Goodbyes

Seems like 2023 was a bumper year for notables dying. Not just at an advanced age, too, which is heartbreaking, when you think of all the accomplishments the world could have enjoyed.

So, I’ll have a few words about the ones who struck me as the news of their deaths arrived.

In January, we lost Cindy Williams, 75, who entertained America in Laverne and Shirley, the spinoff sit-com from Happy Days. It’s not clear to me that her career did much after the show was canceled in 1983, but she and Penny Marshall pretty much owned the latter years of the 70s.

Gina Lollobrigida died at age 95. Children, if you have to ask who she was, you really were not alive in the 60s. Ask your father about her and watch him turn red.

David Crosby managed to live to age 81, which is truly a wonder, given his hardcore drug abuse for a good chunk of his career. But what music he gave us as a member of the Byrds and Crosby Stills & Nash (later plus Young). Perhaps more than any other band (possible exceptions being The Beatles and The Rolling Stones), CS&N provided the soundtrack of my life. Here he is in CSN&Y’s iconic performance of “Suite Judy Blue Eyes” at Woodstock. I’m crying as I listen to it.

Bobby Hull also died in January. He was 84. Evidently he did something in the skating line. He was good enough that even I’ve heard of him.

In addition to Crosby, we also lost guitarist Jeff Beck, who died in January at age 78. Beck replaced Eric Clapton in the Yardbirds in 1965; he went on to form his own group, which at one time included Rod Stewart.

Apollo 7 astronaut Walt Cunningham died age 90. He was a civilian astronaut whose mission after the 1967 launchpad fire deaths of Virgil Grissom, Roger Chaffee and Ed White restored hope in the NASA mission and paved the way for moon missions,

And writer Fay Weldon, 91, died that same month. She created memorable characters in her 1983 novel The Life and Loves of a She-Devil; she also challenged orthodox feminism later in her career, insisting that women faking orgasms is beneficial to relationships and that women pursuing careers had backfired. (FWIW, Weldon also said many times that about 60% of what she said to journalists was true.)

In February we lost Richard Belzer, 75, forever Detective John Munch in Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. H: LOtS is acknowledged as probably the best police procedural ever seen on US television; it was definitely an ensemble piece, but Belzer’s Munch was a huge part of the magic. Here’s a very young Munch dealing with a perp.

Kind of the opposite of Belzer was Raquel Welch, who died at age 82. Welch was the 1970s Gina Lollobrigida, only homegrown.

If you’ve seen Chariots of Fire, you’ll have sampled the work of director Hugh Hudson, who died at 86. Chariots was his first feature film. Subsequent movies did not do as well commercially, but this one was absolutely perfect. If you have not seen it, close out this post and stream it. Here’s the film’s opening scene, with the iconic theme by Vangelis. (The key sequence begins at 0:48.)

And in February Bert Bacharach died at 94. The composer pretty much owned the pop music scene from the 60s through the 80s. “The Look of Love”, “What Do You Get When You Fall in Love?”, “Walk on By”, “Alfie”, “I Say a Little Prayer”…All Bacharach. Here’s Tom Jones singing “What’s New, Pussycat?”, also Bacharach.

In March former congresswoman Pat Schroeder died; she was 82. Schroeder, a pilot and graduate of Harvard Law, was elected in 1972 as a Democrat from Colorado opposed to the Vietnam War. In her long career she championed things like laws barring employers from discriminating against pregnant people and the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which guarantees parental leave. She literally changed the face of the workforce.

The actor Robert Blake’s career spanned performing in Our Gang comedies as a child, through playing a serial killer in In Cold Blood, to being TV detective Baretta, based on real-life undercover cop Frank Serpico. In 2005, he was acquitted of the truly bizarre murder of his wife, a story that’s far weirder than anything he played on screen. And dat’s da name of dat tune.

Dick Fosbury also died; age 76. Children—if you do not know the name, you haven’t watched track and field events in the past 50 years. Fosbury literally turned the high-jump on its head at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968, when his Fosbury Flop beat out conventional vaulters. Since then, his approach has been the standard. Beyond that, Fosbury is the embodiment of innovation leaps forward, as opposed to being incremental; he developed the Flop because the standard, accepted technique didn’t work for him. He once told the NY Times that going over the high-jump bar at elite levels “you really feel like you’re flying. You’re up there for only a second, but time really does begin to slow down. Time expands.” You can see that when he’s jumping.

Israeli actor Topol died at age 87. The world knows him as Tevya in the 1971 movie of Fiddler on the Roof.

Another actor, Tom Sizemore, died; he was 61. He won praise for his performance in films like Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down, but also served time in prison for substance abuse and domestic violence. His story is not completely unlike Robert Blake’s, actually.

In March Jerry Springer, 79, died. Springer was the progenitor of reality TV, IMO—the guests on his “talk” show typically were engaged in twisted, quasi-secret relationships with their relatives and relatives’ significant others, which he encouraged them to share to his audiences. Starting with that we got to The Apprentice and then Cadet Bonespurs. Ugh.

Barry Humphries also died, age 89. You probably know the Australian better as Dame Edna Everage, who livened up many a talk show without ever sleeping with her sister’s boyfriend. I have no doubt that Dame Edna made the Baptist Taliban uncomfortable, and I say, more power to her.

We lost Mary Quant in April, too. She was 89. Quant’s mini-skirt fashions defined the expression of the 60s’ zeitgeist, along with her distinctively bobbed hair. She is forever associated in my mind with Carnaby Street, and was an impetus for my desire to go to London.

Benjamin B. Ferencz was a huge loss to humanity when he died at age 103. The name may not be familiar to you, but Ferencz was the last surviving Nuremburg war crimes prosecutor, who dedicated his life to establishing an international criminal court and for laws to end wars of aggression. The son of immigrants fleeing a pogrom in Romania, Ferencz earned a law degree from Harvard, which he applied throughout his life to obtaining justice for the victims of the power-mad individuals who form oppressive governments. We could use more like him.

In May, actor George Maharis died at age 94. In the short-lived TV series Route 66, Maharis played one of two footloose White guys who traveled the country in their Corvette, taking odd jobs and finding drama. The show was helped by Nelson Riddle’s famous theme music.

We also lost football player, civil rights champion and actor Jim Brown, who died at age 87. It was a Big Thing when Brown went on the big screen in the 60s. (He had a sex scene with Raquel Welch in 1969’s 100 Rifles; that blew a lot of minds.) His appearance in 1967’s The Dirty Dozen (about a team of convicts executing a secret mission behind Nazi lines) was the impetus for him to leave football. He advocated for Black athletes and worked to improve the economic status of inner-city residents. Brown also had a long history of domestic abuse.

I was really saddened to hear of the death of actor Ray Stevenson at age 59. He forever embodies in my mind the character of the average Roman legionary, which is what he portrayed in the HBO mini-series Rome. I saw him in a couple of other things, which were not impressive, but let me tell you: his Titus Pullo was just amazing. And his voice…

Speaking of voices, Harry Belafonte died at age 96. Do I even need to tell you about his career as singer, actor and civil rights activist? Here he is singing “Jamaica Farewell”.

Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot died at age 84. My BFF and I went to see him when he played at a tiny Huntington Beach club called The Lighthouse. The next time I saw him he was at the Universal Amphitheatre and had a full backing band. He was the soundtrack of much of my youth. So many songs to choose, but here’s “Early Morning Rain”.

And then there was the force of nature that was Tina Turner, who died at her home in Switzerland. She was 83. What an absolute powerhouse—she was, simply, “The Best”.

June was a bad month. We lost actor Alan Arkin at 89. His performances were always thoughtful and thorough. If you’ve never seen The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!, find it now. Even though it’s set smack in the middle of the Cold War, it’s timeless.

Daniel Ellsberg died age 92. He was a military analyst who decided to rip the scab off the prosecution of the Vietnam War and in 1971 leaked to The New York Times 7000 pages documenting the lies and deceit of multiple presidential administrations about our involvement in Southeast Asia. The maelstrom this revelation launched ended in the resignation of Richard Nixon; Ellsberg himself suffered prosecution and persecution for his decision.

A powerhouse of the stage and screens big and small, Glenda Jackson exited for the last time at age 87. I was introduced to her in Mary, Queen of Scots, playing Elizabeth I opposite Vanessa Redgrave’s Mary, and then in the BBC/PBS mini-series Elizabeth R, where she took the queen from early 20s to creaky death. Jackson left acting in her 50s to become a Member of Parliament; if you thought she’d be anything other than Labour, I’m sorry for you. When she returned to the stage at age 80, she played King Lear, because of course.

Fellow actor Treat Williams, 71, also died in June. I remember him from Prince of the City, but his career began in Hair and went on for decades. He died as the result of a motorcycle accident.

Ah, Pat Robertson finally, finally stopped grifting. The 93-year-old had done decades worth of damage building his Christo-fascist White supremacist empire, and sadly, the evil men do lives after them; whatever good he might have accidentally accomplished is definitely interred with his bones.

And Ted Kaczynski has moved to a place where his ravings will no longer present a danger to random victims. The Unabomber was 81.

Possibly chatting with Pat and Ted in a conversation that not even Jean-Paul Sartre could envision, Robert Hanssen died at age 79. Like Kaczynski, Hanssen had been in federal prison for two decades; his crime was that, as an FBI agent, he spied for the Soviet Union/Russia for at least as long as he was subsequently locked up. He did untold damage to our national security—although, now that we have Cadet Bonespurs to contend with, his record in that respect has probably been broken.

In July, Paul Reubens, AKA Pee-wee Herman, left this earthly playhouse. Reubens’s alter ego entertained children (and adults, although he was an acquired taste) for decades. His career as a comic actor was damaged when he was charged with indecent exposure at a Sarasota, Fla., adult movie house. He eventually recovered, because the world needed his brand of childlike zaniness.

Singer-songwriter Sinéad O’Connor’s four-decade career was marked by controversy, as often happens when a woman choses to speak her mind. In a 1992 guest appearance on Saturday Night Live, she sang an acapella version of Bob Marley’s “War” and then ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II to protest rampant sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. The furor was incandescent, as this was about 10 years before media pulled the scab off that global festering wound. Recent times were emotionally difficult for her and she was shattered by the death by suicide 18 months ago of her youngest son, Shane. But she was working on a new album to be released next year. O’Connor was 56.

He may have left his heart in San Francisco, but singer Tony Bennett captured millions of them from fans around the world. The 96-year-old recently expanded his solo career by producing duets with other artists ranging from Amy Winehouse to Lady Gaga to Sinéad O’Connor. He was also an accomplished painter.

Pianist André Watts died at age 77. I saw him once at the Ambassador Theatre in Pasadena, early in his career. He was magical.

Czech author Milan Kundera, who died at 94, began his literary career around the time of the Czech Spring in the 60s; his target—the absurdity of the “workers’ paradise” that life under Communist rule was supposed to be—won him fame and persecution. He’s probably best known for The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

In August eternal huckster Mohamed al-Fayed died at age 94. He spent 50 years trying to crack the wall of British high society by purchasing properties, businesses (including Harrods) and sports teams; this culminated with him trying to hook his eldest son Dodi with the divorced Diana, Princess of Wales. You know how that ended. Following the crash, al-Fayed propagated conspiracy theories and erected a shrine to the couple in the basement of Harrods, which endeared hm even less to the country he wanted to win. He was never granted British citizenship, although he applied multiple times.

Bob Barker, 99, presided over The Price Is Right game show for, I dunno, about 1200 years. But he was also an activist for animal rights. He quit being MC for beauty pageants that gave fur coats as prizes. He also protested the mistreatment of animals on movie and TV sets and closed every episode of TPIR with, “Help control the pet population. Have your pet spayed or neutered.”

This next one is kind of an example of the adage that if you lie down with dogs, you’ll get up with fleas. Or, in the case of Yevgeniy Prigozhin, 62, if you’re a Friend of Putin, who started out a thug with a catering business that you somehow grew to include building and deploying a mercenary army to further Putin’s imperial aspirations, and then failed in your coup attempt, you’re lucky that you lived for even a few months. Oddly, Prigozhin did not die by defenestration; his private plane inexplicably exploded mid-air. Go figure.

Renowned soprano Renata Scotto was a favorite of the Metropolitan Opera for decades. The thing I remember about her was one of my classmates saying that she had a vibrato you could drive a truck through. Scotto was 89 when she died.

Joan Meyer is not a name many of us would know. I didn’t know it until August, when Marion County, Kan., cops raided the premises of the local weekly newspaper she published, as well as her home, to search for evidence of identity theft and “illegal use of a computer”. Meyer died the next day at age 96 from a heart attack. Yay, First Amendment.

Robbie Robertson, lead guitarist and prime songwriter of The Band, died in August, age 81. He was a massive creative talent. In addition to his time with Bob Dylan, he also collaborated with Martin Scorsese on many of his films. Just decade after decade of amazing songs. I chose this version of “The Weight” to play the week he died and it’s worth another listen.

Okay, sorry—I had to listen to it again. Damn.

Another singer-songwriter left us in September. That would be Jimmy Buffett, who was 76. All around the world people lifted a margarita to toast the quintessential beach bum.

Harry Potter fans mourned the loss of Michael Gambon, who died at age 82. But I remember him for portraying Maigret in a BBC TV series that was filmed in Hungary. And for his appearance in the 2012 film Quartet. If you have not seen it, do so now.

We lost another actor that month—David McCallum, who was 90, will be known to anyone who’s watched the NCIS franchise on TV. For me he’ll always be Ilya Kuryakin, the sidekick to Napoleon Solo in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. And Eric Ashley-Pitt in The Great Escape. You have no idea how beautiful he was as a young man. No idea.

Bill Richardson, former governor of New Mexico, former congressman and former US ambassador to the UN, died at 75. In addition to those offices, Richardson frequently engaged in “freelance diplomacy” to help extricate Americans from trouble around the world.

Fellow Democrat Dianne Feinstein also died in September. She was 90 and still serving as senator from California. Feinstein accomplished a lot in her career, beginning as San Francisco’s first female mayor, but clearly she was in failing health in recent years and unable to fulfill the duties of her office.

Mangosuthu Buthelezi died at age 95. He was a voice for tribal and ethnic rights in post-apartheid South Africa, as well as for regional governments. The next time you watch Zulu, take a look at the commander of the Zulu force. That would be Buthelezi.

September brought us the death of actor Matthew Perry, who was 54. Perry spent most of his adult life (and apparently millions of dollars) in treatment for substance abuse, which is a pity, because he was such a gifted actor. I confess I did not ever watch Friends (although I’ve seen clips). But he had a few guest appearances on The West Wing, and he was spot-on.

Suzanne Somers died at age 76. She played the consummate ditzy blonde in 70s sitcom Three’s Company, then ruled the airwaves as queen of the infomercial for the Thighmaster.

Actor Richard Roundtree also died that month at age 81. Like Jim Brown, Rountree broke a lot of color barriers in films beginning in the 70s. He dominated the Blaxploitation genre as that ultimate hero, Shaft. It was a big deal that he was a leading man who wasn’t an addict or a criminal.

Nobel Laureate and Pulitzer Prize wining poet Louise Glück died at age 80. Like the best writers, she drew on her experiences as well as on cultural tropes to create.

In November astronaut Frank Borman blasted off for the last time at age 95. He commanded the Apollo 8 mission in 1968 that took humans the farthest into space, orbiting the moon. Previously he commanded Gemini 7, a 14-day flight that was also a record. Once a fighter pilot, always a fighter pilot.

Frances Sternhagen, 93, had a long career as a character actor. You’ve probably seen her a bazillion times. For me she will always be Brenda Leigh Johnson’s mother, from The Closer.

If anyone could have been said to burn his candle at both ends, it would be singer-songwriter and The Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan. He started drinking alcohol at age five and spent large chunks of his life in rehab and psychiatric hospitals as a result of his drug use. He died at 65, which is kind of a wonder. What you should know about MacGowan is that when news of his death hit Dublin, thousands of people began singing “Fairytale of New York” spontaneously, inside pubs and on the streets. It’s only one of scores of songs he left us that melded Celtic musical themes with punk sensibilities.

The world lost a tremendous force for good when Rosalynn Carter died at age 96. In her 77 years of marriage to naval officer, Georgia governor and president Jimmy Carter, Rosalynn pragmatically but relentlessly worked for human rights and mental health.

On the other hand, we have Henry Kissinger, who died at 100. With a background similar to Benjamin Ferencz, Kissinger turned his not inconsiderable intellect to wielding power in any way possible. The only regret that tens of millions of people around the world expressed was that his death had not come 50 years earlier.

And now, December.

Well, at time of writing, we lost Andre Braugher, a phenomenal actor whose intense energy could have powered a city the size of Cleveland. Braugher died way, way too young at 61. Watch any episode of Homicide: Life on the Street and you’ll see what I mean. Or—anything he’s done. Anything.

Ryan O’Neal died at age 82. To be honest, he was not my cup of tea—one of those people who got by on charm and ego. There are too many of them in this world. Well, one fewer now, obvs.

We also lost Norman Lear, who at least lived to be 101. Lear changed the look of television in the 60s when he produced shows like All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Maude and One Day at a Time. They were sitcoms that dealt with working-class racism, feminism, abortion and single mothers. You cannot imagine, if you’ve only known the world of cable TV and streaming, what a bucket of cold water these were to what was smugly known as the Silent Majority, but they changed everything.

Sandra Day O’Connor died at age 93. Appointed to SCOTUS by Ronald Reagan, O’Connor was the first female Associate Justice. Her opinions were centrist, although in comparison to today’s court (which has dismantled many of them), they look liberal. She paved the way for women, and it’s a crying shame that she was replaced by Samuel A. Alito.

And finally—at time of writing—Tommy Smothers. Man—this one bites. Similar to Norman Lear, Tom Smothers pushed the envelope of television discussion with the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, although he lost many of his battles with CBS censors. He and brother Dick hosted The Who, Cream, Joan Baez, Jefferson Airplane and the like, amongst comedy sketches. They ran afoul of the censors by including topics like sex, drugs and the Vietnam War. Both LBJ and Richard Nixon were alleged to have hated the show. Smothers was 86, and he’s sorely missed.

I could have used a couple of dozen musical videos from the list above, but today’s earworm will close out the year with “Auld Lang Syne”, with a performance from the 2020 film For the Sake of Old Times. The singers are from the community in Birmingham, Ala.; they’re singing in a church where years ago deacons refused to seat African Americans.

 

Mincing words

Last year I bought a package of mince pies at Wegmans.

I suppose when I saw it I was reminded of the “luxury” mince pies I used to get at Marks & Spencer. Those were truly worth not bothering to make your own.

These? Not so much.

(And it's not just the "best by" date has expired. There is not one component that would not survive a direct nuclear strike. These things were disgusting, both crust and filling.)

How bad are they, you ask?

Not even the squirrels will eat them.

 

Lights in the darkness

I was out shooting holiday light displays earlier this month. Within my cluster they were kind of pedestrian—mostly icicles from the eaves, with the occasional obligatory inflatable figures on the ground.

I mean—I don’t judge, because my contribution is a single strand of IKEA red star lights looping in my front window. But we have nothing like I used to document in the Valley They Call Silicon.

However, I was struck by the patterns made by these little common or garden solar-powered walkway lights.

Christmastide color

 For Boxing/Saint Stephen's Day, here's some seasonal color, courtesy of some neighborhood maple trees.

Gratitude Monday: Pax in terra

Normally I do a big blowout for Christmas Day, but this year…

Here’s my wish to the Prince of Peace, and to all who aspire to power. If someone would listen and act on it, I’d be extremely grateful.

Brought forth a holy lamb

The fourth Sunday in Advent celebrates the Annunciation story, when the archangel Gabriel appeared before Mary to tell her she had been chosen to give birth to the son of God.

You have to wonder what was running through her head—a teenager from Nazareth one would expect to be as unworldly as they come—absorbing, “You’re going to become pregnant (without sex) by the Holy Spirit, and your child will be God-made-man. You cool?”

(She was—her response was “Behold—I am the handmaiden of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.”)

What I’ve been thinking about this year—what with two kinetic wars wreaking unspeakable terror, devastation and death going on—is the complete crap shoot that is motherhood. When a person becomes pregnant, she thinks of all the wonderful possibilities for her child—health; happiness; a safe, productive and long life. She doesn’t think, “Maybe a drug addict? Or a debilitating chronic illness caused by industrial pollution in our drinking water? How about four years of siege with indiscriminate artillery shelling and sniper attacks?”

But all too often…

Also thinking about the war on women here in the US, where White “Christian” men are publicly declaring that women’s sole role in society is to be vessels for producing babies, to increase the labor population. (And, no, I am not making that up. They feel comfortable enough in their power position to say that.) They don’t give a rat’s ass about that baby after birth—it’s not the role of government (or their church) to implement things like public healthcare, public education or other support mechanisms, and their attitude to anyone seeking them is contempt and disdain. Because if you were favored by God, you’d have money and if you’re not favored by God, just get out of here.

I’m thinking of children who’ve been impregnated through rape being denied abortions because “God must have intended for this child to be created.” I’m thinking of women whose much-wanted pregnancies have gone tragically wrong, with non-viable fetus and real danger of fatal consequences to the mother also being denied abortions because God.

(Reminds me of the dunking test for witches: suspects were tied up and thrown in a pond. If they floated, they were clearly guilty of being witches and thus subject to hanging. If they drowned, they innocent, but of course, they were dead. These legislators and attorneys general are basically saying: you can’t terminate the fetus until we know for sure that it’s a fatal danger to the mother, so we’ll wait until you die.)

Did Gabriel mention that this son of God whom Mary would carry for nine months would live for 33 years and then die a ghastly death, which she would witness? Did she know what she was signing up for? Would she have agreed if she’d understood all the Ts & Cs? Did the patriarchal God and archangel even consider giving her this information? 

Well, we don’t know, because all the reports we have were written by men. But it’s worth considering.

Another thing to consider: Mary had a choice. She agreed to God's proposition. She had agency. Something the Baptist mullahs conveniently slide over.

Meanwhile, today’s Advent piece is “Mary Was the Queen of Galilee”, which is appropriately written in a minor key. Although I do not know who these performers are, it's a very good recording.

Wonderful, Counselor

We’re rounding the corner on the big day, so I think we can now declare the birth. We’ve got today and tomorrow to get our ducks (or partridges and French hens) in a row; shepherds are minding their flocks; the caravan of Wise Men is en route (hope they don’t pitch up along the Rio Grande—we could have a whole new ending to this story), Joseph and Mary are within a day of Bethlehem…

Yeah—let’s have “For unto us a child is born” from Messiah.

The text (as is most of Part I of the oratorio) is from Isaiah. (Isaiah 9:6, to be precise.) I love Isaiah—the language and imagery are stunningly beautiful. Pick up any chapter and start reading; that’s balm to the troubled soul. I particularly am taken by the notion that a son is given…unto us. All of us, every nation, every condition, every status. This to me is the real promise of the Christmas story, and I’m sorry that it gets lost in the Christo-fascist evangtaliban’s ramming their vision of Jesus as a White nationalist, misogynist purveyor of the gospel of prosperity with a poker up his butt and hatred in his heart down everyone’s throats.

So listen to the Academy of Ancient Music, VOCES8 and Apollo5 impart the words of the prophet.

 

Jingle bell hop

Hmm, three days before Christmas. Anticipation (and probably anxiety) levels are mounting, supermarket parking spaces are disappearing; it’s crunch time.

So, let’s have Jerry Helms singing his 1957 “Jingle Bell Rock”. It’s kind of like doing CPR to the beat of “Stayin’ Alive”: it helps you get ‘er done.

Let me frame this by saying that “Jingle Bell Rock” will be forever associated for me with the opening of that iconic 1987 film Lethal Weapon. So that’s what I’m giving you:

It’s been probably a decade or two since I last watched the movie, but I was instantly struck by how absolutely 80s’ the woman is—hair, makeup and nails. Talk about yer blast from the past…

Shine over white forests

We’re at the Winter Solstice, that point in the calendar where those in the Northern Hemisphere experience the longest night. For millennia, humans have found ways—physical and spiritual—to defend against the darkness; one of them is to celebrate the turning of the cycle. After tonight, night retreats day by day until balance is achieved at the equinox, and then the tide turns again at the Summer Solstice.

Probably since the origins of humanity, people have celebrated this annual event, giving thanks for the return of the sun, gathering around bonfires, singing, banging on things, eating and drinking. Before the domestication of fire to candles, followed by gas lights and then by electricity, knowing that the hours of darkness would not in fact continue to grow was comforting in a world full of perils.

The festival we know as Christmas was overlaid on older traditions; the birth of the Son of God has perhaps more dramatic impact if it’s celebrated around the Solstice rather than sometime in Spring, which makes more meteorological and astronomical sense. The early Church accomplished two goals with the coopting: subsumed pagan sun worship into Christian rites and gave themselves license to feast away the longest nights of the year.

Our Advent song today is “Jul, Jul, Stralande Jul”, which—as you may have guessed, is from Sweden, written a hundred years ago. It expresses the wish that Christmas bring light and peace. It’s performed here by the Kammerchor Wernigerode, which is composed of singers all over Germany. They meet about once a month to rehearse and perform concerts and they’ve been in existence for 20 years.

 

O Christmas tree

We’re going back 150 years for today’s Advent music. Franz Liszt wrote his Weinachtsbaum Suite in the 1870s, a set of 12 pieces for solo piano. They’ve also been arranged for two people at the same piano.

Liszt dedicated the suite to his eldest grandchile, Daniela von Bülow. It premiered on Christmas Day 1881 in her hotel room in Rome.

Here are Martha Angerich and Daniel Barenboim playing the four-handed version of one of them.

 

A song broke forth

We had angels yesterday for Advent, so today let’s talk star(s). Is it too early? The one we know as the Star of Bethlehem, that shown on the shepherds in the fields and guided the three Wise Men from the East to the manger doesn’t usually make its appearance until the 24^th.

Although, obviously it had been doing its guiding job for weeks, at least, because those Wise Men came…from the East. (Question: did those guys only travel at night? If so, what’s up with that? Or did it also shine during the day? If so, how is it that no one else remarked upon the anomaly?) And they didn’t actually arrive at the stable until two weeks after the birth. (Another question: Isn’t two weeks a long time to bunk in a stable? Is that how long it took to recover from giving birth? I mean—Mary didn’t have Blue Cross nagging at her to get out of the birthing place because they were only going to pay for one night…)

But back to the stars—they’re another metaphor for driving back the darkness. We who live in light-polluted urban areas don’t really appreciate a clear night where the stars truly are a canopy of light, so it may be a bit of a challenging notion for us. But stars were a major element in the world view of humans for millennia, really. I’ve always wondered how astronomers saw a cow or a woman or a crab in sidereal arrangements; I feel like I’ve joined the Titans just by recognizing Orion’s belt (and, actually, it turns out that what I see is the sword hanging from the belt). Maybe they were distilling wine long before the 12^th Century CE.

But what they saw in the stars guided them in traveling beyond the(ir) horizons, on land and at sea, so of course stars would figure in the story of the birth of the Messiah. Stars are critical to us reaching to become better. (Although there is the danger of putting too much emphasis on their influence; I think we’re still struggling with that balance.)

So today we have “Behold that Star”, written by Thomas W. Talley (1870-1952), chemistry professor, ethnographer and director of Fisk University’s Mozart Society. Fisk is a Historically Black institution in Tennessee. We don’t know when it was composed, but when Marian Anderson sang it, it was an arrangement published in 1912.

I’m giving you a recording of the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus singing it.

 

Gratitude Monday: Wing your flight

At the “Joyful Time” party she threw last summer, my friend Jacquie gave everyone an angel, to carry with us at all times. I couldn’t figure out how to attach it to my mobile phone, so I hooked it to one of the zipper pulls in my backpack. It’s next to my Aurora pen, which I bought in a pen shop down the street from Primo Levi’s house in Torino. So, in a sense, it’s looking after one of my most treasured possessions, even when it’s not on me.

We all need angels—whether or not you believe in heavenly creatures, we all need to know that someone is looking out for us, caring for us. Doesn’t have to be supernatural or even physically manifested. Just has to be.

One of my greatest and most constant gratitudes is that I have those presences in my life—Jacquie’s one of them. Someone who listens with love and makes time for me. I  

And also—I’m grateful that I can be an angel is other people’s lives. An inept one, to be sure, but I can listen with love and make time.

So today’s Advent music is “Angels from the Realms of Glory”, because angels were all over the Christmas story, from the Annunciation in a house in Nazareth to the shepherds on the slopes outside Bethlehem and beyond.

It’s a bit of a challenge to find a recording of “Angels” that doesn’t crib off of the music to “Angels We Have Heard on High”; this one should rightly be set to “Regent Square”. And I’m sad to say that the YouTube is infested with arrangements of “Regent Square” by one Dan Forrest, and they just suck. So this rendition by the First Presbyterian Church of Davenport, Iowa, in 2009 is the best I can do.

 

Drive the dark of doubt away

The theme of the third Sunday in Advent is “rejoice always”. If you remember that this particular season is meant to be four weeks of quiet contemplation and solemn preparation for the birth of the Savior, then you’ll see that breaking it up with one day of joy is a way of helping people get through this period of mini-Lent. That's why the candle changes color from purple to rose.

Our music today is based on the fourth movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Nineth Symphony, the one where he set Friedrich Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” to spectacular music. Schiller’s poem praises the brotherhood of man (which, in itself, is something we might think about in Advent 2023), which was something Beethoven passionately believed in. The Nineth Symphony premiered in 1824.

In 1907, American writer, educator and Presbyterian minister Henry Van Dyke wrote a poem to be set to the Beethoven music, called “The Hymn of Joy”. I confess that I rather prefer the original version to Van Dyke’s, but we’re at Gaudete Sunday and it’s time to bust loose in anticipation.

So I’m giving you the Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit version. Crank up the volume.

 

 

We hope that you'll be kind

If you listened to Thursday’s Advent offering, you’ll have noticed that roving mobs of singers demanding wassail also asked for cakes. This would probably be due to the melding of pre-Christian druidic defying-the-winter customs with Advent preparations for the birth of Christ. Recall—Advent in the Christian calendar is meant to be a quiet time, for contemplation and reflection. Rollicking about the village extorting cales and ale (literally), not so much.

However, we got what we got.

And to reflect on that, I’m giving you Sting singing “Soul Cake”. This song is more frequently associated with All Souls Day, which follows Halloween (“All Hallows Eve”) and All Saints Day, a trifecta built on the Celtic Samhain, when the line between living and dead is blurred. Soul cakes are round shortbread-like things given out by householders to roving mobs of singers of extortion like songs. But “souling”, as it’s called, is also a part of Christmastide (which runs from 24 December to 6 January). So it's legit here.

(Note that, in addition to the request for the cake, the song urges the householder to go down the cellar and find some ale.)

And to further celebrate, I’m sharing with you all the cakes I had while in Sarajevo.

(When I texted one of these pix to a friend, I noted that Bosnians give you a teeny fork with your cake—rather like a seafood cocktail fork—so you can't gobble it down in three bites. She replied, "I guess that's when you can pick out the Americans because they just start eating it with their hands.")

 

 

Music of the season

Today’s Advent piece, “The Rebel Jesus”, is a perfect reminder of what things are done these days in the name of saviors, prophets and gods of one stripe or another. Written by Jackson Browne for and performed here with The Chieftains on their 1991 Christmas CD, the lyrics pretty well cover the shift in Christianity in the past few decades.

It’s considerably worse now than it was when he wrote it.

In the case of a baby born in a stable in the backwater of empire, the idea of churches spending millions to cover up long-term crimes against the most vulnerable of their parishes, of televangelists in $3000 suits barely visible behind the pay-by-credit-card logos and of Bible-spewing maniacs spraying innocent people with death on full-auto is just surreal.

Moreover, it’s not clear to me when, exactly”, “spread the word of the good news” morphed into “convert or die.” I mean, Jesus told his disciples to go forth and preach, but if they came to a town where the people weren’t receptive, they should move on and “shake the dust from their heels”. He didn’t tell them to grind the disbelievers into dust.

Maybe it was Constantine the Great’s Edict of Milan in 313 CE, which ended Rome’s persecution of Christians. Or Theodosius’s 380 CE Edict of Thessalonica, which made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. But somewhere between Bethlehem and now, when they became the dominant religion in Western Europe and North America, we got to a woman carrying a non-viable fetus that endangers her life not being able to receive healthcare because Texas Republicans and “Christianity”.

And those Republicans on the national stage have the unmitigated fucking temerity to whine that there’s a war on (white) Christians, and they need government protection from persecution.

So here’s Jackson Browne and The Chieftains, with “The Rebel Jesus”.

 

Joy be to you

Since we’re halfway through the second week of Advent, I reckon that folks are pulling up their big-boy pants and cranking up the Christmas machine. Lists, stores, traffic… You need a break.

And probably some alcohol.

So today we’ll have one of the approximately 12,347 variants of seasonal songs about mobs forming to rove villages in search of booze.

Wassail, in case you are a little unclear, is one of the approximately 12,347 variants on mulled cider or wine or beer or mead. Mulling involves heating [mead, wine, beer or cider]; adding spices such as ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and the like; and topping it with a slice of toasted bread, as a sop. (Sop: you know—like the toasted slices of baguette or croutons on the top of soup. Think: French onion soup.)

Oh, and it’s drunk from one big, communal bowl. No germ theory here.

Wassail the drink dates back to Medieval times. I don’t know when all the spices started to be added, because they would have been extraordinarily rare and prohibitively expensive during that period. And I’m not sure about the significance of the toast being white; white flour and bread were also very expensive, and therefore only the very wealthy could afford it.

I’ve never had wassail, to my knowledge; at least, never anything that announced itself as such. But every year around this time, I like to have a mug or two of Glühwein, which is pre-spiced red wine that’s served at Weihnachtsmärkte throughout Europe.

There is nothing like being out on a freezing December night, with a mug of Glühwein in your hand, wandering up and down aisles of stalls with Christmas gear of all types, and watching children go gaga.

The custom of wassailing—roving around the village singing and demanding booze—is bifurcated. In apple and cider country in the west of England, you go out to the orchards in mid-winter, raising a ruckus to, you know, wake them up. To serve notice that the trees will have to shake off their winter sleep in a couple of months, and get back to work, because those apples are key to the local economy.

Wassailing through the village focuses on a kind of jolly-faced exchange between the peasants and the landlord class: here we’ve come to wish you well (wassail comes from Old English, and means “be thou hale”), oh—and have you got any food and drink on you? Great. Hand it over.

This explains all the verses in the songs about wishing the master all the best: a good year, a good piece of beef, a good Christmas pie, a good crop of corn, blah, blah, blah. Just the slightest bit on the toadying side, but hey—it’s Tradition.

Our wake-up-and-smell-the=mulled-wine offering today is by Appollo’s Fire, a baroque orchestra in Cleveland. They look like they’re having a good time.