Last music for mercredi it was brought to my attention that Spotify is not currently available in the United States, unless you originally downloaded it in another country as I did. So I have to apologise to all my US readers who will not be granted access to the playlist. HOWEVER, I am at least putting the tracklist up so you can get a sense of the thing, and if you feel inspired enough you can look up the songs. Anyway, off we go:
You guys have no idea how hard this was to do, hence why a few letters have more than one name. I know a lot of them are quite well known, but check out the ones you aren't familiar with. I hope you'll be pleasantly surprised. And, as always, let me know in the comments if I've missed anyone out.
Here is the music for mercredi for this week. Hopefully it'll get you through that mid-week slump and maybe even make Christmas come a little faster? Hey, a gal can dream. There's some good'uns in this one, although I think I may have failed a bit structure-wise, which is something I normally pride myself on. You'll have to forgive me... go on, just this once.
Oh, come on now! Get those minds out of the gutter!
Announcing a brand new feature of ramblings: A weekly playlist!! This is an attempt to a) stick to posting on this blog, and b) reward its small but devoted group of readers (well, those with spotify anyway). It's also actually a lot more efficient than posting lots of links to YouTube or embedding music video after music video. Every Wednesday you'll be able to find a brand new playlist of 10 songs that I deem worthy to appear on the site. All you have to do is click on the link, which will make the playlist magically appear in your spotify account. Simples!
tracklist:
1. folding chair- regina spektor
2. laura- girls
3. relator- pete yorn & scarlett johannson
4. the happiest christmas tree- nat king cole
5. drugs in my body- thieves like us
6. kiss of life- friendly fires
7. slow, slow (run, run)- ayo
8. did i make you cry on christmas? (well, you deserved it!)- sufjan stevens
9. little secrets- passion pit
10. first train home- imogen heap
I'd like to share a song with you all that has been completely squeezing my mind grapes for the past 48 hours, i.e. I can't get it out of my head, which is kind of funny considering the opening lyrics are the title of this post.
It's coming up to Christmas time, something we're all feeling particularly heavily over here in Lyon. The Christmas market (the third most visited in all of France, thank you very much) is in full swing right down the road from my hotel, and there is vin chaud aplenty to be swigged. All of the Christmas lights are up, and after Lyon's annual Fête des Lumières last week everyone's particularly anxious for Christmas to arrive.
Jouons avec le temps, the light installation at Place des Terraux, as stolen off Kat's camera!
For me, as soon as it hit December 1 I was starting to get into the seasonal mood. While there is of course taking part in all the activities above (particularly the vin chaud), no holiday season is complete in my eyes without the right movies and music to help the month of December along. Here is a list, complete with links of course, of some of the best ones.
As always, I encourage anyone and everyone to leave messages about your favourite holiday movies/songs, even (or especially) if you're just echoing my choices and praising my brilliance.
My Top Ten Holiday Movies (in no particular order):
Elf: I don't know how this movie could not make you smile. "SANTTAAAAA!!! OH MY GOOOOOOOODDDD! I know him! I KNOW him!!!"
It's a Wonderful Life
A Christmas Story
Love Actually: Just one quote... "There was more than lobster present at the birth of Jesus?!"
Scrooge: Albert Finney and Alec Guinness. Amazing.
Dr Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Miracle on 34th Street
Home Alone
Meet Me in St. Louis: Classic Judy Garland
Trading Places: Not necessarily about Christmas, but watching a drunk Dan Ackroyd in a santa suit makes it Christmassy enough for me
My Top Ten Holiday Songs (in no particular order):
This is something I've been meaning to write about for ages, but for some reason haven't.
Not sexually transmitted disease awareness fairs, you understand.
Community, in my opinion, is the best show that started this fall. For those of you unfamiliar, it stars The Soup's Joel McHale as a lawyer's whose college degree is found out to be less than legitimate and is forced to go to a community college in order to obtain a degree so he may practice law again. While McHale is fantastic (my favourite line of his: "Move on with my life? Schmove schmon schmith schmy schmife!"), so much of the comedy is brought by the ensemble cast, and even the minor recurring characters. My favourites are:
Abed: I think we are kindred spirits. The entire first episode practically all he did was quote lines from the Breakfast Club. Plus he does an AMAZING Batman impression.
Troy: His high school's politically conservative shamefully outdated fight rap is one of the funniest things I've ever heard: "Bing bong, sing along. Your team's Al Gore cos you're views are wrong!"
Pierce: These people were so lucky to get Chevy Chase. The man makes eating a slice of pizza look hysterical
Senor Chang: "I am a Spanish genius! In Español my nickname is El Tigre Chino! Because my knowledge will BITE her face off!"
Vaughn: "You're toxic, Britta. You know, you're like the exact opposite of an anti-oxidant. Psh, yah!"
Professor Duncan: And not just because he's British and played by John Oliver
Brought to you by Joe and Anthony Russo (they directed Arrested Development, so you know they're good), this show is filled with people that are so zany yet so real, they may just remind you of your friends or yourself. If you haven't yet, watch it.
Gosh, I've not posted anything in a while, have I? I'm terribly sorry.
One of my new favourite things to do in my soon-to-be-old city is to visit the Institut Lumière, a museum and independent theatre on the property of the father of the Lumière brothers, who invented the first cinématographe, and therefore the first moving picture in 1895. The house and gardens are gorgeous, and the museum itself is fascinating. One often forgets how much science is involved in cinema, and the beautiful way in which science and art intertwine to make film.
The attached cinema has one theatre, and devotes its screenings to some of the most worthwhile films in history. The Institut Lumière chooses to honour particular filmmakers every now and again, those who have made, in their opinion, a particularly interesting contribution to cinema. From October until the end of this month, they are honouring Terry Gilliam, who just released his new film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. This meant that the cinema would be showing all the Monty Python movies, and being my father's daughter, I jumped at the chance to go and see them on the big screen, starting with The Holy Grail.
Obviously I had seen the films before. But seeing them in a movie theatre totally changed the experience. Jokes that were familiar and even too old to be funny were rejuvenated and therefore hilarious, and there were several times where I was embarrassing myself and Kat quite severely, giggling hysterically with tears rolling down my face (never so much as the scenes with the French soldiers, which the almost completely French audience didn't seem to appreciate as much... see below for clips).
It's odd that these screenings should come at such a time, because it feels like Monty Python and similar creations (I'm thinking Fawlty Towers) have had a little bit of a revival. Thanks to YouTube and the free section on iTunes (best idea ever?) I've been catching up on lots of my favourite old clips and, well, laughing my ass off. It's brill-o pads.
