Happy Halloween!

Have any of you noticed that completely new movies are running on cable TV? This excellent horror film House of the Devil was on one of my HD channels this week. It was very creepy. I didn't know it was a new film until I looked it up on IMDB. It faithfully recreates the feeling of the "girl in peril" films of the early 1980's. The suspense got to me. I was watching it alone when everyone was asleep and I kept having to switch on the guide to minimize the picture to get some relief.



My husband and I watched this classic The Devil Doll this week. It was good! Lionel Barrymore cross-dresses to foil his enemies.



I tried to go through the guide on my tv and find old movies to tape. TCM is showing a LOT of Boris Karloff. They aren't so great..

Here's another really great classic. Ever seen Haxan? It is a 1922 Danish "documentary" about the legends of witchcraft in western Europe. The imagery is unforgettable. Since it is such an old film it has this weird authentic look. Calling it a documentary is pretty much a stretch since it seems to me an excuse to stage creepy and shocking stories of superstition through the ages.. Anyway, it plays on IFC pretty regularly and it easy to get at Netflix.



Is it just me or is everyone sick of vampires? I got through just two of the Twilight books. What a pathetic girl. Those teenagers are supposed to be smart and they have the dumbest conversations ever... Zombies are way more fun. Did you see Zombieland?



I'm not into the popular torture movies that are out lately. I also don't like it when these are stories of real life murderous rampages, that's too upsetting. I like ghosts, hauntings, good vs. evil, foreign horror, classic horror, and horror with comic relief. I also experience movies intensely since I am a strongly visual person, so I like to see this genre on my television where it isn't nearly so scary. Also, feel-good movies all the time are too saccharine.

Click HERE for an interesting article about why people sometimes choose unpleasant experiences.

Maurice Sendak

Watching the hype about "Where the Wild Things Are" has me reminiscing about the books I loved as a child. Do you folks who were kids in the 1970's remember the Really Rosie specials that aired on TV? My mom had a record of these stories in her classroom and I would always listen to them and read along in the books when I went in to her school to "help out".

Here's the catchy "Chicken Soup With Rice":



I especially loved "Pierre". Yes, that's Carole King singing:


Let me know if you remember these too. Once when I was a teacher I had the Chicken Soup With Rice book and I talked to someone about the song and they thought I was totally crazy and didn't remember it at all.

Intervention

I feel your pain, Fred.

Intervention Intervention with Fred Armisen from Fred Armisen

Goofy Videos

Maybe figuring out how to embed this video is more trouble than it is worth... I missed this goofy song, "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah" from 30 Rock when it made the rounds last fall.



And this is a 10 minute video in Japanese of cats stealing fish. I cannot lie, I watched the whole thing:


Thanks to Cutesypoo for posting the cat video. Check out her blog for more entertaining videos.

Life's Mysteries

So SNL finally came back and the Sarah Palin Hillary Clinton sketch was spot on. At our house, the real discussion of the night was how in the world does Lil Wayne keep those pants on? It's all even more mysterious because they are belted. It was 2 days ago and I'm still wondering. Google searching the issue revealed no answers.

Rant

Gadzooks! I really want to rant about my seething hatred for the frozen-faced, scrawny, sexless, speech impaired actress Nicole Kidman, but um... dang.. where is the camera?!

I crocheted some cute thread crochet Cubs logos. Go Cubs! But I have to deal with my camera first.

Seriously, I really hate NK and her ex-husband is no better. She's probably sort of a nice person, but she's ruined every movie she's beeen in (except "To Die For", "Dead Calm" and "Flirting". I liked those from long ago) I've hated Tom Cruise since Risky Business...

These are the things I obsess over when I'm alone in the house. I just accidentally watched "The Invasion" and it was already terrible before they cast Ms. Kidman in the lead role. How does that woman have an Oscar? Her way of acting distressed is to cover her eyes with her bangs since the expression doesn't register on her face anywhere. She is the same age as I am and I don't really have any wrinkles so what is her problem?

So I've ranted anyway... Anyone else have inexplicably popular actors or actresses they avoid watching like the plague?

RIP Bo Diddley

I listened to several Bo Diddley performances on You Tube last night and the beat is still going in my head this morning. I don't know how those audience members inthe video can sit still to that hopping beat! Many years ago, my brother was going to make a mix tape with only songs with the Bo Diddly beat. I don't think he ever got to it. Mr. Diddley grew up in Chicago and I read yesterday that he was always skeptical of the music industry, "A dude with a pencil is worse than a cat with a machine gun."

My son keeps pestering us to take him to Cleveland to the Rock and Roll Hall of fame. I hope we can go sometime soon. He'll love it.

Dynamite Magazine

Another relic form the 1970's and 80's is Dynamite magazine. I wish I still had my old issues. School aged kids would order their subscription to this magazine through the Scholastic Book Club. The book club is still active at schools, but the magazine is gone.

My favorite feature was "Bummers" which always began: "Don't you hate it when..." THIS SITE has a copy of Bummers. Click on the image on the lower left to see a readable image.

I wish I could find a great magazine like this one for my daughter. I really don't want to order a magazine for her that has regular features about style, make up, and shopping.

That's Jimmy JJ Walker from the TV show "Good Times" It was one of my favorite TV shows. My very own husband has no nostalgia for the television and media I liked from the 70's. He's crazy!

Videos

Some cuteness for a Monday morning. This one is Korean:


Here's a very cute one on potty training from Japan (thanks, Cutesypoo!):


As long as I'm putting up YouTube videos, Here's one from my childhood. Morgan Freeman acting a little stoned and dressed up like Jimi Hendrix with Rita Moreno on The Electric Company. Easy Reader definitely has the hots for Carmelita:


And Stevie Wonder performing an extended version of "Superstition" on Sesame Street:


And this church hymn one is funny. We are switching back to our old denomination as soon as the school year is over. We prefer traditional formality at church and I also like hymn singing with the organ.


This song is so catchy. It knocks Stevie Wonder right out of my brain. And since I did that one, here is another one with "translations" by the same guy. These aren't new, so maybe you've seen them before. For the record, I love Bollywood!

Sleep Masks

This morning I made His and Hers sleep masks for my husband and me. He picked out the fabric he liked from my stash (the stash in the active pile in the dining room) and I chose the pink on pink because those are my favorite shades and pink is flattering on me. Yes, that is a prerequisite even for a sleep mask.



Here are the undersides with more great fabric:

We really need these, because I get migraines and I have to lie quietly for a few hours in the dark and migraines can come day or night. My husband goes to sleep before I do and I always need to watch tv, stitch, or read before I can get to sleep, so he uses a mask.

The pattern was a truly easy one from the book "Amy Butler's In Stitches". My mother-in-law got me this book last Christmas and while I've drooled over the projects for a long time, this is my first project so far. It was very easy and I even fired up the walking foot on my sewing machine to do the quilted outside section of the mask.


Anyone else read the Martha Stewart 's blog? It's called The Martha Blog which always confuses me because I know an actual person named Martha who also has a terrific blog. I read blogs through Google Reader and the banners don't come up, so it's easy to get confused. Seriously... there have been so many times I read The Martha Blog and think, "Gee, Martha (the friend) seems a little bit young to have a nephew who is a successful opera singer." or "What the heck is Martha doing with so many equestrian blankets she has a pile to give to charity?"

It is refreshing to see that Martha Stewart has trouble with lighting in her photos just like I do. See HERE or HERE. At first I was pretty sure that Martha Stewart didn't really have anything to do with that blog, but now I think maybe she actually does take the pictures, but someone else fiddles with all the writing and uploading of photos and such. I'm not sure...

Anyway, yesterday I read this utterly absurd post by Martha S: My fabric Collection and How I Organized It. She had an underling wrap all he fabric bolts in white paper and cellophane. The are labeled with a little photo, but mostly look all white and sterile. What is the point of having a fabric collection if you can't see and touch the fabrics? Where is the rush when you pull out a sample and take in it's glorious expanse of color and pattern? Although I am domestic, I am sooo not Martha Stewart, but I do enjoy her blog and TV show when I can catch it.

Five Years Ago

Today a big event in our family has been on my mind. 5 years ago, my husband was in a serious car accident. He's doing great, but that was a frightening time for us. Our son was in kindergarten and our little daughter was only 2 years old. I'd just decided not to take a new part time job and it was a good thing because all of our time became about helping his recovery.


This was him five years ago. It really was a bad accident and completely the fault of the other driver. Everyone survived and the other guy had no injuries. At the time, he felt he had to go right back to work. He really isn't a workaholic, but he is very responsible. Looking back, we should have taken a medical leave, but he still recovered. I did have to chauffeur him to-and-from work every day with the kids in the car. We listened to a lot of pop radio and Justin Timberlake and Snoop Dogg had big hits. It gets a little bit embarrassing when your 5-year old can quote Snoop Dogg....

This really was a tough time, and we got through it day by day. We feel extremely lucky and grateful since this event. Although it eventually led to my husband getting what we call an "amicable divorce" from his job. He was able to start his own business and we lived frugally on the settlement money while the business got underway. In many ways, our life is better since this accident. We had to confront some other issues and although I'd say we focused on the right things before, an event like this puts everything in sharp focus.

These days, he still had to drive and drive all over Chicagoland to see his customers. He once liked rollercoasters, but those are forever off limits as is downhill skiing, which we never did anyway. He always avoided heavy lifting or big jobs around the house and yard, but now he has an aching neck to blame.

Just today, I realized this car accident is part of the reason I'm still a stay-at-home mom, even though my children are both at school during the days. Having me at home gives us the calm, low-key life we all prefer. We all have our individual lives, but we are very much a team and support each other.

And completely changing the subject, I've been on a nostalgia trip on YouTube. I saw this several days ago and the tune is still going in my head. Anyone from the USA who was a kid in the 1970's will remember Schoolhouse Rock. These little shorts ran on Saturday mornings alongside the cartoons on network television. Some of us at a certain age can't read the words "We the People" without this tune embedding itself. It is election season here too, so I guess it is timely. My husband and I vote for completely different parties which only increases our resolve to vote in every single election in every race no matter how obscure in order to cancel out the other's vote.



Conjuction Junction is another good one as is A Noun is a Person, Place or Thing.

"I'm Just a Bill" is probably the most iconic of the Schoolhouse Rock shorts:


I also got nostalgic today about classic Sesame Street too. I'll save that for another day.

Happy New Year!

We are back from our post Christmas Road Trip. This year we went to Nashville and it was fun, but the Country Music Hall of Fame was a big disappointment. Can you imagine a music history museum with scarcely any music clips? We bought the audio tour and everything, but the audio tour has long (loong) speeches, and no music. What were they thinking?

We passed through Paducah, Kentucky on the way and went to the American Quilt Museum. It was lovely and is really a showcase of modern quiltmaking rather than a history of any kind, but it was nice and it had a whole exhibit on Kaffe Fassett. I found a lot of his fabrics int he remnant bin at Hancocks of Paducah.

This video cuts out too soon at the very end, but legendary Hank Williams died suddenly on New Years Day at the age of 29 in 1955. I guess he used to make the women swoon with his lanky good looks.



Of course, we hardly heard any of him at the Hall of Fame.. we had to go home and research him on YouTube....

Totoro

Ever seen the film, My Neighbor Totoro?



This 20-year old film is still amazingly undiscovered by far too many people. It's from the great Japanese film animator Hayao Miyazaki. Almost all of his films are wonderful, but this one is quite special. If you are steeped in Disney, it is much more low key and quiet than those films, but the adventure is more real and palpable than in our familiar animated features. That clip is in Japanese, but the film is available in a dubbed English version. My 10 year old son was sure he'd hate it, but then got caught up in the imaginative sequences and it's a favorite for our family. I was going to post the clip of the scene where the little girls are waiting for the bus with Totoro, but it's so charming, I don't want to give it away.

HERE are the opening titles which have cute animation. This morning I made a connection... that singer is the singer on the potty training song, "She is a Super Duper Pooper".

Today our plan is to get up the rest of the Christmas decorations except the tree, eat something homemade for supper and watch Totoro together.

Doughnuts and Rankin/Bass

Jelly doughnuts sounded like a better idea than they actually were. Oh well. I've always wanted to make them and now I have!

Overheard in the kitchen: "I hope I don't get one with the jelly in it..." I'll stick to regular doughnuts next time...or cream puffs... Those are easier and really delicious.

I'm feeling kind of badly that I'm not really crafting for gifts this year. I've done a few ornaments to give away, but other than that, I've given myself a pass this year. Fall was a bit heavy on the crafting for me with 2 craft shows and a couple of swaps to co-organize. I didn't even take the Handmade Pledge. I do handmade so much all year that I guess I need a pass this time. I also don't want to dictate to my loved ones that they have to do handmade if that isn't their thing. We always exchange treats and cookies and that definitely counts as handmade.

So this week they've been showing those Rankin/Bass Christmas specials on television. Maybe we have the writer's strike to thank for this nostalgic programming. When I was a young kid in the 1970s, when these television specials aired every kids watched them and talked about them at school the next day. My own children don't seem to be as excited about them, but here is my favorite scene from "A Year Without a Santa Claus". I honestly used to cry at the end of Frosty the Snowman when he melted away. My dad reassured me: "Don't be sad, Susie. He'll be back again someday."



I need to add this song to our holiday song sheets. Maybe we are total geeks, but Christmas Eve, we sit under the tree and sing all the Christmas Carols we know. My parents and their friends are church choir people and its something of a tradition. The singing of my totally tone deaf, rhythm impaired husband is officially "charming".

French Knots

Somehow I lost my little birdie pouch. After reading this blog post about French knots, I felt I could use a little bit of practice and I decided to give these pouches another go. The pattern is from a fantastic book by Sally Mavor called Felt Wee Folk. Although you can't really tell, I worked all day on this on July 4th. I did also cut out patterns to make more pouches. My husband was happy to stay home for the holiday and told the kids, "Mom's got a sewing fever today." We learned that our neighbors launch plenty of illegal fireworks and we can see the neighboring community's show from the backyard.

I stitched while watching countless Twilight Zone episodes. So many, in fact that I started to wonder what we ever saw in that goofy show anyway. The spooky supernatural themes are kind of dated as are the women characters who generally offer either shrill oppposition and moral weakness, or undying love and support to the men who get to have all the adventure. It is fun though... remember the one where Burgess Meredith dreams of having time to read, and when he survives nuclear holocaust near a large public library, his glasses break and he's doomed... There's another one where a woman dreams of having a normal face through plastic surgery. But, of course in a shocking ironic twist, we learn that, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"

These pouches are pretty simple actually. It's just a long tri-folded rectangle with snaps attached. You can find the snaps in the notions department and although they sell tools to attach them, you can do it with a hammer and a wooden spool.

The little pouch is laying on a surprise I made for my niece. I'll share that later.