Archives For August 2011

This is so amazing.

Or how do you say it? 好看,好听!!我喜欢~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99QVa8Q1F4g

-edit-

added Cantonese lyrics

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Going through my last batch of DVDs to arrive, there’s some pretty kick-ass extras in the Criterion edition of In the Mood for Love. And why wouldn’t there be, right? It’s Criterion! Listen to Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung speaking in English is… something else. xD

There’s a quote from an essay included in the DVD that struck a chord and wanted to share

As an African-American singing in Spanish, [Nat King] Cole embodies American Culture’s ability to absorb, transform, and commodify the exotic for its own ends. In other words, America takes from the world and sells what it has borrowed back to those from whom it was taken.

In the Mood for Love
Hong Kong, 1960s Introduction
Romance and the “Yellow Peril”: Race, Sex and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction by Gina Marchetti

Amazon.com | Google Books

How didn’t I ever see this BackStreet Boys performance? OMG, I must’ve been very disconnected from fandom to never hunt down what was up with that Black&Blue video collection.

Though I’m a little tired of those BSB vs. Nsync fights online that I get to see from time to time when I browse through old videos on YouTube — seriously people, TEN freaking YEARS. Just… enough is enough. We don’t need more crazies on the net. [See my post on Gagaism].

I gotta admit that vocal arrangement was… pretty cool.

I had almost forgotten how good AJ used to sound, so soulful and raspy. They may not all harmonize because their voices are quite similar in range… but they sound tight.

There’s a particular quote I got from the interview that I thought exemplify what I’ve been trying to say for a while… and why I think YAM Magazine is important. I love that Nick says it plainly:

I think that’s what happens with people and music. They connect with certain songs, not necessarily the lyrics but sometimes with the way that they sound. They just connect and it can help them through things and it’s just… it’s their soul.

Any thoughts on this?

Did you ever noticed that “as seen in” feature some YouTube video uploads have?

I always wondered how to get a YAM Magazine one [which eventually did happen], so I’m wondering how this works. I suppose that YouTube picks up a pingback because it’s Google… and everything is interconnected now.

Anyway, you can subscribe to this blog’s YouTube thingy thing!

Los Nosequien y los Nosecuantos (literally translated to “The Whomever and the Whichevers”), often shortened as NSQyNSC or some variation of that, are famous for… being total clowns. They’ve got their bits of ska so often populating the good stuff of Peruvian Rock, ready for parties.

I was recently updating myself with their discography and found this song called Cuando Tu me Pegas (When You Hit Me)… which talks about DV… domestic violence, or a variation of that since it’s not explicit that the couple in question lives together… in a very inappropriate funny way.

Raul Romero, in the role of the woman… mocking “delicate” tone of voice and all talks about her relationship with a man who hits her, but she loves it. It probably goes in hand with that ever popular saying of “mas te pego, mas te quiero” (the more I hit you, the more I love you) or that thing called “amor serrano”.

Of course, DV is no laughing matter… and I’m sure I’m supposed to be feeling socially conscious about the song and its context… I just can’t help finding this hilarious though. It’s not the lyrics perse, but the execution and overall feeling of the song that makes you go WHUUUUT and then laugh at it.

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I’m not really familiar with SunnyHil, but my curiosity was peaked when I caught a teaser for Midnight Circus that had BEG member Ga-In, just about the time when they released the video for Midnight Circus~

I dug it… kind of a mix of music that wasn’t exactly Kpop… it had something — I was caught inadvertently saying “midnight cir-CUS!” once or twice. And the video is class… really moody… almost a bit cabaret-y punk-y, but not really that… it wasn’t the Dresden Dolls, but it was interesting Kpop. xD

So I was really surprised with their MV for Pray — which once again peaked my curiosity with the teaser. There’s a certain sci-fi horror feel to it… combined with this creature that looked a bit like an orc combined with a little bit of Sloth from The Goonies.

It’s just an outstanding music video overall — such a despicable (yet so familiar) storyline! A ‘monster’ lured in with affection that’s suddenly betrayed by the people that he thought care for him. Amazing.

Aug 7

Are you feeling the new theme?

It has been a long time since I last did anything important to my blog… maybe a little over two years. I really didn’t know what to do while the WordPress coding has changed over the years. It seemed I needed a new theme with new capabilities… though I do think WordPress has begun acting a little too much like Tumblr~~~

There had been some very beautiful new WP themes (some you need to pay for), when I saw Matala I immediately thought “this is the one.” But I needed to change the graphics, as much as the original theme looked nice… I didn’t want to look like all the other blogs that might be using this theme.

So I was playing around Photoshop… without knowing exactly what I wanted, and ended up with this Dogville, Dancer in the Dark, and Memories of Matsuko mash-up — I call it “Suffering Heroines of Cinema” o “Heroinas Sufridas del Cine” in Spanish~ I almost added Amelie in it instead of Matsuko, but felt she was too off against these two Von Trier characters. LOL

I’m not completely feeling this theme, though. How about you?