I'm feeling a little blue today kittens.

It's our last full day in Vietnam. Tomorrow morning we fly from Hoi An to Hanoi and then Dan is off to Thailand and I am heading to California. I'm excited about the next week and happy to be leaving this country behind me, but there's also this wistful nostalgia mixed up with everything. Something that I can't quite pin down.

I love this beautiful video and song though. And the strange cover songs being played in this Hoi An cafe where we're biding our time today.

PS: Vietnam has found a way to block our work-around to access Facebook, so I'll be absent there for a few days.

The story: a girl moves across the country for grad school and her boyfriend writes her this song and makes this video for her. But he isn't going to tell her about it, he's going to see if by the magic of the internet and serendipity, it will find it's way to her.

My inner cynic tells me this is just a marketing ploy and that the quality of the video and track mean that we're going to shortly find out that Sony is behind it or that it's the new theme song for Toyota or something. But I'm going to turn that off for a few minutes and pretend that this guy might really be trying to do something sweet for someone he loves with no other self-serving force motivating him.

And if my inner cynic is right and this is all about making something viral, well, at least the song is good.

x

Lovely.

We've spent a lot of time working this week and I've been listening to a lot of music. These two songs in particular have been on heavy rotation. Apart from having female singers they couldn't be less alike really. The Anya Maria song is the cover of a really gross rap song by T.I. Whether it's her intention or not, I love the juxtaposition of unlikely people taking these uber-testosterone, lady-demeaning tracks and turning them upside down with their sweet girl voices. One of my favourites being this.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be Cyndi Lauper. I love the reckless abandon of her dancing in this performance, the hair, the clothes, the weird arty stuff she does and how pissed off she seems. And of course I love this song, which has still got to be one of my favorites.

Image: Cool Spotters

I've been listening to this all week. You can find more about the project, and even download the track for free here.

I looked out the dressing room door and saw the Japanese preliminary wrestlers taking down the ropes, beginning the process of putting the barbed wire around the ring. The wire they used was the real stuff: cold and uncaring, capable of tearing flesh in a hurry. I knew I had about 30 minutes before the wiring process was completed—a half-hour to undergo a drastic mental transformation. I took out my battered Sony Walkman and, after great deliberation, bypassed the obvious hard-rock selections. Finding solitude in a far corner of the frigid backstage area, I saw a cloud of my own breath as I pressed the play button. "Snow can wait, I forgot my mittens/ Wipe my nose, get my new boots on."

... I'm thankful for everything Tori has motivated me to do inside, and especially outside, the wrestling ring. For many years, I had thought of the fight against sexual violence as one best waged by women and survivors of assault. But then I heard that voice one night, in my beat up Chevy minivan, on my way home from some other road trip I can't recall. "When you gonna make up your mind? When you gonna love you as much as I do?"

Excerpt from The Wrestler and the Cornflake Girl: Wrestling Legend Mick Foley Explains how Tori Amos Changed His Life

Every Monday (actually it's Tuesday in Australia), I'm going to post a link to some music I really like. The sound in this one isn't always brilliant but I like the concept and everyone in it is so passionate and into it and well, it's hard not to like that.

It's been raining in Melbourne and this song feels perfect to me today.