Pursuits : Elizabeth Thomsen

There’s a proposal to ban transfats in Massachusetts, so reporter Carl Stevens of WBZ Radio paid a visit to the Deluxe Town Diner in Watertown which stopped serving transfats three years ago. The actual story doesn’t have much substance, other than to report that the food still tastes just fine, but this is the second report Stevens has done from a local diner, and it’s just good to see these diner visits recorded and shared.

Capitol Diner Video on YouTube — Carl Stevens visits one of my favorite diners

During the three summers I spent in the beautiful, seaside city of Dalian, China, I loved watching the yangge dancers performing in various squares and parks. Yangge is a style of folk dance that’s performed for recreation and exercise in squares and parks, especially popular with middle-aged and older women.
(more…)

In honor of Memorial Day, I put together this little video of Any Bonds Today, a song by Irving Berlin, sung by Barry Wood, with images from the Library of Congress and National Archives. Just a first attempt at using Movie Maker.

(more…)

Here’s a simple little video interview Carl Stevens of WBZ Radio did with Bobby Fennell, state lawmaker and owner of the Capitol Diner in Lynn. It’s just a few minutes long, the camera work is shaky and no one says anything particularly profound, but I think it’s great to capture, save and share these little glimpses into interesting places.

“He’s hard at work. He’s not cooking up legislation, he’s cooking breakfast!”

• Capitol Diner : It’s the Real Thing — My blog posting on this diner

I spend a lot of time wandering around on YouTube. It’s amazing what you can find there, and I especially exploring old music on YouTube. There are a lot of videos of musical numbers from old movies and TV shows, as well as audio put together with collages of images. it seems like every song reminds me of another one, and I tend to wander backward in time.

Tonight I was feeling nostalgic, and I did a search for the song Peoria, otherwise known as I Wish’t I Was in Peoria. This was one of my favorite songs when I was a child listening to my father’s record of Bob Scobey’s Frisco Band. I remember the wild and free feeling of dancing to it, and the cheerful rhymes of lyrics like : “Oh you can pick a morning gloria right off the sidewalks of Peoria.”
(more…)