{Take the 100 Things challenge!}
Aw yeah! This is gonna be fun! I so need things to write about in my LJ, and this challenge is just the ticket.

My topic? 100 Albums I Adore. (Albums idea snagged from musicalpanties!) I am a music-listening fool, and I'm always making lists of my favorite tunes (sometimes they're posted at my music blog!). I was just thinking the other day that I can't really get together a concrete list of my favorite albums of all time - my top three, yes, but beyond that, it tends to fluctuate. So now's as good a time as any to try to pin down the albums I love and write about just why I adore them! :)

Like they say @ 2012scrapbook:

Think about the year that has passed. All the memories, the entries and posts that made the year special. Think about all your past layouts, default icons, mood themes. How about all those conversations you had via comments, or the huge post in ONTD that you spent all night commenting on. The 2012 Scrapbook Post is a way to help you remember all of that, in a single post.

Here we go again!
( Twenty-twelve )

Last updated: May 4

Cheery bye, Scarlett

I remember that I didn't listen to this in the actual, official track order at first; I sampled a few of the songs as they were ordered in the "Recently Added" playlist on my iPod. I really liked the strange sounds of "Get Out Of My House" and the "We Will Rock You"-esque percussion of "Leave It Open," but The Dreaming is (IMHO) not the same listened to out of order. It's an album album, one that is most powerful listened to as a whole. I think I gave the whole thing a listen sometime in early 2006 - it must have been a Saturday, because I got into the habit that semester of listening to the album over and over again on Saturday nights. It felt special, like I was having a little vacation. (An odd thing to think amidst The Dreaming's intense themes, but there ya go!)

2006 was yucky (due to OCD stuff). One good memory from that time was my total immersion in Kate Bush's work - especially The Dreaming. Looking back, it makes a lot of sense that I connected so deeply with that album - Kate Bush described The Dreaming not only as "very dark and about pain and negativity... It was a sort of cry really" but also as "about trying to cope...to get through all the shit." I was certainly dealing with a lot of similar feels at the time!

I'm light years away from where I was when I first experienced The Dreaming, yet it still resonates with me. The sounds, the words, the emotions - they continue to fascinate me, no matter how many times I listen to them. I get more and more out of the album as time goes on; I even wrote a paper in fall 2011 about The Dreaming as an example of feminist art. I'd also argue that it's simply art, period.

In conclusion: The Dreaming, man. THE DREAMING.

Cheery bye, Scarlett

Just posted this on Tumblr, and thought I'd share here too! :)

Eeeek! I actually got to see Moya Brennan in concert with Cormac De Barra (at Leisure World in Silver Spring on March 15)! It was amazing. Her voice is even more beautiful live, and it really was just an absolute joy to get to see her perform. I've been a fan of Clannad and her solo work for years, so this was a dream come true.

As if the night wasn't neat enough seeing the performance, after the show she came to the lobby to chat and sign CDs - and yours truly got the nerve up to say hi! She was so sweet and gracious, not only signing a CD booklet and taking a quick photo with me, but also being the best person ever and chatting for a minute. Moya Brennan: amazing, class act, flaw-free. What a night!

(Ignore the fuzziness of the photos!)

Hope 2012 is going well for everybody in LJ land! :) Cheery bye, Scarlett

See ya in 2012! :)

( 2011 in review (or in meme, or something!) )

Happy New Year, everybody! :D Cheery bye, Scarlett