A few bits and pieces for a quiet Christmas Eve…
Obama is running says Robert Novak.
I got an invitation to join Christian Bloggers the other day. I think they may have not read my post about “God” very closely.
If you get a chance, check out my two favorite year-end lists at Music For Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Shake Your Fist. I like the former because it’s so similar to mine and the latter because it’s so different. Part of the joy of these lists is discovering new music, but another part of it is simply reading good writers talk about what inspired them. Even if I don’t get the same feeling from the album, just reading about it is a pleasure.
Can you see the sunset from the southside gets an honorable mention for a great list of 50 records, and for being pretty much the only other person in the world who gave The Lawrence Arms some love.
For the bigger picture, as I obliquely mentioned the other day, Heart on a Stick is aggregating the lists. Nothing super unexpected (#1 is TV on the Radio), but it’s interesting to see what rises to the top, as well as the long tail at the bottom.
Favorite Christmas movies? I love It’s a Wonderful Life (the scene when he’s running down the street at the end never fails to get me), and there are many great takes on A Christmas Carol (probably the best of which is Scrooged). Not quite in the same league, but still a classic is A Christmas Story (always referred to me as “Shoot Your Eye Out”). And not really a “Christmas movie” in a traditional sense, but a truly great film is The Lion in Winter. It’s the story of Henry Plantagenet, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and their crazy children with fantastic performances from Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn as Henry and Eleanor.
In TV land, there are the classics: Charlie Brown, The Grinch, Rudolph, Garfield (or is that one unique to my generation?). But even better than all of those are the two Xmas episodes from Futurama.
What do y’all like?
A final thought: I hadn’t really considered it, but you start getting some people with very interesting search terms showing up when you post about a song called “Hardcore Porn.”