Over at the blog Making Light, Patrick Neilsen Hayden asks: “Why is there an entire web page devoted to Iron Maiden album covers with Spongebob Squarepants inserted into them?”
“The starfish came / across the sea / he brought us pain / and mi-ser-yyy…”
I haven’t yet seen Sarah Silverman’s film Jesus is Magic [the site’s audio, which plays automatically, is NOT SAFE FOR WORK!] a “concert film” featuring her incredibly offenseively funny stand-up comedy act interspersed with her musical numbers, but I’ve heard good things about them. As the closing goodie for the final night of Chanukah, here’s Sarah’s plea to Santa Claus: a song called Give the Jew Girl Toys [3.3MB, MP3]
Happy Chanukah, and Happy New Year as well!
That’s “Happy New Year!” in Tagalog.
I wrote this post hours before midnight and set it to automatically appear at the start of the new year. I’ll at my friend Liz’s house party at midnight, so please accept these in absentia wishes. Have a good one!
The dirtbags behind the shirt pictured on the left have borrowed the slogan “Stop Snitchin'” from the movie of the same name (note: the reviewer to whom I link is a complete idiot). “Stop Snitchin'” is part of an underground campaign led by drug dealers and members of gangs to scare anyone from reporting their activities to the police. The subtext of the message: snitches will need stitches.
Unaware of the irony, the vendors of the shirts claim that “Stop Snitchin'” is free speech, even though that free speech is being used to
silence others. Boston mayor Thomas Menino has announced a plan to have the city confiscate the shirts from stores, and the ACLU has opposed this plan, claiming that the shirts are protected speech. In my opinion. A couple of Boston vendors, after having spoken with the Mayor, have taken the shirts off their inventories.
While I do not recommend the purchase of a “Stop Snitchin'” t-shirt, I heartily recommend the Jewish remix: “Stop Kvetchin'”! They’re on sale at CafePress. 
Christiania (here’s its Wikipedia entry), the sort-of-self-governing neighbourhood located in Copenhagen, Denmark is one of those places I’d been meaning to visit (along with the rest of Copenhagen, of course). It was created in 1971 when a group of hippie-types took over an area that housed abandoned military barracks. What resulted over the following three decades was an social experiment: a citizen-run self-organizing “autonomous zone” with a large creative class, a simple set of laws and avoidance of taxes that libertarians would enjoy, and a large “creative class” of the sort of which Richard Florida speaks.
Unfortunately, Christiania’s days are numbered: the current Danish government — a centre-right one, which contrasts with the past five decades of their tending to be social democrats — is putting the squeeze on Christiania. My friend and fellow DJ from Crazy Go Nuts University, Chris “Turner” Turner, reports in today’s Globe and Mail’s Focus section in an article titled Where freedom is another word for a whole lot left to lose. The stuff that didn’t make it into the piece, as well as a number of his own photos, can be found on his blog, Planet Simpson, in this entry: Attention, Hippies!
Come Out Peacefully So We Can Smash Your Drug Mill And All Your Worldly Possessions!
I don’t know how many current computer games have this feature, but back in the dark ages of DOS, many IBM PC games featured a “the boss is coming!” key. This key, when pressed in mid-game, quickly suspended the game and hid it with a screen that looked like a word processor or spreadsheet. Once the boss was out of sight, you could press the key again and resume the game. This feature has found its way into blogs: a number feature this “web fire escape” icon, which if clicked, takes you to a web page that looks more work-related:
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(By default, that web fire escape should take you to Google. You can set the escape destination on this page.)
Dreidels once served a purpose similar to the “boss is coming” key and the “web fire escape” — but in reverse: they were used to make it look as if you were slacking off. In the time of Emperor Antiochus IV, study of the Torah and Jewish prayers were forbidden. When Jews gathered to study or pray, they had a dreidel handy just in case the “cops” or any “snitches” were passing by: if one did, they’d break out the dreidel and pretend to be playing a game of chance, which was legal. These days, the dreidel is a children’s game played at Chanukah, often using chocolate for “bets”.
I could write about the rules here, but it’s more fun to learn by playing. You can try out jewfaq.org’s JavaScript-based game, but those craving a much flashier version (using Flash, no less!) should give Babaganewz.com’s Dreidel 6000 a spin.
A Christmas tradition at our house is the extended family Christmas dinner in which my aunts, uncles and cousins as well as friends of the family get together for a big dinner party, exchange Christmas gifts and often gather around the piano and sing. As our family gains new members, we add their traditions to the mix. Although Wendy was at last year’s party, she’s a full-fledged family member this year, and since Chanukah and Christmas are close to each other (and even overlap this year), we added Jewish traditions to the mix.
“Where can we put the menorah, Mom?” I asked, unpacking the stuff we brought to the party.
“Make some room for it on the mantel,” she said.
I moved a couple of items aside and placed the menorah in the newly-created space.
“What do you think?” I asked Wendy.
She examined the new arrnagement of objects on the mantel and smiled.
“A menorah, placed between a nativity scene and a giant statue of the Virgin Mary. That’s excellent!” and made the “thumbs up” sign.
Dinner, like my family, came from all over. Among the dishes were:
I mentioned that at next year’s party, my cousin Kara will have already married her Irish fiance Ryan (who’ll move here) and that I’ll make sure we have some Guinness on hand. I also got a nice Christmas card from my Korean in-laws and mentioned that my cousin Barb in Ohio — who’s from the Irish-American branch of the family (we’re related through my great-grandfather, James O’Hara) — was asking for some information so she could complete her family tree research. Late that evening after everthing wound down, we got a long-distance call from Glasgow with a woman who spoke with a thick Scottish brogue. It was Aunt Reenie, who was asking to speak to Aunt Kaye, who had already left.
If variety is the spice of life, our family is one hot tamale.