mixed habitat & densely vegetated hiding places

After rewatching the Original Trilogy, sdk and I allowed our enthusiasm to carry us forward into rewatching the Prequel Trilogy. That was... well, it was certainly a decision that we made.

I saw this movie in the theater and had not seen it since then. I knew it wasn't a cinematic masterpiece, but I did go in with a positive attitude hoping to enjoy some cheesy silliness and at least have fun razzing it. I'm afraid I was not able to maintain that attitude; I actually found the movie unpleasant to watch. So if you love it, maybe skip this post.

( cut for length and negativity )

In conclusion, I don't recommend this movie. I do, however, recommend this:

Embedded video: Music video for Weird Al's song "The Saga Begins", which retells the plot of the movie to the tune of "American Pie" by Don McClean.


Nonetheless we plan to persevere with Attack of the Clones, which I think I have seen part of. Maybe it will be better! Let me dream!

When some people pass on, they've left such a legacy of great work, which will surely continue to delight and inspire people for many generations to come, that it's hard to think of anything to say but "well done".

I'm seeing a lot of people struggling to articulate what Sondheim's work has meant to them and to share something that feels representative of that. It's impossible, of course, but this is what came to mind for me. It's not an objectively "best" or most moving song, just one that evokes a very specific memory and feeling for me.

I saw A Little Night Music in San Francisco sometime in the 1990s when I was a teenager, with my mother, who introduced me to musical theater and who has been gone for many years now. It was a high-quality professional production, but I hardly remember any of it except for one number. It's not the Big Number from this show (that would be "Send In The Clowns"), but rather one that can feel almost like an aside in some performances. It's not sung by a central character and it doesn't directly deal with the central plot, though it certainly comments on it by implication. But in this particular production, it was sung by an actress whose name I'm afraid I can neither remember nor turn up by googling, but with this one number she completely stole the show and made me wonder why the entire musical was not about her. I was young, and it made a huge impression on me -- this moment when the right piece and the right performer on the right night could electrify an audience in ways I'd never imagined. I've had that feeling many times since then, but it was a Sondheim show that introduced me to it.



( Lyrics )

I recently had reason to look up who wrote the filk The Lurkers Support Me In Email (someone in fandom didn't recognize the reference, making me feel very old) and was startled to realize it was none other than Jo Walton, author of that Victorian dragons book I reviewed a bit ago. I'd thought her name sounded familiar, and I pored over her list of works thinking I must have read something of hers, but couldn't come up with anything. The mystery is now solved!

So, in case anyone doesn't know it or hasn't thought about it in years:

( The Lurkers Support Me In Email (to the tune of My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean) )


Twenty-three years later and still relevant. The rest of us can only dream of creating such an enduring masterwork.

The second prompt for sunshine_challenge is Eos, goddess of the dawn.

This made me think of the musical composition 'A Glorious Dawn' by melodysheep, consisting of edited and retuned dialogue and video of Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking. The piece is from 2009 and went viral at the time, so you may have already heard it, but it never gets old for me. It's a beautiful tribute to two great science communicators and the awe and respect for the universe that they instilled.

Dr. Sagan's lines "The sky calls to us / If we do not destroy ourselves / We will one day venture to the stars" still resonate just as deeply as they did when he spoke them on his TV series Cosmos in 1980. Then, he was alluding to the Cold War-era threat of nuclear annihilation; today our focus has moved on to other global threats, and I think we still need inspiring voices to remind us of what wonders may await us, if we can only overcome our self-destructive impulses and survive to reach them.



Lyrics:

[Sagan]
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch
You must first invent the universe

( Read more... )

Today's sunshine_challenge prompt is orange. The thing that came to my mind right away for this was the song "Orange Colored Sky" (written by Milton DeLugg and Willie Stein in 1950), which I first heard as a kid and always loved.

I went looking for a version to share and found this cool kinetic typography video using Nat King Cole's classic recording:



I think the word "orange" is a big part of why I like the song. Usually in songs you get blue skies, maybe cloudy skies or dark skies... but an orange sky is unique. It could be a sunset, but I always pictured a sky that was orange all the way across, like a surreal, stylized, cartoony setting, appropriate for the exaggerated lyrics.

Obviously the song is about love at first sight. But--and this was typical for me as a kid--I never thought it had to be about romance. It could be about suddenly falling into friendship with a kindred spirit, or even falling in love with a book or a song. Or falling for a character, or a fandom! I was always very passionate about my interests, easily enough to interpret love songs as being about them, so fandom was a natural home for me. ♥

A-E: Here.
F-J: Here.
K-N: Here.

( O: Choose a song at random, what ship does it remind you of? )

( P: Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas). )

( Q: A fandom you’ve abandoned and why. )

( R: Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom? )