Lise's Ramblings

For several weeks now, I’ve savoured one to two pages daily from Imagination Illustrated: The Jim Hensen Journal . In this book, curator-archivist Karen Falk and Jim Hensen’s eldest daughter Lisa Hensen combine excerpts from the Muppet creator’s journals with photos, sketches, script doodles and biographical notes, spanning 1954 to 1988. What a joy! While most of us know Jim Hensen’s work―ranging from Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock through to The Muppet Show and scores of other TV specials and movies―people recognized his talents well before any of those accomplishments. By the time he headed off to the University of Maryland, nobody could overlook Jim Hensen’s creativity. He had illustrated high school publications, designed sets for shows and performed from time to time. As a freshman, he secured his own TV show, Sam & Friends , and started a poster business of his own. He quickly moved on to creating funny commercials for Wilkins Coffee Co. In 1958, the ...

Offer me a classic novel or its film adaptation, and I’ll choose the book nearly every time. In general, I find a Hollywood film’s storytelling and character development pale compare to the impact of the author’s original text. Source:  Cinemark Theatres on Pinterest However, I make exceptions for musicals. Armed with brilliant casting and musical scores, then the power of song in musicals lends additional depth to characters, builds plot momentum and dishes out compelling entertainment. Screen and stage musicals can also lure audiences into tales we may not otherwise choose to read. I’m sure people have watched The Sound of Music , Les Misérables and My Fair Lady even though they may not be inclined to read about the von Trapp family’s history, pick up a Victor Hugo novel on the aftermath of the French Revolution, or follow a woman’s transformation in George Bernard Shaw play. But, I suspect these performances will move selected audience members and theatregoers enough to...

Playful. Informative. Refreshing. Brand power. That’s how I would describe the doodles that appear on Google’s home page. The varied illustrations have honoured countries, individuals, special days and moments in history. Early doodles, which date back to 1998, merely spelled the name Google with a sprinkling of decorative details. Now, doodles range from works of art to multimedia celebrations (e.g., the Les Paul guitar you can strum with your cursor). One of the most wildly popular doodles appeared on May 21, 2010, when Google commemorated PAC-MAN’s 30 th anniversary with an interactive doodle encouraging people to play the retro video game. Last week, I was pleased to see that Google launched an official archive for its doodles: http://www.google.com/doodles/finder . Now if only Google would let me embed selected doodles for your viewing pleasure. Instead, the best I can do is provide you with links to my favourite doodles of 2011: February 8 : Jules Verne’s...

It’s odd that most of the Christmas classics tend to be ones filmed back in the 1940s through to the late 1960s. Here are some examples of the major ones: ·           Holiday Inn (1942) ·           It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) ·           Miracle on 34 th Street (1947) ·           Scrooge (1951) ·           White Christmas (1954) ·           Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) ·           The Sound of Music (1965) ·           A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) ·           How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966) ·       ...

Has the following situation ever happened to you? You’re filling in a lengthy Web form, but when you hit the submit button an error message indicates you forgot to complete all the required fields. You return to the Web form only to find that all of your information has vanished. POOF! After weighing whether it’s worth your while, you begin to fill in the form again. I can’t speak for you, but situations like that happen often enough to me that I let out a whoop of joy whenever my browser retains my info in the form. Not having to start over, because your browser behaves…       AWESOME!

Oh, the varied ways to enjoy grapes. You may relish just tossing cold, seedless grapes into the air and catching them in your mouth. Chefs and bakers cook up dried grapes in bread pudding, butter tarts and raisin bread. And on a hot day, you can reach into the freezer to treat yourself to rum raisin ice cream. Even grape leaves serve a purpose. In Greek cuisine, dolmades are a popular appetizer with grape leaves wrapped around rice and meat concoctions. Gardeners train grapevines to climb trellises. Then, the vines and their fruit are grown on a larger scale at wineries, where people harvest, crush, ferment and bottle grapes to cater to our thirst for vino . Children’s television programmers even use non-alcoholic grape juice to instruct and entertain. Recall Ernie and Bert explaining the difference between more and less in the classic and comedic delicious grape juice skit (a circa 1970s episode of “Sesame Street”).   Apart from consuming grapes in their many form...