![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Aug. 17th, 2012
Jodie Foster
Aug. 17th, 2012 06:00 am"Jodie Foster recently made it clear that she absolutely hates the life of a celebrity today.... Foster makes it clear that starting your acting career as a child is one of the worst things that could happen, especially today."
-- ONTD
Oh, I don't know. I suspect having to pick crops all day as a child and not being able to go to school might be a tad worse. I swear, these celebrities and the mega-rich are now wholly unmoored from the reality that revolves around their diamond-encrusted bubble. It doesn't bode well for the future.
-- ONTD
Oh, I don't know. I suspect having to pick crops all day as a child and not being able to go to school might be a tad worse. I swear, these celebrities and the mega-rich are now wholly unmoored from the reality that revolves around their diamond-encrusted bubble. It doesn't bode well for the future.
Jodie Foster
Aug. 17th, 2012 06:00 am"Jodie Foster recently made it clear that she absolutely hates the life of a celebrity today.... Foster makes it clear that starting your acting career as a child is one of the worst things that could happen, especially today."
-- ONTD
Oh, I don't know. I suspect having to pick crops all day as a child and not being able to go to school might be a tad worse. I swear, these celebrities and the mega-rich are now wholly unmoored from the reality that revolves around their diamond-encrusted bubble. It doesn't bode well for the future.
-- ONTD
Oh, I don't know. I suspect having to pick crops all day as a child and not being able to go to school might be a tad worse. I swear, these celebrities and the mega-rich are now wholly unmoored from the reality that revolves around their diamond-encrusted bubble. It doesn't bode well for the future.
Economic Suicides
Aug. 17th, 2012 09:00 amThe economic plight in Europe is so devastating that many people are committing suicide over it. I'm a little surprised that there has not been more political radicalism with circumstances so poor.
_ _ _
IN ATHENS — Antonis Perris, a musician unemployed for more than two years, was desperate. Perris wrote in an online forum late one night that he had run out of money to buy food and cursed those responsible for the economic crisis in Greece. “I have no solution in front of me,” he typed.
The next morning, Perris took the hand of his ailing 90-year-old mother. They climbed to the roof of their apartment building and leapt to their death.
[...]
So many people have been killing themselves and leaving behind notes citing financial hardship that European media outlets have a special name for them: “economic suicides.”
-- Ariana Eunjung Cha at The Washington Post
_ _ _
IN ATHENS — Antonis Perris, a musician unemployed for more than two years, was desperate. Perris wrote in an online forum late one night that he had run out of money to buy food and cursed those responsible for the economic crisis in Greece. “I have no solution in front of me,” he typed.
The next morning, Perris took the hand of his ailing 90-year-old mother. They climbed to the roof of their apartment building and leapt to their death.
[...]
So many people have been killing themselves and leaving behind notes citing financial hardship that European media outlets have a special name for them: “economic suicides.”
-- Ariana Eunjung Cha at The Washington Post
Economic Suicides
Aug. 17th, 2012 09:00 amThe economic plight in Europe is so devastating that many people are committing suicide over it. I'm a little surprised that there has not been more political radicalism with circumstances so poor.
_ _ _
IN ATHENS — Antonis Perris, a musician unemployed for more than two years, was desperate. Perris wrote in an online forum late one night that he had run out of money to buy food and cursed those responsible for the economic crisis in Greece. “I have no solution in front of me,” he typed.
The next morning, Perris took the hand of his ailing 90-year-old mother. They climbed to the roof of their apartment building and leapt to their death.
[...]
So many people have been killing themselves and leaving behind notes citing financial hardship that European media outlets have a special name for them: “economic suicides.”
-- Ariana Eunjung Cha at The Washington Post
_ _ _
IN ATHENS — Antonis Perris, a musician unemployed for more than two years, was desperate. Perris wrote in an online forum late one night that he had run out of money to buy food and cursed those responsible for the economic crisis in Greece. “I have no solution in front of me,” he typed.
The next morning, Perris took the hand of his ailing 90-year-old mother. They climbed to the roof of their apartment building and leapt to their death.
[...]
So many people have been killing themselves and leaving behind notes citing financial hardship that European media outlets have a special name for them: “economic suicides.”
-- Ariana Eunjung Cha at The Washington Post
West Nile Virus
Aug. 17th, 2012 12:00 pmThe West Nile virus had barely registered on my radar. I didn't know it was an American bug. But apparently we have had some deaths in Dallas, and they are instituting a spraying program to shrink the mosquito population. If they were going to spray here, I suppose I would make sure the cats are inside as we go into lockdown mode, with the air-condtioner running pretty. God, I hate it when the news runs into my real life. I much prefer my news as a spectacle.
(Source: LJ-News)
(Source: LJ-News)
West Nile Virus
Aug. 17th, 2012 12:00 pmThe West Nile virus had barely registered on my radar. I didn't know it was an American bug. But apparently we have had some deaths in Dallas, and they are instituting a spraying program to shrink the mosquito population. If they were going to spray here, I suppose I would make sure the cats are inside as we go into lockdown mode, with the air-condtioner running pretty. God, I hate it when the news runs into my real life. I much prefer my news as a spectacle.
(Source: LJ-News)
(Source: LJ-News)
Pussy Riot Verdict
Aug. 17th, 2012 01:47 pmMOSCOW — A Moscow judge handed down stiff prison sentences of two years on Friday afternoon for three young women who staged a protest against Vladimir V. Putin in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior last February and whose jailing and trial on hooliganism charges have generated worldwide criticism of constraints on political speech in Russia. [...]
The saga began in February when the women infiltrated Moscow’s main cathedral wearing colorful balaclavas, and pranced around in front of the golden Holy Doors leading into the altar, dancing, chanting and lip-syncing for what would later become a music video of a profane song in which they beseeched the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Mr. Putin.
-- David M. Herszenhorn at The New York Times
By Russian standards this is lenient, though it remains disappointing. I love the part about how President Putin was hoping for a lighter judgment, as if he too suffers the strictures of a separation of powers that we have in America and the West. Or maybe I am too negative in supposing that he holds the judicial power in his hands as well, but I doubt I am. I also see in this story that the former chess champion Gary Kasparov was active in this protest: "Mr. Kasparov fought with the police and appeared to be beaten as he was bundled into a police vehicle." But I know he has been active against the authoritarian regime for years, perhaps from the beginning.
The saga began in February when the women infiltrated Moscow’s main cathedral wearing colorful balaclavas, and pranced around in front of the golden Holy Doors leading into the altar, dancing, chanting and lip-syncing for what would later become a music video of a profane song in which they beseeched the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Mr. Putin.
-- David M. Herszenhorn at The New York Times
By Russian standards this is lenient, though it remains disappointing. I love the part about how President Putin was hoping for a lighter judgment, as if he too suffers the strictures of a separation of powers that we have in America and the West. Or maybe I am too negative in supposing that he holds the judicial power in his hands as well, but I doubt I am. I also see in this story that the former chess champion Gary Kasparov was active in this protest: "Mr. Kasparov fought with the police and appeared to be beaten as he was bundled into a police vehicle." But I know he has been active against the authoritarian regime for years, perhaps from the beginning.
Pussy Riot Verdict
Aug. 17th, 2012 01:47 pmMOSCOW — A Moscow judge handed down stiff prison sentences of two years on Friday afternoon for three young women who staged a protest against Vladimir V. Putin in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior last February and whose jailing and trial on hooliganism charges have generated worldwide criticism of constraints on political speech in Russia. [...]
The saga began in February when the women infiltrated Moscow’s main cathedral wearing colorful balaclavas, and pranced around in front of the golden Holy Doors leading into the altar, dancing, chanting and lip-syncing for what would later become a music video of a profane song in which they beseeched the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Mr. Putin.
-- David M. Herszenhorn at The New York Times
By Russian standards this is lenient, though it remains disappointing. I love the part about how President Putin was hoping for a lighter judgment, as if he too suffers the strictures of a separation of powers that we have in America and the West. Or maybe I am too negative in supposing that he holds the judicial power in his hands as well, but I doubt I am. I also see in this story that the former chess champion Gary Kasparov was active in this protest: "Mr. Kasparov fought with the police and appeared to be beaten as he was bundled into a police vehicle." But I know he has been active against the authoritarian regime for years, perhaps from the beginning.
The saga began in February when the women infiltrated Moscow’s main cathedral wearing colorful balaclavas, and pranced around in front of the golden Holy Doors leading into the altar, dancing, chanting and lip-syncing for what would later become a music video of a profane song in which they beseeched the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Mr. Putin.
-- David M. Herszenhorn at The New York Times
By Russian standards this is lenient, though it remains disappointing. I love the part about how President Putin was hoping for a lighter judgment, as if he too suffers the strictures of a separation of powers that we have in America and the West. Or maybe I am too negative in supposing that he holds the judicial power in his hands as well, but I doubt I am. I also see in this story that the former chess champion Gary Kasparov was active in this protest: "Mr. Kasparov fought with the police and appeared to be beaten as he was bundled into a police vehicle." But I know he has been active against the authoritarian regime for years, perhaps from the beginning.
Kentucky Science
Aug. 17th, 2012 06:00 pmThe proud state of Kentucky wants to instruct the rest of the country and the world on what is science, and that evoluton is not science but merely a theory, and they obviously don't want their children being bogged down in airy-fairy theories, but only in hard facts such as those found in the Bible. Heh, was America a great country once?
_ _ _
"Republicans did want the end-of-course tests tied to national norms; now they're upset because when ACT surveyed biology professors across the nation, they said students have to have a thorough knowledge of evolution to do well in college biology courses," said Rep. Carl Rollins, D-Midway, chairman of the House Education Committee.
Givens said he and other legislators have been contacted by a number of educators with concerns about Kentucky's proposed new science standards, which are tied to ACT testing and are scheduled to be adopted this fall.
"I think we are very committed to being able to take Kentucky students and put them on a report card beside students across the nation," Givens said. "We're simply saying to the ACT people we don't want what is a theory to be taught as a fact in such a way it may damage students' ability to do critical thinking."
-- News-LJ
_ _ _
"Republicans did want the end-of-course tests tied to national norms; now they're upset because when ACT surveyed biology professors across the nation, they said students have to have a thorough knowledge of evolution to do well in college biology courses," said Rep. Carl Rollins, D-Midway, chairman of the House Education Committee.
Givens said he and other legislators have been contacted by a number of educators with concerns about Kentucky's proposed new science standards, which are tied to ACT testing and are scheduled to be adopted this fall.
"I think we are very committed to being able to take Kentucky students and put them on a report card beside students across the nation," Givens said. "We're simply saying to the ACT people we don't want what is a theory to be taught as a fact in such a way it may damage students' ability to do critical thinking."
-- News-LJ
Kentucky Science
Aug. 17th, 2012 06:00 pmThe proud state of Kentucky wants to instruct the rest of the country and the world on what is science, and that evoluton is not science but merely a theory, and they obviously don't want their children being bogged down in airy-fairy theories, but only in hard facts such as those found in the Bible. Heh, was America a great country once?
_ _ _
"Republicans did want the end-of-course tests tied to national norms; now they're upset because when ACT surveyed biology professors across the nation, they said students have to have a thorough knowledge of evolution to do well in college biology courses," said Rep. Carl Rollins, D-Midway, chairman of the House Education Committee.
Givens said he and other legislators have been contacted by a number of educators with concerns about Kentucky's proposed new science standards, which are tied to ACT testing and are scheduled to be adopted this fall.
"I think we are very committed to being able to take Kentucky students and put them on a report card beside students across the nation," Givens said. "We're simply saying to the ACT people we don't want what is a theory to be taught as a fact in such a way it may damage students' ability to do critical thinking."
-- News-LJ
_ _ _
"Republicans did want the end-of-course tests tied to national norms; now they're upset because when ACT surveyed biology professors across the nation, they said students have to have a thorough knowledge of evolution to do well in college biology courses," said Rep. Carl Rollins, D-Midway, chairman of the House Education Committee.
Givens said he and other legislators have been contacted by a number of educators with concerns about Kentucky's proposed new science standards, which are tied to ACT testing and are scheduled to be adopted this fall.
"I think we are very committed to being able to take Kentucky students and put them on a report card beside students across the nation," Givens said. "We're simply saying to the ACT people we don't want what is a theory to be taught as a fact in such a way it may damage students' ability to do critical thinking."
-- News-LJ
PHOENIX — Hot is a relative term for people used to the scorching summer weather in this city built on land better suited for cactus than lawns. But nine straight days of excessive heat seem to have stretched even the most elastic tolerance levels to their limits. [...]
The heat is so intense it feels as if it is searing the exposed skin. Cracking the front door feels like opening the oven to check the cookies. To enter a car that has been parked in the sun for some time is like stepping inside a wood-burning stove; steering wheels are so hot sometimes they might burn a driver’s fingers. Parents take to draping child seats with sun shades, like the ones they use on windshields.
-- Fernanda Santos at The New York Times
Phoenix is one of the few places in this country that can cheer me up at this time of the year. We're a tad better. Though, they usually like to say that theirs is a dry heat, whereas our heat is apparently of the less desirable variety. I suspect I'd still rather suffer July and August here than in Phoenix, but we're really only talking about subtle variations of hell. Air-conditioning keeps things human, but you are never truly free of the heavy awareness that you are living in a brutal no-man's zone.
I wish our cats would appreciate the great luxury they have of being able to doze all day in an air-conditioned house, but they will still cry to be let out into that cresting heatwave. My Bo was able to appreciate what he had. He would step out to do his business and then race back inside the house as if he were a vampire-dog escaping the sun. Smart Dog! Like his master.
Bo says, "Aww, thank you, Kemo Sabe!"
Don't spoil the mood.
The heat is so intense it feels as if it is searing the exposed skin. Cracking the front door feels like opening the oven to check the cookies. To enter a car that has been parked in the sun for some time is like stepping inside a wood-burning stove; steering wheels are so hot sometimes they might burn a driver’s fingers. Parents take to draping child seats with sun shades, like the ones they use on windshields.
-- Fernanda Santos at The New York Times
Phoenix is one of the few places in this country that can cheer me up at this time of the year. We're a tad better. Though, they usually like to say that theirs is a dry heat, whereas our heat is apparently of the less desirable variety. I suspect I'd still rather suffer July and August here than in Phoenix, but we're really only talking about subtle variations of hell. Air-conditioning keeps things human, but you are never truly free of the heavy awareness that you are living in a brutal no-man's zone.
I wish our cats would appreciate the great luxury they have of being able to doze all day in an air-conditioned house, but they will still cry to be let out into that cresting heatwave. My Bo was able to appreciate what he had. He would step out to do his business and then race back inside the house as if he were a vampire-dog escaping the sun. Smart Dog! Like his master.
Bo says, "Aww, thank you, Kemo Sabe!"
Don't spoil the mood.
PHOENIX — Hot is a relative term for people used to the scorching summer weather in this city built on land better suited for cactus than lawns. But nine straight days of excessive heat seem to have stretched even the most elastic tolerance levels to their limits. [...]
The heat is so intense it feels as if it is searing the exposed skin. Cracking the front door feels like opening the oven to check the cookies. To enter a car that has been parked in the sun for some time is like stepping inside a wood-burning stove; steering wheels are so hot sometimes they might burn a driver’s fingers. Parents take to draping child seats with sun shades, like the ones they use on windshields.
-- Fernanda Santos at The New York Times
Phoenix is one of the few places in this country that can cheer me up at this time of the year. We're a tad better. Though, they usually like to say that theirs is a dry heat, whereas our heat is apparently of the less desirable variety. I suspect I'd still rather suffer July and August here than in Phoenix, but we're really only talking about subtle variations of hell. Air-conditioning keeps things human, but you are never truly free of the heavy awareness that you are living in a brutal no-man's zone.
I wish our cats would appreciate the great luxury they have of being able to doze all day in an air-conditioned house, but they will still cry to be let out into that cresting heatwave. My Bo was able to appreciate what he had. He would step out to do his business and then race back inside the house as if he were a vampire-dog escaping the sun. Smart Dog! Like his master.
Bo says, "Aww, thank you, Kemo Sabe!"
Don't spoil the mood.
The heat is so intense it feels as if it is searing the exposed skin. Cracking the front door feels like opening the oven to check the cookies. To enter a car that has been parked in the sun for some time is like stepping inside a wood-burning stove; steering wheels are so hot sometimes they might burn a driver’s fingers. Parents take to draping child seats with sun shades, like the ones they use on windshields.
-- Fernanda Santos at The New York Times
Phoenix is one of the few places in this country that can cheer me up at this time of the year. We're a tad better. Though, they usually like to say that theirs is a dry heat, whereas our heat is apparently of the less desirable variety. I suspect I'd still rather suffer July and August here than in Phoenix, but we're really only talking about subtle variations of hell. Air-conditioning keeps things human, but you are never truly free of the heavy awareness that you are living in a brutal no-man's zone.
I wish our cats would appreciate the great luxury they have of being able to doze all day in an air-conditioned house, but they will still cry to be let out into that cresting heatwave. My Bo was able to appreciate what he had. He would step out to do his business and then race back inside the house as if he were a vampire-dog escaping the sun. Smart Dog! Like his master.
Bo says, "Aww, thank you, Kemo Sabe!"
Don't spoil the mood.
Yesterday was the 35th anniversary of Elvis's death, and I have come across a passionate little love note to the king marking the occasion. Personally, I have not been listening to any music lately. I have been more caught up in my books and blogging, which I am glad about. Besides, the little absence will only enrich my appreciation for Elvis when I do settle down to listen.
_ _ _
"The army can do anything it wants with me," remarked Elvis Presley upon leaving for basic training in 1958. "Millions of other guys have been drafted, and I don't want to be different from anyone else." But Elvis was not like anyone else.
He wore sideburns and greasy long hair in the crew-cutted fifties. He played black music in the segregated South. He appeared in foppish fashions -- ascots, satin pants, pink shirts -- in t-shirt-and-jeans Memphis. As a teenage steady remembered, "I knew the first time I met him that he was not like other people."
This did not sit well with other people. Classmates cut the strings to his guitar. Other kids pitched rotten fruit at him. The coach kicked him off the high school football team, and a boss threatened to fire him, for refusing to get a haircut. "I felt really sorry for him," noted a classmate, who had defended Elvis from bullies. "He seemed very lonely and had no real friends. He just didn't seem to be able to fit in."
Elvis never fit in. He stood out. Greatness isn't about meshing with the crowd. Greatness requires the courage to stand apart. In an era derided as conformist, Elvis was an individual. He dared to be different.
One gleans just how much of a pariah the guitar-strumming teenager was from reading Peter Guralnick's Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. If the 20th century's most popular singer appeared as a show-business cliché at his death 35 years ago today, he projected so eccentric an image in his pre-fame Memphis days that the idea of him conquering the entertainment world would seem as bizarre to Memphians as Elvis appeared to them. If Elvis doesn't strike us today as outlandish, it is because we live in the world that Elvis made.
The individual who initially threatens the crowd eventually pleases the crowd. Mockers became imitators. "What he did," Grand Ole Opry member Jimmy "C" Newman told Guralnick, "was he changed it all around. After that we had to go to Texas to work, there wasn't any work anywhere else, because all they wanted was someone to imitate Elvis, to jump up and down on the stage and make a fool of themselves." Thirty-five years after his death, the high school outcast remains the world's most impersonated person.
"I don't sound like nobody," the inner-directed Elvis, to borrow David Riesman's famous fifties phrase, told Sun Records. His unique style extended from his dress to his art. The postwar star defied categorization. Critics labeled his music bebop, hillbilly, folk, country, and r&b, until finally settling on rock 'n' roll. Like his classmates, they sneered like snobs. The New York Times judged, "Mr. Presley has no discernable singing ability."
America disagreed. By late 1956, the phenom sold two-thirds of RCA's 45s. Between "Heartbreak Hotel" hitting #1 in April of 1956 and the induction of recruit #53310761 in March of 1958, the King reigned atop the singles sales charts for more than a year. Only a force as powerful as the U.S. Army could stop him.
Rather than overthrowing the American social order, Elvis was a product of it. Before his singing career, he mowed lawns, served as a theater usher, worked as a machinist, and drove a truck. He repeatedly affirmed his love of God and belief in the Bible. In these early years, he steered clear of drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes -- but not food or practical jokes. And even though girls literally ripped the clothes off his body, he generally stopped short of doing the same with his many dating partners. Above all, he loved his parents, lavishing a pink Cadillac and a mansion upon his mother before her death. The journey from the Lauderdale Courts housing project to Graceland was the American Dream on steroids.
Elvis enthralls 35 years after his death in part because of his contradictions. A mama's boy/rebel, the loner amidst the entourage, and the painfully shy performer who confidently commanded audiences remains an enigma. Thirty-five years from now, the world will still be talking about, imitating, and singing along with the King.
Americans loved Elvis because he was unique. Americans loved Elvis because he was America.
-- Daniel J. Flynn at The American Spectator
_ _ _
"The army can do anything it wants with me," remarked Elvis Presley upon leaving for basic training in 1958. "Millions of other guys have been drafted, and I don't want to be different from anyone else." But Elvis was not like anyone else.
He wore sideburns and greasy long hair in the crew-cutted fifties. He played black music in the segregated South. He appeared in foppish fashions -- ascots, satin pants, pink shirts -- in t-shirt-and-jeans Memphis. As a teenage steady remembered, "I knew the first time I met him that he was not like other people."
This did not sit well with other people. Classmates cut the strings to his guitar. Other kids pitched rotten fruit at him. The coach kicked him off the high school football team, and a boss threatened to fire him, for refusing to get a haircut. "I felt really sorry for him," noted a classmate, who had defended Elvis from bullies. "He seemed very lonely and had no real friends. He just didn't seem to be able to fit in."
Elvis never fit in. He stood out. Greatness isn't about meshing with the crowd. Greatness requires the courage to stand apart. In an era derided as conformist, Elvis was an individual. He dared to be different.
One gleans just how much of a pariah the guitar-strumming teenager was from reading Peter Guralnick's Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. If the 20th century's most popular singer appeared as a show-business cliché at his death 35 years ago today, he projected so eccentric an image in his pre-fame Memphis days that the idea of him conquering the entertainment world would seem as bizarre to Memphians as Elvis appeared to them. If Elvis doesn't strike us today as outlandish, it is because we live in the world that Elvis made.
The individual who initially threatens the crowd eventually pleases the crowd. Mockers became imitators. "What he did," Grand Ole Opry member Jimmy "C" Newman told Guralnick, "was he changed it all around. After that we had to go to Texas to work, there wasn't any work anywhere else, because all they wanted was someone to imitate Elvis, to jump up and down on the stage and make a fool of themselves." Thirty-five years after his death, the high school outcast remains the world's most impersonated person.
"I don't sound like nobody," the inner-directed Elvis, to borrow David Riesman's famous fifties phrase, told Sun Records. His unique style extended from his dress to his art. The postwar star defied categorization. Critics labeled his music bebop, hillbilly, folk, country, and r&b, until finally settling on rock 'n' roll. Like his classmates, they sneered like snobs. The New York Times judged, "Mr. Presley has no discernable singing ability."
America disagreed. By late 1956, the phenom sold two-thirds of RCA's 45s. Between "Heartbreak Hotel" hitting #1 in April of 1956 and the induction of recruit #53310761 in March of 1958, the King reigned atop the singles sales charts for more than a year. Only a force as powerful as the U.S. Army could stop him.
Rather than overthrowing the American social order, Elvis was a product of it. Before his singing career, he mowed lawns, served as a theater usher, worked as a machinist, and drove a truck. He repeatedly affirmed his love of God and belief in the Bible. In these early years, he steered clear of drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes -- but not food or practical jokes. And even though girls literally ripped the clothes off his body, he generally stopped short of doing the same with his many dating partners. Above all, he loved his parents, lavishing a pink Cadillac and a mansion upon his mother before her death. The journey from the Lauderdale Courts housing project to Graceland was the American Dream on steroids.
Elvis enthralls 35 years after his death in part because of his contradictions. A mama's boy/rebel, the loner amidst the entourage, and the painfully shy performer who confidently commanded audiences remains an enigma. Thirty-five years from now, the world will still be talking about, imitating, and singing along with the King.
Americans loved Elvis because he was unique. Americans loved Elvis because he was America.
-- Daniel J. Flynn at The American Spectator
Yesterday was the 35th anniversary of Elvis's death, and I have come across a passionate little love note to the king marking the occasion. Personally, I have not been listening to any music lately. I have been more caught up in my books and blogging, which I am glad about. Besides, the little absence will only enrich my appreciation for Elvis when I do settle down to listen.
_ _ _
"The army can do anything it wants with me," remarked Elvis Presley upon leaving for basic training in 1958. "Millions of other guys have been drafted, and I don't want to be different from anyone else." But Elvis was not like anyone else.
He wore sideburns and greasy long hair in the crew-cutted fifties. He played black music in the segregated South. He appeared in foppish fashions -- ascots, satin pants, pink shirts -- in t-shirt-and-jeans Memphis. As a teenage steady remembered, "I knew the first time I met him that he was not like other people."
This did not sit well with other people. Classmates cut the strings to his guitar. Other kids pitched rotten fruit at him. The coach kicked him off the high school football team, and a boss threatened to fire him, for refusing to get a haircut. "I felt really sorry for him," noted a classmate, who had defended Elvis from bullies. "He seemed very lonely and had no real friends. He just didn't seem to be able to fit in."
Elvis never fit in. He stood out. Greatness isn't about meshing with the crowd. Greatness requires the courage to stand apart. In an era derided as conformist, Elvis was an individual. He dared to be different.
One gleans just how much of a pariah the guitar-strumming teenager was from reading Peter Guralnick's Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. If the 20th century's most popular singer appeared as a show-business cliché at his death 35 years ago today, he projected so eccentric an image in his pre-fame Memphis days that the idea of him conquering the entertainment world would seem as bizarre to Memphians as Elvis appeared to them. If Elvis doesn't strike us today as outlandish, it is because we live in the world that Elvis made.
The individual who initially threatens the crowd eventually pleases the crowd. Mockers became imitators. "What he did," Grand Ole Opry member Jimmy "C" Newman told Guralnick, "was he changed it all around. After that we had to go to Texas to work, there wasn't any work anywhere else, because all they wanted was someone to imitate Elvis, to jump up and down on the stage and make a fool of themselves." Thirty-five years after his death, the high school outcast remains the world's most impersonated person.
"I don't sound like nobody," the inner-directed Elvis, to borrow David Riesman's famous fifties phrase, told Sun Records. His unique style extended from his dress to his art. The postwar star defied categorization. Critics labeled his music bebop, hillbilly, folk, country, and r&b, until finally settling on rock 'n' roll. Like his classmates, they sneered like snobs. The New York Times judged, "Mr. Presley has no discernable singing ability."
America disagreed. By late 1956, the phenom sold two-thirds of RCA's 45s. Between "Heartbreak Hotel" hitting #1 in April of 1956 and the induction of recruit #53310761 in March of 1958, the King reigned atop the singles sales charts for more than a year. Only a force as powerful as the U.S. Army could stop him.
Rather than overthrowing the American social order, Elvis was a product of it. Before his singing career, he mowed lawns, served as a theater usher, worked as a machinist, and drove a truck. He repeatedly affirmed his love of God and belief in the Bible. In these early years, he steered clear of drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes -- but not food or practical jokes. And even though girls literally ripped the clothes off his body, he generally stopped short of doing the same with his many dating partners. Above all, he loved his parents, lavishing a pink Cadillac and a mansion upon his mother before her death. The journey from the Lauderdale Courts housing project to Graceland was the American Dream on steroids.
Elvis enthralls 35 years after his death in part because of his contradictions. A mama's boy/rebel, the loner amidst the entourage, and the painfully shy performer who confidently commanded audiences remains an enigma. Thirty-five years from now, the world will still be talking about, imitating, and singing along with the King.
Americans loved Elvis because he was unique. Americans loved Elvis because he was America.
-- Daniel J. Flynn at The American Spectator
_ _ _
"The army can do anything it wants with me," remarked Elvis Presley upon leaving for basic training in 1958. "Millions of other guys have been drafted, and I don't want to be different from anyone else." But Elvis was not like anyone else.
He wore sideburns and greasy long hair in the crew-cutted fifties. He played black music in the segregated South. He appeared in foppish fashions -- ascots, satin pants, pink shirts -- in t-shirt-and-jeans Memphis. As a teenage steady remembered, "I knew the first time I met him that he was not like other people."
This did not sit well with other people. Classmates cut the strings to his guitar. Other kids pitched rotten fruit at him. The coach kicked him off the high school football team, and a boss threatened to fire him, for refusing to get a haircut. "I felt really sorry for him," noted a classmate, who had defended Elvis from bullies. "He seemed very lonely and had no real friends. He just didn't seem to be able to fit in."
Elvis never fit in. He stood out. Greatness isn't about meshing with the crowd. Greatness requires the courage to stand apart. In an era derided as conformist, Elvis was an individual. He dared to be different.
One gleans just how much of a pariah the guitar-strumming teenager was from reading Peter Guralnick's Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. If the 20th century's most popular singer appeared as a show-business cliché at his death 35 years ago today, he projected so eccentric an image in his pre-fame Memphis days that the idea of him conquering the entertainment world would seem as bizarre to Memphians as Elvis appeared to them. If Elvis doesn't strike us today as outlandish, it is because we live in the world that Elvis made.
The individual who initially threatens the crowd eventually pleases the crowd. Mockers became imitators. "What he did," Grand Ole Opry member Jimmy "C" Newman told Guralnick, "was he changed it all around. After that we had to go to Texas to work, there wasn't any work anywhere else, because all they wanted was someone to imitate Elvis, to jump up and down on the stage and make a fool of themselves." Thirty-five years after his death, the high school outcast remains the world's most impersonated person.
"I don't sound like nobody," the inner-directed Elvis, to borrow David Riesman's famous fifties phrase, told Sun Records. His unique style extended from his dress to his art. The postwar star defied categorization. Critics labeled his music bebop, hillbilly, folk, country, and r&b, until finally settling on rock 'n' roll. Like his classmates, they sneered like snobs. The New York Times judged, "Mr. Presley has no discernable singing ability."
America disagreed. By late 1956, the phenom sold two-thirds of RCA's 45s. Between "Heartbreak Hotel" hitting #1 in April of 1956 and the induction of recruit #53310761 in March of 1958, the King reigned atop the singles sales charts for more than a year. Only a force as powerful as the U.S. Army could stop him.
Rather than overthrowing the American social order, Elvis was a product of it. Before his singing career, he mowed lawns, served as a theater usher, worked as a machinist, and drove a truck. He repeatedly affirmed his love of God and belief in the Bible. In these early years, he steered clear of drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes -- but not food or practical jokes. And even though girls literally ripped the clothes off his body, he generally stopped short of doing the same with his many dating partners. Above all, he loved his parents, lavishing a pink Cadillac and a mansion upon his mother before her death. The journey from the Lauderdale Courts housing project to Graceland was the American Dream on steroids.
Elvis enthralls 35 years after his death in part because of his contradictions. A mama's boy/rebel, the loner amidst the entourage, and the painfully shy performer who confidently commanded audiences remains an enigma. Thirty-five years from now, the world will still be talking about, imitating, and singing along with the King.
Americans loved Elvis because he was unique. Americans loved Elvis because he was America.
-- Daniel J. Flynn at The American Spectator