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A year-long celebration to commemorate Elvis Presley's first professional recording on July 5, 1954, is set to take place on Independence Day weekend in Memphis and Graceland. There are people who believe that "the King" is still alive and that he planned his disappearance. So let's say that this was the case and that a very old Elvis is living in anonymity, somewhere, but makes rare appearances at nondescript venues like gas station diners to relive the good, old days.

MTV partners with IntoNow (to promote new episodes Jersey Shore. IntoNow is an app much like Shazam, except it tags TV shows instead of songs. Viewers who tag six or more original broadcast airings will have a chance to win a trip to the next... Read the rest of this post

The alphabet marches on and we have arrived at “B” week. Naturally, there are many words needing our attention this week--bugs, butterflies, babies, bananas--but one is a can’t miss: bees. It’s particularly handy for teaching the letter, being exactly the same and all, but I have a complicated relationship with bees. I really love honey, but have done the whole honey-retrieval process, including suiting up and puffing out eye-stinging smoke, and would never eat honey if that was the only way I could get it. I am a hard-core pacifist, but experience an almost delirious joy at the idea that a bee I’ve just been stung by has ripped its own guts out and will soon die. I can get on board with the queen concept--giving proper credit to those who actually do the work of procreating is an idea humans could learn from--but feel a little uncomfortable with the drone situation for personal reasons (even though I know they are all boys). What to do? Of course, I may be overthinking things in light of the fact that we’re talking about stories for toddlers, but any two year-old who knows the words to both Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and Elvis’ “Fools Rush In” is obviously picking up messages we don’t even know we’re sending. Regardless of my relationship status with the bee folk, they are fascinating. In Elizabeth Winchester’s Bees!, we learned that one beehive houses 70,000 bees. That’s how many people go to the Superbowl. Who knew?

http://www.amazon.com/Time-Kids-Bees-Editors/dp/0060576421

http://www.amazon.com/Elizabeth-Winchester/e/B001IR1C6K

This is the closest thing I've come to a caricature.

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Shake, Rattle & Turn That Noise Down!: How Elvis Shook Up Music, Me & Mom by Mark Alan Stamaty

When Mark Alan Stamaty’s parents gave him his own radio at age eight, they thought he’d be listening to the gentle popular music of the time.  But one evening, Elvis and “Hound Dog” blasted from the radio and everything changed with rock and roll.  Mark’s mother was alarmed at this new music and forbade him from buying any of Elvis’ records.  Mark was still able to read about Elvis in magazines, listen to him on the radio, and even see him on TV.  Eventually, Mark’s mother gave up and gave in and he was able to buy Elvis records.  Mark changed the way he did his hair into an Elvis pompadour, helped the other boys in his class get the same look, and when his school picture was taken everyone thought he looked just like Elvis.  So it was natural when the Cub Scout talent show came along that Mark impersonate Elvis, but how would his mother react?

Stamaty is a cartoonist and that shows in this book.  Filled with the frames of cartoons, speech bubbles and caption, the book has its own rocking and rolling feel.  His illustrations show a delightful mix of vintage and modern that echoes the feel of Elvis too.  This book will not work well as a read-aloud because of the graphic novel format, but individuals will enjoy it immensely.  The final pages of the book are a real treat as readers get to see the famous Elvis school picture and a snapshot of Mark performing in the Cub Scout event.  There is also information on Mark performing as Elvis for President Clinton.

A humorous look at a moment in history, this picture book will be most appreciated by slightly older children who can identify with growing up and having preferences of one’s own.  Appropriate for ages 6-9.

Reviewed from copy received from publisher.

Check out Linda Davick’s interview with Mark Alan Stamaty as well as Stamaty’s own website.

As some of you know, I am a huge Elvis fan. I don't keep his toenail clippings in a jar or anything like that, but I am fairly convinced I was his past-life lover.

Dammit! I think I read that challenge wrong...

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Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he reflects on nostalgia for the 80’s. See his previous OUPblogs here.

Journalists are not usually in the habit of looking back. They are charged to deliver “breaking news” to us. Novelty is the coinage of the newsroom, not history. Yet this week, the media’s preponderant coverage of the life and death of Michael Jackson has been stridently nostalgic. It reveals a culture needing and ready to sing an ode to the 1980s.

We cannot turn back time, but we can mark its passing. Up till last week, popular culture hadn’t had the chance to address the passing of an 80s superstar and with that, the 1980s. We were given occasion to mourn and contemplate the passing of the 1950s with Elvis Presley’s untimely death, and the passing of the 1960s with John Lennon’s death. So we have sung an ode to the post-war consensus, as we have sung an ode to the cultural revolution.

But enough of the 80s has remained with us - MTV, Nintendo, Reaganomics - not defunct but writhing for relevance, that we have not dared sing its eulogy. Michael Jackson’s and Farrah Fawcett’s death has served us a dramatic notice that it may be time.

After all, it is unlikely that we will see another Michael Jackson. In our era where songs are downloaded one at a time, no one is likely to sell a 100 million records (of “Thriller” or any other album) again. The 80s are over, but it has taken us three decades to find a moment to collectively mark and mourn its passage.

Tragic deaths are compelling not only for human interest reasons, but for the decisive statement about our mortality they make. For if even iconic characters who once defined their age can be so suddenly ejected from the remorseless flow of history, then there is surely no stopping the march of time.

It is no surprise that Michael Jackson is more beloved posthumously than he was all of this decade. Elvis Presley too, had become more and more of a has-been as the 60s progressed. Time is never forgiving - our only feeble antidote is nostalgia. So wrote Joseph Conrad, “Only a moment; a moment of strength, of romance, of glamor–of youth! … A flick of sunshine upon a strange shore, the time to remember, the time for a sigh, and–good-bye!–Night–Good-bye…!”

If the 1980s and whatever the decade repesented are indeed over, then businessmen, journalists, and especially politicians - take note! Nostalgia can only occur when the past has been rendered past.

Some people are lucky enough to share a birthday with the likes of Jane Austen, but I suppose I am a little lucky too . . . not everyone can say they share one with a King.

Happy Birthday to us...

The is a piece i have been working on for a Day of the dead themed art show at the Cactus Gallery in Eagle Rock, CA.

inspired by the day of the dead art and the candy sugar skulls



http:​/​/​www.​ myspa​ce.​ com/​cactu​sgall​ery

Finally I managed to upload my picture, pfff, just in time! When I was kid, I was a big fan of Elvis, I even had a live-size poster hanging on my door.

Franco always knew his Elvis impersonation would get him somewhere. He just found out he was cast as Conrad Birdie in the senior class musical!!!

http://robertabaird.com

A Mouse in the House

The Monday Artday challenge this week is "Elvis".

Sure, he was known worldwide as "The King", but here are a few little-known facts about Elvis Presley.
He was a black belt in karate.
His entourage were known collectively as the Memphis Mafia.
None of Elvis’s 31 feature films were ever nominated for an Oscar in any category.
Elvis recorded more than 600 songs in his music career, but didn’t write a single one of them.
Some of Elvis’s bejewelled jumpsuits weighed more than twenty-eight pounds.
He only performed five concerts outside the United States – all in Canada in 1957.
Led Zeppelin were big fans of Elvis and were desperate to meet him when they toured the US.
Elvis collected marble statues of the Venus de Milo and Joan of Arc.
Elvis’s favorite soft drink was Pepsi.
Elvis had "the hots" for Elizabeth Montgomery.
Elvis wore a cross, a chai (Hebrew for "life") , and a star of David around his neck. He said, “I don’t want to miss out on heaven due to a technicality.”
Elvis' favorite sandwich was a grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich.
Elvis' favorite dessert was a hot fudge and amphetamine sundae.

Just a quick sketch I did and decided to add some glam to... Elvis is shiny!
A note to all those who dance - hip thrusts apparently lead to making your bottom half look kinda horsey!

Two recent pieces that were inspired in part by Elvis ...




Lovin Teddy Bear!

um, not THIS one, right?

Hey, gang! This week we're doing a theme suggested by Pascal.

Elvis (or Elvis impersonator)

Have fun!

Oslo, Norway

Coordinates: 59 54 N 10 43 E

Population: 808,000 (2007 est.)

I’m not sure if location, expense, or as the Onion’s Our Dumb World insinuates, a residual fear of Viking invasion is to blame, but Oslo, one of my favorite European cities, doesn’t seem to get its fair share of attention. (more…)

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" For reasons I cannot explain
There's some part of me wants to see
Graceland"
Paul Simon

Well friends I'm home from Memphis, TN. The snow sparkles and shimmers outside my window and icicles drip on my neck each time I scoot out the door and I am happy. Happy to be home in my comfy bed, happy to empty my suitcase, happy to have my computer and my routines and regular bedtimes. It was lovely to reconnect as a family for 10 whole days. We'll be back together when the snows melt. (Or maybe sooner considering the persistent snowfall.)

We did visit Graceland and I felt that I was, as the song suggests, pulled there by some inexplicable force. I loved the obvious, the stained glass peacock windows, the mirrored TV room with 3 TV's, the fabric covered walls of the billiards room, the golden seat belt buckles on the airplane.

But the lasting memory is the more subtle fact that this man, this celebrity, this incredibly prolific artist was frozen in time. Elvis was frozen in his youth and as a poor youth he bought a fancy house that is actually pretty small compared to the Extreme Makeover homes of today. We still see him as he was because he and his work never had a chance to evolve. The tour and its information were choreographed to move the thousands of people through his life in a clean and organized manner. The treatment of his death gets one sentence about "heart failure" and "prescription medications." Even as we walk through hallways glistening with gold and platinum awards, we, I feel for him because of what could have been.


We did plenty of other things too. I highly recommend the Pink Palace Museum and the Children's Museum of Memphis. FedEx is headquartered in Memphis and has given a lot of corporate funds to the CMOM which includes a great flight exhibit. We also saw A Year With Frog and Toad at the Orpheum theatre. If you are a parent in Memphis look out for other children's productions, including the Very Hungry Catepillar, coming to the Orpheum later this spring. A huge thank you to the Bricks and the Abbots for taking us in, feeding and treating us like family. Take care of hubby while he's down south for me.

Santiago, Chile

Coordinates: 33 26 S 70 40 W

Population: 5,623,000 (2007 est.)

For Chileans, February 12th marks an important moment in the history of their country. On this day in 1541, Pedro de Valdivia, a Spanish conquistador, founded Santiago de Nueva Extremadura on Saint Lucia Hill overlooking the Mapocho River. Present-day Santiago eventually grew to fill most of the basin of the same name and currently ranks as the sixth largest city in South American and the tenth most populous in the Western Hemisphere. (more…)

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