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[elmore3003]

Larry, do you happen to know anything about "The Enchanted Island"?

It was put together by Jeremy Sams for the Met.Ithink he selected the arias with the cast and then wrote lyrics to fit his scenario. I saw the broadcast and liked a lot of it very much. some of its designs and changes are amazing. Placido Domingo has a great cameo as Neptune.  I have to say, though, that much as I like baroque music, I can't take countertenors in large doses!

[elmore3003]

!!!!! 5 !!!!!

[Jennifer]

Feel better vibes to DR Jane!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And DR Cillaliz~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And BK!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[George]

Larry, do you happen to know anything about "The Enchanted Island"?

It was put together by Jeremy Sams for the Met.Ithink he selected the arias with the cast and then wrote lyrics to fit his scenario. I saw the broadcast and liked a lot of it very much. some of its designs and changes are amazing. Placido Domingo has a great cameo as Neptune.  I have to say, though, that much as I like baroque music, I can't take countertenors in large doses!

I wish I had known about these when they were on.  I could've recorded them and my sister's boyfriend would've been able to make an actual hi-def Blu-rays for me.  That's what's funny about the "The Enchanted Island" reviews on Amazon...all four of the one-star reviews are about there not being a Blu-ray available. 

[Jennifer]

DR Jennifer I need a book to read and Barnes & Noble is offering "The Raven Boys" for $2.99.  I noticed you gave it an excellent review.  Is it something I might want to read, as in easy & engrossing, when I don't feel well?

I am a huge fan of Maggie Stiefvater the author. I loved this book. But I really don't know if you would like it.  Read the synopsis and see if it sounds like something you'd like. I think it is a 1 day only sale. Sorry i wasn't on earlier to give you some info.

[Jennifer]

DR Jane, I will say that $2.99 is an excellent price for that book. She is a NY Times best selling author and her books are usually $12+.  The book is YA. But she is a really good writer. One of my favorites. But I have some people who did not like this book at all.

[Jane]

Feel better vibes to DR Jane!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And DR Cillaliz~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And BK!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you.

[Jane]

DR Jane, I will say that $2.99 is an excellent price for that book. She is a NY Times best selling author and her books are usually $12+.  The book is YA. But she is a really good writer. One of my favorites. But I have some people who did not like this book at all.

I like YA and it did kind of appeal to me.  I need something that will keep me focused right now.  I'll order it and give it a try.

[Jennifer]

DR Jane, I will say that $2.99 is an excellent price for that book. She is a NY Times best selling author and her books are usually $12+.  The book is YA. But she is a really good writer. One of my favorites. But I have some people who did not like this book at all.

I like YA and it did kind of appeal to me.  I need something that will keep me focused right now.  I'll order it and give it a try.

Even if you don't like it. IMO she is a really good writer. One of the best YA writers around.

[John G.]

I've e-mailed John Morris, the composer of A Time for Singing, and someone wrote me on Facebook and is putting Shani Wallis in touch with me.  Always nice to have the personal touch in the booklet.  And I've got John Ford's film of How Green Was My Valley right here on Blu and Ray so that may be tonight or tomorrow's viewing.

Looking forward to that release.

[Jane]

Thanks.  I'm going to rest and read now. 

I'm rapidly fading.  I should be back in awhile.

[John G.]

Finally catching up on this week's "Downtown Abbey."

[George]

I've e-mailed John Morris, the composer of A Time for Singing, and someone wrote me on Facebook and is putting Shani Wallis in touch with me.  Always nice to have the personal touch in the booklet.  And I've got John Ford's film of How Green Was My Valley right here on Blu and Ray so that may be tonight or tomorrow's viewing.

Nice!  I don't suppose that there's any possibility for signed booklets??  Or would that be too much of a hassle to arrange?

[Ginny]

Oh, bother!  On my knitting discussion site I've just learned that the company from which I ordered a set of needles this morning has been the source of some recent credit card irregularities.  Supposedly, the breech has been addressed, so I guess I'll just monitor my account even more closely than usual and hope for the best.

[John G.]

Oh, bother!  On my knitting discussion site I've just learned that the company from which I ordered a set of needles this morning has been the source of some recent credit card irregularities.  Supposedly, the breech has been addressed, so I guess I'll just monitor my account even more closely than usual and hope for the best.

That is a bother.

[Ben]

George and Ginny may find this interesting, George, especially.

I just had a chat with an on-line librarian. I had a question about a book and there is a link in the NY Public Library site to chat live with a librarian 24/7. I clicked and asked my question and had a very nice chat with Lily, from Washington state (she didn't say where in WA, just that she was in WA)! I assumed it was just a local thing and that some NY Public Library employees were sitting in a room after hours in front of a terminal. Nope, it's a country-wide thing and if your local library is closed someone else answers the question. She wasn't able to answer completely for me but she has sent my question on to a NY Public Librarian and they will answer via e-mail. She said there are librarians from all over the U.S. and the U.K. Amazing! When this kind of technology works it's wonderful.

I was looking for a Young Adult book called The Midnight Folk by John Masefield. It's available "by request" only and I wondered if that meant once it's been retrieved from the off-site storage and I'm notified if I could check out the book and take it home. I'm kind of thinking no at this point and Lily, though she wasn't able to find a definitive answer, seems to think that also. But, I guess I'll hear officially sometime in the next day or two from a NY librarian.

[John G.]

Larry, by some odd twist, I ended up with two Victor Herbert movies on DVD this week, "Naughty Marietta" and "March of the Wooden Soldiers" with Laurel & Hardy. I know the former, but I haven't seen the latter. They play up the Herbert connection on the case. Is it a good representation or is it a typical Laurel & Hardy?

[Ginny]

DR Ben, I did a bit of chat reference before I retired.  A lot of the requests were from smart aleck teenagers, but when it was an articulate, polite person (like you!), it was a lot of fun.  I'd hoped to freelance with the FC, but they seem to be handling it in-house.

[George]

George and Ginny may find this interesting, George, especially.

I just had a chat with an on-line librarian. I had a question about a book and there is a link in the NY Public Library site to chat live with a librarian 24/7. I clicked and asked my question and had a very nice chat with Lily, from Washington state (she didn't say where in WA, just that she was in WA)! I assumed it was just a local thing and that some NY Public Library employees were sitting in a room after hours in front of a terminal. Nope, it's a country-wide thing and if your local library is closed someone else answers the question. She wasn't able to answer completely for me but she has sent my question on to a NY Public Librarian and they will answer via e-mail. She said there are librarians from all over the U.S. and the U.K. Amazing! When this kind of technology works it's wonderful.

I was looking for a Young Adult book called The Midnight Folk by John Masefield. It's available "by request" only and I wondered if that meant once it's been retrieved from the off-site storage and I'm notified if I could check out the book and take it home. I'm kind of thinking no at this point and Lily, though she wasn't able to find a definitive answer, seems to think that also. But, I guess I'll hear officially sometime in the next day or two from a NY librarian.

I've heard of that and I pretty sure that our Central Reference librarians participate in that program.  We don't, however, have anyone named Lily working in the library system, so she's not from here.

[Jane]

Interesting DR Ben.

[Jane]

Within 10 minutes after I paid for a book my library sent me an email a book on my hold list is available.  Amazing how this happens all the time.

[Cillaliz]

LOL, there is a snow storm heading our way Wednesday night, all day Thursday and into Friday.   Looks like I may not have been able to go on the trip anyway.  Or maybe I would have been stuck 1/2 way there.   So glad I don't have to worry about it

That happened when my dad died six years ago; if I hadn't changed my flight, I would never have got to Ohio in time to see him alive or to bury him. I changed the flight from Wednesday to Sunday, and there were blizzards closing the airports on Tuesday.

When I first started working in New York for a cruise line entertainment group around 1983, we had several kids who were stuck for days in the Denver airport.

The only time I was really stuck in an airport was when I went to London with a student group. On our way home there was a ground crew strike and our flight was delayed an hour at a time for 13 hours.  We were stuck at Heathrow the whole time.  It wasn't like days on end but it felt like it.  Of ourse ee missed all our connecting flights. We got to New York and had to wait hours only to find out someone had booked us at the other airport, got in cabs to race to the other airport (can't remember whether it was JFK-LaGuardia or vis versa).  Anyway, our cabs actually got in a fender bender with each other.  But we got to the airport.  I think we made the flight, but I don't remember.  Then we had a three hour drive from minneapolis home.   

[Cillaliz]

I know I've had flights cancelled and delayed due to weather, but luckily it's never been when I was half way somewhere or on the way home

[bk]

Jeremy Sams is the very talented composer of Hyde Park on Hudson, my favorite score of 2012.

[bk]

Finished watching a silly thriller, and shall now watch some art.  Feeling as I have all day - a little better.  Still feel "heavy" in my head and nose.

[Jane]

I remember Keith leaving the boys and I at the Newark airport and rushing home before a storm hit.  I can't remember how long we were there but that I wisely purchased food to munch on before everything sold out.  We arrived in LA in the wee hours of the morning.  Our good friend's lived in Torrence at the time which is close to the freeway.  We stopped for pizza on the way to their house since Bryan & Craig slept through dinner when the airline served it at the usual time in the flight instead of immediately after take off.

[elmore3003]

Larry, by some odd twist, I ended up with two Victor Herbert movies on DVD this week, "Naughty Marietta" and "March of the Wooden Soldiers" with Laurel & Hardy. I know the former, but I haven't seen the latter. They play up the Herbert connection on the case. Is it a good representation or is it a typical Laurel & Hardy?

Herbert's daughter and executor hated the Laurel & Hardy movie, but I'm sure she detested even more the Disney film version. She sold to MGM in the 1930s film rights to SWEETHEARTS, NAUGHTY MARIETTA, EILEEN, and THE ROSE OF ALGIERS, but only the first two got made. I have a CD of the MGM orchestra and singers performing the songs from THE ROSE OF ALGIERS as an "audition" for, I'd guess, Louis B. Mayer. The score is fantastic.

So, back to BABES. It's a funny movie but it bears as much resemblance to the stage show as I do to Eleanor Roosevelt. I like it, especially because the monsters are really frightening, but it's a little too sugary, although the cast is great. The original musical is a fast paced comedy about child abuse and murder, with a giant spider who nearly kills the babes, fairy tale and Mother Goose characters, demonology, and sex. The show needs a frightening gothic edge and Disney fails in that respect, along with the demonology, the spider, the murder, the sex, and the child abuse.

The Wikipedia synopsis of the 1903 plot is pretty accurate. The plot in the Bloom-Vlastnik book 101 Musicals is completely wrong, and I sent Ken Bloom an accurate synopsis for the book that he overlooked or misplaced. In 1903 there was no Forest of No Return; that's a Disney title. It was The Spider's Den. Curiously, the information about Old Mother Hubbard is a throwaway line  over what a nasty creep Uncle Barnaby is in the first scene.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babes_in_Toyland_(operetta)

[Jane]

Bruce I'm glad you feel better.

[Druxy]

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY is a favorite film of mine, so I will definitely be ordering  A TIME FOR SINGING.

[John G.]

Larry, by some odd twist, I ended up with two Victor Herbert movies on DVD this week, "Naughty Marietta" and "March of the Wooden Soldiers" with Laurel & Hardy. I know the former, but I haven't seen the latter. They play up the Herbert connection on the case. Is it a good representation or is it a typical Laurel & Hardy?

Herbert's daughter and executor hated the Laurel & Hardy movie, but I'm sure she detested even more the Disney film version. She sold to MGM in the 1930s film rights to SWEETHEARTS, NAUGHTY MARIETTA, EILEEN, and THE ROSE OF ALGIERS, but only the first two got made. I have a CD of the MGM orchestra and singers performing the songs from THE ROSE OF ALGIERS as an "audition" for, I'd guess, Louis B. Mayer. The score is fantastic.

So, back to BABES. It's a funny movie but it bears as much resemblance to the stage show as I do to Eleanor Roosevelt. I like it, especially because the monsters are really frightening, but it's a little too sugary, although the cast is great. The original musical is a fast paced comedy about child abuse and murder, with a giant spider who nearly kills the babes, fairy tale and Mother Goose characters, demonology, and sex. The show needs a frightening gothic edge and Disney fails in that respect, along with the demonology, the spider, the murder, the sex, and the child abuse.

The Wikipedia synopsis of the 1903 plot is pretty accurate. The plot in the Bloom-Vlastnik book 101 Musicals is completely wrong, and I sent Ken Bloom an accurate synopsis for the book that he overlooked or misplaced. In 1903 there was no Forest of No Return; that's a Disney title. It was The Spider's Den. Curiously, the information about Old Mother Hubbard is a throwaway line  over what a nasty creep Uncle Barnaby is in the first scene.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babes_in_Toyland_(operetta)

Thank you, Eleanor. Looking forward to watching it -- as soon as I finish season five of mad men.