Effervescent!

I honestly think that this is one of the most fascinating, beautiful websites that I've ever seen. It's put together by Jonathan Harris, the same guy who did this super cool interactive about Bhutan's Gross National Happiness.

Basically, I've got a bit of a crush.

Razbliuto?

Here is the link to the list of untranslatable words that I mentioned earlier. There are similar lists floating all over the web, but this one has some of the prettiest words I've seen. The "where to use it" explanations are a little annoying, but it's completely possible to ignore them and just bask in the fascination of the words.

Lazy Projector

A few more gems of lit. inspired songs...

"Doubleplusgood" from the Eurythmics album for a 1984 movie that never came to be:

The rest of the album is equally bizarre and annoying, but this song is especially ear worm-y. 

Also, the uploader comments on this particular video are worth a read.

A good song to listen to in preparation for this summer...

I was by the way, referencing the fact that The Hobbit movie comes out this summer. More power to you if you actually intend to have fantastic rambling adventures. 

How do you interpret the metaphors in this song? I think it's more than a bit odd to compare a girl to the Ring, which I see as being tacitly done here. 

Kate Bush's infamous Wuthering Heights:

At the senior talent show my junior year, three girls dressed up in absurd white dresses and reenacted this for us, cartwheels and all. It was nothing short of fantastic. If this video has convinced you that you are, in fact, madly in love with Kate Bush, I would highly recommend checking out the Babooshka video. 

How about you? Any favorite books-turned-movies-turned-songs (or similar constructions)?

Happy One Year!

Word of the Week:

matutinal 

/muh-toot-n-l, muh-tyoot-n-l/

adjective.

pertaining to or occurring in the morning; early in the day

Today was (more or less) the one year anniversary of Aural Aurora! Thank you for tuning in for whatever fraction of that you have. [The preceding sentence should receive a nomination for most awkward syntax ever. Sorry.]

Today, despite not playing the song, we kept things easy like Sunday morning, enjoying a variety of matutinal music. By the way, matutinal derives from Mater Matuta, an Italic goddess of the dawn. While  Matuta does not count among the lucky ladies, there are about 5 million dawn goddesses whose names all derive from the word/reconstruction Hausōs, the name given to the dawn goddess in Proto-Indo-European religion.

Not to be overdramatic, but the discovery of Proto-Indo-European religion kind of makes me reconsider my whole imaginarium of the ancient world. It shouldn't (I probably should have realized that something like it existed before), but it does. 

Many peoples came from the same source. The same place. Had the same culture. Wild. Revolutionary.

A sculpture of Mater Matuta; I'm not sure if she's holding babies or loaves of bread. 

An Atmospheric Aural Aurora

Word of the Week:

blustery

adjective form of bluster /bluhs-ter/

to roar and be tumultuous

to be loud, noisy, or swaggering; utterly loud empty menaces or protests

How tumultuous!

This is this is the sky above clouds:

This is lightning above clouds:

Both are really cool, but I only have a link for one. 

Next week, Aural Aurora goes to the moon! Leave your favorite lunar tunes in the comments, please!