#Diva Ring Light Market

[divadivine13]

Buy Natural Remy Hair Extensions Online At The Best Prices In India

Buy Natural Remy Hair Extensions Online At The Best Prices In India

There are two key sources to note when we discuss the origin of the best hair extension brand in India raw Indian hair merchants in the human hair bulk sector and Indian hair suppliers. They are Indian hairballs and wholesale Indian temple hair.

Indian virgin hair extensions and Indian remy hair extensions originate at the Indian hair temple. They are predominantly remy ones. Temple's hair is natural hair that has been donated and collected there. In India, it is customary for individuals to visit temples to cut their hair as a sign of devotion to the deity. Then, the hair from one or more donors is gathered to create hair extensions.

Regarding manufacturing, India's best hair extension brands continue to employ antiquated methods. India's best hair extension brands have such pricing advantages over other hair suppliers.

Hair extensions have become a popular way to add length, volume, and style to your hair. Remy hair extensions are considered to be the best quality human hair extensions because they are made from hair that has been collected in a way that keeps the cuticles intact. It makes Remy hair extensions less prone to tangling, matting and shedding. This blog post will discuss the importance of buying Remy hair extensions and the best places to buy them online at the best prices in India.

Why Are Remy Hair Extensions Considered The Best?

Remy hair extensions are considered the best because they are made from 100% human hair that is collected in a way that keeps the cuticles intact. It makes Remy hair extensions less prone to tangling, matting and shedding. It also ensures that the hair is softer, smoother, and more manageable than other hair extensions. Remy hair extensions also have a more natural look and feel and can be styled just like your own hair.

Where to buy Remy hair extensions online in India?

Several verified brands in India offer high-quality Remy hair extensions at affordable prices. Here are a few popular online stores that sell Remy hair extensions in India:

Hair Wig Hub: 

Hair Wig Hub is a good option for buying Remy hair extensions because they offer high-quality Remy hair, a wide variety of styles, excellent customer service, affordable prices, and a good reputation. It's always a good idea to read customer reviews, check the return policy, and ensure that the seller is reputable before making any purchase.

Diva Divine: 

It is India's first hair retailer since 2008. They offer premium quality human hair extensions & wigs across India, promising the best quality in the market. And installation services by hair experts! Their physical stores are located in New Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Mumbai, while they are present in pan India online!

Alchemane: 

Alchemane is a popular online store that provides high-quality Remy hair extensions in India. And India's the only brand customizing hair extensions according to clients' requirements. From length to volume, color, and texture with 100% Remy double-drawn Indian human hair. For example, Bollywood celebrity Lara Dutta shares the secret of her longer, thicker hair. Alchemane micro ring hair extensions feel light on the head and blend seamlessly with her natural hair. These hair extensions are made from 100 percent natural human hair so that she can cut, color, wash and style her hair extensions how she would treat her natural hair. 

1 Hair Stop: 

1 Hair Stop is a well-known online store that provides high-quality Remy hair extensions in India. They provide 100% Remy human hair made from premium quality. They have various options and are known for providing excellent customer service and support. They constantly strive to innovate products and provide the best service for their customers. They transform your look with zero damage.

Nishhair: 

They decided to do it differently, and NishHair was born – an ethical, premium, and best-quality hair extension brand. It is Made out of 100% authentic human hair, and every piece of our hair extension collection is handcrafted ethically with love. They offer premium quality 100%Remy human hair extensions. Nishhair said, "Your hair goals are now ours, and we work very hard to make hair dreams come true around the globe with the best hair solutions for all, Helping you create incredible hairstyles for any occasion. Our goal is to be your expert best friend."

Conclusion.

When buying Remy hair extensions online in India, it's essential to choose a reputable seller, read customer reviews, and check the return policy before making a purchase. It's also necessary to select a wig that fits your style, face shape, and lifestyle. And we have told you the top brands of India in this blog, where you can get good and within your budget. Even celebrities suggest these brands. You can visit there.

[nottinghillhq]

welcome to notting hill len, N and V, we’re super excited to have you here, you’ve got twenty-four hours to send in your accounts!

AVAN JOGIA. ANY PRONOUNS.  / have you ever heard of SURVIVOR by destiny’s child, well, it describes ANGARIKA ‘ARI’ SHAH to a tee! the twenty-seven year old EXPLICIT CONTENT CREATOR + SUGAR BABY was spotted browsing through the stalls at portobello road market last sunday, do you know them? would you say they are more hedonistic or more ALLURING instead? anyway, they remind me of a heart-shaped ring light on a pristine vanity, a hot pink versace bathrobe with matching slippers, an ipod nano filled with radio singles by y2k pop divas, a holographic studded starbucks cup filled with vodka and pedialyte, and sunday drag brunch with bottomless mimosas. maybe you’ll bump into them soon! [ LEN / HE + THEY / 29 / EST ]

KANG SEULGI. SHE+HER / have you ever heard of CHANGE ( IN THE HOUSE OF FLIES ) by DEFTONES, well, it describes ARI RICHARDSON to a tee! the TWENTY NINE year old, and A SOUS CHEF AT RICCI’S  was spotted browsing through the stalls at portobello road market last sunday, do you know them? would you say SHE is more EVASIVE or more PROACTIVE instead? anyway, they remind me of a suitcase with fake ids , the constant act of looking over your shoulder and the feeling of cold air against skin, maybe you’ll bump into them soon! [FOR N. ! ] 

HAN JISUNG. HE + HIM / have you ever heard of BLOW by JACKSON WANG, well, it describes KOREN HAHM to a tee! the THIRTY ONE year old, and A CASHIER AT NEXT CHAPTER BOOKSTORE was spotted browsing through the stalls at portobello road market last sunday, do you know them? would you say THEY are more INSECURE or more RESOURCEFUL instead? anyway, they remind me of the loud thumping of music from the dj , the feeling of adventure creeping in your heart and the quiet place in the darkness, maybe you’ll bump into them soon! [FOR N. ! ] 

 LEE TAEMIN. HE + THEY / have you ever heard of SOME NIGHTS by FUN., well, it describes CHOI YEJUN to a tee! the THIRTY FIVE year old, and A FIXER was spotted browsing through the stalls at portobello road market last sunday, do you know them? would you say HE is more DISHONEST or more DIPLOMATIC instead? anyway, they remind me of drunken confessions as pillow talk , words unspoken and the feeling that everyone is staring  maybe you’ll bump into them soon! [FOR N. ! ] 

LADY GAGA. SHE/HER / have you ever heard of MILLION REASONS by lady gaga, well, it describes ALISON ''ALLY" BRIGHT to a tee! the thirty four year old, and MUSICIAN/SONG WRITER was spotted browsing through the stalls at portobello road market last sunday, do you know them? would you say SHE is more closed off or more INTELLIGENT instead? anyway, they remind me of smell of perfume, papers with lyrics in random places, ideas coming to them in the middle of the night.  maybe you’ll bump into them soon! [ v ! ] 

[thestarsarealigning]

Tortured artist vibes from the signs

Aries running through a storm, their friends roll their eyes and think Aries does it for the dramatic effect, but actually they do it to finally feel something, feel a lot, feel everything all at once again. Also, cutting off their ear (or other not-so-great coping mechanisms) because they cannot deal with their own mind telling them lies.

Taurus sitting on a swing set in the backyard of their grandparents, head upside down, looking at the clouds and at the upside-down meadow until they get dizzy. Taking forever on creative block, but then sitting down and finishing an amazing painting in one single 5-hour-session.

Gemini sucking on a pink lollipop and accidentally cutting their tongue on it, then sucking on their tongue. Assembling old figurines they found at antique flea markets. Walking around in an extravagant nightgown (or craving doing that, but they don't own the appropriate nightgown for afternoon promenades around the house).

Cancer crying in the bathtub (if they don't do it often enough, they will realize that they actually enjoy a good cry from time to time and that they miss it quite much to let go like that). Making inappropriate jokes about murder stories, especially about true crime. Finding inspiration in many things but not trusting their gut, because they think they want to be someone else, so they don't trust their own ideas even though those are so good.

Leo sitting in their perfectly decorated bedroom at their absolutely not tidy desk that shows the things Leo is passionate about in a very open, kind of in-your-face way. Writing bad poems and good lyrics to songs, but only being able to do good art as long as the passion that tortures them, fuels them.

Virgo feeling torn between a simple life in a cottage doing botanical illustrations, getting cooked for by their perfect fae wife, and dancing in fairy rings to eery harp music but kind of feeling alone out there and just not knowing if it's enough.

Libra thinking about joining a cult just for sociology research reasons. Thinking they are rational and reasonable all their life, until a lover with a bad influence sweeps them off their feet and makes them question everything they think they knew. Getting a taste for the new, the unknown, the forbidden. Can be dangerous.

Scorpio regularely thinking about trying magic mushrooms but then they just end up staying up late and turning on music and looking at themselves, naked, in the mirror, half of the night, contemplating between "I am a goddess, I am a diva" and "I am worth nothing, my soul is too dark for this world".

Sagittarius dancing slowly in the sunset light and feeling like everyone around is watching them (which they are absolutely doing). Feeling misunderstood while having lots of people ask every day how they are, but they still don't feel like anyone could possibly bear with the truth. Believing in a god or an entity from above, but also unleashing them on their enemies with kind of a chaotic energy.

Capricorn dark circles under their eyes, they stand up early, go outside with a cup of tea, stand in the frosty grass and kind of enjoy the cold creeping up their legs. They find inspiration in sounds, in scents, in colors. No one appreciates their art in a way they think appropriate, although still, everyone appreciates it, and not every artist can say that about themselves.

Aquarius showing their frustration or lack of inspiration in an unusual way, Aquarius send all of their action and passion into being lovers. Sometimes lovely and romantic and almost perfect, sometimes tragic and melancholic and with torn-apart hearts, they try to hold onto the people that make them feel the hardest, to get themselves to draw new inspiration from every meet-up, every heartbreak, every new kiss.

Pisces painting on their own legs with watercolor, dreaming about being far away, or back home, or with someone they miss. Quietly breaking inside when they feel like they're not giving enough. Producing beautiful, meaningful artwork but not being able to see the worth of it themselves. Feeling a shimmer of hope on every new morning though.

[terrence-silver]

Pls pls write something about the first time Terry saw his s/o! 🙏🏻🙏🏻

Maybe she's a singer? Not a famous one, but I was thinking maybe he saw her at a party or something like that...

She looked like a 50's old Hollywood diva.

Terry would know --- he grew up on stuff like that.

The Macallan cognacs round his table one at a time and the waiter diligently comes and goes with his tray, with fresh crystal shots and Terry's mind and eye is focused on the stage occasionally obscured by his server. It is like he's been transported back in time. Sure, he knew these artists always tended to have a schtick. A theme. An aesthetic to them. A distinctive something. That's how they marketed themselves and became popular. But, something about this one, he figures, catches his attention. He came here tonight to smoke and to drink, bottom line, not caring too much who sang, so long as it wasn't intrusive. Jarring. He didn't really expect the mellow, sweet, sultry voice emanating from the podium to be his company this evening, followed by a saccharine, demure demeanor packaged into an elegant, sequin studded, curve-hugging gown. But, it is. And she's enveloped in the daze of the stage light, appearing almost, for a brief blip, monochrome, under its sudden contrast. No. She's not in black and white like an old movie, he isn't that drunk. He didn't snort anything either. Instead, Terry's hyperfocused. There's no brochure he could check for her name or the overall programme of this establishment. No guide book. He isn't at the Opera. This was just some semi upper class gentlemen's joint in downtown LA.

Terry purses his lips, annoyed, tapping his fingers on the table.

He has his own séparé, obscured from view, not willing to mingle with just anyone.

Terry feels like the antagonist from a crime thriller Pulp fiction novella that were big when he was heading off for 'Nam. The type of model soldiers kept newspaper cut-outs of in their lockers back in the days. He chuckles at the thought, taking another generous drag from his cigar, huffing out a cloud of smoke that captures her shape up on the stage. She looks like she belongs on that cover too as everyone intently listens to her melodic cooing in the moody, darkened atmosphere of the venue. What are you doing here? Terry ponders idly. You don't belong here. You're a songbird. How many octaves is that? Is your voice educated? Where are you from? Who are you? You all alone in this big city? Is anyone taking care of you? He halts at that piece of internal dialogue and musing. Is anyone taking care of her? Why did he care? If anyone was taking care of some two-bit amateur performer thinking she was Ava Gardner or some nonsense, pandering to people's nostalgia to make a buck? He came here to anonymously unwind. Terry Silver haunting the nightlife of LA. And then she raises her voice from the podium and his attention is hooked again. Controlled, much to his chagrin. Pretty to look and to listen to. He finds that he doesn't enjoy her singing to all these other creatures. She should only sing for me, he concludes. In a private audience. In a nightingale's cage. Now, there's a thought.

She finishes, the velvet curtain falls as she bows with a smile.

Everyone claps --- Terry doesn't. He's pissed that they got fuel off of her.

At the same time, she very much deserves the applause, he knows.

Terry snaps his fingers, signalling to his waiter, handing him a business card.

-"Send my complements to the singer."- Terry coos, handing him the elegant plaque with his company's name clasped between two fingers, held out over his shoulder, nonchalantly. It leaves him pondering what else he can give her to avoid appearing quite so corporate and formal. His gaze falls on his fingers. The many massive, bejeweled signet rings there. -"And this."- He slides one off. The smallest one. On his pinkie. Which he assumes would fit her hand. Kissing it while maintaining direct eye contact with the server, he slides it into a monogramed, silken napkin bearing his initials and closes his hand around it. Poor guy appears baffled like he was about to be the one who's wood. Terry wants to cackle. -"What should I say, sir? Who is it from?"- The suited up waiter inquires with an odd air of nervousness, holding the gift for the songbird like it would bite him. He knew exactly who it was from --- his presence was unmistakable --- the tux alone would be a dead giveaway. The ponytail. Had to make sure Terry wasn't up to something nefarious, no doubt, which was infinitely amusing, because it implied people knew his reputation where the occasionally naughty was concerned; like falsely introducing himself as someone else to the lady. Which he has done before for shits and giggles. Not this time, though. An old fashioned gesture for an old fashioned gal.

-"From Terry Silver."-

Terry says his own name, with a smile.

Like it was, like it was a caramel truffle covered in golden decorative dust.

[tabloidtoc]

Life & Style, January 18

You can now buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Uber Drivers Tell All 

Page 1: Photo Flash -- John Legend celebrated his birthday aboard a private yacht in St. Barts where he slid down the craft’s waterslide 

Page 2: Contents 

Page 4: The Top 10 Champagne Looks -- Joey King, Saoirse Ronan, Eiza Gonzalez, Gillian Anderson, Leona Lewis 

Page 5: Heidi Klum, Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian, Scarlett Johansson 

Page 6: Kelly Clarkson’s daytime talk show tied with Ellen DeGeneres’ long-running series in the year-end TV ratings battle -- The Ellen DeGeneres Show lost advertisers and A-listers and audiences after former staffers came forward with stories of a toxic workplace while The Kelly Clarkson Show which was recently renewed through 2023 has become a household staple in its sophomore season and gaining viewers in daytime’s key demographic of women and ending 2020 on a season high -- Ellen is putting on a good front but deep down she feels threatened by Kelly’s success and she’s done everything she can to prove that she’s changed but she still can’t win back her fans plus Ellen is convinced that Kelly is trying to steal her famous friends even going so far as to demand that if a celebrity agrees to appear on Ellen then they can’t go on Kelly; it’s one or the other from here on out 

Page 7: Rihanna and A$AP Rocky celebrated their first Christmas together in her native Barbados where the couple went on a sunset cruise around the Caribbean isle with her loved ones -- Christmas is a really important time for Rihanna and it’s not often that she gets to see her family and friends all at once and she wanted A$AP to be a part of it -- he was a bit nervous meeting everyone but he was worrying over nothing because they all adore him -- she’s really close with her family so it was important for him to get to know them before things begin to get serious

* Throwback -- Billie Eilish 

* Biggest Spenders of the Week -- French Montana, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis, Gal Gadot, Katie Holmes 

Page 8: Critics slammed Demi Moore’s new movie Songbird calling it a Michael Bay-produced travesty that exploits the coronavirus epidemic for thrills -- the film takes place in the not-so-distant future during a COVID-23 outbreak with Demi playing a wealthy woman who sells immunity bands on the black market for a hefty price -- Demi jumped at the chance to star in the movie; with its topical storyline she expected it to be a box-office hit and she’s disappointed that it’s flopped and is shocked at the backlash and she certainly never intended to hurt anyone’s feelings 

* Hilaria Baldwin proudly showed off her post-baby body posting a photo of herself holding 3-month-old son Eduardo while wearing nothing but her bra and underwear but instead of being praised for her postpartum pic she was inundated with cruel comments after Amy Schumer reported the snap seemingly roasting Hilaria for setting unrealistic standards for new moms -- while the comedian soon apologized and deleted the image it wasn’t long before she replaced it with several other shots and making fun of the controversy -- there’s a fine line between being funny and being cruel and Amy overstepped the mark in Hilaria’s eyes

Page 10: The Week in Photos -- Kacey Musgraves visits Oscar the Grouch and Sesame Street 

Page 11: Gwen Stefani on The Kelly Clarkson Show 

Page 12: Animal Instinct -- Oliver Hudson plants a smooch on a goat, Mayim Bialik with her new co-star Monty the cat from her show Call Me Kat, Padma Lakshmi cuddling on the couch with her dog Ms. Divina 

Page 13: Jerry O’Connell got a slobbery kiss from his dog Phil in L.A. 

Page 16: Stars Behaving Badly -- Selma Blair topless in a impromptu shoot off the highway in Palm Springs, Sean Lennon pretended to attack a replica of the Empire State Building during a lighting ceremony in NYC, Jameela Jamil and Jason Mantzoukas let their middle fingers fly 

Page 18: Say What?! Miley Cyrus on being single during the pandemic, Dolly Parton on her fashion and beauty credo, Kristin Chenoweth on starring in Holidate with 5-foot-2 Emma Roberts, Keke Palmer joking about her skin issues, Jason Momoa who’s been wed to Lisa Bonet since 2017 

Page 20: Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez planned to tie the knot in Italy but after being forced to postpone their nuptials twice since the pandemic struck Alex has gotten a case of cold feet -- the pressure of a huge wedding was very overwhelming and in the end Alex decided it wasn’t necessary anymore -- J.Lo also hinted as much saying they’ve talked about canceling the destination wedding altogether because at their ages and they’ve both been married before should they get married or not -- the very next day Jennifer was pictured without her engagement ring sparking speculation that the couple had already reached a decision that they would no longer be walking down the aisle and Jennifer’s heartbroken because she wanted a big splashy wedding since this was going to be her fourth and final trip to the altar

Page 21: Courteney Cox was recently reunited with boyfriend Johnny McDaid after spending nine months apart due to the COVID-19 crisis but the long-awaited meetup in Ireland was far from romantic -- this was a make-or-break trip to either figure things out or go their separate ways and shortly after arriving Courteney laid all her cards on the table and she made it clear to Johnny that in order to move forward things had to change -- with her living in LA and Johnny based in Ireland the time difference is a real problem and FaceTime calls are few and far between and texts go unreturned for hours or sometimes not at all and it’s a daily struggle and Courteney’s at the end of her rope 

Page 22: Cover Story -- Uber drivers tell all -- the scoop on celebrities’ best and worst moments as rideshare passengers -- Brooke Shields’ boozy cruise, Tom Selleck requires a quiet car 

Page 23: Justin Bieber threw a party on wheels, blind items

Page 24: George Clooney uses a pseudonym, Kylie Jenner was 2 hours late for her ride

Page 25: Cash-carrying Prince Harry is a huge tipper, Tom Cruise is not a cool customer, Jennifer Lawrence makes the back seat her bed 

Page 26: Lori Loughlin breaks her silence -- after completing a two-month prison sentence for her role in the infamous college admissions cheating scandal Lori emerges to find her life and family in pieces -- Lori wants to move forward as a family in a positive direction but her daughters have so many walls up now

Page 28: The Bachelorette’s Clare Crawley and Tayshia Adams: Two dream weddings -- with a wild ride of a season behind them leading ladies Clare and Tayshia are happily planning their respective nuptials 

Page 30: The truth about Khloe Kardashian and Tristan Thompson’s engagement -- Khloe’s new ring from Tristan sparks wedding speculation -- Tristan swears he’ll never ever stray again and Khloe is desperate to make their relationship work because she loves the little family they���ve created 

Page 32: Who Lives Here? Kathy Griffin 

Page 36: Fashion -- shop these haute hues -- Pantone’s 2021 Colors of the Year are Ultimate Grey and Illuminating Yellow, making them musts for every fashionista’s wardrobe 

Page 40: Diva or Down-to-Earth? John Legend grabs groceries -- down-to-earth, Heather Locklear pumps her own gas -- down-to-earth

Page 41: Gal Gadot assembles a glam squad -- diva, Zac Efron cuts his friend’s hair -- down-to-earth 

Page 42: Social Stars Posts of the Week -- Angela Kinsey and her dogs, Kim Kardashian and longtime pal La La Anthony, Laura Prepon building a snowman, Kevin Jonas and wife Danielle 

Page 44: Horoscope -- Capricorn Zooey Deschanel turned 41 on January 17

* They’re Not Together, But They Should Be -- Aries Jennifer Garner and Aquarius Justin Hartley 

Page 46: Made Ya Look! Emily Blunt strikes a stylish pose 

Page 48: What I’m Into -- Jonathan Van Ness  

[thesethingsofours]

Nina Simone, Duende & Pastel Blues

Nina Simone’s Pastel Blues is a true embodiment of duende — the rare depth and darkness that impels her work.

1969 © Jack Robinson / Hulton Archive

Her distinctive warble permeates thousands of movie soundtracks, hip hop samples and advertisements, let alone the countless personal moments by which people demarcate their lives. This omnipresence allows us to forget who Nina Simone was, and the outright value of her music. For the streaming generation, knowledge of such an artist is limited to “top hits”; on some Spotify, Sunday Mood playlist. Or worse, the songs will only wriggle into the brain from various attempts to sell Coca-Cola, Seat Atecas, Renault Clios, Volvo XC90s, Fords, Apple Watches, Chanel №5, Warehouse discount clothes, Virgin Flights, HTC Phones, Jockey underwear and Behr Paint.

Most egregious among these is the Muller Light yoghurt advert, inescapable for anyone sentient in early 2000s UK. It uses her 1968 song I Ain’t Got No, I Got Life, but only the second, I Got Life half; carving it off entirely from its I Ain’t Got No essence. In its truncated form, the song sounds like a free-wheeling celebration of life and limb: Got my hair, got my head / Got my brains, got my ears / Got my eyes, got my nose / Got my mouth, I got my smile. Yet the missing section is a lengthy condemnation of segregated American society, where disenfranchised black people had been given nothing to cling to: Ain’t got no mother, ain’t got no culture / Ain’t got no friends, ain’t got no schoolin’ / Ain’t got no love, ain’t got no name /…Ain’t got no god / Hey, what have I got? / Why am I alive, anyway?

Yes, the song contains positivity in tune and verse, but stripping the darkness from Simone’s work also strips away its incandescent light. It would be like taking Rodin’s Gates of Hell and shrouding everything except the seemingly peaceful thinker at the centre; or cutting the lightbulb from the top of Picasso’s Guernica and presenting it as a bright, merry, representative segment. Or a millionaire DJ taking Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream Speech and turning it into a dance track during race protests and a global pandemic. But surely not even David Guetta would do that.

The reduction of such a deliberate and profound artist to commercialised snippets is saddening. In Simone’s case this is particularly true because of the highly unusual, powerful darkness that clutches her music. She has something rare. In Spanish, it is known as duende.

Duende

Rooted in Iberian cultures, duende derives from “duen de casa”, meaning “possessor of a house”. Originally the superstition of a dark, goblin-like spirit, it is now the concept of impassioned, death-endorsing, creative invention; typically associated with the performative aspects of Flamenco. In that context, poet and playwright Federico García Lorca describes its contemporary meaning (in his 1933 Buenos Aries lecture, Theory and Play of the Duende), as the “buried spirit of saddened Spain”. 

As a guitar maestro explained to him, “the duende is not in the throat: the duende surges up, inside, from the soles of the feet”. Lorca quotes others, one, after listening to Paganini’s violin, identified it as, “a mysterious force that everyone feels and no philosopher has explained”; or another, upon hearing Manuel de Falla perform Nocturno, proposed that, “all that has dark sounds has duende”. In Lorca’s own words:

For every man, every artist called Nietzsche or Cézanne, every step that he climbs in the tower of his perfection is at the expense of the struggle that he undergoes with his duende. Not with an angel, as is often said, nor with his Muse…

…With idea, sound, gesture, the duende delights in struggling freely with the creator on the edge of the pit. Angel and Muse flee, with violin and compasses, and the duende wounds, and in trying to heal that wound that never heals, lies the strangeness, the inventiveness of a man’s work.

Nina Simone embodies duende.

1968 © Hulton Archive

It exists not only within her more explicit protest songs, born of the Civil Rights movement, but is present in everything she did — a ferocity, fragility, sadness and authenticity that claws its way up her throat and flings itself from her open mouth. It’s an otherworldly channelling of something very few can access, but which audiences pray to feel. With music so steeped in darkness, using it to gleefully sell products is a comedy — a joke on the shamelessness naivety of consumers and marketeers — as well as a tragedy.

A Brief History

Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in 1933 and raised in Jim Crow-era North Carolina, Simone was ambitiously desirous of becoming a concert pianist — an uncommon career path for a young black girl at the time. Despite obtaining the ability to do so, she was instead funnelled into performing a mixture of jazz, gospel, soul and folk. And blues, in every shade. Her voice — ostensibly untrained — was burnished in the fire of necessity: if she wanted to earn money in the clubs, she had to sing as well as play piano. She electrified audiences, but remained persistently dissatisfied with how she was received and perceived:

It’s only normal to want acceptance from one’s own country for one’s gifts God has given you. I’m tired of begging for it. It took me 20 years of playing in clubs, in nightclubs, on the concert stage doing all these records to get a decent, real accurate review of my gifts by the New York Times… It was the first time I had been compared to Maria Callas as a diva. All before that I had been labelled a jazz singer, a blues singer, High Priestess of Soul, which… I am not sure what that is. I have studied piano 18 years! So yes I’m tired. I’m too old to keep asking for love from the industry. (Nina Simone, 1984)

Elevated by activists and aficionados alike, yet shunned by the industry at the height of her popularity after vigorously speaking out for black rights (see: Mississippi Goddam), she evolved as an artist in parallel with the revolution of television; first appearing in grainy monochrome and then in saturated technicolour. In the 12-year period between 1959 and 1971, she released 16 studio albums. In the years that followed, before her death in 2003, she released just four more.

Pastel Blues

These days, the idea of albums is virtually defunct, Drakefied to an incoherent heap of songs occasionally “dropped” like laundry, to be worn or discarded at the listeners behest. But as with other great artists, if the extent of Simone’s depth and duende is to be appreciated, it is essential to listen to her albums — the home of her authorship.

Pastel Blues is a nine track, 36-minute LP, mainly of covers and blues standards. It was released in October 1965, eight months after Malcolm X was assassinated, seven months after Bloody Sunday in Selma, and two months after the Voting Rights Act became law. Arguably, it arrived at the height of the movement. Nina Simone was 32. Just imagine.

Although the title suggests something soft and light, underneath the label, the substance is preternatural. As you listen, watch the image on the cover transform from a gentle gaze into a pointed glare; a stare in stereo. Altogether, it is a marvellous enunciation of Nina Simone’s darkness, with which she writhed in body, mind, and soul to give us some of the most memorable artworks of the 20th century. Pastel Blues gives her duende its due.

Listen to Pastel Blues on Apple Music 

Listen to Pastel Blues on Spotify (1965 Live Version)

Listen to Pastel Blues on YouTube

Track-By-Track

Be My Husband

It opens with Be My Husband, featuring lyrics incidentally written by Simone’s own husband (and manager), Andrew Stroud. Slightly off-kilter, echoey, four-beat stamping and clapping, heightened by the tight splash of a high-hat, introduces a languid, yet driving pace. With purity of purpose, Simone’s voice drawls intensely into her opening repeated demand: Be my husband and I’ll be your wife / Love and honour you the rest of your life.

It suggests a woman pleading for the hand of her lover, committing to do all he would expect of a wife: If you want me to cook and sew / Outside of you there is no place to go. In return, she asks him only to curb his wandering eye: Stick the promise man you made me / That you stay away from Rosalie, yeah. This is presumably the intended (somewhat biased) perspective of the lyricist. But the way Simone sings it, with improvised shrieks dropping into deep, bassy groans, something quite different is suggested.

Nina Simone & Andrew Stroud, photographer unknown.

At this point, Simone was four years into an emotionally and physically abusive marriage with Stroud. Knowing this, it has far more resonance to picture her in a kitchen, staring down a boorish, unsatisfactory, and unsatisfying man; stomping on a linoleum floor, and throwing him a powerful, sacred ultimatum — give me what you promised. To imagine it otherwise is to imagine how Ed Sheeran might perform it — with the frivolousness of a millennial wedding on a sunny day in Surrey, and all the stamping, clapping vigour of a gaggle of giggling, inebriated aunts.

Furthermore, Be My Husband is effectively a re-worked chain gang song from the segregated south — a version of Rosie by the Inmates of Parchman Farm Penitentiary recorded in 1947 Mississippi by ethnomusicologist, Alan Lomax (and notoriously sampled by… well, well, well… hello again, David Guetta). The original lyrics ring out: Be my woman, gal, I’ll be your man… Stick to the promise girl that you made me / Won’t got married til’ I go free. Even aside from Simone’s interpretation, its genesis as a song of imprisonment immediately gives it a grimmer tone.

Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out

As it bows to track two, Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out, the heavy opening of the album is extended. A blues standard written in 1923, it was popularised by Bessie Smith’s 1929 recording and re-introduced to a new audience by Eric Clapton, who performed it throughout his career. Sam Cooke, Otis Reading, Janis Joplin, Bobby Womack, John Lennon, Derek and the Dominos and Duane & Gregg Allman all put their spin on it, with wildly varying degrees of quality, duende and notoriety.

It begins deceptively upbeat: Well once I lived the life of a millionaire / spending my money I didn’t care / Taking my friends out for a mighty good time. Simone’s version is no different as she lightly pads major key piano chords, but what immediately sets her rendition apart is the tremble in her voice. It sounds like she is singing through tears, not least when the song reaches its sobering bridge: Nobody wants you / Nobody needs you.

In Simone’s case, the song became painfully prescient. Following her fall from grace within the music industry, she left for Barbados in 1970, where she had an affair with then Prime Minister, Errol Barrow. Her subsequent divorce from Stroud limited access to her income, which he, as her manager, controlled. Also, due to an arrest warrant for taxes she withheld in protest at the Vietnam War, Simone was unable to return to the US, so ended up first in Liberia, then living across Europe. With little money to live from and few relationships to speak of, for a time, she came to epitomise the song.

End of the Line

The first fully original song on the album, End of the Line is initially carried by another deception of positiveness, this time through its melody; romantic and light despite the lyrics: This is the end of the line / I’ve clearly read every sign / The way you glance at me / Indifferently / And take your hand from mine. Such is the flowing nostalgia of the tune, it is plausible to imagine the same song with all words made positive (e.g. The way you glance at me / So happily / And place your hand in mine).

Divisible into two parts, the first has the feel of Simone sipping a martini in a Rogers & Hammerstein bar (perhaps offering some musical theatrical hope of salvation). The second, however, gives way to resigned sorrow, over a steady, rumba beat. Aside from showcasing Simone’s prodigious classical piano-playing ability — albeit only through twinkling, floral runs — the richness of her vocal tone spills forth, smoothly and lusciously, particularly in the second half. While lyrically it lacks the forcefulness of other tracks, its simplicity opens the door to Simone’s abundant musicality.

Trouble in Mind

Written in 1924, Trouble in Mind is another blues standard, but given its title, after three tracks of despair, it surprisingly brings a degree of levity.

The original lyrics (as sung by Dinah Washington, Janis Joplin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ella Fitzgerald, Marianne Faithful, Johnny Cash and original recording artist Thelma La Vizzo) are far darker than this version. Typically, the singer, wrestling with the irrepressible demons of their psyche, contemplates suicide by train: I’m gonna lay my head / On some lonesome railroad line / Let the 2:19 train / Ease my troubled mind. Yet on Pastel Blues, it never gets that far.

While refrain of the song always concludes: I won’t be blue always / ‘Cause the sun’s gonna shine in my back door someday, Simone’s version leans more heavily on those lyrics than others’ versions; giving it a more hopeful perspective. She also dresses the music with a quicker, cheerier pace. Furthermore, instead of seeking the certainty and finality of a gruesome suicide, she resolves only that: I’m going down to the river / Gonna get me a rocking chair / If the Lord don’t help me / I’m gonna rock away from here. 

Given she was be known to perform the full lyrics on other occasions, it is an interesting choice to uplift them on Pastel Blues. In terms of the album’s full narrative, however, it makes sense to offer a moment of optimism, keeping us on an undulating journey of emotion, rather than wallowing solely in melancholy.

© Ron Kroon

Tell Me More and More and Then Some

The dynamic changes once again in Tell Me More and More and Then Some, as Simone hints towards her unapologetic, simmering, sexuality. Sex is known to have often enthralled her — as she wrote in her diary, “My attitude toward sex was that we should be having it all the time.”

Originally recorded in 1940 by Billie Holiday, Simone tweaks the lyrics to make the titular line more demanding, more desirous: I want more, more and then some. Accompanied by quivering, raunchy harmonica and clanging, insistent piano chords, Simone’s phrasing and emphasis draws lustfulness from the lyrics: You know how I love that stuff / Whisper from now on / To doomsday / But I never no no no no, ooh / I never, no I never, will get enough. It’s an erotic elaboration on Holiday’s already sultry interpretation, loading the request for whispered sweet nothings with a throbbing, sexual overtone.

Chilly Winds Don’t Blow

Chilly Winds Don’t Blow acts as a natural, also largely optimistic companion to Trouble in Mind, making Tell Me More and More and Then Some the bawdy, thick-cut meat between two, forward-looking slices of bread. That said, the song was previously released by Simone as single in 1959, as an even more upbeat spiritual, with denser orchestration and less of her signature vocal style.

On Pastel Blues, however, it is likely sung from a position of matured disappointment towards the unending hostility experienced by black Americans. With a sparser arrangement and greater vocal freedom, the new context is pointedly conveyed: There will be red roses round my door / I’m going where they’ll welcome me for sure, oh baby / Where the chilly winds, they don’t blow. Notably, as her piano rumbles, mimicking the sound of a rolling, cold wind, Simone also refers to her own maturity, as a woman. In this new version, she no longer wants to go where her father waits for her. Instead, it’s her daddy who will be waiting.

1968 © David Redfern

Ain’t No Use

Recorded in 1959 by Joe Williams and Count Basie, Ain’t No Use manifested as a break-up song. In that bright, brassy version, Williams croons at the opening: Ain’t no use of hanging round / Ain’t no use I put you down / There’s no love left / In my heart for you. In Simone’s rendition, the subject of the warning is much more ambiguous. When considered alongside Chilly Winds Don’t Blow and the tracks that follow, Simone instead implies a sense of exasperation, perhaps a desire to withdraw from broken American society, or the increasingly hostile music industry. She opens not with fallen love but accusation and fatigue: Ain’t no use baby / I’m leaving the scene / Ain’t no use baby / You’re too doggone mean / Yes I’m tired of paying dues / Having the blues / Hitting bad news.

To this point, Pastel Blues is a solid, often special, blues album, but here it really begins to soar; marking it apart. The underlying anguish of the blues is of course ingrained in the genre, but with Simone, her duende, fraught personal life, and civil rights activism, a dramatic narrative acceleration begins to emerge in the gap between Ain’t No Use and Strange Fruit (and again between Strange Fruit and Sinnerman). Without realising, tracks one to eight have been quietly coaxing you towards the edge of a cliff. The final two  rip through you, forcing you over the edge before you can pull back. Amidst the silence between the songs, everything that preceded becomes re-contextualised with a deeper, darker tone. Embrace the fall.

Strange Fruit

The majesty of Strange Fruit is well documented — in 1999, Time named it the best song of the century. It was written by Abel Meeropol — a white, Jewish sometime Communist, and real-life MacGuffin, who intersects with numerous historically important features of 20th century America, but never appears at their forefront.

As a student and then teacher at Dewitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, he crossed paths with a young James Baldwin and numerous other luminaries of American culture. After seeing a photograph of a lynching, he felt compelled to write; originally penning the words as an anti-lynching poem. Published in a teacher’s union publication, it concisely described the horror he had seen through the sinister metaphor of a seemingly innocuous fruit tree. He later set it to music and presented it to Billie Holiday, who recorded her socially and sonically remarkable version in 1937. In 1945, he gave up teaching to become a full-time songwriter under the pen name Lewis Allen (the first names of his two, tragically stillborn sons), most famously writing Frank Sinatra’s Oscar winning, patriotic short film and accompanying song, The House I Live in. Not only that, but in 1953 he adopted the two sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg — a Jewish couple famously executed for spying on America for the Soviet Union.

Abel Meeropol with sons Michael and Robert Meeropol in 1954, via Robert Meeropol

As for the song itself, if Holiday’s recording is classical — a regretful, tender jazz lament — Simone’s is something more modern, more openly enraged; a cutting, resonant howl; transcending genre. The arrangement is minimal and masterful at once, with often dissonant piano chords treading like distressed steps through fallen leaves towards the horrifying tree at the agonising conclusion. It climaxes with a literal wail as the end nears: Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck / For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck / For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop / Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Its intensity lent itself perfectly to the sample on Kanye West’s scorching rebuke of destructive celebrity relationships, Blood On the Leaves.

Sinnerman

Simone’s Sinnerman is virtually unrecognisable from the first, folky version recorded by the Les Baxter Orchestra in 1956. Baxter adapted (read: plagiarised) the song from On the Judgement Day, by the Sensational Nightingales, which in turn takes elements from the 1924 No Hiding Place Down Here, by the Old South Quartette. But much like Jeff Buckley’s version of Leonard Cohen’s similarly spiritual Hallelujah, Simone’s version remains, and will forever remain, the definitive iteration; the most copied, covered, celebrated and recognised; never bettered beyond that point.

As her Sinnerman evolves, it reveals the preceding short, eight tracks to have been little more than an (excellent) overture to this — the epic, operatic finale. At ten and a half minutes, it makes up nearly a third of the entire album. Brace yourself.

After the silent gap following Strange Fruit — another inhale between urgent roars — the first few bars are timeless, perhaps some of the most familiar notes ever recorded. Piano keys clamber over one another, skipping like a broken record. A foot taps out a light beat in the background. The percussion joins: a double-time, racing, hi-hat heart rate, yielding only to the occasional heavy, melodious thump of a double bass. Simone enters, Oh, Sinnerman, where you gonna run to? / Sinnerman, where you gonna run to?

1967 © Tony Gale

After Strange Fruit, the question takes on new meaning. Picture Simone in a deep purple Cadillac Deville n hot pursuit of a fleeing lynch mob; hood down, foot down, brow furrowed, engine roaring, steering on the edge of control. This toying with tumbling gives the song its energy. Like running down a steep slope, with the slightest misstep, all would be lost. As the beats impatiently trip over the piano notes, it feels like it’s constantly accelerating; never settling into a regimented pace.

After erupting into a minute-long call and response of: Power!, Sinnerman changes gear. A jangling, twanging guitar breathes heavily in contemplation of the next charge. The music fades, leaving only intimidating clapping, until the piano returns most wonderfully with a couple of pleasingly apparent (yet well-intended) mistakes; three or four notes missed, misplaced, or hesitated over as the tune searches again for its order among the tumult. When found, it resurges with renewed purpose; Simone audibly hyperventilating in anxious anticipation: So I run to the river, it was boiling / I run to the sea, it was boiling / All on that day. Judgement Day has arrived, and the devil is everywhere. 

(Should this masterpiece really ever be used to sell hatchbacks?)

It ends with a pleading prayer, agitated piano chords and chaotic drums: Don’t you know, I need you Lord?, Simone cries. Whether the prayer is answered, we’ll never know, but as the percussion takes over and batters us into a final, frenzied submission, it feels too late.

Exhausted and exhilarated, Pastel Blues is at its end. But within it, Nina Simone’s duende forever persists.

[stereostevie]

A brutal childhood, a traumatic marriage, decades of racism: the singer has overcome it all on her way to the top. She lets rip about the people who have wronged her and the self-belief that sustains her.

It is a rainy Thursday afternoon and Mariah Carey is talking to me from her home in Los Angeles, her voice coming through my laptop. Is this the real life or is this just fantasy? (Sweet, sweet fantasy …) “Hello, good morning, good afternoon, this is a little unusual,” says a gravelly voiced Carey. You’re telling me, Mariah.

We are talking by video chat, but – as specified by Carey – without the video turned on, so it is pure chat. Despite her ability to hit the high notes, Carey has always described herself as an alto. Yet even taking that into account, her voice today sounds pretty husky. Is she feeling OK?

“It’s 6am here, and I’m awake in the bright light and it’s fabulous and I love it,” she says and makes an exaggerated groan.

I’m sorry you had to get up so early for this interview, I say.

“Well, darling, then let’s not book interviews at 6am if you’re worried! But please, it’s not you,” she says, and indeed it isn’t. The time and date of our interview have moved around so many times to accommodate Carey’s ever-shifting schedule that, for a while, it looked as if it wouldn’t happen at all. But at the last minute, it was decided we would talk at 6am her time, which I was promised would be fine because Carey is a self-described “nocturnal person”, so that would be 6pm for her. Alas, for reasons too complicated to get into, for one night only, Carey was a non-nocturnal person, so now 6am is just 6am.

“Typically I would have been working [all night] until now, but we had a situation and I couldn’t. Then I tried to get some sleep, but actually I watched the interview I did with Oprah. But it’s OK, it was just one night [of no sleep] and here I am,” she says. You don’t become one of the most successful singer-songwriters of all time – she has sold more than 200m records, and only the Beatles have had more US No 1 songs – without being a trouper.

Carey, 50, has spent lockdown with her nine-year-old twins, Monroe, named for Carey’s hero, Marilyn Monroe, and Moroccan, named partly for one of her favourite rooms in one of her houses, the Moroccan room, “where so many creative and magical moments have happened, including Nick presenting me with my candy bling”. Nick is Nick Cannon, the twins’ father, and “candy bling” is Carey’s term for her engagement ring, which Cannon hid inside a sweet before proposing. Carey liked Cannon’s proposal so much that she even wrote a song about it, called Candy Bling. The marriage proved less enduring and the couple divorced in 2016.

“Honestly, I don’t miss anyone outside, so I don’t care about lockdown,” she says with a throaty laugh. “But it’s difficult for the kids, because they’re used to three-times-a-year Disney World moments and stuff like that, and that’s just not the current state of affairs.” It is not. So Carey is conducting the promotional tour for her memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, from her kitchen table, and if she has her way – and who would dare to argue? – this will be the last round of interviews she ever does.

“No offence to doing interviews, but what would be the point? I can’t articulate it better than I already have [in the book]. From now on, I’m like, ‘Please refer to page 29,’ you know what I mean?” she says. Carey’s deliciously shady put-downs are legend: her “I don’t know her”, when asked almost two decades ago about Jennifer Lopez is still the internet’s most beloved diss. Speaking of Lopez, her name is notably not in Carey’s memoir. Instead, when recalling the hoo-hah that led to their fallout, when a sample Carey had planned to use on her single, Loverboy, appeared on Lopez’s I’m Real, Carey refers to her as a “female entertainer (whom I don’t know).” So is her official position still that she has never heard of Lopez?

There is a pause, then stifled laughter. “Oh my gosh, can you hear that music in the background? It’s Sam Cooke! It’s fantastic!” she giggles.

Not only has Carey not heard of Lopez, she cannot even hear questions about her, it seems.

Carey’s memoir is about a lot more than score-settling (although she makes time for that, too.) “I don’t think anyone could have known where I was coming from, because I was always very, I don’t know if it was protective, but I was cryptic about the past, let’s say,” she says. No more. The youngest child of an African American father and a white mother, Carey was three when her parents split up. Her childhood was threaded through with neglect and violence, not least from her older siblings. When she was six, she says, her older brother knocked her mother unconscious; when she was 12, her older sister allegedly drugged her and left her with creepy men.

“I think my staying up all night started from having such a dysfunctional family. Oftentimes, whoever was in the house was doing whatever it was that they were doing, and that felt kinda unsafe to me, so I started staying up,” she says. Another legacy of this time is Carey’s obsessive adoration of Christmas, because her childhood Christmases were so miserable. When she wrote the monster hit All I Want for Christmas Is You, she wanted, she says in her book, “to write a song that would make me feel like a carefree young girl at Christmas”.

As a child, her biracial identity made her feel she did not belong anywhere: she was so self-conscious about not being black enough that she wouldn’t even dance, as she associated that with black culture; meanwhile, white girls at school taunted her with the N-word. In one of Carey’s – and my – favourite chapters, she describes how her mother did not know how to look after her young daughter’s textured hair, so it was often matted. Carey would look enviously at the white women in shampoo adverts on TV with their flowing hair. “I am still obsessed with blowing hair, as evidenced by the wind machines employed in every photoshoot of me ever,” she writes.

One of the most painful moments in the book comes in 2001 when Carey is having what the press described as an emotional breakdown. (Carey writes that she did not have a breakdown, but “was broken down by the very people who were supposed to keep me whole.”) During this episode, she rages at her mother, who calls the police. The police take her mother’s side: “Even Mariah Carey couldn’t compete with a nameless white woman in distress,” Carey writes. Is that how she experienced it at the time, or is that how she feels generally, that not even she is safe if a white woman complains?

There is the briefest of pauses. “Those are my words, so please refer to page 29,” Carey says.

Race is very much the running theme in Carey’s memoir. This might come as some surprise to those who know her solely from the mega pop hits such as Hero and We Belong Together, as opposed to the more revealing songs, such as 1997’s Outside, which addressed her feelings of racial ambiguity (sample lyric: “Neither here nor there / Always somewhat out of place everywhere”). “I can’t help that I’m ambiguous-looking,” she says, “and most people would assume that it’s been to my benefit, and maybe it has in some ways. But it’s also been a lifelong quest to feel like I belong to any specific group. It shouldn’t have to be such a freaking thing – and please edit out the fact that I said ‘freaking’. I’m not very eloquent right now.” I ask if she was at all influenced during the writing of her book by the rise of Black Lives Matter. She dismisses the question: “Interestingly, this book predates everything that’s happening now, and the book just happened to be very timely.” In other words, Carey hasn’t caught up to the times, the times have caught up to Carey.

Despite her omnipresence over the past three decades, it is possible that you have not thought about her ethnicity. This, Carey says, has been part of the problem: from the start, she was marketed by “the powerful corporate entities” in a way that played down her racial identity. What made this even more complicated for her was that the most powerful corporate entity in charge of her career at the beginning was her first husband, Tommy Mottola, then the CEO of Sony Music.

Carey’s discovery by Mottola is the stuff of music industry legend. The then unknown aspiring singer gave him a tape of her music at a party in 1988. Mottola tracked her down, signed her and, a few years later, married her. She was 23 and he was 44. Within just a few pages in her memoir, she goes from wearing her mother’s busted shoes to work to living in a $30m mansion with Mottola, which she decorated with enthusiasm: “Though by no stretch do I like a rustic look, I do have a preference for tumbled marble on my kitchen floors,” she writes. Adjusting to the high life was not difficult.

The hits – I’ll Be There, Emotions, One Sweet Day – were unstoppable. The Mottola-Carey marriage did not fare as well, imploding in 1997. Carey expands at some length on her previous allusions to Mottola’s controlling tendencies, claiming he would spy on her and that she was effectively a prisoner in the house. In his 2013 memoir, Mottola admits his relationship with Carey was “absolutely wrong and inappropriate” and adds: “If it seemed like I was controlling, I apologise. Was I obsessive? Yes, but that was also a part of the reason for her success.” Carey points out that she went on to have nine hit albums without Mottola’s controlling obsession. She writes that Mottola tried to “wash the urban” off her, recoiling at Carey’s increasing leaning towards hip-hop and collaborations with African American artists such as ODB. “I believe I said ‘urban, translation black,’ just in case anyone thinks I don’t know,” Carey corrects me. Does she think that was just for commercial purposes, or was something else going on with Mottola? “In my opinion there was a lot of other stuff going on there,” she says.

It must have been pretty upsetting to revisit that period during the writing, I say.

“Yes it was traumatic, but was it harder than some of the other things I’ve gone through? Maybe yeah, actually,” she says with a rueful laugh. “I don’t know if I’ll ever fully recover from the damage of that emotional abuse. But in my school of thought, you have to be a forgiving person.”

Carey is extraordinarily honest in her memoir, but the book is almost as striking for what she does not include as what she does. A lot of attention has focused on her confirmation that she did, as long rumoured, have a fling with the former baseball star Derek Jeter (“I’m not being shady, but he had on pointy shoes,” she recalls a little shadily of their first meeting.) But there is no mention of other boyfriends, such as her former fiancé, the Australian billionaire James Packer.

“If it was a relationship that mattered, it’s in the book. If not, it didn’t occur,” she says.

But you were engaged to Packer, I say.

“We didn’t have a physical relationship, to be honest with you,” she says.

And that is that.

Carey’s singing voice made her famous, but her penchant for being thrillingly, hilariously high-maintenance played its own part in shaping her legend. On an episode of MTV Cribs, she explained that she had a chaise longue in her kitchen because “I have a rule against sitting up straight”, and she has talked about bathing only in milk. Does she think she is high-maintenance – and, if so, does she think it is because she came from nothing?

“You know what? I don’t give a shit. I fucking am high-maintenance because I deserve to be at this point. That may sound arrogant, but I hope you frame it within the context of coming from nothing. If I can’t be high-maintenance after working my ass off my entire life, oh, I’m sorry – I didn’t realise we all had to be low-maintenance. Hell, no! I was always high-maintenance, it’s just I didn’t have anyone to do the maintenance when I was growing up!” she says and cackles with delight.

By now it is almost 7am for her and she is wide awake. I tell her I enjoyed all the references in her book to her enjoying “a splash of wine”.

“Oh, do you? Do you love a splash for yourself?” she asks, pleased.

I do, but I was intrigued by her description of a night out with her friends, including Cam’Ron and Juelz Santana, when they were all “high” on “purple treats”. What were these “purple treats”?

“A legal substance in California known as mari-ju-ana. It’s called purple because that’s the particular weed they liked,” she says.

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And did she like it?

“Are you enquiring for yourself or are you asking if I enjoyed it?” she says, mock coy.

I am asking if you enjoyed it, Mariah.

“No, I hated it,” she deadpans, then laughs. “I’m sorry, but it’s obvious!”

I have been interviewing famous people for a long time, but talking with Carey is the closest I have come to how I imagine it would have been to spend time with Bette Davis or Aretha Franklin. There are lots of ridiculous modern celebrities, but Carey is not like that. With her mix of slightly self-parodic ridiculousness undercut with no-messin’, true-to-herself honesty, she is a proper grande dame of the old school. A diva, in other words. It is a term she has laboured under throughout her career, and it is unlikely she will escape it, even if people now finally know where she is coming from. Does she mind the D-word?

“No! Who the fuck cares?” she laughs. “Honestly! ‘Oh my God, they’re calling me a diva – I think I’m going to cry!’ You think in the grand scheme of things in my life that really matters to me, being called a diva? I am, bitches, that’s right!”

The Meaning of Mariah Carey (Macmillan, £20) and The Rarities (Sony Music) are out now.

• This article was amended on 5 October 2020 to clarify that it is in the United States where Mariah Carey is second only to the Beatles in terms of having the most No 1 singles.

[virgyvandijk]

you know who

who hogs the duvet

virg. he’s always cold and does it without realising, just rolling himself into a little duvet burrito. hendo has realised that if he wants a share of the duvet (not his allotted fifty percent, tho, but he can live with that), he just has to let virg put his cold feet on his calves and cuddle up to him properly

who texts/rings to check how their day is going

virg, bc he could spend his entire life listening to hendo talk. he wants to know everything, what made hendo laugh, what made him annoyed, and then he wants to know who dared to annoy hendo.

who’s the most creative when it comes to gifts

they both are, but virg, mostly. he loves a good notonthehighstreet haul, little personalised things that represent special memories and milestones that they’ve shared, but hendo has learnt how to shop for a man who insists he doesn’t want anything (because hendo is everything he’s ever wanted, is what he always says)

who gets up first in the morning

hendo. he doesn’t like it, especially on their days off, but it’s instilled in him now. it’s like a little captain’s alarm in his head, warning him that he’s going to be late for training even when they’ve not got training, but it’s useful three quarters of the time.

who suggests new things in bed

virgil, obviously. he’s dutch and not exactly shy. do i need to say any more?

who cries at movies

virg. loves disney (which hendo thinks is a little bit ridiculous, but he’ll indulge him anyway). he’s a big softie really, loves a bit of emotion, and he’s not afraid to cry.

who gives unprompted massages

hendo. have you seen virgil’s back? he’s obsessed, can’t resist when virg is laying on his stomach messing about on his phone, and he just has to touch his shoulders. a massage is a perfect reason to touch, and virgil isn’t exactly complaining

who fusses over the other when they’re sick

hendo fusses over virg, because he sulks about it (but only in private. in public he pretends he’s fine). hendo doesn’t let virg fuss over him, because he never lets on that he’s ill. just fights through it, including training and playing, even if it kills him. yes, it gets him in lots of trouble

who gets jealous easiest

hendo, but only because virgil is so touchy. it doesn’t overly bother him – he knows that virg is madly enough in love with him that wouldn’t even think about anyone else, but seeing him with his hands all over people (especially the dutch nt lads, the ones that hendo doesn’t know) makes him flash a bit with jealousy until he catches himself

who has the most embarrassing taste in music

hendo. loves a bit of pop, especially a bit of diva pop, and he’s partial to the odd boyband. virg isn’t embarrassed of anything he listens to, although his music taste is virtually the same as hendo’s

who collects something unusual

this isn’t really unusual, but hendo collects every little scrap and stub and ticket of everything he and virgil do together. stubs from the cinema, gig tickets, even the first note that virg gave him when they first met, the one that had his phone number on. they’re all placed carefully in a shoebox under their bed

who takes the longest to get ready

virg, but only because he fiddles with his collar or his sleeves or his trainers for ages in front of the mirror before they can leave. it drives hendo insane, because he thinks virg would look perfect in a bin bag

who is the most tidy and organised

hendo. he knows where everything is in the house and he has a system, so virg just leaves him to it. he also makes sure his hotel room is picture perfect on away days, and then goes and tidies virgil’s, too. tidy room, tidy mind, after all

who gets most excited about the holidays

virg. he’s a big kid at heart, loves spoiling his loved ones, wrapping presents neatly, and the sparkling lights on christmas trees. he always drags hendo to a christmas market at least once.

who is the big spoon/little spoon

virg is the big spoon and hendo is the little spoon. it’s always been like that, bc hendo loves how big virgil is, loves the fact he’s taller, the fact his shoulders are broader, loves how much he dwarves him when he wraps his arms around him. that’s what makes him the perfect big spoon in hendo’s eyes

who gets most competitive when playing games and/or sports

they’re both quite competitive, but hendo is a nightmare. if hendo loses a game, he will practice and practice and practice until he can come back and win, which is something virgil found out the hard way. virgil lets him win most of the time for an easy life

who starts the most arguments

they don’t argue. they slam doors and don’t talk to each other for a few hours, but that’s the height of it, and they always discuss it afterwards with endless apologies, and then it’s forgotten

who suggests that they buy a pet

virg. he’s always wanted a cat but his mum always said no, and then when he was moving between football teams, he didn’t think there was any point considering he wasn’t at his flat most of the time, and now he just thinks hendo would look really, really adorable with a kitten

what couple traditions they have

when they’re on international duty, virg always calls hendo shortly before england kick off to wish him luck. it’s more of a superstition than a tradition now, because the one time he didn’t do it, england lost to the czech republic, and hendo got arsey about it

what tv shows they watch together

soaps. they’re that boring old couple who watch all the soaps and aren’t ashamed about it, because they have no drama in their own lives. they don’t want any, and they’re very happy watching fake drama with fake characters, thank you very much

what other couple they hang out with

all the lads on the team and their respective partners, to be honest. they’re very good at adapting to whatever social situations, but they’d much rather spend a night in by themselves

how they spend time together as a couple

they barely move on days off. virg makes hendo breakfast in bed, they shower, then inevitably end up back in bed, watching netflix and teasing each other. it’s relaxing, calming, and most importantly, makes them feel closer than ever. that’s all they really need

who made the first move

virg. hendo always knew that he liked virg and wasn’t exactly shy about it, definitely letting virg know that there was something there, but once his daydreams slipped into the unchartered territory of virg rejecting him and he was too scared to make the first move after that. virg was very happy to pick up the baton, though, and show hendo that he definitely wouldn’t reject him

who brings flowers home

virg, because as much as he likes to spoil hendo, he doesn’t like to buy him expensive or dead personal presents every time. flowers are enough, they show his love for hendo, and besides – if you look it up, they’re a love language of their own, and virgil loves to speak it

who is the best cook

virg. hendo can’t cook, and virg is sick of trying to scrub burnt bits of food off the bottom of saucepans. now virg cooks and hendo washes, and it makes things a lot more harmonious at home.

[captainvileshmodiworld-blog]

Global Diva Ring Light Market 2019 | Manufacturers In-Depth Analysis Report to 2024

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 MINIATURE

 Fositan

 VILTROX

 UBeesize

 Neewer

 Auxiwa

 Trumagine

 Diva Ring Light

 YONGNUO

 Esddi

 Kshioe

 Travor

 Konseen

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 North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)

 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)

 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)

 South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia etc.)

 Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)

Market Segment by Type, covers

 24-LED Type

 36-LED Type

 120-LED Type

 180-LED Type

 240 LED Type

 Others

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 Photography

 Videography

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[kurou3gi-blog]

its my gut/rational fell (?) same as i feel like fans are worrying about ks ,but this actor trip was s/m green light that ks will be back at acting and goes his own way distance of ex0, like tae*yeo did with gg. which for them separete kd from public eyes perfectly, because less ex0 schedule, less kd. Im more 'worried' career wise with ji. I still don´t feel like s/m know what plan to him, but i do wonder if kd will show themselves to us again. this seem like a blank page. what do you think?

Tbh at first I worry about kd cb and hunnie’s career…

But when I saw soo with bald head I thought maybe he already had a new deal now or he already to enlistment………

And if we think he had enjoy time with his sunbaenim actor squad… Yes and I think they chose to travel together to make soo relax from something….

Why I think like that because I saw yesterday(19/05/19) clip that kwangsoo is massaging soo’s nape back at the airport. And you know? Men like to do this when they want to encourage friends or make them relax when their friend facing a hard time…. But at that counter???? 

Yeah I think you know I don’t think he has problem with airport staff but if we think after that they will separate from soo again and soo come back to facing with his hard obstacle again….. So,….

And why I worry about cb and hunnie’s carreer too. Because if we think about how esm promote chen solo with how they promote chan and xiu solo….. I think you can see how different between their promote marketing even they are from same group and release at the same time in the name of same project…

And if you don’t forget like me that cy already had created youtube channel you can see that esm didn’t promote his channel like what they did with chen and bh… So,…..

Then about bh….

Once I told that I worry about him after I saw his ig live first time with his driving until now and when I knew he has channel on youtube now but only trolled his vlog life not his music cover activity like chen….

Tbh I feel like because esm don’t know what to do with him with long term work so they troll the youtube channel to him to kill a time and make money with his steamer live like diva of ow at the same time…..

And about hunnie….

Although a few days ago we saw him went to music studio with cy but now he went to visit lay?

I think if them (kd cb and hunnie) has ekso work schedule now I don’t think they should do like this. Their life now is already like a unemployed life - -” 

Sorry to not say they look like a freelancer because it’s hard to make a long term holiday with freelance life like they do now….

It like they showed us to know that they have their own way not only ekso way….

This is that’s why when you told about you think that “s/m green light that ks will be back at acting and goes his own way distance of ex0″ and I think that esm pressed them to show us that they have own way that even they are not one at tomorrow but don’t worry about their future….  And I think esm pressed them to keep the range from ekso too….

And even I said I worry about ji’s career but I don’t think esm didn’t know what to do with him if we think that they don’t want to deal him with fenty that it’s a one of Rihanna’s business that has men cosmetic but can sent him to deal with nature re and gucci that main with girl cosmetic and fashion if we think they sent cy to Tommy Hilfiger that main men fashion….. 

Some of my dumb cell think that they have many plans to do with him but him deny it until they prefer a good thing to soo too. Like a kind of exchange between them and esm…. 

Then if esm not send a good deal with soo… I no wonder to see ot2-6 again and again….. 

About good deal… I not mean soo’s work because I don’t think he is so demanding if we think about his work with 100 day prince and that web drama series…. So, good deal is what I mean about their privacy….. 

And if we think about not ot7 new work again after jk confirmed so,…..

I think I no wonder if jk issue has more toxic effect to kadi than we think. 

Because if we think that it’s only real love between men idol x girl idol not fake issue to cover something like delulu shipper think that they want to cover that they are gay couple… Why did e xo especial soo become like this?

So, now I not worry about kadi work career only but I worry about e x o are one or not too…..

Sorry, if my bad bad dumb brain cell made you disappointed about my answered….

And hope you understand what I mean…… Tbh I want to talk with more detail than this about what I think but it’s hard to describe to easy understand in english…..

[thetherobio]

WELCOME

William S. Burroughs,  in the introduction of his novel ‘Naked Lunch’, claims Jack Kerouac, his fellow Beat Pioneer, suggested the book’s title, maintaining that “It means exactly what the words say: naked lunch, a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork." Alan Ginsberg, the third literary iconoclast in that particular group of authors, was said to have misread the title of the manuscript, which was, purportedly, ‘Naked Lust’.   Either story works for me, because, as an overweight, middle aged white man, I admit that I lust for whatever is on the end of my every fork on any given frozen moment of my life.  

Lunch is an abbreviation taken from the more formal North English Word ‘Luncheon,’ derived from the Anglo-Saxon word nunchin, meaning ‘Noon Drink’, a tradition carried on in the Financial District of Manhattan with the 80% tax-deductible ‘3 Martini Lunch’.  Which is probably why the Stock Market is so fucked up.  

Lunch is the popular pastime of groups of middle aged women immortalized by Steven Sondheim, in his  song ‘Ladies Who Lunch’ from his Musical ‘Company.’ The most famous rendition performed by Elaine Stritch, a venerable Broadway Diva, (or  Old Bag, depending on your point of view) whose voice might actually make you LOSE your lunch.

But since 1580 AD, the word has been used to describe the meal taken between two more substantial meals.  

However, there are parts of the world where Lunchisthe main meal of the day.  In some countries, such as Germany, Portugal, Hungary, parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe and Asia, lunch is when a person really chows down.

In Bengal, where a traditional lunch is a SEVEN course meal, consisting of vegetables in a coconut sauce, a vegetable curry over rice, a fish curry over rice, a meat curry over rice, deep-fried sweet semolina balls, yogurt, and capped off with ‘Paan’, which is a bitter leaf which acts as the final palate cleanser.  Even a fat bastard like me think that’s just a bit much.  You shove all that shit down your piehole, you’re not going back to work.  You’re napping for about 4 hours.

In Scotland, a country whose sole contributions to humanity are Golf and Whiskey, the NUMBER ONE lunch item, popular to the point where it almost qualifies as The National Dish, is a deep fried Mars Bar.  Let me repeat that.  THE NUMBER ONE LUNCH ITEM IN SCOTLAND IS A FUCKING DEEP FRIED MARS BAR.  Which is not altogether that surprising, when you consider that their most famous dish is Haggis, a savory pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver, and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and cooked encased in the animal's stomach.   It’s my contention that this is why they began distilling scotch in the first place, because you’d have to be pretty fucking drunk to eat that shit.

Here, in North America, lunch is a moderate meal, generally consumed between 11 AM and 2 PM, depending on your hours.  It’s usually a quick meal, if not taken at a restaurant, office cafeteria or food cart, then brought from home and eaten at your desk.  The majority of children bring theirs to school in a brown paper bag, in which is usually a sandwich, (traditionally bologna, cheese, tunafish or peanut butter and jelly) and a piece of fruit which is almost always used to barter for something better, like a cookie.  My mother used to habitually pack me a smoked turkey on white bread with mayo.  Not exactly barterable, especially because it looked like a sliced raw baby sandwich, although I think raw sliced baby would probably taste a shit ton better than that that Anemic, Light Pink Colored Processed Mystery Meat.  I know it was supposed to be turkey, but, if it was, I’d bet my next lunch check it was from the neck.

At least in this country, Lunch is really only one of three meals between Breakfast and Dinner.  One on either side of the feast the very entity you are reading celebrates.  

One is ‘Brunch’, which is a hybrid of a late breakfast and early lunch, hence the compound name. It is almost always served on weekends, and involves standard morning fare: eggs, bacon, pancakes, et. al, combined with menu items that are usually reserved for later in the day;  various carved meats and seafood items from the raw bar) The latter, arguably, is merely included to justify day drinking. Which is the only reason anybody ever goes to Brunch.  (“Bloody Marys and Mimosas!  They’re not ‘Drink Drinks’!  They’re both based on Breakfast Juices!’ )  

The second meal between Breakfast and Dinner is ‘The Early Bird Special’.  There should be an asterisk alongside the phrase, as it is, in reality, actually a dinner, albeit one that is eaten not more than one hour after 3 O’clock.  ‘The Early Bird Special’ is not just a meal, it’s a phenomenon.  

Because,

1 - It’s usually only found in areas located in warmer climes.

2 - It is generally only available at mass market chain restaurants known for being open 24 hours a day and feature menu items with cute names like ‘Moon Over My Hammy’, and

3 - The demographic of those who partake in it is traditionally one that resides in retirement communities: Men wearing green polyester pants hiked up to their nipples and women sporting angora sweaters draped around their slight, bony shoulders.

Seemingly, it’s the bargain offered by the restaurant on the meal that holds the allure. There appears to be no person over the age of 62 who can resist the temptation of Pot Roast and Gravy, Mashed Potatoes and Creamed Corn, with choice of soup or salad, coffee or soft drink and dessert of the day, even if it means they have to take it between 2:59 and 3:59, and they’ve just finished lunch at 2.

But at whatever time, in whatever form it’s embraced, Lunch is the magical meal that is universally adored.  No matter the country, culture or creed, the siren call of the break in the middle of the day to consume sustenance to keep us going until the last school bell rings or we punch out on the time clock, is anticipated with great eagerness.  

In the pages that follow, we will discuss how this culinary gift of God is done in the different parts of this country.  We will explore menu items germane to specific geographical locations, and how the fare varies from State to State.   Some of the opinions voiced between these covers will, no doubt, be fraught with controversy, causing passionate, sometimes hostile debate over which city has the better hot dog, what constitutes a ‘chili’, or the proper way to eat a slice.

But in the end, it is my fervent hope that we can all find common ground in the delightfully diverse meal that, ultimately, unites us all.

So...have your girl call my girl. 

 Let’s do lunch.