Ingrid Michaelson's Music: Love at First Sound

Ingrid Michaelson's music speaks the language of your soul.

Her songwriting is very poignant, practical and oh-so-soothing. I stumbled upon her music when I was browsing through Imeem's Sara Bareilles playlists. When Sara's songs were done, Imeem played Ingrid's "Morning Lullabies" and gosh, it was love at first sound.

Her amazing piano and songwriting prowess just makes you realize there could be no better songs to fit a melody, nor better melodies to fit a series of words. You'd think she has emerged from your thoughts and spoke of the feelings you dare not admit to yourself. Ingrid Michaelson's music is a sweet treat any time any day.

Some of her songs are featured on Grey's Anatomy.

AROUND YOU
"My feet don't touch the ground, when I'm around you, when I'm around you.."

MORNING LULLABIES
" i know you have to close your eyes on everyone, let me help you i'll sing you to sleep. i will sing you morning lullabies, you are beautiful and peaceful this way."

OVERBOARD
"I could write my name by the age of three
and I don't need anyone to cut my meat for me.
I'm a big girl now, see my big girl shoes.
It'll take more than just a breeze to make me

Fall over, fall over, fall overboard, overboard."

BREAKABLE
"Have you ever thought about what protects our hearts?
Just a cage of rib bones and other various parts.
So it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess.
And to stop the muscle that makes us confess."


Have a taste of her magic via http://www.imeem.com/people/VpWXOn/music/YDOrUk2x/ingrid-michaelson-morning-lullabies/ - this is my favorite Ingrid Michaelson song. :)

Hit me back for thank you's. ciao! :)

Disney Movies and Notions on Women

The female has always been submissive, the "weaker" one and the "rescued" one. This kind of mindset was forced to us as early as two years old. The culprit: those overly commercialized Disney movies.

Two years old. During this age, we were introduced to the idea of fairy tales. We built our basic sense of justice, fairness, goodness and conscience from fairy tales. Or local folklore. Fairy tales have been part of our lives. We will always cherish our favorite fairy tales and can tell them and retell them with a smile. Anyway, let's take a closer look at the following fairy tales. The following observations consistently show the woman as a visual feast, and the rescued sex.

Cinderella
She was abused by her stepmother and stepsisters BECAUSE HER DAD WASN'T THERE. She was, by the way, rescued by her prince.

Snow White
She had male dwarves to help her keep the house. She was also rescued by her prince. Duh.

Sleeping Beauty
She slept for a hundred years until her prince kissed her awake. Notice that she did not age while she was asleep. What if she aged and the “beauty” faded? Would the prince still love her?

Beauty and the Beast
In this case, the woman kind of rescued the prince from being a beast forever. However, I actually believe that she was only used by the prince so he can get his homo sapien-ness back. The Disney adaptation of Beauty and the Beast showed the furniture friends of the prince/beast talking about Beauty and how she could break the spell. These furniture friends even arranged the whole falling-in-love shebang just so the spell would be broken. Sure, it talked about love and living happily ever after. But only after the woman was USED. Love was just the by-product.
It's just the same pattern. Woman starts to feel very wretched, as all protagonists start out, and then men come to rescue them. The handsome princes come and they live “happily ever after”.
Another Disney movie pattern is the recurrence of overly celebrated beauty. All the protagonists are always beautiful, or overly pleasing to the eyes. It creates a mindset that only the beautiful women have a favorable place in this world and thus, they are the “protagonists”. Remember that Cinderella and Snow White were for their beauty, Belle was already tagged as “Beauty”. Even Mulan and Pocahontas were implicitly exposed as beautiful women because they have men fighting over them. This empowers the notion that women will always be “prizes” to win or damsels to rescue. Either way, the woman loses social value.

Last of the losing streak for women also includes women being portrayed as the villains in most of the Disney movies. It’s weaving a cloth of hatred for women among women. This is also reflected in a lot of chick flicks, which feature women who hate other women and try to bring each other down. This notion came from most Disney movie portrayals, where most of the villains are jealous mothers or ugly wart-filled witches.

Love or hate Disney, tell me what you think—live_out_loud@ymail.com.

what the bitch realized on a random day

1. When you're living on your salary, I mean, ACTUALLY LIVING on it, it's hard to splurge on make up. Especially make up.

2. Eventually, fondness will lead to routine and routine = need.

3. There is such a thing as an intelligent gambler. Statistics, anyone?

4. The loss of a long time job is more than heartbreaking. Like you won't care if all the whales and polar bears die right then and there.

5. Fidelity brings out the best in anyone. Fidelity in love, in your career, in your passion.

6. The job interview is one of the best battles you will ever fight in your life. You are with people whom you don't know and you don't care about. You are being nice to them and intimidating them at the same time (with your rapid-fire English or stellar resume). It's a roller coaster ride. Oh sure. In the end somebody's sure to puke. Haha.

7. I am so thankful somebody actually invented plain, dark denim jeans.

8. You should never squint or hunch your back again.

9. The standard three-meal day is overrated. (It's just wrong! Two big meals or four merienda-like ones do just perfect.)

10. If there's something that will never betray you, it's art.