Latest news with #Butterfly
Mint
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Mint
‘Songs Our Bodies Sing': The lightweight ambitions of a promising writer
Lindsay Pereira's new book, Songs Our Bodies Sing, is a collection of nine stories, several of which are set in Mumbai, the city he grew up in, while the rest is a motley bunch that portrays the trials of Indians in North America, England and Europe. The stories are easy to read—at times, a little too neat—and vary in length. Butterfly is only a few pages long, and If You Don't Weaken is as detailed as a novella. If you pick up this volume expecting the energy of a typical short story, which serves up a slice of life with a twist at the end, you will be disappointed. Admittedly, all the tales here are slices of life, but with little to no surprises. More often than not, you can see the ending from miles ahead. Or else, a promising story like The Antique Shop, with which the collection opens, simply peters out with a whimper. Himanshu, the protagonist of the first story, is a wily antique-seller, running a decades-old family business near Chor Bazaar in Mumbai. In the course of one morning's transactions, his internalised prejudices against white foreign customers, Muslims and homosexuals flare up. But, in the end, these details amount to little more than anthropological insights, with not much fictional substance. This failing to transform close observation into arresting stories, unfortunately, is endemic to the collection. The characters remain either too flat or too textbookish for the most part. If, on the other hand, you decide to read Songs Our Bodies Sing as an admirer of Pereira's style, you will be sorely disappointed again. None of the stories has the piquancy that marked his debut novel, Gods and Ends (2021), set among the Goan Catholic community living in Orlem, a suburb in Mumbai. There is no kick to the language spoken by his characters, no spiciness to the prose. It's almost as though the writer has undergone a sea change in his voice and decided to opt for bland reportage instead of mischief and gossip. In If You Don't Weaken, two Sikh men, both immigrants from Punjab, rent a basement in the house of a white couple in Canada. One of them is a student who works at Tim Horton's, the Canadian coffee chain, to cover his expenses, while the other is a long-distance truck driver, who had come to the country after incurring heavy loans for the visa but has nothing to show for all the trouble he's put his family through, nine years later. Paul and Marjorie, the elderly couple whose tenants they are, have lost their son to an accident. Embittered by grief, Paul has no interest in the lives of the renters, until a tragedy brings them closer. It doesn't take much to guess how things will turn out. If the cliched ending doesn't bore you, the commentary on Canadian politics and the misguided ambitions of immigrants who fall for it, will do. A similar feeling is inspired by Love of an Orchestra, where a Parsi music teacher, fallen on hard times, stews in self-inflicted miseries. His wife, Khushnuma, offers a glimmer of interest to an otherwise well-worn plotline, but she can't redeem the ending. The entire story reads like a salutary lesson in why it's best to avoid writing about a community as an outsider to it. Sadly, Pereira's decline has been steady since the bravado triumph of his debut novel. His second novel, The Memoirs of Valmiki Rao (2023), had begun to show cracks with its weak characterisation and poor pacing. It read more like a potted history of modern India, especially the troubled years in Mumbai following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992, than like a work of fiction. The storytelling was uneven, compromised by a padding of historical context, though Pereira did leave the reader with a sense of the past entangled with the present. In contrast, Songs Our Bodies Sing is undercooked all through, with its lifeless plotting and uneven curation. A story like Butterfly, which was first published in The Indian Express, may have worked in the limited space offered by a newspaper, but as part of a collection, it comes across as too cryptic, with no inwardness to the central character Karthik, or insight into his lifelong obsession with Elvis Presley. Like several other dull stories—Have a Nice Day being another—it feels like a force-fit in the collection. The large font size to add to the bulk of the book ironically accentuates the collection's lightweight ambitions. Except for the last two stories, Pereira's acuity as a writer is conspicuously missing. Rivers to Cross describes the misadventures of a snooty Indian man in Paris. It is told with tight control, with something of Pereira's edgy brilliance glimmering from time to time. The ending, with its reversal of fortunes, hits the spot. The title story, Songs Our Bodies Sing, is an account of a tragedy that befalls a Sikh couple living in London. It gives a peek into working-class life, the struggles of first-generation immigrants to the city, in the 1960s. But their lives are transformed by the power of great music—specifically by Hey Jude by The Beatles—a theme that runs through a few of the other stories, too. The beauty and sadness of the final pages of the collection gives the reader a glimpse of what it could have been. \
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Janet Jackson Takes Victory Lap On Network That Tried To Destroy Her Career
The legendary Janet Jackson started her acceptance speech at the 2025 American Music Awards with an implausibly modest statement. 'I am so, so honored — I'm so grateful. I mean no disrespect in any way, but I don't consider myself an icon,' she said while holding the ICON Award onstage at the ceremony on Monday. 'My family, myself, our dream was to … it wasn't ever to be famous. We weren't raised like that. We always had a special love for music, dancing and singing — and fame came with the result of hard work and dedication.' Unsurprisingly, Katherine Jackson's youngest child offered us her trademark humility in her sweet whisper. But for her fans, including myself, I couldn't believe she made this statement as if she is not the Janet Damita Jo Jackson, our dancing diva who is the lady of the 'Butterfly' and the '8-Count.' She's the visionary behind some of the greatest music videos, tours and performances in pop music. She is the template of success for the generations of artists who have followed her. 'I'm excited to see Janet. I haven't seen her in years, and I'm glad that she's being celebrated, too,' said Jennifer Lopez, who hosted the show and once danced for Jackson. As much fuss has rightfully been made about Jackson's American Music Awards moment being her first TV performance in seven years, not nearly enough has been said about this being the first time she blessed CBS with a performance since her 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, which included the infamous 'Nipplegate' incident. (You can watch her American Music Awards performance here.) Jackson's fans always felt that the controversy was overblown, and more importantly, that she disproportionally received more backlash than Justin Timberlake, the other participant in that situation. It wasn't until 2018 that there was real evidence of an effort to blacklist the groundbreaking pop star. That year, Yashar Ali reported for HuffPost that Les Moonves, the former CEO and chairman of CBS, became obsessed with Jackson's career for years afterward. Moonves ordered CBS' sister properties VH1 and MTV, along with all Viacom-owned radio stations, to stop playing Jackson's songs and music videos. This incident derailed the sales of 'Damita Jo,' released in March 2004, one month after the Super Bowl. That album had some bops, particularly 'I Want You,' 'All Nite (Don't Stop)' and 'Strawberry Bounce,' which I recommend playing during a hike or while trying to finish the rest of your time on the stairmaster if you're into the sort of thing. In that same piece, Ali noted that upon realizing that Jackson was able to publish a book under a publisher then owned by Viacom, Moonves said, 'How the fuck did she slip through?' If not for Tyler Perry casting her in films, record producer Jermaine Dupri's hits, her most dedicated fans and the legacy of the artist who has twice secured the largest recording contract in history, her fame might have completely faded. Jackson never received a public apology from CBS for any of it. (In 2021, Timberlake apologized in an Instagram post.) In 2023, she came close when the Grammys wanted to give her their Global Impact Award before bowing out. Part of the problem was a scheduling conflict for a pre-Grammys event, but the real snag was that CBS and its parent company had not acknowledged or apologized for the Nipplegate response. 'Our sources say Janet's team and Grammy organizers began talking about ways CBS could either apologize or figure out a way to acknowledge how she was treated by the network, but things just got too complicated and talks ended,' TMZ reported at the time. Now that we have reestablished how nasty CBS was to Jackson and how lucky they are that she even showed up at the American Music Awards, I'll finish stanning a bit and acknowledge that Jackson is still stellar more than 40 years into her career. She is 59 years old and still putting on incredible performances. I recently turned 41 and have been exhausted by millennials who complain about how old they are and how much everything hurts. Look at Janet Jackson, shut up, stretch and believe in yourself. While I hate to be superficial (not really), look at her face and hair. None of us can go back in time, but whatever Jackson is doing has gotten her as close to her 1993 self as possible. The styling is also top-notch, and, whew, I'm so glad she's out of her covered-all-up-in-black era. Lastly, I loved that she chose to perform 'Someone To Call My Lover,' which has been surging in streams and sales after going viral on TikTok, and 'All For You,' her biggest hit of the 2000s. It's no coincidence that those are songs from the album released before the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show and its aftermath. It's a testament to the mainstream appeal of her music when not met with interference. Ultimately, it's also a testament to her legacy; no matter what gets in her way, she will continue to thrive. Actor Lauren Weedman Was Diagnosed With Bell's Palsy. Then, Hollywood Showed Up In The Most Unexpected Way. Mara Brock Akil Continues Her Black Love Legacy With 'Forever' Toxic Famous Men Deserve What's Coming To Them
Hypebeast
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Hypebeast
Rich Brian 發布與 Ski Mask The Slump God 全新合作曲目
本文看點 在Rich Brian即將於下週重返北美舞台、登上洛杉磯 Head In The Clouds 音樂節擔任壓軸演出之前，他率先釋出了新專輯《WHERE IS MY HEAD?》的第三首單曲〈Jumpy〉。 這首備受期待的〈Jumpy〉邀請好友Ski Mask The Slump God合作，兩人首度於錄音室中攜手完成作品。由來自 88rising 的 Rich Brian 開場，演唱副歌與第一段 verse，隨後交棒給來自佛州的 Ski Mask 接續第二段。 《WHERE IS MY HEAD?》原定於今日發行，現已延期至 8 月 15 日推出。此前已曝光的單曲還包括〈Butterfly〉與〈Little Ray of Light〉兩首個人作品。 >導演那麽多，為何潮流圈偏愛 Spike Lee？ >E1and 的「危險之愛」—— 以新歌〈Russian Roulette〉拼湊出完整的她 >Kendrick Lamar 再破紀錄！〈Not Like Us〉成為 Billboard Hot 100 霸榜最久的饒舌歌曲
Hypebeast
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hypebeast
Rich Brain x Ski Mask The Slump God Share "Jumpy"
Summary Landing ahead ofRich Brian's return to the North American stage next week – where he'll headline Los Angeles'Head In The Cloudsfestival in LA – the musician has dropped off the third single from his now August-due projectWHERE IS MY HEAD? The newest glimpse of the project is entitled 'Jumpy' and featuresSki Mask The Slump God. A long-awaited collaboration from the friends, 'Jumpy' signals the first in-studio collab from Brian and Ski. The 88rising artist kicks it off with the chorus and first verse, before handing it off to the Florida rapper for verse number two. Initially slated to drop in full today,WHERE IS MY HEAD?is now scheduled for release on August 15. Other revealed singles so far include the solo deliveries: 'Butterfly' and 'Little Ray of Light.' 'Jumpy' also comes with a trippy music video, opening with Brian delivering the lyrics with three big cameras held over him. 'i love rap. i love u Ski,' Rich Brian wrote on Instagram . Stream 'Jumpy' – out everywhere now.
Business Wire
22-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Butterfly Network to Participate at William Blair 45th Annual Growth Stock Conference
NEW YORK & BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Butterfly Network, Inc. (NYSE: BFLY) ('Butterfly') a digital health company transforming care with handheld, whole-body ultrasound and intuitive software, today announced that Joseph DeVivo, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman will present and host one-on-one investor meetings at William Blair 45th Annual Growth Stock Conference. The presentation will take place on Thursday, June 5, 2025, at 8:00 am CT in Chicago, IL. A live webcast of the presentation will be available in the Events & Presentations section of the Butterfly investor website, and available for replay following the event. To schedule a one-on-one meeting with Mr. DeVivo, please reach out to your William Blair representative. About Butterfly Network Butterfly Network, Inc. (NYSE: BFLY) is a healthcare company driving a digital revolution in medical imaging with its proprietary Ultrasound-on-Chip™ semiconductor technology and ultrasound software solutions. In 2018, Butterfly launched the world's first handheld, single-probe, whole-body ultrasound system, Butterfly iQ. The iQ+ followed in 2020, and the iQ3 in 2024, each with improved processing power and performance by leveraging Moore's Law. The iQ3 earned Best Medical Technology at the 2024 Prix Galien USA Awards, a prestigious honor and one of the highest accolades in healthcare. Butterfly's innovations have also been recognized by Fierce 50, TIME's Best Inventions and Fast Company's World Changing Ideas, among other achievements. Butterfly combines advanced hardware, intelligent software, AI, services, and education to drive adoption of affordable, accessible imaging. Clinical publications demonstrate that its handheld ultrasound probes paired with Compass™ enterprise workflow software, can help hospital systems improve care workflows, reduce costs, and enhance provider economics. With a cloud-based solution that enables care anywhere through next-generation mobility, Butterfly aims to democratize healthcare by addressing critical global healthcare challenges. Butterfly devices are commercially available to trained healthcare practitioners in areas including, but not limited to, parts of Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, North America and South America; to learn more about available countries, visit:
