Sleepless in Staten Island

I'm watching Sleepless in Seattle for the gazillionth time this morning. I love this movie. Love the music, love the cast, the scenery, the rain! I just love the movie. I went out and bought the CD as soon as it was released and seriously if it's on, I watch it. I never grow tired of it.

The music in movies is so important. I mean think about the movie Rocky, that music makes you think you can run up those stairs with Rocky doesn't it? From the start of the movie Sleepless in Seattle, the music captured me, Jimmy Durante singing As Time Goes By. Every scene the music is set to either tug at your heart and make you cry, pump your heart with happiness, fill it with hope. Ah, the movies, the magic of movies.

Could you imagine the times in your life having music accompanying those moments? When I was in high school we had a fun English class for a term. I think it was a public speaking class? It was one of my favorite classes. My punishment for acting up in class would be that I wouldn't be able to get up and do my speech. No way, I behaved. And I was never nervous about getting up in front of a crowd and tawking, singing or just being goofy, not shy was I. But one assignment we had was to get a story across without words and using music. My friend Barbara and I chose Elton John's Funeral for a Friend from the Yellow Brick Road album. Yes album, we had albums then and I still say album when tawking about music more than CD, even though I haven't played an album in so many many years!! Barbara and I did a cool scene and I think our class enjoyed it but what I really loved was one of the girls in my class, so sorry I can't remember her name at all, but she was on the money for that assignment. She played the piano and just put all kinds of different music together, taped it on a tape recorder. Again yes! A tape recorder. And she brought that into class. She acted out a baby being born, growing up, growing old and dying. The music fit all the times of her life. We were all blown away, so impressed. The music was so fitting.

I create DVDs for my family and friends using photos from our past and our now, and add music and some minor special effects. It's a lot of work but I have so much fun working on my projects. I get lost for hours. Sleepless in Staten Island! I love deciding what music will I pick, more what's the theme here. I recently made a 60th Birthday DVD of photos for my friend Maria, to give as a gift for the 60th birthday girl. Maria collected all the pictures from the birthday girl's family and gave me carte blanche on the music. She knows me, knows what kind of music I like and as much as we both enjoy certain music and artists, we have different tastes. But she had faith in me to choose the right music for the DVD. Of course I choose songs that I love but more I try to look for songs that really mean what the pictures are saying. Kind of backwards from my school assignment.

I've used the song Make 'Em Laugh from Singing in the Rain many times. It fits so many people's lives in pictures. We all have those wonderful funny, silly, zany pictures that just do make you laugh. The song fits. Looking at those photos with that music playing makes you feel the pictures more. And of course I don't have to download the music, I have the album. Oops CD.

I used to love the TV show Laverne & Shirley, debuted in 1976, so I was in high school, lots of my friends liked the show at that time too. Even the opening song, led you right into the feel of the show! But there was an episode, I've searched on YouTube to find it but cannot, but the episode takes place when the girls have already moved to Los Angeles, later in the series and Laverne sings throughout the episode. I can't remember exactly what songs, they were real current songs of the time period of the series, when she woke up she sang a song about the sun, she dropped something, sang a song about that, sang about love, losing love, etc., an old time musical satire, I loved it. I know I've done that, sang about something that happened, not all day, but there have been moments. My mom was famous for singing one line from a song from My Fair Lady. Show Me. That's what she would sing if we were sorry for driving her crazy or doing something wrong. Show Me. Right to the point.

This short video below is from my niece Bella's school assembly. It's just the ending, the best part. My brother Joey, Bella's dad, filmed it on his iphone and if I know my brother he had tears in his eyes from the start and that might be the reason for the shaking of the film. He downloaded a bunch of pictures and videos on my computer a few weeks ago so I watched this without him. I couldn't find Bella. The first time I watched it, the girl I thought was Bella was not, and was not sitting anywhere near Bella. I still loved it, listening to these children sing We Are The World, it's real life with music. They are the world. They are our future. For me yes it's more, it was my niece up there, but there is one voice singing loud and it's not my niece and whoever that child was, he or she, I couldn't tell, crawled right into my heart. I had tears in my eyes. But the best part is the end when the kids come off the stage into the audience and Bella sees her dad. Her eyes light up and she smiles. Now that moment in itself was perfect but come on, that music, the kids singing, magic, absolutely real life magic!