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Blogocentric Formulations #830397 added October 8, 2014 at 4:49am
Restrictions: None
Carl Hiaasen is One in a Million
** Image ID #2010042 Unavailable **
SONG: "One in a Million"
ARTIST: Aaliyah
STATUS: Deceased (plane crash, 8/25/2001)
ALBUM: One in a Million (1996)
I vividly remember hearing the news that Aaliyah's plane had crashed. Other than Princess Diana, this is really the first celebrity death where I was really consciously aware of what had happened. Up until this point in my life, I had heard of celebrities passing, but they were either celebrities I didn't really have a direct connection with (like watching the "In Memoriam" section of the Oscars and hearing my parents go, "Lloyd Bridges died??? I love his movies!"), or ones where I wasn't really old enough to understand the significance of a death, like with Dr. Seuss and Freddie Mercury in 1991 when I was only ten years old. Aaliyah was an artist I listened to, was roughly my age, and was just unexpectedly gone one day after a sudden accident.
Born in Brooklyn and raised in Detroit, Aaliyah appeared on Star Search at the age of ten and performed alongside Gladys Knight. By age twelve she had signed with Jive Records and recorded her first album under the mentorship of R. Kelly, who she married at age fifteen by lying on the marriage certificate (her parents had the marriage annulled). Her first album (Age Ain't Nothing But A Number), was also released when she was fifteen; it sold three million copies and was certified double platinum. Her second album (One in a Million) performed even better, selling 3.7 million copies in the U.S. and a total of 8 million worldwide. She starred in the movies Romeo Must Die and Queen of the Damned, and released her third album just a month before she died.
In August 2001, Aaliyah was in the Bahamas shooting the music video for her song "Rock the Boat." Her plane back to the United States crashed shortly after takeoff, killing Aaliyah and the other eight people onboard. The specific cause of the crash is unknown, although the pilot was unlicensed and had traces of cocaine and alcohol in his bloodstream and the plane itself was over carrying capacity.
Aaliyah's music continued to find success after her death. She's sold 52 million copies of her albums worldwide, and is listed by Billboard as the 10th most successful R&B artist of the last 25 years (27th most successful in history).
 
PROMPT: The author I haven't read yet but have always wanted to read is...
I've been meaning to read a Carl Hiaasen book for years. I have no idea why I haven't gotten around to it yet and my only excuse is that I have a very, very long list of authors I want to read, so his name doesn't always spring immediately to mind when I'm perusing the shelves at a bookstore. I think part of the reason I haven't read him yet is because I want to start with his first solo novel:
| ASIN: 0446695718 |
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Amazon's Price: $ 19.99
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And Tourist Season hasn't - at least as far as I've noticed - ever been a Kindle Daily Deal, or part of an Audible BOGO sale, which is often how I choose what to read from authors I haven't read yet. I consult my list and go, "Oh look! Lee Child's first Jack Reacher novel is only $2.99 on Kindle!" or "Hey, I can get the new Malcolm Gladwell book and get a Neil Gaiman book free!" 
I actually now check for this book every time I go to two of the used bookstores near my home, but so far I haven't had any luck tracking a copy down. I might just have to bite the bullet and pay *gasp* full price for the Hiaasen novel pretty soon, or at least go to the library, though, because I really, really want to read some of his work. From everything I've heard, I think it'll be right up my alley. |
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