Metropolis - Chapter 37 AND Christmas Music

Hiya

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 Download the F.Y.O.C. version here.









Christmas Music...  I started early this year.

I can't help myself.  I want diverge from my usual topics of comics and sci-fi to write about Christmas music.  

Most people assume that my favourite Christmas album is "A Charlie Brown Christmas" by the Vince Guaraldi Trio.  Some of you know that I am a dedicated Peanuts and Charles Monroe Schulz fan.  However, that album is only my second favourite for this time of year.  I want to tell you about the third and first on my list for the season.

At number three we have "Count Your Blessings".  This was an amazing live concert with Jane Siberry, Holly Cole, Rebecca Jenkins, Mary Margaret O'Hara and Victoria Williams (I'll let you google them).  I was already a fan of Jane Siberry and Holly Cole when CBC announced this concert in 1994.  I was pleasantly introduced to the voices of the remaining three.  As you can tell by the Amazon.ca listing I've linked for the CD it is now rare and in high demand.  I had a tape copy of the original broadcast from CBC.  The banter between these ladies between the songs was hilarious.  You don't get that on the CD release.


My number one Christmas album might come as a surprise, Clint Black's "Looking for Christmas"!  Certainly not as rare and sought after as the previous album.  My wife introduced me to this album.  And it has become something that has to be played ever Christmas along with "It's a Wonderful Life".  This is a very strong album.  Nowadays (here comes my inner codger) it seems that singers spend more time on singles and forget about the album as a whole.  I can't help but feel like a happy kid at Christmas when this album plays.  You don't have to be a country music fan to enjoy it.  In fact, Clint's country twang gives a lot of playfulness and joy to the songs.  Oh, by the way, don't let the album cover put you off.




Other Christmas albums I enjoy:

Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton's "Once Upon a Christmas"
- A Christmas time classic

Los Straightjackets - "Tis the Season for Los Straightjackets"
- Instrumental versions of Christmas songs with a surfer rock twist.  Thanks to my brother-in-law Mark for introducing me to this one.

The Rankins - "Do You Hear... : Christmas with Heather, Cookie and Raylene Rankin"
- Good East Coast Canadians girls singing really nicely.

PS: I am not an employee of Amazon.ca.  I'm not trying to boost their sales.  I just put in the links so you can read what others thought of the albums in the reviews.  After a quick search I found most of these albums are available on itunes.ca if not itunes.com.  Surprisingly, I could not find Clint's though.

Have a great day.

Metropolis - Chapter 36 & The Pre-History of my Comic Collecting.

Hiya

Click Image to enlarge.

 Download the F.Y.O.C version here.




 




The Pre-History of my Comic Collecting.

Here's a story that may sound familiar to some of you.

It occurred to me recently that I collected comic strips way before I ever discovered comic books.  I must have been under 10 year old; so sometime around the late 70's.  

When I was growing up we did not get the local paper (then called the Kitchener-Waterloo Record).  Whenever I did come across a newspaper, I would clip the comic strip page.  I didn't clip the individual strips, I left the page whole.  I don't remember how many I had but I remember a number of them had turned quite yellow.

The best part of this memory is how I stored them.  I don't remember when (1978 maybe) but I got the Star Wars Death Star for Christmas.  I kept the box.  It become a piece of decorative furniture that stood beside my bed.  I kept the comic strips in that box.

I have fond memories now of opening that humungous box and reading the pages over and over again.

I can't remember when I got rid of the box and all the strips inside.  Knowing myself; I probably was a little trepid about it.

Since that time, my only exposure to comics was borrowing Asterix, Tin Tin and Peanuts (by Charles M. Schulz) books from my local library; which I did repeatedly.

Later on in August 1984, I bought my very first comic book with the intention of collecting.  It was G.I. Joe #26 from Marvel comics and written by the great Larry Hama.  (I didn't have to look that up.  I know it by heart.)  It didn't dawn on at the time, but my little twelve year old brain was already primed to read comics years before.

PS: I still have the Death Star and Issue #26.

Have a great day.








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