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Okay my last comment, it's on topic, with no spoilers:
word to the wise, do not read/ look at book, and then listen to 'Purple Rain', unless you need a good cry.
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Thank God it's out at last. Now all the the childish "I have it already na-nana-na-na" crap can stop | |
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I love the pictures of his mother as a young woman. I can see her in Prince.
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[Edited 10/30/19 20:58pm] [Edited 10/30/19 21:34pm] | |
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I got mine from K Mart on the Morning of 29th here in Australia... read it in one sitting.... Dan is a wonderful writer.... overall a bitter sweet experience.... Hes gone, and there are things we will never know... He did drop one huge Bombshell though...
Love you Pwince....
Is there going to be another thread where we can actually discuss content and that one big bombshell ?
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mantaray31 said:
They are for Random House US and Random House UK respectively. I happened to order the UK version from a Swedish site and now it says "delivery date unknown" while the US version can be delivered in a few days... I hope the UK version is not cancelled... Ah thanks for clearing that up, we have to be patient I presume. | |
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I received my copy on the 28th, finished it the same evening and haven't been able to stop thinking about certain parts of it. Firstly, it feels weird that his memoir exists at all. It seemed unbelievable when he announced the project three years ago and it still seems that way to me now. I never thought that I would ever be privy to facsimiles of handwritten pages containing some of his life's most intimate memories. This is Prince--a man who seemed to delight in the myths we created about him; who gave few interviews if any at all during certain eras of his career; who told us that everything we needed to know about him could be unearthed in his music. So even after reading the book, I was left to ponder the impetus for him to share the narrative of his life with us and it made me sad and inspired at the same time. Sad because of the circumstances in which he left and seemed prepared to leave this plane of existence and inspired because he left us with the same exhuberance to create as he did when he was here. From Dan Piepenbring's account, he seemed so hyped to author many more books.
Perhaps the most salient theme that P writes about besides creative ownership is the power of imagination and "visualization" in his memoir. This book resides among a lifetime of examples that demonstrate his uncanny ability to conceptualize something and bring it to fruition. According to Piepenbring, the memoir germinated out of an idea for a lyric/photo book(!). The treatment for Purple Rain was initially entitled "Dreams" and despite all odds, became the cornerstone for his most commercially successful work. I think it was Steve Parke who wrote about part of P's creative process in his photo book in which they spent many hours just spitballing ideas of cool ways to promote or present his music to his audience and then saw those ideas come to life in real time. A former associate (I don't remember who it was now) said P told her he wanted to form an all female rock band and a few years later, 3rdeyegirl was born. It made me think of that interview he did in the 90's(?) in which he said half-jokingly that he "willed" his entire career into being. The mantra he had emblazoned on his bedroom wall, "Everything U Think Is True" has perhaps never been truer for anyone else, at least as far as music is concerned.
The part of the book that is most empowering to me is where he lets us know that we all have the ability to create the life that we want to live and create the communities that we want to live in. There is something very uplifting and gracious in the way that he decided to peel back the curtain of his life (the beginning of which was difficult, if not traumatic) in part, to tell us that we always have the power to chart our own destiny as well. (He mentions "free will" in the book. I have no idea how his interpretation of "free will" reconciles with the ideology of fate in the Bible, but that's another thread.)
By now, I've heard so many anecdotes by former associates about the human being P was that it has begun to tarnish my immaculate picture of who Prince the icon was, but in a healthy way. I've heard enough rehearsal bootlegs of him working on songs, I've seen rehearsal footage of him leading his various bands, and I've read enough testemonies of his work ethic to understand why he chafed at the word "magic" when it was used by white critics to describe him or his music. Once, I pictured Prince as the magical embodiement of effortless cool and preternatural virtuosity, but the beautiful ones "always smash the picture, always everytime".
Did anybody else read too much into the fact that his handwriting in cursive looks almost identical to his mother's? | |
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yessir! | |
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My favorite part of the book too! | |
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I haven't really read the book yet but just flipping through it. The mindgames/dickishness with the writer was my favorite part. Tried to get dude fired! 'I trust you, you have power now. Tell your bosses blah blah blah' | |
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Slate review: https://slate.com/culture...-ones.html . EW (Entertainment Weekly) review: https://ew.com/book-revie...ew-review/ . Vulture distills some stories from the book: https://www.vulture.com/2...takes.html . Europe1 item on the book (in French): https://www.europe1.fr/em...ce-3928505 . Le Point review (in French): https://www.lepoint.fr/cu...4489_3.php . Article in Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad on the making of the book (in Dutch): https://www.nieuwsblad.be...0_04693536 . RTBF / Classic21 review (in French): https://www.rtbf.be/class...d=10355075 . AFP (Agence France Presse) review: https://www.france24.com/...-own-words . France Culture review (in French): https://www.franceculture...tobre-2019 . WebWire article on the making of the book (mainly a long quote by Chris Jackson): https://www.webwire.com/V...aId=249276 © Bart Van Hemelen
This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties, and confers no rights. It is not authorized by Prince or the NPG Music Club. You assume all risk for your use. All rights reserved. | |
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Why is anyone concerned with spoilers? When an album came out, we all wanted the reviews... we talked about it. We should freely discuss this book here. "He's a musician's musician..." | |
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Kirkus article on the book: https://www.kirkusreviews...takeaways/ . Rock & Folk review in French: https://www.rocknfolk.com...-pop/39605 . Crooner review (in French): https://www.crooner.fr/20...nd-prince/ .
© Bart Van Hemelen
This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties, and confers no rights. It is not authorized by Prince or the NPG Music Club. You assume all risk for your use. All rights reserved. | |
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Yes, he was a master 'manifestor.' I have studied handwriting analysis for many years and there is a strong similarity between his cursive handwriting and his mother's. Both are artistic, rhythmic, very emotional, (strong rightward slant) and passionate. Check out Vanity's handwriting; it is very similar to both of them.
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. Some excerpts (in Dutch): .
. © Bart Van Hemelen
This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties, and confers no rights. It is not authorized by Prince or the NPG Music Club. You assume all risk for your use. All rights reserved. | |
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Thank U Bart !..one of the best interviews ...Can U post the full interview? | |
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Ohh purple joy oh purple bliss oh purple rapture! REAL MUSIC by REAL MUSICIANS - Prince "I kind of wish there was a reason for Prince to make the site crash more" ~~ Ben |
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A bit of Dutch to English:
There was also a turntable with two giant speakers and a stack of vinyl records. The last one he had played was "I Want You" by Marvin Gaye.
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Mine arrived today. Can't wait to dig in. | |
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Prince is a great author. His grammar is not always perfect but that doesn’t matter in this case. He explains things in a very simple way so that anyone can take his words in. Like a good preacher who describes things at a fourth grade level for all ears. But when he has something important to describe like a certain feeling or thought, he uses a more complicated word that is best understood if looked up in the dictionary to get the full meaning of what he is saying. [Edited 11/1/19 3:23am] | |
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I want to say something about his statement that, “… there’s some part of your heart you should never give away. “ He didn’t mean it in a way that he couldn’t fully love someone. He meant that there is a part of us that belongs to God only. To yourself. It is what allows us to remain an individual. It is only in a slow, deep and contemplative reading of this book and looking at things in context and in the order he wrote it from the beginning, that I can understand what he is trying to convey. | |
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Do we post spoilers on this thread or not? | |
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I don't think so. I'd love a spoiler-zone thread, though. I don't get down with this modern day chicken little freak out over any tangential spoiler or fragment of a spoiler. It's out, let's go. | |
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I finished reading the book and want to talk about a few things but want to wait a few days for others to read it so the conversation is fuller. | |
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There no Book Discussion yet? Well, if this isn’t the place to talk about the book, I think we should have one too. This is The Org. If anyone should have one it should be us. The world is watching. Let’s go. | |
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Yah, go for it! Would like to read what y'all have to say.. | |
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