Thank you to all of you who have been reading my blog. In 26 days, I have gotten 26,000 hits or 1,000 hits a day on average. Some of that was due to ‘The Hobbit’ trailer, but candidly, that only lasted a few days. The rest are people coming back to read and subscribe. 60 additional subscriptions in those 26 days. I very much appreciate that! Can’t tell you how much! It will certainly help in propelling me forward in my 365 Project. Otherwise, it would just be me listening to myself talk, and that’s not much fun. More than me being heard, this gives such a great pleasure to meet so many other fans. I can’t say enough good about that. It also gives the ability to introduce some of you to other bloggers who are much more interesting than me. No, I’m not being self-deprecating. I mean that. There are some interesting folk who are Richard Armitage fans. I’m happy to be a conduit for them — except when I want to get on my high horse about such things as SOPA. Then I want you to listen to me. :D
Another picture:
[click to enlarge]
Can you tell I’m trying to get you in a Guy mood? Hope it’s working.
For those contemplating entering the Little Guy contest but not sure, I have a post for you later today or maybe tomorrow morning.
From mid August to mid December, I was not very attentive to RA Universe, and I’m still terribly behind on my reading. But I am making up for lost time, and the blog pieces I’m reading are wonderfully done. Stay tuned for when I cheat a little and reblog some of what others have written. My biggest problem is deciding what to highlight first. Other bloggers have referenced and even highlighted some of these pieces, but that was their highlight and not mine. :D
And for the record, I was so right about giving Phylly the Do Wah Diddy Diddy Award. More on that later.
I also made several promises last year that I intend to make good on this year. No, that’s not a burden. It will be a joy. One of those is the Little Guy contest. More on that later today.
A picture to wake you up in case this post is not enough:
I immersed myself in over a thousand Post Secret cards to get ready for my last two pieces. The range of emotions this evoked nearly took off my head. Each card is a story much like the six word story attributed to Hemingway although the Post Secret cards are more powerful for being non-fiction. There was a card every now and then that made me wonder if Gary Larson was at work:
For the uninitiated Post Secret is a blog begun in 2005 by Frank Warren, who gave a platform for people’s secrets. Once a week on Sunday, he posts 20 of the cards he receives. Yesterday the site celebrated a half billion visits, and almost countless blogs commemorated. Our own Funky Blue Dandelion was among them and with a little something more.
I have many more thoughts about the Post Secret dynamic, but I’m not quite sure they would fit on this blog.
As for the connection to Richard Armitage, isn’t he in the business of telling someone’s story? Oh yeah, he should be tagged in this post. :D
Postcard from the 2005 Post Secret archive collection.
The 21st Century is wonderful! There is no other century where it would be possible for me to easily sign up for a chance to win tickets to a concert on another continent, receive a reply immediately upon winning, and then give the tickets to an online friend (on said continent) to enjoy.
I was able to do just that a few weeks ago, and my friend Sheepa and one of her friends was able to attend a James Rhodes’ concert:
Hey Frenz!!
The show was great! At times I did have to close my eyes since the dark-room-with-two-spotlights-on-James-Rhodes was weirdly blinding.
James was brilliant! He came on stage with his sparkly converses, bowed, took off his glasses and just started playing. Whenever he finished a piece he would get up and talk to us about why he’d played that specific piece, who it was by and how crazy they had been. There was not one talk that didn’t get a laughing response from almost everyone in the crowd! His sense of humour was great and everyone loved him and his music.
I have to say it was the pieces after the interval that really touched me. Where as Chopin’s was all about love Bach’s was about grief and pain. They were both very intense.
The programme…
L V Beethoven: Piano Sonata in C, Op.53 (Waldstein)
M Moszkowski: Etude in F, Op. 72 No. 6
Interval – 20mins
F Chopin: Romance from Piano Concerto No.1 transc. Balakirev for solo piano
J A Bach: Chaconne from Partita No.2 in D minor, BWV.1004 transc. Bausoni for piano
For those not familiar with James Rhodes, I did a piece on him several months back, and it was such a joy to write. If you love classical music and someone who is intelligent and funny, you will enjoy James.
I also asked Sheepa about the age of the crowd and whether she would go see him again:
I did see some people in the audience who would be above 50 yrs of age but the majority of the audience would be around 20 – 35yrs. There was one woman who sat right behind me who was clearly a huge fan, probably mid 20s, couldn’t stop cheering when he finished a piece, he he.
I would definitely go and see him again, as would my friend. We both loved the evening! My friend had heard of him before but I hadn’t.
Thank you for the tickets Frenz! As I said on twitter, there was an empty seat right beside me and I believe you were there in spirit!
Thank you, Sheepa, and I’m so glad you had a great time! Glad I was there in spirit, but wish I had been there in the flesh. Maybe next time around. :D
If you’ve read this blog for more than a few pieces, you know how rabid I am about fan videos, which I’m defining as videos set to music and starring the object of a fan’s attention — someone or something. They got me started on Richard Armitage, and my love for them has become so intense that I’m wondering when these things will gain much more notoriety than they currently enjoy. For now they are not really acknowledged much by the mainstream media, and a good part of the reason is the history of their illicit nature. In my search on the web, I found one piece from a mainstream media source discussing the significance of fan videos, and that was from 2007. Maybe there are a few more, but the key word would be few. However, at some point soon I think fan videos will have more formal recognition. So far for most people who don’t peruse videos sites and are over the age of 25, there has been no awareness these things exist, but that’s changing as more and more people (even your grandmother) are starting to surf YouTube.
Heck, SO’s almost 80 year old parents get on YouTube regularly, and my mother, who by the way, is considerably younger :D, also gets on YouTube. So if you’re 60 and you don’t ever get on YouTube? What planet are you on? ;-)
Actually, I’m assuming most reading this are the choir. So why did I even say that? Maybe there is one out there among you who has not ventured onto a video site for fear it’s just stuff like this:
and you got your fill of this kind of thing on “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” Oh, you’ve never seen that show? LUCKY YOU. Really wrestling here with the temptation to go on a rant about why I hated that show when it was on, but one rant a week is enough. The show is still on?! God help us.
Of course this is a cute video, and it’s understandable why it’s in the top ten all-time watched videos on YouTube, but c’mon, after you’ve watched it 300 times, you would think it would get old. FYI: a few weeks ago this video passed its four year anniversary, and I can see its lasting effect with the eventual publication of How to Pay For College: The Advantages of Being a Mischievous Teether in the Digital Age by Charles Davies-Carr. ;-)
Okay, where was I? Oh, yeah, fan videos. Well, if you’re new to them, and I’m assuming you’re a Richard Armitage fan since you’re reading this blog, there is only one place to go, and my friends, it’s not YouTube. No, it’s a little place on the web hosted by one of the most intriguing fans, Elvira Sweeney. Here are some things I know about Elvira. She is artistic, prolific, a bit perfectionistic, and definitely industrious. Oh, and she likes RA. :D He was the inspiration for what I now think of as the RA Fan Video Empire, or just The Empire. So what is this place? It’s called RAfanvids, and if you have never been there, oh my are you in for a treat. Now the only proviso I will give you is that you must prep the storage on your computer so you can download to your heart’s content when you get there. You’re not sure about this downloading? No, you’ve got to change that notion. You can’t really enjoy some of these videos without watching a download. YouTube, Vimeo, et al will not give you the quality of a 1080 vid. You can only get the real impact of it by downloading and watching on your system or possibly your tv monitor.
Take this video for example:
You can watch it and love the music and the clips, but you can’t get the full effect of this unless you download and watch. It’s the eyes. You almost fall into them. Can’t get that from watching on YouTube — even in full screen mode. Oh, it’s better than the little window, but not nearly as good as watching your own copy.
Or consider this one:
Want to really feel like that leather is within arm’s reach, download! And of course the eyes are also compelling. By the way this video was done as part of Elvira’s “Vidding on the Cheap” series for all those people who think making videos with an old Mac isn’t possible. Guess again.
This is one of my favorite montage videos, and for good reason. I really feel I’m in the room with RA and he’s looking at me when I watch the download:
This was the video that convinced me I needed to watch everything I could from a download copy. Once I got this one on my computer and started watching, I realized that I had missed so much on YouTube, and if a video is not in a large format, putting the player in full screen doesn’t really cut it either. So I downloaded this one and was blown away. I also realized something about Elvira. She can read people. Anyone who puts as much emphasis on people’s eyes and expressions is focused on reading them. I would love to know what she really thinks of RA other than just liking him so damn much. LOL!
And the next two you haven’t really seen unless you’ve watched a download and especially in 1080. You watch these like that, and you will never be satisified with them on YouTube again.
If you still don’t want to download, you can just watch the videos on that site, and there are quite a few that are not on YouTube. So check it out.
One more thing. If you go over to RAfanvids, you may notice something is absent. But no worries, ’cause Elvira’s got it covered over here. :D (note: the link is an archive page and not all pages linked within it are available).
This post is part of the ongoing series of Musicilove.
He is so right about the accessibility of “classical” music. There is something intimidating for so many, and what a shame. I’m so glad James is on his mission to make it personal. His passion is infectious:
continued here:
Oh, yeah, a fake fan letter is a must:
James,
I love your stuff! You are dead on. Keep it up!
Sincerely,
One of your rabid fans, and no, I’m not rabid about everyone despite the look of things here.
I’ve been feeling kind of funny about posting comments from my “source.” Not that I don’t think they’re completely righteous. I do. But maybe all the emails from some others got to me. Despite the appearance of this blog, I really don’t think I’m all that and a bag of chips. Far from it. Trying to garner attention for myself is not my thing, so when I feel someone might think that about me, I usually run backwards.
Thankfully, I’ve been getting over that crap, and this blog has been wonderful in that respect. I feel like I’m actually stepping back into my childhood, and it’s been fantastic, and I hate words like fantastic, but I’m not even going to count how many times I’ve used it on this blog. Have I gone on long enough with my preface to what’s coming? :D Okay, I won’t leave you hanging much longer. All I’ll say is that these wonderful words from our own Fitzg are a great encouragement:
“Dear Mr. Armitage,
We’ve escaped the hermitage.
We’re beyond the mad and the shame –
And it’s you we all have to blame.
Our doctors deem us to be cases
Beyond their skills to address,
And throw up their hands at this mess.
And hie themselves off to the races,
To gamble their lives away in despair
At their failure to repair
The poor demented souls in thrall
To the blue of eyes and all –
The long limbs and voice so velvet…
Ah what’s the use, a lost cause are we;
Who wants a cure – the H*** wiv-et!
When all is done, some just squee …..(I swore I’d never say that word, so the h*** wiv it)
The rest just melt in pools of rapture
At the thought of this image to capture
And say, let it be, let it be….”
A letter from a demented fan, who has no future as a poet…:(
Don’t agree with the last comment, but I love this letter! Just what you would expect from a sassy librarian. Oh, and if anyone else wants to contribute a fake fan letter, knock yourself out! I’ll be happy to publish anything that celebrates the fun and yes, the thoughtfulness that we’re part of in the RA universe.
Comments about RA on ‘The Hobbit’ set coming up soon but not today. :D
edit: there is only one place where I have no problem taking center stage — doing business. If it’s business, I shift into another mode, and maybe that’s why I like business so much.
Note: in answer to the questions about the second photo, that is my daughter on the beach in San Diego; taken a couple of weeks ago.
RAFrenzy 