Signature9 | Lifestyle Intelligence99 Most Influential Style Blogs
How did we arrive at the 99 blogs listed? We started with hundreds from around the world - some from first hand knowledge, others discovered from countless hours of following logrolling, network publisher listings and links from comments. After eliminating the ones that were abandoned or hadn't been updated in a while, we took a few statistics, did a little math and gave them a score representative of general content quality, popularity and buzz. The 99 most influential blogs span multiple categories: from the street and personal style of the trendsetters around the world, to behind the curtain looks at the people who create and shape the fashion industry - and of course the loggers who stay on top of who's wearing what, and where to buy it.
S9 Y! PR TR TA A D BL = 1 The Materialist US 13 15 7 8 5 9 10 14 81 2 High Sobriety US 13 12 5 10 4 9 9 15 77 3 the Cut* US 14 7 7 9 5 9 9 15 75 4 Fashioner US 14 11 4 7 4 8 8 9 65 5 Stylishness US 12 13 6 10 0 10 3 11 65 6 Clearance Dore FR 14 9 6 8 4 8 8 8 65 7 Go Fug Yourself* US 11 13 6 7 4 8 8 7 64 8 Face Hunter UK 12 8 7 6 4 6 10 9 62 9 Style Bubble UK 14 8 6 8 4 6 8 7 61 10 the Moment* US 12 8 7 7 4 7 6 9 60 11 Fashion Tribes US 12 7 6 7 3 6 10 8 59 12 On the Runway* US 12 7 7 5 2 8 3 15 59 13 ThreadBanger US 13 7 6 6 3 7 9 7 58 14 Fab Sugar US 12 9 6 5 3 9 6 8 58 15 Fashionably US 13 8 6 7 3 7 5 9 58 16 The Purse Blog US 13 7 6 7 2 10 4 8 57 17 Racked US 12 9 6 7 3 7 5 8 57 18 The Cobra Snake US 13 8 6 6 0 8 8 8 57 19 Sea of Shoes US 13 6 6 6 3 6 10 6 56 20 The Cherry Blossom Girl FR 13 8 6 6 3 6 7 7 56
August 27, 2009
19 Sea of Shoes - Signature9 | Lifestyle Intelligence
STATEN ISLAND MAN KILLS WIFE, CAT AND HIMSELF: SOURCES - New York Post
STATEN ISLAND MAN KILLS WIFE, CAT AND HIMSELF: SOURCES - New York PostSTATEN ISLAND MAN KILLS WIFE, CAT AND HIMSELF
By TIM PERONE
Posted: 1:32 pm
August 27, 2009A Staten Island man called 911 this morning with a startling message.
"I just shot my wife," John Pizon told emergency workers, explaining it was an "accident."
But when authorities arrived at their Heartland Village home, they found the body of Pizon, his mortally wounded wife Karen and a dead pet cat. Sources said Pizon had turned the gun on himself immediately after his frantic 911 call.
Sources said the couple were arguing about financial problems when shortly before 10 a.m. John Pizon fired a .22 caliber bullet into the back of his wife's head.
He then placed the call to 911 and told them the door would be unlocked when emergency workers arrived.
When they showed up, the 52-year-old husband was lying on the floor, dead from a gunshot wound to the head. His 50-year-old wife was rushed to Staten Island University Hospital North, where she died about an hour later.
The carcass of the shot cat was also found.
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Way Out Wednesday: The Bat Boys – Batman | Popdose
Way Out Wednesday: The Bat Boys – Batman | PopdoseWay Out Wednesday: The Bat Boys – Batman
With the Batman: Arkham Asylum game coming out this week (for PS3, Xbox360 and PCs), I thought I’d throw out another Batman-related album for you. When the Batman TV show came out it seemed like you couldn’t swing a dead bat without hitting some sort of Caped Crusader tie-in, and record albums were no exception. Some were pretty good. Some, not so much. I’ll let you judge where this one falls.
This first song is the Bat Boys’ version of the Batman theme song. This really isn’t too bad, with a nice swinging organ solo.
I hope you liked the previous song because, despite the name Batman and all the sound effects on the album cover, absolutely nothing else on this album is remotely Batman related! There’s not even any name checking in the song titles. What the songs I picked from this album do have in common, though, is that they’re jazzed-up versions of classical tunes. The first, “Uppercut Blues,” borrows heavily from “Flight of the Bumblebee” (which was actually the Green Hornet’s theme song). The titles of these songs seem to be pretty random. You can maybe imagine people punching each other while listening to this song, but there’s nothing bluesy about the song at all!
If you watched The Ed Sullivan Show, you might remember the song “Saber Dance.” It was used a lot for death-defying acts like the Flying Wallendas and people who juggled swords. This is the basis for the song “It’s Murder!” This doesn’t have much to do with the Batman show either, since I don’t think anybody ever got murdered on the show. Jill St. John fell into the Batcave’s atomic pile and Catwoman fell to her supposed death a number of times, but that was the closest they got.
The last song featured here, “Mars Visitor,” is based on the song “Funeral March for a Marionette,” probably best known as the theme to Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I know that whenever I think of little green men from Mars, Hitchcock is the first person that comes to mind!
If you’d like to hear the rest of this album, which contains more jazzy instrumentals that have little to do with Batman and less to do with their song titles, you can get it here!
Basement Songs: Joe Jackson, “The Trial” | Popdose
Basement Songs: Joe Jackson, “The Trial” | PopdoseBasement Songs: Joe Jackson, “The Trial”
In my mind he’s sitting at the kitchen table writing so diligently the table shakes and the white swivel chair he’s sitting on squeaks. Outside it’s night, and the autumn chill is trying to get in. The television is on; we’re watching some inane ’80s sitcom, and my father is someplace else. As he writes in the kitchen, he’s hearing music, scribbling notes on scrap pieces of paper.
My father, Budd, is a great arranger of band music. He can take a song and compose parts for various wind instruments simply by sitting at the piano, pulling notes from the air and writing them in pencil on the back of discarded paper from the school, drawing the music clefts by hand. A staggering number of students have played his arrangements, though he never got paid for this extra work as the high school band director. When he retired, for the second time, earlier this year, he was still writing out arrangements for the musicians in his bands to perform. Why did he do it? I’m not sure, but I think some of it had to do with that bird called creativity chirping in his ear. Watching him work so hard all of the years of my childhood influenced me profoundly, teaching me to keep at something until you get it right, even if it means going back and revising again and again.
When I sat down to write this column, Joe Jackson’s “The Trial” seemed to leap out at me. I had been thinking of my father and our relationship. So much of what we have bonded over has been music. While he is definitely a student of classical music, I am a disciple of rock. Where we often met halfway was the populist movie themes of some of our favorite composers, like John Williams and James Horner. That this track, a classical piece of film music written by a pop artist like Joe Jackson would come to mind when I haven’t listened to it in years, well, to me that’s serendipity.
“The Trial” comes from Jackson’s underappreciated, out-of-print soundtrack to Francis Ford Coppola’s 1988 film, Tucker: The Man and His Dream. Jeff Bridges stars in this great, inspiring movie as Preston Tucker, the automobile entrepreneur who took on the Big Three auto manufacturers in trying to produce and market his own line of cars. Martin Landau also stars, and the movie features fine performances by Joan Allen, Christian Slater, Elias Koteas, and Bridges’ father, Lloyd. Dean Stockwell also shows up in an uncredited appearance as the eccentric Howard Hughes. For the score, Jackson delved into his love of postwar music from the 1940s.Unlike so many pieces of music written for movie soundtracks, “The Trial” works as a stand-alone composition. It’s heard under the climactic courtroom sequence of the film, in which Tucker is put on trial for stock fraud. The trial is a farce, trumped up by the manufacturers to ruin Tucker and his dream. The scene plays out like a real film noir/conspiracy sequence and Jackson’s music that aptly creates the right mood. Plus, it has a Theremin solo!
Listen to how mysteriously it begins, with just trombones, pulling you in with their simple, heavy notes. Slowly, the orchestra builds, with piano, clarinet, vibes, xylophone and the drum set. I love the way the drums keep rhythm but are creating their own melody that works against the saxophone solo. Those drums are a constant reminder that things aren’t going to work out well for Tucker. I’ve always loved how Jackson has incorporated percussion into his music — whether it’s his new wave period, his slick studio albums of the ’80s, or the soundtrack scores he’s been involved with, he really understands how important these array of instruments in the percussion section are to the success of a piece. From the jazz guitar solo to the mournful clarinets, “The Trial” is lovely piece of work that will haunt you if you let it under your skin (must be the Theremin!)
There are days when I wonder why it is that I write the Basement Songs series, as I’m sure many of you do (especially those of you questioning my taste in music). I think to myself, “Is this worth it? The strain, the pressure I put on myself, the revisions, the self doubt and depression, is it all worth it just for a couple of comments each week?” Those are the moments I just want to say, “Forget it. No one gives a shit. It just doesn’t matter.”
Then I’ll hear a melody, like “The Trial,” and a thought forms. I grab a phrase out of the air, as my dad does catching notes at the piano, and words begin to flow like a series of music notes scribbled on scrap pieces of paper. Sitting at the kitchen table, sometimes with Julie in the next room watching television, I write diligently on a legal pad with my trusty Bic pen, though I’ve been known to use a scrap piece of paper from time to time.
Sly Stone living on welfare, claims documentary | Music | guardian.co.uk
Sly Stone living on welfare, claims documentary | Music | guardian.co.ukSly Stone living on welfare, claims documentary
The funk legend's financial woes have been revealed in a new film that claims he is dependent on social security and living in cheap hotels
Sly Stone ... film claims the funk pioneer has suffered a major financial crisis. Photograph: Zak Hussein/PA
Funk legend Sly Stone is living on the dole, according to a new film, staying in cheap hotels and campervans. A forthcoming documentary by Willem Alkema alleges that Stone was betrayed by manager Jerry Goldstein, cutting off access to his royalties.
Representatives for Sly or the Family Stone have not yet commented on Alkema's claims, which appeared in a YouTube trailer for Coming Back for More. Alkema is a Dutch filmmaker known for a previous documentary about Stone, Dance to the Music. His new film, due out this autumn, claims to include Sly Stone's first interview in 20 years.
This claim, however, isn't true – Stone spoke to the Los Angeles Times in 2007, and again with journalist Jeff Kaliss for a book published last year. He also appeared on KCRW radio in May. But certainly Stone has been reclusive, offering few points of access since his induction into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.
According to Alkema, Stone's financial security depended on a contract signed with Jerry Goldstein in the late 80s. As part of that agreement, Goldstein acquired rights to Stone's music while paying the singer "fixed expenses" and a regular allowance. Due to a "debt agreement", the film claims, Goldstein "turned off the tap" of payments – forcing Stone to rely on social security. He has since been staying in cheap hotels and campervans.
"Although legally the father of funk has a solid contestable case," the trailer states, "he lacks the funds to engage a lawyer to proceed his case."
The trailer also claims that Stone had been working with Michael Jackson, and that the King of Pop had commissioned the 66-year-old to write songs for his new album. Stone apparently hoped that this would solve his financial woes.
Though Stone has performed only a handful of concerts in the last five years, this is the first word of the star experiencing a major fiscal crisis. At the time of his 2007 interview with the LA Times, he was reportedly living in a "large country home" in California's Napa Valley.