Halloween Costume Idea

Can you tell I'm up late blogging all night. I felt so bad neglecting my blog for several months like I did, and there are really so many fascinating things for me to write/photo/blog about...if only there were more hours in the day. I'm sure we all long for that. I suppose we can call these multiple posts in one day making up for all that neglect.

Anywho, I've been trying for years to come up with a unique idea for a Halloween costume that would be perhaps memorable to some, while still not being the same thing everyone else does. I'm a bit of an 80's girl and I grew up watching all those fantasy-themed movies like The Labyrinth, Neverending Story, and Legend (with young Tom Cruise). How cool would it be to make a costume to resemble "Dark Lily" from the Legend movie from this scene?

What's that? No one else will know who I'm supposed to be? Oh well, at least it would look pretty cool and be different. I wonder if my sewing skills will be up to par so I can make this by Halloween? Prolly not - this idea may have to wait until '08.

It's weird how certain clips you saw while growing up and watching cartoons and movies stay with you. This is one of my all-time favorites - very enchanting.

I should add that if you've never seen this movie and like a good fantasy-themed movie, you should def check this movie out sometime. Otherwise, this scene will be completely random...lol.

Now This is Singing

I forgot how much I used to love and appreciate truly good singing by more "classic" artists (i.e. non-pop-stars). I'm not sure if it was my dad's love for beautiful music or my background in figure skating (where we almost always skated to a classical piece of music), but I rediscovered it at random the other day. My mom was telling me about how there was a man on the TV show Britain's Got Talent who looked like a blue collar worker but who sang beautiful opera (yea, that happened awhile ago, but you know I'm a bit behind on news sometimes). What I especially like about the story is how they (the judges and the audience) so wrongly judged him by his looks. You have to see the video below to understand, but basically, he walks up on the stage and they ask him what he's there for. He says, "To sing opera." The judges roll their eyes and it's as if they, as well as, the whole audience thinks he's mad. But, the music starts and Paul begins to sing Nessun Dorma...to the shock of everyone...it's simply beautiful. Can you believe this raw talent? You show 'em, Paul... you show 'em:


I don't know what it is about this song, but I want to listen to it over and over and over again...I can't get enough! I've been listening mostly to this version by the great Pavarotti live in Paris in 1998:


In case you're a figure skating fan, here's skating great Brian Boitano skating to Nessun Dorma for his Artistic Program at the 1994 Gold Championships:


Ok, now that we're all sick of Nessun Dorma, I'm off to finish cleaning my house...almost there...phew!