For all you shatter is our seeming, And in breaking we are free

My dad was listening to a playlist of TV theme songs on shuffle, which led to the mild cognitive dissonance of going from the delicate, haunting Twin Peaks theme straight to the Flintstones. Yabba dabba doo! Bwuh?

It then moved through Kojak to the Airwolf theme, which I admit made me rather pathetically happy for a few minutes there :)

I really love jazz, blues, jazzy blues, that whole bundle of genres. Also swing and electroswing. It makes me want to move. I think I've just bruised my foot (or possibly pulled the muscle to my big toe) from dancing rather enthusiastically around the kitchen in bare feet. I don't even know exactly what I was listening to, my dad had a playlist on while he was cooking. He said it was dixieland jazz at the start, but it wandered around a bit as well. I've no idea. It was brilliant, though. Made me want to do hips and circles and tappy feet. Heh. I never said I was a good dancer, I just like to do the rhythm/drum bit with my feet and then the brassy bits with hips and hands over it - it looks absolutely ridiculous and I stand on my own feet fair regular, but it feels great.

Jazz is good for you. Jazz makes you feel good. I like it.

Because I've just passed an extremely pleasant hour or so, and I thought I'd share. *grins faintly*

You know the 'recommended for you' vids on youtube? Where they tally up what you've watched often and recommend vaguely related stuff that they think you might enjoy? Well, sometimes youtube guesses right. Heh. I tend to listen to a lot of jazz, especially when my Dad and I are in the kitchen and he's cooking and wants a soundtrack. I also tend to listen to a lot of world music, because I'll follow any random music link just to see what it sounds like.

So, apparently, youtube took these things and recommended the Buena Vista Social Club (Chan Chan and Veinte Anos for two songs). And yes, I like those, they are a lot of fun.

So I was following the links along, and there was a version of Besame Mucho sung by a lady named Cesaria Evora, and that was also gorgeous and I loved it. So I followed her for a while and found a song called Carnaval de Sao Vicente, which is the best thing to dance to. And yes, by dancing I mean bouncing around the kitchen pretending I know what rhythm is, swaying and waving my hands in the air, but I honestly don't care how ridiculous I looked because it was the most fun I've had in days. Seriously, seriously danceable.

And then, browsing around, I found out that the lady had crossed paths with a lady named Dulce Pontes, who'd done a song that's been on my favourites list since watching Primal Fear - Cancao do Mar. Because I have predictable tastes, perhaps, but what the hey. The song is gorgeous and stirring, and in none of these cases do I care that I don't know what the words mean. They sound good. They sound really good.

So, um. If you wanted some music to dance to in your kitchen on a hot day? I thoroughly recommend these. Yes. *grins stupidly*

Random observation, because we're listening to Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds (Thunderchild! Spirit of Man! The Red Weed!), but ...

I would really, really like a film adaptation of WotW that actually took place in 'the last days of the 19th century'. It would make absolutely no scientific sense, being based on a novel from the 19th century, but ... I just really, really want a steampunk alien invasion involving killer vegetation, a crazed artillery man, and, most importantly, the goddamn Thunderchild, okay?

It's not even that I want a faithful adaptation (though that would be cool). I just want to see a 19th century era warship go down in valiant combat with a Martian walker. Possibly to an instrumental version of 'Thunderchild'. *shrugs sheepishly* Specific desires, I have them. Heh.

I was trying to do that meme thing where you put your playlist on shuffle, and write drabbles to the songs. That ... didn't work so well, as it turns out I can only write to music when I'm ignoring it, treating it as ambient sound. I can't pay attention to both song and writing at the same time.

But. I did get two interesting match-ups of song and character from it, one for Nikola and one for John. Not sure if I'll get fic out of them, but perhaps that's just as well.

My current playlist includes lots of torch singers like Edith Piaf and Peggy Lee, musicals like Les Mis and War of the Worlds (Spirit of Man and Thunderchild, every time), and some classical, because I've started listening to the local classical station on the radio, and it turns out to be the one station that almost always pleases me when I randomly switch it on. *smiles* I keep forgetting exactly how much of it there is, centuries worth, and all different.

Also, I've been reading about writing, a very rare occurence for me. Perhaps unfortunately, I chose to start with 'The Seven Basic Plots', by Christopher Booker, based on availability (there was nothing else in the local library on the subject, really). And, ah ... I disagree with him. Vehemently, in many cases. He has some good points, but I flat out refuse to accept his assertation that every book written in the last two centuries is an exercise in overweening egotism. Seriously. He says this. The 'Age of Loki', he calls it, and in his view, for which I may never, ever forgive him, Loki is the bad guy. Hel, Fenrir and Jormungand were pure monsters. Hmp! Moral ambiguities are not his thing, apparently.

Don't get me wrong. His dicussions on comedy and tragedy, his interpretations of Greek myth, and a goodly number of the 'high classics' are all pretty good. He read a lot of Jung, I think, though, and the pyscho-babble gets a bit tiresome. And the last two sections of the book, his diatribe on the 'Age of Loki', had me breaking out in hives.

A mixed bag, in other words. Interesting, but aggravating. Extremely so.