365 T-shirts - the reasoning

This blog should be sub-titled: a journal of my life in geek.

I get my geek on with things about which I am geeky: comic books, Baseball, Ultimate, science fiction, my favorite bands, books I have read and loved, and Jungian psychology to name some of the most frequently traversed subjects.

I began this project simply as a way to count my T-shirts. I own a lot of T-shirts. But how many do I have? Do I have 365? We shall find out.

When I started this blog, I thought about how each T-shirt means something to me. I bought it for a reason, after all. I set myself the task to post an entry about a new T-shirt every day as a way to simply write something every day, a warm up for writing fiction, which is my passion. Writing is like exercise. Warm ups are good for exercise. But after completing a month of blogging about T-shirts, I have learned that this blog serves as a journal; it documents my life in geek, sort of a tour of my interests in pop culture. The blog serves as a tool for self-inventory, for assessment and analysis of self and the origins of self, for stepping through the process of individuation in catalogues, lists, and ranks.

The blog also made me aware that I have some serious gaps in my T-shirt ownership, and I am in the process of collecting some new T-shirts for several of the great popular culture icons that I truly love. Stay tuned.

I was also a bit surprised that people checked out my blog and continue to check it, read it, and even comment on it. I am very appreciative of this readership. Please feel free to share your thoughts in my comments section. I will respond.

Also, please note that I have moved the original introductory text to the side bar. And now, I present to you the most recent entry of 365 T-shirts: a journal of my life in geek. Thank you for reading.
(Second Update - 1310.24. First Update - 1306.05 Originally Posted - 1304.25.)
Showing posts with label Shirts I Made. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shirts I Made. Show all posts

Monday, January 27, 2014

T-shirt #312 - Centrals 2001

T-shirt #312 - Centrals 2001

Today's blog entry features another Ultimate tournament shirt, one I designed, one featuring a Calvin knock off drawing, and a collection of content in the entry that has nothing to do with the shirt, the great sport of Ultimate, or Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes fame.

I have more than one of these shirts, so I can post another one. In fact, I stuck at least one of these shirts in a drawer when I made them back in 2001, thinking that a time would come that I would want a crisp, clean, new version of the awesome shirt I made. not even realizing that I would strive to do color Calvin and Hobbes for the next two tournaments.

Instead of dwelling yet again on the sport of Ultimate, making shirts, and all that, I have for you the next installment of my "WHY T-SHIRTS?" series during my supposed "hiatus" and some random links and things that have been cluttering up the old desk space and noggin. Not much rhetoric on those just fun stuff to explore.


WHY T-SHIRTS EXPLANATORY BLURB
I am doing a series of snippets that will add up to a larger whole answering the "Why T-shirts?" or "What's with all the T-shirts?" question. I have also decided to include the previous items in an ever growing list, hence the "previous items" section next.

PREVIOUS ITEMS
#1: T-SHIRTS ARE COOL
#2: I BE BRANDED - CHOOSING TO ADVERTISE
#3: It's my tattoo
#4 PRIDE AND STATUS - "It's my thing."

TODAY'S ITEM - WHY T-SHIRTS #5 -  "LET ME GEEK FLAG FLY!!"

Most people reasonably educate in music of the 1960s and after will recognize my swipe and modification of a lyric from the  song "Almost Cut My Hair" from the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young album Déja Vu, which I listed on my top ten albums of all time list in T-shirt #292 - SPRINGSTEEN.

Wearing T-shirts is exactly like Neil sings, though he sings "letting my freak flag fly." I changed it to "geek flag" for obvious reasons. This has been what wearing these T-shirts has always been for me, though I have come more out of my geek shell in the last 312 days than ever before.

It's a geek flag. It's a freak flag. This is me in all my resplendent dorkness.

'Nuff said as the Great Stan "The Man" Lee always says.

RANDOM STUFF

The rest of the text in today's blog is dedicated to random stuff. If you like random stuff or glimpses into what's been pulling at my attention lately read on.

To start random stuff, I would like to share a blog entry called RANDOM UPDATE. My friend Walter Curley just posted this blog with pictures of t-shirts. What's the deal Walt? No selfies? Though COVET, especially the WONDER TWINS shirt.

Today I discovered a new web site for techie news. This may be old news to a lot of you.
re/code NET

I was drawn to Re/code after learning that Google bought the AI company Deepmind, which gave me all kinds of ideas.

If only I had stuck with computers. In 1978, I was programming on the high school Altair 8800 computer with a whopping 4K of RAM compared to the 6 gigabytes I am currently using (my laptop has 8 GB).

*SIGH*

Stephen Hawking has some new ideas about black holes. He's Stephen Hawking, so you have to take him seriously, though many physicists are scoffing.

Stephen Hawking's new theory on black holes


Some BITCH MAGAZINE fare, starting with a great comic about comics (and I may have to do more than post the link). Oh cool, I can post the whole thing...
A comic explaining the lingo people use when describing comics

"Don't be a dick!" A comic about how to talk about comics

Also, this next thing from BITCH MAGAZINE.

An Epic Feminist Edit-a-Thon Takes Aim at Wikipedia's Gender Gap
It's well known that female artists are underrepresented in art museums, but what about in our more modern and malleable institutions?
Next week, groups of artists and tech-savvy folks around the country are taking aim at gender imbalance in representation of female artists on Wikipedia. The "Art + Feminism Edit-a-Thon" being held in New York on February 1st has inspired simultaneous editing marathons in 17 other cities, all focused on adding more female artists to the public encyclopedia and fleshing out the meager entries of existing women artists.
The exciting thing about Wikipedia is that it's a cultural institution with very few gatekeepers. Artists don't have to impress a curator or strike it big at a fancy gallery show in order to get their work on the site. Instead, they or one of their fans just has to have the tech skills to create a Wikipedia entry. The huge number of people adding information to Wikipedia should theoretically mean that the ever-changing encyclopedia can present a more accurate and diverse portrait of American art than, say, the Met. But while anyone can edit Wikipedia pages, surveys show that the vast majority of people who actually do edit the site are men: less than 13 percent of people who create or change Wikipedia entries are women. 
Read on at the link above...

a photo by krystal south shows a woman wearing a shirt that says "never log off"

The photo (above) comes from multidisciplinary artist Krystal South's internet-exploration project Identify Yourself: IDENTIFY YOURSELF.

What has identity become, now that our social selves are laid bare online? How is identity established within the form-fields of Facebook? Our connections are tagged and bound to our profiles. These digital networks have not only transformed our societal structure, they have also re-shaped our internal selves.
Read more from IDENTIFY YOURSELF. Awesome STUFF.
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updating from 2023 with new content to make up for unavailable content.

The Psychedlic Experience short film 1965

Introduced by Timothy Leary with music by Ravi Shankar.


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"The Psychedelic Experience" a beautiful 1965 short film that was so controversial the filmmaker had to leave town



"The Psychedelic Experience" is a beautiful short film created by San Francisco art teacher Jean Mayo and filmmaker Allan Willis in 1965. It includes contributions from Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and music from Ravi Shankar.

The film won a prize at the San Francisco film festival that year, but caused such a big controversy because of its title, that Mayo had to move to another town. 

This film begins with Timothy Leary saying "'Psychedelic' means 'mind expanding.' The psychedelic experience is a voyage inside. A trip into the countless galaxies of your own nervous system. For thousands of years, philosophers and poets have told mankind that there's more inside. That the reality of the external world is only one of millions of reality within the human nervous system."  Leary's visionary ideas are more important now than ever before. 

From Youtube:

"in 1965 san francisco art teacher jean mayo (now millay) and her good friend film maker allan willis set out to make a short experimental film and used materials close to hand to help the effects (soap bubbles etc…) but once completed it needed a name so they came up with 'the psychedelic experience'….Timothy leary/Ralph metzner were asked to contribute along with music by ravi shankar and his always brilliant tabla player alla rakha…it won a prize at the san francisco film festival held that year & then the troubles began….hippiedom was in its infancy and certain people were upset with a film named 'the psychedelic experience' so mayo had to leave her job and move along to another town!..when you think that two years later it was very passe to mention such words!..rare to find for many years and unseen it now makes an arrival here for your viewing pleasure.."



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David Bowie - Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division)

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Also, see I GUESS I KNOW ABOUT ORIGINAL SIN for bloggery committed in regards to this rare and unreleased Bowie cover.

Listen: Cocteau Twins' Simon Raymonde's Band Snowbird: "All Wishes Are Ghosts"

Listen: Cocteau Twins' Simon Raymonde's Band Snowbird:


And lastly, Bully's Comics at Blogspot is doing a 365 Days of Kirby Tech, as in the far-out and freaky technology from comic books drawn by Jack Kirby.

Here's two bits. This stuff is great!!

DAY 9 -The Growth Machine






DAY 10 - Reed Richards' Heat Image Tracer






Read more at the links.
Classic stuff.

That's enough for today.

Almost caught up. One outstanding post to finish and than getting ahead as the hiatus was designed to help me do!

HIATUS TEXT: I am taking a short hiatus. A "hiatus" for the 365 T-shirts Blog does not mean that there will not be shirts or that I will skip posting on any forthcoming day. There will be shirts. But the shirts will not be exciting or the featured shirts will not require me to write a small novel to properly generate the content I feel is sufficient. I created a category for my hiatus so as to group together those "easy" shirts that I consider to be "hiatus shirts." The goal of the hiatus is to fill in many blog days with easy shirts in order to complete longer love letters to beloved popular culture icons on more special shirts and to write more complex entries AHEAD OF TIME. The daily grind is becoming too much and causing me to fall behind and to be forced to post incomplete entries. I am hoping that a series of hiatus shirts will allow me to catch up, get ahead, and stay ahead. Ideally, I would like to be writing the bulk of each entry three days ahead while always working on at least one other. I have a lot of great shirts to share before the end of my blog year (after all I was just given SIXTEEN shirts for my birthday). Stay tuned. I promise to post the more interesting and longer T-shirt entries as I finish them. Thanks for reading. BTW, this is the standard HIATUS TEXT that I will include in every "hiatus shirt" entry.

COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 53 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1401.27 - 20:09

Monday, January 20, 2014

T-shirt #305 - Michigan Sectionals 2002 (NO PLAY)

T-shirt #305 - Michigan Sectionals 2002 (NO PLAY)

Today's shirt looks just like the shirt for T-shirt #165 because it is an identical copy like all the shirts in print run with no print errors.

As I have discussed before (T-shirt #168), I have PLAY and NO PLAY shirts. In other words, one that can be soiled in the often messy playing of Ultimate, and one that I wish to keep nice and unsoiled as often soils do not wash free of the fabric.

The long and short of what I am trying to tell you is that I have two of these shirts from the Michigan 2002 Sectionals Tournament, a shirt I helped design and guided through to the print and sale stages. In my previous post, I gave Kent Elliott design credit formerly and the printing (and final layouts) were done by Artwear Apparel of Kalamazoo.

HIATUS

I am taking a partial hiatus from the blog, but I want to explain what that means.

There is no real "hiatus" from this blog. I dedicated myself to one post ever day for 365 days without interruption or break. And so far, I have not missed a day.

But what that means, "not missing a day, " is that some days I have posted incomplete blog entries. You may not realize this is happening if you follow me on Google Plus, Twitter, or Facebook. I do not post to any of those social media sites until I have finished an entry completely. But I do publish the unfinished work to the blog.

Before this month, I was at most one day behind, and I usually finished the unfinished entry early the next day. But this month, I have fallen several days behind, and I have needed multiple days to finish entries that I have already posted. As I type these very words, I am two days behind, with T-shirt #304 from Sunday January 19th (my birthday) and T-shirt #303 from Saturday January 18th still unfinished.

Now some of you may be wondering why I do not just wait and publish when I have the entry done. Well, if I have not been clear before, I can have no skip days. Also, I sometimes have an entry planned, and I have nothing else ready to go. Other times, I intend to finish the entry soon. It's only recently that I have been multiple days and multiple entries behind. So, there can be no skip days. I have to post something, and I do always post SOMETHING. I have never published a blank page. And so, I publish what I have, and I make readers wait for the finished product. I apologize if this screws with your sense of order in the cosmos.
some of the new stuff
Birthday gifts stacked
yes, shaving cakes

There is a "publish back in time" button. Okay, not really. But Blogger has a "schedule to publish" feature. One day, I discovered how to use it like a time machine. I was working on a blog entry I had not finished. And to get the "save" button, I reverted the entry to draft, which "unpublishes" it. (Is my use quotation marks growing annoying?) Since I was a day or two late with the entry, when I re-published it, the date was for the current day and NOT the day I had originally published the entry, which is not how I thought it would work.

I was devastated. I might have just screwed up my consecutive days of T-shirt publication. And then, I wondered about the schedule feature. What if I scheduled the entry to publish, but I scheduled it to publish the day before? Guess what? You can do that. Or at least I did that one time. Unless I have lost track, I have no skip days, though I have made errors in the consecutive numbering of the shirts, though this is something I can fix more easily.

I have not used the "back in time" publishing since. I do not wish to tempt fate.

Also, while I am on the subject, I learned how the schedule feature worked after it failed to work as I thought it did. I scheduled the post to publish during my surgery. Later that day, when I was awake enough, I checked and the post had not published. I did not understand. But eventually I figured out that I had to click publish, like I normally do, and Blogger will release the post at the scheduled time. Makes sense, right? I am sure there is a help page that says as much somewhere that I did not read.

So with all that long-winded explanation out of the way, which may be only interesting to me, I have standard hiatus text that I plan to post in all of the forthcoming shirts that I considered hiatus shirts (I also made a category).

HIATUS TEXT: I am taking a short hiatus. A "hiatus" for the 365 T-shirts Blog does not mean that there will not be shirts or that I will skip posting on any forthcoming day. There will be shirts. But the shirts will not be exciting or the featured shirts will not require me to write a small novel to properly generate the content I feel is sufficient. I created a category for my hiatus so as to group together those "easy" shirts that I consider to be "hiatus shirts." The goal of the hiatus is to fill in many blog days with easy shirts in order to complete longer love letters to beloved popular culture icons on more special shirts and to write more complex entries AHEAD OF TIME. The daily grind is becoming too much and causing me to fall behind and to be forced to post incomplete entries. I am hoping that a series of hiatus shirts will allow me to catch up, get ahead, and stay ahead. Ideally, I would like to be writing the bulk of each entry three days ahead while always working on at least one other. I have a lot of great shirts to share before the end of my blog year (after all I was just given SIXTEEN shirts for my birthday). Stay tuned. I promise to post the more interesting and longer T-shirt entries as I finish them. Thanks for reading. BTW, this is the standard HIATUS TEXT that I will include in every "hiatus shirt" entry.

JUST FOR FUN, here's a few comic book covers that I have saved in my downloads folder. Because what's a 365 T-shirt blog entry without comic books?

If you want to know more about the comics, click the links! Isn't that a great blog?

COVER GALLERY


There are several entries in which I have "borrowed" images shared originally on the wonderful blog PENCIL INK: Vintage Comic Book Art & Artists 1940s-1990s by a Blogger user known only as Teddy, as explained HERE. All the covers here are attributed with the links to the pages in which he shared them. If you love comics as much as I do, then add his page to your reader, subscribe, or whatever you do to keep track of blogs you like. Thanks Pencil Ink blogger. Your blog rocks!!


Amazing Adventures v3 #27 - Jim Starlin cover - today's posts


Fantastic Four #80 - Jack Kirby art & cover 


Apr 03, 2012




Metal Men #45 - Walt Simonson art - today's posts - Blogger






Superboy #154 - Wally Wood art, Neal Adams cover - today's posts


Mar 07, 2013

Hint: some of the comic covers above preview soon to be featured shirts! :-)

COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 60 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1401.20 - 19:33

Monday, January 13, 2014

T-shirt #298 - Sectionals 2001 - the Yellow Calvin

T-shirt #298 - Sectionals 2001 - the Yellow Calvin

Yes, I know. Second Ultimate shirt in a row. Sue me. I want some easy stuff to catch up and get back ahead.

I created a new category today for "Shirts I Made." I included in this category shirts I designed or had some part in the design, print, and/or creation process, which includes ALL OF THE KUDL SHIRTS. It also includes shirts from my days running the CENTRALS tournament and as the Ultimate Player Association's Sectionals Coordinator for Michigan. I had the most input in the various Centrals and Sectionals shirts that I conceived and fully guided the design as well as making sure they were printed and then selling them at the tournament.

I got good at this enterprise since I could not sell shirts AND play in the tournament, so I would hire people to sit and sell stuff and help me set up and tear down. The proceeds from the shirts were used as seed money for the next tournament and to keep tournament costs low. It was not a perfect system. Granted, my participation in some of the KUDL shirts was not as fully invested as in the shirts I played a larger role at shepherding from design to sale for the tournaments I hosted, but I figured for the category's sake, I would include all the shirts that I worked on in some way.

I have just a few more things to say about this subject and then I am done with it. The Calvin and Hobbes art on this shirt and T-shirt #141 were drawn by my friend Neil Southwell. However, in 2001, we could not find a skin tone for Calvin, and for some bizarre reason, we went with yellow. I think I made this unfortunate decision, hence how I refer to this shirt as the "Yellow Calvin" shirt. Please no terrible Asian remarks. We got Calvin right in the T-shirt for Centrals 2002, which was near the tail end of my time running these tournaments. I abandoned the work shortly after the 2002 shirt featured in T-shirt #141. The tournaments had become more trouble than they were worth, and I had very little help (that I was not paying for). Sure, people would help the day of, sometimes, but generally people would just sit around and drink beer, which is what I wanted to do. We had started to grow a good group of teams in the Michigan section and that would attend Centrals. We started to get teams to Centrals from as far as New Jersey. But, eventually, it proved too much for me to run on my own. Later, when KUDL became successful, I flirted with the idea of starting the tournaments back up because suddenly we had a team of people willing to put some effort toward something for Ultimate. But for now, running the league is enough.

I liked this shirt especially because it included the text from the UPA rules for the Spirit of the Game. I was proud of this shirt despite the yellow of Calvin's face.


That's all for now. T-shirt Blogger Man is trying to get ahead now that he is caught up.


COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 67 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1401.13 - 19:36

Monday, December 16, 2013

T-shirt #270 - KUDL 2007 Retro Black Long-Sleeve

T-shirt #270 - KUDL 2007 Retro Black Long-Sleeve

Happy Monday to you all if you happened to stop by here on a Monday.

Grading robot is at full power plowing through two sets of final grades for three classes and then the normal week of grading all to be finished by Friday, though the final grades are due tomorrow. So this did not go up first in the morning because of Grading Robot's activity.

I just finished one set of final grades (due tomorrow) with one set to go, and as you can see, I am very excited for the Lions game tonight. Monday night football. GO LIONS!

Do I really need to discuss this KUDL shirt in any depth? It's the retro re-issue of our 2007 design that we did this year, like my T-shirt #237.

I may take an Ultimate hiatus. I am not sure how many Ultimate shirts I have left, but I am pretty sure that I am out of KUDL shirts. I have featured 29 such shirts (including this one), which is quite a few, especially since KUDL has only been active eight years.

Short entry today, but I have a few things already set up in tomorrow's entry, so it should be a good one.

I have shared about my fantasy sports play before.

I had a good week last week. I won in all six of my fantasy basketball games, with one I had a huge comeback victory on the last day of the week. I am inserting screen shots of the matchup going into Sunday and the final result.

I fell to a horrible 6-9 in picking football spreads for the week, while my colleagues all did much better than I did.

Fantasy football is not decided yet, so I may report back, but I had at least one HUGE win, so I am happy with that.



As you can see in this NO MERCY league, I was down 3-12 going into Sunday games. I had more players active than my opponent so I had hopes that I might pull out a close win. Given the small number of players he had going Sunday, I am surprised to keep under in the turnover and personal foul categories, in which the lower number takes the match. I did not think I would catch him in rebounds, but I was hoping to edge him in several other categories, which as you can see, I did. This was a good one and in large part due to my skill as a player in terms of my draft and my waiver additions. It's also nice to see a comeback as he had more games through the week, but I made it up on the final day.

The other thing I want to share today is a group discussion from Good Reads with Night Film author Marisha Pessl. I have already written about Night Filmas I mention in the message I posted to Good Reads. Marisha did not respond to my message, but I did not expect her to do so. Surely she read it as there were not that many messages. You can surely find the group if you are on Good Reads and you are interested. Once again, I want to promote Marisha's book. It was excellent!!



FROM GOOD READS --------------->

Ask Marisha Pessl - Monday, December 16th! discussion

Marisha Pessl
This topic is about Marisha Pessl
Featured Author Chat - 2013 > Ask Marisha! 


Comments (showing 1-50 of 54) (36 new)    post a comment »
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message 1: by Cynthia, Goodreads Moderator
Cynthia (cincindypat) | 1 commentsWelcome to the group! Marisha Pessl will be answering questions throughout the day on Monday, December 16th in this thread only. In the meantime if you have a question for Marisha, or just want to introduce yourself, feel free to do so in this thread. 



ChrisI loved NIGHT FILM!! I don't have any questions, but assuming you get these all read, quite a task, and I wanted to add my voice. I wrote about Night Film on my blog, TWICE. :-)
My story about how my wife asked me to read the book as an anniversary gift to her is here
http://365-tshirts.blogspot.com/2013/...
My review of the book is here
http://365-tshirts.blogspot.com/2013/...

LOVED it!! And I think it's quite a rare thing to come to the book via my wife's request that I read it and start on our anniversary (as in immediately) as a gift to her. One quick download to my Kindle and off I went. We were in Hawaii on vacation at the time, so I managed to read much much more on long plane rides and soaks in the hot tub.
Thanks Marisha. You have added to my favorite books not just of this year but of all time.
reply | edit | delete | flag *



Back to Grading...

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 98 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1312.16 - 19:07

Monday, December 9, 2013

T-shirt #263 - KUDL 2009 - Red - Cotton

T-shirt #263 - KUDL 2009 - Red - Cotton

Welcome  to the follow up to yesterday's Feist post. I have written enough about KUDL and Ultimate for now, so this shirt provides me with a freebie to be able to write about whatever I want. However, in an attempt to get ahead on the post that was supposed to be yesterday's (which is not happening as I took all my time writing this one), I have to restrict myself to just a few, short subjects (or just one) or all my writing time disappears, and I still make no progress on the bigger entry that keeps getting postponed (which I didn't).

In preparing yesterday's shirt, I was going to make a top ten and a second ten (top twenty) of favourite female musicians.

Joni Mitchell balked at this categorization. She does not consider her only peers to be Carly Simon, Joan Baez, and Carole King, but rather Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, David Crosby, James Taylor, and so on. Her point is valid. Why should women artists only be compared to other WOMEN artists. Why not just compare artists and artists? Why do we feel the need to segregate?

Okay, list time. I am not segregating. I actually am mad for women musicians, and my list of male musicians would be much shorter, especially if I restrict myself to those who have worked by and large in a solo capacity: Bowie, Weller, Costello, Jackson, Donald Fagen, David Sylvian, Springsteen, Gabriel, Eno, Bryan Ferry... okay, so the list is growing rather larger than I anticipated. NEVERTHELESS, I love women artists more and want to separate them, which means I can have more in my top ten. :-)

I love female singer-songwriters WAY more than male ones, and I was going to make a list with yesterday's entry, but it was getting long, and I was off to play D&D plus I had to work on the family Christmas shopping. AND I lost the list I made on my tablet the other night, but I think I can recreate it easily.

My criteria for this list is restricted to women artists who have worked primarily or exclusively on a solo basis. I also have a criterion based on those whose work I have listened to the most often, and so those with some longevity are higher on the list than newer artists. Though I like some new artists, if I don't have enough of their work, or they have not been around long enough, then they will not make the list. One artist, Lisa Gerard, I adore, but since she has mostly worked with Dead Can Dance, she does not make the list despite her solo work. I also adore Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins and Beth Gibbons of Portishead. Though the latter has some solo work, the former has none and so does not make the list.



The lists are not strictly ranked. I could easily claim Kate Bush as number two or three. Sade is probably over Erykah Badu as I have listened to her for more years. I had to put Katie Melua on the list because her cover of "Just Like Heaven" is THE SONG for my wife and me and our crazy love affair. It was played at our wedding. I think Katie Melua is GREAT, but I might not have put her in the top twenty over artists that I have loved for more years, like AIMEE MANN, Sarah McLachlan, Neko Case, ALANIS Morissette, or Fiona Apple.

LIST OF FAVORITE WOMEN SINGER-SONGWRITERS
  1. Joni Mitchell
  2. Rickie Lee Jones
  3. Erykah Badu
  4. Kate Bush
  5. Suzanne Vega 
  6. Tracey Thorn
  7. Beth Orton
  8. Sade
  9. Ani DiFranco
  10. Annie Lennox


SECOND TEN

11. Lori Carson
12. Laurie Anderson
13. Bjork
14. Tori Amos
15. Jane Siberry
16. Katie Melua
17. Sinead O'Connor
18. M.I.A.
19. Enya
20. Feist

Notable Omissions: ST. VINCENT a recent new love almost made this list. Patti Smith (love her, but I consider her work with the Patti Smith Group as best); Natalie Merchant (ditto, I adore her but her best work was with the 10,000 Maniacs); Edith Piaf (a fantastic singer but has not been one I have listened to over the course of my life as much); Same deal as Piaf for Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, Laura Nyro, etc.; Fiona Apple (close but no cigar). Also all close but no cigar due to too few albums or not enough listens: Gillian Welch, Dingding Sa, Emmylou Harris, Carole King, Goldfrapp, Beth Nielsen Chapman, India.Arie, Jenny Lewis, Alanis Morissette, Kate Rusby, Katell Keineg, Lois, KD Lang, Kasey Musgraves, Kimya Dawson, Kirsty MacColl, Duffy, Kristin Hersh, Lana Del Rey. And so many more. Stopping now. This is getting crazy. Okay, I have to mention Mary J. Blige, Mikki Howard, and Nina Simone. Whew.

I am pretty happy with these lists. There was a time that I listened to Laurie Anderson all the time (and I have named her as a guest at my fantasy Dinner Party), but she lost her top ten ranking when I realized that I had left off Suzanne Vega, which is crazy given my lengthy love letter to her in T-shirt #78. Also, as much as I love her, it's a tough call between Bjork and artists like Sinead O'Connor and Sarah McLachlan. I simply chose to rank Bjork in the top twenty because of a dream I had recently in which she was at my fantasy Dinner Party, chatting with me and Laurie Anderson.

VIDEOS of top five FAVORITES (skipping two)

Okay, more indulgence. I know I have posted music videos both of the last two days. But it's time for some more. Just five here, assuming I can find them. A good sampler to start your Monday. I could go strictly top five, but since I already have posts on two of the artists in the top five -- Suzanne Vega in T-shirt #78 and Erykah Badu in T-shirt #86 -- I am skipping them. Go to those links for videos. Here's videos from the top five skipping those two, with favorite songs by Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones, Kate Bush, Tracey Thorn, and Beth Orton. Here we go...

Close call on the Joni song. I adore "Coyote." But if I think back on the song that nailed it for me, what made me fall in love with Joni, it's this one. Mingus was the first Joni album I ever owned. This is possibly the first Joni song I really listened to in any kind of close and studied way.

Joni Mitchell - God Must Be A Boogie Man (Live London 1983)



Tough call with the Rickie song, too. I could go with so many, though not "Chuck E's in Love." The album that really cemented my love for Rickie was The Magazine. I remember going to a party at my friend Evar Strid's apartment. He had just bought the album. I sat down and listened to the whole thing and read the lyrics and would not speak to anyone until I was done. I would feature the whole album if I thought anyone would listen to it. Unfortunately, there is not a YouTube video for my favorite song on that album, "The Runaround," in which Rickie sings the line "Juke Box Fury" in a great way. The song titled after that lyric is a good second choice.

Rickie Lee Jones Juke box fury





My wife is a great lover of Kate Bush, which is one thing we share in common, though mostly she prefers Hounds of Love and The Dreaming. If you dial back to my post for T-shirt #97 and my list of my most listened to albums, you will find The Dreaming and The Magazine in the top tier remainder, not officially in the top ten or second top ten, but above the "second tier." I should have put Joni Mitchell's Mingus with that top tier remainder, as I listened to that album a lot and fell in love with her for its lead song, "God Must be a Boogie Man." In fact, I am going back to edit that entry right now! But for Kate, I have to go with the song that cuts me the deepest rather than one of the songs from The Dreaming, which is my favorite album.

Kate Bush - This Woman's Work



Tracey Thorn is in that top tier of the aforementioned list in T-shirt #97. She is second in the second ten. I wrote about EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL in T-shirt #163, but the album lately that has been on constant repeat for me is her solo work Out of the Woods. Amazing. Also, this is a great video representation with some time lapse photography.



Lastly, Beth Orton. I discovered Beth Orton on the recommendation of a review in Details magazine, mainly because William Orbit, who was someone I admired and liked,  had produced her first album Trailer Park. She became an instant favorite, and I have seen her a few times in concert. Once, at Irving Place in New York City, she came in for the show through the audience, shaking hands and giving hugs, with her pink dress in a garment bag over her shoulder. You're so cool, Beth!! 
It was one song on her second album Central Reservation that became an anthem for me. Here it is.

Beth Orton - Feel To Believe (Live @ Union Chapel, London, 05.12.12)



As a final thought for the day, that song is pretty kick ass.

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 102 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1312.09 - 12:09

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

T-shirt #237 - KUDL Retro 2007 Logo Purple Long Sleeved T-shirt

T-shirt #237 - KUDL Retro 2007 Logo Purple Long Sleeved T-shirt




It is getting to the point that I do not remember which shirts I have featured in some categories. I just took a picture of myself, which I might as well share, in a shirt I have already featured.

On a side note, I am coming up with all kinds of way to misspell "shirt." I doubt too many of these make it through; however, when I have short instead of shirt, the spell check will not catch it.

Anyway, I had wanted to save the purple retro-2007 shirt for next week to get more candid photos out in the world and tell the story of the shirt order saga, which is still ongoing. I will still tell the story. But it may wait for next week.

I may find by year's end that the more amazing thing is not how many shirts I own, but how many KUDL specific shirts I own.

How many do I really need?

This is short today. Grading Robot's deadline is tomorrow morning. Grading Robot would have an easier time if everything else stopped, and all Grading Robot would have to do is the work Grading Robot is designed to do.

Alas, this is not the case.

Stop the world. I want to get off.

Almost done re-reading Ender's Game.

Loaded up on Greek Mythology video last night and had a good discussion about the mythology of ETs and UFOs.

Woke up in the middle of the night by malfunctioning smoke detector, adding one more thing to my to do list, which is quite long a brutal. Luckily, the break for grading robot should allow for completion of many of these tasks.

For your edification and amusement, I present again a former grading robot content, which I had already presented a second time in T-shirt #208. And now for a third time, content from the classic T-shirt #36.

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow once Grading Robot has powered down to half power (as there are still four other classes that need grades).

See what I mean? Grading robot. The only way to survive such a work load is to streamline the process, find ways to speed up the repetitive feedback, and watch the clock. It's all about rhythm, repetition, and a certain tempo. Even so, grading written assignments can be quite time consuming as each student receives individual feedback. Yet, the process is much like Kraftwerk's music. Clockwork grading machine. Machine, Machine.

"We are the robots."

GRADING ROBOT.

So, this Kraftwerk shirt really calls to mind the idea of my work as Grading Robot; this is one of Kraftwerk's robot shirts. (I have another; stay tuned.) The shirt's image is just the kind of thing I love. It would be even better if Kraftwerk's name was not on the shirt. The image speaks volumes.

Damn, I love this shirt.

I have reams of material to assault your senses about Kraftwerk, but today's post is dedicated to how I think of myself as Grading Robot when I wear this shirt (and often when I am not wearing this shirt). In perspective, I am operating on--at best--six hours of sleep. I got up at 5 a.m. this morning to finish grades due at 9 a.m., which sounds easy enough, and it is when I am not so exhausted. But the work is repetitive and only takes a small portion of my brain capacity.

Grading robot.

Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot.
Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. 
Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. 
Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. 
Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. 
Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. 
Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. 
Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot.
Robot. Robot. Robot.
Robot. Robot.
Robot.

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE YEAR: 128 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1311.13 - 11:16