Shake Up The Happiness. A Well Written Theme From Coca Cola To Promote Its Brand... What Is A Brand?

Unfortunately, the real world isn't the same as a fairytale.

Well, that's why we're here! To make it better.

But...life isn't like a fairytale...

That's right! It's up to you to make things better...

Isn't it?

Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.

Fernando Pessoa (via quotemadness)

Literature must be a wonder, the most intriguing and hidden secret that nobody can unfold, but the writer

Sad? Insecure? Looking for a sign? This 2 minute song may change the way you look at yourself.

The beginning of every adventure in business depends on trust. How we build it, what we do with it, how we take advantage of it and where we can  go with that trust. Interest topic delivered on TED. Com by Simon Sinek titled "First Why and then Trust".

6 acts of literary kindness

In order to celebrate World Kindness Day, set up in 1998 by the World Kindness Movement, we have put together a list of six acts of kindness by prominent literary figures.

One of the more widely known acts of literary charity, J.M. Barrie gave all of the rights to “Peter Pan,” his original play, to the Great Ormond Street Hospital (a children’s hospital) in London. Royalties from all productions, books, movies, and other iterations of the story still go to the hospital. The cast of the original play also started a tradition, in which they came to the hospital and played the nursery scene for the children there.

J.K. Rowling co-founded the Children’s High Level Group (CHLG) with Baroness Emma Nicholson in 2005, and auctioned off a special edition of her book The Tales of Beedle the Bard for the charity in 2007, raising nearly £2 million. She also supports a number of charities and causes through her charitable trust, Volant. Volant offers assistance to projects that are related to alleviating social deprivation, with an emphasis on women’s and children’s issues.

Charles Dickens was one of Great Ormond Street’s earliest benefactors, (it seems great authors think alike). In April, he published an article entitled ‘Drooping Buds’ in his magazine Household Words. He described how one third of babies born in London each year died before their first birthday, and emphasized that the Hospital was the only institution dedicated to saving this appalling waste of life. He called to his readers for support, and their enthusiastic response helped to keep the Hospital open and expand the base of its supporters. In 1858, Dickens was called on to help rescue the project again. He responded by giving a whole evening’s performance of his most famous passages on children, and raised enough money to enable the hospital to buy the house next door, and effectively double in size. He continued featuring the hospital in his creative works, and left a legacy behind that continues to benefit the hospital today.

Like Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, Victor Hugo helped the poor by going into his own pocket. He started at home, providing for his estranged wife and his sons who didn’t earn much money on their own. He instructed his cook to feed beggars who showed up at his front door. Every other Sunday for about 14 years, he served “Poor Children’s Dinners” to about 50 hungry youngsters in his neighborhood. According to biographer André Maurois, personal charity accounted for about a third of Hugo’s household expenses during his peak earning years.

Maya Angelou passed away in 2014, and her trust now continues her legacy with contributions to many different charities. Before her death, however, she was an honorary board member for the Legacy of Hope Foundation. It was created to provide medical care and facilities for underserved children and communities around the world.

Judy Blume, beloved young adult and children’s author, has spent most of her career fighting against censorship with the National Coalition Against Censorship.  She also is the founder and trustee of The Kids Fund, a charitable and educational foundation which purports to facilitate communication between children and parents, and is financed by the proceeds of her publication Judy Blume Diary: The Place to Put Your Own Feeling.

Image: J.K. Rowling at the White House, via the Executive Office of the President. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Writing Affirmations, submitted by Camp NaNoWriMo participants. (Text reads: “I will not let fear, frustration, and perfectionism stifle me. I will show up at the page and try.” By NaNoWriMo user Crizma)

Cuento de Navidad: La lavanderia Americana

Cuento de Navidad El dia de Navidad se la paso en la lavanderia., y empezo a lavar todas aquellas piezas que estaban sucias. Nunca penso algun dia, pasar la Navidad de esa manera, digamos tan no convencional, en una lavanderia Americana. No habia esas fabulas de Charles Dickens en una cabana donde los sonidos de “Jingle bells, jingle Bells” sonaban en las casas al pasar, y las luces multicolores centellaban en las calles al caminar, en esa usanza antigua del espiritu navideno con personas deseando “Merry Christmas, Sir” , “I wish you the best in this holiday season”, o “Happy Holidays”. Asi pues, el se sento en aquella sillas desvencijadas e incomodas de plastico-quiebra espaldas, despues de colocar las ropas en sendas lavadoras, que sustituian el tallador antiguo, donde manos amorosas solian cuidar la ropa de seres queridos -u odiados tambien- (especialmente mi hermano) quien solia arrojarme pedazos de lodo en mi camisa cuando caminaba ufano y limpio rumbo a mi escuela deseando la mirada de mi maestra que me parecia hermosa, y me decia “que hermoso muchacho, siempre limpio” lo cual causaba el celo de mis demas companeros de jaula, perdon de aula. Los comentarios de mi maestra solian generar un sentimiento ambivalente en el ambiente del salon. Mis odiados enemigos solian tirar cascaras de naranja con ligas de hule en mi cara al descuido, o bien los admirados amigos precoces que en sus fantasias decian que la maestra estaba enamorada y necesitaba una cita que yo decia “nada que ver”. Se lo que sea, no decia que la maestra me gustaba. Espigada, piernas firmes y torneadas, y cuando usaba faldas la veia en su plenitud femenil pues a mis escasos anos podia decir que tenia un cuerpo escultural. Era lo que yo buscaba en una mujer, al menos en aquellos anos de juventud precoz. Are you busy right now? Fue lo primero que escuche cuando conteste el telefono y me saco de aquellos pensamientos de infancia placentera. Seriously I Didn’t want to take that call so I said yes, and hung up on my friend with no hesitation. Enseguida el se puso a leer las noticias en un I-Phone, que era un instrumento moderno propio del siglo XXI y constrastaba terriblemente con la usanza antigua del periodico semanal que solia distribuirse en las navidades perdidas, y en ese entonces era entregado personalmente, es decir de mano, sin perder el medio, ese gesto de humanidad que envolvia trabajo, disposicion y manos amigas por llevar las buenas nuevas donde sentimientos nobles permeaban las paginas de antano, y ahora contrastaban con los tiempos modernos donde la tecnologia y las buenas nuevas era que un arabe mato a decenas de ciudadanos en California, o que Donald Trump haria vida imposible a los mexicanos radicados en el extranjero…WTF? A black girl showed up at the Washateria, put her clothes in the washing machine and sat down next to me, asking if I would vote for Trump as a way of making some conversation, but I wasn’t in the mood of giving political views either, so I said “me don’t speak english” and she laughed. She was a smart girl,with an eagle eye, and asked why was I reading the news in english and I started laughing, of course! She got me. (To be continued)

Siempre me ha gustado Maná, quizá sea la versatilidad de los sonidos al combinarse con las acústicas, lo cual producen un ritmo original fuera de clichés musicales. Un buen programa musical empezaría con ellos, a la par de trabajar entrevistas de por medio

I met Vikki Carr long time ago thanks to my sister. She used to wake up in the morning by listening to Vikki Carr’s songs using my old stereo system. She listened that Spanish song “Total” that says “At the end, if you would have loved me I would have forgotten your love/ You see, it was a lost time the one you have meditated to tell me now that this can not be possible”.

I liked that song, really, as I like to have this interview with the one that woke me up in the morning in a mysterious way. She is right now through the phone, with a set of pre-determined questions underling the kind of relationship with the entertainment business people.

Vikky Carr, according to her website (http://vikkicarr.com) was born in El Paso Texas "and raised in Southern California, the eldest of seven children, who later change her name to Vikky Carr." She started singing at the age of four, but it was not until 1961 when she signed a contract with Liberty Records. She recorded He's a Rebel which became the first hit in Australia, and later on she sang It Must Be Him "which charged up the charts in England" says her website.

With almost 50 years of professional experience as a singer, we had this awesome opportunity to talk with this wonderful woman, who have tasted the fame without losing her charm, her singularity, her qualities as a human being, and this is my way to thank her for this interview, which in this case is focused in making entertainment deals around the world due to her singing career.

  How do you deal with people in a negotiation process, do you play hard o soft ball?

“I think the artist should always be dedicated to his art, and let the manager or lawyer deal with those details of negotiation. My function is to sing to an audience and I do not want to get involved in those little details of the agreement. When I get involved in the contract is just in the final phase when it is time to sign that deal”, said Vikki Carr.

To his manager, Dann Moss, playing hard or soft ball depends on “who you are negotiating with, in what country you are negotiating with, because people in different countries negotiate in different ways”. To Vikki Carr’s lawyer you need to make sure that the money is there, in the USA, before the performance because “you do not want to get involved in a lengthy negotiation process” in case something is wrong. The Japanese, he explains, when you sign a contract “their word is their bond and integrity is their word that they will honor that contract”, while in the Middle East, he explains further, the negotiation starts when you sign the contract. We need to understand, resumes Vikki’s manager, “what every person or country or people put into the importance of a signed contract, and their words and what it means to them.” It is also then when we have a beautiful negotiation process.

  Have you ever applied dirty tricks in a negotiation?

  “We always play clear, says Vikki, and we do not want to make dirty tricks and we try to play fare. We recognize that everybody in the game should get something; however there have been times when the singer gets less than the other agents in the process, and this is the reason I got an agent who deals with those issues.”

I think at the end of the day, replies Dann, a good philosophy is that everybody needs to win something, and you cannot take everything off the table. Everything is about sharing, he explains, and “we need to make sure that the people we are negotiating with, make money so they can come back and do another contract”. According to the manager they do not take all the marbles off the table in a negotiation process.

Dann Moss is Vikki Carr's lawer. According to his resume Dann was a co-founder and partner in the Law Firm of Thompson, Shankman, Bond and Moss. The firm specialized in the entertainment and communication industries. Dann then began, his own practice discovering and building new artists, negotiating television, publishing, licensing and recording agreements and producing international television specials and motion pictures.

  What happen -I asked- with those people that are tricky in your negotiation and what do you do Dann?  Have you ever found people like that, trying to get advantage from you?

  Yes, says Dann, in Paris. We had an agreement with my director and the theatre manager to reserve 27 seats for 3 sets of camera that were supposed to record the show. We marked those seats in the planogram to make sure those seats were not sold to the public so we can record the show. A month later we came back to put our cameras in place using those spaces, and the theater manager approached to me to tell me I could not use those seats since they were already sold. I told the manager our agreement and he said, “I am sorry, they are sold”. Don’t worry, I said, I will take care of the problem and talked to my secretary to print an invitation saying “Please excuse the inconvenience. You are cordially invited to seat on the stage for the performance and I personally invited to a champagne reception with Ms Silva Gartan after the show”. Then the manager came and said “you can not have people on the stage and I said “that is your problem”. Obviously, he said finally, there were more people giving out their seat so they can go to the reception. In that way, he concludes, we separate people from the problem.