Two weeks ago our Twisted Mix Tape was favorite Christmas songs. I had a heck of a time narrowing it down to 5, so I decided to leave my favorite fur balls, the Muppets, off the initial list. I did this because I knew our wonderful hostess was providing us with a dealers choice, allowing me an all Muppet Christmas list.
I have a lot of fond Christmas memories around the Muppets, and indeed the gang have provided my favorite versions of more than one carol, not to mention some original classics as well. Have a listen.
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas--John Denver and Rowlf
A lot of great performers have done this song since Judy Garland introduced it in Meet Me in St Louis, but this version is the best as far as I'm concerned.
Little St Nick
Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem out rock the Beach Boys. Particularly enjoy Animal coming in on the "Run Run Reindeer" part.
Pretty much anything in A Muppet Christmas Carol
Marley and Marley, Where Love Has Gone, Scrooge, Thankful Heart
and on and on. This program, which was the first Muppet project to hit theatres after Jim Henson's Death, Michael Caine plays it totally straight as Scrooge and gives a great performance. Kermit is a natural choice for Bob Cratchit, as is Robin as Tiny Tim. Fozzie Bear as Fozziewig, Miss Piggy as Mrs Cratchit, Statler and Waldorf as the Marley Brothers are all wonderful, but my favorite casting is The Great Gonzo as Charles Dickens. It was tough picking one song, but I decided on "One more Sleep Till Christmas."
The Christmas Song--Big Bird and the Swedish Chef
The Swedish Chef is just about to use Big Bird as the Thanksgiving Turkey ("Gobbler Gobbler Humungous" he says.) when the jumbo canary wins him over with a gift of bird seed, and sympathy that he is so far from Sweden on Christmas.
The Christmas Wish Kermit
Now for my very favorite. John Denver and the Muppets, a Christmas Together first aired in 1979, and that year my sister got me the album for Christmas. I loved it all, but especially this song, which may sum up more than any other how I feel about the winter holidays.
"If You believe in love
That will be more than enough
For you to come and celebrate with me"
And one more for the road....The Muppet Family Christmas brought together all of Jim Henson's creations from the Muppet Show, Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock. At very end of the show, he appeared in a brief cameo, watching his "children" having fun and cleaning up after them as well. Its my favorite mental image of this genius who left far too soon.
This post is part of Twisted Mix Tape 38. If you would like to link up, or see what other bloggers chose, click here.
Frantically I scrolled through the cell phone. I rebooted it. Nothing doing. The entire text history between myself and my son, dating back to last February when I acquired the phone was gone.
My husband was surprised to learn I even saved texts. "Once you have the information, there's no reason to save any of it."
(When marriage counselors write books about how opposites are attracted to each other, they should include a chapter on people who save texts and people who don't.)
Any 21st century parent knows that if you want to hear from your kids when they are out of the house you need to be adept at texting and email.
Texting with my son didn't become vital, however, until he left for college this fall. Since then my phone has filled with numerous messages about baseball, college classes, and the travails of the Cleveland Browns. All fall he texted me trivia questions relating to the baseball playoffs and the World
Series. For example on October 22nd he texted the following "On this day the ball went fair." He fully expected I would know this to be a reference to the 6th game of the 1975 World Series, known to folks my age as the Greatest Game Ever, won by the Red Sox in the bottom of the 12th inning thanks to a barely fair home run by Carlton Fisk. In between messages, when I'd be missing him, I look back through the old texts.
All are gone now, along with everything else he sent me before the beginning of November.
The one I will miss most is the one he sent me on October 14th, informing me he had passed his Eagle Board of Review, and was officially an Eagle Scout. I would have seen him in another hour anyway, but he knew I couldn't wait.
All are gone now, along with everything else he sent me before the beginning of November.
I think there is a real issue here for many of us, one that will only grow with the sophistication of electronics. We like tangible evidence of our experiences, yet our communications leave less of a paper trail all the time. I have bundles of letters from high school and college friends, but almost nothing in more recent times. I still send postcards when I'm on vacation, but have been reliably informed by some of the recipients that I'm the only person they know who does.
Now I communicate with most people by phone calls, emails and texts. In many ways we are actually in more frequent contact than before, but there is less to remember it all by. I know people whose children's entire childhoods exist nowhere but on their cell phones and Facebook.
So lesson learned. Archive the emails. Copy the texts. Print the photos, put them in an album, or under glass. As Paul Simon once said:
"Long ago it must be/I have a photograph/Preserve your memories/ They're all that's left you."
There's love, and then there's obsession. There is being so obsessed that you can only think about the person, monitor their every moment and every move. It isn't healthy, though with luck it's just a phase and moves into a more normal level of relationship. Otherwise it often ends with someone moving on.
Jealous Guy--John Lennon
Maybe the most disturbing song John Lennon ever wrote, as he justifies every wrong he ever did on the grounds of jealously. On the other hand, not many performers were so nakedly honest about it.
Run for Your Life--The Beatles
"I'd rather see you dead little girl than see you with another man" pretty much says it all.
Layla--Derek and the Dominoes
Probably the greatest work of unrequited love in rock.
Every Breath You Take--The Police
Doesn't get more creepy stalker obsessive than this.
Candle in the Wind--Elton John
Nobody has ever nailed the obsessions of celebrity culture better than this song. The fact that Elton later adapted it for another obsessively stalked celebrity just brings the point home.
This Post is part of Twisted Mix Tape hosted by Jenn Kehl at My Skewed View. Click on the link to see what other folks are obsessing about this week.
Thursday night we sat down to watch the new "live" production of The Sound of Music.
As a lifelong musical theatre geek I wasn't going to miss it
As a young musical theatre geek (and Carrie Underwood fan) the Girl wasn't going to miss it.
My husband, the ex music major who loves to skewer musical theatre productions (and has tortured memories of playing another Rogers and Hammerstein musical, South Pacific) wasn't going to miss it either.
I wanted to like it, really I did. After all its a rare thing to find musical theatre on a TV network that doesn't have PBS in its name. I was willing to set aside thoughts of Julie Andrews in the film. I have seen other live productions on NBC, most notably an excellent live version they did of Mr Roberts, that managed to get me to forget, at least while I was watching, the fact that these roles were played on film by Henry Fonda and Jack Lemmon and William Powell and James Cagney. And at least, I told myself, the songs in The Sound of Music weren't written for Julie's amazing vocal range. (If you have ever suffered through the film version of Camelot, and heard Vanessa Redgrave, probably the greatest actress around, but not a singer, murder songs that were written for Miss Andrews, or watch a road show production of My Fair Lady, you understand where I am coming from)
I admit I had trouble imagining Carrie Underwood in the role, however, in part because she is so resolutely American. It's not that an American actress cant play the part, the original Maria, Mary Martin, was from Texas after all. But Ms Martin had the gift of convincing people she was whatever character she was supposed to be, including a flying boy who would never grow up. A guitar playing novice was a piece of cake.
Also, I must add that Rogers and Hammerstein are not my favorite Broadway composers (Lerner and Lowe, Jerry Herman, Meredith Wilson, and many others all wrote shows I like more.) But Sound of Music is an OK show, and it has one of my favorite songs in it, Edelweiss. Except for Carefully Taught, its probably my favorite song from any of their shows. (My daughter pointed out to me halfway in that this show was awfully reminiscent of The King and I, a flaw I had never really noticed before. Then we amused ourselves during commercials pointing out the parallels.)
My first quibble is with the concept that the show is "live". It was live in the sense that the actors were doing it, then and there, without retakes, but it wasn't live theatre, because there was no audience. As a capable concert performer, being in front of a audience shouldn't have been an issue for Ms Underwood. Laughter and applause would have livened the show up a great deal, and given the performers something to act against. Any episode of The Daily Show or Colbert is far more live (in more ways than one) that this show. Moreover it's having a live audience that guarantees the integrity that the show is in fact being done "live". Otherwise there is no proof that movie magic hasn't been employed.
I am not a follower of True Blood, so I will skip all the Vampire Von Trapp jokes that were playing out over the Internet. I thought Mr Moyer was adequate at least. But he came off as almost as undead at your local Nosferatu. (All right, so I will make vampire jokes.) More seriously, he seemed to young to be the Baron, who after all has teenage children. (Christopher Plummer was too young as well, but he made it work.)
Thank the theatre gods, then, for the supporting cast. Mercifully they were musical theatre veterans and knew what they were doing. Audra Mcdonald, Laura Benanti and Christian Borle, whom I came to admire while watching Smash, were splendid in their parts.
Audra McDonald soared as the reverend mother, especially on Climb Every Mountain, I finally liked the Countess, and Christian Borle made Max a delightful character. The kids were all well cast too.
So it all comes back to the lead. Ms Underwood did not embarrass herself on the songs. She has a nice voice, and as noted above, although following in Julie Andrews' footsteps she wasn't singing songs that were written for her. Unfortunately Sound of Music is one of those shows that include long stretches of talking (also known as dialogue, also known as acting) between the songs—and that’s when the show came up short. Every time people started talking, it died. It was here also, that the show paid for the lack of an audience. Laugh lines die with no one to laugh at them.
I wont say Carrie Underwood was miscast in the part. She is the right age, and sort of character to be just right, actually. But being perfect in a role is only part of the magic.
Mary Martin was in her 40's when she convinced an audience she was that Austrian Postulant. That's acting, and that's where Ms Underwood, for all her sincerity came up short. She can make an audience believe in her, but as of now, she can't make them believe she is someone else.
Last week the Girl and I visited the tree festival put on by our local children's hospital. Trees are decorated by individuals and organizations and they are sold to benefit the hospital. When I saw this retro tree I thought it was perfect picture for this week's mix-tape since it is all about Christmas music.
I actually love Christmas Music, in fact it's one of my favorite things about Christmas. So the hardest part of this week's mix tape is getting it down to 5 choices. Those who know me well may note the absence of a certain flannel puppet with ping pong ball eyes. That's because I am giving the Muppets their own playlist in a couple weeks.
Happy Christmas (War is Over)
This is my daughter's favorite John Lennon song. She thinks of it as a happy song, but for me its very melancholy because the first time I remember hearing it get a lot of airplay was December of 1980, after John Lennon's murder. This is the classic version of the song, but I have to cheat a little and post another version as well that is special to me.
The morning after the horrendous events at Sandy Hook last year, I sat down to watch the episode of Colbert that I had taped on Thursday night. All week he had celebrities on performing Christmas songs, and on this night he had wrapped things up with Sean Lennon, Jeff Tweedy and Mavis Staples performing, you guessed it, Happy Christmas. Needless to say I cried my eyes out, but it was a good cry, and a reminder that this song and Christmas are both all about hope.
The Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth
Today, when David Bowie is such a mainstream figure, its hard for people to understand what a mind warp it was to see him on TV performing a duet with Bing Crosby. I actually had this on a 45 back in the day. It was also the very last of Bing Crosby's Christmas Specials, a major TV event each year when I was young. I am sure watching this was the first time my dad and mom ever saw David Bowie.
Do You Hear What I Hear?
Last year I wrote about how so many classic Christmas songs were born in wartime, from I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day to White Christmas to Happy Christmas (War is Over). This song was written in response to the Cold War--specifically the Cuban Missile Crisis. As the world teetered on the edge of nuclear disaster, it seemed a good to time think about Peace on Earth. This is my favorite version, maybe because it was recorded at the time, or maybe just because it was Bing Crosby (I could have easily done a whole list of just his recordings too) but I think this version is the best.
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
This was a favorite when I was a child too, even before I knew the backstory: that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the original poem during the Civil War (which his sons were serving in) at a time when the war was going badly for the North, and it truly did appear that "hate was strong/and mocked the song/of peace on earth good will to men." I have heard many versions, but Harry Belafonte tops them all.
Have a Holly Jolly Christmas
Competition for the final spot was fierce, with at least a dozen candidates vying for the crown. (I have a feeling I will be revisiting this topic soon.)
My husband suggested this song, which is one of his favorites, from the TV production Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer, Rudolf was a great favorite of my childhood. Naturally I want Burl Ives, aka Sam the Snowman to sing it.
This leaves a lot of favorites out in the cold (so to speak) including a lot of Bing Crosby, Gene Autry, and a lot more contemporary performers as well. The Christmas play list on my IPOD has some 20 songs, and I still don't have all the ones I want. But we will stop here for now. One thing about Christmas music, it doesn't go away.
This post is part of Twisted Mix Tape, hosted by Jen Kehl at My Skewed View. To see what songs other bloggers have on their play lists click here.
Today is World AIDS Day. I have written before about what it was to lose a friend to AIDS, particularly in the hysteria of the late 80's and early 90's. The loss of our friend is with those who loved him all the time, but on this date I stop and try to picture our loss on a global scale; all the people who have lost loved ones as well, a tragedy that has occurred over 1.5 million times.
On World AIDS Day 2013 there is a lot of good news. Death rates and infection rates are down, especially in children. Discrimination against people with AIDS also continues to recede. There's a lot of valid info at the UN World AIDS Day page. To me this day is always one of both sorrow and hope.
I have always had a habit when a project was on or a big event occurred of making playlists. They help me stay on topic, or in the mood for whatever is needed. For World AIDS day I am sharing part of Craig's playlist. Some of them were compiled at the time of his death, others were added as I came across them. They all speak of love and loss and hope.
Empty Chairs at Empty Tables
No other song speaks so powerfully of love and loss than this one. I particularly identify with this song because we were all college students together, just like the young revolutionaries of Les Miserables.
And I remember the time when one didn't even speak about AIDS to other people. "There's a grief that can't be spoken/There's a pain goes on and on/
Empty chairs at empty tables/ Now my friends are dead and gone."
Old Friends/Bookends
This has always been one of the songs that most remind me of my youth and the friends I shared those times with. As we creep closer to age of the old guys sitting on the park benches, the more I find myself looking back as well. "Long ago it must be/ I have a photograph/preserve your memories/they're all that's left you."
Here Today
How well do we know anyone in our lives? No matter how close we are, we can only know another person so well. And when we lose them, all we have are the memories to hang onto. But by thinking of them, writing about them, we give them life again. Paul McCartney wrote this song about John Lennon, but there is something universal for anyone who has ever lost a friend.
Empty Chairs
I know what you're thinking: what's with the chairs Meg? But this song by Don McLean is another one that works profoundly on the theme of loss.
That's What Friends are For
When this song was released in 1985 it was a big deal. Four hugely successful performers: Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder and Elton John performing on a recording to raise money for AIDS related causes. It was a huge hit at a time when the President of the United States still wasn't saying the word AIDS in public. It's a sweet song of hope.
If you want more information about World Aids Day, here are some sites and articles to check out.
