Petronia

1) So that was quite the snowstorm, even for Montreal! Thank goodness for telework. Let's all of us in affected areas take a moment to experience my favorite (no irony) thing about winter, namely the dazzling white ski-slope light that reflects off the city on a blue-skied day after a snowstorm. Pure brightness without heat. There's nothing quite like it.

2) I feel like I should mention somewhere and at some point that I finally read Nana vol.21. XD;; Avoidant, moi, never. The state of Yazawa Ai's health is worrying - I mean, it's been two years - but there's something blackly funny/appropriate about the fact that the story screeched to a stop here. Life imitating art... I'd calculated according to the clues given previous to *heavily telegraphed spoiler* that the flash-forwards were taking place in mid to late 2008, and this volume puts it forward by a year or two. And she must've planned that!

3) Games, LJ? Seriously?

Seriously?

Have been amused at this with Charmian over on DW. Check that crossover point!

Due to one Renaud-Bray stocking the tankoubon I was missing (the French edition is up to vol.18). Actually, there's no gear shift in going from Libs fandom back to this: starts off as a story about sharing a flat with one's best friend, winds up in deepest frozen circle of Tabloid Hell. XD;; Whether that's an indictment of Yazawa Ai or reality... I used to complain about Nana's pacing in the latter stretch but it comes off much better in comparison, if only because fiction has the luxury of FAST FORWARDING until something interesting happens. For years, if necessary.

( Notes on timeline and characters; spoilers. )

sesame_seed's mix, because I ♥ her, although a) not what she expected to get, I don't think, and b) essentially strong-armed her into "betaing". XD;


NANA II: NOSTALGIA
volumes 9 to 15, including side stories - and at the rate Yazawa Ai's been going there'll be a part III =_=

01. Merril Bainbridge - Being Boring
02. Stars - Bitches In Tokyo
03. The Stills - Changes Are No Good
04. Garbage - Shut Your Mouth
05. David Bowie - Be My Wife
06. Eric Clapton - Layla (live)
07. Kings of Convenience - Winning A Battle, Losing A War
08. Saint Etienne - Only Love Can Break Your Heart
09. Frausdots - Soft Light
10. Elastica - Smile
11. Roxy Music - Let's Stick Together
12. The Killers - Read My Mind (Pet Shop Boys 7" Mix)
13. Gwen Stefani - Cool (Richard X Remix)
14. Sia - Breathe Me
15. Wolfman and Pete Doherty - For Lovers
16. Sophie Zelmani - Nostalgia

Seven of Hearts was conceived as the soundtrack to a (then) non-existent movie, this is more a collection of image songs - in theory, one for each major character and/or relationship. In practice it doesn't quite pan out. Some are applicable to more than one situation, and I've kicked off enough Ren/Nana tracks to compile an EP in its own right. I told Chrissie it wasn't finished but probably I should dot the line and move on (and catch up with the French tankoubon release for once ^^;).

( I spent around 60$ on CDs in order to make this )

You will enjoy this if you like: volumes 9-15 of Nana, girls with acoustic guitars, stardust glockenspiel, the wide-screen romance of a soft-rock ballad

Text behind cuts contain various spoilers. XD

1) ( French manga griping: Nana 12 )

2) ( French manga griping: Bleach character profiles et al )

3) While trawling Chinese Bleach fandom I came across a scanlation of January Colour Bleach. I would like to take a moment to point out that Hitsugaya's photobook is a) titled The Lion in Winter and b) in its second print run. NOW HE IS JUST MOCKING US.

4) ( An observation regarding episode 65 of the Bleach anime filler arc that I am actually watching, on the principle that it is better than 50% of the fic I've read in the past two weeks and also has proper voice actors. )

(Tagged by cis, whom I cannot believe I'm finally going to be meeting up with eeee)

Slowdive - Yesterday: fave band of the mome. From my usual ass-backwards perspective it's nice to be certain that there's more to the (langourous, fuzzy, hypnotic, you name it) sound Ulrich Schnauss was aiming for with that Rachel Goswell remix. This from an album marked as "Pygmalion demos", so a rarity, but as far as I can figure half their discography consists of rarities.

Hirai Ken - World's End: album track I've had on my mp3 player for some time, and am a bit fascinated by for no good reason. Sort of slow-jam fairytale in which the narrator implores his lady love to leave him and escape before he transforms into a red-eyed monster intent on its milk-skinned prey etc. All obviously metaphorical, except maybe not, who knows?

Michael Knight - Knight Ryder (12" version): actually by DMX Krew, and boy I hope by sticking this up on the 'nets I'll find someone else who gets it, because none of my RL friends wasted their childhoods on this show and it is just. Killing me.

Nakashima Mika - Glamourous Sky: I could almost buy this if it weren't for her voice. Put your diaphragm into it, girl! You're killing me! ...Objectors to the movie do so mostly on the basis on the music as far as I can see: as my sister (who is more or rather differently indie-ist than I) put it they took what's supposed to be punk rock and made it pop rock, and took what's supposed to be (dark)pop rock and made it jpop altogether. To which my answer was well yes and you were expecting Sid and Nancy? Exaggeration obv. but movies shift toward the mainstream which in this case is a shoujo manga-reading audience of a shoujo manga canon where the mangaka is upfront about the fact that the characters' music followed on their visual designs and would occasionally fail to remember that guitarists can't have perfect long manicures, say. Like everyone else I have my own idea of what it should sound like - FST ha, still working on part II - but it would've taken some sort of utter maverick at the helm (by Japanese standards; I suppose I'm thinking Wim Wenders, Michael Winterbottom et al, and while Japan births far insaner directors I can't think of one in that vein) to make the final product's vision converge with mine. Does anyone in Japan even understand punk the way it's understood in the West? (Setting aside differing Western signifiers and interpretations of the ideal.) That's a whole other issue beyond my grasp. If they do it doesn't much show in the charting acts, and the canon isn't quite it, either. The Blast boys and girl live punk lives, but not a second of that is about handing it to the Man, positively or negatively; they just want to make it big, because the other options don't look so good.

Apart from all of the above including the voice issue, the song really isn't half bad. It does its thing. And there's a bit, 2:45 where she sings "Sunday, Monday...", that's better than just doing its thing. Nagai no everyday. The progression is like something out of a MAX song, but I like MAX too.

Pet Shop Boys - A Red Letter Day: the BL fan's obvious crack at every other Pet Shop Boys song ever, i.e. "I think I've read a scanlation of this". Other than that I was at an afterhours club Friday night or more precisely Saturday morning with a motley crew of Andrew's friends some of whom I actually have met before, dancing for six hours straight; a session from which I can post no excerpts as I have no idea what was played other than it was nearly all deep house. But afterward I listened to this walking to Berri-UQAM metro at 9AM on a sunny-cool morning, not feeling tired or sleepy yet, and sure enough it sounded good.

Tagging: gah who hasn't done this one recently? joliefolie, pere_chan, astrael_nyx, serendip, mitethe. I swear this is not just a cunning plan to get new m-flo off somebody anybody