First we had an ode to Chat Roulette by You Tube star Merton whom many thought was Ben Folds. Now we have Ben Folds performing an ode to Merton at a live concert in Charlotte North Carolina on Chat Roulette. This is definitely worth watching. Look for the guy with the notebook who reveals his face at the end.
If you haven’t heard of brother and sister duo, Angus and Julia Stone, the time has come to add them to your playlist. The sophomore release from this duo would be well accompanied with a glass of chardonnay, sitting on the porch as the sun goes down. Although the Australian born duo write music independently from each other, the two come together in perfect harmony. Like spending time with an old friend on a warm summer’s day.
While many users of the biggest Internet fad since the Hamster Dance are playing their own instrument of choice late into the night, a fellow by the name of Merton has taken YouTube by storm tickling the ivories of a grander sort. By entertaining Chat Roulette viewers with their own serenades, Merton is now on his way to becoming a YouTube sensation.
Nothing stops James Brown from moving on. Not even death. The singer’s body, kept on ice by one of his many children in South Carolina since his Boxing Day death 4 years ago, has, um vanished. “My daddy’s body has disappeared,” LaRhonda Pettit told the U.K.’s Daily Mirror tabloid.
Pettit, an illegitimate child of Brown’s, has been holding onto her daddy’s body while waiting for a mausoleum to be built. Must be quite the building. Brown leaves behind a stack of soulful sounds and the sounds of Pettit and 12 other alleged children clamouring for a slice of the inheritance. With legal problems like that, who can blame him for leaving town–dead or alive.
On Mad Men everyone on Madison Avenue is pretending to be something they’re not. And now you can too. With the announcement that Mattell is launching a line of four limited edition Mad Men collector dolls, mad fans can rejoice.
For $74.95 each, you to can aspire to be Creative Director and dreamy leading man Don Draper; his placid wife Betty Draper; Sterling Cooper partner Roger Sterling; or bombshell office manager Joan Holloway. Early morning martini set and ashtray sold separately.
Canadians, not traditionally known for having inflated egos are now becoming known for something else inflated, giant beavers. The stars of the 2010 Winter Olympics finale in Vancouver have exploded onto the scene and are Canada’s newest export.
In fact the beavers are so popular in North America and abroad, they even have their own face book page. You too can own your own inflatable beaver for a mere $5000 by contacting Famous Inflatables in Windsor Ontario. Just make sure to avoid any awkward moments and deflate your artificial beaver before company arrives.
“Let’s unleash the lawyers” has probably caused more simultaneous moving of bowels across the prisons of America than anything uttered since the Spanish Inquisition.
At 4’11”, Nancy is the kind of dynamo, nay, Tasmanian devil you’d want in your corner. Provided your corner didn’t have a serial rapist, child murderer or Tiger Woods in it. While this might not be LA Justice, it certainly is Hollywood—where rumor, innuendo and hysteria meet up with fact. God Bless the USA. And God Bless Nancy Grace–she’s made millions of fans and dollars from an erstwhile less than prime time television slot.
Actually, welcome back. Not necessarily to that same old place that you laughed about. But welcome back all the same. To that hairstyle you tried to replicate. To soup cans as art. To the defining logos, artifacts, and icons – plastic, human, and plastic human – of a time. Sure, we may tease you a lot. But we’ve got you on the spot. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back.
MOPOP is a celebration of everyday life: an archive of the artifacts, icons, items and obsessions that become the backdrop to our daily lives.
GARNET MCELREE DIRECTOR
At a crowded New York art opening, MOPOP director Garnet McElree couldn’t help but notice just what it was that was not being noticed: The art. Instead guests nibbled on their canapés – their backs to what they had come to admire – as they talked amongst themselves: great shoes (Manolo Blahnik? Knew it!).
In a seemingly-unrelated parallel-universe moment, Garnet found himself in his own un-arty dialogue about, well, Pez dispensers. However, as the conversation progressed so did the surrounding circle of Pez-enthusiasts.
Where the art failed to spark dialogue or stir emotion, the artifact succeeded. On a level created by the people, for the people, of the people. Because the rumbling wasn’t just about Pez. It was about stories, connections, and memories. It was about the power of nostalgia. In that moment he knew that people craved a different kind of experience: An environment to showcase the pieces that evoke the unrivalled brand of enthusiasm reserved for matters of the heart, the past, or – quite simply – the supremely cool.
MARY-JO DIONNE WRITER
The only thing writer Mary-Jo Dionne loves more than pens is the act of stealing them from hotels around the world.
And the only thing she loves more than that bit of debauchery is, well, her collection of Boy George t-shirts, Law & Order re-runs, Bea Arthur, hoop earrings, chicklit, memories of watching Welcome Back Kotter with her mom, soy lattes, driving in her convertible Bug (his name is Doug), When Harry Met Sally (and anything by Nora Ephron), red shoes, animal rescue, her grandma's quilts, low-maintenance friendships, puffy stickers, puffy vests, the spirit of entrepreneurialism, Monopoly marathons (she's always the car), and the fact that she has every journal from the time she was 8 stacked chronologically in her office today. They're sitting next to an awfully large cup of pens.
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