Her

I recently saw Her and just fell in love with it - what a beautifully shot and made film. I haven't been able to get the soundtrack out of my head, either. Just beautiful.

Copper headphones

I still use my boring white in-ear earphones but aren't these adorable? Cuties! Out of stock for now, but I'm staying tuned. (Geddit?)

Ten Great Years

I'm a sucker for a good Beatles infographic and this one is no different. Quite unbelievable that they spanned this golden decade so successfully. Off to listen to I Am the Walrus...

The Ship Song Project

This is one of my favourite songs and this just keeps giving me goosebumps. It's on repeat...

Disney Love

Two beautiful videos which make me both love Disney and people's imaginations. Happy Friday!

Endorsements Dec 2010

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Every month, my book club follows the Slate Culture Gabfest model, and endorses a cultural recommendation. We thought it would be fun to share them on the blog, so here goes!

The recommedations this month are:

The AV Club for excellent TV reviews.

Using Picasa for uploading photos.

The new TV series Sherlock, from the BBC.

The book, The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell.

Neil Perry's flourless and almond-meal-free chocolate cake.

D. H. Lawrence's novel, Lady Chatterley's Lover.

The TV series Rake on ABC iView.

The Chrome Web Store (especially the Grooveshark and New York Times apps which let you stream music and see the newspaper).

The new Kanye album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

Henry James's Portrait of a Lady.

History of The Beatles as told by their hair

Yeah ok, I'm a Beatles nerd. Loved this poster with much glee and happiness. (It's also pretty accurate!)

MC Hammer Says...

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Regina Spektor: Laughing With

This Regina Spektor video clip is breathtaking! I love the allusions to Escher and Dali and so many more. And her voice is just incredible.

(I've pre-posted this: Happy New Year's from Oman and I hope to be checking in soon!)

Sarah Blasko: No Turning Back

This song (and the beautiful animation) has been a bit of personal anthem at the moment, as things on thesis front heat up. Again (!)

Last week I was offered a pretty dream job, with the understanding that it would have an immediate start. I ended up turning it down, as I really need to finish my PhD, but I've wondered ever since whether I made a big mistake.  

Feist: 1, 2, 3, 4

via Lily and The Muse
I can't stop watching this. Makes me want to jump up and dance every time I watch!

Passenger

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Happily, my friend Alice introduced me to Mike Rosenberg of Passenger a few years back, and I have been hooked ever since. (I can't go on a roadtrip without his CD!) He's just uploaded some new songs to his homepage, and I thoroughly recommend them - 'I See Love' and 'The Last Unicorn' are personal favourites, but his cover of Umbrella is also delicious.

Enjoy!

Tweet Suite

My lovely friend Ben is calling for your clever tweets, please!

Twitter proved to be too distracting for me - I was on there for about a week before I had to cut the metaphorical cord, but if you're a tweeter-er (I obviously don't even know the cool lingo that the kiddies are using) and you have clever tweets, send them to Ben and wait with baited breath for the Tweet Suite!

Michael Jackson Remembered

UPDATED: It is perhaps Stephen Metcalf who expresses my sentiments the best:

The falsetto speaking voice, the licorice eyes, hair steam ironed and Zambonied until it was straight. The skin—what? We still don’t know. Bleached? Blanched? Poached? The barely suppressed facial hair. Effacement, defacement, refacement, unfacement. What word could do justice to the creation, out of a perfectly normal human countenance, of the dilapidated faerie mask that MJ’s eventually became? It was as if the slightest concession to the normal human horizon would let in a besieging pain. To substitute for the childhood he never had, he picked, with uncanny accuracy, exactly those things that don’t substitute for an actual childhood. Amusement parks and toys—the placatory devices of the bad parent.

A genius; an angry dancer; a grotesque among grotesques. What to make of Jacksonian America, now that the King himself is dead? An immense and spectacular frenzy; an urgent celebration; the affect of triumph; at its center a derangement; beneath that, in all likelihood, nothing.

Pretties

Image via ffffound.

Yeah, I know the last post was kinda heavy, so here's an amazing video that I can't stop watching, found via the amazing blog MetroDad. (Yeah, I read a quasi-parenting blog and have no children, but it's hell funny and you'll probably love it, too.)

Rising (Con)chords

Image via Sharp Notes.

I know, I know, they’ve been around for ages, but I couldn’t be more in love with Flight of the Conchords if I tried. And I have tried. They are the most delightful, whimsical, and hilarious duo, and if you haven’t checked them out, I highly recommend a look.

In a great article in the latest Monthly, Luke Davies writes, “…they do a great business in point-counterpoint, taking alternate lines in strange directions and cramming words into lines that can’t contain them… There’s exuberance in the way they lay bare the neurosis of thinking out loud, and in so doing expose just how rigid and restrictive is the language of pop.”

He quotes this fabulous excerpt, which is one of my favourites.

They’re turning kids into slaves just to make cheaper sneakers
But what’s the real cost, ‘cos the sneakers don’t seem that much cheaper?
Why are we still paying so much for sneakers
When you’ve got little slave kids making them?
What are your overheads?

Have a look at Business Time and the Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros if you need even more convincing.

Talented Friends Tuesday II

Photo used with consent. Cute graphic came along for the ride.

Can you believe it's Tuesday again? Luckily, I have so many talented friends that this "profile one every week" shenanigan is likely to be ok for a good few years.*

This week, I am delighted to talk about Ben Walker, who happens to be a brilliant musician, blogger extraordinaire and all-round lovely bloke. Hailing from Oxford, Ben is one of those irritatingly clever 'I need to learn how to play a banjo...so I bought a banjo and an hour later I could play it' kind of people. Despite feeling moderate rage at own banjo-inability and cursing my banjo-less genes, my feelings quickly mellowed into admiration and then awe. And he's endearingly humble, too, which makes him even lovelier.

And since listening to his songs ('Dressing Up' is a personal favourite), I have been humming them so incessantly that I wonder whether I haven't been subliminally messaged to, say, write this post, by the sheer power of his music. As I'm not a bona fide critic by any stretch, I'm not going to even try and give you a proper musical breakdown of what Ben does. But I just love his super fun and original lyrics (thank you for not rhyming 'you' with 'you' - egads!) and the way they tell a narrative rather than just exist to support the song. And the songs! For serious, check him out. If only to hum and get some banj0-envy yourself.

Edited to say you can also find Ben on Last.fm and YouTube.

*If not, I can only blame you, my readership of mostly friends. Stop reading this blog and go and do something talented so I can blog about you. Seriously.