Here is Keith Olbermann, in possibly his strongest Special Comment to date, confronting Bush’s rumoured and doomed about-to-be policy of escalation in Iraq. Olbermann says that America has sacrificed more than enough to Bush‘s policies, and now he’s asking it to sacrifice only for his ego. Definitely a no-holds-barred statement, and much food for thought.
Again, as always, the video and the transcript are from Crooks and Liars. I only post on YouTube so that I can put it in the blog, but they, and of course Olbermann, get all the credit. It’s incomplete right now; as soon as they’ve got the whole thing, I’ll post it. In any case, it works well enough as posted.
Talk about hardcore! James Brown, the legendary entertainer, addict, and hardest-working man in show business, has been dead for three days and he’s still touring. Not only is he Doin’ it to Death, he’s Doin’ it In Spite of Death. Lying in state at the James Brown arena in Augusta, Georgia (playing to a capacity crowd), touring New York City by horsedrawn carriage, or receiving the adoration of thousands at the historic Apollo Theatre in Harlem, Brown hasn’t been this popular since he was pulling stickups back in Augusta. And thanks to Defamer for the news that there’s a … er … um … livecam outside the theatre.
…by 1962 Brown was breaking box office records in major black venues throughout the US with a whirlwind revue of his own creation that synthesised all of his roots into a shockingly unique new persona. Live at the Apollo, the resulting LP recorded at the top New York venue, smashed him into the face of white recognition.
What followed did not go according to anybody’s plan. Brown formed his own independent company, Fair Deal Productions, and rebuilt his band into a sizeable orchestra with the intention of crossing the tracks at Tuxedo Junction. The prevailing social climate in the US, Brown‘s responses to the situation, and the fact that his new recruits were mostly restless young jazzers, sparked them all off into uncharted territory. It was Out of Sight, Papa Got a Brand New Bag. A Man’s World bathed in Cold Sweat. He Said it Loud, was Black and Proud and danced the Popcorn. In a New Day it was Funky Now. He was Super Bad, a Sex Machine with Soul Power. He had his Thang and Papa Didn’t Take No Mess, he demanded Payback. This litany of just a few of his more familiar titles does little justice to the underlying tour de force, involving three effectively different bands over 10 years, that changed the direction of black American music.
By 1975, James Brown was showing the first signs of insecurity since the 1950s. In the charts he was being outflanked by many of the younger acts he had inspired, he was on shaky ground with his record company, Polydor (a dispassionate international corporation, unlike the seat-of-the-pants operation with which he had grown strong), some of his leading musicians left him, and the Internal Revenue Service was on his case.
It was then that he apparently began smoking something rather more confusing than the occasional menthol…
To say the least. But, like Frosty the Snowman‘s very special hat, there must have been some magic or at the very least, preservatives, in the toxic miasma in which Brown marinaded his lungs, for when he keeled over from his penultimate heart attack, he didn’t cease to bop around. He hosted a Christmas toy giveaway the day the day he was admitted to the hospital, and has appeared before tens of thousands of people in the days since.
She’d hate this to be tied to classic didacticism, but she’d hate being dead, too, so I’m going to go ahead and take this opportunity to remind people to get themselves checked out when they get sick. Sure, you may think the doctor will assume you’re a wuss, but better that he see you every fall and think you’re a wuss than he not see you this year and never get the chance to again. You can’t tell when it’s potentially fatal pneumonia or pleurisy or whatever…he can.
The Advent Calendar is frozen on December 7, and serves as a poignant memorial to a woman who was more interested in what magic she could bring to or bring out in other people than in herself.
whose sense of humour is so much like mine that I should probably be hitting them up for some copywriting work, rather than just helping their seasonal video go viral like this.
Ladies and gentlemen, when I found this from Christies auction house on Defamer I think my brain orgasmed itself to death in a gruesome orgy of fatalistic and absurd self-abuse. Behold Britney Spears‘s junior highschool paper on Sophocles‘ immortal Antigone, foremost among the ancient Greek tragedies and possibly the greatest play ever written.
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Fellow comparative literature major, sister, mine own dear sister, knowest thou what ill there is, of all bequeathed by Alhazred, that Celebrity fulfils not for us while we live? Nothing painful is there, nothing fraught with ruin, no shame, no dishonour, that I have not seen in thy woes and mine.
And now what new edict is this of which they tell, that our Britneyhath just published to all y’all? Knowest thou aught? Hast thou heard? Or is it hidden from thee that our pride and dignity are threatened with the doom of our scorned, culturally illiterate foes?
ISMENE
No email of friends, raincoaster, gladsome or painful, hath come to me, since we two sisters were bereft of our degrees, expelled in one day by twofold blow; and since in this last night the blog host hath crashed, know no more, whether my fortune be brighter, or more grievous.
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I knew it well, and therefore sought to bring thee beyond the nosy receptionist, that thou mightest hear alone.
ISMENE
What is it? ‘Tis plain that thou art brooding on some dark tidings.
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Britney Spears got 88%, y’all.
Estimate
500 – 700 U.S. dollars
Lot Description
Britney Spears
A page taken from Britney Spears’ junior high school notebook containing her handwritten review of Rex Warner’s translation of Sophocles’ story Antigone, written in black ballpoint pen on either side of the page, Britney’s review annotated by her teacher with corrections to her spelling and comments including …Nice cover Organized Watch your spelling… and Write more neatly and her grade: 88; and a corresponding piece of yellow card decorated with the book’s title Antigone in black felt pen — 12x9in. (30.5×20.8cm.) (2)
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