V is for Victory.
V was for Hope.
V said “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.”
And They didn’t.
He had told them the first day they met. “We are going to win a National Championship.”
They failed for two years, and time was running out, most of them were seniors in college. Last chance.
They won when nobody had given them a chance.
It is a popular Western view to say Crisis in Chinese is a simple combination of danger and opportunity. But that is not exactly correct. It’s a little more complicated.
Chinese philologist Victor H. Mair of the University of Pennsylvania calls the popular interpretation of wēijī in the English-speaking world a “widespread public misperception.” Mair suggests that jī in wēijī is closer to “crucial point” than to “opportunity.”
Nevertheless, They can relate to either interpretation.
They struggled much of their young lives, very close to danger and no opportunity before the crucial point — when the opportunity was encountered and made, by hard work and being very smart TOGETHER.
The Danger has passed. Now, China is the land of Opportunity for those who have the right combination and the right timing — and…
They do.
Mad Money Eighth year anniversary. With the Dow at record levels and the SP500 almost recovered to the previous high (not inflation adjusted). Stocks, bonds, gold, cash, or housing?
He was bigger in life.
Some gotta win, some gotta lose.
Good time Charlie got the blues
Good time Chavez got the blues
No, He didn’t lose the election. He rigged that. He didn’t lose his power, or his macho — well, until he died.
Hugo Chavez died March 5, 2013 of cancer. He was 58 years old.
Good time Chavez gotta lose.
So what about Hugo Chavez.
Game of Thrones is back and Thank the Gods:
UPDATE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjCM4gWmLGo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=R4XSeW4B5Rg
For those of you who do not know, Game of Thrones is an HBO series in it’s third season based off a series of popular fantasy novels entitled “A Song of Ice and Fire”. Thrones chronicles the violent conflicts and struggles between noble families vying for control of the ‘Iron Throne’. The unprecedented genre series focuses primarily on political and military strife between four major powers: House Lannister, House Baratheon, House Stark, and House Targaryen. Just like the real four major powers or Temperaments, these ones certainly have their differences. Let’s take a look.
Justice League seems to be in more hot water as WB execs have reportedly trashed Will Beall’s script with several sources claiming “it’s terrible”:
I’ve now heard from multiple sources that the Will Beall script for Justice League has been scrapped. The story from each source is the same: it’s terrible. Some sources seem to think the whole movie is going to fall apart and never happen, while some believe that Warner Bros will keep moving forward, unwilling to lose the superhero arms race.
WHOOPSY DAISIES. I’m not a mathematician or anything but aren’t they already LOSING the “superhero arms race”?
Seeing as The Avengers will assemble at the 85th Annual Academy Awards next week to present an award, while the Justice League doesn’t even exist yet?
Justice League’s saving grace may just be this film:
If Snyder dropped the ball however, WB is screwed.
While these superhero teams may be fictional, they express an extremely important idea: that people are fundamentally different from one another, and that that is a GOOD thing. Let’s take a look.
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Awards and Flu Seasons have commenced as the 2013 Golden Globes gave Bostonian Ben Affleck a pretty phatty sack including Best Director and Best Picture. Daniel Day Lewis got best actor which let’s be honest isn’t very surprising to anyone. So wash your hands and eat oranges as Oscar night approaches on February 24th. Speaking of Oscar potential Star Wars Episode VII has officially hired director J.J. Abrams to helm the film. The young director just finished his second Star Trek film and took the job reportedly after months of being courted by new Lucasfilm CEO Kathleen Kennedy. Abrams even publicly announced that he would NOT direct the film, which evidently he was just flat out lying about. What a SILLY GOOSE! Some would say. Abrams’ credits include Star Trek and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, having also written and produced big name stuff like Lost and Alias. Regardless, Disney’s newest branch seems pretty pumped to have him;
Star Wars creator George Lucas also gave his blessing to the selection of Abrams. “I’ve consistently been impressed with J.J. as a filmmaker and storyteller,” said Lucas. “He’s an ideal choice to direct the new Star Wars film and the legacy couldn’t be in better hands.
Having just landed the biggest directing gig in Hollywood, let’s take a look at Abrams’ most recent project:
She would have been 70 years old today, January 19th, 2013.
Janis Lyn Joplin, Performer Artisan, (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter. Joplin first rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of the psychedelic-acid rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, and later as a solo artist with her more soulful and bluesy backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band. She was one of the more popular acts at the Monterey Pop Festival and later became one of the major attractions to the Woodstock festival and the Festival Express train tour. Janis Joplin charted five singles, and other popular songs from her four-year career include “Down on Me”, “Summertime”, “Piece of My Heart“, “Ball ‘n’ Chain”, “Maybe”, “To Love Somebody”, “Kozmic Blues”, “Work Me, Lord”, “Cry Baby”, “Mercedes Benz”, and her only number one hit, “Me and Bobby McGee”. Joplin was well known for her performing abilities, and her fans referred to her stage presence as “electric”. At the height of her career, she was known as “The Queen of Rock and Roll” as well as “The Queen of Psychedelic Soul,” and became known as Pearl amongst her friends. She was also a painter, dancer and music arranger. Rolling Stone magazine ranked Joplin number 46 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time in 2004, and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. [Wikipedia, revised]
Like A Candle in the Wind, but burning at both ends, Janis Joplin died at the age of 27, from a drug overdose.
Performers also like to live in the fast lane, and seem up on the latest fashions of dress, food, drink, and music. Lively and uninhibited, Performers are the life of the party, always trying to create in those around them a mood of eat, drink, and be merry.
The Performers’ talent for enjoying life is healthy for the most part, though it also makes them more subject to temptations than the other types. Pleasure seems to be an end in itself for them, and variety is the spice of life. And so Performers are open to trying almost anything that promises them a good time, not always giving enough thought to the consequences. [Please Understand Me II]
She died young — to be forever young.
“I’m a victim of my own insides. There was a time when I wanted to know everything. I read a lot. I guess you’d say I was pretty intellectual. It’s odd, I can’t remember when it changed. It used to make me very unhappy, all that feeling. I just didn’t know what to do with it. But now I’ve learned how to make feeling work for me. I’m full of emotion and I want a release, and if you’re on stage and if it’s really working and you’ve got the audience with you, it’s a oneness you feel. I’m into me, plus they’re into me, and everything comes together. You’re full of it. I don’t know, I just want to feel as much as I can, it’s what ‘soul’ is all about.”
“Don’t compromise yourself. It’s all you’ve got.”
Freedom just another word for nothing left to lose.
— Janis Joplin (Me and Bobby Magee)
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If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
— Henry David Thoreau
Hope can be very foolish. Parents can have hopes for their children, often these aren’t what the children can meet.
Gene Krupa, Performer Artisan, was born in Chicago, the youngest of Anna (Oslowski) and Bartłomiej Krupa’s nine children. Krupa’s father, Bartłomiej, was an immigrant from Poland, and his mother, Anna, was born in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, of Polish descent. His parents were very religious and had groomed Gene for the priesthood. He spent his grammar school days at various parochial schools and upon graduation, attended St Joseph’s College for a year, but later decided it was not his vocation. [Wikipedia, revised]
No, his parents had great plans for him, but Gene had a different drum to drum.
IT WAS THE DRUMS.
Performers have the special ability, even among the Artisans, to delight those around them with their warmth, their good humor, and with their often extraordinary skills in music, comedy, and drama. Whether on the job, with friends, or with their families, Performers are exciting and full of fun, and their great social interest lies in stimulating those around them to take a break from work and worry, to lighten up and enjoy life. [Please Understand Me II]
When I speak of natural drummers I’m talking about guys that are playing with the talent God gave ’em. — Gene Krupa
Other Performer Artisans: Louis Armstrong, Alex Karras, Kim Jong-un, Phyllis Diller, Jim Cramer, Josephine Baker, Whitney Houston, Marilyn Monroe
The new year is upon us my dear friends and with it comes the 2013 awards season, and a whole new year in cinema. And somehow all the stupid crap I pulled last year is dead and gone now and I have a whole year to pull an entirely new set of crap. Iron Man 3, Thor 2, Oz the Great and Powerful, Man of Steel, The Wolverine, Sin City 2, jOBS, and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug are among those to look forward to in 2013.
Les Misérables and Argo are Golden Globe favorites alongside Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty. Baz Luhrmann‘s The Great Gatsby might give hip hip mogul Jay-Z his first Oscar, as he was recently hired to score the film. Luhrmann is known for Moulin Rouge and Romeo & Juliet, two films in which he also used contemporary music in a period film.
Based on the classic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby takes us back to the roaring twenties, focusing on titular character Jay Gatsby (Leonardo Dicaprio): a legendary charming, confident, ambitious and lavish hero of the post World War I era. Nobody is perfect as it turns out, as main character Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) starts to unravel Gatsby’s true nature. Carraway’s obsession with Gatsby is representative of humanity’s attraction to fame, glamour, and the spectacle of the Artisan: Let’s take a look
