[Attesting] My Strangeness %D (Music Review)

[Note: hah. This is a music post, and you're STILL not spared the words. :P To skip most of the filler, go down to the highlighted symbols. It's that easy. :) ]

Agh. I can't think of that one word for my title...so it'll be blank for now, then I'll type one that has a blank, and then I'll keep this sentence here even when I finally remember said word. Mwahaha~

Ok. SO. We have to apparently do some type of music review, and honestly I kinda kept zoning out (I've been doing that lately), and Mr. M's words of wisdom and direction-giving. My apologies.

BUT! Here's what I got from his talk: I have to choose a song or an album of songs, and then--check this--WRITE. A. REVIEW.

*le GASP!*

Basically, I'll say whether it's good or bad or pure torture, and why I like it, blahblahblah...and possibly, explain a theme or something. Right, we all know what this post is about; all of us in Mr. M's Amercan Lit.

Those were his directions, more or less, give or take. Normal people will simply find a song and write about what they like or hate about it (Why did I think about Justin Bieber when Mr. M said we could bash a song that's seen as great?). However, I am NOT a normal person, and this fact will be supported by me blog post...becuuuuuz...

§§§

I can choose a song in a foreign language. YES! I want some things to be known, though...1) I do not speak the language in which these songs are sung, and 2) I will not be translating the songs..word for word.

Enough of this info crap--erm, stuff. I decided to do my review on this series of songs I enjoy, called "The Story of Evil," aka "The Daughter of Evil" series. It's this string of songs in Japanese that are put together by Mothy, or Akuno-P. I like the music a lot, but the best part of the series is how each song picks up and carries on the story of the previous song.

There were--WERE--originally 5 songs telling the story (here are their titles in Japanese and the English equivalents): "Aku no Musume"/"Daughter of Evil", "Aku no Meshitsukai"/"Servant of Evil", "Regret Message", "Shiro no Musume"/Daughter of White", and "Twiright Prank". There is another song that fits between Regret Message and Shiro no Musume (Daughter of White), titled "Re_birthday". However, that particular song is actually part of another album, although the producer says that it was an answer to "Regret Message." Also, I just looked up the series again, and Akuno-P apparently uploaded a new song, in EVILS COURT called "Wooden Girl~Thousand Year Wiegenlied~".

...Yeah. Don't ask. >.>

I don't think I have to tell you what the story is about; watch the videos, and you'll either figure it out or make up your own story; that's the fun of imagining. :)

The question is, should I find fan-made AV for this, or just get the original vids with English subtitles? (The difference mainly that the originals are sometimes just still, single pictures while fanmade vids are sometimes moving pictures). The story's all the same.

Meh. Both it is.

NOTE: I was able to get the videos on here, but the full screen option may not work. Click the link to watch on youtube and be able to actually read the subtitles, if it's too small to read here.

Daughter of Evil

This part is about the princess herself. She ruled with an iron fist--at only age 14!!!

Original (Akuno-P):

 FanMade:

Servant of Evil

This one's about the princess's servant (as you can tell by the title). The servant will do anything for said Princess, even if it means becoming evil.

Original (or so they say):

FanMade:

Regret Message

After the fact (the Revolution and such).

Original Best One:

Re_birthday

Regret Message's match. Made in the heavenly yard. :)

(Smile if you got it)

FanMade Favorite Ver.:

Shiro no Musume

This song is my absolute favorite out of all the Story of Evil. It's very well put together, and I like the music~. This one's from the viewpoint of a bystander ("Bystander" is the official English title for the song).

Original (and fave):

Twiright Prank

My...second fave? Also the one my dad refers to as "Nani Nuk ('nuke')." xD He's so strange...But I can't hold it against him; I listened to this song over and over for hours on end, and now he calls every Japanese song (or any song sung in an Asian language) that. This song is more of a flashback.

Original (and fave)

Annnd...I don't really care for the Wooden Girl one. It just came out recently, sometime this year, and for me the story stopped with the Twiright Prank. Besides, I didn't like parts of the music in the video. There was a choppy jump from this pop or rock sounding music to some softer, classical-ish music. It just wasn't blended well enough.

I enjoyed this post...Although I feel like I got off topic a bit... Oh well. Did you pick up on the story? Apparently a lot of people cried going through these videos.

...

NO, I WAS NOT ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE.

Right-O. Now that I've given you a chance to be suckered into watching the videos and listening to high-pitched Japanese voices, I'd like to say some things:

1. The videos feature the singers as the characters
2. The Servant was a guy, in case you didn't realize, however...
3. He is voiced by a girl (Asami Shimoda--Shimoda Asami)!
4. The same girl, in fact, as the princess; they're twins~
5. the singers are Vocaloids

Yep. In case you didn't know. I found them...somehow...on the internetz...And there are tons of songs by them, and different versions and covers of the songs made by fans and actual "producers" (I decided that's what the "-P" is for in several of the better-known music-makers' names). I'm a fan of only some of their songs; namely, the ones that can actually make the Vocaloids sound human.

Right... a Vocaloid is a virtual character in the Vocaloid® voice synthesizer program. That's why they sometimes (if not often) sound very weird when you listen to them.

DISCLAIMER: Just because I like these Vocaloids, it doesn't mean you have to like them; I took this post as an opportunity to talk about my enjoyment of them. Like them if you like.

FIN!!! TRINNBLOOM OUT!

"I'll be the day;"

"I'll be the night;"

"When we hold hands we make a beautiful orange sky."

Write as They Come: More Wintry Worded Goodness

Ah. I've just finished reading everyone's poem that's out there (in my 5th period class, anyway), and I am impressed. And slightly disappointed. A few people voiced doubts about their own ability to write poetry. But all of the poems I read were really good. Poetry is art, and art is one of the things you don't and can't fail at. It's your own interpretation. Once you've written a poem, you're poetic and a poet. And I'll say it again: all of you guys in my class are superb poets. (Oops, I didn't say that already?)

Now that I've read all your works and got my inferiority complex started up, I shall write more random poems so that I can reach the incredibly high bar of standards you all have set.

I hope you're happy.

These poems can go under the same "Winter Poem" blog post, but they're really just poems:

"The Window"

Wake up to that abstract world of white
Outside the window

The white specks float down gently
Blown every which way
Hither and thither
Making their final landing
On the warm surface
Of a sleeping earth

Just sit up and watch
The snow swirl
The wind may howl
The windows may rattle
But it doesn't matter

Hot chocolate in hand
Swaddled in blankets
The bedside
The windowsill
The couch
The floor

Quiet
Peaceful
Warm
Cozy
Content

Calmly
Gazing out the window
It must be cold outside
For the world to just freeze
Like it does

But it's pleasant here
The world's blanket of white
To this blanket of warm
The world's icy chill
To the fire's heat

Separated
By only an inch
That world
So different from this one
Is just outside the window.

Snow Should Be Falling. Like, Right Now. (Winter Poem)

Ho-hum. It would appear that every time I have to do a blog, I forget the little, important details that I kinda need to do it right and in a appropriate timetable, namely because I completely fail at time management and I never get my…um, 8-9(?) necessary hours of sleep. It's all school's fault, I tell you.

Anyway, I do not remember the specifics of this poem post; I'm pretty sure it's due tomorrow (that's silly; good poetry within guidelines cannot be completed so quickly), and it's something about winter and snow…?

Meh. I'll just write up a poem (haven't done that in a while) and add another one if need be. I love writing poems. Or used to, anyway.


"Snowfall" by TrinnBloom

Red mercury plummets
And down, too, the snow falls
Frosty flurries drift slowly
Riding wind
Cov'ring all

All is calm
All is white
All is quiet
All not quite
As it was before
Hustle and bustle
Muffled
By the soft veil of snow

Snow continues to drift down
With no end in sight
Look up
Reach out
And catch
The flakes as they fall
On your hand
On your face
On your tongue

Cool and crisp
Crystals of ice
Last only for a moment
Blown by the wind
And piled into a collective white
No two snowflakes are alike
But suddenly no two are different

Down, down, down falls the snow
More on more
Build up
Ice up
Thaw out
And melt down

Then wait a little bit
Until the next snowfall.

J.D., Where Hath Thy Fled?

And, no, not my dog from years back. I'm pretty sure I know where he went.

Jerome David Salinger was an interesting man. I'm not exactly sure how I reached that conclusion, nor am I sure that you will agree with me. But that is what I have decided, so far. But although J.D. Salinger was slightly eccentric, I believe that it is no more than the rest of the human race. We're all strange.

Anyway, one thing that was very glaringly obvious in my research was the similarities between Salinger and his stories and characters. I won't beat around the bush or anything, because this will most likely become another Long-Winded post; cheers. J.D. Salinger took his own life experiences and molded his stories from those experiences.

JD Salinger (most likely to be referred to as "JD" from here on out) had a Scotch-Irish mother and a Jewish father, and his upbringing was apparently not all that different from those of his characters. Take Holden Caulfield, for instance. He was Irish too; with the Irish last name and red-headed family members. JD grew up in a pretty part of Manhattan, in New York and eventually attended prep schools; Holden lives in New York and attended several prep schools, including and before Pencey Prep. In 1934 JD's father sent him to a Military school, and I couldn't help but connect that and Holden's crew cut; army men often (if not always) have to have their hair in a crew cut.

Ahh...what else:

• JD and Holden were secretive about their private/personal lives
• JD attended Ursinus College*, but didn't agree with the structured and strictness of the college life.
• both JD and Holden were good at creative writing
• they planned on isolating themselves from the world (JD actually accomplished the feat--so far; have yet to finish CATintRYE
• Both JD and Holden are/were perceived as "sensitive and intelligent" people; but as we've seen, they had a bit of a cynical streak
• etc., etc., everything else major we covered in class

After JD successfully got published in the New Yorker, a lifelong dream of his, he shunned all of his previous work which had been published elsewhere. This marked the start of JD Salinger's "retreat from society."

Although, apparently, looking at Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, shortened here to CATintRYE, because I'm bored and I can), JD already had issues with the world. According to TIME, JD was, by the time he had published his story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" he had started to become a man who couldn't stand the world. Sound familiar? JD also raged against Hollywood concerning his precious Catcher in the Rye.

I think JD's dislike of the phony world he lived in pushed him to choose seclusion. I mean, according to TIME, JD actually gave an interview once; to two high school girls, thinking that the story would only make it to the high school page of the paper. When the story appeared as a major article in the regular pages of the paper, JD was outraged, refused to give any more interviews, and completed his isolation from society. He also soon after the incident built a wall around his cabin.

One reason why CATintRYE was banned from so many places for so long is because it rejected "traditional American values." I think that that shows the rigidity of society of the time between when JD published CATintRYE and today. People weren't as accepting, but it was for trivial reasons. Catcher was disliked by the people whose ways of life and ideals were countered by the book. But that's such a petty thing to ban a book for; I think it's phony. I also believe that JD agrees with that viewpoint; this world we've created for ourselves and its society is too superficial; everything is based on surface characteristics.

These are most likely the things that drove J.D. Salinger into his cozy Cornish cabin and kept him locked up away from us, the phonies who wanted him and his ideas for our own personal desires and gains. (Oh, JD didn't like or want fame)



Sources:
http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ro-Sc/Salinger-J-D.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1960265,00.htmlhttp://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1960265,00.html

"Don't ever tell anybody anything."

Caulfield the Pessimist (Holden)

Today I was wearing a The Catcher in the Rye T-shirt.

If I said that, would you believe me? Probably not. Or at least, you wouldn't remember. Honestly, no one cares about my shirt, and it wasn't really a Catcher in the Rye shirt anyway. Not directly, in any case.

So I pulled out this shirt with red lettering all over the front. The first thing you notice is the huge "California" in Coca Cola font (they think they're slick; they're not. We knew that font). Then you see the words above and below it, reading "HOLLYWOOD" and "IT'S THE REAL THING!" So now my shirt reads:

HOLLYWOOD California IT'S THE REAL THING!

 I'll let that roll around in your head for a second. Now for the connection (in my strange, Alex-brained way): Holden's brother, D.B. is in Hollywood. And Holden has this problem with things and people that are "phony," or as we refer to it in class, "not real."

Blahblahblah, Holden hates Hollywood and movies (yet made a date with Sally for a matinee), mostly because he thinks they're phony. For example, in the book Holden states that he hates actors because "they never act like people." I agree that things in Hollywood aren't real; everything is glorified and elevated to a higher level of awesome than necessary. Everything in Hollywood is phony, because it's all acting. Even outside of movies, people are pretending to be suave or to like each other. Like Mr. Mosby in the Suite Life of Zack and Cody said (regarding a plastic vase that looked important): "It's just like everything else in Hollywood; PLASTIC!!"

I digress. Basically, I was wearing a shirt that advertised the exact thing Holden hates. The end.

Aside from his dislike for all things that are not as great as they outwardly appear, Holden is a very pessimistic and carping--there goes that vocab word!--teenager. Not that there's anything wrong with that; it's a phase...a phase.

Zero Originality: My Red Hunting Hat

"'My red hunting hat.' My ††††-ing red hunting hat." That's what this post was gonna sound like, but I decided against it. This is, after all, a class blog, and it's gonna be read by you guys at some point or other. The thing is, I'm suuuuuuuupeeeerrrrrrrrrr tiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrred. Stuck at school till late o'clock tonight, and--I could go into that, but I won't. Let me talk about my metaphorical head covering that is a shade of red and used during THE HUNT.

Okay. Lessee...Holden Caulfield had a red hunting hat, and Mr. M says that it's a symbol (that's what my old school calls these images that have a significant meaning to a story), and we described the basics of what the heck a hunting hat's (that's red) purpose is. A hunting hat was worn during a hunt, and it was a bright red so that other hunters wouldn't mistake the movement of a fellow hunter as that of prey and shoot them. Also, deer are color blind, apparently, so they (the deer) wouldn't be able to discern the hunters from their surroundings...

Alright. Some quick research, and the gist of it is that deer aren't so much color blind as they only see 2 colors really well; something about dichromatic and red-green color blindness like humans. Anyway, they can see blue and green really well, but cannot tell some colors from others, like a hunter's red from the green foliage. How we know these random facts about other animals' vision, I don't know.

I see the hat as a representation of Holden trying to hide from most of the people around him; to blend in or fit in, while looking for others like him ("hunters"). The "hunters" like him will be able to recognize him because of some quality that others can't see, yet it makes him stand out from those other people (the "deer"). These "deer" people only see part of Holden and are unable to make out that one other part of him that is so important. Make sense? No? Oh well. Too...bad.

Now, MY Red Hunting Hat, what would that be? I don't think that I have anything that helps me fit in AND makes me stand out to specific individuals. I think I'm...iDunno, boring. Anything some others don't have (an ability or mindset or something) they can see in me, which means either I'm not blending or they aren't my fellow hunters. I think...is it possible that I'm a hunter-deer? I'm half and half? Like cream...

Man, if this post was about memory or word association, I'd KILL. I just go--WHOOSH!!--all over the place.

Umm...I'd say my "red hunting hat" is a hat full of sky (coughcough, bookreference, cough). And obviously not red, by the way (I liked A Hat Full of Sky; random book recommendation!!). A hat full of sky is an invisible hat. I can't quite touch it, and no one else can see it or touch it, nor can it be knocked off. Yet it is there, and it is there when it matters most, keeping the rain away from your head an such (I believe there may have been a wind use too, but cannot remember).

Maybe I have yet to come into contact with these fellow "hunters" that are so like me. Or, maybe I already have....


Sorry, this one was a crappy post; but I seriously canNOT think anything else up; maybe later....