Category Archives: YouTube

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Investing Elliot: Smoke and Mirrors – Gotye


Gotye aka Wouter “Wally” De Backer (born 21 May 1980) is not only a solo artist but a member of the Indie trio The Basics.  He was born in Belgium but now resides in Melbourne, Australia.  For the past 13 years Wally has been working his way in and around the scene in Melbourne, performing live and recording his music in his various (he moves a lot apparently) home studios.  His sound is quirky and surreal which is useful since that is certainly the feeling you get when you visit his website gotye.com.

He has won Arias for earlier recordings.  Arias are vicious awards, the Australian version of a Grammy but much pointier and more likely to do someone damage if you get drunk on awards night and leave it in a taxi by accident.  Rumor has it that they make good tent pegs.

Smoke and Mirrors is off the album ‘Mirrors‘. The same album that spawned the fabulous but slightly annoying, only because we heard it every day for at least a year, Somebody that I Used to Know which features that fabulous Kiwi vocalist, Kimbra.

That song earned Wally a real Grammy. Well, a couple really.  Okay, there were three. And that was just as well because some of his 12 Arias insert nicely upside down and are therefore a lot safer to be around. The others are being used to hold up his tent.

The graphics for Mirrors are based on an artwork that Wally’s father painted and left lying around the house.  Much nicer than the painting my father left lying around my house which is affectionately named Girl with Shovel.

I haven’t heard anything he might have recorded since Making Mirrors but I am sure he is working on it.  Tough act to follow though.

Smoke and Mirrors seemed like an apt metaphor for how Kate perceived the world.  I always imagined that she moved in similar circles to the Gray family and therefore it would be entirely feasible that she might have a few near misses with them at social events.  Some people think Kate is a bitch, but I think she is an over protective friend with perhaps a tainted view of the world in which she grew up.  Think of her as a female version of Christian without the NDA and kink.  As a reporter she would be just as capable of stalking – both carrying it out and justifying it to herself.  From this point of view, she probably understands Christian better than Ana does and therefore has every right not to trust him.

I am a victim of private girls’ schooling.  Not that all private girls’ schools are bad but if you don’t fit in, they are a hell of a place to grow up.  If Kate went to those schools then perhaps she learned not to trust people.  Especially the beautiful people. I always had the perception that if they weren’t going to be doctors or lawyers, then the girls I went to school with were in training for finding rich husbands with a short stop in interior design or publishing on the way to their destinations.

As a beautiful and extremely elusive personality, Christian Gray would have seemed suspicious to Kate.  She would have wondered why he wanted Ana, not because Ana wasn’t worth it but because she would see Christian as a man who would be looking for a trophy wife.  She also suspects that there is something slightly fake, if not downright sinister about him.  Like most people in her world.  Smoke and Mirrors reflects every question that she has about Christian’s rapid rise to the top of his game and the reclusive life that he lives.  She sees secrets everywhere, and she doesn’t trust him.


 

Smoke and Mirrors

Buy on Itunes

Buy Making Mirrors on Amazon.com

You’re a fraud and you know it
But it’s too good to throw it all away
Anyone would do the same
You’ve got ’em going
And you’re careful not to show it
Sometimes you even fool yourself a bit
It’s like magic
But it’s always been a smoke and mirrors game
Anyone would do the same

So now that you’ve arrived well you wonder
What is it that you’ve done to make the grade
And should you do the same?
(Is that too easy?)
Are you only trying to please them
(Will they see then?)
You’re desperate to deliver
Anything that could give you
A sense of reassurance
When you look in the mirror

Such highs and lows
You put on quite a show
All these highs and lows
And you’re never really sure
What you do it for
Well do you even want to know?
You put on quite a show

(Mother)
Are you watching?
Are you watching?
(Mother)
Are you watching?
(Mother)

You’re a fraud and you know it
And every night and day you take the stage
And it always entertains
You’re giving pleasure
And that’s admirable, you tell yourself
And so you’d gladly sell yourself
To others

(Mother)
Are you watching?
(Mother)
Are you watching?
(Mother)
Are you watching?
(Mother)
Are you watching?

Such highs and lows
You put on quite a show
All these highs and lows
And you’re never really sure
What you do it for
Well do you even want to know?
Yeah you put on quite a show

No copyright infringement is intended by printing the lyrics of this song or posting videos.  It is the intention of this writer to promote the original work of the composers and musicians and links to artist sites are provided where possible along with links to music purchasing sites.
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Making Mia Ch 21: Blood on the Dance Floor


My apologies for taking so long to update this story.  Hope you enjoy it.

Read Chapter 21 Blood on the Dance Floor here

“Oh. My. God. Will you look at that long tall drink of water.” Margot was staring out at the dance floor with her tongue hanging down to her knees and her nipples perked up like homing beacons. I wondered what the hell had her creaming her non-existent knickers when I turned and got a glimpse of the drink of water in question. Ethan was facing us while he did the bump and grind with a brunette hottie. I don’t know how he got back into the club without me noticing but sneaking around was the least of his worries right now. The bimbo with her hands on his ass had just hit the top of my shit list.

His eyes met mine, a warning not to move. This had better be fucking work-related or the bitch was going down. One of my hands was grazing the concealed dagger under my dress while the other gripped the hand gun in my purse. Then her hand wandered between his legs and I was off my seat before a coherent thought could land in my head.

“Hey, baby, you gonna join us?”

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Emerson, Lake and Palmer


ELP, according to that great font of knowledge Wikipedia, were most popularly known as a progressive rock supergroup in the 1970s. I can’t recall exactly what my first encounter was but it was most likely Fanfare for the Common Man which means that I didn’t jump on board until later in their career. I certainly recall that video inside the massive empty stadium with the three band members, Keith Emerson (keyboards), Greg Lake (guitar) and Carl Palmer (drums), rocking that massive symphonic rock sound and since music videos were not de rigeur in the 70s maybe it is that experience that sticks with me .

It was a bit of thing back then to moog up the classics and since I had grown up the daughter of a composer and spent my formative years as a classical ballet dancer, I was well versed with much of the music in its original form. Pictures at an Exhibition is a stand out in my memory. Listening to them live was amazing and I had a love of the darkness in Mussorgsky’s work.

I loved the industrial cover art by H R Giger to Brain Salad Surgery and Greg Lake’s voice in Jerusalem (yes, it is that Jerusalem) shook me to the core. We owned the original split front cover art, something that always intrigued me.

Trilogy is the album that I recall listening to the most though. Every track holds a gem of a memory of listening with my brothers. You would be hard pressed to keep us all focused in one room unless it was music or television.  However, Works is the one album I had to have in my collection if for no other reason than Greg Lake’s beautiful songs C’est La Vie and Closer to Believing.

From the Beginning is the inspiration for Elena’s back story. She is painted as the evil pedo-bitch of the Fifty Shades Trilogy and if that is all she was then the characterisation is true. In my thinking I wondered about the motivations for her to do what she did, especially if she had maintained her friendship with Grace Grey. Of course, she could just be evil and manipulative. That would be fine. I wanted to paint her more sympathetically. I saw her life and her decisions as a series of regrets that built and snowballed. Yes, she was successfully and had married well enough but what if there were parts of her life that she had no choice over. Things that forced her to make the best of the choices available. Things that haunted her.

Greg Lake’s opening guitar solo is haunting. Strings plucked in isolation and asynchronous harmony. The solo builds, like that snowball gaining momentum and then leads into the rhythm of the song. This is how Elena finds herself where she is.

There might have been things I missed, but don’t be unkind
It don’t mean I’m blind

Elena knows that she hasn’t made right or good choices. She asks us not to judge her unkindly. Yes, she knew but she didn’t always have a choice.

Perhaps there’s a thing or two I think of lying in bed
I shouldn’t have said

Maybe there were other choices. She shouldn’t have seduced Christian or any other young man (in the case of my stories both Carrick and Elliot have slept with her).

But, there it is

You see, it’s all clear

You were meant to be here from the beginning

She is fatalistic. There is nothing she could change. It was all preordained and she has to live with it. Ana thinks that the problems started for Christian with her seduction. Elena knows that her problems started a lot earlier than that and Christian was a necessary step along a particular path that she had no choice over.

Maybe I might have changed and not been so cruel
Not been such a fool

She has regrets about Christian. There were aspects of their relationship she could have done differently. She regrets that he thinks she never loved him.

Whatever was done is done – I just can’t recall
It doesn’t matter at all

Once more, she is resigned herself to where she is now. She can’t change the path and in the end what difference would it make.

Music & Lyrics by Greg Lake

No copyright intended by reprinting of these lyrics. They remain the property of the copyright holder.


Read Evaluating Elena here

Author Note: I deliberately chose to write this first chapter with no dialogue. It was a conscious decision but was not done to annoy the reader. Merely a narrative device at the whimsy of a writer who doesn’t know better!

Buy Emerson Lake & Palmer on Itunes in Australia

Buy Emerson Lake & Palmer on Itunes in US

Listen to Emerson Lake & Palmer on Spotify

Band website: http://www.emersonlakepalmer.com/

 

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Hingabe an Elliot: Kapitel 3: Totale Kontrolle


Kapitel 3: Totale Kontrolle

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Dedicándose a Elliot – Capítulo 9 & 10


¡Están a punto de presenciar una elevación en la temperatura!

Capítulo 9–Puramente Físico-

Capítulo 10 –Hasta Luego, Nena-

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Making Mia Chapter 19: Unchain My Heart


Read Chapter 19 here

One of the newcomers stands very still. There is so much tension in his body that he frightens me. I can feel the anger radiating off him in waves. His whole stance is making the other two look like rank amateurs. The other, my trainer’s assistant, crosses the floor and talks to my trainer. I can’t hear them and I can’t see them but I know that there is a meeting of minds going on. The other man holds all of my focus and I feel my pussy fairly flood with anticipation. God, I wish Ethan was here. I also wish that the angry man would step out of the shadows and into the light so I can see his eyes. I hear a door open and close behind me and the two other men are gone.