7-20-2025 MY FAVES: classical crossover

 books of the week

i'm continuing the twilight saga journey through edward's eyes in midnight sun. i continue to ask myself, is this trying to justify edward, to humanize him and have the reader sympathize with him?

not sure what team you're on, i just remember that during eclipse - a lot of emotions rose, and i think, since that book, i've been team jacob. nevertheless, the book is engaging, and poetic. 

music of the week

last week i shared with you paul schwartz, the composer i discovered while roaming through marc's. i was perplexed, i couldn't identify what kind of genre this kind of music would fall into? it's like a nokia commerical, modern meets classical... it reminded me of a croatian pianist - maksim mrvica - and in some ways, like 2cellos, a cello duo also from croatia. the mentioned artists blend classical elements, and even classical historical songs with modern beats. there's something so 2000s nostalgic and futuristic. kind of like moby's trip hop, but also not really that.

at first i tried just googling it, and the results gave me classical crossover as the response. think andrea boccelli, or even josh groban and il divo. but it wasn't really it. i then went on the website everynoise.com - a music genre map, that helps identify genres and those similar to it, that can be as niche and as broad as you need. i typed in paul schwartz - and the result gave me the genre bow pop - which is basically like vitamin string quartet, lindsay sterling, orchestra covers of pop songs. in the genre map, it provided lots of various soundtrack genres, but one genre that stood out was synthetic classical. 

here's some songs within the larger scope of classical stuff i really liked:

mountain king - maksim

gymnopedie no. 1 - erik satie, maksim

runaway (orchestral) - aurora

alberto balsalm - aphex twin

pulse width - aphex twin

movies of the week

sib just read the atonement by ian mcewan, so i got to rewatch the 2007 film with her, starring keira knightley, saoirse ronan, and james mcavoy. 

the film is as beautiful as it is tragic, and while i may loathe the character briony (saoirse ronan), the real villain of the story is actually paul marshall (benedict cumberbatch).

james mcavoy is forever hot. he was even cute as mr tumnus. 

sib was interested in cecilia's (keira knightley) iconic green dress and was wondering how impossible it could be to sew a replica. turns out it is actually a two piece, and was so delicate, there were multiple parts of it because the dress kept unraveling. it's a gorgeous bias-cut silk piece, and the inspiration comes from the 1920s chanel-style slinky dresses. it even has its own wikipedia page. the costume designer, jacqueline durran, was nominated for an oscar for best costume design.

on thursday night, sib, boyfriend and i went to the drive in theater to watch a double feature of dirty dancing and grease. sib and i spent the rest of the week looking for dancing lessons, to preserve the art of dance. more about this in my weekly entry, but think to yourselves, when was the last time you seriously danced?