Curios of the improbable. Truth Stranger Than Fiction, Dark Fairytales, Fiction, SciFi, Fantasy, Speculative Architecture, the Writing Life and anything else that strikes my fancy.
Perhaps you should operate as a Madame for an extra source of income? Once the Mayor and Sheriff become clients one needs nothing more to be a successful pleasure merchant. The Idahoans are always looking to get their rocks off. You're close enough to pop over to Oregon for...discretionary health supplies, as needed.
Right, well, in the meantime please enjoy two of my favorite popular resistance song that seductively slide under the radar of the people they were insulting.
I've been playing this a lot lately.
and
Malva was the original songwriter, the song became more popularized when Pete Seeger recorded it, because of course it did. (No relation, would've be cool though even if only by marriage.)
When I write, I listen to a lot of soundtracks. Even though I know the story and visuals that the music was set to accompany I can still see and hear the music as if it were a key to unlock doors to multiple universes like the door portal dial in Howl's Moving Castle by Hayao Miyazaki.
Here are three songs that spark my imagination from three of my favorite soundtracks:
Westerworld - Water Tower
Ramin Djawadi is the composer for Westworld and Game of Thrones soundtracks.
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Battlestar Galactica - The Card Game
Bear McCreary is the composer for Battlestar Galactica, Black Sails, and Outlander soundtracks.
Bear and Ramin are my main guys, I always recognize a song done by one of them and I listen to the soundtracks listed more than any others.
Finally, the Halo video game soundtrack is great!
Halo - Halo Theme Song
Martin O'Donnell is the composer for Halo and a few other video game soundtracks.
Others that I've shared before include The Witcher vided game soundtrack and Black Sails you can find those songs under the 'Music' label.
I don't like the British way of saying the word "schedule." I can't even pronounce it that way! I honestly have no idea why I find it so grating. Some people hate the word "moist" or nails on a chalkboard, but for me, it's a British man saying "schedule." That's weird, right?
AI Bots
When I did a Microsoft Bing search the other day the ChatGPT bot (whose assistance I didn't ask for) responded with, "I'm sorry to hear that. Here's the information about..." and I thought to myself. "I don't need sympathy from a robot!"
Favorite YouTube channels - A Sampling
Lost in the Pond - Laurence is a British fellow who lives in Chicago and likes to entertain his audience with the differences and similarities between the US and UK among other observations. He does so with research making his videos both funny and insightful.
DamiLee - Dami is an Architect that explores the pop culture influence on architecture, or maybe it's the other way around? Another fascinating, fun channel where I learn a lot.
I love soundtracks especially by Bear McCreary and Ramini Djawadi. We don't have Starz and we were busy with a young child and other stuff so I'm just now discovering the soundtrack and show. The show ran from 2014-2018. Not the best show ever, but it's good! I'm crushing on the terribly naughty Captain Charles Vane and also a prostitute named Max (short for Maxine, who has a thing for softening up independent women for her own pleasure.)
Blue-Eyed Samurai on Netflix (NSFW Trailer)
Very good!
Read/ing
Coyote America: A Natural & Supernatural History By Dan Flores (Finished)
The war on coyotes in this country was and, in some ways, still is deplorable. A fascinating read.
Wheel of Life: A Memoir of Living and Dying By Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (Halfway Through)
In the very first chapter you learn that some men were so threatened by her views and research into death and dying that they burned down her fucking house! I had no idea! It wasn't so much her views really, but the fact that she had intended to adopt children with AIDs during the 1980's AIDs epidemic in an effort to give them a good life for however long they might live it.
Whiteout: A Nick Ventner Adventure By Ashton Macaulay (Finished)
I met the author at an Independent Author's night this summer at a local bookstore. It's a classic pulp style story that includes an abominable snowman and the lost city of Shangri-La. It was a fun read and I sent it off for my stepbrother to enjoy.
I've read a bunch of other stuff too, but I've got a head full of goo and those are the only ones that rose to the surface from the head cold I'm currently suffering.
This song is lyrical brilliance! "All the doughnuts have names that sound like prostitutes."
Tom Waits sings in his signature style like an old workhorse that's been smoking ten packs of cigarettes a day.
This song lyric is the first thing that comes to mind when I contemplate the question, "What's in a Name?"
I love the name Ms Scarlet and I wouldn't shorten it. I also see it as uniquely your own and nothing to do with that selfish child-woman Scarlet O'Hara from Gone with the Wind. My birth name is a bit old-fashioned for my generation that is filled with "Heathers" and "Jennifers".
My MIL knows how we feel. Being a twin, her sister got the fun, easy-going name and has had a lot of boyfriends and husbands taking her out to fine dining and shopping while my poor MIL just got the name "Beatrice." It's taken her over eighty years to scrub all documents emblazoned with this name. She went with something short and simple, but her out-sized personality makes it uniquely her own. I think perhaps we would be less quirky if we didn't have names that made us so determined to define ourselves differently. In my book, quirky is a good trait along with originality.
In the video below. All the dancers are wearing black and often dancing in sync and yet we see their originality in small details like their face, hair and moments of non-synced dancing.
I like to feel online like how this song makes me feel when I listen to it. Still part of a group, but original, nonetheless. Playful and maybe more than a bit mischievous, but not with the intent to cause any harm.
This video also reminds me of one of the funniest mistakes I've ever made. I was corresponding with a woman from the city permitting office by email and in response to a question I told her to "Just dance it off." I have no idea what I'd meant to say, but that wasn't it and autocorrect had clearly failed me. I apologized profusely and lucky for me she had a sense of humor, and all was well. 😅
In closing, "Roxy" is a good name for a fox, a donut, or a prostitute, which is preferable to being an uptight bitch. 😏
Not much to say. I went to say goodbye, drove five hours to get there on Wednesday and five hours back to get home yesterday. This afternoon she passed away. I'll be driving back on Monday. These two songs will be on frequent repeat.
The Last Unicorn Fanart By Chervelle Fryer Found on Pinterest
Look what arrived today!
I'm deep in sewing mode right now, hats, bohemian/cosplay style belts, tabbards.Tabbards, not a very sexy word but I just need the pattern to make something sexy and I don't know what else to call them. Think, long vests. Vestments? No, no, no. They kicked me out of a Catholic school when I was five. What do I know of vestements or sacrements or whatnot. (True story!)
So now I'm going to go back to sewing, but not before leaving you with some of the best earworms of the 1990s:
After three days together my mom and I would often end up fighting like cats. Camping, road trips and music were things that we bonded over though.
Sidenote: We're also a vicious pair of pool sharks. When money was tight either of us could walk into a bar or arcade hall and relieve a few men of their cash over a couple of games of pool.
Once when I was 16 my mom asked, "Where'd you get all that money?"
"Applied geometry" I said.
Neither of us has ever been good at "book math", but we can apply geometry and physics naturally in the real world.
Did you know Ann Wilson wrote the song Barracuda after some guy gave her shit about being a female rocker in a bar? She went back to her table and wrote the song on a napkin.
One of my fondest memories is heading out for a camping trip. The windows down, wind in our hair and my mom and I singing "Magic Man" at the top of our lungs.
We had this on 8-track and cassette tape:
but no,
We're not here to talk about that Ann, we're here to take a moment of remembrance for the Ann who was born in Nutbush, Tennessee and would later go on to be the amazing, talented and strong woman known to the world as Tina Turner.
We loved her and we morn her now together in spirit. Women of grit, recognize other women of grit and Tina Turner was definitely that. A woman, that despite so much hardship overcame it all to be the best of her true self. We love you, Tina Turner! Rest in peace now.
I like to go to Trader Joe's on the early side of a weekday morning to avoid other people. On one such trip many of my favorite songs were playing one after the other.
I was really intrigued as to who created the playlist. It was very tempting to go to the customer service desk to seek this person out, but I'm not single and have no wish for drama.
Still, I'm impressed that some random stranger made me horny at 10am whilst never meeting. Touché, to my musical familiar.
Last week we finished watching Giri/Haji and loved it!
It takes place in Tokyo and London, mostly in London. In fact, I would say it was kind of funny that it felt like everything happening in the London scenes was happening all in one borough. Or London really is tiny compared to my expansive American experience. Maybe there was a lot of tram taking edited out.
Wonderfully acted! I loved all the main characters.
I'm pretty sure I saw Jon lurking in the back of some of those parties that Rodney went too.
At one point they went to the English coastline to find IDV in Selkie form, but were sadly disappointed.
I don't want to give any spoilers, only to say that there were times I was concerned that the show would fall into some old tropes, specifically the "bury your gays"-trope. I can assure you this was not the case. Hopefully this is currently available to UK viewers, right now.
Trailer: Giri/Haji
We're also watching Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power on Amazon Prime. I had blissfully forgotten how frustrating it is to have to wait for a new episode to drop only once a week.
Trailer: Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power
And finally....
Song to make you cry:
I rediscovered an old song from my darker days. I read the comments on the video and see that it hits a lot of people as viscerally as it does me. Even after all these years a part inside of me screams and cries and sways when I hear it. I've been playing it a lot lately when I'm alone. I can't tell if its cathartic or just picking at old wounds.
Advisement* Don't listen if you want to stay in a good mood.
The Offspring - Gone Away
Song to make you dance:
Here's one song that never fails to get me on the dance floor and have fun!
An interlude with Mago who's been helping me with a story.
Don't get caught up in their youth and beauty, Mago, the music is the metaphor. It's been decades since I've intentionally exposed my bellybutton in public.
Timeless Burnout in Budapest - Estas Tonne & Reka Fodor
Back into the fray. Keeping time with the drums.
One of my favorite songs (Soundtracks, really) to listen too while plotting and planning strategies for anything.
My friend Takeshi once said, "You're the most Samurai person I've ever met."
It's true I come from a family once noble, strategists and killers' centuries in the making. We've always influenced the reckoning. While discussing this maternal lineage with my son he asked, "What is our family really good at though?" Without hesitation I said, "Killing." He didn't like that answer, nor do I blame him. It would have also been true to say "boatbuilding" and "saddlemaking." We're master craftsmen whatever we do. I want to write stories and influence people to make good decisions that extend beyond themselves. I hope I can be a master craftsman at this.
My family has taken enough debts in blood. While I'm anxious and apprehensive about the future, I ultimately chose my roles carefully with a level head.
Isn't there enough death and trauma in the world?
No one person is responsible for it all. We can't blame Trump or the conservative justices for all of the angst and friction in the U.S. right now. That would be giving them too much credit. They've picked at the scab of a pus-filled wound. These machinations were put into motion long ago and we all know it. On some level, we all know it to be true.
Like the timelessness of these melodies, old expressions are worn by new faces.
So a couple of weeks ago there was a military exercise between the U.S. Marines and the UK Marines and some other random countries who aren't important to this post.
While you may not follow military news perhaps you heard that the UK Marines won with an astounding lack of numbers. There are many theories how this came to be. Not least of all that the UK Marines did a damn stellar job and deserve their victory. Come, not US Marines, no need to be wet blankets about it. As kids these day say "GG", which translates to "Good Game" because apparently those extra syllables are such a waste of time. (eye roll)
I was briefly in U.S. Marine Corps a lifetime ago. [REDACTED]. I was honorably discharged. Sometimes I miss the thrill of the hunt. I was top of my platoon for hand-to-hand combat and combat swimming. Who says cats don't like water? In boot camp they called me "Recruit Ghost" or "Recruit Moon" My platoon was predominately Black and since I never tan and rarely make a noise these nicknames were appropriate.
One night out in Weapons Battalion we'd hoofed it back to the squad bay after finding nothing left in the mess hall to eat but a few peas between us. We had only one Drill Instructor with us who discovered that our top floor squad bay was locked and she didn't have the key. We were order to stay there on the steps.
Normally after evening chow time you do "hygiene." This where you all file in for the briefest of cold showers and then line up in the squad bay naked to be inspected for any injuries to be documented by a Drill Instructor. Standing in the exterior stairwell we had nothing else to do but look around, where upon we noticed a male platoon in the building across from us doing hygiene. DO NOT PISS OFF A DRILL INSTRUCTOR (DI) during hygiene!
Well, the men did it. Their DI got pissed off about something and the men had to run around, push their bunks from one side to the other, jumping jacks, pushups all while their manly bits flapped all about! We may have missed out on dinner, but we got a great show!
Finally they put everything back in order and came back to stand at attention in front of their bunks like you're supposed too. It was then that I made eye contact with a red-haired fella. Eyes widened, a red blush started on his face and ran all the way down his body as he realized he was looking into someone else's eyes, a woman's eyes among a whole bunch of women's eyes! The squad bays have no curtains. Other men in his platoon are coming to the same horrifying conclusion and there is nothing they can do but continue to stand at attention!
This is when our DI arrived with the key. "What the hell you all looking at?" She says as her eyes follow our gaze. "Shiiiiiiiiit." She shakes her head powers up to the door and tells us to get our asses inside double time. Hahaha
