text:
Review: Dirty Projectors, Swing Lo Magellan
Dirty Projectors is a group for a single-obsessed, shuffle-minded era.4.5
Dirty Projectors's Swing Lo Magellan opens with a familiar motif for the band: the sound of male and female voices, shaped into wordless instruments, swirling around one another. But the more significant sound is the first from lead singer and group mastermind David Longstreth, who begins the album by audibly clearing his throat. Always fascinated with the gaps between initial influence and finished product, Longstreth tweaks his methods here by reveling in imperfection, employing a series of self-effacing gestures that play up the jagged, chockablock nature of his songs.
Combining the vocal trills of '90s pop with African polyrhythms and hip-hop beats, generated by a continually rotating cast of musicians, Dirty Projectors is a group for a single-obsessed, shuffle-minded era. This is more apparent than ever on Swing Lo Magellan, which amplifies the deliberate raggedness that made Bitte Orca so weirdly opaque and exciting. That album worked off a pattern of riffs and ideas strung across multiple songs, creating a vaguely conceptual suite about the contemporary roundelay between connection and disconnection. Here the songs are even more flighty and unpredictable, swerving from one genre to another, all while marred and harassed by audible mistakes and technical glitches.
The band's approach finds a nice précis in the album title: a collision between a 16th-century explorer, a gospel song, and a GPS device. Ranging across a globe's worth of genres, digging into the past while reaching for a muted form of transcendence, Dirty Projectors remain hopelessly dependent on low-culture references and consumer technology. The world they envision is one that's flecked with beauty (summed up by Longstreth's repeated references to women's hair), but also confusing and scary, a sentiment summed up by tracks like "Gun Has No Trigger," which stand poised between futility and danger.
Swing Lo Magellan operates at a distinctively modern juncture, the cold nexus between connectivity and the personal detachment such linkage engenders, the emptiness of being a cog in a perfectly devised network. The press tour for the album has found Longstreth name-dropping a flurry of influences, from Lil Wayne to Rod Stewart to Blind Willie Johnson. This seems less like the usual interview patter than a veiled statement of intent. In some sense, the album finds Longstreth focused on making a clear inventory of his raw materials, playing up the divide between these individual components in order to better identify them, establishing his music as a matrix formed from points on a graph. He also seems acutely interested in the issue of personal synthesis, the way people (and bands) build their identities from the primordial stew of pop culture.
In this conception, a person's self is formed in the same way as an album, cobbled together through a distillation of influences and references, using technology as a guidepost and a tool, melding formerly disparate items into a unified product. Longstreth witnesses such amalgamation and subtly resists it, circumventing seamlessness by adding audible gaps and potholes to his music. Sometimes his lyrics are neat and logical; other times they settle into the kind of absurd, jumbled language that wouldn't sound out of place in a spam email.
In this sense, the album's rough spots are a form of rebellion, a symbolic rendering of the cracks that remain between glued-together elements; they're reminders that even in a networked world, gaping holes and questions will remain. Like 2007's Rise Above, which messily recreated Black Flag's Damage (released the same year Longstreth was born) from memory, the material here is focused not only on how we incorporate external influences into our lives, but also the inherent melting-pot garbling that accompanies such incorporation.
Swing Lo Magellan is dense, but not without humor and musicality, which is why a song like "Offspring Are Blank" can suddenly lurch into a swaggering guitar solo and feel at odds with the overall cerebral tone. "The Socialites" combines finger-tapped guitar, stuttering hi-hat strikes, and unsteady bass pulses, but these elements are never allowed to gel properly, resulting in a jittery emulsion of sounds. The biggest example of intrusion remains the purposeful mistakes, the clearest of which occurs on "Unto Caesar," with one of the female singers first asking for her cue, then losing the thread entirely as the song breaks down into jokes and chatter.
Studio flubs are a familiar enough recording device, often used to add a casual air to an obviously canned atmosphere. Longstreth leaves these moments in because they're so clearly false; mistakes like this could have easily been filtered out or amended by another take. Retaining such hiccups results in the same kind of distancing effect that might be achieved by distortion or lo-fi recording: identifying and expanding the gap between the listener and the recorded product. The album does so in a method that's more specific to the group's style of erratic, globe-spanning patchworks. Wild, wooly, and willfully chaotic, Swing Lo Magellan thrives on this postmodern assessment of its own parts, identifying its inherent artificiality through jerky transitions and purposeful gaffes. As Longstreth sings on "Irresponsible Song": "With our songs we are outlaws/With our songs we're alone/But without our songs we're lost/Our life is pointless, harsh, and long."
Label: Domino Release Date: July 10, 2012 Buy: Amazon
Review: BTS's Be Vies for Simplicity but Proves Too Insular
The album trades overstimulating spectacle for low-key introspection, but it's therapeutic as a cup of tea.3
K-pop boy band BTS's fifth album, Be, represents a departure from their ostentatious, globalized blend of pop, trap, disco, and funk. Unlike on their previous efforts, which made cryptic, needlessly extensive allusions to Herman Hesse and Carl Jung, the group trims the psychoanalytic fat and adopts a message that's quite universal: 2020 has categorically sucked. As its title may suggest, Be vies for simplicity, even lucidity, during these chaotic times, trading in overstimulating spectacle for low-key introspection.
The album's ruminative lead single, "Life Goes On," dresses the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic's seemingly world-stopping force and the group's hopes for the future in acoustic guitar-based alt-hip-hop that nods to South Korean staples Verbal Jint and Geeks. After the aural adrenaline rushes of last year's "Boy with Luv" and "Idol," this stripping back feels palate-cleansing and brings to mind pre-"DNA" BTS's understated hip-hop explorations like "Just One Day." Still, the Covid-centered "Life Goes On" is as therapeutic as a cup of tea.
For better or worse, Be's sights are trained on BTS fans, meaning the album is too insular for broader appeal. The music video for "Life Goes On" captures the pajama-clad, quarantined Bangtan Boys lounging in bed, before transitioning to the seven members singing in an empty arena, with light sticks occupying the seats where the audience should be. It's a gesture fans will appreciate (BTS canceled their 2020 world tour, and light sticks are a requisite K-pop concert accessory), but artists risk diluting their impact when they rely too heavily on fan service, especially if a song's hook fails to completely stick, as it does on "Life Goes On."
Following the pretty balladry of "Blue & Grey," a skit discloses BTS's reaction to scoring their first Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper with "Dynamite" in August. You can sense the group's surprise and excitement in their impassioned words—the sort of behind-the-scenes transparency that earned them their diehard fanbase. At odds with the immaculate artificiality engrained in K-pop idols from years in the trainee system, BTS's candor when it comes to their struggles with depression, anxiety, and imposter syndrome is partly responsible for their international appeal. But whereas fans will relish the thrill of this intimate moment, for the casual listener, the skit is a skippable intermission before the album's short-lived final stretch.
These last songs play out like a testament to the K-pop industry's love affair with pastiche. Informed by the musical cornucopia extended by the internet age and globalization, K-pop songwriters survey the earworms of the past and present, mixing and matching trends to arrive at sui generis soundscapes that don't belong to a single time or place. The Bruno Mars-inspired "Telepathy" and the sedate, distinctly early-2010s-era club-pop of "Stay" don't leave lasting impressions, but the hip-hop-infused "Dis-ease" is a fine offering to this eccentric canon. The song unfolds with spare jazz guitar, before launching into a chopped-n'-screwed drum breakdown and culminating with grandiose trumpets.
"Dynamite," the album's bubbly nü-disco coda, is BTS's first English-language song, now well-known from steady radio play and the group's stateside TV performances of the song. In spite of their immense fanbase and record-breaking streaming numbers, BTS's prior Korean-language singles have received scant airplay in the U.S., so the success of "Dynamite" raises the question: If the group wishes to continue topping American charts—or getting Grammy nods—will they have to make the leap to English-language releases? BTS may follow in the footsteps of international artists with English-language crossover appeal like Shakira or Enrique Iglesias, but slight, self-referential releases like the pleasantly lukewarm Be won't be enough for them to maintain a lasting foothold stateside or outside of their devoted fanbase.
Label: Big Hit Release Date: November 20, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Review: With Good News, Megan Thee Stallion Boldly Authors Her Own Narrative
The album is a heavy-hitting rejoinder that rearticulates the headlines of a year fraught by global and personal trauma.3.5
From the petty gatekeeping of anime bros to the dismissive remarks that she only raps about sex, the vitriol leveled against Megan Thee Stallion since her recent rise to fame has been relentless, exposing the minefield of double standards that female rappers are forced to navigate. And that animus reached a nadir of some kind when rapper Torey Lanez shot Megan in the foot last July—an incident of domestic violence that was met with accusations of Meg having lied and snitched. She sets the record straight on Good News, a high-octane, heavy-hitting rejoinder that rearticulates the headlines of a year fraught by global and personal trauma for the Houston rapper.
Megan wastes no time going for the jugular on the album's opening track, "Shots Fired." Over a sample of the Notorious B.I.G.'s "Who Shot Ya?," she skewers Lanez for offering witnesses hush money about the shooting. Her use of the famous Biggie track turns a hip-hop script on its head: Whereas the late rap icon reveled in the aggression of pulling the trigger, Megan imbues defiance and dignity to her role as victim, proving that her morale is bulletproof and vowing not to take the higher ground next time. "Kick me while I'm down bad, I remember all that/Next nigga send a shot, I'ma send it right back," she warns.
Megan underpins her attack with commentary on the violence perpetrated against black women and the way hip-hop and the justice system condone that violence: "Now here we are, 2020, eight months later/And we still ain't got no fuckin' justice for Breonna Taylor." Here the diss track merges into a condemnation of the deep-seated prejudice and violence that black women face on all fronts, from white supremacy, systemic racism, and black men.
Once the smoke clears from "Shots Fired," Megan posits the album's thesis: that sex is power just as much as it is a source of pleasure. Within her framework, sexual prowess is the means of production and intercourse more often than not zeroes out to economic influence over a man. But Megan doesn't break a sweat over earning her own coin, as she puts it on "Movie": "I'm a boss, I could buy the same thing my man bought." She isn't flexing about getting money from men, but about the thrill of having that power over them.
To describe these sorts of obsequious men, she introduces a new archetype to her cast of characters: the crybaby, a needy, would-be suitor who'll get in his feelings over a read receipt and still dish out cash after. "Invest in this pussy, boy, support black business," Meg snarls on "Sugar Baby," before firing witty, withering one-liners like "He said, 'Let's make a movie,' and nutted so quick, we made a story." Megan subverts the misogynistic lyrics of Southern rap giants like Three 6 Mafia and UGK, aiming their objectifying language at men and venerating herself as is the gloriously self-aggrandizing custom of hip-hop.
Still, one would be remiss to make Good News out to be some grand consciously feminist manifesto. To emasculate men, Meg often likens them to women, reinforcing stereotypes and gender roles that belittle women in the process. Her Spotify Storyline annotation for "Sugar Baby" outright declares, "The worst type of man is one that's emotional like a woman." She encounters a conundrum other female rappers have tripped over time and time again: While subverting the baked-in misogyny of hip-hop, how do you avoid perpetuating the harmful beliefs that keep women down? What's more, how do you fully participate in a tradition that denigrates you without channeling that subjugation back on yourself and other women?
The solution to this complicated caveat is out there, but it's unfair to thrust the responsibility solely on Megan's shoulders, given that she's never postured at being a mouthpiece for the disparate, far-flung movement that is contemporary feminism. From day one, she's made clear that she makes music for women to feel like bad bitches. To that end, she masterfully succeeds with enthrallingly nasty anthems like "Body" and the SZA-assisted "Freaky Girls."
The latter entries of the album consist of a mixed bag of sensual, more melodic cuts. On the lewd dancehall escapade "Intercourse," Megan effortlessly falls in step with guest Popcaan, remaining grounded in the Dirty South ("Treat my body like some oxtails, lick your fingers") and proffering some particularly pearl-clutching innuendos ("Let you put your hook in my bumper like a repo"). On "Work That," which lifts the hook from Juvenile's "Rodeo," Megan's rap-singing radiates sweetness and Southern twang. But her heavily Auto-Tuned vocals on "Don't Rock Me to Sleep" come off as rudimentary, the track's sing-song refrain like something out of a nursery rhyme—"Blah, blah, blah, la-la-la/If you wanna leave, then bye, bye, bye"—and its saccharine synth-pop strays too far from her riveting club-ready beats.
But while Megan is still figuring herself out stylistically, she's undeniably in touch with herself. Throughout Good News, Megan doesn't spend all that much time referencing her beloved alter egos: the pimp persona of Tina Snow, the lustful Hot Girl, and the relatable Suga. Rather, she coalesces qualities of each in her lyricism and delivery, suggesting that the mask is off and she's being wholly, 100% herself. She's a bundle of apparent contradictions throughout: an advocate for black women and a sex-positive vamp, a college student and a chart-topping rapper. Sadly, women in hip-hop are subject to small-minded efforts that would limit and categorize them as either serious MCs or "strippers turned rappers." With Good News, Megan says to hell with all the scrutiny and authors her own narrative.
Label: 300 Entertainment Release Date: November 20, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Review: Dirty Projectors's 5EPs Highlights the Band's Strengths as a Collective
The collection is a satisfying showcase for the group's range while making plain their core appeal with refreshing directness.3.5
Dirty Projectors's latest project is a series of EPs that have been released over the course of 2020, now bundled together as an anthology, 5EPs. Fittingly, given the band's fondness for arpeggios, the collection breaks down their considerable breadth of genre variations into separate parts, providing a satisfying showcase for the group's range while also making plain their core appeal with refreshing directness.
The EPs Windows Open and Super João deal in straightforward folk, while Earth Crisis winds through solemn art rock and Ring Road, the culminating chapter, embraces Dirty Projectors's most popular register as progenitors of Talking Heads's brand of post-punk and funk. Most excitingly, Flight Tower employs hip-hop-influenced instrumentation, from the emphatic metronomic thump of "Empty Vessel" to the jangling low-end bass redolent of '90s acts like Mobb Deep and A Tribe Called Quest on "Self Design."
With a couple exceptions, the songs across all five chapters are pared-down distillations of the band's best ideas. This choice also connects to the lyrical content, which has a feeling throughout of wanting to get to the point of life's meaning even as it questions if one will ever truly figure it all out. In doing so, the lyrics focus on roads and journeys, often physicalizing emotional and existential processes. On "Search for Life," Maia Friedman sings, "She goes to other heights/She wades dunes, sands, and lime/In search for life." On "Self Design," there appears to be a clarity reached, but then Felicia Douglass's narrator doubles back in self-doubt: "What once was a mystery's visible/I finally feel I can see…closer, closer I come…burrowed into the endless night/And I'll never find." Past Dirty Projectors albums, especially 2009's Bitte Orca and 2018's Lamp Lit Prose were built upon ascensions to ecstatic epiphanies, and these songs feel simultaneously closer than ever to reaching such breakthroughs while also intelligently, movingly deflating such an idea in the first place.
"Switch up the perspective," Douglass declares on one of the anthology's standout tracks, "Lose Your Love," a telling moment because this project is the most egalitarian in terms of vocals that the band has released to date. Frontman Dave Longstreth, who produced each song and has been the one consistent member across the group's different permutations over the years, doesn't sing on three of the five EPs, lending his tremulous falsetto only to Super João and Ring Road. Instead, Douglass, Friedman, and Kristin Slipp are handed the reins for the other three installments. It's a move that parallels the National's decentering of Matt Berninger on their 2019 album I Am Easy to Find to make space for several guest vocalists. The approach mostly works on 5EPs, and Slipp in particular is allowed to shine, though there's a perhaps not coincidental similarity between the trio's vocals and the honey-like choral gushing of former band members Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian.
5EPs feels like the output of a true collective, borne out by group hallmarks like handclaps, vocal harmonies, indelible combinations of violin and hand-plucked acoustic guitar on songs like "Overlord," and new touches like interlocking drums and clarinet, each cleverly modulated in speed, on "Bird's Eye." There are also candid explorations of relationships that make room for the push and pull of opposing viewpoints: "I wanna eat all the ice cream/I don't wanna go to bed/let's stay up late, watch a movie/Or catch up on Billions instead," Longstreth pleads on "Porque No," to which one of the other bandmates counters a repeated "Wanna save the rest for later?" Taken together, the EPs function as a grab bag of Dirty Projectors's collaborative strengths and interests, affirming their indie bona fides in a new form.
Label: Domino Release Date: November 20, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Billie Eilish Playfully Torches Her Detractors on New Single "Therefore I Am"
The singer employs a conversational tone throughout the song to punctuate her ambivalence.
Pop phenom Billie Eilish's new single, "Therefore I Am," is a stark contrast to her two previous releases, February's dour "No Time to Die" and July's surprisingly spry "My Future." Sonically, the new track can be more directly traced to Eilish's breakthrough "Bad Guy," with its plodding kick drum and disaffected vocal performance.
"Stop. What the hell are you talkin' about?/Fuck. Get my pretty name outta your mouth," Eilish sneers at detractors, opportunists, and the media. She effortlessly slips in and out of her trademark sing-rapping and angelic, distorted harmonies, employing a conversational tone to punctuate her ambivalence: "Did you have fun?/I really couldn't care less." A playful synth hook repeats throughout, suggesting it's not all that serious.
Directed by Eilish, the music video for "Therefore I Am" finds the singer playing a pandemic-era mall rat, prancing around a deserted shopping center while dressed in shorts, a chunky sweater, and high-tops, helping herself to soft pretzels and lemonade before being ejected by a security guard.
Watch below:
Review: Chris Stapleton's Starting Over Is a Heartfelt, If Derivative, Album
The album's unvarnished style generally works, but there's nowhere to hide when the singer drifts into the saccharine.3
Dave Cobb has become one of Nashville's most influential tastemakers, with more and more artists favoring his rootsy production style. This is due in large part to the wild success of Chris Stapleton's 2015 debut, Traveller, which Cobb co-produced. Stapleton is the most commercially palatable of Cobb's regular collaborators, and while there's no aspect of the Kentucky crooner's work that's especially challenging, his powerful, indelibly soulful rasp can make even the most shopworn turns of phrase sound like emotional revelation.
The singer's fourth album, Starting Over, plays to the strengths of both Stapleton and Cobb. The stripped-down, unfussy arrangements place the focus squarely where it should be—on the raw beauty of Stapleton's voice—and keeps his retro-revivalist tendencies somewhat in check. The opening title track is a lilting acoustic shuffle that locates the same bittersweet, golden-hour magic as Tom Petty's "Wildflowers," underscored by the presence of the Heartbreakers's Benmont Tench on Hammond B-3 organ. The album's most plaintive tracks, like "You Should Probably Leave" and the brooding "Hillbilly Blood," similarly stand out as highlights here.
While that unvarnished style generally works, though, it also means there's nowhere to hide when Stapleton drifts into the saccharine, as he does on "Maggie's Song," a eulogy for a beloved pup, and a cover of John Fogerty's "Joy of My Life." The presence of the singer's wife, Morgane Stapleton, who coos honey-sweet harmonies on many of the songs here, at least confirms the authenticity of his sentimentality, even as his lyrics frequently succumb to cliché: "And I can be your lucky penny/You can be my four-leaf clover," he sings on "Starting Over."
The album balances these syrupy moments with a batch of harder-edged tracks that showcase Stapleton's biting electric guitar riffing but don't do much to elevate his lyrics. Predictably, he just shifts his focus from love and tenderness to mild hedonism. Indeed, for Stapleton, the devil is real, but it seems his evil works are largely limited to making folks go a bit too hard at the bar every now and then. Except, that is, on "Watch You Burn," wherein Satan can be found roasting Stephen Paddock, the shooter who slaughtered 60 concertgoers in Las Vegas in 2017. Co-written with and featuring guitar by another legendary Tom Petty sideman, Mike Campbell, "Watch You Burn" is the album's only remotely topical song, and while Stapleton's invective may not be especially piercing, the howling anger in his voice is undeniable.
The track's call-and-response gospel choir and familiar bluesy melody highlights how one of Starting Over's strengths is also one of its limitations. Namely that Stapleton and his touring band's effortlessly authentic conjuring of retro styles renders even the album's best tunes clearly derivative. Stapleton is content to bellow out a bunch of banal woman-done-me-wrong lines on the mawkish "Cold," amid a preponderance of obvious Philly-soul tropes. On the opposite end of the spectrum is a second Campbell guitar duel, "Arkansas," a full-on boogie-down Skynyrdian Southern rock song that crackles with energy. Equally effective is "When I'm with You," which is reminiscent of Waylon Jennings's "Amanda," another wistful ballad about taking comfort in a steadfast partner while approaching middle age with trepidation. "But when I'm with you/I feel like a dreamer that's had all his dreams come true," Stapleton drawls. It ain't poetry, or very original, but it's nothing if not genuine.
Label: Mercury Nashville Release Date: November 13, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Every Kylie Minogue Album Ranked
To celebrate the release of Disco, we've ranked all 14 of the Aussie pop singer's albums.
In the three decades since Kylie Minogue's debut, the Australian soap actress turned international pop star has released 15 albums and racked up an impressive 34 Top 10 hits in the U.K., though her career trajectory wasn't always assured. After her initial breakout success on both sides of the Atlantic, with a cover of Little Eva's "The Loco-Motion," Minogue struggled to maintain interest among U.S. audiences. By the mid-1990s, she was eager to shake off her bubblegum-pop image, collaborating with the likes of Nick Cave and Towa Tei, and taking more creative control with the experimental Impossible Princess. The album flopped, but a turn-of-the-century renaissance found the singer embracing her dance-pop roots and cementing her status as a gay icon.
After a brief foray into country music with 2018's Golden, Minogue makes a triumph, perhaps preordained, return to the dance floor with the pointedly titled Disco. To celebrate, we've ranked all 14 of the artist's non-holiday albums.
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this article was published on April 5, 2018.
14. Kylie (1988)
Then famous in her native Australia as Charlene in the soap opera Neighbours, Minogue became an unlikely pop star when her cover of the 1962 hit "The Loco-Motion" became an unexpected international smash. The 19-year-old was plopped onto English production trio Stock Aitken Waterman's assembly line, where it sounds like she was forced to suck down a lungful of helium and sing along to their patented house blend of hi-NRG beats, Italo-disco synths, and Motown melodies. The resulting album, Kylie, is as lightweight and unsatisfying as cotton candy—and goes down just as easy.
13. Enjoy Yourself (1989)
There isn't a whole lot to differentiate Minogue's sophomore effort from its predecessor, right down to the oversized hat on the album's cover. Released just over a year after the singer's debut, Enjoy Yourself repeats the first album's sonic template almost verbatim, including a cover of a classic pop song (in this case, the 1958 doo-wop hit "Tears on My Pillow"). Slight but much-welcomed diversions include the string-laden torch song "Tell Tale Signs" and the baroque-pop "My Secret Heart." Notably, Minogue would later transform the album's tonally incongruent lead single, "Hand on Your Heart," into a poignant acoustic ballad on 2012's The Abbey Road Sessions.
12. Let's Get to It (1991)
On her final album for PWL Records, Minogue continued to peel herself away from the SAW hit factory that helped make her a star. New jack swing, hip-hop, and house are more prominently featured, though none particularly successfully. Produced by the first and last thirds of Stock Aitken Waterman, tracks like "Word Is Out," "Too Much of a Good Thing," and "I Guess I Like It Like That" feel like inferior facsimiles of the distinctly American sound being created by the likes of Clivillés and Cole, Jam and Lewis, Full Force, and others.
11. Kiss Me Once (2014)
Minogue's first album not to spawn a U.K. Top 10 hit since 1997's Impossible Princess, Kiss Me Once lacks a distinct sonic point of view, incorporating pop-rock, disco, dubstep, and R&B in equal measure. If there's an overarching theme to the album, it's sex and its various consequences: Minogue fantasizes about it on "Sexy Love," she sweats about it on "Sexercize," she struggles to define it on "Les Sex." The sleek bonus track "Sleeping with the Enemy" seems to pay homage to Massive Attack's sublime "Unfinished Sympathy," while the Pharrell-produced "I Was Gonna Cancel" makes one wonder what an entire Kylie album of disco-funk might have sounded like. As it stands, Kiss Me Once is the most scattershot of Minogue's latter-day efforts.
10. Rhythm of Love (1990)
From the disco-infused "Step Back in Time" to the techno-pop "Shocked," the potency of Rhythm of Love's singles alone makes it the strongest of Minogue's PWL albums. With "Better the Devil You Know," the singer had begun to shed her girl-next-door image, but the album also saw producers Stock Aitken Waterman developing their signature sound, which, by the end of the '80s, had reached peak saturation on both sides of the pond. The addition of outside producers, including frequent Madonna collaborator Stephen Bray, further expanded Minogue's repertoire to include new jack swing and hip-hop, putting the artist somewhere near, if not in, the same league as her female chart rivals for the first time.
9. Kylie Minogue (1994)
After churning out four albums in as many years with Stock Aitken Waterman, Minogue parted ways with the production team's label in 1993 and signed with Deconstruction Records. The pop star's first album with the label resulted in a creative rebirth that's reflected in the eponymous album's title and embrace of club music. (Perhaps emulating classic 12" house records, a handful of songs—"Where Is the Feeling," "Where Has the Love Gone," and "Falling"—all run about two minutes too long.) But Kylie Minogue's biggest surprise is its midtempo material. Minogue doesn't have the vocal prowess to carry some of these songs—"Surrender" is a less sultry rendition of a song recorded by Tia Carrere a year earlier—but she admirably pushes her voice to its limits on the string-laden "Dangerous Game" and "Automatic Love." The cautionary "Confide in Me," with its hypnotic hook, Middle Eastern strings, and ominous guitar riff, calls for a sensual and understated performance—and Minogue delivers.
8. Golden (2018)
The Nashville-inspired Golden, whose title commemorates Minogue's impending 50th birthday, is the singer's most personal album since Impossible Princess. Both her anxiety about and joyful resistance to her mortality is apparent in songs like "Dancing," "Live a Little," and the title track. "Sincerely Yours" is a "love letter" most likely directed at tour audiences—"This is not the end, I'll come back again/You'll still see me, you'll still hear me"—but it's hard not to imagine Minogue singing it as penance to fans eagerly awaiting her return to dance music. While country signifiers abound, from foot-stomping to fiddling, the songs on Golden also smartly juxtapose contemporary pop elements like soaring synth hooks and pitched-up vocals. If nothing else, Golden further bolsters Minogue's reputation for taking risks—and artfully sets the stage for her inevitable disco comeback.
Review: Kylie Minogue's Disco Is a Sugar Rush Worth the Hangover
The Aussie pop singer's 15th album is content to bask unapologetically in nostalgia.3.5
In my review of Kylie Minogue's 2018 album Golden, I not-so-boldly predicted that the country-influenced set would set the stage for the Aussie pop singer's inevitable disco comeback. It wouldn't be the first time she pirouetted away from the dance floor only to make a triumphant return to it. In fact, Minogue seems to have made a decennial tradition of it, having previously re-embraced dance music on 2000's Light Years and 2010's Aphrodite.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Minogue's follow-up to Golden is titled Disco. In a way, such genre-targeted albums free her from opting into current pop trends—though, it should be noted, 2020 has already seen its share of disco revivalism. But if Róisín Murphy's Róisín Machine and Jessie Ware's What's Your Pleasure? represent a deep dive into the admittedly diverse genre, Disco is content to mine its more superficial virtues.
The first song released from Disco, "Say Something," made for a deceptive introduction to the album: A midtempo synth-pop sleeper in the vein of past lead singles "All the Lovers" and "Into the Blue," the track, with its wobbly bassline and funk guitar licks, works better as a momentary respite among Disco's otherwise frenetic middle stretch. Dance anthems like the bass-driven "Supernova" and the unrelentingly catchy "Last Chance" are Minogue's most unabashedly aggressive in years.
Nothing here reaches the high camp of Minogue's 2001 single "Your Disco Needs You," but the infectious "Monday Blues," which boasts intertwining strands of disco DNA from both Chic and Kool & the Gang, makes a valiant attempt. Occasionally, Disco ventures into parody, with on-the-nose references to Studio 54, "I Will Survive," and Earth, Wind & Fire, among others, scattered throughout. But while the album might be a purely derivative work, its period arrangements—all sweeping disco strings, Nile Rodgers-esque guitar licks, and indiscriminately deployed cowbell—are executed with aplomb.
Disco's opening track, "Magic," sweetens its mix of squelchy bass synth and staccato horn stabs with just a dollop of schmaltz: "Do ya, do ya, do ya/Do ya believe in magic?" The album's lyrics are generic and vaguely uplifting enough to project onto any personal or global disaster: "Oh, we all got wanderlust in the darkest place," Minogue sings on "Say Something." Vocally, her voice sounds tinny throughout, a mixing deficiency that similarly plagued her last few albums, but the singer effortlessly slips into her head voice on "Magic," heightening the song's buoyancy, while talk-box effects and digital editing add some sonic interest to "Real Groove" and "Dance Floor Darling."
Minogue has made a version of this album before. The filter disco of "Miss a Thing" and "I Love It," co-written and co-produced by longtime collaborator Richard "Biff" Stannard, would fit comfortably on 2000's Light Years or 2001's Fever. For better or worse, though, Disco doesn't attempt to adapt the classic titular sound in a contemporary context like those albums did, instead content to bask in unapologetic homage. In the end, it's a sugar rush worth the hangover.
Label: Darenote Release Date: November 6, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Review: Ariana Grande's Positions Too Often Defaults to a Familiar Pose
It might be time for pop's reigning vocal acrobat to more fully commit to some new positions.3
If Ariana Grande's Sweetener found the singer exorcising her trauma through music, and Thank U, Next was a bolt of inspiration she couldn't wait to share with the world, her follow-up, Positions, feels more like an obligation or a product of pandemic fatigue. On the opening track, "Shut Up," Grande admits that "All the demons help me see shit differently," but Positions has less to say about the realities of life in 2020 than other albums written and recorded during Covid-19, such as Charli XCX's How I'm Feeling Now.
Sex is, notably, a recurring theme on Positions. "Just give me them babies," Grande quips on "34+35," while "Nasty" sounds like a Janet Jackson sex jam as sung by Mariah Carey—that is, a lot of empty pillow talk and plentiful dog whistles. Grande is known for her witty turns of phrase, and there's no shortage throughout Positions, the title of which is itself a cheeky double entendre. But clever lines like "Are you down like six thirty?" are too often wasted on wan, repetitive hooks.
"Shut Up" finds Grande venturing into chamber pop, her cascading vocal lines propped up by plucky strings and orchestral flourishes, but the song sputters out soon after it reaches its swirling, cinematic climax. Similarly, the full-bodied "My Hair" nudges Grande into neo-soul terrain only to quickly fade out. The songs are almost all exceedingly brief and seemingly half-realized, including the two-minute "West Side," which barely registers as a song at all. The sole exception is "Off the Table," which stretches out to four whole minutes thanks to its molasses-slow pace.
Given the dearth of uptempo tracks on Grande's last album, the microhouse "Motive," featuring Doja Cat, and the breathless, disco-inflected "Love Language" are a welcome change of pace. Too many of the songs on Positions, however, rely on the same midtempo trap-pop that populated Grande's previous two efforts, particularly Thank U, Next. What once seemed refreshing in its minimalism is quickly starting to feel insubstantial. It might be time for contemporary pop's reigning vocal acrobat to more fully commit to some new positions.
Label: Republic Release Date: October 30, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Review: Ty Dolla $ign's Featuring Ty Dolla $ign Is Catchy but Lacks Clarity of Vision
The album highlights the artist's shortcomings as much as it does his sly appeal.3
Like many of his millennial pop contemporaries, Ty Dolla $ign, born Tyrone Griffin Jr., works loosely in the rap world, collapsing other genres into a mix of sounds tailored to his strengths, each strain recognizable enough to court a general audience. Like his first two albums, Featuring Ty Dolla $ign is sequenced rather starkly: a full hour divided between rap and R&B, the first half stocked with raunchy hip-hop and the second delving into more measured, slinky tributes to both sex and love. The album is a mostly enjoyable listen, but it highlights its maker's shortcomings as much as it does his sly appeal.
The songs throughout aren't quite as immediate as Ty Dolla's past work, and some of the slower jams from the album's latter half, like "Everywhere" or "Time Will Tell," would be better placed between "Double R" and "Freak," grating trap cuts made all the more so due to their back-to-back proximity. The tracks are also all so short—it's well over halfway through Featuring Ty Dolla $ign before a song exceeds the three-minute mark—that the album begins to feel like a half-baked mixtape. Most of these blip-like tracks adhere to a repetitive structural formula that doesn't give Griffin much room to stretch.
Griffin has a beautiful, throaty croon that's laidback and textured and needs none of the Auto-Tune that so many artists in the same lane count as essential. He has a way of imbuing even a one-word colloquialism or simplistic idea with sheer charisma; just the vocalization of his basic but frequently used tags "Dolla Sign!" and "Ooh yeah!" are way more lived-in and infectious than they ought to be. On the brassy banger "Expensive," for one, he repeats the titular descriptor over and over, demonstrating an expertise with a sing-song melody.
Griffin is skilled at bringing out the best in his collaborators, and using their energies to maximize his own abilities. "Track 6" and "Universe" find him duetting effortlessly with Anderson .Paak and Kehlani, respectively, and "Lift Me Up" (featuring Young Thug and Future) and "Your Turn" (featuring 6lack, Musiq Soulchild, and Tish Hyman) play as expressive collages of their guests' skills, which are amplified by Griffin's own swagger and confidence. Remarkably, he never gets upstaged by the expansive and varied list of artists.
As on his earlier albums, especially Free TC, Featuring Ty Dolla $ign's lyrics are often sexist or objectifying. We're greeted with such eyebrow raisers as "I just killed the pussy/Need a casket" and an exhaustive checklist of the nationalities of women he's bedded. But then the album takes a turn in its R&B section, with Griffin affirming a woman's agency on "By Yourself" ("You don't need a man/You do it by yourself") and guest Serpentwithfeet chiming in with a healthy "Your joy isn't tied to me" on the Skrillex-produced closer "Ego Death."
For all its contradictory pleasures, though, Featuring Ty Dolla $ign is absent of the sharp hooks and coherent vision of Griffin's past albums, which, though they have a similar basic structure, are more thematically tied to locations (Southern California and a faraway island vacation spot). By comparison, Featuring Ty Dolla $ign has the air of a haphazard playlist. Griffin is still a formidable center of gravity for a small army of eager collaborators, but the final product wants for some necessary fine-tuning.
Label: Atlantic Release Date: October 23, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Every James Bond Theme Song Ranked
From Shirley Bassey to Billie Eilish, we've ranked all 24 Bond themes from best to worst.
Each new James Bond theme is almost as eagerly anticipated as the films themselves. While the franchise's producers have often thought outside the box when choosing singers to headline each film's soundtrack, they've increasingly skewed toward newer artists like Billie Eilish, who joins the ranks of musical vets like Shirley Bassey, Paul McCartney, and Madonna to provide the theme for the newest installment in the series, No Time to Die.
A willingness to adapt to the times, straying from the established formula of bombastic orchestral pop, has produced both hits (Wings's art-rock-inflected "Live and Let Die") and misses (the adult contemporary schlock of Rita Coolidge's "All Time High"). Occasionally, the producers have returned to the template established by Bassey's "Goldfinger" with similarly mixed results, from Lulu's campy "The Man with the Golden Gun" to Adele's theatrical "Skyfall."
The world's most famous secret agent reaches a new milestone with No Time to Die, the 25th film in the official series, tentatively scheduled for release in April after being delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. To celebrate, we've ranked all 24 theme songs, excluding the original "James Bond Theme" and the instrumental title song from 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service, both performed by the John Barry Orchestra. Sal Cinquemani
Editor's Note: Listen to our Bond Theme playlist on Spotify.
24. Sam Smith, "Writing's on the Wall"
Sadly, the writing was on the wall as soon as Sam Smith turned in this narcoleptic take on a Bond song, from 2015's Spectre. Largely an excuse for the kind of self-loathing romantic navel-gazing ("How do I live? How do I breathe?/When you're not here I'm suffocating") and empty showcasing of Smith's vocal range that have become the singer's stock in trade, "Writing's on the Wall" has no real hooks or interesting textures. Instead, Smith relies on generic regal horns to announce an adult contemporary star at their commercial height who drank too much of their own punch. Paul Schrodt
23. Rita Coolidge, "All Time High"
The unfortunately titled Octopussy was the first Bond movie since Dr. No not to have a title track, and understandably so. Its theme, "All Time High," sounds like an ABBA ballad with the wind knocked out of it. While the song's lyrics gesture toward triumph and passion, its style is so languid that it leaves little impact even after repeat listens. When Coolidge sings, "Let the flight begin," she doesn't conjure the image of a pilot preparing for takeoff, but of a passenger popping a Dramamine. Her voice is soothing and pleasant, but ultimately the song's greatest fault is that it simply doesn't feel like a Bond song. Eric Mason
22. Lulu, "The Man with the Golden Gun"
Lulu's theme for 1974's The Man with the Golden Gun is a pale imitation of Shirley Bassey's imitable Bond vocal turns. Where Bassey embodied the films' mix of sex, sorrow, and violence, Lulu sounds like she's doing a highly unsteady stab at a coquettish burlesque routine—which, to be fair, could also describe the general aesthetic of numerous Bond films. Her attempt at a guttural low range is unlikely to unnerve a house cat, while her backing players try to revive the golden-age Bassey music with results that are quickly forgotten. Schrodt
21. A-ha, "The Living Daylights"
After a sufficient opening in which moody strings swell over a dark, driving bassline, A-ha's theme for the first Timothy Dalton Bond film falls victim to an irredeemable '80s musical trend: a noodling synthesizer riff that attempts "sleek and sinister" yet comes off as a show-offy try-out for an Emerson, Lake & Palmer cover band. "The Living Daylights" never recovers, mostly because A-ha—best known for the unabashed romanticism of "Take on Me" and "Crying in the Rain"—are lovers, not fighters, while Bond is, of course, both. When lead singer Morten Harket uses his upper register to belt the chorus ("I've been waiting long for one of us to say/Save the darkness, let it never fade away"), he sounds like a self-remonstrating lost soul, not a hardened international secret agent. Michael Joshua Rowin
20. Gladys Knight, "License to Kill"
The phrase "License to kill"—referring to James Bond's legal right as an MI6 agent to end the lives of human beings, and serving as the title of one of the grittiest, darkest 007 films—doesn't exactly evoke the name Gladys Knight. Not just because the legendary Knight's style is anything but raw and brooding, but also because her theme (as written by Narada Michael Walden, Jeffrey Cohen, and Walter Afanasieff) for Timothy Dalton's second and final Bond film in 1989 is fairly forgettable. Sounding more like an overproduced slow-dance number than an evocation of Bond's rogue mission of revenge, "License to Kill" is only memorable for nicking the famous musical motif from Shirley Bassey's "Goldfinger" and necessitating royalty payments to the writers of that far better song. Rowin
19. Sheena Easton, "For Your Eyes Only"
Sheena Easton's soft-rock power ballad matches the glossiness of For Your Eyes Only to deliver one of the franchise's peak-'80s efforts—which is to say, forgettable even when it's viscerally pleasurable. Easton gives her all like she's trying to steal Pat Benatar's career, and the hook is catchy, even when the bland come-hither lyrics sound like they're more appropriate for a Palm Springs timeshare brochure than a major feature film about a guy who kills people for a living. Schrodt
18. Tom Jones, "Thunderball"
After the success of "Goldfinger," Eon Productions sought to produce another eccentric orchestral pop song with "Thunderball." In fact, Shirley Bassey was slated to perform the original Thunderball song, "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," which arguably was even more committed to the "Goldfinger" formula than "Thunderball." However, in a rush to replace "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" with a proper title track, songwriters John Barry and Don Black left Jones with little in the way of compelling lyrical content. The 1965 song would feel like a pale imitation of "Goldfinger" were it not for Jones's imposing vocal presence and impressive conviction (Jones reportedly fainted while performing the song's final note). Mason
17. Sheryl Crow, "Tomorrow Never Dies"
Sheryl Crow remains a surprising and controversial choice for a Bond chanteuse. Crow is best known for VH1-friendly rock, and her voice isn't exactly sultry or powerful, qualities possessed by k.d. lang, whose own contribution to the Tomorrow Never Dies soundtrack was relegated to the 1997 film's end credits. For her effort, Crow received opening-title honors but also a ton of flak: While appropriately breathy in the verses, Crow sounds strained when reaching for the high notes of the bombastic chorus. Still, "Tomorrow Never Dies," co-written with producer Mitchell Froom, is a somewhat underrated Bond theme, containing a complex yet classy orchestral arrangement that feels timeless compared to the other electronica-inflected themes of the Brosnan era. Rowin
16. Duran Duran, "A View to Kill"
Synth-heavy and melodramatic, "A View to Kill" is the most deliciously '80s Bond theme. Simon Le Bon's piercing vocals imbue the song with invigorating urgency, elevating an otherwise nonsensical collage of fire and ice and fatal kisses to a new wave banger. Like its accompanying music video, which predicted the advent of drone cameras, what "A View to Kill" lacks in timeless elegance, it makes up for in its undeniable, danceable charisma. Mason
15. Matt Monro, "From Russia with Love"
Matt Monro's "From Russia with Love" marks the first specifically tailored theme for a James Bond film, though with only two efforts under its belt, the franchise was still refining its trademarks in 1963: Rather than play over the opening titles, the song is first heard within the film and then over its end credits. It also doesn't possess the qualities audiences would soon come to recognize in Bond theme songs, with a sound more in the romantic vein of Frank Sinatra than in the adventure-oriented vein of, say, Tom Jones. In that sense "From Russia with Love" (as written by Lionel Bart) is a proficient number that nonetheless leaves the listener craving something with a little more muscle. Rowin
14. Louis Armstrong, "We Have All the Time in the World"
If Louis Armstrong's "We Have All the Time in the World" doesn't sound quite like a James Bond theme, that's because it isn't. It's actually the "love theme" for the most romantic of all 007 films, 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and appears during a montage sequence within the film, not during its opening titles. That said, the jazzy ballad (with music by John Barry and lyrics by Burt Bacharach collaborator Hal David) is perfectly lovely and, due to ironically foreshadowing the doomed fate of Bond's bride and one true love, effectively heartbreaking—a quality made all the more poignant by a tender vocal performance by the legendary Armstrong in one of his last major recordings. Rowin
13. Carly Simon, "Nobody Does It Better"
There are great Bond songs, and then there are decent tunes that happened to become Bond themes. From 1977's thoroughly dull The Spy Who Loved Me, Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" slots firmly into the latter category, as the low-key singer shows no interest in delivering the jolts or theatrics of the franchise, and a perfunctory mention of a spy in the lyrics comes off as a contractual obligation. But her piano bar-styled, true-to-brand saccharine vocals are undeniably sweet. Nobody does it better, indeed. Schrodt
Review: BTS's Be Vies for Simplicity but Proves Too Insular
Review: Assassin's Creed Valhalla Brings the Fun, but It May Leave You Uneasy
Blu-ray Review: 15-Disc Essential Fellini Box Set on the Criterion Collection
Review: Robert Altman's Popeye Get's 40th Anniversary Blu-ray Edition
Noir City: International 2020
Review: Soul More Sublimely Mediates on the Pull of Music Than It Does the Afterlife
Review: Black Bear Is an Unnerving Look at the Baggage that Fuels Creation
Review: Survival Skills Surreally Straddles the Line Between Parody and Pathos
Review: I'm Your Woman Is an Unresolved Grab at Feminist Revisionism
Review: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity Is Addictive in Spite of a Shaky Engine
- Music5 days ago
Review: BTS's Be Vies for Simplicity but Proves Too Insular
- Games6 days ago
Review: Assassin's Creed Valhalla Brings the Fun, but It May Leave You Uneasy
- Video5 days ago
Blu-ray Review: 15-Disc Essential Fellini Box Set on the Criterion Collection
- Video7 days ago
Review: Robert Altman's Popeye Get's 40th Anniversary Blu-ray Edition


text:
As a contractor, each job you win brings in extra money but it also brings extra risk. The same contractors insurance that protected you for a one-man project may not protect you during your new multi-year commercial deal.
You know that insurance is vital to all aspects of your business as a contractor--it can literally keep you in business when accidents occur.
The list of coverage areas that need to be addressed in your New York contractors insurance include:
If your New York contractors insurance misses any one aspect of this protection, your job and your company will be at risk.
Price is always a concern for contractors but with a custom contractors insurance policy, you are in control of what types and amounts of coverage you that want to pay for. It can be surprisingly affordable.
Here are two reasons to act now!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
READ about Piers Morgan's long career in journalism here.
It's not every day that Oprah Winfrey joins Piers Morgan for a live interview. In fact, it's only happened once before, on the program's very first night, January 17, 2011. That is, until Wednesday.
Joining the program via Skype, the universally acknowledged Queen of Media touched upon a topic she's currently championing, encouraging people to "Just Say Hello".
It's an initiative designed to combat loneliness, lift spirits, brighten days, and improve the lives of every day people. But Winfrey is not an every day person. Anything but. Which prompted the host to inquire as to whether or not she has ever suffered from the affliction of which she is so actively aiming to alleviate.
"Have you had periods of real genuine loneliness in your life, do you think," Morgan asked Winfrey.
"Absolutely not," she declared. "I am really happy being with myself."
Nonetheless, as host of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" for 25 seasons, the 60-year-old professed to have garnered a real understanding for the sole goal of all people:
"Every human being is looking for one thing, and that is to be validated, to be seen and to be heard ... at the end of almost every interview in one form or another somebody would always lean in and say, 'was that okay? Was that okay,'" described Winfrey, referencing the numerous guests she welcomed on the program that captured 47 Daytime Emmy Awards. "I started to see that pattern. And what I realized is that everybody is looking for the same thing. No matter if it's politicians, senators, presidents, Beyoncé in all of her Beyoncé-ness. We're all looking to know 'did you see me, did you hear me, and did what I say mean anything to you.' So just saying hello is a way of validating even a stranger."
Watch the clip as Morgan enjoys a rare opportunity to "Just Say Hello" to his show's first guest, and for the next episode of "Piers Morgan Live," watch CNN at 9p.
» Follow "Piers Morgan Live" on Twitter
» Follow "Piers Morgan Live" on Instagram
Please help people who are suffering from this silent epidemic.
" Estrange Stories " started by a mom who was not willing to give up on her boys who estranged her. Today there are over 3000 member & growing. This is vicious and silent epidemic no different than Aspergers or Autism that needs to be addressed. If young adults can discard parents & family as easily without any feelings for Facebook & texting friends. What truly is making our society so unhappy? What is the first " red flag " being seen by young adults with depression & mental illness? Estrangement. Please google Estrangement.
This epidemic is beeing seen more by mental health doctors when take a survey.
I am 65 and live in WV. I have been trying to tell my children for so long and they do not understand what it feels like to be lonely. I have been divorced for about 5 years now after having been married for almost 40 and this has been so hard, trying to learn to live alone. I was listening to Gayle talk about her weekend and not going out and no phone calls and I'm right there with her. My children do not come to visit, they do not call nor do they invite me to their homes. Loneliness is the major cause of my depression and anxiety. I take medication to keep these under control, but there is no medication for lonliness.
Judy, I am very sorry for what you are going through. You unfortunately are not alone, there are millions like you who have been estranged by there children. We need public awareness. Many of our young adult have not established any moral principles to hold them through so what do they do instead. Estrange there parents & family. When this does not work they can always fall into the net of a psychiatric or therapist as mentally unstable, depressed or bipolar! There is alway a pills and a gravy bowl to attach at the end.
There are groups you can join... Just google estrangement.
You don't need to give your real name. Stay away from the crazy lady living in Australia.
Hugs to you. You have made a big step already. Please join a support group. Estrangement is a lonely place. You don't have to be alone.
There are lots of resources & help. No, need to feel lonely.
Dr. Joshua Coleman
Estrangement, depression, loneliness ..
How will " just say Hello" help?
What is causing this epidemic? Does Dr Gupta want to address this please?
One third of young adults are estranged from there parents. This number is very high.
An excerpt from my book, I Said Hello, of which a new version will be out soon.
"I grab Hailima's hand and give it a gentle squeeze as we all sit and talk late into the evening. This is the way it should be. People coming together, talking, sharing stories, bouts of laughter and getting to know one another, all with the sense of family I hoped to create surrounding me just as it did throughout this entire journey. And just think, all it took was a simple hello. Amazing."
So you are a photographer? Nice.
I agree with Oprah. It takes so little to reach out and it does so much. Love Oprah
An inter-generational group of young and "seasoned" 🙂 people joined together in Harlem earlier this year and started a similar global movement – "The Hello Movement"! http://www.thehellomovement.com. We discussed the issues affecting our community, particularly our youth, and posed the question "What can we do right now to take action?". How can we combat feelings of invisibility, loneliness, and disregard? How can we make people feel that they are seen and that they matter? Like Oprah, we chose to take the first step by just saying hello!
In the past few months we have been committed to doing this work and have been spreading it in New York, Newark, DC, Chicago, and even Aruba! The movement is simple – give a warm hello to at least three people a day and invite others to join the movement! You can join the movement by visiting http://www.thehellomovement.com. Read the blog post that launched the movement here: http://everydaybutterfly.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-hello-movement.html.
Hello :-)!
Loneliness is very real. I am a 61-year old gay man. I was an educator and administrator for 33 years. I have been unemployed since 2011. I have Shelton most days in my apartment. Without the TV and computer, I would have had minimal contact with the outside world. I contemplated suicide several times. As a society, we have become so consumed with telephones, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. that we have forgotten the importance of real, face-to-face conversation. JUST SAY HELLO is commendable for bringing attention to an issue about which many people are unaware. I associated it with being a loser. I am glad to learn that although I am lonely, I am NOT alone regarding how I feel.
Hello Bill, No you are not alone. You are just ONE more to millions who feeing lonely.
Our 42 year old son has Estranged us for thousands of Facebook & Twitter friend. He is very single holds a good job & a lovely home. He came to visit us two Christmas back.....all he did was Text even in Church & through dinner, before leaving he said the only way he is willing to communicate is via Facebook & twitter. When we texted him he said we were morons. He said FB & Twitter only!
Unless the cause of the loneliness is addressed, this epidemic of lonely, isolated people will continue. No one wants to be lonely, isolated....more importantly experience the feeling of not being loved. Worst of all, the lack of human touch for the lonely isolated person is inexpressible. ~widower, widow, estranged from family, abused, neglected,etc.,~
Estrangement in many ways is playing the key roll for loneliness. People don't just wake up one morning and become lonely. Saying hello to strangers will lift ones sprint up but for a moment only... Smile it's a good thing but is nothing more than a bandage. Bandage is not a cure.
Estrangement is effecting almost 60 percent of Baby boomers. Most suffer in silence because they fear, guilt & stigma. " It was all the parents fault." There are groups that are being formed in many cities all over the States for Estranged Parents. Many therapist, counselor & psychologist have failed to recognized what is causing estrangement & depression in such high numbers?
Read mother teresa. ..The greatest disease in the west today is not tb or leprosy. It has being unloved or uncared for....
yes . just say hello. Smile. Give that gift. for years after I retired from teaching. I was so down and suicidal...my family helped me find the strength to get out of a bad situation and I thank God for that. I can only pray for shut ins. That allow somebody to help them get out of the dark...you will soar like the birds when and if you do. And I love the sight and sounds of life outdoors again....
What a surprise that Oprah and Gayle exhibited such a lack of genuine empathy. Gayle, "Well I had that one feeling of loneliness once, I think, over a recent weekend." Oprah, "NNOOOOOOOO, I am NEVER lonely." What the hell!!!? They couldn't quite encourage those who suffer loneliness, like others might, by letting their guard down, but lack any guards to let down because of their huge egoes. How about, " I was really lonely when I went to college,""People in military, divorce, widows, chronic illness, empty nesters experience terrible loneliness which sometimes turns into chronic loneliness." Sometimes people may find themselves surprisingly alone after divorce, kids grown up and leave, move away from family, work is independent... To meet others in this day and age is very challenging, especially with the pace of our world and the stigma of 'alone.' I watch Piers Morgan every night and was disappointed for the first time not in Piers but the overbearing control of Oprah and Gayle totally ineffective in kicking off the campaign and in S. Gupta for not having more suggestions on how to prevent isolation in peoples' lives...if it's so prevelant. Where was it Oprah had to go to anyway. Please. The popular pastor (who lost his son... sorry can't recall his name) should have been on to truly address such a serious human condition.
Thank you; thank you; thank you for your comments. I was so very disappointed in the very superficial handling of this very important topic. I could not help but feel, as I often do, that this was yet another time when Oprah has come off as
never having actually experienced human emotions, that we all have had. The entire interview seemed, as it too often
does with Oprah as self-serving. A missed opportunity on the airwaves to have a genuine discussion, so that we as human beings in an all too techno world, could get some advice to begin some real healing with and for each other.
Sadly there never is genuine empathy in any one. Remember Dr Phill the 2 minute mental health guru?.
Depression, estrangement & loneliness are all real issues that can not be addressed in few minutes. I feel at least an attempt was made, I hope there is more sincerity by the media. This is very big issue and a little fake hello & a smile face is just hogwash.
a wonderful show on lonliness and feeling lonely. I could identify with everything that was said on the show and the above comments. My son took his own life in July, in his suicide note he mentioned how lonely he felt even though he was surrounded with people that cared. He had family for support but very few friends. The letter he left would break any Mother's heart. I'm still grieving and always will.
Hi G Philips. My condolence for the loss of your beautiful son. I don't suffer from depression or loneliness but I can relate to how others feel & don't judge. My son suffers from depression & feels no one loves him. He feels we make fun of him behind his. He is a university grad, holds a wonderful job. He has over 3000 FB friends that he boasts about but no one knows of his depression & loneliness. He refuses help. We are frightened sick he will Estrange us like our neighbors son has. He is always anger, fighting with people or controlling them. I am so happy others are talking about loneliness, depression & estrangement. I truly believe all three are linked.
Are you in need of loan for business,personal purpose,commercial or any other purpose you need the loan for.
Please fill your details as follow:
Country____Applicant name_____Loan amount____Loan duration_______Phone_______Monthly income____
Email us:email@example.com
SC is already a very friendly State, While getting out of our car, in the grocery store or meeting someone as we exit or inter the store. People have said people up north would think we were crazy always smiling and speaking. It will be interesting how the less friendly states takes to "Just saying hello" you always get a smile from the other person as we smile.
Wow ! So " Just saying hello" will change every thing? Will this end depression? Will this mean it will end loneliness? Do you have any idea no bandage does not prevent depression. Bandage does not prevent mental illness. Hello is just a word.
I havent seen my daughter 12 years i thought i was just a bad mom but it sounds like im not the only one who has lost a child due to THEIR choice. I have tried everythng to get thru to her . She is expecting a baby in june of this year and im not allowed to be involved in the birth or life of the grandchild. My daughter and i were close till she was about 18 she was never abused by my , but i do feel that she is abusing me by not letting me be part of her life. It hurts ,sometimes times i wake up in the middle of the night and just cry and have lots of anxiety. I guess i just have to leave it in gods hands and pray she will come around after she realizes what it is to be a parent. I also take medication for depression but your right there is no pill that will cure lonley.
Be sure to hop onto to twitter this Sunday April 13 at 4PMET and join the twitter party where host @ShaunProulx of @ShaunProulxShow @SXMCanadatalks to Gayle King about #JustSayHello campaign Oprah's @OWNAmbassador family will be out in full force supporting this twitter party!
Hi Oprah I was visiting in Tobago that is (Trinidad & Tobago) when I saw your show on( saying hello),well I was fortunate to experience that greeting while in Tobago whether in a taxi or just walking along the road it was quite an experience could not agree with you more to be nice to people we tend to lose our prospective on what being pleasant to some0ne can make that person's day, I was quite an experience it put a smile on my face each day keep up the good work.
I saw your commercial just say hello and I went out for a run one day and night I said hello to one of my neighbors and they just stared at me as if I didn't say anything that is very embarrassing and it kind of makes you not want to say hello to anyone. Just wanted to through that out there.
Don't let that one experience stop you from saying hello keep on saying hello or good day to people that cross your path, no one knows what people going through say a prayer for that neighbour,, , have a pleasant day
of course like your web-site but you need to test the spelling on several of your posts. Several of them are rife with spelling issues and I find it very troublesome to inform the truth then again I will certainly come again again.
Some truly prime content on this site, saved to my bookmarks .
Great site you have here but I was wanting to know if you knew of any discussion boards that cover the same topics talked about here? I'd really love to be a part of community where I can get responses from other experienced people that share the same interest. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Thanks a lot!|
Thank you for continuously publishing. I really like your posts and believe that they add a lot of real value. I discovered this Spotify playlist the other day and think it suits what you have that you have uploaded. http://spoti.fi/2v7a0MA I hope the community enjoy it!
I think There is something just perfect, you need to look into it here http://www.reconstructoradellantas.com/toss.php?UE9jb21tZW50K2U2eHVzd2Rkd3NsZWcyMGMtLWFjdGw5dkBjb21tZW50LndvcmRwcmVzcy5jb20-
Warmly, Bessie Mcqueen
Hi I'm looking for a few new partners. Are you able to handle first time home buyer leads? Home Refi? If so lets see if we can work together by doing a trial run. I use paid ads to get them, so I will waive all of my fee, setup everything to get you the leads, and you cover ad spend level of your choice. More details here http://www.mortgageleads.network/free-trial Talk soon Sal
I'm looking for a few new partners http://www.mortgageleads.network/free-trial
Se você chegou até aqui é porque ouviu falar do Quitoplan para perder peso e quer escutar melhor e saber se o Quitoplan funciona para emagrecer mesmo e se vale a pena adquirir. Este é o lugar certo para isso! Bom, você deve estar há meses, ou quem sabe anos, tentando emagrecer
quitoplan emagrece https://quitoplanpreco.wordpress.com/
I have been exploring for a little for any high-quality articles or weblog posts in this kind of house . Exploring in Yahoo I eventually stumbled upon this site. Reading this information So i am satisfied to exhibit that I've an incredibly excellent uncanny feeling I discovered exactly what I needed. I such a lot for sure will make sure to don't fail to remember this web site and give it a glance regularly.
Thanks – Enjoyed this blog post, how can I make is so that I receive an update sent in an email every time you publish a new article?
Порно видео чаты с трансвеститами.
Thanks for discussing your ideas right here. The other matter is that if a problem develops with a laptop motherboard, individuals should not take the risk involving repairing the item themselves because if it is not done correctly it can lead to permanent damage to the whole laptop. It is usually safe just to approach your dealer of your laptop for any repair of that motherboard. They have got technicians who've an knowledge in dealing with mobile computer motherboard challenges and can make right analysis and accomplish repairs.
Thank you So much
erectile solutions that work at walmart
erectile damage
best erectile dysfunction treatment


text:
Where others see household items, Peter Kokis sees robot parts. That's because Kokis builds costumes based on famous robots. Above, his T-800 endoskeleton from Terminator.
The costume weighs 120 pounds and took Kokis around 300 hours to construct, sourcing parts from "ordinary and readily-available household, hardware, and sporting goods items...stuff we all have in our kitchens, bathrooms, closets, and junk drawers."
According to him, many of the costume's parts are from the bathroom and are "toilet-related". Seriously.
Check out his T-800 costume as well as his Transformer outfits.
Brooklyn Robot Works [Official Site]
G/O Media may get a commission


text:
More precisely, is Ricci flow with surgery on a 3-dimensional Riemannian manifold M given by the "constant-time" sections of some canonical smooth 4-dimensional Riemannian manifold?
There would be a discrete set of times corresponding to the surgeries, but the 4-dimensional manifold might still be smooth at these points even though its sections would have singularities. The existence of such a 4-manifold is well known if there are no singularities: the problem is whether one can still construct it in the presence of singularities.
Background: Ricci flow on M in general has finite time singularities. These are usually dealt with by a rather complicated procedure, where one stops the flow just before the singularities, then carefully cuts up M into smaller pieces and caps off the holes, and constructs a Riemannian metric on each of these pieces by modifying the metric on M, and then restarts the Ricci flow. This seems rather a mess: my impression is that it involves making several choices so is not really canonical, and has a discontinuity in the metric and topology on M. If the flow were given by sections of a canonical smooth 4-manifold as in the question this would give a cleaner way to look at the surgeries of Ricci flow.
(Presumably if the answer to the question is "yes" this is not easy to show, otherwise people would not spend so much time on the complicated surgery procedure. But maybe Ricci flow experts know some reason why this does not work.)


text:
Buckmans.com believes in making your online shopping experience as easy as possible. That's why we offer FREE economy shipping on all single purchases totaling $50 or more!*
Buckmans.com ships all orders from Monday to Friday from 8am to 4pm EST. Expedited orders will be shipped within 1-2 business days** of placing your order (Mon-Fri). Please note, there are some UPS and USPS black out dates when there is no pick-up or delivery service (examples: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve, and other special holidays or severe weather-related events). Orders placed during these times usually ship on the next business day after the holiday period is over.
(Free to the lower 48 States. Other restrictions apply.*)
International Shipping Policy and Order Form
UPS Time-in-Transit Map
This map is a general representation of UPS Ground transit times. Please make your selection of our expedited shipping options based on this map and the times given below. Most of our orders are shipped from eastern Pennsylvania.
Buckman's Economy
We ship via UPS on most orders. We also offer USPS shipping for all PO Boxes.
* Our Free shipping policy is applicable only to orders within the continental United States. It does not apply to residents of Hawaii or Alaska. It also does not apply to select over-sized items and select items in our Clearance and Close-Out departments. These items will be marked on the product's detail page and in the shopping cart. Free shipping can be applied when qualifying items are purchased in addition to specially marked. Buckman's Bargain pricing may only affect select colors and sizes of a particular product. This special pricing will be highlighted in red in the item's color and size selection box's drop down menu. Bargain rates do not apply to non-highlighted color/size options.
Bargain priced items do not qualify for free shipping and are only valid while supplies last. These special discounts may be removed at any time and without warning.
** This does not include economy shipping. While we strive to ship all expedited orders within 24-48 hours, occasionally situations beyond our control cause unexpected delays. Should a problem arise we will do our best to get you the item(s) you ordered as fast as possible.


text: Die Hard is a 1988 American action film directed by John McTiernan and written by Steven E. de Souza and Jeb Stuart. It is based on the 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever, by Roderick Thorp. Die Hard follows off-duty New York City Police Department officer John McClane as he takes on a group of highly organized wrongdoers led by Hans Gruber, who perform a caper in a Los Angeles skyscraper under the guise of a terrorist attack using hostages, including McClane's wife Holly, to keep the police ... more on Wikipedia


text:
All visitors must read and accept the Army.ca Terms and Conditions.
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
If the source information is large or takes the discussion off topic you may want to consider making use of a footnote[sup]1[/sup] to provide references and sources that back up your claims.[hr][size=8pt]1. Mike Bobbitt, [url=http://Army.ca/forums/index.php/topic,24937.0.html]Conduct Guidelines[/url]. 2005[/size]
sorry but im not going to fail this like you did your mighty mo QL3 course buddy.
well i see you guys are sitting on the internet while you should be at work, or are you all just maggots who pretend to be in the army and come onto a website to talk about how tough you are and how many kills you got on roto 15 in bosnia
Army.ca has, as of this morning, over 28,000 members who have made over a half million posts. That count doesn't even include the non-specific content of the Radio Chatter board. The members range from senior retired officers and NCOs, through the entire range of ranks and trades in the CF, to many young Canadians like yourself seeking information about the CF a military topics in general.With the thousands of years of military experience represented on the forums, and the addition of new accounts like your own every week, wouldn't you suppose that there are few original topics that you're likely to come up with off the top of your head.We do try and be as patient as possible with newcomers. That's why they get directed, sometimes repeatedly, to the search function. We accept that you may not have a good grasp of the required vocabulary to form effective searches immediately, but this, like all of life, is a learning process.Jumping into the boards with a bunch of unresearched questions is unlikely to endear you to the regulars. Much work has been done to structure the boards by topic, and to create FAQs to assist new members. But the new members have to learn to listen, pay attention, research and read. You'll get some assistance when you find yourself at loose ends and can't figure out how to find a topic, but no-one's going to spoonfeed you data that can be found with a little time and effort.The CF puts geat stock in initiative and responsibility. Take the time to explore the forum contents, read along and you will quickly see whose posts are worth following for consistently good content, ans which are simply static.You may find your first day on the baord frustrating as you clash with the forum's operating method. It's up to you to determine if this will lead to a fatal conclusion on your account (see the Warning System post under Conduct Guidelines thread in the Army.ca Admin board).
We applaud your enthusiasm, but would appreciate it being kept under control as you learn how Army.ca works. I would recommend that you put youself on listening watch for a while (that's when a radio callsign monitors a net but does not transmit) and follow along.Learn to use the search function, and explore the various forums, and not just the current threads. Find and read the various FAQs, especially those under Recruiting and Infantry. Also browse some of the member's profiles, that will give you an idea of where they are coming from, note that there are some very experienced people who don't post often, that's because they wait until they have something concrete to contribute.If you take the time to read only 1% of the threads covering subjects you are interested in, you will be able to start fresh with a much stronger perception of the forum's operating methods, tone, expectations of you as a member and its potential value to you as an interested future [service member].
Welcome to Army.ca. You'll find that there is a wealth of information as you explore the site for available information on Canada's military. Because many questions have already been asked and explored in detail, a good understanding of the Conduct Guidelines and familiarity with the search functions are highly recommended:Conduct Guidelines - http://forums.Army.ca/forums/index.php/topic,24937.0.htmlSearch page - http://forums.Army.ca/forums/index.php?action=search;advanced...Enjoy your reading, and by all means, when the threads you are reading don't answer your particular questions, please add your new query to the most appropriate thread.Cheers
"Tanning Stations on the flight deck"
You should report any post that is in violation of any of these guidelines or common sense to the moderators. We occasionally miss things, and it can be vigilant site members that allow us to keep the site moving smoothly and even remove content that is not legally appropriate.


text:
Ways you can help victims of Okla. tornado
- Help us support our neighbors in Oklahoma by visiting our
"State-Love" section at www.shopriffraff.com.
20% of all profits from today-Saturday will be donated to the
Moore Oklahoma Red Cross.
ity of Oklahoma City, the City of Moore and United Way of Central Oklahoma advise that monetary donations are the best way to assist the recovery efforts. The needs of those affected by this disaster are still being assessed by first responders. Meanwhile, cash donations to disaster relief organizations are preferred as they can be put to use immediately and provide greater flexibility: In-kind donations such as food and water may be forwarded to the Salvation Army, Food Bank or other appropriate organizations. Individuals and groups who desire to volunteer for recovery efforts should NOT self-deploy but await further instructions from disaster relief organizations as requests are made through media sources.Offers of assistance with equipment, personnel or resources, please include and forward the following information via email to email@example.com: .
RED CROSS HELP: Those who would like to help people affected by disasters like tornadoes, floods and other crises can make a donation to American Red Cross Disaster Relief. People can donate by visiting www.redcross.org, calling 1-800-RED CROSS or texting the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation. These donations help provide food, shelter and emotional support to those affected by disasters.


text:
One of the Red Bull F1 mechanics got his hands on a Ferrari California for a night and tweeted about it. All-around good guy and noted Australian Mark Webber gave this classic reply.
"you should be hung. #shitbox soft tops for softcocks…."
We might just have a new favorite Formula One driver.
Photo Credit: Lee Stevenson


text:
We use cookies to make your experience better. To comply with the new e-Privacy directive, we need to ask for your consent to set the cookies. Learn more.
COVID-19 Updates: National - We are open as an essential service Read more
With over 260 stores, mycar is just around the corner.
We know how much you value convenience. It's why we have over 260 stores across the country, with more planned for the future. It's just another way we put our customers first.
Find the right tyres for the right price.
About tyres
To show you accurate stock availability, we need to know your store.
Can't get to a mycar store? Hey, no problem. If you're in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane, our Mobile Tyre Fitters can come to you. Tell me more
We believe consistent service gets consistent results.
Can't get to a mycar store? Hey, no problem. We can come to you.
Don't wait 'til your car starts shaking. Regular wheel alignment checks improve fuel economy and reduce
tyre wear.
As an authorised logbook service provider with the latest diagnostic equipment, we'll service your
vehicle so you can maintain your new car warranty.
This is a great option If you've got an older car or you don't want to stick to your car manufacturer's
preferred servicing schedule.
If you operate a fleet, we can help with all your tyre, car repair and car servicing needs. We have over
260 stores located Australia-wide.
Get your rego done super-fast at one of our Authorised Inspection Stations in NSW, QLD, VIC, ACT, NT, TAS
and WA
Find the right battery at the right price that will fit most vehicles.
We work on customer relationships, as much as we work on cars.
Finding solutions with sophisticated scanning and diagnostic equipment.
Regular checks will help ensure your family is safe on the road.
Whether your car's a manual or an automatic, we keep it running smoothly.
Avoid overheating and costly engine repairs with regular checks.
Solutions to reduce engine noise and pollution and improve performance.
The right advice can reduce maintenance and running costs.
Our free Tyre Care Plan gives you a 30-day tyre satisfaction guarantee, 12-month road hazard
warranty, free puncture repair and Tyrelife Saver Program.
Can't get to a mycar store? Hey, no problem. If you're in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane, we can come
to you.
Buy two or more tyres, and you're eligible for services like a FREE wheel balance, tyre rotation or
air pressure check. Who doesn't love free stuff?
With over 96% of Australians driving an extra 1,500km per year to help put their baby to sleep, we
understand the importance of a car serviced so smoothly that it could put a baby to sleep.
* Terms & Conditions apply
Without a doubt, our biggest investment is in our team. We're proud to train our staff to new and higher industry standards in service quality. And it all starts with one simple thought – people come first.
A good value great highway performance tyre that provides luxury and sporty SUVs a quiet and comfortable ride.
Tyre type: SUV/4X4-Highway Performance
Tread type: Asymmetrical
A Load Index of 110 and Speed
Rating Y indicates the tyre can carry a load of 1060 Kg
at a maximum speed of 300 Km/h.
Select quantity
A premium highway performance tyre that delivers the highest levels of stability, control and responsiveness for todays powerful S
Read More


text:
What came after the Malaise Era? The Turbo Era, of course! In 1986, when your car had a turbocharger under the hood, you wanted the world to know it. This was the philosophy behind the Starion/Conquest.
I found this battered but mostly complete Conquest at a local self-service junkyard last weekend. I couldn't find a Members Only jacket inside it, but otherwise it was a total 80s flashback inducer. I was ready to call Adnan Khashoggi on my 20-pound car phone and arrange for some quad-barreled 57mm "relief supplies" to be shipped to the Contras!
Yeah, even the seat belts boast special TURBO badging! Did I take one home for my collection of silly car parts? What do you think?


text:
The London Sports T-Shirt
The London Regiment Embroidered Sports T-Shirt
Whether you're training for a marathon or just going for a run around the block, these t-shirts are perfect for you!
- AWDis's own Neoteric™ textured fabric with inherent wickability.
- Self fabric taped back neck. Set in sleeve design.
- Twin needle stitching detail.
- Self fabric collar and cuffs.
- Printed back neck.
- Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP) certified production.
- Weight:140gsm
Colours: Black/French Blue/Red/Olive/Heather Grey/Bottle Green/Sand/Royal Blue.
Sizes: Small, Medium, Large, XL, 2XL, (34/36", 38/40", 42/44", 46/48", 50/52"


text:
What is Kinesio Tex tape?
By now, many people have been able to observe the highly visible athletic uses and the familiar colors and taping patterns used by successful Olympic and professional athletes. But Kinesio® Tex Gold™ is more than an athletic tape. It is a unique therapeutic tool that has provided new options in rehabilitation and sports medicine throughout the world.
This amazing elastic therapeutic tape has been designed and engineered by Dr. Kenzo Kase for more than 30 years in Japan. Since then, Kinesio® Tex Gold™ has become the standard for therapeutic and rehabilitative taping.
Kinesio® Tex Gold™ sets the standard for elastic therapeutic taping.
- It creates a lifting effect on the skin's surface, which improves circulation and relieves pain.
- It may be applied using different amounts and directions of tension, so the tape has the ability to relax or stimulate muscles.
- It is made of gentle cotton fiber.
- It features a 100% medical-grade acrylic adhesive.
- It is totally latex free.
- It does not limit the wearer's range of motion.
- The distinctive wave-pattern weave moves with the wearer's movements.
- It allows for 3 to 5 day wear time to provide 24-hour results to the patient and to provide for an economical treatment.
The Kinesio Taping® method utilizes Kinesio® Tex Gold™ to facilitate the body's natural healing process while allowing support and stability to muscles and joints without restricting the body's range of motion. It is used to successfully treat a variety of orthopedic, neuromuscular, neurological and medical conditions. Both Kinesio® Tex Gold™ and the training protocol have shown results that would have been unheard of using older methods and materials.
Available in:
- Kinesio Pre-Cut Back – designed to support over stretched back muscles, lower back pain, lumbago and sciatica.
- Kinesio Pre-Cut Neck – designed for neck pain caused by muscle strain or ligament sprain.
- Kinesio Pre-Cut Shoulder – designed to provide support for shoulder muscles, treat rotator cuff injuries and relieve shoulder pain.
- Kinesio Pre-Cut Knee – designed for runner's knee, provide knee and patella support, and alleviate associated pain and swelling.
- Kinesio Pre-Cut Wrist – designed to provide support for carpal tunnel syndrome, provide wrist support and alleviate associated pain.
- Kinesio Pre-Cut Foot – designed for plantar fasciitis, support of the arch of the foot and alleviate associated pain.
ProMed Products Xpress – physical therapy supplies and equipment provider


text:
Ergon SRX3
A cyclocross-specific saddle developed with World Champion, Wolfram Kurschat, a mountain bike and cross-country professional. The SRX3 has a flatter design when compared to a typical road bike saddle. This translates into increased freedom of movement on and around the saddle as well as easy dismounts and remounts. Thanks to the slight upward curve at the rear of the saddle, the rider can push back into the saddle to get more power to the pedals. At the same time, the rear end is flat enough to facilitate seamless remounts onto the bike and positioning into aggressive downhill positions. Comfort reigns supreme though the EVA padding with micro air pockets and the flex optimized shell.
- Use: cyclocross
- Shell: nylon composite
- Rail: chromoly
- Cover: microfiber
- Padding: orthopedic AirCell padding
- Weight: 250g (weight may vary in production)
The shape and size of the saddle must match the sit bone width of the rider to maximize comfort and enjoyment.
The pelvic bone has a unique V-shape and the saddle must offer the sit bones a large contact surface with the ability to meet the demand of different sitting positions. Various saddle widths are offered so that the usable seat surface corresponds to the rider's unique sit bone distance.
The more forward and aggressive the rider sits, the further forward the sit bones contact the saddle.
Part Numbers
|Store SKU
|Black / Medium


text:
When Mercedes-Benz introduced its new C-Class sedans last year, the cars earned eight major American automotive awards, appealing to groups as diverse as AAA,Automobile magazine, the North American Car of the Year jury and the numbers-conscious IntelliChoice, which called the Mercedes-Benz C220 the best overall value in luxury cars under $40,000.
In large part, the cars' appeal was due to the low (for Mercedes) price tag. The all-new cars, which replaced Mercedes' entry-level 190 series, were bigger and more powerful, and yet came in at about the same price.
These cars were the first fruits of a new production system that proved to be more efficient than Mercedes' previous efforts. Buyers responded, and the C-Class cars are selling in greater numbers than the 190 models ever did, with sales limited primarily by availability.
For 1995, the 4-cylinder C220 and the 6-cylinder C280 continue virtually unchanged.
Prices are $31,425 for the C220 and $36,775 for the C280, but their core virtue - a rock-solid Mercedes at a competitive price - continues.
Form follows function in the Mercedes design studio. Over the years, the brick-like shape common to all Mercedes has softened but never disappeared.
To our eyes, the compact size of the C-Class cars carries this functional shape well. The long nose flows to a tall passenger compartment balanced by a short, high rear deck, all of it securely anchored by big 15-in. wheels.
Together, these elements create a slightly sportier silhouette than those of the larger E- and S-Class sedans, although none will be mistaken for sports cars.
At the rear, a V-shaped trunk lid keeps the taillights on the fixed body structure while lowering the liftover height to bumper level. And though the sloping rear roof pillars make the trunk look small from the outside, it's spacious within.
One of the functions the Mercedes form follows is safety, where the company is recognized as an industry leader. The first carmaker to conduct its own crash tests, Mercedes also conducts its own investigations of highway accidents. This real-world data is systematically incorporated into engineering designs.
Consequently, the rather conservative exterior covers one of the most complex crash-management systems available, in which as much of the impact force as possible is absorbed by the body before reaching the passenger compartment.
An optional safety feature available is a headlamp wiper system. Although some may call this a luxurious frivolity, we think headlamp wipers do lead to better nighttime visibility.
The safety approach continues on the inside. The interior is conservative, where visibility and ease of use always prevails over plush luxury or stylishness. As is typical with European cars, the Mercedes models are more spartan, hard-edged and mechanical in character than comparable American cars. Wood panels around the console, across the dashboard and on the door are the only traditional touches of luxury. This isn't to suggest that the design is unattractive. Quite the contrary.
From the high, upright seating position, the instrument panel is clearly visible.
The analog fuel and temperature gauges, speedometer and tachometer are supplemented by an electronic odometer, clock and outside temperature gauge. The standard automatic climate control is simple and effective, which has not always been the case: On previous Mercedes models the climate control fluctuated widely and it was difficult to set the desired temperature.
A sizable closed storage bin in the center console has upper and lower compartments, along with a small, smooth- opening front compartment. ("Pop-out" is too crude a description for this elegant little hideaway.) The upper compartment is thoughtfully lined to limit noise. Note, however, that there are no cupholders.
The interior is quite roomy, even with the standard power sunroof. The large doors make entering and exiting easy, and the wide, flat, hard seats are surprisingly comfortable over long drives.
Safety features are abundant: dual airbags; height-adjustable seat belts in front with emergency belt tensioners; power headrests on the front seats that raise and lower with a door-mounted control to encourage occupants to place them at the optimum position behind the center of the head; and a Mercedes-issue first-aid kit stowed in its own compartment on the parcel shelf.
If that's not enough for you, remote-retractable rear headrests are available as an optional safety feature.
Despite the overall intelligence of the interior appointments, there are some minor inconveniences. The intermittent wipers have only one interval speed; the notches for shifting the automatic transmission are unlit and easy to slip past to the wrong gear, particularly at night; and the passenger airbag has taken so much height from the glove box that the owner's manual doesn't fit.
On a comparable domestic luxury car, metallic paint, an anti-theft system and an adjustable steering wheel would be standard rather than optional, as these features are here. But overall, everything important is where it should be.
The performance goals Mercedes sets for its cars include power, security and response. These are not sporty, light, nimble cars, nor are they meant to be (though the C36 promises to be an exception). The firm ride, on-center steering and unflappable balance - combined with a perfectly quiet interior - are designed to transport occupants safely and securely. Thrills simply are not in the game book for this polished automobile.
The C220 is fitted with a 148-hp 4-cylinder engine, and the C280 has a 194-hp 6-cylinder engine. Customers seem to believe the added power, torque (199 lb.-ft. at 3750 rpm) and smoothness of the 6-cylinder engine are worth the premium, as the C280 outsells the C220 about two to one.
The 4-cylinder engine has been retuned to emit fewer hydrocarbons at the same power level. Both engines require premium fuel. The ride is firm and controlled. Acceleration is stately rather than eye-opening, even in our C280 test car. Turning and cornering are pleasant, predictable events, thanks to a well-tuned suspension system that manages every motion.
Anti-lock brakes are standard, and two optional traction-control systems can limit wheel spin in this rear-drive car. The C220 has the brakes-only Electronic Traction System, which redistributes power to whichever rear wheel has the most traction at low speeds.
Our C280 had the more sophisticated Acceleration Slip Control, which operates at all speeds and uses throttle and brakes to eliminate wheel spin and maintain stability on slippery roads. Either adds a very noticeable increase in control. The 4-speed automatic transmission is the only one available. It demonstrates the classic Mercedes personality: slow off the line with a direct, linear progression of power and authoritative shift points.
Mercedes cars have unequivocal personalities that extend across the line and across the years. Details may change, but the fundamental personality doesn't.


text:
Our experienced team at GYROCAM, consisting of a cameraman and a pilot, accounts for a wide range of film projects at attractive prices.
Combining a gyrocopter with a gyroscopically stabilized high-definition camera system allows aerial photography of exceptional quality. The flight properties of a gyrocopter permit filming from close to ground level to the peaks of the Alps.
Advantages of using a Gyrocam
- professional aerial photography in HD broadcasting quality
- cameraman and pilot adopt their expertise in experienced team work
- inexpensive flying times make longer shots affordable
- budget-friendly rates (incomparable to helicopter rental rates)
Fields of application of Gyrocam
- film & TV, commercials, aerial photography promotional films
- local and national tourist boards
- recreational facilities (golf course, mountain railways, hotels)
- cultural facilities (palaces, castles, regional exhibitions)
- functions and sport events (motor sports, marathons, triathlons, cycle races)
- surveillance and control flights as well as air traffic control
- real estate developers / construction firms / properties (documentation of building sights)
- trade businesses (solar plants, wind farms, power plants)
For further information click here.. For demo clips click here!


text: Call2Compassion & Justice conference, Uganda 2016 - Main sessions RESSOURCESVIDÉOSCALL2COMPASSION & JUSTICE CONFERENCE, UGANDA 2016 - MAIN SESSIONS To watch the devotions and plenary sessions from Uganda, please click below. Devotion 1: Rooted in Jesus Devotion 2: Rooted in Church Plenary 1: Welcome Plenary 2: How can the church be a beacon of the kingdom? Plenary 3: What does it mean to be blessed? Plenary 4: SDGs: what are they and why are they important? Plenary 5: Today's lost generation Plenary 6: Models of caring for orphans and vulnerable children Plenary 7: Investing in youth to be change-makers Plenary 8: Interview with Donald Mavunduse Plenary 9: Revealing violence against women and girls Plenary 10: Bringing recovery and healing Plenary 11: Displacement and the challenge of protection Plenary 12: Reconciliation and healing ethnic wounds Plenary 13: Unity amongst diversity Partager Partager Partager Imprimer Partager Partager Partager Imprimer