The 2013 Super Bowl (Non)Performance

I’m sure there are going to be millions of super bowl posts popping up for the next few hours.  I’m not much on football, but I am watching it.  My mom has always been a huge fan, so I figured I’d root for one of her favorite teams that happened to make it in: the 49ers.  I gave up rooting for them once I realized how they were playing.  Or not playing…maybe they can still bring it back.

But my real focus was on the half time show.  I knew it was Beyoncé, and I had developed a theory.  The best memories of the halftime shows were the surprises.  They would mash together 2 artists you could never imagine working together and it made something amazing.  Or they would start with one big name ticket, only to bring out 3 more that were similar or related somehow and just make your whole weekend with it.  So my theory was that Justin Timberlake would make an appearance, by the laws of association: Beyoncé is married to Jay-Z, Jay-Z has recently worked with Justin Timberlake, Justin Timberlake is releasing new music, you can see where my mind was going with this.  Not to mention, this kind of happened on February 2nd at the DIRECTV party.  I felt like this was the perfect set up.

Me & Britney-I’m Sorry, I Need A Moment

I admit, I have always been a fan of Britney Spears.  It’s true.  Who didn’t love the cute iconic little school girl in Baby One More Time?  Nobody, that’s who.

Then it came out that she and Justin Timberlake, the “it” boy if there ever was one, were an item from their adorable days on the Mickey Mouse Club together.  All preteen girls hated her for that, but still loved her at the same time.

Edit Blunders & Real Pretty Women

One of my biggest guilty pleasures are the tabloid headlines and pictures: “So-and-So caught without make up, and guess whose cellulite this is!”

I can’t help it, I eat that shit up like candy!  Then I found some really amazing and addicting things online one day: before and after photoshopped pictures of celebrities.  First off: I love seeing the real, however “unattractive” it may be considered.  We always see the professionally applied make-up and professionally coiffed hair and the designer gowns.  There are whole teams per celebrity to ensure that they look angelic before stepping out, whether it be for a red carpet event or for a photo-op.  But the candid shots of them getting coffee, those are real.  Secondly: I really enjoy seeing the lengths that are taken to make print photos look even more perfect.  You flip through a magazine and see a picture of Kim Kardashian.  Her skin is all caramel and silky looking – mine is pasty pale and blotchy, especially if I’m cold.  Her curves are smooth and her waste is cinched – my hips are uneven and unusually wide-set, jutting out suddenly from below my rib cage.  Her arms are sleek – mine are scrawny and limp.  I can keep going, but I think everyone gets the point by now.  But then I see the comparison picture, the before-photoshop picture.  Her skin, even more caramel-y now, has differences in tone and smoothness over the course of her body.  Her legs are healthy, her curves more pronounced and womanly.  She looks like a very beautiful real person.  Then I go back to the edited picture again, only this time I don’t see the things I saw before.  She still looks amazing, but it looks…affected.  I know it’s not real now, and I don’t like it.  I think about what I would feel like if it was my picture.  How would I feel if I took a picture and thought, “I look pretty good here!”  only to see it an hour later after so-called improvements are made?  I know I would be thinking, “Damn, I didn’t think it was that bad.  I didn’t think I looked that grotesque on my own.”  That idea taints the photoshopped image for me.  It’s also tainted because this is what is forced into people’s minds about beauty, and it shouldn’t be.  The truth, the real – that’s what should be promoted.  For God‘s sake, they did an overall lightening of her skin in the picture here!  That’s just ridiculous to me.

Recommendations On The Way

Obviously, I have a fascination with words – combinations, strings, the flow of them, the emotions they can evoke when placed in just the right way.  I think the emotion of it all is why I enjoy anything artistic.

Art, in any form, is breathtaking to me.  I attended an art fair at a local park downtown with booth after booth of local artists selling their wares.  There was abstract art, still life, conceptual pieces, some pieces that were so realistic that I almost swore it was a photograph.  There were sculptures and ceramics.  It was amazing, probably more amazing to me because I have absolutely no skill in anything of that sort.  My brain does not have the capacity to be that creative.  But the emotion of every painting and sculpture was evident to me, no matter whether it was an ethereal painted scene or a dark and dramatic photographed lady or a twisted and garbled wooden creation, that emotion was there.

Dance amazes me.  I used to dance.  I was on a “dance team” in high school, which mostly did jazz style.  In college I took ballroom, which not only fed into my love of music and dance, but also my love of all things vintage.  Most of the dances we focused on were either centuries old, to get an understanding of where our current dance trends originated from, or the popular dances from decades past, such as disco.  Swing was definitely my favorite.  The Latin dances were damn near impossible for me.  Sorry, Shakira, but MY hips DO lie…