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!

1) IT IS SNOWING. THERE IS AN INCH OF SNOW ON THE GROUND. WHAT IS THIS FUCKERY.

It's killing the daffodils as I speak! :/ At least the peonies are protected by an overhang - the shoots are like eight inches tall.

2) I don't mean like I found this randomly on Youtube, I mean it was playing on Virgin Radio at rush hour yesterday afternoon.

Just had Accounting final; it wasn't nearly as bad as the midterm. Huge group project was also completed and I assume turned in (5-word executive summary: don't loan money to Hertz XD;). I did a quick calculation and an A- ought to be attainable, an A would be lucky but not beyond the realm of mathematical possibility. This is good because I require equanimity to finish writing my Economics term paper tonight, the Economics final tomorrow evening, and the Statistics final Friday evening. orz Which I haven't begun to study for - thankfully it's open-book.

There's another 6-page team paper to be turned in on Monday but we are choosing not to think about it until the weekend. I was pro-active and sent out a reminder email at least. Probably this will be construed as me offering to coordinate but whatevs, it's not far from the truth.

To make up for this forced-march productivity I have arranged to attend an UBER-SKETCH psy-trance loft rave Friday night, ahahaha (or more precisely Saturday morning). So lame/awesome, you guys.

Montreal refuses to snow; it's such a lovely albeit rainy night I think I'll head out to a 24-hour cafe or something.

Full album uploads, as promised. Ambient, downtempo stuff; the sort of music that hangs in the air like incense, soothes jangled nerves and doesn't impede productivity. XD

Brian Eno - Ambient 4: On Land [1982]: basically I owe Brian Eno a drink for making this album. For a period of three months last year I abused it like a wired lab rat at the happy lever. I used it as a sedative on planes and in terminal lounges (the fact that airports do not AFAIK actually play Music for Airports is one of the mundane tragedies of modern existence). I lay in grassy fields and spaced out to it, with the volume dialed down so I could hear the birds and insects. I wrote my blind_go fic to it (this probably explains a lot). Truthfully speaking the overall moodscape of the thing is more eerie than soothing - think Lea Monde before the Dark went completely kerblonkers - so maybe I find it a great sleep aid because I'm weird that way. Who knows. Can't hurt to try. XD (68.8MB)

Chara - Something Blue [2005]: self-produced indie-released fanclub-only EP. Arguably my favorite Chara album; I always play it all the way through. The style of the individual songs shifts from shoegaze to dreampop to introvert-folk, jazz and even funk (the only other artist I know of who inhabits this nebulous space is Feist), but the whole flows in entire coherency. It's like being caught in a gauzy, thirty-minute-long dream of dappled sunlight. (33.3MB)

Chihei Hatakeyama - Minima Moralia [2006]: more ambient. This is "happier" sounding than the Eno album, warm and abstract. Sort of like studying while your roommate plays flOw with the speakers on for hours on end. (69.4MB)

The Go Find - Stars On The Wall [2007]: yesterday it snowed a lot. For most of the day the weather couldn't decide whether it was snowy or rainy or (frequently) both, but by sundown it had settled fully into spring blizzard mode. It wasn't cold, but the flakes were - I'm not making this up - larger than my first thumb joint, cast distinct shadows descending and landed with the sound moths make when their wings smack against a flat surface. My boots were unsuitable and leaked so badly I may as well have been walking bare-socked. It was perfect weather for this album. I've had it on my mp3 player for a while but yesterday I realised I'd somehow managed to memorize all the songs.

In general Morr Music is the label to turn to if the Postal Service is too perky for you and Keane isn't wussy enough. Nicer than the Junior Boys, I find: I'm only impelled to listen to Junior Boys if I have a hangover and feel as miserable as the weather, whereas The Go Find, Lali Puna etc. are rather cozy if you're inside. *g* (64.5MB)

mid-January thaw:
roof leaks for first time in years
mom blames bad feng shui

There was also a 90-minute metro stoppage. Maybe I jinxed myself by saying the week was looking up. XD;;

Nevertheless: in what some might consider an act of public service, sesame_seed sent me all(?) of Diana Wynne Jones. (And my sister thoughtfully piled them in the order listed on the Amazon form, so I read Chrissie's cards sequentially - 'twas highly amusing XD - although I am not sure whether this corresponds to the order in which I should read the books.) This is a great time for it as there was no Bleach anime last weekend and no Bleach manga til the 23rd, and the twitch is beginning to compromise my performance.

( Charmed Life. Er, I thought I should log my impressions as I read... )

***

( Narnia movie )

Hmm, I want to see Dawn Treader. XD

What do you call those monster servant things the kirin have in 12K? Names in Taiki's case? ...This show would be so much easier if I could remember the actual kanji for anything.

It's snowing again, a proper white storm. Should've known listening to Spitz would bring it down: my sense memory of "Robinson" and "Masayume" both being on the bus on my way to buy a December birthday cake at a French patisserie, and the snow floating down and filling every cubic centimetre of air. Impossible to describe how three dimensional a flurry is, to someone who's never seen one.

Ficlets-onna-card written yesterday: just one and a half, but the one is Possibly The Best Thing I Have Ever Written (tm). So far they are all about snow or having to drag oneself out of bed in the morning or both, can't think why... I've been writing continuously for a while and I'm enjoying it, very much. Giving is also fun. I can't wait until some of the recipients get these. I'm a perfect bundle of joy at the moment but that may be related to the fact that I bought a 4$ baggie of blue raspberry licorice, sour peach, pink grapefruit and cola bottle gummies yesterday, and now I'm eating it. All of it. MMM SUGAR.

Tagged by sparklingai for the seven current songs meme again. Endeavouring to upload schtuff I haven't yet personally but expect no surprises. *g*

Lady Sovereign - Hoodie (Basement Jaxx Remix): What does the S.O.V. have against polka dots, she says, defensively clutching her Kompakt Total skirt to self. But the song gets stuck in my head, because I have a tiny radio buried somewhere inside my brain that plays jingles as a form of commentary on Life At The Moment - am looking to buy a hoodie and this is a pickier process than it seems. Also because ILM-person who said it sounds like 1985 Prince trying to do grime through a time machine is amazingly correct.

Röyksopp - Poor Leno (Röyksopp's Istanbul Forever Take): one of the best dance tunes of the decade IMO. Just the way the melody rises and rises, gah. This remix is what I actually mean when I use "Poor Leno" as a reference - I played the album version and could barely recognize having heard it. XD

Richard X - You Better Let Me Love You Tonight (feat. Tiga): ATTN SUPER DRACO, LOL LOL LOL x INFINITY *wipes tears*. Um, this is from jantalaimon's Richard "it stands for Xmas glockenspiel" X matsuri. I commented in her LJ that it's all in the imperious way he says "Drums," like he just snapped his fingers at the DJ or something - and the second verse entirely and gleefully constructed out of 80s electropop quotations.

I'd actually been desultorily listening to some of the tracks off Tiga's new album and thinking I should go hear him DJ one of these nights...... and then I remembered that this equals "finally going to I Love Neon". Except not New Year's Eve technically as NYE I LOVE NEON = DIGITALISM. I will drag Tania and I will make sure she likes it. Cedric, you are in too aren't you!?

Tommy february6 - Lonely in Gorgeous: opening theme to the Paradise Kiss anime. Thank you for playing, please come again!

(Yes I realise that is only four, the other three I don't have on this computer, bah.)

It's thundering and pouring buckets outside. Should've gone to Jazz Fest last night. ^^; Also, I'm tremenjously hungry and only really need to be here for another thirty minutes, but have no umbrella and thus am stuck.

Having finished RAM2 [1], I'm reading Exaudi Nos. It starts with Naoe visiting Irobe-san in the palliative care ward (his current body is dying of cancer I think), which turns into one of their impromptu shrink sessions because Naoe never ceases to fail at life. I'm more relieved than surprised to learn that Irobe was an actual doctor in this lifetime, albeit a circulatory disease specialist and not a psychologist. And Haruie is in high school! Sailor fuku Ayako! Argh so cute.

Naoe and Haruie are both having bad dreams about Kagetora being twelve and bruised and crying because his mum went away. ;_;

I also finally read the last few chapters of Sex Pistols last night. Was happy to get a prequel story about the dads, because I'd always wanted one, and when they were introduced I was like, "Hey, they're my dad's art school friends!" And they are. They are my dad's art school friends. What I want to know now is How Makio Did It, and if there was money on the line. Suspect Kotobuki will never say, though, so I might have to fic it.

[1] One extremely random note: I'm disturbed by the fact that Marie gets a Hugue dolly. =_= My handsome priest playmate indeed; in ten years she will meet the real thing and the pseudo-incest will really hit the fan. As it is she only needs an excuse to molest Tres, because little girls all love to do that in this series.

Editorials warning against the noxious effects of heat and smog appear in newspapers just as the storm breaks overnight, and the temperature dips to a rainy 17C by morning, like a miniature of autumn following summer. The rain lasts all day, skirt-soaking gusts in the morning and prickling mist in the evening. It's cruelly pleasant - for some extraordinary reason my mother didn't rush to turn on the air conditioning as soon as room temperature broke 25C the way she usually does, and after four straight days of 30-plus weather even I was beginning to wilt a little. Yesterday was so humid I sweated my way into dehydration just walking around in the Old Port, and the idea of hot street food was intolerable. Today however I got a banana-custard-chocolate crepe at Ichipan. Ichipan is fabulous, especially the fake plastic crepes lining its display window in the manner of fake plastic sushi platters. Funny how Montreal is such a crepe-oriented city but it takes a Japanese chain to perfect the take-out option. Even beaver tails they just dump on a napkin for you and hope for the best, icing sugar and all... In a disheartening move, my beloved Maple Delights sandwich-cafe-and-gelateria reopened on Saint Paul just across the street from Ichipan, so now I'll be forced to choose every time where I want to spend my summer afternoon tea money. Either that or I'll be getting chicken curry crepe and crossing the street for a gelato cone, or something.

Other news: clearly I should not be allowed into Archambault with actual money in my pocket, as managed to drop 75$ on that Stereolab boxset and the Pet Shop Boys Back to Mine. (Granted, that comes out to a respectable 15$ per CD.) Now I have four whole Stereolab albums, which should be enough for anyone given that it's pleasantly summery mood music to be kept on loop in the background. ( As for the Back to Mine. )

(To be specific, in fact... I'm pretty sure I've talked about that ficverse in which Oshitari Yuushi and Takahashi Ryousuke intern at the Tokyo teaching hospital, right. LChris's mix is very much akin to my unfinished Oshitari DJ mix that I never got around to posting, and that is decidedly a "futureficpod" - the sort of stuff Oshitari plays in his car while cruising around town, incidentally setting Ryousuke's teeth subliminally on edge because it is exactly Keisuke's music slowed down by half HAR HAR HAR. Meanwhile Ryousuke would be comforted by TNeil's mix. I'm not sure what it all means, other than that the lights in my mental skyscraper are idiosyncratically wired.)

Traditionally on Victoria Day I go to the Botanical Garden, rain or shine, with friends or family. Monday it was rainy and hideously cold - 10 degrees Celsius, more March than May - but I went with Tania and Lorraine anyway, bundled up in coats and hats and umbrellas. The apple blossoms were delayed this year, so we took the latest hanami pictures ever. I'll post them tonight if I have the energy. ^^v

Afterward we went to Tania's place, aired our wet socks, drank hot mint tea with lemon, ate fried potatoes and watched Mirage of Blaze TV, which Lorraine hadn't seen. The experience was oddly sobering (for me, I mean), and only partially alleviated by the worst HK subbing in the history of bootlegged anime. From my current perspective I can only bow down to Naoe and Nagahide's inhuman patience at the beginning of the series, not to mention I kept reading angst into lines that weren't even supposed to be read into. Thus when I got home I ended up translating a large chunk of Mirage book 15 chapter 5, namely the big Naoe/Takaya scene (there's on average one per book) that between Chiaki's chalk-throwing and Kagetora's kidnapping by bird people I managed to elide entirely, because I suck like that. It's awesomely romance-novel-tastic and cheered me up immensely.

Then I tried to read 16 the next morning in the metro and Kousaka harshed my buzz, like, totally, thanks to which I was in a temper and didn't want to read anymore for the rest of the day. Restarted again this morning and was ( SO CONFUSED DAMMIT. )

( Notes pre-translation. )

( Translation. I'll edit this post once I finish, which may be tonight if I don't slag off and read Okane ga nai again or something. )