Showing posts with label Donna Summer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Donna Summer. Show all posts

Thursday, 11 July 2013

HK1K




Everyone says they're busy. Me, I'm Hyperactive.

The past three months have seen heightened Hyperactivity, though, because I've been planning the party to mark the year's most important media event: HK1K. It's the local strain of that global superbug known as Y2K, but better 'coz it isn't stressful on anyone - not even on myself, surprisingly. I'm usually a worrywart.

HK1K is the 1,000th issue of HK Magazine, Asia's first-ever free distribution weekly periodical for city dwellers. Every Friday, the magazine is delivered to Hong Kong's best bars and restaurants, cafes and coffee shops, supermarkets and delis, gyms and spas, clubhouses and lobbies, galleries and retail shops. And as soon as our pages hit the streets, a fanatic tribe of readers known as "HK Hipsters" religiously pick them up. This has been a ritual for the past 22 years.

On July 12, Friday, this tribe will gather for the HK1K Big Bash at Magnum (RSVP). They'll drink and dance the night away like heathens, blissfully oblivious to Mercury retrograde. Traveling backwards through the zodiac is only an illusion! The past 22 years are but a glorious pretext to worship at the altar of alternative lifestyle. Cacophonous beats urge us to gyrate - not plod, not march - into the future. See? The past has passed already. What's real is here and now, and what you want to do is up to you. Isn't that thought the sweetest ambrosia to lull your hipster soul into blessed slumber?

The next day, you'll awake unaware that the previous night's hedonism holds any more significance. That's as it should be. HK1K, like Y2K, is ultimately benign. It leaves as soon as it has made its presence felt to you. You've been through it. And although you're not sure what it is, that's ok.

See? The past has passed already. 

But since the next seven days are yet to come, we might as well chat about what's happening, what's appealing, what's pleasing, what's new, what's delicious, what's controversial, what demands an action, attention, what's worth doing.

Before you know it, it's once again the last day of your work week.

Thank Fuck It's Friday.

That's how - and why - we've come to this ritual.



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// THE HYPERACTIVE GAY BOY™ //




Saturday, 6 April 2013

The Diva Video Of The Day™ Donna Summer / Papa Can You Hear Me (LIVE 1984)




This song was first performed by Barbra Streisand in 1983, in the movie Yentl.

The story goes that Barbra was unable to perform at the 1984 Academy Awards because she was sick. Instead, she put forward her longtime friend Donna Summer.

I was stunned, to say the least, when I first came across this rendition. I always knew that Donna Summer had solid pipes. She's not the queen of disco for nothing, and disco demands rhythmic precision amid a fantasmagorical world of mirror balls and big hair and tiny dresses.

Here, Ms Summer reveals the vocal technician that she is. Impeccable phrasing, great breath control, and fabulous range.


I remember everything you taught me
Every book 1've ever read...
Can all the words in all the books
Help me to face what lies ahead?
The trees are so much taller
And I feel so much smaller;
The moon is twice as lonely
And the stars are half as bright...




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// THE HYPERACTIVE GAY BOY™ //