Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: March 2017

Happy April Fool’s Day, the Worst Holiday.
Your Hand In Mine – Explosions In The Sky
Smoke Filled Room (Acoustic) – Mako
Half Light – BANNERS
Killer Queen – FIL BO RIVA
22 (OVER S∞∞N) – Bon Iver
All We Do – Oh Wonder
Afterthought – Close Talker
Ghosts – Blueneck
Real – Majik
Technicolour Beat – Oh Wonder
Lullaby – ö
Haze – Amber Run
Fickle Game – Amber Run
Friends (under the influence) – Majik
Oh Brother – Saint Raymond
Hands Held High – LINKIN PARK
On Hold – The xx
Replica – The xx
Performance – The xx
Saved – Khalid
Alps – Novo Amor & Ed Tullett
Brave For You – The xx
A Violent Noise – The xx
Dream – Imagine Dragons
White Lie – Amber Run
Are You Home? – Amber Run
Machine – Amber Run
In The Morning (Mura Masa Edit) – NAO
Wild (feat. Khai) – Kidswaste
Island – Amber Run
Something Just Like This – The Chainsmokers & Coldplay1
Hypnotised – Coldplay
Body High – Harrison Brome
Wastelands – Amber Run2
Allaround – Parcels
Visions (ft. Leu Leu Land) – Danrell & Alec King
Dante’s Creek – THEY.
Words – School of X

  1. This song popped up about two days after Chase pointed out that there wasn’t any Coldplay in my playlist at the moment. Chase, point out the lack of new Explosions in the Sky next, okay? ↩
  2. We’re talking about romanticism in my music history class at the moment, and I keep wanting to bring this song up, because “And I know you’ll fall in love again/ When you do, I hope you’ll find somebody/ Who you can love like I love you” is just ugh so beautifully romantic ↩
Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: February 2017

There are more links this time! I changed how I’m doing them, it was a whole thing, don’t ask.1
5AM – Amber Run
Your Hand In Mine – Explosions in the Sky
Smoke Filled Room (Acoustic) – Mako
Half Light – BANNERS
Gods in Heat – Tobacco
Killer Queen – FIL BO RIVA2
 22 (OVER S∞∞N) – Bon Iver
Neptune – Sleeping At Last
All We Do – Oh Wonder
Afterthought – CloseTalker
Ghosts – Blueneck
Real – Majik
Technicolour Beat – Oh Wonder
Play Dead – Tom Walker
Lullaby – ö
Stranger – Amber Run
No Answers – Amber Run
A Little While – Yellow Days
Haze – Amber Run
Beretta – Matt Black
Fickle Game – Amber Run
Friends (under the influence) – Majik
I’m At The Bottom of The Ocean – Soleil Soleil
Oh Brother – Saint Raymond3
Hands Held High – Linkin Park4
On Hold – The xx
Perfect – Amber Run
Harder – OLIVER RIOT
Replica – The xx5
Performance – The xx
Saved – Khalid
Alps – Novo Amor & Ed Tullett6
Brave for You – The xx
Wayfaring Stranger – alextbh
A Violent Noise – The xx
Smile – Imad Royal
Dream – Imagine Dragons
White Lie – Amber Run
Are You Home? – Amber Run7
Machine – Amber Run
 In The Morning (Mura Masa Edit) – NAO8
Wild (feat. Khai) – Kidswaste
Island – Amber Run

  1. The short version is I’m switching to iTunes links, since Amazon Music was fairly hit-or-miss, and I never actually use it myself beyond finding the links for these things. And I’m putting links on everything now, because it’s significantly easier with iTunes than with Amazon. ↩
  2. At some point I’m going to figure out the actual lyrics to this, because there’s one line that every time I hear it makes me doubt my understanding of the whole song. ↩
  3. This one is so fun to sing along to ↩
  4. Chase goes “y’know, they wrote this song about George Bush. Sucks that it’s relevant again.” ↩
  5. This album is so good, 10/10 would recommend ↩
  6. I really like this one but it’s hard to listen to while I’m out listening around because the slightest background noise and it’s just utterly inaudible. ↩
  7. I honestly haven’t listened to the whole thing yet, but so far this is one of the strongest contenders for being my favorite song off the album. ↩
  8. I’m a big fan of this one, as well. ↩
Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: January 2017

How is the first month of 2017 already over? I’m still writing “2014” on papers!
5AM – Amber Run
Your Hand In Mine – Explosions in the Sky
Smoke Filled Room (Acoustic) – Mako
Sight – Sleeping At Last
Half Light – BANNERS
Big Jet Plane – Angus & Julia Stone
Better Man (Feat. Peter Gregson & Iskra String Quartet) – FYFE
Kusanagi – ODESZA
Gods in Heat – Tobacco
Killer Queen – FIL BO RIVA
 22 (OVER S∞∞N) – Bon Iver
White Ferrari (Vasta Remix) – Frank Ocean
Neptune – Sleeping At Last
Small Crimes – Nilüfer Yanya
All We Do – Oh Wonder
Afterthought – CloseTalker
Landslide – Oh Wonder
the mood – stefan
White Blood – Oh Wonder
Hypnos – Blueneck
Ghosts – Blueneck
Real – Majik
Snow – Sleeping At Last
Get Away – Saint Motel
Technicolour Beat – Oh Wonder
Move Magic – Julian Maverick
Falling – ursa major
ODESZA – Bloom (Live) – Day for Night
MNYMS – DENIAL – Day for Night
Play Dead – Tom Walker
Lullaby – ö
Stranger – Amber Run1
Let It Snow – Filous
No Answers – Amber Run
A Little While – Yellow Days
Haze – Amber Run
Beretta – Matt Black
Lonely Lullabies – Kweku Collins
Fickle Game – Amber Run
Friends (under the influence) – Majik2
I’m At The Bottom of The Ocean – Soleil Soleil3
Bright Lights – Vandelux
Oh Brother – Saint Raymond4
Hands Held High – Linkin Park5

  1. I’m very excited for when the full album comes out. ↩
  2. Pretend I put a link on here, because I’m in a wifi so slow as to not actually qualify as wifi, and I’m not willing to spend two hours waiting for Amazon pages to load so I can get them. ↩
  3. Ditto for the link on this one. ↩
  4. And again, insert your own link here. ↩
  5. This isn’t at all a new song but it’s one I felt like listening to, and so it’s back. ↩
Categories
Austria

“Vienna,” or, “heading home”

After an evening wandering around Venice, we hopped aboard our night train for Vienna.1 Once we got to the city, we had a free afternoon, so what did we do?

Continue reading ““Vienna,” or, “heading home””
Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: December 2016

Y’know, I mentioned at some point that it’d be fun to do some sort of analysis of my playlists over the course of the year. However, I’m sick, so I really don’t have the energy for that. Maybe next year.
5AM – Amber Run
Your Hand In Mine – Explosions in the Sky
Smoke Filled Room (Acoustic) – Mako
Sight – Sleeping At Last
Touch – Sleeping At Last
Half Light – BANNERS
Big Jet Plane – Angus & Julia Stone
Shadow and a Dancer – The Fray
Better Man (Feat. Peter Gregson & Iskra String Quartet) – FYFE
Kusanagi – ODESZA
Stay High – One Room
Gods in Heat – Tobacco
Haunt / Bed – The 1975
Killer Queen – FIL BO RIVA
Worth It – Moses Sumney
 22 (OVER S∞∞N) – Bon Iver
715 – CRΣΣKS – Bon Iver
White Ferrari (Vasta Remix) – Frank Ocean1
Neptune – Sleeping At Last
29 #Strafford APTS – Bon Iver
Sun – Sleeping At Last
Small Crimes – Niliüfer Yanya
Brooklyn Baby – The Code2
Hallelujah – Pentatonix
All We Do – Oh Wonder
Coventry Carol – Pentatonix
Coldest Winter – Pentatonix
Afterthought – CloseTalker
Landslide – Oh Wonder
the mood – stefan
White Blood – Oh Wonder
Heart Hope – Oh Wonder
Belong – Roosevelt
Say That You Want It – Abroad
Ivy (Air Zaïre Remix) – Frank Ocean
Ferns – Iris Temple
Down – Buster Moe
Open Up – Jack Eagle
Earth – Sleeping At Last
Six Feet Under (Jerry Folk Remix) – Billie Eilish
Menswear – The 1975
Hypnos – Blueneck
I Heard the Bells – Sleeping At Last
Ghosts – Blueneck3
What Child Is This – Sleeping At Last
Real – Majik4
Snow – Sleeping At Last
You Are Enough – Sleeping At Last
O Come, O Come Emmanuel – Sleeping At Last
Same World – YATES
O, Holy Night – Sleeping At Last
Get Away – Saint Motel
Mercury – Sleeping At Last
Water Flow – Klyne
Technicolour Beat – Oh Wonder
Move Magic – Julian Maverick
Other Gods – Blueneck
Plans – Oh Wonder
From Beyond – Blueneck
Rats in the Wall – Blueneck
Falling – ursa major
Southern – Sleeping At Last
ODESZA – Bloom (Live) – Day for Night
MNYMS – DENIAL – Day for Night
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – Pentatonix
Slow Motion – Saint Motel
For Elise – Saint Motel5
White Iverson – Post Malone (Jake Miller Cover) – Jake Miller
Turn Off My Love – Xander Singh
Without You – Oh Wonder
Play Dead – Tom Walker
Waiting – Midnight Pool Party
Source – Tycho
Lullaby – ö
The Rain – Oh Wonder

  1. Chase keeps complaining about my choices of remixes and I keep ignoring him, and that’s how that goes ↩
  2. It’s like “I kinda want to punch this guy in the face for being like this” condensed into song form ↩
  3. I have multiple songs named “Ghosts” that I really like. Does this say something about my taste in music? ↩
  4. Probably one of my favorite ones on here, go listen. ↩
  5. I get the feeling I’m going to be hearing this one around the music department a lot when school starts back up. ↩
Categories
Austria Italy

“Venice,” or, “I feel so High Society, it’s ridiculous”

After Barcelona, we got on a plane to Venice, the final stop on our tour of Europe.

Continue reading ““Venice,” or, “I feel so High Society, it’s ridiculous””
Categories
Austria Spain

“Barcelona,” or, “oh my god it IS the gay capital of Europe!”

From Madrid, we made our way to the train station and hopped aboard the high-speed train to Barcelona, our next destination.

Continue reading ““Barcelona,” or, “oh my god it IS the gay capital of Europe!””
Categories
Austria Spain

“Madrid,” or, “the joke is that Zeus can’t keep it in his pants”

Night trains are convenient in that you kinda just wake up in your destination, but not super great in that it’s still a horrendously uncomfortable way to sleep.1
But hey, it got us to Spain, so who am I to complain?

Continue reading ““Madrid,” or, “the joke is that Zeus can’t keep it in his pants””
Categories
Austria Portugal

“Lisbon,” or, “how much does it cost to buy a castle, I want it”

Leaving Budapest, we went to the airport instead of the train station and, following a good deal of waiting,1 hopped aboard a plane for Portugal. We landed in Lisbon, figured out a bit of how the public transit network works, and then headed to our hotel to sleep off the jet-lag. I’m calling that ‘day zero.’

Continue reading ““Lisbon,” or, “how much does it cost to buy a castle, I want it””
Categories
Austria Hungary

“Budapest,” or, “12 miles and 50 flights of stairs? WORTH IT”

The semester in Austria is done! But why go home right away – if I stay a bit longer, the price is “changing my tickets home and whatever I spend traveling around Europe,” which is a significantly better deal than “buying a ticket to Europe, whatever I spend traveling around Europe, and buying at ticket home from Europe.”
My mom didn’t really have the first option there, but she’s been wanting to go to Europe for quite a while, and “well, my son is already there” turned out to be the motivation she needed to plan out the whole route we’d be taking and hop on a plane.1
Thus begins the Whirlwind Tour of Europe.2 First stop: Budapest.

Continue reading ““Budapest,” or, “12 miles and 50 flights of stairs? WORTH IT””
Categories
Review

“The House at Baker Street,” or, “the patriarchy is an even more insidious villain than Moriarty”

A couple weeks ago us Austria students spent two days setting up for and helping at a charity bazaar. The entire first day was devoted to setting up the tables – a couple metric tons of books take a while to lay out nicely, you see. This was a dangerous proposition for me, because in the face of that many books I am weak and I wound up buying several. Which I now have to get home somehow. Whoops.
The books I grabbed were “City of Dark Magic”,1 “The Clockwork Scarab”,2 two others that I haven’t yet read, and “The House at Baker Street”, which I finished just last night.3
I’ll admit, finishing the book last night wasn’t the best decision I’ve made recently – I’m fairly tired and irritable now, having stayed up a bit later than was advisable – but I’d gotten to that point in the book where you just can’t put it down.
The book was written as a take on the Sherlock Holmes story that is entirely compatible with the original novels – one or two of the things that the author treated as canonical aren’t precisely confirmed as such, but even those are based in popular interpretations of the canon.4 The core of the idea is “what do Mrs. Hudson and Mrs. Watson do all day?”
The answer, as it turns out, was generally ‘putter around doing appropriate things for a woman of the time to do’ … right up until the beginning of the book when Sherlock, rather characteristically, rejects a potential client. Mrs. Hudson offers the young woman tea, and winds up hearing her troubles – someone is blackmailing her, not with anything she did but just with the threat of spreading the sort of nasty rumors that can ruin someone’s life. Mrs. Hudson, and Mrs. Watson, being nicer people than Sherlock, decide to take up the case and help the young lady as best they can.
And then it starts to get fun, because it’s just a delightful romp through the world of the background characters of the Sherlock Holmes books. I really don’t want to say anything more, because it’s still a mystery novel, and it’s quite a good one – I didn’t see the ending coming, and I’m usually fairly good at calling how things are going to go.
In sum: Mrs. Hudson and Mary Watson are awesome, go read this book about them.

  1. Which I didn’t finish, so don’t hold out hope for the review of that one. My silence is my review. ↩
  2. I liked enough to share a link to it, but I was so irritated by the ‘buy the next book!’-ness of the ending that I decided against writing a full review when I finished reading it. ↩
  3. One of, I should add, three Sherlock Holmes themed books – “The Clockwork Scarab” being the second, and the third I can’t recall the title of but appears to be a Russian riff on the Holmes theme. ↩
  4. The one I’m referencing here is the idea that Mrs. Hudson’s first name is Martha – my understanding is that it’s never explicitly stated, but the general consensus is that that’s the case. ↩
Categories
Austria

“Votivkirche,” or, “it’s hard to take pretty pictures while also writing final papers”

So my time here in Austria is coming to an end.1 As a bit of a last hurrah with the folks I’ve been here studying abroad with, a couple of us went over to Votivkirche, the big fancy church you see above that we saw every Tuesday and Thursday on our commute to and from the University of Vienna campus where we were taking German.

Continue reading ““Votivkirche,” or, “it’s hard to take pretty pictures while also writing final papers””
Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: November 2016

It’s been a busy month, and the next one is going to be even busier. Fortunately for you, dear reader, the second half of next month should, if everything goes according to plan, lead to a lot of fun travel posts.
Anyhow, the playlist from this month has the beginnings of Christmas in it. Hey, I’m in Europe, it’s not like they celebrate Thanksgiving here.
5AM – Amber Run
Your Hand In Mine – Explosions in the Sky
Team (Lorde Cover) – Matthew Mayfield
Smoke Filled Room (Acoustic) – Mako
Home (Tim Palmer Mix) – Blue October
Sight – Sleeping At Last
Touch – Sleeping At Last
Half Light – BANNERS
Be Somebody – Kings of Leon
Big Jet Plane – Angus & Julia Stone
Shadow and a Dancer – The Fray
When The World Sleeps – Lowland Hum
Better Man (Feat. Peter Gregson & Iskra String Quartet) – FYFE
Kusanagi – ODESZA
Stay High – One Room
Division – Tycho
Gods in Heat – Tobacco
Haunt / Bed – The 1975
Two Blue Eyes – Tall Heights
Fallingforyou – The 1975
Where’s My Love – Syml
Killer Queen – FIL BO RIVA 1
Doing the Right Thing – Daughter
Worth It – Moses Sumney
Slack – Tycho
 22 (OVER S∞∞N) – Bon Iver 2
Receiver – Tycho
 715 – CRΣΣKS – Bon Iver 3
White Ferrari (Vasta Remix) – Frank Ocean
Field – Tycho
Neptune – Sleeping At Last
29 #Strafford APTS – Bon Iver
Sun – Sleeping At Last
Small Crimes – Nilüfer Yanya4
Brooklyn Baby – The Code
Hallelujah – Pentatonix
Emphasis – Sleeping At Last
All We Do – Oh Wonder
Horizon – Tycho
Epoch – Tycho
Coventry Carol – Pentatonix5
Coldest Winter – Pentatonix
Rhythm & Blues – The Head and the Heart
Afterthought – CloseTalker
The White Strip – Blueneck6
Landslide – Oh Wonder
Robbers – The 1975
the mood – stefan
White Blood – Oh Wonder
Heart Hope – Oh Wonder7
Hold On – Chain Gang of1974
Dancehall Remix – Horses Heaven
Belong – Roosevelt
Say That You Want It – Abroad
Ivy (Air Zaïre Remix) – Frank Ocean8
Good Grief – Bastille
Power – Bastille
Ferns – Iris Temple
Down – Buster Moe
Open Up – Jack Eagle
Give In Ft. Airling (Golden Vessel Remix) – Xavier Dunn
Miko – Chain Gang of1974
Earth – Sleeping At Last
Six Feet Under (Jerry Folk Remix) – Billie Eilish
Menswear – The 19759
Dark Days – Local Natives
Transformations – Sleeping At Last
One In Ten – Sleeping At Last
All We Ever Knew – The Head and the Heart

  1. I find this name oddly hilarious. If it wasn’t in all caps it wouldn’t be nearly as funny, either. ↩
  2. People give me concerned looks when I walk around the school singing “it might be over soon” quietly to myself ↩
  3. seriously the names on this album are so pretentious ↩
  4. Knowing how to type umlauts before I started learning German was quite helpful. ↩
  5. This is a great christmas song for singing along to. ↩
  6. I consider Blueneck to be vaguely christmas music, which is… weird, to say the least. ↩
  7. No seriously just get this whole album okay ↩
  8. I just really like the way that lowercase-i-with-umlaut looks ↩
  9. The link caption for this one is “Amazon: Menswear” which makes me feel like I’m just linking to the online version of a department in a Macy’s. ↩
Categories
Austria

“Upper Belvedere,” or, “I, too, use gold foil and hypnotoad as my decorating theme”

It’s been a while since my last post, but the weather has been getting colder and colder, and my focus has been more and more on writing the various final papers for my classes. Which is, y’know, not the most exciting thing for people to read about.
But we’re still going for the occasional tour: this week, we spent some time in the Upper Belvedere, one of the many palaces the city has to offer.

Continue reading ““Upper Belvedere,” or, “I, too, use gold foil and hypnotoad as my decorating theme””
Categories
Austria

“Imperial Vault,” or, “no thanks, just launch my body into an erupting volcano”

Our tour this week was a bit spookier than most, even the one in the graveyard1 – we went down into the Imperial Vault. Which is not, as I initially thought, where they used to store their crown jewels and whatnot – that’s the treasury. No, it’s where they store their dead relatives. Because, y’know, normal graveyards are too passé.

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