Imogen Live

Just had to share this video of Imogen Heap performing live. Simply amazing.

Lift Me Up

All things hold in themselves both intentional and subjective meanings.
-

Ever since I first heard Moby’s Hotel album a couple years ago (has it seriously been that long!) one of my favorite songs has been Lift Me Up. Of course, this being a Moby song, the meaning of the song has always been rather vague to me. But it was fun! This weekend I finally took a few minutes to figure out the lyrics and the story behind the song. Taken from my own listening and readings on several websites, I present to you the full lyrics:

Plain talking (plain talking)
Will take us so far (take us so far)
In broken down cars (broken down cars)
Like strung out old stars (strung out old stars)

Plain talking (plain talking)
Served us so well (served us so well)
We traveled through hell (traveled through hell)
And oh how we fell (oh how we fell)

Lift me up!
Lift me up!
Higher now Ama!
(4x)

Plain talking (plain talking)
Is making us bold (making us bold)
So strung out and cold (strung out and cold)
I’m feeling so old(feeling so old)

Plain talking (plain talking)
Has ruined us now (has ruined us now)
Never know how (never know how)
Sweeter than thou (sweeter than thou)

Lift me up!
Lift me up!
Higher now Ama!
(4x)

(Various background vocalizations)

Lift me up!
Lift me up!
Oh la la lala!

And for your audio/visual enjoyment of this truly energetic song:

Now, that last bit of the chorus “higher now ama” confused me for years. For a while I figured that it might be “higher now onward” but that didn’t seem quite right. After a lot of digging I found a lengthy and meandering discussion of the song that included a link to Moby’s post on the topic.

It would seem that the whole song is supposed to be about politics and religion.

Now, I had taken it as being about a relationship that fell apart after someone said too much. Or someone feeling sad about honesty backfiring… but then all of the troubles being left behind in the exultation of some good music.

Now it seems that the song was written with the intention of discussing politicians who “talk plain” to get people to support them. Then there is that interesting little neologism: Ama.

I would refer you back to his post, but in summary: “Ama” is a drastically over-thought word that Moby invented for the song to refer to God in an obscure manner.

Hmmm.

Well, be it about politicians or friends or life in general, I still like the song.

-Otto

The Lure of Silly Sci-Fi

I spent much of last summer watching Andromeda. A friend gave me his collection and I could not resist watching one episode after another. Since my job as Handicraft Director had very clear beginning and ending times, I would slip into my room and watch a few episodes while other friends were working in their areas, or while everyone was playing the 10,000th round of Super Smash Brothers (in my circle of friends, I only bother playing against a couple of people, since the others are masters of the smash).

Now I find myself a little low on sci-fi to watch while I plan lessons.

I have seen all of Andromeda. All of SG-1. Netflix is currently out of stock in Farscape season 1 and they can’t deliver Stargate: Atlantis discs fast enough. My Firefly discs sit on the shelf… I love that show too much to watch it much more, because I don’t want to kill it. (I have seen every episode at least three times, many of them 5 or more).

The last couple weeks I have found myself re-watching especially good episodes of SG-1 and tentatively restarting Andromeda. the problem with this is that I have been watching SG-1 off and on for about four years, and have already seen every episode. As much as I love that show, absorbing 10 years of episodes in only 4 years (most of them in the last year) approaches the SG saturation point. And Andromeda is a problem because as fun as it can be, the series suffered from a woefully inconsistent level of quality, not to mention at least two major identity crises.

Enough. Time to get back to work.
-Otto

Jem Music Videos

Just posted a review of Jem’s Finally Woken album and I found some music videos on last.FM.

Here’s the link to the page.

And here are a couple of my favorites.

Come on Closer

Just a Ride