O Happy Day!

Hope you all had a nice Easter weekend. I had an unbelievable Sunday surprise when the Easter bunny appeared in the form of cheery leather jacket-clad author bearing a basket full of blog hits. I knew something was up when visitor traffic quadrupled on Sunday, which is not altogether uncommon when I get get some link love from anybody, but my little geek heart nearly exploded when I saw the source of the incoming traffic: twitter.com/neilhimself.

neilhimself: @donttrythis Adam, billybob's erratic interview is completely and delightfully explained at http://bit.ly/nUsUa

NEIL GAIMAN TWEETED MY BLOG, BWAHAHAHA! Then my nearly exploded little geek heart melted into a warm puddle of goo when I doubly realized he was tweeting my blog to ADAM SAVAGE. Yep, who-ya-gonna-call-Mythbusters Adam Savage! I don't care what you say, I am at complete liberty to geek out all I want (and I have). I took great comfort in Neil's later tweets that he would have totally geeked out during his interview on Q back in March had he known beforehand that Jian Ghomeshi was in Moxy Früvous. Neil, a closet Frühead? Priceless! He even has a Bargainville cassette that is long overdue for a CD upgrade.

Some related linkage:

• Video of Neil's interview on Q by Jian Ghomeshi during press for Coraline (notice he does not freak when referred to as an "author")
  
  
• A friend visiting from out of town gave me the heads up on this eerily relevant video bit I was unaware of: Jeremy Fisher's cover of the Q theme with made-up lyrics! The original theme was created by fellow Canuck musician Luke Doucet.
  
  
• some recent rumour-mongering is pegging Emmy Rossum as a possible candidate in a Neil Gaiman Death film...
  
  
• In a few weeks (on my birthday in fact) a musical adaptation of Coraline opens in New York with music by Magnetic Fields' Stephen Merritt. It runs from May 7 to June 20th, ticket info here. "What's There to Be Afraid Of? A conversation with the artists behind Coraline" including Merritt, David Greenspan (book writer), Leigh Silverman (director), and Jayne Houdyshell (Coraline) will be held Tuesday April 21st, debuting some songs from the musical. Info on that here.
  
  
• Adam's informative Q&A with fellow Reddit users in conjunction with the new season of Mythbusters which premiered last week
  
  
• if you have an hour to spare, Adam's talk on the nature of obsession is fantastically fascinating
  
  
• This video of Adam channeling Penn Jillette makes me laugh every time
  
  
• One of many reasons why Mythbusters is awesome: Rocket Car Pancake
  
  
• And because I Just.Cannot.Let.This.Go.At.All... The AV Club just posted their "24 musicians who aced acting roles. Funnily enough Dwight Yoakam made the list for his role in fellow musician Billy Bob Thornton's Sling Blade. However, Billy Bob's hero Tom Petty did not make the list for his turn in Kevin Costner's The Postman. No, I would not ask Tom Petty about that.

Moxy Früvous - Maple Syrup Time [originally by Pete Seeger]
The joy of this song more or less describes accurately how I felt the other day. Also makes me want to boil and boil and boil tree sap all day long. Note: along with "Here comes the gravy!", "It's maple syrup time!" is a popular Canadian exclamation commonly shouted before hockey fights.

Moxy Früvous - Love Potion #9 Medley [originally by The Clovers]
As always, the Internet Live Archive is an invaluable resource for Moxy Früvous live, most of it with impeccable audio quality. This is one of my favourite live recordings, a spirited medley of Love Potion #9 that includes snippets of CSNY, The Bee Gees, Alanis Morrissette, and more.

Unfortunately, their heyday of live shows was around the age for me where the possibility of going to shows of your favourite bands was a completely foreign concept. The one opportunity I had was at the 2000 (I think?) Edmonton Folk Fest where I saw them perform Johnny Saucep'n on the main stage in between the set-ups of another band. Then I missed all their side stage workshops because of work, although I did have a friend who'd never heard of them rave how great they were (gee thanks!). Then of course came the indefinite hiatus that I'm still waiting to end. Maybe we can hope for a 25th anniversary tour in 2014... I'll mark my calendar. A couple years ago I did get to see half of the Früv perform as The Great Atomic Power at a free show in Toronto. Amusingly, this entire show was taped and I remember sitting right behind the taper with my cousin who I had dragged there. There seemed to only be about 40 people sitting around the public square and even then they just happened to be there because it was lunchtime. Regardless, great music.