Judy Meets Julie

There is something mildly disturbing on iTunes. It's called Judy Garland Meets Julie Andrews. Yeah, it's a CD with some random Judy Garland and Julie Andrews songs all mixed together. I'm not sure what to make of it. First, the cover is beyond disturbing. Second, despite the fact that they happen to be my two favorite movie people, I'm not sure that my Judy Garland world should ever collide with my Julie Andrews world. It just doesn't feel right.

In other Judy news, this is a pretty interesting article about Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. It's been through many incarnations. I, of course, am loyal to the Judy version. I hate when they sing the line about hanging the star on the highest bough. Seriously. This article was showed to me by the guy at work that's planning our Christmas party where we will be enjoying Meet Me in St. Louis on stage. I think he wanted to "warn" me that we're going to sing this song at the party, but we're singing "if the Lord allows" instead of "if the fates allow." He knows I'm the only person that would probably even notice. That was very thoughtful of him. I love my Christian workplace!

Upcoming Events and Kermit the Frog

If you're in the Chicagoland area and like stuff I like, there are some exciting events coming up. Most exciting is the Tivoli Theatre's Holiday Classic Film Festival. They show classic films every night for a week for $3. And finally, after years and years of wishing and hoping, they're going to be showing a Judy Garland film other than The Wizard of Oz. That's right, on Sunday, December 9th, they will be presenting Meet Me in St. Louis. This is a pretty big deal, I think. The rest of the line-up can be found here.

Meanwhile, at the Hollywood Blvd. Theater in Downers Grove, they will be showing It's a Wonderful Life, with a special appearance by Karolyn Grimes, whoever that is. Just kidding, she played Zuzu in the movie. Should be interesting.

I should also note that Meet Me in St. Louis will be on stage at the Drury Lane Theatre in Oak Brook. I get to see this performance for free for our company Christmas party! I'm looking forward to it and hoping that it won't completely defile the original film. You never know with these things.

In other news, I was poking around on TCM's site this week looking at their special guest programmers. It's fun to see what movies these semi-famous people pick, assuming they had any say in their choices. I found that I am most movie compatible with Kermit the Frog. Huh. I also like that one of Martha Stewart's picks is Mr. Blanding Builds His Dream House.

Work Stories

I like when old movies come up at work.

In an attempt to help us get to know people we don't usually work with, my company has set up scheduled lunches with other departments where we just eat and talk. It's not a bad idea; there are a lot of people I would never talk to otherwise. I had my first one yesterday and to ensure that we don't just sit there staring at each other, we were provided with a list of "starter questions" in case we're too boring to come up with anything else. Indeed we were too boring and we had to resort to the provided questions. We started off with a question about the most famous person you've met. So a few people shared their stories, and then my boss, having heard many of my stories, mentioned that I had met quite a few people. Really, I've seen them in person without actually meeting them. Nevertheless, this launched me into stories of Tony Curtis, Tippi Hedren, and Julie Andrews. Then I shared my amazing story of meeting Veronica Cartwright in the bathroom. They were mildly impressed.

This led to a lengthy discussion about old movies. It was great. Then one young fellow spoke up and revealed that he doesn't watch movies that were made before he was born. I think I had a mini heart attack. He made one exception for Jaws. Jaws?!? Not acceptable. Luckily, everyone else was appalled and they told him so.

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Today at lunch, Robert Goulet came up, I'm not sure why. Things like this tend to come up when I'm present even though the lunch group consists of about 10 twenty-somethings. Anyway, we were discussing his death and one of my coworkers exclaimed,"He sang If Ever I Would Leave You and then he did!" It made me laugh.