Double Reading

Getting back into the swing of things finally! This encompasses songs I’ve loved over the past couple months — just not April. The May chart (which I plan to post at the end of the month) will probably be shorter than this huge list…

Photek – Azymuth [YouTube music]

Yikes! It’s been almost a year since I posted a new chart… and I haven’t posted in 2012 either. Well, let’s change both of those right now. I’m prepping a new chart for April 2012 (to be posted in the next couple of days), but in the meantime here are a bunch of songs I’ve been loving over the past year.

Lady Gaga – Judas (Röyksopp Remix) [YouTube video]

Coldplay – Paradise (Fedde la Grand remix) [YouTube music]

Holy Ghost! – Hold My Breath [YouTube video]

Tiga – Love Don’t Dance Here Anymore [YouTube music]

It’s day three and I haven’t even hit 1000 words. As I wrote yesterday, I’m having a tough time getting to the action. I have tons of ideas but not sure how to execute them.

This morning I spent about 15 minutes writing out one-line descriptions of some of the major events I want to cover in part one. I hope this is good progress because now I just have to go flesh out those sections.

I think Part One will focus on the mother of the main character. She’s very religious and conservative (but I want to avoid making her a caricature or unsympathetic). For over ten years now I’ve wanted to do something involving The Binding of Isaac so I have plans to incorporate that into Part One.

Overall I’m feeling better about the direction of things today than I did yesterday. Tonight is writing with coworkers so hopefully I’ll make some serious progress.

Yesterday was the first day of NaNoWriMo and i only got around 800 words written. I realize that by having so many ideas (trust me — I’m full of them!) I’m having a difficult time getting to the action part of my story. It’s like when you have this big grand idea, it’s difficult to focus on the little details. I just want to TELL the story not SHOW the story, which I realize isn’t the path to a good novel.

So instead of jumping in, I spent yesterday writing about who I think will be the main character’s mother and what she was like growing up. Not the best way to get a reader hooked, so I’ll have to develop a better introduction/first line.

Also, as is normal with me, when I went to bed last night thoughts were racing through my head. One of the more prominent ideas I thought about a bit was having some sort of a story-within-a-story… though I fear it’s maybe a bit cliche a bit? So I’ll want to think of something new to bring to the idea. I also want to make sure that I’m not copying too much from favorite books of mine like Glamorama or The Blind Assassin.

Tonight I’m not writing with my coworkers (we’re only doing Tuesdays and Thursdays) so I’ll have to make a very conscious effort to sit down and write when I get home. And since I didn’t make it to the magical 1667 yesterday, I’ll want to write a little extra to make up for it.

Which reminds me: I need to find some website where I can enter my daily total and it spits out neato graphs and predictions and stuff. I had an Excel worksheet for that last time, but this time I want to make it available online.

Also: Thanks everyone for encouragement!! I especially feel like my friends Molly and Brook and Shannon will keep me motivated. And all of the Facebook likes help, as well!

NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30. I tried it back in 2003 but only got to 12,000 words. That piece had was called Red Eye Reduction. At that point in my life I had been unemployed and finally started getting job interviews (and eventually a job) so other things too priority.

This year life isn’t quite as crazy (still working on getting over the post-breakup angst from when my boyfriend of four years and I broke up back in June) and I’m doing NaNoWriMo with a couple of coworkers. Doing this with someone else will be great for encouragement and keeping me on track. It’s like having buddies to go to the gym with.

Last time I wrote my own software to track how I did and posted everything publicly on my blog. This time around I plan to keep things in Word docs because it’s easier. Also having everything on a blog makes it difficult to go back and re-write things from earlier, etc. etc.

That doesn’t mean that technology won’t play a big part in my writing. I’m currently trying to figure out how I want to utilize stuff like Dropbox, SkyDrive, Evernote, and old fashioned stuff like thumb drives (I have a Star Wars one with Star Killer on it!) and my old Moleskine notebook from my friend Molly. Somehow I’m sure it will all come together — I’ll try to post updates on what works best, etc.

To get prepared over the weekend I bought a set of Star Wars Legos at the store and built the Slave I (Boba Fett’s ship) Lego set. I figured it would get some creative juices flowing (along with some frustration juices because I’m almost positive one of the pieces was missing). I also watched the movies Halloween (the original) and Scream 2 and Scream 3. Not sure how much those movies will influence me, but you never know.

Tonight I plan to re-read some of the previous stuff I’ve written and go over notes I’ve written down in various philosophy/theory books I’ve read. I know I always feel very inspired and creative when reading stuff by Slavoj Žižek, so I’ll surely be flipping through Looking Awry and others.

I also have a couple ideas for creativity/inspiration exercises that I may be posting here. I’d love comments as it keeps me encouraged and gives me even new ideas to play off of.

Wish me luck and here we go…!

I was out of town for the second half of the month (look for more on that soon!) so I didn’t get this posted when I wanted to.

Black Van – Moments Of Excellence w Holy Ghost! by Black Van

K$sha – Animal (Switch remix) [YouTube music]

Lady Gaga – Judas (Röyksopp Remix) [YouTube music]

Metronomy – The Bay (Erol Alkan Remix)

Yuksek “On A Train” (The Magician Remix) by TheMagician

Aeroplane ‘My Enemy’ Rex The Dog remix by rexthedog1980

Holy Ghost! – Wait & See by DFA Records

In Flagranti – Hollow Discourse [YouTube music]

Snoop Dogg – Wet (David Guetta Remix Edit)

Benoit & Sergio – Boy Trouble

I’m still not convinced I’ve got the best SoundCloud formatting/setup figured out, but I much prefer linking to actual songs as opposed to YouTube versions. I also like the fact that with SoundCloud you can listen directly on the page without having to to go to another page. Feedback would be appreciated!!

Rushhour – Moogie (Alden Tyrell Remix)

Cut Copy – Need You Now (Carl Craig Remix) by cutcopymusic

Cassius – I <3 U So (Skream’s Made Zdar Feel Like He Was 20 Again Remix)

The Knocks – You Can’t Hurry Love (Supremes cover featuring Alex Winston) by The Knocks

Laidback Luke ft Jonathan Mendelsohn – Timebomb (Keljet Remix) by keljet

Mighty Dub Katz – Let the Drums Speak [YouTube music]

Lykke Li – Sadness Is A Blessing (Gold Panda Remix) by Gold Panda

Death From Above 1979 – Black History Month (Stopmakingme Remix) by Stopmakingme

Don Diablo ft. Dragonette – Animale (Remix Teaser) by dondiablo

Escort – Cocaine Blues (Greg Wilson Remix)

Rodion+GoldenBug: Washing Machine (Bottin’s Spin Cycle Edit) by bottin

Roy Davis Jr. Feat. Bear Who? – Rock Lights by ScionAV

Faithless – Not Going Home

NAKION – JESU SUFO (CLUB SILENCIO RMX) by Club Silencio

My favorite part about this chart is that I’ve had the song “Spacer Woman From Mars” for years now and just recently rediscovered it. On the Spacer Woman From Mars EP there are three versions of the song. I love the two remixes/reworks but chose the original for the chart since it has the most “essense” of the song.

My other favorite part is that on the oldies radio station I listen to now (thanks KVI for no longer being conservative talk radio!) I feel in love with The Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Summer in the City” and while searching for the song I stumbled across a remix by Peter Visti of Visti & Meyland who did the song “Stars” from my May 2010 chart. I love his take on it!

The Lovin’ Spoonful – Summer In The City (Peter Visti Edit) by Iggy

Britney Spears – Till the World Ends

Canblaster – Clockworks – MASTER OF COMPLICATION EP by CANBLASTER (Club Cheval)

Mark ronson bang bang bang FINAL (count and sinden tribal horn remix) by hervespace

Deadly Sins – Mirrors

Para One & Tacteel – Infinity Riser (Remix of Bernard Fevre’s Dali) by Para One

Felix Cartal – The Joker (preview) by Felix Cartal

Daft Punk – End of Line (Boys Noize Remix) by njpassos

The Human League – Never Let Me Go (Aeroplane Remix) by pitchpie

Johan Agebjörn – Spacer Woman From Mars

I honestly made this back in February but forgot to post it. (Trying out a new format…)

Ali Love – Moscow Girl (Jacques Renault Remix) by Back Yard Recordings

David Lynch – Good Day Today (Underworld Classic Remix) by The Drift Record Shop

Be The One EP by thelittleidiot

Wicked Game Edit by Soul Clap

Tame Impala – Why Won’t You Make Up Your Mind (Erol Alkan Rework) Radio Edit by Erol Alkan

KANYE WEST FT JAY Z – HAM by djgsmiles

Do You Need Someone by Beth Ditto

Herr Styler – Jack (Moullinex remix) by Herr Styler

Fischerspooner – Infidels of the World Unite (Gooseflesh remix)

Rodion – Alagoas Cowboys by Gomma

Starlighter by wearejupiter

Gorillaz – Empire Ants (Miami Horror Remix) by kevinthekid

I always find it interesting when, seemingly out of nowhere, a song from the past suddenly starts appearing in multiple places. A few years back I noticed it was Frankie Valli (which I then figured had something to do with Jersey Boys).

Now the song “Nobody But Me” by the Human Beinz (originally by the Isley Brothers) is the “it” song.

I first heard the song a while back because a DJ I like named Pilooski included his own edit on one of his Dirty Edits mixes. (In what I can only call an awesome coincidence, Pilooski’s remix of “Beggin’” by Franki Valli was part of the reason I said Frankie Valli was suddenly popular last time…)

It wasn’t until The Office did their “lip dub” of the song in the season seven premier that I really noticed the song:

Also, around that time, the radio station I’ve listened to for years, KVI, switched from conservative talk radio to oldies so I started hearing the song on there, too.

But then the real strange thing happened and Nike started airing a commercial called “Throwdown” recently that used the song, as well:

I honestly think that The Office‘s use of the song inspired someone at Nike. It feels a little too serendipitous to me to think that the 2010-2011 television season suddenly realized that what it was missing was the song “Nobody But Me.”

Bonus:
Human Beinz performing the song:

Pilooski edit:
nobody but me (pilooski edit) by Pilooski (official)

The Isley Brothers original version: