5-4-2025 MY FAVES: heading east, delicious guitars, and travel shows

 music of the week

in honor of api heritage month, here are songs by and featuring asian and pacific artists that i love:

 

2gether - far east movement, roger sanchez, kanobby

la la la (acapella) - naughty boy, sam smith

atoul - zeyne

paper planes (dfa remix) - m.i.a., dfa

spring breakers - charli xcx, kesha 

after reviewing my old radiooooo likes, i discovered the song conscious of my conscience by womack & womack. the instrumental is so addicting, i realized i like a lot of songs with that and similar kind of guitar sound. i am instrumentally illiterate, and cannot play one instrument, nor have any knowledge of musical and instrument terms. i did compile a playlist of similar guitar(ish?) sounds that i thoroughly enjoy. i can't describe the sound other than it being rich like mousse - or tasty like umami. just indescribable. not sure if i have some kind of synesthesia (can one be diagnosed with it or do we self-diagnose?), but here's the playlist, simply called umami guitar. if you know what this sound would be described, let me know because i need to find more.

a similar thing happened a year ago when i had a slight obsession with the sound of a harpsichord in modern songs (think golden brown by the stranglers).

in other news, i went to a garage sale saturday morning and got the andrea true connection vinyl, to live my sex and the city daydreams, alongside another mediterranean ambience record.

books of the week

i've been slowly digesting unmask alice and it is dissecting the 70s mormonism and early mlm's - and just how brainwashing the war on drugs was, and the media frenzy - how damaging it can be to individuals. especially, surprise surprise, the marginalized individuals. 

i like how the author does a really good job of taking every angle and influence into consideration. we are sent into this time machine, and we can visualize the environment clearly. the book is a slow burn, and that's what's making it good.

after going to a garage sale with boyfriend saturday morning, i simply couldn't resist the quarterly book sale at the local library. i barely fit all in my tote, but i got some it girl books (a gossip girl spinoff on jenny humphrey's days in a boarding school), an hp lovecraft books, a bunch of various fashion books (some with a heavy jackie o theme), and twelve years of a slave. i think i'm set for quite some time.

movies of the week

i've been watching occasional and random anthony bourdain episodes and guess what!? pluto has both parts unknown and no reservations on demand - for free! 

boyfriend recommended a youtube docu-series a la bourdain that he has been enjoying: scam city. connor woodman is the british host, and travels to big popular cities and gets scammed - on purpose, but then befriends some of the scammers, and they share their tricks. for now, i only watched the episode on rio de janeiro, and it presented the big picture - who the scammers are (usually the poor in favelas), why they do it (it is sometimes the best way to gain money for the family), and it unveils the larger hunchos, the money laundering masters that fund the distractions (the carnival).