Beyond Rivalry

Welcome to the festival of Christmas goodness!

The Astonishing BetaMax Christmas: Click on the TV Guide to see the bazillion Christmas ads, Christmas shows, Christmas cartoons from days of yore, including ads by Folgers, Nyquil, McDonald's, Atari, Kodak, Tesco, Cabbage Patch kids, plus clips from Perfect Strangers, Teddy Ruxpin, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, the Muppets, One to Grow On, Will Vinton's Claymation, the annual CBS Christmas card, a Hall and Oates 'Jingle Bell Rock' video, some Max Headroom, ETC! Click the remote's channel buttons to change channels, and click on the TV Guide to see what's coming up in the next hour and a half or so.

If nostalgia from the 1970s and '80s isn't nostalgic enough for you, listen to Voices of Christmas Past, humdingers from 1898-1922, including Santa Claus Hides in the Phonograph, 'And the Glory of the Lord' from the Messiah, Christmas Morning at Clancey's, Uncle Josh Plays Santa Claus, Angels from the Realms of Glory, and 18 more!

Santas Working Overtime is a chaotic link dump of all things Xmas, from recipes and crafts to videos, audio clips, lists, quizzes, reviews,  podcasts and mix tapes, charity links, classical music, Christmas customs, cartoons, and on and on. For instance: John Cleese reading a somewhat updated and rather violent version of 'The Night Before Christmas' ("On Keith! And Banana! And whatever you're called.") Also: 10 Christmas Songs I'm Already Sick Of (and 10 Geeky Alternatives) at Wired. The one not listed here, which I'm sick of just thinking about, is 'The Little Drummer Boy.' OMG.

For Better or Werts' Yule Tube: Watch Christmas TV Shows Online! at freebies Hulu, TV4U, In2TV. Hulu has current Christmas shows from 30 Rock, The Office, ER, Psych, et al., and nostalgia from Barney Miller, Father Knows Best, Bob Newhart, Mary Tyler Moore, Married With Children, Chicago Hope, Picket Fences, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Family Ties, Bewitched, Spongebob, et al.

The classics Angels We Have Heard Are High, Cavalcade of Bad Nativities, and It Came Upon a Midnight Weird: Cavalcade of Bad Nativities II.

Similarly, Bad Gift Emporium. Rate each giftrocity; some are even available for purchase! Examples: Candy corn mouse butterknife set. Flipflop cheese plate ("Feet and cheese: could there really be a better match?"). Decoupaged fur-lined trash can. Submissive Jesus. Chanukah party music. Deer meat. A 'Butt Face' towel. Sea monkeys. You get the idea.

Classic Holiday Music with the Original Golden Artists. It's a radio show. Turn it on and hear what's playing. It's an eclectic mix of classical, country (All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth by Buck Owens), highly produced boys' choirs, Burl Ives, The Andrews Sisters, etc. But "No Rap or Rock."

Paperless Christmas advent calendar. Odd multimedia expectation.

The Five Most Terrifying Local TV Christmas Commercials

Make you own eggnog -- in 18 easy steps.

One of my favourites: Karen Carpenter singing Merry Christmas, Darling on Bruce Forsyth's show.

Just watched Another Thin Man, the third in the Nick and Nora Charles series starring William Powell and Myrna Loy.  Noticed that the detective, Lieutenant Guild, says to Nick, when they're in Linda Mills' apartment, "Toujours l'amour, toujours" (pronouncing the 's' in toujours). Marjorie Main, who plays the landlady, Mrs. Dolley, in the film, walks into the room right after that.

It reminded me of one of my favourite films, The Women, in which Marjorie Main also has a sort of landlady role (as Lucy, who runs the ranch), and in which the much-divorced character of the Countess de Lave (Mary Boland) repeats her catchphrase, "L'amour! Toujours L'amour!"

Both films came out in 1939.

Is the "toujours l'amour" theme coincidence, I wondered, or perhaps something in the air at the time? I checked IMDB and found that the two films share a writer between them: Anita Loos, who wrote the screenplay for The Women from Clare Boothe Luce's play, and who was an uncredited writer on Another Thin Man, along with credited writers Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. Aha!

By the way, Virginia Grey, Muriel Hutchinson, Ruth Hussey and Nell Craig appear in both films, too, all in minor roles in The Women, with Grey and Hutchinson in larger roles in Another Thin Man.

"It occurs to me now, for the first time, that film critics are the only people in the world who go to the cinema when they're not feeling well. Normal people slump in front of the telly and watch wall-to-wall Poirots until their eyes start to bleed. But the deadline of deadlines was looming. Captain Hastings was beginning to get on my nerves and the first blockbuster of the summer was in town. There was nothing else for it."

-- Marcus Berkmann, film critic, in The Oldie, July 2008.

Woman killed by husband's coffin (11 Nov.)

God's Facebook Wall (12 Nov.)

Apparent 6th severed foot found in British Columbia (12 Nov)

Two Dead in Argument Over 'Bama-LSU Game (10 Nov.)

The Essential 007: A Recap of all 22 Bond Movies (13 Nov.)

Unregulated Credit Default Swaps Led to Weakness (31 Oct.)

Exxon Mobil: Biggest profit in history (30 Oct.)

The age when children begin attempting to appear racially colour-blind (27 Oct)

The Quest for the Perfect Morning Routine: The first in a series on lifehacking, at Slate (12 Nov): "The advice here is not my own, but I have clicked on it."

When Alzheimer's Hits at 40 in the WSJ (14 Nov.)

and

"I don't remember a whole lot about that period; I appear to have bought a couple of truly depressing sweaters, the kind you only wear when all you really want is to curl up under the bed for several years..." (The Likeness, p. 47, Tana French)

(Photo: Recent Drinking: Ironstone Cabernet Franc 2004)

I've watched most of season 5 via Hulu on my laptop. "Lucky Thirteen" (5x05) -- genius show. "Joy" -- again the realisation that House says what most people are really thinking but automatically censor because it's cruel and would cause conflict to say aloud (particularly, in this episode, about Cuddy becoming a mom; what he says is truly cringe-worthy -- and yet it's part of what was in my thoughts, too).

A few bits:

Wilson to House: "I'm leaving."
House: "What? Are you going to take another two months. Boy, you're really milking this bereavement thing, aren't you? [Pause] I mean good for you. Take all the time you need."

(Dying Changes Everything, 5x01)

House to Cuddy: "You have to stop Wilson from committing career malpractice."
Cuddy: "Talk to him."
House: "I already talked to him. Twice."
Cuddy: "Mocking him and insulting him --- let's see --- yes, technically those are categories of conversation.... Talk to him. Deal with his grief. Talk to him about what he's going through."
House: "That's a brilliant idea. I'll take him out for a beer. That'll make up for the fact that Amber's in a pine box and that there's randomness and chaos in the universe."

(Dying Changes Everything, 5x01)

Cuddy: Why do you think Wilson's leaving?
House: How many times do I have to use the word "idiot"?

(Dying Changes Everything, 5x01)

Cameron to Wilson: "You think you're making a rational choice. You think the worst is over. And then six months later you look back and you realize you didn't know what you were doing."
Wilson: "Are you saying the pain doesn't go away?"
Cameron: "It gets easier. Not in two months. Not in two years. But no. It never really goes away."
Wilson: Being here -- this building -- I was just in the lounge. I kept staring at Amber's locker."
Cameron: "I saw a guy wearing a scarf this morning. The color reminded me of his eyes. We lived 500 miles from here."
Wilson: "I have to do something."
Cameron: "Then do it. But don't think it's the right choice. Because there isn't one."

(Dying Changes Everything, 5x01)

Lucas (House's' PI, speaking about Wilson): "You want to find out he's pining. You want to find out if there is something about him that will tell you he's going to come back. Or something you can use to make him come back."
House: "Is there?"
Lucas: "No. No, there's nothing. Sorry."

(Not Cancer, 5x02)

Lucas (PI) to Cuddy as she walks away: "Hey, I like the shoes by the way."
Cuddy (tentatively): "Thank you."
House to Lucas, "You don't like her shoes, you like her legs."
Lucas: "It sounds less creepy if you say shoes."
House: "Less creepy, more gay."
Lucas: "That's my firm's motto."

(Adverse Events, 5x03)

Wilson: That's how we met: I was in jail.
Sheriff Costello: This guy was a total stranger to you and you bailed him out?
House: It was a boring convention. I had to have somebody to drink with.

[after Wilson breaks a stained glass window by throwing a bottle]
House: Still not boring.

(Birthmarks, 5x04)

House to Wilson [after pressing down the accelerator while Wilson's driving and being pulled over by a cop]: You "lost track of your speed"? I think that was Hitler's excuse. Lost track of the Jews. No one held him responsible.

(Birthmarks, 5x04)

House: [giving his father's eulogy] There's a lot of people here today. Including some from the Corps. And I noticed that every one of them, is either my father's rank, or higher. And that doesn't surprise me. Because if the test of a man is how he treats those he has power over... it was a test my father failed. This man you're eager to pay homage to, he was incapable of admitting any point of view but his own. He punished failure, he did not accept anything less than... He loved doing what he did, he saw his work as some kind of sacred calling, more important than any personal relationship. Maybe if he'd been a better father, I'd be a better son. But I am what I am because of him, for better or for worse.

(Birthmarks, 5x04)

Foreman to House: "There are ways of getting to know people without committing felonies."
House: "People interest me, conversations don't."
Foreman: "'Cause conversations go both ways."

(Lucky Thirteen, 5x05)

Wilson: House, you are a drug addict. You go to prostitutes. You can't be judgmental.
House: And yet...

(Lucky Thirteen, 5x05)

Cuddy: Why do you have to negate everything?
House: I don't know.

(Joy, 5x06)

House to Cuddy: There's a reason that we've evolved the feeling of awkwardness -- it tells us not to talk about things.

(The Itch, 5x07)

Cuddy: House, you OK? ... Your hand --

House: That's weird. I usually don't get the stigmata until Easter.

(The Itch, 5x07)

House: You want to change your life -- do something. Don't believe your own rationalisations.

(The Itch, 5x07)

(Image credit: Triny's World)

U.S. Economic Timeline: All on one sheet, which Good magazine is distributing through Starbucks stores. Brief review of GDP, the national debt and the national deficit, business cycles (booms and busts), recession - stagflation - inflation, etc.

On Oprah today, regular guest and cardiologist Dr. Mehmet Oz and neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor will be talking about what a stroke feels like and what's happening in your brain when you have a stroke. Taylor's book about her stroke is My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey (2008). You can watch her TED talk about her stroke online.

Dr. Taylor offers a few exercises to help us make the choice to be peaceful and joyful. Here are two:

>> Pay attention to the energy that other people bring to you. Realize that you can observe other people and interact with them without engaging with their energy. Write about a time when someone else's energy affected you in a negative way. Consider how different the situation might have turned out if you had chosen to observe rather than be engaged and swept away by their energy. How might you approach the exact same situation in the future?

>> Brain circuits are very predictable and consistent entities. The more time you spend thinking a thought, then the stronger that circuit becomes and the less outside energy it takes for that circuit to run. As a result, for many of us, our brains run constantly with brain chatter,  and loops of thoughts go around and around in our minds. Pay attention to what is going on inside your brain. Journal about the thoughts that seem to go around and around that make you unhappy, angry or uncomfortable. Recognize that you have the power to choose not to think these thoughts by choosing to think about other things.

Identify something that your mind obsesses about that you would rather not spend so much time thinking about and document three different things that you can purposefully choose to replace in your mind when those thoughts come up. Create this list for yourself so you can arm yourself with alternative circuits to run in your mind when the time arises. Learn to 'tend the garden' of your mind in this way.

Watch Virginia Postrel's 2004 TED talk on Glamour. At first it seems there's not much here, but by midway, I was having to pause and backtrack to get it all, words and images.

I love glamour, particularly in its architectural and photographic forms. I find the Poirot series with David Suchet extremely glamourous -- the visuals, the voices, the music, the movements, the styling, the sensibility. Postrel says that glamour is about being transported from the real world to an idealised place, as through Art Deco streamlining. Trains, planes, and cars can be very glamourous, for this reason, as can arches, spiral or curved staircases, and other shapes that merely hint at something beyond.  Current movie stars and celebrities completely lack glamour for me, perhaps because black-and-white seems so much more glamourous than colour; Postrel says that glamour is partly about editing out the 'grubby details,' at which b&w is so adept, and colour not so much.

Some elements and 'locations' of glamour that Postrel mentions in this 15-minute talk are mystery; grace; someone like us but at the same time removed; evoking a perfect world; transcendence, transcending the everyday; concealing and revealing at the same time; translucence -- inviting us into their world without giving us a clear picture of it (barware, pearls, glass block); leading us towards some place, some possibility, but not reaching the real (skylines, the horizon); illusion; enchantment, magic; something that makes an object seem other than it is; a golden world, perfection: no wires or cords, no bills on the table, no mess, no defects.

Glamour can also be totalitarian and deceptive. Postrel says that Nazism was 'a very aesthetic ideology,' about cleaning up and making everything aesthetically pleasing. Glamour can be dangerous.

A remedy for the danger, perhaps, is to consider what gets edited away: "Unveiling the glamour has an appeal." I agree with that, too, which is why many of my photos are close-up industrial shots, shots of cords, wires, dead and decaying plants and animals, something that's beautiful, both pure and defiled, and not, perhaps, glamourous.

on Jon and Kate Plus 8:

Jon: "Who tore the pages out of the Bible?   .... Nice.  ... That can't be good."

Who knew that NOAA has a list of fictional books, plays, and movies that have been written involving tropical cyclones and hurricanes? I found out accidentally today, looking for the title of a mystery, written decades ago, set in Palm Beach featuring a nurse and tycoon! (Haven't found it yet.)  The list of about 65 works is chronological and starts with Shakespeare's The Tempest (1611), ends with Hurricane: a novel (2008) by Terry Trueman, about Hurricane Mitch in the Honduras.