Epics and Quests: An ATLA Reflection

Good news: I turned in my penultimate secondary application last Monday.
Bad news: I've been procrastinating majorly in writing this last one.

My productivity has hit a slump. I suspect it's because I'm facing the monstrous "final boss"--this beast has four essays with unlimited word count. I wonder if this is how Link feels before he heads off to Ganon's castle.

I found managed to find a convenient distraction instead--I decided to watch all three seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender for free with my Amazon Prime account. I had heard about the cartoon series for a while. Dante Basco even visited my school this past spring. ATLA just never grasped my attention, I suppose, until I found myself desperately trying to weasel my way out of writing essays.

I'm too lazy to write a synopsis, so here's one I found on IMDb:

When the hostile Fire Nation threatens to enslave the Water, Earth, and Air Nations, a reluctant and irresponsible boy must face his destiny as the Avatar, the Chosen One who can restore the world order. This new animated series centers on twelve-year-old Aang, who must forgo his selfish wandering to learn to master his latent powers over the four elements. Only then can he conquer the Firebenders, the evil nation that threatens the world. 

If I had discovered ATLA as a child, I suspect it would have been high on my list of favorite TV shows. If I finish a book or series and myself lamenting that I can't run over and visit their world again--or if I find myself dying to know WAIT SO WHAT HAPPENS TO THESE AWESOME PEOPLE AFTER THE WAR?--then I know I've found a gem.


I wrote a post about three years ago talking about how I rarely read fantasy these days. I've been thinking about this question more, especially after watching ATLA. I don't think I ever really turned my back on fantasy. I've always had a soft spot for epics, a hero's quest, war stories with multiple sides. Hell, I've been a huge fan of the Legend of Zelda series since forever, even despite the fact that I usually only watched my dad and brother play. Whenever my friends reminisce about the Harry Potter fanfics they used to read in their youth, I am loathe to tell them that the only fanfics I really read were ones dedicated to the Legend of Zelda and Inu-Yasha (yet another quest story, in a different vein).

I think there were a number of reasons why I started to veer away from these childhood obsessions and began devouring contemporary literature instead. At that point in my life, I was about to enter high school. High school in itself is another fascinating thing to me. I became less interested in these imaginary worlds and more invested in human stories--which oftentimes were tales of self-discovery and finding love. These intersected with what I was going through in my own life. This was around the time that I found Sarah Dessen and Francesca Lia Block, plus many "grown-up" novels by authors such as Alice Hoffman, Tracy Chevalier, and Janet Fitch.

And as much as I am sheepish to admit, the truth of the matter is that I still read a lot of manga to this day. I can't even count how many series I have read over the last ten years, and granted, some of them were pretty terrible. But in reading so many stories, I think I innately gained a sense of how stories are crafted and became keenly attuned to the common cliches in these narratives. Earlier, I asked myself which series have been my favorites--the ones that I have actually gone back to reread more than once, whose characters' names I can still remember without having to cheat. Off the top of my head, I came up with a list:

1. Nana by Ai Yazawa
2. Inu-Yasha by Rumiko Takahashi
3. Basara by Tamara Yumi
4. X/1999 by CLAMP
5. Skip Beat by Nakamura Yoshiki

Three out of five of these are what I would consider "epics." Inu-Yasha, Basara, and X/1999 all involve a battle of sorts between "good" and "evil", though the degrees by which the lines between good and evil are drawn vary enormously. Point being, even if my reading tastes changed over time, what I'm drawn to has remained consistent.

Anyways, enough of my musing. Back to what I thought about ATLA:

Characterization
In my opinion, this was the best part about the series, hands-down. Each character in the team had his/her own strengths, but just as importantly, his/her weaknesses as well. There is so much I can say about each character, because my understanding of each person became increasingly sharper with each episode. This is like the whole "show, don't tell" advice that people always say about writing. I could easily say, Katara is very motherly and sometimes overbearing, or, Zuko is very emotionally complex. But the best thing about watching this as a TV series is that in this medium, the creators are forced to show rather than tell. We see Katara nagging the other team members about the "moral" actions they should be doing. We see Zuko making bad decisions everywhere he goes, but we can see that his actions are a by-product of the good and evil warring within him.

Plot
Maybe I've become desensitized by violence (a horrifying thought), but I felt very strange about watching this story without the horrific violence of war. When a rebellion happens, the rebels are simply taken prisoner. Nobody is tortured or killed in order to "teach a lesson." The main character Aang says at one point that he's never killed anyone. My immediate reaction was, Huh. Well, maybe you didn't kill anyone directly, but you made tanks flip over, you knocked people off from cliffs, you smacked people around with Earth-bending that could have easily damaged their internal organs...

But given that this show is for children, I think the plot was at an appropriate level that wasn't too outrageously intricate. The storyline was a little predictable to me, but there's no great harm in that. The world-building with the four elements was well-done, in my opinion.

Fan Talk
This section is for people who've actually watched the series. I haven't yet found someone I can chat about ATLA fan-to-fan, so I'll just toss around a bunch of thoughts and potential spoilers here.

• Favorite Character. I liked Zuko's character a lot. Always been a fan of the archetypal redemption story arc. But there's one thing about him that constantly bugged me that I'll get into a second. Thus, Sokka takes the cake--he's hilarious and I found myself mirroring him in many ways (especially how he organizes itineraries excessively.) Appa was also a favorite of mine--doesn't everyone want their own flying bison??
• Funniest Moment. I was practically crying from laughter at the infamous "Baby, you're my forever girl" scene when Aang was going delirious from lack of sleep.
• If I could only bend one element, I would pick... Water. To me, it seemed like the most versatile. It could also heal, which I thought was very useful.
• Ships. I realized as I watching the series that there are rabid shipping fandoms out there on the Internet: Kataang, Zutara, Maiko, etc. I was expecting that I would hop onto one of these ships after I finished the series. (I was a HUGE shipper of Miroku/Sango from Inu-Yasha and Arashi/Sorata from X/1999.) But strangely enough, I didn't really get into any of these possible pairings. I was lukewarm about Sokka and Suki (to be honest, I like the story arc about Yue better). Toph and Sokka was a wishful fantasy I couldn't really picture ever happening. I could see Kataang happening in the future, but I was also somewhat unnerved by how motherly Katara's relationship to Aang was, given that Aang grew up without his parents. Zuko, with all his ships, needs a bullet point of his own...
• Zuko/Katara. I feel like Zuko's mother when I say this, but at the series' end, I came to the conclusion that none of these girls are good enough for him. Katara wasn't my favorite, but I liked her--she's loyal and fiercely protective. She had some cute moments with Zuko, especially when people mistook them for being a couple. They also look good together in a way that Aang and Katara do not. However, the series was pretty much set on Kataang, and I became pretty convinced as well that this pair was end-game. In my opinion, Zuko needed someone who could counterbalance his angst. Now, onto the one thing I disliked so much about Zuko...
• Zuko/Mai. I'm not sure why, but I HATED THIS PAIRING. I think the main culprit is that I really really really did not like Mai. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people complain about being bored. Oh, I'm so sorry--should I dance like a monkey to entertain you? Zuko once described her during a fight as being one big BLAH, and I was like YEAH I TOTALLY AGREE--SO WHY ARE YOU DATING HER? Mai talked with the drawl of a jaded teenager and just seemed like someone I would not particularly want to hang around. Also, after I went online and realized how people had been interpreting the whole "fruit tart" business, I seriously wanted to barf. I honestly don't see how this pair would survive in the long run, because his angst and her gloom would just drag each other down.

 In conclusion, I wasn't a fan of the romance in ATLA. Which doesn't matter, because I found myself liking the characters individually for how they contributed to the storyline. Think what you will of "children's cartoons", but I think this series is definitely a good one. I've heard mixed things about the follow-up series, Legend of Korra, so we'll see if I decide to check that one out. 

The Pick-Up

"You know how people buy drinks for girls in bars? Why can’t people do that in book stores? Like if I’m looking at a novel in Barnes and Noble and some person walks up to me and strikes up a conversation and offers to buy the book for me there is a lot better chance of that working out in their favor."

--Found on someone's Tumblr

sacrifice to the muse

i read a free verse memoir recently
"you remind me of you" by eireann corrigan

i've been wondering something recently

why i don't write vignettes anymore.

if you peruse through everything i wrote in the first incarnation of this blog
"Heart & Crossbones"
nearly everything was cryptic and lyrical

the memoir i read, it reminded me not of you,
but of me
if i extracted all of those pretty words
could i also publish a 123-page memoir?

there have been spurts of creative power here and there in recent years
but they've all been induced by emotional turmoil
that came and went like a seasonal storm
but nothing like what you triggered
because your power over me could move the tides

a part of me fears
that those words
have now run dry

almost as if i need to lay out my heart at the altar,
to keep my muse satisfied.

Test Anxiety

I just rediscovered a piece I wrote for one of my English classes last semester. It made me laugh out loud, so I'm thinking of posting it here. The prompt was to recount a vivid dream.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


As if anxiety were analogous to standing in a photography darkroom, my dreams develop sharper in periods of distress. I constantly dream during the year—but my recollection of dreams becomes more crisp and vivid when I am faced with crushing pressure in my daylight reality. As such, there are two dreams of this nature that I can recall with intense detail, but first—a staging of our scene:

Sophomore Year, Fall 2010

The first year of my college career at Duke was marked with interminable hair loss due to stress and general unhappiness with the state of my academic affairs. “Below Average” would be the title of this sorry chapter, if I ever choose to write about the time when I placed all of my self-worth on my exam results.

Things were starting to look up in my sophomore year. I had taken a difficult class over the summer and done relatively well. I felt as if I were finally acclimating to Duke and had stopped wondering how I would have fared differently if I had attended a California state university instead. My father had originally wanted me to attend UC Berkeley—it had been his dream school and, with in-state tuition, seemed to him to be a much more cost-effective deal. I refused to stay in California, and so we butt heads for weeks until my mother finally persuaded him to relent. Yet the cost of private school tuition loomed over my head all through the first year, the blade of the guillotine threatening to off my head if I failed to make good use of my parents’ money. I was finally awarded some financial aid in my sophomore year, and so my father’s complaints began to diminish. The academic pressure, however, never completely went away.

In the fall of 2010, I entered Finals Week sitting on the fence between two letter grades for nearly all of my classes. By day, I lived the life of a hermit—confined to my room and going for days without seeing the light of the sun. In contrast, my nights were much more turbulent and theatrical. By night, I lived out my worst nightmares.

The Dead Dog 

Besides the obligatory answer of seeing family and friends, there are two things I look forward to the most when I return home for the holidays: stuffing my face with food and playing with my dog Matisse.

I returned home after final exams, picked up from the airport by my mother. I entered the house through the garage door, and instead of being greeted at the door by a hyperactive white Maltese, I found instead a scrappy black-and-white puppy barely taller than a soda can. Who is this dog? And where the heck is Matisse? Before I could ask, my mother directed me into the kitchen where the scent of home-cooked Chinese braised pork was already making my mouth water.

After my family and I ate dinner in the kitchen, my father insisted on watching one of the DVDs from his expansive collection in the downstairs closet—a tradition in the household, where we do our best to indulge in my father’s obsessive collections. Past childhood memories include driving to every Hallmark within a fifteen-mile radius the day after Christmas for the sake of my father’s Beanie Baby collection, or eating McDonald’s for a week straight for the sake of my father’s Happy Meal toy collection. But my father’s compulsive collecting habits is a story for a different day.

We sat in the living room watching some action film I can’t quite remember the name of. I was too distracted by the unfamiliar puppy, which tumbled around under the coffee table a few times before crawling out to take a nap in its carrier by the kitchen entrance.

 “So… where is Matisse?” I finally asked, keeping my tone as natural as if I were asking about the weather.

My father and brother were too engrossed in the film to answer, so it was my mother who spoke.

“Oh, Matisse?” she replied nonchalantly. “He died a few weeks ago. But isn’t Picasso such a cutie?”

When I awoke moments later, tears were streaming down my face and I was about ready to clock someone.

The Skeletal Family

For some reason, my parents could not pick me up from the airport. Instead, I took a taxi that dropped me off in front of the peach-colored two-story house I have called home for the last sixteen years of my life.

When I walked through the front door and caught sight of my family, I did a double-take. My mother, father, brother—all of them were utterly emaciated, with sunken jaws and vacant eyes. They looked like skeletons with skin stretched taut over the bones. I froze at the door, afraid to touch them.

 “Wh-what happened to you guys?” I managed to sputter out.

“Oh, what are you talking about?” my mother said cheerily, her bony jaw sliding up and down like a nutcracker’s. “Why don’t you come inside—there’s lunch on the stove already!”

“No, I mean—what’s wrong with you guys? You all look like skeletons…”

“What are you talking about?” my teenaged brother said, indignant. “We’ve always been this skinny. Come on—let’s go eat lunch.”

I couldn’t stomach the thought of eating in the company of these people, not when I could already see the lines of their bones jutting from beneath their tan, papery skin. I excused myself quickly, saying I would check the mail outside, and bolted from the house. When I approached the white mailbox at the front corner of the driveway, I saw my next-door neighbor standing on the adjacent lawn and waved.

“Hello, Sophelia! Back from school already?” he asked. To my relief, my neighbor looked just as I remembered—middle-aged, combed hair, sweater vest, and slightly overweight.

“Yeah, I’m back for winter break.” I decided to give my neighbor a try. “This might be a strange question, but do you know what happened to my family?”

“Oh, haven’t you heard?” he said merrily. “Your family has been starving themselves to pay for your college tuition. Isn’t that sweet?”

When I awoke moments later, I was about ready to scream.

Unravel, Redux

I found this cover of Unravel yesterday, and I was listening to it while I was reading Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Normally I haven't fancied the Bjork covers I've listened to--the only exception I can think of off the top of my head is Further Seems Forever's cover of "Pagan Poetry." But I've actually gotten pretty fond of this one. It captures the flavor of the original pretty well.

I've already posted the lyrics to this song before. I don't know if "Unravel" is my favorite song, but it definitely has my favorite lyrics. I'll post it again, because somehow it really connected with me as I was reading the story of Akiva and Madrigal today.

while you are away
my heart comes undone
slowly unravels
in a ball of yarn
the devil collects it
with a grin
our love
in a ball of yarn

he'll never return it

so when you come back
we'll have to make new love 

 

Triple Report: Out of the Easy, Seigi no Mikata, Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Guys guys guys... I'M ALMOST DONE WITH MY SECONDARIES YAYYYYYY. It's exciting and yet daunting... because once I submit that last application, I can't run away anymore. I already swore to myself that once I finished my "obligations," this year I would devote myself to finally chasing my airy dreams and work my ass off to write--with no more excuses.

In the meantime, I am having major TEABS (for the uninitiated, The End of an Awesome Book Syndrome) because I literally just finished reading Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone ten minutes ago. I'll gush about this book in a moment, but in the meantime, here we go with another series of reports brought to you by yours truly:

//edit// I suddenly remembered that there were at least three books I read in June that I never got around to reviewing: Adaptation by Malinda Lo, Bitter Melon by Cara Chow, and Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins. It's been too long, so I probably won't review them, but in case anyone wants my advice: give Adaptation a shot and see if it's your cup of tea; Bitter Melon is interesting if you're interested in seeing culturally-tinged mother-daughter tension; Lola and the Boy Next Door is utterly fluffy and did not settle well with me, mainly because I did not root for anybody in the book.

-------------------------

1. Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

Before I get into this book, you're probably all wondering how I suddenly found myself with both the time and access to read all these books. As it turned out, during one of my lunch breaks at work, I decided to trek all the way to the Duke library on the other side of campus, on a whim. I made the startling discovery that the library I had spent so many wretched hours in as an undergraduate actually stocked "popular" fiction. I HAD NO IDEA! They even have a few young adult books! That first day, I borrowed three books: two non-fiction ones (Sticks and Stones by Emily Bazelon, A History of Opera by Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker--both with the intent of serving "research" purposes for my writing), and a fiction one that I had read a review for on FYA. 

The book takes place in the 1950s in New Orleans. Our heroine Josie is the teenaged daughter of a prostitute. The other prostitutes who live in the brothel where she grew up all are sweet and awesome, but her mother is godawful. Before Josie was even ten years old, she was mixing alcoholic drinks for her mother. Josie, who dreams of getting the hell out of New Orleans, now works at a bookstore, and one day a stranger to town enters the bookstore and has a fun conversation with Josie. But barely a day later, the stranger winds up dead and Josie becomes tangled up in an investigation that ends up testing her allegiances with many of the people around her. Oh, and there's a minor love triangle to boot.

I haven't read Ruta Sepetys' first book, which I've heard many good things about. I have major respect for historical fiction writers who do their research. I'm no expert in 1950s New Orleans, but the rich historical details came to life for me. Though I was kind of iffy about the storyline of Josie applying to Smith College. Was that how people applied to college back then? Again, I'm no expert so I have no clue.

Overall, however, this book didn't quite stick with me. For some reason, I never really warmed up to Josie. There are some characters I read in books, where I'll eventually reach a point and think, Wow, I totally get this character. This wasn't the case with Josie. She's had a tough childhood, and it's hardened her on the outside, but I don't feel like I ever got a good grasp of what was going on underneath. Though I really liked some of the major side characters, such as the brothel madame who basically raised Josie, I was rather ambivalent about the love interests--they came across as rather flat.

Actually, that's kind of how I felt about the plot. It felt flat. The mystery of who killed the stranger set the plot into action, but at a certain point, I already had a sense of who the culprit was and I didn't really care about the murder mystery anymore. And I suppose this isn't necessary for every book out there, but I wanted to see more character growth from Josie. I ended the book feeling like nothing had really been resolved, and sure--the last thing we see is Josie riding off with new dreams, but I didn't feel like her trajectory as a character had moved all that much from before. Maybe I'll try Sepetys' first book sometime, but this book just didn't do it for me.


2. Seigi no Mikata

Well guys, this is the first drama that I've watched since high school. I only picked up this drama for two reasons: 1) I started reading the manga a few weeks ago and was majorly bummed that the scanlations have not been updated for quite some time, and I impatiently wanted to know what was going to happen; 2) I have low patience for TV serials, but Japanese dramas I can tolerate, simply because they're short (usually around 10 episodes).

Youko, a high school girl, sees her older sister Makiko as a demon. Makiko, whom everyone reveres for her smarts and beauty, torments her sister regularly and is not afraid to chew out others or resort to mean tactics when things don't go her way. Ironically, all of her "evil acts" usually ends up having a positive outcome in some way, which has earned her the reputation of "Ally of Justice" in the community. When Makiko sets her sights on a handsome, elite co-worker, she wrangles poor Youko into all sorts of shenanigans aimed at making him fall in love with Makiko.

As cruel as she is, I was drawn to the manga in the first place solely because Makiko is so interesting. Some of her actions are just downright mean--such as telling Youko's first boyfriend who was waiting for her outside that Youko was busy pooping. (Though, the boy did end up dumping her, and not long after the boy was expelled for impregnating another girl he had been cheating with. So I guess it all worked out anyway.) But some are reminiscent of those moments when you've desperately wished you could get your sweet revenge on someone--for instance, letting her antagonistic co-worker walk around the office with a half-zipped skirt exposing her underwear. Sometimes I hated Makiko's guts, but I couldn't take my eyes off of her.

There are a lot of hilarious moments in this series that had me laughing out loud. There are also some cute moments, specifically with Youko and the popular guy at her school, Riku. However, I was really really dissatisfied by how their storyline ended-- near the end, I desperately wanted to smack Youko and be like, FORGET ABOUT YOUR SISTER AND GO LIVE YOUR OWN LIFE! I felt like there was this whole build-up between Youko and Riku, and then it just completely deflated at the end.

Overall though, I liked this drama and didn't feel like wasted hours of my precious time (unlike some dramas I indulged in during my youth). The side characters, particularly the family members, were really well done. One that particularly sticks in my mind is Youko and Makiko's mother. If you were like me and thought she was a ditzy airhead at the beginning, THINK AGAIN. If you can get over wanting to smack Makiko for her insane bullying and Youko for not growing a spine, this series is only ten episodes long and may very well be worth your time.


3. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Much like John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, I've heard about this book for ages. Except I didn't have any strong desire to read it, because for some reason, I had the misconceived notion planted in my head that this book was about fairies and paranormal princes. I have no idea where I got this idea--probably read a summary for a different book and mistakenly associated it with this book. Nothing against fairies, and I can still change my mind if I stumble across the right book, but I'm just not a big fan of those type of stories.

But no, this book is about something even better. As soon as I read the first few words, I knew this was going to be good:

Seeing these words, I immediately had a flashback to CLAMP's Wish, a series I read in high school. Part of Wish centered on the love story of an angel and a demon who cast aside their immortality and eloped to Earth. Who gives a crap about Romeo and Juliet, THIS was a bonafide forbidden romance. I'm not a huge fan of paranormal romances--never bothered with reading some of those popular books like Shiver or Hush, Hush or that whole slew of vampire novels--but, maybe it's due to my fond memories of Wish, my interest is piqued when I hear that a book has angels and demons involved.

The story doesn't return to this brief foreshadowing until later though. Instead, the book opens by introducing us to Karou, a girl with aquamarine hair and a number of unusual tattoos, who is pissed off by her cheating ex-boyfriend's attempts to win her back. It's all normal and relateably funny, but slowly and deftly, Laini Taylor eases us into the understanding that there is something unearthly going on with Karou. As it turns out, Karou has no knowledge of her past, other than the fact that she has been raised since infancy by four chimera, one of which is a wishmongerer named Brimstone who mysteriously collects teeth. There are a lot of things Karou doesn't know, but all of the secrets begin to unfold when Karou encounters an angel named Akiva.

From the very beginning, I could start to see why this book had gotten so popular. Laini Taylor's writing is some of the best I've seen in a young adult book. It's lush and full of details, and there are glittering lines all throughout the book. This definitely contributed to how well Taylor did the world-building in this book. Part of the reason I tend to be somewhat wary of urban fantasy and dystopian books is that when the world-building is ineffectively done, I get lost in info-dumps explaining how the book's world is organized. I was soundly impressed by how well Taylor wove the world-building into the plot, so that we could follow Karou through her storyline without major pauses to gape at the weird intricacies of the supernatural business happening covertly in Prague, where Karou lives.

In contrast to what I was saying about Josie in Out of the Easy, I "got" Karou. I rooted for her all the way through, and I was also a huge fan of her best friend, Zazuna, who has some of the funniest scenes in the book. I was a little lukewarm about the development of Akiva. I loved his backstory--specifically, how he's connected to Karou in an unusual way--but in the present setting, I thought his interactions with Karou transitioned far too abruptly. I don't want to give anything away, but let's just say that I wanted to see more of a developmental arc in terms of his connection with specifically Karou as her lovely blue-haired strong-willed self.

Going into this book, I already knew this was the first in the series--fortunately for me, the second book already came out last year. If the Duke library happens to have a copy, you can bet your bottom I'm going to get my hands on it. I don't know if this book is everyone's cup of tea, but if your tastes are similar to mine, in that:

1. You love a good tragic romance (cough angelandemon cough).
2. You like a tough heroine with some spunk.
3. You like your fantasy in controlled doses, but executed so well and richly that it punches you in the gut.
4. You have an absurd fondness for masquerade ball scenes--there is a GOOD one in this book
5. You like stories of longing and pining  :]

Then, WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU WAITING FOR? GO READ THIS BOOK NOW!!

Sophelia's First World Problems, Edition One

About a year ago, I was surfing around Youtube looking for more new music to suit my tastes, when I stumbled upon The Maine's "Into Your Arms." Yes, the lead singer was kind of cute (minus the emo haircut and the collarbone tattoo that I did not approve of), but the song got stuck in my head for weeks. It's no secret that my musical tastes tend to lean towards minor keys, but for some reason this happy upbeat song just wouldn't let go.

Then one day, while the song was still stuck in my head, I walked through the student center where people hang a bunch of flyers near the mailboxes, and I literally backtracked to take a closer look at one of the posters I had only glanced at before. Turns out The Maine was performing in Raleigh (~30 minutes away from Duke) along with two other bands, one of which was an old favorite of mine: Lydia. The show was happening the Friday after my last final exam, and tickets were only ten dollars.

Ten dollars to see The Maine AND Lydia?? I was so excited, until two truths knocked me back down to cold cruel reality:

Truth #1: I had no car.
Truth #2: Even if I found transportation, I had no friends who listened to this kind of music.

In the end, I didn't go. I don't even remember what I ended up doing that Friday night. I consoled myself into thinking something along the lines of, Well, I didn't really like The Maine's other songs, so I guess it's okay that I'm not going. And I hadn't listened to any of Lydia's new songs since their hiatus, so maybe they won't even play the songs I actually know.

Now, about three weeks ago, I was browsing on Facebook when I got a notification that Silversun Pickups was playing a free show in Raleigh on a Friday night.

WAIT HOLD UP. IT'S FREE? AND IT'S AFTER I GET OFF WORK?

I discreetly clicked "maybe" for attendance on the Facebook page and began scheming about how I could convince E to accompany me and drive us downtown. Unfortunately, two developments knocked me back down to cold cruel reality again:

Truth #1: E suddenly got a job offer in Washington DC and left the day of the concert.
Truth #2: I still had no car and no musically-similar friends.

 I was still pretty bummed this time, but I managed to get over it pretty quick. I thought, Ah well, to be honest I haven't loved their new album as madly as Carnavas, so maybe it's okay if I skip out on this.

Finally, just now I was on Facebook when I clicked on someone's post about North Carolina's biggest music festival, Hopscotch. The first few performers on their list, I didn't really know or feel passionately about. Until I saw Low on the fourth line of the poster.

HEY, IT'S LOW! I WAS OBSESSED WITH "LULLABY" JUST A FEW MONTHS AGO! THEIR LIVE PERFORMANCES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE AWESOME!

But the eternal truths remain:

Truth #1: I have no car.
Truth #2: I have no friends.

I'm not a diehard Low fan, so I'm not too sad. But if this happens again if/when the Yeah Yeah Yeahs come to town, Sophelia is going to be a miserable chump.

Blasphemy

Today, I'm going to talk about a different K-pop group other than my usual ramblings on BIGBANG, aka the Extraordinary League of Kickassery...

.... yes, O Badass One, I'm about to utter some heathen words...


... but I'm actually rather intrigued by B.A.P.

There was a post I wrote about a year ago where I mentioned I was rather intrigued by the rapper BYG, mainly due to his uncanny deep vocal resemblance to the Badass One in the song "Going Crazy." I've kept an eye on this group since then, and despite how much I dislike their name (I remain baffled about whey couldn't think of a better string of words than Best Absolute Perfect, or whether they absolutely had to use an acronym that sounds like rice in Korean), this group has piqued my interest.

As a disclaimer, I'm not very big on following K-Pop. I can tell you all sorts of crazy detailed shit about the Badass One and his Kickass cohort, but when it comes to the other glossy synchronized groups out there, I know almost nothing. Once in a while, a song will fly onto my radar, but in general many of the songs I have encountered are too poppy for my tastes. Probably a by-product of having listened to so much rock music during my formative teenage years.

Which is why I was quite surprised when I discovered BYG's group for the first time. Their first hits like "Warrior" and "Power" boasted booming bass lines. I'm hesitant to use gender-connotative terms, but... how else do I describe it, I was struck by how "masculine" their sound was. I am largely drawn to rock music for the "heaviness" of the sound, and B.A.P's music, though strongly influenced by hip hop, also carries a similar weight.

And yet, I soon realized that this group wasn't interested in staying comfortable in just this style. They released several other songs, like ballads or light pop--most of which I didn't particularly love, though the recent "Coffee Shop" and all of its California footage was crisply done and made me yearn for home. I also was not a fan of the recent "Hurricane" largely because it sounded too similar to all the other poppy K-Pop songs that don't particularly jive with me. BUT... despite my ambivalence towards some of this experimentation, I am still duly impressed by how much they've been experimenting with pushing their range, especially considering how young the group is.

But the final clincher that got me has to do with BYG. For a brief period of time earlier this year, he opened a tumblr account and began posting clips of his personal musical compositions. In particular, I especially liked the creepy "Sacramental Confession." BYG has deactivated his account since, but there was something about catching a glimpse of the songwriter in action--and on Tumblr, of all places--that nailed it for me

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Edit 10/5/2013

Okay, I just had to come back to this post, because I found this blog-post about BYG that I thought was hilarious: Tortured Artist Bang Yongguk Returns To Instagram, Plays The Piano.

A choice excerpt:

"Unlike most K-pop idols –who only use social media to post fifty million stupid selcas of themselves– King Yongguk used his account to share things he was genuinely interested in, which often included a lot of obscure art references. Needless to say, most K-pop fans and their tiny brains were confused and frightened by the photos, and often voiced their discomfort in the comments section of Yongguk’s posts...

Using the clever and flawless username, ‘bangstergram,’ Yongguk rejoined Instagramland last night with a black & white video of him playing a few depressing notes on a piano. The video was simply titled, “3:00 AM,” indicating that the B.A.P beauty was up late composing music like any true tortured artiste would."

And the comment that voices what everyone was thinking:

"He could bangstergram me any time he wants tbqh."