Happy Festivus!
I have
a belated Happy Hanukkah for my dear friends....
I've forgotten how to celebrate Festivus (very likely Wikipedia can fill in the details) but Saturday morning at 6:08 am (GMT) is the Winter Solstice, which you know is the Reason for the Season, so I hope you'll all be celebrating with your loved ones! And then will have lots of gifts on Monday night or Tuesday morning, depending upon when you exchange gifts in honor of Santa...I mean the birth of Christ (even though we all know he wasn't born in December at all, but the metaphor is always more important than the facts...).
I saw something wonderful today, the BBC has been remaking the books of Jane Austen (again) and have made the best version of Northanger Abbey ever! It will be out on DVD in the USA January 22nd, and I think I'll have to buy it (as I said: best .one.ever.) but you can watch it on youtube (as I did) at that link.
Something else that is fun and interesting (to me):
Tom Lehrer once famously said: “It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.”
Which, of course leads me to want to tie together my two loves: youtube and Tom Lehrer, so here are The Elements, The Irish Ballad, Pollution, Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, and my personal favorite A Christmas Carol (I couldn't find Tom singing it... if you are having trouble hearing the lyrics they are below).
A Christmas Carol (by Tom Lehrer)
Christmas time is here, by golly,
Disapproval would be folly.
Deck the halls with hunks of holly,
Fill the cup and don't say when.
Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens,
Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens.
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.
On Christmas Day you can't get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore.
There's time to rob him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four.
Relations, sparing no expense, 'll
Send some useless old utensil,
Or a matching pen and pencil.
("Just the thing I need, how nice!")
It doesn't matter how sincere it is,
Nor how heart felt the spirit,
Sentiment will not endear it,
What's important is the price.
Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
God rest ye merry merchants,
May ye make the Yuletide pay.
Angels we have heard on high,
Tell us to go out and buy!
So, let the raucous sleigh bells jingle,
Hail our dear old friend Kris Kringle,
Driving his reindeer across the sky.
Don't stand underneath when they fly by.
I have memorized the above, in fact that and Oedipus Rex are my favorites and
I've been able to sing them publicly since I was about 10!
(there is no accounting for taste...mine is notoriously bad)
So have a Merry...a Happy... or a Joyful (or all three!)
a belated Happy Hanukkah for my dear friends....
I've forgotten how to celebrate Festivus (very likely Wikipedia can fill in the details) but Saturday morning at 6:08 am (GMT) is the Winter Solstice, which you know is the Reason for the Season, so I hope you'll all be celebrating with your loved ones! And then will have lots of gifts on Monday night or Tuesday morning, depending upon when you exchange gifts in honor of Santa...I mean the birth of Christ (even though we all know he wasn't born in December at all, but the metaphor is always more important than the facts...).
I saw something wonderful today, the BBC has been remaking the books of Jane Austen (again) and have made the best version of Northanger Abbey ever! It will be out on DVD in the USA January 22nd, and I think I'll have to buy it (as I said: best .one.ever.) but you can watch it on youtube (as I did) at that link.
Something else that is fun and interesting (to me):
Tom Lehrer once famously said: “It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.”
Which, of course leads me to want to tie together my two loves: youtube and Tom Lehrer, so here are The Elements, The Irish Ballad, Pollution, Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, and my personal favorite A Christmas Carol (I couldn't find Tom singing it... if you are having trouble hearing the lyrics they are below).
A Christmas Carol (by Tom Lehrer)
Christmas time is here, by golly,
Disapproval would be folly.
Deck the halls with hunks of holly,
Fill the cup and don't say when.
Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens,
Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens.
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.
On Christmas Day you can't get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore.
There's time to rob him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four.
Relations, sparing no expense, 'll
Send some useless old utensil,
Or a matching pen and pencil.
("Just the thing I need, how nice!")
It doesn't matter how sincere it is,
Nor how heart felt the spirit,
Sentiment will not endear it,
What's important is the price.
Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
God rest ye merry merchants,
May ye make the Yuletide pay.
Angels we have heard on high,
Tell us to go out and buy!
So, let the raucous sleigh bells jingle,
Hail our dear old friend Kris Kringle,
Driving his reindeer across the sky.
Don't stand underneath when they fly by.
I have memorized the above, in fact that and Oedipus Rex are my favorites and
I've been able to sing them publicly since I was about 10!
(there is no accounting for taste...mine is notoriously bad)
So have a Merry...a Happy... or a Joyful (or all three!)