For a Sunday morning

You can try the best you can

If you try the best you can

The best you can is good enough

Please please please

It's not an easy life... *sigh*

 

 

 



Mixtape II

Piano music for a rainy Monday

stolen apples Mix II from martinqn on 8tracks Radio.

1. Erik Satie - Gnossienne, 1. Lent

Tut, tut, looks like rain.

- A.A. Milne

2. Eleni Kalaindrou - By the Sea

Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me quite nervous.

- Oscar Wilde

3. Yann Tiersen - Comptine d'un autre été

Haven't had a dream in a long time.

- The Smiths

4.  Max Richter - Andante Reflection

Look at the rain long enough, with no thoughts in your head, and you gradually feel your body falling loose, shaking free of the world of reality. Rain has the power to hypnotize.

- Haruki Murakami

5. Arvo Pärt - Fratres for cello and piano

My sorrow, when she's here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane. 

- Robert Frost

6. Frédéric Chopin - Prelude #4 in E Minor

We'll always have Paris

- From 'Casablanca'

7. Claude Debussy - Clair de Lune

...All sing in a minor key
Of victorious love and the opportune life,
They do not seem to believe in their happiness
And their song mingles with the moonlight...

- Paul Verlaine

8. Yann Tiersen - Watching Lara

And the rest is rust and stardust.

- Vladimir Nabokov

9. Thomas Newman - Any Other Name

Danny: You want to get married?
Sam: Can't. Got to go out later.

- From 'He Died With a Felafel in His Hand'

Terra Australis

Please, not Abbot, please.

Mixtape I

It's the weekend. Time to cruise with no particular place to go.

stolen apples mixtape 1 from martinqn on 8tracks Radio.

1. Booker T. & the M.G.s - Green Onions

There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go. 

- Tennessee Williams

2. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Beat the Devil's Tattoo

Here's to the first of the day, fellas. To ol' D. H. Lawrence. 

- George in 'Easyrider'

3. R.L. Burnside - Let My Baby Ride

Sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whiskey and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind but falling in love and not getting arrested. 

- Hunter S. Thompson

4. Tom Waits - Step Right Up

It's not, not bad, huh? There's no heat here, but you know, by the time winter comes, I'll be in Florida. 

- Ratso Rizzo in 'Midnight Cowboy'

5. Howlin' Wolf - Smokestack Lightning

Now the rain's like gravel on an old tin roof
And the Burlington Northern pulling out of the world
Now a head full of bourbon and a dream in the straw
And a Gun Street girl was the cause of it all. 

- Tom Waits

6. Canned Heat - On the Road Again

"Sal, we gotta go and never stop going till we get there."
"Where we going, man?"
"I don't know but we gotta go." 

- Jack Kerouac

7. John Lee Hooker - Dimples

when God created love he didn't help most
when God created dogs He didn't help dogs
when God created plants that was average
when God created hate we had a standard utility
when God created me He created me
when God created the monkey He was asleep
when He created the giraffe He was drunk
when He created narcotics He was high
and when He created suicide He was low

when He created you lying in bed
He knew what He was doing
He was drunk and He was high
and He created the mountians and the sea and fire at the same time

He made some mistakes
but when He created you lying in bed
He came all over His Blessed Universe.

- Charles Bukowski

8. Grinderman - No Pussy Blues

I'm so goddamn horny, the crack of dawn better be careful around me! 

- Tom Waits

9. The Black Keys - Lonely Boy

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

 - T.S. Eliot

Waiting for Waits

Sorry Tom, I've neglected you for a few years now. Maybe I just didn't need you until now.

Come down off the cross
We can use the wood

A-Ž of Latvia - H

H is for Hare Krishna and Hokejs (Ice Hockey)

Latvia has only been a free republic for a tad over 20 years and Latvians are still trying to find their identity and place in the world. Locals often aren't very good at creating something new which is uniquely 'Latvian', many would rather just take something from elsewhere and run with it without adding any unique touch (with many commendable exceptions, of course). The locals love anything exotic or different, like fixie bikes (I saw less over a weekend in London than I do in a walk around the block in Riga), sushi, Eastern religion and anything even slightly whiffing of esoterica. Krishnas dance and chant through the streets here, oblivious to the fact that we in the West kinda got over that fad decades ago. But I would notice that, wouldn't I, I'm a Libran after all.

Ice Hockey is considered Latvia's national sport. It's a pity they're success is not as great as their passion for the sport. At least the Lithuanians can be proud of their international basketball success; Latvians have produced a few NHL players, beaten Russia twice, and, well, that's about it (I may get a puck to the chin for writing this).