our playlist: Stars on 45 - Stars on 45 Our Lips Are Sealed - The Go-Go's Street of Dreams - Rainbow Blue Jean - David Bowie (Just Like) Starting Over - John Lennon & Yoko Ono
The first official Memorial Day in the United States was observed on May 30, 1868, at the declaration of Civil War Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic. He cited the day to be: "for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise
decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during
the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and
hamlet churchyard in the land." source - America's Library
In 1971, Memorial Day became a federal holiday and was moved to the last Monday of the month and expanded to cover all victims of American wars. In my childhood, Memorial Day weekend was always about traveling to several cemeteries with my family as my parents were quite staunch about decorating the graves of their parents and visiting other deceased family members. My dad was an Army and Korean War veteran and member of the American Legion and so he would also frequently be gone on the Monday holiday morning to go assist in Memorial Day observances. Nowadays in the work environment, the holiday seems more centered on being a three-day holiday and who's going to the lake or camping. It's the official "kick-off" to summer. For the past two years, at my job we have an employee, himself a veteran, who had the wonderful idea of creating a Memorial Wall of Honor and asked other employees to submit family members' or friends' names of those who served in the armed forces or were killed in action. I think this is one outstanding way to remember and honor those who served our country and made a tremendous sacrifice, sometimes with their lives.
So Narnia would like to take a moment to salute and thank all those who have paid this price and bravely have fought for our country over hundreds of years. We also remember those close to us personally who are now gone and no longer with us.
pic sources: Getty, happy diwali, penny holiday, pinterest, foxnews, exhibit city news, veteran owned business, oldtime radio, freeyork.org, boredpanda, findagrave, ic.galegroup, BrandMill our playlist: America the Beautiful - Ray Charles Battle Hymn of the Republic - Whitney Houston Me and Bobby McGee - Janis Joplin Amazing Grace - unknown Patriotic Medley - Kate Smith, Dean Martin, Mickey Rooney, Norm Crosby, Barbara Eden Shenandoah - Van Morrison & the Chieftains
• The appearance of Jared and Genevieve Padalecki at the Texas State Capitol to "advocate" for David's Law (legislation that holds cyber bullying as a criminal act when it leads to the injury or death of a minor) was very much an eye catcher. The headlines online read that they were there in support, even though the law had already passed the House and the Senate in earlier May, and now awaiting the formality of the Texas governor's signature. At this point, their guest attendance is very much fandom contained, the visual message very strong that they are a "family" and as Genevieve states in the video while laying a physical claim on Jared's arm, "I am the wife of this guy over here, Jared" and she's also "here I am a mom, we have three children". Her speech clearly was an opportunity to reiterate the mental images of her and Jared's marrying, establishing their "home", raising "their family", "us", "we", "our", well you get the message. So many events like this are exactly for this reason - to establish a picture. To reinforce an image or narrative. Just like the Louis Tomlinson and Eleanor Calder airport video, which included a very distinct quote from Louis about "my girlfriend". Or, like Jake Gyllenhaal saying in 2009 at a Brothers movie press conference, "Obviously I exist in my girlfriend's world". In both Louis and Jake's case, these were quite distinct and rare references.
For space conservation, we won't even go into the whole American Airlines agent....Delta bag check...."barmaid"....uh,... "hotel employee"....online activity and that whole thing called irony.
And if all of that wasn't enough yesterday, the beard Genevieve is back on Twitter today to pound home that family image again.
• Then we have the ever subtle, rainbow flag waving, complementary
tattoo loving, color pink embracing Harry Styles and the swarm of ham-handed
speculations that follow him wherever he goes.
This time the inevitable, tiresome opposite sex discussions centered around the
subjects of his self-titled album, which was just released on May 12th.Once the record dropped, here came the predictable,
reassuring “I like girls” articles with rumors about “Two Ghosts” being a
nostalgic remembrance of his “fling” with Taylor Swift. Everyone in the know, soon to be told that
the Internet was absolutely abuzz about the subject of the song track
immediately following its release. No doubt, jump started by that meddlesome Larrie fandom who
indicated immediately that the lyrics and context pointed to Louis Tomlinson, Harry's long-time boyfriend and bandmate. Hey there, Louis. Looking good!
The manufactured songwriting discussion, however,
served the intended purpose of distributing a myriad of articles to appear with the phrase, "Harry
Styles’ ex-girlfriend, Taylor Swift".
Once that lyric controversy wound down, a new one quickly emerged, this time spotlighting the heterosexualized song entitled, “Carolina”. In quick succession, story after story (conveniently accompanied by hot pics) about
how the now proclaimed “love” song was all about someone named, Townes Adair Jones. Gasp! The unconventional name attached to a simple girl next door type, with a side boob pic ready for circulation.
She needs to take better care of herself, don’t
you think?
A perfectly concocted, made to seem real, life connection (with a detailed backstory at the ready) to lend more credence to Harry's musical "inspiration". No one need be suspicious because Townes Adair Jones was no stranger, just a friend of Cameron
Azoff, Jeff’s younger brother. Being that Jeff is Harry’s manager, the alleged hook up becomes a very cozy one, don’t you
think? After an eye rolling resignation of what spoon fed narrative is about to
come, the close relationship angle is an easily recognizable PR technique. A stunt almost as incestuously familiar as Jake Gyllenhaal’s
mother and sister introducing him repeatedly to almost all of his beards, I mean “girlfriends," throughout
the years.
Fast forward back to “Carolina” and the obviousness of the
manipulation is explained away by articles stating that the fans were the
busybodies who found all of this "private" information out, just within a week of the album drop. In other
words, the girl must be real because the fans discovered the “hook up”. The side effect importantly distancing management from the stunt. Rolling
Stone piled on by sensationalizing the ever changing details of the story by indicating that Townes was
only 17 when Harry, ahem, did the deed. Because that's what real heterosexual men do you know. They don't just go out on a date and have dinner.
Harry Styles, "Carolina"
Only when the 1D fandom blew up about "Carolina" being underage, did management decide to change the story to her being legal, which pointed yet again to Harry having bedded her. Now, she became a 20-year old who
Harry met through her sister when he began working on his album last year. The date
soon turning into a one night stand. Oh, and how did she find out the song was
about her? Well, her dad told her because he just happened to be in the crowd
of the "Today" show when Harry debuted the tune, immediately recognizing who the musician
was pining about. That's right, her dad. Because every girl tells her father about her solo sex nights. Do you have a headache yet?
Interestingly, enough it appears
that no one cares a lick who Niall Horan is writing about when he releases a
song. Even with explicitly steaming lyrics like are found on “Slow Hands.” For the life of me, I absolutely cannot figure out why that would
be. Can you? *grin*
Niall Horan's "Slow Hands"
• The following picture of Austin Nichols appeared on Twitter this past week and it deemed worthy of a re-posting. The young man handing Austin the snogging on his left is Patrick J. Flueger, a former Lawless Range co star of his, while the other gentleman is not known. Nor is it known who the original source of the picture is. But nonetheless...
— Austin Nichols daily (@AustinNsource) May 23, 2017
Pretty dandy stuff, eh? ;-)
• And finally, there was this glorious and fascinating Twitter exchange between Mark Sheppard, former cast member of the television show Supernatural and executive producer of the show, Jim Michaels.
@TheJimMichaels With all due respect, your comment is inaccurate and misleading to the fans. There are NO plans to have me return to SPN at ANY juncture.
Isn't that something? You don't even need any fandom background to see that this was no faux saltiness going on. Mark Sheppard is not returning to the show next year as his character Crowley was killed off in the season finale. He also has made it known that he was not invited to any Creation - Supernatural conventions in 2018. Fans were in an uproar and yet a few (or one? always hard to tell on that site) anon voices on Spn_Goss seemed to want to downplay the speculation and turn the blame onto Mark Sheppard. Interesting. And this was quite an informative tumblr post by one individual on their observations: source
The simultaneous combined freeze from both the television show and Creation Entertainment would certainly seem worthy of a second, very hard glance.
23 year old Liam James Payne has been promoting his single "Strip That Down" and while rap music isn't usually on my playlist, that's okay. I salute Liam in his solo effort, along with all the 1D young men and let's have a look at Liam during his promo (and mayyyybe a few other aesthetic moments not necessarily during this time)...
There's no other way to put it, Liam has a smile that could melt any glacier.
Even Sister Wendy would dub Liam with watermelon as "art".
Liam attending Niall's performance at Wango Tango and poking some fun at himself by christening him with the Liam Chain.
Thank you, Liam for the smiles and though you've verbally gone overboard at times during the press tour, you also learned that you can't just embellish and go on too far with the fans - they'll call you out on it. We know you have a heart of gold and no one who can laugh like this....
who can wave like this...
who can jive around with the guys like this...
is as heartless as he's been painted to be.
Look at that lil' Bean !!!
He's Mr. Cool
He was King of the Night at the 2017 Brits, you bet he was:
And on top of all that, he's lava hot.
And he knows it...
And that's A-OK.
pic sources: Capital FM, Daily Mail Fail, Scoop Hollywood, oursnowflake, the Mirror, LookLive, Getty, the DailyPayne tumblr, justapayneaway tumblr, KQ Radio, paynefulupdates our playlist: Sunny and 75 - Joe Nichols You Can't Lose Me - Faith Hill The Light in Your Eyes - LeAnn Rimes
