Tune In Tuesday: The King and I

This one was cut from the movie, but "I Have Dreamed" is possibly my favorite song from The King and I, and it was on the very first Unrequited Love Showtunes CD. It's a simple, lovely ballad, which are the only Rodgers and Hammerstein songs I tend to like, and this one just has a beautiful melody to it. Here it is sung by Douglas Sills at a Rodgers & Hammerstein PBS tribute concert.

Best of 2014: Quotes from Books

And thus begins the recap blogs of 2014! I'll still be doing Tune Ins on Tuesday and Thursday, and Quest for Forgiveness on Fridays, but Mondays and Wednesdays for maybe the entire next month will be taken up with year recaps of different topics. BUT IT'LL BE AWESOME.

Let's start with something inspirational and fun -- the quotes I saved on Goodreads from this year's books. Every so often I'll come across something I know I want to save, either because it's funny or beautiful or just nicely phrased, and Goodreads is excellent for cataloging those. So let's look at my favorite quotes of the year, in order of when I added them.

“There was an assumption that I was personally attacking Sarah Palin by impersonating her on TV. No one ever said it was 'mean' when Chevy Chase played Gerald Ford falling down all the time. No one ever accused Dana Carvey or Darrell Hammond or Dan Aykroyd of 'going too far' in their political impressions. You see what I'm getting at here. I am not mean and Mrs. Palin is not fragile. To imply otherwise is a disservice to us both.” 

― Tina Fey, Bossypants

“I have no affinity for animals. I don’t hate animals and I would never hurt an animal; I just don’t actively care about them. When a coworker shows me cute pictures of her dog, I struggle to respond correctly, like an autistic person who has been taught to recognize human emotions from flash cards. In short, I am the worst.” 

― Tina Fey, Bossypants

(The attribution is weird on this upcoming set of quotes, because I was reading a collection of all the Kindle-available Anne books, so when I uploaded the quote, that's how it marked them.)

“If I really wanted to pray I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd go out into a great big field all alone or into the deep, deep, woods, and I'd look up into the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I'd just FEEL a prayer.” 

― L.M. Montgomery, The Anne Stories (Anne of Green Gables, #1-3, 5, 7-8)

“But have you ever noticed one encouraging thing about me, Marilla? I never make the same mistake twice." 

"I don't know as that's much benefit when you're always making new ones." 

"Oh, don't you see, Marilla? There must be a limit to the mistakes one person can make, and when I get to the end of them, then I'll be through with them. That's a very comforting thought.” 

― L.M. Montgomery, The Anne Stories (Anne of Green Gables, #1-3, 5, 7-8)

“I am sure we should not shut our hearts against the healing influences that nature offers us.” 

― L.M. Montgomery, The Anne Stories (Anne of Green Gables, #1-3, 5, 7-8)

“Mrs. Lynde was complaining the other day that it wasn't much of a world. She said whenever you looked forward to anything pleasant you were sure to be more or less disappointed …perhaps that is true. But there is a good side to it too. The bad things don't always come up to your expectations either …they nearly always turn out ever so much better than you think.” 

― L.M. Montgomery, The Anne Stories (Anne of Green Gables, #1-3, 5, 7-8)

“I'd like to add some beauty to life," said Anne dreamily. "I don't exactly want to make people KNOW more... though I know that IS the noblest ambition... but I'd love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me... to have some little joy or happy thought that would never have existed if I hadn't been born.” 

― L.M. Montgomery, The Anne Stories (Anne of Green Gables, #1-3, 5, 7-8)

“That's a lovely idea, Diana," said Anne enthusiastically. "Living so that you beautify your name, even if it wasn't beautiful to begin with … making it stand in people's thoughts for something so lovely and pleasant that they never think of it by itself.” 

― L.M. Montgomery, The Anne Stories (Anne of Green Gables, #1-3, 5, 7-8)

“I don't want her to be like other people. There are too many other people around as it is.” 

― L.M. Montgomery, The Anne Stories (Anne of Green Gables, #1-3, 5, 7-8)

“And he says he doesn't believe all the heathen will be eternally lost. The idea! If they won't all the money we've been giving to Foreign Missions will be clean wasted, that's what!” 

― L.M. Montgomery, The Anne Stories (Anne of Green Gables, #1-3, 5, 7-8)

“Anne was always glad in the happiness of her friends; but it is sometimes a little lonely to be surrounded everywhere by a happiness that is not your own.” 

― L.M. Montgomery, The Anne Stories (Anne of Green Gables, #1-3, 5, 7-8)

“Little Jem had said 'Wow-ga' that morning. What were principalities and powers, the rise and fall of dynasties, the overthrow of Grit or Tory, compared with that miraculous occurrence?” 

― L.M. Montgomery, The Anne Stories (Anne of Green Gables, #1-3, 5, 7-8)

“I wish I could like the baby a little bit. It would make things easier. But I don't. I've heard people say that when you took care of a baby you got fond of it—but you don't—I don't, anyway.” 

― L.M. Montgomery, The Anne Stories (Anne of Green Gables, #1-3, 5, 7-8)

“One of my core fears is that someone would think I can’t handle as much as the next person. It’s fundamental to my understanding of myself for me to be the strong one, the capable one, the busy one, the one who can bail you out, not make a fuss, bring a meal, add a few more things to the list. For me, everything becomes a lifestyle. Everything is an addiction.” 

― Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way

“Left to our own devices, we sometimes choose the most locked up, dark versions of the story, but what a good friend does is turn on the lights, open the window, and remind us that there are a whole lot of ways to tell the same story.” 

― Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way

“Grace isn’t about having a second chance; grace is having so many chances that you could use them through all eternity and never come up empty. It’s when you finally realize that the other shoe isn’t going to drop, ever.” 

― Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way

“The young minister was a very good young man, and tried to do his duty; but he was dreadfully afraid of meeting old Mr. Scott, because he had been told that the old minister was very angry at being set aside, and would likely give him a sound drubbing, if he ever met him. One day the young minister was visiting the Crawfords in Markdale, when they suddenly heard old Mr. Scott's voice in the kitchen. The young minister turned pale as the dead, and implored Mrs. Crawford to hide him. But she couldn't get him out of the room, and all she could do was to hide him in the china closet. The young minister slipped into the china closet, and old Mr. Scott came into the room. He talked very nicely, and read, and prayed. They made very long prayers in those days, you know; and at the end of his prayer he said. 'Oh Lord, bless the poor young man hiding in the closet. Give him courage not to fear the face of man. Make him a burning and a shining light to this sadly abused congregation.” 

― L.M. Montgomery, The Anne Stories (Anne of Green Gables, #1-3, 5, 7-8)

“That’s why it’s hard, I think, to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. I love that line from the Bible, but it’s so incredibly difficult sometimes, because when you’ve got reason to rejoice, you forget what it’s like to mourn, even if you swear you never will. And because when you’re mourning, the fact that someone close to you is rejoicing seems like a personal affront.” 

― Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way

“Life hands us opportunities at every turn to get over ourselves, to get outside ourselves, to wake up from our own bad dreams and realize that really lovely things are happening all the time.” 

― Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way

“When you do what you love with people who love the same thing, something is born into your midst and begins to connect you.” 

― Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way

“The home team concept for me is not all about getting myself out of the doghouse with a whole bunch of people who need something from me. It’s about making sure that the people who deserve my energy and love and attention get it before it’s sucked up by people who have their own home teams.” 

― Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way

“When we, any of us who have been transformed by Christ, tell our own stories, we’re telling the story of who God is.” 

― Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way

“We’re the start of an amazing, dumbfounding history of survival that will only get better as the centuries pass.” 

― Ray Bradbury, Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales

“They sat on the edge of a brook and took off their shoes and let the water cut their feet off to the ankles with an exquisite cold razor.” 

― Ray Bradbury, Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales

“While we are in that condition of darkness, we cannot have true fellowship with our brother either--for we are not real with him, and no one can have fellowship with an unreal person.” 

― Roy Hession, The Calvary Road

“They blended religion and art and science because, at base, science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle.” 

― Ray Bradbury, Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales

“You lose a child and you do understand each other's grief at first, but if you get out of step with each other, it's all over. Suddenly each of you is alone.” 

― Alison Bruce, Cambridge Blue

“Having spent my life trying to fit the will of others, I was unable to distinguish between what I enjoyed and what I thought I should enjoy.” 

― David Sedaris, Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules

“Because Saleem was louder about Islam than I was, he was considered more of a man.” 

― Ali Eteraz, Children of Dust: A Memoir of Pakistan

“Your disapproval is noted. It is legitimate. You are welcome to disapprove. But you are not welcome to be ignorant, to look the other way, to be unable to perform—should you change your mind.” 

― John Irving, The Cider House Rules

“If you swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn: no more was this knight swearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard.” 

― William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of Shakespeare

“This wide and universal theatre 

Presents more woeful pageants than the scene 

Wherein we play in.” 

― William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of Shakespeare

“Marry, sir, she's the kitchen wench and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to but to make a lamp of her and run from her by her own light.” 

― William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of Shakespeare

“From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: 

They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; 

They are the books, the arts, the academes, 

That show, contain and nourish all the world: 

Else none at all in ought proves excellent.” 

― William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of Shakespeare

“God will judge us, Mr. Harris, by--by what we did to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings. I don't think God cares what doctrine we embrace.” 

― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“He that drinks all night, and is hanged betimes in the morning, may sleep the sounder all the next day.” 

― William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of Shakespeare

“(I was in love with Sherlock Holmes—I even had a fingerprinting kit that I used everywhere—proving my mother’s use of Tampax or that my sister once held the candy bowl.)” 

― Sarah Silverman, The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee

“I will always try to be happy. I don’t think people really understand the value of happiness until they know what it’s like to be in that very, very dark place. It’s not romantic. Not even a little.” 

― Sarah Silverman, The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee

“If you’ve ever heard that song by Beyoncé, “Single Ladies,” I am one of the people she’s singing about. I have to be, because she sings, “All the single ladies.” If she didn’t mean to include me in that, then she really needs to choose her words more carefully.” 

― Sarah Silverman, The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee

“Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.” 

― William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of Shakespeare

“Pride hath no other glass 

To show itself but pride,” 

― William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of Shakespeare

“O, let not virtue seek 

Remuneration for the thing it was; 

For beauty, wit, 

High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, 

Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all 

To envious and calumniating time.” 

― William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of Shakespeare

“There may be in the cup 

A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart, 

And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge 

Is not infected: but if one present 

The abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known 

How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides, 

With violent hefts. I have drunk, and seen the spider.” 

― William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of Shakespeare

“We’ve become too song focused, and in truth I believe that we need to be more worship focused. We’ve lost the ability to push aside the songs and replace them with twenty-five minutes of crying out, opening our hearts and heads with the raw worship of God who’s within us.” 

― Martin Smith, Delirious: My Journey with the Band, a Growing Family, and an Army of Historymakers

“Today there are some worship artists doing well, but when you buy their latest album you don’t expect any difference from the previous three. This doesn’t seem to do justice to the awesome creative power of almighty God. Serving up the same old, same old is never on the menu for God.” 

― Martin Smith, Delirious: My Journey with the Band, a Growing Family, and an Army of Historymakers

“At times the Christian scene is more dangerous. Sometimes, we have this Disneyland existence where we all have to pretend to be squeaky clean, yet reality’s not like that. Sometimes things are happening in secret that are not healthy: alcohol problems, pornography, people travelling too much or getting into trouble, but it all gets covered up even though it exists, behind closed doors with the 'Do Not Disturb' signs dangling on the outside. If I was hanging out at a mainstream party, I might not agree with what a certain singer of a certain secular band was up to, but at least what you saw was what you got. This sort of honesty was endearing.” 

― Martin Smith, Delirious: My Journey with the Band, a Growing Family, and an Army of Historymakers

“Unity transcends time, style, and numbers. When people hold hands across their own theologies, that unity can bring down the modern-day walls of Jericho.” 

― Martin Smith, Delirious: My Journey with the Band, a Growing Family, and an Army of Historymakers

“I did not really seek liberty. I am a civilised man. The civilised man knows there is no such thing. Only the younger and cruder nations put the word Liberty on their banner. There must always be a planned framework of security. And the essence of civilisation is that the way of life should be a moderate one.” 

― Agatha Christie, Destination Unknown

“Somehow we landed on the subject of Pim’s extreme diffidence. His modesty is a well-known fact, which even the stupidest person wouldn’t dream of questioning. All of a sudden Mrs. van Daan, who feels the need to bring herself into every conversation, remarked, “I’m very modest and retiring too, much more so than my husband!” 

― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“The best remedy for those who are frightened, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere they can be alone, alone with the sky, nature and God.” 

― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“I’d like to live that seemingly carefree and happy life for an evening, a few days, a week. At the end of that week I’d be exhausted, and would be grateful to the first person to talk to me about something meaningful.” 

― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“She was crying because she was far from home, and who among us has never wanted to do that? There need be no other reason; just that. We cry for home, and for flowers on tables, and biscuits in little tins, and for mother; and we feel embarrassed, and foolish too, that we should be crying for such things; but we should not feel that way because all of us, in a sense, have strayed from home, and wish to return.” 

― Alexander McCall Smith, The Dog who Came in from the Cold

“We should all busy ourselves in being who we are, although many of us do not and spend so much time and energy being something else. We try to be what others want us to be, or what we ourselves want to be. And then we suddenly realise that our lives have shot past and we have not got round to being who we really” 

― Alexander McCall Smith, The Dog who Came in from the Cold

“That was the way the world was; it was composed of a few almost perfect people (ourselves); then there were a good many people who generally did their best but were not all that perfect (our friends and colleagues); and finally, there were a few rather nasty ones (our enemies and opponents).” 

― Alexander McCall Smith, The Double Comfort Safari Club

“He could not imagine being interested in that way in somebody like Mma Mateleke; how would one ever get to plant a kiss on such a person if she was always talking? It would be difficult to get one’s lips into contact with a mouth that was always opening and shutting to form words; that would surely be very distracting for a man, he thought, and might even discourage him to the point of disinclination, if that was the right word.” 

― Alexander McCall Smith, The Double Comfort Safari Club

“Coffee goes great with sudden death.” 

― Gillian Flynn, Dark Places

“I’m not good at things like that: haircuts or oil changes or dentist visits. When I moved into my bungalow, I spent the first three months swaddled in blankets because I couldn’t deal with getting the gas turned on. It’s been turned off three times in the past few years, because sometimes I can’t quite bring myself to write a check. I have trouble maintaining.” 

― Gillian Flynn, Dark Places

“As a child, I was constantly being sent on playdates with other kids—the shrinks insisted I interact with cohorts. That’s what my meeting with Lyle was like: those first loose, horrible ten minutes, when the grown-ups have left, and neither kid knows what the other one wants, so you stand there, near the TV they’ve told you to keep off, fiddling with the antenna.” 

― Gillian Flynn, Dark Places

“It was surprising that you could spend hours in the middle of the night pretending things were OK, and know in thirty seconds of daylight that that simply wasn’t so.” 

― Gillian Flynn, Dark Places

“And I don’t know, you’re at that age, if a bunch of grownups are telling you something or encouraging you, it just … it started to feel real. That Ben had molested me, because otherwise, why were all these adults trying to get me to say he had? And my parents would be all stern: It’s OK to tell the truth. It’s OK to tell the truth. And so you told the lie that they thought was the truth.” 

― Gillian Flynn, Dark Places

“I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough; swore little; diced not above seven times a week; went to a bawdy-house once in a quarter—of an hour; paid money that I borrowed, three of four times; lived well and in good compass: and now I live out of all order, out of all compass.” 

― William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of Shakespeare

“And she began to weep, dropping her head onto her forearms and rocking backwards and forwards in that curious motion that is perhaps a subconscious attempt to mimic the movement that brings comfort to a tiny baby. That we should in moments of sorrow seek to return to a time when the harshness of the world could be forfended by the simple reassurances of our parents; that we should do that …” 

― Alexander McCall Smith, The Double Comfort Safari Club

Did you keep track of favorite quotes this year? If so, what are your favorites? Or are there any of this list that particularly strike you? Share in the comments!

Introverts and Online Interactions (Vacation Repost)

Well, I'm off visiting my family in Illinois for most of this week, so we'll be reposting a few of my most popular blogs ever.

This particular one was first posted on February 6, 2013.

I subscribe to a couple different introvert-centered blogs, and recently ran across this post over at Introvert Zone.

To quote the main question being asked of the community (by an extrovert):

I’ve notice that amongst several of my introverted friends, they have a different persona when online. Introverted friends become more outspoken, mannerisms change drastically. Is is just my friends who are a special case, or do many introverts have the same situation? Or is it just a personal perspective, since I have difficulty separating my real life personality with internet personality?

First of all, for me, yes, I am much more comfortable with online interaction than I am with "real life" interaction, and have been since I was about ten or so. Many of my closest friends are people I met online or interact with the most online. So I feel like I definitely know what the original poster's talking about and I have answers to his questions.

The main point that I'd like to make to that poster is this: I have found that introverts don't necessarily change who they are online, they're just allowed to be who they are. The social trappings that follow us around, exhausting and infuriating us, don't exist as much in an online format. We can relax a little bit. We can be ourselves.

Off the top of my head, I can think of three distinct reasons why this is the case.

For one thing, there's less social obligation to speak. If you're in a room full of people and you never say a word, people eventually start looking at you strangely, start asking you questions directly to make you speak up. Online, that kind of pressure is lessened.

As an example, take RinkWorks, a fantastic online community I'm a part of that consists mostly of introverts. I am often in the chat room there all day long, but I may only be actively chatting for maybe an hour or so total. It's not at all uncommon for every single person in the chat room to be silent for a couple hours, until someone breaks the silence by posting an interesting link, and then it's silent again for another 45 minutes. There are people who sit in the room for hours and say only one or two things that entire time.

(Newbies who are used to more fast-paced chat rooms are thrown by this. We occasionally get somebody who wanders in, and says, with 20-30 seconds between each post:
hi.
hello.
hello??
why is no one talking?
man this place is dead
And then they leave.)

This, to me, means I am more comfortable actually speaking up. The pressure to "say something" often leads to me saying stupid things, or just clamming up and refusing to say anything at all because I'm afraid I'll say stupid things. Take the pressure off, and I became much more relaxed, much calmer, and much less nervous about speaking up.

Secondly, when I do have something to say, I can work out exactly how I want to say it. Many introverts are seen as having nothing to say, when really, they're just still processing how to say it. Online, this is not as much of an issue. Introverts often express themselves best in written form because it lets them work out the words they want to use without having to constantly verbally backtrack. What I say is precisely what I mean to say online. I have stated it so that there is little danger of it being misunderstood. Online interaction is the perfect answer for those of us who only finish constructing our replies after the conversation has moved on to something else.

Online forums are brilliant for this. You can answer a question days after it's been asked, and it's not any sort of social faux pas. Even in most chat rooms, returning to an earlier topic with an answer is usually considered acceptable. You don't have to think fast to be able to participate, the way it often is in real life conversations.

Third, when I have something to say and know how to say it, I don't have to feel like I'm pushing my way into a conversation. People don't have to stop "speaking" to listen to me. My words are there for them to read whenever they want to. Or they can ignore my words. It doesn't matter to me, as long as I feel like I'm not intruding.

Obviously, there are situations where I feel like I'm intruding on an online conversation. I'm always hesitant to comment on a post somebody left on somebody else's Facebook wall, as an example. But, for the most part, online interaction is much more open to one-off comments from lurkers than real life interaction is.

Those three things together mean that I am far more comfortable in online situations. I don't have to grasp for meaningless words, I can say exactly what I mean, I can say what I want without getting in other people's way. As a result, I often come across very differently online than I do in real life. But while I occasionally hear arguments that online interaction masks the true self, I'd argue that the personality I exhibit online is the truest version of me. It's full of qualities I exhibit offline in situations where I feel comfortable and qualities that get hidden or lost when I am uncomfortable.

I'd love to hear thoughts from... well, pretty much anybody on this subject. Introverts, extroverts, members of other online communities, people who've never been members of online communities... does this sound familiar? Does it sound crazy? Do you think your online persona is the same or different from who you are offline? Let me know in the comments!

Tune In Thursday: Beauty and the Beast

Let's have a fun song today from my favorite Disney movie. "Belle" opens the film and the musical, and it's a great way to introduce us to the main character, giving us both her own perception of herself and how everyone else perceives her.

The "What? They Did Musical Theater?" Mix (Vacation Repost)

Well, I'm off visiting my family in Illinois for most of this week. Tune Ins will still happen on T/Th as scheduled (those are easy to write ahead of time) but the rest of this week, we'll be reposting a few of my most popular blogs ever.

This particular one was first posted on November 11, 2011.

In the middle of a Star Trek conversation with a friend last week, I mentioned that Brent Spiner (Data from TNG) was a musical theater guy. This led to a discussion of famous celebrities who had done musical theater but weren't really known for it. And I thought, "Oh, right. I've always wanted to make a mix like that."

Initially the plan was to make an "I Didn't Know They Could Sing" mix, intending to include people who had released solo albums or been in bands, but as I started collecting songs, I ended up focusing mostly on cast recordings, so I decided, whatever, I'd just make it about the theater people. Also, when I pulled the list together, all but one of them were guys, so I kicked the one female performer off in favor of a slightly more unified theme. (Sorry, Glenn Close, people are going to have to look up your Sunset Boulevard performances on their own.)

So! Not a lot of commentary here - mostly just the tracklist and links. And, actually, I don't physically own all these songs yet, so no downloadable mix (yet). In the meantime, listen to the songs provided on YouTube.

1. "Rosie" from Bye Bye Birdie, performed by Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation)

I first discovered Brent Spiner was a singer when I heard him in the 1997 Broadway revival cast of 1776, where he played John Adams. He's also released a CD of jazz standards called "Ol' Yellow Eyes Is Back," so if you liked this, check that out.

2. "Marry Me a Little" from Company, performed by John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness from Doctor Who and Torchwood)

I knew John Barrowman from musical theater long before I started watching Doctor Who. I had seen clips of him in the Sondheim revue Putting It Together (which is where this performance comes from), and then I discovered some of the clips from his Sunset Boulevard. He's also released several CDs.

3. "Sweet Transvestite" from The Rocky Horror Show, performed by Anthony Stewart Head (Rupert Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Most of the cast of Buffy got to sing in the musical episode from season six, but Anthony Stewart Head was a musical theater person long before that, with performances in Rocky Horror, Pirates of Penzance, Chess, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

4. "Not the Boy Next Door" from The Boy From Oz, performed by Hugh Jackman (Wolverine from X-Men)

Most people are aware of Hugh Jackman's musical theater prowess now - he's sung while hosting award shows and there are all sorts of jokes made about the fact that he's both an action movie star and a Broadway singer. But for anyone who wasn't aware of it... here he is at the Tonys with Boy From Oz (he won Best Actor in a Musical that year).

5. "Put on a Happy Face" from Bye Bye Birdie, performed by Jason Alexander (George Costanza from Seinfeld)

I find Jason Alexander's voice to be oddly soothing. This particular clip is from the 1995 TV cast of Bye Bye Birdie, but he's also had plenty of theaterperformances as well. He even won the Tony for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance in Jerome Robbins' Broadway in 1989.

6. "Why Can't the English?" from My Fair Lady, performed by Jeremy Irons (Scar from The Lion King...and a lot of other things)

Jeremy Irons has indeed done a fair amount of musical theater. Here he carries on the Rex Harrison tradition of speak-singing Professor Henry Higgins' songs, but he's also been in productions of A Little Night Music and Camelot.

7. "Show People" from Curtains, performed by David Hyde Pierce (Niles Crane from Frasier)

I have to admit, I have never seen even one episode of Frasier. So I only ever knew David Hyde Pierce from Spamalot and Curtains. Well, and A Bug's Life. Here he is at the Tony Awards.

8. "Children Will Listen" from Into the Woods, performed by Mandy Patinkin (Inigo Montoya. You killed his father. Prepare to die)

Mandy Patinkin's kind of a big deal in musical theater land. Among other things, he starred in the original casts of Sunday in the Park With George, Evita, and The Secret Garden. I've never been a huge fan of his (his voice is a style I've never been fond of) but he most definitely belongs on this mix.

9. "Guido's Song" from Nine, performed by Antonio Banderas (everybody knows who he is, right?)

Besides playing Che in the movie version of Evita, Antonio Banderas was also in the 2003 revival cast of Nine, which got him nominated for a Tony. He's set to play the title role in the Broadway revival of the Kander and Ebb musical Zorba, opening... uh... sometime. Wikipedia said fall of 2011, but that is nearly over, so not sure what's happening with that.

10. "Try to Remember" from The Fantasticks, performed by Jerry Orbach (Lennie Briscoe from Law & Order)

Jerry Orbach was also kind of a big deal in musical theater world. He originated this role in The Fantasticks, Chuck in Promises, Promises, Julian Marsh in 42nd Street, and Billy Flynn in Chicago. At least he got to sing when he voice Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast.

11. "Half As Big As Life" from Promises, Promises, performed by Sean Hayes (Jack McFarland from Will & Grace)

And here's another celebrity in the role that Jerry Orbach originated. I actually got to see this production in New York and while Sean Hayes is not a terribly strong singer, he was a very likable protagonist and was definitely fun to watch in the role. He was nominated for a Tony for this part.

12. "Is Anybody There?" from 1776, performed by William Daniels (Mr. Feeny from Boy Meets World)

I only watched Boy Meets World once or twice ever, so William Daniels was always John Adams to me. He reprised his Broadway role in the 1972 film version of 1776 and is fantastic. He's not really much of a singer, but does an amazing job portraying the character.

13. "Luck Be a Lady" from Guys and Dolls, performed by Peter Gallagher (Sandy Cohen from The O.C.)

OK, I don't watch The O.C. either, but apparently that's where a lot of my friends know him from. I knew him as the coma guy from While You Were Sleeping. But back before that, he was in the Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls with Josie de Guzman, Nathan Lane and Faith Prince in 1992.

14. "I'm Not That Smart" from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, performed by Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Mitchell from Modern Family)

Two links here because the first one has video, which I think is so much more fun with this song, but the quality isn't great. The second link is the cast recording version. Jesse Tyler Ferguson sings my very favorite song from this show, playing an easily distracted young child who comes from a large family. This song always makes me laugh, and he does a great job with it.

And that's my mix! I'm sure I'll eventually think of more, so there might eventually be a part 2, but I figured this was a good introduction to some people who I always associate with musical theater, but nobody else does. Heh.

Tune In Tuesday: Journey

Well, uh, I'm pretty sure everyone already knows this song, so just enjoy it. Unless you're my husband, in which case, you don't have to enjoy it.

100 Things I Love About Films (Vacation Repost)

Well, I'm off visiting my family in Illinois for most of this week. Tune Ins will still happen on T/Th as scheduled (those are easy to write ahead of time) but the rest of this week, we'll be reposting a few of my most popular blogs ever.

This particular one was first posted on March 27, 2011. Nonworking picture/video links have been removed, since my Internet is being crazy and not letting me find good replacements.

Blogger and FlickCharter Travis McClain posted this on his blog. It was originally a Facebook note composed by a friend of his (Beau Kaelin - credit where credit's due) but it's also been spreading to the blogosphere. (May that be the first and last time I ever use that word.) Here are the instructions:

Rather than posting your 100 favorite films (which has been done and overdone), you simply post your favorite things about movies. I dig the concept, because instead of obsessing over whether the films you put on a list are "objectively good enough" to put on said list, you simply jot down 100 moments/lines/visuals that have made a lasting impression on you or sneak their way into running gags between you and your friends. Just read below and you'll get the idea.

1. "La Marseillaise" in Casablanca.

2. The fact that every single line in Napoleon Dynamite is quotable.

3. When live Broadway shows are filmed and released on DVD. There needs to be more of that.

4. The scene in The Fisher King where Robin Williams follows Amanda Plummer through Grand Central Station and the entire place turns into a ballroom.

5. The first half hour of Wall-E and how it evokes such strong characters and story without dialogue. Or live actors.

6. Tom Baxter from The Purple Rose of Cairo.

7. Watching Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau interact in pretty much everything they've ever done together.

8. The soundtrack for Love Actually. The gleeful Christmas cheesiness of "All I Want For Christmas" fills me with joy every time I watch it. "Both Sides Now" was an amazing, heartbreaking choice of Emma Thompson's discovery of her husband's affair. "God Only Knows" is the best possible song to choose to end this movie. The love theme has made me cry quite a few times.

8b. I absolutely love the "Here With Me" moment in that movie, as Mark walks away from his apartment... then turns back... then keeps turning, until he finally decides to keep walking away.

9. The Woody Allen opening credits. They make me feel at home every time I watch one of his movies.

10. The angry dance from Billy Elliot. (The linked clip has some adult language.)

11. Similarly, the angry warehouse dance from Footloose. There's just something about people releasing so much pent-up emotion through dance...

12. "I do love eating with a spoon, don't you?" -Cold Comfort Farm

13. All of Sinbad of the Seven Seas. My all-time favorite so-bad-it's-good movie. The fact that Sinbad keeps drawing his sword to fight and then throwing it away. The wonderfully awful dialogue ("Gosh, you're beautiful"). The humor that makes absolutely no sense. Sinbad inflating an entire hot air balloon by blowing it up manually. The expressions he makes when fighting the Ghost King.

14. The entire dream city folding in on itself in Inception.

15. How a premise like "Guy falls in love with a sex doll" can turn into something so surprisingly sweet like Lars and the Real Girl. I would never have thought that story would be as good as it was. It gives me hope for other movies whose premises are unimpressive.

16. "You always see the glass as half empty."

"No, I see it half full, but of poison." -Scoop

17. When I watched Shattered Glass and realized Hayden Christiansen could act.

18. The king's speech. In, er, The King's Speech.

19. I take the same emotional ride as the title character in the 1995 remake of Sabrina. Every single time, even though I know how it ends, I fall in love with the guys in the same order and at the same time she does. That's what every romcom should do and almost never does.

20. Anton Yelchin in Charlie Bartlett.

21. "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid. IMHO, easily the best animated musical sequence of all time.

22. The final act of Bug. Eeeep.

23. "Sardines! I've forgotten the sardines... No, I haven't. I haven't forgotten the sardines. I remembered the sardines. Well, what a surprise; I guess I'll just go into the kitchen and fix some more sardines to celebrate!" -Noises Off

24. The over-croweded cabin in A Night at the Opera.

25. Twist endings that take me completely by surprise.

26. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World - probably the most fun I've ever had at a movie theater.

27. Recognizing actors I know and love from TV shows or musical theater in bits parts... an especially bright spot in not-very-good movies. ("Oh my gosh! That's Chris O'Dowd as the blind swordsman!")

28. All of The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. One of the best genre spoofs I've ever seen. It involves skeletons, meteors, aliens, and several different forest animals turned into a single woman.

29. "After that it got pretty late, and we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I realized what a terrific person she was, and how much fun it was just knowing her; and I thought of that old joke, you know, this... this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, 'Doc, my brother's crazy; he thinks he's a chicken.' And, the doctor says, 'Well, why don't you turn him in?' The guy says, 'I would, but I need the eggs.' Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships; they're totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd... but, I guess we keep going through it because most of us... need the eggs." -Annie Hall

30. The "Moses" dance from Singin' in the Rain. There's absolutely no reason for this song to be in the movie, other than it is FUN.

31. The imaginary baseball game in Once Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

32. "El Tango de Roxanne" from Moulin Rouge! Well, and the entire movie, but this part of the movie left me literally breathless when I first watched it. The chaos of sound at the end, along with the barrage of images of the Duke's attack on Satine, just mesmerizes me.

33. When Truman sails into the wall from The Truman Show.

34. "All right, Mr. DeMille. I'm ready for my close-up!" -Sunset Blvd.

35. The sad, sad final scene of The Others. So much atmosphere in this movie.

36. Edward Norton in Fight Club.

37. Speaking of Edwards... the title character of Edward Scissorhands.

38. The tiny Stonehenge debacle from This Is Spinal Tap.

39. Watching a classic movie you've never seen before and going, "Oh! THAT'S where that reference comes from!"

40. The moment in Back to the Future 3 where the characters suddenly switch catch phrases. I missed it the first couple times around.

41. When Broadway musicals are adapted into movies and they don't mess it up, despite casting big-name stars.

42. Han Solo.

43. "We'd like you to meet some of our... friends."

"Yeah. This is Dave Beethoven. And, uh, Maxine of Arc. Herman the Kid."

"Bob Genghis Khan. Socrates Johnson. Dennis Frood. And uh, uh... Abraham Lincoln." -Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

44. Finding directors whose films I consistently like. Billy Wilder, Woody Allen, Baz Luhrmann...

45. ...and Richard Linklater, who first convinced me with Before Sunrise. Just two people talking for a couple hours, and yet it's more compelling than most romantic dramas with twists and turns of plot.

46. Life is Beautiful: Robert Benigni deliberately mistranslates the German soldier's instructions in the concentration camp because he doesn't want his son to know what's really going on and get scared. Great bit of comedy in the much darker second half of this movie.

47. Ferris Bueller.

48. Watching a film with subtitles and forgetting afterwards that it was in another language at all because you were so wrapped up in it. (I keep forgetting Pan's Labyrinth is Spanish.)

49. In 12 Angry Men, every character's personality can be seen. You can almost predict when each characters is going to be pushed to vote not guilty. None of it's arbitrary, none of it's random.

50. Elwood P. Dowd.

51. The second stabbing in Psycho. I knew the famous first one, but the second one took me completely by surprise. I'm pretty sure I yelped out loud.

52. "The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle, the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!" -The Court Jester

53. Finding a movie I love in a genre I hate.

54. The library scene in Wings of Desire.

55. Seeing now-classic actors in the very first thing they ever did.

56. I'm really, really trying not to make this all Woody Allen or musicals-themed, but here are two in a row... John Cusack as the Woody Allen type character in Bullets Over Broadway. Kenneth Branagh, Will Ferrell, and Scarlett Johansson have all tackled the same role, but Cusack is by far the best.

57. The opening of Manhattan.

58. The Lives of Others, which proves that slow-moving movies are not necessarily boring.

59. The talking dogs in Up. Disney's had talking animals in their movies since the beginning, but this was a new and creative way to make it happen.

60. William Daniels in 1776. Everyone else knows him as Mr. Feeny. To me he'll always be John Adams.

61. Actors who seem to be totally different people with every role they play. I'm thinking Amy Adams and Edward Norton right now.

62. The revelation at the end of Tootsie.

63. Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny.

64. Seeing two very different versions of the same character in remakes and discovering you love them both the same.

65. The scene in August Rush when Freddie Highmore first plays around with a guitar.

66. Tiny throwaway jokes that you only catch on a second or third viewing.

67. Jeff Daniels' character in The Squid and the Whale. Such a vivid personality.

68. Natalie Portman in Black Swan.

69. Hogarth's prayer in The Iron Giant. I'm pretty sure I've been to churches who prayed like this...

70. High Fidelity, the best book-to-movie transition of all time. Every character is exactly what I imagined them to be like.

71. Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense. I'm extremely, extremely picky about my child actors. But he not only didn't get in the way of the movie, he made the movie.

72. Buzz Lightyear.

73. Colin Firth in A Single Man. I think he deserved his Oscar this year, but he deserved it even more the year before.

74. Charlie Kaufman. His ideas are the most interesting and original of any screenwriter out there.

75. The interaction between Josh Hartnett and Radha Mitchell in Mozart and the Whale. The two of them are amazing individually, but the way they play off each other is even more amazing.

76. Robert Downey, Jr. can do neither math nor grammar in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

77. The first appearance of the T-rex in Jurassic Park.

78. Dean Martin playing a parody version of himself in Kiss Me, Stupid.

79. All the fake trailers that start off Tropic Thunder.

79b. ...And the part where the director explodes. I laughed out loud.

80. "I'm 37. I'm not old!"

"Well, I can't just call you 'Man.'"

"Well, you could say 'Dennis.'" -Monty Python and the Holy Grail

81. How silly and yet completely satisfying John Hughes movies are.

82. The unsentimental ending of The Apartment.

83. Rewatching The Wizard of Oz with my brothers and sisters. We used to watch it ALL the time when we were little, then not at all for years, then we went back and watched it again and found all these things we completely misunderstood the first time around.

84. The song "After Today" from A Goofy Movie. It's one of my favorite Disney songs of all time. The movie itself is kind of iffy, but the songs are fantastic.

85. The trailer for Cloverfield. I really liked the movie as well, but the trailer was one of the best I've ever seen.

86. Unforgiven as an anti-vigilante movie. Watching Clint Eastwood's character fall back into that is chilling.

87. Neo fights a bunch of Agent Smiths in The Matrix Reloaded. Not so crazy about the rest of the movie, but that was just cool.

88. The opening scene between James Mason and Peter Sellers in Lolita.

89. Darren Aronofsky, who portrays obsession on film better than anyone I can think of.

90. Watching the American adaptation of Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch and being greatly disappointed... then watching the British adaptation and LOVING it.

91. The animation in Waking Life.

92. Ellen Page in Hard Candy. What a role.

93. Watching Adaptation a few years after it was made and realizing that Ted Dekker's book "Thr3e" has the exact same plot as the terrible movie Donald Kaufman's writing.

94. "Klaatu barada nikto." -The Day The Earth Stood Still

95. A child receives a shrunken head for Christmas in The Nightmare Before Christmas. Makes me laugh every time.

96. "I know a little German. He's sitting right over there." -Top Secret!

97. Kevin Kline tries to do the live show without his contacts on Soapdish. "It seems that Angelique has a rare case of brake fluid. Bran... fluid. Bran flavor."

98. Identifying celebrity voices in animated movies. (Particularly nice that the most celebrity-studded ones are usually the least interesting to watch. "Who's That Celebrity?" is an awesome game to play to pass the time.)

99. Patrick Bateman kills his co-worker after a long explanation of Huey Lewis' work in American Psycho.

100. The absolute main thing I love about movies, though, is that they let me see through someone else's eyes for a little bit.