72 Reasons to celebrate Randy Stonehill's 72nd birthday.

Last year at this time I commemorated Sir Randy Stonehill's 71st birthday by sharing 71 of my favorite songs of his on this blog. As he is adding a candle on his birthday cake this year, I am upping my 71 song salute to a half gross.  I was able to see Randy at 2 concerts since he turned 71.  One with Phil Keaggy last Fall, and a few weeks ago I crossed the border into Missouri to catch an epic solo concert.

In tribute to that performance I am including every song I can find on the internet that he performed at that concert. All of the songs he perfformed on March 2nd in St. Louis are listed in Bold Letters (Just in case you don't know what Bold Letters look like, they look like this.)Many of his songs can be found on Spotify.  Songs I could not find on Spotify, I found on BandCamp.  Songs I could not find in either place I pulled from you-tube or Patreon.

1. Irresistable Future - Mystery Highway

 2. Faithful - Until We Have Wings 

   

 3. Get Me Out of Hollywood- Get me Out of Hollywood 

4. The Last Day - Not on Album Yet.  Video from Randy's Patreon Page 

 5. Christmas Song For All Year 'Round - Welcome To Paradise  

 6. I Love You - Born Twice  

 7. Norman's Kitchen - Born Twice 

8. Bad Fruit -The Sky Is Falling

   

 9. Still Small Voice - Celebrate This Heartbeat  

 10. Christine - Between The Glory And The Flame

 

 11. Can Hell Burn Hot Enough - Until We Have Wings

   

 12. Light Of The World - Equator

   

13. First Prayer - Welcome To Paradise

14. Keep Me Runnin' - Welcome To Paradise

  

15. Stop The World - Celebrate This Heartbeat  

  16. Sunday's Child - Mystery Highway

 17. Love Beyond Reason - Love Beyond Reason  18. Ramada Inn (Live) - Until We Have Wings  19. Everything But Love - Stonehill  20. Didn't It Rain - Until We Have Wings  21. One True Love - The Sky Is Falling  22. Until Your Love Broke Through- Love Beyond Reason  23. Celebrate This Heartbeat - Celebrate This Heartbeat  24. The Hope of Glory - The Wild Frontier  25. Modern Myth - Celebrate This Heartbeat  26. Can't Buy A Miracle - Can't Buy A Miracle  27. Leonard Has A Toaster - Lost Art Of Listening  28. Glory And The Flame - Between The Glory And The Flame  

 29. Stand Like Steel - Return To Paradise  30. Hand of God - Thirst

   

 31. Barbie Nation - Wonderama

 32. Old Clothes - Until We Have Wings

 33. Charlie The Weatherman - Stories 

 34. Try Havin' Some Faith - Spirit Walk

 35. Turning Thirty - Equator

36. Lazarus Heart - Lazarus Heart 

37. This Old Face - Lost Art Of Listening 

38. Baby Hates Clowns - Thirst 

39. Strong Hand Of Love - Welcome To Paradise 

40. Stormy Winds- Uncle Stonehill's Hat  

41. Die Young - Between The Glory And The Flame 

42. Who Will Save The Children - Celebrate This Heartbeat  

43. Arriving to Depart: Not yet on album 

(Pulled from You Tube video from Jan 24 concert, song begins at approximately 19:00)  

44. King Of Hearts: Welcome To Paradise 

45. That's The Way It Goes (Live) - Edge Of The World 

46. Shut De Do (Live) - Equator

  

47. Jesus - Breath Of God   

48. Big Ideas (In The Shrinking World) 49. Beginning Of The Living End - Lost Art of Listening

50. Broken Places - Spirit Walk  51. Hymn - Love Beyond Reason 

52. Billy Frank - The Lost Art Of Listening

 

53. Venezuela - The Sky Is Falling 

54. What Do You Want From Life? - The Wild Frontier 

55.Brighter Day - Can't Buy A Miracle  56. Get Together - The Wild Frontier 

57. Ready To Go - Welcome To Paradise 

58.Rachel Delevoryas - Wonderama  

59.In Jesus Name - Lazarus Heart  60.Last Time I Saw Eden - Spirit Walk  61. Everything You Know (Is Incorrect) - Thirst 

62.I've Got News For You (Paradise Sky Version) Welcome To Paradise - 

63. When I'm Afraid Lazarus Heart  

64.When I Look To The Mountains - Celebrate This Heartbeat 

65.Mercy In The Shadow Land - Lost Art Of Listening 

66. Backwards On Her Bike - Mystery Highway  67.Cosmetic Fixation - Equator 

68.A Promise Made Is A Promise Kept - Lazarus Heart 

69. The Keeper Of The Bear - Thirst

  

70. I Don't Ever Want To Live Without You - Return To Paradise 

71. One Last Song Before I Say Goodbye - Not yet recorded on an album

72. Life is Tough, God Is Good - Spirit Walk

 Happy Birthday Randy! I encourage anyone who spends time listening to these songs to buy some or all of them on Band  Camp.  Also you can sponsor Rand's ministry on his Patreon page.  

📚 Kids Read Aloud | INTERRUPTING CHICKEN by David Ezra Stein

Today at school was the readathon day. Instead of having core classes (Math, Social Sciences, ELA, & Science) are middle school students were able to read in those classes and have teachers and other staff read to them as well.  

As a building sub I don't usually know who I'm going to be that day.  Today I subbed for a paraprofessional in one of our SPED classes.  This particular class is rather low functioning so the books read to the students were geared for much younger children. There was one book the teacher read called Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein. The title reminded me of the old knock knock joke:

A: Knock Knock

B: Who's There

A: Interrupting Cow

B: Interrup

A: Moo

I was able to find a read aloud version of the book on you tube.  This is not that difficult of a thing to do.  I have considered in the past having an A  to Z challenge of children's books being read aloud on you tube videos.  

Here is one of the versions I found on You Tube,

The "He Gets Us" Agenda No One is Talking About...

A to Z Challenge 2024 Theme Reveal

 March 10th is the official theme reveal for the 2024 iteration of the A to Z challenge.  Last year I actually announced my theme for 2024 here a year early while announcing my theme for 2023. In that post I stated, 

"The 2024 theme will be Narnian characters and creatures from A to Z. My working title is Narnia: From Aslan to Zardeenah."

Well it turns out, I lied.  Lied is a strong word.  I miscalculated.  Almost every year for the last 35 years I have reread each book in the Chronicles of Narnia.  Last year when I made the announcement, I had not yet started on my literary pilgrimage to Narnia and thought the idea of reading the books would help in making the alphabetical list of entries.  

I ended up reading a sum total of zero Narnia books in 2023.  While it's true that  I could easily journey from Archenland to Zalindreh, my heart was not in it.  I chose to abandon  delay my Narnian sojourn for another time (Although I would prefer to do all my blogging in Narnia, as no time would pass while I was writing).  

I then toyed with the idea of having no theme and simply blogging about something new from A to Z each day.  I liked that idea quite a bit, but then it occurred to me, I would have nothing to say at the theme reveal.  I then thought of having an overarching theme but leaving it wide enough to choose the individual topics the day they were due.  That also seemed a little problematic as I often suffer more from topic block than it's cousin writer's block.

Holidays by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4free 

 Finally I thought of a topic that would give me both flexibility and stability.  I decided to blog about Holidays.  However instead of A is for Arbor day, C is for Casmir Pulaski Day (It's A Chicago Thing), I will be focusing on lesser holidays, the kind you would find at sites like the National Day Calendar or What is Today Holiday's like National Take A Poet to Lunch day which takes place on January 6th each year, the holiday that inspired this poem.

My process this year is each day of the challenge to post about a holiday that is taking place that day.  Some holidays like April Fools day on the 1st would match very well for the letter of the day.  Others will take a little pushing to make it fit the letter of the day.  April 2nd for example is Children's Book day. If I choose that holiday, I would have a title like B is for Books for Children. 

In addition to actual holidays, I am going to also create 5 new holidays as part of my list, including ways to celebrate these new festive occasions.   

Recent A to Z Challenges

2023 A Month At The Movies

2022 Limericks, Homeruns, & Wordles (Oh My!)

2021 A to Z People who were alive in 1921

2020 State (& Other) Capitals

Each year on Spotify I make an A to Z playlist for the year.  At the end of each post I will have a link to the song for  that day .

I am very excited about this Holiday edition of the A to Z challenge.  To learn more about The 2024 A to Z Theme Reveals click here, if you are ready to participate in said reveals click here, and finally if you are looking for a spreadsheet of who is already participating this year click here.

12 New Movies 2024 Film #1 In The Good Old Summer Time

 When It comes to placing content on this blog I continually am reminded of the Peanuts comic strip.  Lucy would hold the football for Charlie Brown to kick it and then pull it away from him at the last second .  He would fly through the air and land on his back.  Lucy always seems to be able to convince Charlie Brown that this time it will be different and each time it ends exactly the same.

In my blog I have these ideas for recurring posts and quite often I start them but then never get to finishing them.  One of these actually predates my blogs and that is the idea of watching 12 movies I have not seen before in a year.  Of course I complicate this simple plan by stating that the films must be from different eras.  Each year by April or May I have forgotten which new movies I've seen and I don't meet my goal.  I thought blogging about them might help me keep track, but it only ends up documenting my failure .  In some ways I am both like Lucy luring me to try again each year and like Charlie Brown convincing myself that this time I'll be different  falling flat on my back when the football is metaphorically pulled from my path.

My wife likes to say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting different results.  But that same wife once co wrote a song with me entitled I'm insane, you're insane, who's gonna win.  So since I already am (I won) sanity challenged, trying again this year isn't that bad of an idea.  Maybe this time I'll at least make it to AAUGHust. 

As I said I try to split the films up so they are not all from the same era. I try to choose 4 films that are older than me and 8 that have come out in my life time 

This year I plan to see 2 new to me films from each of these 6 eras

I. 2009 to 2023

II. 1994 to 2008

III. 1979 to 1993

IV. 1964 to 1978

V. 1949 to 1963

VI. before and including 1934 to 1948

I have already watched 2 new movies this year.  

The first was the 1949 film In The Good Old Summer Time.  I have wanted to watch this one for a while, and actually was reminded of it when I shared a YouTube video here  earlier this month.

By IMDb, Fair use, Link

I would give this movie a rating between 2 1/2 and 3 stars out of 5.  The film takes place in the early years of 20th century Chicago featuring  Judy Garland and Van Johnson  as two music  music store workers  who are also engaging in a mail correspondence not realizing that they know each other in what will be called " IRL" more than a century later. This musical is based on the  1936 Hungarian play Parfumerie by Miklos Laszlo which has spawned 2 other movies and one Broadway musical. One theme from the film is that circumstances can effect the way we view the world especially how we  evaluate people. I really enjoyed the performances by Buster Keaton (Sherlock Holmes, Jr.) , and S.Z. Sakall  (Casablanca) as the shopkeepers nephew  and the shopkeeper, respectively.  Their presence helps bring out much of the films comedic elements.  One aspect of the film I did not enjoy was that many of the musical numbers, although entertaining on their own merit, did not really go with the story that was being told.  This led to kind of an uneven feel to the film, which led to my mediocre rating.  I would definitely recommend this film to fans of Garland and to those who like to watch different adaptations of the same source material.