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NEW ORLEANS — Drew Brees made easy work of Tampa Bay's league-worst pass defense and Josh Freeman's frustrating day only made things worse for the desperate Buccaneers.
Brees passed for 307 yards and four touchdowns, and the Saints recorded their first shutout in 17 years in a 41-0 victory over the Buccaneers on Sunday, virtually ending Tampa Bay's already slim playoff hopes.
Brees connected on his scoring passes with tight end David Thomas, running back Darren Sproles and receivers Lance Moore and Joe Morgan. Mark Ingram added an 11-yard touchdown run.
Freeman endured one of his worst outings of the season for Tampa Bay (6-8), throwing four interceptions and losing a fumble. Jabari Greer made two interceptions, Rafael Bush and Isa Abdul-Quddus the others. Cameron Jordan forced Freeman's fumble on a sack and recovered it.
New Orleans (6-8) also bottled up standout rookie running back Doug Martin, holding him to 16 yards on nine carries as the Buccaneers lost for the fourth straight time.
Although many fans had left in the fourth quarter, those remaining made as much noise as they could as the Saints allowed Tampa Bay to get into the red zone before preserving the club's first shutout since a 12-0 win in the 1995 season finale against the Jets in New York.
Brees had been in a bit of a rut during New Orleans' recent three-game skid, throwing nine interceptions during that stretch. That he would snap out of it against Tampa Bay made sense; the Bucs entered the game giving up 311.6 yards per game. Brees eclipsed 200 yards by halftime but eased off after his 34-yard touchdown strike to Morgan in the second half, when the Saints looked to run down the clock.
Ingram finished with 90 yards rushing and the Saints had their third-best total on the ground this season with 149 yards against a Tampa Bay rushing defense that came in first in the league, allowing 78.2 yards per game.
Brees completed 12 of his first 13 passes for 132 yards and his 9-yard touchdown over the middle Thomas.
He marched the Saints inside the Tampa Bay 5 before the second drive stalled with a false start penalty, followed by his second incompletion, which led to a field goal early in the second quarter.
At that point, New Orleans had outgained the Bucs 170-63 and had a 9-2 advantage in first downs.
The Bucs' squandered a chance to close the gap when Freeman missed badly on two straight passes, the first to an open Mike Williams in the end zone. The next was his second interception of the first half. Reserve safety Rafael Bush, who wears No. 25 as Reggie Bush once did, grabbed Freeman's errant pass at the 9 and looked like his namesake during a 40-yard return, coming to a complete stop near sideline to his left, then going backward and laterally to find more running room.
The Saints capitalized, thanks in part Brees completing a pass as he was flatted to Marques Colston for a drive-extending, 21-yard gain. That helped set up Brees' second TD toss, a 2-yarder to Sproles to make it 17-0.
Brees managed to put one more scoring drive together after Sproles returned a punt 37 yards to the Tampa Bay 38 with 1:04 left. Moore's 8-yard TD grab made it 24-0 at halftime, at which point Brees was 19 of 29 for 216 yards and three scores.
Brees slices and dices Bucs in 41-0 rout
NEW ORLEANS — Drew Brees made easy work of Tampa Bay's league-worst pass defense and Josh Freeman's frustrating day only made things worse for the desperate Buccaneers.


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Achieve safe patient care by incorporating our framework The Safety Competencies into your healthcare organization's educational programs and professional development activities.
Patient safety, defined as the reduction and mitigation of unsafe acts within the healthcare system, and the use of best practices shown to lead to optimal patient outcomes, is a critical aspect of quality healthcare.
Educating healthcare providers about patient safety and enabling them to use the tools and knowledge to build and maintain a safe system is critical to creating one of the safest health systems in the world.
The Safety Competencies is a highly relevant, clear, and practical framework designed for all healthcare professionals. Created by the Canadian Patient Safety Institute (CPSI), The Safety Competencies has six core competency domains:
Domain 1: Contribute to a Culture of Patient Safety – A commitment to applying core patient safety knowledge, skills, and attitudes to everyday work.
Domain 2: Work in Teams for Patient Safety – Working within interprofessional teams to optimize patient safety and quality of care..
Domain 3: Communicate Effectively for Patient Safety – Promoting patient safety through effective healthcare communication..
Domain 4: Manage Safety Risks – Anticipating, recognizing, and managing situations that place patients at risk..
Domain 5: Optimize Human and Environmental Factors – Managing the relationship between individual and environmental characteristics in order to optimize patient safety..
Domain 6: Recognize, Respond to, and Disclose Adverse Events – Recognizing the occurrence of an adverse event or close call and responding effectively to mitigate harm to the patient, ensure disclosure, and prevent recurrence..
This valuable framework includes 20 key competencies, 140 enabling competencies, 37 knowledge elements, 34 practical skills, and 23 essential attitudes that can lead to safer patient care and quality improvement.
CPSI encourages its stakeholders, national, provincial, and territorial health organizations, associations, and governments; and universities and colleges to play a role in engaging stakeholders and spreading the word about this program so that healthcare professionals recognize the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to enhance patient safety across the spectrum of care. For further information, please email

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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Nielsen's list of the top ten "time-shifted" prime time TV shows takes stock of whose ratings benefited the most from DVR in 2009. What do they have in common? They're all the shows you keep begging your friends to watch.
1. "Battlestar Galactica" (59.4)
2. "Mad Men" (57.7)
3. "Damages" (56.3)
4. "Rescue Me" (53.2)
5.(tie) "True Blood" (46.9)
5.(tie) "Stargate Universe" (46.9)
7.(tie) "Sanctuary" (45.9)
7.(tie) "Heroes" (45.9)
9. "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" (45.5)
10.(tie) "10 Things I Hate About You" (44.9)
10.(tie) "Dollhouse" (44.9)
10.(tie) "Melrose Place" (44.9)
Other than a couple of tween-driven clunkers at the bottom of the list—and the people who forgot to take "Heroes" off their DVR in 2007—this is a comprehensive list of some of the best, least watched TV of the year. Which makes sense, given the way the ratings are structured. A million people DVRing "Mad Men" is going to make a much bigger difference to that show's time-shifted rating than a million people DVRing "American Idol." So what you're left with is essentially ten shows with passionate, technologically savvy fan bases. Though it looks like in a couple of these cases, not quite passionate enough to save the show from extinction. Sorry, "Dollhouse." I should've done more to spread the word. [NY Times]


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There is no other way to put it, injuries are devastating. I managed to injure my ankle tonight while hopping off the treadmill. I had just run 2.85 miles in 33 minutes (walked part of that time as warm up/cool down). I felt fine the whole time on the treadmill. When I stepped off the back, my left ankle gave out on me. This is the ankle that has an old break in it from an injury that occurred about four years ago now. Amazing how it just keeps creeping back up. Anyway, I fell down to the ground and felt awful. The pain surged up my leg and I instantly was depressed about what had just happened. A nice guy lifting weights asked me if I was ok and I thanked him for asking. I walked it off and felt a little better. I also stretched and took off my shoe to see how it felt. The pain was really bad so I just decided to leave and get home ASAP to ice it.
Luckily I had a paradice pack in the freezer and a good nurse to help me feel better just by petting his cute little face.
Breakfast: honey nut cheerios and coffee
Snack: Almond Latte and Blue Diamond raw almonds
Lunch: lemon chobani with strawberries (such a good combination); a bagel thin with pb & j, a string cheese and an unpictured nutella cookie.
Dinner: since my foot was killing me, I warmed up the rest of the beer battered tofu and chowed down. I also had Stonyfield plain yogurt with Kashi cocoa granola and chia seeds.
My goal is to read A Homemade Life or an e-book tonight and catch up on my google reader, so off I go.


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Friday, April 8, 2011
A Tale of Two Lamps
15 comments:
Those lamps are fabulous!!! You did an amazing job and I love the entire space.ReplyDelete
Beautiful! I love the colors. I saw those shades on clearance at Target, now I wish I picked some up!ReplyDelete
Beautiful pops of color! Well done.ReplyDelete
SO pretty! They look perfect :)ReplyDelete
i wish there was a liking button on blogs like on facebook, cause then i could just click it for every single one!ReplyDelete
i'm so glad you decided to link up to fridays unfolded...these lamps are gorgeous...adore the navy and yellow...well done!ReplyDelete
stuff and nonsense
Clever lady.....looks great! Looking forward to more posts. DianeReplyDelete
Wow what a transformation! They look fabulous. Love the color.ReplyDelete
Lovely makeover!ReplyDelete
I am having a fine art photography giveaway by Melanie Alexander. Check it out!
I am having a fine art photography giveaway by Melanie Alexander. All you need to do is leave me a comment telling me which is your favorite image.check it out!
How fun to find a fellow paint enthusiast. Love what you've done. I came by way of giller girl.ReplyDelete
These look amazing! I can't believe how they looked before! New follower too.ReplyDelete
Love the lamps AND the styling!ReplyDelete
What a pretty made-over lamp! Reminds me of summer and the sea! Love it!ReplyDelete
How clever to use bias tape!ReplyDelete
Linked to you here: http://mommysavers.com/boards/your-creative-side/157224-lamp-makeovers.html
I love them, Nat!ReplyDelete
Do you use wipe on Poly? I need to get into the groove. I've been so bad. I rarely prime and then hardly ever wax or poly. I need to step up my game!


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The European GNSS Evolution Programme (EGEP) aims to undertake technology research, development and verification relating to Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS). It accompanies the introduction of operational GNSS systems to support European scientific, technical and industrial expertise, it brings industrial knowhow on a par internationally, it sustains European competitiveness and innovation capabilities, and prepares for evolutions and upgrades of the EGNOS and Galileo navigation infrastructures.
The programme also contributes to the consolidation of ESA's technical expertise in its role as design authority and procurement agent for the European GNSS programmes.
Proposal to the Ministerial Council
The proposed extension of EGEP includes the following activities:
- Start Phase-B2 for the next-generation EGNOS version V3;
- Analyse the upgrading of the final batch of Galileo's Full Operational Capability (FOC) satellites to provide new capabilities, and analyse and define a large-class platform for the following batches of satellites;
- Provide testbeds for maintenance, operation and upgrading to support the evolution of EGNOS and Galileo through experimentation campaigns and to prepare for the introduction of new services;
- Complementary activities include support studies, development and implementation of technical facilities, technology developments and GNSS science.


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Dear Em,
St. Patrick's day, (if Im not mistaken,) and a pretty good day over here at that, as far as the weather is conserned. How is South Boston? I suppose she is dressed up like a chap on leave. Do you remember when I used to get the afternoon off, hurry home, get into a uniform and hit out for the Armory to take part in its celibration? OO La La. Those were happy days. Parading days, the last one, when I marched as a member of Co. K 8th Mass. N.G. in our farewell to Boston. Some what different today, lined up against a nation that has been at it for close to four years.
Although still in the trenches the fellows all seem to remember different experiences that they have had on this day and to hear some of them talk of them is not only funny but a pleasant reminder. So much for St Patrick, only I wish he was in Germany and if so I think it would be almost wholly depopulated.
I know I won't get any mail from you for quite a while now and you will have to rest content on receipt of the same dose I think. I will write as often as I can but this will probably be useless for I will not be able to mail what letters I do write. I cannot tell you in this, why this condition will exist for the movement of troops mentioned in a letter is far from common sence.
The boys are all in good health including myself the last named more so if anything. The boshe have been feeding us up with gas latly but up to this writing no one in this company has suffered from its effects. Gas alert is very much the rule now, and very often they are worn. I class the one that I now rest my chin on, my best friend as well as does every other man on this front. One thing can be said though and that is for every gas shell that Fritz sends over the Allies give them three.
I suppose you're wondering why Im writing in pencil. Well I had a fight with the pen and Im sorry to say I got the best of it. You know what I am when I get my mad up. As usual I spilled the soup and ruined the scenery about me, just as I would the table cloth. How about it Lena? I don't suppose I should speak of this table cloth racket but we might as well think of things we long to see again. Im bitting my little finger nail too as I write. You see Em Im just Sammie in France that's all. I wish I could dig up something to write about but you see my mind is very much at home tonight, and you know I never write when at home. Or say an awful lot either.
One of the boys got a letter from a friend of his in Charlestown who says that at night there are very few fellows out and that everything is dead. Id never know the old town now I guess judging from this. I hope for the sake of others that your laughing days are over as far as the kids coasting is conserned, but that those same kids will hold their anual and enormous May Parties to amuse you. Say Em I think the funniest sights I ever witnessed was a May Party up by the house. I suppose they will be at it soon and here is hoping that they will enjoy them selves more this year than any previous. If I was there I wouldnt miss them. I think Id rather see them than Napolean when said gent was running.
Well Em the cooties are neither calling or sending be to bed. The rats are neither lonesome nor crouded, the Boshe is neither noisey or sleeping, the blanket neither wants me nor leaves me, and a lot more neithers or eithers but Sam is going to flop, pull said blanket over me and pound my ear. I hope it is only one ear too because a fellow looses valuable time turning over. Yes Em (after sharpening this pencil for the final thrust) Im going to have a good sleep tonight for I have both the time, place, inclination and ability.
We had a good stew tonight for supper, with three slices of bread, and a cup of coffee. You see Em we are very well fixed, and with all our troubles packed away in our old kit bags we smile smile smile. Call me at quarter of seven in the morning for I nead a shave.
Good night all with love
Sgt. S.E. Avery Hdq. Co. 103rd Inf A.E.F.
© Copyright 2009 by Richard Landers, All Rights Reserved. No reproduction without permission.


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Paul Walker died at the age of 40 Saturday, after he lost his life in a car accident.
Following his tragic death, the "Fast and Furious" star's fans and friends have shared their condolences and memories of him, posting everything from nostalgic pictures to kind words about the late star.
Walker started his career as a child actor, starring in commercials and going on to play Jeremy Beatty in the television series "Throb" when he was 13.
U.S. & World
Aside from the hit "Fast and the Furious" film franchise, he went on to star in the likes of "Varsity Blues," "Into the Blue," "Takers" and many more notable movies.
Take a look back at some of the actor's biggest roles.
"Fast and the Furious": Best known for his role as Brian O' Conner in the action film franchise, Walker played a car racing fugitive who was always trying to evade authorities with his ladylove (Jordana Brewster). Although his own life was very different from that of his character, back in May, he told Celebuzz the parallels between Brian's life and his life were "crazy." "I'm like what the hell? It's personal stuff, ya know. But I look at it and it's like, I substitute this for that, and that for that. But in terms of journey, it's been pretty similar," he went on.
"Varsity Blues": In the sports drama, the actor played West Canaan high school quarterback Lance Harbor, whose troubles begin after he was talked into taking anesthetic shots in his injured knee to continue playing the game.
"Into the Blue": Walker played hottie diver Jared (and the love interest of Jessica Alba) in the action flick, which told the tale of a group of divers who find a shipwreck packed with treasure and the remains of a plane that has cocaine in its cargo. What seemed like an amazing find at first soon takes a turn when the drug lord comes back to claim what he lost.
"Takers": The actor played John Rahway, a professional bank robber who tries to pull off a heist of an armored car for a $20 million payoff with his fellow robbers, played by Idris Elba, Chris Brown, Michael Ealy and Hayden Christensen.
"The Skulls": In this psychological thriller, Walker played Caleb Mandrake, a wealthy new member of the Skulls, who strikes up a friendship with another new initiate named Luke McNamara (Joshua Jackson). Drama ensues when Caleb sees the evil his father, the Chairman of the Skulls, is capable of when an unfortunate incident occurs.


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last year, finished a 3d Model of a work I was doing in personal capacity. Thought of compiling together a small clip of the same. So here it is, "The Observatory"
Did you use a dolly? The whole shot is nicely done!
StormyKnight hey thanks. Well the whole scene was actually created in blender but in hitfilm, I added cinema style and music composition.
Ha! Well it looked real to me!!! The only thing that caught my eye was a little sharp back and forth of the camera just as it starts to move away at the end. Otherwise- like I said.....couldn't tell it was fake. BRAVO!
Thanks man and you picked it really well. At the end just for a sec the camera movement went out of synch. I only noticed it when the whole pain taking render finished.
Nice details. I love the wood textures you've used.
Nice! I wouldn't tweak your wood texture too much. Weathered, rough wood would not be very shiny or reflective anyway. It looks natural and correct the way it is. Nice model and very mysterious.
What Stargazer said. That's aged raw wood, not painted or lacquered!
It definitely looks like wood. You might think about making the lid flat, or else constructing wedged pieces using your wood material like a carpenter would construct a wood lid that's domed like that.
Thanks guys for your suggestions and analysis.
Here I have two different views of the same model.
Stargazer54 , thanks. I have seen other forums of other softwares related to 3d modeling and stuff, there are competitions and there collaborative work between people on different projects. Hitfilm should also have something of the sort. Or may be add another section in the forum for people to get together on building something together.
In lieu of a button for this:
@Ahssan years ago there waa a large community wide project. Unfortunately the reality of getting a couple of dozen volunteers on the same project in their spare time ended up killing it.
Not saying it's a bad idea, just that life can get in the way. A collaborative project should certainly be relatively small to start. @spydurhank probably has more he could say.
I have a small project doing in my personal capacity. Its a small 3d animation like 3 to 4 mins clip. I have made my character in blender and some other stuff like mountains and clouds. But its all about now making the right camera movement, adding life to flat shots, some energy to make it fun to see.
It looked very realistic. At first, I thought it would be a very low poly texture, but it looked very realistic. Couldn't actually believe that was fake.
24kmoviemaker, thanks man.
Actually used PBR texture for this and used bump maps to make texture have a realistic rough surface. I'm glad it looks realistic. Hardwork paid off
I liked the panoramic shot of this, it gives and organic feel to it. Thought somebody else might also like the same so here , sharing it.


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Handwritten copy of Petrie Journals 1893-1897
- Petrie MSS 2.3
- Dossier
- 1893-1897
Fait partie de William Matthew Flinders Petrie Collection
Handwritten copies, created by Kate Bradbury (m. Griffith), excerpts of Petrie's journals from December 1893 to January 1897. Presumably created by Bradbury when the Petrie journals were circulated to friends and sponsors. The excerpts include:
-Pages 1-9 - February-April 1893 - Petrie photographing objects in the museums in Bologna, Florence, and Turin, as well as visits to archaeological sites in Italy including Pompeii.
-Pages 11-51 - 1893-4 - excavations at Qift (Koptos).
-Pages 52-81 - 1894-5 - excavations at Tukh (Nubt), Ballas and Naqada, Petrie assisted by J. E. Quibell, B. P. Grenfell and Hugh Price.
-Pages 82-90 - 1895-6 - excavations at Thebes including the Ramesseum, Temple of Thutmose IV and the Temple of Amenophis II.
-Pages 91-119 - 1896-7 - excavations at Beni Mazar and Bibeh.
Griffith, Kate


text:
We've been looking forward to "Project X" since it was first announced last summer, and while it's gonna miss it's original release date by about four months, the first trailer has renewed our interest.
The film, produced by "Hangover" director Todd Phillips and helmed by music video veteran Nima Nourizadeh, was intended to be "shot in cinema-vérité style, where the audience will experience the party only through the first-person observer view of the camera, so essentially, we will be at the party too," a description that the trailer lives up to.
U.S. & World
The day's top national and international news.
The trailer depicts essentially the greatest high school party you were never invited, an epic Bacchanal of cute girls, beer, bouncy castles, DJs and more... Peaking our interest further is the presence of Miles Teller, who's grabbed our attention with two great performances--in "Rabbit Hole" and "Footloose"--since he was announced as one of the "nobodies" who were originally cast.
"Proejct X" opens March 2, 2012.


text:
AMES, Iowa, April 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- NewLink Genetics Corporation (NASDAQ: NLNK), a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing cancer therapeutics, today announced the initiation of a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled Phase 2 clinical study of its first IDO (indoleamine-(2,3)-dioxygenase) pathway inhibitor, indoximod, in patients with metastatic breast cancer. The Phase 2 clinical study will evaluate indoximod as a new approach to treating cancer by administering this novel IDO pathway inhibitor, designed to counteract a key mechanism by which tumors evade immune-mediated destruction, in combination with a conventional cytotoxin, docetaxel. This Phase 2 clinical study follows the successful Phase 1b dose-escalation study of indoximod in patients with advanced solid tumors in which a favorable safety profile and promising early signs of activity were observed. Indoximod is the most advanced product candidate to enter clinical trials based on NewLink's proprietary IDO pathway inhibitor platform for small-molecule, orally bioavailable cancer immunotherapies.
"There is significant unmet need for new approaches that may offer more effective treatment options for patients with metastatic breast cancer, a leading cause of death in women in the United States," said Hatem Soliman , MD, a medical oncologist specializing in breast cancer in The Center for Women's Oncology at Moffitt Cancer Center and the principal investigator for this study. "Indoximod has demonstrated promising safety, pharmacokinetic and biologic activity in earlier clinical studies and we look forward to increasing our understanding of its potential in metastatic breast cancer with this robust Phase 2 study designed to evaluate the activity of indoximod in combination with a conventional chemotherapy across a number of clinically relevant endpoints."
"Indoximod, an IDO pathway inhibitor is an immune check point inhibitor akin to the recently developed antibodies targeting CTLA-4 and PD-1. IDO can be expressed within both tumor cells and/or antigen presenting cells to create local immune suppression to impair immunological detection and destructions of tumors," commented Dr. Charles Link , Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NewLink. "We are excited about the promising approach of using novel therapies, like indoximod, to harness key mechanisms of the immune system to enhance the body's cancer-fighting abilities and enhance the effect of other therapies. NewLink intends to pursue this strategy as we advance other clinical candidates from our IDO pathway inhibitor platform as well as our novel candidates from our HyperAcute immunotherapy platform."
This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2 clinical study is designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of indoximod in combination with docetaxel as compared to docetaxel alone in up to 120 patients with metastatic breast cancer. Study endpoints include progression-free survival, objective response rate, median overall survival and evaluation of pharmacodynamic tumor markers, in addition to safety. For more information about the study please refer to www.clinicaltrials.gov.
About indoximod and inhibition of the IDO pathway
IDO (indoleamine-(2,3)-dioxygenase) pathway inhibitors, also known as one of the key class of checkpoint inhibitors, represent a potential breakthrough approach to cancer therapy using small-molecule, anti-toleragenic product candidates intended to counteract a key mechanism by which tumors evade immune-mediated destruction. IDO is an enzyme that regulates immune response by suppressing T-cell function and enabling local tumor immune escape. Recent studies have demonstrated that IDO is overexpressed in many cancers, within both tumor cells as a direct defense against T-cell attack, and also within antigen presenting cells in tumor draining lymph nodes whereby IDO promotes peripheral tolerance to tumor associated antigens (TAAs). When hijacked by developing cancers in this manner, IDO may facilitate the survival, growth, invasion, and metastasis of malignant cells expressing TAAs that might otherwise be recognized and attacked by the immune system. Indoximod is currently in multiple Phase 1B/2 studies targeting breast cancer. These include combination studies with docetaxel and with an autologous p-53 Dendritic Cell vaccine. In addition to its clinical product candidate indoximod, NewLink has an active program directed at synthesizing other IDO pathway inhibitors.
About NewLink Genetics Corporation
NewLink Genetics Corporation is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing novel immunotherapeutic products to improve treatment options for cancer patients. NewLink's portfolio includes biologic and small-molecule immunotherapy product candidates intended to treat a wide range of oncology indications. NewLink's product candidates are designed to harness multiple components of the immune system to combat cancer without significant incremental toxicity, either as a monotherapy or in combination with other treatment regimens. NewLink's lead product candidate, algenpantucel-L (HyperAcute® Pancreas) is being studied in a Phase 3 clinical trial in surgically resected pancreatic cancer patients (under a Special Protocol Assessment with the U.S. FDA) as well as in a separate study in locally advanced pancreatic cancer patients. NewLink has recently launched an adaptive design Phase 2B/3 clinical trial of tergenpumatucel-L (HyperAcute® Lung) in patients with non-small cell lung cancer. NewLink is developing indoximod, a small-molecule, orally bioavailable product candidate from NewLink's proprietary indoleamine-(2,-3)-dioxygenase pathway inhibitor technology. NewLink is studying indoximod in various chemotherapy and immunotherapy combination studies independently and in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute. For more information please visit http://www.linkp.com. Patient information is available at http://www.pancreaticcancer-clinicaltrials.com.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements of NewLink that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, contained in this press release are forward-looking statements, within the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "plan,""target," "potential," "will,""could," "should,""seek," or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. These forward-looking statements include, among others, statements about: the prospects of algenpantucel-L, indoximod and our other HyperAcute product candidates and related clinical trials. Actual results or events could differ materially from the plans, intentions and expectations disclosed in the forward-looking statements that NewLink makes due to a number of important factors, including risks relating to: the initiation of clinical trials and the completion of enrollment; adverse general economic and industry conditions; and those risks discussed in "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in NewLink's Quarterly Report on Form 10-K for the period ended December 31, 2012, Form S-3 Registration Statement filed December 28, 2012 and in its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements in this press release represent NewLink's views as of the date of this press release. NewLink anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause its views to change. However, while it may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, it specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. You should, therefore, not rely on these forward-looking statements as representing NewLink's views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.
Gordon Link
Chief Financial Officer
|SOURCE NewLink Genetics Corporation
Copyright©2012 PR Newswire.
All rights reserved


text:
Stormy Daniels' Lawyer In Iowa, Says It's Not A Stunt
By CATHERINE LUCEY , Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Michael Avenatti's crusade for the porn actress taking on the president has already catapulted him to cable news stardom and endeared him to many frustrated liberals. Now the self-styled "dragon slayer" is taking his message to Iowa Democrats.
And the attorney who has spent months positioning himself as one of President Donald Trump's leading critics insists this foray into Iowa — an early proving ground on the presidential campaign calendar — is not a stunt.
"I am seriously considering it, and I think a lot of it is going to hinge on what direction I think the party is taking and who is likely to get in the race," Avenatti said in an interview. He said he's not trying "to get under the president's skin."
For now, Avenatti has plenty of spotlight as the top 2020 presidential prospects stay away from Iowa. He has not made any formal moves toward a presidential run, but he toured the Iowa State Fair on Thursday and was set to appear at the Democratic Wing Ding in Clear Lake on Friday. Organizers of the fundraiser for county Democratic organizations said they were happy to welcome him to an event that has drawn heavy hitters like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in past years. If anything, they said, he was boosting interest.
"Let's put it this way: Tickets are selling, and we're getting a lot of women buying tickets," said Wing Ding chairman Randy Black, who said Avenatti reached out to say he was considering attending the event and they asked him if he would like to speak.
Avenatti said his visit to the State Fair included a stop at the butter cow — a cow sculpted in butter — two pork chops on a stick and plenty of conversation with people who recognized him and encouraged him to keep going. He is meeting with Democratic party officials Friday, as well as farmers who have been impacted by Trump's tariffs.
"I've been humbled over the last two days by the reaction that I received," he said.
Novelty candidates are nothing new to politically savvy Iowans. Indeed, Trump — who did not win the Republican caucuses but did win the state in the 2016 general election — was a reality star before he took to the campaign trail. Black said Avenatti could have a similar effect, noting: "You have Trump, who opened up doors for people who never entered a political arena before. Michael Avenatti has done the same thing."
The similarities between Avenatti and his chosen nemesis don't stop there. Like Trump, Avenatti is a brash political outsider with a natural talent for cable television news, a blistering Twitter feed and a knack for a catchy slogan. He turned those tools against Trump as he represents Stormy Daniels and a growing list of critical clients.
Whether the trash-talking, sharp-suited, telegenic attorney is the right fit for low-key Iowa in the long run is an open question, as is whether he'd actually want to subject himself to the grind of a campaign. He'll get his first stylistic test in Clear Lake, where Black says he has made clear that "we're not here to bash, we're here to energize the base."
Avenatti, who attended high school in Missouri, got his legal training on the East Coast and built his law practice in Los Angeles, said his remarks would focus on "how as a party we need to fight this fight. And what we need to fight for and who we need to fight for."
But he admitted his appeal was of the bare-knuckle variety, noting, "I'm not cute and cuddly."
Democratic consultant Mary Anne Marsh said Avenatti deserves credit for being able to rile up Trump and Iowa Democrats deserve credit for bringing more attention to the fundraiser.
"The Iowa Democrats are many things. Dumb's not one," she said. "They know how to get attention. They know how to raise money. That doesn't mean Michael Avenatti is on the way to winning the Iowa caucuses."
Avenatti will share the stage Friday with Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, Maryland Rep. John Delaney and businessman Andrew Yang. Many top-tier prospects — including former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York — are avoiding Iowa so far.
Amid his growing profile, Avenatti continues to represent Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. She has said she had sex with Trump in 2006, months after his third wife gave birth to their son, but Trump has denied it. Days before the 2016 presidential election, Daniels was paid $130,000 to stay silent in a deal handled by Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen. She is suing to invalidate the nondisclosure agreement.
But Avenatti's reach has extended. In recent weeks, he has protested Trump in London, accepted an award in Denver and visited children in New York who had been separated from their parents at the U.S. border. He expects to devote more time to Democratic Party events in the coming weeks, with plans to appear in Ohio, Florida and Iowa (again).
So far, Avenatti hasn't taken any other steps toward a run, like hiring staff or raising money, though he says he has heard from consultants. He describes his political philosophy as "a Bill Clinton Democrat who embraces a few fundamental concepts of the progressive left," such as "Medicare for all." And he argues that while he has no background in politics, "I might argue that I'm certainly more well-versed in many concepts of government and the law than our sitting president."
Longtime Iowa Democratic activist Sue Dvorsky said she didn't see a downside in welcoming Avenatti to Iowa.
"The Wing Ding isn't a setup to have deep policy conversations. It's a Wing Ding, for God's sake!" she said. "I think it's going to be fun, it's going to be entertaining and I think he's got something important to say."
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Happy Holidays Packet - English Single White Daisy
If only it snowed snowflakes crafted of the finest open-pollinated seeds!
Each special edition holiday packet fits conveniently inside a standard greeting card and contains our English Single White Daisy - a classic dwarf daisy that you can plant in early winter to fill your heart with the joy the following spring. The back of each packet has room for a small personalized message to spread the holiday cheer!
Instead of buying a bouquet which will wilt in a week or two, give the gift of unlimited flowers! These open-pollinated seeds can be saved year after year for a truly endless supply of daisies.
Special Edition Packet designed by Carolyn Dugas of Studio Gooz.
This packet contains our English Single White Daisy: This classic dwarf daisy has bright white petals set against a yellow center and will grow to be about 6" tall. The flowers make a beautiful groundcover that bees and butterflies will love. Direct seed in late fall or early winter for spring germination. Spring and fall blooming. Full sun or partial shade. Perennial.
- Shipping and Handling Costs
- Shipping Policy / Delivery Policy
- Refund Policy
- Security Policy
- Privacy Policy
- Photo Policy
Shipping and Handling CostsOur website automatically calculates shipping costs based on weight, and zip code. If your order is under 1 lb you have the option of USPS First Class, USPS Priority, or UPS Ground. If your order is 1 lb or over it will be shipped USPS Priority or UPS Ground, it can NOT be shipped USPS First Class. Return to Top
Shipping Policy / Delivery Policy
Orders with all items in stock will ship in 3-4 business days, plus transit time. During peak season (January - April) please allow extra time for your order to be fulfilled. We do NOT process orders on the weekend, if you place an order on Friday it will be processed on Monday.
All orders are shipped by the United States Postal Service or UPS, either USPS First Class, USPS Priority, or UPS Ground. USPS First Class (under 1 pound) transit time 5-6 business days. USPS Priority and UPS Ground (1lb and over) transit time 2-3 business days. If your order is over 1 lb it will be shipped USPS Priority or UPS Ground (depending on what you chose in check out), it can NOT be shipped USPS First Class. All transit times varies by season. If you want to receive tracking information please provide an email when placing your order, tracking information is sent via email. If you require expedited shipping please call us at 828-254-0708.
Pre-Order/ Seasonal Items:
If your order contains a Pre-Order/ Seasonal item(s), example: Garlic, Shallots, Seed Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, etc., they will be shipped during the season those items are available. Seasonal Items will be shipped and available based on South East planting times. If your order has both Pre-Order / Seasonal items and seed packets, cover crops, etc., Pre-Order items will NOT delay the other items in your order from being shipped. Those NON Pre-Order/ Seasonal items (seed packets, cover crops, etc.) will be shipped within 3-4 business days, and the Pre-Order/ Seasonal items will ship out separately as they become available based on South East planting times.
Local Pick-Up:
If you live near Asheville, North Carolina, and would like to pick up your order, instead of paying shipping, you can select local pick up in your cart. Please provide a phone number and (or) email address so we can contact you when your order is ready to pick up. Please allow 2-3 days to process local pick up orders during peak season (Januray-April). If you do NOT live in North Carolina, for example you live in Johnson City, Tennessee and would like to pick up your order instead of paying shipping, please put our address as the shipping address:
Sow True Seed 243 Haywood St, Asheville, NC 28801
If you do not use a North Carolina shipping address it will not allow you to select local pick up.
Refund Policy
We rigorously test our seed two times a year through the NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to ensure that your seed will germinate and remain viable as long as it is stored correctly. We never sell seed that does not meet the Federal standards of germination. For quality control reasons, we regret that we cannot accept returns of seed, but if for any reason your seed does not germinate within the sell-by date, we will gladly replace the seed. We ask that you keep the LOT# from the seed packet so we can keep track of any complaints.
Security Policy
Your payment and personal information is always safe. Our Secure Sockets Layer software is the industry standard and among the best software available today for secure commerce transactions. It encrypts all of your personal information, including credit card number, name, and address, so that it cannot be read over the internet.
Privacy Policy
We respect and are committed to protecting your privacy. We may collect personally identifiable information when you visit our site. We also automatically receive and record information on our server logs from your browser including your IP address, cookie information and the pages you visited. We will never sell your personally identifiable information to anyone, ever.
Photo Policy
TERMS FOR IMAGE RIGHTS - these things always sound scary, but basically we enjoyed your photo and would love to use it so other people can see what our seeds can become! We'd love to do that without getting in trouble, so being that we live in a crazy world, here are a few terms:
If you agree to permit us to use the photograph, we will need you to agree to a few terms. The terms are as follows:
- I represent and warrant that I am the individual that submitted the referenced photograph ("Photograph"). Further, I confirm that any other individuals shown in the Photograph have agreed to be included and permitted me to agree to these terms on their behalf and agreed to the license granted here or that I am authorized to agree on their behalf.
- I represent and warrant that the Photograph is my own original work, and that the Photograph does not violate any law, regulation or any right of any third-party, including but not limited to rights of copyright, trademark, publicity and/or privacy.
- Further, I confirm that I am granting Sow True Seed, 146 Church St, Asheville NC 28801 a non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free, fully-paid license to edit, display, reproduce, modify, use, and distribute the Photograph (in whole or in part).
- To that end, I agree to indemnify Sow True Seed against any claims made by individuals pictured in the Photograph, any claims pertaining to copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property law violations, and any claims by individuals that may contest Sow True Seed's right to use the Photograph as described above.
- I understand and agree that this is a complete RELEASE and DISCHARGE of all or any claims and rights that I may have against Sow True Seed and that no action will be taken by me or on my behalf with respect to any such rights, it being understood that this Release shall be binding upon my heirs, executors, and administrators.


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Summer Style
We are in the home stretch: school's almost out and summer is about to begin! As we get closer to breaking out our favorite summer pieces, here are a few of my favorites.
Outfit 1:
As the weather is warming up this outfit is perfect for the season transition. I got this adorable Forever 21 white tank top at Plato's Closet for $7! I decided to pair this cute tank with my favorite ripped jeans and sandals to create this look. To top off this outfit, I accessorized with a gold initial bracelet from Plato's Closet ($5) and a cute pair of sunnies ($4)! This is perfect if you're looking for a cute outfit to grab a bite to eat or go on a walk outside.
Outfit 2:
This next outfit has a bit of festive flair! I got this adorable light pink halter tank at my local Plato's Closet for only $6! I paired the tank with some fun, ripped festival shorts and sandals to top off my look. I decided to add some fun accessories I picked up at Plato's Closet! Grab your purse and you're ready to go to your next music festival!
Outfit 3:
For my final look, I chose to go fresh and flirty! I picked up this adorable two-piece set at my local Plato's Closet for only $16! Definitely a steal! I chose to dress this outfit up by adding a layered gold necklace ($6), sunglasses ($4), and a boho bag ($6). This is definitely a look I'll be packing for a summer vacation!
I hope these looks get you ready for fun in the sun!
Blog By: Grace Myler | @gracemyler
Photos: @amsingerphotos


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Tag : content delivery network
Why You Need A Fast Loading Website
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Websites are an important way of attracting online consumers in order to make them aware of one's brand. If the website does not load in less than three seconds, then one can lose visitors. With bigger websites, it is estimated that the loading time can be as fast as two seconds – any slower than this, and website owners risk losing customers. Here are some of top tips for cutting down website loading time:
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"The Hangover" might not have received big love from the Academy this year, but it's won hearts in MTV land.
The raunchy comedy about a forgotten drunken evening was remembered in a big way -- beating out titans "Avatar" and "New Moon" for the greatest number of MTV nominations.
"The Hangover" received six nominations including best movie. Ken Jeong made the best of his limited screen time with a Best WTF Moment nomination (jumping out of a car trunk naked fits the description) and a best villain. Bradley Cooper is up for best comedic performance. Thankfully, Zach Galifianakis was nominated as best breakout star and best comedic performance.
Voters did miss out on Mike Tyson's amazing cameo. And the best use of wandering chicken in a hangover scene. But that's really quibbling.
The movie was shut out of the Academy Awards despite much hype about the expanded field of 10 best pictures.
"Avatar" might be the biggest grossing movie of all time -- but it received only five nominations. The second movie in the "Twilight" series "New Moon" also received five.
"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and "The Proposal" with Sandra Bullock received four each.
The winners will be announced at the MTV Awards on June 6 in the live ceremony hosted by "Parks and Recreation" actor Aziz Ansari.
"Hangover" Party Begins Again, Leads MTV Award Nominations
"The Hangover" might not have received big love from the Academy this year, but it's won hearts in MTV land.


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Please read this article with a grain of salt. The concentration of cool is so high, though, that it's worth reporting in case it turns out. We know the next film in the Fast and Furious series (let's call it Fast 6) will be director Justin Lin's next project, and he's already made headway with a pre-vised 12-minute final sequence. Universal must like what they see, because the studio is reportedly ready to double down on their most reliable franchise. Twitch hears Universal is looking into shooting Fast 6 and Fast 7 back to back in Europe in 2012. Cool news in itself, but there's more. After the jump.
When the series ventured to Rio for Fast Five, action superstar Dwayne Johnson came aboard. If the pattern holds for the hypothetically European sequel(s), one name comes to mind: Jason Statham. Twitch says Universal is in preliminary talks with Statham to join one or both sequels. Sounds like a terrific idea to this writer, though Statham's involvement is, of course, "far from a sure thing."
Still, this is a lot to chew on for now. We'll stay on top of development—in the meantime, please tentatively dream of Statham, Johnson, Vin Diesel, Paul Walker (I guess), and the rest of the gang speeding through the streets of London*. Hit the jump for the quote from Lin as he looks forward to more Fast.
From this article:
"My whole thing is about respecting the audience and respecting the evolution of these characters—and they've grown and now the family is back together. And in many ways, some of the big pieces of Fast Six have already been discussed: I already have a 12-minute sequence done. I did it just as an exercise. I had it done before we were finished with Fast Five, actually. So I wanted to do that just to have it there and to be honest with you, I didn't know if I was going to do a Fast Six. I didn't know if people were going to embrace Fast Five and we were going to have an opportunity. But I felt like I really wanted to make sure that the last scene, which I had talked to Vin about countless times—I wanted to make sure that was done. So actually I boarded it, I pre-vised it, and I cut it. So it's funny, when we were in Atlanta shooting it, I already had the end sequence to Fast Six done. And that was what I wanted to work towards."
Fast Six is scheduled for release on May 24, 2013.
*The over/under for jokes about driving on the wrong side of the road is currently set at 3.5. I have the over.


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June 12, 2012
The fight never ends when bringing in a largemouth bass, like this one Casey Scanlon hooked at Lone Star Lake last month. Scanlon, 28, has been fishing competitively since he was 15.
Stories this photo appears in:
Area angler joins the elites
LONE STAR — The fish play hard to get at first on this windswept late spring day, one of at least 200 that Casey Scanlon will spend on a lake this year. Today it's Lone Star Lake in southwest Douglas County where the 28-year-old Lenexa resident and Kansas University alum will fish to tune up for June's three Bassmaster Elite Series tournaments — the first of which was fished over the weekend at Toledo Bend in Many, La.
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You have to go to school when you should be staying home, or rather going to Dorney.
You spend half the day doing nothing but watching random videos of dorney from random websites, and get two viruses in doing so.
Moderator: dptalon135
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The error code 5B00 means the waste ink counter is full, you need to reset it.
First, search and download the resetter PCM_servicetool (.rar)
Step 1: enter in service mode in order to used the resetter:
- Turn off the printer without pulling the power cords.
- Hold down Resume button and press Power button.
- Keep holding down Power button and let Resume button go.
- Then Press Resume button 5 times then let both buttons go.
- The Alternate Blinking error is gone: the printer is in Service Mode state.
Step 2:
- Extract the resetter and double click "servicetool.exe"
- Click Reload Button and you will get a new USB port.
- Load some papers in your printer and press the "Main" Button, wait until it shows "error 001" then press OK.
- Then press "EEPROM" button and the printer will print some text, after that click OK
- Then power off the printer (sometimes you have to press twice the power button to turn off) and turn on again.
- That's done.
- Error 005: the printer is not compatible with this service tool
- Error 006 with the Service tool:


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Review: Otis Taylor, My World Is Gone
My World Is Gone is an enveloping, at times even uplifting album, its charms diminished only by moments of jumble and overreach.
Among the numerous instruments at Mato Nanji's disposal is a mournful, melodious guitar, equally effective whether the Indigenous frontman has a slide on his pinky or not. It was a chance encounter with Nanji that birthed Otis Taylor's concept for My World Is Gone, a vivid song cycle of secondhand tales about life on the reservation, about loves and birthrights lost. A sometimes dour, doomstruck album, My World Is Gone nonetheless boasts a palpable pulse, both moral and musical, that keeps it humming along nicely. This pulse inheres in the space between Nanji's guitar and Taylor's banjo and deep-throated, early-model voice. Nanji can rip, but he suits his slides and syncopated fills to fit the atmospheric needs of the song.
Taylor remains a sort of smiling conscience among the blues citizenry, an old-timer who still gets youthful banjo geeks hitting pause and rewind ad nauseam while they largely ignore the tremors in his lyrics. My World Is Gone is another socially conscious effort for Taylor, but this time the singer-songwriter/pan-instrumentalist follows in a long line of outsiders who've taken the Native American cause for their own, from Marlon Brando to Neil Young to Ian Frazier. Taylor focalizes his typically perceptive bluesy observations through the plight of the people indigenous to the continent. The songs mainly feature tight, moody grooves, and the few yawners fail only because they lack sufficient ideas (and guitar) to make their self-seriousness ring true.
Taylor's sonic palette is broad: My World Is Gone spans axiomatic blues stomps, loungey baritone horn lines, and string-and-drum figures that sound like a conflation of Crazy Horse and the Jazz Mandolin Project. Only Taylor can make a banjo sing with scrub-guitar patterns usually reserved for pedal-happy funk bands. There's a slightly off-the-rocker eclecticism that sounds a bit like Ry Cooder's, but plenty soulful and rarely boring. Of special note are "Lost My Horse," a jackknife appropriation of the Bo Diddley beat under lyrics about addictions that run in the blood; "The Wind Comes In," which evokes Howlin' Wolf with a banjo; and "Green Apples," a schizoid shuffle with a snazzy recurring 12/8 guitar figure in the vein of CSNY's "Déjà Vu." "Blue Rain in Africa," meanwhile, boasts six-string slide work that sounds very close to gospel steel, a Madeleine Peyroux-style elegy as backed by the Allman Brothers.
Notably, the songs that drag are all missing Nanji's guitar. This fact may indicate, among other things, that Taylor's ventriloquistic and conceptual range is still no match for his skill at evoking a mood. "Sand Creek Massacre Morning," which sounds especially Ry Cooder-y, should be a moving testament to a horrific event; instead, the arrangement torpedoes it—all quasi-military shuffle under horns making loose, Eeyore-like commentary. Gruff and short-spoken in general, Taylor sets a new personal record for lyrical minimalism on My World Is Gone. Much of the time, the music does the talking, with hard syncopation providing a firm, often quite catchy foundation for mournful upper-register arrangements. Taylor writes better Native American protest songs than Robbie Robertson, and the collaboration with Nanji is conspicuously enlivening for the singer. My World Is Gone is an enveloping, at times even uplifting album, its charms diminished only by moments of jumble and overreach.
Label: Telarc Release Date: February 12, 2013 Buy: Amazon
Review: Glass Animals's Dreamland Relies Too Heavily on the Mundanities of Reality
The album makes room for evocative, sensory lyrics and sonics that verge on the cinematic, but it also spends a lot of time on the mundane.3
Glass Animals's Dreamland blurs the line between dreams and reality, winding its way through a diaristic tour of frontman Dave Bayley's life. The album catalogues the singer-songwriter's relationships, observations, and growing pains with a typically felt and colorful attention toward the senses. As such, it's more personal than either of the band's previous two efforts, but that also means that it sacrifices the kaleidoscopic alignment of feeling and imagination that helped make those albums so distinct. It's a bit of a trade-off, then, as the change in subject matter allows Glass Animals to find new direction, but their previous mode of world-building was, in some ways, more satisfying.
The band's 2014 debut, Zaba, was seemingly dispatched from another planet, with lyrics filled with oddball imagery that was accompanied by vaguely exotic, waterlogged instrumentals and distant birdcalls, while 2016's How to Be a Human Being was a playfully literary collection of songs about a cast of fictional characters. Dreamland still makes room for evocative, sensory lyrics and sonics that verge on the cinematic, highlighting the sense of physical touch (the latter word is used several times throughout), but it also spends a lot of time on the mundane artifacts in Bayley's personal memory bank—Grand Theft Auto, hotels with "pool paintings on the wall," Scooby-Doo, The Price Is Right—to middling effect. And his expressions of lust for various lovers alternate between the pedestrian ("Sometimes all I think about is you/Late nights in the middle of June" is repeated ad nauseam on "Heat Wave") and the nonsensical ("You taste like surfing videos," from "Waterfalls Coming Out Your Mouth").
Throughout Dreamland, Bayley remains fixated on the carnal escapes that make reality bearable, like sex and drugs, and the fleetingness of those pleasures, which Glass Animals explores with a knowing wisdom. The band's songs toe the line between dissecting such coping mechanisms and offering an escape of their own: Their bouncy keys, irrepressible melodies, and Bayley's malleable vocals are intoxicating in their own right, belying the fact that these songs are keenly aware of how temporary their pleasures are.
The standout "Your Love (Déjà Vu)" perfectly encapsulates this threading of the needle, pairing twirling flute and celebratory, horn-like synths with lyrics such as, "I know you want one more night/And I'm backsliding/Into this just one more time." The relationship described on the song is a momentary fix whose dwindling potency is conveyed by Glass Animals in such a way that suggests time is running out and that they're making the absolute most of it.
As Dreamland pivots from polished indie rock to electro-pop to hip-hop, it largely sidelines Drew MacFarlane's guitar, which is only front and center on the self-professed B-side "Melon and the Coconut." Thumping 808s and skittering hi-hats dominate songs like "Space Ghost Coast to Coast" and "Heat Wave," replacing the shuffling drums, marimbas, and raw-material-inspired percussion of the band's prior work, and it's surprisingly refreshing. "Tangerine" incorporates a staccato beat that sounds almost identical to the one on Drake's "Hotline Bling," while Dr. Dre is name-checked on "Space Ghost Coast to Coast," a West Coast reference that Glass Animals doubles down on by having Top Dawg fixture Derek Ali mix the track.
Like How to Be a Human Being, Dreamland moves into more vulnerable terrain in the end, but the earlier album's concluding run of emotive anthems, including "Poplar St" and "Agnes," completed a well-rounded emotional arc. Here, songs like "It's All So Incredibly Loud" and "Domestic Bliss"—which focus on a relationship's breaking point and a woman experiencing domestic abuse, respectively—make dreary use of swelling string sections, undermining what should be the album's tragic fulcrum. Instead, Dreamland's best moments are propelled by slick drum machines and Bayley's confidence as a frontman. His turn inward isn't without humor and insight, but writing about other people on past albums provided a more enveloping experience, fleshing out imagined places and people with an intrigue that's missing here.
Release Date: August 7, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Review: Billie Eilish's "My Future" Is an Unexpectedly Upbeat Tribute to Isolation
The singer's new single is a deceptively hopeful tribute to personal independence.
The world could use a pick-me-up right about now, but those hoping that pop singer Billie Eilish would follow up her multi-Grammy-winning debut with a "Bad Guy"-style banger will likely be disappointed by her new single, "My Future." The track, produced by brother Finneas, is the 18-year-old's first new release since February's "No Time to Die," the theme from the James Bond film of the same name, which was pushed to the end of the year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Like that song, "My Future" starts off as a dreary but gorgeous dirge, with Eilish's soulful, layered vocals stacked on top of atmospheric keyboards. Halfway through, though, the track pivots to a spry midtempo shuffle, transforming into a deceptively hopeful tribute to personal independence: "I'm in love with my future/Can't wait to meet her." During a period in history when time itself seems to have come to a halt, and the future is uncertain, the song's lyrics smack of irony: "I know supposedly I'm lonely now/Know I'm supposed to be unhappy without someone/But aren't I someone?"
Eilish gets even more animated in the music video for "My Future." The clip, directed by Australian artist Andrew Onorato, is bathed in cool blue tones before a rainstorm gives way to a more colorful palette, matching the song's shift in mood and tempo. In her isolation, Eilish appears to find solace, communing with and eventually becoming one with nature.
Watch below:
Review: With Folklore, Taylor Swift Mines Pathos from a Widening Worldview
The album anticipates questions surrounding the singer's genre bona fides and leans into each contradiction.4.5
Country and roots music are too often used as shorthand for "serious" artistry, a notion steeped in matters of race and rockist authenticity fetishes. The implication that pop music is an inherently lesser art form has been the focus of the discourse around albums by Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, and Miley Cyrus in recent years. Taylor Swift's Folklore has already been subject to similar—and perhaps similarly misguided—scrutiny. That Swift has enlisted Aaron Dessner of the highly regarded indie-rock band the National as both a songwriting and producing partner—in addition to her frequent pop collaborator Jack Antonoff—and has embraced a grayscale, rustic visual aesthetic for the project has led many to declare the album a credibility maneuver or act of rebranding.
What makes Folklore such a compelling album, then, are the countless ways in which Swift, the savviest and most acutely self-conscious artist of her generation, anticipates questions surrounding her genre bona fides and leans into each apparent contradiction. She invites this degree of "What does it mean?" discursive handwringing because, on some level, it frees her to make the music she wants to make at any given moment. Folklore is neither a culmination of Swift's career to date nor a pivot in a new direction. She's doing exactly what she's always done: offering a collection of incisive, often provocative songs that incorporate authentic, first-person details and leaving others to argue over specific genre signifiers.
Song for song, Folklore finds Swift at a new peak in her command of language. While tracks like "Cardigan" and "Invisible Strings" hinge on protracted metaphors, "Mad Woman" and "Peace" are blunt and plainspoken. In every instance, what's noteworthy is Swift's precision in communicating her exact intent. "I can change everything about me to fit in," she sighs on "Mirrorball," a sentiment that's emblematic of her ability to bait autobiographical readings while also actively subverting them. If she's offering a comment on her own desire to keep up with next-gen pop stars like Billie Eilish, then the obvious follow-up question is why nothing on Folklore sounds like a viable Top 40 single. Swift's answer comes in the song's final stanza, a marvel of vulnerability: "I'm still trying everything/To keep you looking at me."
In other words, Swift's at a point in her career where she knows chart success is incidental to broad cultural impact, and she has the cachet to sacrifice the former for the sake of the latter. "All Too Well," from 2012's Red, has rightfully become one of her signature songs despite not ever having been released as a single, and that same fate seems likely for many of the tracks here. Every song on Folklore boasts at least one couplet or stanza that's simply extraordinary for its command of language, narrative voice, empathy, or some combination thereof.
The standout "Seven" first presents itself as a wistful remembrance of childhood before revealing the complexities of what we lose as we age: "Picture me in the weeds/Before I learned civility/I used to scream ferociously/Whenever I wanted." The song also presents a queer text within Swift's songwriting for the first time, which broadens the narrative voices she's employed over the course of her career. "Illicit Affairs" builds to what seems like it will be one of the singer's trademark middle-eight tone shifts, only to end abruptly without resolving into another chorus, enhancing the sense of finality in her dressing-down of a former lover. Rather than pulling her punches by repeating a catchy refrain or hook, she lets some of her bitterest lines linger, and it's one of the album's most impactful moments. Later, she sings from the POV of the rejected party on "This Is Me Trying" to devastating effect: "You told me all of my cages were mental/So I got wasted like all my potential." The track finds Swift giving credence to the other person's view of her, making for an even more believable narrator.
Swift's early albums were hamstrung by her insistence that hers was the only story to be told—that, essentially, she was the protagonist in everyone else's autobiography, and not just in her own. Folklore's shifting perspectives—an homage to heiress Rebekah Harkness on "The Last Great American Dynasty," the queer through line in the love triangle of "Cardigan," "August," and "Betty"—highlight how Swift's widening worldview has deepened her skills as a songwriter. And even if none of these tracks sound like a "hit," "Invisible String" and "This Is Me Trying" still demonstrate Swift's masterful grasp of song structure. Her use of repetition throughout the album is particularly effective: "The 1" invokes both "the greatest films of all time" and "the greatest loves of all time" as sources of regret, while each stanza on "Invisible String" begins with a line that uses passive voice to create a narrative remove.
That Swift employs her long-established songwriting tropes in novel ways is truly the most significant development on Folklore, rather than her choices of collaborators or whether the album scans as pop or alternative or electro-folk. She's mined this type of melancholy tone before, but never for the full length of an album and certainly never with such a range of perspectives. It isn't the weight of the subject matter alone that makes the album feel so vital—it's the exemplary caliber of her writing. She may sing of wasted potential, but Folklore finds Swift living up to all of the praise she earned for her songwriting earlier in career.
Label: Republic Release Date: July 24, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Taylor Swift Drops Surprise Album Folklore and Self-Directed "Cardigan" Video
The special effects-heavy clip finds the singer climbing inside a dusty upright piano and into a moss-covered fantasy world.
Less than a year after the release of her seventh album, Lover, Taylor Swift has dropped the follow-up, Folklore, along with a music video for the track "Cardigan." The singer announced the surprise release on social media early on Thursday, accompanied by a series of grayscale photos of the erstwhile country star in the woods that—though reminiscent of an A24 horror film or a metal album cover—reflects a return to a more stripped-down sound.
Reportedly shot according to CDC-recommended Covid-19 safety guidelines and overseen by a medical expert, the video for "Cardigan" was directed by Swift, who also reportedly did her own hair, makeup, and styling. The special effects-heavy clip finds the singer climbing inside a dusty upright piano and into a moss-covered fantasy world, tinkling the ivories of an overflowing grand piano at the edge of a CGI waterfall. Later, she clings to the instrument on a stormy sea before traveling back to reality.
Co-written and produced by the National's Aaron Dessner, "Cardigan" is an unassuming piano ballad notable for its pointillistic percussion and Swift's understated vocal performance. As for the titular sweater, it apparently serves as a metaphor for an artist whose love life bears the marks of more than a little wear and tear: "When I felt like I was an old cardigan under someone's bed/You put me on and said I was your favorite."
Watch the video below:
Folklore was written and recorded remotely with Dessner and features collaborations with Bon Iver, Jack Antonoff, and a mysterious songwriter billed as William Bowery (after all, it wouldn't be a Taylor Swift album without a little sleuth-baiting).
Folklore is out now on Republic Records.
Review: Ellie Goulding's Brightest Blue Trades the Garish for the Merely Palatable
The album refines the singer's sound, slowing tempos and removing sonic affectations to reveal a core of amorous pop anthems.1.5
Ellie Goulding's Brightest Blue begins with the aptly titled "Start," a tasteful, piano-driven rumination about the impossibility of new beginnings and the difficulty of overcoming past regrets. The track showcases the British singer-songwriter's knack for letting songs build and generate suspense, and her skill for creating tension with delayed yet catchy hooks. As the album wears on, though, it's clear that this opening salvo is a fluke, as the rest of the soporific set tries in vain to refine Goulding's sound, slowing tempos and removing sonic affectations to reveal a core of amorous, unmemorable pop anthems.
On past albums, Goulding used bombastic production and copious vocal processing to distract from her limited range as a singer. If not for her whimsical phrasing and over-articulation of words, her paper-thin vocals would feel virtually anonymous. She largely downplays the grandiosity on Brightest Blue, instead opting for more stripped-down ballads like "Flux" and "Woman," wherein she struggles to bring the melodies she's written to life. These tracks give the impression of an industry songwriter laying down a guide vocal for a more skilled vocalist—a notion furthered by the head-scratching decision to both interpolate Dua Lipa's "Be the One" and name check Madonna's "Material Girl" in the same breath on "Power."
Several songs on Brightest Blue utilize backup choirs, a trick Goulding has employed to maximum effect on past hits such as "Love Me Like You Do," in an attempt to raise the album's insistently midtempo pulse. Though fewer and farther between than in the past, strange computerizations mangle the singer's voice on "How Deep Is Too Deep" and "Brightest Blue," the hooks of which are either partially or fully sung via Vocoder. That these tracks' ostensible emotional pinnacles find Goulding harmonizing with a robot counterpart—her voice manipulated beyond recognition—dehumanizes her, eliciting a discomfiting irony that plays as unintentional. It might be fun if Goulding weren't so straight-faced about it all.
Goulding has tended toward painting co-dependence and submissiveness as causes for celebration. After all, she once opined, "Why don't you be the artist and make me out of clay/Why don't you be the writer and decide the words I say?" with little-to-no self-awareness on 2010's "The Writer." Here, she gestures toward self-love on "New Heights"—"Love without someone else feels right/Love for myself in this new light," she sings—and the not-so-subtly titled interlude "Ode to Myself." Yet, these attempts at thematic course correction feel bland and repetitive, and the red-flag relationship dynamics persist, such as her desire to conform herself to her lover's identity on "Tides," blithely relinquishing her own agency.
At times, it seems as if Goulding is pushing back against controlling and abusive partners, but that would require a more self-possessed and attitude-laden POV, which is entirely absent here except, perhaps, on the single "Hate Me." For the most part, she doesn't have the chops or soul of contemporaries like Florence Welch, who sings of similar subject matter with a real torch, and who shares a collaborator in Joseph Kearns, who produced almost every song on Brightest Blue. At Kearns's behest, the album takes a relatively new tack for Goulding, trading the garish for the palatable, but it's no less grating as a result.
Label: Polydor Release Date: July 17, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Review: Protomartyr's Ultimate Success Today Is a Visceral Portrait of Discontent
The album fuses existentially oriented lyrics with ferocious guitars and frantic percussion that sustain a sense of anxiety.4
Protomartyr's sound is forged from the bones of punk and the blood of indie rock. The Detroit four-piece delivers heady lyrics with an ironic detachment in the vein of Destroyer and the Mountain Goats, while the blistering noise and distorted intensity of their music brings to mind Sonic Youth and early Sleater-Kinney. Their fifth album, Ultimate Success Today, continues this stylistic balancing act, with existentially oriented lyrics accompanied by ferocious guitars and frantic percussion that sustain a sense of anxiety.
With their 2012 debut, No Passion All Technique, Protomartyr established an effectively brute-force post-punk approach, but by 2017's Relatives in Descent, they'd mastered the ability to prevent both the literary brawn of their lyrics and the sophistication of their musical arrangements from getting lost in the wreckage. Tracks like "Modern Business Hymns" and "The Aphorist" are reminders of the band's knack for whipping up a din and then immediately cutting through the chaos, as well as their mastery of the art of modulation—of when to let things simmer and when to let them boil over.
This approach renders the wailing and assaultive crescendos of their music that much more potent. There's a form to the function, of course. References to philosophical concepts and pre-Enlightenment literature could be considered over-thought if Protomartyr's sound didn't possess such raw immediacy. The band's emphasis on Greg Ahee's dissonant guitar lines, and their play with different levels of loudness, results in songs that prize forward motion.
A dark vision of the individual's role in society is given voice by frontman Joe Casey on "Bridge & Crown": "Everybody knows/We're holding on to little dreams/To drive our bodies down the line/Until there's nothing left." The band's catalog is strewn with such musings about life as a fulfillment of a disappointing fate, and they've perfected that obsession here. Alex Leonard's drums slam with guillotine-like efficiency, and songs often end with the spike of a minor-key chord, providing little comfort after all the tense buildup. The album externalizes the workings of a tortured mind, one whose only semblance of hope, as evoked on the final track, "Worm in Heaven," is a basic acknowledgement of existence—of having been alive and leaving a trace of that presence.
Protomartyr's despair is rooted in capitalism, whose enervating routines the band satirizes throughout Ultimate Success Today. Casey wields a stinging, well-observed disdain for the corporate world and its participants, as well as for the insidiousness of technology. The feral "Processed by the Boys" comes for the free-market patriarchy with teeth bared and guitars ablaze: "Fill out the form, download the app/Submit your face into the scanner/Everybody's hunted with a smile/Being processed by the boys." The singer's cutting truths and humor are delivered in a mode that's nearly spoken word—forceful, angry, and declarative. Elsewhere he sings with a slurred drawl that's forlorn and observant. Wishful sentiments curdle into bitter mantras like "Dignity or toil/Syndicate or gang/Rose and thorn," on "Michigan Hammers," or the titular lyric, which appears on three different songs, teasing out his pessimistic worldview in loops of self-defeat wrought by systems of productivity and profit.
At times, Ultimate Success Today can be too self-aware. On "The Aphorist," a title among several here that could double as descriptors for the band's lyrical aesthetic, Casey muses, "We're all mowing esoteric patterns in the grass." And the album is almost too neat, given Protomartyr's newfound use of saxophone, self-conscious touches like the chirping crickets at the beginning and end of a few tracks, and the seamless sequencing of songs. But the restless punk spirit and flippant, downtrodden ethos that prevail over the project render Protomartyr's painstaking intellectualizations as fuel for a visceral winding up and release of discontent.
Label: Domino Release Date: July 17, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Review: The Chicks's Gaslighter Is a Defiant Act of Rebranding
The band's first album in 14 years is steeped in personal and political rage.4
There's compelling data, generated largely by the work of Dr. Jada Watson of the University of Ottowa, that draws a clear correlation between the blacklisting of the Dixie Chicks from country radio and the immediate and striking downturn in airplay for all women on that format. The statistics are dire and indefensible. Though program directors and radio consultants will deny, deny, deny, there's evidence that the industry made a purposeful choice to punish all female artists for the Dixie Chicks's perceived crimes.
So, in 2020, country music really and truly needs a comeback from the Dixie Chicks, an album that will allow one of the genre's all-time greatest acts to stage a triumphant return and redress the industry's injustices over the last decade. But Gaslighter, the band's first album in 14 years, isn't it. Instead, it's a defiant act of rebranding: The Dixie Chicks are now known simply as the Chicks—a not-insignificant change that speaks to both the social power of language and to the trio's stated intent to "meet this moment" in our nation's history.
Sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer figure even less prominently on Gaslighter than they did on the band's last album, 2006's Taking the Long Way, and that's also a not-insignificant development. By teaming up with producer Jack Antonoff, the group has made a decisive transition into a pop act. It's easy to mourn the sound that defined the band, but to reject the album out of hand for its pop aesthetics is to deny them their own agency as artists.
Gaslighter emerges as a fascinating, messy album that's steeped in personal and political rage. Divorce is hardly unusual subject matter in pop and country music, but artists who record "divorce albums" often struggle with the notion that they should aspire to making their story universally accessible to listeners. Natalie Maines makes no such mistake in her songwriting here. What elevates Gaslighter above thematically similar albums is the specificity of her unflinching detail as she recounts her ongoing legal battles with ex-husband Adrian Pasdar.
On "Sleep at Night," Maines retells the story of how Pasdar brought his mistress backstage at a concert to introduce her as a fan of the band. Maines is fully in control of her narrative voice when she sings on the track: "My husband's girlfriend's husband just called me/How messed up is that?/It's so insane that I have to laugh/But then I think about our two boys trying to become men/There's nothing funny about that." Later, on "Set You Free," the soaring ballad that closes Gaslighter, she pleads, "Decency would be to sign and release me," referencing the still-festering terms of a contract dispute.
On the tracks that explicitly relate to her divorce, which is a full three-quarters of the album, Maines dispenses with the idea of a narrative remove. She sings in first person, and the details she's chosen to share are autobiographical, albeit presenting only her perspective. At times, that makes standout songs like "Hope It's Something Good" and "My Best Friend's Wedding" feel, at the very least, like voyeurism. While it's always a critical dead-end to assume that first-person narrators are stand-ins for a singer, Maines actually invites that reading: On "Gaslighter," when she sings, "Boy, you know exactly what you did on my boat," it's a marvel of bitterness. That the album later includes a song with the title "Tights on My Boat," though, lessens the mystique or possibility for interpretation or engagement.
That would be more of an issue if the songs weren't so well-constructed and engagingly performed. But that's exactly what makes Gaslighter superior to its predecessor. As part of my clinical work, I've testified as a witness in some truly nasty divorce cases, and I've never once thought to set court transcripts to a percussive four-four stomp or some Lorde-style EDM, but damned if it doesn't work for the Chicks here. "Gaslighter" and the extraordinary "March March" boast distinctive lyrical hooks, while "For Her" and "Julianna Calm Down" feature real dynamic ranges that give the tracks a sense of movement and depth. Antonoff's production choices truly draw into sharp relief Rick Rubin's conservativism at the helm of Taking the Long Way.
While the album sounds current for 2020, there are a handful of moments that suggest how much more strongly Antonoff could have leaned into the Chicks's previous style. On "For Her," Antonoff layers one of Strayer's finger-plucked banjo figures into an arrangement that explodes into a sing-along gospel chorus, while Maguire's fiddle adds a jarring, ominous tone to the instrumental outro of "March March." When working with a vocalist as powerful as Maines, the impulse to foreground her performances makes sense—and it's worth noting that "For Her," "Julianna Calm Down," and "Set Me Free" are among the finest performances of her career. But the album gives the impression that Antonoff wasn't sure how to engage fully with Maguire and Strayer's exemplary skills with traditional acoustic instruments.
By incorporating country signifiers into what is otherwise a terrific, of-the-moment pop album, Antonoff and the Chicks could have come up with a style that's even more progressive, akin to the production on Kacey Musgraves's Golden Hour. If nothing else, that highlights how the Chicks still have room to grow, either with or without Antonoff, as they move into this new phase of their career. Gaslighter may not have been the album that country music needed, but it's clearly the one that the Chicks needed to make.
Label: Columbia Release Date: July 17, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Review: Lianne La Havas's Eponymous Third Album Embraces the Catharsis of Loss
On her third album, the British singer-songwriter settles into a sense of immediacy.4
British singer-songwriter Lianne La Havas is an adept storyteller, capable of both capturing who we are at our most alone and making us feel closer to one another. Her love songs conjure a striking intimacy, even when she's backed by the sumptuous BBC Symphony Orchestra in the storied Barbican Hall, and take on a degree of universality, even when she's singing directly to a video camera in her living room. But it's the latter method, when her sound is at its most stripped down, that best conveys the evocative immediacy that caught the attention of Prince, who mentored La Havas in the years before his death.
On her third album, La Havas settles into that immediacy, positioning her guitar as the beating heart of the music. The eponymous album finds her again chronicling the course of a romance, but this time she quite intentionally does away with the glossy fuss of 2015's blindingly polished Blood, subsisting throughout on her hard-earned wisdom. The album instantly feels more purposeful than its predecessor: Where Blood can feel labored over, perhaps too hungry for hits, Lianne La Havas isn't seemingly beholden to such expectations.
As she recounts the fate of a relationship from its onset to its demise, La Havas often prioritizes the passion of the moment over the logic of hindsight bias. On "Read My Mind," you can practically hear her smile as she sings, "The pure joy/When a girl meets a boy/Pure chemistry." She never loses sight of her needs, however distressing they might be. She's quick to provide counsel to herself and outright plead with her lover on "Paper Thin." Her vocal floats, at times on the verge of cracking from emotion, atop harp-like fingerpicking: "Baby, you gotta run free/Please don't forget about me." La Havas leans into the heartrending grief of prematurely losing a relationship.
A cover of Radiohead's "Weird Fishes" appears at the climax of Lianne La Havas as a fretful turning point in the album's central relationship. La Havas's version of the In Rainbows track is slower and earthier than Radiohead's more cerebral original, yet it retains all of its fragility. Radiohead articulates the unspoken fears and doubts that occupy a night spent overthinking, and La Havas is seized by the same impulse to verbalize her grievances, gingerly handling the painful edges of rejection and abandonment, albeit with more self-compassion.
Sonically, the warbly synth of "Courage" and frantic drumming of "Seven Times" don't feel too far removed from In Rainbows's sonic palette. But La Havas's style remains tricky to pin down, existing somewhere in the nexus of the soulful warmth of Corinne Bailey Rae, the confessional lyricism of Amy Winehouse, and the folky melodicism of Joni Mitchell. To call it soul music would be reductive; too many black artists have hastily been assigned the label just for the color of their skin, a restrictive tendency that La Havas herself has railed against. But without a doubt, La Havas makes soul music insofar as it originates from the soul.
The album's twinkling denouement, "Sour Flower," depicts the metamorphosis that can occur after overcoming a breakup. La Havas's voice is rich and robust as she belts, "I'm not crying over you/When I cry/Now I'm free." She attains catharsis by providing herself refuge and realizing that she can heal herself. She leaves us with an empowering moral: that we possess the ability to revive our spirits after loss, and that it may well be boundless.
Label: Nonesuch Release Date: July 17, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Review: Julianna Barwick's Healing Is a Miracle Is Music as Spiritual Renewal
The album overcomes its slightness thanks to its willingness to dabble in different textures.3.5
As a singer, composer, and producer, Julianna Barwick uses her vocals as a foundation, stacking multi-tracks of her voice with strings and piano, and blending it all beneath layers of reverb. Save for the occasional poetic repetitions and formed thoughts, she doesn't sing actual words, fusing emotions and imagined spaces through a collage of vocables and human noise. Upon first listen, her songs can feel monotonous, but tiny modulations give them dynamism. They don't drone so much as pleasantly sustain a pace and mood.
Barwick's fourth album, Healing Is a Miracle, is a tale of spiritual renewal that's both striking and, even at 34 minutes, patience-testing. As its title indicates, the album takes on the abstract subject of systems of regeneration, both natural and otherwise. The opening track, "Inspirit," comes on like a wall of sound, Barwick's ecstatic vocals giving the impression of finding wonder in the mundane, the vocal parts joined together in a powerful cluster, barely distinguishable as she sings, "Open your heart/It's in your head."
While Barwick's style can be wondrous, it isn't fanciful, acknowledging the ebb and flow of life and death. On "Flowers," a harsh, buzzy synth nearly overwhelms the choral arrangement in a way that grounds Barwick's breathy vocals, while the percussion on "In Light," featuring guest vocals from Jónsi, galumphs steadily like a heartbeat before tapering off, evoking the fragility of human life. Healing Is a Miracle is well sequenced, and its songs' emphasis on direction achieves a circuitousness that plays nicely with album's chosen theme of life cycles.
A longing for connection to a higher power—a notion of singing to the heavens—is a thread that runs throughout Barwick's work. While her vocals on Healing Is a Miracle are less celestial than those on her 2011 breakout, The Magic Place, these songs similarly show an interest in the directionality of sound. The trajectory of "Safe" is one of gradual elevation and an ever-approaching proximity, employing distancing techniques for something more terrestrial rather than otherworldly. Likewise, "Wishing Well" seems to find Barwick pining for earthly connection, the vocals reaching outward as opposed to heavenward.
Considered though it is, though, Healing Is a Miracle can sometimes be so delicate as to be weightless, and the music's accumulation of details and small shifts in tone makes it more interesting in theory than practice. Even still, the album overcomes its slightness thanks to its willingness to dabble in different textures, from the electronic flourishes featured throughout to the influence of hip-hop beatsmith Nosaj Thing on the closing track, "Nod." Healing Is a Miracle is music as balm, with the human voice a vehicle for rejuvenation.
Label: Ninja Tune Release Date: July 10, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Review: Pop Smoke's Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon Is a Half-Baked Epitaph
The album has the feel of a B-sides collection culled together as a cash-in on the rapper's death.2
Pop Smoke, born Bashar Jackson, emerged as part of a crop of young rappers who took the morbid bluntness of drill, a subgenre of trap music that originated in Chicago's South Side in the early 2010s, and adapted it to the ethos of New York City street life. In the Brooklyn rapper's case, the translation was shrewd, utilizing the help of East London producer 808Melo, who, along with Rico Beats, oversaw the entirety of Pop Smoke's 2019 mixtape Meet the Woo, creating a sound that was lively, booming, and faithful to Jackson's origins while cloaking his gang-life testimonials in a new stylistic mode.
When Jackson was shot and murdered in Los Angeles in a home invasion earlier this year, he'd just released his second mixtape, Meet the Woo 2, and was in the process of recording his studio debut, now posthumously released under the title Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon. Unfortunately, yet all too predictably, the album has the feel of a B-sides collection culled together as a cash-in on his death. It attempts to expand Pop Smoke's sound and ambitions, but without him around to shape and hone the work, his collaborators struggle to assemble something more than a pale reflection of what might have been.
Where Pop Smoke's mixtape raps were notable for their conviction of delivery and tightly wound compression, here he sounds fainter and less engaged. His verses on "Aim for the Moon" and "Creature" don't have the same punchy impact. In his best moments, Pop Smoke was able to channel his untamed aggression into repetitive, elemental lyrics that were colored by his force of personality (such as "Dior," which has been tacked on to all three of his releases, including this one). Though not as adept at complex wordplay, his appeal was akin to the tough-talking, chest-puffing brio of DaBaby, who's featured on "For the Night."
Along with a live-wire masculinity, the album also contains the ill-advised forays into R&B found on DaBaby's Blame It on Baby. Ladled with plenty of Auto-Tune, neither rapper has a compelling singing voice, and yet multiple songs on this album attempt to position Pop Smoke as a softer-spoken purveyor of love songs. "Something Special" and "What You Know Bout Love" sample Fabolous and Tamia's "Into You" and Ginuwine's "Differences," respectively, marking the farthest the rapper has strayed from his patented drill and trap origins, but they're dreary and tepid rather than exciting sonic departures. When he ad-libs, "Oh, you ain't know I could sing?," at the beginning of "Mood Swings," it comes across as empty boast.
Even the tracks that stick to Pop Smoke's established drill mode don't have the inventiveness and coiled energy of his mixtape highlights. Half of what makes a song like "Welcome to the Party" so enjoyable is its menacing yet gleeful production, all warped violin loops and careening, demented bass. Comparable tracks on Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon, such as "Gangstas" and "West Coast Shit," trade these inspired choices for a minimalist piano and snare combination. The production feels mournful rather than charged, which makes sense given the turn of events but doesn't square with the late artist's strengths.
A handful of moments here make good on Pop Smoke's promise. "Got It on Me" and "44 BullDog" find him doggedly racing against their beats, and there are brief instances where the rapper's glib sense of humor and confidence invest lines like "I need your number and that's that" and "I ain't with the talk or the chit chat" with a hoarse individuality. But on the whole, in broadening his music's scope, those responsible for piecing together Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon have lost sight of the local specificity, quirky charisma, and energy that made a name for Pop Smoke in the first place.
Label: Republic Release Date: July 3, 2020 Buy: Amazon
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text:
Phoenix Mercury superstar Diana Taurasi was the runaway victor in the WNBA MVP race, racking up double the points of any other contender in the race for women's basketball's highest individual honor.
Taurasi, the 27-year-old 6-foot forward who propelled her Mercury to a spot in this week's WNBA Finals, averaged 23.8 points per game in her sixth pro season with the Phoenix squad, who drafted Taurasi with the No. 1 pick in the 2004 WNBA draft.
The ex-University of Connecticut Husky is a four-time WNBA all-star -- but this season marks her first WNBA MVP win.
She received 27 first-place votes and 323 votes overall, beating second-place finisher Tamika Catchings of Indiana by 160 points.
"I felt like a little kid again," Taurasi said of the victory.
"In my career you get a lot of awards, like first-team all-star, but this really means a lot," Taurasi said.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist said she overcame a lot of "ups and downs" this year to win the award, most likely referring to her July 2 DUI arrest. She had a .17 blood alcohol level behind the wheel, more than twice the legal Arizona limit.
Taurasi's Mercury will face off against the Indiana Fever in the WNBA Finals this week. The first game is Tuesday evening at 9 p.m. e.t., broadcast from Phoenix.