Posts Tagged ‘celebrity’
“People haven’t always been there for me but music always has”*…
Well, they’re there now– and of all ages…
Taylor Swift made headlines throughout 2023 thanks to her super successful Eras Tour and her relationship with a certain football player, which launched her already-sky-high popularity into the stratosphere. Now, there’s additional evidence of her global dominance, even among the 2- to 8-year-old set: The Little Golden Book about the pop star sold more than 1 million copies in its first seven months.
This makes the title Taylor Swift: A Little Golden Book Biography the fastest-selling title in Little Golden Book history…
NPD BookScan told The Washington Post that a typical Little Golden Book biography sells 5,000-6,000 copies in its first four weeks, and some become more popular over time. The Taylor Swift book sold 167,872 copies during that same time frame and sales appear to have been boosted by adults, the Wall Street Journal reports…
Laying the foundation for a lasting legacy? “The Taylor Swift Little Golden Book becomes the series’ biggest seller,” from @Simplemostsite.
Apposite? here and here (via the always-illuminating Today in Tabs)
* Taylor Swift
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As we ponder pop phenomena, we might note that, per the Luminate report issued today, Swift officially surpassed Elvis Presley’s longstanding Billboard 200 album chart record as the solo artist with the most weeks atop the chart. She set a new mark of 68 total weeks, as 1989 (Taylor’s Version) landed atop the chart for a fifth time in the final full tracking week of 2023.
That said, in order to surpass the all-time record, she has a long way to go – that crown is currently held by The Beatles, who maintain a significant lead with an impressive 132 weeks at the top of the chart.
“This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are”*…
Joel Stein on the ascendance of Miami…
The last time Miami was relevant, it wasn’t important. In the 1980s, Miami provided nothing more than drugs, clubs, pastel blazers, jai alai gambling and, most notably, a hit TV show about all four.
But now Miami is the most important city in America. Not because Miami stopped being a frivolous, regulation-free, climate-doomed tax haven dominated by hot microcelebrities. It became the most important city in America because the country became a frivolous, regulation-free, climate-doomed tax haven dominated by hot microcelebrities…
How a refuge for the retired, divorced, bankrupt, and unemployed has evolved into a “paradise of freedom”: “How Miami became the most important city in America,” from @thejoelstein in @FinancialTimes. (A “gifted” article, so should be free of the paywall.)
An apposite look at ascendant cities worldwide, but especially in Africa: “Africa’s rising cities” (also “gifted”).
* Plato
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As we investigate epicenters, we might recall that it was on this date in 1986 that figure skater Debi Thomas, a Stanford undergraduate, became the first African American to win the Women’s Singles event in the U.S. National Figure Skating Championship competition. She went on to win a gold medal in the World Championships later that year, and then (after battling Achilles tendinitis in both ankles) to earn a Bronze in the 1988 Olympics.
Thomas then attended medical school at Northwestern, and has since practiced as a surgeon.
“Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent”*…
A People Map of the US, where city names are replaced by their most Wikipedia’ed resident: people born in, lived in, or connected to a place…
From our friends at The Pudding, a chart of our crazes– zoomable to reveal much more detail: “A People Map of the US.”
* Emily Dickinson
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As we obsess on obsession, we might recall that it was on this date in 2009 that Kodak ceded the victory of digital photography and announced that it would discontinue the production and sale of Kodachrome print and slide film, a repository of “precious memories” since 1935.
“I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage”*…
Although he achieved almost unthinkable fame for the Victorian era, the life of chef Alexis Soyer is now considered a fairly obscure topic, infrequently discussed outside culinary circles. Soyer was born in 1810, in France, to a working-class family. His older brother, a Paris chef, helped secure an apprenticeship for Alexis with the highly regarded Georg Rignon, for whom he began working at the tender age of 11. When Soyer moved on, it was to Maison Douix, one of the most famous restaurants in Paris. After a year, he became chef de cuisine. He was 17…
By the time of his death, in 1848, “Soyer’s death is a great disaster,” wrote Florence Nightingale. “He has no successor.” The story of “The first celebrity chef.”
* Erma Bombeck
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As we dig in, we might recall that it was on this date in 1947 that Sylvester the Cat tried to have Tweety Bird for lunch in the Warner Brothers cartoon Tweetie Pie, which won Warner Bros. its first Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons).
“Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent”*…
It’s easy to imagine that the fever pitch of celebrity consciousness in which we’re awash is a modern phenomenon, a function of reality TV, social media, and other trappings of our times. But consider the case of Lillie Langtry…
Known in the later 19th century as “the most beautiful woman in the world,” Langtry had her portrait painted by both John Everett Millais and James McNeil Whistler; and Oscar Wilde once said of her, “I would rather have discovered Mrs. Langtry than to have discovered America.” Married to a wealthy Irishman, she was mistress of the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. Through her society connections she befriended Sarah Bernhardt, who convinced her to try acting; she made her debut at London’s Haymarket Theatre in 1881.
From her autobiography, an anecdote from 1874– before her turn on the stage:
One morning I twisted a piece of black velvet into a toque, stuck a quill through it, and went to Sandown Park. A few days later this turban appeared in every milliner’s window labeled “The Langtry Hat.” “Langtry” shoes, which are still worn, were launched, and so on and so on. It was very embarrassing, and it had all come about so suddenly that I was bewildered. If I went for a stroll in the park and stopped a moment to admire the flowers, people ran after me in droves, staring me out of countenance, and even lifting my sunshade to satisfy fully their curiosity. To venture out for a little shopping was positively hazardous, for the instant I entered an establishment to make a purchase, the news that I was within spread with the proverbial rapidity of wildfire, and the crowd about the door grew so dense that departure by the legitimate exit was rendered impossible, the obliging proprietors being forced, with many apologies, to escort me around to the back door.
Instead of the excitement abating, it increased to such an extent that it became risky for me to indulge in a walk, on account of the crushing that would follow my appearance. To better illustrate my predicament I may state as a fact that, one Sunday afternoon, a young girl, with an aureole of fair hair and wearing a black gown, was seated in the park near the Achilles statue. Someone raised the cry that it was I, people rushed toward her, and before the police could interfere, she was mobbed to such an extent that an ambulance finally conveyed her, suffocating and unconscious, to St. George’s Hospital.
* Emily Dickinson
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As we slake ourselves on selfies, we might spare a thought for Clara Bow; she died on this date in 1965. Bow appeared in 46 silent films and 11 talkies, including Wings (1927; the winner of the first Academy Award for Best Picture). But it was her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the film It (also in 1927) that brought her global fame and the nickname “The It Girl.” Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties and to become its leading sex symbol. At the height of her stardom, she received more than 45,000 fan letters in a single month (January, 1929).
After marrying actor Rex Bell in 1931, Bow retired from acting and became a rancher in Nevada, where she lived, relatively quietly, for another 34 years.
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