.

I'm fairly indifferent towards most of the night's big winners, mainly since I have only seen two of the nominated movies. Inception was one that I had been looking forward to for ages, and the whole thing ended up leaving me just a wee bit underwhelmed. Don't get me wrong; I enjoyed it and I still do and I went through that week or so where I hunted down everyone I knew who had already seen it and grabbed them by their shoulders and went all "BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAAANNN??!". I was simply expecting a great deal more, and Inception, while being great and all, just doesn't quite do the job upon repeat viewings.

The Social Network went all opposite on me, though. I was deliberately paying as little attention to it as I possibly could, but then I found out that The Puppydog of My Soul, Andrew Garfield, was going to be in it. So, you know, I had to watch it. It was a very very very pleasant surprise to discover how much I enjoyed watching this film. It's not mindblowingly good or original, and I wouldn't go so far as to call it a generation-defining movie, but it is solid and extremely entertaining.

Things that make The Social Network awesome

1. The dialogue is terrific. It's not the kind of stuff you could go around quoting in daily conversation, but it's pithy and motormouth-paced and completely zinging. Every time one of the characters is done going off on a Harvard-level courtroom rant of PWNage all I want to do is pause the film and give them a standing ovation for a while.

2. Jesse Eisenberg is a freak of talent. Bless him and his Jewfro and his dimples and his whole entire self.

3. Justin Timberlake was nowhere near as bad as I feared he would be.

4. The original score is chilling and understated and deserves every award being thrown at it right now.

5.The whole thing holds your attention without ever getting boring or lagging in pace. No scene feels like filler. I can honestly say I haven't paid so much unconditional attention to a movie in a long time.

6. This guy. I mean the blond one. Not the creeper behind him.

Before seeing the movie I was sort of vaguely aware of a very large blond person being part of the cast, but when Armie Hammer first appeared onscreen I simply had to sit up and go "Why, who is this and why on God's good earth have we not been introduced yet?". I usually never go for blonds but Armie is way too good-looking to be denied.

And the best part? Thanks to the fact that he plays the Winklevoss twins (TWINS, I tell you!) there is double the Armie Hammer in every scene. Two Armies. All the time. I hardly knew which Armie to look at, and it was a wonderful dilemma to have. If you find yourself struggling with this delicious conundrum while watching The Social Network, I would suggest that you just feast your eyes upon whichever Armie happens to have less clothing on in that scene.
You're welcome.

Damn straight there's two Hammers up in here.

Also, his voice is utterly hypnotic. As I have already said elsewhere ; if sex had a sound, it would probably sound like Armie Hammer, because his voice, it is the sex. If I were rich enough, I'd hire Armie Hammer to follow me around campus and read me my lecture notes. My grades would go through the roof, I tell you. And here he is being disgustingly gorgeous at the Oscars with his lovely wife.

Disgusting. It's disgusting how pretty they are.

In other news, I just got back from a lecture on post-modernist and post-structuralist feminism, and while it was tremendously interesting, I have a headache from trying too hard to understand it all. I swear these academic types just sit around smoking pipes and making shit up. Damn them.

In other other news, this is the cutest music video I have seen this year. The song itself is also catchy like woah, and I find myself singing "Do you know this house is falling apart?" to myself everytime I'm going up or down a staircase these days. for some reason.

I just keep repeating the part where they all dance in the basement in neon spandex. Those moves are sick, especially the Frantic Hand Flailing. I think this song may just be my 2011 equivalent of Hockey's Song Away, and that is a bold proclamation indeed.

This Is Making Me Feel Old, But In A Nice Fuzzy Way.

2011-02-02T19:32:00.025+08:00

So I sat through a Hannah Montana marathon last weekend (or maybe it was just the one episode; sure felt like a marathon though) and that experience, beyond solidifying my irrational hatred of Miley Cyrus and her stupid face, led me to reminiscing about the Disney Channel/Nickelodeon shows that were once the staples of my own pre-teen/early teendom. And they were all better than Hannah Montana.

BAP's Favourite Disney Channel/Nickelodeon Shows Of The Last Two Decades Or Thereabouts That Are All Better Than Hannah Montana

1. Even Stevens

Back when Shia Leboofboof (however you spell it) was not only bearable but also downright adorable, playing the dorky, average Louis Stevens whose aim in life was trying to keep up with his over talented and overachieving family. Lous was accompanied by his loyal and suitably odd best friends (goth girl and skater dude (or was he a surfer dude? Had some great hair, whatever he was)).

2. Caitlin's Way

Caitlin Seeger is a troubled goth-esque juvenile delinquent orphan who must make the choice between a detention centre or going to live with relatives at their ranch in Montana. She goes to Montana, of course. There she attends school, makes friends, meets cute boys and attempts to sort out her many issues. This could have all so easily been preachy, sentimental and cloyingly Hallmark, but it wasn't (unless I'm remembering it wrong). Caitlin was also one of my first exposures to TV girls who weren't giggly and did not constantly think about clothes and boys, devoting her time to books and horses and being friends with her new cousin, Griffen (how 90's, that name) and had more complex and personal problems beyond zits and getting dates to school dances. And she was so bad ass.

3. Lizzie McGuire

Say what you will about Hilary Duff, but this show was the shizznit. It was the usual regular-girl's-journey-into-teenwomandom with her supportive yet clueless parents, an annoying younger brother, the best best friends ever, and an animated alter ego who pops up now and then to provide some snarky observation/inner monologue. This show also had the balls to centre an episode or two around buying bras and having periods, which I think was the last time the word period was mentioned on a Disney channel show in a non-school timetable context. Boo.

4. Phil Of The Future

Phil Diffy and his family, on a time travel vacation from the year 2121 , become stranded in the present day. While attempting to find their way back, the Diffys must learn fit in and keep their identities secret, while Phil and his sister Pim attend school and grapple with the timeless pitfalls of adolescence. Also, this is Phil/Ricky Ullman/Disney Crush No. #3;

Still charming despite the douchey backwards-cap. So talented.

The show was adorable and funny and often touching, and wasn't afraid to toss in elements of the ridiculous (but in a good way). For instance, in the show's mythology, people from the year 2121 all do not have pinky toes, evolution having deemed the appendage to be unnecessary. Why you no write shows about pinky toe-less hot boys from the future anymore, Disney Channel? Damn you!

5. Are You Afraid Of The Dark?

Best. Thing. Ever. The show's concept was that of a group of teenagers who call themselves The Midnight Society, who all meet once a week at midnight (durr) in the middle of the woods to trade scary stories around a campfire. And when I say scary stories, I mean scary stories. No half-assed juvenile shit here. Sure, a couple of episodes here and there were duds, but most of the time I'd spend the duration of the show wondering whether I'd be able to sleep by the time the story ended. The opening credits alone were the stuff of childhood nightmares. Episodes that still stick with me include the tale of a lakeside resort owner who uses mirrors to trap the souls of the visiting familes, the house with whispering walls, an alien zoo with kids as the main exhibit, and all the ones which featured evil clown puppets. Naturally.

6. The Zack Files

The tales of one regular kid named Zack, who is a magnet for all sorts of paranormal activity. Naturally, he gets into many strange and dangerous adventures, and naturally his best friends (who are made up of varying degrees of nerdness/hotness/filthy stinking richness) must jump in and help him figure everything out. The paranormal experiences were all rather trippy as well ; Zack is put on trial by the Queen of Hearts and The Mad Hatter for returning a library book past its due date, Zack gets sucked into a vortex created by his washing machine, Zack buys shoes that won't let him stop running, Zack eats cereal that turns him into an old man, Zack pulls a sword out of a stone and is haunted by Merlin, Zack gains powers of teleportation after drinking orange soda. And in between all that the show managed to squeeze in regular real-life things like single parenthood and losing your friends and developing a crush on the principal's daughter. They don't make them shows like they used to.
I also had a massive crush on Jake Epstein's rich-kid-with-no-ethics character on the show. Mr. Epstein then grew up to look like this :

Why, hello, Jake. I have missed you and your sweet sweet Jewishness.

7. Short Cuts

Short Cuts was a terrific Australian series about a group of teenagers in a Media Studies class, all going through the pains of being young and confused, aided by confessional video diaries which were meant to be part of schoolwork. You had the footballer, the pretty rich girl, the uptight control freak, the hot goth guy who wrote creepy poetry and made videos of bats flying around, among other things. But all those stereotypes got blown to pieces with every episode, revealing a show full of humour and heart (and a pregnancy and car crash or two) and people who became so much more than whiny teenagers. It was sort of like Skins, I suppose. With less drugs and no actual sex or swearing (dude, Disney Channel). I demand re-runs.

8. Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide

This came long a little later in adolescence for me, but my kid brother was extremely into it, and rightly so. The concept, as the title suggests, is a handbook for surviving junior high school, presented and narrated to you by Ned Bigby himself. Each episode features guidelines for a certain aspect of school (and by association, adolescent) life, which include guides to Daydreaming and Gym Class, Bullies, Vice Principals, Boys and Girls, Parties, and Failing. It often borders on the ridiculous, as you do when you have characters named Cookie, Mr. Combover, Coconut Head, Le-Forger (the best signature forger in school), Backpack Boy and the iTeacher, who teaches classes exclusively by webcam. It is all sweet, smart, funny and never comes close to insulting the audience's intelligence, which often happens when a show is aimed more towards the younger teenage set.

9. The Mystery Files Of Shelby Woo

CSI what? This was the best crime show of the day, you guys. Shelby Woo is (was? I don't even know which tense to use for all these dead shows) a regular high schooler who also interns and the local police station, helping out with small jobs and filing. Once in a while though, a really cool case comes up, and Shelby goes off to solve it with the help of best friends Cindy and Noah and her grandfather, Pat Morita. That's right. Her grandfather, PAT MORITA. You do not get cooler than Pat Morita.

10. Eerie, Indiana

Think The X-Files for kids. Marshall Teller is a kid who movies to the desolate town of Eerie, Indiana with his family, and then meets and becomes best friends with a little blond kid named Simon. Together they take on a whole host of weird shit that happens in the town (while all the adults remain oblivious, of course) including evil dogs who want to take over the world and creepy Tupperwares that can keep anything fresh, including like, you know, HUMAN FLESH. There were also zombies, mummies, time loops and seemingly friendly ATMs with ulterior motives. It's very much like The Zack Files in terms of trippiness. Eerie, Indiana however, was decidedly darker in tone ; even the jokes were much more morbid and black. There just isn't enough weird stuff like this on the tube anymore, you guys.

George A. Romero Tells Us To Fear Our Neighbour, You Guys

2011-01-04T00:26:00.010+08:00

So I watched the 2010 remake of George A. Romero's The Crazies last week. Here are some thoughts. Spoilers ahead, just so you know.

1. Timothy Olyphant looks really good in khaki. Really good. Really good. Even the costume department agreed with me to the point where they did not let him wear anything but the khaki for pretty much the entire film. The costume department over at The Crazies clearly know a good thing when they see one.

2. Timothy Olyphant should play small-town sheriffs all the time. There's something so wonderfully natural about the way he takes on the roles of charismatic, dark and tortured men of the Law. This is to the point where his presence alone can make watching a bad movie a riveting experience, simply through the power of a look, or a gesture, or a walk, and The Crazies is no exception. This man is Can't-Take Your-Eyes-Off-Him-able.

3. Timothy Olyphant going around committing righteous murder and shooting stuff? Is never not hot. Never.

4. My existence is empty and meaningless because Timothy Olyphant is not my man and will never come running to save me from :
a. The government
b. The Zombie-But-Not-Really-Zombie Apocalypse
c. Vengeful knife-wielding widows
d. assorted crazy people

Damn my life.
Does someone have the technology to paste my head over Radha Mitchell's? Perhaps with this thing they call Photoshop? It'll look so much better, I tell you.

5. Timothy Olyphant making Sheriff-y phone calls? Hot.

6. Timothy Olyphant getting stabbed in the hand? Hot.

7. Timothy Olyphant saying "Fuck"? Very hot.

8. Timothy Olyphant drinking coffee? Hot.

9. Timothy Olyphant having an Emo Sheriff session on his own front porch while doing manly things like sawing wood and being emotionally distant? Hot.

10. Timothy Olyphant almost getting his testicles incinerated by a runaway bone saw? Hot.

11. "Do you want to give up? If you want to sit here and die, tell me, and I will sit here and die with you". So much potential for cheese in that line, but delievered by Timothy Olyphant it carries an emotional core and several different levels of heartbreakingness. And yes, beyond hot.

Seriously though, The Crazies is one of those rare B-grade horror movies that is actually good.I'd even go so far as to say it probably deserves to be watched just for trying so hard and so sincerely. It has a decent enough plot, some genuine scares, characters you care about, no one goes around doing the stupid things people usually do in horror films (going off alone to investigate a strange sound in a dark room, screaming a lot, walking around in underwear), it has intelligence, solid acting, pretty cinematography, and there is a Timothy Olyphant. And why, no, this post wasn't just an excuse to post pictures of the man. As if.
All in all, a very decent horror flick. If I were to make just one improvement on it...

There we go. Sheriff needs more Stetson.

In other news, I am back at campus for a brand new semester, and back to surviving on the Internet, pop tarts and instant soup sachets. The upside however, is that I did spectacularly well on last semester's finals and somehow made my way on the Dean's list, so there's plenty of academic motivation going on now. The Dean's list, you guys! And a belated Happy New Year, peasants!

My Favourite Albums Of 2010, Or The Post In Which I Profess Undying Adoration For A Strange Swedish Man

2010-12-27T17:26:00.017+08:00

At around three in the morning yesterday, I realized that this year, my list of albums of the year would have a ranking system for the first time. This ranking system being :

Number One : Everything Kristian Matsson released in 2010.
After That : Everything released in 2010 by people not named Kristian Matsson which I actually bothered listening to and grew to like.

Let us then begin. This will be a long one.

BAP's Absolute Total Utterly Favouritest Album (And EP) Of 2010

The Wild Hunt + Sometimes The Blues Is Just A Passing Bird (EP) by The Tallest Man On Earth

The Wild Hunt was released way back in April, which means I had just about 9 months to evaluate and re-evaluate exactly how good it was and how much I still liked it after each listen. After all, the 10 tracks consisted of nothing more than a man, a guitar and some words. There was no reverb, no string section, no handclaps or harmonies, no strange electronic bloops, not even any percussion. How much would there be left to hold anyone's attention after a couple of spins? I had been a MASSIVE fan of Matsson's debut album, which operated on essentially the same formula of boy-and-his-guitar, but I had doubts about him pulling off the same old thing a second time around. And how wrong I was.

So I listened to The Wild Hunt, and I adored it from the get-go. Then I went off to chase after some newer, shinier albums, even dipped my toes in some dubstep (which I could never understand, and I still don't) but I always came back to The Wild Hunt, and every single time I listened to it all the way through, my mad love for it only grew stronger. Quite frankly I think I have every note, chord, word, background-foot-tapping-noise and each intake of breath seared into the memory of my soul. What Kristian Matsson does is ridiculously simple and elegant, and there are dozens of dudes out there doing pretty much the same thing. What sets him apart, to me, is the fact he practically bleeds emotion in every word he sings. Each track is more than a 3-minute folk ballad (or as some would call it, a Bob Dylan Impersonation), it's him spilling his guts out in front of you with no reservations. This album simply cannot be background music ; it's too raw, too jubilant and too heartbreaking. It demands too much of your attention. It's gorgeous and I can never seem to find the words to tell people exactly how beautiful I find his music to be and how much I love the man (and his mother).

And then the wonderful bastard released a digital 5 track EP out of nowhere, without so much as a word of warning, and my entire year was pretty much made. Sometimes The Blues Is Just A Passing Bird is a sort of extension to the LP, but with electric guitar this time, and not so much unrestrained howling. Naturally, I understand that his music is not going to appeal to everyone. There is the matter of his aesthetically unpleasing vocals, for one thing. His voice is really terrifically ugly, and even I was initially put off by it. Also, just a voice and acoustic guitar for 97% of an entire album may just put some folks to sleep. All this, I get. But just admit that this guy is fabulous and truly amazing at what he does, and that he is the greatest songwriter to ever songwrite. Dispute any of this and I will be more than happy to take you out to the parking lot and we can have a real discussion about it.

Now on to the rest of it.

BAP's Other Favourite Albums Of 2010 Made By Lesser Mortals Who Are Not Kristian Matsson

Glasser - Ring
A wonderful 9-track collection of tribal drums, chanting, heavenly vocals, synths, and strange bloopy electronic sounds. I only heard of its existence a couple of weeks ago, and within that time, LA native Cameron Mesilow and her gorgeous sound-making completely took over my auditory space and cemented her spot in this here list. And also that spot in my soul.

Basia Bulat - Heart Of My Own
I've always been a sucker for that voice. Accentuate that voice with strings and banjo and autoharp and bells and harmonies to die for and I am sold. This album also makes for surprisingly good house-cleaning music.

.
Young The Giant - Young The Giant
Orange County hipsters who make the catchiest, freshest pop rock I've heard in a long long time. Also they're all kind of hot, but that is only a secondary observation. The entire album evokes the sensation of drinking the coldest, nicest, bestest, freshest glass of fruit juice ever, which probably means something like, hey you guys, this band is not only fun but also nutritious! All 12 tracks are available for streaming over here, so you know what to do.

A Bunch Of Awesome People (Who Are All Not Kristian Matsson) - Twilight : Eclipse Soundtrack
I won't lie ; I actually really look forward to the release of every new Twilight movie because the soundtrack albums are just so good. And this is quite possibly the best collection so far, featuring original tracks contributed by the likes of The Black Keys, Vampire Weekend, Beck (Beck. BECK. Beck) and my babies, Fanfarlo. Works best if you listen to it while pretending it's just a really fantabulous mixed CD a friend gave you.

Mountain Man - Meet The Harbor
Another late discovery, and another gorgeous one. Gentle folksy acoustic guitar and spectacular three-part female harmonies, and lyrics full of rustic nature imagery. Perfect for sleepless nights or periods of self-imposed solitude.

Jonsi - Go
The Sigur ros frontman's foray into solo careerdom is a fabulous mess of strings and glockenspiel and flutes and ukulele and harps and pure joyfulness. It is essentially the kind of thing Sigur ros would make, but this is less epic, more open, more childlike in its expression. And it just makes you happy everytime you listen to it. And sometimes just the happy is enough.

The National - High Violet

Amen.

Frightened Rabbit - The Winter Of Mixed Drinks
One of the prettiest things I have ever heard in my still-young life, and for once I am not just talking about that sexified Scottish brogue. It is full of handclaps and footstomps and anthemic choruses, and while the subject matter is not always sunshine and smiles (I mean, they're from Scotland, what the hell were you expecting?) this album somehow manages to leave you all warm and fuzzy and swelled up with emotion. The minute I heard the first few chords of the opening track I was already hankering for the release of a third album, which is very greedy of me, but that's just how good these guys are.

Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can
Laura Marling was one of those people I sort of vaguely knew I should be listening to but never really bothered putting in effort to seek out her music. Then one day I decided to try out one song, just one, and see how I liked it. I started off all "Yeah okay this is nice" and by the time the song ended I was all "Holy shit I need this in my life all the time". Her songwriting is elegant and wise beyond her years, considering that she is only about as old as I am. May this woman live long and folk forever.

Meursault - All Creatures Will Make Merry
One description I read of this band's sound was "electrofolk", or "folktronica" or something, "combining banjo with sampled beats" and my initial reaction was pretty much "What? Eww". But they were from Scotland, and that was enough to persuade me to try them out. I listened to Another, and then I listened to it about 17 more times and cried for an hour. It didn't help that I was feeling majorly homesick at the time. This is a gorgeous, haunting album, and so organic that the synths and beats and bleeps and things don't even sound the tiniest bit out of place among the banjo and ukulele and wonderful echoey vocals.

Episode #26.3: Meursault - "Another" from Off The Beaten Tracks on Vimeo.

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
This was my most anticipated release of 2010, and the first time I heard it, I sort of hated the whole thing. I was disappointed beyond words. I sat around all deflated, wondering how the Arcade Fire, the Arcade Fire, could have let me down so. It wasn't epic enough, it wasn't huge enough, it wasn't them enough. I was this close to losing faith in Canada, the faith that even Justin Bieber failed to shake. But slowly, and I mean very slowly, track by track, week by crawling week, The Suburbs started to grow on me. It may not be the huge apocalyptic proportions of sound possessed by Arcade Fire past, but it is one hell of a record. I love The Suburbs, I love Arcade Fire, I still love Canada, and everybody's happy.

Pepper Rabbit - Beauregard
Pepper Rabbit are a strange, adorable little duo. The vocals and use of synths and odd costumes evoke a very strong resemblance to MGMT for me, but Pepper Rabbit leans very much towards the folkier side of things ; ukulele and banjo and horns and the kind of harmonies that just tug at your heartstrings till they come off and then re-attach them. Older Brother may just be my favourite song of 2010, even.

Wild Nothing - Gemini
Fuzzy hazy songs about love and summer, with synths and gorgeous guitars and elusive lyrics. It's like someone took all the prettiest things about the 80s and put it in a blender of musical awesomeness. Some of the songs to tend to sound a bit the same and run into each other, but it is all lovely stuff nevertheless.

The Head And The Heart - The Head And The Heart
Warm, lush, introspective poppy Americana with terrific sing along choruses and it all feels rather like getting a really big tight hug from someone who smells nice and reminds you of everyone you love. This record just jumped right up and sat down in a nice comfortable chair in my heart and refused to leave, and I can't say that I mind.

There you have it, all the albums that made me happy in 2010. Hope you guys find something new to discover and fall madly in love with, and do let me know of any good music that I missed out on while I was too busy worshipping Kristian Matsson.

I Come Bearing A Festive Celebration Of Male Hotnesses.

2010-12-24T12:16:00.026+08:00

It's Christmas Eve, and I am in a good mood, which is odd because I never really cared much for the season of giving (apart from the food, food is good). So I thought what better way to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Saviour and Santa Claus than a lovingly made list of all the remarkably delicious men who made 2010 that much easier on the eye (and other parts). I make this sort of post fairly regularly, but I wasn't intending to do one this year until I was thoroughly inspired by Beckeye's fabulous post of very pretty men. So here they are then, the assorted males who all hotted up the year for the BAP.

(in no particular order, because when there are dudes this hot walking the Earth, we are all winners. Or some shit like that.)

1. Ian Somerhalder

Yeah so I watch The Vampire Diaries. Judge away. But keep sneering at my apparent poor taste and you will continue to miss out on the pure tingly joy of gazing into the Somerhalder's insanely blue eyes for 42 minutes every week. His portrayal of the antiheroic bloodsucker Damon Salvatore is a revelation - one of those cases of he-was-born-to-play-this-role. He plays his character with the just the right mix of snark, seductiveness and unpredictability, all laced with traces of drama queen, sociopath and tragic lover, to make the guy quite possibly one of the best fictional vampires ever (or at least one of my personal favourites) and without a doubt the single best thing about the show itself. Also, when Damon Salvatore broods, which happens at least once per episode, he tends to get drunk and then lose his shirt. I naturally approve.

2. Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Ignore that blonde thing clinging on to my man. He is clearly not impressed by her, anyway.
He of the triple-barrelled name. First it was as the lovesick greeting card writer in (500) Days Of Summer, and then as the snappily-dressed dream invader dude in Inception. Tom Hardy seems to get more fangirl attention (and I can see why, those lips of his are the sex) but precious little JGL, as I affectionately refer to him, as grown on me slowly and steadily all year. His interviews reveal him to be wonderfully dorky, spectacularly articulate, and a very accomplished speaker of the French. HOT. Also it helps very much that he looks killer in a three-piece suit. Mmmmm three-piece suits.

3. Chris Pine

Oh new Star Trek. How I do adore new Star Trek for bringing Chris Pine to me. He's quite possibly the most conventionally attractive of all the dudes on my list ; all blond and buff and American looking, which typically does not appeal to me. But the man just plain looks good and I am not one to turn Pretty away. Sure he's already balding somewhat and his choice of other roles hasn't exactly been genius, but when Star Trek II hits big screens in 2012 (which is too far way) I will be lining up for tickets like the good fangirl that I am. For Chris Pine will always be the Captain of my Lady Parts. Among other things.

You can come over and sit in my chair any time you like, Chris Pine. Any time.

4. Kristian Matsson

Musicians are a breed that is sort of sexy by default to me, but none more so than Swedish folkster Kristian Matsson, who goes under the professional moniker of The Tallest Man On Earth. His music consists of nothing more than finger picked guitar or banjo, his amazingly ugly voice, and lyrics that sound like they were written under the influence of some odd Scandinavian mountain herb. I wasn't particularly taken with his looks the first time I saw a picture of him, but the more I grew to worship his songs, the hotter he became in my eyes. The skinny bird legs, the coiffed hair, the rolled-up sleeves and even the pencil mosutache thing he has going on all became drool worthy material. I spent weeks scouring Youtube for every single video of him I could find, and marvelled at his amazing musicianmanship (is that even a word? oh god who cares) while wishing fervently that we could be married so he could sing me awake in the morning. We don't even need to have sex or anything. All he will have to do is sing at me on demand and I am a happy woman. I don't ask for much, Universe. Not much at all. Well maybe a little bit of sex won't hurt.

5. Kyle Chandler

Pictured here with his TV wife, because she too, is fabulous.
This wonderful specimen here was one of my earliest crushes ever, while on that show about the newspaper from the future, Early Edition. That show was a pile of cheesy sentimental mashed potato, but boy was I in love with Kyle Chandler. Then many years later I discovered that he was now on The Best Show Ever In The History Of TV That I Was Not Watching At The Time, Friday Night Lights. And so I was like, hey I should really watch this show. And I did. And then I was in love all over again. The role of Coach Taylor is pretty much what Kyle Chandler was put on this earth to play, and he does it perfectly. He is spectacular. He is gorgeous. He is, or at least his character is, one half of what is probably the bestest most realistic married couple on TV, and it's the kind of marriage I'd like to have one day, if things ever work out in that fashion. I am roughly halfway through season 1 of FNL, and I am glad to have four more seasons' worth of having Kyle Chandler make me cry about five times per episode and give me that funny funny feeling of wanting him to be my dad but also my husband. It's weird. Cut it out, Kyle Chandler. But stay beautiful.

6. Ben Barnes

Hair.

That's pretty much all to it, really.
To be fair, he's wonderfully British and refined and has a smile that would make the Sun unnecessary, probably. I can even forgive him for being in the Narnia movies, wearing all that leather armour shit and being regal and brandishing swords and buckling the swash, swashbucklingly. I'm looking forward to his next flick, which seems to be a nice warm Brit comedy about two brothers who almost became more famous than U2. But you know, didn't. And thankfully, he no one made him hack off his hair yet.

The hair. It's all I care about.

7. Andrew Garfield

Andrew has had a fabulous year in 2010, and I've taken a great deal of pleasure in going around telling people about how I knew he existed years ago, as if that made me more entitled to adore him, or something. But it is TRUE. Andrew Garfield stole my heart way back in late 2006, where he played Frank-who-gets-eaten-by-hybrid pigs-but-not-really-in-future-alternate universe-Manhattan in a very very bad episode of Doctor Who. I then sought out every other piece of work I could find which featured the Garfield in it, and settled down comfortably, waiting for him to get all famous. And he did. I have yet to see The Social Network or Never Let Me Go, but I have no doubt that he is fabulous and gorgeous in both. Also Andrew's hair totally pwns Robert Pattinson's. For one, it looks like Andrew actually knows what shampoo is. Just saying.

8. Matt Smith

Another Brit, and a decidedly odd-looking one at that. I had massive doubts about him taking over the helm of the new Doctor, but I was in love about 20 seconds into the first episode of the new season. I've mentioned somewhere before that his head resembles a badly baked potato, and that his nose is too big and his entire face is constructed of epic proportions of chin. He is lanky and awkward and appears to be mostly made up of elbows and ankles and wrists. All these weird parts somehow combine to create pleasing (though still slightly odd-looking) whole specimen. The rest of him matches his quirky physical appearance ; strange dorky mannerisms and a fondness for ridiculous articles of hipster-esque clothing, which is all very endearing. You try looking at him in a neon-striped sweater and perky little fez and not go "Awwww!". Also, like his fellow Brits before him in this list, Matt sports some truly shiny, traffic-stopping HAIR. It's spectacular.You could hide a fruit basket in there, or something. I don't know why you'd want to, but you could.

9. Damian Kulash

The incredibly pretty leading man of OK Go. I was never a fan of the band's music on its own, but their videos and other bits and pieces of cool and quirky Internet projects floating around definitely earned my admiration. Then one day I was watching this extremely crack-filled video of theirs, and suddenly noticed that this Damian dude has the most insanely pretty eyes. And a crush was born. And then after checking out some of OK Go's earlier works, I discovered that Damian Kulash is also blessed with one hell of a head of hair (are we all sensing a theme here?) and thus the crush was amplified. I then spent many days drowning in Kulash's dreamy musician eyes and dreamy musician hair. Can't say I like his singing voice all that much though. But he's not afraid to wear an all-blue suit in public, so props for that.

10. Timothy Olyphant

Talk to the right people, and they will probably tell you that Timothy here was arguably my most massive crush of the year. Olyphant (ha ha Olyphant) is one of those actors who made a bunch of forgettable, meh movies and you never really notice him except to note that "Hey, that random dude was pretty hot" and then when you've developed a full-blown love affair with the man and Googled everything that it is possible to Google about him, you discover that he was in a lot of movies. A lot. Oh I don't know, like Every-Bad-Movie-You-Ever-Saw levels of ubiquitousness.

Which made me glad that this year, he finally found the one role he was birthed into the Universe to play ; that of US Marshal Raylan Givens on TV's Justified (good show, by the way, if a little bit too talky sometimes). Timothy Olyphant is full of the sex and the smoking and the smouldering and the shooting bad people and the intense stares and the drawly cowboy delivery and the suits and the guns and the utter pure hotness, I tell you. He is also doing a truly terrific job of ageing, so much so that I look forward to what he'll look like when he's 80.

Timothy is also the possessor of very singular, distinctive way of carrying himself, which is a nice way of saying that the dude walks funny. It's an odd, almost feline-like gait, as though he is doing some perverted version of a catwalk but about to topple over at any moment. It should look utterly ridiculous, but Timothy is such a spectacularly fabulous man that he just adds a bit of swagger to the weirdness, and that walk becomes so hot that it just makes you want to bone him even more. Or you know, I just speak for myself here. I'm sorry, but he just needs to let me have his babies. Like, yesterday.

I'll be back eventually with the obligatory best albums list and all that. In the meantime, Jake of the Gyllenhaals wishes you all very happy Christmassing!

Which reminds me, Jacob. You and I need to have a private word about all this Taylor Swift business. It's not funny.

Things I Want For Christmas

2010-12-11T11:19:00.008+08:00

Not that I can afford any of these, or that anyone loves me enough to go get them for me, but I'm counting on the power of Positive Thinking and just putting it all out there. You know. Out there in the Universe.

1. Ben Barnes

Or failing that, just his hair will do. That is some spectacular cranial follicular growth you're sporting there, Benjamin.

2. An 'A' for my Literature finals because anything less than that and I will perish in the pile of chocolate chip-ginger cookies (which surprisingly don't taste that bad) in which I will be stuffing my face in an effort to numb the pain.

3. A copy of Sigur ros' Heima DVD, which is part good old tour documentary and part filthy indulgent Icelandic Landscape Pornography. It's pretty and expensive and ridiculously difficult to find and I want it and if I don't get it, well, back I go in the chocolate-chip-ginger cookie pile of pain-numbing.

4. A passport, so I can go see The National in Singapore next March.

The National.

The National.

The.

National.

THE NATIONAL.

As in, these incredibly sexy guys :

I don't get what's so special about Singapore anyway. It's tiny. Tiny. Look.

At least Peninsular Malaysia is shaped kind of like a mango, which is far cooler.
Also in Singapore, (and someone should let The National know about this) they don't let you do stuff like chew gum in public. Dictatorial prudes.

I'm Too Busy Crying To Think Of A Nice, Pithy Post Title.

2010-11-21T16:16:00.021+08:00

Some of my favourite things in life have happened almost always as a result of my procrastinatory self going out of my own way to look for distractions when I really should be pursuing other, far more productive and respectable efforts (like completing assignments, and such stuff). It is in this manner that I discovered my new most beloved TV show of forever, Friday Night Lights. I had been vaguely aware of its existence and of how good it supposedly was, and Star World always played it on Friday nights (ha ha, naturally) when I was out having Literature classes. But a week or so ago, I decided to give the pilot episode a shot, even though the show's subject matter (a high school football team in a small Texas town) was nowhere near anything I considered riveting television.
Let's just say I was hopelessly in love within 20 seconds of the pilot.

Why Friday Night Lights Made Me Fall In Love With It. Shamelessly. And Why It Also Makes Me Cry A Lot.

1. It made me give a shit about football. Football which is not soccer.

I was almost dreading the idea of having a football game be the epic closing chapter of every episode, the format being that each episode goes through an entire school week before finally capping off with the big game on Friday night. But by the time that game rolled around I had become so completely invested in the characters that winning the game became nearly as important to me as it was to the fictional high school kids on my screen. I didn't understand what was going on half the time - the extent of my knowledge of American football is that the quarterback is always the hot one who yells a lot. But watching the games on this show gets me all worked up and sweaty-palmed and nail-bitey. You start caring about these games, games played by teams that don't even exist, really. And that is no mean feat.

2. Best. Soundtrack. Ever.

Bright Eyes, Calexico, The Avett Brothers, The Black Keys, Whiskeytown, Wilco and Explosions In The Sky, just to name the ones I've already heard so far. The music directors or whoever those people are also have the cruel, wonderful ability to pick and choose and place these songs perfectly within a scene or montage to deliver the right amount of heartrending gutwrenching EMOTION. Watching FNL has turned out to be an incredibly emotionally exhausting venture. They seem absolutely hung up on this mission to make people cry at least 3 times per episode. If they keep up with this unrelenting spirit of causing soundtrack-induced misery, I will be an utter weeping mess by the time I get round to the finale.

3. It's pretty.

And by pretty, for once I'm talking about more than just the people in it. The entire show just looks glorious, from the wide shots of the Texan landscape to the stadium lights going on at sunset to the dilapidated houses on the outskirts of town to the crowds at game day sporting team colours. Even the title card is pretty. It's enough to make grown men weep, when they aren't already sniffling at the football and the camaraderie and all that manly stuff.

There are also other versions of pretty. Like, boy pretty. Giggle.

4. Kyle Chandler as Coach Taylor

I had a massive pre-teen crush on him while he was on that show Early Edition (newspaper from the future, psychic cat, something like that) and he is one of the biggest reasons why I fell in FNL love. He is perfect for this role, the often cranky hard-assed head coach who doesn't talk much but yells a lot and has a sincere determination to make sure every player under his charge reaches his full potential, not just in football, but y'know, in The Journey of Life. It sounds threateningly cheesy and Hallmarkian but it never ever veers into that direction. It just makes you weep and then you get all muddled up about how you so very much want Coach Taylor as your boyfriend but also as your Dad and it's very confusing and wrong somehow. It doesn't change the fact that Coach is one hell of a magnificent character, and I love him to utter pieces.

5. Kyle Chandler's Hair.

I'm not even kidding. His hair does as much acting as he does. His hair totally emotes. His hair deserves its own Emmy. During games it's all frazzled up and "Do not mess with me right now, I am coaching, motherfuckers" and then when Coach is just chilling out his hair is all like "I am chilling, you guys" and when he's dealing with a major athletic crisis his hair is all flat and calm and "Don't worry, I got this". In addition, when he is around people he doesn't like or trust, and is repressing his true emotions his hair is all "I cannot deal with this" and hides under his Coach's Cap. I notice these things.

And when he's feeling really bad ass, he breaks out the manly sunglasses.

Right there his hair is all "I am awesome and also will not be taking any bullshit today, kthanxbai".

6. Realisticism.

Yeah I just made that word up. I was feeling adventurous. And yes, FNL is incredibly, beautifully, and often painfully realistic. And not just in that We-Use-The-Shaky-Handheld-Camera-Style-Of-Indie which means we are totally authentic and artistic, you guys. The show just feels real, from the places to the people to the conversations, so much so that sometimes you stop and catch yourself feeling guilty for intruding on someone's private moments. The teenagers talk like real teenagers would ; awkward and sometimes stuttery and over-enunciating stuff and using words they think make them sound cooler and having conversations about adult things that just betray how ridiculously young they are. The kids are attractive, but not in a Gossip Girl way - they look like people who might wake up in the morning now and then with a pool of drool on the pillow or something. For every dysfunctional relationship plagued with Daddy Issues and resentment, there is a wonderfully functional, not-perfect-but-real relationship to balance it off. The bedrooms look like people actually sleep in them. It's all gorgeous.

7. Matt Saracen

If there's one thing on this show I love even more than Coach and his hair, it's this guy. A shy, sweet, sensitive, stuttering sophomore and second-string quarterback (or a QB2 - you learn so much from TV, I tell you) who is thrust into the spotlight and the starting quarterback position due to unforeseen circumstances, and now he has to prove himself in addition to looking after a sick grandmother, working an after school job, maintaining his grades and keeping house (absent mother, father in Iraq). You want to weep for all the shitty things he has to deal with and also for the quiet courage with which he deals with it all, simply because it's his responsibility because there is no one else there to pick up the slack. His stuttering charm and painful sincerity and utter adoration for his grandmother all make for some of the most tear jerking scenes of all, and sometimes you just want to tell him to stop being so strong all the time and come home and let you put him on your lap and feed him cupcakes.
Seriously. Cupcakes. That's all I want to do to him. Honest.

8. Matt Saracen and Julie Taylor

The preciousest, awkwardest couple on TV. They are both so utterly sweet they will send you into diabetic shock long before they even go on their first date. If they break up at any point during the next 5 seasons I will give up on Love. Forever.

9. "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose".

It's the team motto, and sort of FNL's version of "Live long and prosper". It usually comes at the end of one of Coach's inspirational game speeches, and by that time you're already choked up beyond belief, so when Coach goes all Texan drawly "Clear eyes full hearts.." and the team yells "can't lose" back at him, it's just the official cue for the waterworks to start.

10. It's not just about football.

Football has a lot to do with it, but it's mostly about the human condition. Nah okay that sounds a bit too pretentious. But at it's heart FNL really is just about people in a small community who all either hold on to football and the rituals that come with it because it's all they know how to do, or because it's the closest thing they know to religion or love or family, or because it's their ticket to a better life, or because their ability to carry a ball over a line makes them a god (in this town at least) and gets them laid. It's a wonderful, sincere, real, painful story about people, and after all the aliens and demons and alternate timelines and Apocalypses it's nice just to sit down and root for a drunk high school delinquent trying to throw a touchdown and be a hero for one night. Also, hot, tortured boys with daddy issues. I counted four of them so far. Yum.

In conclusification :

This is a really really really really really good show that everyone should be watching, and I'm living proof that you don't even need to like football or know anything about it to be able to enjoy FNL for what it is. Remember to bring the tissues and maybe watch something funny afterwards, to cleanse all the emotional turmoil. All that crying cannot possibly be healthy.

I Want To Be Totally Platonic Friends With Damian Kulash. Really.

2010-11-10T19:13:00.007+08:00

I bet you've all been waiting with bated breath for my next blog post, so here I am to put you all out of your misery (and also because I sort of promised Su-Ann an update).

I have unofficially survived my first semester at university ; unofficial because I still have finals after this two week holiday/study break thing. I think I mostly have the hang of this tertiary education nonsense. I have learned many things over the last four months. Here are just some of them:

1. I am capable of writing a 2000-word research paper the night before it's due and still get an A on it. I do not plan on procrastinating to that level on a regular basis, but it's nice to know what your academic limits are.

2. Monkeys can open peanut butter jars and instant noodle packs, among other things. So I learned not to leave my food near the windows.

3. I can get through a week on next to no sleep and still be semi-functional.

4. People in residential colleges are apparently desperate enough to steal your toothpaste. I learned not to leave my toiletries bag lying around unattended. Also, people in residential colleges make weird noises after dark. I have learned to not be freaked out by these noises.

5. Hyperbole is pronounced "hyperbolee" and not "hyperbowl". Oh the shame of me.

There will be plenty more similar life lessons to learn once second semester kicks off in January, and while I'm not trembling with excitement at the thought of going back, I'm not exactly dreading it either. If nothing else, I like the fact that university encouraged you to think for yourself and read things up and have an opinion (even an erroneous one) and stretch your brain beyond the Malaysian education system-induced complacency of your secondary school years where your teachers spoon fed you every day and it was okay if you didn't have an opinion or a personal take on anything because what you thought as an individual didn't matter when it came to answering exam questions anyway, because it was just a matter of memorize-and-regurgitate-the-textbook and if you were good at doing that, you get As all across the board, and well hey aren't you a great student?
Whatever, secondary school education system. Whatever.

So I watched Life As We Know It with Sue Fyenn over the weekend (yes, there is no continuity in this post, but what of it?) and it was really quite horrible and I was pretty mad that I spent 14 bucks on a ticket, but the baby was adorable and Josh Duhamel has a spectacular ass.

You can't really tell from this shot, but trust me. Amazing backside.

This video gave me much happiness today.

I then promptly developed a crush on OK Go's front man Damian Kulash and his pretty eyes and his articulatenessity and his passion for not-Facebooking and net neutrality and whatnot. Nerdy musicians championing nerdy causes are so hot.

Let's be totally platonic friends and go shopping for more of those ugly scarves, darling.

How I Spent My 20th Birthday. And Other Stories.

2010-10-25T20:14:00.019+08:00

So yeah. I have turned 20. I am officially no longer a teenager and therefore cannot do silly shit and then blame it on hormones and get away with it. Just kidding ; I'll keep doing silly shit and then blame it all on hormones until I'm 70 or something. But I suppose I will have to grow up some too. I'm practically this much closer to rent and mortgages and taxes and grocery shopping and bill-paying and dying and all those tedious things.

This was also the first time I spent my birthday away from home, which made my mother rather emo over the weekend, which was good in a way because she gorged me with all my favourite food and then sent me packing off to campus with the contents of what looked like a small pharmacy because I had coughed a little that morning. I love mothers.

I spent the two hours leading up to my birthday reading frivolous ONTD posts and then listening to The National's Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers in the dark, which made me incredibly miserable, but in a nice and comforting sort of way (I'm not even sure how that works - Matt Berninger's voice is made of magicness).

And this morning, for our Gender, Culture and Society class, we were made to watch a film (heck yes) which I had never heard of before ; The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of The Desert. A roadtrip-type movie about a trio of drag queens travelling across the Australian outback in a giant purple bus to perform in a hotel in the middle of the desert.

And Hugo Weaving is in it.
And Guy Pearce is in it.
And I was all, holy crap, dude from Momento is in this and he is way more ripped here than he was in Momento woaaaah what up.

Thank you, Guy Pearce, for being so ripped and for insisting on flouncing around for most of the movie with no shirt on. Also that one scene where he dresses up as a rather fetching woman and goes to the video store and goes all "Do you have The Texas Chainsaw Mascara?". Too amazing.

In all seriousness though, I'd recommend watching it, even if only for the wonderfully filthy wit and the fact that it's not a film intent on preaching. It's not all, hey look at these transsexuals who are all misunderstood and treated badly isn't it so bloody sad let's feel sorry for them and hence feel better about ourselves. It's more about these three people who are trying to carry on and live as honestly and freely as possible in the face of all the shit being thrown at them and they're all sort of wonderful and I fell in love with each and every one of them by the end.

Also, there's an ABBA routine at the end. How can you say no now?

After lunch, I sat down with a friend and watched some Chris Pine interviews on YouTube and acted all giggly for a while and lamented at how long it was taking for Star Trek 2 to come out and how we'll all have graduated by then and how Malaysia was planning to elect a Space Ambassador to welcome the aliens to our country and stuff (I don't even know, it's ridiculous okay?) and how our Space Ambassador should be Chris Pine because he is so hot even though he is very American.

And then I went back to my room and had cereal for dinner and showered.

In short, as far as birthdays go, I've had better. All I can do now is think about how very extremely tired I am and how I seem to have this urge to cry for no apparent reason. I am now going to attempt to cheer myself up by posting a picture of Chris Pine.

Hey there Chris Pine, remember me? Dude, really, stop being all smouldering and shit for a while, kay? Remember me? My offer to be your babymama still stands, you know. I can't imagine you have anything better to do between now and when your next Trek Across The Stars comes out, Chris Pine. And if you're uncomfortable about how young I am, Chris Pine,chill. I am totally one year more legal than I was the last time I offered myself to you, so don't worry about it. Call me, you magnificent asshole. It's my birthday.

Zombie Apocalypse Battle Theme Song, You Guys.

2010-10-08T15:24:00.008+08:00

One of the awesomer memes I have come across in a while.

1. Put your media player of choice on shuffle mode.
2. The third song that plays is your Zombie Apocalypse Battle Theme Song.

Um. Okay.

What be your Zombie Apocalypse Battle Theme Song, peasants?

Also this picture kind of made my day:

I am way too easily amused.

"I Have Something. It's Like A Plan, But With More Greatness."

2010-09-23T22:22:00.003+08:00

Doctor Who first intrigued me with its premise of a 900 year old time travelling alien known only as The Doctor, with a police phone box for a spaceship and a penchant for pretty young English girls as companions, and I was all like "What hahahaha this sounds ridonkulous, I must witness it for myself" and then half an episode later I was hooked. It doesn't always make sense, plot holes are a-plenty, and it is sometimes the biggest ball of campy cheese to ever inhabit my TV viewing slot. But there's something that keeps me sticking to it like a sticky thing that sticks. Maybe it's the British accents. Or the pretty people. Or both.

In any case, I found myself having lost interest in David Tennant's final season as the Tenth Doctor, and barely paid any attention to his replacement, Matt Smith. This was until I went through the Internets last week and found huuuge amounts of hate for the guy's portrayal of the Eleventh Doctor. So I decided to start watching the new season in order to make up my own mind. And then I got hooked again and I can't seem to be unhooked.

Why Matt Smith Is Awesomesauce As The Eleventh Doctor

1. Hair

No, really. Look at it. Look at the hair. It's huge and shiny and ridiculous and I bet it smells of something lovely, like apricots. Yeah. Apricots.

2. 1950s Physics professor chic.

The costume is actually a nice touch, keeping in mind that the character is supposed to be an impossibly old man in a youthful body. There's the tweed jacket and grandfathery suspenders and the bowtie, and there's sort of an essence of Doctory-ness, something of the air of an old batty professorial type that simply feels right for the first time. And I never expected to see this with Matt Smith, considering the fact that the first time I ever saw him in an interview he was wearing a plaid shirt under a striped sweater, and the initial reaction was pretty much "DIE, PRETTY ENGLISH HIPSTER BOY".

3. Hair.

Dear god, the hair. It's ridiculous. It's so ridiculous it's amazing.

4. He's the Doctoriest of all Doctors I've known (excluding the Classic Who episodes, which I never got round to watching).

Christopher Eccleston's Doctor was gruff and angry and bad ass. Tennant's was manic and touchy-feely and temperamental and a huge drama queen. And I still love them both, but Matt Smith seems to operate on a completely different wavelength, and I mean that in a good way. He's everything the Doctor should rightly be ; manic and insane and funny and passionate and so undoubtedly an alien. And it helps that he is also incredibly ridiculously natural. He seems to exude the very essence of Doctorosity from his bones. He bounces and bobs and yells and pokes stuff and eats fish custard and talks to himself and walks into trees. His quirkiness never seems forced or put on, and you sometimes have to remind yourself that he's acting. Uh huh. That good.

5. Hair.

6. He's so good it's enough to make you forgive the Flying Eyeball From Space and the Venetian Fish People.

Really. Let's not get into details, but Matt is charismatic and compelling and adorable enough to have me sit through some of the dumber episodes and not feel annoyed in the slightest.

7. HAIR.

8. Mad chemistry.

Matt Smith has chemistry with everything. With children, with animals, with his comely young assistant Amy Pond, with Flying Eyeball Aliens From Space, with priests and librarians and Prime Ministers and laptops and trees and bacon and Roman centurions and Van Gogh. The chemistry, it is good.

I also like the fact that for once, the Doctor's relationship with his assistant isn't based on romantic attraction or unrequited love like it has been for most of the new series. The Doctor and Amy Pond reads more like a strange dark fairytale, with Amy as Princess and the Doctor as the archetypal Wise Old Wizard. Their relationship goes all the way back to Amy's lonely tortured childhood, and it's far more parent-daughter than anything else. And you cannot imagine how much I dig this new dynamic.

9. The Drunken Giraffe.

This move should be included in all wedding receptions. All. And preferably, everyone should be drunk, or perhaps on cake-induced sugar high. And did I mention how much I love this Doctor's interactions with children? Enough to give you the warm fuzzies for years.

10. His head may be shaped a little like a badly-baked potato or something, but hot damn. He's strangely attractive even despite that.

And yes, there's already an episode with him in nothing but a towel. The BBC, it reads my soul.

I love David Tennant, being that he was my first Doctor and all, but I do have the fickle habit of adoring each new Doctor more than the last. In any case, I think Matt is doing a terrific job, and I look forward to the next few years of his reign, and I hope he keeps awesoming all over the place.

In conclusification :

HAIR.

I Need More Gigs In My Life

2010-09-22T16:01:00.002+08:00

So The Album Leaf's Malaysian gig wasn't that great (Grace, if you're reading this, you didn't miss out on anything too epic) . It wasn't half bad, but it wasn't that great. As Sue Fyenn pointed out on the drive back home, that sense of post-gig euphoria was completely missing ; that urge to run to your computer and play the band's albums over and over again, trying to relive every note and nuance of the live experience.

The lights were terribly pretty, but there was very little crowd interaction save for some mumbled thank yous and a little bit of banter while waiting for a drum sample glitch to be sorted out. However, drummer Tim Reece was the single most epic creature of epicness I've ever witnessed. The guy was playing over ridiculously complicated drum samples most of the time and he never. Missed. A. Beat. I could barely take my eyes off him, and I don't mean that in a perverted way at all. You win at life, Tim Reece. You win at life. Violinist Matthew Resovich was a mad musical beast armed with loop pedals up to his knees, and sounded absolutely gorgeous. The bearded mastermind Jimmy LaValle chose to station himself at the far end of the stage, meaning I had to crane my neck a little to see him, and everytime I did my brain sort of went "Woah Jesus is playing keyboards in front of me".
Because, you know. The guy looks like a very hip Cherry Cola-swigging Jesus.

See? (Cherry Cola not pictured).

The band was even nice enough to set up an autograph session after the gig, but we were a little too exhausted and bummed out to stay. It was perhaps a case of overly high expectations but we certainly weren't as blown away as we had expected to be. In any case their (or should i say his?) new album A Chorus Of Storytellers is about 50-ish minutes of very pretty electronic noise which is polite enough not to distract you from doing important things like assignments, so do give it a try.

But where The Album Leaf disappointed, the Scandinavians once again proved the true value of their Awesome. I went to bed on Tuesday night feeling rather meh and woke up on Wednesday to find that one of my most favouritest people on the planet had released a 5-track EP without so much as a word of warning.

I love surprise musics, and this itty bitty collection of 5 songs is just what I need to keep me content until Mr. Matsson releases his next album. Which should ideally happen tomorrow.
Do yourselves a favour, peasants, and let this wonderful wonderful man -scraggly beard and all- into your lives.

Oh Kristian, our babies are going to be so awesome and Swedish. We'll go to Ikea and pick out furniture names for them and then sit around drinking green tea and then you can sing the telephone directory at me.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go write a 1500 word essay on why Lenin was actually a pretty swell dude.

I'll Defend My Family With My Orange Umbrella

2010-08-15T22:09:00.010+08:00

This is really something I should have done a couple of months ago, but all this university nonsense has ensured that important stuff like sleep, a social life and music have been required to take a backseat in my life, and unfortunately I haven't been able to dig into as many new albums as I would have liked to. Here, in any case, are the handful that have managed to make an impression on me within the first 5 months of the year or so.

Favourite Albums Of 2010 So Far

1. The Wild Hunt - The Tallest Man On Earth
Kristian Matsson, the most amazingest songwriter to ever songwrite continues to be utterly awesomesauce while relying on nothing but fingerpicked acoustic guitar and a shockingly ugly voice. This is all the usual folksy troubadour stuff about travelling and dusty roads and being swallowed up by rivers and hearing ghosts in trees and rolling away to hell ; stuff that you think you've heard a million times before. But in this dude's hands everything sounds new and magnetic and haunting and born-yesterday-fresh. I cannot say enough wonderful things about this guy and his music. Get this record, you guys. Just get this record.

Warning for shaky video but I had to choose this one because he breaks out into a random Sade cover towards the end and things like that must be shared.

And just for the record, Matsson is only about five foot nine. His moniker is perhaps a slight exaggeration. Also just for the record, he needs to let me have his babies.

2.Go - Jonsi

Sigur ros frontman Jonsi Birgissson (or at least I think that's how you spell it) breaks out on his own to create the happiest bounciest colourfullest album I've heard all year and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong because I can never have enough happy bouncy colourful albums. Most songs are in English this time but it hardly matters cause it still sounds gibberish anyway. Gorgeous gibberish, backed by flutes and tribal drums and strings upon strings upon strings. If this record doesn't make you smile at least once then you are pretty much dead in your soul. DEAD. In the SOUL.

3. The Winter Of Mixed Drinks - Frightened Rabbit

Nobody does the tortured emo thing quite as well as the Scots do, and you can count on Frightened Rabbit to howl and yell all about life's miseries and the fuckery that is love accompanied by pounding drums and lush guitars and handclaps. You heard me. Handclaps. Atmospheric and pretty and utterly delicious, despite the very depressing subject matter.

4. High Violet - The National

Hell. Yes.

5 Eclipse Soundtrack - Various Artists

I would be a lying liar who lies if I ever claimed that this wasn't a really really good collection of very sexy music, totally out of the movie's league. Where else would you find Beck and Bat For Lashes together, dammit? Plus Sia and Band Of Horses and Fanfarlo and The Dead Weather and I'm practically salivating just thinking about it.

6. The Golden Archipelago - Shearwater
Shearwater has always been one of those bands I always knew I should probably try and like but have never been able to muster up more than a passing "Meh" or maybe "That's not such a bad song heyyyyyyyy look over there at the Kristian Matsson!". This year however, they won me heart and soul with the track Castaways ; all dramatic and soaring and pounding and melodious and utterly unintelligible (but in the best way possible). The rest of the album is not nearly as accessible and I've lost count of the number of times I've given up on it simply because I couldn't tell when one song ended and the next began. This is a gorgeous record which demands a lot more patience and commitment than I'm usually willing to give but the rewards have been worth the frustration.