Fame Musical Quotes

I had a boyfriend who told me I’d never succeed, never be nominated for a Grammy, never have a hit song, and that he hoped I’d fail. I said to him, ‘Someday, when we’re not together, you won’t be able to order a cup of coffee at the fucking deli without hearing or seeing me.

I'm already crazy. I'm a fearless person. I think it creeps up on you. I don't think it can be stopped. If my destiny is to lose my mind because of fame, then that's my destiny. But my passion still means more than anything.

I am focused on the work. I am constantly creating. I am a busy girl. I live and breathe my work. I love what I do. I believe in the message. There's no stopping. I didn't create the fame, the fame created me.

I was nothing but a failure. A fucked-up, broken shame. I was nothing but this emptiness. A shell ruined by fame. Don’t be afraid to shatter, baby, if that will set you free. I’ll find you in the pieces and that will unbreak me.

A musician doesn’t know how he creates music. A writer doesn’t know how plots come to his mind. A painter doesn’t know why he painted what he painted. Yeah, artists are humble folks, because deep down they know they are not doing the creating. But once they become successful, once they achieve fame, they turn arrogant.

Controversy is a last resort for the talentless.

Cabal dimly recalled that the musical genius who'd decided to put on Necronomicon: The Musical had got everything he deserved: money, fame, and torn to pieces by an invisible monster.

Don’t try to present your art by making other people read or hear or see or touch it; make them feel it. Wear your art like your heart on your sleeve and keep it alive by making people feel a little better. Feel a little lighter. Create art in order for yourself to become yourself and let your very existence be your song, your poem, your story. Let your very identity be your book. Let the way people say your name sound like the sweetest melody.

So many people think that they are not gifted because they don’t have an obvious talent that people can recognize because it doesn’t fall under the creative arts category—writing, dancing, music, acting, art or singing. Sadly, they let their real talents go undeveloped, while they chase after fame. I am grateful for the people with obscure unremarked talents because they make our lives easier---inventors, organizers, planners, peacemakers, communicators, activists, scientists, and so forth. However, there is one gift that trumps all other talents—being an excellent parent. If you can successfully raise a child in this day in age to have integrity then you have left a legacy that future generations will benefit from.

Do you remember telling me how you're willing to put up with the pressures of fame if it means you can play your music for people?' When she nodded, he said, 'Making sure my family is happy has been worth any tradeoff.

He knows how to market himself well. Nowadays, that's all that seems to count. He's rebellious in a way that appeals to people with vain, shallow taste. So of course he manipulates his audiences with the blessing of his recording company and the financial investors behind his brand.

I am the outcast come home to roost and the eggs of tomorrow are incubating in my fame. You hate me, you love me, you made me, and now I am in you. I am like that disease brewing in your loins and I think you like it…

. . . Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow. Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you're Count Dracula. Here's an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don't do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don't tell anybody what you're doing. Don't show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK? Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals [sic]. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what's inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

Our leaders strain every nerve and with success, to get the next war going, while the rest of us, meanwhile, dance the fox trot, earn money and eat chocolates...And perhaps...it has always been the same and always will be, and what is called history at school, and all we learn by heart there about heroes and geniuses and great deeds and fine emotions, is all nothing but a swindle invented by the schoolmasters for educational reasons to keep children occupied for a given number of years. It has always been so and always will be. Time and the world, money and power belong to the small people and shallow people. To the rest, to the real men belongs nothing...eternity...it isn't fame. Fame exists in that sense only for the schoolmasters. No, it isn't fame. It is what I call eternity...The music of Mozart belongs there and the poetry of your great poets. The saints, too, belong there, who have worked wonders and suffered martyrdom and given a great example to men. But the image of every true act, the strength of every true feeling, belongs to eternity just as much, even though no one knows of it or sees it or records it or hands it down to posterity. In eternity there is no posterity...It is the kingdom on the other side of time and appearances. It is there we belong. There is our home. It is that which our heart strives for...And we have no one to guide us. Our only guide is our homesickness.

The fun and fame do not last, while the memory of a real helper is kept green long after poetry is forgotten and music silent.

Picture a thirteen-year-old boy sitting in the living room of his family home doing his math assignment while wearing his Walkman headphones or watching MTV. He enjoys the liberties hard won over centuries by the alliance of philosophic genius and political heroism, consecrated by the blood of martyrs; he is provided with comfort and leisure by the most productive economy ever known to mankind; science has penetrated the secrets of nature in order to provide him with the marvelous, lifelike electronic sound and image reproduction he is enjoying. And in what does progress culminate? A pubescent child whose body throbs with orgasmic rhythms; whose feelings are made articulate in hymns to the joys of onanism or the killing of parents; whose ambition is to win fame and wealth in imitating the drag-queen who makes the music. In short, life is made into a nonstop, commercially prepackaged masturbational fantasy.

Dying is the fastest route to fame for an aspiring rock star. The dead man’s melodies become profound, acquiring mystery and rising into a realm beyond the reach of human criticism. In the stopping of a heartbeat, the rocker is transformed from decadent hedonist into misunderstood genius. Aye, death and musical stardom go together like Scotland and rain.

Bruce has always been so nice to me, which is crazy, because he's one of my heroes. I'll never forget being at a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony the year Bruce and Paul McCartney were inducted. We were at the bar, and Bruce was talking to Paul, and he turned to me and said, 'I can't believe I'm talking to Paul McCartney!' I thought, 'I can't believe I'm talking to Bruce Springsteen, who's talking to Paul McCartney!

Fame is not so impossible for people with charisma, passion and talent. Being famous just means you have fans, and even one or two is enough to make you someone special. Ask a music fan who the best guitarist of all time is, and while one group insists that it was Jimmi Hendrix, another group swears that it was Eddie Van Halen instead. There will never be a time when everyone on this planet agrees on something like that, but luckily that's not important. All that matters is that both sides remain loyal, which they will assuming you continue to be who you are and do your thing. This is all that you need to be immortalized.

We're all made the same but then born to change. Which then don't make us the same.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?

Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Bring your love, baby, I could bring my shame Bring the drugs, baby, I could bring my pain I got my heart right here I got my scars right here Bring the cups baby, I could bring the drank Bring your body baby, I could bring you fame That's my muthafucking word, too Just let me muthafucking love you

What hope is here for modern rhyme To him, who turns a musing eye On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie Foreshorten'd in the tract of time? These mortal lullabies of pain May bind a book, may line a box, May serve to curl a maiden's locks; Or when a thousand moons shall wane A man upon a stall may find, And, passing, turn the page that tells A grief, then changed to something else, Sung by a long-forgotten mind. But what of that? My darken'd ways Shall ring with music all the same; To breathe my loss is more than fame, To utter love more sweet than praise.

In a feast of fame and talks, Scandal flashing, raising tongue and brows. In a blast of bombing and power play, Fear and death dig more revenge. In a forgotten continent, Famine and drought devour lives. In an unfortunate eye of a rebelling weather, Crashing homes, leaving many in devastation and desperation. In a country shaking with violence, Innocent victims cry for justice and peace. In a home shaking with turmoil, Humble patient, hiding voice wants to be heard. In a tick of a second, A new breathe of life beats! To belong in this world. Constantly changing, decaying or improving? In a snap of innovation: Life goes big leap! Regression somewhere unseen, But felt in a slow, long run.

To put an arrogant 'famous' singer in her place: pretend to be deaf.

This is almost always the case: A piece of art receives its f(r)ame when found offensive.

they ask ya 'what was the high point?' The hall of fame, sellin' all those records, pullin' Sherry outta the hat? It was all great. But the first time the four of us made that sound, our sound, when everything dropped away and all there was, was the music...that was the best

His life had already touched upon the age when everything that breathes of impulse shrinks in a man, when a powerful bow has a fainter effect on his soul and no longer twines piercing music around his heart, when the touch of beauty no longer transforms virginal powers into fire and flame, but all the burnt-out feelings become more accessible to the sound of gold, listen more attentively to its alluring music, and little by little allow it imperceptibly to lull them completely. Fame cannot give pleasure to one who did not merit it but stole it; it produces a constant tremor only in one who is worthy of it. And therefore all his feelings and longings turn toward gold.

He slid inside her, his body moving over hers as she lay stretched out on her sofa, his kiss worshipping her mouth, his length embedded deep in her heat. He slid inside her, moved inside her, and there were no words. There were no words, no music, nothing but the rhythm of their hearts beating, the moans of their pleasure, the sound of their lovemaking. It was the most haunting, beautiful song Lauren had ever heard. And it was enough. It was all she needed. For now, it was all she needed.

Being guided by your own thoughts and abilities, living out there on the high wire and being rewarded for it: That was the Chicago way. Nothing else counted. If it were sensational enough, whether a scientific breakthrough, a rousing new style of music, or an underworld murder, it would be celebrated.

Yes, Virginia, I guess I am older that dirt. 1966 was almost a half a century ago. The funny thing is - The Monkees are still part of my life. Who would have thought that, 40 or 45 years ago. Who would have thought I'd see them in concert in both 1986 and after the turn of the century. They've given us 50 years of comedy, music, and memories. Maybe the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame should consider immortalizing guys like that.

I nodded, unsure if Ted sounded admiring or angry. 'I waded in but I couldn't find him. I mean, is it possible - the water wasn't deep enough for him to drown. It doesn't make any sense.' 'My band made four brilliant albums and never had a single goddamn hit. We were supposed to be the American Rolling Stones, and we couldn't get more than five minutes of airplay. Does that make sense?' Ted stubbed out his cigarette.

I wrote about everything I didn’t write on The Fame. While traveling the world for two years, I’ve encountered several monsters, each represented by a different song on the new record: my ‘Fear of Sex Monster,’ my ‘Fear of Alcohol Monster,’ my ‘Fear of Love Monster,’ my ‘Fear of Death Monster,’ my ‘Fear of Loneliness Monster,’ etc. I spent a lot of nights in Eastern Europe, and this album is a pop experimentation with industrial/Goth beats, 90’s dance melodies, an obsession with the lyrical genius of 80’s melancholic pop, and the runway. I wrote while watching muted fashion shows and I am compelled to say my music was scored for them.

My idea of success has little to do with fame. I just wanted to know if I could play with the best musicians in the business.

I know, I should've just shut him down like a Broadway Musical, but that's just not the way I'm wired.

By the time Daisy Jones & The Six performed “Turn It Off” on Saturday Night Live, they were performing a song almost everyone in the country knew. It was the Record of the Year.

Fame requires every kind of excess. I mean true fame, a devouring neon, not the somber renown of waning statesmen or chinless kings. I mean long journeys across gray space. I mean danger, the edge of every void, the circumstance of one man imparting an erotic terror to the dreams of the republic. Understand the man who must inhabit these extreme regions, monstrous and vulval, damp with memories of violation. Even if half-mad he is absorbed into the public's total madness; even if fully rational, a bureaucrat in hell, a secret genius of survival, he is sure to be destroyed by the public's contempt for survivors. Fame, this special kind, feeds itself on outrage, on what the counselors of lesser men would consider bad publicity-hysteria in limousines, knife fights in the audience, bizarre litigation, treachery, pandemonium and drugs. Perhaps the only natural law attaching to true fame is that the famous man is compelled, eventually, to commit suicide. (Is it clear I was a hero of rock'n'roll?) Toward the end of the final tour it became apparent that our audience wanted more than music, more even than its own reduplicated noise. It's possible the culture had reached its limit, a point of severe tension. There was less sense of simple visceral abandon at our concerts during these last weeks. Few cases of arson and vandalism. Fewer still of rape. No smoke bombs or threats of worse explosives. Our followers, in their isolation, were not concerned with precedent now. They were free of old saints and martyrs, but fearfully so, left with their own unlabeled flesh. Those without tickets didn't storm the barricades, and during a performance the boys and girls directly below us, scratching at the stage, were less murderous in their love of me, as if realizing finally that my death, to be authentic, must be self-willed- a succesful piece of instruction only if it occured by my own hand, preferrably ina foreign city. I began to think their education would not be complete until they outdid me as a teacher, until one day they merely pantomimed the kind of massive response the group was used to getting. As we performed they would dance, collapse, clutch each other, wave their arms, all the while making absolutely no sound. We would stand in the incandescent pit of a huge stadium filled with wildly rippling bodies, all totally silent. Our recent music, deprived of people's screams, was next to meaningless, and there would have been no choice but to stop playing. A profound joke it would have been. A lesson in something or other. In Houston I left the group, saying nothing, and boarded a plane for New York City, that contaminated shrine, place of my birth. I knew Azarian would assume leadership of the band, his body being prettiest. As to the rest, I left them to their respective uproars- news media, promotion people, agents, accountants, various members of the managerial peerage. The public would come closer to understanding my disappearance than anyone else. It was not quite as total as the act they needed and nobody could be sure whether I was gone for good. For my closest followers, it foreshadowed a period of waiting. Either I'd return with a new language for them to speak or they'd seek a divine silence attendant to my own. I took a taxi past the cemetaries toward Manhattan, tides of ash-light breaking across the spires. new York seemed older than the cities of Europe, a sadistic gift of the sixteenth century, ever on the verge of plague. The cab driver was young, however, a freckled kid with a moderate orange Afro. I told him to take the tunnel. Is there a tunnel?" he said.

Cabal dimly recalled that the musical genius who’d decided to put on Necronomicon: The Musical had got everything he deserved: money, fame, and torn to pieces by an invisible monster.

Social Media will come to you and start putting ideas in your head to do something you might regret. They will tell you that they will support you and they will be with you all the way. When is time to face the music. To find your alone and when you look behind no one is there. They all logged off. Be careful , Don’t be fooled by the number of followers, retweets, likes or comments.

Fame wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for education. It’s only of concern to schoolteachers. Oh no, we are not talking about fame, but what I call eternity. Believers call it the kingdom of God. The way I see it, all of us more demanding people, those of us who long for something better and have that one dimension too many, would be incapable of living if, apart from this world’s atmosphere, there weren’t another air to breathe; if, apart from time, eternity didn’t also exist, the kingdom of authentic life. Mozart’s music is a part of it, as are the poems of your great writers. So too are the saints who performed miracles, died as martyrs and set a great example to people. But the image of every authentic act, the strength of every authentic emotion, are just as much a part of eternity, even if nobody knows about them, witnesses them, writes them down and preserves them for posterity. There is no such thing as posterity in eternity, only contemporaneity.

As everyone knows, fame, especially sudden fame, is a hollow, shallow and dangerous thing, its dark, seductive powers no substitute for true love or real friendship. On the other hand, if you’re a terribly shy person, desperately in need of a confidence boost – someone who spent a lot of their childhood trying to be as invisible as possible so you didn’t provoke one of your mum’s moods or your dad’s rage – I can tell you for a fact that being hailed as the future of rock and roll in the LA Times and feted by a succession of your musical heroes will definitely do the trick.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow. Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives…. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

Fame can take interesting men and thrust mediocrity upon them. If I hadn't learned how to be a musician and writer, it wouldn't have mattered what I did. I never knew too many rock people. I would get to a place, some nightclub or other, and see all these famous rockers bonding.

But that Herschel, for example, who “broke the barriers of the heavens”— did he not once play a provincial church-organ, and give music-lessons to stumbling pianists? Each of those Shining Ones had to walk on the earth among neighbors who perhaps thought much more of his gait and his garments than of anything which was to give him a title to everlasting fame: each of them had his little local personal history sprinkled with small temptations and sordid cares, which made the retarding friction of his course towards final companionship with the immortals.

What hope is there for modern rhyme To him, who turns a musing eye On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie Forshorten'd in the tract of time? These mortal lullabies of pain May bind a book, may line a box, May serve to curl a maiden's locks; Or when a thousand moons shall wane A man upon a stall may find, And, passing, turn the page that tells A grief_ then changed to something else, Sung by a long forgotten mind. But what of that? My darken'd ways Shall ring with music all the same; To breathe my loss is more than fame, To utter love more sweet than praise.

You know, there used to be a difference between authentic music and sellout music. I'm talking about when I was young, in the sixties? Back then we knew there was a soullessness to the sellouts, and we wanted to be on the side of the artists. But now? Being a sellout is the authentic thing. When Molly Miller says 'I'm just being real,' what she means is that everyone wants money and fame and any artist who claims otherwise is lying. the only fundamental truth is greed, and the only question is who is up front about this. That's the new authenticity. Molly Miler can never be accused of selling out because selling out was her goal all along.

Forever” by Logan Keeley October 18, 20xx Lying beside me in the failure of flesh, You wait for the words that will let your mind rest, But I’ve already left you—I’m inside this song, I’m chasing the rhythms that split right from wrong, Forming chords on your shoulder, tracing notes on your hips, I can’t hear your thoughts as they fall from your lips, and Every day I give away A piece of me all torn and frayed— What I can’t keep, I sell for cheap, Til nothing’s left for you and me— Chorus: How can so much love feel like nothing at all? How can so much nothing leave me dying to crawl To the foot of your bed, I should be with you—instead, I walk away, stumbling, waiting, always waiting to fall. When you look in my eyes, can you see I’m not there, Just skin over bones and this flesh that I bear, And there’s no room for you, and you know I can never Get out of myself, get over myself, For even one moment, much less for forever. They all take their shares and they all think they see This stranger inside who pretends to be me. They’re a roomful of mirrors in this funhouse of fame, I shrink and I grow, I am wild, I am tame, But when I stand before you, I can pause, I can heal, Because you make me matter—you make me real. Every day they took away A piece of me all torn and frayed— What I couldn’t keep, I sold for cheap, So now what’s left for you and me? How can so much love feel like nothing at all? How can so much nothing leave me dying to crawl To the foot of your bed, I should be with you—instead, I walk away, stumbling, waiting, always waiting to fall. So I close my eyes, fill my hands with your hair, It’s your skin and your bones and your flesh that I bear, If I could be part of you, if we could come together I could find myself, I could lose myself, Just for one moment, or maybe forever. They always say that nothing lasts forever Well, can this nothing last forever Now? When you look in my eyes, and this time I’m there, More than skin over bones and this flesh that we bare, When I’m getting worse, when you make me better, We’ll find ourselves, we’ll lose ourselves, We’ll take this one moment…and make it forever.

It's always been the love of the music for me, the rawness of the notes vibrating through my body, the honesty of the sound I create that blocks out all the other shit. If you don't let all that, the music, its impact, become a part of you, then it doesn't matter how good you are, how successful. I don't care who you are, if you don't surrender to the power of the music, you are just playing a role.

Santi was a behemoth in the art world, and being known solely by one's first name was a level of fame achieved only by an elite few... people like Napoleon, Galileo, and Jesus... and, of course, the demigods Langdon now heard blaring from Harvard dormitories - Sting, Madonna, Jewel, and the artist formerly known as Prince, who had changed his name to the symbol ?, causing Langdon to dub him 'The Tau Cross With Intersecting Hermaphroditic Ankh.

I haven't heard anything new that I've liked on the show. A lot of the bands we play with are just bad, especially those alternative rock bands. They can do it in the studio but they can't play live... I see the audience applauding while they're playing, and I wonder if it's just because they're fans of the band and don't care, or out of spite. Because it certainly isn't because they sound good. Branford Marsalis on the musical acts booked on The Tonight Show.

Parton’s musical genius deserves a discussion far beyond and above the matters of gender and class. But the lyrics she wrote are forever tied to the body that sang them, her success forever tied to having patterned her look after the “town trollop” of her native holler. For doing so, she received a fame laced with ridicule; during interviews in the 1970s and 1980s, both Barbara Walters and Oprah Winfrey asked her to stand up so they could point out, without humor, that she looked like a tramp.

Homer's Hymn to the Sun Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 2nd edition; dated 1818. Offspring of Jove, Calliope, once more To the bright Sun, thy hymn of music pour; Whom to the child of star-clad Heaven and Earth Euryphaessa, large-eyed nymph, brought forth; Euryphaessa, the famed sister fair Of great Hyperion, who to him did bear A race of loveliest children; the young Morn, Whose arms are like twin roses newly born, The fair-haired Moon, and the immortal Sun, Who borne by heavenly steeds his race doth run Unconquerably, illuming the abodes Of mortal Men and the eternal Gods. Fiercely look forth his awe-inspiring eyes, Beneath his golden helmet, whence arise And are shot forth afar, clear beams of light; His countenance, with radiant glory bright, Beneath his graceful locks far shines around, And the light vest with which his limbs are bound, Of woof aethereal delicately twined, Glows in the stream of the uplifting wind. His rapid steeds soon bear him to the West; Where their steep flight his hands divine arrest, And the fleet car with yoke of gold, which he Sends from bright Heaven beneath the shadowy sea

I don’t wish to be unfair to Southern California. When the place was not on fire, or trapped in a brown haze of smog, or rumbling with earthquakes, or sliding into the sea, or choked with traffic, there were things I liked about it: the music scene, the palm trees, the beaches, the nice days, the pretty people. Yet I understood why Hades had located the main entrance to the Underworld here. Los Angeles was a magnet for human aspiration - the perfect place for mortals to gather, starry-eyed with dreams of fame, then fail, die, and circle down the drain, flushed into oblivion.

Rock stars have many of the same qualities as athletes—millions for doing what they love, fans, easy pussy, fame, status, the ability to do whatever they want when they want. While what they do is still cool, the main difference is that it’s less masculine. You connect with your fans in this intense, intimate, emotional way that is less about you and more about them, how you make them feel. When you’re an athlete, it’s all about you. They cheer you on. When you make music, you cheer them on, provide the soundtrack to their little lives, and all they do is cheer you back to say “Thanks.

The earth itself was but a mean stopping place, a wayside tavern of ill fame, on the way to these other worlds. But nothing that concerned this drama was mean: on the contrary, the Church, founded through an act of God, brought into the world constant reminders of the grace and beauty that was to come: though art and music might tempt men from a higher life, they also indicated its possibility, indeed its immanence. Life was a succession of significant episodes in man’s pilgrimage to heaven: for each great moment the Church had its sacrament or its celebration. Beneath the active drama was the constant chant of prayer: in solitude or in company, men communed with God and praised him. It was in such moments, only in such moments, that one truly lived. Whatever

The Heart Shattered Glass was a courageous scream from the abyss from an abandoned woman, written in four days from the side of a precipice down which she was hurling all her worldly goods, one at a time, meditating on their meaning. It had taken the world by storm with its candor and wit. The fact that the author had subsequently fallen madly in love with and married the book’s publicist had only prolonged its popularity, but it was truly a book that deserved its worldwide fame. It was . . . She got it exactly. Exactly what it feels like. Nina looked at the tightly buttoned-up woman she had struggled to connect with and marveled, not for the first time, at the astonishing amount of seething emotion that could exist beneath the most restrained exterior. To look at Lesley you would think she was just a middle-aged shopkeeper quietly going about her business. The fact that she completely and utterly empathized with an American woman who had let her own blood drip down a mountainside in anguish, who had changed sexuality and howled at the moon with a wolf pack, just went to show. There was a universe inside every human being every bit as big as the universe outside them. Books were the best way Nina knew—apart from, sometimes, music—to breach the barrier, to connect the internal universe with the external, the words acting merely as a conduit between the two worlds.

Our leaders strain every nerve and with success, to get the next war going, while the rest of us, meanwhile, dance the fox trot, earn money and eat chocolates...And perhaps...it has always been the same and always will be, and what is called history at school, and all we learn by heart there about heroes and geniuses and great deeds and fine emotions, is all nothing but a swindle invented by the schoolmasters for educational reasons to keep children occupied for a given number of years. It has always been so and always will be. Time and the world, money and power belong to the small people and shallow people. To the rest, to the real men belongs nothing...eternity...it isn't fame. Fame exists in that sense only for the schoolmasters. No, it isn't fame. It is what I call eternity...The music of Mozart belongs there and the poetry of your great poets. The saints, too, belong there, who have worked wonders and suffered martyrdom and given a great example to men. But the image of every true act, the strength of every true feeling, belongs to eternity just as much, even though no one knows of it or sees it or records it or hands it down to posterity. In eternity there is no posterity...It is the kingdom on the other side of time and appearances. It is there we belong. There is our home. It is that which our heart strives for...And we have no one to guide us. Our only guide is our homesickness.

This is the part of the book where the author usually sums it all up in a conclusion chapter and announces, “I did it!” I suppose I could have titled it “The Finale,” but that’s just not me. I don’t think you ever reach a point in life (or in writing!) where you get to say that. It ain’t over till it’s over. I want to be an eternal student, always pushing myself to learn more, fear less, fight harder. What lies in the future? Truthfully, I don’t know. For some people, that’s a scary thought. They like their life mapped out and scheduled down to the second. Not me. Not anymore. I take comfort in knowing not everything is definite. There’s where you find the excitement, in the unknown, uncharted, spaces. If I take the lead in my life, I expect that things will keep changing, progressing, moving. That’s the joy for me. Where will I go next? What doors will open? What doors will close? All I can tell you is that I will be performing and connecting with people--be it through dance, movies, music, or speaking. I want to inspire and create. I love the phrase “I’m created to create.” That’s what I feel like, and that’s what makes me the happiest. I’m building a house right now--my own extreme home makeover. I love the process of tearing something down and rebuilding it, creating something from nothing and bringing my artistic vision to it. I will always be someone who likes getting his hands dirty. But the blueprint of my life has completely changed from the time I was a little boy dreaming about fame. It’s broadened and widened. I want variety in my life; I like my days filled with new and different things. I love exploring the world, meeting new people, learning new crafts and art. It’s why you might often read what I’m up to and scratch your head: “I didn’t know Derek did that.” I probably didn’t before, but I do now.

Beyoncé and Rihanna were pop stars. Pop stars were musical performers whose celebrity had exploded to the point where they could be identified by single words. You could say BEYONCÉ or RIHANNA to almost anyone anywhere in the industrialized world and it would conjure a vague neurological image of either Beyoncé or Rihanna. Their songs were about the same six subjects of all songs by all pop stars: love, celebrity, fucking, heartbreak, money and buying ugly shit. It was the Twenty-First Century. It was the Internet. Fame was everything. Traditional money had been debased by mass production. Traditional money had ceased to be about an exchange of humiliation for food and shelter. Traditional money had become the equivalent of a fantasy world in which different hunks of vampiric plastic made emphatic arguments about why they should cross the threshold of your home. There was nothing left to buy. Fame was everything because traditional money had failed. Fame was everything because fame was the world’s last valid currency. Beyoncé and Rihanna were part of a popular entertainment industry which deluged people with images of grotesque success. The unspoken ideology of popular entertainment was that its customers could end up as famous as the performers. They only needed to try hard enough and believe in their dreams. Like all pop stars, Beyoncé and Rihanna existed off the illusion that their fame was a shared experience with their fans. Their fans weren’t consumers. Their fans were fellow travelers on a journey through life. In 2013, this connection between the famous and their fans was fostered on Twitter. Beyoncé and Rihanna were tweeting. Their millions of fans were tweeting back. They too could achieve their dreams. Of course, neither Beyoncé nor Rihanna used Twitter. They had assistants and handlers who packaged their tweets for maximum profit and exposure. Fame could purchase the illusion of being an Internet user without the purchaser ever touching a mobile phone or a computer. That was a difference between the rich and the poor. The poor were doomed to the Internet, which was a wonderful resource for watching shitty television, experiencing angst about other people’s salaries, and casting doubt on key tenets of Mormonism and Scientology. If Beyoncé or Rihanna were asked about how to be like them and gave an honest answer, it would have sounded like this: “You can’t. You won’t. You are nothing like me. I am a powerful mixture of untamed ambition, early childhood trauma and genetic mystery. I am a portal in the vacuum of space. The formula for my creation is impossible to replicate. The One True God made me and will never make the like again. You are nothing like me.

Almost a decade ago, I was browsing in a Barnes & Noble when I came across a book called Route 666: On the Road to Nirvana. It was a music book about a band I liked, so I started paging through it immediately. What I remember are two sentences on the fourth page which discussed how awesome it was that 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' was on the radio, and how this was almost akin to America electing a new president: 'It's not that everything will change at once,' wrote the author, 'it's that at least the people have voted for better principles. Nirvana's being on the radio means my own values are winning: I'm no longer in the opposition.' I have never forgotten those two sentences, and there are two reasons why this memory has stuck with me. The first reason is that this was just about the craziest, scariest idea I'd ever stumbled across. The second reason, however, is way worse; what I have slowly come to realize is that most people think this way all the time. They don't merely want to hold their values; they want their values to win. And I suspect this is why people so often feel 'betrayed' by art and consumerism, and by the way the world works. I'm sure the author of Route 666 felt completely 'betrayed' when Limp Bizkit and Matchbox 20 became superfamous five years after Cobain's death and she was forced to return to 'the opposition' ...If you feel betrayed by culture, it's not because you're right and the universe is fucked; it's only because you're not like most other people. But this should make you happy, because—in all likelihood—you hate those other people, anyway. You are being betrayed by a culture that has no relationship to who you are or how you live... Do you want to be happy? I suspect that you do. Well, here’s the first step to happiness: Don’t get pissed off that people who aren’t you happen to think Paris Hilton is interesting and deserves to be on TV every other day; the fame surrounding Paris Hilton is not a reflection on your life (unless you want it to be). Don’t get pissed off because the Yeah Yeah Yeahs aren’t on the radio enough; you can buy the goddamn record and play “Maps” all goddamn day (if that’s what you want). Don’t get pissed off because people didn’t vote the way you voted. You knew that the country was polarized, and you knew that half of America is more upset by gay people getting married than it is about starting a war under false pretenses. You always knew that many Americans worry more about God than they worry about the economy, and you always knew those same Americans assume you’re insane for feeling otherwise (just as you find them insane for supporting a theocracy). You knew this was a democracy when you agreed to participate, so you knew this was how things might work out. So don’t get pissed off over the fact that the way you feel about culture isn’t some kind of universal consensus. Because if you do, you will end up feeling betrayed. And it will be your own fault. You will feel bad, and you will deserve it. Now it’s quite possible you disagree with me on this issue. And if you do, I know what your argument is: you’re thinking, But I’m idealistic. This is what people who want to inflict their values on other people always think; they think that there is some kind of romantic, respectable aura that insulates the inflexible, and that their disappointment with culture latently proves that they’re tragically trapped by their own intellect and good taste. Somehow, they think their sense of betrayal gives them integrity. It does not. If you really have integrity—if you truly live by your ideals, and those ideals dictate how you engage with the world at large—you will never feel betrayed by culture. You will simply enjoy culture more.

This propelled Dr Graham to national fame. He moved to London and in prime premises in Pall Mall set up his electromagnetic musical ‘Grand State Celestial Bed’, an exotic form of infertility treatment. The Celestial Bed had a tilting inner frame that allegedly put couples in the best position to conceive. Their movements set off music from organ pipes which breathed out ‘celestial sounds’ whose intensity increased with the ardour of the bed’s occupants. Stimulating fragrances were released into ‘the temple of Hymen’, the canopy that encircled the electrical bed. A pair of live doves fluttered above.

Or take fame for instance. For one brief moment, a man finds himself on a throne. And for a while he believes himself specialㅡa little bit better than everyone else. But then he discovers that his throne is just another seat in an ongoing game of musical chairs and eventually he's gong to lose his place. Sometimes he spends the rest of his life trying to get back to the chair.

Would you look at me?" Her gaze moved onto his. "Did you hear what I said? I love you. I want to be with you as much as I want the whole music thing, the career, the money, the fame." He shook his head. " No. I want you more." "Me," she gulped, a blank expression anchored to her beautiful face. "You want me? You want me more than..." "Without a doubt...

The first step in the mental training is to become the master of external things. He who is addicted to worldly pleasures, however learned or ignorant he may be, however high or low his social position may be, is a servant to mere things. He cannot adapt the external world to his own end, but he adapts himself to it. He is constantly employed, ordered, driven by sensual objects. Instead of taking possession of wealth, he is possessed by wealth. Instead of drinking liquors, he is swallowed up by his liquors. Balls and music bid him to run mad. Games and shows order him not to stay at home. Houses, furniture, pictures, watches, chains, hats, bonnets, rings, bracelets, shoes—in short, everything has a word to command him. How can such a person be the master of things? To Ju (Na-kae) says: "There is a great jail, not a jail for criminals, that contains the world in it. Fame, gain, pride, and bigotry form its four walls. Those who are confined in it fall a prey to sorrow and sigh for ever." To

KIRKUS REVIEWS BOOK REVIEW A retired professor explores the life and writings of Carl Sandburg in this debut book. “During the first half of the twentieth century,” Quinley writes, “Carl Sandburg seemed to be everywhere and do everything.” Though best known for his Pulitzer Prize–winning poetry and multivolume biography of Abraham Lincoln, Sandburg had a wide-ranging career as a public intellectual, which included stints in journalism as a columnist and investigative reporter, in musicology as a leading advocate and performer of folk music, and in the nascent movie industry as a consultant and film critic. He also dabbled in political activism, children’s literature, and novels. Not only does Quinley, a retired college administrator and professor, hail Sandburg as a 20th-century icon (“If my grandpa asks you a question,” his grandchildren joke, “the answer is always Carl Sandburg”), but much of his own life has been adjacent to that of the poet as well. Born in Maywood, Illinois, a “few blocks” from Sandburg’s home 30 years prior, Quinley would eventually move to the Appalachian Mountains. He lived just a few miles from Sandburg’s famed residence in Hendersonville, North Carolina. As a docent for the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site, the author was often asked for literature about the luminary’s life. And though much has been written about Sandburg, biographies on the iconoclast are either out of print or are tomes with more than 800 pages. Eschewing comprehensiveness for brevity, Quinley seeks to fill this void in the literary world by offering readers a short introduction to Sandburg’s life and writings. At just 122 pages, this accessible book packs a solid punch, providing readers with not just the highlights of Sandburg’s life, but also a sophisticated analysis of his passions, poetry, and influence on American culture. This engaging approach that’s tailored to a general audience is complemented by an ample assortment of historical photographs. And while its hagiographic tone may annoy some readers, this slim volume is backed by more than 260 endnotes and delivers an extensive bibliography for readers interested in learning more about the 20th century’s “voice of America.” A well-written, concise examination of a literary legend Kirkus Indie, Kirkus Media LLC, 2600 Via Fortuna Suite 130 Austin, TX 78746 indie@kirkusreviews.com

That's how I've felt about making this music, as an act of destroying myself, & for what, peoples mild amusement? longing for things to go wrong? fame & fortune? I'm not sure anymore. anything I do or say will be viewed by thousands of people, picked apart, criticised by people who think it's in any way at all important. It's hardly a spotlight, it's a magnifying glass under the sun. I never expected things to have been this way, when I was younger I wanted to be the next GG Alin, but more importantly, stay underground, stay unknown, & keep this as a hobby only, push the boundaries, piss people off, black metal aesthetic, etc. & anyone who questioned it can get the finger. But then I grew up, I matured, & saw the world differently, I changed. But the internet is the internet, & Ive been paying for those mistakes by the pound. These things I've done that I regret & have done my best to atone for, simply won't matter, not when people show no forgiveness & want nothing but blood to pay the debts. & blood is what they will get, & even then I'm not sure it will be enough. Even in saying this, even by coming back at all, It feels like I'm just lighting myself on fire & then watch all the moths come towards me. I sometimes get asked what's it's like to be famous, a thought which never occurs to me but whenever people ask I look at my numbers & realise how far I've come, & I don't feel pride, I feel paranoid, I feel threatened. that's how many people are watching you now. & every time I tell them the same thing. Don't ever be famous, It destroys you, I hate being me.

In war, we see the ultimate expression of ungodly utilitarianism. War is supremely practical. It is the willingness to sacrifice literally everything to achieve a goal…Worship, however, is the opposite of war. It is an act of creation rather than destruction, of order rather than chaos, and beauty rather than ugliness...Art is more than a luxury, and beauty is more than an extravagance. When we create art and music, or when we gather to worship with expressions of splendor and adoration...we are performing an act of defiance. We are creating an oasis of beauty amid the dehumanizing ugliness of our world. We are declaring our refusal to succumb to the brutal practicality of the world, which crushes people in its pursuit of power, wealth, or fame.

Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, or reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow.

The Who played the entire rock opera Tommy at Radio City Music Hall as a benefit for the Hall of Fame and gave us a check for $1 million.

Joan Joyce is the real deal, a fierce competitor and one of the greatest athletes and coaches in sports history. Tony Renzoni’s moving tribute to Joan shows us why she is a champion in sports and in life. —Billie Jean King, sports icon and equality pioneer The story is all true. Joan Joyce was a tremendous pitcher, as talented as anyone who ever played. [responding to a newspaper account of his early 1960s match-ups against Joan Joyce] —Ted Williams, Hall of Famer and Boston Red Sox great, December 30, 1999 Joan Joyce is truly the greatest female athlete in sports history. And a great coach as well. Tony Renzoni’s well-researched book is a touching tribute to this phenomenal athlete. I highly recommend this book! —Bobby Valentine, former MLB player and manager Quotes for Historic Connecticut Music Venues: From the Coliseum to the Shaboo: I would like to thank Tony Renzoni for giving me the opportunity to write the foreword to his wonderful book. I highly recommend Connecticut Music Venues: From the Coliseum to Shaboo to music lovers everywhere! —Felix Cavaliere, Legendary Hall of Famer (Young Rascals/Rascals, Solo) As the promoter of the concerts in many of the music venues in this book, I hope you enjoy living the special memories this book will give you. —Jim Koplik, Live Nation president, Connecticut and Upstate New York Tony Renzoni has captured the soul and spirit of decades of the Connecticut live music scene, from the wild and wooly perspective of the music venues that housed it. A great read! —Christine Ohlman, the “Beehive Queen,” recording artist/songwriter Tony Renzoni has written a very thoughtful and well-researched tribute to the artists of Connecticut, and we are proud to have Gene included among them. —Lynne Pitney, wife of Gene Pitney Our Alice Cooper band recorded the Billion Dollars Babies album in a mansion in Greenwich. Over the years, there have been many great musicians from Connecticut, and the local scene is rich with good music. Tony Renzoni’s book captures all of that and more. Sit back and enjoy the ride. —Dennis Dunaway, hall of famer and co-founder of the Alice Cooper band. Rock ’n’ Roll music fans from coast to coast will connect to events in this book. Strongly recommended! —Judith Fisher Freed, estate of Alan Freed

BARTON CENTRE, 912, 9th Floor, Mahatma Gandhi Rd, Bengaluru, Karnataka - 560 001 Phone Number +91 8884400919 Find the excellence of Mauritius Tour Package From Bangalore! Luxurious resorts, pristine beaches, and thrilling adventures await. Today is the perfect time to book your dream vacation, which includes flights, lodging, and guided tours. Investigate turquoise waters, lively coral reefs, and dazzling scenes. ideal for couples, families, and individuals traveling alone. A trip to the tropical islands that includes cultural experiences, water sports, and island hopping is not to be missed. Get in touch with us now for modified bundles at great costs! **With SurfNxt, Explore the Cultural Mosaic of Mauritius** Mauritius is a must-visit travel destination that combines stunning natural beauty with a rich tapestry of cultures. SurfNxt has fantastic tour packages that can turn your ideal vacation into a reality for those in Bangalore who have been longing to visit this picturesque island. Not only is Mauritius a tropical paradise, it's a dynamic mix of societies. Over the course of its history, the island has been shaped by Indian, African, Chinese, and European cultures. This conjunction makes a remarkable social scene that is reflected in the island's music, food, celebrations, and day to day existence. **The Social Impact of India** Perhaps of the most unmistakable effect on the island is that of the Indian people group. Indian laborers were brought in to work in the sugarcane fields after slavery ended in the 19th century, resulting in a significant demographic shift. Today, approximately 68% of the population is Indian, and this heritage is ingrained in the culture of the area. Guests can encounter Indian celebrations like Diwali and Holi, where the roads wake up with lively varieties and glad festivals. Mauritian food is vigorously enlivened by Indian flavors. Test dishes, for example, dholl puri, samosas, and biryanis, which are tasty as well as mirror the well established customs of Indian cooking. Bollywood music can be heard echoing from shops and homes in a variety of towns, further demonstrating the seamless integration of cultures. **African and Creole Influences** In addition to its Indian heritage, Mauritius has a remarkable amount of African influence. The island's diverse cultural heritage is enriched by the descendants of African slaves who were brought there. In Mauritius, Creole culture, a result of blending African and French influences, is an essential part of daily life. A thrilling experience is provided by the spirited music, similar to Sega, a traditional dance and music style. Attending a Sega performance is a must if you want to truly experience the island's spirit. **Influence of the Chinese] Another important part of the island's culture is the Chinese community. The Chinese have enriched Mauritian life with their culinary traditions, despite their primary involvement in commerce. Cafés serving delightful Chinese dishes coincide close by Indian diners. Try not to miss attempting neighborhood claims to fame like stew chicken and broiled noodles, which keep up with their exceptional Mauritian curve. **Exploring Culture While Traveling** When you book a Mauritius Tour Package From Bangalore, SurfNxt makes sure that you see the island's cultural highlights. You can partake in nearby celebrations, visit noteworthy sanctuaries, and investigate clamoring markets. Each experience furnishes a chance to draw in with the neighborhood local area, become familiar with their traditions, and value their lifestyle. Conclusion: Mauritius is much more than just a lovely place to go to the beach; a mixture of societies vows to have an enduring effect. The combination of Indian, African, Chinese, and European influences results in a travel experience that is extremely enriching.

That boy from the music shop—he might be everything you believe he is. But in the eyes of our society, he is a convicted criminal. He has nothing to lose. He is stuck where he is. On the bottom. While you are walking away from the greatest opportunity a girl can have. To win. To become independent. To achieve international fame and choose the life you desire. “Music

At Bob Dylan’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, Bruce Springsteen described hearing Dylan’s music for the very first time. Springsteen was fifteen, he said, riding in the car with his mother, idly listening to the radio, when “Like a Rolling Stone” came on. It was as though, Springsteen recalled, “somebody took his boot and kicked open the door to your mind.” His mother’s verdict: “That man can’t sing.” Mrs. Springsteen’s response reminds us that we don’t all react the same way to the same experience—and her son’s reminds us that life holds moments when our perspective dramatically shifts, when our assumptions are deeply challenged, when we see new possibilities or sense for the first time that whatever has been holding us back from freedom or creativity or new ventures might actually be overcome. There

Another interview, some more personal philosophy shared with the people of Japan: “You are in favour with women,” he is told. “Do you have any secret to be sexy?” “Yeah”, he answers. “Get famous and rich. Yeah, If you’re famous and rich, you become better-looking instantly. In fact, I’m quite an average guy but it’s what people think I’ve got that makes me sexy, it’s not what I actually have.” <…> “It’s 50 percent of what you’ve got and 50 percent of what people think you’ve got that makes you sexy… Yeah, I’m rich. That makes me sexy. Sexy’s in the eye of the beholder. I don’t fancy me much. They’ve got the perception that I’m a bit of a wild one, and I think people like to think they can tame you.

Taawdo The Film New Upcoming Rajsthani Film | Starring Preeti Jhangiani (Mohabbatain fame) | Music Lalit Pandit ( DDLJ ) Watch first trailer.

PARTNERS IN CRIME HOW THE CLINTONS WENT FROM DEAD BROKE TO FILTHY RICH And the money kept rolling in from every side. —Song from the musical Evita The quotation above refers to the Juan and Evita Peron Foundation, established in 1948 by Evita Peron for the purpose of helping Argentina’s poor. Evita professed to be a champion of the campesinos—the wretched workers who lived in shanties on the outskirts of Buenos Aires—and they trusted Evita. She had, after all, risen up herself from poverty and obscurity. Her fame was the result of her marriage to the general who became the military leader of the country, Juan Peron. Long before the Clintons, Argentina had its own power couple that claimed to do good and ended up doing very well for themselves. There are, obviously, differences between the Clintons and the Perons. Despite her personal popularity, Evita remained an appendage of her husband, seeking but never obtaining political office. At one point, Evita had her eye on an official position, but the political establishment vigorously opposed her, and her husband never supported her in this effort. Hillary, by contrast, was elected senator and now, having deployed her husband on the campaign trail, seeks election to the nation’s highest office previously held by him. The Perons also had a foundation that took in millions of pesos—the equivalent of $200 million—from multiple foreign sources, Argentine businesses, as well as contributions from various individuals and civic groups. With its 14,000 employees, the foundation was better equipped and more influential than many agencies within the Argentinian government. Evita and her cronies were experts at shaking down anyone who wanted something from the government; donations became a kind of tax that opened up access to the Peron administration. Trade unions sent large contributions because they saw Evita and her husband as champions of their cause. In 1950, the government arranged that a portion of all lottery, movie, and casino revenues should go to the foundation. While the foundation made symbolic, highly publicized gestures of helping the poor, in reality only a fraction of the money went to the underprivileged. Most of it seems to have ended up in foreign bank accounts controlled by the Perons, who became hugely wealthy through their public office profiteering. When Evita died in 1954 and the foundation was shut down, Argentines discovered stashes of undistributed food and clothing. No one from the foundation had bothered to give it away, so it sat unused for years. Helping the poor, after all, wasn’t the real reason Evita set up her foundation. No, she had a different set of priorities. Like so many Third World potentates, the Perons used social justice and provision for the poor as a pretext to amass vast wealth for themselves. The Clintons have done the same thing in America; indeed, Hillary may be America’s version of Evita Peron.

I don’t really want fame and fortune; I just want to enjoy playing my music for people that enjoy hearing it.

George Rogers Clark (1752-1818) was the highest ranking military officer on the western frontier in the American Revolution.  He was also the brother of famed Freemason William Clark (of the Lewis and Clark expedition).  A Freemason, George Rogers Clark's Lodge is unknown, but Abraham Lodge 8, Louisville conducted his Masonic funeral.  In 1809, at age 57, Brother Clark suffered a stroke and fell into a fireplace, burning his leg so badly it required amputation. When Dr. Richard Ferguson, Master of Abraham Lodge, performed the amputation, the only anesthetic Brother Clark received  was music from a fife and drum corps playing in the background.

One night, the Duarte girl, sang poems set to music in a voice so clear I felt my soul rise up inside my ear. In a garden of clematis, with servants dressed like Gypsies placing candles in the trees, we assembled on the grass, between a Belgian wood and {the Duchess of Lorraine}'s glassy pond. In a pale orange gown I read two pieces I'd prepared...When the ladies clapped their approval in the dark, everything, to me, was suddenly bright and near.

The “Sons of the Pioneers” are amongst America’s earliest Country/Western singing groups. One weekend we’d drive south of the border to Tijuana, Mexico and the next weekend it would be to Knott’s Berry Farm, where I heard the “Sons of the Pioneers” singing Tumbling Tumble Weeds, Cool Clear Water and other Western songs that made the group famous. On many occasions, they performed with Roy Rogers, who was a movie cowboy and Dale Evans his cowgirl wife, from Victorville, California. The “Sons of the Pioneers” were popular at that time and were inaugurated into the Country Music Hall of Fame later in 1976. It was a summer that I will never forget! Knott’s Berry Farm is a 160-acre amusement park in Buena Park, California and the singing group has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Hollywood Blvd.

Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow.

Garlock, you might have thought, had taken the Christian opposition to Rock as far as anyone could: “Bringing racism into his attack, Garlock noted that rock had its roots in the music of Africa, South America, and India, places he said where voodoo, sex orgies, human sacrifices, and devil worship abounded. Garlock linked some rock performers with Satan.”17 Yet, even further excesses of abuse on the theme of Rock-as-Satanic have followed as the years have passed. Possibly the craziest is Jacob Aranza’s claims that “75 percent of the rock and roll today (top 10 stuff!) deals with sex, evil, drugs, and the occult.” And that this is all part of a decades’ long, four step plan, “Satan’s Agenda”, to “pronounce rock stars as messiahs”.18 Jeff Godwin took this even further: “The Lord has also revealed to some Christians that incarnate demons from the netherworld actually are members of some of the most popular bands.”19 Converts are famous for their zeal, and as early as 1957 one celebrated rock’n’roller turned on the music that had propelled him to fame when he found religion. Richard Wayne Penniman, better known as Little Richard, stopped playing rock’n’roll and began to preach against it: “I was in the eighth grade at San Diego Adventist Elementary School, his conversion touched my life. Little Richard arrived at our school with an entourage of about three black limousines and a staff of personal assistants in black suits. He spoke in chapel, then preached Sabbath morning in a local church (probably San Diego 31st Street), then spoke and sang in the afternoon for a standing-room-only Associated MV (AY) meeting at the old San Diego Broadway church.

Leo Tolstoy’s tribute, given during an interview in 1909, provides moving testimony to the universality of Lincoln’s fame. The Russian novelist admired Lincoln’s “peculiar moral power” and “the greatness of his character.” Lincoln, he said, “was what Beethoven was in music, Dante in poetry, Raphael in painting, and Christ in the philosophy of life.” No political leader matched Lincoln, in Tolstoy’s judgment: “Of all the great national heroes and statesmen of history Lincoln is the only real giant. Alexander, Frederick the Great, Caesar, Napoleon, Gladstone and even Washington stand in greatness of character, in depth of feeling and in a certain moral power far behind Lincoln. Lincoln was a man of whom a nation has a right to be proud; he was a Christ in miniature, a saint of humanity, whose name will live thousands of years in the legends of future generations. We are still too near to his greatness, and so can hardly appreciate his divine power; but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us.” Lincoln “lived and died a hero, and as a great character he will live as long as the world lives. May his life long bless humanity!

He fucks me like I’m his. His dream. His obsession. He fucks me like he’s my biggest fan, and I finally understand what he meant. And it has nothing to do with fame or music.

Not every poet or artist is a doper (metaphorically), but being dopey (metaphorically) often awakens art and poetry. Perhaps artistic creation is intrinsically linked to disconnecting from oneself, allowing the highest and darkest intentions of the human spirit to emerge, something that is often only achieved through an altered state of consciousness.

If fatherhood has taught me anything, it’s that I couldn’t pick a Hall of Fame athlete out of a lineup if my life depended on it, though to be honest, I actually relish being the one dude at the party who is always more interested in the Super Bowl halftime show than the game itself.

What did I want to achieve? Porcupine Tree had begun as a fun project with zero expectations; money and fame were never motivating factors, just a passion to make records and share music.

Elvis Presley exhibited all the classic symptoms of those driven to self-destruction by too much fame and medication: short attention span, an egocentric, chronically addictive personality, bad taste in friends and horrendous eating habits. He was also stupid.

Nebraska made it almost impossible for critics to miss Springsteen's willingness to take a chance in the name of his art. If Springsteen was driven simply by fame and mainstream success, there would have been no good reason to make or release a Nebraska. The album made it impossible to use the word "sellout.

Selena was posthumously given awards at the Univisión network’s Premio Lo Nuestro Awards. She won four Billboard Latin Music Awards and was inducted into the Latin Music Hall of Fame in Miami, where she had built a respectable following.

My salad days—that time when youth, enthusiasm, and idealism all combine into one exhilarating and unstoppable force—were officially over. The salad days don’t last forever, and neither does Internet fame. Quite simply, there are a host of new, exciting creative exploits happening all over the world at any given second, and the novelty of “the hot new thing” is doomed to wear off eventually. When that happens, there are only two paths forward: to give up or grow up. Let the growing pains commence.

Freedom doesn’t necessarily come from working for yourself, or from setting your own hours, or even from never having to worry about money. Freedom is a state of mind. It’s the recognition that pursuing what modern celebrity culture has a way of telling us we should want in life—fame, fortune, accolades—will never lead to contentment. Freedom is about surrendering control and letting the chips fall where they may—and knowing that you’ll be okay.

It’s a beautiful thing to be in Hollywood... the feeling of it... that classical glamour never dies.” She walked to the closet and back to the bed. “The actress lives a beautiful life once at a certain level... when her sink has a view and her phone calls aren’t rejections anymore, but producers, offices, playhouses in London, a director pitching his sacred screenplay. The food gets healthier, people around you are more positive... driving in traffic is even different because your car is nice, and the music you normally hate sounds different when life works... when you get the furniture you want... And mentors pass down movie posters from their mentors—so Hepburn never really dies. You keep it in your home... there’s room for everything... I treasure letters from other artists... studio invitations... Being a woman in Hollywood is entirely different than a man’s experience. All the time, by everyone, for everything, a woman is wanted... dinners... so many dinners... so many scripts lying around the room, in the sun... the people you have yet to meet... it’s not about fame—I do not care for the public praise... but what is truly compelling is when you make it big, you finally understand why there are palm trees in this city... Los Angeles suddenly turns on. Like a bulb you thought disliked you and would never light. But it lights. Of course, one must put the cocktail down, leave the house, and make more movies. But this is to say, the after hours are nice. When the camera is off and I return home, I get to love what is left.

I never thought about the money, the future, or chasing down stardom,” Chris Hillman writes in TIME BETWEEN. “It was always all about the music.” ― Chris Hillman

Right in the middle of a Stevie Wonder concert, right in the middle of this musical trance, this electronic night with thousands in the stadium, a night worthy of Metropolis with the thousands of cerebro-motor slaves gyrating to the rhythm of synthesizers and all the lighter flames serving as a luminous ovation - a new ritual worthy of the catacombs - I feel a total coldness, complete indifference to this faked music, without the slightest melodic phrase, music of a pitiless technicity. Everything is both visceral and coded at the same time. A strictly regulated release, a cold ceremonial, very far in human terms from its own musical savagery, which is merely that of technology. Only the visual impact remains, the spectacle of the crowd and its phYSical idolatry, particularly as the idol is blind and directs the whole thing with his dead eyes, exiled from the world and its tumult, but absorbing it all like an animal. The same air of sacredness as with Borges. The same translucidity of the blind, who enjoy the benefits of the silence of light and therefore of blackmail by lucidity. But modern idolatry is not easily accepted; the bodies stay clenched. Technicity wins out over frenzy in the new metropolitan nights. Growing old is not the approach of a biological term. It is the ever lengthening spiral which distances you from the physical and intellectual openness of your youth. Eventually, the spiral becomes so long that all chance of return is lost. The parabola becomes eccentric, and the peak of one's life-curve gets lost in space. Simultaneously the echo of pleasures in time becomes shorter. One ceases to find pleasure in pleasure. Things live on in nostalgia, and their echo becomes that of a previous life. This is the second mirror phase, and the beginning of the third age.

It might be objected that men are not trees; that if a man realizes something ought to be done, he can go and do it. This is true within certain limits. There can be social conditions favourable to mathematical studies; if a country urgently needs mathematicians, and if everyone knows this, mathematics may well flourish. But this still does not answer the question of how · it comes to flourish. An external motive, good or bad, is not enough. Greed for money, desire for fame, love of humanity are equally incapable of making a man a composer of great music. It has been said that most young men would like to be able to sit down at the piano and improvise sonatas before admiring crowds. But few do it; to desire the end does not provide the means; to make music you must be interested in music, as well as (or instead of) in being admired. And to make mathematics you must be interested in mathematics. The fascination of pattern and the logical classification of pattern must have taken hold of you. It need not be the only emotion in your mind; you may pursue other aims, respond to other duties; but if it is not there, you will contribute nothing to mathematics.

In many ways it might have been more surprising had the Beatles not regularly used stimulants during their ascent to fame. In the years 1962-64 they played over 750 concerts, often more than one a day; recorded and released 67 songs for EMI across eight UK singles, four albums and an EP (Long Tall Sally, the only one from that period to contain recordings unavailable elsewhere); appeared numerous times on television and radio; gave countless interviews and press conferences; starred in their first feature film; appeared in two Christmas pantomime shows; had their own US cartoon series; and conquered America. Their photographs were everywhere, their likenesses rendered on everything from toys and musical instruments to clothes and pillow cases, and their every word was devoured by their legions of fans.

The film version of Chicago is a milestone in the still-being-written history of film musicals. It resurrected the genre, winning the Oscar for Best Picture, but its long-term impact remains unclear. Rob Marshall, who achieved such success as the co-director of the 1998 stage revival of Cabaret, began his career as a choreographer, and hence was well suited to direct as well as choreograph the dance-focused Chicago film. The screen version is indeed filled with dancing (in a style reminiscent of original choreographer Bob Fosse, with plenty of modern touches) and retains much of the music and the book of the stage version. But Marshall made several bold moves. First, he cast three movie stars – Catherine Zeta-Jones (former vaudeville star turned murderess Velma Kelly), Renée Zellweger (fame-hungry Roxie Hart), and Richard Gere (celebrity lawyer Billy Flynn) – rather than Broadway veterans. Of these, only Zeta-Jones had training as a singer and dancer. Zellweger’s character did not need to be an expert singer or dancer, she simply needed to want to be, and Zellweger’s own Hollywood persona of vulnerability and stardom blended in many critics’ minds with that of Roxie.8 Since the show is about celebrity, casting three Hollywood icons seemed appropriate, even if the show’s cynical tone and violent plotlines do not shed the best light on how stars achieve fame. Marshall’s boldest move, though, was in his conception of the film itself. Virtually every song in the film – with the exception of Amos’s ‘Mr Cellophane’ and a few on-stage numbers like Velma’s ‘All That Jazz’ – takes place inside Roxie’s mind. The heroine escapes from her grim reality by envisioning entire production numbers in her head. Some film critics and theatre scholars found this to be a cheap trick, a cop-out by a director afraid to let his characters burst into song during the course of their normal lives, but other critics – and movie-goers – embraced this technique as one that made the musical palatable for modern audiences not accustomed to musicals. Marshall also chose a rapid-cut editing style, filled with close-ups that never allow the viewer to see a group of dancers from a distance, nor often even an entire dancer’s body. Arms curve, legs extend, but only a few numbers such as ‘Razzle Dazzle’ and ‘Cell Block Tango’ are treated like fully staged group numbers that one can take in as a whole.

On 14 September 1869, one hundred years after his birth, Alexander von Humboldt’s centennial was celebrated across the world. There were parties in Europe, Africa and Australia as well as the Americas. In Melbourne and Adelaide people came together to listen to speeches in honour of Humboldt, as did groups in Buenos Aires and Mexico City. There were festivities in Moscow where Humboldt was called the ‘Shakespeare of sciences’, and in Alexandria in Egypt where guests partied under a sky illuminated with fireworks. The greatest commemorations were in the United States, where from San Francisco to Philadelphia, and from Chicago to Charleston, the nation saw street parades, sumptuous dinners and concerts. In Cleveland some 8,000 people took to the streets and in Syracuse another 15,000 joined a march that was more than a mile long. President Ulysses Grant attended the Humboldt celebrations in Pittsburgh together with 10,000 revellers who brought the city to a standstill. In New York City the cobbled streets were lined with flags. City Hall was veiled in banners, and entire houses had vanished behind huge posters bearing Humboldt’s face. Even the ships sailing by, out on the Hudson River, were garlanded in colourful bunting. In the morning thousands of people followed ten music bands, marching from the Bowery and along Broadway to Central Park to honour a man ‘whose fame no nation can claim’ as the New York Times’s front page reported. By early afternoon, 25,000 onlookers had assembled in Central Park to listen to the speeches as a large bronze bust of Humboldt was unveiled. In the evening as darkness settled, a torchlight procession of 15,000 people set out along the streets, walking beneath colourful Chinese lanterns. Let us imagine him, one speaker said, ‘as standing on the Andes’ with his mind soaring above all. Every speech across the world emphasized that Humboldt had seen an ‘inner correlation’ between all aspects of nature. In Boston, Emerson told the city’s grandees that Humboldt was ‘one of those wonders of the world’. His fame, the Daily News in London reported, was ‘in some sort bound up with the universe itself’. In Germany there were festivities in Cologne, Hamburg, Dresden, Frankfurt and many other cities. The greatest German celebrations were in Berlin, Humboldt’s hometown, where despite torrential rain 80,000 people assembled. The authorities had ordered offices and all government agencies to close for the day. As the rain poured down and gusts chilled the air, the speeches and singing nonetheless continued for hours.