Monday, November 12, 2012

limitless.

I know, I announced this regular blog feature "introducing instagramers" and then totally neglected this blog. What a tease! But I really wanna catch up with it, so here's the next awesome instagram photographer.

Today I want to show you some incredible photographs by Evan James Atwood. There is not much I know about him, but the fact that he has a "365 challenge" which obviously seems to refer to the "a-shot-each-day-of-the-year-idea" and those compostions of him are among the most creative ones I have found on instagram. I really love the mood of his pictures, some of them are pretty creepy aswell. But just look for yourselves.
Check out all the other shots by @evanjamesatwood!

Friday, November 9, 2012

beginnings.

Y E S! I am still alive! My mind has been occupied with my new job the last weeks, so I didn't really feel like updating over here. I will probably still do a belated review on october, though. One thing that convoyed me through the whole month was this:



t  h  i  s     r  e  c  o  r  d     k  i  l  l  s. 


and I am going to see this boy live next week and you won't believe how excited I am for this. so excited, that I bought a ticket for 24 bucks for a band I don't even care about, but he is playing as their support. yeah...you get it. 

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

past tension.

I am observing a trend in the music scene, lately. Bands that have already released several albums suddenly come back to their roots and sound like their old selves again. And I don't really know, yet, what to think of it. Two bands in particular are MENOMENA and MEWITHOUTYOU with their current releases from 2012. While "Mines", MENOMENAs third release from 2010 was pretty different from what they had done before, imho, due to the split with Brent Knopf, their new release, "Moms" just sounds EXACTLY like "Friend and Foe" it has ALL the same elements just in other variatons. Now I could say, cool, that's the way I liked MENOMENA best, and I never really became a friend of "Mines", but on the other hand, it just somehow sounds like uninspired repetition. And the same thing occured to me while I was listening to the new MEWITHOUTYOU release a few days ago.. It took me a while to even dare to listen to it. On the one hand, my taste in music always keeps on developing, and recently I enjoyed more electronic artists than guitar-based sound, so I didn't really think I would be in the mood for it. On the other hand, this band means A LOT to me, and I am always very tensed when one of my all time favourites has a new release after a long time. And I am already questioning in advance, if the new sounds can compete with what I loved so much in the past. So I listened to "Ten Stories" today, and oh my, MEWITHOUTYOU put their cheerful singalongs aside and went back to the good old "Catch for Us The Foxes" and "A to B Life" times. But is that really a wise choice? Well, in the case of MWY, probably yes, because one thought came to my mind, while listening to "Ten Stories". Aaron Weiss is still one of my favourite persons on this planet.

And because I babbled so much about music, here are some videos to live up to my...uhm...humble thoughts.





Saturday, October 6, 2012

inpouring.



It's octobaarrrr, peeps. The coolest month evaaar. And that's not because my birthday is waiting on the last of its days. Ok, yes it is. I really don't know why people keep complaining "uughhh, I'm getting older, screw this shit". I looove to celebrate birthdays, and mostly my own. ;) But as it is, I actually haven't planned anything, yet. This might have to do with the fact, that in less than a month my new job will start, and that's the only thing I can currently think about. I have only one week left at my old job, which is actually hard to believe. Then I will have some spare vacation days and then IT IS ON! But October is also when all the TV shows are coming back for new seasons. I am already overcharged. I didn't dare to watch the first HIMYM episode, right on time, but then I thought, heck, I need to get started with this, before it's getting awkward. It hasn't been great, so far, but I still have high hopes for some glorious new episodes. But I am secretly hoping they will put this show to an end, with the last episode of this season. Then NEW GIRL started, too. And it has been satisfyingly hilarious. Then the 7th season of Dexter started, and I was massively disappointed by the last one, but damn, they are finally taking this series to another level of awesome. First episode was pretty good. And then I heard THE WALKING DEAD are also coming back, already? You gotta be kidding me? When am I going to have the time to watch all this? Not to mention the new season of AMERICAN HORROR STORY, which I am pretty curious about. And last but not least, October is spooky time, and guess who loooves spooky time? Yeah, you got it right...but let's move on to the reviews of last month.


THE BOOKS I HAVE READ:

CROSSED by ALLIE CONDIE
So this is the follow up to Allie Condie's first book from the "Matched" series, and I already reviewed that one a few months ago, and was positively surprised. The second book reminded me a lot to the second release from the "Maze Runner" series, "The Scorch Trials", because of the whole wandering through deserted places thing. All in all I think it was a solid follow up, but I remember being a little disappointed at the end, since the whole efforts of the characters seemed somewhat senseless, sort of like the sysiphus methaphor used in the book. But I better judge the whole series altogether, when I have read the last book. (4/5)

FIRST COMES LOVE by KATIE KACVINSKY
Uhh, cheesy romantic cover! But I have to admit, that was actually the reason, why I gave that book a try, and I'm glad I did, because I really enjoyed this book, and it was actually the first book, I finished within 24 hours. I guess the story isn't even that special. A vigorous girl taking a challenge on a boy who rather wants to be left alone. I guess, sometimes it's just really the way a book is written, to make me fall for it. And this one did. (5/5)

HOLIER THAN THOU by LAURA BUZO
Alright, this was pretty disappointing. Although from the storyline, it could have been so interesting. A book with a more realistic touch, about a girl, talking about her job as a social worker in a psychiatric ward, and experiencing that she is getting more and more distant from her former highschool friends. But when you might think, that this would be a very emotional and touching book, the author just manages to let you feel no empathy at all for the protagonist. At this very moment, I didn't even finish the book, and started a new one instead, but I still think I am able to give it a rating, since I read 80% of the book. (2/5)


THE MOVIES I HAVE WATCHED:




AMOUR
Ugh, so intense. I really don't know, but there was a time I decided not to watch any more movies that are expectably emotionally disturbing. But then again, all the great stuff you are missing out on! And AMOUR definitely is one of those movies worth watching. But then again, I am literally having nightmares about this, just like the...oh wait, I don't wanna spoil anything. But yeah, this is a Haneke as you might expect it, horrifying but great. (8/10) 

J'AI TÚE MA MÈRE
The second movie I watched as a french original this month, I am quite proud of myself.  I really wanted to see this one, as I had already enjoyed Xavier Dolan's "Les Amours Imaginairs" lately. And yes, I am – more than ever – in love with this boy and his filmmaking and I am looking forward to what he might be capable of in the future. (8/10)


EAT PRAY LOVE
This was such a disaster. I did not expect this movie would disappoint that much. But it's kinda like with the character of Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia. I did not buy it for a second, how Julia Roberts tried to play a depressed person. Don't even get me started on her motives! The only good thing about this movie was Javier Bardem, for whom I had to wait until the very end, to come crawling out. And then he played such a dull character, oh my. Knowing of what he is actually capable of (No Country for old Men, Biutiful etc.) this was even more disappointing. (4/10)


THIS MUST BE THE PLACE
Ok, I got to admit, I am still a bit confused by this movie. Until this day, I didn't really comprehend, in what relationships all the characters stood to each other. But in some way, this movie impressed me. Probably because I hadn't seen something like this before. And Sean Penn was really amazing and 10 times more convincing as a depressed person than other actresses I have mentioned. (7,5/10)



REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
This was a bit disappointing aswell. I can't even really explain why. Maybe I just thought, my goodness, why are these characters both so immature? But then again, I like both Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio as actors, and they at least made me enjoy the movie.  (6/10)


MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
This was probably a typical Woody Allen movie, where I can mostly not identify in any way with the characters. But at least, when the time travelling part of the movie started, it got at least a little bit funny.  (6/10)

Monday, September 17, 2012

itchy feet.

I wanted to do this for a while now: showing you the reason(s) why I am in love with instagram, or more specificly its users. So I collected some pictures from my favourite photographers and I am going to introduce them to you in the following weeks.

The first artist I want to give an introduction about is @miltoncross and he pretty much already delivers what I love about following so many different strangers on instagram: the WANDERLUST. I, myself haven't been able to travel much in the last few years, but I have this constant desire of travelling as many foreign places as possible. My parents never shared this desire, so our holiday trip destinations never went across the german border. (ok, we were in Austria once, but come on!) When I was a teenager, I had the chance to see London, Paris, Budapest and Copenhagen without my parents. But not much has changed since then. I was always so jealous when my classmates in school were talking about trips to Spain, Egypt, Greece a.s.o. But hopefully this is going to change in the near future. Meanwhile I keep enjoying the many terrific moments captured by those pilgramers (as they call themselves) on instagram.
Check out all the other shots by @miltoncross!

Saturday, September 15, 2012

amiable.

So last night I met John Green.


What a wonderful and kind person he is. 
Thank you for putting the most powerful and overwhelming thoughts on paper. 

Sunday, September 9, 2012

life, according to plan.

Okay, peeps. I think it's finally time for that huge announcement, I've been hoping to do for a while now. I will start a new job in November with a very amazing and impressive company and to say I am very much looking forward to this is a big understatement. On friday, right on time for the weekend, I've been given a firm offer, after being interviewed three times (I guess they wanna be super certain, about who they want to work with). The funny thing about this is, that I was being introduced to the job offer via Xing, so yeah, you can probably count me to one of the few people who found their new profession via Xing. And you guys know how much I love the internet, and the fact, that it now provided me with a new job is just super incredible! 

Okay, lots of exaggerations in this post, huh? But the awesomeness proceeds as I am going to meet one of the coolest people in the world in less than a week. On friday, 14th of September, here in Munich, there is going to be an introduction to the german release of "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green, which I already described as one of the most impressive and affecting books I have ever read. (if not THE most..) and the author himself will be there and I am sooo excited! 

I also made myself an early birthday present, and purchased this amazing box set (thanks to credit cards, I was able to buy it on Amazon.com since it's only available in the US.)

www.amazon.com
I know I already own "Looking for Alaska" and "The Fault in Our Stars" but I might aswell sell my previous editions. Both of those books are also signed by Mr. Green. And I still don't own "Paper Towns" and "An Abundance of Katherines". And the price is just super appealing to NOT wanna buy this! 

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

detonation.


Soooo, I actually waited a little while to be able to finally drop some big news in this post, but nooo, decisions are STILL to be made, and so I keep waiting patiently and use the spare time today and write some words about the last month. But waiting was basically all that happened in August, besides my parents visiting, but this I already mentioned in one of the last posts. So since there is nothing much to talk about, I thought I could share one of my musical discoveries for which I am already dying to hear more in the forseeable future. So far, the only thing existing by this artist called TWIGS is a tumblr blog and two videos on it and the web doesn't spill any infos about the girl many people are already comparing to Aaliyah. Well, I just really like her addicting mix between R'n'B and electro.




Well, I bet you already wondered what kind of cheesy romances I have been reading last month, you shall be released. ;)


THE BOOKS I HAVE READ:


REASON TO BREATHE by REBECCA DONOVAN
This was an exciting read about a teenager being physically abused by a family member and I am still trying to figure out how to rate this book properly. I was very drawn to all the characters, none of them was dull or uninteresting, but at some points I just couldn't comprehend some of the protagonists actions. Nevertheless it kept me guessing and wanting to read on. (3/5)

THE STATISTICAL PROBABILITY OF LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT by JENNIFER E. SMITH
The first time I heard of this book about two teenagers who meet on an airplane in one of John Greens many video blog entries, as one of his personal recommendations. A friend of mine had read it, too, but told me not to expect too much. And in the beginning it actually was a bit boring but it grew with every page and, yes, my eyes got a little wet. (4/5)

MY LIFE NEXT DOOR by HUNTLEY FITZPATRICK
This also was a recommendation by the friend mentioned above, who fell madly in love with the Garretts Family that is pictured in this book. And I think I fell in love with them, too, especially 4-year-old George, who is an adorable precocious toddler scaring himself with world end scenarios, but in a very hilarious way. Oh and of course there is a lovestory, in particular with the protagonist Sam and one of the Garretts family members (in fact there are 8 siblings). But of course all is not well in teenage wonderland, because Sam's mother, a politician on an election campaign, who is sorta disgusted by the huge and catastrophic Garrett family. All in all a hilarious but also dramatic book worth reading. (4/5)

MY LIFE IN BLACK AND WHITE by NATASHA FRIEND
I have the least memory on this book, since I read it in the beginning of the month, but I remember that I hardly liked it. The story is about a girl who looses her appeal, when her face gets injured in a car accident. And when you think, ok, this character will probably try to make the best of her life, the whole book is just a whiney tantrum thrown by a immature teenager, and you ask yourself, what kind of message the author wants to deliver, since it seems to be all about the obsession with beauty. (2/5)

THE MOVIES I HAVE WATCHED:



PROMETHEUS
Holy smokes, that was pretty neat! There weren't exactly answers too the many questions a viewer might have had in advance, but who cares, haha! I love movies where you are left behind with theories and stuff. And since there will be sequels I don't doubt much about the answers to follow. 
What I loved about this movie were the visuals. Those holograms from the past! Or these little flying tracker-thingies, veeery nice! And we need to talk about Mr. Fassbender. Somewhere in an online review a person wrote, that fassy played his role so convincing, that you really had the feeling, he was and android. And that's exactly what I thought, during the movie. Well done, Fassy! Well done, Ridley Scott. (9/10) 

BOY A
Andrew Garfield plays the role of young adult, who has recently been released from jail, after he took part in the killing of girl as when he was still a child. And as hard as this sounds, Andrew Garfield plays his role so you feel empathy towards this person who comitted such a horrible crime. Probably one of his best perfomances. (8/10)

PARANORMAN
Oh my, this was really awesome and hilarious. An animated film about a little boy who can see dead people, and has been chosen to save his town from a witch's curse. I reeally loved the characters in the movie but I wondered if it might not have been a little too scary for 6-year-olds sitting in the cinema with us. But none of them seemed disturbed afterwards, so maybe I'm just a little bit hysteric. (8/10)

THE 5-YEAR-ENGAGEMENT
Honestly, did this movie reeeally have to be sooo loong?! I really don't see any reason that justifies the length of 2 hours for a comedy like this one. There were some funny scenes, yes, but in the end I was a little disappointed by Mr. Segel. (6/10)


Saturday, August 18, 2012

ascension.

Last week my parents paid me a visit and we literally walked through the whole city. I took some pictures and wanted to share them with you. It actually looks like I've been on holidays, too, right? But the lake on the pictures is actually in the middle of the english garden in Munich.

I am also trying to improve my nutrition-style, encouraged by a friend of mine. Trying to reduce food to veggies and fruits (no raffinated sugar, no bread, ha, but I can tell you the last thing didn't work, yet) So I went to this market selling fruit that has already been sorted out by the supermarkets and bought lots of stuff for few money, and I took some prickly pears, because I never tried them and made the mistake, touching them with my bear hands. Yes I had heard before, that these little bitches sting, when my boss told me a story about plucking them with his bare hands, but I thought, they would be ridded of their prickles before sale, no? That's probably too demanding, huh?! Well, FYI, i can still feel some of them prickles on my hands, and I can assure you, the taste wasn't even remotely worth the pain!!

 In other news: I opened an account on instacanv.as where some of my Photos from Instagram are for sale. I thought, why not try it, and earn some money on the side. Click on the image below to visit the gallery.


Sunday, August 12, 2012

vivid.

I made a new 8tracks mix. I know, that was kinda overdue, right? Here's the tracklist that features some highly addictive tunes.




1.) Diamond Messages - Liquid Summer
2.) Twigs - Ache
3.) Lemonade - Neptune
4.) Deptford Goth - Youth II
5.) John Talabot - Oro y Sangre
6.) Stay+ - Dandelion Seed
7.) Superhumanoids - Too Young For Love
8.) Visions of Trees - No Flag
9.) Hyetal - Diamond Islands

Friday, August 10, 2012

lately.

You might have noticed, it has been a bit quiet around here the last weeks. I already mentioned, there soon might be some changes in my life, and to achieve these changes I had to invest some time, but on the weekends I still tried to enjoy my free time. And I wanted to share some impressions with you, I captured via Instagram. 


Wednesday, August 8, 2012

lamento.

Look! Evening Hymns have a new video, and I really like the visuals in here. And Jonas is trying to start a beard-competition with Mr. Fitzsimmons, I guess. ;)


I hope they're adding Munich to their current tour scheme, would be a shame to miss them.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

eavesdrop.


Guys, it's time for a recap on the last few weeks. I don't really want to reveal too much, as I am a little superstitious about things like that and don't wanna jinx anything, but rumor has it, that some big changes are awaiting me in the foreseeable future. But when decisions have been made, I'll let you know.
Besides that, nothing much happened. actually. There were fantasies about going to several summer festivals such as the austrian STUCK! which I had already mentioned in another post, or the DOCKVILLE Festival in Hamburg, but travelling to Hamburg turned out to be even more expensive than the tickets for the event. But I was lucky to finally witness a live show by the lovely Other Lives, who made quite an impression. What a passionate and professional bunch of people they are, who  immediately make you want to join a band, too!

So let's just quickly move on to the book and movie reviews.


THE BOOKS I HAVE READ:


BEAUTIFUL DISASTER by JAMIE McGUIRE
Ok, by this time, I arrived in the romance department of the young adult genre but I don't care if anyone thinks that's too gooey and all cliché. When you don't have a romance yourself, you'll just have to find yourself a substitute, right? And here we have a bad-boy-meets-innocent-girl-who-turns-out-to-be-not-so-innocent-after-all-story. All in all I can say that something was there that kept me excited about it, but inbetween there where some decisions made by both protagonists who just seemed somewhat inexplicable to me. But as I had no expectations at all to this book, I still felt positively entertained. (3/5)

BEFORE I FALL by LAUREN OLIVER
Contrary to Beautiful Disaster, here I HAD big expectations, having read Lauren Oliver's DELIRIUM before. This is her debut novel and it is highly praised in the YA-scene. We get to know 15 year old Samantha Kingston. And we get to know her on the day she dies. Until then, Sam is an obnoxious little bitch, and not knowing what to expect as the book continues, I had big problems in the beginning with the dullness of all the characters including the protagonist. I simply didn't think it could live up to DELIRIUM when I had read the first 50 pages. Nevertheless I kept on reading and by the time I finished this book Lauren Oliver had turned my point of view to 180 degrees. That alone made me decide to give this book the highest rating. But not only my POV changed, but of course the protagonist  evolves during a very brief amount of time, due to that fact, the author makes her live through the exact same day over and over again. (5/5)

FORBIDDEN by TABITHA SUZUMA
There is a good reason why the cover of this book is black. The whole story is just so desperate. But although this book might leave you sobbing at the very end, it is so very well written to be enjoyable nevertheless. Ms. Suzuma makes you love her protagonists right from the beginning. I think it takes a lot to write a story about incestuous love and make the readers review their mindset about this taboo topic. It also reminded me a lot of the recently watched "Fish Tank" because of the whole catastrophic family situation in which two young teenagers are forced to take responsibility at a very young age and need to deal with the lapse of a careless mother. (5/5)

HUNTING AND GATHERING by ANNA GAVALDA
I liked this book a lot because of its great mixture of humor and desperation. Four very different lonesome personalities come together and find their peace of mind when they decide to live together in a shared appartment. I also watched the movie adaption right away, and will write more about it in the movie section. (4/5)

BREAKING BEAUTIFUL by JENNIFER SHAW WOLF 
Another rather disturbing topic is focused in this book. 17 year old Allie looses her boyfriend in a carcrash, she herself survived it concisely with disfiguring scars on her face. She lost all her memory about the accident but has the feeling the death of her boyfriend is more of a relief than a loss. Further on in the book the reader finds out more about their forerun relationship in several memory flashbacks and why Allie not only has a scarred face but also a scarred soul. For me the book was really interesting but at some point you just want to shake the protagonist awake to reveal the truth about her dead boyfriend.  (3/5)



THE MOVIES I HAVE WATCHED:




THE SQUID AND THE WHALE
One Word: Ewwwww! There are some disgusting scenes in that movie. But nevertheless I thought it's worth watching. This is a story about a seperation, dealing with it and having to choose sides. Making mistakes, regretting and forgiving. (6/10)

2 DAYS IN NEW YORK
Quite nice but unfortunately not as hilarious as the previous one 2 DAYS IN PARIS. Most of the jokes seemed very forced and it didn't really seem to have a bigger message. (6/10)

ADVENTURELAND
I had kind of a thing for Jesse Eisenberg this month, huh? Adventureland is a solid mixture of a teenage comedy and drama, nothing less nothing more. One point more for Eisenbergs adorableness..(does that word exist?) (7/10)

SOME BOYS DON'T LEAVE
Brevity is the soul of wit. (Yes I just looked that proverb up) This short movie was way better than a lot of the other full-length movies I watched this month. We have only two protagonists, ex-boy and girlfriend. And he literally just can't leave the once shared flat because he is unable to emotionally move on, which I think is a nicely interpreted methaphor. (8/10)

IN TIME
I thought the concept of the movie was really interesting (is there a book on which the film was based, haha, I'm already assuming this, since screenwriters seem to run out of ideas for a while now) but..uhm..I was very tired while watching the movie and it was really hard to keep myself awake, which says a lot about the tension of it, right? (5/10)

ALIEN
This movie is a great example that people are able to create a suspenseful atmosphere with much less possibilities than moviemakers have nowadays. I was sitting there with my hands in front of my eyes because I couldn't pretend what was coming next. On the other hand, of course, some effects appeared to be somewhat ridiculous but that only added more fun to it, I guess. (8/10)

THE OTHER WOMAN
A movie about a young woman, who – sort of – crushes the marriage of her boss when he falls in love with her and chooses to live with her instead. Having just lost her newborn child, she tries to focus on her stepson from her husbands former marriage, but she is struggling with this rather difficult child and his real mother who constantly gives her the feeling that she is a verdant, useless person. Although the story seems quite interesting there was something about the movie that made it hard to enjoy. (5/10)

ENSEMBLE C'EST TOUT (HUNTING AND GATHERING)
I challenged myself to watch this adaption of the previously read book in it's original language, and it worked quite well. As I mentioned, I thought the movie was a good implementation of the book. Audrey Tatou seemed perfect for the main role, and all the other characters where just as adorable. (7/10)

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S ROMEO AND JULIET
This was a rewatch resulting out of nostalgia. And I still think this was a really great interpretation of Shakespeare's classic. DiCaprio is just gorgeous in here. (8/10)

Saturday, August 4, 2012

diver.

Guess who's not in Salzburg right now!?! I already missed Stay+, yesterday, with whom I got obsessed the last few weeks. And today it's going to be Nite Jewel, I would have loved to see her live. Both of them will probably never ever play in Munich. ( I am never going to stop wailing about this!!) And here's a new found love that of course skipped Munich, too on their current tourdates. Say hi to Lemonade, who remind me a little bit of Zoot Woman, as I am listening to them right now.



In other news, the review on July is already in the queue, gotta finish this one book first. 

Friday, July 13, 2012

shrines.

Infinite anticipation!

 

Stuck! Festival - Trailer 2012 from Stuck! Festival on Vimeo.

(Although I didn't really figure out, yet, how to finance this trip to Salzburg, but be sure I already took part in one or two competitions! Hrrhrrr.) In other news, I'm really pissed right now, because Purity Rings long awaited full-length album is not available on Spotify - probably only in my country. FTS!

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

submerge.


Ugh, I give up being in time with that monthly review. Though the third day of the month isn't really belated, is it? It's just my high aspiration to perfection I need to overcome. Well I planned to write all the book and movie related reviews yesterday, but then I crawled into my bed exhaustedly and woke up around 11pm and no shit was done. I didn't even mind the two longlegged fellows hanging right over my head on the ceiling. (Yes, I'm talking about spiders, here.)

So what happened in June, you ask? I went to 5 live shows. That's usually a rate of 3 months or so, when you live in a musically frustrating city like I do. (I can't emphasize it enough, peeps!) Yet, I am glad there is this "new" club called KONG I'm having high hopes on. They hosted a show with my new found love BEAR IN HEAVEN..(Spoiler alert: Record of the year!) 

I didn't find much time reading or watching movies due to that thing called social life, I guess. ;) 

And...as I already mentioned in the previous post, I did my best being all clumsy and here we already come to the part that is related to the post title. I flooded my apartment (or at least part of it). Actually...it wasn't really me, but the stupid rainstorm that had to surprise me on that day I forgot to shut my windows before leaving for work. Astonishment accomplished, Petrus! Gladly nothing was damaged, considering the fact that my computer was standing right in the middle of the pool! You can imagine the shock and the pleasure, getting rid of the mess and all that water. But two hours later it already looked liked nothing had happened. I'm glad I didn't have had any plans for that evening. Also, I am surprised I didn't get sick standing in the water with bare feet for so long. 

Ok, so here are the things I enjoyed last month, starting with the (few) books I read.

THE BOOKS I HAVE READ:

THE GLIMPSE by CLAIRE MERLE
So, by now, thinking about that book, I probably already forgot half of what happened. I even had to revisit the résumé on goodreads to get started writing a few sentences about it. Basically this book is yet another dystopian setting, where people are divided in Pures and Crazies. The author draws a futuristic scenario where flawless human beings exclude allegedly mentally ill people from their society. And of course we have our 16-year-old heroine who starts realizing that a lot of things are going wrong in her world. And although the cover of the book seems to promise a decent amount of romance, this was, to my disappointment, a rather dry detective-like story. (3/5)

MATCHED by ALLIE CONDIE
I have been lurking around that one for a long time. Most reviews I read had been very positive, but I always feared this would be too gooey for my taste. Way off the mark! This one, contrary to "The Glimpse" stays with you for a while and makes you want to crave for the sequel (yes, we have another trilogy here) and I would have ordered the second book right away if wouldn't have to pay back a severe amount of money to my electricity provider. The synopsis is summarized quickly. Cassia is living in a perfect world. Literally. Everything is prescribed by law. The food you get to eat. The job you will take, the person you will marry and the day you will die. All for the sake of getting perfect results and getting rid of distractions that make people think too much and dysfunction. I thought this was a very interesting scenario and this series lines up easily with some impressive dystopia like "The Hunger Games" and "Divergent". (4/5)

I am also halfway through another book, which was a present from our a intern, whom I helped with her exam preparation. It is "Hunting and Gathering" by Anna Gavalda, and I can already say that I really love the humor of this author. With that book I also got the DVD from the screen adaption and I'm looking forward to this one. 


THE MOVIES I HAVE WATCHED:


JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME
Ok, first of all, I am fond of Jason Segel. So my judgement might be a bit biased. Meet Jeff, who...uhm yeah, still lives at home, and is sort of seeking the true meaning of live and gets all superstitious when he get's a call from a stranger asking for Kevin (you might be right, if you guessed there is no Kevin living at his house). Jeff takes the next bus to the city, because he is confused and feels he needs to get out or something, and sees this guy sitting in fron of him with a basketball shirt and the name "Kevin" on it. That's when Jeff is finally hooked, and tries to convince his indigenous brother, who alongside is struggling with his wife, about his new found destiny, he isn't sure about himself, yet. All in all, a diverting comedy with a Jason Segel you will enjoy if you love him as much as I do. (6.5/10)

CONTAGION
Packed with so many hollywood allstars this movie mostly lacks of character development. Kate Winslet for example whose talent I appreciate a lot, doesn't get the slightest chance in a movie like this, to show what she is really good at. You might also want to take my advice and don't eat while watching this movie, especially not during the Gwyneth Paltrow scenes. It's for your own good. What do we learn from this contagious blockbuster? Uhm, exactly...nothing. (5/10)

TAKE THIS WALTZ
Seth Rogen and Michelle Williams playing that couple that seems to fit so well but, in the end, still gets eaten by daily grind and boredom. But that's not it, yet. It is more a portrait of a young and insecure woman who is constantly searching for a higher meaning of her life and struggles with a sadness that overwhelms her and seems to be incurable. I didn't like her character much until the point where she says "Do you have any idea, how much courage it takes to seduce you?" And that's where I found a part of my own past personality in her.  (7/10)

FISH TANK
Talking about past lives. Meet Mia in her Fish Tank desperately searching for a way out. Growing up in a likewise neighbourhood I could perfectly relate to this young girl who is so angry and yet so passionate and strong. In my opinion this young actress, Katie Jarvis, does a much better job than I hoped I would see from Mr. Fassbender. In it's realistic setting it also reminded me a bit to "Weekend" which makes me want to observe the british film industry a little more. This is how brilliant filmmaking is done. (9/10)

WITHOUT
This one was listed as one of the International Independents at the still ongoing Filmfest in Munich. It is about a young girl breaking with her everyday life while taking a job as a nurse for an elderly person. When the host announced, this will be an oppressive experience, I sank back into the seats, daunted. Having seen some emotionally disturbing shit, I actually swore to myself, not to consume much more of these kinds of movies. But to defuse this a little, it was, in the end, indeed rather innocuous. But still, while watching the movie, I always expected some unsettling things to happen. And infact, the movie was built to make the audience wonder, what the hell is actually going on here, which was one of the good aspects. And if you like movies, that leave you riddled about what really happened and what didn't, you will probably enjoy this one. (7/10)

Friday, June 29, 2012

glow.

Yet, another eventful week has passed, and I am going to share some impressions with you sweethearts. Saturday last week I spent some time with my BFF and her sister again. First we went shopping and afterwards we enjoyed the evening sun at the Isar. We had hoped that not many others would be there, since there was a football game taking place at the same time, but it was crowded as hell, with wannabe vikings singing Manowar songs and other rather unpleasant people. But still it was a nice atmosphere. 


Then on monday I got an invitation for a hiphop show, once again, one of my friends, Laura, won tickets and she asked me if I wanna come. Sure I do! I had lots of fun with the main act, Gonjasufi, the atmosphere was great with all those people celebrating one of their musical heroes which I had never heard of before (shame on me!) But I was even more intrigued by Sun Glitters, the guy from Luxembourg who played as support act. Very nice tunes. But then again, it was rather sad, that the audience seemed not to be open-minded enough to enjoy an artist outside their favourite genre. 

Then, I don't know why, but people keep bringing me awesome foods, like cake and stuff, and I just can't refuse their offerings, can I? Oh, and apparently, right now I am enjoying clumsy times, I'll probably report about a huge mistake I committed, in my monthly review in a few days, but here I show you what happens, when you live in a really small place and have no space to put things, and then you put them in dangerous places and then shit happens. So the only wine glass I had (which I, by the way, stole from a bar that sold me a ridiculously overpriced drink, so I suspected the glass was inclusive, uhmmm yeah) broke into a thousand pieces.   

And here is a picture of a littly buddy, who went astray in my hallway and was my guest for several days. He didn't move an inch the first 48 hours, and I got a little worried. I opened the windows and hoped he would fly away but then he just moved from one wall to another. But finally, today he found his way out. I named him George, by the way. Farewell, Georgie! 

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

hexagons.

What an exhausting but awesome weekend that was! I had been looking forward to this for a while. Been excited since the day I heard of munich's light installation artists from Lunaland, planning their anniversary party in a special location, a factory where sleeping cars once had been built. (Among these, the famous Orient Express!) And I shrieked a little when I heard that ESBEN AND THE WITCH would be the headlining act to play on friday night. Some of you might remember that I declared their gig last year at Atomic Café in Munich as concert of the year.  And with this kind of venue and all the light effects I wouldn't have been surprised if that concert would be even better.
Another surprise was, that the band played lots of new tunes for the first time ever. There were three more bands this evening, all more or less from the shoegazer faction, but my attention was rather limited to EATW, I have to confess. 

While friday was pleasure for your ears, saturday was dedicated to the visuals senses. Next to two dancefloors there where lots of exhibitions by several local artists in the different parts of the factory. Among these were some psychologists who introduced a light therapy that was supposed to dissemble the perceptions of a mind under the influence of LSD. I tried an innocuous demo of 2 minutes (on friday), but I thought it was rather unspectacular. I wanted to try the longer and more intense version a day later, but the room was flooded with people and I couldn't imagine all of them watching while making this new experience. All in all I thought it was more amazing to watch, then to actually sit on the chair and have this extremely bright and flickering stroboscobic-like light on your eyes. And watching other people sitting there with that light just felt like you are right inside of a Lynch movie. Crazy shit. 

On sunday it was time for some music again. A little bit more quiet, this time. The team from innen.außen.raum invited three solo musicians, Woodpigeon from Canada, Halo of Pendor from the Netherlands (former Sweden) and dear Carlos Cipa from Munich. Carlos opened the evening with a simultaneous record release party and was stunned when people asked him to sign their copies. I also thought it was kinda sweet that his parents came to see him play. 
Then the swedish (dutch...whatever) guy played his sad songs, and messed up a little, with his loops but it was pretty easy to forgive him due to his cuteness. ;)
And the canadian guy was a little tired, and I still don't know why he kept checking his iPhone after every song, either was he checking the results of the football game that was running at the same time the concert took place, or he had his setlist on his phone, I dunno, but it didn't make a good impression.

Anywho! Here are some impressions of the weekend. If you weren't there you are probably a square, but at least you can imagine what you were missing! :P

To see more and fullsized images check this. All the images tagged with lunastrom10 are relevant.



Sunday, June 10, 2012

requiem.

Farewell, my dear friend.


In the last days I have had some struggles with my longtime companion. Yesterday it displayed this "technical support" warning. I've seen this before, two years ago, but managed to restore the hard drive.
But since I had already planned to change my spotify account from unlimited to premium, and therefore be able to listen on the go via phone, I decided to leave it at that, and pay my last respects to Mr. Ipod. 

First, I had some doubts about spotify premium, because I thought, I would need a huge data flat to stream music on the move, but a friend reminded me, that you can create offline playlists and sync them to your phone. That made my decision pretty easy an from now on Spotify will be my daily attendant!


Friday, June 8, 2012

surprise.


Now that I am highly addicted to instagram I want to share some photos on a weekly basis with you.






Up there you see the kitteh of my housemate who visited my apartment because obviously it was no good weather for playing outside.


Also, I ate a lot of cake this week. There was even a third piece I didn't take a picture of. Just for the record, it was a walnut tarte.



On tuesday, I went to the BEAR IN HEAVEN concert, which was, of course, amazing. I must be on a winning streak, I dunno, but again (as for the last concert with OBERHOFER & WHITE ARROWS) I won tickets for the show, very last minute style. More by accident, I found a contest online and wrote an e-mail, and 15 minutes later I got a notification, that I had won the tickets. That's pretty convenient considering all the upcoming shows in june (What's going on anyway, Munich?). So, because I saved some money with the tickets, I thought I could invest in the sweet bag shown above. 



And then yesterday, I had a suprise day off. I didn't know there would be yet another bavarian feast day as there already had been lots of them the last weeks. So I fixed a date with my BFF and her sister, and we spent some time in Munichs famous recreational park, the english garden, with it's surfer boys, some unbelievable red trees and a satisfying amount of FroYo.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

interstellar.

It's been a while since my last diy-ish project. But last weekend I tried something new. I always wanted to have a Galaxy Shirt like these, for example, but thought, there must be a cheap way to do it myself, and so I researched the web for several tutorials and then bought the necessary equipment to try it out. Here are some pictures of the process, and I think it turned out quite nice, but especially the blue color could have been stronger. (It's actually paler in reality than on the pictures with the camera filters). Maybe I'll add more color in the next days. I also thought about spicing it up with some glitter or fluorescing color, we'll see!



First I sprayed the shirt with bleach so it turned from black to orange on the chosen spots. 


Then I let it dry and added some blue batic color. I needed two attemps for the color to stay on the shirt. I dunno if the bleach kept the dye from staying on the shirt, maybe?!


The result! I really like the gradation of the colors where it turns from blue to orange. What I don't like are the spots you can see, especially on the blue part. These happened by accident, because the bleach somehow kept dropping out of the spray bottle. I even added more bleach on these parts, but the spots just wouldn't disappear. :( Also, I kinda ruined the back part where the bleach transpired. I used a plastic bag to prevent this from happening, but it didn't work when I added the bleach for the second time. Maybe I can paint it over with some black fabric pen.

And here's me wearing the shirt 90ies style. ;) (I remember I used to wear belly tees when I was twelve or so...today it would probably take 3 glasses of wine to dare..)


Tuesday, June 5, 2012

amongster.


So that was may, yay. I'm gonna throw you some sentences to sum up the events that highlighted my days and nights in the merry month of may.  Some flattering scoldings were showered at me. A weird guy from Los Angeles shook my hand for what felt an eternity. I finally bought a new bookshelf for the  countless books that flew around my bedroom, and I made my first Facebook-Page. It already counts an outrageous number of fans (that would be 5, so much for the loyalty of your friends, pah!)!! So be quick and like it if you, too, want Ryan Gosling to play the part of the irresistible Johnny Castle in the remake of Dirty Dancy, which will be released in 2013, I guess. And I know, you want it. And because you might not be able to picture him as Johnny, foresightful as I am, I made a little photo-manip for you, so you will be convinced, immediately. (Oh gawd, did I really name that URL goslinggoesdirty?)




Ok, enough of the shenanigans. I didn't really consume much media this month, at least not many movies lighted my homescreen, nor did I set foot in a cinema, this month. But let's start with the books I read this month. I read a lot in my mother tongue, since I hauled some german books from a second-hand book store at the end of last month. 


THE BOOKS I HAVE READ:



SE RÉSOUDRE AUX ADIUEX (Ein Abschied) by PHILIPPE BESSON
This book was actually a very spontaneous purchase. It tells the story of a woman who is left by her lover, and devastated as she is, she starts writing letters to him while she travels the world trying to escape the city in which they spent so much time together. And what can I say, this book literally spoke    from my heart with all it's allegations and self-doubts, the more astounded I am, that this book actually wasn't even written by a woman, but I am probably just to swayed by stereotypes. But I enjoyed this read a lot. (4/5)

UND IM ZWEIFEL FÜR DICH SELBST by ELISABETH RANK
A book by a native german author, so no english title here. I planned to read this one for a while now. I thought I could identify myself pretty well with the story she tells, since the author and I share the year of our birth. But I had my troubles to really sense the emotion here. Reading a book about a fatal accident of a loved one, might make you think, it shouldn't be to hard to get emotionally involved. But  I guess it was just the style of writing that made it somewhat hard for me. (3/5)

THE SOLITUDE OF PRIME NUMBERS by PAOLO GIORDANO
Ugh, italians..haha. Sorry. But I recently saw the screen adaption of this book, and it was...I really don't know, but I felt like all the important details were put aside and the filmmakers just made a completely new story. But back to the book. The storyline sounded pretty interesting. The lives of two teenagers who suffered major strokes in their childhoods, get mixed together and both of them, as much as they need each other, just can't find their way together, both rather preferring solitude than to risk something. Anyways, I wish the author wouldn't have skipped so much through the years, so I felt like some important things happening in between were missing (almost like in the movie, haha...well actually not THAT disastrous). (3/5) 

INSURGENT by VERONICA ROTH
The follow-up to the first book of the DIVERGENT book trilogy. I think I didn't write about the first one, but I would say this is a pretty satisfying quality dystopian book series comparable to THE HUNGER GAMES trilogy, but yet a totally different and unique world. INSURGENT is in no way inferior to DIVERGENT and just as exciting and suspenseful. (4/5)



THE MOVIES I HAVE WATCHED:


 



HELL
Hell as in hell like the german word for bright. But it might as well be an allegory to the devil's hell, since the sun is burning so bright, that it is almost impossible to stay in the sunlight during the day,  and also the hell that people might face, in a post-apocalyptic world where the phrase "an eye for an eye" applies. But why am I actually putting so much effort in this short review. The movie was shite.  There you go. Haha. (3/10)

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
Well, this movie certainly was something for the eyes. Even the opening credits were a little movie themselves, haha. I think, James Bond and Ms. Mara made a good team on this american movie adaption. Of course it had much more suspense than the swedish original, but I was constantly asking my friends, with whom I watched this movie together and didn't read the book, if they were actually able to follow the movie. Even I had my problems to recall everything from the books I read one and a half years ago. I can't imagine how confusing it must be for a person who didn't already know all the secondary characters and their relevance. I think, this could have been done much better, and already has been done better in the swedish version. Nevertheless I like the movie quite much. (7/10)

INTO THE WILD
Ugh, THAT GUY. If it wasn't so sad, because it's based on a true story, I would have laughed all the time. Just go out in the wild with NO experience at all and get yourself...in trouble. I also might not share the same desire for adventures and freedom, because I like it safe and sound, so I didn't enjoy the movie as much as a kindred soul probably would have. (7/10)

FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS
Say what you want but this movie was so full of AWESOME. I lol'd a lot. (10/10)

LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS
Another guilty pleasure which actually wasn't really a pleasure since I found out during watching the movie, that I don't really like Anne Hathaway. Jake Gyllenhaal was quite charming yes, but I still like him the best as the awesome Donnie Darko. (6/10)

Saturday, June 2, 2012

neat.

Sorry, guys, I must delay the monthly review once more, since the beginning of June fell on a weekend and the layout files for the collages are at work. But here is a short update about last week. I spontaneously purchased a new bookshelf, well actually it's not new, but second-hand. Found it at ebay classifieds. It was about time, since the books piled up on my bedroom floor, which had it's charme, but I decided they needed a proper "home". 

This is how it looked before:



And here everything is neatly put in place.


P.S. Please don't tell anyone I messed up, mounting the aperture on the bottom in the wrong way. It's standing upright, that's what counts, ok? 

Thursday, May 24, 2012

broadcast.

lemme introduce HYETAL!



I found this artist when I was searching for future-garage-dubstep-esque music but I wouldn't really categorize it as such. just nice atmospheric electronic music.

My favourites so far are Diamond Islands (also featured on the latest 8tracks mix) and Phoenix.



Tuesday, May 22, 2012

brightness.

So this morning started a little moody with some self-doubts and stuff...until I found this on my work desk:


tides.

As announced in one of my previous posts, I planned to make a mix on 8tracks consisting of songs from that genre I recently fell in love with, future garage. But to make it less monotone, I added some rnb-like tunes. I am not yet satisfied and sure about the composition of songs and might change that again but here is the current tracklist and I think it's pretty awesome!! Also, I feel a little weird for only listening to my own mixes..huuaaah..




01) PALMISTRY - Raised
02) ¥ O I N - Tired of Me
03) Burial - Archangel
04) Lianne La Havas - Forget (Shlohmo Remix)
05) Rhye - Open
06) The Neighbourhood - Sweater Weather
07) Submerse - I'd Rather Have You
08) Hyetal - Diamond Islands
09) Σ-Fly - Tides
10) Oliver Tank - Last Night I Heard Everything in Slow Motion

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

variations.

My current favourite tracks assembled on a new 8tracks mix. Wahooo!




Tracklist:

1) Bear In Heaven - The Reflection of You
2) Purity Ring - Obedear
3) Young Wonder - Orange
4) Frankie Rose - Know Me
5) Poliça - Violent Games
6) Young Magic - You With Air
7) Teeel - Galilean Moons
8) Washed Out - You & I


I am already planning another mix that covers my current love for RnB and Future Garage..