Sanctuary: A Playlist (And Some Chatting About Music)

I’ve never done a play-list before. Well, not officially anyway. I can, however, talk about music almost as long as I can listen to it (which, by the way, is forever), so let’s get this show on the road.

This began when I went looking for John Druitt vids and discovered, to my complete surprise, that no one had made a vid to “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones. This made me think that I was listening to the lyrics wrong, so I went back and listened to it a few (billion) times, and no: it’s definitely John. So I filed it away for later. I found, quite accidentally, the London Symphony Orchestra version, and the idea of cross-time musical association was born.

(Where the string version makes sense to them THEN and the worded version makes sense for them NOW. Ish. There’s some crossover. Nikola’s always been a modern boy at heart, and James is entirely opposite.)

Then I got on a James kick, and decided it would be funny if Declan were to trick him into liking crazy modern songs by playing him the Vitamin String Quartet versions of them, in the hopes that he’d hum them around Ashley and then get embarrassed (the Avril Lavigne covers are actually pretty good, and the Lady Gaga ones are already legendary). Also, I wrote most of the Porn Battle to the VSQ version of “Shook Me All Night Long”, because it’s just funny.

Anyway, that went nowhere, but I was quite addicted to the Vitamin String Quartet by that point, so I decided that I had John and James nearly done and I should find songs for the others. Of course “Shook Me All Night Long” really doesn’t work for James at all, but I figured it couldn’t be that hard.

Famous last words.

Here we are nearly two months later with the end result of eight songs for the Four (because I just couldn’t do Nigel), and a few bonus tracks, because I am a sucker for a bad pun, and because I learned a lot about Helen in between starting and stopping this.

( Apparently, I can't even talk about music without making it meta. )

Believe it or not, that was actually the short version. Comment at your own peril. :)

Link to Playlist (zipped): http://www.megaupload.com/?d=417S92Y0

Sanctuary: A Playlist (And Some Chatting About Music)

I’ve never done a play-list before. Well, not officially anyway. I can, however, talk about music almost as long as I can listen to it (which, by the way, is forever), so let’s get this show on the road.

This began when I went looking for John Druitt vids and discovered, to my complete surprise, that no one had made a vid to “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones. This made me think that I was listening to the lyrics wrong, so I went back and listened to it a few (billion) times, and no: it’s definitely John. So I filed it away for later. I found, quite accidentally, the London Symphony Orchestra version, and the idea of cross-time musical association was born.

(Where the string version makes sense to them THEN and the worded version makes sense for them NOW. Ish. There’s some crossover. Nikola’s always been a modern boy at heart, and James is entirely opposite.)

Then I got on a James kick, and decided it would be funny if Declan were to trick him into liking crazy modern songs by playing him the Vitamin String Quartet versions of them, in the hopes that he’d hum them around Ashley and then get embarrassed (the Avril Lavigne covers are actually pretty good, and the Lady Gaga ones are already legendary). Also, I wrote most of the Porn Battle to the VSQ version of “Shook Me All Night Long”, because it’s just funny.

Anyway, that went nowhere, but I was quite addicted to the Vitamin String Quartet by that point, so I decided that I had John and James nearly done and I should find songs for the others. Of course “Shook Me All Night Long” really doesn’t work for James at all, but I figured it couldn’t be that hard.

Famous last words.

Here we are nearly two months later with the end result of eight songs for the Four (because I just couldn’t do Nigel), and a few bonus tracks, because I am a sucker for a bad pun, and because I learned a lot about Helen in between starting and stopping this.

( Apparently, I can't even talk about music without making it meta. )

Believe it or not, that was actually the short version. Comment at your own peril. :)

Link to Playlist (zipped): http://www.megaupload.com/?d=417S92Y0

Fic: Background Reading (Sanctuary)

AN: You know what I didn’t do for this ficlet? Research. Which is uncharacteristic, and I’m sorry. I’m invoking the Nikola Tesla “History Only When It’s Convenient” clause. Written for the sfa_history battle prompt Will Zimmerman, FBI Admission Requirements.

Spoilers: Up to the end of season one.

Disclaimer: Not mine, though it would be nice…

Rating: Teen

Characters: Will Zimmerman, The Five

Summary: Someone has done their homework. Will’s just not entirely sure who.

( Background Reading )

Gravity_Not_Included, March 11, 2011

Fic: Background Reading (Sanctuary)

AN: You know what I didn’t do for this ficlet? Research. Which is uncharacteristic, and I’m sorry. I’m invoking the Nikola Tesla “History Only When It’s Convenient” clause. Written for the sfa_history battle prompt Will Zimmerman, FBI Admission Requirements.

Spoilers: Up to the end of season one.

Disclaimer: Not mine, though it would be nice…

Rating: Teen

Characters: Will Zimmerman, The Five

Summary: Someone has done their homework. Will’s just not entirely sure who.

( Background Reading )

Gravity_Not_Included, March 11, 2011

Book #7: Stealing Fire, by jo_graham

Funny Thing About Getting A Degree In Near Eastern Archaeology: A lot of the time, they skip Alexander the Great.

I'm not even kidding. He's one of the most influential people in history, and he's a footnote in my degree. I still remember it (because my friend Elizabeth was REALLY ANNOYED), when our Greek class ended with a two hour lecture on Phillip on account of the prof running out of time, and our Hellenistic and Roman Palestine course literally began with the prof saying "After the death of Alexander the Great..." I'm also pretty sure we ran out of time in Egyptian Art and Archaeology too, and got so bogged down in the Hittites that we didn't get anywhere close when we did Mesopotamia. In my last year (I think, it might have been the year after I left...) there was a class about Alexander the Great. Either way, I didn't take it.

So my knowledge of Alexander the Great is not exactly encyclopedic. And, honestly, sometimes I find his legacy very frustrating (see previous re: healthy disdain for the Greeks). But regardless of my personal feelings towards Greek architecture and statuary, I have do admit that Alexander had a wonderful sense of the cosmopolitan, which makes him about a hundred times more likeable than your average Greek.

Also, he had a tendency to name things after his horse, and the bonus mark I got for knowing the horse's name meant that I got 100% in my grade eleven Ancient History class, which was worth $150 and eternal bragging rights of having scored better than perfect on everything all year long (thank you, Mr. Yates!).

But enough about me! Let's talk about the book:

You guys, I don't even know where to START.

Because it would be easy to start at the beginning, except the beginning was three books ago, and two of them take place after this one, so that doesn't really work.

( Cut for unabashed gushing )

Even though I think I actually still like Black Ships the best, I am going to go ahead and give this one a 10 out of 10, because it was REALLY WELL WRITTEN, and since I feel like I've now read this book four times*, that's saying something, and because it had a happy ending, and we all know how I feel about those.


*in that that's how this world works, not that Graham is recycling plots willy-nilly. It's an "All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again" kind of thing. And I adore it.

++++

And because I can't resist, Alexander is also the subject of my favourite mosaic (well, sort of. He's on the left and mostly destroyed, but still). I love it because the centre of the piece is a horse's behind (which must have been on purpose, but I think is also something that would have just KILLED the artist afterwards), and because at least one of the horses has five legs, but also because the largest tessera is thumbnail sized. There is a gleam in Alexander's eye, f-list. There are a MILLION AND A HALF PIECES, f-list. And some dude in Pompeii WALKED on this thing.

Book #7: Stealing Fire, by jo_graham

Funny Thing About Getting A Degree In Near Eastern Archaeology: A lot of the time, they skip Alexander the Great.

I'm not even kidding. He's one of the most influential people in history, and he's a footnote in my degree. I still remember it (because my friend Elizabeth was REALLY ANNOYED), when our Greek class ended with a two hour lecture on Phillip on account of the prof running out of time, and our Hellenistic and Roman Palestine course literally began with the prof saying "After the death of Alexander the Great..." I'm also pretty sure we ran out of time in Egyptian Art and Archaeology too, and got so bogged down in the Hittites that we didn't get anywhere close when we did Mesopotamia. In my last year (I think, it might have been the year after I left...) there was a class about Alexander the Great. Either way, I didn't take it.

So my knowledge of Alexander the Great is not exactly encyclopedic. And, honestly, sometimes I find his legacy very frustrating (see previous re: healthy disdain for the Greeks). But regardless of my personal feelings towards Greek architecture and statuary, I have do admit that Alexander had a wonderful sense of the cosmopolitan, which makes him about a hundred times more likeable than your average Greek.

Also, he had a tendency to name things after his horse, and the bonus mark I got for knowing the horse's name meant that I got 100% in my grade eleven Ancient History class, which was worth $150 and eternal bragging rights of having scored better than perfect on everything all year long (thank you, Mr. Yates!).

But enough about me! Let's talk about the book:

You guys, I don't even know where to START.

Because it would be easy to start at the beginning, except the beginning was three books ago, and two of them take place after this one, so that doesn't really work.

( Cut for unabashed gushing )

Even though I think I actually still like Black Ships the best, I am going to go ahead and give this one a 10 out of 10, because it was REALLY WELL WRITTEN, and since I feel like I've now read this book four times*, that's saying something, and because it had a happy ending, and we all know how I feel about those.


*in that that's how this world works, not that Graham is recycling plots willy-nilly. It's an "All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again" kind of thing. And I adore it.

++++

And because I can't resist, Alexander is also the subject of my favourite mosaic (well, sort of. He's on the left and mostly destroyed, but still). I love it because the centre of the piece is a horse's behind (which must have been on purpose, but I think is also something that would have just KILLED the artist afterwards), and because at least one of the horses has five legs, but also because the largest tessera is thumbnail sized. There is a gleam in Alexander's eye, f-list. There are a MILLION AND A HALF PIECES, f-list. And some dude in Pompeii WALKED on this thing.