2NE1

Hey guys, it's HALLOWEEN! Kewl. I am really not very excited because I don't have a real costume. But, if I could be anything for Halloween, I'd want to be CL from 2NE1. Seriously. I love this band. All I listened to while writing my really horrible Spanish Senior Sem paper last week was 2NE1. I love K-Pop! Okay, maybe I just love select K-Pop.

But, guys, these girls are so cute! Seriously. Jillian wrote about their song "Lollipop" but there are so many other gems on that album. So basically these 4 girls just make some of the cutest songs ever. They are upbeat and catchy and sometimes they have really intense lyrics that I can't actually understand until I watch videos with subtitles. Maybe I should start learning Korean.


All the girls in 2NE1 are super cute, but CL is definitely my favorite. When I first watched the video for "Lollipop" I thought Bom was my favorite because she always wear the cutesiest things but CL is so sassy. That's why I know I like CL best. She can also speak Japanese, Korean, French and English fluently! She is so cute but still super sassy and I wish I were her and not just for Halloween. Melissa really likes MinJi, and I can't deny how super precious she is. She's also only 15! I wish I had been in a cool girl group when I was 15! They all wear super precious things that only look super precious because they're the ones wearing them. Dara is the only person who could pull off that weird hairstyle from the "Lollipop" video, and only CL could wear a weird leotard paired with a vest and tights and look cool. Seriously though, yesterday, our friend Michelle taught us the word for cute in Korean and if I could remember what it was I would use it to describe 2NE1.


I really like all the songs on their mini-album. Plus, I wish I lived in Korea so that I could've bought the actual album because it comes in this really cool case. I've been listening to their songs over and over to see if I can choose favorites, but it is really hard. I originally wanted the album so that I could listen to "Lollipop" but after I got it, I realized that there are so many other good songs on it. "I Don't Care" has really upsetting lyrics, but it is such a good song. Plus, since I can't actually understand Korean, I don't have to pay attention to how sad they are all the time. "Fire" is SO good. Plus they do this really cute dance in the videos for the song. I also really like "Let's Go Party" but I guess my least favorite is "In the Club" It's just not as good. I'm still not sure how I feel about "Stay Together" but I'm gonna keep listening to it and figure it out.

Basically, this mini-album is really good and I can't wait until they release a full-length album next year. I know that I love twee and indie pop but lately I can't listen to it all the time because sometimes those songs are really cute but also really heartbreaking. So I just keep listening to 2NE1 because it is just catchy and I can think about how cute they are and don't have to deal with understanding how sad the lyrics are. That sounds kinda stupid, but it's not! Anyway, I have been at Haffner for way too long now. I think it's time to end this post and finally leave.

Love, María

Atole

I've been trying to finish up some posts but it's been really hard. Mostly, because ever since I started, all I wanna do is listen to Fantasía Pop or watch weird videos with Melissa. Now, Melissa is home for her sister's wedding and I am all alone. I've spent my time crying and writing letters to Korean popstars that sound something like: Dear Big Bang & 2NE1, Please come to the US. Come play a show near Philly so that I can charm you, become best friends with you/marry one of you... just kidding guys! I don't write letters like that! I just proofread the ones Melissa writes and make sure she uses at least 3 of the 10(?) Korean words we know.


ANYWAY, the weather hasn't been so nice lately. It's rainy and gross and I don't like it. Mostly because I don't own the right clothes/shoes for this weather and because I also no longer have an umbrella. I also don't like rain because I hate when it gets on my glasses. Life is hard. What I do like about the weather is that it's been getting a little colder. That makes me happy because I love cold weather! When it starts to get colder I always begin to crave things like soup and one of my favorite things ever: ATOLE.


I really just love Atole. It's basically this drink made from cornstarch and a bunch of good stuff. You can make different flavors on your own or just buy packages that you just add milk and sugar too. Now, I'm not gonna lie, I kinda love the Maizena Strawberry atole. It is totally not as good as homemade stuff but it's pink and I've loved it since I was teeny tiny and I can't help liking it. I even noticed that they changed the shade of pink this summer when I made it at home. Seriously, it's different. Other than that though, I have real favorites. One of them is my mother's guayaba atole. It is perfect. I am not joking, it is really that good. Everyone in my house loves it and this summer we kept asking her to make more. Sadly, my mom has other things to do besides make atole, so sometimes she'd say no. Once I tried to make it and it really just didn't turn out as delicious. Sad.


My other favorite kind of atole is champurrado. It is all cinnamon-y and chocolate-y and full of all this really great stuff. It's delicious. And it goes so well with tamales! I am sad that I haven't found a good place for tamales in Philadelphia. In Chicago, or in Mexico, there is always someone selling tamales and atole on the street, and that's usually the best champurrado ever. Seriously. Sipping champurrado from styrofoam cups and devouring warm tamales on the street is on my list of favorite things.

Some of my other favorite flavors are tamarindo and nuez. There are tons of flavors though and you can basically make atole out of anything you think might be good. I've also heard tons of really funny/cute Mexican proverbs with atole in them. Oh, atole, I miss you! Okay, now I am just sad that I don't have any atole or tamales. I am going to go back to reading my paper for the 900th time.

Love, María

Belanova

I had a really horrible day and I thought I was going to cry for 90% of it. BUT I made it to all my classes! And now I am sipping lemonade in my room and writing a blogpost, so that must mean things are looking up. Sometimes, I really just want to listen to Mexican pop music because it makes me feel better. Or it just makes me want to sing along. That's one of the reasons why I like Belanova. They aren't the best band ever or anything, but I really like them. I've wanted to write this post for a long time but I kept stopping. Now that I'm actually writing a post about them, I decided that I'll just write a post that's mostly about their last album, Fantasía Pop, or else this blog post would be way too long.

Belanova is a Mexican electropop group. I first started listening to them after I saw them on TV all the time. I remember one of their videos would play all the time when we were in SLP visiting my grandparents one year. At home, we only have cable so that we can get like 1000 channels in Spanish. This is mostly because without these channels we wouldn't get to watch Mexican soccer, and I don't know what would happen then. Because everyone in our house knows that there is no talking if the soccer game is on, it's sick. Anyway, because we get 1000 channels in Spanish and a lot of these are music channels, I sometimes watched them when I was getting ready. Belanova was on ALL THE TIME. So, it was pretty inevitable that I just continued to listen to them.

Fantasía Pop is so good because I can listen to it all the time and never get sick of it. It was released in 2007, and ever since then, it's been on my computer and I play it when I feel like listening to really good pop songs. The first song I ever heard by them isn't on this album, it's called "Por Ti" and I could dance to that song all the time. I have been listening to it all day and I am not sick of it. The girls next door probably are though.

My favorite song on Fantasía Pop is definitely "Vestida De Azul" it is just so perfect. Some people think it sounds like a Julieta Venegas song. Maybe, maybe not. Denisse's voice is just so cute and almost squeaky sometimes. It makes me happy. "Dulce Fantasía" is also really good, when she sings "sabes que me duele no encontrarte/sabes que es dificil que ya no estás" my heart kinda breaks. "Rockstar" is so electropoppy and has clapping and silliness. "Bye Bye" is what I listen to sometimes when I'm putting clothes away. It is all "my life is so hard!" but also really dancey. Also, all the lyrics in "Cada Que..." are perfect pop song lyrics like "y cada que pienso en ti/se enciende mi corazón/y nada es más triste que hoy/hablar de ti" how sad! I even like "Toma Mi Mano" which isn't upbeat but is still really good.

The video for "Baila Mi Corazón" is probably the best video they've ever done. It is just completely precious. I like it better than the video for "Por Ti" simply because look at all those pretty colors! Denisse is so cute! And everything looks like it's made out of paper, kewl. I just wish I was precious enough to wear those teeny tiny cutesy outfits. I just want to have a cute little band!

Now I'm sure that A LOT of people really hate Belanova. Sometimes people think they are annoying, or just not very good, well, I just don't agree. They are so precious that I can't not love them. They are silly and poppy and heartachey and cute. Okay, maybe a tad bit annoying, but that's not totally a bad thing. So if you don't like them, sucks for you. And if you just want to listen to some precious Spanish pop songs, go listen to them now!

Love, María

PS: I knew this blogpost was gonna be too long. Sorry, guys!

Andrew Bird w/ St. Vincent at the Electric Factory

On Sunday night, Maggie, Zanny, and I went to Andrew Bird's concert at the Electric Factory in Philly! It was pretty awesome. I have really wanted to go to another Andrew Bird concert ever since I saw him back in January/February (I can't remember which month it was, because it was either right at the end of January or the very beginning of February), and the fact that he is now touring with St. Vincent gave me a reason to go.


St. Vincent played all of the songs we wanted her to play ("Now, Now," "The Strangers," and "Actor Out of Work"), and obviously Andrew Bird was just as precious as he always is and did a lot of that adorable little head-shake/nod thing he does all the time. But probably the best part was when he brought St. Vincent and her band all back on stage and they played the most amazing version of "Scythian Empires," complete with flutes and clarinets and tons of adorableness.

I know I have a lot of friends who think that Andrew Bird is their perfect man and that they are going to marry him (at least four), but it was just really obvious that Andrew Bird and Annie Clark are totally in love. Before he had her come back out on stage to play "Scythian Empires," he made this little speech about how this has been the best tour ever because he gets to hang out and "jam" with Annie, and then for the encore, he brought out St. Vincent again, and they played "Marry Me" together while totally staring at each other. She may as well have changed the lyrics to "marry me, Andrew." So, sorry everyone. They are probably going to get married and have tons of super-skinny, musically gifted babies.

Love, Jillian

Food Porn Daily

Okay, I know what you are thinking, and that is that anything with "porn" in its name totally does not belong on Flower Farm. But, you are wrong. When Anisha first showed it to me, I wasn't sure if writing a post about this website was appropriate for Flower Farm because the food that is mostly involved falls into the non-precious food category (i.e. it does not involve pink frosting and sprinkles). Then I realized that 1) this website is too good to NOT write about it, and 2) there are totally pictures of tiny little desserts and cupcakes on the website, so it totally qualifies as adorable.

Red Velvet Cake w/ Cream Cheese Frosting

The website I am talking about is Food Porn Daily, and it is basically the most perfect website I have ever seen in my life. Every day, a new, giant, beautiful photograph of delicious food is posted. That's it. You can click on each picture to see the picture from the day before it, and other than submitting a photo of your own, that is all you can do. And why would you want to do anything else?! Their motto is "click, drool, repeat," and that is exactly what I did for at least an hour last night after coming back from the gym.

Because I have already been through every picture of every delicious dish on Food Porn Daily, I will share with you some of my favorites that I stole (yes, I save my favorite pictures on my computer, so what?).

Potato, Leek, Spinach & Bacon Soup

Moist Delicious Pumpkin Pie w/ Whipped Cream

Caprese Salad Skewers

Fried Green Tomato, Crimini, Mache, Poached Egg & Mustard-Basil Creme Fraiche

Aren't you so hungry now?! But aren't you also so glad that beautiful, delicious, perfect food like this exists?! I guess sometimes I forget that, because even though our dining halls are not too bad, they are nowhere near as wonderful as these things. Every time I look at this website, it only enhances my constant and intense cravings for things like corned beef, bacon, chorizo, and poached eggs. Apparently, I do not have enough protein in my diet. But Food Porn Daily will kind of help me out (or make me crazy) by reminding me of all the wonderful things I will be able to make in my adorable kitchen when I get an adorable apartment!

Love, Jillian

Big Bang Ice Cream Video

Normally, I wouldn't share any of the crazy Korean videos we are weirdly in love with. But, c'mon, this is full of really cute things like ice cream and pretty clothes. Plus, I might just not care because I'm really distracted by all the pretty pastel colors.



I don't think I need to say anything else.

Love, María

Jonathan Johansson

All I have been able to listen to lately is Swedish music. Something amazing/terrible happened to my brain when María, Melissa, and I went to see Asobi Seksu with Anna Ternheim and Loney, Dear at Johnny Brenda's on Saturday night, and ever since then I feel incomplete if there is not Swedish music in the background of my life. I am not even exaggerating, I stayed up until after three last night just because I didn't want to have to be asleep and not be able to consciously listen to Swedish music anymore.

I blame this on the fact that while we were trying to buy time at Honey's before going back out in the freezing rain to walk the ten-ish blocks to the show, I drank three full cups of coffee and caffeine does really weird things to me, especially when I haven't had it in a long time. But it is also due to the fact that Swedish pop is the sweetest, most perfect and precious and heartbreakingly adorable music to ever exist!


A really great example of this is Jonathan Johansson. For now, I've been able to listen to his album En hand i himlen for free, but I'm pretty sure that Last.fm only lets you listen to things for free so many times, and I've already listened to the album three times today. It is just so perfect that I can't stop! I think that this one review of some Swedish band I read put it perfectly when they said that the melodies and music in Swedish pop all fit together so perfectly, but the songs also sound so delicate that even if you only changed one note, you feel like the song would just break like a tiny little glass figurine.

Even though I can't understand anything he is saying, Jonathan Johansson's songs make me feel all sorts of warm and fuzzy and heartbreaking feelings! En hand i himlen even made me laugh when I first realized that "Alla vil ha hela världen" is definitely a cover of Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." "Sent för oss" is dance-y and perfect and even though the whole album makes me feel warm and fuzzy and cuddly and happy, "Innan vi faller" makes me feel that way even more. "Du sa" is just so perfect that I can't even put it into words.


In a way, I think that it is a good thing that I don't understand Swedish, because if the songs sound this precious and perfect to me now, I would probably just be completely debilitated by the adorableness of what he is actually saying, and I would probably never be able to leave my room again because I would be too busy not sleeping and listening to Jonathan Johansson all the time while crying because of all of the perfect, sad, precious, happy, adorable things it makes me think about. I guess that giant sentence just shows you how extra-insane caffeine makes me--I had coffee last night and again just now.

Love, Jillian

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Part II

Almost 2 weeks ago, I finally saw The Pains of Being Pure at Heart play a show. Before that though, they released their Higher Than The Stars EP. And if you follow any music blog, which actually I don't really, you'll see that they've been releasing stuff all over the place since their full-length album. Plus, even though I already wrote a pretty lengthy post about them, I figured it was worth it to write about this EP and their show.


Higher Than The Stars has four songs and a remix on it. I almost said "it's short and sweet" but that sounds stupid. Plus, like the Pains, it's not really as saccharine as a lot of the other stuff I listen to/write about. But I do really like the EP. The title track has such perfectly POBPAH lyrics and when Kip Berman sings "in the back of her mother's car" over and over I just wanna sing along. Both the title track and "Falling Over" are almost dreamy sounding tracks compared to other Pains stuff. I still really like them. But I really love the noisiness of "103" because I'm pretty sure the fuzzed out pop started my love for this band. "Twins" is sort of in between, noisier but maybe a little catchier. The Saint Etienne remix of "Higher Than The Stars" is a nice ending to the EP, but maybe that's just because I also love Saint Etienne. There's also another remix of this track which is not on this EP. That remix is done by Skanfrom (the guy from Television Set and Sleeparchive) and for a bit I thought I might like that better. I'm not really sure now.


Anyway, after listening to the Pains forever, and missing their shows all the time, I finally made it to one. I went with our friend Melissa, and we showed up way too early. Then we met up with our friend Maggie, who is actually in this Sociology class at Bryn Mawr about popular music. The show was, basically, uh, research, because Kip was going to her class the next day. The Depreciation Guild opened for the Pains, and I actually really like them, so it was nice. Then they finally came on and for a little I could only think of how precious Peggy Wang is. She seriously is, guys. Even moreso in person, when she's wearing my dream flower print 90s jumper dress. It was Kip's birthday and he was really precious about it. I liked their set, and even though one of the guys in front of me smelled like Smirnoff Ice, all was good. I love the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and I was just really glad to finally go to a show. They are just so good and so adorable! At the end Kip almost fell and almost poured a his drink on me. But c'mon guys, he's so precious that I just sort of shook my head.

According to Maggie, Kip was super precious in class. And he mentioned a bunch of my favorite bands, which I had just shared with Maggie at Burger Friday. At the show, Maggie's professor had mentioned that Kip Berman's mom was also coming to their class, saying something like "I've had rockstars come to class, but I've never had the mothers of rockstars come to class..." Well, apparently, it just made everything extra cute.

On the way back to Bryn Mawr, Melissa and I took some really ridiculous pictures. I really hate pictures, but the show put me in a good mood. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart don't always put me in a good mood, but I really just love them.

Love, María