Tonight, musical whimsy. Staying up to work, and taking dancing breaks in between.

I fall in love every time we meet

Sam Smith



Queen B. 7/11



never drop that alcohol!

Oh geez. I found my Christmas playlist  from last year already.

MUSIC!
These are a few songs from my running playlist for my first 4 mile run since the accident. it was along the San Francisco shoreline (of course, now that it is 34 degrees in NYC, no more running). huzzah!

- We Own it - 2 Chainz, Wiz Khalifa
- Wagon Wheel- Darius Rucker
- Trumpets- Jason Derulo
- Timber- Pitbull, Ke$sha
- This is Gospel - Panic! At The Disco
- Sonsick- San Fermin
- Holy Roller- Thao & the Get Down Stay Down
- Best Thing I Never Had- Beyonce
- All About That Bass- Meghan Trainor (OF COURSE)


and, guys, I am (still) in love with these:

- Countdown- Beyonce
- Take Me To Church- Hozier
- Stolen Dance- Milky Chance
- I Choose You- Sara Bareilles
- Ride- Lana del Rey
- Sweet Jane- Cowboy Junkies


You can see the whole list on Spotify. In the future, I will try using Jog.fm to figure out some beats-per-minute-optimized songs. but until then, I will be that girl bounding down the Embarcadero mouthing "Killing me sooooooftly" to Beyonce. Don't stop, get it get it.

If you want to cease being productive at work on Friday afternoons, listen to Rihanna and lip sync to Pour It Up in anticipation of weekend festivities. Just a suggestion.

just how many times can you listen to Safe and Sound by Capital Cities on repeat before the trumpeting horn makes you crazy? I guess I may be about to find out, but I hope it never does.

echo. echo. echo.

Vincent Segal & Ballaké Sissoko | Part 1 (Houdesti) | A Take Away Show.

it's summer, and the only thing that seems to appropriate while driving in a tank top and shorts with the sunroof open is country music. on a long drive recently i crowed the lyrics of Jo Dee Messina songs over the roar of the wind with all the windows down.

in contrast, i also love the ballads about lost love that mirror how i feel on more introspective, sentimental days. sometimes it's nice to rock out to independent-women-i-don't-need-you-anymore-and-i'll-never-look-back songs, while other times it feels indulgent to croon to myself about how much i really miss you, even though you will never hear me. 

as i run through the streets of other cities, i rely on the steady heartbeat beats to keep me going. like most people, i also make playlists in anticipation of concerts. 

the result is a crazy Spotify mish mash that would probably make people wonder if 15 different people were adding random playlists to my account.

i love summer time. my favorite time of year. 

- The XX- Angels
- Lana Del Rey- Video Games

- Lindsey Stirling- Song of the Caged Bird

- Beyonce- Best Thing I never Had

- Walk Off the Earth- Red Hands

- Phillip Phillips- Get up Get Down

- blink-182- I Miss You

- Tacabro- Tacata

- Fall Out Boy- My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark

- Macklemore- And We Danced (ft. Ziggy Stardust)

- Hey Marseilles- Heart Beats
- Nicki Minaj- Va Va Voom

- Rihanna and Jeezy- Hard

- Drake- Started from the Bottom

- Future, Diddy, Ludacris- Same Damn Time

- Sean Kingston- Beat It

- Lana Del Rey- Young and Beautiful
- Mariah Carey and Miguel- #Beautiful

- Lianne La Havas- Don't Wake Me Up

- Jay-Z- No Church In the Wild

- Macklemore & Ryan Lewis- Cowboy Boots

- Sara Bareilles- King of Anything

- Of Monsters and Men- Mountain Sound

- David Guetta ft. Sia- Titanium

- OneRepublic- Something I Need

- Fall Out Boy- Young Volcanoes

- Alicia Keys- Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart

- Lupe Fiasco- Battle Scars

- pretty much any song by Imagine Dragons

- Eli Young Band- Crazy Girl

- Jo Dee Messina- Bye-Bye

- Jason Aldean- Dirt Road Anthem

- Zac Brown Band- Colder Weather

- M83- Midnight City

- Robin Thicke- Blurred Lines

- Arctic Monkeys- Flourescent Adolescent

i went for a walk at night, the way i do when i am clinging to the sweet breezy coolness of spring that lasts only a total of 10 days a year in houston. the sounds of joplin's The Entertainer wafted from one of the houses. the stars were visible (in houston, texas- can you believe it?)

i thought about the part of my adolescence that was spent playing beethoven, chopin. practicing it over and over. abhoring the practicing and monotony, plotting the best way to murder the metronome and get rid of any evidence. i remember the years later, when it dawned on me that i missed the beauty of it. of making the music. it ran right next to me, passed me by, and i never stopped to listen.

i continue to believe that the universe gives us exactly what we need. today, the first thing in my inbox from someone who thought i would like it, but little did they know that i needed it: this is water.  "you get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. THAT, is real freedom."

Today, a struggle to occupy the space with something that is not you. It's like the chasm that is empty immediately behind a dam, but I can feel the walls quaking trying to hold onto that emptiness. The walls can't hold forever. Will you flood me again? Will you be the deluge? Sometimes I feel compelled to ask you to be.

Today, a first look at music from Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby via NPR.

Today, waking up from dreams. Vivid dreams make for cloudy realities.

Today, fighting something greater than me. Or fighting alongside it. One of the two. These days, it's been difficult to distinguish.

Anna Kendrick performs "Cups"

I got my ticket for the long way ‘round
Two bottle ‘a whiskey for the way
And I sure would like some sweet company
And I’m leaving tomorrow, wha-do-ya say?

When I’m gone
When I’m gone
You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone
You’re gonna miss me by my hair
You’re gonna miss me everywhere, oh
You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone

I’ve got my ticket for the long way ‘round
The one with the prettiest of views
It’s got mountains, it’s got rivers, it’s got sights to give you shivers
But it sure would be prettier with you

When I’m gone
When I’m gone
You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone
You’re gonna miss me by my walk
You’re gonna miss me by my talk, oh
You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone

My obsession with accordions began at a young age.

I really thought I wanted to play accordion, and my parents bought my twin sister and me identical tiny accordions. Tiny accordions for our tiny fingers. Our small house was not rich or fancy, but it was filled with two of the richest things that this world has to offer: books and musical instruments.

I still remember strapping the accordion onto my shoulders and pretending I could play.

My discovery of Julieta Venegas came later (here is her Tiny Desk Concert at NPR).  She is tiny and bursting with talent, and she masterfully demonstrates the art of traversing several different instruments during her all of concerts. The accordion always made me feel like it could transport me to another place, another time. It makes me explore the curious paradox of playful seriousness, and the feeling of sitting outside a cafe, or participating as an onlooker to a parade.

Then came Argentine tango. Along the shores of the Seine river at night, I sat in front of the bandoneon player, and listened until dawn. I'm not sure whether the movement or the music lulled me into believing I'd dance tango one day. Perhaps it was the water, or the Parisian night.

I still get lost in the accordion notes. They seem a little bit naughty, but every part innocent. Pushes, pulls, pressing, bellowing, resonating.

It's been a while since I listed some of the music that I've been listening to lately.

• Stars- Lights Changing Colour
• Stars- Hold On When You Get Love and Let Go When You Give It
• Sun Kil Moon- Among the Leaves
• Regina Spektor- How
• Regina Spektor- Firewood
• Regina Spektor- Don't Leave Me (Ne Me Quitte Pas)
• Ben Harper- Burn One Down
• Pretty Lights- Finally Moving
• Meaghan Smith- Here Comes Your Man
• Creedence Clearwater Revival- Have You Ever Seen The Rain?
• Morcheeba- I Am The Spring
• Blind Pilot- 3 Rounds and a Sound
• The Irrepressibles- In This Shirt (which was featured in So You Think You Can Dance and also makes an appearance during the new Step Up Revolution movie. Jussayin.)
• Matt Nathanson- All We Are
• Clory Martin- Summer Spent
• Ratatat- Loud Pipes
• Sam Cooke- Sugar Dumpling
• My Brightest Diamond- Be Brave

What it's like for a deaf person to hear music for the first time: article here.

Chapman writes, "I did the only sensible thing and went on a binge of music." From that binge, he composed his top-five list:

1. Mozart's Lacrimsoa... I know it's a depressing song but to me it represents the first time I could appreciate and experience music.
2. The soundtrack to Eleven Eleven... I can see how this comes off as narcissistic, it being my own film and all but it's such a personal work that when I listened to it for the first time I broke down. I felt like I was truly seeing the film for the first time ever. I'm grateful that Cazz was able to capture the tone perfectly. We discussed the film and specific scenes with essay-sized reasoning/deliberations on what should be conveyed. The critical response to the film surprised me and I still didn't quite get it until seeing the visual images coupled with the soundtrack.
3. Sigur Ros's Staralfur... The first song I had to listen to again, over and over.
4. IL Postino-Luis Bacalov
5. Minnesota's A Bad Place

"Silence is still my favorite sound," he writes.

sometimes when i hear the violin, i want to cry. not because the sound of the violin makes me sad, but because it makes me sad that i once knew how to play and no longer do. sometimes i want to cry because it's so fucking beautiful. sometimes i just think how lucky i am to have ever played it at all. sometimes i think how lucky i am to be able to hear it at all.

Well. If you ever wanted to learn more about fusion music (or blues) and dancing to it, here's an excellent post  to help define it all.

Because “Fusion dancing” can refer to both fusing different elements of specific dances and also to dancing based more on spontaneous creative movement, defining what “Fusion music” is can get tricky. In other words, music for fusion dancing can mean a cross-over song to some, but for others it also means music that is not necessarily related to traditional partner dancing. These categories are not mutually exclusive.
For this reason, our Fusion music should be looked at as a vessel capable of holding a lot of different dancing. The parameters of this vessel are same parameters we use for any dance. And, like any dance, it’s about optimizing a combination of tempo, pulse, accents between odd and even beats, melody and phrasing.
Between different musical styles we can find songs that have similar elements and complementing these elements will probably make for the most satisfying dance experience for the most number of people.

I can't wait. Here we go.

FRIDAY
Foo Fighters
Beck
Andrew Bird
Fitz and the Tantrums
Of Monsters and Men
The Walkmen
Antibalas

SATURDAY
Sigur Ros
Norah Jones
Passion Pit
Grandaddy
Big Boi
Explosions in the Sky
Portugal. The Man
Alabama Shakes
Tame Impala
Sean Hayes
Yellow Ostrich

SUNDAY
Stevie Wonder
Skirillex
Dispatch
Regina Spektor
Bloc Party
Santigold
Franz Ferdinand
Fun.
Amadou & Mariam
Trampled by Turtles
Bomba Estereo

so.
i'm sitting in the office.
the lights have turned off because i've stayed later than most.
and this song is on full volume in my ears.

Regina Spektor's song on her new album. The song is called "How."
Don't write it off as cliche until you have heard it. I suggest you drink in the song with dim lights with your eyes closed.


How can I forget your love
How can I never see you again?
There is a time and place
For one more sweet embrace
And there's a time ooh
Where it all ohh
Went wrong
I guess you know by now
That we will meet again somehow

How oh oh
Oh baby how
Can I begin again
How can I try to love someone knew
Someone who isn't you
How can our love be true
When I'm not ooh I'm not ooh over you
I guess you know by now
That we will meet again somehow

Time can come and take away the pain
But I just want my memories to remain
To hear your voice to see your face
There's not one moment I'd erase
You are a guest here now

So baby how can I forget your love
How can I never see you again
How can I never know
Why some stay otehrs go
When I don't ohhh I don't want you oooh to go
I guess I know by now that we will meet again somehow

Time can come and wash away the pain
But I just want my mind to stay the same
To hear your voice
To see your face
There's not one moment I'd erase
You are a guest here now

So baby how can I forget your love
How can I never see you again?

this pretty much made my whole day. even if you don't like classical music, at least watch the last two minutes. you can't really watch the audience reaction without a big smile on your face.

Over the course of our almost 4-week trip, we listened to the same songs on my iPhone about 300 times each. Poor R, who makes mix tapes in his head of artists that don't even exist yet.

 We lip synched to Taylor Swift while hiking and being in awe over llamas. We ate our mountain mint Oreo snacks to Counting Crows and giggled at night in our tent while jamming some Balkan Beat Box. I suffocated in the altitude while Nina Simone crooned me to life. Jay-Z kept me company while I stopped for the 234th time to coax my thighs into climbing more steep inclines to see some ancient ruins that they didn't give a shit about. The only time I beat everyone else to camp, I celebrated with some old school Lauryn Hill, and when no one was looking I may have c-walked a little to some Snoop Dogg. Kanye West forced my feet to brave the final glaciers and then we climbed our last steps to Macchu Picchu to Beirut.

 We stared out train windows to Thao with the Get Down Stay Down. We survived 8 hour long bus rides to rhythmic Rodrigo y Gabriela mixes, and in the morning we watched the sun rise to K'naan.

 I cried out my broken heart to anthems of Arcade Fire. I fell asleep to Regina Spektor and held one-person dance parties to Shakira.

We shot Pisco to Peruvian folk music. We karaoked with Peruvian locals to some old school Mana and danced cumbia to bad Juanes remixes.

The Canadians showed us how to polka dance to a song from Cirque du Soleil and then promptly schooled us Texans in how to two step to Tim McGraw. Who knew that Canadians two-step?

 In the end, the music held me above water, but the mountains and the people saved my life.

listening to Bach's unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major: Courante

i love hearing the breath of the cellist, and even if you can't hear the breathing you still know exactly when they breathe

this is one of the two times i've wanted to cry this week. just at how beautiful the breath between notes is.

the other time was in yoga, when c. talked about urgency, about how we have to fight our tendency when living in this city to feel like everything is urgent. i held my breath hoping that no one would see my tears, and he said, "the best yogi is the one who moves the most air" so i let go of the air inside my lungs.

oh, and the third time i had forgotten about was when Florence talked about her roots in Texas, and how right when she steps off the plane "the air in Texas smells like my childhood."


so everything i want to cry about has to do with air