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David Byrne recommended La Incompara Celia by Celia Cruz in Music (curated)

 
La Incompara Celia by Celia Cruz
La Incompara Celia by Celia Cruz
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I was listening to a lot of Cuban music and salsa, a lot of Latin music. I worked with Selena on the last thing she recorded. And there was a whole series of Celia Cruz records I loved. I did a duet with her for a Jonathan Demme movie, Something Wild. Her early Cuban records were done with a band called Sonora Matancera; those are really great. Instead of going to rock clubs, I would go to Salsa Meets Jazz downtown and the Corso Ballroom uptown to hear salsa bands. There was lots of dancing. I liked the idea that you were dancing to live music, not just DJs, and grew to really love the music. It opened me up to a lot of sentimentality and feelings that maybe didn’t come naturally to me. I decided I wanted to do a salsa record, which I did in the early ’90s. And I did another one a few years after that. It was a little less strictly salsa, but it was still in that vein, and I had a wonderful time with a huge band, [Rei Momo]. We toured everywhere, and a lot of folks in the United States did not like it at all. Oddly, people in Latin America really liked it, but not because it was their music. For a lot of their rockers in Argentina or Mexico, it was like, “He's playing our parents’ music.”"

Source
  
The Rules of Attraction (2002)
The Rules of Attraction (2002)
2002 | Comedy, Drama
Bracingly twisted, disturbing 110 minutes of sex-crazed, sleazebag college sociopaths and the unenviably depressing lives they lead. A more quintessential Bret Easton Ellis film than even 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘗𝘴𝘺𝘤𝘩𝘰 in showcasing his deliriously warped sense of the world. A university 'romance' drama soaked in booze, coke, apathy, sex, and a seething disdain for living well - naturally I loved it in all its parasitic debauchery. One of the most quietly experimental films of the early 2000s and also one of the fewer ones from that era that actually has a righteous soundtrack and tolerable sense of style. James Van Der Beek is a beast - existing on some other religious, primordial plane of existence that we can't comprehend in our current timeline just yet - and every other performance isn't too far behind. We should probably check up on the people who view this as some sort of misunderstood Truth Serum though, I just love it because it's fucked up tbh and I unashamedly dig me some rich slime. Loathes its characters but never superficially, like it *really* does - revels in the glee of inflicting cruelty on these horrid people but backs it up with tangible emotion to create this hypnotic clash of feelings. Couldn't take my eyes off it. I shudder to even use this now meaningless saying but... I'd be hard pressed to say you could have gotten away with making this today.
  
40x40

Awix (3310 KP) rated My Octopus Teacher (2020) in Movies

Oct 4, 2020 (Updated Oct 4, 2020)  
My Octopus Teacher (2020)
My Octopus Teacher (2020)
2020 | Documentary
5
6.0 (2 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Netflix sea-life doc that sets out to be moving and inspiring and just ended up making me shout at my laptop a lot. A bloke going through some sort of mid-life crisis does the usual thing and gets involved with a younger female: the twist is that she's an invertebrate. Never mind 'My Octopus Teacher', based on what he says - 'I was overwhelmed by my feelings for her,' etc - 'My Darling Octopus' might have been a better title. Same old story: Man meets octopus, they swim around together for a bit, octopus loses arm in shark attack, he nurses her back to health, she has several hundred thousand children behind his back, etc.

Quite apart from the weirdness of the subject matter - what did the bloke's wife think of all this? what, for the matter, did the octopus think was going on? - there's something very dodgy about the way the film is presented. The story is presented as something that's already happened, so are we watching reconstructions of the events? Is it all a staged or confected narrative? Has someone told the octopus actually appearing in the film it's basically in the role of Kim Novak at the end of Vertigo? Stunning photography and images of sealife, naturally, but rather than informing the viewer about octopuses - which are fascinating creatures - it just unloads a lot of sentimental, anthropomorphised cobblers on them. Best watched with the sound turned down and appropriate sea-life noises playing.
  
The Raven King (All for the Game, #2)
The Raven King (All for the Game, #2)
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
So this one picks up a few days after the events of the first with everyone dealing with the death of one of their team. Neil has slowly been pulled into Kevin and Andrew's crew and is coming to terms with the fact that Riko has it in for him.

I do feel a little like this series should have been reviewed as one thing, really, as the story continues across all three but it would be one thick arse book if the author had done that.

Every single team member has grown on me a lot with this book. They are finally coming together thanks to Neil who has been straddling both halfs of the team, starting to settle into his life at Palmetto and making friends. I thought Nicky summed it up brilliantly with this quote:

"Oh, you just might be the best thing to happen to the Foxes."

This one has some dark scenes in it like the first but they affected my feelings in regards to a certain character more this time around. I'm just glad that Neil was being a super sleuth and managed to put it all together with all the little titbits that had been thrown out.

I've already started book 3 because I am slightly obsessed with this series right now, despite its lack of romance up to this point. Will review it when I'm done!
  
Nothing Special
Nothing Special
Jay Northcote | 2019 | Contemporary, LGBTQ+, Romance
8
7.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Nothing Special by Jay Northcote
Nothing Special is a sweet and heart-warming story about two men who seem opposite at first glance. Noah is pale, Sol is tanned. Noah is an indoors guy most of the time, Sol is outdoors. The list goes on, but what that doesn't show is just how much these guys mean to each other.

Noah has a hard time believing it, but Sol does his best to show just how much he thinks of Noah. I loved how their first date just continued! Although we have two main characters, the emphasis is on Noah, and his feelings of inadequacy, not helped by a certain waiter.

This story IS sweet. It is also hot at times, and not just to the heatwave London experiences during the story. The pacing is smooth, the characters are interesting, and the descriptions are perfect. A brilliant story for me to read in the garden, as I wilt under a heatwave myself.

Noah is Something Special, but it takes Sol for him to believe it. Everyone is special in their own way. They just need to find the person who makes them shine, instead of trying to tamper them down. Absolutely recommended by me.

* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and the comments here are my honest opinion. *

Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
  
DW
8
8.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
3.5 stars.

Hmm…This is my first book by the author and though I have her “My Favourite Mistake” on my amazon wishlist I haven’t got around to buying it yet.

For me, this started good. We understood her animosity to the brothers and everything and we could see for ourselves how much of an arse Zach was while Zan was a man of few words and dark, bottomless eyes. I just didn’t quite seem to catch the bit where her feelings changed. Yeah, we as the reader knew that Zan wasn’t so bad and he may have done stupid things in the past but he’s changed now, but when did Lottie figure it out because she never really gave him a chance to talk to her?

That being said, I did like the characters (though there are quite a few by the end and I got confused a bit between Audrey and Trish). On the other hand, Lottie and her twin brother Will’s “twindar” was very impressive. If that really happens when you have a twin, I am impressed and wish I had one. I really liked Stryker too, he seemed like a chilled out kind of guy who could talk a lot of sense, I wish I had a friend like him. Looking forward to his and Katie’s story when it’s released.

It was quite a sweet story when they finally got together and the bad guy got his comeuppance in the end.
  
    Wakie: Talk to People

    Wakie: Talk to People

    Lifestyle and Social Networking

    (0 Ratings) Rate It

    App

    Feeling lonely or bored in 2017 is nonsense! There are 8 billion people in the world. Surely, there...

    Pocoyo Art

    Pocoyo Art

    Art & Design, Education and Games

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    App

    Pocoyo Art is an educational app for kids that encourage the creativity through a fun activity. By...

Stay Dead (Elise Sandburg #2)
Stay Dead (Elise Sandburg #2)
Anne Fraiser | 2020 | Thriller
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Contains spoilers, click to show
146 of 200
Kindle
Stay Dead ( Elise Savannah book 2)
By Anne Frasier

Frasier takes readers back to her dark, enchanting Savannah--a place as terrifying as it is mesmerizing.
Homicide detective Elise Sandburg is traumatized after her run-in with a madman the press has dubbed "The Organ Thief." As Elise takes refuge in her deceased aunt Anastasia's abandoned plantation to investigate and recover from her ordeal, she begins to question everything--from her dangerous line of work to her complex relationship with her handsome, tortured partner, David Gould. But with a madman on the loose, and her mother's claims to still hear from Aunt Anastasia, she may have more immediate problems on her hands. In Elise's world, where cold hard crime mixes with the local Gullah culture, nothing is ever what it seems, and no one is above suspicion--not even the dead.



This is book 2 in the series and it was brilliant! The story continues from book 1 with the mystery surrounding not only the murders but the so called murderer waking and walking away from a coma. Elise is not yet recovered before she’s back up and chasing the organ thief, as well as dealing with two major back from the dead family members, the growing feelings for Gould and the daughter that won’t do as she’s told!! The writing is just brilliant a thriller with a touch of possible voodoo witchcraft!