Everyone needs to listen to:

Andre Bluteau http://www.myspace.com/andremartinbluteau

Emma-Lee http://emma-lee.com/ and;

Peter Katz http://www.peterkatz.com/

They will make you happy. I guarantee it.

Ok, so maybe I’m still on a bit of a concert high, but still…

I went to their show at the Cube Gallery last night, as part of the Blackbox Concert Series, and it blew me away. First of all, the space was incredible. It’s a tiny gallery, and there were probably around 60 people there (although I could be quite wrong about this…I’m terrible at judging crowds) but that was a sold out crowd, so it gives you an idea of the space.

There were paintings and other artwork everywhere, so, as Peter Katz put it, there was “inspiration literally plastered on the walls.” It was so intimate, and the musicians were obviously used to performing in similar spaces, because they were just so at ease and having a great time doing their thing, and the crowd was so into it…it was perfect.

Ok, I’m going to attempt to stop gushing and actually talk about the performances. Some gushing may ensue, but I’ll try to keep it to a minimum.

Andre Bluteau:

I could listen to his voice for hours. It’s so raw and gravelly in the best way possible.

So unique.

You could tell that the whole crowd was captured from the first note he sang. He just got up on stage and did his thing and it was wonderful to watch. He also had a great moment of self-consciousness when it came time to plug his album, which was completely endearing in itself.

Emma-Lee:

Another surprising voice, but in a different way.

Emma-Lee took the stage, and she was confident but fairly soft spoken. But then she started singing. She has this beautiful, effortless voice that reminded me of Ingrid Michaelson in the way that she progressed through the songs and jumped octaves, and rolled between notes so easily. But also not (like Ingrid), at the same time. It’s hard to describe (and this is why I’m not a music writer…).

Suffice it to say that I was completely floored by her. Her song writing is brilliant and her performance gave me goose bumps. So amazing.

Peter Katz:

I love Peter Katz.

From the second I heard him perform during music week in Toronto I have been so in love with everything he does.

He says that he likes to have at least one song per show where he is really “in the space”. This means that he steps away from the microphone and steps off the stage and just fills the room with his voice and his guitar and his amazing music and I love it.

When the show was technically over, Peter and Emma-Lee decided to play one last song in the lobby of the gallery because they thought it had great acoustics. So the entire crowd piled out of the gallery and into the lobby and just milled around listening to them play unplugged.

Ok, ya, gushing. But I can’t help it. You had to have been there to understand the mood in the room after the show. Everyone was so happy, and just excited to have been there.

I don’t know what it is, but amazing music in a small venue is some sort of magical combination that puts me on a high for days.

New Years resolutions!

Every year, I have a general idea of things that I want to achieve over the coming year. And since I live my life through lists, I usually even write them down.

This year, I am going a step further and sharing them with the internet! Maybe some somewhat public scrutiny will inspire me to actually achieve these things.

So here are my resolutions for 2011:

Be less contrary
I love to argue, and I have a tendency to play devil’s advocate a lot. I don’t do this with everyone, but I definitely do it a lot with certain people. One of those people is my boy, who is currently trying to complete a very stressful master’s degree. As such, he has pointed out to me that sometimes it would be nice for me to not challenge everything he says. I think this is more than fair enough, and I plan to work on it.

Learn a new skill
Obviously, I want to learn more than just one new thing this year. But I really want to learn an entirely new skill.

The reasoning behind this is that for the past five years, I’ve been in school—I was always learning how to do something new.

I don’t want that to stop now that I’m working full time. Especially given WHERE I’m working, I don’t want to stagnate and stop learning. And it would be all too easy for that to happen.

Get a new job
My goal, when I started working full-time in July was to last a year here. But once my year is up, I really want to find another job. I’m starting my search now, as we all know how very long it can take to find employment.

Go somewhere I’ve never been
Pretty self explanatory! I think Australia is the goal.

Read all of Neil Gaiman’s books and graphic novels
I love him and I love his style of writing. I always feel so excited and inspired after reading his work. But given that, I’ve only read a few of his books. This needs to be remedied.

Get fit
This is so overdone as a resolution, I know. But this is the first year that I’ve had an actual gym membership, and I am GOING to use it! This is also not an “I wanna lose 10 pounds!” resolution. I want to be healthy. I have not been feeling wonderful lately, and I want to work on my fitness so that I can actually have the energy to do everything I want to do.

Make a movie
A real one. With funding, and a budget and a cast and crew and everything.

This is what I want to do with my life. And I feel like if I don’t do it this year, it might never happen.

So this leaves me with no option.

Stop overbooking myself
I have a really bad habit of booking my time up to the last minute.

I hate that I do this.

I just have so many things that I want to do, but it tends to mean that I’m always running to be somewhere, always checking the clock to make sure I’m not late. And whenever I am with someone, I’m not really entirely present. I don’t want to be like that. I want to be able to be spontaneous and not have to worry about the five other places I should be that day.

Be happy with the way things are, at least a little bit.
I tend to complain a lot. But even though I’m not exactly where I want to be in life, things really are going quite well. I have a well paying job (even though it is anything but ideal), I see my friends more than I have in years, I have my own film company, and things with Boyfriend are going really well. I want to be able to trust that the things I am not happy with will get better. I know it will take a lot of hard work, but it can’t hurt to be happy in the interim, right?

Write! Really write.
This one is so important to me. I feel like I’ve gotten so far away from writing. And corporate communications really don’t count. I miss learning the way I did when I worked as a science writer. I miss talking to people who are doing what they love, and who honestly believe that they are helping people (which they usually are). Obviously, my overall goal is to write about science. But for now, any writing is better than nothing.

Overall, I must say that I have pretty high hopes for 2011.