Terra's Tales: Happy New Year

Friday, 1 January 2010

Just a quick post to say:

*Happy New Year, everyone!*

I hope 2010 brings much joy, love, and change for the better!

A few resolutions

Terra's Bookshelf

Fred d'Aguiar: 'The Longest Memory' - a short novella about the life of slaves on Southern America plantations at the turn of the 19th century. It's on my Cultural Criticism reading list as part of our course on identity and body politics, and as a cultural text it makes a lot of interesting and poignant points. Simple yet resonating.
Daphne du Maurier: 'Rebecca' - a classic gothic tale of doubles and 'the other woman'. So just my sort of thing, really...
'Beowulf' - more medieval literature for my course. To be honest, I was expecting something more from this. Just more general epicness. I was waiting for something to happen, and it never did. Maybe it's because I remembered Grendel being scarier when I first read the story in primary school.

Terra's Playlist

The Dresden Dolls: 'The Dresden Dolls' - emotive and darkly humorous dark cabaret music from the creative and original duo. Amanda Fucking Palmer is a genius, end of.
Otep: 'Smash the Control Machine' - poetic, dark and lyrical, this is female fronted nu-metal with a twist. There's a nice mix of tracks, from heavy stompers like 'Run for Cover', slower weepy songs like 'Ur A Wmn Now' (featuring Emilie Autumn on the violin - that's definitely what sold me), and spoken word tracks like 'I Remember'. This album is well composed and executed throughout.
Plasmatics: 'Coup d'Etat' - Wendy O Williams isn't noted as being a forerunner of the riot grrrl movement, but she could be. An iconic figure of the 1980s alternative music scene, Williams' growl and lyrical swagger characterise this blend of punk, metal and hard rock. 'Stop' is one of my favourite songs of all time.