Nature and Modulations

November 9, 2015 / no comments

 

This blog entry is brought to you in part by Hedy Lamarr. Indeed, today’s Google Doodle honoree was the co-inventor and patent-owner of the scientific magic used in our current Wi-Fi and other wireless technology called “frequency hopping.” As the more intricate details behind this invention elude me, it proves easier to celebrate Hedy Lamarr’s multi-faceted brilliance as an inventor, as an independent spirit and as an actor by spotlighting one smaller aspect of her life: her early thespian career, specifically her role as Eva in the groundbreaking Ecstasy.

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Never Disappear: Rowland S. Howard

October 3, 2015 / no comments

Never Disappear: Rowland S. Howard

Epitome of a talented early bloomer, Australian art school prodigy Rowland S. Howard came up at 16 with his first great work. Unexpectedly to friends and mentors, it would be in the form of a song called “Shivers”, a deceptively clever and touching tune that would create intemperate devotion in his homeland and continue to be covered worldwide nearly 40 years after its inception.

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Fearless: Through Her Past, Darkly

September 15, 2015 / no comments

It is a peculiar thing for a woman to find herself forced to walk the tightrope between preconceived definitions of masculinity and femininity but it has been frequent in popular culture and especially in rock and roll, a noticeably masculine world where the lack of varied female role models endure. Thirty-five years ago, at a time when words like cisgender, normative and most discussion of sexual politics were uncommon if not completely absent from everyday conversation, Chrissie Hynde was the cool rock god-and-goddess on the radio, the one to worship in the mainstream pop world.

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