While sitting at home trying to recover my voice or to allow it to get beyond sounding like Froggy from the Our Gang/Little Rascals shorts (primarily by keeping my mouth shut), I have been listening to my favorite gift.  For years, I have been torn between two iconic series of film scores by the same composer: Star Wars and Indiana Jones.  John Williams supplied all of the music for the 6 Star Wars films (yes, even the 3 prequel films) and the 4 films featuring the world-traveling archaeologist.  Just hearing music from either series is enough for me to want to pop in the DVD and sit back and enjoy but I also like kicking back and listening to a good movie score and picturing the events in my mind.  I have had the Star Wars collection of CDs for sometime.  However, the music for the Indy films have been rare indeed and even those recordings have lacked in length, until recently (I had a cassette of the Last Crusade soundtrack that featured only 30 minutes of the score).  Particularly the score for The Temple of Doom.  Williams expertly created scores for each of the films.  Raiders, Last Crusade, and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull each are much lighter in tone and fun while Temple is full of dark, sinister, blood curdling themes.  However, it also features the Cole Porter tune “Anything Goes” sung in Mandarin Chinese and a fun theme for Indy’s young protege, Short Round.

Indiana Jones: The Soundtracks Collection contains the four scores with previously unreleased tracks along with a fifth disc of ultra rare recordings with a fifteen minute interview with Williams, George Lucas, and the man, Steven Spielberg reminiscing about the creation of the films and the musical motifs throughout each movie.  Extremely cool.  Now I will post a poll that I know most people who frequent this blog can answer and you must choose, but choose wisely. [poll id=”5″]

Happy New Year!  Holy cow, 2009 already!  I hope you had a good New Year’s.  Ours was wonderul.  We hosted a bash, which is always great so that we don’t have to pack up the kids and all their luggage just to haul them out somewhere to stay until the wee hours of the morning.  We played charades and other games and ate lots of yummy treats.  Our kids – #2 and #4 in birth order – fell asleep way early.  The older one stayed asleep all night, but wouldn’t you know it – the baby woke right as we crawled into bed at 4 in the morning.  I was able to sleep for a few hours, but that’s more than I can say for my husband who woke with the baby.  But then he got a short nap while I ambled downstairs to do some much needed cleanup from the party.  After that, we were ready to drag ourselves over to a friend’s house for a New Year’s Day chili feast – I’m told the beans bring good luck in the new year.  More food, more fun, and we didn’t plan on staying long but ended up getting home about 7 in the evening.  I did miss the hockey game at Wrigley Field, but the Red Wings beat the Blackhawks anyway.  I’m not a big hockey fan; I just thought it would be cool to see Wrigley all decked out for hockey.  I wonder what they would have done if they had gotten some of that freak 60 degree weather again – how to maintain an ice rink in those conditions?  Oh well, that’s a tangent, good thing this site is called tangents.org

So the chili and rest of the food at our friends house was great, but I wish I could have enjoyed it more – seems I partied a little too hard the night before and felt a little tired and queasy come chili feast time.  But it’s my own fault – I should know that I’m getting older and can’t handle the late nights (or early mornings for that matter) like I used to.  But oh well – my friend did give me some delicious chili to take home, so hopefully it will be more enjoyable now that I was able to rest last night.  Now I’ll just have to get used to writing 2009 instead of 2008 all over the place…

After it was decided that the siblings and I would invest in a Blu-ray machine for the parents, I decided to get something to play on it for them.  For some reason, the local Wal-Mart is not well stocked with Blu-ray disks.  I decided on Patriot Games which stars Harrison Ford as former CIA analyst John Patrick Ryan.  I say Ford does not play his typical Indiana Jones type hero this time because this film challenges him by giving him something that Indy never had (well…): a family.  While on vacation in jolly old England, Ryan, his wife, and young daughter inadvertantly stumble upon an assassination attempt on a British royal by a renegade IRA terrorist faction.  Instead of standing on the sidelines, Jack jumps into the fray, saving the Lord, and shooting a few of the terrorists.  One of the dead terrorists was the younger brother of the leader, Sean Miller (Sean Bean), who escaped.  Miller vows revenge on Ryan.

What follows is a nail-biting, action-driven thriller.  Cathy (Anne Archer) and Sally Ryan are placed in mortal danger.  Jack goes to his former associates at the CIA to help him track down the villains.  The thing I enjoyed most about the Jack Ryan character is his vulnerability.  In a scene demanded by Ford himself, Ryan is brutally attacked by a young member of the terrorist group.  There is also a red-headed villainess who causes problems.  Like any good Harrison Ford thriller, there is action aplenty to hold you in suspense.  Although it seems cliche with Air Force One coming a few years later, Patriot Games is worth a look.  The closing scene also left the door wide open for the sequel: Clear and Present Danger.

Irony of ironies, Sean Bean has a scar over his left eye which was given to him by Harrison Ford during filming.  And before anyone asks, the parents were quite pleased with the choice since they both watched with me.  [poll id=”4″]

New Year’s eve and I toasted in the new Year. I’ve made that toast with the same beverage for the Since New Years Eve 1983/1984. My future brother-in-law brought some Piesporter with him. My future wife did not care for wines at all really liked this wine. From that date on, we shared a bottle of some type of Piesporter. It has been a holiday tradition for a long time.

After her death, I kept buying that type of wine for both New Year’s Eve and our Anniversary. I have not shared the bottle with anyone until last night. In the past few years, if I was out for the evening, I would save my toast until I got home. I didn’t feel like sharing this wine. This year I spent the evening with some good friends. I did share my bottle with those who wanted it.

If they enjoyed the wine, that was wonderful. If they didn’t care for it, it doesn’t matter. I also shared a bottle of the same wine with family and friends on the anniversary of her death. This is the first year, I’ve shared the wine. It may not mean a lot to those who shared with me, but in mind it had a lot of meaning.

To those who shared, thank you for accepting a gift from my heart, and helping me remember the good times I did have for many years.

Happy New Year.

Back in 2007 the world learned that Andrew Lloyd Webber was writing a sequel to his world famous musical, The Phantom of the Opera.  At that time he revealed the setting would be New York rather than Paris, the setting of the original story.  Little more than that was known (at least by me) until last Sunday when he revealed more details including the possible move of opening in three places at once at the end of 2009.  Also revealed was the location in New York as well as the reunion of the Phantom and Christine Daaé, as the title, Phantom: Love Never Dies, suggests.  I can’t get over the location though- Coney Island.  I guess this quote from the man himself explains this choice:

“It was the place,” Lloyd Webber said. “Even Freud went because it was so extraordinary … people who were freaks and oddities were drawn towards it because it was a place where they could be themselves.”

In the article he also mentions the role of the phantom is as good as cast, but left the name a mystery.  Any ideas?  As I haven’t been part of the musical theatre scene for a while I offer no guess of my own.  Anyway, read the article at msnbc for more info:

‘Phantom of the Opera’ sequel due in 2009

Last night was another fantastic celebration at our semi-weekly gathering place.  Everyone brought food or spirits to endulge in.  Friends who do not usually frequent our game nights came to shar in the festivities.  I went with my lingering effects from a visit by Uncle Larry N. Gitis.  Honestly, I feel fine but my voice says otherwise.  I remember losing my voice years ago a few weekends before I auditioned for a summer position at Cedar Point.  I made the audition, sang my audition piece and was asked to come back a half-hour later for the dance portion of the try out.  Unfortunately, my graceful choreographic ability failed to impress… their loss, right?

While playing charades, which my team was winning (thank you very much) the time had arrived to watch Ryan Seacrest announce the ball drop.  Dick Clark made an appearance from the studio; however, the damage done by his stroke of a few years ago is still apparent.  I noticed an almost plastic appearance to Mr. Seacrest.  Not sure if it was the lighting or makeup but he just looked wierd.  Speaking of charades, I do not think that the movie or novel Return of the King is obscure.  It was a title given to one of the other two teams but I thought it was a very good suggestion.  My gracefulness was put to good use in my acting out the movie title Last Tango in Paris.

Shortly thereafter, we read some Weakest Link questions.  I tried to keep quiet to allow others to answer.  However, I heard some moaners from the other players imploring me to wait until the question was read.  Finally, we moved on to some Outburst, and thank goodness for the arrival of our final player because some of the questions were beyond my expertise.  By the time we had arrived to an I.Q. testing game, I was lying on the floor.

But like last year, it was a great end to the old and beginning of the new.  There was no other place I wanted to be.  I hope everyone had an enjoyable and safe holiday season and wish everyone the best in 2009.