A Tribute To "Tiny Dancer"....

Today I found out there is a little thing called "Google Video" search. And my good friend Spiro has gone ahead and posted one of my favourite little videos of all time - the Cp's at Capernwray. You are a star Spiro. Thanks for being savvy about the "world wide web".

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4736012064671372752&q=spiro

Oh do I ever love these guys. Thanks for being out there friends...

A Flight of the Imagination

So, I had an adventure. Honestly, the whole time, it felt like something Shaun Gaynor would have loved. Matt found a clipping for a "Movie Set Warehouse Sale". So we drive to Burnaby and there are 3 full warehouse bays of movie paraphenalia. There was so much crazy stuff in there. As I walked through, I imagined what kinds of sets would require each item. A nice flight of fancy...

Highlights:

Fake silver hyperbaric chamber and time machine looking controls - sold to a man named "Richard". Which makes you wonder - what kind of guy is this?

Fake Bank Machine - Suprising that some "entrepeneur" hadn't snapped that one up.

Suitcases & Trunks - All the good ones were sold, but there were some beautiful ones in the mix.

Unfortunately, I didn't buy anything. We were pretty convinced that if we got there on the first day, we might have found some major goldmines. Nevertheless, a wonderful journey for the mind.

Tristan & Isolde

On the weekend, I went and saw this movie. Was it cheesy? Yes. Did it steal almost the entire plot theme from Arthurian legend? Yes. But did I enjoy it? Ya..I did. So there you go. Something about heros, legends and forbidden love. Anyway, as always in time period movies, there were anachronisms. One being that they quoted a poem that was written 1000 years later. The reason I mention it here? It was John Donne. Well at least all those 12-teens that went to see James Franco heard some amazing poetry.

From The Good Morrow

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or thou and I
Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die

A Monumental Occasion...

Tonight something amazing happened. For the first time, in the midst of reading an assigned education text, I found something to be so insightful that I had to stop, and record it. More than that, I had to post it on here. This is monumental my friends. I have barely even enjoyed 90% of the material for my education classes, let alone wanting to remember and reflect on it. The author of the article is a prof from Berkeley - go figure.

In reference to a university proffessor:

"Who needs 20 year olds from the suburbs when you are hanging out constantly with the likes of Marx and Hegel, Durkheim, Weber and Troelstch? This is "community" of the highest sort - the capacity for connectedness that allows one to converse with the dead, to speak and listen in an invisble network of relationships that enlarges one's world and ones life" - Parker Palmer

Now, I am not going to claim to have any idea who those men are (besides Marx of course) but to me that sentence could be replaced with "Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Donne, Tennyson" and obviously the list goes on and on. At this point, I will tell my greatest wish. That one day I might be able to enter into that conversation with my students and create ideas that will forever live and grow in their hearts. Idealism? Probably.

But I can dream....

A little Music History...

Maybe everyone already knew this, but I realized something great today. I was listening to “Back in the USSR” and I noticed that there were some distinct Beach Boys riffs in there. So then of course, I hit up Wikipedia, only to discover I was right.

“The song describes a parody of a bad flight from the US to the Soviet Union on board a British BOAC airplane, the superior “beauty” of Soviet women over those of the Western world, the sound of balalaikas ringing, and the incredible fortunate returning to a communist state. The song was a parody of Chuck Berry’s “Back in the USA” and the Beach Boy’s California Girls, also containing a reference to “Georgia on my mind”.

So interesting. I think I just feel proud to have figured that out on my own. One music commentator (yes I researched) claimed "You'd have to have been born on another planet, or at least in a different century, to miss the several Beach Boys references". So I know - not very groundbreaking. But heck - I am going to be proud. This is new for me.

Ridiculously true...

Do not worry about the future. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.