insaneneko

I happened to catch an old episode of some music show called "Music Fair" featuring Gackt, TM Revolution, and Glay (natsukashii!!) tonight. My eyes bugged out when TM Revolution's performance of High Pressure came on because he was wearing a fascinating outfit: short black kimono (about hanten length) accented with red sash, over-the-knee strappy black boots, and (artfully?) arranged hair. I liked it. Wish a singer I found hot wore it. :P

In a fit of boredom I went looking for music videos of some of the songs I found and loved in 2009. Some of the videos are...fascinating. Some are rather boring. But all the music is rather catchy and fun. I think.

Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) by Florence & The Machine

11th Dimension by Julian Casablancas

Method of Modern Love by Saint Etienne

Waking Up in Vegas by Katy Perry (This video tells a story! I love all her costumes...)

Fireflies by Owl City

Life Less Ordinary by Carbon Leaf

Ghosts by Laura Marling

I'm With You by The Stills

My Name is Trouble by Nightmare Of You

California On My Mind by Wild Light

Diamond Crevasse by Nakabayashi May (Macross Frontier ED Song Live Version)

Triangular by Sakamoto Maya (Macross Frontier OP Song PV)

I did not find the song below in 2009, but did find it surprisingly easy to sing in karaoke in that year. I can't help but giggle at the English in the lyrics, though.

Glamorous Sky by Nakashima Mika (NANA Live Action movie)

Also check out Hyde's English version from his HYDE BEST Album. I have no idea what he's saying, but it's a cool version.

John Barrowman & Daniel Boys sings I Know Him So Well from the musical Chess. It's nice that the two singers are actually gay so the unchanged pronoun works well. ♥

1. Christopher Walken "performs" Lady Gaga's Poker Face, so much better than the original video. The song is kinda catchy, but that video is stupid.

2. NightS is an amusing one-shot by Yoneda Kou, available for online reading (in English, I couldn't find it in Japanese) at mangafox. A transaction between a yakuza and a transporter becomes more. I like the end! I'm not sure if she was actually trying to be hard-boiled, but if she was she failed. But it didn't need to be gritty, it was just fun to read.

3. I am in love with Koibito koibito henjin by Torimaru Chiiko and illustrated by Nara Chiharu. It's first person, in Kansai-ben, switching POVs between the two main characters (mostly, there's one or two others as well). The characters are teen-aged delinquents going to a school famous for their delinquents. They like to brawl. A lot. One likes to brawl everyone and everything, too dumb to pick up the subtleties of alliances and allegiances. The other is the top of his school and always has to clean up after the dumb one and scold him (which always includes some hitting). In one of his scolding moments the not-dumb one, Kyousuke, decides the dumb one, Natsu, needs to be taught a lesson. Which of course means sex. They have the oddest relationship, in that it's rather non-con and they fight every time Kyousuke wants to have sex. And the sex mostly means Kyousuke getting his way and dominating Natsu. Yet it seemed like an extension of their non-sexual relationship (the fighting and the jockeying for position that is their way of life) that it didn't seem so off-putting. It is also very obvious that they are very fond of each other, even if the way they actually showed their affections was sadly lacking. I also think the Kansai-ben helped a lot. The two were cute, despite the violence and the non-con because they contrasted so well with the pure love they had for each other (no joke). XD; I think it may be tough to read for someone who is very unfamiliar with Kansai-ben. It's full-on dialect, not just dialogue but narrative since it's first-person POV.

I like the way the book starts out, Kyousuke's POV:

「友達以上、恋人未満」...とか。
そんな陳腐な言葉で要約される。おれら。

友達以上やけど、恋人とは言えへん。
でも好きやねんけど。
それがオレとナツの関係。
...っていうのは、ナツがそれ（恋人っちゅーの）を頑に拒否しよるからや。
オレはええねんけどな、全然。コイビトでも。

ナツはオレのこと、「好き」とも言いよらん。
だから、いつか言わしたろうと思ってる。

I love how Kyousuke basically states that someday he'll *make* Natsu say he loves him. So frank, so full of confidence that he will.

4. English books I want to read:

On Food and Cooking, a book that combines science, food, history, and a whole lot more. Sounds great!

The Year of Living Biblically, a book I'd heard about before but hadn't wanted to read until I read rachelmanija's review.

Am currently in love with Obadiah Parker's cover of Outkast's Hey Ya...Check out the video here.

I also threw out a couple of years of Pafu yesterday. It was...painful. But I do feel better. Lighter. I need to let go of more of my books--I already have, but I do really need to cull. The annoying thing is that it's hard to find new homes for the BL titles. Who will take them? I don't want to throw away perfectly serviceable books needlessly...

I checked out a recommendation by Amazon Japan for a book called Namida no naka wo aruiteru by Mizuhara Tohru and had to snort. It's about a college student who meets again a guy he'd met when he was a little kid and the guy was a nice resident at a hospital, at a gay bar. And goes home (or perhaps to a hotel?) with him. And is treated really badly (as in not really consensual BDSM). But he endures and goes back for more in the hopes that the sadist doctor will like him. Because he was nice that one time a long time ago, which doctor doesn't even remember. Yes, really. The lone review is pretty harsh, I had to cackle when I read it because it sounds like something I'd write in disgust. XD Found another review that's also not that favorable here. That review describes it as a "someday my prince will come" story in which the prince is super sadistic. I almost want to read it to see just how much I'd hate it, but since I already know there's a 99% chance that I'll hate it (spineless pathetic uke + probably pointless graphic sexual nastiness = me hate) I really shouldn't. Plus, I kinda remember reading some other book by this author with a sadistic seme and a totally pathetic uke who endures, and not liking it much. :P

I happened to catch part of the Acapella Koshien, which features student groups singing acapella versions of pop songs. I missed the finals, but a group called Bam B Crew won. I was told they were quite good, so I looked for videos online. Found one probably from that show, but not the winning song: Acapella Koshien 080923 Bam B Crew - M (Princess Princess). I also found a couple of videos of the group singing with another group called Link the Light who apparently also appeared on the same program: Acapella Koshien 080923 Link the Light - Dreamland.

The videos of the two groups singing together have pretty awful acoustics, but they do very nice jobs: Bam B Crew × Link the Light ~WINDING ROAD~ and Bam B Crew × Link the Light ~ A Whole New World ~.

I also found Bam B Crew doing a B'z song: Bam B Crew 「Love Phantom」. Unfortunately, it was outside so it sounded pretty bad. :P

A beautiful recounting of a loved one's death by the poet Mark Doty here. Only tenuously connected is Moby's "God Moving Over the Face of the Waters" (from the movie Heat) here.

I love reading the rec request posts on the manga sharing comms. Sometimes they are requesting things I want to read, sometimes it's just fun to read the posts. Just read one request listing a bunch of stuff, the first of which is "Prostitution/uke sleeping around because he's emo." I had to LOL at the "because he's emo" part. I don't care for prostitution stories, but I do like emo sleeping around stories. I see too much of the former and not enough of the latter (that don't suck). :P

Wow, the Sci Fi channel changed its name to "Syfy"...How incredibly lame and dorky. What's wrong with "sci fi" anyway? It is what it is. "Syfy" is stupid.

I spent some time watching different versions of "Paparazzi" on youtube and found a pretty good live version here. Just don't watch the video, because the dancing was not very impressive. I think she should do a live version with tons of back-up dancers (a la Johnny's), this song is the one to do it with.

Greg Pattillo, the beatboxing flutist, makes some pretty cool music. I really like his version of the Inspector Gadget theme song. Check it out, along with many other songs, at his myspace page.

Blind eyes could blaze by iambickilometer, xxxHOLIC. A year into the aftermath, neither of them has found the answer.

I was listening to an interview of a Spanish chef on The Splendid Table and just about died when he described a dish called Arroz Cubano (Cuban rice) that apparently everyone in Spain has grown up with. Fried egg+rice+tomato sauce (and at times banana?) sounds heavenly. Will try to figure out kind of rice to use. I doubt the medium grain rice we have in the house would be right...

I also am so going to try making Panna Cotta after reading David Lobovitz's blog post on it. It looks so easy! I just need to get my butt to a store and buy cream and gelatin. Though I have a feeling I may already have gelatin it may be buried somewhere...I also have a huge bottle of homemade vanilla extract I really want to test (you just stick vanilla beans into a bottle filled with vodka or rum and let it sit for a while--minimum 6 weeks, probably).

I also want to eat Cowboy Steak with Chimichurri Sauce because I love chimichurri sauce. Love. I...just don't want to make it myself. ^^;

I am currently completely obsessed with "Famous Blue Raincoat" by Leonard Cohen after listening to an interview on Fresh Air--he is putting on concerts after having all his money stolen by his manager while he was in a Buddhist monastery! I love the original (check it out here) but I am also looking for awesome covers. I am so glad you can hear samples on Amazon and on iTunes. I still haven't decided on whether to buy CDs or mp3s, and if I go with mp3s whether to go with Amazon or iTunes. I've been too traumatized by successive hard drive crashes to not expect another one--and even now I'm still lazy about backing up. XD; On the other hand, CDs take up space and can get really heavy. What to do, what to do.