The Green Fields of France

I've recently been working on something about WWI and these seemed appropriate

The Green Fields of France

Put your arms around me honey

Playing on my iPod: Anne Murray

An odd choice for someone who seems rooted in Baroque, Classical and Romantic eras music. But once again, memories come into play. In the 60's at the height of folk music popularity, CBC Television ran Singalong Jubilee during the summers (also later as part of their winter schedule.) Although Murray didn't appear until 1968 both she and the programme are inexorably tied to my "lazy-hazy-crazy days of summer."

More Anne Murray: Canada's Songbird

Playmakers: Down and Distance - Thad Guerwitcz

Continuing the videos from Playmakers. You can watch the videos in sequence by clicking the "Playmakers" tab at the top of the page.

Playing on my iPod: Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741)

Now that we are into winter I thought I would listen to this today. The Largo is perhaps my favourite movement of the "L'inverno" concerto. Calm and serene as a crisp winter day after a snowfall.

Playmakers: Talk Radio I - Thad Guerwitcz

Continuing the videos from Playmakers. You can watch the videos in sequence by clicking the "Playmakers" tab at the top of the page.

Playmakers: Talk Radio II - Thad Guerwitcz

Continuing the videos from Playmakers. You can watch the videos in sequence by clicking the "Playmakers" tab at the top of the page.

Merry Christmas

He's a gay man now

You may recognise Catherine Tate (Donna Noble on Doctor Who) and Colin Morgan (Merlin on Merlin. This is from Catherine's 2007 Christmas show, but Mrs. Murphy and her family were characters that appeared several timse during the run of her series.

I find Catherine's accent overdone, but there is a ring of authenticity, remembering that Belfast accents can be area specific. In this case it's a working class Catholic housing estate. My Irish relatives maintain they can usually tell roughly where in Belfast someone comes from just by listening to his speech.

Probably NSFW

My sweet embraceable you

All images have full size views. Just click on any one

Playng on my iPod - Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750)

Playmakers: Halftime - Thad Guerwitcz

Continuing the videos from Playmakers. You can watch the videos in sequence by clicking the "Playmakers" tab at the top of the page.

Nostalgia

In the early 60's, before the British Invasion. I had this thing about Bert Kaempfert's music. I owned a lot of his albums, which back then were about $6.00 or $7.00 at Woolco - April in Portugal, Afrikaan Beat And Other Favorites, A Swingin' Safari, That Happy Feeling among others and, of course, Wonderland by Night. I think I even continued to buy until I started university in 1964.

My days of Kaempfert's music are well past. I lean toward the Baroque/Classical/Romantic periods with a mix of 50's and 60's, Edith Piaf and now and then Anne Murray - after all she is Canada's Songbird(1). But occasionally I get nostalgic, particularly at this time of the year when the nights are early, the weather is cold and there's a hint of snow in the air. And nothing speaks to that nostalgia more than this song.

1: More on Piaf and Murray in later posts.

Playmakers: Man in Motion - Thad Guerwitcz

This is the first in a series of videos from Playmakers the 2003 series on ESPN. They will feature scenes of Thad Guerwitcz, the gay character played by Canadian actor Daniel Petronijevic.

You can watch the videos in sequence by clicking the "Playmakers" tab at the top of the page.

The incredible hunk

Daniel Petronijevic stars as a pro football player coming out of the closet on ESPN’s Playmakers

The Advocate October 14, 2003

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Daniel Petronijevic spent last summer surrounded by drag queens when he played a macho infantryman in Showtime's groundbreaking film Soldier's Girl, and this year he's surrounded by football players. The rugged 22-year-old actor will be breaking ground as about-to-be-outed gay football player Thad Guerwitcz on ESPN's first-ever dramatic series, Playmakers. The show bills itself as a gritty ensemble drama exploring the off-the-field lives and fortunes of players on a fictional football team, and now one of those players is about to tackle life on the opposite end of the Kinsey continuum.

During a break in shooting on the Toronto set, Petronijevic eases his sinewy frame into a swivel chair that seems almost too small to accommodate the bulk he packed on to play Thad. The actor notes that the evolution of his character into a closeted gay man initially came as a surprise: Thad was originally written as a devout Christian with no hint of a gay back story. "When [the producers] approached me on [Thad's gay storyline] I was skeptical," Petronijevic says candidly. "I didn't know if I had enough faith in my own abilities as an actor to do it justice." Honoring the integrity of Thad's character as it was originally conceived, Petronijevic elaborates, "I wanted to play a guy who wasn't stereotypical. I didn't want it to be, 'He's gay, and he plays football.' I wanted to play a guy who is a football player and who is gay."

According to executive producer Orly Adelson, there was never any thought that he couldn't handle it. "When we started casting, we didn't have this plot," she says. "As the series evolved, we slowly felt that this was the right direction, given the character. I came to him and told him, 'You're going to be changing a bit,' " she recalls, laughing, " 'and how do you feel about it?' He said, 'Great! I'm an actor.' It's a sensitive issue. With some actors you never know. But with Daniel, not a flinch. He said, 'This is great!' "

Knowing that football remains a temple of traditional machismo, Adelson is cautiously optimistic regarding the effect this gay storyline will have on the army of armchair tight ends—mainly straight, mainly male—who comprise ESPN's primary audience. "You do care," Adelson admits, "because at the end of the day, you want people to watch it. If they don't, you don't have a show next year. Knowing that, and knowing it could be a problem, the network opted to tackle the subject anyway. I give a lot of credit to [ESPN executive vice president of programming and production] Mark Shapiro, because he said 'Go ahead,' knowing that reactions could be mixed."

"In my father's time, this would be groundbreaking stuff," says Petronijevic, noting that attitudes among his 20-something peer group have changed significantly from generations past. "Nowadays, it's about time we started dealing with this." His gay friends have given him the thumbs up, but he admits he's flying nearly solo. "I don't have enough gay friends around me to get sufficient input," he says, laughing heartily, "but whatever. My gay friends are guys like any other guys. They like watching football and driving around in nice cars and shit like that. It's not like they're sitting around doing each other's nails. They're like, 'Yeah, do what you have to do! Go with it!' "

The kindness of strangers

New York City Police Officer Larry DePrimo helped a homeless man, using his own money to buy the man a pair of all-weather boots and thermal socks. The picture below of his act of kindness has gone viral on Facebook.

Update December 4, 2012

The homeless man is once again barefoot. A sad commentary to which it is unnecessary to assign blame and which doesn't detract in any way from Officer DePrimo's actions. From the interviews with DePrimo, even knowing that I don't think he would regret what he did. Kindness is its own reward and the man is blessed for his.

Hold me, thrill me kiss me

For larger photos, click the first or any one

Playing on my ipod - Franz Ignaz Beck (1734 -1809)

Bits & Bites

• In an unusual move, Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, becomes the Governor of the Bank of England. He is the first foreign national to hold the post.

• It's status quo after the federal by-elections. The Conservatives retain 2 seats and the NDP 1. House standings remain: Conservative - 165, NDP - 101, Liberal - 35, Bloc Québecois - 4, Green - 1, Independent - 2.

• Rob Ford the Mayor of Toronto, Canada's largest city, is ousted for conflict of interest. But he's not going without a fight or without blaming "a left-wing conspiracy." Rob, Rob, Rob. You used city property for your own purposes and then, after the Integrity Commissioner called you on it, participated in the Council discussion and vote that determined you didn't have to pay from your own pocket. And your excuse was you hadn't read the conflict of interest guidelines. Conspiracy has nothing to do with it. You screwed yourself.

• Finally, to "un-Grinch" Christmas, $2 million of toys and goods stolen from the Salvation Army have been recovered.

Then he kissed me

'Tis when the lark goes soaring
And the bee is at the bud,
When lightly dancing zephyrs
Sing over field and flood;
When all sweet things in nature
Seem joyfully achime -
'Tis then I wake my darling,
For it is kissing time!

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Eugene Field 1850 - 1895
From Kissing Time

We all love a man in uniform (or out of it)

I praise the dance, for it frees people
from the heaviness of matter and binds the isolated to community.
I praise the dance, which demands everything:
health and a clear spirit and a buoyant soul.
Dance is a transformation of space, of time, of people,
who are in constant danger of becoming all brain, will, or feeling.
Dancing demands a whole person,
one who is firmly anchored in the center of his life,
who is not obsessed by lust for people and things
and the demon of isolation in his own ego.
Dancing demands a freed person,
one who vibrates with the equipoise of all his powers.
I praise the dance.
O man, learn to dance,
or else the angels in heaven will not know what to do with you

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Saint Augustine (354 - 430)