Archives For musings

*Insert meme of “It’s been 84 years”*

After much mysterious drama, Marit and Marion have decided to come back together to make M2M a thing once again. You have no idea about the adrenaline rush I got when I saw Marit’s post, after missing the original posting on- “September 22nd, Sunday, twenty-five after nine.

Dorks.

I love them. I hope they saw A*Teens performing together for their reunion at Melodifestivalen back in February this year and were washed by a feeling of nostalgia that they couldn’t resist. In fact, M2M has already announced The Better Endings Tour (to change the ending of The Day You Went Away, dorks), visiting a number of places in South East Asia were much of their fandom was concentrated, especially in Manila where they are already selling tickets.

My hope is that maybe, if they would like to increase touring chances in Latin America, they could get together with A*Teens and make it a Scandinavian thing. [Jokes on you! Who’s the dork now?] Thought I wouldn’t mind at all getting the chance to see Marit and Marion up close in more intimate venues, which are my preferred form of performances to witness live, anyway.

In the meantime, M2M have set up a website where you can join their mailing list, and follow them on their main socials Facebook and Instagram, Tik Tok, and a kinda left over YouTube channel.

I never really bothered with Halsey before (I’m old, this blog is old. This is a self-hosted blog.), but her sampling of Britney’s Lucky was really well done, and the music video directed by Gia Coppola took it home. It pains me to read whether Britney gave her consent for the sample, but then felt the music video somehow violated some unspoken deal, but then took it all back and called it fake news. The whole project made me nostalgic and blue.

I often think (a lot lately) about how audiences (and now fervent fandoms) literally live off and suck the life out of our supposed favorite stars. Tear them to pieces while they’re up on the spotlight and kick them when they’re down, only to regret having forgotten them in time when they’re gone. Whichever the way— tragic death or slow and lonely. “I wonder what happened to them?

It’s sad that she seems to regret making a comeback due to mean comments from her own fans, because her whole vibe has really taken me back to the late 90s early 2000s, especially in this “stripped” version of the song where she wears baggie jeans and hot pink glasses. The colored glasses really really took me back in time.

Thank you for this beautiful, yet sad, homage to pop stars.

So I’m back with a ton of work to catch up with… as you do when you go on vacation for 10-days to two weeks. I enjoyed my visit to the States— first time in Chicago, first time in NYC. Ate a lot, walked a lot, got a sunburn on my scalp as bald people do… in the City of Wind, nonetheless~ I also watched Wicked on Broadway! Saw Ashley Parker Angel xD (I was a pretty big O-Town follower, lol), and was thoroughly impressed with Amanda Jane Cooper and Jackie Burns~ I am most shocked Burns is in her late-30s because her voice sounded so young. I guess green make-up could help~

I ran into this clip of Burns performing The Adele Dazeem Medley for The Broadway Princess Party held last year. It’s mind-blowing. I thought I should share.

Donghae, My Love

February 22, 2018 — Leave a comment

So… I’m going to the upcoming Super Junior concert xD

You know Peru was like, the Kpop Latin American capital back in 2011-2012 when the Big Bang concert happened here. The only Latin American place coz Big Bang was/is huge. SM fans are huge too, but… our concert bubble exploded, our concert infrastructure is crap, so we’ve missed out on a lot of things. Like a lot of big events that I heard were gonna happened, never got to happen.

Last year I just dove deep into my Kpop nostalgia, Mamamoo has drowned me in Kpop and all Korean things, so I followed a lot of Korean variety and groups, and I ended up thinking that SM released two really good albums for SNSD and Super Junior, which also happened to go great back to back. For those who know me, I have a grip with most Kpop albums because I only tend to like the title track (or just one song in the album). Well, in the case of Holiday Night and Black Suit, they’re solid albums with a pace and a feel. That’s a rare occurrence.

I had never really followed Super Junior, it’s only been lately that I learned a couple of their names aside from Leeteuk and Siwon. xD Sorry, Sorry is the only song I can sing to, but lol I did get to see their Weekly Idol appearance and I died looking at Donghae with his platinum blond hair. xD And then he started showing his weepy emotional side, and I was gone. LOL

I’ve been trying to fix my Current Flavors’ age, and I can sense my average age going down.

Continue Reading…

Most important quote of Life of Pi.

“I learned at my expense that Father believed there was another animal even more dangerous than us, and one that was extremely common, too, found on every continent, in every habitat: the redoubtable species Animalus Anthropomorphicus , the animal as seen through human eyes. We’ve all met one, perhaps even owned one. It is an animal that is “cute,” “friendly,” “loving,” “devoted,” “merry,” “understanding.” These animals lie in ambush in every toy store and children’s zoo. Countless stories are told of them. They are the pendants of those “vicious,” “bloodthirsty,” “depraved” animals that inflame the ire of the maniacs I have just mentioned, who vent their spite on them with walking sticks and umbrellas. In both cases we look at an animal and see a mirror. The obsession with putting ourselves at the centre of everything is the bane not only of theologians but also of zoologists.”

Life of Pi, Chapter 8.

Life of Pi: The Most Dangerous Animal in the Zoo?

Thank You, Solar-ssi~

November 1, 2017 — Leave a comment

I just wanted to drop a note thanking Solar for releasing Solar Gamsung on tape (yes, I was one of the lucky ones to get it on first order), because that pushed me to clean up the cassette deck I had at home (yes, I’m the old person who still has a cassette player on hand).

Honestly, I thought my deck was busted, I remember testing it a while back and it stopped working. Today, I cleaned it up with alcohol; and though the automatic open/close is faulty as heck and the rewind/fwd doesn’t always work, it plays stuff. And today I listened to my dad’s voice in years. So thank you, Solar-ssi, for making me cry tonight.

My dad used to have a Karaoke bar in the 90s, and ever the music fan and Karaoke-owner, he liked to sing and record himself singing. LOL So now I have 42min. of him singing an array of 14 songs. He was, obviously, a very VERY big Miguel Bose fan. Though, honestly, I had never heard my dad singing (the Spanish version of) I Will Follow You xD Now I’ve finally transferred his tapes on mp3 to keep :) added him to my iTunes library, album cover and all~

Los Doltons’ version of El Ultimo Beso will always be a good memory of him.

Sighs~

This is just hitting the right mood tonight. Discovered a couple of weeks back on the latest Xiami compilation– it’s called If I Lose my Youth (如果我失去了青春) by the band ZhaoZe (沼泽). Great thing they’re on Bandcamp too!

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=4022515616 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small]

 

May you rest in peace.

Bless their hearts.

Mamamoo and being a Moomoo has made me realize that I should be a better fan to my idols, so I’ve been reconnecting with my Everlasting roots. Bless Brown Eyed Girls, bless JeA, bless Miryo, bless Narsha and bless GaIn. They were my original favorites back when I got into Kpop, but never had enough to really get into them. I swear, if there was a MamamooTrans version of BEG back then, I would totally be a hardcore Everlasting.

BEG are so SO funny, I’ve been recently watching their Mepsi appearance, and I don’t even have an interest in makeup or actually get half the show since it’s a mix of Korean with Chinese subs, and my makeup-beauty Chinese vocabulary is poor. LOL I caught a glimpse of them learning Mandarin and I couldn’t resist, though. I’m usually a JeA racoon-leader stan [1][2], but I’ve gotten acquainted with my new-found love for Miryo. I really lost it when she try telling her model that she’d be doing her eye makeup, but came out as “Wo EYE Ni” xD

Then there was their presentation on Weekly Idol, of course. Weekly Idol was one of the shows that got me into Mamamoo as well, and I remember watching BEG’s and finding it hilarious. They can be so much alike in their Random Play, but also comically true Adult-dols, especially JeA and Narsha asking for Red Ginseng and Oriental Raisin Water xDDDDDDD

Of course I’m still hung up on the perfection that was Sixth Sense, I do not regret buying the regular version AND the collector repackage. It’s really my most precious BEG possession.

Also! Request for having a show with Mamamoo or BEG where they learn a language. There’s actually several shows on NHK where idols/actors learn French, Spanish and Chinese (and various English language shows), so this can totally be a concept.

Confession; I had been considering revoking my 24/7 moomoo status for a more casual one where I would just listen to the good music, but that doesn’t seem the case after Mamamoo’s Purple Party in Taiwan this weekend. LOL They won’t let me.

I had been considering it because, though my music consumption has gone up, I need to increase my movie consumption. I also need to find the time to exercise once again, which I could easily do while watching movies, but can’t while watching Mamamoo fancams. LOL You’re watching fancams for a reason, you can’t NOT watch them without missing details. They also seem to be doing well financially to the point that they can afford brand stuff that I can’t or would be willing to afford xD

However, after the Taiwan event with fans and listening (then watching) Solar be so moved, asking whether she deserves all this love, it seems unlikely in the near future that I’d be soft ‘drop’ them. I also wanna give a shout out to the Mamamoo Taiwan MooMoo Union because- JOB WELL DONE, you guys~ teaching the fanchants, and doing the event, feeding the staff and even the journalists. You guys did amazing, pushing the bar for fans to behave and show their idols all your love~ You guys make me want to be a better Moomoo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tiqjh82Z-w

Also, the Taiwan MC. Super fun. Repeat after teacher. xD

And last, but not least, streamers. What would we do without you, guys.

Sorry about the lack of updates~

Been busy with work, avoided Mamamoo/Yu Aoi spamming, and caught up with Netflix shows (some). I finished the last season of Master of None, which was as good as the first season; except for an episode or two. My favorite was definitely Religion, coz I can inverse-relate. My family is not religious, but I live in a mostly-Catholic society and attended a Christian-Franciscan school. Anyway! That’s off-topic~

I also just finished watching the latest season of Orange is the New Black, and though it’s probably the weakest season of the lot, I realized that Laura Prepon in plain dark hair, minimum make-up, and black rim glasses does it. No black slightly curled, not blonde, not even red head Laura Prepon. So it’s like, Alex does it.

When Piper told Alex “I thought you might wanna go back to your sexy librarian look.” And Alex smirked. Yeah! LOL