Have a great one, everybody!
Here’s a quick preview of photos to come: it’s our Christmas tree
during the first round of decorating. Note the dreidel ornaments —
they’re a gift from Eldon Brown. He bought some multicoloured plastic
dreidels, drilled holes in their spindles and attached Christmas
ornament hooks to them. Thanks, Eldon!
While Christmas card imagery features often snow, most people here in Canada would consider the forecasted temperature for Bethlehem rather springlike (10 degrees C / 50 degrees F) and call the forecast for my hometown of Manila almost summery (26 degrees C / 78 degrees F). The Christmas day temperature in Honolulu is expected to be roughly the same, which means that David Hasselhoff, pictured above, could go boogie-boarding to work up an appetite for Christmas dinner if he wanted to. Click the photo [204KB animated GIF] to see a rather mesmerizing animation of Mr. Hasselhoff zipping through the surf.
While you’re zenning out to Mr. Hasselhoff’s antics in the water, may I suggest this as the soundtrack: Bing Crosby singing Meli Kalikimaka [4.1MB, MP3], which means “Merry Christmas” in Hawaiian. Aloha!
Cut my metaphorical heart open, and you’ll find many things: Wendy,
chocolate, computers, bacchanalia, bare-bum spankings on the fire
esca…okay, scratch that one. But among those things near and dear to
me are the wayward children of the wayward African child known as the
blues scale: jazz, pop and rock. It’s quite fitting that one of the
numbers that I played with the band at my wedding was Old Time Rock and Roll.
Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a good Christmas rock song in a long
time. Most Christmas rock is terrible, the worst being Paul McCartney’s
a number he practically “phoned in” — most of the musicianship in the
song is courtesy of the synth and an overused digital delay effect (the
echo). It’s further proof that Lennon and McCartney are rather like two
chemicals that potent when mixed together, but rather harmless on their
own. If Purgatory exists, there’s a special room for Sir Paul where The
Unicorns (whom I wrote about in this entry), high on crystal meth, play the song non-stop for seven
lifetimes.
Good Christmas rock songs do exist — I’m rather fond of SR-71’s cover of Billy Squier’s Christmas is a Time to Say I Love You (it’s on this album), and despite my general avoidance of granola-folk, I enjoy Dar Williams’ The Christians and the Pagans, and it’s one of Wendy’s favourites (when a Jewish girl likes a Christmas song, it’s got to be good). Here’s an MP3 of Dar perfoming this number live in October 2005 at Santa Cruz, California’s hippie Mecca [2.1MB, MP3]. I got this courtesy of the blog Lookit, so thanks, Lookit! (Here’s the blog entry from which it comes.)
Here are the lyrics, for your enjoyment:
Amber called her uncle, said “We’re up here for the holiday,
Jane and I were having Solstice, now we need a place to stay.”
And her Christ-loving uncle watched his wife hang Mary on a tree,
He watched his son hang candy canes all made with Red Dye Number 3.
He told his niece, “It’s Christmas Eve, I know our life is not your style,”
She said, “Christmas is like Solstice, and we miss you, and its been awhile,”
So the Christians and the Pagans sat together at the table,
Finding faith and common ground the best that they were able,
And just before the meal was served, hands were held and prayers were said,
Sending hope for peace on earth to all their gods and goddesses.
The food was great, the tree plugged in, the meal had gone without a hitch,
‘Til Timmy turned to Amber and said, “Is it true that you’re a witch?”
His mom jumped up and said, “The pies are burning,” and she hit the kitchen,
And it was Jane who spoke, she said, “It’s true, your cousin’s not a Christian,”
“But we love trees, we love the snow, the friends we have, the world we share,
And you find magic from your God, and we find magic everywhere.”
So the Christians and the Pagans sat together at the table,
Finding faith and common ground the best that they were able,
And where does magic come from? I think magic’s in the learning,
‘Cause now when Christians sit with Pagans only pumpkin pies are burning.
When Amber tried to do the dishes, her aunt said, “Really, no, don’t bother.”
Amber’s uncle saw how Amber looked like Tim and like her father.
He thought about his brother, how they hadn’t spoken in a year,
He thought he’d call him up and say, “It’s Christmas and your daughter’s here.”
He thought of fathers, sons and brothers, saw his own son tug his sleeve, saying,
“Can I be a Pagan?” Dad said, “We’ll discuss it when they leave.”
So the Christians and the Pagans sat together at the table,
Finding faith and common ground the best that they were able,
Lighting trees in darkness, learning new ways from the old, and
Making sense of history and drawing warmth out of the cold.
Up in the northeast outskirts of Accordion City is the Pacific Mall, which proudly declares itself “North America’s Largest Indoor Asian Mall”. If you’re looking for good food, anime and Hong Kong cinema DVDs, cell phone accessories, a hair salon that can spike your hair properly, every known flavour of Pocky and some decent competition for Dance Dance Revolution, Pacific Mall is the place to be!
Wendy and I went to the Pacific Mall with Deenster, Chris, Deenster’s sister Lisa (who’s visiting from Tel Aviv), Rich and Elana last Saturday. We enjoyed some dim sum at the upstairs restaurant Golden Regency and also did some window shopping, where we saw these:
The “Five Life Principles” Cup, which advises you: “Don’t get angry. Don’t rush. Don’t be bossy. Don’t be grumpy. Don’t give up.”
WAR ABSOLUTE BEING BATTLEPLAN. I think they mean “battle plane”. It also sounds like the sort of cheer that they’d make up for Japanese baseball teams.
Click the comics to see them at full size.
I love Chappelle’s Show and I also love a good conspiracy theory, so I couldn’t help but enjoy reading The Chappelle Theory.
Its anonymous author claims to be a retired PR executive who claims to
have many “contacts closely related to the individuals involved”,
allowing him or her to “to fairly accurately recount the events” in
Chappelle’s strange fall from grace.
This excerpt provides a good introduction to the rest of the site:
Dave was haunted by a secret. One that only he was aware of, and one
he couldn’t share with anyone, lest his comedy empire crumble.
He
knew that at the same time he was signing his record-setting deal,
there was a secret cabal of powerful African-American leaders from the
business, political, and entertainment industries working together to
ensure that the third season of Chappelle’s Show would never happen.
At one time or another, each member of this loosely knit, informal group had played a key role in Chappelle’s rise to stardom.
They
had been instrumental in securing movie and television roles, offering
counsel, and simply aiding Chappelle financially when his stand up work
couldn’t pay the bills during his lean early years.
Over the last
two years, they had watched warily as Chappelle’s Show had become
Comedy Central’s premiere show, eclipsing even South Park and The Daily
Show in terms of buzz.
Whether
you think that the site is merely the raving of a consipracy nut or an
insider blowing the whistle on dark machinations within the
entertainment industry, it’s an interesting read.
In my opinion, one of the best albums of the year is one you may not have heard of: Picaresque by The Decemberists, released in May of this year. The Decemberists, if you haven’t heard of them, write some brainy-yet-catchy indie pop with a dark sense of humour, with their subject matter often set in old Europe in the age of empires. If Melville’s Ishmael (Moby Dick) or Conrad’s Marlow (Heart of Darkness) had packed MP3 players to pass the time while on their ships, they’d have included Decemberists MP3s in their sets.
I have a couple of favourite tracks on this album — the anti-war Sixteen Military Wives (the video for which is available via Bittorrent) which features some of the catchiest pop hooks this side of Ben Folds, and The Mariner’s Revenge Song, a sea chanty in which the accordion is very prominently featured. It’s a delicious tale of a man who seeks revenge on the man who seduced and then bankrupted his widowed mother. I offer this song to you as today’s Advent calendar goodie [6.0MB, MP3] and recommend that you buy the album. Enjoy!