Progress Report No. 5 (and Other Goodies)

Okay, three things:

1) Music
Dunno why it took me so long to rediscover them again, but holy kleenex batman---Arctic Monkeys has been on replay this whole weekend, particularly their AM album. Ultimate favorite is still "Do I Wanna Know?" The lyrics are ingenious, in my opinion, and captures so much of the whole lust-charged unrequited yearning deal. Already shared some of my favorite lines in the last post, but this one's a zinger:

Maybe I'm too busy being yours to fall for somebody new.

The music video for "Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?" made me laugh a bit--I like that song as well as "Knee Socks." Also perused through some of their older songs, and there are some shattering lines in "505":

What did you expect,
I probably still adore you with your hands around my neck,
Or I did last time I checked

But I crumble completely when you cry,
It seems like once again you've had to greet me with goodbye

Basically, I am completely envious/in awe/CHRIST-WHY-IS-HE-SO-TALENTED about Alex Turner's lyricism, and it doesn't hurt that, considering Sophelia's established proclivity for deep voices and good hair, this wordsmith is also in possession of a baritone voice and an eye-catching hairstyle that I've already discussed at length before. I have a suspicion I'd find him a lot less cool in real life (based on watching a couple of his interviews), but at least in the virtual world of my computer screen, Alex Turner is awesome.

2) Reading (and Watching Movies)
Just finished reading Life After Life by Kate Atkinson last week. It's my first time reading any of her works, and I do admire her writing style a lot. The story itself, however, left me with mixed, though predominantly positive, feelings. On one hand, I thought the plot device of rewinding time again and again until "you get it right" was quite interesting, especially when you see the side characters in Ursula's life play different roles in the parallel storylines. On the other hand, there were some storylines that confused the beejeezus out of me or left me feeling like I just wanted to jump ahead until Ursula died so that things would rewind again. Not perfect in my eyes, but good nevertheless.

Which is kinda how I felt about Frozen, to be quite honest. I was planning to write a separate post about the three movies I've seen the past three weeks (Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Frozen, The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug), but never got around to it and don't really feel like it at this point. Some things about Frozen though (SPOILERS AHEAD):

1.  WHYYYYY, OH WHYYYY did Disney only give Jonathan Groff one song in the entire movie? And not even a full song at that. Don't get me wrong, I love the reindeer song--I believe I said something quite similar not too long ago (along the lines of: "I like animals. They don't come up to you one day and tell you they don't love you anymore.") But that reindeer song was less than a minute long. What a tease.
2. Along those lines, that movie should have had more songs in the second half. The songs in the first half were great, but then what happened? This is where they should have gotten Jonathan Groff to sing another song--Kristoff had that great emotional moment near the end, or I would have been perfectly happy with another sappy romantic duet in the vein of Tangled's "I See the Light."
3. At the beginning, Kristoff witnessed the trolls erase Anna's memory of Elsa's frost magic. Why did he never mention any of this to her? Sure, maybe he was a little kid then and it was so long ago, but considering that was the moment he was adopted by the trolls, I think he'd remember how he ended up there in the first place.
4. Hans, I don't like you because I don't understand you. Yeah, you were totally skeezy in that "Love is an Open Door" song, but I didn't quite brand you as a villain because your actions didn't add up. If you were really just going to kill the princesses anyways so you could take the throne, why did you bother going off to look for Anna when you could have just sat in the castle and taken over from there? AND WHY DO YOU GET A DUET WHEN KRISTOFF DOESN'T?
5. Am I the only one who thought Hans would end up marrying one of the princesses? Since he was totally marketed as a prince rather than a villain in Disney's promo material. 

All in all, I liked the songs and thought Disney crafted an intriguing sisterly spin on one of my favorite fairy tales of all time. But I gotta deduct points, because those plot holes and the egregious lack of Jonathan Groff drove me mental.


3)   Writing
Was completely antisocial and sedentary this weekend--to the point that I started getting a headache, which rarely ever happens--but managed to churn out around 4.5k words. Not completely happy with most of it, but whatever. I just need to keep plowing ahead and I'll let my perfectionist side run free later. Funny thing I've realized--I was totally like Charlotte back in high school, feeling sorry about myself for so many things, but when I try to write in her voice nowadays I'm like, GIRL STOP THE PITY PARTY AND LET'S MOVE IT. Which is why it's kind of fun writing in Laurel-who-has-been-reincarnated-as-Ruqayya-long-story-I'll-explain-later, who tells it like it is and doesn't put up with her shit.