Happy New Year

I know I've been MIA from here for awhile but I didn't want to let 2011 end without one final blog post.  I've been pretty proud of all the posts I've written in the past year.  I like this blog and want to keep in up in 2012.  For now, I just want to wish you all a wonderful 2012 filled with joy, love, peace and happiness.

Day 18 - A Song with the best lyrics

I've never seen a stage production of this show.  The Raven in Healdsburg is doing it in January so I will get to see that one.  The movie, however, is so great.  I've listened to this soundtrack hundreds of times.  They lyrics to this just kill me.


 Cell Block Tango from CHICAGO  

Day 17 - A Song with the best music.

 Tonight from WEST SIDE STORY  - i don't think I need to say anything else.

Day 16 - A song from your least favourite musical, by your favourite composer.

Hate this musical.  Hate it.  This song is ok.  Just ok.  Being Alive/COMPANY/STEPHEN SONDHEIM

Day 15 A song by your favourite musical composer.

Can you tell I love Stephen Sondheim?  SEND IN THE CLOWNS from  A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC.   I loved this song long before I even knew who Stephen Sondheim was.  One of my all time favorite songs ever.  This is the magnificent Judy Densch performing it.  ENJOY!!!

Day 14 A song from the musical you haven't listened to (or seen) in a while

Miss Saigon was the first musical I worked on at the Raven - my first in Sonoma county actually.  I worked backstage.  It wasn't a show I was at all familiar with and actually never saw the first act from the audience.  This song - BUI DOI grbbed my attention and it's my favorite song from the show.  I think I need to pull out my cast recording and give it a little listen to.  


This rendition isn't from a production of Miss Saigon.  It's a police officer.  So good.   

In Flanders Fields

IN FLANDERS FIELDS

by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

I grew up reciting and memorizing this poem every year on what Canadians call Remembrance Day.  It is so haunting.  It is a true piece of Canadiana.  It is a huge part of the memories of my childhood school years.We also went to the cemetery with poppy wreaths to lay on the graves of soldiers.  The bagpipes would play, the faces were solemn and we wore  poppies on our coats with pride.  In Canada most people make a donation and receive a poppy which they wear with pride in the days leading up to and on November 11th.  I have one stuck to my bulletin board in my scrap studio.   I'm going out and about tonight.  I think I'll put it on.  Here in the U.S. they may not know what it means but I'll enlighten them.

Just a bit of history about the poem.  

During the early days of the Second Battle of Ypres a young Canadian artillery officer, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, was killed on 2^nd May, 1915 in the gun positions near Ypres. An exploding German artillery shell landed near him. He was serving in the same Canadian artillery unit as a friend of his, the Canadian military doctor and artillery commander Major John McCrae.

As the brigade doctor, John McCrae was asked to conduct the burial service for Alexis because the chaplain had been called away somewhere else on duty that evening. It is believed that later that evening, after the burial, John began the draft for his now famous poem “In Flanders Fields”.