I've no idea where I ran across this, but when I read it, it amused me:
"If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?"
-- Tim Poggioli (I believe this is the correct person.)
Miley Cyrus is huge. If you pay any sort of attention to mainstream media there's no escaping her. She's all over the place right now. I'm over twice her age and don't follow her, and I know who she is.
Apparently Miley, daughter of country music star(?) Billy Ray Cyrus, just shot a spread for Vanity Fair, and one of the photos featured is causing quite a controversy. Said photo, by famed photographer Annie Leibowitz, shows Cyrus glancing into the camera, her bare back showing and her body only covered by a blanket.
The controversy bubbled-up because Cyrus is merely 15-years-old, and some are questioning whether this is "art," or simply a young girl being taken advantage of. This spread comes on the heels of "questionable" (I use this term loosely; what others consider questionable, I typically do not) photos of Miley that have appeared on the Internet.
As with situations such as this I tend to keep my personal opinion out of it; however, I am a fairly liberal person...and not a parent...so my feelings on the matter might differ from many others.
Here's the photo from Vanity Fair:
French.
Electronica.
Strange.
Madonna producer.
Victoria's Secret.
All of these words or terms can be associated with today's featured artist & video. It is noneother than Mirwais. His music is definitely unique; so much so that Madonna recruited him to head the production on her albums "Music" and "American Life."
Mirwais's sound is most certainly electronica-driven, and very much European. I purchased his CD "Production", immediately after first hearing "Music," and one of my favorite tracks on the album is "Naive Song," the video for which is displayed below. While one of the most "mainstream" on the album, "Naive Song" is catch and easy to bop your head to.
Enjoy!
I just heard a great quote on a reality television show:
"I'm the jam! I don't understand why anyone wouldn't want to butter their bread with me."
Dear blog:
I've been thinking about you quite a bit lately. Actually, you and me and how we've been working together. I love you very much, and enjoy spending time with you, but don't feel we're as close as we can be.
I like writing about pop culture, social media, and life in general, but most of the time I don't feel like we really talk about things that are very significant or make a difference in people's lives. And this--ultimately--is what I want and expect from our relationship.
So through this post, I urge the both of us to ponder what direction we want to take moving forward, and be open and communicative with one another. Of course, our readers play an important part in this, so if they have any thoughts or opinions on this matter...we must listen to them.
Thank you for hearing my cry, blog, and I look forward to our growing relationship.
Love,
Social Citizen
Last week I started a series titled "10 Things," and I kicked it off with "10 Things I Love." When thinking about the topic for this week's, I thought it only appropriate to counter the "love" post by things, well...I don't love. But I don't believe in the word hate, to I present to you "10 Things I Loathe."
10 Things I Loathe:
1. Lying. This is really at the top of the list. I have very little tolerance for lying of any kind. This also falls into the same group with stealing, cheating and hatred; they seem to all have their root in the same soil.
2. Hypocrisy. Very, very close to lying, in terms of its place on the list. I can't stand hypocrites. If you are one, don't come near me.
3. Humidity. Rather ironic since I live in Central Florida, and humidity plagues us during the summer.
4. When people use their signal in a turn-only lane. I have no idea why this bugs me but it always has. I mean, if it's a turn-only lane and you're in it, it's pretty much a given that you're turning. You don't really need to signal!
5. Really bad reality television. Of course this is subjective, but for me it's programming like pretty much anything you can find on VH-1 ("Rock of Love with Bret Michaels", "I Love New York") or MTV ("A Shot at Love", "The Real World: Hollywood")
6. Spiders. Shivers. The creeps. Get them away from me.
7. Angelina Jolie. Sure, she's a good actress, but every time I see her on TV she seems more "I'm a humanitarian and so much better than you," and I don't need this Hollywood lifestyle attitude. I don't know, I just do buy it.
8. Mustard/mayonnaise. Have never, never, never liked either one of these. One of my aunt's always use to try to sneak mayo on my ham sandwiches when I was a child. Not a wise decision to do to someone who loathes mayonnaise.
9. Alarms/alarm clocks. Mornings are not my friend. In fact, I've often said nothing should begin before noon. I love to sleep, and anything that interrupts that is bound to end-up on my "loathe" list.
10. Close-mindedness. I don't really have any thoughts on this one. That's how much I loathe it.
Do any of these 10 points line-up with things you loathe? If so, I'd certainly be interested in hearing about it.
I'm intrigued by dreams. Particularly the spiritual and psychological interpretations they hold. So when it came time for today's "Found on Flickr" feature, I was led to do a search for dreams. Iknew immediately when I saw "Night dreams..." that I had my photo:
My friend over at RidetoRemedy.com recently started a series where she blogs the entire alphabet. Think "A is for..." and "B is for..." and so on. At first I'd told her that I was going to borrow her concept, which she was fine with. But then I decided to start my own series.
True, there are probably countless other bloggers who have the same series--which I suppose could be a rip-off of David Letterman's "Top 10"--but I don't personally know anyone so that's makes me feel fine about it. Plus mine's not really a "top 10" list so much as 10 random things.
So I'm going to begin a weekly series called "10 Things." I'm not sure if I'm going to post on the same day every week, or just post randomly. Guess you'll have to check back to find out. To kick off "10 Things," here are 10 things I'm fond of:
"10 Things I'm Fond Of"
1. Coffee in the morning. Loads of it, with lots of cream and sugar. "Make it blonde," I say.
2. Clouds. Big, fluffy clouds on a sunny day. Sometimes I want to catapult myself into the sky, and bounce from one cloud to the next. But then I remember that's not physically possible.
3. Candy. And I mean candy. Not chocolate. Candy! Hard candy. Soft candy. Sweet candy. I love it all!
4. Sleeping. Particularly when it's not interrupted by the harsh reality of an alarm clock.
5. Vacations. Haven't had one in over two years, but I love 'em.
6. Music. I almost feel safe in saying this is the thing I love the most. Music makes me happy, and I enjoy all kinds.
7. Love. Love of any kind. Friends. Family. Lovers. Sharing a bond with another person is a great feeling. I'm glad to know that this feels like.
8. Laughter. Contageous laughter. From-the-gut-tears-coming-out-of-my-eyes laughter. There's nothing better.
9. The Internet. This is probably obvious given the company I work for, as well as the fact that I maintain two-and-a-half blogs (this one and Pulse of Central Florida, which I co-author with a good friend of mine). I just love how fast it changes, and am stimulated by the creativity of individuals who are coming up with new ideas.
10. Life. Sometimes it's bad. Most of the time it's great. But not matter the situation I am always happy to be alive, and consider myself blessed to have such an enjoyable existence.
I'm sure you have things you are very fond of. What are they? Do we share any?
You may not know her name. You probably don't even know her face. But I'm willing to bet you know her music...at least one of her songs, that is. While Feist has been fairly well-known in her native land of Canada, she's only recently broken-thru stateside within the past year. Yes, with that "iPod" song. It's called "1234" and no matter how you may feel about this particular song it's unarguably different than anything that's been played on American radio in the past few years. (I wrote a post on my MySpace blog a while back, featuring one of her other videos.)
Feist is unique. Feist is different. Feist is...well, talented. And Canada's Juno awards seem to think so as well. In fact, Feist was honored with five of the evening's awards last night in Toronto, including Pop Album of the Year and Artist of the Year. Not too shabby!
Here is the song she performed at the awards ceremony:
Recognize this historic painting? You should. It's the Mona Lisa. And it's probably regarded as one of the most beautiful, and most well-known paintings in history. But now, through the beauty (or however you view it) of technology, you have the power to make your own Mona Lisa. Well, sort of.... Unfortunately, though, yours won't live in the Louvre.
You can make this:
...look like this:
Let me start by stating I came across this topic when I was watching the news a couple of days ago. Apparently there is an interactive educational feature somewhere (and I apologize I can't say exactly where; I was doing a search for the story online, and that's how I came across this website). I will continue to do my search and when I stumble across it I'll post it here.
So on to making your own Mona Lisa. While somewhat disturbing, online users can now change the expression of this gorgeous painting. Simply click here or visit http://www.cite-sciences.fr/francais/ala_cite/expo/explora/image/mona/en.php# to create your own expressions.
So, do you think this is too weird? Abeit all in good fun, should historical artifacts like Leonard da Vinci's masterpiece even be messed with?
I've always been attracted to black & white photography. I think it's romantic, artistic, and expressive. So when I randomly stumbled upon this beautiful photo on Flickr, I knew it was the one I wanted to feature today.
