Have you ever thought about why we dress the way we do? Maybe it’s for our own confidence; whether that means looking good for ourselves and feeling better about ourselves, or being properly outfitted to impress those around us. But no matter the reason, understanding how and why we decide to dress can help us make smarter decisions when selecting our wardrobe – even if it’s just choosing something in a rush before heading out!
The thing I keep promising my girlfriend is that I will dress better, but I never seem to get around to it.
A spontaneous “to-do” list might even include it as my “number one” priority. When we are having fun together, I can tell she is trying to motivate me to be proud of how we look. I want to look at least as good as other people.
When I dress like a ‘bum,’ I think I am almost doing her psychological harm. That’s how I come across in her eyes, and I don’t like it. Yet it is simply difficult for me to find suitable clothes for her to wear without embarrassing her.
I love my girlfriend. I rationalized that I shouldn’t stress myself too much about dressing well. Conversely, I aim to meet fairly reasonable expectations.
Sometimes I just need to get up the nerve to go into a department store. This will enable me to buy at least one decent outfit now and then. My girl would have an easier time showing me love if I met what appears to be a very simple request.
Since I’ve been thinking about getting back into long-form blogging, I thought I would journal this. If I simply address this “to-do” item, I may be able to better manage that since this is an issue between us that does arise occasionally.
In the interests of full disclosure: I was reading notes in 2021 by Robert Duff, Ph.D., when I thought to blog this. A clinical psychologist, self-help writer, and podcaster, he is known by the handle @duffthepsych.
Bloganuary is a series of WordPress blogging prompts, one for each day of January. Today I am writing on the subject of something I learned recently.
Brittanica updated this article on the fifth of this month.
In 1989 a flood of fights contrary to socialist rule ejected in eastern Europe.
This episode set off the Velvet Upset, which acquired specific strength in the country’s modern places. Under the improvised authority of Václav Havel, a dissenter playwright and coauthor of Sanction 77 (1977), the City Gathering organized shows and strikes that demanded that public authorities acknowledge the common liberties outlined in the Helsinki Accords of 1975.
Czech playwright and dissident dramatist Dr Vaclav Havel (later President of Czech Republic) at a bus stop in London, June 19, 1968.
Havel was chosen for the post of interim president on December 29, 1989, and he was reappointed to the administration in July 1990. He became the country’s most memorable non-communist leader after 1948.
That kind of dissent is impressive if you learn about it in a light that it reflects positively on values you already celebrate.
What I learned further about freedom is something far more distressing, and it is only in that I think of ambition that the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, could make known to people far and wide that the site Twitter held hopes for free speech to flourish.
Musk then paid $44 billion for it.
FILE PHOTO: Elon Musk’s Twitter profile is seen on a smartphone placed on printed Twitter logos in this picture illustration taken April 28, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
According to estimates, Musk lost $200 billion when the trust he built with the shareholders of Tesla Corporation and the value of Twitter stock tumbled together. As Musk eventually proved he was not the brilliant innovator he was initially thought to be, his stock soared when Musk made the acquisition and then began to fall.
Initially, Musk seemed to be having a midlife crisis because he acted with such disregard for convention and good sense. As Musk’s political views changed, he ceased to advocate free speech but was apparently trapped in a right-wing quagmire, in which he demonstrated the need for extreme measures in doing business as a social media company, including firing most of its employees and adjusting the system quickly in response to the extensive losses he was suffering.
Musk was acting as a boss would, trying to make a service profitable. As time passed, Musk’s claim that Twitter would usher in a renaissance era of free speech seemed increasingly shallow. Nothing of the kind emerged in the wake of Musk’s bizarre tactics to make Twitter profitable.
Despite being discussed quite a bit already, I am not surprised that there were so many impersonators flooding Twitter with tweets that were nearly as convincing as real companies with a presence on Twitter actually held with the social media company when for the first few hours your account could be verified with a checkmark for a few dollars. Although Musk may have believed that he was acting in the name of free speech at that time, the fact that free speech lends itself to parody taught me a great deal about human nature.
When I thought of the free speech conundrum, I thought of the Velvet Revolution, I thought of 1984, I thought of Apocalypse Now, but here was near-incontrovertible proof that free speech is not a simple temperament.
Free speech is likely regarded among many with such cynicism that an effort to grant it, to create liberty, is met with glee, low moral standing, and even evil. Musk may not have intended it, but I believe he is aware that this is the result of the right to free speech. This right must be carefully considered and guarded.
Blogging by design isn’t the easiest of tasks to define; it’s a hugely intuitive activity that can be managed in a variety of manners.
1- Benefits of blogging 2- Learning from the most successful blogs 3- Understand what your niche should be
I revised my blog with the help of former professional blogger Jeff Goins, author of The Art of Work. When Jeff provided coaching, his guidance was invaluable for those who wanted to learn professional blogging.
Even the free components of his training were invaluable.
I don’t think my style of blogging would fit the mould of blog styles Jeff usually helps bloggers establish for themselves. I am sure Jeff would recognize the focuses of my blog that he finds relevant. He continues to follow me on Twitter, God bless him: https://twitter.com/jeffgoins
Do you know why birds sing just before dawn? Scientists believe it's to tell their mates that they made it through the night, as a way of saying, "I'm still here." Maybe that's why we sing, too, why we create art—as a way of saying, "I made it. I'm still here."
After visiting a cemetery on the other side of town, my dad decided he could turn it into a small business for retirement.
The idea of blogging came from a rudimentary idea I had toyed with on MySpace years earlier. I can remember watching Lou Reed on Letterman doing a song from his 1973 LP Berlin that had been rerecorded live as a follow-up on the arrival of the original. I wrote a brief blog post celebrating the TV appearance–it was fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8B3J8KykSQ
You can reuse blog content, making it into social media content on platforms other than your blog site. It assists with leads. To increase your rate of acquiring new information, blogging can help you explain your expertise.
Contributing to a blog makes your site seem more relevant to search engines and improves your rank. You can further find web traffic by this method.
It drives results.
It assists you with sharing news.
I find it helps me clarify ideas.
2- Learning from the most successful blogs
One of the most popular types of blogs is design sites, food blogs are another, and touring journals are becoming increasingly popular. Online audiences seek out the best and most moving music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_zkH4d3ITU
The Hypnogogue
Online lifestyle websites are the most popular. Their topics range from culture to expression, to news to legislative issues.
Well-being and general health are covered, so wellness has become quite popular. For fitness advice, people around the world use the internet.
Several Do-It-Yourself journals exist that are extremely interesting. Subtypes include expression and artwork, development, woodwork, metalwork, etc. Sports sites are one more intriguing kind of website.
To effectively manage finances, many of us require assistance and advice. From serious investors to families trying to save for the future, finance can attract a large crowd. Political sites tend to attract the most enthusiastic crowds.
People who are not prepared guardians usually experience a lot of pressure, but they can reliably develop their abilities after some time. These websites might include exercises with kids, directions on food, and methods for early home training, the sky is the limit. Employees in corporate offices, enterprises, and other organizations read business journals.
Customized sites let columnists share their encounters, experiences, and everyday lives. Film objections share an understanding of new motion pictures and entertainment. Vehicle destinations are ordinarily about luxury and sports vehicles.
News journals are not just about sharing news. They likewise incorporate parts of the blogger’s own point of view of the news.
A pet blogger shares tips on keeping pets, feeding pets, and preparing food for pets.
A gaming journal is often a source of information for gamers, commentators, and official organizations related to games. The winners of worldwide gaming events receive prizes. Websites of this kind are exceptionally famous.
For a compelling online journal, you truly need to plan and pick the specialty that works for you. The fortes illustrated here are normal for online journals. I think in 2022 legitimacy stays a significant popular expression for depicting a quality that fits writing for a blog, which best gets an opportunity with a specialty that mirrors the life behind the blog.
To think of specific inclusions that can gain you a high search ranking lends itself to additional research. Virtual entertainment supportive of Gary Vaynerchuk is in many cases heard alluding to research on YouTube and something like that. Vaynerchuk is a leader in productivity who steered his parents’ $3,000,000 wine store into the Internet phenomenon he has become.
Vaynerchuk, known as Gary Vee, firmly advocates for content creation. The Globe and Mail revealed a few days ago that TikTok Canada faced Ottawa and Bill C-11.
They cautioned that Canadian video will be out of the game. I am sorry about Bill C-11 for that reason. I would like my entitlement to share the video I really shoot to be safeguarded.
I think TikTok may be overconfident that its Canadian creators will be able to monetize their TikToks, but it is not impossible. Essentially, Bill C-11 gives the Canada Radio and TV Commission the option to conclude what video has merit in acting as an illustration of Canadian culture.
I’m not a super-determined blogger; it is a purposeful venture for me. Obviously, I’m OK, yet with the metaverse not too far off, I can see the reason why we aren’t in that frame of mind to profit from C-11. It will be significant to see what happens.
Keep introductions straightforward. Assuming you take a stab at composing a presentation for a title that as of now has one, you are likely best to allude to what’s as of now been laid out about that title.
Understand what a publicist does
A publicist generates and manages publicity for companies, brands, or personalities – such as celebrities – as well as for their work, such as books, films, or albums. This can entail a website, often, that is your client’s publicity and work that they contract you to manage. A celebrity would have tremendous reach on social media, typically.
If your clients include celebrities, that’s fabulous! That would mean real squirrel.
Gossip
How to manage your PR
a) Social media is a great way to connect with other thought leaders
noun A person whose views are considered authoritative and influential on a given topic.
People who do the same as you are a good bet to try to network with. If you are respectful and confident, it is possible that another thought leader with greater reach could help you extend the reach you have yourself.
b) Create your content and share it with relevant hashtags
? Google Alerts: My go-to service. I don’t believe that I’m required to be a brand, but many users feel that way. Google Alerts are invaluable to me for discovering how brands that matter to me are discussed with references back to Google
c) Respond to timely topics in the news
Many YouTubers, as I’ve observed, create videos based on news stories in their niche that people are talking about. I imagine the same is true on other platforms. If you can do good work in the short time following a timely news story, you may get further ahead than you thought.
d) Consider using free trials of content marketing and social media tools
I did this by starting with DrumUp six or seven years ago. DrumUp finds trending web pages based on keywords you provide. It’s been exciting to feel that I can be a voice on Twitter and Facebook.
e) Your brand’s social media strategy depends on the platform you choose
For example, how you use hashtags is much different on Facebook than it is on TikTok. This is a major theme to cover- – you will need to practice.
Sometimes only two or three platforms for social media are enough for a business. You can do more with less.
f) Social media is tremendous
You know that of course, it is. I worry about the future of it, but I want everything to work out.
g) Google Analytics
Google Analytics is one of the most popular digital analytics software. It is Google’s free web analytics service, that allows you to analyze in-depth detail, about the visitors to your website. It provides valuable insights that can help you to shape the success strategy of your business.
Despite not having the kinds of responsibilities before me that would require Google Analytics, I may have to work on learning how to use it.
Why you need content promotion strategies
Your engagement is significant in that people should be responding affirmatively to your content. You should build a mailing list of people you can reach by email, even if you ignore this advice. If you have a product for sale, like an ebook, for a small price, you can make a bit of money if you advertise your ebook to your audience with a mailing list.
Get your audience to do the promoting for you
Empowering perusers to share is extraordinary.
Drive traffic to your website by providing quality content and by being an active commentator on blogs, social media sites, and forums where your target market hangs out
There is another piece of this article to go. AI played a major role in generating this article.
The WEF addressed the 2022 crypto crash in a recent blog post, explaining that it looks all the more likely that cryptocurrency will need to be regulated, rather than giving hope that there could be a transparent international digital currency without the role of government.
The Brooking Institution, a public policy organization based in Washington, DC has offered insight into the innovation ecosystem. They call it an area of attention, along with competition policy and regulatory frameworks, digital infrastructure, workforce development, and social protection policies.
According to the World Economic Forum, to successfully create a digital ecosystem, organisations need to adopt three core principles: becoming open, interoperable, and decentralized. Now, why would they claim this? What is their reasoning?
Before we can even begin answering that question –
Why do you need to listen to the World Economic Forum?
What is a Global Risks Report?
Is it that important? Do I have to read it?
Can it help me in my business and life?
Are they making all these big moves based on data compiled from surveys or reports from some “experts” as they claim on their website http://www.weforum.org (Davos Agenda)?
Why do you need to listen to the World Economic Forum?
In addition to engaging business, political, and academic leaders, the World Economic Forum promotes global development. The agendas of global, regional, and industry interests are shaped in this way.
Global Risks Report is an annual report published by the WEF. The latest edition i.e. the 2022 report was published recently, which contains findings of the previous year i.e of the year 2021.
Global-thinking risk experts examine risk in five categories: economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal, and technological.
An example of an economic risk might be a nation’s gross national product losing value. About environmental risk, we’ve heard a lot, but it is how endangered species, for example, literally die off and no longer exist, which is not something everybody likes to acknowledge. All of us are men and women, and none of us are gods.
Geopolitical risk has a clear example, right, in how Russia decided that Ukraine belongs to it.
You know it’s a nightmare. Technological risk is like ByteDance spying on the West through TikTok.
Is it that important? Do I have to read it?
I don’t think you want to read that any more than you want to read the Terms and Conditions of Instagram.
Can it help me in my business and life?
Not really. It means that the new world order is structured something like Dark Ages fealty. If you are a street vendor, you might make more money, because you’re potentially given additional authority to provide shoppers with distinct and necessary goods that they want.
A problem is that they will be reporting everything you buy, compromising your freedom. Rather than involving you in the decision-making process, state assessments will be defining and predict what is going to happen. That is one way it resembles the Dark Ages.
Until the Renaissance, scholars sought to periodize history and influence how future generations would remember them, I have read. I’ve heard talk about the situation that has got me feeling like I should be a little concerned.
It’s countries surveying what is happening all over the planet and making expectations. It would put the government better in control. Russell Brand has, lately, again reminded his viewership that we’re supposed to be democratic.
Politicians should take their cues from citizens, Brand helps point out, not this potential for a new world order where everybody is dealing with undue government measures. I guess it should be clear that Brand is a successful comedian on YouTube whose channel might get us out of a mess. In any case, Brand’s point isn’t exclusively to go against Davos, which he has been accomplishing for a long time.
I think Brand’s thing is that ordinary people can make intelligent decisions the same as people working in government (for example, politicians), and Brand doesn’t want a world bereft of qualities that lend themselves to being a decent place to live. Like if we let art stop, music and theatre come to an end, and we begin to live in a fealty-oriented Dark Age, it would not be a great civilization to be a part of. It would mean things like literature getting pointless, as nobody would be in a position to add to it, and media becoming state propaganda, instead of the assistance that digital media provides to things like democracy, human rights, and journalism.
I don’t think it would be a good idea. We would have the industry beneath Big Tech, and we wouldn’t be able to use it, even though it’s cheap to run, and as powerful as astronauts at NASA taking a shuttle to the moon. In 1969, contrasted with what even our youths naturally grasp, everyone with a cell phone and Internet access can explore enormous data momentarily.
You don’t grasp what Russell Brand is saying or talking about when you think of him as a comedian and (probably) a sex symbol. That’s fine, but it’s worth taking an interest in what he does, as Brand is dismissive of the World Economic Forum and critical of many discussions that indicate corruption or unfairness for the poor, or advantages that Big Tech and Big Pharma exploit. As a populist voice, he’s funny, and he’s good.
Brand’s interest in knowledge kind of grows, but it’s always going in the same direction, and his perspective, which he might deny he is giving you with his channel, is always in favor of a social change in a direction completely different than the Davos Agenda’s.
I didn’t expect it, but when one of his videos about Covid-19 was taken down by YouTube, he made sure he was heard by additionally migrating to Rumble. I’d never thought YouTube would want to do that to him, since he and his team are only a few people.
Open means authentic, transparent, and inclusive. These are good principles to follow. However, I am not sure that the WEF is sincere in saying that.
It’s open like thieves hiding in plain sight. Interoperability is conceivably a legend. Do you know who made that point loud and clear?
Mutahar, the YouTuber behind someordinarygamers, alluding to Meta’s metaverse, said about whether Meta will prevail is that it is basically not going to be interoperable with rival metaverses. A comparison was made between the interoperability of video games between rival systems. The metaverse is being discussed more and more every day, and I think there are two general realities in the metaverse that are relevant.
One is Meta, which is probably at least a couple of years away before its potential is realized, and the other is, I think, sort of Web 3.0.
I am just not sure that there won’t be an endgame for Big Tech. Decentralized is a buzzword that was applied to bitcoin. It looks like, sure enough, cryptocurrency isn’t going to wind up decentralized, but nice try.
Jack Dorsey’s exit from Twitter illustrates how innovators in the cryptocurrency space are beginning to succumb to frustration and exhaustion, as he possibly did. The long and short is that the WEF could be lying. They are borrowing from the best of the technology industries and laying waste to its potential.
That’s really what Russell Brand has picked up on and is critical of. Those kinds of lies could do a lot of harm to people who are lucky enough to live in the free world.
Do you know who’s inspiring? Mr. Russell Brand on his political channel right now has become inspiring. As he often introduces his videos with this tidbit, I think he has four and a half million subscribers. I believe that Mr. Brand’s become the largest political channel on Youtube, and he has no taste for politics. Remarkable.
When I tried to describe the man’s “rebrand” (see what I did there?) to my sister Kaite, I wrote that Brand is shallowly savaging the establishment. I was trying to get a handle on whether she’d take an interest. It isn’t shallow, or at least I don’t think so. Brand’s Youtube material is provocative–when he does a good video, he’s talking for near on fifteen minutes, and he keeps on being pretty interesting the entire time.
I think he’s doing shows in the UK the next five months, as well.
I guess that’s inspiring because Brand is presenting that he has answers–he’s like a very schooled hippie. For a long time, I only knew of him as a comic actor, but, by now, I’ve heard that he near led a revolution on Youtube, waging war on UK political figures. That said, after his last “rebrand,” he returned as a less direct combatant, probably a safer stance to take. By comparison, I am not a funny guy, although I can get sneers in a heartbeat. You know what, though, like one of my uncles said, it’s a free country.
I’m an introvert, where people enjoy different kinds of social life, with none of my interests. I guess I’m different. When I see Mr. Brand has hit the nail on the head, I quickly become engaged by it, and I want to hear what’s gone on and what Brand’s thoughts on the matter amount to.
When better to reflect on lunacy than when listening to Echo and the Bunnymen? That must have been a great five years in music. EastEnders cues it, usually on the stereo in the Queen Victoria.
I’m starting on what I hope is a humourous note, that what Spotify calls “early alternative” survives well and good on its own, forever having shaped itself into fashion like shells in the seaweed.
The Wolfman
Pivoting from TV soap to horror, like The Wolfman, perhaps, satisfying his need for power by drinking the contents of what could be a steaming glass cylinder. He is transformed, haplessly, into the guise of a monster, in order to confront what will transform him. That is wisdom imparted to me back in high school by the head of the English department.
One of the challenges, when I went to school in the 1990s and in the 2000s, was to comprehend the reading teachers assigned me as a student of theirs. To this day, I try to read the occasional paper to keep my mind energized–papers of errata, I sort of think of them. I am interested in how an education for our present Gen Z could relate to what will be going on in the minds and hearts of young people.
Today is my parents’ anniversary. I believe that my mother sometimes reads my blog, and I guess that is sort of stereotypically embarrassing, but I thought of some of my observations, and how they may seem naïve, even at my present age, when I try sometimes to explain how it was to be young, and naïve, when perhaps I’ve never really shaken that naivete. How can that be?
I resolve not to think about it too much. My mother can see something I value negatively some of the time.
I once read the observation that social media is like having a giant billboard showing you traffic on the highway, a plain strange metaphor. My Facebook timeline nowadays occasionally recommends me posts from the site for blogTO.
blogTO
The Facebook timeline, in case you’re new to Facebook, is the piece of your Facebook page that shows posts from both people you’ve befriended and from pages that you follow.
In addition to being a good read, blogTO appears tidy on Facebook, and likewise fresh on TikTok. https://www.blogto.com/ …if you want the link.
When my dad and I agreed to do business together, in what might have been 2011, we wanted a Facebook page. The church on the cemetery grounds had disbanded in ’06, so a good five years had gone as the church fell away from that. We decided not to let the cemetery go as well.
It hasn’t been that long that I’ve been thinking about blogTO. The individual who first brought it to my attention is our dear Pam, one of my mother’s cousins, and a true Toronto resident.
Pam shares blogTO posts typically to reflect how she feels about the weather, or how construction in the city is, or how her interest in TIFF goes. Our last face-to-face was at my maternal grandmother’s eightieth birthday party.
I have lived in a burb my whole life, with the exceptions of brief visits to other parts of the province, that the province Ontario, as well as a once-in-a-lifetime vacation to Florida, and visits to my godparents in Tennessee, a 1995 visit to friends in British Columbia, school in Kingston, Ontario, and, in addition, beginning to really learn in England, when I was awarded a bursary to do a semester overseas, during which I even briefly saw Paris. If I were a priest, you might compare that semester to a sabbatical. I felt like Victor Frankenstein, I fancied.
Frankenstein
I wrapped up my schooling with a year taking classes in Niagara-on-the-Lake, a very picturesque town nearby where I live. I could get a bus from the bus terminal to the campus twice a day, there and back again.
I have also travelled independently, to the Atlantic, the Prairies, and to Portland, Maine, as well as to NYC and to New Orleans, the latter perhaps for the jazz. These trips were all brief excursions. Thereby my impressions of the world were formed.
I felt overwhelmed during my first year of university, starting that up. It was mad to be young the year of Y2K. That was the fear, mostly mythical, that computers synchronized to midnight on January 1, 2000, would all crash, given that their computer infrastructure wouldn’t be able to handle the transition from the twentieth century into the twenty-first.
Dad and I have a little cemetery that would be cared for only by the municipality if my dad never had taken the steps to bring it under his care.
blogTO is a tourism blog for the city of Toronto, helping people find out what things they can do if they visit or if they live in Toronto. When I was but twenty-nine years old, I inquired with Ontario March of Dimes, in Niagara Falls, if I would have any luck in a tourism job, an entry-level job.
My contact at March of Dimes was scornful at that moment, given my reported age, and the nature of my request. In a way, I never lived that down. I have regrets, of course.
It is just that it was a difficult lesson to accept that the decade of life that was my twenties was almost completely finished.
My loving sister, Kaitlyn, encouraged me to try my hand at writing for the campus newspaper in our city. I wrote what you might say amounted to a portfolio of work, ten columns of film criticism that I wrote for the paper, coming out of my own pocket. She’s another girl to who I owe an apology.
Mind you I had the community support of assistance, with the rent, and funds allotted to maintaining a lifestyle. The thrill, and there was a word that a high school teacher had taught me that made it desirable, the word rush, was having to go see a film, typically, the Friday night, and then review the movie within twenty-four hours or so after the lights came up.
My mother was happy I was kind of following a dream, but I really was nothing, and nothing came of it. I was but an amateur.
Since then, the last several years I have done some more writing. I made a few bucks working for a mill, but discarding that perhaps shows foresight as my present advantage is that I can treat any theme I want at any time I want, rather than doing that rush I tried my hand in, to get credentials established. The chief activity that’s been on the productivity chart for me is the last ten years or so helping out my father operate the cemetery, with additional help from family and friends, like Dave and Gerard.
I have translated some of my “journalling” skills into helping keep us in the loop on Facebook, which my sister, thinking of herself as an “early adopter” of the social media platform, encouraged me to join perhaps in the year 2010–at the moment I am not completely sure when I got started. It may have been around the time David Fincher delivered his stellar film The Social Network. I enjoy that film, as do many others.
Kaitlyn’s been the real deal–when she was yet a single girl, she had a position as a bona fide newspaper editor. Kudos to her.
Lake Ontario
Twenty years before, about 1990, the soon-to-be-famous author John Gray finished his first book, which he titled What You Feel, You Can Heal. I remember that John Gray referred to taking your twenties to discover who you are, to find yourself. I wanted to quickly again establish, with this post, where I am at, which I do from time to time to keep it centered, I think.
I’m well older than that. In 2021, another famous figure, Jordan Peterson, himself a former university professor, has been bold enough to ask if university life will be finished.
It won’t surprise me if blogTO has his number.
You’re welcome to bang that “like” button, leave me a comment, or to follow the blog if any of that appeals to you. Thank you for flying with me, on WordPress. These are only the beginning of the days I am trying to take my work more seriously than I have in the first while, when I feel I had a learning curve.
https://twitter.com/findingenvirons?lang=en The latest Tweets from Patrick coholan (@findingenvirons). Rock music fanatic. Award-winning book lover. Introvert. Small talk evangelist. Internet fan.
This blog gets me crossing paths with individuals who have something to add about the world as they understand it. Like the Discover feature on TikTok, imagination is an alluring quality.
Jim Adams is a writer with a fascination for music, who concocts prompts for a blog. He thinks of words for participants to find in song titles, or lyrics, in a blog format.
Participants discuss the songs with a common element, the writing prompt, as it appears in the lyrics, or in the song title.
I have read some of his participants’ blog discussions and I have followed along some of what is new with Jim. He publishes the prompts carefully, only a few at a time, to let his followers know what is coming.
For November 8, Jim prompted “days of the week,” and the song I thought of is Monday Morning, by the band The Church. It has taken me a good deal longer than I anticipated to get this post ready and finished, but I thought the finished post might be good enough that I should go ahead and post it.
The Church is a rock band with a dark flavour for their music, rarely undemanding, weird at times, and atmospheric. It’s not from my part of the world, but I like it.
The Church
The Church in the year 1990 wrote Monday Morning, singer Steve Kilbey, drummer Richard Ploog, guitarist Marty Wilson-Piper, and, guitarist Peter Koppes, for the record Gold Afternoon Fix.
At the time, The Church excused the completed collection as an innovative disappointment. The percussion on the melodies didn’t turn out.
One of the songs for Gold Afternoon Fix is entitled Disappointment. “Late for an appointment, clothes everywhere/I cannot find my memory anywhere/Ah disappointment just doesn’t care,” Kilbey sings.
I think Monday Morning is a song that initially appeared only on the CD release of the album, not the LP. For me, The Church is a charming band, and I believe founding songwriter Steve Kilbey has since allowed that his original opinion about the album needn’t have been so critical.
The Church began in 1980 as a new wave band, a music genre emerging after the punk rock scene. The Church was pretty noisy, good, though. By 1983 they were making more experimental music.
By creative failure, I only mean music that lacks integrity, bad music. That’s not The Church. They are a band I quite like.
The chief problem with Gold Afternoon Fix is really that the personnel couldn’t come to an agreement about the percussion. The melodies are very acceptable at any rate. For example, I like the tune Monday Morning.
Perhaps the song is about a weekend fling, the freedom of time spent away, as from office life, when a free heart gets heavy again, when Monday morning arrives, and the weekend has dispersed.
The Church was in L.A. and the culture of the day must have touched on the lyrics Kilbey wrote for the record. The air was full of energy.
As far as the discography by The Church, Gold Afternoon Fix followed their record Starfish, their 1988 album, which was a major achievement for them, and which contains the exemplary melody Under the Milky Way. The record Priest = Aura followed two years after the fact, in 1992. Steve Kilbey recalls fondly the 1990s in Sydney, Australia, he’s said on Twitter.
1988 The Church LP
Gold Afternoon Fix is an album I like. The band did have trouble getting the percussion for Gold Afternoon Fix correct, and drummer Richard Ploog only plays drums on four of the songs on the album. The other songs have the beat of a drum machine.
Other than Steve Kilbey writing occasional new material with a drum machine, the band had never considered using that kind of percussion on an album. They’d become known for being a great beat. Richard Ploog, the drummer, couldn’t finish recording the drums for Gold Afternoon Fix, however.
Mr. Ploog’s interest in music had stopped meeting the vision the other members of the band had, for the songs. Ploog’s energy was turning into contention, with the interest in music the other three artists had.
Ironically, one of the first songs The Church did, in their early years as a band, is called Too Fast for You. “Oh, and I hope I’m not going too fast for you/And don’t believe it when they say it’s over,” Kilbey sings.
Wikipedia says drummer Nick Ward played on their first collection; through the 1980s the band’s steady drummer, for a very long time, 1982-1990, was Richard, who left the band after Gold Afternoon Fix. Mr. Ploog withdrew from The Church around 1990, to invest more energy with his better half.
In Marty Wilson-Piper’s blog, Wilson-Piper wrote in October 2011 that Monday Morning is one of the four songs that Mr. Ploog is playing on. Marty Wilson-Piper is one of the founding members of the band, along with Kilbey and Koppes. He calls attention to Peter Koppes’ mandolin, on the melody, and that is enough to appreciate the tune.
Mandolin
Monday Morning is one of the last songs Mr. Ploog played on while The Church was a big commercial act. They continued to make records for years, but after 1990 they weren’t the same band, however good Priest = Aura turned out to be (a good album, too).
In my first year of school, 1996, I read a gathering about The Church. There were some jokes about The Church’s concert film for Gold Afternoon Fix turning up in retail discount bins. It was a joke about Gold Afternoon Fix not being their best album.
All things considered, fans’ excitement for The Church was unmistakable, and Richard Ploog got a ton of regard from audience members. Gold Afternoon Fix also sold very well, commercially successful. Ironically, the commercial rock was hard to combine with artistic integrity, Wilson-Piper’s comments reflect in his blog.
The difference between Gold Afternoon Fix and some of the earlier music by The Church, like Remote Luxury and Persia may be that the band’s vision for their music came across loud and clear on releases like the aforementioned, and was more subdued, so to speak, by 1990. To tell the truth, I don’t know that the meaning of a song like Shadow Cabinet is clear to me; however, Shadow Cabinet was the name of one fan webpage. Though years ago, I am sure it would have seemed to be quite a simple page compared to how it might have been today; pictures and blocks of text.
I sat in one of the rooms of the home of one of my uncles looking for The Church on AOL. The Church was one of my very first Internet searches ever, and certainly the first band that I researched on the Internet.
The meaning of the lyrics for Monday Morning are clearer for me than words like “Queueing in the ruins in the wake of the gale it’s/Harmony I say” in Shadow Cabinet.
These days both Koppes and Wilson-Piper have moved on from The Church. Koppes continues to write and record music; both Kilbey and Koppes had new albums in the autumn on 2020.
Fans of The Church are sometimes referred to as their Army.
Thank you to Jim for his prompt, “days of the week.”
This has been a different kind of month for me in the blogosphere. Obviously, the province which is my home is on lockdown, but as you may know, Ben Huberman helped devise the WordPress Discover challenges again for April, which were lacking for some time as, I suppose, the nature of the beast changed. Don’t take it from me.
I finally began to rest where most previous days of the month I published something in response to the challenges, and it isn’t because of them, it is just a lot of work to keep those up again and again. That’s why it’s a challenge, though.
I looked today, and the test was distributed the previous evening. I weighed my options and decided to read what the challenge had to say.
The WordPress Discover day by day challenges has been important for developing as a blogger. It is pleasant that this was available last night, and I looked at what the challenge is, and I noted that Ben actually went so far as to say in the post that the decision to put it up early was deliberate and that he hoped participants are making good use of the time.
I made a mental review and weighed how effectively I actually did spend last night, against what would have been best. The list challenge had what I perceive was the intended effect, of jumpstarting interest in the winding down Discover challenges.
The word last night for today is List, so I took a dice game score sheet that I was keeping on hand for an occasion like this, and made a random list of the some of the more effective pursuits I made in the time between last night and this morning, that was, perhaps, shaped by the continuing interest in being part of the blogosphere, and of being motivated by the Discover challenges. I could hypothesize whether I am attempting exercises because of the endgame of searching better for being in the blogosphere, yet I don’t think so. The activities I was, you might put it, afoul of, were only what I might pursue with an interest in amusing myself.
I wasn’t deliberately mindful that the test had just begun. Ben included the line “we hope you make the most of the extra time!” regarding the decision to present today’s challenge early. Indeed, even without the cognizant exertion of setting up a post, I thought about whether I could make the contention that I was getting ready for the post by attempting typical kinds of exercises I embrace if I was effectively mindful.
The challenge is good, too, and even though I stated previously that I expect the reason for the early availability is to galvanize participants into writing, I also think Ben felt he had a strong idea on his hands and he wanted to give a solid opportunity to address it, by making bloggers interested in it more eager and more thoroughly than they may have if it only became ready this morning. I can’t say for certain, but I know at least that he is aware that we’ve been looking at these Discover challenges all month and now we are beginning to wrap up, and he felt we all merit a strong finish.
I would prefer not to state an excessive amount, however, I might rehash my appreciation for having gotten the open door for WordPress prompts every single day of April. I haven’t written this in a while, but you are welcome to follow and/or to comment.
Today’s WordPress Discover theme is the idea of “hidden,” organized by Ben Huberman. Last night on Twitter, I saw a tweet that included a landscape by fantasy painter Boris Vallejo. The landscape is Cloud City, the Star Wars locale where the Sith’s Lord Vader captures Han Solo in preparation to return the smuggler and hero to an otherworldly gangster who Solo owes.
The Empire Strikes Back
The landscape of Cloud City, the carbon freezing chamber which Vader utilizes to hold Solo without fail, is painted hidden by steam, except for the sight of Solo’s friends and the traitor Lando Calrissian. Cloud City is hidden in the painting much as Darth Vader is hidden underneath his Sith mask. The Sith Order is an ancient order of Force-wielders devoted to the dark side of the Force, as starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sith explains.
The Force is an energy field that is wielded by Jedi on the side of good and Sith on the side of evil. An enduring saga, the timeline for this hidden landscape of Cloud City refers to the culmination of events in the 1980s The Empire Strikes Back film. Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia swears her love for Han Solo.
Billy Dee Williams, as Lando Calrissian, does his best to rescue the Princess from Darth Vader, but at the cost of surrendering Solo to Vader, and Anthony Daniels as droid character C-3P0 is in pieces, having been shot by a laser blaster when he strayed around the wrong corner a few scenes earlier. Fortunately, C-3P0 is mechanical. C-3P0’s master at the time of events in The Empire Strikes Back is incongruously absent from the painting.
It would be Jedi apprentice Luke Skywalker, who comes to the realization that his friends are in terrible danger from Vader and that he has precious little time to train as a Jedi. The order of Jedi is a counterpart to the evil order of Sith.
Today Disney explained on Twitter that they have an interest in taking advantage of May the 4th tweets with the hashtag #maythefourth. May the 4th is a long running day that commemorates the Star Wars film franchise with the idea that the Star Wars toast “May the Force be with you” translates to “May the Fourth be with you,” as is well known as Star Wars fans. Disney announced today that hashtagging a tweet with #maythefourth, while making it eligible to be celebrated by Disney on Twitter, automatically makes that tweet the property of Disney themselves.
It isn’t a doable contingency. Clownfish TV on YouTube explained today that while Disney does own the trademark “May the Fourth,” the trademark is only guarded where apparel and events are concerned. There is no protection for Disney when Star Wars fans tweet #maythefourth about their love of Star Wars.
However, Disney clearly is trying to get protective of the trademark with the idea of putting their authority to use in the face of anyone who would tweet #maythefourth. Even that idea that Disney would like control of the hashtag #maythefourth could be enough to dispel an interest in tweeting the hashtag. The recognition from Disney would be nice, but implying that Disney has control of the hashtag isn’t right when they really don’t.
I would hope that Disney’s posturing to defeat tweets that don’t meet the bar that Disney would like to hold presents the idea that the sequel trilogy of Star Wars films, while fine movies I think, is somewhat irresponsible when it comes to respecting the film fandom. Clownfish TV didn’t even watch The Rise of Skywalker.
The Myth of the Independent Blogger and How I Learned to Love It 