I've been having one of those funny, lazy afternoons where you don't do much but your mind feels like its been in to overdrive. I'm packing to go back to university. I'm sitting alone on my bedroom floor listening to music. The fire is lit in the living room below me so I get the warmth and lovely smell of burning wood. My light is dim and everything is very still. I love these moments so much - having time to just be. Lying on the floor, thinking and singing. If I want to engage with and tackle ideas in my head I can. If I don't want to I don't have to - I can just sing along with Tracy Chapman.
I think there was a lot of reflection this holiday and it certainly happens before the new year. When I was turning twenty I told people I felt too young and not ready. At times like these when I lie back and think, I feel twenty. I feel especially old after this year. Maybe not so much wiser? I feel that I'm clued up in most respects but there are others where I still feel so naive. I'm an emotional person. I'm still deciding whether this is a gift or a curse. Tracy Chapman's 'For my lover' made me reflect on the fact that if I feel strongly maybe I become 'the fool'? I can't decide whether there's a maturity in my feeling or a mindless girlishness. I make strong ties to people and this has its own rewards and punishments. I get the intense benefits and the crushing lows.
'Two weeks in the Virginia jail for my lover, for my lover. Twenty thousand dollar bail for my lover, for my lover'
I think the lightest, smallest things can feel so perfect every now and then. Little moments you take for yourself to observe something you think is lovely. I have the tendency to take photos for a 'cloudy day' of these little moments - so that I can keep reminding myself that there are beautiful things out there.
Late night tea and cake with a dear friend...
... Some alone time reading and drinking coffee.
Exploring a new city...
... Returning to your own and remembering why you love it.
Going on a walk around the lanes and discovering new treasures...
... Lying in the sun in your garden and admiring the beauty there.
Reading a book and finding one person who really shares what you feel...
... Listening to a song with thousands of other people who share what you feel.
Cooking like a child and mucking about in the kitchen at home...
... Having an extraordinary dinner out with a loving group of friends.
Waking up to find your cat climbing in to bed for a snooze...
... Spending an exhausting day rushing about playing with the sweetest relatives.
Spending a late night at a beach bonfire singing with kind friends...
... Having an early morning breakfast excursion with a thoughtful friend.
I'm supposed to be sleeping before I have a full on day in London with my family tomorrow (ah isn't the holiday season just the best?) but am struggling to sleep. Those late nights working or staying up with friends at university have messed up my body clock big time. So I thought why not be productive and write up another blog? I always type one up and remember how much I miss it. I should really try and find a better balance with work. Ah well.
I mentioned in one of my summer blogs that since I'm living in a house this year I'd have the opportunity to cook for myself every day. Cooking is one of my favourite things to do - so creative and relaxing at the same time! This semester I started off slowly and have worked up to some fun stuff. I've already got so many plans for next semester's cooking it's ridiculous.
One of my fellow foodies and best friends, Gen, is my person to go on food excursions and discuss my latest cooking efforts with. We recently started talking about going out on some 'tummy indulgence' - hence the title of this blog. We've even named our food babies! She's crazy talented - makes pumpkin pie from scratch (no pre-made mixture for her!), has an ice-cream maker etc. Well she jokes that because she's Asian she has to take pictures of all her food - funnily enough this habit has caught on and now I'm photographing stuff I've made. I thought I'd post some pictures from this semester and get in a foodie frenzy. Ahhh yum yum yum!
Salmon. I love how 'sophisticated' this meal looks when it's so easy to put together. It impressed my mum at least! It's basically my dish for throwing together whatever vegetables I have and sprinkling a little pesto and parmesan on top.
Bread. I have always wanted to learn how to make bread. I don't know why it always seemed like such a wholesome idea? Well this term I decided I'd take up that challenge and I haven't been able to stop making bread since. I'm still shocked every time it rises in the oven! There is also nothing more rewarding or yummy than eating your own, freshly baked, warm bread - plus the kitchen smells amazing afterwards! I've only started with basic plain bread but my housemate wants to try honey and apple bread - doesn't that just sound immense?
Butternut Squash Mash. A number of my friends are vegetarians so I'm conscious of cooking for them and how delicious the food is when they cook for me. I think with vegetarian food there's much more of an effort to work with flavour so it always tastes so much better than if you were making vegetables to go with meat. My friends have got me on to experimenting with different veggie dishes and this is one of my favourites - butternut squash mashed with feta, nuts and coriander. You can eat it as a mash or make veggie burgers out of it.
Prawn and Coconut Laksa. Laksa is a spicy noodle soup that derives from Singapore - people have played about with it a bit so you get lots of different types. Again, the title makes it sound so complex and exotic but it's pretty easy to make. It's simply noodles, prawns, vegetable stock, coconut milk, coriander, spring onions and ginger. This dish has become my new comfort food - especially in helping survive freezing Scottish weather.
Oreo Truffles. I only started making these this year and now they've become my sort of 'thing'. It's always fun to make large batches and send them out to my friends. I did this a couple of weeks ago when everyone had deadlines and it was a lifesaver! They're so quick and easy to make it's insane. They're also so addictive that I have to hide them from myself.
My First Christmas Dinner. This year I made my first christmas dinner for some of my housemates. It tragically felt like a big step on the growing up scale! I've watched my parents make christmas dinner and helped with the easier parts for so many years that it felt odd to be in charge of it. Still it turned out pretty well - nothing disastrous happened and everyone lived so I'd count that as a success?
Banana and Chocolate Bread Pudding. This picture was taken before I baked it - it looks rather slimy and gross otherwise! Bread and Butter Pudding was something my mum always tried to make me eat as a child - I don't know why I always had horrible images of it in my head as something that adults ate? Well I thought I'd give it a whirl and see what happened. It turns out it's become one of my new cooking obsessions. My friend accurately described it as being like 'eating a giant toastie'. The recipe I use has soya milk so now I can make it for my mum (she can't eat dairy) to apologise for ever doubting her taste!
Star Wars Treats. I had the opportunity to do some very creative baking for Greenpeace this semester. I just joined the St Andrews Greenpeace Society this year and have been having such a good time. It feels so good to be active and part of a team where you feel like there's real meaning to what you are doing. Greenpeace currently has an ongoing campaign against Volkswagen for their funding of the activities of groups lobbying against emission laws. The campaign was Star Wars themed which meant that I got to get creative in the kitchen. It took me a day to produce everything for the campaign and it was ridiculously fun. I ended up making: chocolate and raspberry Deathstar cupcakes, red velvet Princess Leia cupcakes, oreo truffle Ewoks and lemon biscuit Yodas.
Hmmm so this blog hasn't been the cheeriest thing recently? Well, maybe sad poetry does it for some people? Bah, it could have been worse.
Anyway, I thought I'd turn that around with some lovely music. I've just had a couple of songs in my head recently that I think are fantastic. Do they go together? Not really. Are they similar? Not really. Ah well. They've been my soundtrack in the last few weeks of work before coming home for the holidays! I find myself creating a ridiculous amount of facebook posts with music people should listen to so I thought I'd cut that down and post a bunch on here instead.
1. Pumped up Kicks (Acoustic) - Foster the People
I've really come to like the acoustic version of this song over the original. Not that the original isn't great in itself and people should listen to that too. Just what I noticed when listening to this is that the upbeat style of the original song masked the incredible lyrics. It's quite sinister really (did I say this blog was supposed to be more uplifting? Whoops!) but tells an interesting story. Also in losing the heavy layering of instruments etc. the beauty of the tune on the guitar and the warm quiver of Mark Foster's voice really come to light.
2. Holocene - Bon Iver
What was that about making this blog cheerier?!? Well, to be fair, I don't find this song sad. I find it beautiful but I can see why people may read it as sad. The subject isn't particularly happy and there is the usual melancholy in Justin Vernon's voice but... I find it so light and dreamy. Justin Vernon does have the most otherworldly voice - it's especially striking considering that when you look at the guy he really looks like some rough lumberjack who should be out in the forest shooting deer or something?
3. The Fear - Ben Howard
The song title may not suggest it but I swear this is happier! I've had this discussion with so many people - a beautiful voice or a powerful voice? For me it's always a powerful voice. I will always prefer a voice where I can feel the artist's energy and expression. Ben Howard is my new 'powerful voice' - he's up there with Florence Welch, Marcus Foster, Newton Faulkner, Adele, Gotye etc. I just love his roughness and that broken quality that goes so well with the guitar.
4. Every You, Every Me - Placebo
I know a lot of people think Placebo aren't happy but I think the energy and power in their reflections breaks away from this. Lyrically and musically there's a rawness and a franticness to them that I really love. You really feel like you're in the ramblings of someone's head - there's no hesitation or guise. Lyrically, especially in this song, there is such honesty about the narrator's character flaws and their violently passionate relationship with their partner. Anger and passion is a powerful combination and I think that's how I'd describe Placebo.
5. Midnight City - M83
This is my new motivation/dance song. M83 never fail to provide good electronic music to walk down the street to. Like most of these artists, in their later work I think M83 developed a greater subtlety and energy in their new tracks. Also the saxophone at the end makes me nostalgic and wishing that I had the time to pick mine up again - in the instrument world it is the definition of 'cool'.
6. No Light, No Light - Florence + The Machine
I know Florence got a lot of slack for this video, which is a shame because I think it's the best song from the new album, so I'll ignore the video for now. My favourite track on the last album was 'Cosmic Love' and I think this is a development of that style. The song begins so beautifully and then swoops in to the dramatic Florence everyone loves. She has a powerful voice but I think the start of this song demonstrates how beautiful and soaring it can be. Lyrically, it's a really interesting focus on the lightness and darkness of a relationship.
7. For You - Tracy Chapman
I can finish on a happy note! Not that I don't think the other songs are great and they make me happy - they just don't seem very happy. Ah! so be it. Tracy Chapman is a goddess. This song is simply her singing the loveliest lyrics known to man twice round. Just her voice and an acoustic guitar. Tracy Chapman's simplicity and her beautiful deep voice make her timeless. People know her for 'Fast Car' (which hands down is utterly divine) but I think her other songs should be explored as well - she's by no means a one song artist.
And he would never know the cracks in her smile,
as he looked upon her with the eyes of a child,
And he would never know the strain in her eyes,
as he never understood her sighs,
And he would never know the hole in her heart,
despite being the one who put it there at the start.
I wrote that a couple of months ago. It's not particularly complicated or sophisticated writing, but I still quite like it. It came back to me a few days ago and out of all the things I've written it's one of my favourites.
I actually wrote this blog just over a month ago in the summer holidays (sigh) and then lost internet for a long time, so I never got round to editing or publishing it. It just concerns me being my usual self and reading too far in to things. Anyway, I still think this is an interesting video and has a lot to say for itself.
I'm not a particularly big Lady Gaga fan but I do really like this song and I think the music video is intriguing. After first watching the video it plagued my mind for a couple of days - I showed it to a number of people and tried to understand it.
What does the video mean? Why is Lady Gaga being experimented on? Why does she start making out with her male self?
Like much of Lady Gaga's work, I think the message of this video is whatever you interpret it to be. Everyone I've talked to has focused on a different aspect of the video - we see what is significant to us. I thought I'd write a little bit about what I drew from this video.
For me the video seems to be a commentary on relationships. When I first viewed it I was going through a rough time so it spoke to me.
When you're in the transition to becoming an 'adult' (yikes!) you discover a lot about yourself. I think one of the key ways to find out about yourself is through relationships. You share your life with someone and tend to have to reflect upon it at the same time. You are also forging a new identity as 'Blah blah's partner' and that often involves change.
This video focuses on the tie between relationships and identity. How much should you change for someone else? How important is your sense of self?
There are two particular ideas I found in the music video that I would like to focus on. Firstly, the way a relationship can change you. Secondly, your relationship with yourself.
So, to start with - the way a relationship can change you.
Lady Gaga spends a fair amount of the video as a mermaid. I'm not entirely sure why she's a mermaid - probably just something cool she could pull off? When completely in her mermaid form Lady Gaga is either being romantic with or experimented on by her lover. In later scenes, after her transformation, there are allusions to her having been a mermaid. For example, in one scene she's naked in the form of a woman but is wearing shoes similar to the shape of a mermaid's tail. Similarly, in the marriage scene Lady Gaga has blue make up on her cheekbones - mirroring where her gills were in the mermaid scenes.
Change from a relationship can be a positive and negative thing - I think this video supports this view. Change can be positive in that, hopefully, the person you are with makes you want to strive to be a better person. They should bring out the best in you. Change can be negative in that you can lose a sense of personal identity as you become part of a pair. In trying to meet what your partner wants you can lose too much of yourself.
In this video there are aggressive scenes where Gaga's lover is experimenting on her and her pain is evident - the negative part of changing in a relationship. Parts of the video that I find more sinister are when she appears sedated and does not resist her transformation - something I'm sure we've seen in friends in relationships.
However, the more positive aspects of the video that I noted were her mermaid's tail shoes and blue makeup resembling gills that I mentioned earlier. These are symbols of her maintaining her identity in her relationship. Despite her lover's violent efforts she stays true to herself. I think this idea is particularly prominent in the marriage scene - she is simply in white (a strong contrast to her usual elaborateness) but she maintains her quirkiness with her blue makeup and her expressions are so endearing.
I think change thanks to a relationship is a fine balancing act. If that person helps you to flourish then change is a wonderful thing. Just don't struggle to the extent where you're striving to meet unnatural expectations. Positive change in a relationship requires the blossoming of something that is already there.
The second aspect of the video that triggered the most thought for me were the scenes where Lady Gaga is playing a piano in a field and sitting on top of it is her dressed as a man. It gets particularly peculiar when she starts getting rather intimate with her male counterpart. This is the part of the video that has had the most 'shock-factor' in the media and a part that I interpreted as having an important message. I think this section of the video is about your relationship with yourself - an important relationship that we often forget about because it's more abstract. The message from this scene is that you have to remember to love yourself - maybe in Lady Gaga's case a little too much?! Despite whatever may be happening in the rest of your life you should always remember to care for yourself. We can get so caught up in ensuring that others are okay or trying to meet people's expectations that we forget to have some sensible self-interest. I know that I am my greatest critic and it is important for me to respect myself. The person you should always be answering to is yourself - people have a lot more power than they give themselves credit for and can often look to others instead of looking within.
I also thought it was rather interesting that for a particularly elaborate woman Lady Gaga has such a subtle and almost bare appearance when she's in this scene. I interpreted this as symbolising that you can't hide anything from yourself - everything is laid out. The good in this is that you can be comfortable and aware in your own the skin. The bad is that you do have to live with your behaviour - reinforcing my idea that the person you should always answer to is yourself. Make yourself proud.
