In the Garden of Iden is one of the best first novels of a series I’ve ever read. In Kage Baker’s universe, scientists from a shady organization known only as The Company have developed not only a way to travel through time, but have developed the resources to transform small children into cyborgs, and to augment their brains and bodies and train them to work quietly on the sidelines of humanity. Baker’s cyborgs are largely gentle librarians of an immortal sort, cataloguing and preserving the creations and resources that short-lived humans squander.
In the Garden of Iden follows the adventures of Mendoza, saved from the Spanish Inquisition as a child, turned into a Company cyborg, and sent as an adult to catalogue the garden of an English country squire in the year 1553. Mendoza finds herself falling in love with an outspoken Protestant during the reign of Catholic Queen Mary. The turmoil that follows is tense, gripping, and a fantastic read that’s rich in period detail and humor.
I was equally enchanted by the two sequels that followed. In Sky Coyote, Mendoza and her mentor, Joseph, attempt to convince a pre-Columbian tribe that they are gods come to save the tribe from Europeans that soon will raze the land completely. And in the superb Mendoza in Hollywood, Mendoza finds herself in mid-nineteenth-century California, confronted by a familiar face seemingly resurrected to torture her.
What keeps the entire ten-volume series moving is its inexorable march to a doomed future, to a specific date in the twenty-fourth century after which no more Company communications are transmitted to the past. The immortal cyborgs fear—with good reason—that the date is their last on earth, and a small handful decide to resist whatever dire fate the Company has in mind. I wish I could say that the rest of the series is as fantastic as the first three books, but I honestly can’t. Once Baker moves past the current day, for me the novels lose their groundedness; when an author’s outstanding strength is weaving in historical detail, it’s a pity when they move out of the bounds of history. The final volume is so convoluted and dependent upon a fleet of secondary characters that I more or less gave up on making sense of it all. I enjoyed it. I simply didn’t understand every nuance, after nine previous volumes and eleven years.
However, I will say this: even past the first three books, rarely has a long series been so readable, or consistently funny, or have some of the characters been so dear to me.
It was with a little shock that I read a couple of weeks ago that Baker was gravely ill from uterine cancer, and with even more dismay that I read she’d passed away, Sunday. To those who never read her novels and short stories of the Company, I’d strongly urge you to indulge.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Launch My Line
I confess: when it was announced last year that Project Runway would be moving from Bravo to the Lifetime network, my heart sank a little. One of my favorite competitive reality shows, moving from the network that gave it birth to a channel that seemed perpetually to be rerunning Mother May I Sleep with Danger? I didn’t think so.
Not that Bravo exactly did right by its old property, mind you. Scarcely had the first season of Project Runway swept off the runway than Bravo began popping out imitators—first Top Chef, which developed into a view-worthy show of its own, and then the terrible Top Design, memorable (and not in a good way) for the send-off line of “See ya later, decorator.” Then came the bizarre and yet secretly enjoyable Shear Genius, in which hair stylists did terrible things to models’ heads for a cash prize and the privilege of being jabbered at in incomprehensible English by a Danish mentor. When Project Runway departed, Bravo brought forth The Fashion Show, a program that adhered so slavishly to the Project Runway formula that it was indistinguishable—in all but talent and impact, that is.
Then came Bravo’s latest attempt at catching the Project Runway magic: Launch My Line, it’s called, and it involved a lot of celebrities—and the show’s producers play fast and loose with that word, since the contestants are DJs, fashion writers, promotion event directors, and jewelry designers—who are paired with no-name designers to create and launch their own cohesive line of celebrity-label clothing. It seems an odd aspiration to become the next 6126, but there you go. I resisted watching the show for its first month, because The Fashion Show had simply been that bad. After catching a recording of the first episode, however, I began catching up—because the show is simply still that bad, but compelling in the way that Shear Genius could be.
The ‘celebrities’ receive the same sorts of stunty, contrived challenges as the old Project Runway alumni. One week they’re making cocktail dresses out of materials they’ve distressed themselves, then the next they’re spinning giant game show wheels to determine that they’ve got to make a dress that allows the model to visit a bris in the morning and attend a night at the Grammys at night. (I’m still waiting for the challenge on one of these shows that requires designers to collaborate on something with their wrists and ankles cuffed together.) But here’s the thing: not one of the contestants has any clothing design skills whatsoever, so they’re totally reliant upon their designer to sketch, cut, and sew everything.
Some of the celebrities, like my favorite, Merle Ginsberg, the only actual woman who was a regular on RuPaul’s Drag Race, leap right in to the process and have learned somewhat about the construction of garments. Others, like power executive Marilyn Crawford, have responded to the challenge by listening to the instructions, nodding, and saying as they snap fingers at their designer, “Okay, I want it to be elegant. Go!” Other than a few pointed eyerolls and befuddled responses when faced with the difficulties of creating garments that would meet the celebrities’ specifications and yet not drop off the models’ bodies, we don’t see much of the designers doing all the work. They’re mostly relegated to the background, so that we can listen to the celebrities complaining about each other.
It’s this shift of focus away from the work that makes Launch My Line so watchable and yet so bad. When the garments come out onto the runway, we’ve no idea what makes them attractive or awkward or appropriate, or part of a vision or constructive process. We do know, however, how everyone feels about the kooky jewelry designer burning sage in the workroom, and how many bon mots professional dandy Patrick McDonald has dropped that episode. After five seasons of showing the creative process at work in Project Runway, Bravo seems to have done an about-face on its view of professional artists. In the world of Launch My Line, the personalities are inescapable and the bitchery is thigh-deep, while the talent necessary to make a line of clothing, they seem to be telling us, need only be as substantial as the labels sewn into the neckline.
Not that Bravo exactly did right by its old property, mind you. Scarcely had the first season of Project Runway swept off the runway than Bravo began popping out imitators—first Top Chef, which developed into a view-worthy show of its own, and then the terrible Top Design, memorable (and not in a good way) for the send-off line of “See ya later, decorator.” Then came the bizarre and yet secretly enjoyable Shear Genius, in which hair stylists did terrible things to models’ heads for a cash prize and the privilege of being jabbered at in incomprehensible English by a Danish mentor. When Project Runway departed, Bravo brought forth The Fashion Show, a program that adhered so slavishly to the Project Runway formula that it was indistinguishable—in all but talent and impact, that is.
Then came Bravo’s latest attempt at catching the Project Runway magic: Launch My Line, it’s called, and it involved a lot of celebrities—and the show’s producers play fast and loose with that word, since the contestants are DJs, fashion writers, promotion event directors, and jewelry designers—who are paired with no-name designers to create and launch their own cohesive line of celebrity-label clothing. It seems an odd aspiration to become the next 6126, but there you go. I resisted watching the show for its first month, because The Fashion Show had simply been that bad. After catching a recording of the first episode, however, I began catching up—because the show is simply still that bad, but compelling in the way that Shear Genius could be.
The ‘celebrities’ receive the same sorts of stunty, contrived challenges as the old Project Runway alumni. One week they’re making cocktail dresses out of materials they’ve distressed themselves, then the next they’re spinning giant game show wheels to determine that they’ve got to make a dress that allows the model to visit a bris in the morning and attend a night at the Grammys at night. (I’m still waiting for the challenge on one of these shows that requires designers to collaborate on something with their wrists and ankles cuffed together.) But here’s the thing: not one of the contestants has any clothing design skills whatsoever, so they’re totally reliant upon their designer to sketch, cut, and sew everything.
Some of the celebrities, like my favorite, Merle Ginsberg, the only actual woman who was a regular on RuPaul’s Drag Race, leap right in to the process and have learned somewhat about the construction of garments. Others, like power executive Marilyn Crawford, have responded to the challenge by listening to the instructions, nodding, and saying as they snap fingers at their designer, “Okay, I want it to be elegant. Go!” Other than a few pointed eyerolls and befuddled responses when faced with the difficulties of creating garments that would meet the celebrities’ specifications and yet not drop off the models’ bodies, we don’t see much of the designers doing all the work. They’re mostly relegated to the background, so that we can listen to the celebrities complaining about each other.
It’s this shift of focus away from the work that makes Launch My Line so watchable and yet so bad. When the garments come out onto the runway, we’ve no idea what makes them attractive or awkward or appropriate, or part of a vision or constructive process. We do know, however, how everyone feels about the kooky jewelry designer burning sage in the workroom, and how many bon mots professional dandy Patrick McDonald has dropped that episode. After five seasons of showing the creative process at work in Project Runway, Bravo seems to have done an about-face on its view of professional artists. In the world of Launch My Line, the personalities are inescapable and the bitchery is thigh-deep, while the talent necessary to make a line of clothing, they seem to be telling us, need only be as substantial as the labels sewn into the neckline.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Worst! Rescue! Ever!
Dear Doctor Who Fanbase,
I am one of you. I have been one of you for decades. In fact, I’ve been one of you longer than most of you Johnny-come-latelys have—about twenty-five years, now.
I’m enough of a fan that I’ve seen every episode that’s extant, from 1963’s “An Unearthly Child” onward. Most of them at least twice. In fact, I still have most of them moldering away on VHS tapes in my basement. Sarah Jane was my favorite companion long before she had her own show. Tom Baker and Peter Davison are my favorite old-school Doctors, but I actually liked Colin Baker’s sixth doctor, and thought his companion, Peri was super-hot. I have endured more Dalek invasions and Cybermen and cheesy garbage-can-liner monsters than you can shake a sonic screwdriver at, and frankly think that none of them were as annoying as the ceaseless repetition of Are you my mummy? from the modern-era “The Empty Child.” I am one of those—okay, I’m the only one—who numbers “Delta and the Bannermen” as among his favorite episodes.
So you can see, I’m not one of those fly-by-night fans who thinks that Doctor Who begins and ends with David Tennant. I liked him an awful lot, mind you. I still think that “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood” are two of the most heart-wrenching episodes ever made, and that “Blink” is one of the most suspenseful hours of television produced ever. Period. I’m sad to see Tennant leave, but you know, Doctors come and go, and they always have.
Which is why I feel I must protest slightly over the excessive amount of show-bashing currently going on, now that the transition has started from Tennant to his successor. I’ve seen a lot of teeth-gnashing over the specials leading up to his regeneration. What about Donna Noble, they ask? She was such a brilliant companion (and she really was)—and all she gets out of the experience is a wiped memory and a lottery ticket? And as for the rest, that was the ending? Why didn't it end this way? Every angry fan who somehow didn’t like it claims that he or she could have written Tennant’s demise better.
But Doctor Who fans, I’d like to point out a couple of things. For one, companions never really have happy endings. Sarah Jane Smith rode along with the third and fourth Doctors for longer than anyone, and in the end got dumped off without even so much as a how-de-do, someplace miles away from home. Adric died. Tegan and Nyssa left the Doctor in disgust, deeply disturbed and distressed. We all know River Song ends up trapped in the library forever, and she hasn’t even been a companion yet. Peri Brown had a slug’s brain transplanted into her body. Companions just don’t have happy endings, by and large, so a blank slate and a lottery ticket sounds pretty good to me. But heck, you internet forum-loving fans complain about anything; when Rose Tyler got a semi-happy ending—wealth, her dead father resurrected and reunited with her mother, and even her own carbon copy of the tenth Doctor for her very own—you bitched about that.
The other thing I’d like to point out is that the two “End of Time” episodes were actually pretty good. The moment in which the Doctor heard the four knocks that presage his demise? Unexpectedly lovely. The interactions between him and Wilf, Donna Noble’s grandfather? Utterly touching. The subtle hints that the woman who’d been appearing to Wilf throughout both episodes was Susan Foreman, the Doctor’s granddaughter? For an old-school Who-lover like me, it really made the show. I suspect that, in a couple of years, when the Tennant era is a fond memory, you people will be able to look back on these episodes and separate your personal distress of the Tennant era ending from their actual merits.
The episodes have been written, filmed, and broadcast. There’s not really much you can do about them now, with your endless picking and what-ifs and what-could-have-beens. Arguing and fanwanking might be a pleasurable activity to ease your sorrow over Tennant’s departure, but it’s not going to change the shows themselves, nor is it going to bring him back. Enjoy the glorious seasons you had for what they were, please. They’ll still be available to watch over and over again on DVD.
Yours,
A Doctor Who fan who actually enjoys the show.
P.S. I still love "Delta and the Bannermen." Shut up.
I am one of you. I have been one of you for decades. In fact, I’ve been one of you longer than most of you Johnny-come-latelys have—about twenty-five years, now.
I’m enough of a fan that I’ve seen every episode that’s extant, from 1963’s “An Unearthly Child” onward. Most of them at least twice. In fact, I still have most of them moldering away on VHS tapes in my basement. Sarah Jane was my favorite companion long before she had her own show. Tom Baker and Peter Davison are my favorite old-school Doctors, but I actually liked Colin Baker’s sixth doctor, and thought his companion, Peri was super-hot. I have endured more Dalek invasions and Cybermen and cheesy garbage-can-liner monsters than you can shake a sonic screwdriver at, and frankly think that none of them were as annoying as the ceaseless repetition of Are you my mummy? from the modern-era “The Empty Child.” I am one of those—okay, I’m the only one—who numbers “Delta and the Bannermen” as among his favorite episodes.
So you can see, I’m not one of those fly-by-night fans who thinks that Doctor Who begins and ends with David Tennant. I liked him an awful lot, mind you. I still think that “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood” are two of the most heart-wrenching episodes ever made, and that “Blink” is one of the most suspenseful hours of television produced ever. Period. I’m sad to see Tennant leave, but you know, Doctors come and go, and they always have.
Which is why I feel I must protest slightly over the excessive amount of show-bashing currently going on, now that the transition has started from Tennant to his successor. I’ve seen a lot of teeth-gnashing over the specials leading up to his regeneration. What about Donna Noble, they ask? She was such a brilliant companion (and she really was)—and all she gets out of the experience is a wiped memory and a lottery ticket? And as for the rest, that was the ending? Why didn't it end this way? Every angry fan who somehow didn’t like it claims that he or she could have written Tennant’s demise better.
But Doctor Who fans, I’d like to point out a couple of things. For one, companions never really have happy endings. Sarah Jane Smith rode along with the third and fourth Doctors for longer than anyone, and in the end got dumped off without even so much as a how-de-do, someplace miles away from home. Adric died. Tegan and Nyssa left the Doctor in disgust, deeply disturbed and distressed. We all know River Song ends up trapped in the library forever, and she hasn’t even been a companion yet. Peri Brown had a slug’s brain transplanted into her body. Companions just don’t have happy endings, by and large, so a blank slate and a lottery ticket sounds pretty good to me. But heck, you internet forum-loving fans complain about anything; when Rose Tyler got a semi-happy ending—wealth, her dead father resurrected and reunited with her mother, and even her own carbon copy of the tenth Doctor for her very own—you bitched about that.
The other thing I’d like to point out is that the two “End of Time” episodes were actually pretty good. The moment in which the Doctor heard the four knocks that presage his demise? Unexpectedly lovely. The interactions between him and Wilf, Donna Noble’s grandfather? Utterly touching. The subtle hints that the woman who’d been appearing to Wilf throughout both episodes was Susan Foreman, the Doctor’s granddaughter? For an old-school Who-lover like me, it really made the show. I suspect that, in a couple of years, when the Tennant era is a fond memory, you people will be able to look back on these episodes and separate your personal distress of the Tennant era ending from their actual merits.
The episodes have been written, filmed, and broadcast. There’s not really much you can do about them now, with your endless picking and what-ifs and what-could-have-beens. Arguing and fanwanking might be a pleasurable activity to ease your sorrow over Tennant’s departure, but it’s not going to change the shows themselves, nor is it going to bring him back. Enjoy the glorious seasons you had for what they were, please. They’ll still be available to watch over and over again on DVD.
Yours,
A Doctor Who fan who actually enjoys the show.
P.S. I still love "Delta and the Bannermen." Shut up.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
High-Def, Low Culture
Shortly before the holidays I had a journal entry written in my mind about Christmas gifts. It was a humble little homily in which I was going to admit that we hadn’t exchanged gifts on Christmas day for three years, or gone in together on something for ourselves for quite some time, in favor of things like mortgage payments and food. I was going to confess that I always felt uncomfortable and put on the spot whenever someone would ask what Santa brought me, because saying nothing always seemed to make the person asking the question feel awkward and intrusive. It was going to be a sweet little tract about how I was happy to forego presents during the holiday season; it was going to meditate upon the True Meaning of Christmas and end upon a shining note.
Then my dad sent the Mont a fat check—a bribe for putting up with me essentially—and we went out and bought a high-definition television, and all that sanctimonious nonsense went out the window.
I’ve never really been around HDTVs very much. Oh, I’d seen them in the stores, of course, playing the latest Disney movies or featuring impressive vistas of penguins frolicking upon ice floes. I’d seen them playing sports in bars—but honestly, I don’t pay attention to sports. I don’t have any friends who have one, or at least friends who invite me over. So I’ve been very surprised, now that it’s all installed and everything, at how compelling the image is. When the cable guy showed up to upgrade our boxes to carry the high-definition channels, I found myself sinking down onto the sofa when he was gone and staring at the pretty, pretty screen, with its bright colors and sharp, crisp shapes. Everything was just so clean and distinct, so colorful and strokable.
Everything was so beautiful, in fact, that it took me a whole half hour to of mesmerized watching to realize that I’d been watching the absolute nadir of television programming, one of those Real Housewives shows with which Bravo clutters its airwaves. That’s when I leapt up and fled.
I realize that at this point in the technology curve I sound like an aboriginal fascinated by a Bic lighter, but goodness, everything is gorgeous in high definition. I watched an episode of Dirty Jobs in which Mike Rowe climbed the Mackinac Bridge to change a light bulb, or some such nonsense, and my stomach roiled when the camera switched views to display the lake below, visible and churning violently beneath the bridge’s vivid, fragile-looking grate, hundreds of feet below. I can’t watch anything on the Food Network without my stomach growling. And I found myself fascinated by an episode of Maury simply because baby daddies and back-stabbing ho’s are that much more compelling when they’re larger than life and twice as crisp.
It's a shame that high definition does nothing to improve my low standards of entertainment.
Then my dad sent the Mont a fat check—a bribe for putting up with me essentially—and we went out and bought a high-definition television, and all that sanctimonious nonsense went out the window.
I’ve never really been around HDTVs very much. Oh, I’d seen them in the stores, of course, playing the latest Disney movies or featuring impressive vistas of penguins frolicking upon ice floes. I’d seen them playing sports in bars—but honestly, I don’t pay attention to sports. I don’t have any friends who have one, or at least friends who invite me over. So I’ve been very surprised, now that it’s all installed and everything, at how compelling the image is. When the cable guy showed up to upgrade our boxes to carry the high-definition channels, I found myself sinking down onto the sofa when he was gone and staring at the pretty, pretty screen, with its bright colors and sharp, crisp shapes. Everything was just so clean and distinct, so colorful and strokable.
Everything was so beautiful, in fact, that it took me a whole half hour to of mesmerized watching to realize that I’d been watching the absolute nadir of television programming, one of those Real Housewives shows with which Bravo clutters its airwaves. That’s when I leapt up and fled.
I realize that at this point in the technology curve I sound like an aboriginal fascinated by a Bic lighter, but goodness, everything is gorgeous in high definition. I watched an episode of Dirty Jobs in which Mike Rowe climbed the Mackinac Bridge to change a light bulb, or some such nonsense, and my stomach roiled when the camera switched views to display the lake below, visible and churning violently beneath the bridge’s vivid, fragile-looking grate, hundreds of feet below. I can’t watch anything on the Food Network without my stomach growling. And I found myself fascinated by an episode of Maury simply because baby daddies and back-stabbing ho’s are that much more compelling when they’re larger than life and twice as crisp.
It's a shame that high definition does nothing to improve my low standards of entertainment.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
My New Year's Not-quite-resolution
What is perhaps my favorite photo of myself from 2009 was one of the very last photos taken of me, last year, taken a few minutes before midnight on new year’s eve.
I like it because I seem to be having fun in it. After a year in which I remember doing little else than moping about, glum and depressed, it’s nice to realize that I had fun.
I’m not really one who believes in new year’s resolutions. I know myself well enough to realize that by now, my life isn’t magically going to change because the calendar flips a page. I’d like to think that this year can be better than the couple that have preceded it, though. I’d like to make it more fulfilling, and to come out of it not feeling as if my life hasn’t diminished in quality. Ensuring that outcome, of course, depends mostly upon me, upon the way I choose to see things over the upcoming months, and upon the opportunities I choose to create for myself. I like to think I’m ready for that particular challenge, though.
So here’s a year filled with photos of me looking happy! (Starting with Fred's feline ass in my face as I try to edit the proofs of The Buccaneer's Apprentice.)
I like it because I seem to be having fun in it. After a year in which I remember doing little else than moping about, glum and depressed, it’s nice to realize that I had fun.
I’m not really one who believes in new year’s resolutions. I know myself well enough to realize that by now, my life isn’t magically going to change because the calendar flips a page. I’d like to think that this year can be better than the couple that have preceded it, though. I’d like to make it more fulfilling, and to come out of it not feeling as if my life hasn’t diminished in quality. Ensuring that outcome, of course, depends mostly upon me, upon the way I choose to see things over the upcoming months, and upon the opportunities I choose to create for myself. I like to think I’m ready for that particular challenge, though.
So here’s a year filled with photos of me looking happy! (Starting with Fred's feline ass in my face as I try to edit the proofs of The Buccaneer's Apprentice.)
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Stop the madness!
I was so decidedly un-curmudgeonly this year that I relaxed my restriction on Christmas carols being played before the first of December, and allowed—nay, encouraged—the Mont to play a few on the car radio the day after Thanksgiving. Almost immediately, however, I wished I hadn’t, because I heard a song on the traditional Christmas station that set my teeth on edge. It wasn’t that horrible Gayla Peevey song about wanting a hippopotamus for Christmas, though that might have done the job, too. No, it was perfectly respectable, boozy Dean Martin, singing the Irving Berlin standard, “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.”
Now, I’m aware that the religious carols have a lot more material at hand, with Christmas being a religious holiday, nominally at least. Religious carols have an entire cast of exotic characters going for them, from round yon virgins to the infant holy infant lowly. There’s the we three kings and Harold the harking angel and the heavenly host, whom I always imagine to be like a particularly friendly karaoke host, only sparklier. Christmas carols have a huge cast of supporting players that would make Cecil B. DeMille envious—from the little drummer boy and the busy innkeeper to people who never appear again anywhere in Biblical literature, like Jeanette and Isabella and some dude named Emmanuel. (What’s he’s coming, o coming for, anyway? Dessert?)
Secular Christmas songs, on the other hand, I feel sorry for. They’ve got their songs about Santa, who’s either admonishing children to watch out and not cry, or who’s coming down the chimney or making out with some kid’s mom, or running over grandma with his reindeer. They’ve got the songs about bells—silver, jingling, and ring-ting-ringling, too. And then they’ve got the songs about snow. I know there are scant pickings for the secular carol writers. But I’m sorry, “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” is going too far.
Yes, I know it’s been included on several Christmas albums, including by Dean Martin and Tony Bennet and even Bette Midler. Yes, I know that Irving Berlin is America’s beloved composer of “White Christmas” and that the song even concludes the stage musical version of the same name. But you know White Christmas the musical (and movie) also includes “Sisters,” and you don’t see Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga performing a very special holiday rendition of that on The NBC Paris Hilton Holiday Cavalcade, do you?
I’m also thoroughly aware that I’m willing to accept songs about cold weather as traditional holiday songs. I have no qualms about “Sleigh Ride,” for example, particularly if it’s Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme’s whip-cracking S&M version with Eydie’s maniacal laughter. (By the way, the LP in the background of that YouTube video, Goodyear's Great Songs of Christmas Album 5, is probably my favorite Christmas album ever. My parents got a free copy with a fill-up of gas in 1965, and I still have it. I wish it were available on CD.) I’m not even vaguely bothered by the inclusion of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” in the repertoire, although watching Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson mug their way through it traumatized me a little, a few years ago.
But “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm”? I’m sorry. It was written for On the Avenue, which has nothing to do with Christmas at all. I suppose I draw the line here: if I’m likely to hear the song sung in a karaoke bar in mid-March without irony, it doesn’t belong on a holiday playlist. Do we really want to lump all songs including any cold-weather metaphors in the Christmas bins? Really?
Because it’s a slippery slope, my friends, and those of you who are rolling your eyes and saying to yourselves, Good lord, it’s just a song, get over it! are going to be regretting your leniency in another thirty years when the hottest pop star of 2040 is duetting with a gray and grizzled Adam Lambert in a holiday rendition of Madonna’s “Frozen,” and the Rockettes are doing a kick-line in Santa hats and fuzzy red boots to Radio City Music Hall’s grand finale of “Ice, Ice Baby.” Mark my words.
Now, I’m aware that the religious carols have a lot more material at hand, with Christmas being a religious holiday, nominally at least. Religious carols have an entire cast of exotic characters going for them, from round yon virgins to the infant holy infant lowly. There’s the we three kings and Harold the harking angel and the heavenly host, whom I always imagine to be like a particularly friendly karaoke host, only sparklier. Christmas carols have a huge cast of supporting players that would make Cecil B. DeMille envious—from the little drummer boy and the busy innkeeper to people who never appear again anywhere in Biblical literature, like Jeanette and Isabella and some dude named Emmanuel. (What’s he’s coming, o coming for, anyway? Dessert?)
Secular Christmas songs, on the other hand, I feel sorry for. They’ve got their songs about Santa, who’s either admonishing children to watch out and not cry, or who’s coming down the chimney or making out with some kid’s mom, or running over grandma with his reindeer. They’ve got the songs about bells—silver, jingling, and ring-ting-ringling, too. And then they’ve got the songs about snow. I know there are scant pickings for the secular carol writers. But I’m sorry, “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” is going too far.
Yes, I know it’s been included on several Christmas albums, including by Dean Martin and Tony Bennet and even Bette Midler. Yes, I know that Irving Berlin is America’s beloved composer of “White Christmas” and that the song even concludes the stage musical version of the same name. But you know White Christmas the musical (and movie) also includes “Sisters,” and you don’t see Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga performing a very special holiday rendition of that on The NBC Paris Hilton Holiday Cavalcade, do you?
I’m also thoroughly aware that I’m willing to accept songs about cold weather as traditional holiday songs. I have no qualms about “Sleigh Ride,” for example, particularly if it’s Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme’s whip-cracking S&M version with Eydie’s maniacal laughter. (By the way, the LP in the background of that YouTube video, Goodyear's Great Songs of Christmas Album 5, is probably my favorite Christmas album ever. My parents got a free copy with a fill-up of gas in 1965, and I still have it. I wish it were available on CD.) I’m not even vaguely bothered by the inclusion of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” in the repertoire, although watching Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson mug their way through it traumatized me a little, a few years ago.
But “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm”? I’m sorry. It was written for On the Avenue, which has nothing to do with Christmas at all. I suppose I draw the line here: if I’m likely to hear the song sung in a karaoke bar in mid-March without irony, it doesn’t belong on a holiday playlist. Do we really want to lump all songs including any cold-weather metaphors in the Christmas bins? Really?
Because it’s a slippery slope, my friends, and those of you who are rolling your eyes and saying to yourselves, Good lord, it’s just a song, get over it! are going to be regretting your leniency in another thirty years when the hottest pop star of 2040 is duetting with a gray and grizzled Adam Lambert in a holiday rendition of Madonna’s “Frozen,” and the Rockettes are doing a kick-line in Santa hats and fuzzy red boots to Radio City Music Hall’s grand finale of “Ice, Ice Baby.” Mark my words.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Well-baked
Wednesday morning I noticed that Fred had disappeared. Usually when I’m working, in cooler weather, she’ll stake her claim on my belly. There she can warm herself while simultaneously monitoring the squirrels on the deck, from the comfort of the sofa and my midsection.Trust me, when she’s not around, I really notice that missing twelve pounds of compact tabby.
Her absence didn’t concern me much at first. I did my work in the morning, ate lunch, and puttered around for a little while after. At that point, I realized that I’d not seen Fred in hours. So I checked her usual haunts—the niche behind the curtain where she can spy on the squirrels, the cubby beneath the sofa where she can nap in peace. She wasn’t there.
Nor was she in any of the places she goes to hide when she’s frightened of something—beneath the basement stairs, or in the crawl space beneath our den. I was beginning to panic when at last I spied a lump beneath the covers, on our bed. When I pulled them up slightly, I found her blinking back at me. She’d managed to nose back both blankets so she could crawl underneath. Between the fleece sheets (yes, I have fleece sheets in winter. It’s Michigan. What of it?) she’d snoozed for hours. Since I didn’t have a compelling reason to interrupt her, I let her slumber on.
She was still there when the Mont came home a few hours later. And she didn’t emerge until five-thirty, when we were about to leave the house for dinner. Her tail was in the air. Her fur crackled with static electricity from the sheets. She practically radiated steam as she wandered, well-baked and hot to the touch, into the den after her nine-hour nap. Did I miss anything? she seemed to be asking, as she prickled her nose in our direction.
God. I wish I could be a cat, some days.
Her absence didn’t concern me much at first. I did my work in the morning, ate lunch, and puttered around for a little while after. At that point, I realized that I’d not seen Fred in hours. So I checked her usual haunts—the niche behind the curtain where she can spy on the squirrels, the cubby beneath the sofa where she can nap in peace. She wasn’t there.
Nor was she in any of the places she goes to hide when she’s frightened of something—beneath the basement stairs, or in the crawl space beneath our den. I was beginning to panic when at last I spied a lump beneath the covers, on our bed. When I pulled them up slightly, I found her blinking back at me. She’d managed to nose back both blankets so she could crawl underneath. Between the fleece sheets (yes, I have fleece sheets in winter. It’s Michigan. What of it?) she’d snoozed for hours. Since I didn’t have a compelling reason to interrupt her, I let her slumber on.
She was still there when the Mont came home a few hours later. And she didn’t emerge until five-thirty, when we were about to leave the house for dinner. Her tail was in the air. Her fur crackled with static electricity from the sheets. She practically radiated steam as she wandered, well-baked and hot to the touch, into the den after her nine-hour nap. Did I miss anything? she seemed to be asking, as she prickled her nose in our direction.
God. I wish I could be a cat, some days.
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