Daily Good Gossip

Jessie J Performs At ELLE Woman In Music Event

ELLE, the No. 1 fashion magazine in the world, celebrated its third annual Women in Music 2012 event this week at the Avalon in Hollywood, CA with a private concert event featuring performances by acclaimed artists including British singer-songwriters Jessie J and Ellie Goulding, as well as Danish singer-songwriter Oh Land.

The third annual Women in Music event benefited the VH1 Save The Music Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring instrumental music education programs in America’s public schools, and raising awareness about the importance of music as part of each child’s complete education. Early in the evening a check for $30,000 was presented to VH1 Save The Music on behalf of ELLE, Ford Mustang and RAYMOND WEIL.

The event was held in anticipation of the upcoming May Women in Music issue, on newsstands April 17th.

ELLE Editor-in-Chief Robbie Meyers opened the evening by introducing a RealD 3D video featuring custom content, created by World War Seven, from the May issue set to music. Ellie Goulding was the first performer of the night, playing a four-song set including hits “Under the Sheets,” “Salt Skinned,” “Starry Eyed” and “Lights,” followed by Oh Land who played a five-song set featuring 3D graphics which included songs “Sun of a Gun,” Wolfe and I," “White Nights,” “We Turn it Up” and “Voodoo.” Jessie J took the stage to close out the evening, performing a four-song set including hits “Do it Like a Dude,” “Nobody’s Perfect,” Price Tag" and “Domino.” Additionally, Jason Flom, President & CEO of Lava Records, surprised Jessie J on-stage by presenting her with a plaque to commemorate her massive worldwide sales including US platinum singles “Price Tag” & "Domino. VH1 personality Janell Snowden was the emcee for the evening, introducing each artist as they began their performances, and DJ Daisy O’Dell spun between each act.

In addition to enjoying the performances, guests were given the opportunity to engage with Presenting Sponsor Ford Mustang’s new high-tech touch-screen customizer tool by creating their own 2013 Ford Mustang or by viewing custom Ford Mustang vehicles created by the Women in Music talent. Supporting Sponsor, Swiss watch company RAYMOND WEIL also created a display on-site where guests could view a selection of watches in addition to entering a raffle for the chance to win a unique watch from RAYMOND WEIL signed by ELLE’s Women in Music.

Other notable attendees at the event included Nicole Scherzinger, will.i.am, Diane Warren, Diego Boneta, Ken Paves, Willa Ford, Candice Accola, Melody Thornton, Charity Rose, Linda Ramone, Jacqui Getty, Nicole Fiorentino, Karmin, Jonathan Baptiste, Danielle Panabaker, Terri Seymour, Sofia Milos and Leah LaBelle, among others.

Each year, ELLE curates the Women in Music issue to include in-depth profiles of both established and emerging female artists, giving readers a closer look at some of their favorite entertainers, as well as an inside scoop on rising stars. Additional artists profiled this year include Rihanna, Azealia Banks, Emily Haines, Kelly Clarkson, Kimberly Perry, Lana Del Rey, Patti Smith, Santigold and Shirley Manson.

To coincide with Women in Music, ELLE has also recently announced its new partnership with Spotify which has selected ELLE as the exclusive fashion launch partner for the Spotify Play Button. Through this feature, ELLE.com visitors can now listen to new talent, editors’ music picks, custom playlists, and select Women in Music tracks in top-quality audio just by visiting the ELLE.com website.



Source: www.looktothestars.org

Not so happy cows...

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In Comix Poetics, Andrew Arnold explains the debate that comic art can or cannot hold as much merit as poetry such as Shakespeare or T.S. Elliot. He answers no, but not from lack of ability to do so. He explains that the relationship between the pictures and the words brings new meanings that are different than just words. He compares, “This is not just a different ballgame but a different sport.”

Arnold takes us back to the explosion of newspaper comics in the 20th century. The lack of rules resulted in some of the wildest artistic feats in the history of the medium. The comic craze, including comics such as Superman, not only brought popularity to the medium, but it also brought a sort of stereo type along with the cheap comics. Finally people stated selling comics of real merit “underground” and a kind of movement started. Comics started expressing things that were more profound about the culture of the time.

Slowly these “underground” comics started to emerge. People were reading comics that were closer to art than just mere stories of entertainment. These new comics were meant for “grown ups.”

Arnold explains how such profound ideas can be explained only through comics. He states, “The words and pictures are totally dependent on each other to convey the meaning of the work, which reads as a compressed, playful examination of regret. In sum, it is a graphic poem.” Comic artists and poets have more I common than meets the eye. The main difference is the respect that one medium has attained over the years. Although, comic artists have been gaining respect over the year due to the mediums boom in the last 5 years. These new comic poets are paving the way for more to come


Link: http://find.galegroup.com/gps/retrieve.do?contentSet=IAC-Documents&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28KE%2CNone%2C4%29maus%24&sgHitCountType=None&inPS=true&sort=DateDescend&searchType=BasicSearchForm&tabID=T002&prodId=IPS&searchId=R2¤tPosition=7&userGroupName=clov45023&docId=A160279679&docType=IAC&contentSet=IAC-Documents

Cat's Cradlelllllll!!!!

Cat’s Cradle focuses on nuclear bombs, and the technology used to make them. People concentrate their time and efforts into discovering new truths that will lead them to more great discoveries. Everything involving science and discovering is seen as a great tribute to mankind. For example, a compound is discovered that could potentially turn all the water in the world to ice, "...suppose, young man, that one Marine had with him a tiny capsule containing a seed of ice-nine, a new way for the atoms of water to stack and lock, to freeze. If that Marine threw that seed into the nearest puddle...? The puddle would freeze? I guessed. And all the muck around the puddle? It would freeze? And all the puddles in the frozen muck? They would freeze? And the pools and the streams in the frozen muck? They would freeze? You bet they would !" He cried. "And the United States Marines would rise from the swamp and march on!" Although this molecule has the potential to dehydrate and kill everyone and everything in the world, people think it is amazing, and great because we know more about the world.
Kurt Vonnegut satirizes the use of science to find a grand narrative in human life. By giving us examples like ice nine he shows us that truths do not always lead to a utopian world, rather that they lead to the opposite. He gives examples that show that finding truth leads to more chaos and more questions to be answered. He shows that he believes that not everything revolves around scientific discoveries, but rather your own morals and what you do with what you know. Vonnegut rejects the enlightenment ideas that finding out all the answers and secrets to life will result in happiness and global well being. He has a post modern outlook on life and relates this throughout his novel.

Frankenfood and Techno Sapiens

In the novel, Brave New World, we are faced with a world where people are almost no longer people. They are controlled through different techniques that are used on the fetuses of the unborn. They become a new type of human, “techno sapiens.” With breakthroughs in genetic engineering happening so quickly it is possible the society in Brave New World can become reality today.
Professor Ronald M. Green is one man who intelligently disagrees with a lot of the ideas this book presents. He fears these “enhancements” we are placing on children might not work out in the future. It is said that it is a natural feeling for human beings to want to change and better things we have. He asks if it is responsible, ethical, and right to change the human genome itself. Brave New World shows how people do take on this God like persona and change what shouldn’t be touched. What the people see as enhancements really disintegrate what is truly beautiful about human life. Because technology is available does not mean it should be used. Green states that people are using genetic enhancements of their offspring to meet “status quo.” Scarily similar to Brave New World, this statement seems to set the stage for how this science could destroy feeling and create a technopoly full of genetically modified robots.
In an academic journal by Phifer and Wolfenbarger, it is stated that neither the pros nor cons of GMOs, Genetically Modified Organisms, are fully measurable. They also state that” Our capacity to predict ecological impacts of introduced species… is imprecise.” This means that even if people are highly educated on the subject, which the majority of our population is not, they still cannot predict how these changes will affect our future. The uneducated people do not even know they are using or consuming these “frakenfoods.” In Brave New World, the people were forced to listen to hypnopedia and were taught to consume things and produce things and live a certain way, no questions asked. We are doing this to ourselves. We are changing things that should never be altered, and the affects could be devastating.

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Sir Ken Robinson’s ideas were so similar to the society in Brave New World that it really made me think that today’s society is not far off from theirs. Without making the changes he suggests, we will end up just like them.
One parallel that really caught my attention was the ADHD reference. It is evident that kids today are being medicated for literally everything. Kids are too hyper, not perky enough, too sad, too quiet, or just too “weird.” We are ruining the great minds of tomorrow by trying to manipulate children into being little educated robots. Some of these drugs are abused all the time and can be severely addictive. They also have side effects that seem worse than the initial problem. So why do this to the future people that will run our world? It’s all for progress. This is totally in congruency with Brave New World. In the book someone states, “What you need is a gramme of soma.” This is simply because Bernard looks a little unhappy. Because he is different, society says he should be medicated and anesthetized.
This also makes me think of the hypnopedia in the book. Robinson shows how students are put into a zombie like state and are almost forced to pay attention to “boring” teachers and learn in a not stimulating environment. They are being turned into living text books that are not able to think as creative or critically. It’s like students almost do not even realize what they are learning, they just know it’s true. This is similar to the sleep teachings because people are unaware of what they are learning and taking in but they believe it to be true.
Obviously there are even more parallels with the video and Brave New World. The goal should be to avoid the dystopia, stifling world state.

Brave New World

In the Brave New World society, values and morals can be perceived as being upside down or flip flopped from what is typical today. They do almost everything opposite of us and think that that is “right.” I believe that this does not mean that their morals are off. They simply have a different set of morals taught to them when they are young. The director states, “the last child’s mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child’s mind. And not the child’s mind only. The adult’s mind too-all his life.” It is clear that they have strictly implicated ideas in the minds of very young people, and these ideas are remembered through adulthood. Although their morals may seem off to us, they are no better or worse, just different.
The morals set on the people are different than ours in the sense that they are encouraged to never have relationships, feel pain, be unhappy, or be different. All of these facts seem to help further industrialize their society. They are only encouraged to consume or produce and nothing in between. Babies are manufactured to either be stupid or smart. That way everyone is happy. They are trained to like and dislike certain things, all so that the machine of society an keep turning smoothly.
Family is one thing that is greatly manipulated to keep society “growing.” There is not family. The people cringe at the words mother and romance. They do not have their own children or parents. This way there is less sadness, pain, and people are more likely to concentrate on work. Monogamy is also highly frowned upon. People are beyond encouraged to date as many people as possible. This helps keep the family out of their society. With out family and relationships feelings go out the window. Simple desires are still recognized, but there ultimately is not kind of stress put on the people because they have nothing worth stressing about.