The 25 Baubles of Pop Culture! Advent 2022 Day 7

Today's post is all up to fate. If it wasn't for the random pop culture generator I used to help with a large chunk of this Advent, I really don't think in a million years I would have decided to take a look at the world of musicals. Since it wasn't specified, I'm looking at musicals from both the stage and silver screen.

First up is a piece from Phantom of the Opera. For a couple of years, my wife purchased several ornaments based on the Andrew Lloyd Webber production. The ornaments look like a stage, complete with curtains and lime to represent key scenes of the play. My favorite of the ones my wife has is the one for the song 'Masquerade' with the Phantom dressed as a devil hoping to steal a dance with the fair Christine. Produced by American Greeting cards, this battery operated decoration would light up and play about 15 seconds of the song when a button in the back was pressed. A pretty heavy ornament, unless you had a really sturdy tree, this decoration was better suited for your bookcase.

If you want to make your Christmas tree the hottest thing on 4-wheels, might I suggest this replica of Greased Lightning from the musical Grease? Produced by Hallmark, this is a snazzy little piece. Though I think it would have been an awesome touch if they had put the scratch on the side of the car like when Danny races in the culvert and the rival gang's car slices into the convertible. 

To represent my favorite musical, here's one from Stromboli's Wagon. It's a resin TV set with a picture representation of the cast from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Here's a fun fact: the book the musical is based on was titled Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. However, they changed the name to Willy Wonka because producers did not think audiences would go see a film named after soldiers of the North Vietnamese army. 

To represent my wife's favorite musical, I'm sharing this dated ornament available on Cafe Press. I choose this one because on having seen Les Miserables many times, I have seen this very ornament for sale at the souvenir stands at the venues. It's got the iconic Les Mis girl, Cosette, I think along with a red ribbon strand and 2022 date attached.

For those of you who like the DIY approach, I've seen what's being done on Etsy and it's pretty cool. Fans of musicals can actually submit their favorite Playbills and have them turned into ornaments. Proud parents can have the programs to their kids' musicals and plays turned into a lovely memento for years to cherish.

1977: A Madman Turns 40: 2017- Day 112

   I know it's been a while since I have done A Madman Turns 40 posting. It's been a crazy month. But things are changing- for the good- and I should be having some more availability to do post again very soon.

   Today's look at my favorite year has a couple of noteworthy achievements. 

   First of all marks the opening of the first Broadway show of Annie. It's the musical adventure of the young orphan girl who rises from the ashes and gets adopted by the ultra-rich baldy, Daddy Warbucks. Based on the comic strip Little Orphan Annie, the show ran for 3,277 performances (77- there's that number again. Huh...) and spawned 2 film versions, a beloved soundtrack, and made Annie a household name again. 

    Then from the Strange But True file, New York Yankees Manager Billy Martin had a unique strategy in his match-up against the Toronto Blue Jays. He picked his starting line-up out of a hat! Not only did he allow fate to choose for him- the Yankees won 8-6! I wonder if he used the hat for when he needed relief pitchers...?

    Well, that's my look at my favorite year for the day. Hopefully I'll be back real soon to look at another aspect of 1977.

   Until then... 

Tradition!: The Highly Improbable, Ultimately Triumphant Broadway-to-Hollywood Story of Fiddler on the Roof, the World's Most Beloved Musical by Barbara Isenberg

The title is longer than the book itself.

   

There's nothing more Jewish than Fiddler on the Roof! I first saw the movie based on the film in middle school and was in love: not so much with the film but the Jewish culture, itself. As a result, I started frequenting Jewish restaurants, learning about Jewish customs, and I set a personal goal: I was going to marry a Christian Jew! Despite many of my friends and teachers in high school saying it was an impossible dream, on July 24th, 1999, I married my Jewish Princess! Since then, my wife and I have celebrated Christmakkuh, attended a Seder, and explored more of her Jewish heritage, which we've shared with dear friends and family. 

    Thus why I read this book. I found it being given away on Goodreads and I know how much my wife loved to play to the soundtrack with her sister when she was a little girl. So, I entered the giveaway and I was one of the lucky few to win a copy.

    The book covers just about every aspect of Fiddler on the Roof. From the Tevye tales written by Sholem Aleichem at the turn of the 20th Century through its first run on Broadway beginning in the 1960s over to London's West End where an up-and-coming Israeli actor named Topol would become so synonymous with the role of Tevye the Milkman that he would wind up in Yugoslavia filming the movie adaptation. The story of Fiddler then covers numerous revivals in New York and London then examines versions of the play being performed in schools and worldwide (it's particularly popular in Japan), finishing up with modern versions of the musical and it's songs finding a home on the internet.

    Tradition is a very good brief record of the history of the beloved musical. But it's not without its flaws. The biggest problem is that I think author Barbara Isenberg needs a thesaurus or something. When she refers to Fiddler's composer Jerry Bock, she almost always calls him 'librettist, Jerry Bock' or 'Librettist Bock.' This happens over and over to the point of being annoying. She also likes to point out that film director Norman Jewison isn't kosher quite a bit as well.

    Another issue I have with this book isn't Isenberg's fault- it's the use of pictures and text boxes to the point of redundancy. I mentioned that this is a short read. Officially about 272-pages, Tradition's story ends at page 200 with about 65-pages of notes and an index. That's all well and good but this tome would be about 30-pages smaller if it wasn't for the use of the aforementioned photos and text boxes which merely reprint information used immediately before or after the insertion of the dark gray boxes.

   This kind of issue is a problem on the behalf of the editors. I think they and the book's designer realized that they were overusing this publishing device as the text boxes disappear in the last third of the book.

    Despite these flaws, I really did enjoy the book quite well and I highly recommend it. But because of those mistakes I can't give this a perfect rating. What I can give you is a suggestion that you really should heed: just before you complete this book, maybe once you get to page 150, get your hands on a copy of Fiddler on the Roof. Because once you finish Isenberg's story of perhaps the greatest American musical of all-time, the songs will start to get stuck in your head and you are going to want to watch Fiddler again.

   Worth Consuming

   Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.