This is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing to Think About

It never fails. There's some snow falling, illuminated by the streetlamp outside and I'm fixated.

I just returned from a three-day family road-trip to France/ Belguim. I really needed it. I really needed to get away. These were the perfect destinations, because they allowed us to spend endless hours driving. For me, this is endless hours of sitting in the backseat, listening to music, watching the changing landscapes and letting myself be soothed by the romantic, idealistic notions that always seem to fill my head when I'm on the road somewhere new.

Long journeys are one thing I couldn't live without. Wherever I'm going, I'd rather just keep going, instead of stopping.

I love visiting places I've never been to before, because it usually means a child-like sensation of awe. I can remember moving into the house we now live in when I was six; the first week we lived there, I was so excited by the newness of the house that I would run around the place, opening doors again and again, just to marvel at plain open spaces I wasn't used to. It also means no tired or upsetting memories. You are completely anonymous to that place, and can make your own memories and impressions.

Not that I didn't appreciate the sudden wave of familiarity and nostalgia I got when I walked across a bridge in Gent and realised I had been there before.

I am completely in love with the song Get me away from here, I'm dying by Belle & Sebastian today. I don't know how I've never heard it before.

Oh, I'll settle down with some old story
About a boy who's just like me
Thought there was love in everything and everyone
You're so naive!
They always reach a sorry ending
They always get it in the end
Still it was worth it as I turned the pages solemnly, and then
With a winning smile, the boy
When naivety succeeds
At the final moment, I cried
I always cry at endings

This fan-made video for the song kind of relates nicely to what I've written about in this post.

A lot can happen in a year

...And I'm regretting so, so much of this year. I guess I didn't waste it. Sometimes I wanted to, and sometimes it was excruciating, but I've learnt so much. I was naive. I still am, but not so much. In many ways, 2009 was a very important year for me and I'm almost glad it happened the way it did. Still, here's hoping that 2010 will be nothing like it.
Now, I'm going to be nostalgic about this time last year, when I was reflecting on what was probably the best year of my life so far. I remember watching Big Fish on New Year's Eve and feeling very excited about the New Year. My head full of aspirations for 2009. I wasn't unhappy. I didn't have any regrets. I was just hopeful for the sake of being optimistic. I honestly couldn't comprehend how meeting one person would uproot the Earth from under my feet the way it did.
I also remember listening to this song a lot. It was on rotation at the time. It was pretty much all I would listen to, and yet I only just remembered it. And this fills me with hope that you will be just as easy to forget.

Gregory and the Hawk- Boats and Birds

Obligatory Best of the Decade post

Favourite Book
No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July
I Love short stories. I love Miranda July. So this was kind of a no-brainer.

Something That Needs Nothing is probably my favourite story in the collection, even though its heart-breaking.

"This made her so angry that she did the dishes. We never did this unless we were trying to be grand and self-destructive. I stood in the doorway and tried to maintain our end of the silence while watching her scratch at calcified noodles. In truth, I had not yet learned how to hate anyone but my parents. I was actually just standing there in love. I was not even really standing; if she had walked away suddenly, I would have fallen."

Like most of the stories in the book, it touches on love and loneliness, and does so beautifully. Ever devote months or years of your life to someone who never thought of you as a permanent fixture in theirs? Every emotion at their whim. Every action committed with them in mind. I reccomend you read this story. And then the rest of the book. Its prescribed reading.

Favourite Film
Little Miss Sunshine

California. Intense heat. Miles and miles on the road. I love this film more than is healthy for a man to love a film. I don't want to use a cliche, but if I said this film didn't change my life, I would be a liar. I watched it for the first time as a fourteen year old girl, and that was it. Everything was different. It was the birth of my passion for cinema. And American indie-folk. All things go, all things go... It made me realise that, if looked at in the right way, there is so much beauty to be found in my own life. And its hilarious, too. I could go on about how much love I have for this film, but it'd get sickening.

Favourite Album
Oh, Inverted World by The ShinsShortly after having watched Little Miss Sunshine at fourteen years old, I heard 'New Slang' for the first time and had yet another transcendental experience. I don't have much else to say about this album, except that listening to it will make you feel as though you've been lying in a field all Summer long, and that thats just fine.

It's so cold right now

Its the Magical Mystery Guy

Why is it that I only seem to get great ideas when I'm wired from sleep-deprivation?

I came up with an idea for another mix last night at about 1 am. It's called

"I Know the whole town is flooded, but it's a really beautiful day and I'm going cycling anyway!"

and was inspired by these two stoned kids(this refers to anyone under 30) I saw in France circa Summer '05. They were trying (and failing) to cycle underwater and having the best time of their lives. It was adorable, as you can tell by this illustration.

In honour of those sweet princes, here's that mix

1. No Hope Kids- Wavves

2. Temecula Sunrise- Dirty Projectors This song is euphoric. I cannot stop listening to it.

3. Let's Go Surfing- The Drums

4. Hummingbird- Born Ruffians

5. Fools- The Dodos

6. Deadbeat Summer- Neon Indian

7. Once We Walked In Sunlight- Papercuts

8. Divine- Sebastien Tellier This song is totally a guilty pleasure, but it has to be included, because it frenches up the whole mix.

9. Daylight- Matt and Kim

10. Ambling Alp- Yeasayer

11. River- Akron/ Family

12. No More Runnin'- Animal Collective

13. 40 Day Dream- Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros This song is worth listening to just for the lyrics She got sunset on her breath/ I inhaled just a bit/ Now I got no fear of death/ Oh oh, I could die.

It snowed again today

Sketchy Santas is amazing, though it may destory your faith in Christmas traditions.

Jessie has decided my new camera shall be called Arabella, after I doubted her naming skills. Its perfect and reminds me of the kinds of books I used to read when I was twelve. Anne of Green Gables springs to mind, for some reason. So after saying my goodbyes and wishing everyone at school a merry Christmas, I took Arabella out, with a friend and her pug, walking in the snow. It was coming down pretty heavy and looked gorgeous. The photographs I took with my fisheye might not be so gorgeous, but I tried by best.
I was cleaning out my drawers recently and found a mix CD I'd made a while ago. It had Snow 2 written on it in Sharpie, and I thought it was an appropriate soundtrack for today. It inspired me to make another mix (very similar to the Snow 2, but with some changes here and there). I guess I should call this mix Snow 3. Or maybe Snow 2 and a half, because its only half new?
1. In Ear Park- Department of Eagles.
2. White Sky- Vampire Weekend
3. Winter's Love- Animal Collective
4. I Adore You- Melpo Mene
5. My Boys- Taken By Trees
6. About Face- Grizzly Bear
7. Angel In The Snow- Elliott Smith
8. White Winter Hymnal- Fleet Foxes
9. re: stacks- Bon Iver
10. Gobbledigook- Sigur Ros

I really like Gemma Correll's drawings right now.

'Such magic is this to reassure and cheer you on this, your great journey.'

Today I sat three GCSE exams. Intense. But now the horror is over until May, save for one English Literature exam tomorrow morning. I probably should have read Lord of the Flies, but it's too late now. Instead, I'm reading Naive. Super by Erland Loe, which is fantastic. The 25 year old narrator, undergoing an existential crisis, has been convinced by his brother to travel from their native Norway to New York. Naturally, its an overwhelming experience for him, but it's not all bad. I'm jealous, anyway. I'd love to be spending Christmas in New York. The canvas of the Chrysler Building hanging in my room is a poor substitute.

After the exam, school is over for the Christmas Holidays and I can spend two glorious weeks playing around with my new fisheye camera, which arrived today and is every bit as lovely as I thought it would be. I'm a total no0b when it comes to analogue cameras, so this could be disastrous, but I'm excited all the same.
Also, it snowed this afternoon. Thick wet flakes. If it keeps up, we're going to build another snow panda, twice the size of last year's and it (hopefully) won't look like a polar bear (like last year's). Maybe we'll have a white Christmas? A few Snow Days before coming back to school?

All this talk of bears and snow can only herald one thing. The song Ready, Able by Grizzly Bear is stunning, and puts me in mind of snow. The video is just as stunning.

'And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.'

Today, I went to see Where The Wild Things Are. After hearing mixed reviews, I didn't go in with high expectations, but was pleasantly surprised.

Although the plot itself seems to lack direction, it illustrates brilliantly the emotional development a person experiences after a major conflict with loved ones.

Following a fight with his mother, Max runs away from home and finds himself exposed to the Wild Things. Great lumbering beasts that embody the most fragile human qualities- loneliness, insecurity and an almost overwhelming need for unconditional love and mutual understanding. These are heartbreaking characters. And perhaps what is most tragic about them is just how relatable they are.

The soundtrack is lovely too. Hideaway- Karen O and the Kids.

I also ordered this beautiful thing from Urban Outfitters. Its a fisheye camera designed by artist Rob Ryan and is something adorable and frivolous to spend my birthday money on. Now, I get the joy of anticipating its delivery. It also inspired me to look at some of Rob Ryan's prints. These two are my favourites so far: