Public service announcement

For the time being, this blog is on hiatus.

Thank you for visiting nevertheless. Likely, there will be a glorious return in one form or another sooner or later.

Love, P.

Weekend Jam: The Bangles - Be With You

I had heard songs like Eternal Flame or Walk Like An Egyptian before but it really wasn't until Gilmore Girls that I really realised there was this band called The Bangles. And suddenly I was in love. And when I'm in love, I'm obsessed. I wanted to know everything there was to know. I wanted to hear every song there was to hear and see every picture and watch video there was to see or watch. The latter was quite easily done: there barely weren't any. It was the time before YouTube but from the band's official site you could see all the music videos and maybe some live ones, too. The quality wasn't too good, mostly very grainy and the biggest size option was about the same as the small video below.

But I watched them religiously. I loved them together and individually. Vicki Peterson played the guitar so well and I thought it was the best that she had her sister Debbi Peterson in the same band. I thought Michael Steele was definitely the coolest and Susanna Hoffs gave me feels that weren't entirely heterosexual. I remember thinking that when watching this video for one of my favourite songs, Be With You. The lead is sung by Debbi which leaves a lot of time for the ones in the front to give their all. And they really do: they're wild. Check out Susanna doing splits while playing the guitar around 0:54 an the glaces she gives at the camera in the end. Thank you Susanna for helping me figure these things out. And thanks to this entire band for being an inspiration to my own playing.

 

Be With You from 1988.

Weekend Jam: Björk – All Is Full Of Love

Hello for the longest time! It's been the time for the summer vacation which lead to to this unwarned and also a bit of an unplanned radio silence. But now it's time to boogie again! Although not literary, this time at least. Today I'm mostly inspired by a friend whose wedding I attended this weekend. The party was indeed full of love and the bride and I had a chance to go to a long-awaited Björk concert a few years ago. Hence this modern classic:

 

Love is love.

Moretz and Stewart and Binoche – oh my!

There's this upcoming film called Clouds of Sils Maria. And it is giving me dome serious feels. I had seen a bunch of behind the scenes photos and some red carpet ones from Cannes. I was intrigued of course: it stars Chloë Grace Moretz (whom I find interesting), Kristen Stewart (whom every young gay seems to be crushing on and who does, yes let's admit it, have a special place in my heart, too, because when I was younger Safety of Objects was such an important film to me and she plays a gender bending preteen in it, and also because she really is pretty hot) and the crazy attractive and talented Juliette Binoche.

PLEASE.

But it was the trailer that got me pretty much rolling on the floor. (Because. You'll see if you haven't already.) In the film a successful actor (Binoche) is asked to be in a movie based a play that made her famous. Only that then she played the young girl and now she's to play the less flattering role of the older woman. So she becomes haunted by her past and gets obsessed with the girl playing the part (Moretz). And there definitely is a Certain Vibe between her and her assistant (Stewart). Oh what a time to be alive and a gay movie buff! The fore mentioned trailer:

 

Can't. Wait.

Weekend super jam: ABBA

For the lack of any jams last week and it being already Sunday, I decided to make it up by a super jam. Which means basically that I will ramble on a bit more than usually. And there are three songs. Mainly because I felt I have to set myself a limit so that it wouldn't be too exhausting for a random reader.

I've come to realise not everyone loves ABBA. There's nothing everyone loves but ABBA seems to be rather polarising. For me they've kind of always existed. It's something you don't really form any opinion on or live without. Like air. Or water. Or maybe something less vital, but to be honest I don't want to imagine my life without it. I had always kind of known and heard them and when I started to get more into music, around the age of twelve or so, ABBA became my favourite band. Maybe because I had a friend whose parents had a nice record collection she could make use of. Later on we found a ton of other stuff but ABBA was a nice stepping stone to what we saw as an adult music world (we took it rather literally for we started to listen to music mainly adults did).

Like always with all my big interests, I became rather obsessive. This being time before really having an access to the Internet just like that and the Internet actually functioning the way it does today, there were basically only the albums, a concert I had taped on VHS on TV and some random pictures. We were somewhat boy crazy at the time so we were kind of bummed the guys in the band didn't really seem that attractive to us. So we poured all our love for the women. Because both, Frida and Agnetha were divine.

We were constantly dishing on which had a better voice, who had better outfits (well, some times it was a choice of less awful), who was more beautiful and who we would rather be. Probably more likely which one we would rather marry, given that we were pretty much in love with them and despite then acute boy craziness, both ended up playing more or less for the other team. It was a bit problematic actually, because we both preferred Frida. She was brunette. She was a good dancer. She had a really sweet smile, her voice was lower and she could draw really well (in some CD booklet there were some drawings). If we were belting Winner Takes It All from the bottom of our hearts in the school day afternoons and pretending to be them, we would take turns in being Frida and Agnetha as both wanted to be Frida and neither was really a blond nor a brunette (I really looked most like Björn to be honest). I would wear my mother's old embroided blouse and we would totally do the singing into different directions. Like this:

Frida looked so beautiful here we would have lengthy discussions on it.

Let's fast forward to 2008 when Mamma Mia!, the film, came out. (That itself is such a triumph of older women that I won't even go there.) But after I'd seen it I really wanted to take a trip down the memory lane and fangirl like I had years earlier. And now I could have a nice YouTube session and watch stuff I hadn't seen before! So I ran into this some performance that was kind of... an eye opener. I'd always been a Frida-girl and I had never felt any need to reconsider choices I made in my early teens. But then I watched this video and I suddenly I got what all the fuss on Agnetha was about. I mean Frida's super hot here, too, but there's just something that made me want to take a chance on Agnetha in the heartbeat. Maybe it's the boots and the blazer. Maybe it's the way she moves. Or actually it probably is the way she looks at the camera when singing ”'cos you know I've got / so much that I wanna do / when I dream I'm alone with you”.

Like, please tell me more Agnetha!
(I apologise for the poor quality but it's the best I coud find.)

I may not be that hardcore with my fanatic feelings nowadays but still my heart really beats to the rhythm of golden pop/disco tunes from the 70's. So let's end this with this rather... shall we say interesting, video for my favourite ABBA song, Eagle. And these super adorable gifs. Because you probably could see it coming: I ship it!

 

  Jeez. (Gif credit.)

Things you should see: Féminin/Féminin

If a show is done by a bunch like this, you know you want to see it.

I've stated it before: I am a sucker for anything at all with gay content. And I've learnt to accept that the quality often leaves a lot to wish for. So it's such a thrill to find things done with true passion. Féminin/Féminin is one of those.

The adorable web series has eight about ten minute long episodes and each of them focuses on a person/couple. Which is pretty brilliant: I can't even decide who my favourite is. I guess it was whoever was on the focus of the episode. Which is always a sign of something done right.

Féminin/Féminin revolves around a group of twenty-something lesbian friends and it offers pretty much everything you can wish for: comedy, drama, this documentary feel as the characters are interviewed in each episode, good looking people, somewhat realistic feel. Also, there's this relationship between a younger and older woman. Which I always appreciate.

The first episode came out almost six months ago and the rest now in June. And the best thing is that you can watch it free online. The series sets in Quebec so it's French Canadian but don't worry if your French isn't that good or is rather non-existent (like mine): it's subtitled in English.

I really don't even want to write more to keep you from watching it. It's good, cute and it doesn't even take that long to binge watch. So go do it now! Here's a link. And if you like it spread the word. You can also donate if you feel like it so there's going to be more to watch!

Keep on the sunny side

I like to think myself as a positive person. Everything is possible and in the end it is going to be okay. I enjoy the little things in life, see good in every situation and like to concentrate on the positive side of things. There's nothing more attractive in a person than being enthusiastic and passionate and being open to everything life has to offer. This comes to me naturally: I've always been an idealist and some may find it naive.

But I truly madly deeply believe that despite of everything, people are still inherently good and everyone deserves at least that famous second chance. Each and everyone has potential: they deserve everything good that life has to offer. Except for one person. Whom no one can actually like, let alone love. And if something good happens to them they most definitely didn't, well first of all deserve it, but also they didn't work for it – it just happens. Like that one The Smiths song (or pretty much all of them, but let's use just one as an example in this case): "you just haven't earned it yet, baby / you must suffer and cry for a longer time". That's exactly how I feel what this person should do: suffer and cry just a little bit more. And yes, that person is me.

I know it makes no sense. That I think the most notorious tyrants must have had some nice qualities about them but I am like a spawn of Satan. Well, actually for the most of the time I see myself as a good person who never litters, says thank you, is nice to everyone, who keeps the door open for others, who's easy-going and always ready to support others. But it's still there, somewhere in the back of my head. It's a constant project, to try to let go of these poisonous ideas. It's not good for you. I try to think it's way better than being mean to others but then again you spend time with yourself 24/7 so I wouldn't be so sure.

I try to learn from the masters: from the people that ooze positive energy. I don't think reading some self-help book by a random person you've never seen or heard of would make much of a difference for me. I look up for those I kind of know already, those to whom it comes naturally and who seem to live how they preach. Like Amy Poehler. I wouldn't be as sunny and bubbly even if I got rid of these ideas but how can I claim to be a positive person if everything I say to believe in applies to everyone else except for the one you're supposed to love the most? I recently posted this gif set on Tumblr:

  

No truer words have been said. Really. But life's all about learning and self-improvement, right? Like said, you're never too late to late to learn new things. Like a little self love. I  should probably start my days by chanting the latter part of the send gif as an affirmation. Since we're on the topic of how inspirational Amy Poehler is in so many ways, let's watch this video, too.

 

And as I really want to take this more into the direction of some inspirational words and how you, too, deserve a bit more love in your life, especially from yourself and about general gushing about Amy, can I just point out here at the end, how much I want this book by her to be out like now. Or yesterday. Yes please, indeed.