Another collection update!

Oh my goodness today was just a day of insanity, but in the end of the day, it was a good insanity! Talking about an oxymoron.
Then after a long day of school, had a racism fight on the public bus on the way home, it was madness! Then had to go on another bus and it was packed an leaning but when I gotten out, my mother took me home! What's so strange is that I was reading my political science book and read about racism in politics! And she told me my packages came, at first I my aunt said a package and then my mother said like 100, which was a hyperbole, not that much and when I opened them it was just a happiness moment for me, thinking Introspective, Format, Treasure Box and Bilingual was kinda resembled something that occurred today: the colours on the prism spectrum, Bilingual being able to speak two languages and the one of the guys was fighting was a Latino that spoke English and Spanish, he was on the phone and didn't nothing wrong and some ignorant man just threw out racial terms. It's horrid! Treasure Box because of my collections are treasures, not In a freaky way, just an artistic way. Of course Memorabilia, its definitely something I won't forget, I can't get over six packages came in one day! Especially after what have been happening to me! Thanks again Mazie about Format, it came in sooner than I thought! and Actually, I have a small symbolism to describe about today but the song "One More Chance is on there" and God apparently gave me another chance at life! This is just a wonderful moment for me! I swear Amazon is making fantastic deals! I'm not kidding!

A collection update

I haven't posted this when it first came in, but now it's up. I received Nightlife a few days ago and now I am currently waiting for: Format, Bilingual, Memorabilia:the Singles, Treasure Box, Introspective, Pet Shop Boys vs. america, and In Search of Pleasure Palace. I know I mention I was on a goal for the books but I changed my mind due to the price increasing. I also thought to mention so other Fantastic info, my only living grandfather turned 82 today, he's still hanging in there and the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with him, he have; however, a twist in one of his intestines, but he's doing much better, and also on the other note, I'm slowly getting into a band called Joy Division which was originally Warsaw and them after Ian Curtis took his own life, they continued as New Order. Two friends of mine told me fascinating info about them and I tested them out, they sound pretty good. I am going to purchase Under Review, I saw some clips on YouTube and since its really cheap, I thought to order it. I'll keep an updated tab on my collections and will do more art reviews pretty soon. Hope you enjoy what you have seen so far, whoever explores my blogs. 

Another little critique/observation

I noticed something artsy about this pet text that Neil Tennant did of the Sunset Strip in Hollywood. It consists of a dedication to the great late Whitney Houston, and knowing its a sadistic day or month and definite shock for several fans and musicians, etc. The freeze frame of this photo was oddly brilliant because even the cars share the same dull colors of black and grayish white like the building that says "We Will Always Love You, Whitney." I thought this was another fascinating pet text that have to do with something artsy in my opinion. I must say they have a way to make simple things look like art sometimes even reflects on some thing like this. In other words, this is a nice, creative scale from black to grayish white.

Just thought I do a little critiquing on Chris Lowe 's photo of the sky

In the recent pet texts, I noticed this one look very fascinating. Even though it is simple, but the way this one looked, it have like a shading scale of the cool primary color blue. And then seeing something on the right side of the image looking its peaking at the viewer. Which is ironic for a day on Valentine's day, usually see bunch of love and happiness. But in a lot of cases this seems like its a peaceful but sad feeling if that make any sense, and you can definitely tell where the sun is because of the brightness on the top left corner. Again, I thought this was something very intriguing and just thought to critique it or observe it.
I know this is from an iPhone but some things can make certain things look artsy. The item on the right side of the image looks like a tree or a small crack, don't really know what it is. In a way, this photo could possibly symbolize Chris' feelings about Valentine's day too.

A tribute to my father.

I came home a few hours ago from the repass, its basically like a luncheon with the friends and family after a funeral and burial of someone. The funeral went well, I didn't really cry, I don't know why, I guess I knew he was at peace. I did cry when I first heard about him dying and the last moments with my dad I will forever cherish in my heart. I know he was incredibly ill, I read scriptures for him my aunt read for him. I did have a small grudge on him from being neglected but I guess it wasn't entirely his fault and I should have been there myself, but my selfishness kinda stepped in and then my school work. But in reality, I adore my father and wanted to spend time with him even if its just a simple talk in the car or something. He had cancer for the past ten years and my mother told me on the first day of me going back to college. I was devastated and did cry, the same night one of my aunts drove to see him and prayed over him and so on. The nurses took him off the heart monitor because his heart was strong enough to go on. I was glad and on Tuesday, was the last day I saw my dad, we spent a quiet time together, that's when I read scriptures and saw other family members, family friends and his girlfriend(which did extremely alot of work helping him out before it was out of her hands.) I know it had to end like this but it was something I wanted: to spend quality time with my father. He did say thank you after I read the Bible verses and then after a couple of hours I went home. I was looking forward to see him the following day Wednesday, Pet Shop Boys' Alternative came in the mail and "Two and a Half Men" was on for an hour, and that's when my mother told me he passed away in the hospital. I guess my heart finally forgave him and then maybe the Bible verses were to help him on his journey in the afterlife. I was terribly upset and just shocked, what was weird that same day he died, I realized in Alternative one of the songs have to do with a funeral which was really weird. Then couple days after of course as you know, Whitney Houston passed away. Reason why I was just a nervous wreck (still am one) is because I lost five people close to me, I lost seven + people but I was real close to five that was part of my family. Both my grandmothers, my grandfather, my aunt and now my father. I did care about the rest of them that passed on. I was around these family members more and they were closer. And I'm only nineteen years old, it's not really easy going through several things situations like this stabs you in the heart. I just thought I share this with you all, and what's ironic about it, is that the colors of the theme was green and yellow and that was my school and graduation colors and then hearing creaking from time to time when I am alone in a room and stuff and then waking up from a loud thump noise too. And my dad couldn't make it to my graduation that day because he slipped on the bathroom floor. Maybe it was a way to represent that could have been there and from what other people told me he spoke about me and going to school encouraging other people, so I still feel down about school after going through this but I won't give up now, I'll make him proud the best way I can and to help myself. I love my family, friends, family friends, internet friends, etc. And these are a few photos from the viewing at the mortuary before the funeral that occurred today. Oh and my last grandfather have pneumonia please pray for him, thank you.
Thank you everyone for The regards and concerns, I truly appreciated and love you guys.

I love you dad, granny Mitchell, granny Wedlow, grandpa Wedlow, and aunt Anita and of course my whole family. <3
Oh just forgot to mention, it was a lot of ambulances and funeral cars the day I was at the mortuary.

Jaleen81 ~<3

A brief art discussion about the design of Format

About Pet Shop Boys' Format creative review art review.
I read the excerpt about the designing of Format, something so simple signify a nice size of representations of the music: the stripes, graphics, and color. Even the dominant white to mean even had a feel of simplicity. If only Catalogue was released later on, this would have been cool to see this in here. When I looked through Catalogue, I found out he was/is the group's principal designer, it made sense since a bulk of the album designs/sleeves were done by him. I really like how something to simplistic symbolize a duration between 1996-2009. Whenever my order comes in the United States, I'll be looking forward of checking it out in detail and will edit this post as well.

I noticed a small art relation

Pet Shop Boys' Ultimate with the a strip set of warm colors with the exception of blue/violet, is the same as the app icon Songbox, I thought it was cool to see that on there.

The World says goodbye again to another icon: Whitney Houston

My brief discussion about Whitney Houston

I was just in an absolute shock when my aunt told me Whitney Houston passed away. I already was grieving of my father that passed away and then now Whitney. I heard about her a while back that she gotten booed off the stage and the fans wanted their money back from a tour she had and I believe they were European fans too. That stunned me because I know she had the voice, but after the drugs and all, it must have been really bad at the time, if fans wanted their refund. But the final days of her life, I believe she was making her life right and kept going to the final end, even heard that she knew it was the end for her. I somewhat grew up with listening her music as well as several artists. I don't remember but my late grandmother told me when I was in the beauty salon, I actually saw the singer Brandy, she was getting her hair done, before they did the premier of Cinderella, I wish I can remember something so awesome as seeing Brandy and having a conversation with her. The reason I mention this is because Whitney was also in this movie, she played the fairy godmother, I don't think she was there but, also she did went out with Brandy's brother Ray J before being with Bobby Brown. So they were pretty close, I'm sure and even Whitney gave Brandy a note around her final days and she isn't going to reveal what it is. That's good though because some things are better left confidental. I seen Houston in other movies such as The Preacher's Wife, Waiting to Exhale, and The Bodyguard. The songs I love by her are "How Will I Know", "I Wanna Dance With Somebody", "I Believe in You and Me", "I Will Always Love You"(Dolly Parton song), "I'm Every Woman", "You Give Good Love", "Saving All My Love for You", "He Fills Me Up/All The Man That I Need", "Help is On the Way", "Step by Step", "For the Love of You" (Isleys Brothers' song), even start liking the duet with George Michael "If I Told You That." She always be remember as an international artist icon, I don't know about modeling, but she did that too once before. Again I was devastated when I found out her death, she'll be greatly remembered and her birthday was nine days before mine and she did look good at 48. So it was Etta James, Don Cornelius, and now Whitney Houston.

My updated Soft Cell/ Marc Almond collection

With the exception of the vintage magazine, Art of Falling Apart, non stop exotic video show, and 3 Marc CDs those were given to me by awesome fans and a family member, thank you again! My recent order just came in today which was Soft Cell 12 inch singles a 3 CD set of their singles extended will do an art review and I order some more stuff and will update again pretty soon.
The rest of This collection need to be replaced eventually.

MCMLXXXIX/Highlights tour art review

 Pet Shop Boys MCMLXXXIX/Highlights tour on VHS
Date: 29 June-21 July 1989
Director and film projections: Derek Jarman
photographer: Lawerence Watson

I had ordered this concert on VHS. This was something very interesting, I love the visuals and the performance. Even though it was only approximately thirty-three minutes of it, I thought it was worth watching. Only eight songs can be shown and out of those eight I like: "The Sound of the Atom Splitting", "Shopping", "Loves Comes Quickly", "Domino Dancing", "Kings Cross" and "It's Alright." I only wish there was more but I think something was about the process and the development I forgot. Will edit when I watch more of it on YouTube, since that's the only source I know where it's located.

I like how this piece considered more than one type of art which was singing, dancing, somewhat acting I think, projections and the costumes, and the lighting, very vivid. It also had a different approach of symbolism contrast to Performance(some of the costumes didn't add up to me) but in MCMLXXXIX, the costumes matched or reflected. "'The costumes we designed reflect the themes in the film,' said Jarman...The staging is quite difficult to arrange because unlike in a theatre there's no real bricks and mortar....They asked for a theatrical concert and that's what we're doing. I suppose some people think pop music and theater shouldn't mix but I think pop music is theatre....There's two ways of doing it: you either just sit there and sing on a stool and do it the simple way or you go for it.'" (Catalogue p. 116)  I have to concur with Jarman's statement, he sees any form of art, just art and just because some art probably don't work well with others, sometimes you make the simplest things with something incompatible. "' Before we hadn't toured because we didn't see any reason for us to tour in a naturalistic way...[It] was an attempt to get around that by putting on a film media show...We wanted to put on a theatrical event, Chris said.'" It was interesting to hear Chris say something like that because he was the type to be one of the crowd and from what I see is that him and Neil wanted to be one of the few to stand out, which was I believe a slight change in personality, maybe I'm taking it the wrong way but that's how I see it. "'That was our motivation. And actually I think that some of the costumes in that show were some of the best ones we ever had - not the ones we wore but the ones that the extras wore. The costumes for 'it's a sin' of the seven deadly sins, combined with the films and the dancers from New York and the way we were doing music, was a triumph. I think the version of 'it's a sin' on that tour is the best live thing we ever we've ever done, Neil added. It had to be said, the starting point for all of our tours has been the fact that the way we make music means you don't have to have the stage full of musicians, as we have computers playing live, so you could do whatever you wanted on stage.'" (Catalogue p. 116) Basically from what Neil says in Catalogue, he basically points out technically when you're an artist, you can do just about anything you want and execute the idea, and not always doing the tradition style all the time. I personally like how just about any artists that can execute something because of trying something different, even doing such daring moves such as this. On a side note, the same outfit Neil wears in the "It's A Sin" of this piece can also be found on the Discovery Tour. I just love the way the concert looked on VHS, I mean it's something worth taking a look at.

Just additional facts: The tour program was designed by Mark Farrow, This tour was filmed the Wembley Stadium, influences were David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust tour, Derek Jarman's film based on Benjamin Britten's "War Reqiuem" and it was performed in Hong Kong, Japan and Britain.

More facts can be found in Catalogue on pages 116-121

Overall, having the concert on VHS even though is about thirty-three minutes of it, it's worth purchasing especially if you adore art as much as I do. I hope to see it on DVD one day if they have one published.

Just a small update on my little PSB collection!

I thought I share with you an image of what I have so far, which the exception of Annually, Performance, Pop Art DVD, Ultimate deluxe, Opportunities vinyl, and a Purple cd in a pink and clear cd case, those were from lovely and sweet fans plus a family member, again thank you! The rest I actually purchased in different periods of time, and recently, Amazon have been having a load of good prices lately and hey when I see a good deal and its cheap too, of course it will be purchased! I'm slowly still collecting but this is actually a real cool moment for me even though I'm still grieving for my father passing, but I think I'll be alright eventually. I'll post up my SC/MA collection when one of my SC packages come in.

Another similar art relation

 
 
 


   After watching Life in Pop, I thought about the bits of theirs'/Jonathan Harvey's musical called Closer to Heaven; after reading Catalogue as well, the costumes from the musical reminded me of another piece called Party Monster or also known as Disco Bloodbath by James St. James. I remember watching Party Monster the first time, and couldn't understand it; didn't even know what it was called at the time either. Well I guess I saw it half way, but after watching again and again, I really appreciate the movie and its biographical tale. It is quite sad and it was something I didn't expect Macaulay Culkin and Seth Green would do, but they portrayed James St. James and Michael Alig very well. What I'm trying to really point out, is that the costumes that was worn in Closer to Heaven kind of reminded me of the Club Kids' of New York style from the movie. Although the two tales are very different and have nothing to do with each other, but they do have a small similarity and it have to do with drug related purposes. Closer to Heaven focused on hedonism, drugs and sexual passion more theatrical. While Party Monster was more of a biographical crime drama that focus on drug addiction and the party scene. Plus Disco Bloodbath: A Fabulous but True Tale of Murder in Clubland was published on August 11, 1999 and Closer to Heaven (based on Catalogue) the dates are from 15 May- 13 October 2001 and cast recording on October 6, 2001. What's slightly ironic of it, is that the movie did play Pet Shop Boys' "It's a Sin" wikipedia doesn't mention it but if you search on other sites it will mention it, and I heard it on there and disco was a big party of the Club Kid movement too I believe. It's been on my mind so I thought I post about it. On the album cover of the CD of Closer to Heaven, I read that the heart "echoes the characters' emotional journeys" I thought it was a fancy way of symbolism.

The Nation/World say goodbye to another legendary icon.:Don Cornelius

 

  I wouldn't call this a favorite art moment, because of his untimely death/suicide, but the good part Don Cornelius opened doors for several African Americans musicians, dancers, and among others that were non-African Americans such as David Bowie, Elton John, Pet Shop Boys, etc. When I was waking up, I heard this devastating news and was really nervous of telling her about this! My family group up watching Soul Train even meeting and went to school with some of the dancers of the show. I know another icon passed on last week, Etta James aka The Matriarch of R&B, singing music genres such as blues to jazz, also known for the songs "Dance With Me, Henry" , "At Last", "Tell Mama" and I'd Rather Go Blind." I was in complete shocked and now when I heard Don Cornelius shot himself to the head, it really stunned me a new one! I thought I post about this, before I start school next week.  All sources of my info include Wikipedia, and various websites.

"Don Cornelius also born as Donald Cortez "Don" Cornelius was born in Chicago on September 27, 1936. While in high school, he was in service as a Marine in Korea, then in 1966, he gotten a job as an announcer, news reporter and disc jockey on Chicago radio station WVON. Then part of the mid 1960's, moved to Los Angeles to began the stardom of the national show Soul Train. I personally would call it the African American version of Top of the Pops. Where the show he hosted from 1971-1993 then sold the show to MadVision Entertainment in 2008. I think his son did the show after 1993, because when I was younger, around the 2000s, I did see the newer artists on there performing on the show like T-Pain, Ciara, Ne-Yo, etc. (wikipedia)
" ' Originally a journalist inspired by the civil rights movement, Cornelius recognized that in the late 1960s there was no television venue in the United States for soul music, and introduced many African-American musicians to a larger audience as a result of their appearances on Soul Train, a program that was both influential among African-Americans and popular with a wider audience.[4] As writer, producer, and host of Soul Train, Cornelius was instrumental in offering wider exposure to black musicians such as James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Michael Jackson, as well as creating opportunities for talented dancers that would presage subsequent television dance programs.[5] Cornelius said "We had a show that kids gravitated to," and Spike Lee described the program as an "urban music time capsule.  ' "[5] (wikipedia)

" ' Besides his smooth and deep voice, Cornelius was best known for the catchphrase that he used to close the show: "... and you can bet your last money, it's all gonna be a stone gas, honey! I'm Don Cornelius, and as always in parting, we wish you love, peace and soul!" After Cornelius's departure, it was shortened to "...and as always, we wish you love, peace and soul!" and was used through the most recent new episodes in 2006. Another introductory phrase he often used was: "We got another sound comin' out of Philly that's a sure 'nough dilly ' ". (wikipedia)
" 'On October 17, 2008, Cornelius was arrested at his Los Angeles home on Mulholland Drive on a felony domestic violence charge.[6] He was released on bail. Cornelius appeared in court on November 14, 2008 and was charged with spousal abuse and dissuading a witness from filing a police report. Cornelius appeared in court again on December 4, 2008, and pleaded not guilty to spousal abuse and was banned from going anywhere near his estranged wife, Russian model Victoria Avila-Cornelius (Viktoria Chapman), who had filed two restraining orders against him. On March 19, 2009 he changed his plea to no contest and was placed on 36 months probation.[7]' " (wikipedia)

" ' Officers responding to a report of a shooting found Cornelius at his Mulholland Drive home about 4 a.m. on February 1, 2012, police said. Cornelius is reported to have suffered a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. He was declared dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said Los Angeles County Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter. ' " (wikipedia)

" 'Shemar Moore, one of the former hosts of Soul Train, said prior to his former boss's death, Cornelius might have suffered from dementia: "I don't know what his health was like. I had heard rumors that it was early [onset] dementia, Alzheimer's, things like that." Moore added, "I'd heard that he was sick," he continues. "If he did line all his ducks up, so to speak, if he did deal with all his personal things to have this departure, then I tip my cap to him because that's a show of love -- I'm going to love the people around me, I'm going to give you all I've got -- and maybe he felt like he was tapped out, you know? And he, for himself, felt he needed to take care of himself in his way." Then he said, "I hope that wherever he is now, he's at peace," adds Shemar. "I don't know how he got to this place. I don't know what made him take his own life this morning. But after we shed our tears, after we say our prayers, after we put him to rest in our own ways, I hope there's a lot of celebration.' "(wikipedia) 
He was 75 years old, at that age, he probably had it all and it might have gotten the best of him, where ever his spirit is, I hope he's well. I'm still not over this! Someone actually uploaded the video where you see The Pet Shop Boys on Soul Train performing "Opportunities" !! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPmEQWDcYT8&feature=youtube_gdata_player I'll edit this later so the actual video is here.