#the fifth book still launches a school-to-school tour

[scotianostra]

Happy 78th Birthday Billy Connolly.

The comedian and actor we know as The Big Yin was born on November 24th 1942 in Glasgow, into a poor and not altogether stable family; he left school at age 15 and served as (among other jobs) a shipyard worker, a paratrooper in the Territorial Army, and a welder, the latter including a stint building an oil rig in Nigeria. 

Shortly after his return, Connolly quit working and, supporting himself with the money he'd saved, concentrated on learning to play folk music on the banjo and guitar. He became a regular on the Glasgow folk scene, instantly recognizable with his wild hair and beard; he drifted in and out of several bands before forming the Humblebums with guitarist Tam Harvey in 1965. Gerry Rafferty (later of Stealers Wheel and "Baker Street" fame) joined sometime later, and the group built a following with their live performances, which spotlighted Connolly's humorous between-song bits. 

As Rafferty's songs became the Humblebums' primary musical focus, tensions among the members escalated; Harvey departed, and Connolly and Rafferty recorded two albums in 1969 and 1970 before disagreements over Connolly's concert comedy split them up in 1971.

Billy soon began performing around Scotland and northern England, concentrating more on comedy but still mixing occasional folk songs into his act. 1972 saw the release of his first album, Live, and also the debut of The Great Northern Welly Boot Show, a musical play Connolly co-authored with poet Tom Buchan based on his experiences in the shipyards of Glasgow. The show was a hit in Edinburgh and London, and Polydor signed Connolly to a recording contract. 

In 1974, his Solo Concert album sparked protests from the Christian community over a rowdy routine in which Connolly described the Last Supper as if it had taken place in Glasgow; all the publicity only helped his career, and he was quickly becoming one of Scotland's favourite entertainers. His 1974 follow-up album, Cop Yer Whack for This, became his biggest hit yet, going gold in the U.K., and his comic take on Tammy Wynette's "D.I.V.O.R.C.E." became a surprise number one hit single in 1975. That same year also saw Connolly put in star-making appearances on Michael Parkinson's chat show and at the London Palladium. He consolidated his success with a rigorous touring schedule over the next few years continuing to release comedy recordings on a regular basis into the '80s, the best known of which were In The Brownies and the theme to Supergran.

During the late '70s, Connolly had began taking on acting roles in television and film productions, and tried his hand at playwriting, with somewhat less success. His first marriage dissolved in 1981 amidst an affair with comedienne Pamela Stephenson (whom he would later marry in 1989, the same year he first shaved off his trademark shaggy beard).  Taking up residence in London with Stephenson, Connolly continued his comedy career while taking on more theatrical and television roles. Toward the late '80s, his appearances on American television became more frequent, which -- along with an unsold pilot for a Dead Poets Society series -- helped Connolly land a gig replacing Howard Hesseman on the high school honour-student comedy Head of the Class in 1990. 

His highest-profile American exposure was short-lived, however, as the series was cancelled after just one season; however, Connolly was back on American airwaves in early 1992, starring in the sitcom Billy. It too was cancelled after a short run,  after an appearance in the film Indecent Proposal, Connolly returned home, (though he still officially resided in the Hollywood Hills). 

In 1994, Billy hosted the acclaimed series World Tour of Scotland, which explored the flavour of contemporary Scottish culture. It proved so successful that Connolly hosted two further exploration-themed BBC series: 1995's A Scot in the Arctic, in which he spent a week on a remote northern Canadian island, and 1996's World Tour of Australia, lent a new respectability to Connolly 1997 Ssaw The Big Yin appear in the historical dramas Deacon Brodie  and  Mrs. Brown, the latter of which also featured Judi Dench and was released worldwide to much acclaim.

In 2012, Connolly provided the voice of King Fergus in Pixar's Scotland-set animated film Brave, alongside fellow Scottish actors Kelly Macdonald, Craig Ferguson, Robbie Coltrane, Emma Thompson, and Kevin McKidd. Connolly appeared as Wilf in Quartet, a 2012 British comedy-drama film based on the play Quartet by Ronald Harwood, directed by Dustin Hoffman.  In 2014, he appeared in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies as Dáin II Ironfoot, a great dwarf warrior and cousin of Thorin II Oakenshield. Sir Peter Jackson stated that "We could not think of a more fitting actor to play Dain Ironfoot, the staunchest and toughest of dwarves, than Billy Connolly, the Big Yin himself. With Billy stepping into this role, the cast of The Hobbit is now complete. We can't wait to see him on the battlefield."

In September 2013, Connolly underwent minor surgery for early-stage prostate cancer. The announcement also stated that he was being treated for the initial symptoms of Parkinson's disease.  Connolly had acknowledged earlier in 2013 that he had started to forget his lines during performances, adding later he was also finding it hard to remember how to play his banjo. 

On his 75th birthday Glasgow bestowed upon Billy three giant  murals to add to the many murals in the city.

In 2007 and again in 2010, he was voted the greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups. He once again topped the list on Channel 5's Greatest Stand-Up Comedians, broadcast on New Year's Eve 2013. Billy's last big screen role was in 2016 in Wild Oats, which had Hollywood Stars Shirley MacLaine, Demi Moore and Jessica Lange.

In recent years he has established himself as an artist. In 2020, he stated "My art is about revealing myself" as he unveiled the fifth release of his Born on a Rainy Day collection in London.

Billy was on our small screen last year in Great American Trail, wfollowed him as he replicated the route taken by Scottish immigrants who came to America in the early 18th century.  He also brought out a new book, called Tall Tales and Wee Stories, to launch it Billy's face was projected on to buildings in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

In November 2019, The Evening Times named Connolly as The Greatest Glaswegian as determined by a public poll.

Connolly is a patron of the National Association for Bikers with a Disability.  His first sculpture, which is inspired by his past as a welder, was released in March 2020. as seen in the pic, the sculpture shows God welding the world together

#Scotland #scottish #comedian #actor #writer #singersongwriter #birthday #national treasure

[spaceshipkat]

I was thinking, if AC0TAR had pub. as adult, back when sjm was still very popular & ToG was midway published & therefore popularity hadn’t died down yet. Do you think sjm would’ve gained a solid adult audience and then had much better footing for CCity? Sure, many of those readers would’ve been YA, just transferring over to adult for sjm but selling well via her YA readers might’ve opened a door to actual adult book readers. Blooms being $$$ hungry & sticking w/ YA then could be sjm undoing now.

i think ac0tar is what made sj///m popular, and they were still trying to make her popular in YA bc YA was a lucrative market at the time (now, it’s horribly oversaturated and therefore nigh-impossible to break out like sj///m did in 2015. 

anyway, as for your question...so hmm, according to the 2015 books on this list, i’m not sure if she’d have broken out the way she did in YA. she was up against Golden Son, Uprooted, The Fifth Season, and the Mime Order, so i don’t know if she’d been able to stand out. that said, this was the marketing plan: 

Blockbuster national advertising campaign

10-city national author tour

Exclusive reveals via major media 20-stop blog tour Major media outreach

Adult and YA blogger outreach Global online social media campaign, including the launch of a brand-new global "World of [sj///m]" tumblr 

Author videos available 

School & library promotion, including extensive giveaways and possible appearances

Preorder promotion

Digital chapter sampler available

which is not at all bad for the first book in a new series, so i suppose it is possible that she could’ve broken out. regardless, i still think it would have been very difficult to achieve success the likes of which she received in YA bc Adult has always been difficult to break into. 

#ask #anonymous #anti sjm #anti acotar

[phroyd]

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Her hair pokes out of the back of her sky blue helmet and flaps like a cape as she flies around in circles. Poised confidently on her skateboard — knees slightly bent, infectious smile engaged — she gains speed and fearlessly attacks the bowl. Sky Brown is not here to take it easy, and she doesn’t have time to wait behind the older, bigger skateboarders.

She’s 10 years old, about the size of two skateboards stacked end to end and has a big mission on tap.

“I want to go to the Olympics,” she says. “I want to be the youngest one out there and show the girls it doesn’t matter how big you are or how small you are. You can do anything.”

Sky is a member of Great Britain’s national team, hoping to be among the world’s best athletes who gather in Tokyo next summer when skateboarding makes its Olympic debut at the 2020 Games. No one who has seen her on a skateboard would dare rule her out. Her outsize talent and charisma have made her one of the most popular and intriguing skateboarders — even if she’s just now wrapping up fifth grade.

She has several sponsors, a giant social media following and several viral videos to her credit. She’s a prodigy of sorts on a skateboard but also has made waves in surfing. Last year she even won “Dancing with the Stars: Juniors,” and she says there’s a purpose behind everything she does.

“If they watch me skate or do this trick, they’ll think maybe they can do it, too,” she says. “That’s why I want to do the Olympics — to inspire those kids who think they can’t do it."

Sky caused a stir when Great Britain put her on its national skateboarding team this spring, but she has since shown that she’s no novelty act. She took first in the U.K. national skateboarding championships in April. At last week’s Dew Tour stop in Long Beach, the first Olympic qualifier in the United States, Sky was the youngest skater in the field. She posted the highest score in the qualifying round of the park event and was third after the quarterfinals, though she failed to advance to the finals.

Sky commands attention whenever she’s on her board. She doesn’t generate the power of her competitors, who are often more than twice her age, but she can be every bit as aggressive, smiling almost the entire time.

“To be able to create the speed and get the height she’s getting with the weight she’s got — she’s like a feather — you almost think it’s impossible,” says Lucy Adams, the chair of Skateboard England and Skateboard GB.

From the beginning

Sky and her tight knit family — parents Stu and Mieko Brown and brother Ocean — split their time between Southern California and Japan, where Sky was born and first learned to skate.

“I started skateboarding when I was 3 or 4,” she explains, “but I’ve been playing with it since I was zero, kind of.

“It was always my favorite toy,” she continues. “I’d just always want to play with it.”

She would watch her dad and friends skate and then study YouTube videos. She wasn’t content to be simply balancing or slowly rolling. She hit the backyard ramp with her dad and was a natural, performing kick turns on the ramp and kick flips with her board.

Stu Brown uploaded some footage of 5-year-old Sky onto Facebook. The clip bounced around and soon amassed a few million views. Sponsors and event organizers started noticing. Invitations and opportunities started piling up.

She did her first local contest at 7 and the next year became the youngest girl to compete in the Vans U.S. Open Pro Series. The family is selective about what to take on and says it has had to turn down many opportunities.

The Browns spend at least half the year living in Miyazaki, a city in the southern part of Japan known for its surfing conditions but lacking in skate culture.

“I feel like I’m the only girl skating sometimes,” she says.

They often travel around to skateboard, and the family has been spending more and more time in Southern California. Stu says he and his wife are careful about putting too much on their children’s plates — 7-year-old Ocean also skates and surfs — and they want to make sure Sky remains a kid first, a skater second.

“She’s so self-motivated. We would never want to push her, but she’s the one pulling us in all these directions,” he says. “She just loves skating. How do you stop her from doing something she loves?”

A young Olympic dream

Sky met Adams, a British pro, in 2016 at a competition in the United Kingdom. The two struck up a friendship and stayed in touch. A few months later, skateboarding was formally added to the program for the 2020 Tokyo Games, and Adams later would take a position with the Great Britain national skateboarding team.

“I was like, ‘Skateboarding’s in the Olympics?’ ” Sky recalls. “Everyone was like, ‘You don’t know what the Olympics are?’ ”

As Sky learned more, she became increasingly excited. The Olympics offer a big platform, and she thought girls all around the globe might see her and want to pick up a skateboard. But she will be just 12 years old during the Tokyo Games, which her parents felt was too young. Maybe in 2024, they told her, when she will be 16.

“But I was like, ‘Please, please, please!’ ” she recalls.

Adams and Sky swapped social media messages and chatted on WhatsApp. Sky couldn’t shake the Olympic dream, and Adams started entertaining the possibility, too, excited by the impact Sky could have. Because Sky’s father was born in England, the young skater could compete for Japan or Great Britain in international competition.

“I knew that Sky would be inspirational, and she’d help us raise the participation of skateboarding in this country, especially among females,” Adams says.

The governing body for most every other Olympic sport has age restrictions that prevent athletes as young as Sky from taking part in Olympic competition. Skateboarding does not.

"The idea is if a skater can earn enough points and do well enough in competition to qualify to participate in the Olympic Games, you shouldn’t eliminate their chance to participate based on how old they are,” said Josh Friedberg, the chief executive of USA Skateboarding.

Even though Sky was named to Great Britain’s national team, she’s not guaranteed a spot in the Olympics. She has to accumulate points at competitions over the next year and show that she’s among the most competitive park skaters, regardless of age.

Even if she makes it to Tokyo, winning a medal would be a stretch, but the history books would take notice. It’s not often someone as young as Sky reaches the Olympics. Inge Sorensen won a bronze medal in swimming for Denmark as a 12-year-old at the 1936 Olympics. Italy’s gymnastics team in 1928 had competitors who were 11 and 12. The youngest Olympian ever was Greek gymnast Dimitrios Loundras, who was all of 10 years old for the 1896 Games.

Over the years, teens have left their marks on the Games, particularly in sports such as gymnastics and snowboarding. More recently, snowboarder Chloe Kim won two gold medals as a 17-year-old at the PyeongChang Games, and swimmer Katie Ledecky was 15 when she won her first gold medal at 2012 London Games.

‘Like a playground for me’

With the help of her mom, Sky is active on a social media, an important link to skateboarding fans but also a vital vehicle for her sponsors. Sky now has more than 375,000 Instagram followers. Her videos on the platform can top 100,000 likes. She shares her travels, training and exploits. After a skating mishap this month, she captioned one midair photo: “a Broken wing, will NOT stop me Flying!!”

Sky had been skating at a school in Oceanside, Calif., where she was trying a kick flip off some stairs. A bad landing sent her tumbling on her arm.

“It hurt really bad,” she says, “but I kept skating after.”

The pain didn’t subside, and doctors explained that she had fractured a bone, and Sky was outfitted for a pink cast that goes the length of her right arm. The injury has kept her from surfing, which meant more time to spend on her skateboard. Another tumble resulted in her cracking the cast, which is now reinforced with some tape.

Despite the injury, she insisted on competing in this month’s Dew Tour event. “It would’ve hurt her so much more to miss out,” her father says.

Sky skates well beyond her age, but there are competitors who are able to go higher and faster and execute tricks that Sky’s not ready for. It doesn’t stop her from trying, and in the coming years, she will be able to create more speed, more power and more air when she launches skyward.

During last week’s competition, Sky was limited by the broken arm but still skated with a smile.

“Skateboarding is like my happy place,” she says. “It’s like a playground for me.”

She found her parents immediately after popping out of the bowl. During practice sessions, Stu Brown would chat with her between runs, sometimes lovingly poking her nose or wrapping Sky in his arms.

“We always come back to: If this isn’t fun, we shouldn’t be doing it,” her father says. “If she’s not happy, we’ll stop it. But as long as she enjoys the journey, we’re going to support her. We love what we have as a family. Everything works right now. I know the Olympics are huge, but if there’s a time where it’s not working, we can just walk away.”

Phroyd

#skateboarding #olympics #shy

[thezodiaczone]

August Forecast for Taurus

There have been quantum changes in your life over the last couple months, Taurus—or at least, you have the sense that things are being rearranged on some grander scale. From uncomfortable to exciting to unsettling, this shift from potential to kinetic energy is part of a long process that’s happening from May 15, 2018, until April 2026 as revolutionizer Uranus visits your sign for the first time since 1942. Uranus takes 84 years to return to each sign, and this once-in-a-lifetime visit is an opportunity to radically reinvent everything from your lifestyle to your appearance to your attitude.

Whew! If you need a minute to take it all in, you’ll get it—and then some! On August 7, Uranus begins its annual five-month retrograde until January 7, 2019. You’ll get a chance to slow down and review, especially when Uranus backs into Aries, activating your twelfth house of closure for its last hurrah this century. While you might be a little frustrated by some stalled progress, this could prove to be a blessing in disguise. It’s an opportunity to confront any complex patterns and relationships and to heal addictions that are keeping you stuck.

As a creature of habit, you tend to tread the same well-worn paths, but those roads keep sending you to the same old places. Been there, done that! Stare any deep-seated fears in the eye, perhaps with the help of a pro, and begin clearing the blocks before Uranus settles into Taurus for a seven-year run in March 2019. You’ll want nothing to stand in the way of your awesome ascent—least of all your own baggage and blind spots.

August provides the occasion to relax and reflect as the Sun travels through Leo and your nurturing fourth house of home and family until August 23. Nesting and connecting with your crew feeds your soul during this homey solar season. Intimate dinner parties, air-conditioned movie nights, trips to an uncrowded beach where you can nap in the sand for hours: Hello, bliss! Take plenty of time for self-care, and keep your space serene.

This is especially important since Mercury, the planet of communication, travel and technology, will be retrograde in Leo from July 26 until August 19. During this wire-crossing backspin, old family feuds could flare, or you might experience friction with a relative or roommate. If you’re visiting loved ones, book a hotel or Airbnb, even if there’s “tons of room” at their place. During Mercury retrograde, it’s always best to have a backup plan. While this time is ripe for reunions, don’t be too quick to volunteer YOUR sleeper sofa or guest room to anyone. Make sure you’ve actually got time to host—and that the visitors are truly self-sufficient people who don’t expect white-glove service. If you’re moving or changing your home, Mercury could cause complications or slowdowns, so read the fine print!

Now that you’re clear on the precautions, get ready: A rare Leo partial solar (new moon) eclipse is arriving on August 11. Ready or not, your living situation or family structure could change, possibly without notice. Some Bulls could hear about a sweet deal on a property—and you’ll need to pounce instead of taking your usual “slow and sensible” approach. A female relative, perhaps your mother, could be involved in events near this eclipse. This is the penultimate eclipse in a series on the Leo/Aquarius axis that’s been transforming your home and career sectors since February 2017. It’s the prelude to a grand finale on January 21, 2019, so it may take until then for things to completely settle or reveal themselves. But if you reflect on the past two years, you’ll see how much you’ve grown—and maybe even radically changed—around home, family, career or work-life balance.

You may still be reeling from July’s two eclipses, especially the Aquarius total lunar (full moon) eclipse on July 27 that rocked your tenth house of professional ambition and long-term goals. This “awakening” put you in touch with what you truly need to feel fulfilled. Eclipses demand that we transform any parts of our lives that don’t work…and if we don’t, they’ll do it for us. For some Bulls, a job may have been eclipsed away—perhaps your company announced a restructuring, or a key colleague suddenly exited. Maybe you were offered a promotion or a leadership opportunity or a new position altogether. Resistance is futile—and a waste of energy—since something much better is on its way!

The last week of August takes a turn for the playful as the Sun enters Virgo and your fifth house of love, passion and self-expression for a month on August 23. Emerge from that cozy cocoon and start making audacious moves. If you’ve been off the grid, post some vacation pics or glam up and film an Instagram Story. Make up for lost social time and go paint the town crimson while your joie de vivre is at peak levels.

One of the month’s luckiest dates is August 25, when the Sun, structured Saturn and innovator Uranus form a rare grand trine—an equilateral “golden triangle” that’s one of astrology’s most auspicious aspects. As these three luminaries harmonize in earth signs, you get a triple shot of courage, assertiveness and head-turning fierceness. Presto, change-o: You could step out of a salon (or out of the metaphorical shadows) and be totally unrecognizable—yet indubitable. If you’ve been wanting to take a bold risk, you’ll get the guts to quit deliberating and actually DO it. Thanks to Saturn in your expansive ninth house, it could involve a life-changing vacation, going back to school, publishing your work or launching a startup biz. With Uranus and Saturn both retrograde, you may feel a pull toward the past. Did you start a project in one of these areas and set it on the back burner? Things could pick up speed now.

You don’t have to do this alone, either. On August 26, the year’s only Pisces full moon illuminates your eleventh house of teamwork and technology, giving you serious collaboration mojo. It’s an amazing day for networking, communing with kindred spirits or kicking off a cutting-edge joint project. You could be celebrating a group victory or gathering with your most vibrant and forward-thinking friends. With Mercury retrograde safely in the rearview from August 19 on, this could be a great date to launch a digital venture or viral social media campaign. The next day (August 27), ambitious Mars ends a two-month retrograde that slowed your goals. The cosmos will be waving that metaphorical red cape at you by the time the month ends, so get ready to charge after something that sets your heart and soul on fire.

Love & Romance

Self-care is sexy! On August 6, amorous Venus parades into Libra and your sixth house of wellness and service for the first of two trips this year, putting you in the mood to nurture yourself (and a lucky plus-one). Tackling a life-improvement mission or a project, like adopting a pet or redoing part of your home, could bring you closer. Single Bulls could meet someone through healthy pursuits, volunteering or even while running errands. There’s some incentive to stop procrastinating on your to-do list!

Heads up: This is the first of Venus’ two trips through Libra this year, thanks to a retrograde through this sign from October 31 to November 16. Plan ahead to avoid any stressful meltdowns later in the year. Be careful not to treat your mate like a fixer-upper, or to get overly involved in trying to help or change them. That could backfire during Round Two of this Venus transit, especially if you feel resentful or used. Maybe part of the lesson is to focus on yourself and things you can control, like getting healthier and treating yourself with the same kindness that you extend to others.

Under the Leo eclipse on August 11—and with Mercury retrograde alongside it in Leo and your domestic quarters until August 19—you have a perfect opportunity to “indulge” in some self-nurturing and maybe even catch up on your beauty sleep! If you’re newly dating or considering living with your partner, follow some Feng Shui principles to make your home more of a love den.

Meantime, the other love planet, fiery Mars, is retrograde from June 26 to August 27. Because this reversal had been taking place in Aquarius and your future-oriented tenth house, some big plans may have slowed down, or you may have been quarreling about shared goals. But once it backs into Capricorn on August 12 (for the duration of the retrograde), put the disagreements on ice and pursue something you enjoy doing together, like a favorite outdoor activity or returning to a cherished vacation spot. If things have been a little too close for comfort, bring some breathing room into the relationship—just enough so you don’t feel like you’re suffocating.

August 7 is a great day to peacefully hash things out if you’ve been feuding. With Venus in peacemaker Libra harmonizing with Mars in practical earth houses, you’ll be able to talk calmly and rationally. Show you’re willing to compromise, and your mate or love interest may be inspired to do the same. Plan a date somewhere beautiful and upscale, but also natural. Think: a farm-to-table restaurant with a chef’s tasting menu or an exclusive vineyard tour.

Key Dates

August 9: Venus-Saturn Square You may realize that a new relationship is moving too fast or that you’ve been leading someone on. Or you might experience the eye-opening awareness that your new “love interest” isn’t that interested at all. Saturn can help you make the necessary adjustments, including hitting the gas if you’ve been going under the speed limit.

Money & Career

Is it time to cash in a few vacation days? The cosmic influence of August will skew heavily toward home, family and fun, as the Sun travels through Leo and your domestic sector until August 23, and after that into your pleasure and playfulness zone when it takes a four-week plunge into Virgo. Make time for enjoyment and pampering before summer wraps up. September and October will be bustling months for you, so stop now to refill your tanks.

On top of that, Mercury, Mars, Saturn, Uranus (in Taurus), Neptune AND Pluto are all retrograde for most if not all of the month. With so many planets in this slowed-down position, August is best used to reflect and inspect. Avoid hasty moves—which aren’t really a Taurus thing anyway—and conduct your due diligence. Sleep on any big decisions that you don’t feel totally confident about, preferably under a big beach umbrella with your toes in the sand!

Career stuff has been all over the map ever since go-getter Mars turned retrograde in Aquarius and your tenth house of success on June 26, a biennial backslide that lasts for two months. Tension and crossed wires may have flared up at work, or you could be waiting rather impatiently for a decision maker to give you the green light. Thanks to a July 27 Aquarius lunar eclipse, things could be even topsy-turvier in your professional life. A project could be especially demanding or challenging, ratcheting up stress levels or causing you to procrastinate while obsessively fretting. All the more reason to take little self-care breaks in between marathon sessions!

You might want to tap a mentor or brush up your skills with a course, especially once Mars backs into Capricorn and your expansive ninth house on August 12 for the duration of its retrograde, which ends on August 27. Be careful not to bite off more than you can chew, as you’re at risk for over-promising and under-delivering. Pace yourself: Mars will rocket through Capricorn and Aquarius for a second, retrograde-free trip from August 27 to November 15, which will catalyze anything that got slowed down. You’ll be glad you did your research and refueled because things could start moving at warp speed!

Key Dates

August 2: Mars-Uranus Square You might not be in sync with a team under this “rugged individualist” angle of ego-tripping Mars and hotheaded Uranus. You could feel threatened by a person who comes on too strong and doesn’t listen to anyone. (Or maybe you’re the one acting that way?) Try to stay flexible—though under these volatile skies, that’s way easier said than done.

Love Days: 12, 17 Money Days: 6, 24 Luck Days: 4, 22 Off Days: 1, 15, 19

#taurus #monthly forecast #astrology #horoscope #horoscopes #taurus monthly

[sjecblogarchive]

SCHOOL ENROLLMENT, SUMMER CAMPS & SPRING EVENTS

02/28/2019

BY SJECWARRENTON

SCHOOL ENROLLMENT, SUMMER CAMPS & SPRING EVENTSBY

STACEY IRVIN, HEAD OF SCHOOL

ENROLLMENT FOR 2019-2020 SCHOOL YEAR

Winter brings admission season to Saint James’ Episcopal School.  Admission for the 2019-2020 school year opened to the public in February and enrollment contracts have been mailed to prospective students.  We continue to receive applications and there are still spaces available in our preschool and elementary programs.

More Information about Admission

Please encourage those you know who may be interested in SJES to take a Walk-In Wednesday tour any Wednesday at 9:30am or call the School office to schedule a personal tour.

We are also offering Preview Days on March 13-15 from 8:30am – 12:30pm for prospective families to see our exceptional teachers in preschool and elementary in action!

2019 SUMMER CAMPS

It won’t be long before we launch the 2019 summer camp schedule.

SJES summer camps are designed for children ages 3-11 and provide fun, weekly themed activities.

More Information about Summer Programs

We are also excited to once again host nature camp at Chapultepec Farm, thanks to the generosity of Jimmy Timberlake and the late Gina Farrar.

This year’s themes include outer space, construction, Legos, music, art and more.

Information and registration is available on the School’s website, or you can email Camp Coordinator Karen Anderson if you have questions.

Children do not need to be parishioners or SJES students to attend camp so please tell your friends and families!

2019 SPRING EVENTS

Be sure to visit our “Once Upon a Book Fair” from March 13-20!  This year we are excited to hold the book fair in our new lobby.  We will most certainly have books for all ages and reading skills and Easter gift ideas.

Full Calendar of Events

After the book fair is spring break and lots of spring traditions like preschool Field Day and the beloved Mother’s Day Tea as well as the elementary spring musicals.

Join us on April 4, as kindergarten through third grade present “Lion King” and May 2, as fourth- and fifth graders present “Annie.”  Admission is free and all are welcome!

#School #2019 Spring Newsletter #SJES #Summer Camps

[hermitknut]

So in the run up to Christmas I’ve been doing a count-down (well, a count-up). Twelve days of books! But just like the song, I’ve been increasing the number of books each day, with a theme. Each of the previous posts is linked at the bottom of this one, and they’re all tagged ‘hermitknut’s bookmas’. Merry Christmas!

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas... it’s Shakespeare retold!

Dating Hamlet by Lisa Fiedler (Hamlet) is something I discovered as a teenager, and I still love it. It retells Hamlet not just from Ophelia’s perspective, but as almost a comedy. Ophelia is in on the “fake madness” plan from the beginning, and launches her own when Hamlet is made to leave. She’s witty and sharp, and the whole thing is cheesy but thoroughly enjoyable. 

As I Descended by Robin Talley (Macbeth) gave me a good, thorough frightening. I’m easily spooked, I’ll admit, but this was done really well. Basically, it’s f/f Macbeth set in a high school - with ouija boards and drugs, awards and sports teams. And of course, murder. Vivid and brilliant and very unsettling. 

Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman (Romeo and Juliet) is set in a world where racial dynamics are effectively inverted - and for Sephy and Callum, falling in love with someone in the other group is incredibly dangerous. This romance bowled me over as a teen, and I’m really curious to see how it feels to reread it as an adult.

Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) is either the third or fourth Witches book in the Discworld series (depends how you count it), and the Fair Folk are coming back. Brilliant, hilarious, sharp and wonderful. As always.

Fool by Christopher Moore (King Lear) is good fun, though it in no way lives up to the ‘American Terry Pratchett’ claims of the cover. The humour is definitely of the farts-and-genitals variety, with the occasional more serious note that took me by surprise and seemed oddly out of place. But an entertaining romp!

The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson (A Winter’s Tale) was the first Hogarth Shakespeare retelling I read, and it made me want to read all of the others. The modernisation of the story is done really well, and Winterson’s writing is so enjoyable.

Ophelia by Lisa Klein (Hamlet) takes Ophelia’s perspective with a touch more reverence than the first book in this list. She escapes the play, but not completely happily. Interesting, nicely written book. 

Dunbar by Edward St. Aubyn (King Lear) took a while to get started, but once it did I quite enjoyed it. Probably because I’d recently read Fool (above), I wasn’t quite prepared for the ending to be tragic - and it was a real punch in the heart.

Romeo’s Ex by Lisa Fiedler (Romeo and Juliet) retells R+J from the perspective (mostly) of Rosaline, who is a pretty kick-ass character. There’s some really fun stuff in here, and a neat little twist on the ending - though not much else do it. 

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood (The Tempest) was solidly amazing. The ‘Prospero’ of the story is Felix, who has been ousted from his prestigious position as director and ends up teaching acting in a prison. He takes the opportunity to take revenge - and regain his former status - when the people who took him down arrange to tour the prison. By putting on a production of The Tempest. Play-within-a-play at its finest; absolutely brilliant.

Shylock is My Name by Howard Jacobson (The Merchant of Venice) is quite a slow read. The writing is philosophical and almost rambling - not unpleasant or badly done, but not something I’m used to reading. I very much enjoyed the plot once it started to get moving, and there were some wonderful characters.

Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler (The Taming of the Shrew), as I think I’ve mentioned before on this blog, was not something I was particularly impressed with. Our Kate is a great character, which was a plus, and Tyler writes well - but I wasn’t convinced by the decision to get married, and it just lost my interest. A bit of a shame.

Previously:

On the First Day of Christmas… my favourite book of all time.

On the Second Day of Christmas… books about people exploding.

On the Third Day of Christmas… the very biggest fans.

On the Fourth Day of Christmas… books about princesses.

On the Fifth Day of Christmas… memory is everything.

On the Sixth Day of Christmas… serial killers abound.

On the Seventh Day of Christmas… women growing wise.

On the Eighth Day of Christmas… dragons are people too.

On the Ninth Day of Christmas… the gods are among us.

On the Tenth Day of Christmas… animal friends.

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas… the world is a stage.

#booklr #book review #terry pratchett #william shakespeare #shakespeare #margaret atwood #robin talley #lisa fiedler #malorie blackman #christopher moore #jeanette winterson #lisa klein #edward st aubyn #howard jacobson #anne tyler #discworld #dating hamlet #as I descended #noughts and crosses #lords and ladies #fool #the gap of time #ophelia #dunbar #romeo's ex #hag-seed #shylock is my name #vinegar girl #hamlet #macbeth

[topmixtrends]

PATTERSON HOOD has been leading the Drive-By Truckers — a country-rock band with a hip-hop attitude — for more than two decades. Along the way, the Alabama native has become, in song and in prose, one of the sharpest observers of Southern culture and society since C. Vann Woodward, W. J. Cash, and the Southern novelists he read as a kid.

The Truckers’ latest album, 2016’s American Band, was widely hailed as one of the year’s best and as the group’s most directly political: its songs took on the killing of Trayvon Martin, the worship of the Confederate flag, the nation’s madness for handguns, and the role of the band’s native region in the whole mess. Hood, like fellow Trucker Mike Cooley, grew up near Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and his father, David Hood, is the longtime bassist for the R&B studio’s famous rhythm section. 

For many years based in Athens, Georgia, Hood moved to Portland, Oregon, in 2015. The Drive-By Truckers have just launched a US tour that brings them to Los Angeles’s El Rey Theatre on February 9.

¤

SCOTT TIMBERG: Let me start at the obvious place. In your writing, you often look at the South, at the complexity of the region’s history. And there’s a whole bunch of writers who’ve done this before: Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connor. I’m just wondering what, if anything, these people have meant for you?

PATTERSON HOOD: I probably first became aware of that type of thing, as a genre of literature, when I was assigned To Kill a Mockingbird in high school. That was the first book I was forced to read at school that I actually loved and connected with. I fell in love with it, and the character of Atticus Finch reminded me of a very beloved relative of mine, who was kind of like a second father to me — so I really connected hard with that. And then later, in high school or in college, I read Faulkner a bit … I was too young to really get it. But it was a short story, “Barn Burning,” that I first read, and that was a good entry point, because I totally dug it, and got it, although I don’t think I would have been ready to read As I Lay Dying or anything. I love reading. I’m a fanatical reader.

And that goes back to childhood for you?

Maybe off and on. I remember times in childhood when I read a lot. I loved Old Yeller as a child — I really loved that book. And like everyone, I read Charlotte’s Web, although I don’t think I liked it as a kid. I read it to my son, actually, a couple of years ago, and fell in love with it. But I don’t think as a kid I was able to get past the fact that it was romanticizing a fucking spider. I have arachnophobia, so it was a bit of a leap on that one. So yeah, I went through periods of reading and not reading, I guess because it reminded me too much of school, and I hated school and everything about school at that time. I had to get past rebelling against it in order to enjoy it.

Yeah, I think a lot of us, especially boys, go through that phase, even if they become serious readers later. So when you were reading Harper Lee and the Faulkner story, and maybe some other stuff, what did you respond to, what made you want to go back to it, besides the fact that it was about the part of the country you live in? Did you feel it helped you make sense of the South?

Yeah, I probably just responded to the dialect, because that’s the way my people talked. And I responded to some of the manners — you know, the manners that everybody had, even the villains, who were these kind of ignorant, white trash, really terrible people in To Kill a Mockingbird. They still had a certain amount of decorum about them. When they weren’t spitting in Atticus’s face, there was still a certain amount of “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” involved. And that was beat into me as a kid, you know.

So even though terrible things were happening, in a way, you felt like you were home?

Sure, sure. And I had a similar thing with R.E.M., early R.E.M., I fell in love with them really early. About two weeks before Murmur came out, I got turned on to Chronic Town, and in the press in those days, people talked about, “Oh, you can’t understand the lyrics, you can’t decipher what he’s saying.” But these things tended to be colloquialisms, which I could decipher. There’s a song by a side project called The Golden Palominos, and I remember reading a review by someone who couldn’t decipher what Stipe kept saying, like the hook. And it’s “fixin’ to go” — that’s all he’s saying is “fixin’ to go,” he’s fixin’ to go!

Of course, there’s more to being Southern than just a manner of speech. When did you get a sense that a key element of Southern literature was the question of race? How did Southern literature change the way you understood black people or the racial rift in the region?

Yeah, I can’t remember a time that I wasn’t aware of race, and the South’s role in that story. I don’t think there was ever a point in my life that I wasn’t, at some level, aware of it, because of what my dad did. He made his living playing on Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett records, when they literally weren’t allowed to go out to dinner with him, and so he brought that home, you know — the anger over that came home with him. And we’d see George Wallace on the television screen and my dad would just start frothing at the mouth. But we have family members who I’m sure voted for Wallace, and whom I love dearly.

So there was always that disconnect. I was also aware of the generation gap, of the ’60s, the cultural revolution that was playing out in my family too. My parents came of age in the ’60s, and my dad smoked pot, and rode a motorcycle, and had a beard and long hair, and my mom wore go-go boots and hot pants … And I spent an enormous amount of time with my grandparents and my great-uncle, who were from the Depression generation. And so I kind of viewed the counter-culture, the culture clash, from a front-row seat as I was growing up, and I think that’s probably part of my attraction to dualities in my writing and the stuff I do.

It sounds like you didn’t need Harper Lee to show you that race was an obsession in the South — you were seeing and living that every day.

Absolutely. And it’s funny, because I haven’t read the other book of hers that came out. I own it, and I plan to — it’s really just a matter of time … I’m aware of its flaws, but I do want to read it, because I’m interested in that. I’ve actually written a piece, a song that kind of deals with that, because when a New York Times critic actually reviewed the book, it was the week after I moved to Portland. I read that piece in The New York Times, and I literally broke down and cried. I got so upset at Atticus Finch. I got really, really mad for a couple of days.

And then I had this epiphany that it’s absolutely right, that it was important. I believe that she was of sound mind in deciding to put that out, because I think it was important — not to disillusion everybody of their hero, or to make everybody that named their kid Atticus wince — but because that’s how it was. That is the truth.

We’re talking about the fact that Atticus, who’d been this hero of racial justice, became sort of a segregationist, a racist …

It made me mad and upset, but once I got past that, it totally rang true to me.

In the ’30s he was defending this man who was wrongly accused. It offended him on a human level that Tom Robinson was accused of a rape he obviously didn’t commit, but that don’t mean Calpurnia could sit at the table with Atticus at dinnertime. That’s a different line. When African Americans were demanding equality, that crossed a different line, and all of a sudden Harper Lee saw her father, her beloved father figure — who to her represented the side of right and justice — all of a sudden she saw him as a hypocrite. And she wrote this thing first, in anger, and then she went back and wrote, from the view of her childhood, the book that everyone knows and loves.

That rang so true to me, and I wrote a song that, at this point, has never been recorded. I’m still hoping to do something with it. It’s called “At a Safe Distance.” When you look a little closer, not at a safe distance, you tend to see things that aren’t so pleasant — you see the cracks. It really rang true to me; I wish it didn’t.

I guess you could say this about all literature, but it seems that, more than any other, Southern literature is based on history. I wonder if you ever went back and read any Southern history, journalism about the South, about the Civil Rights movement, or any of that? You’re kind of born into the middle of the Civil Rights era — ’64, right?

1964, yeah. I was born either at the last moment of the Baby Boom, or at the first moment of Generation X. I’m right on the cusp, as was my mother, who was born the day before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, which is the official start of the Baby Boom. Her birthday’s August 5, so with the time change, she was probably born about the exact moment that the Baby Boom started.

So yeah, all of that fascinates me. I’m obsessed with the Robert Caro books on Lyndon B. Johnson, which goes back to the duality thing, because he was the ultimate dual president. I mean, he was the best and the worst, and sometimes at the exact same moment. Sometimes he would say the worst thing possible when doing something amazing, and vice versa. He could be surprisingly eloquent as he’s just fucking you. He’s a never-ending source of fascination to me, and the fact that such a gifted writer has literally spent 50 years of his life chronicling this guy — I get off on that too. I’ve read all four books that have appeared so far, and I’m eagerly awaiting the fifth and final one.

Was Johnson a sort of Texas racist who grew up and saw racial reality? Or was he an opportunist?

He was all of the above. Caro’s take on it, I think, is that he is all those things, and more, at the exact same time.

When people say, “Oh, he didn’t really mean that — he just did the Civil Rights thing because he knew it would be good for his historical legacy.” Well, sure, he knew it would be good for his legacy, but he very well knew that it meant the South wouldn’t vote Democrat again for 50 years, which it hasn’t. It was the beginning of the great migration of Southern Democrats to the GOP. And when he did those things, he purposefully fucked over people who had helped him his entire career.

And yet, he was absolutely a Jim Crow guy for most of his career. And all of those things coexisted within him at the same time, and I think all along. He did have some awakenings at a young age, he did know extreme poverty, and he taught at a school that was pretty much all Latino students. And I think he was very moved by their plight, and he took that with him forever. And yet he was willing to put that in a box and not deal with it for many, many years, building a career as the LBJ that the Kennedys hated so much.

Your dad’s music, and the music you play with the Truckers, it’s all grounded in the blues and R&B. And the Truckers were founded, in some ways, as an homage to hip-hop …

Sure, sure. Though none of us would have tried to rap. But we were immersed in it. I really responded to how hip-hop seemed to be telling you the news — what was going on right now. Modern-day country was more about retro things. I wanted to sing about what was happening now, but in a country style.

Did any of this lead you into African-American literature, especially essays, from the South or elsewhere?

I got into it really late, really recently. Through reading Ta-Nehisi Coates I tried to learn more about James Baldwin, and then I Am Not Your Negro came out last year, which was so amazing. There are so many books; I’ve only scratched the surface. I can spend the rest of my life reading every day, and not even read a fraction of the things I’m really interested in.

Anything you’ve gone back to and loved the second time?

I love Mark Twain. I made it a point to reread Huckleberry Finn at a much older age, after loving it as a kid. Reading it in my 40s was great. What a remarkable piece of work. I do like reading the classics. I was turned on to Hemingway really late. I responded to the style — it’s like the opposite of Faulkner, whom I also love. Instead of long sentences, reall short, concise ones. I respond to both forms. Hemingway’s stories are so devastating; there’s no way to improve them. I loved A Farewell to Arms. I stumbled upon it accidentally. I was at my in-laws’ house and may’ve been sick, was cooped up, it was a rainy day. They had the book; I picked it up, read the first chapter, and couldn’t put it down. I read the whole thing in like a day and a half.

Your old bandmate, Jason Isbell, is reputed to be a very literary cat. Did you guys turn each other on to books and writers when you were in the Truckers together?

We probably have more since we quit playing together. When we were playing together, we were in the eye of the storm. That was a crazy time. He turned me onto Peter Matthiessen, a trilogy of books that he rewrote as one book, Shadow Country, set in Florida in the Everglades, post–Civil War, when they were first settling that part of the country. It was kind of the last frontier. All of these outlaws that had been put out of business in the West being ended up down there. It was riveting — and one of Jason’s favorite books. He’s very well read, and a great writer in his own right.

Your last record, American Band, was your most explicitly topical. You wrote about racial violence and social tensions that were exploding around you. Did your reading of essayists, novelists, or anything else help shape that album?

I was reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me when I was in the midst of writing that record. I had already written “What It Means,” and I was going through a period of questioning: Did I have a right to write such a thing? Reading his book, I kept asking, “What can I do?” Maybe this is a small part of what I can do. Maybe there does need to be a goofy white dude, in a rock ’n’ roll band, with the following that it has, that can say Black Lives Matter. Maybe that is important. I didn’t write that song from the perspective of a black man being shot by police — I wrote it from the perspective of a goofy white dude, like me. Seeing this happening around me and saying, “This is wrong. Why are we at this place in 2017? Why is this still a thing?” And unfortunately, the song doesn’t have answers, it’s just questions. But at least questioning is a start, a beginning.

¤

Scott Timberg is the editor of The Misread City: New Literary Los Angeles and author of Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class.

The post All the Poets (Musicians on Writing): Patterson Hood appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://ift.tt/2nwKRsu

#Los Angeles Review of Books #topmixtrends

[junker-town]

24 great books for quarantined sports fans

From ‘Ball Four’ to ‘Out of Sight’, here are a few books you can come back to over and over again

I love my books. They have traveled with me across the country and back again, prominently displayed in cheap bookcases throughout dozens of apartments around the Northeast. Currently, they are stretched out behind me in my home office where they will stay until the time comes to move off the grid. They will follow me there, as well.

I have read all of them at least once and several of them dozens of times. During periods of my life when I was without human companionship they were literally my only friends. That’s not said for sympathy. The life of a newspaper sportswriter in the 90s and early 2000s involved shitty hours and weekends, which pretty much negated any hopes of having a social life.

Through it all, my books were there for me. They demanded nothing but my time and gave me hours of entertainment.

I’m not particularly proud of my collection. There is very little literature to be found and only a handful of what one might refer to as great works. It mainly comprises sports books, rock star biographies, and a nearly complete set of Elmore Leonard novels.

Most of them are several decades old because I had to stop buying books at some point when I began to run out of room. I’m not linking to them because you can hopefully find an independent bookstore near you that would be thrilled for the business. Do them and humanity a favor.

Here are some of my favorites.

BASKETBALL

The Breaks of the Game: David Halberstam

This is the monster of all sports books, the one against which every basketball book is competing with in one way or another. If you know nothing of the NBA pre-LeBron James, this is where you should start. It’s a window into what feels like another universe, when pro basketball was a cult sport struggling for survival.

Loose Balls: Terry Pluto

I wrote about this one at length and won’t belabor the points I made back before the world came to a screeching halt. If you can’t get into the stories contained within these pages, I frankly don’t want to know you.

The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac: The FreeDarko collective

It’s an exaggeration to say every person who heard the first Velvet Underground album went out and formed a band, just as it is to suggest that every writer who consumed FreeDarko wound up writing about basketball on the internet. But almost everyone who did was influenced by them.

The Miracle of St. Anthony: Adrian Wojnarowski

Long before he was the great and powerful Woj, the author spent an entire season with Bob Hurley’s St. Anthony Friars. It’s a masterful bit of storytelling that for my money is the absolute best of the surprisingly robust sub-genre of books about high school basketball.

Other contenders include The Last Shot by Darcy Frey, Fall River Dreams by Bill Reynolds and In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle by Madeleine Blais.

The Jordan Rules: Sam Smith

Judging from the early reactions to the gigantic Bulls documentary, it’s quite clear a lot of you should get familiar with the source material. Smith’s book was shocking upon its release because it dared show Michael Jordan as he really was, without the buffed out Nike shine. It holds up, clearly.

Halbertsam’s Playing for Keeps picks up the story in 1998 and provided much of the narrative structure of the first two episodes.

Heaven is a Playground: Rick Telander

An all-time classic set on the courts of mid-1970s Harlem during a long, hot summer. There are a lot of books that tried to get at the soul of basketball, but this is the standard bearer. I’d really like to know whatever became of Sgt. Rock.

Others in this vein include The City Game by Pete Axthelm, Pacific Rims by Rafe Bartholomew and Big Game, Small World by Alexander Wolff.

Second Wind: Bill Russell

The best athlete autobiography of all time.

BASEBALL

Lords of the Realm: John Heylar

The inside story of how baseball owners conspired for almost a century to suppress salaries while refusing to integrate. It’s shocking how buffoonish management acted during the glory days of the national pastime. Required reading.

Marvin Miller’s A Whole New Ballgame is a worthy companion piece, as is Bill Veeck’s delightful, Veeck as in Wreck.

Ball Four: Jim Bouton

Scandalous upon its release in 1970, Ball Four contains the best line ever written in any sport book: “You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”

I read Ball Four for the first time in fifth grade and immediately taught my classmates the words to “Proud to be an Astro”:

Now, Harry Walker is the one who manages this crew

He doesn’t like it when we drink and fight and smoke and screw

But when we win our game each day,

Then what the fuck can Harry say?

It makes a fellow proud to be an Astro

Seasons in Hell: Mike Shropshire

There is nothing more soul-crushing than spending an entire season with a bad team. Shropshire covers three hilariously inept campaigns with the Texas Rangers, who as then-manager Whitey Herzog noted: “Defensively, these guys are really sub-standard, but with our pitching it really doesn’t matter.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning: Jonathan Mahler

An underrated late addition to the pantheon that tells the story of the 1977 Yankees amid the backdrop of a city gone to hell.

You will notice there are few books in my collection about modern baseball. There’s a reason for that. The vast majority of them are peans to the wonders of middle management and therefore boring as hell.

FOOTBALL

Playing For Keeps: Chris Mortsensen

The incredibly bizarre — and largely forgotten — story of how the mob tried to gain influence in pro football via a pair of shady agents named Norby Walters and Lloyd Bloom. Good luck finding it.

Bringing the Heat: Mark Bowden

You may recognize Bowden from such masterworks as Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo. You probably don’t remember that he spent a year with the Eagles after the death of Jerome Brown. As honest and unflinching a look at pro football as you will ever find.

North Dallas Forty: Peter Gent

The only piece of sports fiction on my list is not so fictional at all. Gent’s thinly-veiled account of his own life as a receiver for Tom Landry’s Cowboys is shocking and brutal and sad and poignant. I make time to read it every year.

I used to have more football books, back when I cared about the sport.

MEDIA

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail: Hunter S. Thompson

The Vegas one is more popular and Hell’s Angels is a stronger work of reportage, but for a dose of pure Gonzo insanity, this is the book I come back to more often than not.

The Boys on the Bus: Timothy Crouse

The companion piece to Thompson’s lurid account, Crouse plays it straight and lays bare the bullshit facade of campaign reporting. Almost 50 years later, we have still learned nothing.

The Franchise: Michael McCambridge

Details the glory days of Sports Illustrated, reading it now feels like an obituary. It was fun once, this business of writing about sports.

MUSIC

Heads, a Biography of Psychedelic America: Jesse Jarnow

My favorite book of the last few years, Jarnow takes us on a bizarre trip through the byzantine world of psychedelic drug networks connecting it through the career of the Grateful Dead and into modern-day Silicon Valley. I’m waiting for the followup on Dealer McDope.

Not music, but as a companion piece, Nicholas Schou’s Orange Sunshine tells the even-crazier tale of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, who took over the LSD trade and invented hash smuggling by stuffing surfboards with primo Afghani hash and shipping them back to California.

The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones: Stanley Booth

Reported while on tour with the Stones at the height of their powers circa Let it Bleed, Booth took 15 years to write the damn thing. By then the Stones were already an anachronism. It’s all there, though. Sex, drugs, more drugs, and unbelievable access to the biggest rock ‘n roll band in the world.

This Wheel’s on Fire: Levon Helm with Stephen Davis

In which Brother Levon disembowels Robbie Robertson and exposes the lie at the heart of The Band. Robbie took the songwriting credit and all the money.

Satan is Real: Charlie Louvin

Astonishingly good read that is best consumed with Charlie and his brother Ira playing low in the background.

Mainlines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader

Lester is an acquired taste and not all of his ramblings hold up. I will always love him for despising Jim Morrison and completely nailing what made Black Sabbath important. Spoiler: They were moralists like William S. Burroughs.

Please Kill Me: Legs McNeil and Gillian Welch

The definitive oral history of punk rock, an essential document of a scene that launched a thousand mediocre bands and the Ramones, who ruled.

Shakey: Jimmy McDonough

A tour-de-force biography of Neil Young that loses steam toward the end when McDonough makes himself the subject. The stuff about Neil’s bizarre 80s period and his relationship with his son is heartbreaking.

Our Band Could Be Your Life: Michael Azerrad

Pretty much everything you need to know about bands like Mudhoney, Black Flag and Mission of Burma who wove together the musical underground through a patchwork collection of local scenes back when something like that was still possible.

ELMORE LEONARD

You can’t go wrong with anything Leonard writes, but Out of Sight is as good a place to start as any.

[brendonuriesource]

Brendon Urie Steps Away From the Disco and Into ‘Kinky Boots’

As the frontman of the popular emo-infused, pop-rock band Panic! at the Disco, Brendon Urie might be expected to play it cool, a little jaded maybe. But ask about his Broadway debut in “Kinky Boots,” as the strait-laced English shoe manufacturer Charlie Price, and he doesn’t bother to hide his giggly excitement — the word “phenomenal” popped up with alarming regularity in a recent conversation.

Barely 30, Mr. Urie, who has a boyish charm and friendly energy, had a Mormon upbringing; he left the church at 17, around the time he co-founded Panic! at the Disco while still in high school. The band capped a successful decade last year with its fifth album and first chart-topper, “Death of a Bachelor.” Instead of capitalizing on that hit, Mr. Urie decided to take a break from the music industry’s album-tour cycle and leave his Los Angeles home to spend the summer at the Al Hirschfeld Theater, where he starts on Friday, May 26. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

How did you land your first Broadway gig?

I was invited to see the show about two and a half years ago — I’d only seen two other musicals before that: “The Book of Mormon” and “Wicked.” At the finale, the acceptance, the understanding, the compassion that you feel are overwhelming. There was a fire in my chest, I wanted to stand up screaming. Afterward, I met with [the producer] Hal Luftig, and he asked me if I was interested. I said: “In any capacity you want to use me on Broadway, I’m ready to jump in. I will help build sets, I will usher at the door — whatever I can do to be part of this family.”

Were you a fan of Cyndi Lauper’s, who wrote the score?

Absolutely! She’s so iconic. “Goonies” was one of my favorite movies, and I think the first song I heard of hers was [launching into falsetto] “good enough!” I listened to the soundtrack a bunch before I saw the play, and you could hear Cyndi in each one of the songs.

A lot of them are surprisingly simpatico with your band’s sound.

Panic! is such a theatrical band that it melded really well. Charlie’s songs, especially, have so much emotion. At rehearsal, Brian Usifer, the music director, was giving me notes like, “Think about what he’s going through — this one’s disparaging, this one’s confident.” I treat the script the same way because there’s a kind of musicality to it, especially with the British accent

Obviously you can sing, but had you thought about acting before?

I wanted to be an actor as a kid. My teacher in second grade had called a talent agency and had them call my house. My mom was so mad. She was like, “No, that’s not a life I’m going to put you in.” Understandably, you know — she was just trying to protect me. I fell into music, but I just needed to find the right moment to jump into acting.

Did musicals pass muster with your parents?

They loved them. My mom was adamant about me watching musicals: “You need to be cultured.” It wasn’t a weird thing like she needed to educate me — they were just always on. That’s what I was allowed to watch all the time. I used to watch the Broadway “Les Miz” and study it.

You have a tattoo of Frank Sinatra’s face on your forearm. Is he your spirit performer?

I fell in love with Sinatra when I was very young. There was a cartoon where they had a part with a microphone stand with a bow tie, and his face with the big ears — they were obviously making fun of how skinny he was. That was the first time he was on my radar. Then there was the Singing Sword in “Roger Rabbit.” [Starts to croon “Witchcraft.”] I wanted to sing like him so bad.

Plus you grew up in Las Vegas.

I can’t give enough credit to Vegas. I was an eight-minute drive from the Strip, which is an interesting place, especially for me in a religious household. It wasn’t a wholesome place. We’d go and see Cirque du Soleil and Blue Man Group. We had tapes of Cirque shows at home: “Mystère,” “Saltimbanco.” There was an attraction to the theatricality of it. That was Panic! from the get-go: I wanted to dress up. So I was very much in sync with Broadway in that sense.

What was it like putting on those distinctive red “kinky boots” for the first time?

I did the fitting a few months back, and just two days ago I finally tried them on. I was a little worried about the balance — I’ve worn heels before, but these go past the knee. I turned around and said, “I feel right.” This is where I should have been all along — it’s amazing!

Source: NYTimes

#brendon urie #kinky boots #article #panic! at the disco

[savetopnow]

2018-04-01 13 MUSIC now

MUSIC

Brooklyn Vegan

David Cross adds three "Shootin' the Shit" shows at Bell House ++ other dates

What's Going on Saturday?

Albert Hammond Jr played Brooklyn Steel, brought out Hinds (pics, setlist)

Drive-By Truckers & Erika Wennerstrom @ Brooklyn Bowl (night 1 pics, review)

tours announced: The Garden, Nicki Bluhm, Follakzoid, Dave Hause & more

Consquence of Sound

Jesse Hughes apologizes for “mean-spirited and personal attack” against student protestors of gun violence

Ted Nugent says Parkland shooting survivors are “pathetic” teenage “liars” who “have no soul”

Film Review: Tyler Perry’s Acrimony Makes a Mess of Its Promising Start

Identity of the Beyoncé biter has been revealed

Album Review: Royce da 5’9” and DJ Premier Embrace the Next Generation on PRhyme 2

Fact Magazine

The 25 best albums of the last three months: January to March 2018

Carl Craig and more feature in Plastic Dreams, a book documenting the ’90s Paris club scene

Relaxer unveils debut album A Family Disease, releases 22-minute track

Watch a beautiful documentary about Ryuichi Sakamoto’s tsunami-damaged piano

Tom Misch – Against The Clock

Fluxblog

Shower Me In Symphonies

Fifth-Dimensional Views

Late Night Games

The Middle Of A Cold Premonition

The Moon Right Behind Me

Idolator

Miley Cyrus Is A Sexy Easter Bunny In ‘Vogue:’ 15 Pics

The Drop: Your Guide To New Music Friday Featuring Tove Lo & The Palms

Tinashe Hits The Courts In Her Vibrant “Me So Bad” Video

Lady Gaga Pays Tribute To Elton John With Her Rousing “Your Song” Cover

Cardi B Warns A Straying Lover To “Be Careful” On Her New Mid-Tempo

Listen to This

Rex Orange County - Television/So Far So Good [Indie/Alternative Hip Hop] (2017)

[Discussion] An almost complete playlist of all the albums listed in Robert Dimery's book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die"

Tyus - other side/brand new [rnb/pop]

Dimitri De Alencar - Hold On [Latin Rock] (2018)

Punches - Give it Up [Psych/Pop/Folk]

Popjustice

New Music Good Friday: Post Precious! Dragonette! CHVRCHES!

NONONO’s new one is v excellent and here’s the video

New Music Friday: all hail Let’s Eat Grandma’s miniature pop symphony

Paloma Faith’s branded content is better than your branded content

Saluting the artwork for PRETTYMUCH’s Healthy

Reddit Music

Cookiez - Oasis [Future Bass]

Chris Isaak - Wicked Game [soft rock]

Mark Morrison - Return of the Mack [R&B]

Hey Reddit! We are a small rock n roll band from Singapore Asia and we just released our self-recorded Single which we feel is quite catchy. What do you guys think? Would love it if you guys could give it a listen :)

Artists are releasing more music than ever because of streaming

Rolling Stone

EODM's Jesse Hughes Apologizes After March For Our Lives Tirade

Anticon Rapper-Producer Alias Dead at 41

Watch Neil Young Revisit 'Peace Trail' for New 'Paradox' Video

Watch SZA's Summer Camp-Set 'Broken Clocks' Video

Watch 'Weird Al' Yankovic Scream Through Billy Idol's 'Rebel Yell'

Slipped Disc

Has Korngold’s time finally come?

What musicians earn in German orchestras

One school bucks the trend to cut music teachers

Sicklist: Murray Perahia cancels US spring tour

Can I still play the old Curtis way?

Spotify Blog

The Weeknd Drops Two New Music Videos Only on Spotify

Taylor Swift’s New Delicate Video Only on Spotify

Spotify Expands Secret Genius With the Launch of Studios

Spotify and Genius Team Up to Launch Déjà Vu Podcast, Hosted by Stereo Williams

Spotify Celebrates Black History Year-Round with Launch of Black History Is Happening Now

We Are the Music Makers

Recommendation Needed - PC Laptop

Where do you guys post/share your music?

I joined a band for the first time!

I require assistance designing a professional studio for my community_

Orchestral transitions in FL Studio?

#music

[rickhorrow]

10 to watch: Mayor’s Edition FOR THE WEEK OF AUG 13

10 TO WATCH: RICK HORROW’S TOP SPORTS/BIZ/TECH/PHILANTHROPY ISSUES FOR THE WEEK OF AUGUST 13 with Jamie Swimmer & Jesse Leeds Grant

Golf and tech engines are revving for the second annual Indy Women in Tech Championship Powered by Group1001. Boasting a $2 million purse, dozens of the world’s best female golfers, and a classic location – the Brickyard Crossing Golf Course, designed by Pete Dye – the Indy Women in Tech Championship also shows off a unique week of tech and STEM focused events for women and girls. Indy Women in Tech makes an annual commitment to support local initiatives financially and through marketing platforms surrounding the LPGA event with a particular focus on expanding the reach of robotic programs in schools; expanding STEM days; helping to create programs that enable professional, full-time athletes to gain the network, confidence, support, and skills to enter the full-time workforce; and creating initiatives aimed at women who have been away from the workforce and equipping them with the skills needed to use tech as a vehicle back to the workforce. Leadership at all levels is also an important component of this event. While the ability to lead and influence is apparent on the PGA Tour – as we saw during Sunday’s PGA Championship final round, as winner and likely Player of the Year Brooks Koepka battled timeless Tiger Woods – the LPGA has been missing a true icon for some years. Here’s hoping one comes into sharper focus this week in Indy.

In the wake of this past year’s FBI scandal that took college basketball by storm, the NCAA has unveiled a series of rules changes aimed at cleaning up and reforming the game. According to USA Today, the NCAA is broadly promoting stricter enforcement of the rule book, tougher penalties for violations of such rules, and adding independent investigators for “complex” cases. In such instances, NCAA investigators will now be allowed to “accept information established by another administrative body, including a court of law, government agency, accrediting body or a commission authorized by a school.” One of the biggest issues going forward now is how USA Basketball, the NCAA, and NBA work together on implementing these changes. Under the new rules, elite high school basketball recruits and college players will be eligible to be represented by agents who are certified by the NCAA; the NCAA has tasked USA Basketball with selecting which players will be allowed to sign with agents, but it wants “no part” in bearing such responsibility. The changes are being hailed as “enormously significant” by those in college basketball, though they likely will not be implemented until 2022 at the earliest and still need to be ironed out.

Mississippi has become the fourth state to legalize sports betting in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent decision. According to JohnWallStreet, Mississippi now follows Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware and has opened sportsbooks at Beau Rivage Casino in Biloxi and Gold Strike Casino in Tunica – both properties owned by MGM Resorts International. State laws will require anyone wanting to make in-game bets to “visit their local casino as mobile betting will be restricted to those on the casino’s physical premises.” Currently no other states in the South offer legalized sports betting, though neighboring Alabama has more illegal college football bets per capita than any other state in the country. While MGM has the first-mover advantage in Mississippi, William Hill has gone to greater lengths to establish itself; the company has already announced partnerships with 11 casinos around the state. Mississippi’s advantage as the only Southern state with legalized sports betting is expected to last for at least one year, but could be longer.

With the 2022 Beijing Olympics only four years away, NHL legend Wayne Gretzky is being tasked with helping to grow the game in China. According to ChinaDaily.com, Gretzky has been appointed as a global ambassador for the KHL Chinese Kunlun Red Star. In his role, Gretzky will help develop a comprehensive youth development program in China, visiting the country in mid-September to make promotional stops in Beijing, Shenzhen, and Shanghai. China “is seeking to boost hockey in a country where winter sports participation remains in its infancy.” While this is certainly going to be a challenge for Gretzky, the NHL has already begun trying to tap into the market from a grassroots level. For the second year, the league is holding promotional games in China, when the Boston Bruins square off against the Calgary Flames in Shenzhen, coinciding with Gretzky’s mid-September visit. With a population of nearly 1.4 billion, China presents a massive opportunity to spread the game of hockey. While it certainly won’t be easy to do, it seems fitting that Wayne Gretzky is the one tasked with this.

ATP/WTA BNP Paribas Open tournament Owner Larry Ellison has become an investor in the reform project for the Davis Cup. And according to the Desert Sun, this means there may be an "even greater possibility" of bringing the event to the California desert as early as 2021. Ellison, the "wealthiest man in tennis," and among the world’s wealthiest people, became an investor in the 25-year, $3 billion partnership between the ITF and investment group Kosmos that is "expected to reform Davis Cup into a one-week event." Ellison purchased the BNP Paribas Open and Indian Wells Tennis Garden in 2010, and has since "invested substantially into making the March event into a marvel within the sport." The Kosmos/ITF Davis Cup reform project "will create a season finale with 18 tennis nations and their individual tennis stars playing at world class venues." On August 16 in Orlando, it "could become more clear whether this could eventually bring more world class tennis to Indian Wells when the ITF votes on whether to accept the project proposal.” The event, as envisioned by the reform project and Ellison, could generate significant revenues for tennis development worldwide.

PHIT America released its Inactivity Pandemic’ Report 2018 last week, and the results are grim. The organization reports that 7% of American children are physically active to CDC standards, while the number of U.S. children who are active three times a week has dropped to 23.9%, a decrease of 15% in the last five years; core participation in team sports in the U.S. is also down for the fifth straight year. Said PHIT America Founder Jim Baugh. “Do we really think Americans are going to put down their smart phones and tablets? Will schools suddenly start putting daily P.E. back in our schools? Hell no! The competition is going to get stronger. And the sports and fitness industry must respond.” On brand campaigns to get more children playing sports, Baugh questioned, “Are they really just PR programs for their brand? What is their cost per participant? I bet it isn’t close to the PHIT America formula, which is less than $10 to get a kid physically moving while at school. If PHIT America had access to those brand funds, their ROI would be much better. And, perhaps, more kids would be fitter.

DraftKings launches first sports betting in New Jersey. Online fantasy sports provider DraftKings has announced the launch of DraftKings Sportsbook, making it the first company to offer legal online and mobile sports betting in New Jersey. The move comes two months after DraftKings officially applied for a sports betting license in the state after laws restricting wagering on sporting events were relaxed in the country. DraftKings says that it has used insight into the habits of American sports fans to tailor its sportsbook app and online platform to their preferences. The service will give users the ability to place multiple types of bets, including live in-game bets, on both major and niche sports taking place locally and internationally. In addition, the app and website will allow consumers to toggle between the company’s fantasy sports and sportsbook platforms, enabling them to place a bet and then draft a fantasy line-up with one click. While its sportsbook is currently only available in New Jersey, DraftKings is prepared to act in response to the legalization of sports betting in other states across the U.S.

Seattle Seahawks and Sounders implement screening technology. Seattle’s two remaining men’s major league sports teams have partnered with screening company Clear to bolster fan security at their shared CenturyLink Field home. The NFL Seattle Seahawks and MLS Seattle Sounders have followed the lead of the MLB Seattle Mariners to introduce Clear’s fingerprint recognition technology at the venue’s security entry checkpoints. The deal is designed to allow fans to enter CenturyLink Field more easily while also using the system to purchase concessions and make payments. The Seahawks are the first NFL team to implement the platform, which was used for the first time at the team’s preseason game against the Indianapolis Colts. The Sounders are the fourth MLS team to install the technology. In order to enroll and use the system, kiosks will be situated around the stadium, where fans will have to answer questions and create a biometric account by scanning their fingerprints. Clear Sports membership is free.

Aaron Rodgers talks Wounded Warrior Project in new video. Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is one of four professional athletes featured in Sharpie’s Uncap the Possibilities campaign, which looks at how each athlete is inspiring positive change through their chosen charity. In the video series, releases in partnership with The Players’ Tribune, Rodgers talked about how his grandfather served in the Air Force and was active duty during World War II. He came home with a Purple Heart and a Silver Star. His service was “one of the greatest achievements of his life,” Rodgers said. The Wounded Warrior Project works to help veterans live life on their own terms by providing free programs and services in mental health, career counseling, and long term rehabilitative care. In a statement Sharpie said, “It’s this natural talent that has enabled the quarterback to orchestrate countless thrilling come-from-behind wins in the closing minutes of the game. And Aaron’s chosen charity, Wounded Warrior Project®, is all about the strong comeback that the wounded veterans it serves can experience.”

Semper Fi 5k charity race becomes RaceThread partner race. RaceThread, the most comprehensive searchable directory of races from every sport, partners with Washington D.C charity race Semper Fi 5K Run/Walk, an annual 5K race that benefits the Semper Fi Fund, a non-profit organization that provides financial assistance and support to wounded, critically ill, and injured members of the military. The partnership with the race directory and the local charity race provides a premium access account free of charge as well as gives the run/walk participants a way to provide feedback on the race. With more than 55,000 races, RaceThread allows athletes of all abilities to search and find the next race that’s perfect for them based on the race’s profile and reviews. From the most scenic run to worst post-race food to the best finish line medal, RaceThread provides logistics and previous participants’ thoughts all on one page. To keep the directory up to date for users and allow race directors complete control of the race information, RaceThread partners with race directors who can claim their race profile and in doing so, update the information, attract new athletes, and create an online hub for participants.

#10 #10towatch

[njawaidofficial]

Creator Of “Ren & Stimpy” Accused Of Preying On Underage Girls Who Wanted Animation Careers

https://styleveryday.com/2018/03/29/creator-of-ren-stimpy-accused-of-preying-on-underage-girls-who-wanted-animation-careers/

Creator Of “Ren & Stimpy” Accused Of Preying On Underage Girls Who Wanted Animation Careers

Robyn Byrd thought her plan was working when the letter from her hero arrived in the mail. It was 1994, and the 13-year-old had sent the creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show a video of herself talking about her drawings and the animation career she envisioned; she thought if she got the attention of the studio behind the hit Nickelodeon show, she might get a job there someday. John Kricfalusi’s effusive letter, Byrd said, seemed like the first step toward her dream.

She could hardly believe he’d responded. “I had built up these characters and this mythos of Ren & Stimpy in my head,” Byrd, now 37, told BuzzFeed News. “It was exciting.”

Soon, she said, she began receiving boxes of toys and art supplies from 39-year-old Kricfalusi, better known as John K. He helped her get her first AOL account, through which he convinced her he could help her become a great artist. He visited her at the trailer park where she lived in Tucson, Arizona. “I thought I was still his little cute friend,” she said. And then, when she was still in 11th grade, he flew her to Los Angeles to show her his studio and talk about her future. She said that on the same trip, in a room with a sliding glass door that led to his pool, he touched her genitals through her pajamas as she lay frozen on a blanket he’d placed on the floor. She was 16.

In the summer of 1997, before her senior year of high school, he flew her to Los Angeles again, where Byrd had an internship at Spumco, Kricfalusi’s studio, and lived with him as his 16-year-old girlfriend and intern. After finishing her senior year in Tucson, the tiny, dark-haired girl moved in with Kricfalusi permanently at age 17. She told herself that Kricfalusi was helping to launch her career; in the end, she fled animation to get away from him.

Since October, a national reckoning with sexual assault and harassment has not only felled dozens of prominent men, but also caused allegations made in the past to resurface. In some ways, the old transgressions are the most uncomfortable: They implicate not just the alleged abusers, but everyone who knew about the stories and chose to overlook them.

John Kricfalusi

Albert L. Ortega / WireImage

Although sexual abuse allegations against Kricfalusi have never been made public before, his relationship with Byrd has been an open secret within animation — so open that “a girl he had been dating since she was fifteen years old” was referenced briefly in a book about the history of Ren & Stimpy. Tony Mora, an art director at Warner Bros., and Gabe Swarr, a producer at Warner Bros., worked alongside Byrd at Spumco. The male artists said stories of how Kricfalusi sexually harassed female artists, including teenage girls, were known through the industry. “It’s always been there,” Mora said. Moreover, Kricfalusi made his fixation on teenage girls plainly obvious in his art, even as he worked on animated projects for the likes of Cartoon Network, Fox Kids, and Adult Swim. In an interview with Howard Stern in the mid-’90s, the radio host asked him about a character in the comic book anthology the cartoonist was then promoting. Stern called Sody Pop “a hot chick with big cans and nice legs.” Kricfalusi responded with a smile: “She’s underage, too.”

And yet Kricfalusi, 62, continues to be widely celebrated as a pioneer in the male-dominated field of animation. Creators of shows including SpongeBob SquarePants, Adventure Time, and Rick and Morty have cited Ren & Stimpy as an influence. After Nickelodeon fired the perpetually behind-schedule artist from Ren & Stimpy in 1992, he became an early proponent of art and shows made just for the internet. His output has slowed down, but he enjoys a living-legend stature that prompted 3,562 people to fund a Kickstarter campaign for his short Cans Without Labels, which he screened at a prestigious animation film festival in 2016. He made art for Miley Cyrus’s 2014 Bangerz tour; he animated two credit sequences on The Simpsons, the most recent in 2015. His portrait still hangs on the wall at Nickelodeon.

On Kricfalusi’s behalf, an attorney responded to a detailed list of allegations in this story with the following statement:

“The 1990s were a time of mental and emotional fragility for Mr. Kricfalusi, especially after losing Ren and Stimpy, his most prized creation. For a brief time, 25 years ago, he had a 16-year-old girlfriend. Over the years John struggled with what were eventually diagnosed mental illnesses in 2008. To that point, for nearly three decades he had relied primarily on alcohol to self-medicate. Since that time he has worked feverishly on his mental health issues, and has been successful in stabilizing his life over the last decade. This achievement has allowed John the opportunity to grow and mature in ways he’d never had a chance at before.”

A photo sent to Rice by Kricfalusi

Courtesy Rice

While Byrd felt deeply alone when she left animation, she later realized she hadn’t been the only underage girl Kricfalusi groomed for a relationship. In 2008, long after she last saw Kricfalusi, Byrd reconnected with an old internet friend: the artist Katie Rice. Kricfalusi introduced them through AOL in the mid-’90s, when they were still children, telling them he’d hire them both at Spumco someday. Although Kricfalusi never had a physical sexual relationship with Rice, he began hitting on her when she was a minor, she said, behavior that ranged from writing her flirty letters (“I bet you’ll be up to no good. Just like me,” he wrote in 1996) to masturbating while she was on the phone. In 2000, when Rice was 18 and trying to break into animation, Kricfalusi offered her a job. Once she started working for him, Rice said, he persistently sexually harassed her.

“I know a lot of people struggle with the ‘art vs. artist’ thing.”

Old letters, emails, and transcripts of AOL conversations between the women and Kricfalusi back up many of their claims. They each have witnesses to parts of their stories. Yet both women worried that they sounded “crazy.” For years, they chose to keep their experiences private, because coming forward didn’t seem like it was worth the risk. Rice feared retribution from his many supporters. Neither woman thought they’d be taken seriously.

Now they believe the world has changed. Byrd feels the time has come for Kricfalusi to be held accountable, particularly, she said, after the police told her in December that Kricfalusi’s alleged crimes against her were too old to investigate. “He shouldn’t be able to get away with that,” she said.

Left: A drawing Kricfalusi sent Byrd; Right: A mix CD he sent Rice

Courtesy Byrd and Rice

And while Byrd teaches philosophy and undergraduate writing classes, Rice still works in animation and regularly encounters people asking her what it was like to work for “a legend.” It made her hesitant to criticize him, as if it would be her fault for tainting his work. But, sitting in a Burbank restaurant, she said, “I know a lot of people struggle with the ‘art vs. artist’ thing, and I get it. Like, I love Rosemary’s Baby. But would I watch another movie that he made, knowing what I know now?” she said, referring to the multiple rape allegations against filmmaker Roman Polanski.

“I would say no, I don’t want to watch it. I don’t want any part of that. There’s nice people you can hire. There’s nice people who can make things, there’s nice people who make cartoons. … They’re just as fucking good.”

Katie Rice, photographed in Burbank on March 28

Jessica Pons for BuzzFeed News

Rice wanted to be an artist from the time she was in the fourth grade. In the summer before fifth grade, when she started watching the original Nicktoons — Doug, Rugrats, and Ren & Stimpy — the tween decided to become a cartoonist. Her parents were skeptical. Her mother told BuzzFeed News that she worried her daughter was being unrealistic.

So when Rice wrote to Kricfalusi when she was around 14, and then they began corresponding over AOL, Rice said it was a source of validation for her and her family: A powerful man who had recently been nominated for an Emmy Award saw that she had potential.

They continued chatting online and on the phone into her sophomore year of high school, and Kricfalusi’s messages made her feel special. In an AOL conversation he told her not to copy and send to her friends, he said, “I wnat [sic] to squeeze you,” and “I’m crazy about you, Katie”; he asked her, “Do I ever make you tingle?” In an email she printed and saved from a few days after she turned 15, the 41-year-old man wrote, “I’m thinking about you very hard right now. And I have a little tickle in my chest.” Now 36, Rice looks at these old pages with some of the compliments underlined in purple gel pen and cringes.

“I think this 40 year old man is hitting on me,” Rice wrote in her diary. “But he’s never perverted. He is also very nice. He gives me a lot of drawing tips.”

At the time, she didn’t see the harm. “I think this 40 year old man is hitting on me,” she wrote in a diary entry from between December 1995 and March 1996, saying her friend agreed with her. (Speaking to BuzzFeed News, the friend recalled having this conversation, and that she thought Kricfalusi was hitting on Rice.) Rice, then 14, continued in her diary, “But he’s never perverted. He is also very nice. He gives me a lot of drawing tips.”

Rice and Kricfalusi met a few times in Los Angeles, and they kept talking after she moved with her parents from California to Lake Tahoe in 1996 when she was entering 10th grade at age 14. They never had physical sexual contact, but when Rice lived in Nevada, she remembers several late-night phone calls during which Kricfalusi said, “Repeat after me: John’s dick slides in my puzzy” (his pronunciation of the word) while he masturbated on the other end of the line. She refused. Rice, who was naive about sex, said she didn’t realize what he was doing at first — until, all of a sudden, she did. Christine Nockels, a high school friend of Rice who later worked at Spumco, said Rice told her about the masturbation when they were classmates.

The conversations left Rice shaken, but she trusted him. Lonely in her new school in Nevada, she viewed him as her only friend. He attended her 15th birthday party, which he later confirmed on a DVD extra for the 2003 Ren & Stimpy reboot. (“I was at her 15th birthday party. We’ll tell you that backstory a little bit later,” he said with a grin.) She was devastated when he abruptly stopped talking to her in early 1997.

Kricfalusi and a 15-year-old Byrd in 1996

Courtesy Byrd

That same winter, Kricfalusi flew out to visit Byrd, then a high school junior, at home in Arizona. They had sex for the first time at a nearby hotel, she said, and put into motion a series of decisions that would reshape the rest of her teenage years. She’d move in with Kricfalusi for the summer and intern at Spumco, then complete her senior year at a private school in Arizona, and he would cover the tuition. He told her he could give her an animation career in Los Angeles when she graduated. She and her mother believed him.

So when the young artist and writer moved in with Kricfalusi in the summer of 1997, part of her was happy. As an intern, she was making copies, keeping art organized, and learning how to be an animator. “I made my dream come true,” Byrd said. “That’s why I sent the tape when I was 13.” Everything in California was new and exciting, including, to some degree, her boyfriend. “I believed, as a 16-year-old dating him, ‘Oh, the world’s against us. It shouldn’t be wrong for him to date me. We’re cool and rebellious because we’re breaking the rules of society,’” Byrd told BuzzFeed News. She said he told her their 25-year age difference was “romantic.”

But she struggled. In a letter she wrote to herself during the internship — her method of working out her feelings at the time — she frets about all the ways she’s alienating her 41-year-old boyfriend with her “nagging” and her “guilt-inflicting”; she says Kricfalusi doesn’t care about her emotional well-being. “He may like my figure & face. He may adore my mind & ideas. But he does not have regard for my feelings as I do his,” she wrote. The artist she shared an office with, Swarr, who was in his early twenties at the time, remembers her frequently crying.

“I was like, ‘Who’s that little girl?’”

Despite the volatility, this seemed like a break to her: Kricfalusi was teaching her a trade. And, over the course of more than 600 blog posts reviewed by BuzzFeed News, Kricfalusi portrays himself as a uniquely qualified molder of young minds. It’s the same image he presented to Byrd and Rice, and to many of the fans, mostly men in their twenties, who he hired at Spumco in the 1990s and early 2000s. They were inexperienced young people who, Mora and Swarr said, believed deeply in the art Spumco was making. It was a small studio that usually had between 10 and 30 artists at a time, most of them convinced they were doing something defiant by working there. Derrick J. Wyatt, an artist who started working at Spumco in 1999, told BuzzFeed News the studio was a “cult of personality” centered on Kricfalusi.

After Byrd graduated from high school at 17 in 1998, Kricfalusi hired her to work at Spumco and she moved back into his Los Angeles home.

A photo Kricfalusi took of Byrd poolside in 1998 at age 17

Courtesy Robyn Byrd

As Byrd grew up in the studio, her coworkers, many of whom were not much older than she was, were aware of the teen’s romantic relationship with their boss. Mora got an internship at Spumco in 1997, around the age of 24, and when he first started seeing Byrd around the studio, “I was like, ‘Who’s that little girl?’” he said. The relationship was odd to him, but it seemed to be accepted at the studio, where former employees say Kricfalusi fostered a libertine atmosphere in which taking offense was itself offensive. They were making shows with sexual themes; there were raunchy nude drawings on display. Mora said Kricfalusi left out a drawing he made of Byrd, naked, with a dog ejaculating on her.

Sometime between 1998 and 2000, Mora went to a party at Kricfalusi’s house that has bothered him for years. He remembered Byrd, who was no older than 20, was drunk and seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness when Kricfalusi called Mora over to him. “And then he pulled out these Polaroids of Robyn basically — how can you say it? — going down on him. … He’s like, ‘What do you think of that?’”

“My entire life had been suspended in John’s since I was fourteen.”

[trendingnewsb]

Obituary: Sir Bruce Forsyth – BBC News

Image caption He made his stage debut aged just 14 as Boy Bruce, the Mighty Atom

Veteran entertainer Sir Bruce Forsyth had a career spanning eight decades, in which he went from struggling variety performer to Saturday night TV stardom.

On the way, he became one of the most recognisable entertainers in the business, driven by what appeared to be inexhaustible energy.

He became synonymous with the plethora of game shows that seemed to dominate television light entertainment in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, although he often felt he had become typecast as the genial quizmaster.

And at an age when most performers would have put their feet up, his career enjoyed a huge revival with the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing.

Bruce Joseph Forsyth-Johnson was born in Edmonton, north London, on 22 February 1928.

His father owned a local garage and both his parents were Salvation Army members who sang and played music at home.

Image copyright Rex Features

Image caption Beat the Clock was just one of many games he hosted

The young Bruce was a direct descendant of William Forsyth, a founder of the Royal Horticultural Society, whose name was given to the plant forsythia.

His interest in showbusiness was kindled at the age of eight and he was reportedly found tap-dancing on the flat roof after watching his first Fred Astaire film.

“As soon as I got home from school,” he recalled, “I’d take up the carpet, because there was lino underneath, and start tapping away.”

He made his stage debut at the age of 14 as Boy Bruce, the Mighty Atom, appearing bottom of the bill at the Theatre Royal, Bilston.

Live entertainment was a way of escaping the pressures and dangers of wartime Britain, and there was a huge demand for acts, no matter how bad they were.

Many years later he explained his motivation on a BBC chat show. “I wanted to be famous and buy my mum a fur coat.”

Famous Forsyth catchphrases

“I’m in charge.”

“All right, my loves?”

“Good game, good game!”

“Nice to see you, to see you nice.”

“Give us a twirl!”

“Cuddly toy, cuddly toy!”

“OK, dollies do your dealing.”

“You get nothing for a pair!”

“What do points make?”

“Didn’t he/she do well?”

“You’re my favourite.”

“Keeeeep dancing!”

But there was to be no fast track to success. For the next 16 years he performed in church halls and theatres across the country, sleeping in train luggage racks and waiting for the big break.

It came in 1958, at a time when he had been unemployed for more than three months and was seriously considering giving up on showbusiness.

He was asked to present Sunday Night at the London Palladium, a televised variety show, made by Lord Grade’s ATV company for the ITV network.

He’d finally found the fame he had always craved, appearing not in front of a couple of hundred people in a theatre, but the more than 10 million who regularly tuned in to the show.

“The pubs would empty when it came on,” he told an interviewer. “We would get calls saying: ‘Can’t you start it later?'”

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption At one point, he was Britain’s highest-paid entertainer

Originally booked for two weeks, he stayed five years, by which time he was Britain’s highest-paid entertainer, earning 1,000 a week (18,700 in today’s money).

But he continued touring with his variety show and the strain of combining this with his Palladium appearances took a toll on his private life.

He divorced his first wife, Penny Calvert, a dancer he’d met in the theatre, and she wrote an account of her husband’s perpetual absence, called Darling, Your Dinner’s in the Dustbin.

A popular element in his Palladium show was a feature called Beat the Clock, in which contestants, egged on by Forsyth, had to complete quirky tasks as a huge clock ticked down.

Sir Bruce Forsyth dies aged 89

Life in pictures

Lord Grade recalls ‘a very special man’

Stars remember Brucie

The segment gave a hint of his future television role and he went on to host some of the most popular television game shows of the 1970s and 80s.

With his catchphrases of “Nice to see you, to see you nice” and “Didn’t he do well?” he reigned supreme at the helm of the BBC’s Generation Game for six years from 1971, and again at the beginning of the 1990s.

At its peak, the programme attracted 20 million viewers, who tuned in to watch Forsyth seemingly having more fun than the competitors, enthusing over the mundane prizes on the conveyor belt.

The presenter argued with his BBC managers about the show’s early evening timeslot but he eventually accepted his role as the “warm-up man” for Saturday night television.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption The Beatles were among the stars he introduced at the London Palladium

His co-host on the show, Anthea Redfern, was each week encouraged to “give us a twirl”. The couple married in 1973 but divorced six years later.

It was on the Generation Game that he introduced his famous “thinker” pose, appearing in silhouette at the beginning of each show.

The idea came from the classic circus strongman pose, something he’d perfected during his days in variety.

He repeated his success on ITV’s Play Your Cards Right, where the audience joined in the cries of “higher” or “lower” as the contestants tried to guess the value of a series of playing cards.

Changing tastes

Michael Grade said of him: “He knows how to get laughs out of people but it’s never cruel and he leaves their dignity intact.”

In 1995, a year after his final Generation Game appearance, he received a lifetime achievement award for variety at the British Comedy Awards and began hosting ITV’s The Price is Right.

The entertainer was, by this time, a Rolls-Royce-driving multimillionaire and married since 1983 to Wilnelia Merced, a former Miss World.

He later claimed that he regretted becoming so associated with game shows and wished he’d done more variety work on TV.

Image caption Forsyth with Anthea Redfern on the Generation Game

Play Your Cards Right was axed in 1999 and, with changing tastes in entertainment, his TV career began to slide.

He returned to the theatre – but experienced an unexpected revival after his wife watched an edition of the satirical quiz, Have I Got News For You, and suggested he could present the programme.

After calling show regular Paul Merton, he landed the gig and offered to be “a little bit deadpan”.

“But the team said, ‘No, be Bruce Forsyth,'” he said.

He used the occasion to parody some of his old game shows, much to the ill-disguised disgust of team captain Ian Hislop.

But the appearance led to Forsyth, an accomplished tap dancer, being offered the job of hosting Strictly Come Dancing, which began a year later.

Viewed with scepticism when it launched, the celebrity dance show became one of the most-watched programmes on TV by the time it reached its fifth series in 2007.

He brought his own brand of avuncular good humour to the proceedings – reassuring many of the contestants with the phrase “you’re my favourites”.

Image caption He parodied some of his old game shows on Have I Got News For You

“His particular character and personality went a long way to making the show what it is,” said former contestant Ann Widdecombe.

But the presenter once revealed that Strictly “was never the show that I thought it would be”.

“I thought it’d be a comedy show – me getting among the contestants and showing them how to dance, and them all falling over,” he told ITV’s This Morning. “It was a different show.”

After missing a handful of episodes because of illness, he decided to “step down from the rigours” of presenting Strictly in 2014.

Golfing passion

“But I’m not retiring,” he insisted. “That’s the last thing in the world I want to do. This isn’t Brucie walking into the sunset.”

He continued to host the Christmas and charity editions of Strictly until 2014 – all of which were taped, as opposed to live broadcasts.

Away from entertainment, Forsyth’s biggest passion was golf and he took part in many pro-celebrity tournaments.

His house was next to the course at Wentworth, where he played with many of the world’s best players, practising in the bunker in his own back garden.

Image caption He presented Strictly Come Dancing with Tess Daly

During his career, Forsyth’s multiple talents and years of application sparked an enduring appeal.

In 2011 he was knighted after years of campaigning by his fans and a parliamentary Early Day Motion signed by 73 MPs.

But he suffered from ill health towards the end of his life, and in 2016 his wife revealed he still had “a bit of a problem moving”, following major surgery a year earlier.

Sir Bruce was one of the last entertainers from the tradition of music hall to be working on British television.

In many ways his act barely changed. The same corny gags, the same toothy smile and, above all, the same manic enthusiasm.

“On stage I think I’m 35,” he once said. “Working takes over my whole body and I become a younger man – that’s why I won’t stop.”

He will be particularly remembered for his ability to transform run-of-the-mill party games into glorious moments of mayhem that enthralled contestants and audiences alike.

Follow us on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, on Instagram at bbcnewsents, or if you have a story suggestion email [email protected].

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Obituary: Sir Bruce Forsyth – BBC News

Image caption He made his stage debut aged just 14 as Boy Bruce, the Mighty Atom

Veteran entertainer Sir Bruce Forsyth had a career spanning eight decades, in which he went from struggling variety performer to Saturday night TV stardom.

On the way, he became one of the most recognisable entertainers in the business, driven by what appeared to be inexhaustible energy.

He became synonymous with the plethora of game shows that seemed to dominate television light entertainment in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, although he often felt he had become typecast as the genial quizmaster.

And at an age when most performers would have put their feet up, his career enjoyed a huge revival with the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing.

Bruce Joseph Forsyth-Johnson was born in Edmonton, north London, on 22 February 1928.

His father owned a local garage and both his parents were Salvation Army members who sang and played music at home.

Image copyright Rex Features

Image caption Beat the Clock was just one of many games he hosted

The young Bruce was a direct descendant of William Forsyth, a founder of the Royal Horticultural Society, whose name was given to the plant forsythia.

His interest in showbusiness was kindled at the age of eight and he was reportedly found tap-dancing on the flat roof after watching his first Fred Astaire film.

"As soon as I got home from school," he recalled, "I'd take up the carpet, because there was lino underneath, and start tapping away."

He made his stage debut at the age of 14 as Boy Bruce, the Mighty Atom, appearing bottom of the bill at the Theatre Royal, Bilston.

Live entertainment was a way of escaping the pressures and dangers of wartime Britain, and there was a huge demand for acts, no matter how bad they were.

Many years later he explained his motivation on a BBC chat show. "I wanted to be famous and buy my mum a fur coat."

Famous Forsyth catchphrases

"I'm in charge."

"All right, my loves?"

"Good game, good game!"

"Nice to see you, to see you nice."

"Give us a twirl!"

"Cuddly toy, cuddly toy!"

"OK, dollies do your dealing."

"You get nothing for a pair!"

"What do points make?"

"Didn't he/she do well?"

"You're my favourite."

"Keeeeep dancing!"

But there was to be no fast track to success. For the next 16 years he performed in church halls and theatres across the country, sleeping in train luggage racks and waiting for the big break.

It came in 1958, at a time when he had been unemployed for more than three months and was seriously considering giving up on showbusiness.

He was asked to present Sunday Night at the London Palladium, a televised variety show, made by Lord Grade's ATV company for the ITV network.

He'd finally found the fame he had always craved, appearing not in front of a couple of hundred people in a theatre, but the more than 10 million who regularly tuned in to the show.

"The pubs would empty when it came on," he told an interviewer. "We would get calls saying: 'Can't you start it later?'"

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption At one point, he was Britain's highest-paid entertainer

Originally booked for two weeks, he stayed five years, by which time he was Britain's highest-paid entertainer, earning 1,000 a week (18,700 in today's money).

But he continued touring with his variety show and the strain of combining this with his Palladium appearances took a toll on his private life.

He divorced his first wife, Penny Calvert, a dancer he'd met in the theatre, and she wrote an account of her husband's perpetual absence, called Darling, Your Dinner's in the Dustbin.

A popular element in his Palladium show was a feature called Beat the Clock, in which contestants, egged on by Forsyth, had to complete quirky tasks as a huge clock ticked down.

Sir Bruce Forsyth dies aged 89

Life in pictures

Lord Grade recalls 'a very special man'

Stars remember Brucie

The segment gave a hint of his future television role and he went on to host some of the most popular television game shows of the 1970s and 80s.

With his catchphrases of "Nice to see you, to see you nice" and "Didn't he do well?" he reigned supreme at the helm of the BBC's Generation Game for six years from 1971, and again at the beginning of the 1990s.

At its peak, the programme attracted 20 million viewers, who tuned in to watch Forsyth seemingly having more fun than the competitors, enthusing over the mundane prizes on the conveyor belt.

The presenter argued with his BBC managers about the show's early evening timeslot but he eventually accepted his role as the "warm-up man" for Saturday night television.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption The Beatles were among the stars he introduced at the London Palladium

His co-host on the show, Anthea Redfern, was each week encouraged to "give us a twirl". The couple married in 1973 but divorced six years later.

It was on the Generation Game that he introduced his famous "thinker" pose, appearing in silhouette at the beginning of each show.

The idea came from the classic circus strongman pose, something he'd perfected during his days in variety.

He repeated his success on ITV's Play Your Cards Right, where the audience joined in the cries of "higher" or "lower" as the contestants tried to guess the value of a series of playing cards.

Changing tastes

Michael Grade said of him: "He knows how to get laughs out of people but it's never cruel and he leaves their dignity intact."

In 1995, a year after his final Generation Game appearance, he received a lifetime achievement award for variety at the British Comedy Awards and began hosting ITV's The Price is Right.

The entertainer was, by this time, a Rolls-Royce-driving multimillionaire and married since 1983 to Wilnelia Merced, a former Miss World.

He later claimed that he regretted becoming so associated with game shows and wished he'd done more variety work on TV.

Image caption Forsyth with Anthea Redfern on the Generation Game

Play Your Cards Right was axed in 1999 and, with changing tastes in entertainment, his TV career began to slide.

He returned to the theatre - but experienced an unexpected revival after his wife watched an edition of the satirical quiz, Have I Got News For You, and suggested he could present the programme.

After calling show regular Paul Merton, he landed the gig and offered to be "a little bit deadpan".

"But the team said, 'No, be Bruce Forsyth,'" he said.

He used the occasion to parody some of his old game shows, much to the ill-disguised disgust of team captain Ian Hislop.

But the appearance led to Forsyth, an accomplished tap dancer, being offered the job of hosting Strictly Come Dancing, which began a year later.

Viewed with scepticism when it launched, the celebrity dance show became one of the most-watched programmes on TV by the time it reached its fifth series in 2007.

He brought his own brand of avuncular good humour to the proceedings - reassuring many of the contestants with the phrase "you're my favourites".

Image caption He parodied some of his old game shows on Have I Got News For You

"His particular character and personality went a long way to making the show what it is," said former contestant Ann Widdecombe.

But the presenter once revealed that Strictly "was never the show that I thought it would be".

"I thought it'd be a comedy show - me getting among the contestants and showing them how to dance, and them all falling over," he told ITV's This Morning. "It was a different show."

After missing a handful of episodes because of illness, he decided to "step down from the rigours" of presenting Strictly in 2014.

Golfing passion

"But I'm not retiring," he insisted. "That's the last thing in the world I want to do. This isn't Brucie walking into the sunset."

He continued to host the Christmas and charity editions of Strictly until 2014 - all of which were taped, as opposed to live broadcasts.

Away from entertainment, Forsyth's biggest passion was golf and he took part in many pro-celebrity tournaments.

His house was next to the course at Wentworth, where he played with many of the world's best players, practising in the bunker in his own back garden.

Image caption He presented Strictly Come Dancing with Tess Daly

During his career, Forsyth's multiple talents and years of application sparked an enduring appeal.

In 2011 he was knighted after years of campaigning by his fans and a parliamentary Early Day Motion signed by 73 MPs.

But he suffered from ill health towards the end of his life, and in 2016 his wife revealed he still had "a bit of a problem moving", following major surgery a year earlier.

Sir Bruce was one of the last entertainers from the tradition of music hall to be working on British television.

In many ways his act barely changed. The same corny gags, the same toothy smile and, above all, the same manic enthusiasm.

"On stage I think I'm 35," he once said. "Working takes over my whole body and I become a younger man - that's why I won't stop."

He will be particularly remembered for his ability to transform run-of-the-mill party games into glorious moments of mayhem that enthralled contestants and audiences alike.

Follow us on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, on Instagram at bbcnewsents, or if you have a story suggestion email [email protected].

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[davedimartino]

NEW THIS WEEK 10.13.08

We're veering toward the middle of the year's fourth quarter--a time when nearly every week brings us a handful of new releases that will instantly emerge at the top of the charts and make everybody but us fabulously wealthy!

And sure, some weeks will bring us inevitable No. 1's like rapper T.I. or Metallica, or hot new contenders like Jennifer Hudson or Robin Thicke. On the other hand, however--some weeks won't!

Perhaps signaling a temporary lull in the inevitable sales storm is this week--which aside from heartwarming country hat-wearer Kenny Chesney, offers little today's top record execs can write home to their moms about!

But you know what? It's OK! Look at the bright side: There are a lot of new TV shows debuting, a lot of great new DVDs also out this week, and now, lots of time to spend combing today's hottest social networks looking for old friends and new acquaintances! You could also read a book, but heck: they're expensive! Oh well!

Kenny Chesney: Lucky Old Sun (BNA) Country fave KC throws his ever-present hat in the ring this time out with a hot collection of tracks featuring guest stars such as Dave Matthews, Willie Nelson, the Wailers and Mac MacAnally, and it looks like he's got another surefire winner! Ironically selecting the same title track chosen by former Beach Boy Brian Wilson to highlight his new album--but I assure you that's the only less-than-original idea to be had here--Chesney seems to be looking leftward during these exciting political times, at least if the album cover picture is any indication! For a while my favorite track was "Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven (with The Wailers)" until I realized the words in parentheses weren't actually part of the lyrics, but who knows? It may well be yours! I'm just thrilled with the whole thing!

Keane: Perfect Symmetry (Interscope) Following up a huge debut album with one not quite so successful could be a stumbling block for bands of lesser talent, but England's Keane return here with a winningly melodic, choice third album that I'd call "keen" if, like you, I enjoyed bad puns! One thing's for sure: My notion of them as a sugar-sweet, almost sappy poppish band changed significantly, in light of the upbeat, energetic tracks found here in great number! Additionally, I think any English band with a member named Tim Rice-Oxley is supposed to be good according to some old rock critic rule or something! And I'm as gullible as the next guy! Between you and me, I should probably focus on my craft more!

Nikka Costa: Pebble To A Pearl (Stax/Go Funk Yourself) A welcome return from Miss Costa, a soulful, zesty singer who made big noise a few years ago and is now back awaiting your purchase, listening, and evaluation! Perhaps chastened by the public humiliation of choosing a title for her last album-- can'tneverdidnotthin'--that was both grammatically incorrect and poorly punctuated, Costa soars admirably throughout most of the tracks here, though luckily for all of us, she apparently held tightly to her microphone! Favorite tracks include "Keep Wanting More," "Keep Pushin'" and "Cry Baby," but that may be a factor of my susceptibility to suggestion! I'd suggest buying this and waiting for additional orders!

Johnny Cash: Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison: Legacy Edition (Columbia/Legacy) Sometimes record labels try to milk everything they've got in their archives by slapping a few additional tracks onto a classic album and selling it all over again, but this is absolutely not the case here! Cash's historic 1968 album is loaded to the gills with superb extras--including both shows the country legend gave that day at Folsom Prison, additional performances by Carl Perkins and the Statler Brothers, and a compelling two-hour film documentary included on an additional DVD. One of the year's best reissues by far; if you can't afford it, please don't steal it, as these kind of things don't happen in jails much these days!

Ray LaMontagne: Gossip In The Grain (RCA) Singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne is still going strong, and this--his third album--is a step up for him in terms of album sound: There are more players, more textures, and lots more to listen to while admiring his well-crafted, highly emotive songs. Back again with producer Ethan Johns, LaMontagne need only drop the pretentious "La" from his last name--I mean, the Royal "we" is so old school--to become good ol' "Ray Montagne" and ascend to the throne of rightly-named singer-songwriter supremacy! And if the cover photograph depicts him telepathically ordering consumers to buy his album, so be it!

Copeland: You Are My Sunshine (Tooth & Nail) Some people contend that all the good songs in the world have already been written--just ask  Kenny Chesney and Brian Wilson--but it must be pointed out that classic track "You Are My Sunshine" is not actually heard here, it's just--let's face it--a dandy album title! I actually like what I hear here, but be forewarned: The first time I heard this band, I thought their lead singer sounded like a male version of Christine McVie! This band shows lots of growth, and facial hair is only partially relevant!

Phoebe Snow: Live (Verve Forecast) When I was just out of college I worked at a magazine that specialized in humorous captions! It was great! One day a woman called up and asked me how come she'd been dropped off the complimentary mailing list, and--get this--it was Phoebe Snow herself! She liked the funny captions! So I put her back on the list! From that point forward, I've had nothing but the greatest admiration for Miss Snow--so I'd like to point out that her new live album, recorded in Woodstock, New York, is a fine assemblage of well-played, well-sung tunes, including her classic hit "Poetry Man," covers of "It's All In The Game" and "Piece Of My Heart," and much more. That said, if her album cover bore a really funny caption--like "The Microphone God was not fooled by Phoebe's false piety!"--it might sell a few more copies in New Jersey!

Ingrid Michaelson: Be OK (Cabin 24) An up-and-coming singer-songwriter who has admirably attached herself to the Stand Up To Cancer organization, Michaelson has assembled this collection of demos, live tracks and cover songs in part to benefit that cause. Word is she's about to launch a "Be OK" tour that will feature a "Be OK" necklace as part of her tour merchandise, the proceeds of which will go to that same fine cause. My advice: Buy the record, promote the cause, but don't give the necklace to anyone named Kay!

Bobbie Gentry: Ode to Billie Joe/Touch 'Em With Love (Raven Australian import) Though I try not to write about albums issue outside this country--it's, like, not patriotic--the fact that this album is available domestically via MP3 download has opened the floodgates! Containing the first and fifth albums by this marvelous and unique singer-songwriter--born in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, no less!--this package is a great collection featuring Billie Joe's title track, the very surreal "Bugs," other great originals, and an array of covers including "Son Of A Preacher Man," "Niki Hoeky," and "You've Made Me So Very Happy." Historic note to Beatle haters: Ode To Billie Joe knocked Sgt. Pepper's off the top of the album charts! She probably laughed evilly when it happened! What more could you ask for?  

Connie Talbot: Over The Rainbow (AAO) An astounding vocalist with a big, big voice, Talbot seems destined for an enormously successful career! And hopefully budding singers will take note that getting an excessive number of facelifts often reaps unexpected results!