The Fashion Of Trees

German designers Talbot Runhof recently showed their new line at the spring/summer 2012 fashion show in Paris. What’s this got to do with Tori? The whole show was set to music based on Erik Satie’s Gnossienne no. 1, including “Battle of Trees,” which starts around the 6-minute mark. Thanks, Susan!

"Boys For Pele" Book Canceled

Some of you may know that the popular books-based-on-albums series 33 1/3 was planning a book on Boys for Pele. (It doesn’t look like we ever reported on it, though. Whoops. Yes, we did.) Well, now it looks like the project has been canceled. Bummer! Giddylicious, we promise not to shoot the messenger.

Universal Music GSA Showcases Tori

Last Thursday, September 1st, Tori made an appearance at Berlin’s Admiral Palace for Universal Music GSA’s annual meeting, posing for press and playing live for attendees. Details about her involvement in the event are few but reports from Musik.Woche and Fezz.tv mention her participation and include a couple of photos reproduced below.

Note: the two gentleman in the first photograph are Christian Kellermann, Managing Director of Universal Music Classics & Jazz, and Frank Briegmann, President of Universal Music GSA and Deutsche Grammaphon.

Thanks to Deborah77 for the tip!

Tori To Judge International Songwriting Competition

Among all the hubbub this week, we learned that Tori will serve as one of the judges for this year’s International Songwriting Competition. She’s in good company; the other judges include Tom Waits, Black Francis, Robert Smith, Ozzy Osbourne, Jeff Beck, McCoy Tyner, Kelly Clarkson, and folks from My Morning Jacket, Duran Duran and more. Thanks to Solja for the news!

Sometimes You're Nothing But Meat

Once upon a time (okay, it was 1996) Tori included a photo of herself breastfeeding a piglet in the booklet for Boys for Pele. This taboo-tackling photo stuck in a lot of people’s minds for a long time after the hullabaloo died down. Heck, some people are still thinking about it, 15 years later. Lucas de Lima offers his take on the porcine photograph, saying, “As a disorientation of the ‘Madonna and Child,’ the image achieves its sacred glow precisely through profanation. In the piglet figured as Jesus, we see an improperly Christian separation of life–an unthinkable and unnamable cross-species encounter that awes us because of the nonhuman infant it exalts.” Click on over to read the whole essay for yourself. Thanks to Erin for sending us this!

Klimt-Inspired Scents Raise Money For RAINN

Popular perfumer Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab has unveiled a series of limited-edition perfumes inspired by Gustav Klimt paintings — and the proceeds will benefit the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network. The collection, which is available through October 13, includes perfumes named for Klimt’s paintings Donna Con Ventaglio, Hygeia, Pallas Athene, and (my personal favorite) Tree of Life. For complete details and scent descriptions, click the link above.

For those not already familiar with BPAL, the company also has a permanent collection of scents inspired by Neil Gaiman’s fiction, including characters from American Gods and Anansi Boys. Proceeds from sales of those perfumes benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

Jade, thanks for the tip!

Justin Timberlake On Gaga -- And Tori!

The July 2011 issue of Playboy features an interview with Justin Timberlake where he drops a little love Tori’s way while gushing about Lady Gaga:

She’s a force. Beyond awesome. I mean, she’s legitimately talented. I’d love to see her come out with another record a couple of years from now that’s completely different, maybe something Tori Amos could do. If I were Lady Gaga, I’d do whatever I wanted, which it looks like she’s doing. She’s just plain old good.

Nice to see! Thanks AC and Shannon for the tip!

Behind the Scenes on Tori's NOH Photo Shoot

By now, most of you have seen the gorgeous new Victor de Mello promo photo that came with the news of Night of Hunters. Now, you can see some behind-the-scenes photos from the shoot which, according to that site, took place on a cold, green day in Cork. Alas, there aren’t any candid shots of Tori, but there are some tantalizing backgrounds that may turn up in the final product. Or maybe even video, given the video-camera rigs on the set. Thanks to Sergio for digging this one up.

Update: Hmmmm…seems the blog post linked above has been removed…or made private…but this post remains, mentioning Victor de Mello’s involvement with the promo shoot.

Update: Google cache to the rescue!

Dutch Guitarist Unveils Tori Tribute Album

Tori inspires an awful lot of people. It’s kind of amazing. A Dutch musician, John C. Fraser, has brought his Tori-inspired project into the light of day. When Guitars Try To Be Pianos is a collection of guitar-based versions of favorite Tori songs, including “Pretty Good Year,” “Precious Things,” “Father Lucifer,” “Black Dove (January),” “Cornflake Girl,” “Winter,” “Doughnut Song,” “Martha’s Foolish Ginger,” “Pancake,” and “Happy Phantom.” You can check him out at his Web site, above, and also find out more about his efforts to bring these songs on the road. In the meantime, have a listen to him in the videos below:

Is anyone else a little bummed that he didn’t do “Flying Dutchman?” Thanks to Frank for sending this in.

On Tori Talk, It's Our Turn To Cringe

Whoopsie. It looks like we misunderstood Nick Salvato’s upcoming Cornell talk, titled “Cringe Criticism: On Embarrassment and Tori Amos.” Reader Melanie contacted Nick to get the goods on his colloquium (which, by the way, has been rescheduled to May 5). Here’s what he said:

I’ve heard that there has been some suspicion about — and hostility toward — the very notion of this talk (based solely on its title) in the Tori Amos “webiverse” — and I want to assure you (and, perhaps by way of you, others) that the talk is in no way intended as a disparagement of Amos’s music or of her fans (among whose number I count myself). Rather, the talk will be an exploration of the complex and understudied feeling of embarrassment; of what Amos’s music may teach us about that feeling; and of what distinguishes “critical embarrassment” (the version of the feeling experienced, on public occasions, by public intellectuals, academics, professors, and others of their stripes) from the run-of-the-mill or “garden variety” embarrassment that we all feel in everyday situations. In the end, the talk will be much more about embarrassment and the work of criticism than it is about Amos’s music.

Well, this is embarrassing. Our apologies, Nick. We hope some of you check out the talk!