Tomorrow is my birthday so I made this mix as a celebratory gift to you lovely people. I hope you'll have a listen, a fancy cocktail and bust a move - even if it's only in spirit. I'll be in Chiang Mai, Thailand enjoying the sunshine.

Thanks to all the friends, family, supporters and clients who have made this year - one that started off a little rough - so absolutely wonderful. I am one lucky gal.



x

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 India Song Photo Series by Karen Knorr for her amazing use of color:









The film Black Swan for being equal parts creepy, disturbing and beautiful:


The Poetry of Mary Ruefle for making my imagination gurgle.

Speak, Zero
There was a morning bowl of cereal
and we sugared it
Then mother took the bowl away
Then mother took the bowl

Years of which I have no time

One by one they reached into the sea
and took the lightkeepers out of the lighthouses
Then they took the lighthouses out of the sea

Thus the world falls back on its original plan

The dolls washed up on shore not far from here
and the wild horses who come and lick their faces

There is nothing definite about you
but you happen in detail

From finches we take feathers for our hats
From us they take hair for their nests.

The one veritable transitory power
is your right to hide

And despite the early hour, the papaya was empty
neatly scraped, never slept in

Nothing clarifies the mind like a death sentence

Because reading is a kind of sleep
and sleep a kind of music

Yet I'm crazy for your incredibly purple face,
the way you keep seeds in your pocket

Inspired by the brilliant AYear in Reading Series on The Millions, I thought I'd make my own list of the reading that captured me most this year.

Best Reads
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters | Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower | Cool Water by Dianne Warren | One Room in a Castle by Karen Connelly | Last Night in Montreal by Emily St John Mandel |

Books I Most Wanted to Read But They Weren't Available on my Kindle (or were ridiculously priced)
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan | The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Sloot | Memento Mori by Muriel Sparks | February by Lisa Moore | The Gang the Wouldn't Write Straight: Wolfe, Thompson, Didion, Capote and the New Journalism Revolution by Marc Weingarten | The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery | Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol.1 by Mark Twain |

Blogs I Discovered (and subsequently fell in love with)
Frances Farmer is My Sister | What Possessed Me | Italics Mine | Isak | Collection A Day | Maud Newton | Notes from Somewhere Bizarre | Style Rookie |  The Rumpus | Samimi Extremie Is Boss | A Lot of Wind |

Favorite Book Related Technology
Although it will never replace the experience of a real book (and I have some issues with quality and book pricing), the Kindle has made it infinitely easier for me to read while traveling | Runner up is without a doubt Instapaper. It has single handedly made me fall in love with reading long from journalism again.

What were your favorite reads and new discoveries from 2010?


Image from Wet Behind the Ears

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 watched this today with Sasha, the little 15 month old who lives in the house we're staying in while in Melbourne. Sesame Street is the best.

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

Roger Ebert has just released Great Movies III , which is presumably a follow up to Great Movies I and II. He just published the list of movies included and, although I wouldn't consider myself a huge film buff, I'm surprised by how few I've seen or even heard of.

Here's the list with the one's I've seen highlighted:

Ace in the Hole
Adaptation
After Dark, My Sweet
After Hours
The Age of Innocence
Army of Shadows
Atlantic City
Au Revoir, les Enfants
Babel
The Band Wagon
Baraka
The Battle of Algiers
La Belle Noiseuse
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Big Red One
Blade Runner: The Final Cut
Cabiria
Cat People
Chimes at Midnight
Chop Shop
Chuck Jones: Three Cartoons
Cool Hand Luke
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Crumb
Dark City
The Dead
Diva
Dog Day Afternoon
The Double Life of Veronique
Easy Rider
El Norte
El Topo
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
Exotica
Fanny and Alexander
Faust
Fitzcarraldo
Forbidden Games
The Godfather, Part II
The Great Dictator
Groundhog Day
Howards End
Inherit the Wind
Johnny Guitar
Juliet of the Spirits
Killer of Sheep
L. A. Confidential
The Last Picture Show
Last Tango in Paris
The Last Temptation of Christ
Late Spring
Leolo
The Long Goodbye
Magnolia
The Marriage of Maria Braun
Mephisto
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
Mon Oncle Antoine
Moolaade
My Fair Lady
My Man Godfrey
Nanook of the North
Ordet
Out of the Past
Pan's Labyrinth
Paths of Glory
The Phantom of the Opera
Pixote
Playtime
A Prairie Home Companion
Rebel Without a Cause
The Red Shoes
Ripley's Game
The River (Le Fleuve)
Rocco and His Brothers
Safety Last
Samurai Rebellion
Sansho the Bailiff
Santa Sangre (from 2003)
The Scarlet Empress
Secrets & Lies
The Shining
The Silence
The Terrorist
The Thief of Bagdad
3 Women
Through a Glass Darkly
Top Hat
Triumph of the Will
Vengeance Is Mine
Waking Life
Werckmeister Harmonies
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Withnail & I
Winter Light
A Woman's Tale
Woodstock
WR--Mysteries of the Organism
A Year of the Quiet Sun (from 2003)
Yojimbo

That's 31/100 or 31% - a failing grade. Of those I've seen, my favorites are The Shining , Whatever Happened to Baby Jane , The Godfather II and Adaptation .

How many of these have you seen? Which are your favorites?

Image Credit: Movie by van Ort

The Dark Night of the Soul from michael mouris on Vimeo.

This short animated film staring Courtney Love is totally crazy and a little bit awesome too. She is really quite insane in kind of a glorious old dame kind of way.

Print Is Not Dead from Anthology Magazine on Vimeo.

And if the new quarterly magazine Anthology has anything to say about it, it's also getting a really friggin' cute makeover. I'm a sucker for a catchy song and some vintage duds.

Maggie makes me so excited! To think that with the right mind frame, we can actually make a huge, huge difference in the world. She's truly an inspiration.

If you're so inclined (and why wouldn't you be?!) you can learn more about her project in Nepal and how you can help on her website.

(Those of you reading this in a feed reader - you'll need to click through to the post to see the video unfortunately)

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

I love this! A composer used a photography of birds sitting on a wire to create a piece of music.

Some of these old cartoons are pretty scary. Big bad wolf accidentally cuts of his own head, gets into a fight with a cat who is stalking Betty Boop, the cat kills the wolf, skins it and wears its head ... Pretty warped stuff.

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.

Via We Who Are About to Die