A Richard Armitage worthy PSA:
For information on the event including participating bloggers, click on the FanstRAvaganza poster on the right sidebar at anytime or go here.
[note to my fellow bloggers: yes, it’s still, well, the day before where I am. :D]
I was watching the Cats Rehearsal videos, and I swear I recognized Richard Armitage immediately. Maybe I do feel maternal towards him. Really, someone please slap me for even going here. I’m not old enough to be his mother!! But well, I can do this with my kids. I’ve even amazed myself at times, and SO thinks it’s hilarious how I can recognize them from very faraway and even in really dim light. One time we were driving down the road, and way off in the distance we saw someone walking towards us, and I casually said, “There’s our son.” He laughed and said, “No way you can tell from this distance.” Of course I was right. I’m always right about this. :D A mother’s instincts are eerily correct. Anyone who’s a mother and recognizes her own child’s cries knows exactly what I’m talking about.
Interestingly, I was not the least maternal before I had kids. I mean I could have cared less about them. I didn’t even think they were cute and never liked holding anyone’s baby. I’m still not big on that. I was so unmaternal that it made me hesitant to have children. There was a fear in the back of my mind and sometimes in the front of it that I would be a lousy mother. But oh my gosh! that hormone was bigger than I was, and crashed over my head to magically transform me into a momma!
I’m not quite sure what’s crashed over my head to make me so aware of Richard Armitage’s movements, but a couple of years of watching him might have something to do with it. LOL! Actually, as of a few weeks ago, I passed the three year mark. So Servetus, now you know what the beginning of year four looks like. :D
Check out the guy who jumps onto the middle of the stage at the beginning of this clip. He’s really big and tall, has his hair in a ponytail, and he has on what looks like a blue tank top.
In case you missed him, you can see him again in this one below. He’s on the left at the beginning of the clip. He does run off camera at one point, but then he comes back with a vengeance. He’s so big you can’t miss him. Oh, it’s a thing of beauty!
If you’re still not sure, maybe the screencaps will convince you. Do I even need to point him out? I mean really. It’s so obvious. Or maybe I’m seeing things?
Seriously, do I need to draw some arrows? I didn’t think so.
Isn’t this a beautiful shot with his arms thrown up:
And of course I could be wrong about this, but I don’t think so. :D
edit: I have a slew of screencaps if you need even more proof.
Do you feel like the three time wife who was still a virgin? The first time her husband died at the altar, the second time her husband died en route to their honeymoon destination, and the third time she married a salesman who sat on the side of the bed every night and told her how great it was going to be. I promise I’m not going to keep you forever in suspense. It’s almost here. Almost, almost, almost. Sometimes I hate that word. It can strike such fear or generate a meltdown of anticipation and all the while remaining aloof. Damn! it’s amazing how something so nebulous can have such an effect, but there it is and so many other things in life as well. Someone slap me before this piece strays from the subject to all this philosophical crap (which all of us can relate to but would rather not think about) and of course digressing would justify you in thinking I’m merely messing with your head about FanstRAvaganza!
It’s really, really coming, but you don’t have to trust me. Just listen to this mesmerizing voice beckoning you to be there. Put it on repeat and I’m sure you’ll be with us on Monday. :D
Seductive voice brought to you by CDoart. But sure to check out her blog during FanstRAvaganza!
And there will be more to thrill your ears. My topic is Richard’s voice work, so I hope you will stay around to hear what’s coming, and I haven’t even talked about all of the other wonderful subjects that will be explored by the participating bloggers! More good stuff. Trust me.
From Strike Back, Episode 2 where Porter is trying to calm Katie Dartmouth and gain her trust:
By the way, if you think you’re sick of hearing about FanstRAvaganza, how do you think I feel typing that mother of a word over and over? The one who thought of this name is sadistic, and fortunately, I know who you are. :D
Note to my fellow bloggers: it’s very interesting to be in this group. There are times such as now when I’ve had an idea and then had to possibly rethink it a little or even can it because another blogger ran with it before I did. I do that so the repetition doesn’t bore everyone, but I left my picture selection, which is very similar to Servetus’ recent post, to make a point. I hope none of you get disheartened by these situations, because frankly, they just make us sharp and make for better posts, and I welcome the challenge. I remember learning to draw as a kid. My mother gave me a set of pencils with no erasers. She meant to get me a nice gum eraser but never did. So I learned how to draw without ever erasing. This was key to unlocking my creativity with a pencil, and it’s amazing the drawings that have come out of that exercise. Some of my best evolved from a seemingly out of place mark I could not erase but felt I had to change, so hallelujah! for changes.
Take care, and I hope everyone is still having a great time with this!
Screencap courtesy of RichardArmitageNet.Com
I adore laughing. It truly is great medicine. A little something to cheer you if you need it:
Hope everyone has a great week!
And another one for good measure. :D
edit: Check this out. See, see, I knew it was good medicine. I’m adding the public service tag.
Much has been made of Colin Firth’s performance in “The King’s Speech” and I have no doubt it is deserved. I’ve been a fan of his ever since my good friend, Mimi, turned me onto ‘Pride and Prejudice’ back in the 90s. A few months ago when I was first hearing about the movie, I went in search of some information and stumbled onto an article about the writer of the screenplay, David Seidler. I just fell in love with Mr. Seidler and had intended to watch the Academy Awards, which I haven’t done in years, in hopes of seeing him. Since I was traveling that evening, it was not possible. But thankfully, he won, his speech was loaded to YouTube, and I was not disappointed:
Of course his story of George VI’s struggles and his own struggles with stammering have inspired many who have had their own speech issues, and I really appreciate Judiang sharing how it’s affected her. But Mr. Seidler is also an inspiration to anyone seeking to do something later in life when others may have written them off. I have to write him a fan letter!
Dear Mr. Seidler,
Thank you for that wonderful speech at the Oscars. It was just right. Thank you for being so humble and witty and real. What a powerful combination. If I were single, you would be a temptation despite our age difference. :D But mostly, thank you for not giving up on your dream.
Sincerely,
A newly devoted fan
For further edification:
Confessions of David Seidler, a 73-year-old Oscars virgin
Screenwriter David Seidler: ‘Being a stutterer puts a cloud over childhood’”
“Proud of his Dad’s work (but tried to talk his father out of writing TKS)”
March 5, 2011
Yesterday, I was talking about Twitter having a positive effect on me. I did acknowledge one pitfall, and other than that, it’s been very positive and productive. But it’s imperative to reiterate Twitter is what you make it which means it matters who you are when you get there. And who are you? What are you about? Chances are good Twitter will reveal who you are whether you want it to or not. I’m not talking about your name or title. I’m talking about how you think and why. If someone talks long enough on Twitter, and it doesn’t take very much talking, they will reveal where they’re coming from. Even the alter egos cannot completely squelch their real selves.
Two things dictate Twitter’s keen ability to reveal someone. First, being on Twitter means a person wants to be heard. There is no other reason to be there (that’s true of any online presence, i.e., blogs, forums, etc. or almost any conversation whether online or not). Let me say that again. There is no other reason to be on Twitter than a desire to be heard, and more accurately, a desire to be known and to know, and I don’t mean everything about someone but at least some aspect. Before anyone starts objecting, please realize I’m not saying this is a bad thing. It’s hardwired into us to desire being known, and it’s not so much in the sense of celebrity that we want to be known but being in communion with others, which can only happen in relationships — online or otherwise. Why do you think social media is so popular? It’s appealing to the basic instincts of everyone.
Second, the stacatto nature of Twitter makes it conducive to generating someone’s unvarnished thoughts. Someone said yesterday that Twitter invites the knee jerk. Yes, in many respects it does even if someone only retweets another’s thought. But doesn’t a knee jerk, i.e., a visceral reaction, usually reveal a lot about a person? It’s my experience that it does. In fact, it can oftentimes say a lot more about someone than seemingly thoughtful answers they may craft. Isn’t that why job interviewers throw job candidates curve balls? Aren’t they looking for the person’s involuntary reaction in order to take an accounting of them beyond the image they’ve created? As a long time interviewer of potential employees (mostly white collar but some blue), I can tell you yes, that’s what they’re looking for, and sometimes an honest response of, “I don’t know” or “I need to think more about that to answer” is completely acceptable. Depends on the question and of course, on the interviewer, but this interviewer thinks it’s often a great response. This is also acceptable on Twitter and can lead to some interesting discussion, and frankly, I’m suspicious of people who seem to have the answers to every question. No one’s that good, but that discussion is for another post.
I have much more to say about Twitter, but I suspect this post will go on so long that it will have trouble loading. So I’m saving most of it for later. But I do want to say that I find it infinitely fascinating that Richard Armitage has not been on Twitter, and I mean on Twitter as himself since he may very well be on Twitter. If my gut is still functioning properly (although it had a glitch awhile back LOL!), I suspect he is there anonymously. The man for all of his supposed reticence is a talker. I know there are those of you who will have a violent disagreement with me about this, but you’re mostly reacting to my choice of the word “talker.” That’s not an aspersion on him at all. When I say that I’m not saying he’s indiscreet. Certainly, he doesn’t talk about some of the things that some would like him to, but those who have any brains are not going to tell everything they know or even come close to doing so. First, it’s boring and second, it’s like dropping your pants and bending over. Wait. That’s a bad analogy. LOL!!! Uh, let me try that again but without analogy. Who wants all of their personal business known? No one I know of unless they’re dense and/or temporarily rendered dense by being desperate, e.g., Charlie Sheen. More about Charlie later. Maybe. That post is quite a piece of work. Not sure the public is ready for it.
edit: I found this article interesting. I’m not sure I entirely agree with it, but I agree with the dynamic. Perhaps I don’t fully agree because if someone analyzed my RAFrenzy account on Twitter, they would find I follow both “liberal” and “conservative” accounts, and I can assure you I’m not a moderate. :D
March 4, 2011
It’s amazing what Richard Armitage has prompted me to do. Well, he and some others.
I’ve been neglecting my blog lately but not really. Been doing something that will just make this blog better (picture me with a type of grin that even I’m not crude earthy enough to describe here). Of course I’ve been hanging out on Twitter, which harvested all sorts of guilt from me when I first started. But I think I’m almost over that; however, not quite or this post probably wouldn’t exist (yes, I have a sentence with but and however). What’s great is that I can rationalize anything if I want — can’t we all?
Seriously, the limitation of 140 characters on Twitter is helping me cut out the fat, and with someone like me who too often feels compelled to explain every cussed move I’m making, this is a good thing. You don’t want to read all of that, and I don’t either, and on Twitter, you can’t. Well, you can with Twitlonger and some other services. I just feel like I’ve failed when I have to go to Twitlonger, and really I feel my eyes start to shutter when I begin to read explanations that go on and on and well, aren’t funny and surely aren’t uh, pithy. But the best part of this pithy machine, aka Twitter, is that I now have a great explanation for SO (whose middle name is Pith) as to why I like to spend time there. Thankfully, he has noticed it in my writing, and now I can say, “See, see, this is a good thing.”
Recently though I will admit I’ve been like all the other dreaded onlookers on Twitter who are observing the destruction of Charlie Sheen. The guy set a Guiness Record for the quickest amassing of one million plus followers, and I know his secret. It’s not that he’s a famous wreck; there have been other famous wrecks on Twitter who didn’t get his kind of attention. It’s that on his way to hell, he’s pithy, and that naturally makes for a sensation on Twitter. Very sad but true. Not being funny here. More about Charlie later in another tangent. Yes, I get on a roll with these things, and it’s hard to stop. Anyone who has enough opinions for at least four people cannot help but get on tangents, and really, I would explode if I didn’t, so it’s a good thing. :D Need to slap myself for explaining that, but hey, I’m trying to fill out this paragraph so it’s more than a few sentences. If I wrote better, then I could write only three sentences, and you would be so wowed you wouldn’t care that it’s a short paragraph. See why I need to cut out the fat?
Where was I?
Yeah, Twitter is great for making me think about what I’m actually communicating, and I’ve had to take some risks in running something out there even if it wasn’t quite clear to the recipient. But I have a caution on that, which most thinking people will already know, but hey, I’m a thinking person, and I got carried away on Twitter, and you can too. So take note. I’m going to blame the cold medicine for my mistake, but really, if I’m honest, I had a shabby moment. So here’s the caution: if you’re going to be pithy and say something really sarcastic (key word is really), do it with someone who already knows you and gets your humor. I made the mistake of doing it with someone who didn’t know squat about me, and I got blocked. Yes, I was blocked by someone. I didn’t know it until a couple of weeks later, but man, it stung, and the worst part of it is that the person probably thought I was serious. Sadly, when you’re blocked, you can’t contact the person. I even thought about contacting them through another id to apologize, but that smacks too much of stalking. So I didn’t. I’m now chalking this up as a pitfall of getting up to speed on Twitter. See how easy it is to rationalize?
And now that Twitter almost has me at fighting weight on the pith, I may run a few laps to get ready for the big leagues on Tumblr.
Dropping some of the mask:
I can hear the wheels turning in the heads of some of you who are probably around my age. You have this notion that Twitter lowers your ability to be articulate because it just appears to be a lot of gibberish. I’m sure it can facilitate some gibberish. Ohmygosh, can it facilitate gibberish! But I don’t believe it does arbitrarily. It’s just a tool and up to each of us how we may use it. I’m choosing to experiment with it, and no, it’s not all as RAFrenzy. And you may ask why am I really messing about on Twitter? To make this the greatest blog since napkins were created? Or to simply deal with idle time? Maybe to be cute? LOL! I do think it will help this blog, but honestly, I have very little idle time and lost all hope of being cute years ago. Not being funny again. I have almost no idle time in my life, and I don’t want any. What I’m doing is learning the language of the future. Scratch that. It’s not the language of the future; it’s already here. It is the language my kids understand, and I want to understand it as well. Oh, I make them speak my language too, but it’s only fair that I learn how their generation communicates. That is enough to compel me to get in the flow of this.
edit: I guess WordPress hiccuped on me. This above is now my final post, but what posted before was not. Arrgh! That kind of stuff drives me nuts.
It’s been hard to get back into the RA universe this week. Certainly, it’s not Richard Armitage. No, it could never be due to him. He is utterly fascinating all the time. In fact, that’s the beauty of having him caught on tape — he can be whatever I want him to be anytime, anywhere. But sometimes real life just won’t let me fanatasize incessantly about him. Did I say fantasize? No, I would never do that. At least not while I’m asleep. I want to be awake so I can get the most out of it, but damn, SO and the kids just won’t stop being who they are to let me do it! So I was in a tizzy pondering my abilities for fantasy about RA (yes, when you’re a rabid fan, you think about heady stuff like that) — at the least trying to work up that perpetual glow fans get when they’ve been wowed by himself’s abilities.
What I really needed was a little Armitage fix. I just couldn’t do it to myself since the curse of taking something fun and making it convoluted complex was riding me hard. Thankfully, I didn’t have to do it. I opened my in-box, and there was a little treat waiting. It was almost as if the laws of attraction really do work. Less than a minute later I was back thinking of angst about life and love in an enjoyable way, and before I could think too much, I was loading up various slide shows (oh, sometimes there are some slide shows that my heart can barely handle for the thrill; I force myself to look at them anyway. :D), and well, my fingers were itching to unleash all of my bullshit on you again.
The little treat I received is packed with goodies to find. So despite its length, you make up for it by watching over and over to mine them. Picture me with glazed eyes and a wonderful glow this morning. :D
Enjoy:
Sorry to inflict my geek moment on you, but I can’t help myself, and if you’re into screencapping Richard Armitage, this might be of interest.
Last spring I was reading about an HD cinematic camera which could shoot frame rates at 100 times the usual. So what does all of this mean and why should you care? There are things that can now be seen which before could only be consistently captured with scopes (decidedly less detail than a camera) or speculated with mathematics, and usually that is so abstract for most as to be inconceivable and therefore blown off. But enter the Phantom Flex, and thankfully, as of a few weeks ago, there is now some fantastic video to show exactly how precise this camera can be.
I realize some may not be that impressed with this, but that’s because you have probably not watched much slow motion video. Most of it is a lot more blurry than this video above, so the detail in this is amazing. For any of you who have made screencaps, you know how frustrating it can be to fight the blur. Can you imagine the screen capture ability with this kind of video?! Mind boggling. It captures such detail that it’s like seeing the forbidden. Should be interesting to see what is unearthed from coming films.
And Richard Armitage just thought we had him under a magnifying glass. LOL!
If you haven’t already done it, watch that video in full screen mode.
And if you’re not a geek, I’ll throw in a picture to make reading this worth your time.
The guy who started it all:
Screencap courtesy of RichardArmitageNet.Com
There is actually something that can distract me from Richard Armitage watching. Yes, I know that’s a shameful thing to admit, but there it is. Son (aka the son of SO) has me running all over the country to help him check out potential schools. I have never worked so hard nor been so tired except maybe when I gave birth to said Son. I refresh myself with the thought that he will have several years of schooling possibly paid by someone other than dear old Mom and Dad. Oh, that sounds like a cop out? You have obviously never had to deal with a kid who is maniacal about participating in an activity. Yes, that’s what I thought — no clue about what a huge drain it is on time and other resources, which means I have paid in advance for this “privilege” of someone else paying for Son’s schooling. LOL! The years of driving to his events are enough to scare most sane people.
And now come the recruiters. What a learning curve this has been, and son is getting a marvelous education in card playing. He, who was taught to let his yes mean yes and his no mean no, was innocent about recruiters. I’m happy to say he is a quick study and has learned very fast which cards to play and which to hold. On his own he now has the two schools of his choice up to paying for almost everything. I’m observing in amusement as he might actually get them to pay for all of it. No matter what happens, he’s parlaying this into much more than I ever dreamed of during the years I was watching him work out before and after school, often say no to his friends when they wanted to hang out, eat his precision diet with carb loading on certain days of the week, drink untold amounts of water, monitor the competition, spend what seemed like man years studying the best ways to improve his abilities, and certainly, perform his sport. Ahh! this last is quite a thing to behold, but his ability at the non-answer is fast eclipsing it. In celebration of his new found negotiating skills and our diet not needing to be quite so strict around here in future, I renewed an acquaintance with highly processed, sugary foods.
Since this isn’t a tangent piece (although it borders on one), the inevitable tie in:
Perhaps Richard Armitage was right when he said some of his fans are motherly. Although I don’t feel in the least motherly towards him (the thought is icky), I must admit I have at times thought of his mother and wondered if she has felt about her son as I’m feeling about mine right now. What was it like for her to watch her child immerse himself so completely in something he loved? Was there a niggling thought he may actually want to pursue a career with such a potentially fickle fate? Was she scared about her son making deals only to perhaps find himself hurt and the dream dying? Or did she focus on his wonderful discipline and tenacity to pursue something so difficult for most others to attain? Did she some days get a pang of fear and want to talk him out of it and on other days seek to move heaven and earth to see that he got a chance? I did read somewhere she took a job so he could attend Pattison’s College in Coventry. I also wonder how many performances she saw or perhaps even helped with before her son was ever on anyone’s radar. Did she ever think it would come to this? And when it did, how did she celebrate?
I hope you indulged in more than a Twinkie, Mrs. Armitage.
A picture of Richard in his early twenties and on the verge of entering the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA).
For those just stumbling on this site, yes, the guy in my banner picture is the same.
Photo courtesy of RichardArmitageNet.Com
RAFrenzy 