February 20, 2015

Not quite an obituary of Leslie Gore......

but the memory of someone buried deep in the silt of the soul, a musician who was popular back in the day, replaced by stars of today, screaming or purring into state-of-the-art hardware, enhanced by state-of-the-art software and streamed through earphones the size of a finger-nail......

So yes, Leslie Gore was a heroine of our time, singing her guts out into an early 'sixties microphone, hair in a lacquered bouffant, a heart and soul of rock 'n' roll and voice, and yes, a burning and yearning young woman of her time, as the  drum-roll of mid-twentieth century feminism was about to begin.

"It's My Party And I Can Cry If I Want To" and more tellingly "You Don't Own Me" which, amazingly, sounded radical at the time!! We were harnessed to pointy bras that would show something tempting, but oh Lord not too much sweetie, or you're a tramp. Skirts, matching high heels, just-so hair and smile, like you don't have period cramps or are late on your homework and your best friend has a crush on your boyfriend.

When Leslie Gore's death hit the news, it hit this early boomer in the solar plexus: my age and now dead.  She who was part of who we really were back then and a harbinger of what we would or could become.

1963 version of "You Don't Own Me", demure at about 17:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QEqLTbEXy0

and 1964, this time standing up, not as shy, eyes flashing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDUjeR01wnU

and for a varied picture gallery, giving you most of the hairdos of the '60s:
http://www.metrolyrics.com/lesley-gore-pictures.html


February 13, 2015

DAVID CARR

                                                                   David Brabyn/Corbis

What the French call "une série noire"...... for US journalists.
Two tragic and sudden deaths and a fall from grace for fabrication (or "conflation") of a former hero.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/13/david-carr-new-york-times-columnist-dies-suddenly-at-office

February 12, 2015

BRIAN WILLIAMS -- THE BIG CONFLATION. BOB SIMON - THE LETHAL CRASH. TV NEWS IN CRISIS.


                        Bob Simon
Andy Kropa/Invision/AP


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
Brian Williams
Brad Barket/Invision/AP
Burned wings, tarnished rep, fall from grace



After feasting for days and nights on the Brian Williams fall from grace, we now have a real person to mourn in Bob Simon.

Brian Williams:  the lie, described as "I conflated...." (a giant fart of a lie)  tarnishes Williams, but with him perhaps the entire image of a TV newscaster as a god, albeit a lesser god.

In the US people adore a man delivering news from battlefield, earthquake, flood, tsunami or massacre,  digesting the exotic and dangerous and transforming sometimes unspeakable news into an information bolus the public can re-digest.

I am totally with witty, enthusiastic sportscasters, who are sports heroes in their own right.

But to promote almost-handsome newscasters to star status is also to warp our understanding of the news, and be vulnerable to their flawed content and delivery.

One can say the same thing about print news and internet news--they can manipulate.
But the direct human delivery and the subtle but real emotional impact of a talking head are hard to beat for influence.

People are now chastising NBC for their severe reaction, that they might ruin his career.
Ten million for looking serious and lying? Why are people treading on eggshells?
I think it's because the newscaster-as-hero may be changing and the networks are scared as hell.

Meanwhile we can certainly mourn the untimely death of Bob Simon.
He didn't need to make things up, he was actually there.
RIP.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/12/bob-simon-dies-in-new-york-car-crash

February 6, 2015

THE DANCE OF THE OTOLITHS

Last time I posted something referring to ears, The Child's Ear, which was metaphor, I was amused that there were hits from people/sites looking for medical information.
This concerns a brush with vertigo, but medics, sufferers and hypochondriacs and anyone else looking for answers may prefer to abstain from reading this and return to their Google search.

About that bout -- not so humorous-- it began in the early hours following a mediocre night's sleep, accompanied me to the kitchen, persisted through my first coffee and through a fruitless discussion about coffee and insomnia as I tried to ignore the countertop rocking like a boat on rough seas and couldn't hold my mug upright. I hadn't had alcohol for days, it wasn't that. Was I off kilter? Uncentered? Displaced? Distressed? Depressed? Was this the final punch of a month-long cold before it left the arena? Perhaps all of the above. Damn, I can't balance life in ten minutes, so what can I do?

Well it's all about otoliths: tiny crystals in your inner ear that clump in the wrong way and don't move around properly, so they can't play their role of helping you adapt to changes of position.

Otoliths..........barbaric crystals of suffering. 

Ibuprofen and a long walk helped, but I could still feel those buggers hanging in there, waiting for another opportunity to dance, or rather stumble around like evil sugarplum fairies and mess up my day.

So I'm blogging to blast the otoliths to hell.

There, I feel better already.

Probable diagnosis:

Benign Paroxysmal. Positional Vertigo  (BPPV to the cognoscenti)



Therapies, exercises and other possible forms of torture

Brandt-Daroff exercises

Cawthorne-Cooksey treatment

Canalith repositioning procedure

Semont Liberatory Maneuvers

Dix-Hallpike Maneuver

(some of which may involve coordinated and not-so-coordinated eye movements)


........to name a few.

Gotta tilt those labyrinths.

Can't wait.