Heidi Anne Heiner's Blog, page 174

Music Month: Cinderella (Stay In My Arms) by Vera Lynn

So far music month has focused on recent pop songs, so now I am going back several decades to share Cinderella (Stay In My Arms) by Vera Lynn. I am not as familiar with Vera Lynn's work although I enjoy music from this era. Lynn is still alive and has had a fascinating career, you can read about her on Wikipedia to start.
 
Here are the lyrics:

Stay in my arms, Cinderella,
While the clock is striking I'll hold you
At the stroke of twelve don't run away
Oh, can't you hear my heart, it begs you to
Stay in my arms, Cinderella,
Maybe I'm that fellow Prince Charming,
Since I met you I've had one design
Your wedding shoes placed next to mine
Midnight of midnights and so divine
Cinderella, stay in my arms!

The Glenn Miller Orchestra also recorded this one. Now that band I am familiar with! A few other artists have covered it, too.


I am sharing two videos with Lynn's version of the song. The one above is a less common recording circa 1938 and one I prefer over the one below which is apparently more commonly known. Listening to songs like this make me hanker to sit down and watch some old black and white movies and talk to my grandmother who is now gone but who I am sure knew Vera Lynn's work.

Highlights for OUAT at Paleyfest

Here's one article from BuzzSugar about PaleyFest, I've culled some of the highlights from their highlights.

From PaleyFest: Once Upon a Time's Cast and Creators Talk Fairy-Tale Twists Ahead:

•Robert Carlyle said he got his Rumpelstiltskin voice from his 6-year-old son. Carlyle said, in his thick Scottish accent, that he couldn't imagine his voice working for the character. One day he noticed his son walking around the house talking in a funny little voice and said, "That's it!"

•Goodwin said she has to remind herself before every scene that she is afraid of Rumpelstiltskin. "It's difficult because we all love Bobby so much that I have to remind myself right before we start filming that I'm afraid of this man." She turned to Carlyle and said, "No offense, but it's kind of hard to be afraid of you!" She paused as the crowd laughed at Carlyle's reaction: "You're so lovely and wonderful!"

•Lana Parrilla claimed her Evil Queen costumes alone get her "60 percent" into character. "The minute I put on those costumes — I mean, I can't breathe when I'm wearing them — but it really does help me create the character and stay in character. And they just continuously get more elaborate and bigger!"

•Creators Adam Horowitz and Edward Katsis gave hints about what is to come this season. "The queen and Rumpelstiltskin will now be speaking out in the open," since they recently discovered they both know the truth. "You'll find out soon who August is and what he's doing in Storybrooke. You'll also learn what Snow White did to piss off the queen very soon."

Music Month: Kiss That Frog by Peter Gabriel

Today's song is Kiss That Frog by Peter Gabriel from his 1992 album, Us.

From the lyrics:

Jump in the water....

Sweet little princess, let me introduce his frogness
You alone can get him singing,
He's all puffed up, wanna be your king

Oh you can do it, c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon
Lady kiss that frog

Splash, dash, heard your call,
Bring you back your golden ball
He's gonna dive down in the deep end
He's gonna be just like your best friend

The entire song references events in the fairy tale with some interpretation but few pop songs do more than use the most commonly known elements. Gabriel obviously read the tale a few times before writing his lyrics.

2,000th Post, Status of SurLaLune and Plea for Guests Posts

Hello all you wonderful readers! This is the SurLaLune blog's 2,000th post and I only wish I had more to write to celebrate. You see, the trouble is that I came home from Grimm Legacies a month ago and my world exploded with busyness that seemed unimaginable since January was an overload within itself. I didn't think I could do more and I didn't plan it this way. I planned to come home, write blogs, finish the next SurLaLune title and enjoy February.


That didn't happen. One surprise after another has rained down upon me the past few weeks and I can't believe a month has passed. The events, which I won't bore you with details here, are ongoing for the next few months. Never fear, I will keep posting but some of my bigger projects are delayed for a bit while my life catches up with my ability to enact my dreams and goals for SurLaLune, including a fairy tale database which I discussed at Grimm Legacies. Once this chaos has passed—never fear, it's overall good chaos, but chaos all the same, which is always exhausting—expect big announcements that I had planned for this 2,000th post but will have to await probably the 2,100th or perhaps the 2,200th post. The domain name and preliminary design for the database is underway but currently on hold since my time is demanded elsewhere for a few months. I had hoped to launch a Kickstarter campaign for support but that will be at least a few weeks if not a month or so out. Hopefully!

For now, don't forget to write an entry for the chance to win a copy of The Next Full Moon by Carolyn Turgeon. See details here. The opportunity ends on Friday.

And, since I am VERY overwhelmed right now, please consider offering to write a guest blog for SurLaLune. Share a paper, a poem, an illustration, or anything fairy tale related. Please try to have it ready to go with little editing so I just have to format and post. My time is extremely limited right now! Email it to me and I will be happy and grateful to share it with readers here. I am thinking up thank yous for your efforts but my brain is short on resources at the moment.

And never fear, I do plan to write up the remaining coverage for Grimm Legacies as well as the art exhibit Fairy Tales, Monsters and the Genetic Imagination. I will be able to resume those in a few more days, I hope.

And, finally, thanks to all of you readers. I wouldn't be here without you!

Five Hundred New Fairytales Discovered in Germany

Spinning a yarn … King Golden Hair, one of the newly-discovered fairytales. Illustration: Barbara Stefan


From Five hundred new fairytales discovered in Germany: Collection of fairytales gathered by historian Franz Xaver von Schönwerth had been locked away in an archive in Regensburg for over 150 years by Victoria Sussens-Messerer:

A whole new world of magic animals, brave young princes and evil witches has come to light with the discovery of 500 new fairytales, which were locked away in an archive in Regensburg, Germany for over 150 years. The tales are part of a collection of myths, legends and fairytales, gathered by the local historian Franz Xaver von Schönwerth (1810–1886) in the Bavarian region of Oberpfalz at about the same time as the Grimm brothers were collecting the fairytales that have since charmed adults and children around the world.

Last year, the Oberpfalz cultural curator Erika Eichenseer published a selection of fairytales from Von Schönwerth's collection, calling the book Prinz Roßzwifl. This is local dialect for "scarab beetle". The scarab, also known as the "dung beetle", buries its most valuable possession, its eggs, in dung, which it then rolls into a ball using its back legs. Eichenseer sees this as symbolic for fairytales, which she says hold the most valuable treasure known to man: ancient knowledge and wisdom to do with human development, testing our limits and salvation.

Von Schönwerth spent decades asking country folk, labourers and servants about local habits, traditions, customs and history, and putting down on paper what had only been passed on by word of mouth. In 1885, Jacob Grimm said this about him: "Nowhere in the whole of Germany is anyone collecting [folklore] so accurately, thoroughly and with such a sensitive ear." Grimm went so far as to tell King Maximilian II of Bavaria that the only person who could replace him in his and his brother's work was Von Schönwerth.

Von Schönwerth compiled his research into a book called Aus der Oberpfalz – Sitten und Sagen, which came out in three volumes in 1857, 1858 and 1859. The book never gained prominence and faded into obscurity.

You can read the rest at The Guardian's site. You can also read one of the tales, The Turnip Princess.

So, not really lost, just forgotten which is somewhat different. They were published in German and they are around, just not highlighted. As a researcher, not a member of the media proper, I distinguish. After all, Aus der Oberpfalz: sitten und sagen, Volume 1 By Franz Xaver von Schönwerth is available online at Google Books in full text. The other two volumes were not fully scanned but there may be ones soon. Of course, a full English translation of all three volumes would be wonderful. (Someone get right on that for me, okay?)

And don't think I am not happy about this news item if I sound less enthusiastic about the idea of lost treasures. These do deserve some much needed attention, no doubt, especially if they were much less edited than the Grimms. (I am unversed about Von Schönwerth's work overall, so don't know at this point.) I am thrilled whenever fairy tales get coverage in the media, except when I weary of the "don't read fairy tales to children" articles. I could muster through life with less of those....

Music Month: Frogs & Princes by Natasha Bedingfield

This is Frogs & Princes by Natasha Bedingfield on her Unwritten album.

The song is actually a send-up of modern dating but the chorus directly references the fairy tale. From the lyrics:

Tell me how many frogs do I have to kiss
Before I find my Prince
Before I find my Prince
All you girls that are goin' thru this
Tell 'em how it is
Tell 'em how it is

Once Upon a Time: Sneak Peek Episode 14: Dreamy

Above is a preview for tonight's episode of Once Upon a Time on ABC. This one is titled Dreamy and we will see the backstory for the dwarfs apparently. I admit I am more interested in next week's episode in which we finally get some of Red Riding Hood's back story.

Also, Paleyfest 2012 is happening today and there is a panel devoted to Once Upon a Time this afternoon. You can read the preview details here. I will try to find some coverage to share here after the event.

And although many other show are getting repeats during much of March, OUAT has mostly new episodes which is the boon of it starting in late October.

Music Month: Once Upon a Time by Helen Trevillion

Inside Myself / Once Upon a Time by Helen Trevillion offers four tracks from her Once Upon a Time CD.  From her site:

This little EP is disc 2 of the 'Inside Myself / Once Upon A Time' album. It consists of four songs based on four fairytale protagonists. I have depicted their stories, their situations, their feelings... it's all rather subjective of course but this is my take. :] I think this is the stronger of the two CDs.

ONE DAY I would like to make an extended (i.e. full album length) fairytale album, because I think it worked nicely and there are so many more magical little stories that are begging to be explored in song.

The four fairy tales represented are Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Goose Girl and Cinderella. I love that that she included Goose Girl since it is so often ignored or forgotten or never known for that matter.

Here are sound videos of Goose Girl and Rapunzel--the imagery is just a photo of the artist.

On her website, Trevillion also has a song titled "Noted Absense of Fairy Godmother."

Music Month: Prince Charming by Adam Ant

Adam Ant - Prince Charming by jpdc11

Okay, here's one that is also 30 years old, "Prince Charming" by Adam Ant. Wow, somehow I missed the music video for this one the first time around but it definitely plays with Cinderella. Or I don't remember it. I am an 80s child, but music videos weren't in my regular viewing except for Friday Night Videos when I had sleepovers with friends. So it's not surprising, but if I ever did see this one, it didn't stick in my memory.

But the lyrics aren't about the fairy tale, but this makes a fascinating historical journey to the 80s. And Cinderlad twist on Cinderella. The theme is much more obvious these days than it was to me at age 10 or so.

Music Month: Beauty and the Beast by Stevie Nicks

I have two video versions of today's song, "Beauty and the Beast" by Stevie Nicks, originally released in 1983. The one above features art for the fairy tale and the one below is a live concert performance.

You can read the full lyrics, written by Nicks, on her website. Here's part of it:

Who is the beauty
Who... (my love)
Ahhh...
Oh...la bete...la bete
Where is my beast

My beauty...my beauty
My beautiful...beautiful...beautiful
Beautiful beast