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Archive for the ‘Kissing’ Category

Simon Rich–The Last Girlfriend on Earth: And Other Love Stories (2013)

Posted in Beer, Christmas Album, Fables, Fantasy, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Gods, Hitler, Humiliation, Kissing, Man Seeking Woman, Marriage Trouble, Morality, Myths, NASA, New Yorker, Religion, Sex, She & Him, Short Books, Simon Rich, Zooey Deschanel on December 5, 2014| Leave a Comment »

lastgSOUNDTRACK: SHE & HIM-A Very She & Him Christmas (2011).

shehimI love the packaging of this disc (the envelope with the Christmas letter/liner notes is charming).

I really enjoyed Zooey Deschanel’s singing in Elf, I thought it was really pretty and surprisingly unaffected.  So it’s not too surprising that she stared making records herself.  And M Ward seems like a perfect accompaniment to her slow, rather old school style of singing.

I have a hard time getting into the She & Him records though.  They’re just, yes, too slow for me.  The tempo is perfect for her voice, which is naturally very pure and clean.  And she even has a good crooning style, I just need the songs to be a little peppier.  Or like on “Run Run Reindeer,” I find her version is kind of abrupt, perhaps she doesn’t really hold her notes for very long which I find disconcerting.

I like the first two songs, “The Christmas Waltz,” and “Christmas Day” because they are songs I didn’t know already, so I had no expectations.  “Christmas Wish” is really nice with Ward taking lead vocals.   As for Zooey’s leads, I like “Sleigh Ride” quite a lot.  And their version of “Silver Bells” on ukulele is just beautiful.

This collection of songs is quite nice, if not a little too mellow.  It sets a mood and follows through all the way, which is good.  I really do wish I liked it more.

[READ: December 5, 2014] The Last Girlfriend on Earth

I love Simon Rich, but sometimes I lose touch with just how many books he releases.  So when he was on Seth Meyers the other night I learned that he had a new book out, which was great.  But then I also learned that I missed his last two books!  Jeez.  One is a novel and this one is a collection of short stories.

I have said before that I love Rich’s really short pieces–he is so good with a set up and punchline.  Most of these stories are longer, and they are pretty much all very funny indeed.

The book is set up in three parts: Boy Meets Girl, Boy Gets Girl and Boy Loses Girl.  And indeed, the stories in each section do match up to that general setup (it’s quite clever) although they are not connected to each other.  Several of these stories appeared in the New Yorker and it was fun to read them again and to see them in this new context.

Incidentally, they are making a TV show based on this book, airing in the new year on FXX, called Man Seeking Woman–I hope it’s good. (more…)

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Mindy Kaling—“Leaning In” (New Yorker, May 20, 2013)

Posted in Blur, Elektra, Funny (ha ha), Inventions, Kissing, LGBTQ, Marriage (Happy), Mindy Kaling, New Yorker, Séð og Heyrt on May 21, 2013| Leave a Comment »

5.20SOUNDTRACK: ELEKTRA-“I Don’t Do Boys” (2009).

elektraI found out about this band and video because of my recent reading of the Icelandic magazine Séð og Heyrt and this post on I Love Icelandic Music.

This song was listed as one of Iceland’s musical scandals because of the aggressively lesbian imagery.

The song is simple enough.  Piano chords play slowly until the tone changes for the bridge and the very simple chorus (which reminds me of Blur’s Boys and Girls in a way, although it doesn’t sound anything like them): “I don’t do Boys, I just do Girls, I just do girls with style and class. I don’t do boys I just do girls I just do girls with kissable ass”). It’s poppy but a little more aggressive than a typical pop song (and not as metal as a pop metal song).  There’s an interesting style to the backing vocals that seems to make it more than a pop song as well.  I’m not saying it’s good, but it’s more than typical.

As for the video, I can’t tell if this is male fantasy lesbianism or what, but since this story is all about kissing, here’s a video that’s all about kissing.  See if it’s as scandalous as Iceland thinks.

[READ: May 16, 2013] “Leaning In”

The five brief pieces in this week’s New Yorker are labeled as “Imagined Inventions.”  And in each one, the author is tasked with inventing something.

Mindy Kaling is always funny, especially when you’re not sure how serious she is.  As when she begins her essay, “One of the perks of my job is that I regularly get to kiss men—often married men—with zero repercussions for anyone involved.”  Of course she’s talking about acting, but as she says—who is to know if she slips out of character while kissing?

She explains that kissing new people is one of the great joys in life and, while being in a committed relationship is also wonderful, she feels that removing the joy of kissing new people is a terrible drag.  She agrees that marriage is a serious business but kissing is not.  “Kissing in and of itself can’t create offspring or cause life-threatening disease.”  She offers an example of how if you just kissed someone you would never be stuck having to listen to his post-coital ramblings afterwards. (more…)

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