I wrote in July about my Day Zero list, in which I have 101 goals which I aim to accomplish in 1001 days, beginning September 1 2014. That means I'm now just over a year in, with 609 days remaining until the end of the 1001 day period. In the last blog I shared the 11 items which I had completed so far, and since then I have completed another six, with 25 more marked 'in progress'.
Now completed:
4. Attend my 100th concert 10. Meet up with my high school friends
15. Visit Edinburgh in Fringe season
This year I went to Edinburgh not once, but twice to see Fringe shows. I wrote a blog about the first of those trips here, and on the second trip I went to see The Addams Family Musical, a musical revue entitled Shitfaced Showtime, comedians Ed Byrne and Mae Martin, an improvised Sherlock Holmes play, a one-woman play called Bette Davis Ain't For Sissies and a dome cinema show, bringing the total number of shows attended to 11.
23. See a comedy show
As above, I saw two comedy shows at the Fringe Festival.
29. Go on a road trip
31. See a musical
Also at the Fringe, I saw both Grease and the Addams Family. 46. Visit London 49. Photograph a concert 51. Help sort through Granny's things 65. Volunteer for a charity 75. Buy a dress
81. Read 10 library books I've read the following since I started this challenge:
9. The Fall And Rise Of Gordon Coppinger - David Nobbs
10. Letters Home - Sylvia Plath ed Aurelia Schober Plath
92. Visit Wales
93. Visit five tourist spots in Edinburgh
In August I did the following:
1. Walked to the bottom of the Royal Mile to Holyrood and Dynamic Earth
2. Lay in the grass in Princes St Gardens
3. Had an ice cream at the Grassmarket
4. Browsed Armstrong's Vintage Emporium
5. Attended the city's Fringe Festival
94. Write a letter to someone who has inspired me
95. Meet an online friend in person
Although we'd been in the same spaces before we started talking online, I began talking to my friend Amber online at the end of last year and we officially met in March. I should have marked this one as completed before I wrote my last blog but missed it, and have checked it off now.
There's not much point in me writing a blog about the new music I've been enjoying lately because basically the only song I've been listening to is the new Justin Bieber song, 'What Do You Mean?'. Instead, I'm taking a leaf out of my friend Charlotte's book (or should that be taking a page out of her blog?) and going on an alphabetical trip through my iPod, sharing my favourite artists, with a little twist. As I was growing up listening to mostly rock music I felt like my library was male-dominated, possibly because it's much rarer to find women in the genre, but now that my taste has diversified I think my iPod is more of a 50/50 split between male and female voices. With that in mind, I decided to put together a list which reflects artists at either end of the gender spectrum. Here's the first half:
AFI: one of my all-time favourite bands, and one of the most important to me. I started listening to AFI in 2006 when they released winter staple Decemberunderground. I've followed their career ever since, especially in 2013 when they released and promoted their latest album Burials, the darkest break-up record I've ever heard. Aside from those two albums, I'd recommend 2000's The Art Of Drowning which features my favourite song, 'The Days Of The Phoenix'. They haven't toured the UK since I last saw them in 2010, but as soon as they're back here I'll be down the front. Ariana Grande: I thought Ariana was overrated until last summer when she put out the video for her hit single 'Problem', which had a 60s mod aesthetic that I adored. After that I watched a whole bunch of her interviews on YouTube and I was surprised to find her so entertaining with her foul mouth and flawless impressions of other pop divas. My favourite songs of hers are 'All My Love', the collaboration with Major Lazer that she recorded for the soundtrack of the last Hunger Games movie, and her cover of Mariah Carey's 'Emotions'.
The Blackout: the number one most important band in my life, even though they split up six months ago and broke my heart. I saw them live 50 times over the course of 6 or 7 years and had the best time of my life following them around. My favourite album is 2009's The Best In Town, the one that really sold me on the band, but their final EP Wolves is also amazing and so is more or less everything else that they did. Beyoncé: I almost put Britney Spears here, but it's been about 10 years since Britney put out anything good yet Beyoncé just keeps getting better. I always liked 'Crazy In Love' but my favourite songs of hers are '***Flawless' and 'Partition', both from her 2013 self-titled album. I love to see huge artists championing feminism and sexuality, and Beyoncé definitely has some of the responsibility for the recent upsurge in women being able to tell the world that they feel good about themselves, which I hope never ends.
The Cure: They recorded so many goth classics that there's a Cure song to fit any occasion and I'm glad that I bought their Greatest Hits CD as a teen. My favourites are 'Lullaby', 'Close To Me' and 'Just Like Heaven', and I hope that I'll get to see them play live before they get too old to tour. Cocteau Twins: I discovered this Scottish group a year ago and although I only really know a couple of their songs I find them mesmerising. Their singer performs in an invented language (long before Sigur Ros did the same) and they make the most beautiful soundscapes that make me feel like I've left Earth and gone to somewhere much more magical - listen to the song 'Donimo' from their Treasure album if you don't believe me.
Dear Boy: Dear Boy are a fairly new band who haven't put a full album out yet, but their self-titled EP is absolutely perfect. They have an 80s post-punk vibe crossed with the beauty of Death Cab For Cutie, and their song 'Funeral Wave' is the inspiration behind my blog's name. I listen to the EP every time I'm on my way home from a trip and I'm looking forward to having an album to add to the ritual. Die Antwoord: I hated this group when I first heard them, but then I found their voices stuck in my head and quickly grew to love them. I've probably listened to Die Antwoord more than any other artist over the last year and they sound like nothing I've ever heard before. Their music is a mixture of rap and dance, performed in English and Afrikaans, with an aesthetic which mixes South African street culture with hip-hop parody to create something unique and impossible to look away from. The female half of the group, Yo-Landi, shines most on 'Cookie Thumper' and 'Rich Bitch', but her freaky style also makes her a Tumblr icon.
Elvis Presley: It's probably cliché to include Elvis but he put out so many great songs that I have to include him as my favourite E artist. I go through phases where I listen to more 50s and 60s music than anything else and I always make sure to seek out a couple more Elvis hits every time I'm in that mood. Music aside, there's so much mythology around the life and afterlife of the star that he makes for fascinating study. Etta James: Etta is another artist from my 50s and 60s playlist and one who I don't have much to say about, other than that her voice on classics like 'At Last', 'Stormy Weather' and 'I Just Wanna Make Love To You' is incredible.
From First To Last: This is one of the bands I was most into during my teen emo phase (which hasn't really ended). I think their album Dear Diary My Teen Angst Has A Bodycount is a classic of the genre and I still keep up with them despite the fact that they've never really been able to top it. They're most well-known now for being the band that Sonny 'Skrillex' Moore rose to fame in, but songs like 'Note To Self' are endlessly quotable and I still love to hear them. Fleetwood Mac: My mum liked this band and their album Rumours when she was young and I have to agree, it's a classic. A lot of their other material is hit or miss but I have to recommend that album to anyone who hasn't already heard it. Speaking purely of the female aspect to the band, I don't think I have to mention how iconic Stevie Nicks is.
Glassjaw: I almost put Green Day in here because they were so, so important to me growing up, but recently I've been really into Glassjaw so I wanted to talk about them for a change. They're the band I turn to when I'm angry or upset because Daryl Palumbo articulates his rage perfectly (even if his lyrics are really misogynistic). I bought both their albums recently and I'm only just getting to know their back catalogue but I have to recommend 'Lovebites and Razorlines', 'Ape Dos Mil', 'Cosmopolitan Bloodloss' and 'Motel of the White Locust', which are the songs I play on repeat the most often. Gwen Stefani: I prefer No Doubt to Gwen's solo material but my N section is already spoken for.I love how diverse her back catalogue is, from feminist anthems like 'Just A Girl' to feel-good dance songs like 'Hey Baby' and the ridiculous 'Hollaback Girl', which I really hated at first and now love.
Head Automatica: This might be a cheat after including Glassjaw since they have the same singer but Head Automatica are the band I liked first when they put out 'Beating Heart Baby'. Recently I've obsessed with their song 'Laughing At You' but I think most of all I'm just in love with Daryl Palumbo's incredible voice. Hole: I grew up loving Celebrity Skin but more recently I've been delving into Live Through This a bit more and I really enjoy the whole concept of Hole. I also really love the Meadham-Kirchhoff couture collections which often take Courtney Love as their muse.
INXS: Currently one of 2 I artists on my iPod but still great, I avoided INXS as a kid because my dad was into them but then when I became obsessed with the movie The Lost Boys I ended up listening to the 2 songs that the band contributed to the soundtrack all the time. My favourite of their songs though is their most well-known, the super sexy 'Need You Tonight'. Iggy Azalea: I know it's not cool to like Iggy Azalea but there's no denying that 'Fancy' is an amazing song, plus she made a great contribution to the Ariana Grande song I mentioned earlier.
Jay-Z: I used to avoid rap music when I was growing up goth but somewhere around the start of the decade I realised that some of the music in the charts, like 'On To The Next One' by Jay-Z, was actually pretty great. I don't know much of his output but I love 'No Church In The Wild' and the classic that is '99 Problems'. Janet Jackson: Despite her being one of the most successful artists of the 80s I don't know that many of Janet's songs and I really need to listen to her some more, because the songs that I do know are excellent. My favourite is 'Scream' which she made with her brother Michael, but I also love her iconic solo hits 'Control', 'Nasty' and 'Rhythm Nation'.
Kanye West: I've started collecting Kanye's albums over the last few months and getting to know his music as well as his media persona, which is also fascinating. He has too many great songs for me to recommend all of the ones I love but if I had to pick favourites I'd include 'Bound 2', 'Everything I Am' and 'Can't Tell Me Nothing'. Kate Bush: Totally different from Kanye West and almost everything else, I adore Kate Bush. Her sound and approach is so innovative and her albums and music videos are like works of art. I have different favourite songs of hers every few months but one mainstay is a beautiful b-side called 'Under The Ivy'.
Lostprophets: It's frowned upon to admit to liking Lostprophets these days knowing what kind of criminal behaviour their singer indulged in, but their early albums, especially Start Something, are too good to be ignored. If you can separate the music from the singer I'd recommend that album anytime, particularly the 10 minute closer, 'Sway', which is still one of my all-time favourite songs that I can never skip if it comes on. Lana Del Rey: Lana is almost definitely my favourite discovery of the last couple of years. I adore everything she puts out and everything she doesn't put out that finds its way onto the Internet anyway. Her whole Old Hollywood aesthetic, particularly visible in the videos she put out for her album Born To Die, is captivating and I could listen to her sing all day long.
My Chemical Romance: MCR are one of the bands who were with me as I was growing up and although they're no longer with us I have fond memories surrounding them.Their breakthrough hits like 'I'm Not Okay (I Promise)' and 'Welcome To The Black Parade' were always played at the rock club I frequented as a young teen, their Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge black-and-red style was the template for my vampire-goth aesthetic in 2005, and towards the end of their time as a band I got to see them both at the start and finish of their run promoting their Danger Days album. Their music is a big nostalgia trip for me. Mindless Self Indulgence: I first saw this band supporting My Chemical Romance in 2007 and I was hooked from that point. They were unlike anything I'd ever seen or heard before, combining hard rock with electronic beats, hip-hop vocals and day-glo outfits, and I spent much of 2008 obsessing over them. They're an on-off band now who tour sporadically, but I saw them last in 2013 and finally met the whole band, and I almost cried when I got to hug Lyn-Z.
I love to spend time curled up with a good book and try to find time to read, whether on long train journeys, outside on sunny days, or before I go to sleep. I often pick up cheap books second-hand and frequent the library which means that I acquire books faster than I'm able to read them, so I have a huge list that I'm yet to finish or even open, but before I start writing about those I want to share a few of the books that I've loved.
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar is one of those essential feminist books, read by TV smart girls like Rory Gilmore and Daria, that I'm glad I checked out of the University library. It's the only novel written by Sylvia Plath, telling the autobiographical story of a girl who spends a summer working at a magazine in New York and then struggles with her mental health upon her return home, ending up in a mental institution following a suicide attempt. Plath's poetry is great but The Bell Jar is her true masterpiece, giving voice to all the concerns that plague young women in quotes such as this:
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
The Bell Jar truly is a must-read book and one that I find myself picking up again and again. For anyone who has already read it, I'd recommend delving into the journals and letters that Plath wrote in 1953, the period of her life that the book covers, for a version of events that hasn't been fictionalised - I found it fascinating to read how much of the story was fact.
Carrie, Stephen King I chose to read this book as my personal study novel in English class at school, which meant that I read it over and over for a few months and picked it apart, but I still came away thinking it was a great book. It follows a misfit teen with an overly religious mother who doesn't equip Carrie with the knowledge she needs to survive her adolescence, and as a result she's bullied horribly by her peers. However, they don't bargain on Carrie having telekinetic powers which she uses to get back at those who have wronged her. There are a lot of bad guys in this book, and they meet a satisfyingly bloody end. I'm not a big sci-fi or horror reader so this is the only one of King's books that I've read but it strikes the perfect balance for me between teen girl story and weird stuff.
How To Be A Woman, Caitlin Moran I've been interested in feminism for a long time and I picked up a signed copy (dedicated to a woman called Johanna) of this book in a charity shop not long before I finished University. I was excited to read it, knowing that it was a well-received book and having seen the pilot of Caitlin and her sister Caz's show 'Raised By Wolves', but I didn't expect it to be as good as it is. I had to stop reading it on the train because it was so laugh-out-loud funny, and I was sad to be reaching the end. It covers pretty much every aspect of life as a woman in a hilarious and relatable way, I wish I'd had it in my life sooner. After reading it I devoured just about every other book, interview and TV show that she's put out and I think she's fabulous.
The Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins Having never read Harry Potter or Twilight I wasn't sure whether The Hunger Games was going to be right for me but after hearing my friends and the wider world raving about it I decided to give it a try when I came across a copy right as I was looking for a book to take on a trip. Once I started reading I didn't want to stop; the book has so many cliffhangers that I needed to know what was going to happen to Katniss next. I thought Catching Fire was also great but wasn't a fan of Mockingjay, although after enjoying the movie version I think I'll have to read it again. I doubt there's anyone left to recommend The Hunger Games to but I was surprised by how quickly it became one of my favourites. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
I picked up this book in a charity shop in August 2014 because I was familiar with the title (there's a Motion City Soundtrack song with the same name) and it sounded interesting, and I read it at the end of the year. It tells the before and after stories of a model who is badly disfigured in a car accident, losing her boyfriend and model friend Evie and gaining instead the fabulous Brandi Alexander. The book follows a non-linear narrative, flashing back and forward like the flash of a camera, and every few chapters reveals another twist which connects the story in a way I never expected. Often when I read on transport I have to stop after a couple of chapters but I was glued to this book and had to find out what the whole story was. It's not as well-known as Palahniuk's Fight Club but it's a great novel which has made me want to read more of his work.
The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky Having seen this book quoted and referenced endlessly online it was at the top of my reading list when I finally got a copy in 2012, and I rushed to get it read before the movie left the cinemas. I was won over almost straight away with its references to The Smiths and its charming characters. I've read it a couple of times, although not for a while, and it gets better each time. I also love the movie version, in fact it's probably the best adaptation I can think of, but the book is still king for me.
The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides If you've seen the movie adaptation of this book you'll be familiar with this tragic story, but the movie, though beautiful, isn't nearly as good as the book is. The story is of five strange teenage sisters who commit suicide, as told by the local boys who were mystified by them. The prose conjures up the same hazy glow as Sofia Coppola's screen version but doesn't focus quite as much on Lux (Kirsten Dunst's character) and is so filled with beautiful imagery that I just wanted to go and live inside that world for a while, no matter how sad I knew the ending was going to be.
I've read the following since I started this challenge:
93. Visit five tourist spots in Edinburgh
