And here we are at last, 365 days after I started posting at least one video a day. Starting tomorrow, I’ll be pulling from the original online Advent Calendar, which now carries all the way through to the end of the year.
But I’m not stopping there. Starting in January, there’ll be music videos, with History Friday and liberal amounts of science and humor thrown in for good measure.
Stick around. We’re just warming up. 8)
Last of the Flash Mobs that don’t relate directly to the holiday. Enjoy and thanks!
This tradition has been in my family for the last 17 years, and I’m not letting go of it now. In fact, it’s my duty as a good blogger to share it with you.
But here’s the really REALLY cool thing, from Arlo himself (via Facebook):
“This is the current interior of Old Trinity Church, where once a long time ago, lived my dear friends, Alice & Ray Brock. A little over 20 years ago we purchased and reconsecrated the old building and created an Interfaith Church and Educational foundation.
As part of our commitment to “Feed Everyone” every year (in fact every week throughout the year), there will be many people coming to our tables. Our friends, neighbors and local businesses volunteer as always to provide the best food available to anyone and everyone (until we run out). We do lots of other great things too!
From our hearts to yours whoever and wherever you are – Happy Thanksgiving! And if you want to know more or maybe even help us out, check out our website: https://guthriecenter.org
No matter what, though, my Thanksgiving is not complete without at least one viewing of this absolutely classic gem from WKRP in Cincinnati. The original episode, viewable on IMDB/Hulu, originally aired on October 30, 1978. in my not so humble opinion, Turkeys Away remains one of the top five absolute all time best sitcom episodes ever.
Here’s the pertinent clip, leading to THE Thanksgiving quote of the (last) century, from Arthur Carlson, WKRP General Manager: “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
Back in 2008, a phenomenon took over the Internet. Since then, the interest has ebbed, but I think it’s noteworthy that over 8.5 million people have seen this video, the direct result of a craze that started with Rick Astley’s 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
I caught it again while I was looking through Muppet videos to post when I highlighted them for a whole week, a while back. Yeah. The original video’s audio has been replaced. If you’ve never been Rickrolled before, now you can check that dubious experience off your bucket list.
But here’s the king of them all, which I watched five years ago, live, during The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Rickroll, uploaded on the 27th (five years ago today). I was laughing so hard I thought I was going to die. Muppets AND Rickrolling, all in one tidy package.
Okay, folks. Buckle your seatbelts again. Turbulence in store for the next few days as we drift all too quickly toward the Holiday Season ™.
From here until the end of November, we’re in unpredictable territory.
Unpredictable. As in Rowan Atkinson as a lounge singer, singing with…Kate Bush?!?
Found this while collecting items for my Kate Bush week, a while back. The only predictable thing about this week’s going to be the unpredictability of this week.
Didn’t expect that, did you? Well, of course, no one expects…
Last Vi Hart video for the year, and it’s a real winner. Half an hour investment, but oh, so worth it.
It’s not enough to be smart – you have to know how to share what you understand, and she’s got it. The magic clue that helps make all the complex stuff make sense.
Starting tomorrow (or later today, depending on when you see this), we countdown towards the Advent Calendar and December’s winter highlights. Folks to the north of me are getting hammered. Hope you’ve got some internet. Why not go catch up on some of this blog’s past winners? Click on the archive and pick a day or a month.
See you tomorrow with possibly the silliest musical piece I’ve encountered in this process.
And because today was 24 hours of sheer unadulterated crazy, you get two days of jam packed Vi Hart-based math awesomeness within minutes…MINUTES…of each other.
I caught Vi Hart’s Hexaflexagons a while back and wanted to post more of her awesome math/science stuff, but then other stuff got in the way and the links just sat in my queue. Until today.
Vi Hart is an exceptionally talented scientist, completely capable of reducing complex mathematical concepts into bite-sized, easily digestible chunks of absolute awesome. She has a whole channel on YouTube and I strongly suggest you subscribe to it like I have.
Meanwhile, here are some more of her gems to carry us through to Thanksgiving. (Ignore the weird title still. The link works just fine!)
There are other things to remember about the 22nd of November. The 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination is chief among them. But in the middle of the ongoing conspiracy theories and cute photos of cats, a full third of my friends’ walls are filled with posts shouting from the virtual treetops about the Dr. Who special that’s airing on the 23rd (and in select movie theaters around the country).
So, I’m switching up from dance to Science (Fiction) ahead of the pack. Enjoy the a capella geekery and try to consider what this world might be with a lot less hate and greed and a lot more willingness to see science for the awesome and amazing craft it is.
Starting tomorrow, leading up to the coming week’s activities, we take a visit to Vi Hart’s view of math.
Dancing. You’ll find it all over the place, at the most unexpected times.
Fun to watch AND educational! No idea why this doesn’t have WAY more hits. Share it around and help save lives. Oh, and boogie down with your bad self. Or something.
Couple this with Jim Croce’s hit from yesterday, and you have my entire life as a teen. There were a few songs that would stop my world if they came on the radio, and this was one of them.
I knew all the lyrics. Can still sing them if provoked. One of my very favorite earworms. Ever.
The rest of the week has been insanely busy, so I’m keeping this one brief. Let the song speak for itself.
Shifting from folk music to…um…folksy classic rock/pop? Seriously. How do you define Jim Croce’s music?
Time in a Bottle is sentimental, timeless, and a sad reminder of how ironic an artist’s life can be. It’s one of my most favorite waltzes ever. I just wish it wasn’t so very, very true to the mark.
Croce was just 30 when his plane went down, on September 20th, forty years ago this year. In all the anniversaries and reminders I’ve heard about 2013, this one somehow managed to escape my attention.
Until now.
But just listen to the song. Yeah, it’s from 1973, just as Jim was hitting his stride. Imagine what he’d have done with that 40 years if he hadn’t gone down in a crash described totally as “pilot error.”
I’m still looking for that one I want to go through time with. Once upon a time, I thought I had him, but I was very wrong.
Not only does this video highlight a grand-daddy of the Folk movement, it’s a who’s who of singers, including Arlo Guthrie, Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger and more.
Music from the last Great Depression brought to you by a member of a community built during that era, living in the current Great Recession (because they don’t have the guts to call it what it truly is, the Second Great Depression).
This land is your land, this land is my land.
Seeing Pete Seeger in performance as well as Judy Collins just about made my weekend at the Revival. I just wish more people would pay attention to these old songs. They still mean something, decades and decades later.
I almost posted this video yesterday for Veteran’s Day, but Pete Seeger’s classic talks more about the senselessness of being a soldier and that isn’t what Veteran’s Day is about. I know too many who have served proudly. Even if I think war is wrong (and if you haven’t learned that about me yet, you really are missing my point), I also try to keep my opinions clear.
This song isn’t about soldiers so much as the government that sends them away. We could make other choices. Sadly, the war machine is dug in again and the damage this time will take much, much longer to heal. Worse, some of us promote fierce patriotism but do nothing when our soldiers return, health damaged beyond repair.
Many of our battle-scarred men and women are homeless, mentally ill, living in poverty, unable to work, and these same people are part of the “takers” the Tea Party and GOP blame for costing our country so much. Veterans are high among those living on food stamps and they are the ones being hurt by a GOP that cares most about big business and the bottom line.
The irony would be laughable if it wasn’t so sick.
Peter, Paul and Mary made Pete Seeger’s song famous, but they weren’t the only ones who covered it. You can check YouTube yourself for alternative versions by Joan Baez, the Kingston Trio, and more.
Fortunately, I’ve seen Pete Seeger sing more than once: As a child and again last summer at the the Clearwater’s Great Hudson River Revival. I also watched his music program Rainbow Quest (some of which has been released on DVD). His music provided a soundtrack to my life.
This section of the blog developed from my experience last summer, and evolves into recalling some of my favorite songs. They are part of who I am and why I feel the way I do.
Yes, I could have picked any number of songs specifically from the WWI and WWII periods, but I didn’t.
This song comes from my childhood. A fan of Peanuts since the early ’60s, my kindergarten and first grade music teacher, Miss Slocumb, played this tune when we were good in class as a reward for our behavior. My classmates and I loved it, though we really didn’t understand what real war was like.
I hope never to find out firsthand.
To all those serving now or home and retired, I say thank you and I’m sorry. You should never have had to make the sacrifice.
I’ll quaff a rootbeer in your honor and never stop hoping that war will end one day, and that we will no longer have to remember the horror.