Using the new LJ portal

Someone just gave me a few pistachios from Iran, and they're delicious. Should've taken more. ;_;

Last thought on that Anna Freud thing (sorry for not answering comments but I was honestly more interested in hearing what other people had to say ^^;): marici mentioned Phantom of the Opera as a story in that mold/mode (not foregrounding the m/m aspect). It occurs to me that if I had to name the archetypal(?) myth(?), it would be the framing tale of the Arabian Nights - Scheherazade. Repetitious nature of the infinitely delayed danger and so forth. In most versions Scheherazade went to the King of her own free will.

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If someone could put up an episode or two of Rome for me so I can download them tomorrow? :3 Although at the moment every time someone mentions Octavian or whomever I think of that damnable Ingres in Brussels, and then I start laughing - am I going to have to worry about spoilering Roman history? - it represents a fraught psychological moment between Livia, Augustus and Octavia. The expression on Livia's face is chill-inducing (Neo-Classicism suits her). However there's the other half of one's brain clamouring "But why is he naked at a poetry reading?"

(The museum tours always oscillate between serious and not-so-much. The portraits of sensitive looking young noblemen in the National Gallery: "Emo. Emo. SO VERY EMO. ...Goth.")

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It's raining mastiffs and Saint Bernards. My skirt is soaked and my socks are soaked, which caused my shoes to somehow dye the soles of my feet black. =_=+ I hope this doesn't destroy the autumn colours, they were coming along so well (warm clear days and cool nights). It's going to be cold from here on out.

P.S. Where is the ILM thread on the new Depeche Mode album??? Or do we not do that?

Photos of Antwerp

Uploaded more than 100 photos from my first two days in Antwerp. (Don't know how long it'll take me to do the rest. =_=) Random few behind the cut, the rest are here: page 1 | page 2 | page 3 | page 4 | page 5

( large images behind cut )

Hmm

helvetius, I think on the whole I like the commercial version of Extraordinary Machine better. ^^; I tried the song by song approach but it was hard to form a judgment that way, especially since the vocal takes aren't the same either. So I just listened to both of them through and the overall effect of the Jon Brion version is too exhausting for me - all those huge menacing thunderclouds of strings vibrating in minor key. (Something to do with how you like Shiina Ringo and I don't. The first version reminds me strongly of Shiina Ringo, but I don't know if it does that for you.) The spareness and funk organ/brass touches and percussion-reliance in the second version makes it more palatable to me; I hear her better, for one thing.

Fiona Apple - O'Sailor (commercial version)
Fiona Apple - O'Sailor (Jon Brion version)

Actually I have this problem with Rufus Wainwright too, often enough. Maybe I'm just not a strings arrangement fan when it comes to singer-songwriter stuff.

Then again there's 2-3 songs where they must've stayed with the Brion production period, it's Fiona Apple who's singing something slightly different in a slightly different way, slightly higher in the mix.

Depeche Mode - The Sinner In Me
Depeche Mode - Precious
Depeche Mode - Lillian

Depeche Mode, Playing the Angel: it sounds like a Depeche Mode album only not exactly, because no DM album has sounded exactly like DM since Alan Wilder left (yes, I know that's unfair, bite me). What with the popmuzik landscape these days one ends up fancying that one's listening to a really good 21st-century darkwave synthpop act inspired by Depeche Mode, if it weren't for Dave Gahan obviously being Dave Gahan and no other. ^^; There's a schaffel stomp like "Personal Jesus", and one that's reminiscent of "Enjoy the Silence" without having the same tune as "Enjoy the Silence" and is only 85% as catchy (not that that's bad), and so forth. There're also some instrumental breaks that show DM's been listening to the same electro-house bobbins as I, eheh. Can't wait to see what remixers they pick for this one.

And for Beru: [download folder]

I've also got all of Family (thanks vonbrigthi ^^;) but not on this computer... yet...