Apr 30
National Bugs Bunny Day is observed each year on April 30. Bugs Bunny is the famous cartoon character best remembered for his roles in Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies produced by Warner Bros. He is known for his popular catchphrase “What’s up, doc?”
Bugs Bunny first appeared in a short film on April 30, 1938, and has since been enjoyed by millions of viewers.
Mar 27
I know that I promised in Major Excitement to post about the Nicholas Brothers and this is it!
I can’t remember the first time I saw the Nicholas Brothers in a movie but I’ve sought them out ever since. I even bought their biography in 2010, Brotherhood In Rhythm: The Jazz Tap Dancing of the Nicholas Brothers.
Tap dancing legends Fayard (b. 1914) and Harold (1918-2000) Nicholas amazed crowds with their performances in musicals and films from the 30s to the 80s. They performed with Gene Kelly in The Pirate, with Cab Calloway in Stormy Weather, with Dorothy Dandridge (Harold’s wife) in Sun Valley Serenade, and with a number of other stars on the stage and on the screen. Author Hill not only guides readers through the brothers’ showstopping successes and the repressive times in which their dancing won them universal acclaim, she also offers extensive insight into the history and choreography of tap dancing, bringing readers up to speed on the art form in which the Nicholas Brothers excelled.
From Wikipedia:
Fayard Antonio Nicholas was born October 20, 1914, in Mobile, Alabama. Harold Lloyd Nicholas was born March 27, 1921, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
The Nicholas Brothers grew up in Philadelphia, the sons of college-educated musicians who played in their own band at the old Standard Theater—their mother at the piano and father on drums. At the age of three, Fayard would always sit in the front row while his parents worked, and by the time he was ten, he had seen most of the great African-American vaudeville acts—particularly the dancers, including such notables of the time as Alice Whitman, Willie Bryant, and Bill Robinson. The brothers were fascinated by the combination of tap dancing and acrobatics. Fayard often imitated their acrobatics and clowning for the kids in his neighborhood.
Neither Fayard nor Harold had any formal dance training. Fayard taught himself how to dance, sing, and perform by watching and imitating the professional entertainers on stage. He then taught his younger siblings, first performing with his sister Dorothy as the Nicholas Kids, later joined by Harold. Harold idolized his older brother and learned by copying his moves and distinct style. Dorothy later opted out of the act, and the Nicholas Kids became known as the Nicholas Brothers.
From 1935. They were already on their way:
In 1936, Fayard was 22 and Harold was 15. They performed Lucky Number:
From 1940, Down Argentine Way, The Nicholas Brothers serve up a characteristically joyous, effervescent routine.
This video, from the film “Sun Valley Serenade” (1941), depicts the complete Glenn Miller Orchestra’s and Nicholas Brothers’ performances for “Chattanooga Choo Choo”
One of the greatest dance routines ever in movies by the Nicholas Brothers. From the 1942 movie “Orchestra Wives” – I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo.
One of their signature moves was to leapfrog down a long, broad flight of stairs, while completing each step with a split. Its most famous performance formed the finale of the movie Stormy Weather. In that routine, the Nicholas Brothers leapt exuberantly across the orchestra’s music stands and danced on the top of a grand piano in a call and response act with the pianist, to the tune of Jumpin’ Jive.
Fred Astaire thought their “Jumpin’ Jive” production number in Stormy Weather (1943) the greatest musical sequence of all time.
I love how Cab Calloway fades away and lets the Nicholas Brothers take over!
Children: don’t try this at home – never, ever dance on a piano!
The Nicholas Brothers dance with Gene Kelly in the 1948 film “The Pirate”. It’s not their best work because Kelly couldn’t do what they could do. But Kelly could copy them, and The Pirate features some of his most virile and stunt-laden work.
We Sing, We Dance. A 1992 Arts and Entertainment documentary about the life of the Nicholas Brothers. Lots of great clips included!
The Nicholas Brothers’ influence can still be felt throughout our culture. Bob Fosse modeled his first dance act on them and Joseph Jackson hired Fayard to help train his children, The Jackson 5. Both Michael and Janet Jackson were later students of the brothers.
Fayard and Howard also taught at Harvard and Radcliffe.
The Nicholas Brothers got several awards and honors:
I hope you enjoy watching these as much as I do.
Mar 22
Today is known as International Goof Off Day. It is a day to relax, enjoy and goof off. Do something fun and leave the work until tomorrow.
Even though I have 5 (yes, five!) part-time jobs, I seem to be able to do them all and manage to have lots of nap time. Except for teaching piano, most of these other jobs can be done on the computer, sitting on my sofa, where it’s a short movement to get into nap position. As of this fall, I have to put in some actual office time, too 🙁
Other than napping as a way to goof off, I also have several other things I like to do. I’ll list these right after…
Happy Holiday!
Mar 20
Spring has sprung, the grass has riz,
I wonder where the birdies is.
Some say the birds is on the wing,
but that’s absurd, the wing is on the bird.
That’s how I learned this little ditty. A quick internet search shows that some wonder where the flowers is and other variations.
Mar 18
I was reading this great article at https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/best-scenic-train-rides-us?wpsrc=thrillist and saw that the header image was a train we were on in 2007, the White Pass & Yukon Route out of Skagway, Alaska.
The Thrillist folks said “As you cruise along the side of frighteningly sheer cliff-drops on this narrow-gauge railway, you can’t help but wonder who in their right mind actually built this thing during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. The train departs from Skagway on three different excursions, all of which take you up 3,000ft in 20 miles, past glaciers, mountain lakes, and thunderous waterfalls. The signature trip travels the original miners’ supply route to Carcross, Yukon, and stops at a restored station house in Lake Bennett. Or you can take the train past Bridal Veil Falls and Dead Horse Gulch to White Pass Summit, a 40-mile round trip that traverses massive trusses that are not for those with a fear of heights.”
My DH is a major train person. Even in Grad School at the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee, he worked for the now-defunct Milwaukee Road. They even gave him a company car!
Our time in Milwaukee might be the starter of another post but it was how I got my interest in trains.
Somehow, along the way, I learned about the Soo Line and I’d take a picture whenever I saw one. The very last one I saw, I was on a Cushing’s trip to Chicago. When we went by a railroad yard, I got a glimpse of a Soo and whipped around to get a picture. This isn’t that one but another example.
After Milwaukee, there has always been an involvement with trains – including taking vacations looking at spikes and tie plates.
Fun times!
So, when we found ourselves at Skagway, we just had to go on this train.
I wanted to post some about this trip, so I searched my travel blog. When nothing came up, I thought all my notes were gone. I looked at the one measly post about Alaska and found a link to more info. I had completely forgotten that I had saved all my travel memories on a website in the days before blogs. Most of my info is here, except for some images I had stored on the now-defunct Posterous.
So, from http://www.cushingsonline.com/alaska/alaska.htm (I’ll have to check around and see what else is here!
Monday June 25, 2007, Sunrise 3:45 AM
Skagway Official Skagway info from http://www.alaskainfo.org:
A place exists in Alaska where the past lives on, where the cries of “gold in the Yukon” still echo from steep canyon walls, where the sounds of barroom pianos and boomtown crowds ring out in the night. A place where the romance and excitement of yesteryear linger around every street corner, every bend in the trail.
Skagway! The wide Pacific lying at it’s door, the historic little community, known as the “Gateway to the Klondike,” occupies a lovely site with snow-capped and glaciated peaks as a backdrop. A port of call on south east Alaska’s Inside Passage route , this waterfront town, with it’s pervasive frontier flavour, attracts thousands of visitors annually via road, rail and seaway.
Designated a historic district by the US National Park Service, the area along Broadway from First to Seventh Avenues contains forty to fifty turn-of-the-century wooden structures, housing hotels, saloons and shops restored to evoke the days of the Gold Rush. The former railroad depot, a handsome 1898 building, serves as the Park Service visitor centre and departure point for walking tours conducted by park rangers.
So, join us in celebrating our Gold Rush past as we begin our second century being the gateway to the Klondike. Spend some time in our historical city, visit the surrounding wilderness areas or take in some of our events!
I woke up again sometime around 3AM when it was light again but managed to sleep a bit more. The plan had been to get up at 6 so we could have breakfast before we set out for the day. We missed breakfast. We were to meet our tour at 7:15 AM. Amazingly, we were first on the bus. I don’t think we’ve ever been first for anything!
Our bus driver was a very good driver who told us all about the history of Skagway and the surrounding areas. Our first stop was Liarsville (http://www.klondiketours.com/goldcampshow.html), a tent village for gold miners. It was called Liarsville because many newspaper reporters were there publishing tales of how “easy” it was to find gold and become rich. No Way! The locals did a show for us and let us pan for gold. Of course, most everyone found some little gold flakes. A very hard way to make a living!
We made our way up the White Pass on the Klondike Highway to a 3,000 ft waterfall, Dead Horse Gulch (a lot of pack horses couldn’t make it the whole way), the Moore Bridge, Yukon Suspension Bridge at Tutshi Canyon and up over the West White Pass into Fraser British Columbia Canda, the same way that the miners had to walk or go with pack animal and 2,000 pounds of supplies. Much easier by heated bus! It was very scenic and we took lots of pictures.
At the summit of that, in Fraser, British Columbia, we got on the White Pass & Yukon Route (WP&YR) Railroad train.
The WP&YR was originally built to help those miners who were hauling the ton of supplies up the pass but they finished building the railroad a year after the gold rush had ended. There’s more info about this railroad at www.wpyr.com We went over trestle bridges, through tunnels, over glaciers. Definitely a worthwhile trip.
WP&YR webcam: http://www.whitepassrailroad.com/multimedia/webcam.html
Here’s a bit of our train trip. Tom took this from the platform between the cars:
Back in Skagway we stopped in the train shop but all I got was coffee, my first of the day. Another Alaskan T-Shirt Company for yet more fleece and stuff and hiked back to the ship.
Tom took a little nap and I read for a while. Then buffet lunch time.
Tom went out to a meeting and I napped for a while. He came back and I started typing this again – and he napped. What old fuddy-duddies!
Time to get dressed for tonight’s show – dual acrobatics, Jean-Claude and Gaby – followed by “casual” dinner. Any dinner that requires anything more than jeans is hardly casual to me!
Sunset 10:23. Hubbard Glacier is 300 nautical miles.
That Thrillist had a couple other trains of interest – 1 that we took and one that we always wanted to take. I’ll save those for another post.
Mar 17
Every year on March 17, the Irish and the Irish-at-heart across the globe observe St. Patrick’s Day. What began as a religious feast day for the patron saint of Ireland has become an international festival celebrating Irish culture with parades, dancing, special foods and a whole lot of green.
When I was a child, my dad always reminded me that we were Scottish, NOT Irish, so he made me wear orange to school on St. Patrick’s Day. For a shy, introverted kid, this made my life even worse than it was.
He would have loved this t-shirt – if only it came in orange:
(and yes, I bought it in his memory)
Mar 17
Every year on March 17, the Irish and the Irish-at-heart across the globe observe St. Patrick’s Day. What began as a religious feast day for the patron saint of Ireland has become an international festival celebrating Irish culture with parades, dancing, special foods and a whole lot of green.
When I was a child, my dad, a Scottish person, had me wear orange to school, as a minor form of protest. All that did was have the kids make fun of me even more than usual.
As my own form of protest, I later married an Irish Roman Catholic, but that’s a topic for another post.
Quite a while later, a friend of my husband’s friends lent him a copy of something called “Riverdance”. I took one look and figured I would never be interested in some kind of Irish dancing. WRONG!
It turned out I loved Riverdance and we have seen the video, I have my own DVDs, we have seen it at Wolftrap whenever it’s been here, I have 2 copies of piano transcriptions, own the Tshirt…
One weekend, we even saw it twice.
We had seen it at Wolftrap on a Friday night. Our son came home on a Saturday and we were telling him about it. We went directly from the train station back to Wolftrap.
As luck would have it, there was a bus driver there who had brought a bunch of people on a tour from a retirement home. Three people hadn’t come and he had 3 tickets to get rid of, right in the front section.
Were we lucky, or what?
How Riverdance got its start. On April 30th 1994 something happened during the interval of the Eurovision Song Contest that was to lead to the creation of one of the most successful stage shows of all time and introduce the wider world to Irish dance and music. As votes were being counted around Europe, in Dublin in the Point Theatre (now the O2), RIVERDANCE burst onto the stage and took the audience by complete surprise. From the haunting vocals of anúna, the graceful elegance of Jean Butler, the explosive arrival of Michael Flatley and culminating in a long line of Irish dancers beating the stage in perfect heart-stopping harmony – a whole new genre of entertainment was born and nearly 25 years later – Riverdance still astonishes globally.
One of my favorite dances:
And another favorite:
And, of course, that finale!
Just for fun, there was a flashmob, bringing us back to St. Patrick’s Day…
Needless to say, I was quite sorry to see that Riverdance is not coming anywhere near us this year.
Mar 15
Everyone knows we’re supposed to beware the Ides of March and may even remember they’re from William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” but what exactly do they mean?
The Ides of March marked the day the Julius Caesar was assassinated by members of the Roman Senate in 44 B.C.E.
A soothsayer, or psychic, warned Caesar to beware the day, but Caesar doesn’t heed him.
He was then stabbed 23 times by about 60 conspirators, including his friend Marcus Brutus, as immortalised by Shakespeare’s “Et tu Brute?”
I remember learning all about this in Latin class in High School.
I remember another movie, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, discussing the Ides of March and someone asked why a month would need an “idea”.
We found Bill and Ted purely by accident. We were looking at videos for rent in a grocery store and one of the bag boys (remember them?) recommended this one.
I’ve seen this movie several times over the years…
Mar 10
Even though the day is really for Mario, I like to think of it as MaryO day. Since I’m Scottish, how about MaryO’Day?
So, I bring you the new holiday…
Cushing’s Music and Local Events