Everywhere I go, through Ireland and the UK, I hear this song. You'll find it playing in the back of your head and not realize it after a few days. Snatches of people whistling it as you walk through the crowds. And tonight they played it on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, and I have decided that this ambitious little song is trying to rule the world. See more at Pete Bjorn & John.
This is a great moment, from the U2 Elevation Tour DVD. Bono is singing With or Without You on a catwalk stage, in front of thousands upon thousands of people. And it feels like such a naked song, about this woman he loves, or has loved. And he reaches into the crowd, and pulls a woman up with him, and he lies down with her on the stage. He is on his back, singing into the microphone
quietly, and holds her against him, her head against his chest, so she is hearing his voice first, through his rib cage, around his heart, before it reaches the thousands of people watching. And it is perfect. The whole room becomes a bedroom, and this man becomes naked and simple-- in his art for this other woman, he has somehow made this intimacy universal, exposed himself, and translated a deep part of
himself to all these other people.
I saw that and it stayed with me.
In honor of musical wonderfulness, and in honor of being in Dublin, we're giving away a copy of U2’s PopMart Live from Mexico City in conjunction with Ume.
All you have to do is describe a moment in music that touched you in the comments, and we'll randomly choose a winner from that. Good luck!
Hello ladies and gents!! I'm wayfaring in fair Dublin, Ireland, tracking down music and wonderfulness for the next few months! This next week I catch Feist in the Temple Bar, and let me tell you: this song says everything about how Dublin has been the last few days. I feel it all, I feel it all.
I had it sussed. Papercuts, I knew, were those agonising slices, little nicks to torment and mock.
Not so.
Papercuts, it seems, are creatures of light and shadow, of fabulous delicacy and winding, perilous lattices, of fairies and demons and shifting, sliding colours.
No need to paper over the cracks; that's how the light gets in.
Watching the Bat for Lashes video reminded me of these good gentlemen. For punch-the-air, get-out-and-run-around-in-circles joy, you'll do no better today. Hurrah for velocipedes!
Especially for Charissa, because super-creepy, hilarious dreams deserve a brass section. And men wearing suspenders.
Look at how daintily they have set the table for your arrival! Boulders, tree stumps - even the shadows under the trees are their co-conspirators. The woods want you to have a picnic! Surely, you can't deny them now?
The link below will shuttle you (elbows in, mind the doors now) to their lovely website. Or, if you prefer a less flashy ride, you can cheat and check out the pictures elsewhere.
For added bonus points, we have provided a small picnic basket of melodies for you to nibble on. Pass the napkins and oh! are those fairy cakes I spy...?
Be warned, foul bandit! For as I travel among Johnny Foreigner, I know that my valise is protected by an ingenious marker-of-goods device. Look! It's orange! I may be haughty, but I'm cheerfully so.
Also available in other variations (for those of us who feel that polka socks and red capes would look good on anyone, really).
If you had this handbag, from B. Lambert's Bestiary store? You could walk through the most dangerous neighborhoods imaginable, and feel Completely Safe. Because nobody, but NOBODY, is crazy enough to mess with a person who might be carrying axe-wielding baby chickens in her handbag. That's just taking your life in your hands.
Darkness is pervasive in Deth P. Sun's latest gallery collection, "The Sand and The Stars." It looms, it threatens, and the small, brave figures throughout his pieces cling to whatever sources of light or meager weapons they can find to feel safe, to feel not alone. The style is spare, effective. The colors are often muted, so when they're bright, it drives the point even more sharply home. There is a sense of loss, of LOSTNESS, in his paintings. A sense of searching. of seeking, of maintaining hope through the worst kinds of adversity.
What I like about seeing art in person is how you can feel it change you, feel a new perspective opening up inside yourself. In a sense, I guess we're all searching, seeking, trying to make a connection so we don't feel so alone. Art is one way to achieve this goal, and I felt that little thrill of recognition take place inside of me at this show. So I guess that means I enjoyed it, and you should go check it out, because gosh! He does great work. You know?
At Giant Robot SF from now until October 10. If you can't make it, Deth P. Sun was kind enough to make a Flickr set and put it HERE.
I've always thought getting your picture taken in a paper moon, over a cardboard sea, was about the most romantic thing you could do with someone. (Yes, almost more romantic than that, so get your mind out of the gutter). Someone else obviously shares my enchantment with these photos from a bygone era, and has been a whole lot more proactive about it than I ever was. So, view a collection of one hundred of them in this fabulous Flickr set.
And because I'm in a very lovey-dovey mood, three different versions of the song "Paper Moon" for you to choose from! La-di-da.
The only thing better than receiving a card featuring a woman being swallowed by a fish? Receiving a card featuring a woman being swallowed by a fish IN POP-UP FORMAT.
I really hope this comes back. if it doesn't, you should hand it off to someone! I'm sure anyone (including myself) would love to take over fabulist and bring it back with a vengeance!
becca on 
