Mixing It Up: Love Me Tender

The last batch of songs was bouncy and happy love songs. Let’s see how we do slowing things down. If I ditch boy bands and pop princesses and most of the iTunes bestsellers, here’s what you get.

One and Only – ADELE

Ordinary – Wayne Brady

I Will Follow You into the Dark – Death Cab for Cutie

Straight to You – Josh Groban

Beautiful with You - Halestorm

Falling Slowly – Glen Hansard

All This Time - OneRepublic

Remind Me (feat. Carrie Underwood) – Brad Paisley

The Only Exception – Paramore

Lego House – Ed Sheeran

I Dare You – SHeDAISY

Who Are You When I’m Not Looking – Blake Shelton

Everything Has Changed (feat. Ed Sheeran) – Taylor Swift

I Will Stay – We Are the Fallen

When She’s On – Chris Young

Alternates:

Love Is War – American Young

All That You Are – Goo Goo Dolls

You and Me - Lifehouse

Eclipse (All Yours) - Metric

Yes, I ended up including some big hits but they are some of my favorite love songs ever. I used to roll my eyes at love songs. Having a functional relationship has lessened this somewhat. If the song is well written and has good music, I’m all about it. If it’s lyrical drivel about love I’m still rolling my eyes. A jaguar can only change so many spots.

Mixing It Up: Fluffy Stuff

Since I’m in dire need of funds, I’m doing mix CDs again for Christmas. I thought I’d practice my mixing chops with some inspiration from recent events. A remarkable number of people have gone from single to paired off or upgraded their relationship status (relationship to engaged, engaged to married). I truly wonder if there’s something in the air or water but I have enough unattached friends that I’m not too scared yet.

The first mix is of up-tempo love songs but a little different from your standard collection. I omitted most of your major pop players or songs/bands that get on ‘wedding inspiration’ CDs a lot. I did keep a few personal favorite chart toppers but I aimed for variety.

Special – Better than Ezra

Safe and Sound – Capital City

Tie It Up – Kelly Clarkson

You’ve Got the Love – Florence + the Machine

I Would Do Anything For You – Foster the People

Stay Here Forever – Jewel

Stop Pretending – Vicci Martinez

Something I Need – OneRepublic

True Love (feat. Lily Rose Cooper) – P!nk

Still Into You – Paramore

So Obvious – Runner Runner

Over – Blake Shelton

Some Kind of Wonderful – Joss Stone

Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not? – Thompson Square

Extreme – Valora

Some of the alternate tracks I was toying with:

If I Lost Myself Tonight – OneRepublic

Super Duper Love – Joss Stone

I Choose U – Timeflies

Leave Love Alone – Carrie Underwood

This Love – The Veronicas

The Blake Shelton track is a little slower than the rest but Honey Bee got a lot of radio play. The order was alphabetical. If I was going to make this CD, I’d mess around so the sounds blended together well.

A Study in White

Most people know me as a former English major but I also majored in American Culture Studies. It’s relatively young in the academic community but I think it’s great. American Studies is about the society around us. My tracks were American Literature and Sociology. My curiosity about what drives our popular culture might explain my intense curiosity about weddings.

The bridal industry is a billion dollar industry and it is omnipresent. I get engagement ring and bridal show ads on Facebook. I got a card mailed to my home about a bridal show in September. I know of 3 wedding websites and, as much as I adore Boy Toy, I currently have no interest in marrying him. (Off Beat Bride, The Knot, and Wedding Wire if you were wondering.)

I think I know the reason for this massive outreach. A friend who works for Wedding Wire says they have a name for women like us: pre-engaged. The industry sees us as inevitable clients and is marketing to us that way. It’s working. Girls who are completely single have Pinterest boards about their wedding.

A modest wedding will run you $10,000. Most weddings are closer to $20,000-$30,000. A friend attended a nice but simple wedding and described it as “unimpressive” and “not that special.” When did a day of celebration turn into an occasion to impress your friends and family for the cost of an SUV?

And oh, the reality television. There’s Say Yes to the Dress, Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta, Say Yes to the Dress: Bridesmaids, I Found the Gown, Bridezillas, Four Weddings, A Wedding Story, Bridalplasty, My Fair Wedding, Whose Wedding Is It Anyway, My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding, My Big Redneck Wedding, Rich Bride Poor Bride, and Amazing Wedding Cakes. 

These are all shows based in the United States with WE and TLC being the biggest perpetrators. A Wedding Story, the most understated of the shows, debuted in the mid 1990s. Everything else debuted after 2000. There was a show on TLC about planning a wedding in a week for $1,000 but that died off while I was still in college.

Did you know there’s an engagement ring finder app? I do because it was an ad on my Facebook. If you go to the Lifestyles section of the app store, there’s a Plan Your Wedding Collection of apps. It’s organized into subsections: Inspiration, Details & Organization, Gowns & Tuxedos, Notes & Invitations, Rings & Things, Gifts & Registries, Photos & Videos, and Destination & Travel. Each category displays 10 apps before you can ‘see all.’ Many of these are free and I understand the need to fill a niche market but that’s a minimum of 80 apps on the first page. Imagine what apps aren’t featured but are still out there.

Articles have started popping up about people who got married and realized something strange is going on. Only a handful of books are available that look at not how to plan ‘the most important day of your life’ but at the impact these extravagant events are having on our culture. Why aren’t more people thinking about much this has ballooned over the last 20 years?

I knew grad students in American Studies whose PhD topics were Buffy the Vampire Slayer chat rooms and near death experiences. One undergrad senior paper topic was about authenticity in pop music with a focus on Hanson. A study on why and how wedding culture has ballooned into such a massive entity would be pretty interesting. It’s definitely a topic that deserves more exploration. It almost makes me want to go to grad school. Almost.

Music: Tie It Up by Kelly Clarkson

Home Sweet Own Book 29

For Otherworldly Creature I read the anthology Those Who Fight Monsters. Each is a supernatural detective story of sorts. Some are real detectives and others are just trying to solve a mystery. All have “specialized knowledge and the courage to use it.”

It’s mostly urban fantasy so the world building starts with the world as we know it and adds to it rather than starting from scratch. I usually only read a few stories at a time but it made going from one world to the other faster and easier. The fact that they all had the same theme made it less demanding than the Steampunk anthology.

My favorites were The Spirit of the Thing, Defining Shadows, Impossible Love, Hell Bound, Under the Hill and Far Away, See Me, and Deal Breaker. I might not look up some of the larger series where these come from but I didn’t dislike any of the other stories. It was a very good and entertaining collection.

1) Fiction – A Once Crowded Sky by Tom King

2) Nonfiction – The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett

3) Sci-Fi – Redshirts by John Scalzi

4) Fantasy – The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde

5) Mystery – Book of Lies by Brad Meltzer

6) Horror – Call of the Jersey Devil by Aurelio Voltaire

7) Memoir/Biography – Data, A Love Story by Amy Webb

8) Chick Lit – Me and Mr. Darcy by Alexandra Potter

9) Feminist – Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan

10) Teen – What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen

11) Holiday

12) Essays – What Was I Thinking? ed. by Barbara Davilman & Liz Dubelman

13) Short Stories – Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman

14) Library

15) Animal

16) Book about Books – Judging a Book By Its Lover by Lauren Leto

17) New – Pitch Perfect by Mickey Rapkin

18) Old – Dark and Stormy Knights edited by P. N. Elrod

19) Pop Science – Why Men Fake It by Abraham Morgentaler, MD

20) Near

21) Far

22) Graphic Novel – Love and Capes: Do You Want to Know a Secret? by Thomas F. Zahler

23) Reread – Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

24) Wild Card

25) Otherworldly Creature – Those Who Fight Monsters edited by Justin Gustianis

26) Free – Point Your Face at This by Demetri Martin

27) Noteworthy

28) Bestseller – How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

29) Themed Anthology – Red edited by Kris Goldsmith

30) Steampunk – The Immersion Book of Steampunk edited by Gareth Jones and Carmelo Rafala

31) Movie-Book

32) Media – Doctor Who: Touched By an Angel by Jonathan Morris

33) Travel – Love with a Chance of Drowning by Torre DeRoche

34) Food

35) Classic – Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

36) Humor – Sleep Talkin’ Man by Karen Slavick-Lennar

37) Poetry

38) Past – Stasiland by Anna Funde

39) Future

40) Dystopia/Post-Apocalyptic

41) Zombie

42) Sports – Red Rising by Ted Starkey

Music: No Easy Way by The Doubleclicks