Once again, another year over. Once again, a feeling of relief that this one’s done and a sense of hope for the coming year. It’s amazing what tricks your mind can play on you when you’ve got New Year’s to give you a reset button. Game Over – Restart. “Hope is the things with feathers,” [...]
Actually, it is cold outside
Christmas has now passed, but let me say one more thing… As I have previously identified, there are four categories of Christmas songs and one of them doesn’t have anything to do with the holiday. What’s the #1 most well-known song of the season? “Jingle Bells,” and it never mentions the word “Christmas” (same for [...]
The true meaning of Christmas
Merry Christmas. This is a phrase fraught with political meaning these days. Lots of people love to tell you what this day “really” means. It’s all about the kids, they’ll say. Perhaps it’s really about the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Maybe it’s about Peace on Earth or loving your fellow man. The Fox [...]
The Roots of Green Chri$tma$
From An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power by John Steele Gordon: Even in rural areas that were still beyond the reach of the railroad, new merchandising techniques opened up new markets. Peddlers increasingly took advantage of the improved roads to sell such newly available manufactured goods as pails and tubs, [...]
Sounds of the Season ’07
As usual, here is the recap post, offering you one-stop shopping for Christmas songs. I encourage you to browse the archives and read the notes. By coincidence, I notice that many of these songs are originals, rather than cover versions, and I also notice that there’s only one traditional carol. It wasn’t intentional, but it’s [...]
¿Pero usted recuerda ese reno más importante de todos?
Here are a couple of Latin takes on a pop classic. You may recall that Clement C. Moore created a lot of the Santa mythology in his 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” He invented the image of Santa as the jolly fat man who came down the chimney and left the kids presents [...]
Impact of the WGA strike
One of the incredible things about the current strike is that at this point it starts to look a little like the big studios are either scared of the impact of the Internet or arrogant enough to believe that they can outwait the writers. This is exactly the position the record labels were in a [...]
It’s all in the details
Matthew Baldwin over at defective yeti has a marvelous seasonal post about the challenges of being married to a botanist: Me: Why didn’t you put holly in our wreath? Queen: Because holly berries are poisonous, and when Squiggle saw them he pointed excitedly and yelled “cherries!” M: Ah, good call. But what about the pine [...]
A Quiet Christmas
Christmas songs come in all varieties. There are vulgar ones, religious ones, happy ones, not-so-jolly ones. I kind of like mournful Christmas songs. It can be a very festive time, but it is also a time for reflection. It’s supposed to be a time of family togetherness and jubilation and if you don’t have that, [...]
Keep on, writing on.
In my latest Spot-on column, I take a look at the Writer’s Guild strike and the role that writer play in today’s entertainment and information environment. I ask the question: Do Writers Still Matter? Just this week, while listening to an NPR report, the host and reporter were discussing how the strike might affect upcoming [...]