Meeting Point: October 2008

Friday 31 October 2008

Happy Halloween!

NARRATOR: 'Twas a long time ago, longer now than it seems, in a place that perhaps you've seen in your dreams. For the story that you are about to be told, took place in the holiday worlds of old. Now, you've probably wondered where holidays come from. If you haven't, I'd say it's time you begun.

This Is Halloween

SHADOW: Boys and girls of every age
Wouldn't you like to see something strange?
SIAMESE SHADOW: Come with us and you will see
This, our town of Halloween
PUMPKIN PATCH CHORUS: This is Halloween, this is Halloween
Pumpkins scream in the dead of night
GHOSTS: This is Halloween, everybody make a scene
Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright
It's our town, everybody scream
In this town of Halloween
CREATURE UNDER BED: I am the one hiding under your bed
Teeth ground sharp and eyes glowing red
MAN UNDER THE STAIRS: I am the one hiding under your stairs
Fingers like snakes and spiders in my hair
CORPSE CHORUS: This is Halloween, this is Halloween
Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!
VAMPIRES: In this town we call home
Everyone hail to the pumpkin song
MAYOR: In this town, don't we love it now?
Everybody's waiting for the next surprise
CORPSE CHORUS: Round that corner, man hiding in the trash can
Something's waiting now to pounce, and how you'll scream
HARLEQUIN DEMON, WEREWOLF, AND MELTING MAN: Scream! This is Halloween
Red 'n' black, slimy green
WEREWOLF: Aren't you scared?
WITCHES: Well, that's just fine
Say it once, say it twice
Take the chance and roll the dice
Ride with the moon in the dead of night
HANGING TREE: Everybody scream, everybody scream
HANGED MEN: In our town of Halloween
CLOWN: I am the clown with the tear-away face
Here in a flash and gone without a trace
SECOND GHOUL: I am the "who" when you call, "Who's there?"
I am the wind blowing through your hair
OOGIE BOOGIE SHADOW: I am the shadow on the moon at night
Filling your dreams to the brim with fright
CORPSE CHORUS: This is Halloween, this is Halloween
Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!
CHILD CORPSE TRIO: Tender lumplings everywhere
Life's no fun without a good scare
PARENT CORPSES: That's our job, but we're not mean
In our town of Halloween
CORPSE CHORUS: In this town
MAYOR: Don't we love it now?
MAYOR WITH CORPSE CHORUS: Everyone's waiting for the next surprise
CORPSE CHORUS: Skeleton Jack might catch you in the back
And scream like a banshee
Make you jump out of your skin
This is Halloween, everybody scream
Won't ya please make way for a very special guy
Our man Jack is king of the pumpkin patch
Everyone hail to the Pumpkin King now
EVERYONE: This is Halloween, this is Halloween
Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!
CORPSE CHILD TRIO: In this town we call home
Everyone hail to the pumpkin song
EVERYONE: La la-la la, Halloween! Halloween!

From Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas

Thursday 16 October 2008

NASA's 50th Anniversary

This year marks the Golden Anniversary of The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), an agency of the US government which was established on July 29, 1958, and began operations on October 1st. As part of the celebration of 50 years of technological innovations and scientific discoveries, NASA has developed a special website that offers a collection of images, videos and interactive features, including a tour exploring NASA’s past, present and future.

NASA also celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Apollo Program with a tribute to the Apollo missions.

(Music: "Apollo 13" - Opening)

You can play fun games and learn about space at NASA Kids’ Club and find more educational videos and activities here and here.

Friday 3 October 2008

A Tribute to Paul Newman (1925-2008)

Hollywood legend Paul Newman died last week at his home in Connecticut at the age of 83, after a long battle with cancer. Actor, director and producer, he starred in more than fifty films during an extraordinary career that spanned five decades.

Watch a look back on Newman's career:

More information on his life and career here and here.

These are some of Paul Newman's greatest movie moments:

Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid (1969)

The Sting (1973)

The Color of Money (1986)

Visit "Newman's Own Inventory: 10 unmissable Paul Newman films", by The A.V. Club for more scenes and reviews of his best films.

Previous quotes

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book." (Groucho Marx) (1890 - 1977)

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."
(John Lennon) (1940-1980)

"There is no remedy for love but to love more."
(Henry David Thoreau) (1817 - 1862)

"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give."
(Sir Winston Churchill) (1874-1965)

"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
(Douglas Adams) (1952 - 2001)

"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." (Oscar Wilde) (1854-1900)

"A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow." (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)

"There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes every man feel great."
(Gilbert Keith Chesterton) (1874-1936)

"The more often Man feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel" (C.S.Lewis) (1898-1963)

"When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not."
(Mark Twain) (1835 - 1910)

"Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time."(Thomas Carlyle) (1795 - 1881)

"I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." (Isaac Newton) (1642-1727)

"Words strain,
Crack, sometimes break,under the burden,
Under the tension, slip,slide,perish
Decay with imprecision,will not stay in place,
Will not stay still"
(T.S.Eliot) (1888-1965)

"Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom."
(Bertrand Russell) (1872 - 1970)

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant." (Martin Luther King Jr.) (1929-1968)

"I certainly wasn't happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can't earn, and can't keep, and often don't even recognize at the time; I mean joy." (Ursula K. LeGuin) (1929- )

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night." (Edgar Allan Poe) (1809 - 1849)

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there." (Lewis Carroll) (English author) (1832-1898)

"Even death is unreliable: instead of zero it may be some ghastly hallucination, such as the square root of minus one." (Samuel Beckett) (British author) (1906-1989)

"Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tries, and a touch that never hurts." (Charles Dickens) (English novelist) (1812 - 1870)

"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul.
And sings the tune
Without the words,
and never stops at all."(Emily Dickinson) (1830 - 1886)

"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."
(Ralph Waldo Emerson) (1803 - 1882)

"Eternity is really long, especially near the end." (Woody Allen) (1935 - )

“Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's.” (Billy Wilder) (1906-2002)

"All other things to their destruction draw,
Only our love hath no decay;
This no tomorrow hath nor yesterday.
Running it never runs from us away,
But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day."
(John Donne) (1572-1631)

"Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think." Ralph Waldo Emerson, (1803 - 1882)

"There are seven sins in the world: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice and politics without principle."
Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)

“I don't consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin.” Leonard Cohen (1934 - )

"It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust."
Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)

"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts..."
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

"More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us." George Elliot (1819-1880)

"A real book is not one that we read but one that reads us." W.H. Auden (1907-1973)