What I've Been Listening To Lately

I think as I've gotten older, my taste in music has mellowed out a little bit.  These are just a few examples of some of the quieter, more relaxing music that I've been listening to lately.

Boy with a Coin-- Iron and Wine

Welcome Home-- Radical Face

The Dumbing Down of Love-- Frou Frou

Upward Over The Mountain-- Iron and Wine

More Than Life-- Whitley
Thanks for listening!
--Jude

I Dream of Dancing to These

White Houses-- Vanessa Carlton

Dream-- Priscilla Ahn

Eet-- Regina Spektor

Hallelujah-- Rufus Wainwright

(Sorry for the Spanish lyrics)

You Picked Me-- A Fine Frenzy

I'm a romantic at heart... there is no cure.

--Jude

Beat Radio

Some of you out there might be young enough to remember this cartoon that used to be on T.V. called 'Doug.' One day, I was strolling about YouTube when I found a fake trailer by Comedy Thunder for 'Doug: The Movie.' I decided to watch it again, and I found a thumbnail that led to the soundtrack music for this fake trailer. I loved it! The music was mellow; it was ambient, but not at the same time. Any way, I really liked it! I wanted to share Beat Radio with you guys. They're too awesome to keep to myself :)

They also have a blog that you should definitely check out. They have playlists with all the rest of their songs plus a lot more than I could ever hope to share with you. You can click here to visit them! I love the title of their blog too. 'A Cinema of Sunshine.' Doesn't that just sound beautiful? I think I'll save up for these albums...

I just wanted to share this with you today and I also wanted to welcome all of my new followers that arrived this weekend. I'm glad to have you here! Thank you!

Thanks for reading and have a great Sunday!

--Jude

Julia Nunes

'Balloons' by Julia Nunes. She's one of my favorites!

'August' by Julia Nunes.

Both of these are only some of my favorite songs of hers. I really want to get her CD someday!

A Long, Long Time Ago

Thanks to Scribd.com, I now have access to many of my favorite songs. Among them is this song, which you can listen to on YouTube. This is a cover by one of my favorite piano dudes. His screen name is ‘CalikoKat.’ Look him up and watch his other piano videos.

‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ (the original Spanish title is ‘El laberinto del fauno’ literally meaning, ‘The Faun’s Labyrinth.’). If you have Netflix, you can watch it instantly (that’s what I did). If your first language is not Spanish, you don’t have to worry, because it has English subtitles throughout. This is probably one of the best movies I have ever seen. It’s beautiful and the music is simply haunting. Do you see why I wanted to find sheet music for the lullaby (titled: A Long, Long Time Ago). Any way, I just thought I would share this with you.

Thanks for reading!

--Jude

Phantom Craze

So I have started watching ‘Phantom of the Opera’ again. I think I took a little break after my birthday treat of getting to see the show live at the State Theater (I think it was the State… I don’t think it was the Orpheum…).

I read a blog entry by Beth who wrote something about the movie. It made me get a little nostalgic because it is one of the best movies I have ever seen. The music is… every word I can think of just isn’t adequate enough. I need an incredible synonym for ‘beautiful.’ The costuming is stunning, colorful, and artfully done. Carlotta’s seems to be the most complicated while Christine’s is rather dramatic—very fit for the theater and an opera singer.

A few of my personal favorite songs are ‘Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again’ (if you’re familiar with the movie or the musical/play, it’s the song that takes place in the cemetery. I seem to be impartial to cemetery scenes in cinema. Sort of a morbid fascination I guess…),

(Courtesy of the YouTube user 'carolynroxsox')

Passing bells and sculpted angels, cold and monumental
Seem for you the wrong companion, you were warm and gentle
Too many years
Fighting back tears
Why can’t the curse just die!

‘Past the Point of No Return,’

(Courtesy of the YouTube user 'carolynroxsox')

Past the point of no return

No backward glances

Our games of make-believe are at an end

Past all thought of “if” or “when”

No use resisting, abandon thought and let the dream descend…

and ‘All I Ask of You.’

(Courtesy of the YouTube user 'Julinhaaaa')

Say you’ll love me every waking moment

Turn my head with talk of summertime

Say you’ll need me with you now and always

Promise me that all you say is true

That’s all I ask of you…

Seriously, I have watched this movie so many times that I can now sing along with just about every one of those songs. I try my best to hit those high notes and in a few songs, I get them, but notes like the one at the very end of ‘Phantom of the Opera’ (the song) I cannot reach, no matter how many times I’ve tried. My voice cracks terribly, and I really shouldn’t even attempt to hit that. I can only imagine what wonders that does for my vocal chords… of course, I don’t do the songs much justice any way. It’s just for fun.

The only annoying thing I can find with this movie is Eric (that's the Phantom's name. It pays to read the book, no matter how tedious Christine's dialogue is) starts out with sleek and shiny black hair that you just want to run your hand over constantly and then, as soon as Christine takes off his mask at the end of 'Point of No Return,' it magically turns to blonde. Not white blonde, but blonde enough to tell that it's not the same color is was two seconds ago. That and when the Phantom chokes Raoul, he has a huge snot string (I know, gross and crude terminology) hanging from his nose. He must have had hay fever when they filmed this part or something like that. How unfortunate that they used that frame among any others the director might have filmed. I challenge you to look for that if you're really bored one day. I didn't even notice it until my little sister pointed it out.

Other than that, it’s just an amazing movie. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend that you go to your computer and get it from Netflix or go to your local movie store or Redbox and rent it there. Or borrow it from a friend, whichever comes first.

Ponderings After a REALLY Long Tuesday

I've never actually heard the lead singer of Jack's Mannequin talk, I have never really seen what he looks like, and I have never really seen one of his music videos (except for 'Dark Blue' which was amazing!). He looks genuinely angry in his videos and he looks older than I pictured him to be. When he used a normal talking voice, I couldn't believe that the guy on the YouTube video was the same guy that sang 'The Mixed Tape,' 'Dark Blue,' and 'Last Straw' among others. But it was cool! I have lost no respect for my beloved Jack's Mannequin. If I have any readers and you're curious, here's Jack's Mannequin's YouTube Channel. If I don't have any readers, this will be for my reference. Even though I have already subscribed to his channel and drooled over his songs. There's a song or two to the right-- in the music player with the Monet painting as a skin. Enjoy it at your own pace. Perhaps you will become an even bigger fan than I. Maybe you already are...

I turned in my Yearbook application today. I had to include a picture that I took and a paragraph about a school event. I'm not going to show you (if there are any readers out there) the picture because it's of my best friend in the whole wide world and I don't want to betray his trust or invade his privacy. All I'm going to say is I'm really, really satisfied with how it turned out :D I asked my French teacher if she could write a recommendation for me. Normally, I would have asked my English teacher because he'd be more familiar with my writing and my art work (though I have a few speculations... 1) I have no idea what happened to my English teacher. All I know is that he's not there anymore and they brought in a teacher to replace him until the end of the year. 2) He claims he hasn't had time to read my story that I labored over for two years (wow, that makes it sound like really gruelling work. Like, worse than when they made children work in factories...) 3) He's never actually seen any of my photography. There's never been an opportunity to show my pictures off except through my scrapbooks. That is all).

One final thought. I have been thinking about college lately. It's still roughly two years off, but it's never too early to think about what you want to do. I feel like I've narrowed it down to two, three, maybe four areas of expertise. Journalism, Photography, Architecture, or Phychology. I think it would be so cool to be a child therapist. Or deal with teenagers. I know we're annoying sometimes, but we have problems too and we all need someone to talk to and help us (whether we want to admit it or not). I've gotten a lot of mail from colleges. The ones I'm most interested in are in Iowa (2) and Minnesota (2). Any way, I'm just throwing that out there.

If there are people reading this, could you drop a comment here so I can omit the less important and frankly uninteresting stuff.

Thanks!,

Jude Rosenberg