T-shirt

A T-shirt (or tee shirt, or tee) is a style of fabric shirt, named after the T shape of the body and sleeves. It is normally associated with short sleeves, a round neck line known as a crew neck, with no collar.

Typically made of cotton fibers knitted in a jersey stitch, they have a distinctive soft texture compared to woven shirts. The majority of modern versions have a body made from a continuously woven tube, on a circular loom, so that the torso has no side seams. The manufacture of T-shirts has become highly automated, and may include fabric cutting by laser or water jet.

The T-shirt evolved from undergarments used in the 19th century, through cutting the one-piece union suit underwear into separate top and bottom garments, with the top long enough to tuck under the waistband of the bottoms. With and without buttons, they were adopted by miners and stevedores during the late 19th century as a convenient covering for hot environments.

As slip-on garments without buttons, they originally became popular in the United States when they were issued by the U.S. Navy during or following the Spanish–American War of 1898. These were a crew-necked, short-sleeved, white cotton undershirt to be worn under a uniform. It became common for sailors and Marines in work parties, the early submarines, and tropical climates to remove their uniform jacket, wearing (and soiling) only the undershirt.

Lady Marmalade

"Lady Marmalade" is a song written by Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan. It became a popular hit in 1975, recorded by the American girl group Labelle. The song is famous for its sexually suggestive chorus of "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soir)?", which translates into English as "Do you want to sleep with me (tonight)?" Labelle held the number-one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for one week, and also topped the Canadian RPM national singles chart.

The song has had many cover versions over the years. In 1998, girl group All Saints released a cover of the song that peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart. The 2001 version by singers Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mýa, and Pink, recorded for the Moulin Rouge! soundtrack was a number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for 5 weeks. "Lady Marmalade" was also a song to reach number one by two different musical acts in America.

Labelle version

Background and release

Labelle's version of "Lady Marmalade" was produced by Allen Toussaint and Vicki Wickham. It was released on August 3, 1974 as the first single from the album Nightbirds. The song was inspired by Bob Crewe's first-hand observations of New Orleans. After it was first recorded by Kenny Nolan's group Eleventh Hour in 1974, on Eleventh Hour's Greatest Hits LP, Labelle's producer Allen Toussaint decided to record it for Nightbirds. Patti LaBelle sang lead vocals on "Lady Marmalade" with backing vocals being contributed by band mates Nona Hendryx and Sarah Dash. The song's chorus, "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soir)?", appeared previously in the play A Streetcar Named Desire, uttered by the promiscuous Blanche DuBois. Lyrically, "Lady Marmalade" is about a prostitute. Patti LaBelle, the lead female vocal of the band, expressed that, "I didn't know what it was about. Nobody, I swear this is God's truth, nobody told me what I'd just sung a song about."

Macklemore

Ben Haggerty (born June 19, 1983), known by his stage name Macklemore (/ˈmæk.ləmɔːr/ MAK-lə-mor) and formerly Professor Macklemore, is an American rapper from Seattle, Washington. His stage name originated from his childhood, it was the name of his made-up super hero. Since 2000, he has independently released one mixtape, three EPs, and two albums. He has significantly collaborated with producer Ryan Lewis as Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.

Macklemore and Lewis' single "Thrift Shop" reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 in 2013. The single was premiered on commercial radio by radio personality Jay Postal on September 2, 2012, and was soon dubbed the first song since 1994 to top the Hot 100 chart without the support of a major record label by Billboard, although Macklemore, in a slightly unusual recording contract, pays a nominal percentage of sales to use Warner Bros. Records’ radio promotion department to push his singles. Their second single, "Can't Hold Us" also peaked at number one of the Hot 100 Chart, making Macklemore and Lewis the first duo in the chart's history to have their first two singles both reach the peak position. Macklemore and Lewis released their debut studio album The Heist on October 9, 2012, which charted at number 2 on the US Billboard 200. The pair won four Grammy Awards at the 2014 ceremony, including Best New Artist, Best Rap Album (The Heist), Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance ("Thrift Shop").

Anaconda

An anaconda is a large snake found in tropical South America. Although the name applies to a group of snakes, it is often used to refer only to one species in particular, the common or green anaconda, Eunectes murinus, which is the largest snake in the world by weight, and the second longest.

Anaconda may refer to:

Parody

A parody (/ˈpærədi/; also called spoof, send-up, take-off or lampoon), in use, is a work created to imitate, make fun of, or comment on an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of satiric or ironic imitation. As the literary theorist Linda Hutcheon puts it, "parody … is imitation, not always at the expense of the parodied text." Another critic, Simon Dentith, defines parody as "any cultural practice which provides a relatively polemical allusive imitation of another cultural production or practice." Parody may be found in art or culture, including literature, music (although "parody" in music has an earlier, somewhat different meaning than for other art forms), animation, gaming and film.

The writer and critic John Gross observes in his Oxford Book of Parodies, that parody seems to flourish on territory somewhere between pastiche ("a composition in another artist's manner, without satirical intent") and burlesque (which "fools around with the material of high literature and adapts it to low ends"). Meanwhile, the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot distinguishes between the parody and the burlesque, "A good parody is a fine amusement, capable of amusing and instructing the most sensible and polished minds; the burlesque is a miserable buffoonery which can only please the populace." Historically, when a formula grows tired, as in the case of the moralistic melodramas in the 1910s, it retains value only as a parody, as demonstrated by the Buster Keaton shorts that mocked that genre.