Our girl Franny Banks is an actress living the waitress life trying to make ends meet as she pursues her goal as a actress in NYC. Who knew the woman who played the mom in the ‘Gilmore Girls’ had it in her to write such a convincing story line. I actually pictured Lauren as this character but clearly it is not an autobiography.
The witty banter between Franny the super cool and yet stylish girl living in Brooklyn with two roommates-Jane, her best friend from college, and Dan, a sci-fi writer, is easy to get into. If you like girly Sophie Kinsella books this will be a perfect addition to your cottage and summer job reading schedule. This is an easy read and a fun one.
Franny indeed has her insecurities. There is the questioning of the cute guy in her acting class’s intentions which let’s face it – we all have those moments. But she is a likeable character. I loved the hand written journal entries attached to this book. It added a cool flair and a great nosey cheekiness to an overall sweet read.
I liked the lightheartedness of ‘Someday, Someday, Maybe’. Sometimes books are not meant to change your life. Sometimes it’s worth to just get lost in the pages of a book that will walk you through NYC hijinks whilst on the quest to make it big in the city of dreams through the eyes of a girl who could be our mate.
Filmmaker-historian Nelson George conducts a passionate archeology of funk music—the crucial bridge between ’60s soul and ’80s hip hop—replete with loving testimonials about Dayton, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan, in their funk heydays, where in the basements of now-mythical music makers like Sly Stone and P-Funk, the funk explosion was catalyzed. With The Roots member Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson as our guide, and warm regaling from notable musicians such as Bootsy Collins, George Clinton, Sheila E. and Mike D of the Beastie Boys, we’re transported to the hippie-ish ’70s when a mad fever of savvy creativity saw the transmutation of jazz, soul and R&B into infectiously danceable funk. Unspooling the movement’s psychedelic-influenced ethos with flair, George carves out a nostalgic portrait of funk music as an enduring artistic assertion of the black experience in the USA.
Review: I grew up listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers as a teenager. I thought at the time that their punk rock stage presence was radical and thus made me feel radical as a 15 year old from the burbs. Little did I know that their funk stance was permeating my mind. Who knew? Years after loving them for one element of their musical stylin I was actually left with a funk residue care of their collaborations with George Clinton.
‘Finding The Funk’ is a great docu intro to the key players of this musical genre. It’s an easy watch and an extremely sexy one at that.
It was interesting to sample Bootsy Collins, Sheila E’s presence as they injected and inspired the sounds of the time and how it translated into a whole new generation of music in the 80’s and 90’s. Dee-lite, The Beastie Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers to name a few all pay homage to these early grandfathers and godmothers of Funk and all things Funky.
Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson was a perfect narrator to this docu. His slick informative style of narration only added a further velvety taste to digesting the history of funk music as it evolved and grew in the U.S. and influencing further ‘booty shaking’ for the world to enjoy even years after its birth.
As I have mentioned before, I have been avoiding The National for ages. Mainly because I had this preconceived notion that only hipsters enjoyed their music.
Their latest, ‘Trouble Will Find Me’ (their 6th release) follows their last successful album ‘High Violet’ which was toured approximately 22 months in the last year. This album will truly move any emotional blockage you may feel in your heart and belly. I have been listening to “Trouble Will Find Me” easily every day back and forth on my trek to work. It’s been a great ally.
“Sea of Love” the first release of ‘Trouble Will Find Me’ is dance worthy but has all the great elements of a pop song. This album does not begin and end with this song. In fact it just gets progressively better.
“Heavenfaced” is reminiscent of a Bruce Springsteen ballad. Lyrics like ‘Let’s go wait out in the fields with the ones we love’ are Wuthering Heights like with Matt’s voice swooning is eerily reminiscent of Leonard Cohen. Goosebumps as you dance into lyrics ‘She’s a griever, my believer, It’s not a fever, it’s a freezer, I believe her, I`m a griever now, She’s a griever, my believer’. This song will be sugar sweet live.
Throughout this album there are moments filled with stuttering rhythms and winding woodwind along with melodies and percussion that refuse to align.
One of my favourites on this album is “This Is The Last Time”. It is very Broken Social Scene and Arcade Fire in tone. The melding of the lyrics and melodies and the injection of a female singer’s voice which concludes the song is reminiscent of Amy Milan from Stars. An aching beauty.
“Graceless” is another body shaker which is road worthy and perfect to play on a Saturday afternoon at home. Gentle but just enough oomph to sing along too.
“I Need My Girl” will make you reflect on perhaps the loneliness of road life for an artist, missing a loved one. The simplicity of Matt’s voice along with a soft guitar and the low beat of the drums will be a perfect way to reflect upon your week and leaning into any of your own lingering stuff.
There are some moments whilst listening to “Trouble Will Find Me” that you are waking up from a hazy night out on the town. There is blurriness and the scent of cigarettes and whisky on the breath while the sounds of this album swirls around you in its sentimentality and subtlety.
In these songs, as well as in “Heavenfaced”, Matt emerges from his self-described “comfort zone of chant-rock” and glides into a sonorous high register of unexpected gorgeousness. The results are simultaneously breakthrough and oddly familiar, the culmination of an artistic journey that has led The National both to a new crest and, somehow, back to their beginnings—when, says Aaron, “our ideas would immediately click with each other. It’s free-wheeling again. The songs on one level are our most complex, and on another they’re our most simple and human. It just feels like we’ve embraced the chemistry we have.”
The boys are touring this summer – it maybe worth checking them out. “Trouble Will Find Me” is a classic and a necessary new release to add to your summer listening schedule.
As part of ongoing 10th anniversary celebrations, Arts & Crafts is preparing for the May 28 release of Arts & Crafts: X – an entirely original collection of collaborative recordings by artist pairings from the label roster.
Arts & Crafts: X
Broken Social Scene x Years: “Day Of The Kid”
Apostle Of Hustle x Zeus: “Bizarre Love Triangle”
Feist x Timber Timbre: “Homage”
Still Life Still x Zulu Winter: “Era”
The Hidden Cameras x Snowblink: “The Chauffeur”
The Darcys x Ra Ra Riot: “Time Can Be Overcome”
Chilly Gonzales x Stars: “Nothing Good Comes To Those Who Wait”
Hayden x Jason Collett: “Lonely Is As Lonely Does”
Gold & Youth x Trust: “Lady Bird”
Amy Millan x Dan Mangan: “Chances Are”
Arts & Crafts: X is also now available for pre-order on iTunes. Pre-order now and receive the record’s bonus track – Dan Mangan x Zeus’s interpretation of Elliott Smith’s “Waltz #2 (XO)” – instantly.
Easily one of the most important documentaries on inter-country adoption, Mercy Mercy gives a rare look at all participants in the adoption process, including the parents who give their children up. Two loving Ethiopians parents, Sinkenesh and Hussen, have just been diagnosed with HIV and told they have only a year to live. They make the painful decision to give their two youngest children up for adoption, handing them over to a Danish family. In an emotional departure, the Danish family promises to stay in touch and the adoption agency agrees to broker the relationship. What seems like the best decision for the children becomes a series of tragic and painful events for all, unveiling that the well-being of children is not always the main priority in the adoption process. Greed, selfishness, unrealistic expectations and skewed cultural perspectives idealizing one way of life over another collide in this powerful story.
Review: A friend of mine had seen this film over Hot Docs and encouraged me to see it. Big mistake. This docu is not a bad film. It is what a true docu should be about. It is upsetting and will not leave your mind even days after watching it.
For a world that thinks that picture perfect People magazine shots of Angelina Jolie and her adopted brood makes for an easy international adoptions – this is not always the case. This film examines how a child’s cultural background could clash with their adoptive parents if the child and their parents are not properly supported. Sometimes it is not all happiness and rainbows. Sometimes there is grief that permeates and will grow into other pain and darkness at the hands of these lil people who don’t have the voice and the strength to verbalize it to their new parents. The kids who are promised the new life by these adults are sometimes the forgotten causalities.
This film will leave you with more questions than cookie cutter answers of what international adoption entails for families, governments and adoption agencies.
I won’t say much more. I encourage you to watch this film online or when it comes to your town.
Paula Daly is my new favourite author and she should be yours too. I started reading her latest book ‘Just What Kind Of Mother Are You?’ a month ago and have looked forward to getting into bed with it every night since then.
The backdrop of this story is the Lake District in the North of England. I went there on my 29th birthday when I lived in Manchester so making this an even more magical read. It is definitely one place you need to experience in your life. It is truly a romantic, seductive and beautiful place to inhale. An innocent setting for a story such as this.
Picture windy roads splashed with grandpa trees, thatch cottages, Lilliput Lane imagery, poetry, lush gardens, deep walls of mist for miles, clean crisp winds, and the smell of grandiose spooky Lakes beckoning to get lost in. The Lake District echoes safety, comfort and the love of nature.
I fell for Paula Daly’s brand of writing – it’s not often that you get swept into a fever to read quickly about characters after only the first few pages into a book. This book is an easy ready but an intriguing one at that. There are loads of lil details that are full of symbolism that require a slow digestion.
I was drawn in on the first page with the tale of a weird man stalking young girls on their way home from school. Safety and comfort begone! We are introduced to the main character Lisa, a kennel owner and mother who had a responsibility to care for her best friend’s child who dum, dum, dum —disappears on her watch.
Lisa is a likeable character. Indeed full of flaws but a tour guide full of wonderment, self-reflection, self-doubt and a mistress of ‘taking on other’s peoples stuff in times of guilt’. We all do this stuff. Reading about these sentiments through this character made me reflect upon how I would have handled certain situations if I was in her shoes and my own complexes.
I found myself constantly examining the characters presented in the book and looking under rocks for them to trip up. Daly kept the story very tight but at the same time left you wanting more after small reveals came to fruition in every chapter.
I appreciated the bubbliness and light hearted hand that Daly writes in. This story is not overly complicated and a nice change from the heaviness of this genre.
The conclusion of the story is a jaw dropper. No matter how many clues you collect on the way would you figure out who the true criminal is until the very last page. This is a sign of good storytelling.
It’s impossible to write this film description without putting on one of my most treasured CDs and turning up the volume—on Bikini Kill. At long last, we have the highly anticipated documentary on Kathleen Hanna, lead singer of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, who became synonymous with the riot grrrl movement and one of her generation’s most outspoken feminist icons. Through 20 years of archival footage and very personal interviews, director Sini Anderson brings to light an intimate side of the fearless Hanna, whose music and leadership still inspires today. A powerhouse San Francisco performance poet, producer and director, as well as co-founder and artistic director of Sister Spit, Anderson shares with Toronto audiences a never-before seen view of this punk icon in the international premiere of The Punk Singer.
Review: As a teen I grew up with skater boys in my high school. They introduced me to the Circle Jerks, The Clash, Henry Rollins and punk rock. They always treated me respectfully and to them I was just one of the boys. If they could only see me now. Ha!
I was a Mod Girl trying to carve out her path and find her identity. The boys I knew liked what I liked and were very ‘straight up’ in their confidence. The girls I knew – were not anywhere close to where I wanted to be in terms of style, dress, interests and of course musical taste.
Enter Kathleen Hanna. Even though I didn’t know her as a teen growing up in the early 90’s I was familiar with her aesthetic and her message. The first time I was ‘introduced’ to Kathleen was in Sonic Youth’s ‘Bull in the Heather’ video. She was all sass, chubby cheeked, comfortable in her body, punk rock and of course riot grrrl. I was intrigued.
As Joan Jett says in the docu, ‘Kathleen started breaking down the rules of what girls want to be’. I wanted to be my own girl and have a strong voice. Kathleen started to give me permission to be my self at 19 when I started listening to her band Bikini Kill. I was hardly a militant riot grrrl, but I did like their message of confidence, strength and empowering women.
Kathleen was a true trailblazer for my generation of women who knew not a lot about Gloria Steinem and who were unsure what it meant to be a feminist.
In her valley girl voice, homemade dresses, leggings, knitted beanie caps and cool shades, Kathleen will take you to her humble beginnings in Olympia, her part in inspiring Kurt Cobain to write ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, sweet glimpses of her falling in love with Beastie Boys, Adam Horovitz, their home in the Catskills and how she birthed a scene for women to feel free to be a feminist in their creative, professional and personal identities.
We also see Kathleen’s vulnerable side when speaking of her illness due to undiagnosed Lyme disease and how it took her out of the scene that she loved. For a woman so much in control this disease forced her to heal on its terms and remind her that she herself is not invincible. That said it proved to be a reminder for her to see how healing her talent is in inspiring to keep her chin up in adversity.
