Wednesday 31 December 2008

Songs of December

1. Pictures Of You - The Cure.

2. Silent Spring - Massive Attack.

3. Bruises - Chairlift.

4. Heartbeats - Jose Gonzalez.

5. What Makes A Man? - City & Colour.

6. Around The Bend - The Asteroids Galaxy Tour.

7. Lessons Learned - Ray LaMontagne.

8. Center Of Attention - Jackson Waters.

9. A Lack Of Color - Death Cab For Cutie.

10. Ice Age - Pete Yorn.

Sunday 30 November 2008

Songs of November

1. The Shadowlands - Ryan Adams.

2. Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush.

3. Always For You - The Album Leaf.

4. More Than Everything - Bombay 1.

5. By This River - Brian Eno.

6. The Luckiest - Ben Folds.

7. Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin.

8. Nightmares By The Sea - Jeff Buckley.

9. Nights In White Satin - The Moody Blues.

10. Please Forgive Me - David Gray.

Thursday 20 November 2008

Literary Quotes

From novels, plays and suchlike. This will probably be one of many installments. I quite like quotes, you see...

1. "There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. But omitted, and the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves - or lose the ventures before us." - from 'Julius Caeser' by William Shakespeare.

2. "The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice." - from 'Vanity Fair' by William Makepeace Thackeray.

3. "Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad." - from 'To Kill A Mockingbird' by Harper Lee.

4. "In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's." - from 'Silas Marner' by George Eliot.

5. "It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are bruised and wounded." - from 'Of Human Bondage' by W. Somerset Maugham.

6. "My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees - my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath - a source of little visible delight, but necessary." - from 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte.

7. "No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true." - from 'The Scarlett Letter' by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

8. "He could not forget the touch of her arms around his neck, impatiently felt as it had been at the time; but now the recollection of her clinging defence of him, seemed to thrill him through and through - to melt away every resolution, all power of self-control, as if it were wax before a fire." - from 'North and South' by Elizabeth Gaskell.

9. "A funeral is not death, any more than baptism is birth or marriage union. All three are the clumsy devices, coming now too late, now too early, by which Society would register the quick motions of man." - from 'Howards End' by E.M. Forster.

10. "Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun." - from 'Romeo and Juliet' by William Shakespeare.

Monday 17 November 2008

Jeff Buckley

Since today would have been Jeff's birthday, I thought I'd post an entry concerning my favourite musician. I entertained the idea of posting a list of my favourite Jeff songs, but it felt to me how it would feel to a mother choosing between her children. So, after looking at my Merri Cyr book of Jeff photographs and quotes, I decided to post my ten favourite photographs of him. These are in a rough order, as I felt it was slightly difficult to choose my ultimate favourite. These are just a few of the photographs I love.

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Friday 31 October 2008

Songs of October

1. You & I - Jeff Buckley.

2. Lie In The Sound - Trespassers William.

3. Moon River - Audrey Hepburn.

4. Dream Brother - Jeff Buckley.

5. Comptine d'Un Autre Ete - Yann Tiersen.

6. Cloudbusting - Kate Bush.

7. Opened Once - Jeff Buckley.

8. Those To Come - The Shins.

9. Proof - I Am Kloot.

10. Running - No Doubt.

Wednesday 15 October 2008

More Quotes

1. "Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato.

2. "Everytime we liberate a woman, we liberate a man." - Margaret Mead.

3. "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." - Sir Winston Churchill.

4. "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." - Albert Einstein.

5. "A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes." - Robert Frost.

6. "There's no point in being unhappy about growing older. Just think of the millions who have been denied the privilege." - Cary Grant.

7. "Well-behaved women rarely make history." -Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.

8. "What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life?" - Leo Tolstoy.

9. "Maybe this world is another planet's Hell." - Aldous Huxley.

10. "To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead." - Bertrand Russell.

Tuesday 30 September 2008

Songs of September

Here's my ear candy for this month.

1. Comin' Home - City & Colour.

2. Berlin - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

3. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Greg Laswell.

4. Big Gay Heart - The Lemonheads.

5. Sex On Fire - Kings Of Leon.

6. Talk Show Host - Radiohead.

7. Ur So Gay - Katy Perry.

8. Weapon Of Choice - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

9. Give It Up - 8mm.

10. Cherry Cola - Eagles Of Death Metal.

Tuesday 16 September 2008

Jane Eyre Quotes

I believe Jane Eyre to be one of the greatest stories ever written, and tonight, I was looking at my copy, just reading favourite parts, when I decided I simply had to make a list of my favourite quotes and excerpts from the book. So here they are:

1. "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you - especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly." - Mr. Rochester.

2. "You - you strange - you almost unearthly thing! - I love as my own flesh." - Mr. Rochester.

3. " 'Come to me - come to me entirely now,' said he: and added, in his deepest tone, speaking in my ear as his cheek was laid on mine, 'Make my happiness - I will make yours.' " - Mr. Rochester.

4. "No - no - Jane; you must not go. No - I have touched you, heard you, felt the comfort of your presence - the sweetness of your consolation: I cannot give up these joys. I have little left in myself - I must have you. The world may laugh - may call me absurd, selfish - but it does not signify. My very soul demands you: it will be satisfied: or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame." - Mr. Rochester.

5. "I had not intended to love him: the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected, and now at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously revived, green and strong! He made me love him without looking at me." - Jane Eyre.

6. " 'I knew,' he continued, 'you would do me good in some way, at some time; - I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression and smile did not - (again he stopped) - did not (he proceeded hastily) strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing. People talk of natural sympathies: I have heard of good genii - there are grains of truth in the wildest fable. My cherished preserver, good-night!' " - Mr. Rochester.

7. "Well he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for a moment I am beyond my own mastery. What does it mean? I did not think I should tremble in this way when I saw him - or lose my voice or the power of motion in his presence." - Jane Eyre, narrating.

8. " 'I tell you I must go!' I retorted, roused to something like passion. 'Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton? - a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? - You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty, and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: - it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal - as we are!' " - Jane Eyre.

9. "My future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for his creature: of whom I had made an idol." - Jane Eyre, narrating.

10. "It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it - as I had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my lips - it came: in full, heavy swing the torrent poured over me. The whole consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched, my faith death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen mass. That bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, 'the waters came into my soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; the floods overflowed me'. " - Jane Eyre, narrating.

Favourite Third Eye Blind Songs

Third Eye Blind are one of my favourite bands, and recently I've been listening to them non-stop. So, it felt necessary to construct a list of my favourite 3eb songs. Although my favourites do change a lot, these are the ones I am particularly enjoying at the moment.

1. I Want You.

2. Blinded.

3. Wounded.

4. Jumper.

5. Danger.

6. Crystal Baller.

7. Persephone.

8. 1000 Julys.

9. My Time In Exile.

10. Misfits.

Thursday 4 September 2008

Favourite Poems

I enjoy poetry, particularly classical poetry, so I decided to devise a list of my favourite poems. Deciding what should be at the top spot was very easy, as I know it off by heart and regard it as my favourite poem. I shall accompany each one with a stanza from it, or if it's a short poem, the whole piece.

1. Ulalume by Edgar Allan Poe.

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom,
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista,
But were stopped by the door of a tomb,
By the door of a legended tomb:
And I said "What is written sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied "Ulalume - Ulalume,
'T is the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

2. They Flee From Me That Sometime Did Me Seek by Sir Thomas Wyatt.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she caught me in her arms long and small;
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, "Dear heart, how like you this?"

3. Lines by Emily Brontë.

But long or short though life may be,
'Tis nothing to eternity
We part below to meet on high,
Where blissful ages never die.

4. Fire and Ice by Robert Frost.

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

5. How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

6. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!

7. And Wilt Thou Leave Me Thus? by Sir Thomas Wyatt.

And wilt thou leave me thus?
That hath given thee my heart
Never for to depart;
Neither for pain nor smart:
And wilt thou leave me thus?
Say nay! Say nay!

8. Lullaby by W.H. Auden.

Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit's sensual ecstasy.

9. She Walks In Beauty by Lord Byron.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impared the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lights o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

10. Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride
In her sepulchre there by the sea -
In her tomb by the side of the sea.

Sunday 31 August 2008

Songs of August

On the last day of each month, I am going to post a list of my 10 most listened to songs of that month. So, here's what I've been listening to in August.

1. If She Wants Me - Belle & Sebastian.

2. Keep It Together - Guster.

3. Into The Night - The Motorhomes.

4. Congratulations - Blue October.

5. Let Go - Frou Frou.

6. You've Got A Killer Scene There Man - Queens of the Stone Age.

7. Echo - Vertical Horizon.

8. Short Skirt/Long Jacket - Cake.

9. The Blues - Switchfoot.

10. Pink Bullets - The Shins.

Wednesday 20 August 2008

Quotes

Before I commence with the list, I thought it would be imperative to mention that there will probably be many lists concerning quotes I like, as I have an ever-expanding collection of them.

1. "Love is an irresistable desire to be irresistibly desired." - Robert Frost.

2. "In Heaven, all the interesting people are missing." - Friedrich Nietzche.

3. "A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow." - Charlotte Brontë.

4. "Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears." - Edgar Allan Poe.

5. "To pray to God is to flatter oneself that with words one can alter nature." - Voltaire.

6. "Sensitivity isn't being wimpy. It's about being so painfully aware that a flea landing on a dog is like a sonic boom." - Jeff Buckley.

7. "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind." - Ghandi.

8. "A wise girl kisses but doesn't love, listens but doesn't believe, and leaves before she is left." - Marilyn Monroe.

9. "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." - René Descartes.

10. "Summer afternoon - summer afternoon... the two most beautiful words in the English language." - Henry James.

Friday 15 August 2008

Favourite Albums

1. Grace by Jeff Buckley - Best track: Lover You Should've Come Over.

2. Absolution by Muse - Best track: Sing For Absolution.

3. Vehicles And Animals by Athlete - Best track: Shake Those Windows.

4. Catch Bull At Four by Cat Stevens - Best track: Can't Keep It In.

5. O by Damien Rice - Best track: Delicate.

6. Through The Windowpane by Guillemots - Best track: Little Bear.

7. Coral Fang by The Distillers - Best track: Hall Of Mirrors.

8. Live Through This by Hole - Best track: Doll Parts.

9. Magpie by Stephen Fretwell - Best track: Lines.

10. 9 by Damien Rice - Best track: Me, My Yoke & I.

Debut

So, this is my blog. A collection of lists I make to calm my overflowing mind. That, and I enjoy it immensely :) I make lists when the mood strikes, and they're all very random. At the moment, I'm working my list of 'Favourite Albums' so I hope to have that posted anon.