Rahat Fateh Ali Khan arrested on delhi airport- News that rocked year 2011

Pakistan singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan was arrested in the year 2011, the day after he was detained carrying huge sum of money at international airport New Delhi .Rahat was taken to the DRI (Directorate of Revenue Intelligence )office at the CGO Complex after he was detained at New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport .The singer, along with his troupe of about 20, was scheduled to fly to Lahore on a 4pm flight. The directorate of revenue intelligence received a tip-off that he would be carrying a huge amount of forex. 

    At the airport, DRI officials recovered $50,000 from Khan’s check-in baggage, another $50,000 from his aide’s check-in baggage and $24,000 from an aide’s hand baggage. 
    The troupe was also carrying two demand drafts of $10,000 and $8,646. Indian laws allow up to $5,000 in cash, or $10,000 in traveller’s cheques, to be taken abroad .After Pakistani singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan was detained at IGI airport  for attempting to leave the country with over $124,000, DRI officials said that it was a violation of the Customs Act. Later he was allowed to leave the country.

Earthquake that hit New Zealand in the year 2011

EARTHQUAKE HITS NEW ZEALAND'S CHRISTCHURCH-2011

This is one of my earlier post of the year 2011 which I could not publish that time.A massive earthquake hits NZ city CHRISTCHURCH on Tuesday Feb 22 at 12:51 p.m , collapsing buildings,burying vehicles under debris .Christchurch city has been hit by an earthquake of 6.3 magnitude shaking buildings, making people run out of there houses to run for there life.According to the sources at least 65 people have been killed ,fires are breaking out ,buildings have fallen down ,buses are trapped under the debris. Christchurch mayor has declared emergency and has told people to move out of the city center.Power and telephone lines have been damaged and water pipes have burst  filling the streets with water.The epicenter of the earthquake was 10 km southwest of Christchurch.

New Zealand is between  the Pacific and Indo-Australian tectonic plates that records on average more than 14,000 earthquakes a year ,out of which more than 20 are above 5.0 in magnitude.

Staging Pongo and Perdita

Just returned from A New Year's weekend at Walt Disney World in Orlando.

The parks were packed, but it was still a lot of fun to spend time there.

It sure brought back memories from when I worked at Disney's Florida Animation Studio on "Lilo & Stitch".

Time for another post:

These are staging ideas for a scene animated by Frank Thomas for "101 Dalmatians". Here Pongo is trying to give Perdita some hope that the Twilight Bark

might help find their stolen puppies. It's interesting to see that Frank is analyzing

the direction of movement and feeling through arrows, he even comes up with an abstract doodle on the last sheet, that seems to say: connect these two characters !

That last drawing shows a physical connection as well as a strong emotional touch.
Just compare it to the middle one, what an improvement!
First Frank thinks of the placement of the characters, then he adds real emotion.

As I said before, great staging is not easy. The audience often has only seconds to register what the animator is trying to say. But when the staging communicates like here, the scene becomes a warmhearted story telling statement.

The Dawning of Music in Kentucky

I recently came upon a nice short essay by Kyle Gann called 'American Romanticism: Music vs. Painting'.  It discusses nineteenth century music in relation to the paintings of artists like Frederic Edwin Church and Martin Johnson Heade, mentioning in particular three early orchestral works inspired by landscapes: 'The Ornithological Combat of Kings (1836) by Anthony Philip Heinrich (1781-1861), the Niagara Symphony (1854, though it doesn’t seem to have been performed before the current decade) by William Henry Fry (1813-1864), and Night in the Tropics (1861) by Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869). All three were based on New World subject matter – South or Central America in Heinrich’s and Gottschalk’s cases, like so many of Church’s and Heade’s best paintings. All three offer effects unknown to European music of the time – particularly Gottschalk’s pop-music syncopations and the rumble of eleven timpani with which Fry evokes Niagara’s cascade. All three are marked by a technical ineptitude that any sensitive amateur could pinpoint – Heinrich’s marching-band momentum badly needs a rest now and then, Gottschalk’s harmonic rhythm is deadeningly predictable, and Fry lapses into Wagnerian banality whenever he’s not being onomatapoetically athematic. They seem today like brave but Quixotic figures, would-be heroes whom the passage of time reduces to clowns.'

Frederick Edwin Church, Niagara Falls, 1857

Anthony Philip Heinrich is a particularly interesting figure: a Bohemian wholesale dealer in linen, thread, wine, and other goods who settled in America and only decided to take up music after the failure of his business and death of his wife.  According to David Barron, he travelled to Kentucky and in the spring of 1818, where, in a move that anticipates Thoreau, 'he withdrew from the musical society of Lexington, Frankfort, and Louisville and went to live in a log cabin in the woods around Bardstown. This was a significant moment in Heinrich's life, for here he paused to study and instruct himself in the art of music by improvising on the violin, and finally to write down these expressions as vocal, piano, and violin compositions.'  His first major publication, a collection of songs and pieces for violin and piano, was called The Dawning of Music in Kentucky or the Pleasures of Harmony in the Solitude of Nature (1820).  Like William Henry Fry, he composed a noisy piece inspired by the Niagara Falls, The War of the Elements and the Thundering of Niagara. He was friendly with John James Audubon and in addition to the The Ornithological Combat of Kings mentioned above, composed The Columbiad, or Migration of American Wild Passenger Pigeons. Heinrich's music was performed to acclaim in New York in the 1840s and there were successful concerts back in Prague in 1857, but four years later the old man died in poverty. 

John James Audubon, Passenger Pigeon, from Birds of America (1827-38)

The article by David Barron quoted above includes an amusing description of an occasion on which Heinrich was introduced to President Tyler, written by John Hill Hewitt, the piano teacher to Tyler's daughter:

'The composer labored hard to give full effect to his weird production; his bald pate bobbed from side to side, and shone like a bubble on the surface of a calm lake.  At times his shoulders would be raised to the line of his ears, and his knees went up to the keyboard, while the perspiration rolled in large drops down his wrinkled cheeks.
The ladies stared at the maniac musician, as they, doubtless, thought him, and the president scratched his head, as if wondering whether wicked spirits were not rioting in the cavern of mysterious sounds and rebelling against the laws of acoustics. The composer labored on, occasionally explaining some incomprehensible passage, representing, as he said, the breaking up of the frozen river Niagara, the thaw of the ice, and the dash of the mighty falls. Peace and plenty were represented by soft strains of pastoral music, while the thunder of our naval war-dogs and the rattle of our army musketry told of our prowess on sea and land.

The inspired composer had got about half-way through his wonderful production when Mr. Tyler restlessly arose from his chair, and placing his hand gently on Heinrich's shoulder, said;
“That may all be very fine, sir, but can't you play us a good old Virginia reel?”'

Do all women question their sexuality?

In the past week, two guys asked me if I was a lesbian. They did not catch me oogling the breasts of another woman or going down on one, however after talking so freely and openly they wondered if I batted for the other team. By me saying 'I would become a lesbian for her' does not mean I actually would. (Apart from Sofia Vergara and Adriana Lima, I full on would!)

I can safely say that I do not bat for the other team though. Personally, I do love a good penis. But, I can understand why some women would chose to like other women. A woman knows what she wants in life, unlike most men. A woman knows the way she likes to be kissed, to be touched. A lot of the time, we meet men who do not know the 'right way to handle us.'

I personally think there is nothing wrong with admiring someone of the same sex or saying you think someone is attractive. The amount of times girls will look at another girl on TV or a film and admire their looks. How many girls have looked at lingerie shots of Kelly Brook and thought "wow she is hot!?" I know I have. Or Nicole Scherzinger dancing in one of her music videos with rain pouring onto her slim and toned body and thinking naughty things. I can guarentee more than half of the girls reading this will have thought those kind of thoughts.

In a study carried out by Boise State University, they found that out of a group of 484 heterosexual women, 60 per cent were sexually attracted to other women; 45 per cent had kissed a woman and 50 per cent had fantasies about the same sex.
Other data suggests upwards of 20 per cent of women are attracted to other women. It's claimed this could be linked to the natural affection women show towards one another when they socialise, from chattng on the phone for hours to snuggling during chick flicks.

I think that most women are naturally bi-curious when it comes to sex. I won't lie, I have had the odd snog with a female friend, or a touch here and there, reason being wanting to experience new things and explore different parts of your sexuality. So it came to a point where I wondered if it was girls instead of guys that I liked. I would watch porn to see if seeing girls naked was for me. As soon as the guy walked into the scene, I knew I was way more turned on by the hard, pulsating cock gracing my screen than the less than attractive bird fingering herself.

I do also think it is something most women will question at some point in their life.
Take Lindsay Lohan for example. Actress/ popstar/ lesbian/ Non lesbian/ Jailbird etc. She had boyfriends as shown in the media and then one day was linked to Samantha Ronson, a known lesbian. Next thing, Lindsay and Sam are dating. Then. before you know it, her and Sam break up and some guy sells a story that Linds noshed him off and she admits she likes guys. So was it just a phase? Was it an attention thing? Is it something that is always in you and you need to experience it to let it out or realise the truness of it all?
Why did Madonna and Britney feel the need to share a snog on stage for the world to see? Do they both have an inner lesbian waiting to come out or was it just to put on a good show?

Like I said, I realised it wasn't for me after a sesh with a porno, but after new pictures emerged of David Beckhams underwear line for Armani and after making a mess in my knix, it is confirmed for me, M.E.N all the way :)

For my generation it has become something of the norm and not something people need to be ashamed of like it was back in the day for example when my grandmother was a teenager. If you told your parent you were gay, you were sent to a priest to be 'un-gayed.'
Now days, there are support groups, websites, and even places like Gay Pride where you can be the real you and not need to be ashamed.

All I can say is go out, have fun, experience new things, new people and make your own mind up. Only you can do that for yourself, no one else.

I would love to hear some of your opinions/experiences.
Please comment below or tweet me @LittleMissVak or if you would rather talk in private you can email me blogdoll21@gmail.com

Little Miss V..xx

Utrecht Celebrates the New Year

2012