T-shirt #360 - Ani DiFranco & My Top Ten Women in Music

TODAY'S COUNT: 05 blog posts remaining in the T-shirt year!!

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T-shirt #360 - Ani DiFranco - Little Naked Me

Today is a brief one. Re-presenting T-shirt #255 because it not only describes my dream about Ani DiFranco but collects links to all my other Ani content. I made the banner title below a hot link to #255 if you want to see the whole thing. IF you are looking at my blog on Google Chrome, all the videos in the past blog entries linked below are broken. But they do work on other browsers. I may attempt to fix the broken links as it bothers me, but this a more long term project hence the note at the top of the current blog page, which may be this one depending on how and when you are viewing it.

Today features the previous Ani content and some videos, a playlist of a dozen or so with an emphasis on women artists, though I may not restrict myself 100% to this goal.

T-shirt #255 - Ani DiFranco Purple Every Tool

T-shirt #255 - Ani DiFranco Purple Every Tool is a weapon if you hold it right

I dreamed about Ani DiFranco last night. She was at my house, and I was interviewing her for some article I was going to write. I had to confess that I have not liked, though I have not really listened to, any albums since Educated Guess (2004), and really, Revelling/Reckoning (2001) was the last album by her that really spoke strongly to me.

Ani took this in stride and told me she understood, though she encouraged me to give her more recent works another listen or twelve.

And so I invited her to the Dinner Party.

I have already written about Ani DiFranco in T-shirt #121 and T-shirt #173 because I own four Ani shirts and a hat.

I have seen Ani DiFranco in concert eight times.

I like this shirt. I like purple. I am going to present a few more videos that I have not yet presented. In T-shirt #173, I shared videos for "Swan Dive" and "Gravel." In T-shirt #121, I presented videos for 'your Next Bold Move," School Night," and the poem "Grand Canyon."

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OFFICIAL BOILERPLATE TEXT OF THE LAST TWENTY POSTS COUNTDOWN: Hi. Thanks for reading. I am posting this "boilerplate" text everyday for the last TWENTY posts in the T-SHIRT blog year, which started on March 22, 2013. I will close out daily transmission on March 21st, day 365 of my T-shirt blog-tastic extravaganza spectacular. I will give myself a short hiatus of total non-transmission or  publication for an as yet undetermined period of time, though I am estimating about two weeks. After my blog vacation hiatus, I will resume T-shirt posts on a regular basis, also as yet to be determined (weekly? Twice monthly?) to finish blogging about all the T-shirts that were not featured in the blog year. At some point, once I feel I am rolling along nicely, I will begin regular posting through my main blog: SENSE OF DOUBT. T-shirt posts will direct to the T-shirt blog from SENSE OF DOUBT. I will continue to post THE WEEKLY COMIC LIST, the features of occasional T-SHIRTS I AM WEARING THIS WEEK, book reviews, comic book reviews, and other popular culture nonsense as I have been for a year now but all will go up at SENSE OF DOUBT and some will direct back here to 365 T-SHIRTS. Ultimately, I will begin Internet publication of my fiction, primarily the comic book satire episodic story called POP! among other projects. So, in summary, 365 T-SHIRTS will continue though intermittently. SENSE OF DOUBT will host my main blog presence and fiction writing as well as links to any T-shirt posts shared here. I hope you will continue to follow me in my journey as a writer and a content provider. Thank you for your kind attention and time you have spent with me on this and/or any other day this year. I am humbled and blessed by your readership. - chris tower, blogger, originated 1403.02
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Here we go. Without much strongly considered thought or research, just off the top of my head, my best and favorites, though I will stick to a general concept of women who have never been part of a band to make the list easier to concoct. And thus, the list provides for me a guide for videos to post.

I already posted about women artists in T-shirt #263. I made a top twenty for that blog entry. My top ten is very much the same, but when I am stricter about the "no bands" thing then I must drop Tracey Thorn and Annie Lennox and replace them. Tori Amos and Jane Siberry take those spots in the top ten with the no bands caveat. The videos on that page (T-shirt #263) in Google Chrome are also broken. But here's my revised list and new videos. ENJOY.

TOP TEN SOLO WOMEN MUSICAL ARTISTS

1. Joni Mitchell

2. Kate Bush

3. Ani DiFranco

4. Suzanne Vega

5. Erykah Badu

6. Rickie Lee Jones

7. Tori Amos

8. Sade

9. Beth Orton

10. Jane Siberry

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TODAY'S VIDEO GALLERY

Joni Mitchell-California (BBC)

I have too many Joni Mitchell favorites to select just one, so I made choices based on what was available via video. This BBC clip is very good, and I do love this song. It's excellent.

Kate Bush - Suspended in Gaffa - Official Music Video

I am not sure if I am going to argue that this is my favorite Kate Bush song, but I believe it's the first one I ever heard and so I am fondest of it for that reason. I will argue any one to the death that The Dreaming is her best work, though most people consider it to be Hounds of Love. Like many albums from the fertile early 1980s, The Dreaming sounds like it could have been produced today. It was that far ahead of its time.

Ani DiFranco - 32 Flavors w/ Melissa Ferrick 

(Live in New York) | Moshcam

Lots of Ani choices, and I am pretty sure I have not shared this one yet. Great to see a duet with Melissa Ferrick, who is also a wonderful solo artist in her own right.

Suzanne Vega - The Queen And The Soldier

I shared this video originally in T-shirt #78, even though if you visit that page now, in Google Chrome, the videos are missing. I did check on more than one computer. But this song and the video version of it is worth sharing again, especially since I did not realize that the "World Before Columbus" follows "The Queen and the Solider."

I shared about Erykah Badu in T-shirt #86. But I only posted two videos in that entry. Badu is an amazing artist, and I should have shared more than two videos. But for the early days of the blog that entry is rather extensive.

Erykah Badu - On & On

I am a huge Badu fan. But of a flap with the Flaming Lips from almost two years ago that I am just catching up with now.

BADU PISSED AT FLAMING LIPS - FIRST TIME I EVER SAW YOUR FACE

But for now, this excellent song with a much different feel and message.

Rickie Lee Jones - "We Belong Together" [Madrid 17/07/2013]

I can't resist this pick because it's a recent, live version of one of my favorite Rickie Lee Jones songs.

TORI AMOS live SLEEPS WITH BUTTERFLIES

This has become my favorite Tori Amos song. So beautiful.

SADE - No Ordinary Love [ 2011 ] (dlz)

Liesel and I saw Sade in concert in Detroit on this tour. This is the most amazing Sade song and my favorite.

Beth Orton - Stolen Car | Live in Los Angeles | Moshcam

I just shared about Beth Orton the other day. Here's another great song from the second album Central Reservation. 

Jane Siberry Love Is Everything

This is a good song to end on today. Love, love is everything. Yup.

COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 05 shirts remaining


- chris tower - 1403.16 - 16:49

T-shirt #336 - VAMPIRE the Masquerade

OFFICIAL INCOMPLETE BOILERPLATE TEXT: Thank you for coming to my blog. If you have been here before, you know why I post unfinished blog entries. If you are new to the blog, and came here by an Internet search or some other nefarious means, you may be wondering why someone would post something incomplete to the Internet. The shirt (ha ha.... leaving in that typo: I meant "short") answer is that I must post something every day because of the goal I set for myself when I began 365 T-shirts in March of 2013. And though there is a way to post backwards in time thanks to Blogger's scheduler utility, I would rather post an incomplete entry when the daily chaos of work, family, and the universe prohibits me from completing the blog entry for that day. Sometimes, I need a few days to complete the entry, and readers who check may see a work in progress slowly bloom.
In other words, more tomorrow. Thanks for checking.


T-shirt #336 - VAMPIRE the Masquerade

"There are no such thing as vampires..."

THEATER OF THE VAMPIRE


This is getting silly. I am falling far behind. In my defense, I have work and a big homework project due.

And then today, this is supposed to be short, but I wanted to revise previous vampire content and add to it with some stuff on women vampires and the succubus.

If you came upon this, you can see my unfinished work (a few videos)...


HIATUS TEXT: REVISED 1402.18:  I have been trying to maintain a hiatus from large or over involved blog posts beginning with the start date of my hiatus on January 20th (almost a month ago) during which time I logged 21 posts, which I consider "Hiatus Shirts." By this term, Hiatus Shirt, I mean the shirt is not one that would cause me to write a great deal on the subject it features. These are shirts about which I can write anything, either a lot or a very little. The hiatus will continue, though as it has for the last few weeks, not consecutively as I will continue to mix Hiatus and Non-Hiatus shirts. The blog's year (365 shirts) draws close to a close. (I like the double word use in that previous sentence.) I hope to finish strong with some good entries with high quality content and imagery on some beloved subjects. To earn this time, I will need to intersperse shirts of little consequence, what I have come to call Hiatus Shirts.
My original goal of working ahead remains. I need time to write the enormously lengthy text to complete the extensive love letter to certain beloved popular culture icons featured on my many special shirts. Even with "Hiatus Shirts," I will try to share some worthy content as I have either an idea, a new suggestion of something to read/look at/listen to, or another installment of my various features, such as the WHY T-SHIRTS item, the WEEKLY COMIC BOOK LISTS, and the SHIRT I AM ACTUALLY WEARING TODAY among others. BTW, this is the standard HIATUS TEXT that I will include in every "hiatus shirt" entry.
Thanks for reading. I am always honored that people have taken some of their valuable time to look at my ongoing web writing project. Keep checking this address. I promise to make it worthwhile.

THE PRETTY VAMPIRE - A BLOG

Try searching just "Vampires women."

Or try searching - "Smokin Hot Female Vampire Suckfest"

Top 25 Sexy Vampire Women

Female Vampire 11

Hottest. Female. Vampire. Ever.

From Dusk Till Dawn HD table dance scene with Salma Hayek After Dark

From Dusk Till Dawn (7/12) Movie CLIP - Welcome to Slavery (1996) HD

From Dusk Till Dawn (6/12) Movie CLIP - F***ing Vampires! (1996) HD

Succubus Seduction Beowulf Angelina Jolie

Succubus-Bo | Lost Girl | Black Betty

T-shirt #222 - Vampires by Robert Lewis



1. BARNABAS COLLINS - JONATHAN FRID

I am a child of the 1960s-1970s, and as such, I was an avid viewer of Dark Shadows, a daily soap opera featuring an actual vampire along with ghosts and werewolves and witches and time travel that ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971.

Awesome. Jonathan Frid was the first vampire in my life. I saw his work before even Bela Lugosi's Dracula, though Lugosi's predates Frid's.

Have you not heard of this? DARK SHADOWS WIKI.

2. TOMB OF DRACULA FROM MARVEL COMICS

From 1972-1979, Marvel Comics published The Tomb of Dracula comic book, which is one of the best comics in its genre of all time and definitely one of my TOP TEN COMIC BOOKS OF ALL TIME if I were to make a list (and expect a list before the end of my T-shirt year).

The comic was originally conceived and written by Gerry Conway, but the writer that distinguished himself best with the work and made the comic such a blockbuster success and a stunning read was Marv Wolfman.

The artist for the entire run of 70 issues was Gene Colan, who is one of my favorite 1970s artists and one of my favorite comic book artists of all time.

Here's just a taste with four images, two covers. I recently bought a TOMB OF DRACULA t-shirt (and may get a second one before my year is done). This shirt would be the perfect feature for Halloween, but I am not going to be able to write the love letter to that comic and to the great Gene Colan by Thursday, so I will have to feature the shirt another time.

TOMB OF DRACULA WIKI

Even the collected black & white volumes are well worth the investment and perusal.

3. BELA LUGOSI AS DRACULA

This is a classic. 1931 epic from Universal. But I came late to the party. I did not first see this stunning film until my teenage years, long after I was an ardent Dark Shadows and Tomb of Dracula fan. But still, I give Bela the edge in Dracula portrayal over my notable omissions, Christopher Lee and Gary Oldman.

4. NOSFERATU - Werner Herzog film 1979 - played by Klaus Kinski

Once again, I saw Herzog's Nosferatu long before I saw the original film from 1922. Though the original, NOSFERATU 1922 WIKI, is frightening, I give the edge to Herzog's Nosferatu, possibly and simply because I saw it first.

It's still one of the most frightening films I have ever seen.

5. BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER VAMPIRES - ANGEL AND SPIKE

Knowing that I am a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- and if you don't know that, then check out
T-shirt #170. But there's no way I make a short list of favorite vampires without Angel and Spike. And there's no choosing between them. Angel and Spike. Tie for fifth in today's list.

I will probably need to expand on why these two characters are so awesome at some point, but maybe I will save that for the next Buffy the Vampire Slayer t-shirt as I own another.

For now, these are my final images of the day.

COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 29 shirts remaining

- chris tower - first published - 1402.20 - 20:24
final publication - date - time

T-shirt #249 - Michigan Women's Ultimate

T-shirt #249 - Michigan Women's Ultimate

This is one of my favorite Ultimate t-shirts. I have always been a strong supporter of women in sports and in Ultimate in particular. I bought two shirts of this print run, one with and one without the phrase on the back. I have worn this shirt many times both while playing Ultimate and not to show my support for women in the sport.

The phrase on the back comes from the male idiom: "teabagging." When a male player "tea bags," he jumps up over another player for whom the jumping player's testicles will dangle in the victimized player's face like tea bags. Well, as the women of the University of Michigan Ultimate team reasoned, women do not tea bag. So what's the equivalent? Hence: "wanna see me pop tart?"  I think you can suss it out.




















Below, you can see a picture of me wearing the shirt during a day of playing Ultimate. Our 2002 Masters team Grey Area at either Centrals in May or Sectionals in September. I am not sure which.

This morning I had a discussion with Ivan over the meaning of the word "bollocks," which we agreed is a great and all purpose word. I did not realize exactly how all purpose, and so I present some of its purposes here.

1. Bollocks

A highly flexible term commonly used by the English.

1. something rubbish
2. a falsehood or series of lies
3. something great
4. the best possible
5. testicles
6. exclamation on making a error.

1. That Mel Gibson movie was a load of bollocks.
2. That Tony Blair is talking bollocks.
3. That curry was the bollocks!
4. That your wife is the dog's bollocks when it comes to cooking!
5. Then she kicked him in the bollocks.
6. Bollocks!

mark as favorite buy bollocks mugs & shirts

by Bagpuss August 15, 2003 add a video

3128 up, 448 down 

  

BLOG RECAP

Just a few quick notes on what is happening with the blog. According to my stats overview, my blog scored an all time in page views for Saturday November 23rd at 443 views. I find this to be extraordinary. The Wonder Woman post immediately started to score many views. But the "Advice from a Volcano" post (T-shirt #241) continues to score an incredible number of views with 110 alone on Saturday. I don't understand it, but I am happy about it.

Off to work.

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 116 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1311.25 - 9:07

T-shirt #93: Free Katie

T-shirt #93: Free Katie

This shirt was a gift from my friend Christine Doré given the semester that we worked together, she serving as my teaching assistant in my sections of WMS:100 at Western Michigan University (for that story: GO HERE and dial back).

Often I would give gifts to the TAs and they would give gifts to me, especially after the Fall semester, given the proximity of Christmas.



I feel free to confess this now: I had a crush on Katie Holmes (in so far as anyone can have a crush on someone he has never met and has only seen playing another character in a television show).










I watched DAWSON'S CREEK primarily because Katie Holmes was amazingly smart, cool, and beautiful: in sum, adorable. And DAWSON was clearly an IDIOT, which is the quick summary of that show: "Dawson's Creek: a show about how stupid Dawson is and how not stupid Pacey is (and a few other characters and their stories)." Great show if you like episodic, sudsy-style weekly melodrama for teens with a hip vibe and smart mouthed teensters spouting rapid fire dialogue for which the WB became well known (see my other faves such as Gilmore Girls, Felicity, Veronica Mars, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer).




ANYWAY.............................

So there was this whole Winona Ryder thing in which she had allegedly shop-lifted from a Saks store in Beverly Hills. She was taken into custody and was found to be in possession of  items she had not paid for and addictive narcotics for which she did not have  a prescription. An L.A. gift shop owner started a fun T-shirt campaign with these "Free Winona" T-shirts.

I had been discussing with Christine how I wanted a "Free Winona" T-shirt but had missed out on getting one right around the time that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes started seeing each other (and soon got married). So, Christine got me this "Free Katie" T-shirt (which is around 2005).

Lo and behold, there's a FREE KATIE website.

Yes, I was also surprised. But why should I be?

There was a whole campaign to "free Katie" for the clutches of culty evil and "love." And there's many fan sites and blogs and images and a wealth of material at the touch of the fingertips on the keypad.

There's everything on the Internet. It's a good thing Al Gore invented it.

Funny, also, this:

Awkward! Katie Holmes is left embarrassed after she meets fans wearing 'Free Katie' T-shirts

Apparently, there are other styles of "Free Katie" shirts as seen in that article from 2012.


My crush on Katie Holmes is now just a distant memory as falling in love with my wife and getting married has changed everything. I still think Katie Holmes is attractive, smart, cool, and bad at choosing men for relationships. But the ardent crush on her TV persona (or any of her movie personas)  faded long ago.

Still, the shirt is funny. Or at least, I think it's funny.

RESOURCES ABOUT FREE WINONA

HIP NEW RALLYING CRY: "Free Winona!"

FREE WINONA TUMBLR



I used to keep a top ten list of celebrity women that I found most attractive and with whom I would most like to "spend time" if I had the opportunity (which I never would). I don't really keep this list anymore now that I am married. My wife trumps all such lists. And I am not just saying that because I know I should say it. I actually mean it. But given that this blog is about making lists, I have decided to share the top ten list of women who had most often held places on this list, but in an effort to de-emphasize this list, I will list horizontally rather than vertically: Ashley Judd, Lauren Graham, Katie Holmes, Eliza Dushku, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Sadé, Erykah Badu, Susan Sarandon, Morena Baccarin, and Gong Li.

Do you sense a theme here? All these women (except Sarandon) share one common trait. Others had made the list in years past: Diane Sawyer, Tia Carrere, Gillian Anderson, Elizabeth McGovern, Joni Mitchell, Suzanne Vega, Kate Bush, MIA, Dana Delaney, Polly Draper and others. Winona Ryder made the list at some point. And when Alanis Morrisette sung about being jilted, I wondered if I could be the kind of guy that would make her happy. Going farther back, my attractions are peopled with women such as Julie Newmar and Yvonne Craig (as both will be featured in an upcoming blog post). There were others, such as
Ava Gardner, Jennifer Jones, Susan Dey, Jane Seymour, Barbara Bach, Raquel Welch, Lara Parker, Diana Rigg, and Maureen McCormick.

But I do not actively keep this list anymore. I can acknowledge that Zoe Saldana is super awesome as Uhura; I am not immune. But the passion of the interest has changed since I fell heels over head for my wife and got married. But I can still appreciate beauty in a kind of distanced and abstract way.

On a somewhat unrelated note yet related to this blog: Yesterday, my wife told me it was National T-shirt Day/ I can find no confirmation this using Al Gore's Internet. Puzzling that.

- chris tower - 1306.22 - 8:58