Here’s something else I haven’t done in a while: gone through my iPod to figure out and report back on what I’m listening to these days. It hasn’t been reset in a while, so here are the top songs.
1. Sam Roberts, Them Kids – I caught myself dancing to this at the movie theater one night. True story. It’s fun and infectious, and it’s hard to stand/sit still while listening to it.
2. Snow Patrol, Run. Which is odd, because I haven’t listened to it recently. However, I listened to it at least 77 times since July, so apparently I listened to it a lot at some point.
3. The New Pornographer, Use It. I find it difficult to resist the urge to sing along with any New Pornographer’s song, or bop along happily. Unless I’m in public. Except if I’m in my car with the windows rolled up, and then it’s fair game.
4. OK Go, Here It Goes Again. I predict that synchronized treadmill dancing will be an official Olympic event in 2020. A great song to listen to while walking to work on a grey, rainy morning.
5. Fatboy Slim, Jin Go Lo Ba. Two things about this song. First, this does not sound like a Fatboy Slim song. The first time I heard it I thought it was the Chemical Brothers, and to me, it sounds more like one of their songs, or even The Orb or The Crystal method. Second, I thought it would be higher on the list. There were many days where I’d have this song on constant repeat on my way to and from work. Also, I want to take up running or rave dancing when I listen to this song.
6. MGMT, Electric Feel. I listened to this song 44 times in a row on the bus to Toronto once. (I might have been asleep a few of those times, thought.) (Ditto my other favourite of theirs, Time to Pretend.)
7. King Cobb Steelie, Luckily I Keep My Feathers Numbered For Just Such An Emergency. Ah, my misspent youth listening to 102.1 in Toronto, which played this song often at one point. Best bass line ever. Catchy, and it’s hard to not be cheerful after listening to it.
8. Jason Forrest, War Photographer. I would have never heard of this song if it hadn’t been for Randal, who posted the video on his blog. And now I’m posting it here, because your life won’t be complete until you’ve seen a true Viking Battle of The Bands.
9. Gwen Stefani, Wind it Up (Original Neptunes Mix). I blame So You Think You Can Dance for getting this song wedged in my brain.
In elementary school, I had this awesome teacher who would write the date on the board, but use the root words instead of the actual name – Wednesday became Woden’s Day, Thursday was Thor’s Day, etc. This is all to say that I couldn’t come up with anything clever to call January [1].
To kick the year off and fulfill one of my resolutions (to keep my “books I’ve read” list up-to-date), here’s what I read last month. Looking back, it’s a surprising number.
Mordecai Richler, Barney’s Version. It was a book club book, and I was pleased that I didn’t dislike it as I have some of his other books (Cocksure, I’m glaring at you.) At first, I was convinced Barney was an unreliable narrator and that he was selective in what and how he told events, but by the end I thought maybe he just didn’t remember the details anymore.
Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, Dedication. Meh. It didn’t end the way I expected it to end, but it was still kind of overwrought and dramatastic [2].
Susan Elizabeth Phillips, This Heart of Mine and It Had To Be You. Reader’s block reads – I was in a rut, and they helped me get out of it. SEP is one of my comfort authors who I’ll turn to in times of need.
Naomi Novik, Victory of Eagles. Great, kind of dark, but the end was a big “WTF?” I realize it’s a set-up for the next volume, but as a military tactic, it sucked large – why would you send your best weapon and leader into exile before the war is over?
David Levithan, Are We There Yet? Love love love David Levithan, who writes powerful emotions like it’s easy. The story of two brothers who are tricked into spending time together in Italy, and rediscovering each other. I read this on the bus home from Toronto last weekend.
Deanna Raybourn, Silent in the Grave. Kind of slow and long, but still interesting. A Victorian mystery which reminded me of the Amelia Peabody (Elizabeth Peters) books and the Mary Russell (Laurie R. King) series.
This week I’ve been struggling through one of my two book club books for work, and I finally finished it today. Part of me wants to start the second one right away [3], but part of me wants to celebrate and do some “reward” reading [4]. For over a year, I’ve been sitting on a book I’d heard great things about and have been dying to read, and there’s no time like the present. Reward reading, here I come!
[1] That Crappy Cold Month At The Beginning Of The Year is too long.
[2] Oooh! I invented a word!
[3] I run two book clubs a month at the library. Most of the books I’d read before, but some of them I haven’t read in a while.
[4] At knitting, we’ve developed the concepts of “punishment knitting,” which is knitting you have to do, and “reward knitting,” or knitting you enjoy and is fun. I’ve applied these concepts to my reading, so that book club books or any other book I have to read but not enjoying are “punishment” reading, while everything else is “reward” reading.
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