Smashbomb

"I do this playlist on Spotify [Ben Watt's Spincycle] and I stumbled across Gem Roses while doing it. My daughter was 15, 16 at the time, and she wandered into the room when I was playing this, and she suddenly stopped short. "Dad! This is Gem Club!" And I was all, "Yes! Yes it is." It was a really touching moment – this obscure band from Boston crossing over from a teenager to her old dad. We've always been hesitant about imposing music on the kids. When the girls were about seven, we showed them a video of us on Top of the Pops. They burst into tears. They couldn't cope with it. It was outside their comprehension. To them, we're just mum and dad.  This record is very tender, beautiful and diaphanous. The music hovers, almost. It reminds me of Anthony and the Johnsons and The Antlers, and Christopher Barnes' voice is beautiful. There's a song about a doomed gay relationship, and you feel this different worldview being exposed to you in this very beautiful way. Gem Club supported me a few years ago, and I loved hearing them live. There's a quiet defiance to them, this outsider melancholy, that's hard to resist."

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Far and Away (1992)

6.6 (5 Ratings) Rate It

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Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman star in this critically-acclaimed romantic adventure from director Ron...

Kristy H (1252 KP) rated Every Waking Hour in Books

Apr 22, 2021

Every Waking Hour

Joanna Schaffhausen | 2021 | Crime, Mystery

8.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

Another thrilling entry in the Ellery & Reed series

Ellery Hathaway is trying to have a normal life. She's attempting to become a police detective in Boston. She's even trying to have a relationship with Reed Markham. But then Chloe Lockhart, a twelve-year-old girl, goes missing, and the case threatens everything Ellery has tried to build. Ellery has many scars--physical and emotional--from her own kidnapping. Is sending a former kidnapped child out to find another the right thing to do? Every moment that Chloe is missing reminds Ellery of her past--and how much she wants, needs, to find Chloe.

I just love the Ellery and Reed series so very much. Book number four is yet another excellent entry. There are two parallel case running, and both keep your attention. I love the tension between Reed and Ellery and how well so many present-day cases can tie back to Ellery's past. She's damaged, yes, but so strong. This is a compelling read, with plenty of twists and turns to keep you reading. And, the epilogue, oh my gosh! What a cliffhanger!

I cannot recommend this entire series enough! 4 stars, and I cannot wait for book #5.

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Rupert Thomas recommended Paradoxical Undressing in Books (curated)

Paradoxical Undressing

Kristin Hersh | 2011 | Biography

(0 Ratings)

Book Favorite

"Kristin Hersh is no ordinary musician, and her mind is unlike any other. In her memoir, Paradoxical Undressing, she captures what it’s like to be young and starting out, but this is a grazed reality, the top layer of skin stripped clean away. The book is based on a diary she kept when she was 18, which is, as she says, “the age when no one takes care of you”. It was a year when everything happened. She moved her band, Throwing Muses, from Providence, Rhode Island, to Boston. She was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, then bipolar. She was offered her first recording contract, with 4AD. She discovered she was pregnant. And she became unlikely friends with faded Hollywood movie star, Betty Hutton. “Betty sings about starlight and champagne,” Hersh writes. “I sing about dead rabbits and blow jobs.” Though Hutton was unpredictable and fragile (“Time is like a hurricane to her – a big, fast mess, sweeping her away”) she was also full of generosity, compassion and advice. “You have to leave things out to tell a story,” she once told Hersh. And Hersh listened. This female Kurt Cobain – he was a fan of her work – has forged her own brave path, often against enormous odds. And she writes better sentences than most writers do."

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