Wednesday, November 30, 2011

The Grinch, little hecklers and whitewashing

- A delightful evening with the Fun Girls seeing "How The Grinch Stole Christmas!" - the national touring company's "show on the road" at The Fabulous Fox Theater.  A favorite moment:  when the audience was invited to sing "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" with the lyrics displayed on colorful pull down banners and flipped over pillows.  :)

- The actor Stefan Karl as The Grinch was as Grinchily Grinch-like as one could want.  Another favorite moment:  he just couldn't seem to spit out the word Christmas when he was trying to say Merry Christmas to The Whos and the children in the audience started calling out "Christmas!"  He heckled them back with glaring mock sternness saying, "Where are your parents!!!"

- It's the 176th birthday of another famous American curmudgeon, Mark Twain.  Check out the Google home page today for Tom Sawyer supervising the painting over of the Google logo.  :)   Mark Twain on finding just the right word, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."

21 comments:

Lance said...

The Grinch is such a fun book/movie - very cool you got the opportunity to see it live...and sing along!!!

happygirl said...

LOVE that you are getting into the Christmas spirit with your friends and Dr. Seuss. Isn't it the truth, finding the right word makes all the difference. I wish I was better at choosing.

Louvregirl said...

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."
Love this quote Lynn. The photo of the Grinch is fabulous. Eeeeks. I'm sufficiently scared, though.

TALON said...

Awesome Twain quote and the production looks and sounds so fun! I'm glad you got to sing-a-long :)

Ileana said...

Ha! I love live shows at the theater. So fun...and singing with the Grinch should be on everyone's bucket list, chica! I love that you did that!! :D

G. B. Miller said...

Sounds like that the play is the perfect compliment to the cartoon original (definitely thought that Jim Carey's version was way over the top).

One of the few good things that Google does is celebrate b'days.

Les Paul was a good one (guitar that you could play) and Charlie Chaplin was another (if you clicked on the icon, you got silent short film).

LL Cool Joe said...

Sounds like a great show! That would almost pass as what we call here in the UK, Pantomime.

Love the Google homepage, how clever!

Fireblossom said...

I LOVE that quote about the right word. I tell people that all the time. Writing people, I mean.

Riot Kitty said...

That Grinch looks rather creepy.

Lynn said...

Lance -

I think so, too. And as in most Dr. Seuss books, there's a good lesson there.

happygirl -

That did kind of get me in the Christmas spirit. I wasn't expecting so many children there that late, but that actually made it more special.

I read over my blog post before posting it usually and like to think of words that would be more descriptive or make it read better. It's fun, I think.

lg -

He had the most delightfully Grinchy voice, too. Very Boris Karloff-like.

Talon -

I was looking for another Twain quote and spotted that one. I'm glad you liked it, too. And I love singing along. :)

Lynn said...

Scarlet -

Yes - I can check that off now. :)

G -

It far exceeded my expectations. And I didn't like the Grinch movie either, but I'm not a Jim Carey fan at all.

Yes - I loved that Les Paul guitar thing on Google. That must be a wonderful place to work.

Joe -

That's why I like Google as my home page - because they do things like that.

FB -

One of my journalism professors used to say that is how you know you love writing - if you mull over words and putting them together to make just the right combination.

Riot Kitty -

Delightfully creepy. :)

sage said...

The Grinch play sounds like fun.. Happy birthday, Mr. Twain! He's a favorite and at one point in my life I was really into MT studies and even had a couple articles published about an aspect of his life in the American West.

Granny Annie said...

THE GRINCH and TOM SAWYER, two important stories in our lives. If there is anyone in this world who doesn't know about them, (and I can't imagine that) they should.

Jannie Funster said...

Yep, I agree with Twain. That's why I have lists of verbs, nouns and adjectives I consult for my songwriting. Verbs are so awesome!

Love is a verb!

Sounds like a superfun show!! I can just hear the kids' reactions!

And The Funsters sang that song near Christmas time! Classic.

xoxoxo

Jannie Funster said...

And gee, I write a lot of "!!!" don't I?? :)

Love you!!!!!

Sparkling Red said...

Ooooh, I LOVE the Grinch song!

"Your heart is full of dirty socks; there's garlic in your soul, Mr. Grinch!"

Lyrics don't get any better than that.

Lynn said...

Sage -

I could see how you would like his work with your travel and nature writing.

Granny Annie -

I agree! :)

Jannie -

I would have loved to hear the Funsters sings that. :) And I use a lot of :) so I think a lot of !!! is OK dokey.

Love you, too, my friend.

xo

Sparkling Red -

It was so much fun to sing along with - I noticed I sang a lot more enthusiastically than my friends, but oh well.

I like this line: "You’re a bad banana with a greasy black peel" :)

Sara said...

I envy you. I love "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" It must have been cool to see in the theater.

That's so true about the right word. Like "happygirl" I wish I was better at picking them.

Wow. It's amazing to think of the influence of Mark Twain. My mom used to read his books and she could accents so well. It was listening to play. Memories....:~)

Cloudia said...

fun post, thanks



Aloha from Waikiki

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Snaggle Tooth said...

Lucky you! Sounds like such a fun show- Did you take the Grinch pic? Great costume. Looks like a Norman Rockwell print pic of the Tomw Sawyer fence painting. Great Twain (Samuel Clemens) quote. Yep, you can tell when a word just will not be replaced with another.

Lynn said...

Sara -

That's a lovely memory of your mom reading Twain to you.

Cloudia -

Mahalo!

Snaggle -

No - I didn't take that photo - it's from the website for the play - should have credited, I guess. :)

I love playing with words.