Month: July 2009

July Songs

It’s time for my annotated July playlist, and I feel like I picked five pretty stellar songs this time. Enjoy.

1. Breakeven by The Script
Thanks to my cousin, I discovered this Irish band and their great song/video, “The Man Who Can’t Be Moved.” The lead singer’s voice soars over some great percussion and optimistic piano chords, and this song plays like a sunny day.

2. Little Secrets by Passion Pit
I almost literally went nuts when I first heard this song. The electronica! The drums! The crazy falsetto! The children’s choir! I can’t even describe how alive this sound makes me feel.

3. The Saltwater Room by Owl City
I often include a song on my playlist that I just discovered, and this time, this one is it. Owl City’s song “Fireflies” is a free download on iTunes right now, and you should go get it. This is summer beach music at its finest. It makes me want to be around and in water. I was at the National Aquarium in Baltimore yesterday, and if I could have picked my own soundtrack for the day, this would have been it.

4. You Said by Shane & Shane
I didn’t blog about it like I wanted to, but July 8th marked the one-year anniversary of my return home from Europe. This song was the theme of my time there. These lyrics summarize all of my fulfilled hopes and all the stories I could tell.

You said, “Ask and you will receive whatever you need”
You said, “Pray and I’ll hear from heaven, and I’ll heal your land”
You said your glory will fill the earth like water the sea
You said, “Lift up your eyes; the harvest is here; the kingdom is near”
You said, “Ask and I’ll give the nations to you…”
Oh Lord, that’s the cry of my heart
Distant shores and the islands will see
Your light as it rises on us

5. My Lady’s House by Iron & Wine
The first time I heard this song, I thought it was quiet and soothing. The second time I heard it, I thought it was pleasant. The third time I listened to it, I thought I’d had a divine visitation in musical form. It takes some time getting into, but once the subtle melody settles and the lyrics work their way into images, this song shines like a pearl. I can’t resist Sam Beam’s poetry. I can’t wait to see him live in September. Who can compete with this? There is light in my lady’s house / And there’s none but some falling rain / This like a spoken word / She is more than her thousand names…

Click Pop-Out Player to listen.

Crossing to Safety

I’m reading a gem of a book I picked off a used book sale shelf and paid 50 cents for. It’s by Wallace Stegner, who seems like a slightly more sentimental and nostalgic Steinbeck, which is a compliment. It chronicles the lives of two couples and their friendship, and takes a graceful, honest approach to describing marriage and family. Stegner’s writing is quiet and well-rounded; it puts me at ease just to read, even disregarding plot. He makes me want to live in Madison, Wisconsin and vacation in Vermont. I haven’t finished the book yet, but I already recommend it.

Meantime there were these friends, this open-armed family, this summer weather, these peaceful mornings on the guest-house porch where, with my typewriter on a card table, and the thrushes and whitethroats singing up the last act of the summer’s intense family life, I could sit among the treetops and look down through the hemlocks to the glitter of the lake and feel my mind as sharp as a knife, capable of anything, including greatness.
–Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety

crossing to safety

“I sell cheap books, so sue me!”

*Quote from You’ve Got Mail

Ringing up books for a living lends a certain insight into the interests of mainstream America. Anyone with common sense could probably list most of these subjects without working at a bookstore, but I feel privileged to see the actual proof of it. I KNOW what people are reading. Since I started working at the main cash registers, I have seen first-hand that middle-class suburbia is interested in and occasionally obsessed with the following:

– celebrities, particularly local ones (see: Jon and Kate Gosselin)
– working out
– vampires
– Sudoku
– bargain-priced, mass-produced prints of Van Gogh, Klimt, and Matisse
– sex
– crime drama
– all manner of mysteries (see: knitting mysteries, trucker mysteries, tea mysteries, candy shop mysteries…)
– low-cholesterol, sugar-free, vegetarian, vegan, low-carb, diabetes, gluten-free, raw food, and ethnic cookbooks
– Consumer Reports
– huge gun manuals
– crossword puzzles
– Eastern thought
– yoga
– teen books with hot pink covers
– literally anything with Robert Pattinson’s face on it

(P.S. Finally saw Twilight. Still not a fan. Sorry, kids. Stephanie Meyers, when you move beyond that lion-and-lamb drivel, let me know. Maybe it reads differently on the page, but that ranks up there on my Worst Movie Lines Ever list.)