Madonna Downs Pizza with David Letterman: “
Madonna noshes on a NY slice of pizza with basil and olive toppings while taping her appearance on Late Night with David Letterman on Wednesday (September 30).
The 51-year-old Material Mom was recently asked if she’s going to have any more kids. She told Popeater, “Who knows? (laughs) Y’know, I have my hands full right now! I have no idea! That’s all I’m going to say. But we never say never.”
15+ pictures inside of Madonna downing a slice of pizza…
“
Britney Spears' new single, 3
Britney Spears debuted her new single today, and it has already sparked some controversy since the subject matter of the song deals with threesomes.
I don’t think these people understand. This is Britney. She is our generation’s Madonna. She does this sort of thing. It’s not new! Don’t you remember Madonna burning crosses and having videos banned from MTV? But we got over it.
As for “3,” Britney’s new song, it’s about the same level of crude fun as her last hit, “If U Seek Amy” (sound it out if you don’t get it). And you can dance to it. So play it in the clubs and stop complaining!
If you want to hear what all the fuss is about, the new single is streaming at BritneySpears.com.
Madonna is apparently getting hitched to her boyfriend Baby Jesus in a lavish Kabbalah ceremony. Madonna thinks he is soo sweet and checks in on her all the time. He thinks she is so fantastic and well-rounded. And he accepts her self-involvement as well. I think and hope it´s just a rumor. I would definitely lose respect for her if she marries him, just to make herself look younger. Sad
Footballer Dwight Yorke has a book coming out and now after 7 years of wanting nothing to do with his baby with Katie Price, aka Jordan now he apparently wants to be the full-time father. He is mad that Jordan keeps referring to ex Peter Andre as the baby’s dad. What an ass that Dwight, Katie has been such a great mom for little Harvey who is severely autistic and now all of a sudden he wants to be a father, WTF.
Susan Boyle might have a very interesting singing partner soon. John Bon Jovi wants to duet with her, he thinks she is fantastic! Wow, Susan turns into a real rock chick. First covering a Rolling Stone hit and now this. I would love to see this duo together.
A Belgian baby, a 22 month year old girl, died this weekend after her mother, a drug addict, had methadone and coke lying around the house and the baby ingested it. The mother was a known case with police forces because of her addiction. So tragic!
I was in high school when Pulp Fiction came out. I remember my high school English teacher standing in front of my senior-year class asking us what was so good about the movie. “Did it have to be so violent?” he wondered.
Of course, asking high school students if movies have to be violent is like asking skydivers if they need airplanes. It betrays a generational forgetfulness, the complaints of someone trying to slow their fall instead of hastening an ascent. That was almost half of my lifetime ago.
So I was sitting in a theater in Manhattan watching Inglourious Basterds with my friend P, who had also been with me in that classroom fifteen years earlier. And I was bored to desperation. I hate admitting that. Boredom is a useless reaction to have to anything. It’s colloquial shorthand that makes it easy to not interrogate your reactions any further. If something is boring, it’s just not worth the effort.
And if I’m honest, this is the single most common response to culture that I have.
I didn’t like Pulp Fiction when it first came out and I still don’t. I admire it in principle. It was a great clarion call of nihilism, a proof that media doesn’t matter nor do our reactions to it. We can see anything, terrible violence, mundanity, and a near psychotic deconstruction of our rotted popular culture and, so long as the pulp has dramatic subtext (e.g. suspense), we will be entertained. Though we like to tell ourselves otherwise, the sheer whoosh of momentary titillation justifies the loss of a few hours in the flickering darkness.
I like this idea. I admire a filmmaker who’d set out to make a two and a half hour movie about nothing but mammalian frisson. This idea was especially poignant in the mid-90’s racing towards the implosion of commercial media and its narrow control of content distribution. I just didn’t like the movie that much. Its subversions weren’t the product of human randomness but a mechanical reframing of obviously pointless schlock.
Tarantino tells us, ventriloquizing through Brad Pitt, that Inglourious Basterds is his “masterpiece.” It’s got all the randomness of Pulp Fiction, contains as much hapless gore (though it seems quaintly restrained and almost safe in comparison to the wallowing carnage of his earlier movies). It even has some genuine sentimentalism, setting up its final movement with a swooning ode to the orphaned Jewess in a montage set to David Bowie’s “Cat People;” the heavy grays and browns in which the movie draws itself are split with bright gashes of red.
It’s also supposed to be a comedy, but I can’t make out the jokes. Tarantino treats history with the same self-serving focus he did Madonna in Reservoir Dogs. What’s wrong-headed about the whole thing is WWII is more interesting than his reduction, while his monologue about dicks was generally more interesting than the song it was deconstructing.
Is it a satire, twisting the conventions of romance and narrative against one of the most complex and traumatic events of human history? Is it a defense of fantasy and popular escapism, outlasting the pomp of history and the inconclusive chaos it leaves behind?
Inglourious Basterds might have made a better case for itself had it applied to history the same verve for deconstruction Tarantino casts on popular culture. But it seems to me like Tarantino doesn’t really know what he’s talking about. The joke about Churchill is that he’s a fat alcoholic who sits in the corner saying almost nothing. The Nazi’s are homo-neurotic girly men on-loan from the Mel Brooks school of historical humiliation.
The Jews don’t have a voice at all (some of you might brave the depths of intellectualism to find a message here, like the image of a black man ball-gagged and rapped by a cop in Pulp Fiction). And the hero is a brazenly witless hack who squints when confronted with accents, though his is the thickest of the lot.
Pitt’s signature move is a willingness to spare Nazi’s only if they endure a swastika being carved into their foreheads so that everyone will be able to identify them by the team colors they wore. This might be satirical if it didn’t seem like Tarantino took such relish in Pitt’s role as the movie’s alpha male.
Living up to the standard of the American action movie, Basterds reminds me that it’s not the smartest guy in the fight that wins, it’s the guy that punches the hardest. In asking audiences to take an exceptionally well-documented and staggeringly complex war and reduce it into a handful of cinematic derivations, Tarantino is asking me to become stupider than I am.
Basterds is a kind of de-evolution through cinema. It shows off the irascible and tired stereotypes of history because they’re necessary for the telling of a cinematic yarn. And this undoes the nihilism that is Tarantino’s sharpest gift. After years of having made movies that informed against the very idea of a masterpiece, Tarantino has crafted his own opus. It’s a love letter to his own career, the work of an ageing author suddenly afraid of the deeper implications of his violent youth.
One of my favorite films,Evita, happens to star Madonna as Argentine political leader and one of my humanitarian idols Eva Perón. Directed by Alan Parker, other heavy hitters included Antonia Banderas as Che and Jonathan Pryce as Perón. Most people I’ve asked about this movie have never seen it but can remember hearing these lyrics to a tune: “Don’t cry for me Argentina. The truth is I never left you!”. Nonetheless, I had a bit of nostalgia this morning as I was listening to a playlist and came across one of my favorite songs from the soundtrack, “I’d be surprisingly Good for You”, that has a very pretty latin flair with the light sambas in the background.
Take a look at the song’s scene from the movie.
After a short history lesson on Eva Peron in a class in high school, I think I read just about every book that was ever written about her. Her story of passion, triumph, and persistence moved me and has ever since been a woman that I admired. Her repertoire included a strong stance for the descamisados (working class) of Argentina, women’s suffrage, and most poignant, her work with children via the Eva Perón Foundation. Not to mention she was solely responsible for the establishment of Argentina’s first female political party – Just a little history lesson!
Besides the political and biographical elements of the movie, the reason it still has such resonance in my mind is because of the fantastical fashion. The movie channeled a very 40s Argentinian glamour that rivals what political royalty were wearing around the world at the time. I don’t know you guys, I think she may have put a little dirt on Jackie O when it came to her fashion sense! Ha!
nbThe other day I was watching a one hour long Spanish soap opera. This is unusually because I don’t watch much television. Television is an old stone age media which tries to keep your attention but doesn’t provide any kind of quality programing. This “novela” used the old formula of the girl growing up poor and catching the eye of a rich guy, eventually, they become a couple and marry. Why does the audience watch the same story over and over again? You can say that the plot appeals to people or that they don’t have alternatives. I think the ladder must be right. The producers of the show just don’t want to experiment because they know what works and are too risk-averse to tinker with anything new. Oh well, our lost. But wait! We have so many other alternatives and they all can be found on the Internet. Youtube, ted.com, forat.tv are just some of the examples of internet video which will eventually replace television.
I am optimistic on the growth of content but I also recognize that the hit-soap opera or the hit-movie will be with us for long time. The hit satisfies our craving for a story which titillates our emotions and grabs our attention. The plot, unless it is a mystery, is known or you can guess it with a high probability of being right. The stories have happy endings. I like happy endings, most people probably like happy endings. I wouldn’t invest my time, energy or money on entertainment which would make me feel bad at the end.
This brings me to the purpose of Art. But, if I am to dabble on this subject ,I must first define it. Art is artificiality. Ok, I got the noun,verb, and object but what do I mean. What I am trying to do is expand the domain of art from what originally comes to mind. It isn’t just a painting, sculpture or music, but also clothing, a jet plane, and soap operas. The difference between the stuff lies on the purpose of each human made artifact. Even though, we can categories all of it as products, which would lead me to a discussion of economics, I want to focus on art that has a purpose not meant as a utility. What is the purpose of a painting? Is it just mere decoration or something to contemplate and criticize. And what of the creator of the painting? Did what he imagine materialize, or did he just did it for the sake of it?
First, before I try to answer these question, let us look into the two philosophies or art and the domains they occupied. I am sure there is more theories of art but I am going to use these two because of the relationship they have on the two domains of thought I am writing off. The peculiar and the general, the individual and the Society, the subjective and the objective. These are examples of what one perceives and what one knows is out there but is abstract. Take for example the individual and the Society, much digital print and blood has been spilled over which is more important. Or which holds a higher superiority over the other. But the fact that their is arguments over these subjects leads to the recognition of conflicts unresolved. And throughout History the pendulum of power has swung either way or stayed static. The same applies to “Art for arts sake” and what I’ll name as “Classic Greek”.
Oscar Wilde was one of the first proponents of the ideas that the purpose of art was entirely subjective and the only reason for its existence was as a medium of expression for the artist. In “Salomé”-great play by the way- he has his characters describe poetically but differently the moon. He wanted to show the audience that art, the spoken word in this case, was subjective. And it was only a matter of who was uttering the words and his or her emotional mood. This is the dominant art philosophy today. It is individualistic, non-conformist, shocking, self-promoting, it is only concern with the freedom of self-expression disregarding the consequences of the art. Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, Elvis, these are some the names that come to mind. They threw away the manual and follow their own way either led by reason, relativism or a drug induce haze. The point was that there was no point or many, you can go left or right up or down or nowhere at all. This is individual liberty taken to is highest ideals both positive and negative. I am not going to praise or condemn this philosophy but rather just describe it. We do live in a increasingly individualistic age- hey, I have a blog about me-and technology has facilitated the access to the tools needed to express yourself without the hassles of physics or any measurement of consequences.
The other side of the coin emerges when we think of the consequences of “Classic Greek ” The Greek had a overall philosophy, but it pertains to art also, which relied on the idea that there was truths, if not absolute at least probable to a high degree, on this world. That a fact, like a line was a line, wasn’t just in terms of what one thought subjectively was a line but what we can measure and prove to everybody was, indeed, a line. This lead to an overall aggregation of knowledge base on evidence and proofs. But how does this relate to, say the Acropolis of Athens and Art? Because with the confirmation that there was natural truths and techniques to measure them it allowed the ancient Greek artist to edify structures which didn’t come from his mind alone but where more concern with its natural aesthetic and place in the neighborhood and city. The poet, to use another example, thought of the impact of his work or at least how the poem fit in the overall picture. He thought of the society as a whole. His medium wasn’t just a form of self-expression but a conscious effort to show, stir, entertain, or enrich the society he lived in. He thought of the public and what form of art might benefit it. Natural objective aesthetics which everybody can recognize was a giving truth. The aim was to enrich and help the public transcend this world through art. The right art has the power to lift the user to transcending highs and leave him in catharsis and with a new perspective of the world, one hopes. The problem, of course, is that with the emphasis place on society and the overall picture there wasn’t much room for the solo thinker or if one existed, he ran the risk of getting censor. And if society is above the artist then this can be taken to extremes by controlling society through symbols and limiting the availability of different ways of seeing things. Also, the art, for the most part, was local and folkie. It wasn’t concerned with other cities or cultures unless it was Athens. All this is what I call the “Greek Classic” way. Again, I don’t know if it was a better way of doing art or just a highly romanticizes ancient way.
Sometimes, I hear some Americans say that the U.S.A has no art, or is trash entertainment, or that Starbucks is all we got for art. This I believe is wrong because they are thinking of art in the “Greek Classic” way. What America has is “ Art for Arts sake” art and, for the most part, new European art, also has self-expression as the motivator. But the modern or post-modern art has unique attributes. First, there is art that binds a large amount of the public together. Be it the blockbusters, like Star-Wars, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Disney ,The Office or whatever is the Hit-Parade. And the other more cottage art which is to a large degree generated by the Internet. Think of viral videos, machianime or the communities you create on social networks. These are subcultures not the mainstream but, nevertheless, worlds of their own. The art we create is for our own pleasure, subjective, and networkie. Oscar Wilde ‘s view of art is dominant today and he has been vindicated by becoming a brand of his own, indeed, he is very popular, specially amount the Morrissey and The Smiths crowd. Henceforth, the art of any post industrial society is individualistic and only concern with exhibition of the creator.
—-I’ll edit this mmm..post later, since this is a blog I leave it as is for now.
Estou nos ajustes finais (ufa!!!) da monografia da minha pós-graduação. Aliás, da TRIgrafia, já que estou fazendo junto com minhas amigas Christina Bona , consultora de imagem, e Ingrid Voor, estilista da marca infantil RKids & Teens.
Para aqueles que também estão neste momento “monografisístico”, seguem algumas dicas bacaninhas.
Já ouviu falar do Google Books? É uma ferramenta do Google ótima para quem está pesquisando livros para suas referências bibliográficas. Você coloca uma palavra-chave ou expressão e a ferramenta lista vários livros que tratam do tema. O melhor de tudo é que vários livros estão parcialmente disponíveis para visualização, isto é, dá para dar uma lidinha no conteúdo e descobrir se ele realmente vai lhe servir.
Depois do grande alívio que é finalizar sua monô, você pode publicá-la. A Escola de Empreendedores está publicando monografias, TCCs, artigos científicos e teses. Infelizmente no site não explica as codições, mas você pode tirar suas dúvidas de como proceder através do email: artigos@escoladeempreendedores.com.br.
Outra possibilidade de publicação é na revista digital do IBModa , a AntennaWeb. Para mais informações, envie email para comunicacao@ibmoda.com.br.
A dica final é de um livro muito bom chamado “Deluxe: como o luxo perdeu o brilho”, de autoria da jornalista Dana Thomas. Com linguagem fácil e bem gostoso de ler, o livro fala da indústria do luxo, dos seus bastidores não muito gloriosos, das falsificações, dos produtos de luxo (?) fabricados em série e do atual momento em que as antigas empresas familiares se transformam em marcas que fazem partes de grandes conglomerados econômicos. O livro reflete ainda sobre as questões do consumo e o real sentido do luxo na atualidade. Vale a leitura!
E para quem ficou curioso, a minha monografia é uma análise semiótica da campanha primavera/verão da Louis Vuitton deste ano, estrelada por Madonna. Mas isso é tema pra um outro post….
