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Joana Lau (3 KP) rated Artemis in Books

Feb 5, 2018  
Artemis
Artemis
Andy Weir | 2017 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
10
7.7 (34 Ratings)
Book Rating
Artemis is a fun, fast paced book featuring a charming heroine.

Jazz Bashara is smart, funny, sexy and like many of this generation – although the book takes place in the future – a little lost in her ways.

After a series of what some might call (Jazz included) “bad life decisions”, Jazz splits her time between working a legit porter job and as a smuggler of mostly harmless goods into her town, Artemis.

Artemis is the first lunar town, an earth colony of blue collar laborers, its main economies in are tourism, glass and aluminum production.

Through her pattern of making questionable choices, Jazz finds herself neck deep in some big trouble involving the town’s main big shots, the mayor, the aluminum industry and the Brazilian syndicate mob. I can’t wait to listen to the audiobook version narrated by Rosario Dawson, she will be the perfect voice for Jazz Bashara.

As I Brazilian native I was a little bothered by the lack of research into Brazilian surnames and cultural background. It is a huge pet peeve of mine when Brazilians are characterized too much like other Hispanic peoples. Although many shared similarities, our names and language are quite different and the names “Sanchez” and “Alvarez” are Hispanic names that are practically inexistent in Brazil.

Besides the above mentioned and a few tacky, too predictable, unoriginal sex jokes, the book is extremely charming.

Artemis is fun and the plot is very engaging. The dialogues are quick witted and the brainy problem solving echoes Mr. Weir’s debut “The Martian”.

The characters are well rounded or at least, well thought of, the dialogue is funny and the adventure is endless. There’s enough detailed chemistry and space mechanics to satisfy the inner nerd and the touch of romance is just enough to make you cheer for Jazz’s love conquests without being turned off – I am one of those people that get irritated when romance becomes the story’s main purpose. The gentrified, tight community vibe of Artemis juxtaposes well with the bare, unexciting moonscape.

Overall, one of my favorite books of the year and a huge relief. As a big fan of “The Martian”, I had big expectations for Mr. Weir’s new book. It did not disappoint.
  
Muito (Dentro Da Estrela Azulada) by Caetano Veloso
Muito (Dentro Da Estrela Azulada) by Caetano Veloso
1978
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"There was a record store in the Times Square subway station, and another one on 42nd Street, both of which had big “international sections,” as they called it. It included everything from the rest of the world, all on vinyl, but with no information. You’d look at the cover and go, What’s this like? It was a total crapshoot. But occasionally, I’d hear something that would blow my mind, like a Fela Kuti record; the first one I picked up was called Expensive Shit, and obviously I picked that up because of the title. The covers were the best—like Cambodian pop records with a bunch of people in traditional garb, all holding electric guitars—and you’d look at them for clues. You’d think, What in the world could that be? You’d buy it, and it would be pretty cool. In 1986, I did a fiction film called True Stories. I guess you would call it a musical comedy. We were doing the mixing in San Francisco, so I’d go down to the big Tower Records on North Beach and go to the international section. One day, I came back with a whole bunch of Brazilian records, because I had maybe heard of a couple of the artists, but didn’t really know what their records were like. One was a Caetano Veloso record called Muito, and then there was a Milton Nascimento record, and probably a Gilberto Gil record, and those blew my mind. They had elements that were psychedelic and that had a Brazilian feel. They were really beautiful, but then I dug a little bit more and found out they were also really political. These guys had been exiled, thrown in jail. I was connecting with it, and I realized that my generation didn’t know any of this music. So I asked our record label, “Can we license this music, and can I make a compilation of my favorite cuts?” That one record led to another one: There was a Brazilian series, then a Cuban series, because Cuban music had not been available in the United States for decades. And I started my own label, Luaka Bop."

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Graham Massey recommended All 'N All by Earth, Wind & Fire in Music (curated)

 
All 'N All by Earth, Wind & Fire
All 'N All by Earth, Wind & Fire
1977 | Dance
7.0 (4 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I actually saw Earth, Wind And Fire play. I went to a Santana gig in Manchester in 1975 and they were the support band. My God! They blew Santana – and me – away! They came on with flame-throwers and nearly singed our eyebrows off, you know? The music came with all kinds of layers and rogue elements like that Brazilian aspect in the chords. It's a really varied album and there's not much here in what you would call traditional black music. There are certain things here that crossed over, in the way that Stevie Wonder crossed over. The commercial radio station in Manchester was Piccadilly Radio and the Earth, Wind And Fire was always on Piccadilly Radio."

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Preciso Me Encontrar by Cartola
Preciso Me Encontrar by Cartola
1989 | Singer-Songwriter
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"Cartola is a salty, classic samba character from Rio who I don’t think a lot of people outside of Brazil really know about. I only found out about him through someone I know who married a Brazilian woman and he got super-deep into Samba and its history. “Brazilian music has always been a part of what Grizzly Bear do, especially Tropicalia records, Marcos Valle and Gilberto Gil. All of that stuff has been part of our vocabulary since our early years and in the last couple of years after Shields, I started discovering and getting into straight-up Samba. It isn’t trying to be psychedelic, blast anything open or trying to be crazy, it hits you right in the heart and does exactly what it’s supposed to do. “It’s not trying to blow your mind or anything, it’s just doing what people do in a Samba and it communicates so much. I know a little Portuguese, I don’t speak it well enough to know exactly what he’s saying but you can still feel the vibe and emotion of the song without knowing the words. There’s something so great about music that’s so straight-up in its own vernacular, that’s is exactly what this is and it’s just killing it. “‘Preciso Me Encontrar’ is my favourite track on the record and it’s such a good example of what that music does so well, it’s really honest, as honest as you could possibly be, there’s absolutely zero pretention going on and it’s played beautifully."

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Adam Green recommended Os Muntantes by Os Muntantes in Music (curated)

 
Os Muntantes by Os Muntantes
Os Muntantes by Os Muntantes
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"These guys are a Brazilian 60s band, who people in their home country think of as their Beatles, but they're actually their own, weird, indescribable entity. The band is two brothers and a lady named Rita Lee. More than anything with this record, if you listen to it, you instantly want to live in Brazil – and you know a record is good if it makes you want to emigrate. It really conjures up a world. It's so imaginative and fun, it's part of that group of 60s records like Sgt Pepper's. They were 17 when they were making this record but they were already master songwriters with a massive skill and technique beyond almost everyone who is around right now. Just like The Beatles, they are able to be haphazard with it – they are so good they can have comedy skits in the middle of their songs: the coolest chorus with sound of breaking plates at the end of it. Apparently they were inventing machines while they were making it. They were putting their guitars through sewing machines. So the pulsing tremolo tone through one of the songs is the contact of the needle with the machine. Effectively they made a guitar pedal out of a sewing machine! It's super playful and Brazilian in character, but also perfectly fused with the international psychedelic revolution but it comes off as this other animal. It's the coolest thing when cultures get mixed together, it's so great to see that hybrid to happen. This band was important for me because when I was doing The Moldy Peaches because I was so inspired by how fun they were. My fantasy of what a show could be was them!"

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Karim Ainouz recommended Arabian Nights (1974) in Movies (curated)

 
Arabian Nights (1974)
Arabian Nights (1974)
1974 | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"Like many of the films on this list, Arabian Nights showed me that the possibilities of working with narrative are the possibilities of working with the world. This film makes beautiful use of a documentary approach to filmmaking but within the framework of fiction. It’s filled with these faces you don’t generally see in cinema, faces that remind me of people from that region in Italy. I’m not Italian, but there’s something there that made me feel, as a Brazilian, that I was connected to these faces and these characters. It’s also a fantastic way of looking at a classic piece of literature—I am a big fan of One Thousand and One Nights, and this is an adaptation you can connect to, that doesn’t feel far away at all. There’s a sexiness and a rawness, and a sense of pulsating reality being brought to the screen on a poetic level."

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Bong Mines Entertainment (15 KP) rated D.T.M. - Single by Hope Tala in Music

Jun 6, 2019 (Updated Jun 6, 2019)  
D.T.M. - Single by Hope Tala
D.T.M. - Single by Hope Tala
2019
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Album Rating
Hope Tala is an up-and-coming singer-songwriter from West London, England. Not too long ago, she released a bittersweet contemporary R&B tune, entitled, “D.T.M.”.

‘D.T.M.’ tells an interesting tale of a young woman who expresses to her ex-beau that she’s also hurting inside after their emotional breakup.

Apparently, not too long ago, the former lovebirds lost their loving way to prosperity. During their problematic journey, their bliss was destroyed and agony replaced their joy.

Even though their relationship ended on a bad note, the woman suggests that they can still remain friends.

‘D.T.M.’ contains a relatable storyline and dreamy vocals. Also, the likable tune possesses summery instrumentation flavored with acoustic guitar chords and a tropical R&B rhythm, almost like a Brazilian bossa nova shuffle.

‘D.T.M.’ is the second single released from Hope Tala’s upcoming sophomore EP.

Also, the first single from the anticipated project, “Lovestained”, has amassed over 600,000 streams online.


https://www.bongminesentertainment.com/hope-tala-d-t-m/
  
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Daniel Rossen recommended track Little Church by Miles Davis in Live Evil by Miles Davis in Music (curated)

 
Live Evil by Miles Davis
Live Evil by Miles Davis
1970 | Jazz
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

Little Church by Miles Davis

(0 Ratings)

Track

"This is from Live-Evil, which is a really intense and brutal album, but ‘Little Church’ is a little three-minute moment that’s a really beautiful, otherworldly, disorientating and extremely contained song within a crazy, fiery record. “It’s amazing what this pulls off in three minutes. The lead is somebody whistling in combination with a trumpet, there’s this moving, really melodic bassline and a crazy organ sound swirling around the entire track to this beautiful, almost Brazilian chord progression, but there’s no rhythm whatsoever. It’s so unique and I’d never heard that kind of tonality or sensibility. “It probably relates more to the kind of songwriting that we do rather than jazz, it’s not really jazz, it’s closer to Brazilian music or like writing a ballad, but without words. It’s another one of those songs I’ve always come back to, I still refer and think back to it when we’re making records as an example of a certain kind of energy, vibe and intensity. “It sounds like it’s on another planet, I couldn’t have imagined hearing anything like this before I heard it and as soon as I did it transported me in a way that I’d never experienced, it was like entering a dream world. That’s something I always think of as a goal in making music, entering a landscape, a dream-like state or trance, like accessing something outside of your own reality. I love when music can do that, it feels like you’re entering another reality basically. “I first heard this when I was fourteen and when you’re that age the serotonin in your brain functions so differently, everything means so much more. Your brain chemistry changes over time, it’s still fun, but you’ve got to work a little harder to make it as fun as when you were younger, but because I still have that memory, I can kind of conjure the same serotonin rush it gave me as a kid. “You learn to appreciate other sides of music as you get older, you can access the same kind of stimulation without it being this overwhelming serotonin blast."

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Kitty Goes to Washington (Kitty Norville, #2)
Kitty Goes to Washington (Kitty Norville, #2)
Carrie Vaughn | 2006 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
8
6.2 (10 Ratings)
Book Rating
88 of 250
Book
Kitty goes to Washington ( Kitty Norville book 2)
By Carrie Vaughn

Once read a review will be written via Smashbomb and link posted in comments

Celebrity werewolf and late-night radio host Kitty Norville prefers to be heard and not seen.So when she?s invited to testify at a Senate hearing on behalf of supernaturals, and her face gets plastered on national TV, she inherits a new set of friends, and enemies, including the vampire mistress of the city; an ++ber-hot Brazilian were-jaguar; and a Bible-thumping senator who wants to expose kitty as a monster.Kitty quickly learns that in this city of dirty politicians and backstabbing pundits, everyone?s itching for a fight

Kitty is definitely finding her feet! I’m so glad to be seeing the meal mild scared Kitty slowly disappearing. This is fast becoming one of my favourite series. I don’t think I have recovered fully from TJs death and neither has she but I loved the little reference and peace of mind she had. Looking forward to more.
  
Fast Five (2011)
Fast Five (2011)
2011 | Action, Drama, Mystery
Following on directly from 'Fast and Furious (4)' and still before 'Tokyo Drift', Dom, Brian and Mia are on the run after breaking Dom out of prison. When they cross the path of a Brazilian drug baron and with an FBI agent on there trail they need to get the family back together for (another) one last job.
Fast and Furious 5 (Fast 5) has taken the franchise from 'cops and robbers' and high school racing to a Heist movie and is bigger with more guns, more cars and more action.
With Brian now on Dom's team the franchise needs a new cop and, in Fast 5 this roll is given to Hobbs, played by Dwayne(the Rock) Johnson. Hobbs is more of an action guy than Brian was which leads to longer fight scenes and more shoot outs.
The end chase is one of the better one's I've seen with a huge amount of collateral damage.
Fast 5 shows that the franchise is getting bigger and better and it will be interesting to see where where it goes next.