My eating habits have been so rotten lately. I’ve been missing meals on my meal plan, averaging one meal a day (sooo unhealthy!), and, due to lack of funds, existed on a steady diet of the bland college basics. I still have my oatmeal, though. And my tea. And, apparently, a slew of almonds. I like almonds and I guess the last time I was home, my mom kind of pawned them off on me.
Anyway, here comes three AM and my hunger pains are stickin’ like duct tape. So I break out my almonds to subside them. But that’s boring. So I decided to mix them with the honey I use to sweeten my tea and some cinnamon (don’t ask why I have cinnamon), zapping the mixture in the microwave for a few seconds. YUM.
Speaking of food, I AM SO EXCITED FOR THANKSGIVING. I wanted to share my new favorite channel on YouTube, Working Class Foodies. It’s brilliant and always gets me hungry and inspired to cook (which, unfortunately, I can’t do because all I have is a microwave and virtually no money). This is their Thanksgiving episode.
Yeah, these pictures didn’t turn out as expected. Bad luck with the camera this week, I guess. Oh well. The inspiration for the first was a rose garden and the second a Scottie dog. Enjoy. Also, I’m lame.
I’ve been playing a lot with color lately, in my crafts and in my choice of clothes. I love employing unexpected color combinations and breaking the so-called “rules”. If you’d rather just experiment virtually, COLOURlovers is the place to do it. The site hosts thousands of color palettes, patterns, and shades for you to draw inspiration from. Not to mention, you can play yourself! I whipped these up pretty quickly just to share with you a few of my recent, favorite color combos and to give you a feel of what the site offers.
Mustard and mauve
Peach and royal blue
Cranberry and beige
Plum and celery (pale green)
Neon yellow and seafoam
On a related note, I really like this twist on the idea of a monochromatic outfit. I think it’s absolutely brilliant to take a color and wear an outfit entirely of its different shades. I vow that I will be brave enough (and able) to try this soon.
I really like the idea that mustard yellow, gray blue, and ivory go so well together. This will make a delicious new pin, I think. Oddly this reminds me of winter and those snowflakes you cut out of paper, which is quite a pleasant connotation.
I actually had three button clusters to share, but those will have to wait. Photography did not work out near as well on the other two. In the meantime, enjoy this and the fact that, if all goes well, I’ve really got some great stuff for you here in the next couple of days. So be on the lookout!
"She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum."
I have finally relapsed into my old ways of downloading, hungrily scouring for all of the newly-released albums I have missed in my avoidance of Google blog search and the Sordo database (which is now… dead?). This, of course, means exciting things for this blog as I now have a feast of new gems to review, but, most importantly, this means I’ve got my hands on a number of fresh releases, including My Dying Bride’s new EP and album. I was excited to learn, upon review, that the EP had a Swans cover. But, of course, one taste of Swans (even if it isn’t the original, I guess) always sends me on a hungry prowl for more of Michael Gira’s agonizing genius.
Over the summer, I came across the rare Swans recording, Public Castration is a Good Idea, and, loving the title and not wanting to miss an opportunity for more Swans in my collection, I downloaded it. But, not being in the mood (trust me; you must be in the mood for Swans), I tucked the find away for another time. Today was the day I finally decided to listen to it.
Fucking. Shit.
This is seventy-four minutes of the most viscerally intense and painful noise you will ever hear, an album that has the ability to make you physically sick. Gira’s strained and gutted vocals pour out over a landscape of the same awful chords and blunt-force percussion. This album is exhausting, nauseating, brutal, and excruciating, sacrificial in its energy. Even if you’re looking for lyrical insight or fantasy, the album cannot provide. The lyrics are succinct, simple, and numbingly repetitive in both reality and theme. But the album has a point. Swans go beyond metal, beyond noise, beyond industrial, beyond drone. They have managed to produce, instead, hate, in its purest form. Hate. Raw. Raw, unfiltered hate for yourself, for everything, and for everyone.
The result is catharsis. If you can manage to get through what I would consider the equivalent of being beaten for seventy-four minutes, you will be purged of all negative feeling, left confused and scraping for the lunch and agony you had with you before you started.
As for recommending this album, I wouldn’t (which is why I am not including a download). This is a choice you must make yourself, and one you probably shouldn’t if you are even a remotely healthy human being. But, damn, this is the real fucking deal. I think there is probably a culture out there somewhere that says you are not considered a man until you listen to this album.
