5 Favourite Songs | July 2018

This month has been a beautiful month for songs. I can hardly believe it's been a month. It seems like a lot of the stuff I've been listening to in July has some kind of spooky, easy-going feel to it. A lot of these have some kind of low-level anxiety to them, often in a way that is soothing. It's an interesting selection now that I look at these five songs together. Let's talk about 'em.

1. Princess Chelsea - I Love My Boyfriend

There's so much I love about this song. Its lovely gentle glockenspiel noises, the sweet, high vocals that sound like they're coming to my ears through fog somehow. The lazy bass. The spoken word bridge portion. It's beautiful. And I love the lyrics and their resigned, reassuring sandwiching of uneasiness with a kind of sure conviction that the unease can be accepted. There's something really soothing and good about this.

Links: Spotify | YouTube

2. Aly & AJ - Good Love

This song is like being drunk on a summer Sunday morning and caught in a curtain. This song makes me want to drink a jug of Pimms and run at full speed across a bridge in a billowing dress. It has such a perfect big synth sound that makes it so euphoric and ethereal. I've been really enjoying all of Aly & AJ's recent releases, but this one is really something special. The mixing, the use of a phaser, and beautiful wound down moments combined with exquisite vocal pieces make this song such a perfect, hazy yearning song. My favourite.

Links: Spotify | YouTube

3. Friendly Fires - Love Like Waves

This song has such a fun structure. Lots of tasty noises crashing into you at different speeds. It actually does sound sort of wave like somehow. I'm a big fan of the steel drum sound that cuts through the duller, lower sounds in the chorus, almost in a slightly jaunty way, but a way that is excellent. There's a perfect dreaminess to this, it really takes me to a different place instantly. A magical place.

Links: Spotify | YouTube

4. Pale Waves - Noises

It's bizarrely hard not to include Pale Waves songs on these lists, so I won't fight my need to do so. I just love the refrain "what do you see when you look at me?" I love their song construction so much, the guitar, the dense feeling of the tracks overall, the note of desperation that comes out in such an oddly celebratory way in the chorus. And the music video is fun. I love Pale Waves so much.

Links: Spotify | YouTube

5. John Mayer - New Light

This song. Okay, I had to include the beautiful art that is this music video, first of all. It's got to be one of my ultimate favourites. But I love the smooth sounds of John Mayer, and I love how melancholy yet uplifting this song is. It's perfect. Thanks.

Links: Spotify | YouTube

♬

I don't know exactly what it is about this month's list of songs, but this just feels so incredibly me somehow. I captured a perfect little mix of songs this month that feel like they reflect me a lot. When John Mayer said "what do I with all this, what do I do with all this love that's running through my veins for you" I felt that.

Cute Bugs & Evil Hearts

It's another hot day and I'm super sleepy, so I thought I'd write a blog post with some miscellaneous pictures. I really like drawing miscellaneous things and taking pictures and saving weird pieces of inspiration for later, and I love how the internet lets us collate a bunch of stuff easily. Fun stuff and inspiration. Weird music. All these tiny pieces of expression that we're exposed to all the time. It's like reading one big diary that everyone's contributing to, and I like that a lot.

Here's a little bug drawing. There's something about this I like - maybe just the bug shape. A fun little bug. A scribbly line. The void. Nice.

Here's a miscellaneous picture of me in my room. I feel funny taking a photo with a tablet because it's so big, it makes it feel comical, especially taking a picture in a mirror like this. But y'know, I can see what I'm doing really well because the screen's so big, so there are many pros and cons in this life. I was in a moment of heat exhaustion here. Well, heat knackeredness, perhaps I should call it. My brain? Frazzled.

Here is a commission I did recently. A sweet dog. I love this blobby dog. A good dog.

And here's a slightly alarming drawing of an evil heart. Sometimes hearts are like that. Very rude.

Diary: Sleep & Cinema

Recently, as you might expect, I have mostly been sweating. I would love to go into full hibernation since I've been pretty sleepy, but instead I've been watching a lot of TV and miscellaneous videos. Good Girls is a great Netflix show about three women who rob a grocery store. I watched the whole thing and I need more. Immediately.

I finally saw A Quiet Place too, and I foolishly had a bag of popcorn with me, which I had to attempt to eat very quietly throughout almost the whole movie. It was great though. I've never been so aware of any small sound made by anyone around me in a cinema before. The popcorn was good though, and then we went straight to a nearby Korean restaurant. I love food.

The rest of my life after that was just heat. It's amazing how much harder it is to do just about anything right now. I can't concentrate as well as I usually can, and I have so much less energy. Time to eat another ice cream, I think.

Hiding

Sometimes I don't like the idea of going anywhere. I know a lot of people really itch to go out and do something and see people after a while, and honestly I do feel that way sometimes. I'm a person after all, and I like being around other people, but since I was a teenager I've loved being alone. I love being at home, totally enclosed in my own cosy space, surrounded by something I know well and where I can be on my own, not thinking about other people, maybe forgetting they exist.

Of course I suppose I'm always doing things that are connected to other people even then. I play songs, listen to someone's voice, look at people's words online, or play games that are full of concepts and thoughts and dialogue all put together by people, to represent people or stories. But still, there's a particular serenity to me about being at home. Unburdened by a need to go somewhere and do something.

If anything, sometimes it stresses me out to have to go somewhere. I have to get dressed, and think about what time I need to leave, and pack my bag, maybe look at where I'm going on a map. But I enjoy an aimless wandering most of all. When I don't know where I'm going, because it doesn't matter. I wish I could be somewhere new and strange when I go somewhere. Somewhere that doesn't need a map. Somewhere I'm surrounded by trees.

I want to go somewhere far away, true, but sometimes I think the best adventure is home.

Maybe there's a far away home somewhere.

Virginia Braithwaite: Messy Icon

In the early '00s, we had some oddly good TV drama going around, and my favourite thing was At Home with the Braithwaites - an over the top series about a Leeds family who win the lottery. The humour and constant whirling shocks and cliffhangers made for a great watch, but my favourite element was Virginia. The messy, jittery lesbian daughter who works as a mechanic and almost always looks either shell-shocked or disgusted. I love her.

She's a ball of nerves, she wears a cool biker jacket, and somehow she has the perfect hair for her nervous energy. It's fun watching shows from this era now and seeing the kind of rough edge and casual feel to the outfits everyone's wearing, but Virginia's looks are my big favourites. She looks effortless and wound up simultaneously, somehow.

This disjointed, tangled mess of a show is always in the back of my mind, alongside stuff like Bad Girls and Fat Friends, I love remembering the best TV series of this era, and Virginia will always be a weird icon to me. We were blessed.

Why Is Mario So Charming?

I love to think about Mario. He's a beautiful man. His plumbing skills are unmatched. He wears overalls like no one else. He's a style icon and an inspiration. I respect and honour him.

He's a romantic man. He leaps gracefully, like a gazelle. He is a captivating force. A wonder. He can do anything. He's a symbol for the endless possibilities of life, and also, for the cuteness of noses. Let me live inside his moustache where I belong. The ultimate safe space. The only place I want to be.

I love the way he is always running forward. Always progressing. Always doing his best, and crucially, embracing destruction when necessary. He shows us that sometimes we must face fear and blaze ahead into the unknown. And he's just really cute, okay, he's just so cute. I love you Mario.

Good Morning

Waking up is like coming out of a cloud really slowly or something. I feel like a baby every morning. My eyes are all fuzzy and I need to drink a gallon of water. I'm like one of those tiny dinosaurs you have to put in water to expand. Re-hydrate me.

Sometimes I can wake up quickly and suddenly, like some kind of superhero. Imagine if that was your superhero power? How disappointing, yet useful. But most of the time there's a level of grogginess that has to recede. I'm a bucket of fog every day being reconstituted into a person.

It's just funny how long it takes for various bodily processes to kind of become normal each day. My eyes seem to have visual debris and not want to focus for a while. My voice is low and mumbly for ages. My face feels like it's wrapped in clingfilm. I need a serious glass of water.

But after that, the morning is a nice time. The day is full of possibilities. Will I spend it watching so many episodes of Gilmore Girls that I start to believe I'm Lorelei? Maybe. Will I have a tasty lunch? Maybe. Will I lie down and type miscellaneous jumbled nonsense until I wake up? Definitely.

And typing stuff while you're still waking up is, firstly, a good way to wake up, and secondly, a great look at your psyche, probably. I really want some pretzels right now.

Just Wear A Jumper & Live Your Life

I really miss wearing jumpers. I'm looking forward to autumn so much, when I can get out all my tights and jumpers and wine-coloured clothing (why do I gravitate to burgundy so much?) - I am ready. Please tell summer it is no longer wanted here. Please also tell everyone to let me borrow a jumper. I demand this. I need it.

Until that time arrives, I'll be comforted and encouraged by these A Bug's Life Tsum Tsums. They believe in me. I know it. They should wear little jumpers too, though. I feel this is necessary. I mean, actually, maybe we should make A Bug's Life again, but the only difference is that every character is now wearing a jumper. I think this is a good idea. Please, Disney, call me. Consult me for my undeniable genius.

On a brief blog note, I think that I want to do some more stream of consciousness style blog posts. Kinda like this one. Rambling about whatever I'm thinking about (it's been A Bug's Life a lot lately, okay, I just love that movie). For a while some time ago I really liked doing "morning pages" - basically you just get up in the morning and the first thing you do is open up a document and type, barely thinking. I think this can be a really fun thing to do and it can kick start your creative thinking, get it whirring along right away, but also it's unpredictable and strange. You're still hazy from waking up. You're barely conscious, but you type like you're still dreaming. I don't know, I think it's really cool and mysterious.

The bug lover has logged on.

I love this blog because it's such a flexible space in many ways compared to social media. I can do unnecessarily long posts, I can post a bunch of weird images that somehow form something cohesive together. I can just talk for so long and never stop. It's free. It's nice. I really can't wait to wear jumpers again.

Emptyheadedness

Here are some mysterious lumpy friends. What are they thinking about? What are they doing? Probably mashed potatoes. One of the wonders of the world.

There's not much going on here but sometimes you have an empty head, and I feel like we should celebrate and enjoy emptyheadedness. It's a nice place to be sometimes. Let's all stay there for a while.

Sou Fujimoto's 'Futures of the Future' Exhibition @ Japan House London

A sculpture made of Pringles. What more do I need to say? I went to Japan House London recently to check it out, and I found this really cool architectural exhibition there by Sou Fujimoto. Around the entrance to the building are a sequence of small sculptures on stands, made from various household and everyday items.

Sponges, Pringles, toilet roll tubes - things like that. There's something really charming about the forms themselves and the little people sitting and standing around them, but what I really like is the humour. It's funny, silly, clever, and somehow quite emotionally dense with all of this.

It has a great sense of playfulness in constructing these perfect little forms, and through the tongue-in-cheek captions and the warping of objects we see perhaps daily, it poses an intriguing look at architecture and how we position it in our minds. It gives us the glee of these bizarre, seemingly spontaneous forms. There's an unpredictableness and humour where you might expect a rigid, considered, business-like outlook.

It's so great.

Dogs & The Dark

Here are some spooky glowy yellow and black paintings. Yellow is such a good colour. I'm a fan of yellow. Smileys are yellow, streetlights are yellow, and maybe cool jumpers and backpacks are yellow (listen, I love looking at all those Tumblr posts that are cute still life arrangements of flowers and yellow backpacks and stuff, it's super serene and nice).

I guess I was thinking inadvertently about all the things that make me feel great here, painting the stars and a misc. graveyard at night. These are the things that make me happy. Actually, come to think of it, I'm really into the night. I like it when it's dark. I love sunset and I love all the streetlights and the atmosphere after dark. And that time after midnight when it starts to get oddly quiet and empty. Man, I love that.

I love the moon, a dark path, a graveyard. The solitude of being up late or early. It's like a liminal space all its own. It's great.

Simple

I think people forget all the time that we're worth something just for existing. Like we always want to be doing something or making something or being something. But we really don't have to be anything. We should reminds ourselves of that. Because it's simple, really, and I'm reminded of this every time I look at a friend and, I don't know, I see the way their eyes crinkle when they laugh or something like that. Isn't that everything? It's really everything.

I think this is part of why I like making scans of myself so much, because it's like, for a moment, I'm really just me. It's like stripping away everything except my basic existence. I'm just here and it's me. It's soothing. It makes me feel real.

I just want to remember that. To just exist. This is enough.

Diary: Sun Fuzz

It's July. My brain has melted. Every day I consider moving to Lapland, living in a small hut, and having a rich social circle composed exclusively of reindeer. Here's my diary.

I've apparently been watching a ridiculous amount of TV lately. I watched the first season of 13 Reasons Why, both seasons of Glow, and started on Good Girls. All fun in their own strange and unique ways. I have also been experiencing severe pretzel cravings which I believe can never be fully satisfied.

I've also been reading some Agatha Christie and playing a heap of Final Fantasy IX, which has been really nice. It's been great just reading and watching and playing a bunch of stuff, although I've been journaling and drawing here and there too (especially while I watch TV). I don't think I've been concentrating so much. There's a fuzz upon my brain, so I think watching TV really helps me to focus a bit sometimes.

I have a folder full of old paintings and I forgot just how much stuff was in there, so I spent a while this weekend cropping some paintings and sorting them. It's a strange and fun feeling to look through old art. I also went to the theatre to see Brief Encounter, and it was so great. The music, the actors, the staging. Just everything about it I loved so much.

I Love Mickey Mouse

I've been watching a bunch of the current Mickey Mouse shorts (beginning in 2013) lately, and I am super in love with them. I recently wrote a little bit about the '30s Mickey Mouse cartoons that I love so much because of their fluidity and expression (and especially their use of sinister themes and characters), but I wanted to talk about how great the shorts are that we get right now.

Croissant de Triomphe

The third in the first series of these shorts is 'Croissant de Triomphe' - a story set in Paris and involving a perilous transportation of croissants. This, alongside others, would mark the start of a geographic element for several of these shorts which makes for one of my favourite things about the series. The fact that Mickey & Co. speak French and other languages in a few of these episodes is a nice touch, and it's astonishing the amount of love, care, and incredible design that so clearly went into making each location stand out and look right.

O Sole Minnie

There's such an attention to detail spanning the shot design, the character design (which implements a modern version of the classic forms of characters beautifully), and the backgrounds. I love the colours, the textures, and the vibrant sense of movement present in every episode.

No Service

The humour is also well-written and charming, featuring plentiful examples of inventive and surprising slapstick alongside perfect silly character moments, and sometimes ingenious and surreal concepts (like a short in which Mickey misplaces his ears - the use of sound in this one is great).

No Service

Overall, I'm astonished by how gripping and enjoyable these shorts are, and it's really inspiring to see such an experimental and fresh series for Mickey and his friends that still manages to maintain many of the best elements of the classic cartoons. I highly recommend these.

Croissant de Triomphe

A Bug's Life eBay Wishlist (Because I'm A Normal Person)

Some days you find yourself browsing eBay for various A Bug's Life licensed merchandise, because you have been deeply obsessed with A Bug's Life since you were eight years old, and you think to yourself, "you know what? I could do a wishlist post on my blog about these glorious artefacts of old" - and you do. It's a universal experience. We've all been there. And today, my friends, is that day for me, so please survey these beautiful wonders that I am having to use all of the willpower in my body to avoid buying.

1. Flea Circus Playset

I remember having one of these Polly Pocket style sets and I loved the little tiny characters so much. This is the coolest thing imaginable. Nothing else has ever been cooler. I love that it folds into a giant P.T. Flea. Beautiful.

2. Large Talking Flik

Look at him. His shiny metallic look. His Crazy Frog squat. His backpack presumably filled with worry. I love him. I need him.

3. 8" Plush Flik

Listen, Flik is so jittery, I think he just needs a hug. Let me hug him. Please. What do you mean it's inappropriate for me to bring this to a business meeting? Do you have no respect? No compassion? How dare you.

4. Inventor Flik Toy Figure

I really the darkened sections on his hands, feet, and antennae here for some reason. I don't know why it's there, but I like it. I also like and respect that he looks angry. He's ready to invent. Angrily. That's the best way.

5. Panini Prismatic Sticker Set

I remember collecting these for the Panini sticker book back in 1999 or whenever, and these shiny prismatic stickers with the beautiful line art still thrill me to this day. I need them, to stick on everything. Stick them directly onto my heart.

☆☆☆

So these are the astonishing relics and treasures I have been enjoying looking at on eBay the most, but I would like to offer honourable mentions to this Dot plush figure, and these Flik and Atta mugs, because Dot is very cute, and quite frankly I wish to sip from the head of the princess. Good day.