SOUNDTRACK: MATES OF STATE-“Palomino” (2011).
I don’t know Mates of State, although I have heard about them a lot. This is their new song and it is immediately infectious. It starts out with a falsettoed “Whoo oo oo ooo oo oo” that is immediate and catchy as heck.
I just read about them on the NPR page and it makes me want to like them even more:
Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel speak a shared language in Mates of State, the effervescent pop band they share as a married couple with children. Alternately sung and chanted, often in unison, their words represent the sound of infectious joy — the irony-free expression of a love that’s as true as it is hard-won.
Sometimes a good pop song can really make you day. Even if you’re more into noise rock or heavy metal a pop song that’s neither cloying nor stupid just warms your heart. And this one sure does that.
Looks like it’s time to check out their past releases.
[READ: November 10, 2011] Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex
For some reason, it took me a long time to start reading this book. I just recently learned that there will be only one more book in the series. For some reason even if I like a series, I’m happy to see it come to a conclusion even if, as in this case, I don’t feel that the series has run its course yet. But the strangest thing about this book is that the cover is completely different from the rest of the series. I find this bizarre for a couple of reasons. If you have established a cover style for a series of books, why suddenly change it in the 7th book? And even weirder, if there is only one more book in the series, why change it now? When it came out, I didn’t even realize it was an Artemis Fowl book. Very strange.
The only reason I can imagine is because in the book Artemis himself is a very different person (but really, that’s pushing it, designwise). For in this book, Artemis has contracted the deadly Atlantis Complex. Essentially, since he has been feeling guilty for his past transgressions and because he has ingested a lot of magic, his system is trying to cope. And it manifests in the Atlantis Complex.
The Atlantis Complex begins with a sense of paranoia and crazy compulsions (in Artemis’ case, he trusts no one, not even his family, and he suddenly gets obsessive about numbers–5 is good, 4 is death). And for Artemis, who is usually a steady, logical thinker, not only is superstition very noticeable (all of his sentences have words in multiples of 5), it is quite dangerous. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 