Merry ho ho!

Merry Christmas everyone!

(ps. I love my gays.)

The favourite sixes of 2008

So, everytime I've tried to make a top 5 list, I found myself always wishing I could add one more... so I composed a top 6 list. This list is music-related stuff only, and I am without a doubt fickle and may be making changes to the list... but all the albums that I've been waiting for this year have come out (the last one being A Mountain is a Mouth by Bruce Peninsula, and it did not disappoint!) and hopefully it'll stick! I'll stress that this is a favourite list, which isn't necessarily to say the best and of course, I have probably heard 1/97204865203th of music being made in the world right now, but this is where I am, and I love everything here.

Six Favourite Shows
February 21 - Bruce Peninsula and Plants & Animals - Drake Hotel
March 12 - Bell X1 with David Ford - El Mocambo
March 29 - Basia Bulat with Katie Stelmanis - Lee's Palace
August 27 - Final Fantasy with Nico Muhly, Samamidon and Doveman - Danforth Music Hall
September 20 - The Swell Season with Smog - Massey Hall
November 27 - Broken Social Scene with Land of Talk - Sound Academy

Six Favourite Canadian Albums of 2008
Chad VanGaalen - Soft Airplane
Katie Stelmanis - Join Us
Timber Timbre - Medicinals
Bruce Peninsula - A Mountain is a Mouth (this album is only available online until February 3 2009, I stream it on CBC R3)
The Rural Alberta Advantage - Hometowns
Hooded Fang - Hooded Fang EP

Six Favourite Canadian Songs of 2008
(...by artists that haven't been mentioned so far)
Laura Barrett - Deception Island Optimists Club
Hawksley Workman - Piano Blink (los manlicious remix)
Feist - Brandy Alexander
Jill Barber - Oh My My
Hello, Blue Roses - Shadow Falls
Plants & Animals - À l'orée des bois

Six Favourite Non-Canadian Albums of 2008
Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago (Skinny Love was my ringtone for a very long time)
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (The First Aid Kit cover of Tiger Mountain Peasant Song is wicked good, thank you!)
Mates of State - Re-Arrange Us
Loch Lomond - Paper the Walls
Tapes 'n Tapes - Walk It Off
Ray LaMontagne - Gossip in the Grain

Six Pre-2008 Albums that I Still Listen to
Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala (Opposite of Hallelujah is my new, much-happier ringtone)
Basia Bulat - Oh, My Darling
Arcade Fire - Funeral
Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
Elliott Smith - XO
Christine Fellows - Paper Anniversary

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Hope you all had a year full of fantastic music! E-mail me--adroitiste at gmail dot com--if you'd like anything mentioned up there/have stories to share, I'll do what I can.

ps. Supposedly there is a freak storm coming to Toronto, I'm slightly afraid, I won't lie.

Scenic painting class

I'm winding down. This is a picture of my last assignment of the semester with our scenic painting instructor, Richard, in the front of the flats for scale. It took 8 students and a few weeks, and it's quite a difference compared to fine arts, but it was an experience.


(Two of my group members, Alisa and Nadia)

FUN TIMES.

(photo cred goes out to Kathleen Cheung!)

In Canada, it means I love you

1.

To this, the CP24 reporter said, "in Iraq, to throw shoes at someone is to show signs of contempt". I don't think I enjoyed journalism as much as I did in that precise moment ever before.

2. On that note, according to a recent poll conducted by CP24, 50% of those that answered thought that we directly elect our prime minister. Grade 10 civics, anyone?

December is lively

Things that are making this winter so far:

1. Copious amounts of cooking and baking. I am now the queen of carrot cakes as acknowledged by my roommates, and last weekend I baked a delicious banana loaf that I see in my dreams. The roomies and I also made a huge pot of beef stew with some old wine we had left and it's some epic form of hearty. I almost want to go swimming in it.

2. I am usually invincible when it comes to the temptation that is Starbucks Red Cups, but their salted caramel signature hot chocolate is magic with sea salt on top.

3. The air vent right over my feet when I sleep.

4. The notion of the Liberal-NDP coalition, while it lasted (well, we'll see in January). I cannot believe how effective Harper's "this is ~*undemocratic*~" line really was. And now Parliament is somewhere else, playing for seven weeks. I could easily go into a rant here, but that is for some other day.

5. My dad is in Korea, and he bought me a glockenspiel!

6. I am officially unemployed from Drugstore Pharmacy, and the pharmacy team took me out to dinner for the last time. I baked them my (famous) carrot cake and banana bread, and they bestowed upon me heaps of gifts and the cutest card in the world that make me burst into tears... from laughing. I will miss them lots, but a girl's gotta find her way!

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I've been listening to a few songs with the word "Christmas" in them for festivity. There's no Christmas tree or stockings or lights or wreaths in our basement apartment (how college of us) so music will have to do. I'll share soon!

Sketch dump part I / happy December!

in the garden
nail polish art part i

shirin

nail polish art part ii

(this is a drawing of the beautiful album "Night Falls Over Kortedala" by Jens Lekman, especially the song called "Shirin"--the story of an Iranian girl living in Sweden who becomes Jens Lekman's hairdresser)

plant catalogue

inside
nail polish art part iii