Quick post for this lovely tradition.
I’m blogging to you live from Kuta, Bali, Indonesia! We’ve been stranded since Saturday but we’re all good. While our luck in flying home has obviously run out, everything else is well as we are surrounded by the kindest Balinese people we’ve ever met.
Can’t wait to tell you all about this vacation-turned-extended adventure. For now, let’s appreciate the face that Bali’s beaches are not bad to get lost in.
Last week, we featured the New Basement Tapes and I completely fell in love with their sound. I was racking my brain who were the band members and why they’re so familiar, when I stumbled upon another single, Kansas City.
This Nov. 9, 2014 photo shows, from left, Jim James, Rhiannon Giddens, Marcus Mumford, Taylor Goldsmith and Elvis Costello posing in in New York in promotion of “Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes,” an album produced by T Bone Burnett and created by the musicians using lyrics written by Bob Dylan for the legendary “basement tapes” recordings. (Photo by Drew Gurian/Invision/AP)
This group was put together by T Bone Burnett to add music to the lyrics written by the legendary Bob Dylan. These lyrics were called the basement tapes recordings. Wow. Just wow.
OH. MY. GOD. Isn’t that amazing? Even Johnny Depp got in the action, playing a few tracks on the album!
Anyway, here’s Kansas City for you. I hope I get to see this group play live. Too bad, I think they just rallied for that one invite-only concert. I would have paid to see this group play.
I’m about 160 days till my wedding. Yup. I only have that amount of time. A little under 6 months, and still there’s a long list of to do’s. But if there’s something I truly enjoy doing, it’s putting together Our Ultimate Wedding Playlist.
I stumbled upon this song on Spotify (like most of my Music Monday selections) and I like the soft and easy going tune to it. The New Basement Tapes is something I have never listened to before, but the mix of country and melancholy made me consider this song as part of our prenup photos.
Photo from The Daily Herald
When it comes to these ballads, I tend to gravitate to voices that are not your usual pop tunes. Of course, my love for pop music will always be there, but when an eclectic piece like this comes your way, matched with the perfect lyric, it’s quite hard to refuse making it a new favorite.
Who wouldn’t fall in love with that?
I am not really a morning person. Generally speaking, I find it easy to wake up early, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. I think most of the time, I get up out of obligation. I have work to attend to, I have to finish some school work, it’s my turn to make a meal…
Don’t get me wrong, I love being of service. It’s just difficult to get up sometimes, especially when you know the extent of the obligations you have to carry out during the day. I try my best to have a good ten minutes just meditating, but most of the time, the to-do list just run on and on in my head.
So one morning, on our way to work, this song comes on. It was absolutely motivating. I looked for a lyric video, so you can see what I mean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UqfrH74wc0
I remember when Tatay died. I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking in my head how are we going to move on from this. What do we do next? What will I be at work? How will my wedding be? Who will my mother grow old with now? Where do we go next? It’s just a barrage of questions over and over.
I don’t know how I got to bed. Or how long it was before I actually slept, really slept. More so, how I got up. But I did. I got up, I did my sun salutations, I made breakfast, took a shower, went to work. And then I hit repeat.
This song brought back all those memories of those days. And while the blessings continue to shower my path, I am not denying that when days are hard, they’re hard. Truly sincerely disarmingly hard.
But there’s a lot of fight left in me.
Renaissance by Nicolas Senegas
Jesus Christ, do I have a lot of work left behind or what?
Finally got the chance to watch Begin Again, the highly praised film of 2013, and boy, I was not disappointed.
Quick sidebar: with so many balls up in the air, I do my best to avoid the things that I want to experience first hand. Music, movies, books are all jotted down in a tiny little (now long) list that I have committed to start going through the moment school is over. So… :) (hint hint)
This is one of those movies you instantly fall in love with. Hands down, right away, the moment that beautiful soundtrack plays, you’ll fall in love with it. Throw in a Ruffalo that aged very well in spite of the role-required beer belly and the naïveté of a waif-like Englishwoman in the form of Kiera Knightley, and you’ve got yourself a melancholic hit, best for viewing on a rainy season, with a partner, a group or alone, definitely under the covers, definitely touching some skin.
For those who have not seen it yet, please do so. Do not deny yourself the pleasure of fantastic narrative and riveting music. Do not deny yourself of the feels trip that come with every twist and turn of this film.
Oh, and you MUST hear her sing.
4 out of 5 stars
the salt of your skin 