The Nightly Quill

This is a terrific story from the show Britain’s Got Talent. The audience has little expectation for this cell phone salesman, Paul Potts, until he brings them to their feet with an amazing performance of an extremely difficult opera song – Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma”. Within two minutes he shows more emotion than all the contestants combined. I’m not into opera but even I had to watch this video a number of times.

This is a story about a guy, a guy like most of us, common,
questioning his existence, measuring himself to others, never
believing in his abilities or his worth. Then one day, his passion outgrew his fears as he stepped onto a stage, a stage that took him to a place beyond his self imposed prison.

Watch the faces of the judges as this guy walks out on the stage. You can almost see what they’re thinking as they pre-judge this guy based on his looks and the fact that he’s a cell phone salesman. Maybe this guy stopped believing in what people told him for so many years and ultimately started listening to his passion.
Thanks Dave for this one !!

Paul Potts Semi Final winning performance:

There is an excellent dance, called the Thousand-Hand Guanyin. Considering the tight coordination required, their accomplishment is nothing short of amazing, even if they were not all deaf. Yes, you read correctly. All 21 of the dancers are complete deaf-mutes. Relying only on signals from trainers at the four corners of the stage, these extraordinary dancers deliver a visual spectacle that is at once intricate and stirring. Its first major international debut was in Athens at the closing ceremonies for the 2004 Paralympics.

Its lead dancer is 29-year-old Tai Lihua, who has a BA from The Hubei Fine Arts Institute. The video was recorded in Beijing during the Spring Festival celebrations this year.

No cue cards, no teleprompters, and no second takes–legendary funnyman Sid Caesar pioneered live television sketch comedy with his 1950s sitcoms Your Show of Shows and Caesar’s Hour. This classic sketch is “Argument to Beethoven’s 5th,” Sid Caesar and Nanette Fabray play a married couple in a argument with pantomimed action and the dialogue is classic music.Enjoy!

Filmed at the Superstar Theater at Resorts Casino in Atlantic City.

Amazing painter. Watch till the end or you won’t “get it”. It is worth the wait. For Booking or info: email sudds@slfa.com

Bianca Taylor Ryan Samuel (born September 1, 1994) is a singer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who is a finalist on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. When she auditioned she sang Jennifer Holliday’s “And I’m Telling You (I’m Not Going)”, surprising the crowd and the judges with her impressive voice, unusual for an 11-year old child.

Brandy didnt know what to say after the performance, adding it was “un-be-lievable.”

The other two judges were in shock, with Piers saying she needs to change her hair and clothes and she will win this whole competition. Bianca Ryan was accepted after auditioning. The judges agreed that Ryan needs to be more mature.

After performing “Piece of My Heart”, barefoot a la Janis Joplin, at the semi-finals, Bianca was announced the viewers’ choice that week on America’s Got Talent, and will be going into the million dollar finale.

The National Enquirer and Globe Magazine both said that fans called her “better than any American Idol”.

In her short time as an amutuer entertainer, she has performed at several notable venues, including Madison Square Garden and Lincoln Financial Field. Bianca’s only regular appearance has been as an anthemist for a semi-pro inline hockey team named the Philadelphia Growl. She has been performing for them since she was eight and will likely continue to sing at their events for the forseeable future.

Frank Zappa on CNN’s Crossfire in 1986. Discussing copyright and censorship.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — A 16-year-old boy being sued for online music piracy accused the recording industry on Tuesday of violating antitrust laws, conspiring to defraud the courts and making extortionate threats.

In papers responding to a lawsuit filed by five record companies, Robert Santangelo, who was as young as 11 when the alleged piracy occurred, denied ever disseminating music and said it’s impossible to prove that he did.

Santangelo is the son of Patti Santangelo, the 42-year-old suburban mother of five who was sued by the record companies in 2005. She refused to settle, took her case public and became a heroine to supporters of Internet freedom.

The industry dropped its case against her in December but sued Robert and his sister Michelle, now 20, in federal court in White Plains. Michelle has been ordered to pay $30,750 in a default judgment because she did not respond to the lawsuit.

Robert Santangelo and his lawyer, Jordan Glass, responded at length on Tuesday, raising 32 defenses, demanding a jury trial and filing a counterclaim against the companies for allegedly damaging the boy’s reputation, distracting him from school and costing him legal fees.

His defenses to the industry’s lawsuit include that he never sent copyrighted music to others; that the recording companies promoted file sharing before turning against it; that average computer users were never warned that it was illegal; that the statute of limitations has passed; and that all the music claimed to have been downloaded was actually owned by his sister on store-bought CDs.

Santangelo also claims that the record companies, which have filed more than 18,000 piracy lawsuits in federal courts, “have engaged in a wide-ranging conspiracy to defraud the courts of the United States.”

The papers allege that the companies, “ostensibly competitors in the recording industry, are a cartel acting collusively in violation of the antitrust laws and public policy” by bringing the piracy cases jointly and using the same agency “to make extortionate threats … to force defendants to pay.”

The Recording Industry Association of America, which has coordinated most of the lawsuits, issued a statement saying, “The record industry has suffered enormously due to piracy. That includes thousands of layoffs. We must protect our rights. Nothing in a filing full of recycled charges that have gone nowhere in the past changes that fact.”
Link – www.1010wins.com

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Here is a music video/montage done on the song “American Pie” by Don McLean. It was for a US History project. 95% of the images correlate to the current lyric. So, look for some deep meanings in the lyrics. Enjoy

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Unbelievable talent

The dream of a violin that can play itself has tantalized inventors for over a century. Now, modern technology has made the dream a reality – and without the use of digitally sampled sounds! Each instrument is a genuine, elite violin of traditional European design. Never goes out of tune. Bow movement and pitch are precisely controlled. Growing library of recordings, from classical to country/western. Piano accompaniment can be derived from any midi source, but using Pianomation to play genuine accoustic accompaniment provides today’s ultimate listening experience in automatic music.
Price = $17,500.00
Link – www.amazon.com

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