Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Christmas Day: Beef Chilli Hair

"Marley was dead, to begin with." With those six words, Charles Dickens invited us into the world of A Christmas Carol, indelibly introducing us to Ebenezer Scrooge, the three ghosts of Christmas, Tiny Tim, and a full cast of memorable characters. Though he spent mere weeks writing it, Dickens' novella about the original Christmas grinch has been a holiday staple for nearly two centuries, giving rise to countless adaptations for stage and screen. It was such an immediate hit, that barely a month after its debut, Dickens was embroiled in a legal fight against a publishing company that had printed pirated copies. In the spirit of the season, here are 10 things you may not know about the Christmas classic, including its original title, what happened to the original handwritten draft, and a rather famous American author who was not at all a fan. 
 WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Hair growth finding could make baldness ‘optional.’And we’re about to enter the third decade of the 21st Century, so it’s time for it to start delivering

 21ST CENTURY PROBLEMS: Selfies are causing a rise in people needing surgery for sore wrists, says doctor.

 BEEF: IS THERE NOTHING IT CAN’T DO? Vegans may get worse hangovers than meat eaters


“Andy was a Catholic, the ethic ran through his bones/
He lived alone with his mother, collecting gossip and toys/
Every Sunday when he went to church/
He’d kneel in his pew and he’d say/
“It’s just work, all that matters is work.” 
-Lou Reed, from Songs for Drella

Warhol Meets Pope John Paul II, 1980 

It’s true. Pop artist Andy Warhol, the legendary, ironically blank scenester, was also a devoutly religious man. He attended church faithfully, volunteered in soup kitchens, and made a late body of Christian themed works that have been largely overlooked by the hostilely secular art world
Andy Warhol’s Pop Art Christmas Cards | THE REMODERN REVIEW.


 NEWS YOU CAN USE: What to know about alcohol and the keto diet.




Christmas, With Its Fights And Fury And Beauty, Is A Gift To Novelists



And, famously, short story writers. Why? “It’s a chance to bring together a wide cast of characters at a time when the sense of occasion allows them and the novelist to take the long view of their lives.” – The Guardian (UK)
Wall Street Journal op-ed:  I’m Jewish. Please Wish Me a Merry Christmas., by Mark Oppenheimer:
It was the day before Thanksgiving, and I was at my local coffee shop in New Haven, Conn. I had just finished ordering my preferred espresso drink, and as I paid for it the barista said to me, with good cheer, “Happy Thanksgiving, if you celebrate it.” I was genuinely nonplused, and so, without considering how rude it might sound, I blurted back, “Who doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving?”

OKAY. OLDER SON WILL ACHIEVE IMMORTALITY:  Chili peppers might hurt, but a new study says they help you live longer


Joe Sabia is a VP for Conde Nast Entertainment and he and his team have been the creative force behind some of the most interesting video series of recent years, including Vogue’s 73 Questions (Sabia is the questioner), the Billie Eilish time capsule interviews, Wired’s Autocomplete Interviews, and Gourmet Makes.
HERESY OF THE FIRST ORDER: Sex Differences in Personality are Large and Important. “In other words, you can predict whether a person is male of female from their personality traits almost as well as by looking at their face.”
Recently Sabia shared a list of 136 internet videos which he says “left some sort of impression on me since the dawn of the internet video explosion (which I’ll define as 2006)”. So the collection is personal, but it’s also an expert’s record of creative people & orgs playing around with the internet video form, breaking new ground, or contributing significantly to culture.



New York Times op-ed:  Want to Get Into the Christmas Spirit? Face the Darkness, by Tish Harrison Warren (Anglican Church Priest; author, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life):

For Christians, Christmas is a celebration of Jesus’ birth — that light has come into darkness and, as the Gospel of John says, “the darkness could not overcome it.” But Advent bids us first to pause and to look, with complete honesty, at that darkness.

To practice Advent is to lean into an almost cosmic ache: our deep, wordless desire for things to be made right and the incompleteness we find in the meantime. We dwell in a world still racked with conflict, violence, suffering, darkness. Advent holds space for our grief, and it reminds us that all of us, in one way or another, are not only wounded by the evil in the world but are also wielders of it, contributing our own moments of unkindness or impatience or selfishness.








Associated Press: Top Photos of 2019.

I was surprised (but also not surprised) that none of these lists included photos of the Chilean protests on violence against women that have since spread around the world (see HuffPo and Quartz for coverage). So I’m including one here (by Pablo Sanhueza):
Hey, Merry Ehrlichmas! David Ehrlich’s video countdown of his top 25 films of the year is one of my most anticipated end-of-the-year thingers. Viewing it always makes me want to watch movies for three straight days. As a companion, Ehrlich listed the movies here, along with the most memorable moment from each.

Watching “The Irishman,” especially for the first time, you get the sense that it’s teeming with hidden moments that will cling to you like barnacles for the rest of your life. Some of them are more apparent than others: Pacino chanting “Solidarity!” Pesci saying “It’s what it is.” Ray Romano asking De Niro if he’s really guilty at heart. The film’s most indelible treasures are lurking a bit deeper under the surface. On my second viewing, nothing hit me harder than the rhyme between two distant confrontations: As a child, Peggy suspects that her father is hiding some demons, but Frank directs his daughter back to her breakfast. Years later, Peggy wordlessly confronts her dad with daggers in her eyes, and Frank is so far beyond salvation that his only recourse is to keep eating his cereal like nothing ever happened.
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