From far and wide -- redundant

It's a Canada Day with an interesting vibe. 

The usual clichés, but with a slightly siege-like feeling. 

This year, I started seeing red teeshirts and maple leaves early, appearing on the streets around our home in the week leading up to our national holiday. 

The Resident Fan Boy, jet-lagged from several hours spent with Air Canada (long story), hung up our flag on what we laughingly call the patio, and tuned into the ceremonies from Ottawa, the usual sea of red-and-white, alarmingly resembling a MAGA rally -- except for the gentle smiles and effusive, but polite applause.

This short offering from the National Film Board of Canada is fourteen years old.

I don't care.

Made to mark the presentation of the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement to William Shatner in 2011, it features Shatner out-Shatnering himself.  It doesn't get old.  (Except for the tweeting bit.)

Stay for the credits.  It's worth it.

Clever Dick (Duke?)

This is bloody amazing. The Duke of Clarence speaking in two dozen voices, some English, some American, a Scot, a Welshman, and one Shakespearean Canadian actor (although I doubt he did this role):

Synchronicity

Every now and then in my life, when the time is so often out of joint (probably due to my less-than-steller organizational skills and self-discipline), I get a little gift of synchronicity. Some time ago, I blogged a bit on William Shatner and his musings on parenthood. This morning, while waiting on the kindness of internet strangers for more internet goodies related to the penultimate Doctor Who cliff-hanger, I checked my "recommended" page at YouTube and found this surreal rendition of Pulp's Common People featuring William Shatner reciting the lyrics with vocal back-up by Joe Jackson, plus Ben Folds on the keyboards:
Good Lord.

And what do I find in the video response section for this? A Doctor Who fan-vid set to the original Pulp recording of Common People. It's a competent effort (I much prefer the original video which was one of the last music videos I clearly recall enjoying), but it's rather fun to see Rose smiling smugly to the line "Everybody hates a tourist, especially when he thinks it's all such a laugh", so in honour of those excited over Rose's return over the final three episodes of this season (which doesn't include me -- although I'm perfectly pleased to see her back), I include it here:

Inadequate, but good

I've never been much of a Star Trek fan. I liked the funny episodes like "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "I, Mudd", but for the most part I was forced to watch it, mainly because my sister (a Leo) insisted on it, along with Gilligan's Island and a host of drek. When William Shatner moved on to other stuff, like TJ Hooker, I did not follow. The new Star Trek movies? No thanks, with the exception of The Voyage Home (another funny one). Shatner moved into his self-deprecating era, and onto Boston Legal. Ho-hum. Nothing against the guy, just not a particular fan. (And this has nothing to do with his gradually looking more like the Grinch.): However, I was rifling through the more recent magazines at the speech therapist's office (instead of writing letters, or responding to reports, as I should have been doing), and came across a recent interview he did with Maclean's (that's a Canadian news magazine, for you non-Canucks). Full of that self-deprecation with a hint of the ego for which he is also famous, there were a lot of witty remarks and brief mentions of his personal tragedies, but his answer about being a parent stayed with me. I'll italicize it, but I am paraphrasing, because I don't have the article in front of me:

I've been an inadequate father, but a good one. The two go hand in hand.

Okay, buddy, I wasn't a fan before, but I am now. You've walked the walk, haven't you?