Buddy Holly Hall will open in 2020

The fact that so many books still name the Beatles as "the greatest or most significant or most influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from being considered as a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success. The Beatles sold more hits than anyone else, beside Elvis, and therefore they must have been the greatest? Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past.

And that past is Buddy Holly. Hollywood has yet to produce an authentic portrait of the rock ’n’ roll experience, though it is one of the most emblematic of the twentieth century. The moviemakers’ flirtation with Buddy Holly’s life is a classic example of distortion, simplifying the uneven edges that made a life in rock ’n’ roll so giddy and tragic, and in Holly's case archetypically modern—torn between a yearning for acceptance and a compulsion to destroy all that is false in society. The real Buddy Holly is to be found nowhere in the scarce efforts to represent him on film. Society will begin to apply pressure on the individuals and their partners, from all angles. But some people are bigger than society. Most of us are not. And only a few artists have explored, in clear-sighted or delusional ways, the possibility of an alternative societal model. When some of Buddy Holly's pals from Lubbock teased him about not playing God's approved music, Holly retorted: "If people can't hear God in my music, it's their problem."


If you drive by Downtown Lubbock’s Buddy Holly Hall often, you can see the progress being made. A construction team of nearly 300 workers are responsible for that progress, and hope to present the hall to Lubbock in less than a year and a half. “We’re going to be on the cover of every architectural magazine in the country, for how really cool this staircase is," explains Tim Collins, Chairman of the board for the Lubbock Entertainment and Preforming Arts Association.

That staircase is one that has been designed in the shape of an ellipse, which means, “It’s larger at the second floor and the third floor then it is at the bottom. It’s a great architectural feature that we’re really excited about," says Collins. The larger theater will hold 2,200 people. “Because of the construction of our big theater, this small theater will also be an NC-15, so our school district children will have the opportunity to perform in a hall that is of the same quality as The Lincoln Center or The Kennedy Center.” The Hall is currently being paid for by fundraising, explains Collins. Source: www.kcbd.com

Delusional thinking is associated with slower alterations in personal belief, a new study reports. People who suffer more delusions also tend to seek out more information prior to making a guess. Delusions are one of the most common symptoms of psychosis, but little is known about what causes them. A new study from researchers at Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute offers insight into the development of delusions. An estimated 80-90 percent of individuals with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders experience delusions—false beliefs that can be distressing and debilitating. “We found that patients who experienced more severe delusions tended to seek more information before making a guess than their less-delusional counterparts. This is a truly novel finding, and it helps confirm the fact that rigidity is an important part of delusional beliefs,” says Horga. This may explain why delusional patients seek more information than non-delusional individuals. Source: Columbia University Irving Medical Center Source: neurosciencenews.com

"There hasn't been anyone that famous in a single moment as he was during 'Thriller' time," Randall Sullivan (author of "Untouchable: The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson") said. "He eventually gave himself the nose of the boy, the young actor Bobby Driscoll, who was the model for Peter Pan in Walt Disney's movie."  There is something about the way Jackson morphed from pretty to disfigured, closer to Joseph Merrick, the medical case study whose “elephant man” bones Jackson swore he never tried to buy. The morphing could have been a result of the pigmentation ailment, vitiligo, that he told Winfrey he suffered from. But what if all of that change he so notoriously underwent, all the damage he seemed to wear on his body, all the creatures his videos turned him into (werewolves, zombies, a panther, a skeleton), what if his outward self became some semiconscious manifestation of a monster that lurked within? Source: www.nytimes.com