complaining

[veronica_rich]

A Titanic reenactment tracing the original route of the sunken ship doesn't seem in any worse taste than reenacting battles of a war. In the fake battles, though, the actors are using blanks and fake fighting; I'm pretty sure in order to trace the voyage of the Titanic, you need to set foot on a ship heading into potentially ice-laden waters, which is all the original passengers did. And most of them died; just saying.

*******

And thoughts on my latest CD purchase (which I only make about once every year or three; I'm cheap)-

An Open Letter to Madonna:

Hey, Madge - I started listening to you when I was about 10 years old and you weren't but about 24. I never dressed up like you, but a lot of girls I knew did, and you helped at least a generation of girls grow up not feeling bad about wanting to go out and try new things, and flaunting authority to do what we wanted - which is good for society sometimes. You didn't cure cancer, but hey, nobody else has, either. And, art is valuable.

For the last 30 years, I've bought every album you released and always liked most of their content. The last couple or three were waning, but I thought, well, you're transitioning. You did that for most of your career and managed to stay out ahead of whatever the next trend was going to be for a long time. I kept waiting for whatever the next thing was going to be. And then we got it - and it's you trying to be 24 again.

Don't get me wrong, you can still dance and perform, and I was hunky-dory with your Super Bowl halftime show; it was a lot of fun. But that's because it was mostly old stuff, and your old stuff is almost always good. You should keep performing it. It's the new stuff I'm not so sure about ... because it seems an unsuccessful (to me) bid to retread the good old stuff, except in a not-so-good way. For one, constantly referring to yourself as "girl" - I'm not quite sure how to say this, but you're not a girl anymore. Hell, I'M not a girl anymore. You can get away with that up to about your early 30s, but then it just creates eyebrow-raise.

But the biggest thing is you're still singing about rebelling and partying. Now I understand you and your daddy issues aren't exorcised and likely never will be; that's cool. Many of us have a degree or two of that in our lives. But that's what your old stuff is for. You're coming up on 60 years old and you've spent three decades establishing what kind of personality you are; we know already you're not a "good girl" and we're OK with it. You don't have to keep pushing the issue; you already recorded Erotica 20 years ago and it was good. You don't have to redo it. How about some music more reflective of your experiences since the age of 24, like being a mother or a traveler, or a businesswoman or wife, or successful career gal?

The thing is, it's easy to listen to the music of rebellion and flaunting authority from a kid of 18 or 25 or even 30; they're still at a point where almost nobody is taking them seriously and that's frustrating. It works as a message by and for them. But at this point, you ARE an authority. You're a mother, a producer, several people's boss, and a cultural icon. We know you eat your fiber and jog and stay in good health and aren't out drinking and partying and snorting ... so it's kind of an unsuccessful dichotomy to pass yourself off as Ke$ha. You're not writing a book, where it's easy to not know who the author is when reading it. We hear your voice, we see you sing and dance, and we know darn well who you are, that you're at an advanced stage of career, and some of us (okay, maybe just me) wonder who you're rebelling against at this point. American Life seemed to be a good turn for you, heading somewhere you never really got; what's up with that? The follow-up was not what I anticipated, and not in the good way. MDNA has a few things on it, but I could live without it - and I really don't like saying that.

Anyway, there's my first-world problem for the week. Just thought I'd share. Write some more adult stuff, mmkay? Pretty please?

Yours,
VR

Comments

[hippediva.livejournal.com]

My original thought upon seeing that news article was to barf. Then I saw how many of the passengers were related to either survivors or victims. Ok, it's their gig, they paid for it. Yeah, it's a bit Addams Family, but there are worse things. (Like what happens if the glacier calls for an iceberg reuinion the same weekend. *wink*)

Better was the new 2-hr. James Cameron special with the updated animation of the actual sinking. Absolutely fascinating the way this 'dream team' of Titanic experts worked backwards forensically from the wreck site, exploring all the evidence visible and pairing it up with the natural forces acting upon the ship as it went down, like a gigantic CSI investigation. Turns out that basically they had it right for the movie, except the ship's stern never went higher than 23 degrees and it rolled to port as it went down----oh, and they had the superstructure break just behind the 3rd smokestack and they now know it was in front of it. Little things like that---it's a really fantastic program. *G* (and Cameron was making hilarious comments about not doing a Lucas on the feature film. LOL!)

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

But he DID change the starfield in the scene with Rose at the end; we can thank Neil deGrasse Tyson for that, LOLOL.

I read about Cameron's trip to the Mariana Trench, and apparently, he's going back again - that man's not going to be happy unless he can die in a hull breach somewhere five miles below the surface! But it's neat he's using his money for research along with his own hobby and is willing to share the results with actual scientists to learn more about the ocean on these things.

[hippediva.livejournal.com]

LOL!! Yeah, the starfield and the animation bit in the beginning of the movie are all that he's changing. His comments about 'Yeah, next time I build a megaton set and drop it in a tank, I'll get it on it." were SO funny!

I hadn't realised that he was such a avid wreck diver/filmmaker, long before he made Titanic---he really has been financing his hobby by making movies for years and years----honestly, he could easily have changed professions many times over. And the team he assembled was amazing, including banks of naval engineers, specialists in archaelogical forensics, etc. I came away from the 2-hr. special with a much-better understanding of the wreck itself and Cameron's work in dive technology. Definitely worth seeing---it'll be on Nat'l Geo channel for the next millenium, I'm sure. *G*

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Hell, let's put HIM in charge of POTC5 and make it mostly about some famous, old shipwreck incident. It might actually be good again.

[pigeongirl99.livejournal.com]

Curiously I've seen plenty on the news about the Titanic cruise, but it was described in a very different way over here - nothing about re-enactment, purely the commemorative part with the relatives of the survivors/victims on board, with the emphasis on the ceremony/wreath-laying they have planned at the sink site.

The news here has been overwhelmed with Titanic stories, both the national news, but in particular the local news - I'm on the south coast and in very vaguely the same region (at least news wise) as Southampton, so we've had lots of local interest stories for the last few days, particularly as they've just opened the SeaCity Museum.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

It makes me wonder what will be done, say, in NYC in September 2101, at or near the Ground Zero site. Though it's not the same thing, really, but it was memorable and big enough that I can sort of draw an analogy ...

[weyrlady.livejournal.com]

Hah, your cut text made me think of this song. The theme is even similar to your opinion. Sort of.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

The thing is, she used to change and adapt - not a whole lot, just enough to stay fresh and relevant. It's like she's decided the thing that made her most famous is where she ought to go to and stick with again, and she forgot like the 20-some years in between.

[bayliss.livejournal.com]

The April Edition of Sky and Telescope brought up some very interesting points about the sinking of the Titanic. I didn't watch Mr Cameron's program the other night on NatGeo, but Here's the link to some of what was covered in the S&T article. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46642918/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/did-moon-sink-titanic-tides-may-have-played-role/#.T4TDaqvOzg0

It's worth a read if you're interested in that kind of stuff. :)

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I've never read that, but I don't know why it didn't occur to someone earlier, in retrospect; the moon is a known strong influence on our oceans. Kind of interesting. Of course, they say everything happens for a reason, and 100 years later there's nobody left to be attached to the dead very much, so maybe I can say this: Maybe it's good this happened, since it called attention to all kinds of safety hazards (lifeboats, anyone?) and procedures and class issues and the like that probably wouldn't have changed as quickly had it not happened. A much lesser wreck that killed far fewer people might not have been enough to get the attention necessary to update changes, perhaps?

[gobsmacked.livejournal.com]

Totally off-topic but I thought you would like this

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

It starts kind of sad and gets progressively more hilarious. "I alone know this torment. The white idiot writhes on his chair begging for cheeseburgers."

/crying

[gobsmacked.livejournal.com]

"When my caretakers step on this, they become irate...."
"The whipped cream in the bathroom is not whipped cream"

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

"And sometimes, the cat door ... is closed."

[gobsmacked.livejournal.com]

mwah-ha-ha!

[a-silver-rose.livejournal.com]

Hey, I have those same tasty snacks in my house LOL! well, the feathered ones, anyway.