My buddy Shelly Tucker of This Eclectic Life is holding a contest to give away five of her ghost story CDs.
Now you should be reading Shelly regularly anyway, but just in case you are among the uninitiated, she tells the best stories ever on her blog. Why? Because that is what she does even away from her blog: Spinning yarns while spinning yarns for the delight of children of all ages.
Now hop on over using the link above and get your entry in for some good spookieness of the season.
In 1969 " the BBC's head of light entertainment said, "I'll give you 13 shows, but that's all," and Monty Python's Flying Circus aired to a perplexed, but eventually grateful, British audience on Monday 5 October that same year. Over the subsequent 45 shows, the rules of television comedy were rewritten as John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam created lunatic characters and sketches, as funny today as they were 40 years ago. Read all about it in today's Guardian or just watch one of the funniest bits one more time: The Ministry of Silly Walks.
After decades of hilarity and several successful motion pictures, Monty Python finally made its way to Broadway with SPAMALOT. First the originals, followed by the Broadway cast
This week's "Take This Tune" is O Mio Babbino Caro, the lovely aria from Gianni Schicci. The opera is about the slap stick comedy that can result when the kinfolk are looking for a will before the body is barely cold. Throughout it all there runs the theme of young love and feuding relatives. Perhaps this is why the aria is used as the theme music in the movie adaptation for an equally overheated story of young love, E. M. Forster's "A Room With a View"
This Edwardian social comedy is about love and propriety among an eccentric group staying at the same Italian pensione and in a corner of Surrey, England. A young English woman, Lucy Honeychurch, while on the requisite tour of the continent in the company of an elderly spinster aunt, manages to faint into the arms of a handsome man when she witnesses a murder. Attracted to George Emerson, who is entirely unsuitable and whose father just may be a Socialist, Lucy is soon at war with the snobbery of her class and her own conflicting desires.
Back in England she is courted by a more acceptable, if dull, suitor, and realizes she must choose between propriety and passion. This delightful tale of young love is based in Forster's quirky but recognizable characters of the period, including outrageous spinsters and pompous clergymen. Written in 1908, A Room With A View is one of E.M. Forster's earliest works. I won't spoil the ending and Lucy's choice for you as you can get the book anywhere and the movie is available on DVD or just watch the whole thing on line starting below or here.
Thanks to the aria, this is probably one of the most enjoyable sets of credits you will get to see.
