Rylie Blogs Rarely ／ blog.ryliejamesthomas.net

I thought I’d start a draft and do this over a few days, but I puked it all out in one go.

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I don’t think any films really impressed me. I guess The Look of Silence got to me. Plenty of films were good, but that’s it. I watched a lot of cat docos.

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Music: I spent a lot of time in the first couple of months making a holiday playlist and then trying to get it into a proper order, so burnt out my tolerance for some of these songs, but I’m enjoying going through them again. Like 2023 some of these have become all-time faves.

Links go to Youtube.

• Notte Che Verrà by Loredana Bertè.
• Everywhere by Fleetwood Mac. This guy’s drumming is so daggy, the little fill he does at about 2:15 still makes me laugh. I think I listened to Seven Wonders a bunch too.
• 将冰山劈开 (Break The Iceberg) by Anita Mui. Still listen to this at night some times. I keep trying to find more Chinese music to listen to, but haven’t had much luck finding stuff I really like.
• Cruel Summer by Bananarama. I knew this one before, but I don’t think I’d heard it since whenever the last time was that I watched Karate Kid.
• Absolutely by Eurogliders. This is just sunshine sparkling on clear blue water.
• Looking for Clues by Robert Palmer. Good live version of a song I wasn’t that into before.
• Tonight by Tina Turner & David Bowie. Another one I didn’t like much when I heard it at first.
• Bring Me Closer and Don’t Talk To Me About Love, by Altered Images. Singer’s pouty baby voice bugged me at first, but these songs really grew on me.
• Swimming Mix by Hariyo. Started cleaning up some old bookmarks and rediscovered this music blog: Fond/Sound.
• ねらわれた少女 by Chiemi Manabe.
• Aimer D’Amour by Boule Noire.
• Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat. Somehow never paid attention to this one before. Got really intrigued by his delicate falsetto. Good head too.
• Tell It to My Heart by Taylor Dayne. GOAT.
• Saturday Love by Cherrelle & Alexander O’Neal.
• No Lies by Tina Arena.
• Who’s Your Boyfriend by Eric. Oh yeah, I went through lots of HiNRG stuff. 23/24 conspiring to get me to buy an old sampler. A lot of it has a great DIY kinda vitality to it.
• IOU by Freeez.
• Run To Me by Tracy Spencer.
• Mažytė by Soniclove. Listened to a bunch of Lithuanian songs like this: big techno beat, weedy singing.
• I Never Dance by Crysalis. Egregiously unrelatable.
• I Don’t Want To Talk About It by Pamala Stanley.
• 你就是你 (You Are Who You Are) by Kay Huang. This was meant to be my Spring playlist song, but I never made the playlist. I was really excited for some Spring/Summer last year.
• 水晶球 (Crystal Ball) by Kay Huang. I liked this song by her too.
• 影子，請我跳舞吧 by Li Ping Lan. This is about as far as I got with Chinese music. It’s been like 50 bland ballads for every fun song.
• Coffee by Waterfall Person.

Maybe this year I’ll listen to some music that’s not from the 80s~

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In the 2023 post I said ‘2024 is the year of perfume so far, look out.’ I tried a lot of things. I feel a lot clearer about what kinds of things I like, mostly citrus when it’s hot; sharp, smokey, mediciny things when it’s cold; pink and powdery and musk sticky when I’m alone. I never seem to like leather, vanilla, nor white florals, but I think I’ll be able to find something flowery I like eventually.

• Cedrat 37, Limette 37 and Bergamote 22 by Le Labo are my fave citrus smells so far, Bergamote especially I love (and I got a little bottle for Christmas). I miss the cheap bergamot soap from my hotel in Florence.
• Musk by Lorenzo Villoresi and Musc Ravageur by Frédéric Malle are two very pink perfumes I like a lot. Their vetiver ones are kinda similar to each other too. Powdered Veil by Miller Harris is my fave of these though, has a bitter rhubarb smell in there. I got a bottle cheap because it’s been discontinued :( I liked Divin’Enfant by Etat Libre d’Orange too.
• I got some samples from the Lorenzo Villoresi shop in Florence, and apart from Musk I really like Spezie (really nice cardamom smell), Vetiver (really vetivery and sharp), and Piper Nigrum (strong black pepper). The shop was so pretentious though—
• I tried a lot of boozey ones before Winter: 1270 and Bonne Chauffe by Frapin, Gris Charnel by BDK, Pardon by Nasomatto. I thought there were more—
• Really love Black Calamus by Carner Barcelona, smells like a medicine cabinet. Ended up ordering a bottle on sale. Still need to try more from them, some of the other black bottle sound good. Didn’t like the Fig Man one, have Salado and need to try it again.
• I tried lots of local ones, like ordered complete sample sets from every house that sounded interesting, but I think Wood Infusion by Goldfield and Banks was the only one I liked, and there were none I loved.
• Was looking for a good fig leaf perfume at the start of the year.

Going through all these samples I haven’t smelt in a while, smelling the bottles, getting me all excited.

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I always forget games. But I really liked Cape Hideous by Jake Clover. Otherwise I think I played Earth Defense Force 4.1 and Earth Defense Force 6 a lot. I was enjoying Yakuza 0, but it killed my computer’s motherboard somehow. I swear last time I got into a Yakuza game it fucked my computer too.

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I made a little tap/click-on-things game when I was away: Sea of Earth. But that’s it for me and games.

I’d wanted to make an album last year, but only ended up finishing one song, and that was made in a few days for someone else’s game. And it wasn’t even really complete, I wanted to make a longer edit but then my computer broke. Still, I’m feeling pretty comfortable with the process with the gear I have here, and made plenty of bits of songs. This year . . .