There must be more to life than having everything!

— Maurice Sendak, 1928-2012

First week of spring

I remember a year, maybe two ago the original version of this song was a staple in my playlists. It is so obviously incredible and catchy my body would just automatically dance to it or do some weird shoulder-slash-head squiggle of some sort if I’m seated. It’s effectively hypnotizing my brain would kinda enter a light trance when it’s playing through the headphones. The thought of finding a better rendition of the track didn’t really cross my mind since it was already perfect as it is. But this appeasing version by Birdy breathes new life into this piece (in accommodation with a brilliantly heartbreaking video by Nez) with such a different, inverse take from the original. It quiets you down but the effect is all the same.

All This and Heaven Too - Florence + the Machine

Thursday afternoon

I imagined my death in a hundred different ways, but the funeral was always the same: from somewhere in my imagination, out rolled a red carpet. Because after every secret death I died, my greatness was always discovered.

— Leopold Gursky, “The History of Love”

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. May your coming year be a wonderful thing, in which you dream both dangerously and outrageously. I hope you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), I hope that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind. And I hope that somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

— Neil Gaiman, “A New Year’s Benediction”

Set You Free (N-Trance Cover) - Frightened Rabbit