Make Em Laugh

Picture Prompt Day 8 - A picture that makes you laugh

     I've got a rather large folder of funny pictures on my computer so I figured I'd share more than one.  There's enough sad things in the world, why be stingy with laughs?

      Screengrab from an episode of Stargate Atlantis.  Rodney doesn't like children so he let Zelenka go offworld to a planet populated exclusively by kiddos.  In his excitement to leave Atlantis, Radek forgot to ask where he was being sent.  This is the aftermath.   ^_^  He's so mad he can't speak English and reverts to his native tongue.

     Another screengrab.  It's at the end of an episode of Bones where they've been taking care of a baby.  Booth is annoying so Brennan shoves the binky in his mouth to shut him up.  XD  He obviously isn't sure whether he's more annoyed or surprised.

     Pic from Buzzfeed I think.  Not sure.  Cracks me up.  Can't you just hear the brown cow going "Sal, you're an idiot."?

     I was watching Bones on Hulu and it (obviously) started buffering while Hodgens was mid rant.  It was too good to pass up.  Screenshot!

     I personally took this picture in a Kingdom Hall in Utah.  I literally did a triple take because I didn't believe it the first two times I saw it.

     Paul Byrom is a goofy, goofy man!  He was a founding member of Celtic Thunder, before he left to pursue his solo career.

     Watch out Flynn, Pasqual is about to get you!  I love their expressions!

     Some of my favorite funny icons.  I especially like the two in the middle of the bottom row.  For more funny images check out My deviantArt Funny Album.

Robyn Batch 4 - Vegan Lemon Wafer Cookies

124. No Time:  “Rob, I need you to listen to me very carefully.  Grab your hiking pack, your purse, and a jacket, then go to the most hidden part of the forest you know.  The boss of the people trying to take over the town are after you.  Don’t come back until one of us comes to get you.”

    “OK.  How long do you …” Robyn started to ask but Jericho interrupted her.

    “Robyn, I need you to go now.  I stashed a tent and a couple of sleeping bags there a couple of days ago.  Now go!”

    “OK.  Stay safe.”  Robyn’s heart pounded as she hung up her phone and she dashed into her room.  The Pacific Northwest was long overdue for an earthquake, or volcanic eruption, or tsunami, or similar natural disaster and so she and her family always had emergency bags packed with food, clothes, medical supplies, and other lightweight survival gear, and larger packs in their cars.  But how would she make this inconspicuous?   Improvising, she grabbed a dark, long haired wig from her closet, stuffing her hair underneath as best she could as she nearly tripped down the stairs.  From their front closet she took one of her dad’s beige coats, large on her but typical of a hiker visiting the town.  Checking that her hair was out of the way enough to pass a cursory inspection, she shoved her mother’s gardening hat on her head and her look was complete.  It wouldn’t fool anyone who knew her well, or even a close glance from someone who didn’t, but it would do.  She slipped out of her back door and made her way through the back streets until she reached the forest and disappeared.

     Once again, originally this ended after Jericho speaks the first time.  This will get worked into the rising conflict part of my story.

131. Flowers:  Beaming, the mayor took to the stage, resplendent in pink, white, and green, matching the colors of the blooms with which they shared the stage.  “Welcome to the Twenty-eighth annual Rhododendron Festival!” 

     In your head, is the mayor a man or a woman?  I can't decide.

138. Abandoned:  Near her sacred grove Robyn found an old trapper’s cabin.  The windows had long ago been broken or stolen and the door no longer latched well due to the shifting and settling of the old house but the rest of the structure was in remarkable shape.  Though the wood was weathered it was cedar and pine, and as such was resistant to insects.  It was also protected by legend.  According to the lore of Aurelia, a woodsman, an outcast of the Sterne family, had built the cabin so far from the town because he was surly and didn’t get along well with others, except for the physician’s daughter.  Eventually the two fell in love and were wed, she moving out to the desolately located cabin with her new husband.  A year, then two passed and the woodsman and physician’s daughter were going to have a child.  When the time came he rode to fetch his father in law but when they two returned she lay dead, the babe cut from her and all valuables stolen.  Understandably the woodsman was never the same after that.  He tracked down and killed his wife’s murderers but never found his child, a daughter.  Eventually he returned but none could ever speak to him again save the physician who had become the town drunk.  He had helped his son in law by torturing his daughter’s killers in the cabin to get all of the information out of them before killing them.  It was said that if you took anything from the cabin the woodsman and the drunken doctor would track you down, chop off your fingers, and, if you were lucky, kill you.  Teens left the cabin alone, except for sneaking off to hook up, and always left a flower as an offering to appease the love stricken pair. 

     This looks so much more impressive handwritten.  Probably one of the darkest/most horrific things I've written but sets up parts of the story nicely.  Based on an AU Once Upon a Time Rumbelle fanfic I read set in the wild west, mixed with years of watching Criminal Minds and Bones and recalling all the small town legends they faced that modern day killers used as cover.

     In my head Robyn will buy this house and rebuild it to live in or Henry will make it a gift shop/nature conservation center.

164. Multitasking:  Robyn found it difficult to study without music playing so she usually had her upcoming performance pieces playing in the background as she read her textbooks. 

175. Mirror:  To any imaginative theater buff mirrors had a very interesting connotation, just as they did to Robyn.  She could imagine herself as Sarah, summoning goblins and being seduced by the Goblin King through her bedroom mirror.  Or she could be Christine Daee, being watched and entrancing through her dressing room mirror the Angel of Music, the Phantom of the Opera.  Jareth.  Erik.  Mirrors were portals to other worlds, other identities.  When you looked in the mirror you could transform yourself into someone new or see yourself for what you truly were.  It was no wonder that she hid things important to her behind every mirror.

     Seriously, what is it with musical writers and mirrors?  And I love the idea that in her bedroom one of her mirrors swings out to reveal a cupboard or that taped to the back of her mirrors are pictures and notes that she doesn't want anyone else to see.  Can YOU think of any other important theatrical/cinematic/literary mirrors?

Day 34 - Sorrowful piano paté

February 3 - Write about "The instrument of the sorrowful" after Stéphane Mallarme

     Loaded question that, asking this of a musician and singer.  The top three sorrowful instruments, or instruments I would and have used to convey sorrow are the violin, the flute, and the human voice.
     April 24, 2007 was the Virginia Tech massacre.  I was a junior in high school.  The next morning I attended my music composition class and tried to wrap my brain around what I was going to compose with so much sorrow in my heart on such a grey and rainy day.  I came up with a incomplete piece with two harps and a flute.  As I was composing though (just as with my No One Mortal poem) I realized that I have a hope that not many do, thus there is an uplifting transition.  (If I could figure out how to upload a copy of it I would)
     I remember being struck by the poignant, sorrowful, mourning wail sung a cappela by Rafiki when we saw it in Portland.  The human voice carries so much weight and emotion, as it should.  Some of the emotionally powerful songs are those with only one instrument, be it voice, piano, violin, or flute.

     My Top 20 Saddest Songs Playlist (in no particular order)

1. When Somebody Loved Me - Toy Story  - A song about loss and growing up and apart.  While I may find the first two movies annoying over all due to my brother's constant viewing this song has always got to me and made.
2. Cats in the Cradle - Harry Chapin  - Another song about growing up and apart.  The first of two songs on the list that, if my dad is in the room, prompts a radio change.  He and I both find it heartbreaking.  I want to weep for father and son who both missed so much of each other's life.  I can't understand families that disconnected.
3. In the Ghetto - Elvis  - The second song that prompts a radio change/song skip if my dad is in the room.  It hurts to hear about lives of such despair.  And when the video adds the Outsiders to the mix it becomes all the more poignant.
4. Learn to Be Lonely - The Phantom of the Opera 2004 (Minnie Driver)  The song speaks for itself.  In a way it reminds me of Mordred's Lullaby by Heather Dale.
5. Danse Mon Esmeralda - Notre Dame de Paris  - You don't have to speak French to feel Garou/Quasimodo's anguish over Esmeralda's death and his wish that she would arise to dance and sing as she did in life.  And if you haven't watched Notre Dame de Paris, I suggest doing so.
6. Javert's Suicide - Les Miserables 10th Anniversary  - There is no Javert like Philip Quast and no more tortured character than Javert.  As a Police Inspector who has raised himself from being raised in the prisons he has a very black and white view of the world and when Valjean shatters the code he has clung to for so long Javert's whole world is turned upside down and inside out.  "And must I now begin to doubt, who never doubted all these years?  My heart is stone and still it trembles; the world I have known is lost in shadow."  His final note never fails to give me chills!!
7. That Lonesome Road - James Taylor  - Looking back on all the paths not taken and opportunities missed.  We sang this as our senior song in high school.  I'm not sure how I made it through the performance, it is so depressing!  Also, very hard to find a good choral version, anywhere.  The song as sung by James Taylor and his studio singers is also very pretty but the choral version has more meaning to me.  "Never run feeling sorry for yourself, it doesn't save you from your troubled mind."
8. The Last Unicorn - Kenny Loggins  - This song always bothered me as a child because I don't deal well with changes and ending and finality and it continues to make me very sad.  "When the last eagle flies over the last crumbling mountain, and the last lion roars at the last dusty fountain" ... "when the last moon is cast over the last star of morning, and the future has passed without even a last, desperate warning."
9. Tristan and Isolt - Heather Dale  - "It was white as angels' raiments but when feebly he begged her, fairest Blanchmane softly said, "Tis of night."  Who can say which venom stole the soul from Tristan's body and the bells began their tolling as Isolt ran up the sand."  So close and yet so far!  The thoughts of what could have been.
10. Pity the Child - Chess (Colm Wilkinson)  - Dysfunctional families who miss out on the genius that is their child.   I hate it.
11. What'll I Do? - Irving Berlin (Frank Sinatra)  - The only solo I ever had and boy howdy did I mean every line I sung in this song.  It was my senior year and I was dreading being separated from my friends, especially the boy I was crushing on.  I invited my friends to come and honestly I am still a little bitter they didn't come, but life moves on and so must I.  This really should be sung by a female voice but Frankie sounds lovely.
12. Les Miserables Finale - 10th Anniversary and 2012 cast  - The end of Valjean's life, where he is told that all the good he has done in his life will be rewarded.  I don't agree that it is heaven where he will gain his reward but the thought of him at peace, in a place without pain, and Fantine happy, is so touching.  This song didn't truly get to me until the epic visualization in the 2012 movie and Anne Hathaway makes an amazing Fantine!  Plus it has Colm Wilkinson being the lovely old, comforting man that he is and can be.  "And remember the truth that once was spoken, to love another person is to see the face of God."  If only they had included Javert in the finale of the movie!
13. Love Never Dies Finale - Andrew Lloyd Webber - Erik and Christine reconcile and he finds out he has a son and then THIS!!!!  The child's scream twists my heart every time.  I had listened to the music and was swept away by the genius but then I watched the movie.  And sobbed those body shaking sobs that are reserved for someone you truly love for two hours.  Of course I was alone, housesitting where, the time before, I had gotten the news that we had to put down our dog Sam, and had just gotten the news that one of my friends had to put down his ferret.  I was kinda maybe emotional to begin with but I had never responded to a movie like that.  After these last two my sister says I'm not allowed to watch musicals anymore.  :)
14. If I Can't Love Her - The Beauty and the Beast Broadway   - The longing!  The despair!  Oh Adam/Beast, let me hug you!  I realize I'm not Belle but I love you like a sister!  "No pain could be deeper, no life could be cheaper."
15. Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again - The Phantom of the Opera  - A daughter mourning the loss of her beloved father.  How could it not get to me?  "Somtimes it seemed, if I just dreamed, somehow you would be here.  Wishing I could hear your voice again, knowing that I never would.  Dreaming of you'd help me to do all that you dreamed I could.  Passing bells and sculpted angels, cold and monumental, seem for you the wrong companions, you were warm and gentle."
16. You'll Never Walk Alone - Carousel  - Saying final goodbyes and hopes for the future.  But ultimately the music is so sad!
17. Your Daddy's Son - Audrey McDonald  - I didn't realize what the last line said until the last time I listened to it but it only adds to the heartwrenchingness.
18. On My Own - Les Miserables  - Poor Eponine!  I feel like her sometimes, only more, everyone is friends, why can't I join in?  "The city goes to bed and I can live inside my head.  On my own, pretending he's beside me." "In the darkness the trees are full of starlight."  "And I know it only inside my mind, I am talking to myself."  "Without me his world will go on turning, his life is full of happiness that I have never known."
19. Endless Night - The Lion King Broadway  - The bitterness and loneliness!  A longing for something better!  I love Tim Rice.  He writes awesome lyrics (Chess, Evita, Beauty and the Beast, Road to El Dorado.)
20. For Good - Wicked  - I would love to perform this song someday.  And that is all I can say.

     The playlist I made on YouTube, which you can find here, is an hour and a half long!  Some songs may dislike being in a playlist so you may have to listen to them separately, should you chose to listen at all.
     *** All lyrics belong to their composers.  I have no ownership over them. *** 

 Day 34 - The Duck or the Paté?

    "Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like his paté." ~ Margaret Atwood
    Hold the phone!  Authors don't die when they present their work or write!  You at least have a chance to meet a whole, living being!
    That being said, I can understand how awkward it might be to meet any celebrity, be they author or actor.  As a fan you will be familiar with their fictional lives and what little may be in the dust jackets or their Wikipedia page and as such have a mental image of who and what they are but in reality you know nothing about their inner person, and you are unlikely to on a first (and likely only) meeting.  Also, while you feel a connection to them, they feel none to you, have no background to go on with you.