12 Days of 2012 - 12 - Music to Cry or Dance By

Okay my last Loved in 2012 Music.

Reflective Songs You know... the kind they play on Parenthood.

Walk away now
And you're gonna start a war


These are not my people
I should never have come here


Also:
* Let It Be Me - Ray LaMontagne
* You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You're Gone - Miley Cyrus
* Our Hearts Are Wrong - Jessica Lea Mayfield
* Goddess of Change - Joan Armatrading

Dance Songs

Yes, all Flo Rida's videos are about bikinis. What can I say, he's from Florida. I bought his album and the whole thing is just pure FUN. (My two other top picks from the album: "Let It Roll" and "Whistle.")


Apparently I prefer the sellout version of Maroon 5. Listened to lots, including this other dancee tune: "Payphone." (But is this music video a 90s ad for Guess jeans or what?)


Nicki Minaj is still growing, but in the meantime I enjoyed "Starships" and "Pound the Alarm." Love the choreography in this number, and the Cher-worthy outfit.


That's IT. The end of all my Best of 2012-a-tude. Phew! Onto the new year at last...


___ Love Song of the Day___

"Shakin' Hands" by Sera Cahoone

Ever tried to get the attention of someone you're nutty about?

I been shakin' these hands all night
All I wanna do is just talk with you

Listen here

12 Days of 2012 - 11 - Bags and bags of style

The last of my fave art, appreciated in 2012.

SUSPENSE Not a lot here, but as usual these shows had strong characters as well as intricate plots.

Solving crimes during WWII, English coastal town. Super cute quiet sleuth, and funny sidekick chick.

Old mini-series--worth catching on Netflix if you've never seen it. About a guy passed over for promotion by his new Prime Minister, so he starts plotting against everyone between himself and the PM job. Very Richard III.

Well, y'know... it's a classic.

Can't watch anymore!! My fave French show about a bunch of crown prosecutors.

COMEDY - Had the most success with this category!
 

Guy pretends to be a psychic, helps the cops. Very funny sidekick and bromance.

 

Comedy, romance, action. What more do you want??

 

Being funny about being young and having cancer! He doesn't die at the end, if that helps. (It was based on the screenwriter's own experience.)

The Hulk did not disappoint. When he gave someone a royal smackdown near the end, I had to rewatch it a few times.

Still loving this show. I love weird characters.

 

* 

 

Witty 1930s setting! FUN.

Good re-watch. Even if Hannah is a drip.

Find some of these on youtube, they're really funny. The relationship between Katz and his son is awesome.

Full of story problems, but I loved it anyway. Especially their boss Lester (who I now picture when reading Pratchett's Patrician.)

True story about a friendship-by-letters between a New Yorker and a London bookstore. Very witty.

 

 

Always some Wodehouse.

 

 

 

 

My best *find* this year. Pratchett!!

 

 

Extremely Wodehousian writing. More than I've ever seen.

 

Mortimer had the knack for Wodehousian similes.

   

12 Days of 2012 - 10 - More great music, more more more!!

S'more songs I loved this year. Instead of trying to describe why I love them, I put the minute at which my love begins.

INTERESTING SONGS (different, odd, or lovely sound)

"Orion" - Elizaveta 0:00


"Fall Creek Boy's Choir" - Bon Iver and James Blake - 0:37


"Dheeme Dheeme" - Karisma Kapoor 0:32


"Sail" - Macy Gray - 0:32  In 2012 Macy Gray put out a great album of covers (Covered), which these two songs come from. 


"Maps" - Macy Gray - 0:03


Also:
"Same Love" - Macklemore and Lewis
"You Me and the Weather" and "Your Beauty Must Be Rubbing Off" - Hawksley Workman
"Roman Holiday" - Nicki Minaj


TOE TAPPERS

"Cry Baby" - Cee Lo Green - 0:48 Click through to the fun video, starring Erkel!


"Is Anybody Out There?" - K'naan with Nelly Furtado - 0:43


"Si tu savais" - Marie-Pierre Arthur - 0:25


"Smoke 2 Joints" - Macy Gray - 0:53 "flicka flicka flicka!"


"What the Hell I Got" - Bryan Adams - 0:00


Also "Beast of Burden" by The Stones
"Real Enough" by Doug & the Slugs
The Eaton Canyon Royal Ensemble cover of "Let's Go Crazy"

12 Days of 2012 - 9 - Thinks: Pratchett and Brené and Jerusalem oh my!

Some of the media that gave me The Thinks this year...

______

The Truth - Terry Pratchett (novel) 
Regular dude stumbles into starting the first newspaper... 

"Ah," said Mr Pin. "Right. I remember. You are concerned citizens." He knew about concerned citizens. Wherever they were, they all spoke the same private language, where 'traditional values' meant 'hang someone.'

Between this and A Monstrous Regiment, I totally *got* the fuss over Pratchett. By tackling issues like feminism or the media within the context of his made-up world, he's raises old questions in new ways--and is hella funny about it. 

 _____

The Jerusalem Chronicles - Guy Delisle (graphic novel)
Winner of the top prize in comics
Delisle's impressions of living in Jerusalem...


I took several courses on the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Delisle's book is a good primer, as well as entertaining and sometimes anger-making.

At a border crossing...

_____

I Thought It Was Just Me - Brené Brown (non-fiction book)
How shame is used to control, and how it can hold us back...

"We cannot grow when we are in shame and we can't use shame to change ourselves or others." 
 

_____

Mindsight - Daniel Siegel (non-fiction book)  

'Chaos and rigidity can be seen as the fundamental ways we experience “un-health”, in our bodies, our mental life, and our relationships.  By realizing that these states of dysfunction emerge from impaired integration, it becomes possible with mindsight to peer deeply into the workings of mind, brain, and relationships to determine where integration is impaired and then very specifically cultivate differentiation and linkage in that domain of life.'

 Psychology tapping into all the new brain science. If you've had talk therapy and/or cognitive behavioral, and you're looking for a new approach, you will definitely get some new ideas (and hope) from Siegel's approach. And it convinced me that meditation is like exercise--something everyone should do for everyday health.

 _____

Steering by Starlight - Martha Beck (non-fiction book)

"This kind of faux pas--recognizing the scene, knowing your lines, and blurting out the truth instead--is a sure sign that you're beginning to steer by starlight. There's no anger involved; the truth just slips into the space where you know the polite lie should go."

Wanna know what happened at my last job? lol  If that passage resonates with you too, then you might like Beck.

_____

I also liked...

Red Tails (movie) I really respect George Lucas for a decades-long determination to see the project through, and for hiring a black director and a black screenwriter.

Bamboozled (movie)

'...all I could think of was something the great Negro James Baldwin had written. "People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become, and they pay for it, very simply, by the lives they lead."'

Slings & Arrows (finished TV series / 3 seasons)   Dramatic Shakespeare performances in a "nutty small town!" Northern Exposure type setting. One of my fave shows of all time.

  







Modern Library Writer's Workshop - Stephen Koch

A Passion for Narrative - Jack Hodgins

Two solid books on craft, from creative writing courses. A bit different than the pop writing books.

 

        

12 Days of 2012 - 8 - Cover Songs & Gimme the beat!

A few more fave songs in 2012...

COVER SONGS

As ever, my criteria is that I got a new appreciation or understanding of the song because of the cover.

"Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" - Amy Winehouse  Perfection. Love this rendition. (See Shirelle's original here.) Same message, but slowed down, rendered more tender and vulnerable.



"You're the One That I Want" - The Lennings  (I can't embed, so go here. Original from Grease here.) Song about teen sex turned into intense love song.
This power you're supplying... is electrifying


Also:
The Voice contestant cover of "Pumped Up Kicks"
Pool Mashup from the movie Pitch Perfect
Walk Off the Earth's famous guitar cover of "Somebody That I Used to Know"
Boyz II Men singing the theme song for the show Psych
Tori Amos "I'm On Fire"


 THE BEAT

Not dance songs exactly, but songs with a strong beat that sort of drum on your ribcage.

"Otherside"  Another brilliant Macklemore & Lewis, this time about drug addiction.
Swore I was goin' to be someone
And growing up everyone always does
We sell our dreams and our potential
To escape through that buzz



"What I Wouldn't Do" Serena Ryder finally made the album I've been waiting for from her. Love the driving beat on this, matching the urgency of her love declaration.
The current grows stronger
I fall in your water
Forget everything I knew



Also:
Emeli Sandé - "Next to Me"
Ingrid Michaelson - "Fire" 
The Alabama Shakes' hit: "Hold On"

    

12 Days of 2012 - 7 - Romance!

I unfinished at least three romance novels this year, but eventually found a few treasures...

Indiscretion - Jude Morgan  The best Heyer-Austen type romance I've found in years. Talked about it here.

Edenbrooke - Julianne Donaldson  A Goodreads nominations for best romance. Loved. It. Highly recommend. To quote the author, it's the "romance of restraint"(aka: no sex), the suspense of not knowing if the other person feels about you the way you do about them.

(But if sex scenes are a must, the only sexified romance I really enjoyed this year was Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake.)

To get all the meh books out of my head, I of course read Heyer. The Reluctant Widow slows at the end, but is otherwise populated by the usual sensible protagonists, and silly, charming sidekicks.

Hart of Dixie (TV) - How do you make the clichéd Town Bitch into a character you root for? You make her fall in love with the good natured ex-football star mayor. And then you keep them apart to torture the viewers!

Also loved...

Anna and Bates in Downton Abbey (TV)

The Deal (movie) - Unlikely pairing of Meg Ryan and a suicidal, alcoholic William H Macy

Nice arcing romance in teen trilogy about Ruby Oliver, by E Lockhart

Murdoch Mysteries (TV) - An epic romance that's being dragged out to the extent that I fall upon the thorns of life and fucking bleed!

"Maps" as covered by The Fray. About romancing a cartographer? Who the beep knows. It's just beautiful.


 "Unthinkable" - Alicia Keys  About two people on the brink of declaring their love.
I'm gonna sit right here and tell you all that comes to me
If you have something to say, you should say it right now


"Old Fashioned" from my boyfriend Cee-Lo.


"All the Boys" - Keri Hilson
I remember all the kisses
The hits and misses
I never knew a love like this


 "Sad" - Maroon 5
I'm scared to death
That there may not be another one like this
And I confess
That I'm only holding on by a thin thin thread


Also loved...

"The Twelfth of Never" - Dolly Parton and Keith Urban
"Love Like This" - Natasha Bedingfield with Sean Kingston
"I Won't Let That Chump Break Your Heart" - Carl Carlton
"I Can Dream About You" - Dan Hartman (but wonderfully lip synched in this dance number)
"She Will Be Loved" - Maroon 5 (check out this duet version)
 "Breathe" - Faith Hill (here she is with Santana)
and "old Mr Webster could never define what's being said between your heart and mine" le sigh Alison Krauss, Keith Whitley, and Union Station: "When You Say Nothing At All"