Lily, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run off her feet...
Today is the feast of Epiphany, the last day of the traditional Christmas season; the day also when the Misses Morkan held that grand affair, their annual dance, in James Joyce's
"The Dead." [more inside]
posted by Iridic
on Jan 6, 2012 -
71 comments
The special duty of a Jewish Christmas baby by
Sheila Heti Most of the people one deals with say, “Oh! You're a Christmas baby! You must get ripped off when it comes to presents, right?” Their eyes light up.
It's a hard question to answer. The honest answer is, “I'm a Jew, I don't celebrate Christmas,” but saying this always seems chastising, and the person who asked then feels embarrassed (as they should) and I feel embarrassed that this is my accidental role in the world: reminding everyone that Jews exist. The times I say, gruffly, “I don't know. I'm Jewish,” they usually say, “Oh, I'm sorry!” But this always sounds to me not like, “I'm sorry I assumed you were Christian,” but rather, “I'm sorry that you're Jewish.” Given all this, I usually reply simply, “Yeah, it's awful. I get ripped off every year.” [previously from Sheila Heti]
posted by KokuRyu
on Dec 25, 2011 -
119 comments
This Christmas, a holiday tradition undergoes a digital rebirth with
Fireplace [Mac/PC], the pixelated demake of
The Yule Log. It'll even incinerate whatever you type.
posted by Smart Dalek
on Dec 24, 2011 -
29 comments
Last year, an archivist at Dartmouth College discovered a forgotten scrapbook donated to the school by Robert L. May, the writer and illustrator of the original story of "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer", documenting the origins of the now-classic holiday story. The book was written in 1947 on commission from Montgomery Ward's, which was looking for a Christmas promotional item. Detailed in the scrapbook are May's list of possible names for the character, including "Rollo", "Reginald", "Romeo" and you-know-what. Ward's actually turned over the copyright to Rudolph to May, who became a millionaire when, two years later, his brother-in-law
Johnny Marks wrote the song which became a huge hit for
Gene Autry.
Snopes.com adds more details to the tale, including debunking the myth that the song was written by May to comfort his daughter while her mother lay dying.
posted by briank
on Dec 24, 2011 -
5 comments
If you enjoy instrumental jazz and Christmas music, you might enjoy
The Best Jazz Christmas Record You've Never Heard. "
"Christmas With The Believers" turned out to be the best jazz Christmas music I had ever heard, and that's still the case today. I'll take the imaginative arrangements, chops, tight playing, and sense of swing on this recording over anything I've heard by the legends in this field." It's
presented here as a cassette recording from Fall '86, with Donny Schwekendiek on piano, Neal Heidler on the bass and Narry Puhlovski on the drums.
posted by filthy light thief
on Dec 21, 2011 -
26 comments
Looking at the rest of the top search results for Christmas is like getting into a time machine that takes you back to a bizarro 2001 in which every single web surfer is a sucker. There are "Hot Links!" and "Fun Things to Do." What we see is the ad hoc, de facto social network formed by people who type Christmas into a search engine. And man, that network is like MySpace for your great aunt who has too many cats. [more inside]
posted by Horace Rumpole
on Dec 20, 2011 -
16 comments
When most folks think of "Christmas music" it's doubtful that their next thought will be "the blues", but along with "my baby" or "bad luck" or "leavin' in the morning", bluesmen have long included Christmas as lyric inspiration. Which bluesmen? Well...
Sonny Boy Williamson,
Freddie King,
Blind Blake,
John Lee Hooker,
Lightnin' Hopkins,
Little Milton,
B.B. King,
Smokey Hogg,
Charley Jordan, and last but certainly not least, one of the most influential early bluesmen,
Blind Lemon Jefferson.
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Dec 20, 2011 -
23 comments
Tired of the same old renditions of the Christmas Story? Try
this video and
its prequel, produced in the vein of Spike Jonze's
Where the Wild Things Are.
posted by kethonna
on Dec 15, 2011 -
6 comments
Merry Christmas! Merry Merry Christmas! In 1988, the Writers Guild of America
had a strike, the longest in its history, lasting 155 days. The strike had some fallout -- both
Moonlighting and
Kate and Allie lost audience members due to long hiatuses during the strike, which may have led to their cancellation. And while it generally did not affect children's television, one show, in particular, was hard-hit by the strike:
Pee Wee's Playhouse, which had a season of only two episodes, plus a
Christmas special.
[more inside]
posted by Bunny Ultramod
on Dec 14, 2011 -
19 comments
No Nativity scene is complete without the
caganer - a figure caught in the act of taking a dump near the manger. (NSFW tag, ahoy!)
The figurine (whose name translates as "the shitter") is an addition to the Nativity tableaus in the
Catalonia region of Spain. Some interpret the caganer as a reminder that God can arrive on earth at any moment - and he doesn't care if he catches you with your britches down.
[more inside]
posted by The demon that lives in the air
on Dec 12, 2011 -
64 comments
Always an enigma,
John Zorn, winner of a
MacArthur Fellowship, founder of avant garde record label
Tzadik proponent of
radical Jewish culture, leader of the hard core group
Naked City, creator of the
Masada songbook, and
hundreds of
other things, has, with the likes of Mark Ribot, Cyro Baptista and Mike Pattoon, released a
heart-breakingly lovely Christmas record, A Dreamer's Christmas. [more inside]
posted by Lutoslawski
on Dec 12, 2011 -
19 comments
Twenty-Five Semi-Obscure Traditional Christmas Songs as Performed by Famous and Non-Famous People:
1.
The Coventry Carol. Celebrate the end of Christmas with this cheerful song about infants being murdered by a paranoid monarch. Actually quite beautiful. As performed by
Sting,
Joan Baez,
John Denver,
Nox Arcana,
Loreena McKennitt,
Manheim Steamroller,
Alison Moyet,
Annie Lennox and the African Children's Choir,
Sufjan Stevens,
Hayley Westenra,
The Mediaeval Baebes,
Dinah Shore, and t
he Westminster Cathedral Choir.
[more inside]
posted by kittenmarlowe
on Dec 11, 2011 -
29 comments
A sub-directorate of the Bureau of Special Christmas Operations (BOSCO),
Santa's Little Secret Service is an Elvish security agency with the primary mission of ensuring the safety of Santa, Mrs. Claus and other high-value Christmas persons. The Service is separated into
divisions focusing on personal protection, diplomatic protection, intelligence, and Christmas certainty operations.
When not protecting Santa, LSS can found assisting in protection of other high-value, Holiday persons, such as the
Easter Bunny and
Jesus with the help of their unique
Candy Cane weapons.
posted by Brandon Blatcher
on Dec 10, 2011 -
16 comments
