This being manga. I avoided the stuff for most of my life, knowing deep down inside that if I ever picked one up, I would never be able to stop. Well, I caved about two months ago. I was in the school library, being bored, so I started to shelf read. I guess it really wasn’t a conscious decision. I suddenly realized I was half-way through Fullmetal Alchemist. And that was that.
After I finished your basics like Bleach and Death Note, I started asking for suggestions. It was then that I was asked the fatal question by one of my friends most knowledgeable on the subject. “Do you care if they’re incomplete?” she asked while flipping through pages and pages of favourited manga.
Ummm… I thought back to Bleach. It was incomplete and I didn’t mind that. “No,” I responded eventually.
And thus began my descent into the hellish never ending cycle of manga.
You know, where you wait and wait for the next chapter to be released, there’s a fleeting rush of explosive fangirl jubilation and suddenly you’re done… You have to wait another month for the next chapter. Or year, depending on the manga…. That is the torture. The rush and crash of manga.
Anyway…
Currently I’m taking a break from manga to pick up a novel by the ever splendorous and witty Libba Bray. Nothing in this world makes me happier than brilliant fiction with footnotes. I’m only on chapter five of Beauty Queens (I left the damned thing at work today… Grrr.) but It is incredible so far. Bray is hands down the most real, sarcastic, funny author I have ever read… I believe I already have a post on Going Bovine ( One of my all time favourite books) so I might be just repeating myself. That’s it for now, I’ll attempt to post book reviews soon.
[Note of from SOH: Abi has been gone for a while and I feel bad that there's been nothing but my music posts lately so I figured I should write a book review for her. I'm sure that's what she would have wanted.
So the first thing I had to do was find a book that would work. I leapt to my bookshelf and sorted out all the nonfiction books, comic books, Humour books, Magazines, Children's books, Sequels, Classics, Guidebooks, Puzzle books, Books based on movies and other ineligible books. I was left with 3 results, two of which I've read. I grabbed the one I was less embarrassed about reviewing and took off to the Blogosphere.]
The book is a bit different from the other Science Fiction stuff I read in the sense that it isn’t about a dystopian future or anything like that. it is much more classic Sci-Fi but with the author putting his own twists and acknowledgements on the old Sci-Fi plot.
[Oh, it's been a while since I read this book]
This book involves a man who gets abducted by aliens who are taking him back to their home planet as an exhibit in a sort of zoo. I know, it’s nothing new or original but in this case, it isn’t the idea that’s important, it’s how it ‘s handled. From what I remember, most of book is on the ship the aliens are transporting him in.
So the book is generally enjoyable but some readers may have problems with it. It’s difficult to describe, but something about how the author presents details and develops the atmosphere can be slightly annoying. The main character and the bias toward humans are particularly troublesome.
So the book is worth a read if you are look for some light hearted classic Sci-Fi but if you are after something more serious you’ll probably want to pass.
[Come back Abi. We miss you.]
[Also: Musical Monday will not be posted tomorrow.
If you need something to listen to and you have 74 minutes, here's Tommy ]
Alright, this is slightly pointless because my readers has already admitted that he has listened to Lemon Demon but whatever.
Musical Monday #7: Neil Cicierega / Lemon Demon
Art!
You should probably already know who this guy is. I’m saying this because I can guarantee that you have seen something this man has made. There is a pretty high probability at least. What I’m trying to say is that you have seen the popular internet series Potter Puppet Pals Or perhaps The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny then you’ve seen his work.
But that is just a small portion of what Neil Cicierega does. I have recently come to an understanding that about 30% of things on the internet is actually made by a much smaller group of people than you think. Neil Cicierega is one of those people.
It's a good thing the internet exists otherwise this kid would get beat up, like, every day
This guy made a band, called it Lemon Demon and then made music. That’s pretty much the story.
Music:
Probably my favourite song is the first one.
This video is pretty good:
This song is very nice:
I’ll leave you with this one last song:
In case you’re wondering, the video is unrelated and is from a webcomic made by somebody else. Consider this foreshadowing, because there will be a post about by Wednesday.
Although to make up for it, you’re in for a whopper this time.
Episode #6: Moxy Früvous
Ladies and gentleman, I introduce to you the international Orchestra!
Some of you knew this day would come; You see, Moxy Früvous is and basically always has been my favourite band. Oh sure, I had favourite songs before but this was the first band. It was a gradual process, first there was one song of theirs I liked, but I often listened to the album while in the car with my family so I’d hear the other songs. So of course, I discovered there were other songs of theirs that I liked. Some more than others but I grew to like more as time went on. In childlike manner, I remember figuring out which songs I liked so I knew how to listen to the album. When I grew older, I gave some attention to the slower paced songs which I had ignored in my youth and I pretty much like the whole album now.
Funnily enough I remember lending it to one of my friends once with a post-it note list of the song I liked as a child attached. In retrospect this was not a good idea.
In terms of actual background to the band there’s this. They were one of most popular indie bands in Canada. In fact, they were the second indie band to get a song at the top of the Canadian charts (The first was The Bare Naked Ladies by a few months) They released their first tape in 1992 and made music constantly until 2000. When I lent my friend that one Album I erroneously told him that they only really made one album before disappearing. They made more than that, but I had only heard one album at the time.
That said, that one Album was Bargainville and it’s hard to see them making something better than that.
And in case you’re wondering what the name is all about, they deliberately picked a name that had no meaning and was difficult to remember. That’s the extent of the story. The name doesn’t mean anything , but that didn’t stop people from asking about or stop them from answering. The answer was never the same of course.
I think this is them
Finding their stuff on YouTube is not for the faint-hearted. of all the artists I like, they’re stuff is not the hardest to find (I’ll get to them later) but it is the oddest.
You see, there’s every type of video with their music. There are official music videos fit for the radio, recordings of TV shows they performed on, shaky, poor quality videos from live shows, weird alternate/early versions of the songs you’re looking for, videos comprised of movie clips, slide shows of varying quality, Videos with a single unrelated image, a completely unrelated video that uses the music as poorly chosen background music and one video that requires some strange YouTube wizardry.
So most of the music is there, but watching the associated video may not be advised.
I suppose I’ll cut the chit chat and give you the music.
So here’s their most famous, the second indie song to reach the top of the Canadian charts and probably the first Quasi-Acapella song to reach the top as well.
Here’s one of my personal favourites. Also check out this “great” music video:
I find Laika to be an under appreciated song. Check it out:
Important: to listen to the previous video you need to change the quality to 240p then play the video and it will play fully even though the track bar will only read 14 seconds.
I actually never heard Splatter Splatter until recently, but it is stuck in my head so here it is:
They do depressing songs as well!
Side note: they were actually commissioned for this song, so the first few lines about trying to write a song are not fiction.
Speaking of depressing songs, check out this awesome piece of work:
Now, at some point in the distance past, this was supposed to be blog about writing and books and stuff like that so I’m going to end on a silly song about authors because I don’t you want to be too depressed at the end of all this.
Now hopefully at the end of all this you’re a fan (We call ourselves Früheads) with some new music. So go forth and spread this, for The Früvous Quill must not die! Realistically, there probably won’t ever be a reunion tour so this is the only way to keep the music alive, but the really optimistic part of me wants to believe that if enough people demand it they’ll give in, just like the Beatles. (…Wait)
So to recap, Everybody should listen to Moxy Früvous and if there if there ever was a Moxy Früvous reunion tour I’d be like, the first one there.
Apparently I love Artists with difficult to define genres because here’s another one!
Voltaire is oddly defined as Folk-Victorian-goth-dark-steampunk-cabaret. This may seem confusing but on closer inspection it is still kind of confusing. Really, if you listen to some of music you’ll sort of understand.
I mentioned before that Voltaire is not the only pangenre artist I’ve featured (Ok technically Voltaire isn’t pangenre) Tom waits is of course is the other. I think the two artists are interesting to compare. They are similar in some ways but I can’t put those into the words. But the one thing I find interesting is how they have completely different voices. Tow Waits has that rough rugged voice but Voltaire’s voice is incredibly smooth but somehow just as impressive in almost the same way. Actually I would love to hear what it would sound like if they switched some of their songs.
Perhaps I should get to the music, eh?
This first one was written for a popular cartoon show The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy so it might seem a bit odd.
