Aretha Franklin sang “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” during a tribute to Carole King in 2015
“Carole was losing her mind, Obama was losing his mind,” said the Broadway actress Chilina Kennedy.
In her final decade, Aretha Franklin’s two best-loved performances both took place in Washington.
In 2009, she graced Barack Obama’s inauguration with a gorgeous “My Country, ’Tis of Thee” while wearing a hat so remarkable it ended up on display in the Smithsonian. And on Dec. 6, 2015, she sang an unforgettable rendition of her own anthem of rebirth, “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” in tribute to the song’s co-writer, Carole King, who was receiving the Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime achievement alongside Rita Moreno, Cicely Tyson and other luminaries.
~Aretha Franklin Sings ‘My Country, ‘Tis of Thee’ at Obama’s Inauguration~
~~Published on Aug 16, 2018~~
In memory of Aretha Franklin’s passing, here’s a look back at the “Queen of Soul” performing at President Barack Obama’s first inauguration ceremony on January 20, 2009. She sang “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” in front of thousands at the National Mall in Washington D.C.
~~Aretha Franklin Signs (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman~~
Kennedy Center Honors 2015
~~Published on Dec 30, 2015~~
Full segment of Aretha Franklin (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman – Kennedy Center Honors 2015.
Chilina Kennedy, plays Carole King in Beautiful, the musical, introduces Aretha.
~Singin’ in the Rain scene that made Debbie Reynolds a star~
Debbie Reynolds — who died December 28 at age 84 — was 19 years-old when her life changed forever.
After cutting her teeth on cabaret performances and winning the Miss Burbank pageant in 1948, Reynolds landed the part of Kathy Selden in Singin’ in the Rain, the 1952 classic that would launch her career. She was to sing and dance opposite Donald O’Connor and Gene Kelly, lauded Hollywood mainstays with decades of performing experience, while she had almost none, and zero dancing experience to speak of.
Debbie Reynolds – who rose to stardom in “Singin’ in the Rain” and quickly became a staple among Hollywood royalty – died Wednesday, December 28, as a result of a stroke, just one day after her daughter Carrie Fisher passed away, according to her son Todd.
I must confess that, at minimum, this distressed me. I’d seen the others candidates who were under consideration. Like the election results, I, again, never thought this would be the pick.
The short words, included below, about “The Choice” is the short version.
The mailmanbrings this magazine to my house.
I won’t renew the subscription.
However, I found an article which explains a major meaning behind the details of the picture itself.
These observations helped me breathe better.
It’s not what I thought.
It’s even better.
I know, there’s a lot of reading but, if the choice boggled your mind, it’s worth the read.
I strongly believe that the selected choice has no idea that he could have been played except for Trump being upset Time named him ‘Person of the Year‘ instead of ‘Man of the Year‘.
This is the 90th time we have named the person who had the greatest influence, for better or worse, on the events of the year.
So which is it this year: Better or worse?
The challenge for Donald Trump is how profoundly the country disagrees about the answer.
It’s hard to measure the scale of his disruption. This real estate baron and casino owner turned reality-TV star and provocateur – never a day spent in public office, never a debt owed to any interest besides his own – now surveys the smoking ruin of a vast political edifice that once housed parties, pundits, donors, pollsters, all those who did not see him coming or take him seriously.
Out of this reckoning, Trump is poised to preside, for better or worse.
For reminding America that demagoguery feeds on despair and that truth is only as powerful as the trust in those who speak it, for empowering a hidden electorate by mainstreaming its furies and live-streaming its fears, and for framing tomorrow’s political culture by demolishing yesterday’s, Donald Trump is TIME’s 2016 Person of the Year.
The 2016 Person of the Year is Donald Trump, the President-elect of the divided states of America.
Person of the Year is one of the best-known and most-followed franchises in journalism. TIME selects the person who for good or ill has done the most to influence the events of the year.
~Why Time’s Trump Cover Is a Subversive Work of Political Art~
By: Jake Romm
December 8, 2016Time Magazine’s annual “Person of the Year” announcement is, year after year, grossly misunderstood.
Time Magazine is clear on its sole criterion – “the person who had the greatest influence, for better or worse, on the events of the year” – yet, do a simple search on Twitter and you will find countless people who seem to think that the “Person of the Year” selection is tantamount to an endorsement.
Previous winners have included Joseph Stalin (1939, 1942), Ayatollah Khomeini (1979), Adolf Hitler (1938), and other figures who I think it is safe to assume the Time staff does not endorse.
Photo was shot by Jewish photographer Nadav Kander.
For clues as to how Time feels about that question — is it “for better or worse?” — we can look to the image chosen for the cover of the issue. The decisions that Time made regarding how to photograph Trump reveal a layered, nuanced field of references that place the image among, in this viewer’s opinion, the magazine’s greatest covers.
In order to deconstruct the image, let’s focus on three key elements (leaving aside the placement of the ‘M’ in ‘Time’ that makes it look like Trump has red horns): the color, the pose, and the chair.
~THE COLOR~
Notice how the colors appear slightly washed out, slightly muted, soft. The palette creates what we might call a vintage effect. The image’s sharpness and detail reveal the contemporaneity of the picture, but the color suggests an older type of film, namely, Kodachrome. Kodachrome, the recently discontinued film produced by Kodak, was designed to create accurate color reproduction in the early 1900’s.
This visual-temporal shift in a sense mirrors a lot of the drives that fueled Trump’s rise.
Trump ran a campaign based on regressive policies and attitudes – anti-environmental protection, anti-abortion, pro-coal, etc. This election was not just about regressive policy choices, but also about traditional values (defined primarily by the Christian right), about nostalgia for American greatness and security, about nostalgia for a pre-globalized world.
~THE POSE~
Trump’s pose can be read as a subversive play on a traditional power-portrait pose.
Trump’s turn towards the camera renders the tone conspiratorial rather than judgmental. There are two images at play here – the imagined power-image taken from the front, and the actual image, in which Trump seems to offer the viewer a conniving wink, as if to say, look at how we hoodwinked those suckers in the front (both Trump and the viewer are looking down on those in front).
By subverting the typical power dynamic, Time, in a sense, implicates the viewer in Trump’s election, in his being on the cover in the first place.
By choosing not to shoot Trump head on, the Time cover almost offers us a “behind the scenes” glimpse of the man who has spent so much of his time in front of the camera – heightening the conspiratorial tone and complicity of the viewer. The highly posed and processed nature of the photograph offers yet another level of irony.
Finally, we must note the ominous shadow lurking on the backdrop.
It’s a small, but important and clever detail.
Just as this image provides us with two theoretical points of view, it also provides us with two Trumps – Trump the president-elect, and the specter of Trump the president, haunting in the wings, waiting to take form.
~THE CHAIR~
The masterstroke, the single detail that completes the entire image, is the chair.
Trump is seated in what looks to be a vintage “Louis XV” chair (so named because it was designed in France under the reign of King Louis XV in the mid 18th century).
It’s a gaudy symbol of wealth and status, but if you look at the top right corner, you can see a rip in the upholstery, signifying Trump’s own cracked image. Behind the bluster, behind the glowing displays of wealth, behind the glittering promises, we have the debt, the tastelessness, the demagoguery, the racism, the lack of government experience or knowledge (all of which we unfortunately know too well already).
Once we notice the rip, the splotches on the wood come into focus, the cracks in Trump’s makeup, the thinness of his hair, the stain on the bottom left corner of the seat – the entire illusion of grandeur begins to collapse.
The cover is less an image of a man in power than the freeze frame of a leader, and his country, in a state of decay. The ghostly shadow works overtime here – suggesting a splendor that has already passed, if it ever existed at all.
Taken together, these elements add up to a profound portrayal of anxiety for the coming years. We have the implicit placement of Trump in the mid 1900’s. We have a suggestion of the scheming, sordid underside of power.
We have the crumbling facade of wealth, which, like “The Picture of Dorian Gray” suggests more than just a physical deterioration.
As a photograph, it’s a rare achievement.
As a cover, it’s a statement.
These are only excerpts.
There’s more to it.
Again, I encourage you to read TIME’s complete article.
An estimated 84 million people watched Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in their first debate Monday, September 26, according to TV ratings data from Nielsen, making it the most-watched debate ever.
These figures top the ratings for the 1980 debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, when just under 81 million people tuned in.
As The Associated Press reports,
“No debate since then had exceeded 70 million viewers.”
Nielsen’s numbers include 13 television networks.
They don’t account for viewers who watched the debate online – and NPR’s media correspondent David Folkenflik has been crunching those numbers.
Monica Puig of Puerto Rico, the 34th-ranked tennis player in the world, stunned world no. 2 Angelique Kerber of Germany in the Olympic gold medal match in Rio on Saturday, pulling out a history-making win in three tough sets, 6-4, 4-6, 6-1.
As soon as she won the final point, Puig dropped her racket and mouthed the words, “Oh my God.”
By making her surprising run to the finals in Rio, Puig was assured of becoming the first woman to win an Olympic medal representing Puerto Rico. Now, she’s the first person ever to win gold for the island.
~~Monica Puig wins Puerto Rico’s first ever gold~~
Rio Olympics 2016
~~Published on Aug 13, 2016~~
Tennis player Monica Puig wins Puerto Rico’s first-ever Olympics gold medal
Toaa soundtrack of “Si se puede!” from the stands, Monica Puig won Puerto Rico’s first gold medal in any sport in Olympic history, upsetting Angelique Kerber of Germany 6-4, 4-6, 6-1 in the women’s tennis singles final Saturday at the Rio de Janeiro Games.
Yes, she can. And, yes, she did.
Puig is also the first woman representing Puerto Rico to earn a medal of any color at an Olympics, and when she finished a tense closing game — saving six break points and converting her fourth match point — she dropped her racket and went over to collect a flag she paraded across the court.
~~Puig on Puerto Rico’s 1st gold: ‘I think I united a nation’~~
~~Published on Aug 13, 2016~~
Monica Puig defeats Germany’s Angelique Kerber in three sets to win Puerto Rico’s first ever gold medal.
It Is What It Is 