It's that time again!

Thanks so much to Traxy@The Squeee blog for organizing this year's FanstRAvaganza.  Also thanks to Angelfish69 for the lovely banners.  This year there are 30 participants!  Some bloggers may post daily and others may only do one post, but all of the posts will be collected on a special website for FanstRA 4.  Please check it regularly so you won't miss any posts!


I will be posting twice this week - on Tuesday and Saturday, so until then -- Have fun blog hopping!

Gone to better Stompin' grounds

Today Canada has lost one of its best promoters.  Stompin' Tom Connors passed away at the age of 77 years.  Growing up as I did, in the 1960s and '70s in Canada, you couldn't miss hearing one of Stompin' Tom's songs.  He was everywhere.  Stomping his foot in time with his music about anything and everything to do with Canada.  Whether you liked his music or not - you couldn't help singing along.  Every Canadian could relate to at least one of his songs. And no wonder -- he is credited with writing about 300 of them!  He sang about our history and traditions, our sports, our transportation, our work life and our time off.

He was proud of our country and not afraid to show it.  He made us proud too.  Thank you Tom, we will miss you.

As a teenager I never would have admitted to liking Stompin' Tom's music.  It would have been too embarrassing. I had never been a fan of country music, and he certainly didn't sound like anybody else who was popular on the radio.  But I couldn't help myself.  He was infectious!  So even if we were making fun of him, we were still enjoying ourselves and appreciating him in spite of ourselves.

I was particularly impressed with his song "Sudbury Saturday Night".   Anybody that would make up a song about the northern Ontario nickel mining town Sudbury was okay in my book! I loved his lyrical phrasing such as:

"The girls are out to Bingo as the boys are getting stinko, And we think no more of Inco on a Sudbury Saturday night."

(Inco was, and still is, a nickel mining company that is the main employer in Sudbury).  Being from a mining town myself, I could certainly relate to these lyrics!  Getting "stinko" (or drunk) has always been a popular thing to do on a Saturday night, especially in a mining town.  But not only that, I still think it is a very clever rhyme.

I found this wonderful concert of Stompin' Tom singing Live at the Horseshoe Tavern, thanks to the person who uploaded it today. It's a bit long, but the first song is Sudbury Saturday Night and the last one is My Stompin' Grounds, so if that is all you have time to listen to, those two will give you a great idea of what he is about. I found myself smiling all the way through it.

In this next video he explains to the interviewer how he came to be called "Stompin'" Tom.

He may not have lived to 100 as he hoped, but his songs and his memory will live on much longer in the great big crazy mishmash we like to call Canadian culture.

Heart to Heart

In case I didn't mention it before, I am a Library Technician in a small elementary school.  I run a one-person library and rely on student helpers to do the little, but time consuming jobs like re-shelving picture books and novels, some cutting and pasting for displays and other simple things that they enjoy doing.  It frees up my time to do the many other tasks that fill my days. But since the Ontario government decided it was time to pick on teachers' unions I haven't been feeling very happy at work lately.  This work to rule situation means that I have to stick to my very limited job description (which does not include supervising students).
So my contact with students has lessened quite a bit.  Adding to that is the fact that our school, which used to be very open is now (since the latest school violence --which I don't want to mention - but I'm sure you must have heard about) under a very tight lock down.  The library is at the very end of the building next to a locked door - so there is much less traffic than usual.  Is it any wonder that I feel a bit lonely lately?

I cheer myself up by reminding myself that I have a wonderful husband who still manages to love me (in spite of myself!), two well-adjusted, polite, witty and good looking grown children (who also seem to love me) and a wider group of extended family and friends that are great for entertainment purposes and the odd favour or two.

Perhaps I need a bit more distraction?  Well, I have no better place to turn than The Armitage Army!  Yes that amazingly talented group of fans of Richard Armitage are always ready with all sorts of pictures, gifs, videos, blog posts, fan fiction - a regular potpourri of anything a fan could wish for!

This was the latest treat that arrived in my YouTube mailbox today...

A Valentine video from mezzym01

Did that get your heart going?  It certainly helped mine!


And now (because I feel the need) here is a blast from the past -- a hit from 1973
 (back when I was a teeny bopper).  This group was Canada's answer to The Osmonds.

Heart Beat, It's a Love Beat / The DeFranco Family




I've never been much for guitar or drum solos but this song will always be a favourite,
especially for the last lyrics at 1:30.

The End / The Beatles



And now my heart feels much better.
You might say it is overflowing with happy thoughts
which might possibly look something like this?

The Penny...dropped

This is where Phylly gets all sentimental about  pennies.  Why?  Because as of Feb. 4, 2013 the Canadian penny will no longer be included in our national currency.  I can't say I didn't see it coming.  They've been talking about getting rid of it for years.  But being a history buff, I hate to see the demise of such a colourful symbol of our country.

The last Canadian penny rolled off the production line at the Canadian Mint in May of last year.  But the termination of the penny from use in stores was postponed until after the Christmas season. Apparently it costs more to produce a penny than it is worth.  It isn't even made of copper anymore (other than an thin outer coating) but is mostly just steel.

Although I can understand the practical reasons for doing this, it doesn't make it easy to accept.  I know that Australia got rid of their penny coin years ago and doesn't seem to miss it.  But change is not easy, and making change will be much more complicated... by rounding up and rounding down!

 I am not as happy about the situation as this guy obviously is, but

I certainly couldn't explain this situation any better than he does!

Since there will be no more new pennies minted,
I guess if you are a Penny Lover  you will have to get your Pennies from Heaven!

I'll never forget this unusual musical 
Pennies From Heaven 
starring Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters.

Pennies From Heaven
(Scene with Steve Martin and Vernel Bagneris)



This next video is my favourite song about a penny.  (I didn't think The Beatles' Penny Lane should count because it's about a place, not the currency.)  I do love the harmony of The Bee Gees and this song is from the almost unknown album Mr. Natural, but it has some great songs on it.


Throw a Penny / Bee Gees


I suppose what  saddens me the most is the loss of understanding of all those great sayings about pennies.  How will future generations understand them if they don't know what a penny is?
Here are some sayings about pennies.

The most well known saying became the plot of an episode of The Twilight Zone back in the '60s.

The Twilight Zone: A Penny for Your Thoughts



A penny for your thoughts Mr. Armitage

FAULT magazine photo shoot 2012

Here's a Penny that I'd like to see in circulation!

Priceless!

Phylly's Day Off

I love when several of my interests merge themselves into one example.  Here is a video I recently happened upon that shows a scene from a very popular '80s teen movie that takes place in an art museum and has a beautiful soundtrack song from The Smiths.

The scene was filmed at the Art Institute of Chicago, which I have never yet had the pleasure of visiting.  I do love to visit art galleries and museums and I can see by several of the works showcased in this clip, that it would be a real thrill to visit this one.

Museum Scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off

I like the song even better with lead singer and lyricist Morrissey's distinctive voice singing the very meaningful lyrics. Another RA fan obviously thought the lyrics fit very well with Guy of Gisborne's relationship with Marian in the BBC's Robin Hood series.

Guy of Gisborne - Please let me get what I want / by hedgeypig

Most of us RA fans have our own collection of "art" taking up quite a bit of computer memory.
But wouldn't it be fun to see some of it displayed museum-sized on a wall?

...Just one of the places I'd visit on Phylly's Day Off!


If you would like to see some real RA fan art visit Deviantart.com
where you will find artwork like this one :
by  ~Essinvrok

Phylly's favourite Austen

I very much enjoy the works of Jane Austen, and have read most of them more than once.  But my favourite is the most popular of her novels, none other than Pride and Prejudice. This year is the 200th anniversary of its publication.  Because of that, many Jane Austen fans (and fans of the novel) have banded together on a Blog Hop, hosted by Alyssa Goodnight and Stiletto Storytime.

My way of participating is to relate the story of how I came to be an admirer of Austen's works, and in particular - the novel we are celebrating now.  It's certainly not the usual way one might fall in love with an author, but then Jane Austen is not your usual author!

The first Austen novel that I encountered was given to me as a present by my best friend, when we were in our early teens.  I doubt that my friend had ever read it - she was into horror novels like Stephen King's.  She must have thought I would like it because of my love of "romantic fiction".  It was Emma (certainly not your typical type of romantic fiction), and although I tried to get to know our heroine, you must admit, she isn't really all that "likeable" at first.  Several times throughout my teen years, I attempted to plough through it, but I would get bogged down by all the gossip and tea times and long walks.  I couldn't really see the point of it all, and as I wasn't fond of the main character, there was nothing to keep me going.  Fast forward to me in college.  I was taking a course called a Survey of English Literature (or something like that).  It was just a simple introduction to a huge range of classic literature taught by a not unhandsome man of a certain age with a dreamy English accent!  I am not so sure I would have had such a perfect attendance record for those 8:00 am classes had they been taught by someone else!  So when he posted a list of authors we had to pick from to do a book review and I noticed Austen's name there, I figured it was a good opportunity to finally read Emma from cover to cover!

My favourite adaptation of Emma

So at last I finished it, and lo and behold, I liked it!  Once I got past the reason for all the gossip, I could see that the plot was as tight as any Agatha Christie mystery!  I must admit I was pleased when Emma got her comeuppance delivered most nobley by the heroic Mr. Knightly. That was probably the turning point for me, after that scene I was truly hooked.

The perfect P&P pairing

Years later when I saw the wonderful miniseries with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle on television I knew I had to read Pride and Prejudice. Not long after, we decided to purchase our first home computer.  I had heard of the Gutenberg project so I looked up what books were available to read online.  I probably tried to read a couple of books that way, but it was rather uncomfortable to sit too long at the computer, so I didn't get very far.  Then I saw Pride and Prejudice listed and noted that the chapter lengths were rather short.  So I thought that it would be a good idea to read just a couple of chapters in a sitting, then get up and do something else, and return to it later.  Turns out, it was so engrossing that I had no trouble reading more than a couple of chapters at one sitting.

The story enthralled, entertained and enchanted me from beginning to end.  I think that had Miss Austen written none other than this one book, she would still be as famous as she is today.  It is a perfect jewel of a book, polished to perfection.  Each word is well chosen and serves its purpose perfectly.  After that experience I headed to our local public library and was overjoyed to find that their collection contained most of Austen's works.  I discovered that even though I truly enjoyed Sense and Sensibility, followed closely by Persuasion -- it was still Pride and Prejudice that I returned to over and over again.  Perhaps it was because I came from an all-girl family with a long suffering father that I related to it so well?

Whatever the reason, I am very glad I finally did succumb to the pleasures of Jane Austen's universe. If I could sum up my reading experience with Miss Austen I would have to say...

“In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” Jane Austen, Pride And Prejudice

This isn't the first time I've written about my interest in Jane Austen's works. 
See this previous post about my trip to Bath, UK, where I seek out 
the Jane Austen Center despite all odds!