Last.fm

This is a plug, by the author, to try to recruit more users and participants in my last.fm network. My last.fm profile is at http://last.fm/user/utsuprainfra. The trick is that you have to install the non-invasive, non-adware client that will gather the data which makes up your musical fingerprint.

My radio station is: http://www.last.fm/listen/user/utsuprainfra/personal

That's, for the most part except a few that snuck in, a library of my music as I would love to have played by a DJ just for me.

Please try it out. I find great music this way, and not really by their suggestion but through reviewing tracks and reading about the artists and their associations.

Music is a really amazing thing. So is last.fm. It's not a gimmick and it's ten times less annoying than facebook.

Netherlands

She was from France, actually. Sophie was born and lived her childhood in the beautiful Ardeche, where she first saw the world in shale and vines, terraces and tides of sky. Her father was growing grapes and they got by through the old vines' grace for Ardechois vin. Zoe was her mother, a dancer and the second wife of Patrice. There were old families who loved the Chambons and their perfectly beautiful daughter. Sophie was welcome to any of their houses for coffee and breakfast, to liven up the morning and to learn the old traditions and lore of the vigneron. The familes were old and other young girls, the grandchildren of the families of the terraced vineyards only came from the cities to visit on holidays. She tried to make them friends, but they were of a different class of children. They spoke differently and had different expectations.

Sophie was a gorgeous girl, and would be a perfect woman in time, but as she was so young and left to find her young wonders in the terraces and trails, the blueish shale and the azul sky she was just as much boyish as she was gorgeous. Her favorite game one summer was the flying of a kite that Monsieur Meursault had helped her build from waxy paper and thin strips of pine. She was fascinated with its architecture and how well she knew her cerf-volant would fly higher than the birds. Perhaps he could even touch the clouds if she had enough ligne. How proud would her father be if she caught a nice goose by placing a fishing hook from the kite and a nice bit for the bird to eat!

Those fancies floated away as soon as the kite took to the sky. She loved her kite, the sky, the wind and the sun. Her dress was clean and cotton and she felt the ease of youth. A wizened but beautiful fair woman watched from the nicest house at Mazel. Sophie looked at her kite, pulling on her winded string and making her small arms work to keep him. She was as happy and glad to be alive as one ever is. Something older than she, much more than her few years gave her to pray a loving prayer to god:

God, I love you. Thank you for this kite and the sky.
I feel good and happy and the sun is warm and light.
May everyone I've known and come to know be so
So happy and thankful to be alive and how they are.
If I can be an representative of your love to someone
That they love me no matter what, and I them, so
We can, freely together find closeness to you as
This kite which floats higher and closer dans l'ceil.

It was maybe her echoing sonnets and poetry, bible and love stories she had been given to read and been read to. Still, there was a purity and genuineness in it and the words she issued were from her soul, a golden heart and her only request to share love with some love the love of god. Rarely do those of us that observe a faith give such a wholehearted and sincere humble and personal prayer. Sophie was just a young girl, and still pure and so innocent.

She was well behaved and her précepteur spoke so much praise for her natural and eloquent progress in all fields of study. Zoe and Patrice were proud of her, and with the same humility that reflected so much grace in Sophie they kept the reports inside the family for it would be distasteful to brag to the others in the village.

To be continued...