A Fond Farewell Lois…R.I.P.

 

As I read the news thread that Lois Liliensten had passed away the sound of my daughter’s voice singing ‘Skinamirinkydink’ washed over over me. I sang it with her…often.

My daughter loved that song. She loved Sharon, Lois & Bram.

I purchased the album for her, the vinyl version which I still have. It got a lot of play, a lot of wear.

I leaned back in my chair at work to let the emotions, the memories pass through me and oddly enough I found tears sting my eyes.

I was surprised by this.

I then considered this trio and how they had entertained children. My daughter’s eyes would shine listening to them and that smile of hers?

Well, it could light up the night sky it was that brilliant.

And if three people could bring that kind of simple pleasure and joy to the world of a child then they are superstars to me.

So it was with a quiet dignity after a having suffered from a cancer that Lois Liliensten left this earthly plain.

I do hope she didn’t suffer.

There are those in this world who do what they love and are driven by their passion. They are fortunate as well that it sustains them. They can live their life by it.

And all that I do, I love.

Always challenges will be presented. Such is life. And I will always rise to each new hurdle and stumble across. That I accept each challenge and attempt to remedy the problems with honesty and integrity convinces me that to honour all that I do is one of the most important aspects to living.

Even if it something appears mundane, ordinary…it is often in these that we think are so easily attainable that we find are the most difficult to master.

Good-bye Lois.

We loved you…we loved you in the morning and in the afternoon….we loved you in the evening underneath the moon.

Hope you are off dancing with elephants across universe. Thanks for the beautiful memories and a smile that just wouldn’t quite.

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Not Your Average Bear!

I’m not too certain what made me thing about Yogi, but the smile that curled my lips when I did was immediate.

Saturday morning cartoons.

It was a ritual growing up.  Two hours of nonsense where I could get lost in an animated world.

Characters got blown up, had humongous rocks fall on them and fell from cliffs regularly.

But they never died.

If a cat has nine lives then animated characters are indeed immortal.

Silly pranks were played.  Scheming villains tried in vain to execute their various brands of treachery.

Every week their debauched visions were crushed by sly intellectual bunnies or awkward buffoonish bears.

Yogi and Boo Boo ruled ‘Yellow Stone National Park’ much to the chagrin of Ranger Smith.

This was and still is a sweet innocence for me.  There was no hard sell.

It was always a simple formula, one that I came to expect and it was offered week after week, year after year, and it worked.

A capricious bunny, an enamored skunk, a witty road runner, a southern rooster or a hero of a mouse…just to mention a few.

We were blessed with so many lovely characters.

Back in the 1990’s though, we were all grown up and adult animation became a demand and began to move to the forefront.

Some of the creations were a delight.  Pinky and the Brain, Future Cat & Friends are a few faves.

“The Simpsons” truly changed the landscape or animation.

Some very dark characters emerged during this time.  Then gaming exploded.

I got to thinking of cartoon from the Merry Melody collection called ‘One Froggy Evening’ done in genuine black and white.  It was likely produced in the 1950’s.

A man finds a frog who can sing like  Pavarotti.  Elated he thinks he’s struck gold.  He advertises this and fills a concert house.  The frog, however, will sing only for him…alone.

This has been a favorite of mine for a lifetime it seems.  There is a joy in its simplicity that is so endearing to me.

These days its hard to find a cinematic production that is just plain old fun.  Making movies is first and foremost a big business.

Last weekend as I was curled up suffering from a dreadful cold and convinced I would never smell the sweetness of a rose again.  I watched ‘Guardians of Galaxy’.   I enjoyed it.  Now perhaps it was the fever but hell, there was a quirky innocence to each of the characters.

This doesn’t happen often in movies such as this for me.

It was silly, goofy and totally predictable, but what sold me was the depth of the characters.  I liked them and wanted to get to know them better.  When this happens I’m hooked.

I read an article about a year ago that stated that movies follow just twelve various formats.  That’s it!  And as I pondered this I likened it to be true.

Why is it that some movies just blow us away?  Certain catch phrases are adopted or personality traits are adopted and emulated.

Others movies are forgotten before we leave the theatre.

Why did one leave an imprint and the other fade away?

This principle applies to the written word a well.  Those books that capture our imagination and allow it to expand.

In a nutshell, it is character development and plot execution.

How do you take something that has been told a million times or more before and tell it again…originally?

What I’ve learned may sound simple but can really be the toughest thing you’ll ever do.

Tell your story as only you see it.  That is what makes it unique  because none of sees or feels the same about anything really.  Individually we all have variations.

This perhaps, is the most endearing factor in the human equation to me.

Perfection is a myth.

Forgiveness is the key to freedom.

Love is absolute.

…and how each of sees the rise and set of each day is as infinite as the sky we gaze into each day and each night.

 

Hero Worship…A Godzilla Story

Artwork from the Godzilla website of our hero monster in the 2014 version

Close to a year ago I woke to a beautiful Saturday morning and my daughter and I decided to go for breakfast.

We dressed and decided to walk down to the New West Quay for a nibble.

We left the house only to find our neighborhood had become quite literally a disaster zone.  Debris was all over the roadways and vehicles were crushed with huge blocks of concrete on them.

And I had slept through this?  Oh my goodness!

These are images I took of the scene that existed for about a week in New Westminster, BC

Well, it seemed that Godzilla had come to town.  That big guy always makes such a mess, doesn’t he?

Yes, a year ago they were filming some of the final scenes of the movie in downtown New Westminster.

Images that I took.  They change street signs, parkade signs, the detail was quite remarkable.

Last evening my daughter and I went to see the movie.  It didn’t disappoint.  It’s what I expected from a monster movie.

And I’ve always liked the big guy.

The special effects were grand.  Mind you the monster make-out scene was kind of creepy between our two bad guy monsters.

From the Godzilla website…Muto…one of the bad guy monsters

Godzilla had to rise up from the deep to get rid of the bastards and unfortunately a few cities were flattened as a result.  Can’t be helped.  I like that we tried to shoot the monsters with guns.

These baddies feed on radiation.  The more crap they can consume the better.

And I have to wonder if the military would really be marching in trying to ‘contain’ the situation and not just telling everyone to run for the hills.  Evacuate!

I’m not supposed to think about these things, however, and I know that. What I liked is that this movie showed just how ineffectual we humans would be if in fact this really happened.

Godzilla is such a misunderstood monster too.

He comes out to in effect to save our sorry ass in a round about way and what do we do?  We shoot him, throw bombs at him and try to blow him up.

He looks at us and screams.  I would imagine his breath is a little skanky.

Art work of the big guy from the Godzilla website

But he doesn’t try to kill us.  Just swats at us like bothersome flies because that is likely what we are to him.

I picked out the scenes that were shot in Vancouver and in New Westminster quite easily.

These shots were taken by the film crew and taken from the Godzilla website.  They are setting up for the final disaster scene in downtown New Westminster

I loved the CNN news feeds that they had in the film on the TV screens.  ‘Godzilla…Savior of our City!’

And the fact that live news crews were broadcasting the fight between the radioactive pair that looked like a monster-sized hybrid of a cockroach and our boy, Godzilla was impressive.

The news anchor was perfectly coiffed as well.

Vegas got flat-lined.  I stayed at Treasure Island when I was there and as one of creepy bad guys (the female one) made her way to San Francisco to hook up with her boy toy she took a big portion of the hotel out.

Image I took to show the detail they went into.  Note the plaque of New Westminster with the San Fran Police Dept sign in the background

Considering that I now know that it is on the monster highway, don’t know that I’ll stay there again.

All in all, Godzilla was a fun monster movie.

I can recall watching some of the first Godzilla movies at the Haida Theatre on Kingsway during the Saturday matinees as a child. I loved him then and I still do.

Images I took of the scene setup

If you like monster movies, you’ll enjoy this classic Godzilla adventure.

It is a beautiful Sunday morning.  I’m going to get out there and enjoy.

Peace out.