Friday Favorites

Ok, I’ll admit I got the idea for Friday favorites from Lauren Conrad’s blog. It’s fun, and also…alliteration! Whats better than some fun with words?

Nothing.

Anyways, these are some sites that I enjoy going on and enriching my life.

1) NPR: National Public Radio

So much yes. I listen to this while I do dishes. I listen to this while I eat food. I listen to this while I am running late to class. The sheer amount of listening I can do is actually overwhelming. There are music programs in All Songs Considered like the Tiny Desk Concerts. 

Their newscasts are always on point, and they cover stories that range from breaking news to features. So many cool things! So. Many.

2) Storify

Ok, I know. I know I’ve already talked about Storify, so I don’t have to tell you about it again. But it’s awesome! What a cool aggregate of stories! I love it! I also enjoy creating stories, even though no one else seems to be viewing mine. But, that is the price of what I do. It’s a thankless existence.

3) Sports Illustrated.com

Right. I have a post coming up about what I feel about sports (I really do love them, so it’s not about that).

For some reason I’m really into following whats going on in college football. It could be because my school’s team isn’t quite up to par, even though we moved up a division (yippie!). I don’t really understand many of the stats, but I’m absolutely fascinated by the amount of analyzing that goes into the college-age players. Also, yes, I am aware that this level of analyzing goes into every sport, but I really enjoy reading about players and a sport I just can’t wrap my mind around.

Until next time,

A

Five Friday Favorites: Songs

Songs of the week I just keep replaying and replaying and replaying and replaying….

1) Any version of “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac I can find on YouTube. I really do mean ANY version, because if you were able to look at my video history it looks like I’m a bit obsessive. I am. But what is really great is that each version, from show to show, year to year, has the ability to mean something else each time. That’s what makes it a classic.

This video is especially my favorite out of the bunch. It’s from 1976. After that, listen to this one and then tell me they are not two entirely different songs.

2) I’m on a country kick -which is strange to everyone in my family and my friends, because they know I was anti-country music since I was a wee fetus – and I can’t stop listening to Zac Brown Band. Specifically “Got Whatever It Is“. He may be beardy, but you’re lying if you wouldn’t want to hear someone say you’ve “got a smile that can knock a grown man to his knees.” That means you have a GREAT SMILE. Congrats! It’s also a really nice jam, so. There’s that.

3) On the topic of country and different versions of songs, Johnny Cash’s rendition of the Eagles’  “Desperado” is wonderful. I can’t link a video here because of copyrights on YouTube, but go, right now, and find someone who has the album and listen to it. The emotion in “Desperado” is as wide as the prairie sky (hah) (but it really is), and you will weep while washing your dishes, or whatever you do in your free time. Just maybe wait for the perfect non-sunny day/evening to listen to this song…

What songs do you have a hard time not listening to? Let me know so I can listen to them too!

x

A

Just Tiny Bites of Sounds

So thank goodness for music.

Really, there are so many moments in songs where the words, accompanied by the music, just blow me away. It doesn’t happen every day, but when it does, something inside of me is as blissfully complete as when I find the missing puzzle piece.

What is it about the combination of music and words that connects with an individual? I find this unbelievablely magical. That feeling when a song hits home is perfect. Wide eyes, slack jaw, faint smile, maybe goosebumps.

Sometimes it isn’t even the first time you’ll hear a song. Maybe it’s the tenth time, and you’re listening, like really listening, and all of a sudden, it makes sense. Yes, that is it, isn’t it? That is exactly what I’m thinking. In my short two decades of life this is one of my favorite incomparable events. It’s in the sublime that we truly find the great beauties in life, in the inconsequential minutes that become the most powerful memories.

It’s no surprise then, to find that music plays such an important role throughout the history of humans. Music has had the power to bring together communities of humans and to also bring them apart. From folk music to church hymns to rock and roll, each new development has caused rifts and connections.  Cowboys played music together far from home.  Laura Ingalls’ father would come home and bring out the fiddle. Villages defined traditions with specific music for different occasions. The evolution of music from then to now is almost unfathomable, what with the ability to share and connect practically anything with a simple click of a button.

These aren’t new thoughts. I haven’t said anything that hasn’t been said, written, or thought before. There have been books, theses, documentaries made about music that are expertly written by those who understand more about their subjects than I will ever know, but in light of the new year that brings with it unknowable changes, I felt compelled to throw in my two cents.

In a world that increasingly grows smaller, music is one of forces that continues to traverse obstacles and trandscend boundaries, and what a magical feat that is.

Bucket List Item: Summer Playlist

I was recently looking at my bucket list (five mnutes ago) and I realized that there was, in fact, at least one item that I can cross off the list!

YAY!

No seriously though, because I’ve done mostly none of the things on the list.

But this, I have done. I have made my Summer 2012 Playlist!

What I am not too proud of is the fact that I finished it September 2nd, the day before I was shipping off for college again. But what I didn’t realize (or I did, I think, subconciously) is that by waiting until the three main months of summer came to a close, I was able to accurately capture what I thought my summer should sound like.

This ordeal, which was actually a lot of fun, has been subject to some ridicule. A lot of my friends have expressed severe confusion when I mentioned that I hadn’t finished my playlist yet. It’s not perfect! I’d say.

But now, in September, it is.  I don’t even care. And it is with my highest confidence that I present to you, all, my Summer 2012 Playlist. It’s perfect.

It is.

Shut up.

Sitting on the rocks in Rockport with the following soundtrack would have been IDEAL

Summer 2012

New Slang – The Shins

Fluorescent Adolescent – Arctic Monkeys

Golden Baby – Coeur de Pirate

Semi Charmed Life – Third Eye Blind

Ride with Me – Nelly

Train in Vain – The Clash

Floats my Boat – Aer

Watching you Watch Him – Eric Hutchinson

For a Fool – The Shins

Stuck on the Puzzle – Alex Turner (<—-This is  seriously a great human.)

Simple Man – Lynyrd Skynyrd

Skinny Love – Birdy

Shelter – Ray LaMontagne

Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door – Bob Dylan

Tada! Great, huh? Huh? It’s great!

Toodles,

Me.