Word: pop
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When Google Earth launched a few years ago, it captivated the imaginations of many computer geeks and map nerds. Today, when you download the program onto your computer, you can encounter panoramic photos, Wikipedia factoid pop-ups, virtual travel itineraries, 3D renderings and all kinds of other geographic Easter eggs. But you'll only find them if you know how to navigate Google Earth's virtual globe. PC gamers are comfortable moving through 3D environments with just mouse and keyboard. They don't need any help swooping and diving around Google Earth like Superman. I guess I'm more...
...Brown?s importance went beyond movies, or even music. He was a prime pop showman, who brought the notions of melodrama and irony to his performances. You couldn?t help noticing this in the first years of rock ?n roll, the mid- to late 50s, when a singer?s physical exuberance was as radical as the raucous sound he was selling. The revolution was televised, so it had to be musical and visual...
...Elvis shimmied, Little Richard wailed, Jerry Lee Lewis smashed the piano stool and played the keys with his feet, and all helped liberate pop culture from the straitjacket of propriety. Rock ?n roll made them move like that. But those three had a guitar or piano to play or play with or hide behind. Brown had played the piano and other instruments, but onstage they?d just slow him down. He needed his hands and legs free to prowl, keep the band pumped up, work the crowd into a practiced frenzy. For 50 years, he was a full-service entertainer...
...dynamite - which Brown repeated unvaried for a half-century - was both a stunt and a metaphor. No, he wasn?t at death?s door, and yes, the imploring audience was in on the act. But who cared? It had the gaudy theatricality that would become the norm in pop culture: orchestrated hysteria that was either fake-real or real-fake. On this level, Brown was the godfather, not of soul, but of heavy metal and glam rock, of Rocky Horror and Dreamgirls, of the WWF and Jerry Springer...
...that dessert yesterday. The man who had feigned heart attacks countless times on stage died of congestive heart failure, with no resurrection in sight. But the lurid showmanship he brought to pop culture will never die. His last words, apparently, were ?I?m going away tonight.? Considering his impact, they might have been ?I feel good...