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Tidings of Comfort and Joy (because there’s no better idea)
By
Published: Dec 21, 2020
Category:
Holiday
THE IMAGE (ABOVE) is an ultra-magnified cross-section of a human cell.
This has been the longest year of any of our lives, and a bit longer for me professionally, because instead of publishing Monday to Thursday, I published for 40 days in a row at the start of the pandemic. This is not a complaint; a butler lives to serve, and it was an honor to help anyone get through the first wave of this nightmare year alive and more or less sane. But now I’m putting down my butler’s tray until January 4, when I hope to return refreshed and with my novel finished.
Leaving you underserved is not my way. Here’s a grab bag of stuff I’ve experienced and appreciated this year.
First things first: the Holiday Ham recipe.
LETTERS OF NOTE:: An amusing set of smart, snarky responses to criticism. Sample:
Harold Pinter, writing to Tom Stoppard in 2001: “Thank you for your invitation to host a fundraising dinner in the private room of a top London restaurant. I would rather die.”
READER MAIL: Last week, as I do every holiday season, I published my holiday story. The Gift of Gifts. You may recall I noted that if you donated to a charity and sent me the charity’s acknowledgment, I’d donate to your charity. A few days later, a longtime reader sent this:
Thanks for sharing this story again. Something similar happened to me.
I volunteer at a food pantry and the need is great, especially this year. They ran a program called Family to Family; a sponsoring family shops for a family of four in need. The program provided a list of 14 suggested items you don’t typically get at the pantry.
I bought 16 things and had fun doing it. My husband asked how much I spent. I told him about $100. He seemed surprised and responded, “That much?” Still he knows me after 25 years of marriage.
A week later I got a refund check from my health plan for $99.05.
THE BEST CHRISTMAS VIDEO (AND IT’S A COMMERCIAL!)
THE BOOK OF THE SEASON: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
FAVORITE TWITTER POST: LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA
True Story From Tonight – A One Act Play
[Dinner.]
The Six Year Old: Mommy, are you younger than Daddy?
Yes. Two years younger.
The Six Year Old: But how come you know so much more than him?
[I look up from my pizza. End of play.]
THE NOVEL TO READ: THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT
When you watched the series — and you did: It was the #1 show in 63 countries and the most-watched “limited scripted series” ever on Netflix— you were unaware of the fatal flaw. In The New Yorker, Sarah Miller didn’t:
Allow me to shout from my lone perch at its summit that Beth Harmon is not pretty, and there is no story about her that can be told if she is. We know that Beth is unattractive because it is written down… Walter Tevis mentions Beth’s ugliness too often for readers to imagine that it is just some routine, awkward part of childhood that slips away with puberty, like a boy’s squeaky tones settling gradually into a mannish timbre, or because some nice girlfriend takes her to Sephora. Instead, Beth becomes reasonably attractive by learning to play chess and then excelling at it… Taylor-Joy’s tone, though, is one of impatient self-regard, in this moment and most others. She doesn’t need chess to survive. She’s a confident girl who finds everyone annoying and wears great clothes and flies off to beautiful places to be weird around guys. If she didn’t play chess and weren’t such a bitch, it would be “Emily in Paris.”
There’s much more in that vein, and if I agree with every word, it’s because when I had the option on the novel and wrote the screenplay, I wrote the Beth Harmon I met in the novel. I don’t say this to pat myself retroactively on the book. I say it to encourage you, one more time, to read the book.
BEETHOVEN
MURIEL SPARK: In a one-minute video she explains how to write a classic.
DAVID BOWIE ACCURATELY PREDICTS THE FATE OF THE INTERNET… IN 1999.
LIFE PRESERVERS: Many minerals and vitamins to support your health, but above all…. get this.
PHILIP SLATER’S BOOK OF PROPHECY: The Chrysalis Effect: The Metamorphosis of Global Culture
Innovation comes from outsiders. Those most deeply committed to, and successful in, an old system will be the last to notice a radically new idea, and will be most resistant to it. When change comes, it’s the outsiders —- those uncommitted to the status quo —- who are poised to catch the wave.
HIGH HOPES: Bees Love Cannabis! Researchers Discover Hemp Could Help Restore Bee Populations
It’s an unusual finding, considering that cannabis doesn’t possess the sweet nectar or bright colors typical of flowers that attract pollinators. The researchers speculate it’s something to do with the plentiful pollen found in hemp flowers.
NINA SIMONE: “Suzanne” (as you’ve never heard it before)
STEPHANIE STOREY: Recently her guest on “Storeytime” was.. me.
IN MEMORIAM
Chris Dickey
Pearl Kornbluth
John Prine
Harry Evans
A MAN IN A HOLIDAY COSTUME SURPRISES HIS DAUGHTER AT SCHOOL: Click here.
I sent it to my daughter: “I would never do this to you.”
My daughter: “There are a multitude of criminal acts in that video.”
BON IVER & THE STAVES: “Heavenly Father”
Heavenly father
Is all that he offers
A safety in the end
Stay safe.
