serai | Entries tagged with midnight media cafe

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Damn, the memories this brings back...

*sigh*

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Crossposts: http://serai1.livejournal.com/974913.html

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An early edition. Just because.

Rosalita - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

Always did love this song. Such lively enthusiasm, such joy. When that long whooooooaaa! happens at the climax, it's so easy to see the scruffy handsome youth running and dropping into a sliding fall on his knees, riffing on his axe all the way, to stop at his lovely lady's feet and shout her name in that adoring chorus.** Along with everything else, Bruce is just so goddamn, achingly, adorably romantic. His love songs are so fucking passionate. How many performers are there anymore who do this sort of thing without a lick of irony or self-awareness? Just all-out, punch-drunk, tell-the-fucking-world LOVE.

Our American Sonic Shakespeare. How lucky we are to have had him, to still have him, setting our lives down in riff and chord, meter and rhyme, thunder and flame. Hail to you, prophet of the street. If you're not the Boss, you're definitely the Bard.

** Bruce has always had a delicious talent for conveying concrete images using the sound of the instruments being played. Every now and then, you can see a picture very clearly in the music. He's great at that kind of punctuation. Artists who can play your brain the way they play a guitar are rare.

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Here's a playlist I'm having a lot of fun grooving on. Almost 200 songs, all from my teenage years:

Greatest Hits of the 70's - Youtube playlist

Holy shit, this takes me back. High school. My first girlfriends, Tina and Pam. (Well, only girlfriends. I never had any other women lovers after them.) My first concert - Queen, Night at the Opera tour, the Los Angeles Forum. Pam and I dressed in matching black satin. Damn, was she beautiful. Tall, broad-shouldered, these unreadable eyes. (I'm always terrible at describing skin tone, but I'd say hers was hazelnut...yeah.) And my first boyfriend, Ted. He was beautiful too. Imagine a male Elisabeth Shue but with fuller lips. A real English rose. We used to park his mail jeep in front of my parents' house and go at it before I went back in. (Yes, a mail jeep. We were both pretzels. Ah, youth.) Laserium at the Griffith Park Observatory. Smoking out by the Hollywood sign, back when you could still climb up there. Goddamn.

* ssssst *

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Here is a great and incredibly well-made fake trailer for an imagined prequel to Back to the Future...

1.21 Gigawatts - How exactly did Doc Brown get hold of that plutonium?

It's quite surprisingly good. The maker cobbled together a load of clips and came up with this dark, exciting take on Doc Brown's willingness to go to the ends of the earth and back to bring his dream of time travel to life.

Enjoy!

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Yay rain!

It's raining here, which I'm greatly enjoying. And it's not especially cold, which makes the rain comfortable to go out in. I spent the afternoon over in Glendale, depositing some money in my credit union account and then walking over to the Galleria to buy a couple of things and get myself a nice lunch. Chicken vegetable wontons and a sashimi salad. So long - maybe six months - since I could just buy some nice food to eat that I didn't have to cook myself! (Those of you who can just do that have no idea what a luxury it is, seriously.)

But now my back hurts from all the walking, so I'm going to turn in early. I'll be watching a movie or two on my little portable DVD player in bed, and contemplating an idea for a nice little story I'm hoping to write in the next day or two.

Here is a lovely music vid for you all:

Sapta Jina Bhasitam Papa Vinas ana Dharani - Imee Ooi

Whenever I listen to this song/mantra, I find myself so deeply touched that tears almost always spring to my eyes. The sweetness of the instruments and the pure, gentle longing in the singer's beautiful voice overcome any boundaries of language. I hope you all enjoy this lovely piece.

ETA: This is the mantra she is singing:

lipalipate kuhakuhate taralite niharate wimalite swaha

If I find a translation for it, I will post it. :)

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Another Titan falls...

September - Earth, Wind & Fire

RIP Maurice White.

You know, I want to rage, but listening to this music, I just... can't.

*dances*

ETA: Great thread at C&L on EW&F. Here's a couple more of their great tunes.

Shining Star

Fantasy

Man, their music takes me back. Back to the quad at IHHS, listening to tunes on our little radios at lunchtime, dissing the history teacher and wondering who we would turn out to be.

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Thinking about lovely Elijah, and wanting to post some music for his birthday, when I read about Paul Kantner's passing. Goddammit, 2016. Are we going to go through this every week?

Miracles - Jefferson Starship

Oh, you ripple like a river when I touch you
When I pluck your body like a string
And when I start dancing inside you
You make me want to sing...

Man, oh man. There's nothing like the music they were playing when you were fifteen, is there? This came out during my high school sophomore year, and it was the sex/love anthem of my youth. No other song expressed the feel of sex as well as this one for me. That long, slow crescendo towards orgasm, that saxophone that sounded as if it were rolling in the sheets, those moaning backing vocals, those frank lyrics, that intense breathlessness... it's fucking gorgeous, unbeatable.

And you know, just perfect for celebrating lovely youth and hot fantasies. So turn off the lights, light a candle, have a little of your favorite attitude adjuster, and settle back for a long, slow climb into the stars with your beautiful dream of choice.

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This is hysterical.

Nano-Impressions with Ross Marquand

This guy does killer impressions. This video has him doing actors in three- to five-second bites, all of them dealing with some boring, mundane bit of reality, such as Harrison Ford losing a sneeze, George Clooney trying to get a word in, and Liam Neeson going through an automated phone system. And it is killer. (Antonio Banderas forgetting his password made me lose my shit.)

Just watch it. Trust me.

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So I've been grooving on Bowie's music all day, giving thanks to the Goddess for his existence, and to him for the great gift of art he gave us all. And I realized that my favorite of his albums is not any of the ones you might think, but rather his best-selling one: Let's Dance.

I think it's genius. Who else could have rescued disco from the ash heap of music history and made dancing bright and fun and hot and COOL again? Nobody I can think of. And yet he pulled it off (with help from his friend Niles Roger, of course). I love these tracks. They swing. An old-fashioned term, but the only one that fits. They take you by the hips and make you want to MOVE.

And I fucking love that.

Modern Love

China Girl

Let's Dance

(Note the album cover image, which you see in that last viedo - another example of Bowie's cutting humor, as "let's dance" is a fighting term as well as an invitation to dance.)

So yeah, along with Starman (my favorite Bowie song) and Rebel Rebel, his "disco-era" stuff - Fame, Young Americans, Golden Years - and the Let's Dance album are really my favorites. I much prefer music that makes me want to move rather music that makes me angry or sad. The Berlin period may have been more innovative, but it's just not stuff I want to listen to. THIS is what I listen to - the Bowie that moved, that danced, that laughed. The Bowie that knew life is worth living.

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The Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame announced its inductees, and of course there's been copious bitching about it. But it's driven me to go looking for some of the music referenced, and the fact that Chicago got inducted just makes me warm inside...

Saturday in the Park - Chicago

...Will you help me change the world?
Can you dig it? Yes, I can!...

This song is so much a part of my teenage years. It carries the scent, the feel of those years, the 70's in Los Angeles. Those horns, the very sound of summer. Gods, I miss horns like that in rock music. And that piano riff! Warms my heart and makes me smile every time.

Listen children, all is not lost,
All is not lost, no, no, no...

*sigh*

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The Raven - Edgar Allan Poe, read by Sir Christopher Lee

The glorious tones of Lee's dark, commanding voice. Has anyone ever had such a richly deep voice, so wondrously evocative of a world half-seen, feared and desired? *sigh*

I went looking for this because I was thinking that the Raven is really the only figure I can think of from American dark literature of the right period for Penny Dreadful, and that would be recognizable in the same way that Frankenstein and Dracula are. Sadly, the number of people who would get it would be fewer. (Though arguably, they're already watching it.) I was and still am gently amused by the fact that, in order to bring an American character into the series, Logan had to turn to the world of cinema, the true storytelling of the US, for good or ill. I just find that delicious.

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LOL, I love this video.

Yelling Cat

Whenever I play it, the cats instantly freak out. I just played it now, and at the first sound, Frodo looked up with this "Who the fuck is THAT?" look on his face.

I'd really love to know what this cat is saying, because apparently every other cat thinks he's an asshole.

Squatty Potty - The latest in pooping comfort

So how do you advertise a product designed to help you take a comfortable, healthful poop?

With unicorns and rainbow ice cream and a smarmy Prince in a red velvet doublet, that's how!

LOL.
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Here's something I unearthed while looking through some old folders: a 30-second ad for Tommy Hilfiger Jeans, in which the young members of the Faculty cast play a bunch of bitchy, spoiled models whining about fucking everything. Josh has a great 3-second silent tantrum. It's very cute.

The Faculty Cast for Tommy Hilfiger Jeans

Enjoy the cute little time capsule!

Ashokan Farewell - Jay Ungur

Because...well, because.

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Because FUCK ME.

Tom Cruise and Jimmy Fallon

IN

The Most Epic Lip Sync Battle EVAH

Jesus. Holy Fucking GODDESS. Ridin' a fucking tomato here.

Look, I'm as wary of King Tom as the next gal. He's gotten seriously fucking psycho over the years, in a heartbreaking kinda way for me, at least.

But fuck ME. He can still bring the sex when he wants to. I thought this might be cute and I ended up on my knees licking the fucking screen.

Oh, hot sexy not-at-all-insane little wolverine, where did you go? Why did you abandon us?

We miss you so - that jaw and that neck and those thighs and those laser eyes and that golden skin and most of all, that utter fucking assurance that we would come like rockets after just five minutes with your fine, fine ass. You were a brutal slam of sex that nevertheless fit like a glove, and for a while, the whole world stood in your shadow, hypnotized by that relentless grin.

Mmm. It's nice to see you again, Majesty, even if only for a moment. You're one of my favorite cinema phantasms, and I'll always have time for a good wank with you.

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Was listening to this song earlier today, and heard it in a whole new way.

Picture in a Frame - Tom Waits

The sun come up, it was blue and gold
The sun come up, it was blue and gold
The sun come up, it was blue and gold
Ever since I put your picture in a frame

I come calling in my Sunday best
I come calling in my Sunday best
I come calling in my Sunday best
Ever since I put your picture in a frame

I'm gonna love you
'til the wheels come off
Oh yeah

I love you baby and I always will
I love you baby and I always will
I love you baby and I always will
Ever since I put your picture in a frame

Those of you who've been squeeing with me over the last couple of days - doesn't this sound like Ethan? (The song, not the voice, obviously.)

Can't you just imagine him lying in bed with Brona while she was dying, murmuring this for a lullabye?

Makambo - Geoffrey Oryema

Do me a favor and listen to this song. It's by an African gentleman named Geoffrey Oryema. It's very soft and gentle, and his voice is like honey. I have no idea what he's singing about, and I don't care. It's just...

You'll see.

Rita Hayworth Is Stayin' Alive
Old time Hollywood and 70's grit - what's not to love?

The loveliest Latina ever to grace Hollywood. (

jblaque, this one's especially for you.)

Enjoy!

ÆØÅ (Size Matters) - Fridtjof StensÆth Josefsen & Jakob SchØyen Andersen
Two Norwegians mock America for its puny alphabet, with disastrous consequences.