Your Daily Dose of Christmas

This post is a straight-up copy-and-paste repost from last year, because I’m already seeing the “DIE HARD Christmas movie” debate firing up on social media.

It’s that time of year again: the annual debate over whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas movie!

My personal opinion is that this one’s easy: yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie. But a friend on Facebook made an interesting argument against Die Hard‘s Christmas status the other day, and I want to tease it out a little more. Basically his view is that there is nothing intrinsically Christmas to Die Hard, at least not in the same way that Christmas is intrinsic to Miracle on 34th Street (his example). Basically, my friend argues that you can’t have Miracle on 34th Street take place any other time of year, where Die Hard actually can take any time of year.

Now, I’m honestly not sure about my friend’s argument. I mean, Miracle on 34th Street does seem to require Christmas, but I’m sure you could tell pretty much the same story at some other time of year, though it would definitely require quite a bit of heavy lifting in the writing department to make it work. And could Die Hard take place any other time? Sure. Obviously it could. Hans Gruber and friends could just take over the building on Easter Sunday, or July 4. As I noted to my friend, I’ve seen Die Hard set at another time of year. It’s called Die Hard With a Vengeance.

My problem with my friend’s argument is that it’s deeply limiting as to what constitutes a “Christmas movie”. Does a Christmas movie have to involve Christmas to such a degree that it literally can’t take place any other time? I don’t think so. Die Hard isn’t just set at Christmastime; it intrinsically involves a lot of emotions that come to the fore at that time. Family concerns. Redemption. Getting home for the holidays, safe and sound. Are those ideas unique to Christmas? No, but they are most certainly central to Christmas. So, could Die Hard take place at some other time? Sure. But the Christmastime setting gives it a subtext that engages the emotions, doesn’t it? Die Hard has a lot going for it as a movie: it’s extremely well-made, a virtual masterpiece in its genre, but a lot of action movies are well-made. It’s the emotions that keep it so re-watchable now, 35 years or so after it came out; the Christmas setting is part of how Die Hard gets us to care about its characters.

So I would argue that yes, Die Hard is most definitely a Christmas movie. I also argue that the first Lethal Weapon movie, also set at Christmas, is a Christmas movie, for similar reasons, even though LW doesn’t push the Christmas subtext quite as hard as Die Hard. Still, LW makes Martin Riggs’s redemption and his finding meaning after his wife’s death one of the major emotional subplots, and that is very much informed by Christmas.

Now, how about Die Hard 2? It also takes place at Christmas! It’s also about getting home, and all the other stuff, isn’t it? Well, that one I think has less of a claim as a Christmas movie than the original, but for me that’s more because in that respect it doesn’t do much new with the Christmas theme from the first film. And that’s interesting to me, given how inventive and fresh Die Hard 2 actually is. That movie does not get enough credit for not repeating the first movie.

There’s another way for a movie to be a Christmas movie, but it’s a more nebulous one: it’s our own associations. Ultimately it’s up to us to decide what’s a Christmas movie, isn’t it? The Sound of Music has become a Christmas tradition, even though its story has nothing to do with Christmas at all. (On a more limited note, “My Favorite Things” has become a staple of Christmas songs, and there’s nothing about it at all that’s intrinsic to Christmas.) For me, My Fair Lady is a Christmas movie, because I watched it the first time right around Christmas and that’s just the association I have with it. And my beloved On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which takes place at Christmas, is absolutely a Christmas movie. And I’ll bet there are a lot of families who always watch some completely non-Christmas movie every year at Christmas, because of one tradition or another, so for them, that movie is a Christmas movie.

There are many ways to be a Christmas movie, and I think that’s a good thing. So: in conclusion Your Honor, I insist that Die Hard most certainly is a Christmas movie, and that therefore the score to Die Hard, composed by the wonderful and dearly-missed Michael Kamen, is by extension Christmas music. That being the case, I close with this suite.

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Your Daily Dose of Christmas

“What? The Nutcracker already? You usually don’t share The Nutcracker until much later in the month!”

Well, yes. But there’s a difference this time, and I can’t believe I never knew about this until just this year. Apparently Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn took Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite and re-arranged it for jazz band. So that’s what we’re hearing today. And don’t fear, we’ll get back to The Nutcracker proper later on in the month. But this is fantastic!

(By the way: You’ll notice that this is a “score” video, so you can track the music along as you go. Music for jazz band is as tightly scored as is music for any other ensemble, but it’s still jazz and there needs to be room for improvisation. At the 5:00 mark, when we’re in the second movement, the “Dance of the Reed Pipes”, you’ll hear the clarinet going into an improvised solo. Note that the clarinet part at that point in the score isn’t written out; the measures are marked with a symbol indicating an improv is to happen there, with the piece’s chords noted so the clarinetist can improv in the right key as the piece goes on. I remember my high degree of confusion the first time I saw that in a trumpet part back in jazz band. I asked the person next to me, who was more experienced, what I was supposed to do there. She looked at me and basically said, “You don’t do shit there! She does.” And she pointed to the lead player, who got all the solos. That bugged me for years: Why did she get all the solos? It wouldn’t be until college that I realized that I simply wasn’t a terribly good jazz player. Best to let someone else do the solo work.) 

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Your Daily Dose of Christmas

Longtime readers will know that I fill this blog with music each December, starting on the 1st and going all the way to Christmas Day. This year will be no different. In dark times I tend to find myself leaning in music harder and harder. Music can be the candle lighting the way, a flame that reminds us what humans can do when we’re not being awful by choice.

So, as the kids say, “Let’s f***ing go!”

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Oh, I don’t know if it’s the LAST verse…

…because surely we can add more, if we want. Seems to me it’s kind of the point.

Here’s a tribute film Disney made for its definitive songwriting duo, the Sherman Brothers. I don’t think I was aware that Richard M. Sherman died earlier this year; I knew that brother Robert had previously died in 2012.

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Thanksgiving 2024

I used to write and post a long list of things I was thankful for each year, but I haven’t done that for a few years as it got to be an exercise in copying-and-pasting. I’m still thankful for an awful lot, but this holiday hits different anyway. Last year, Thanksgiving came less than two weeks after Mom died, and since then Dad has gone to an assisted living facility, so this is the first Thanksgiving that truly feels like it’s being spent without my parents in the world. Worse than that is the state of my country; it’s hard to summon up warm and fuzzy Thanksgiving feelings in a nation that has apparently chosen authoritarianism.

Still, it’s Thanksgiving. I hope it’s happy.

“Thanksgiving”, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

We walk on starry fields of white
   And do not see the daisies;
For blessings common in our sight
   We rarely offer praises.
We sigh for some supreme delight
   To crown our lives with splendor,
And quite ignore our daily store
   Of pleasures sweet and tender.

Our cares are bold and push their way
   Upon our thought and feeling.
They hand about us all the day,
   Our time from pleasure stealing.
So unobtrusive many a joy
   We pass by and forget it,
But worry strives to own our lives,
   And conquers if we let it.

There’s not a day in all the year
   But holds some hidden pleasure,
And looking back, joys oft appear
   To brim the past’s wide measure.
But blessings are like friends, I hold,
   Who love and labor near us.
We ought to raise our notes of praise
   While living hearts can hear us.

Full many a blessing wears the guise
   Of worry or of trouble;
Far-seeing is the soul, and wise,
   Who knows the mask is double.
But he who has the faith and strength
   To thank his God for sorrow
Has found a joy without alloy
   To gladden every morrow.

We ought to make the moments notes
   Of happy, glad Thanksgiving;
The hours and days a silent phrase
   Of music we are living.
And so the theme should swell and grow
   As weeks and months pass o’er us,
And rise sublime at this good time,
   A grand Thanksgiving chorus.

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The Giacomo, Niagara Falls, NY

This building, once the United Office Building and now the Giacomo Hotel, was for many years the tallest building in Niagara Falls, NY, until the construction of the big Seneca casino there. The American city has to this day not managed to seize on its status as being located literally by the side of one of the world’s great tourist attractions, while the Canadian counterpart city of the same name is constantly booming. But there are many reasons I prefer the American side, and this building is one of them.

I also like the way this photograph turned out.

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Tone Poem Tuesday

I featured this piece years ago, reflecting on the fact that I performed it in the concert band at a music camp that I attended as a teenager. But in that post I didn’t write much about the piece itself. It’s called Chorale and Shaker Dance, and it was written by John Zdechlik. Zdechlik was a composer and bandmaster who wrote prolifically, and this particular piece has become a staple work in the literature for concert band and wind ensemble. It blends two main ideas–an original Chorale theme by Zdechlik himself, and the familiar tune “Simple Gifts”, comprising the “Shaker Dance”. The two melodies come and go, neither ever seeming to really settle in, as the mood seems to shift from light to dark, from open to mysterious, and back again, before everything comes to a triumphant conclusion.

Chorale and Shaker Dance was one of the first contemporary works for band I ever played. My high school band director, Mr. Roosa, was much more interested in marches and classical transcriptions than in original compositions, to the point that I do not think we ever performed a single contemporary work under his direction. Chorale and Shaker Dance was one of several pieces that first year at Bristol Hills Music Camp that really pushed open a new musical world for me. It’s always been a special piece to me for that reason.

Here is Chorale and Shaker Dance by John Zdechlik.

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Go Bills…kinda

So, public opinion seems to be coalescing to a degree around the idea that the best Super Bowl matchup to conclude the season that is currently winding its way toward a conclusion would pit the Buffalo Bills against the Detroit Lions. That would be the Bills’ fifth Super Bowl appearance, versus the first for the Lions. The Bills, notably, lost all four of their previous Super Bowl tilts, so a Bills-Lions Super Bowl would produce the first ever Super Bowl victory for one of those two teams.

I get the appeal. I really do. The Bills are not only really good, but they’re really likeable and they are vastly exceeding expectations for this season. Many prognosticators had the Bills finishing somewhere around 9-8, after an offseason that had them dumping two wide receivers and a few key defensive starters from the really good teams of the last three or four seasons…but they just plugged in new, younger guys and here they are, 9-2 as I write this.

The Lions, meanwhile, have been building smartly over the last few years. Last year they advanced all the way to the NFC Championship Game before losing, and as of this writing they are 10-1, firmly in first place in the NFC and the favorite to win the conference and finally make their first ever Super Bowl. And they, too, are a very likeable team, and they have a fanbase that is seen as one of the most cruelly cursed in sports.

So, Bills-Lions in the Super Bowl is well within the realm of possibility, and because both teams are so easy to root for, that’s what’s happening.

Except for me.

I do not want this matchup, precisely because both teams are so likeable and precisely because both fan bases have suffered for, well, ever.

Now, I’m on record as not being terribly sympathetic to “suffering fans”, since the suffering is voluntary. But there’s a limit, and a Bills-Lions Super Bowl would allow one of those fanbases to experience glory, while plunging the other into more heartbreak. If the Lions won, that would drop the Bills to 0-5 in the Super Bowl, and more, they would be the only 0-5 team in the Super Bowl at all. The Bills are already still the butt of jokes for the Super Bowls they lost over 30 years ago, and adding a fifth loss would, I think, simply amplify the national mocking. It’s already annoying enough hearing “He hasn’t won a Super Bowl yet!” in reply to any post online anywhere talking about Josh Allen’s prodigious gifts as a quarterback.

So honestly, were I given by the Sports Gods the binary choice of “They make the Super Bowl and lose” versus “They don’t make the Super Bowl at all”, I would honestly take the latter.

As for the Lions? I don’t want them to lose either, even to the Bills. When the Lions reach the Super Bowl, I want to root for them, and I don’t want them to lose their first Super Bowl.

No, I don’t want Bills-Lions in the Super Bowl. I want the Bills in one of the next two Super Bowls, the Lions in the other, and both teams winning. That‘s what I want.

I’m also sick of the Chiefs, but that’s another matter entirely….

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Sunday Stealing

Looking over this week’s quiz, I think I can answer some of these. Let’s give it a shot!

   What was the last song you listened to?

Yesterday I started listening to Wagner’s Das Rheingold, leaving off somewhere in Act I.

    What is your favorite thing about the place you live?

There’s a wonderful blend of nature and urban here. Plus proximity to water. I do not know how people live in waterless places.

    What is your earliest childhood memory?

“Just images, really. Feelings.” –Princess Leia

And that’s really about it: no specific memories, just images of things and places. A toy airplane that I loved. A park I enjoyed going to. 

     If you could be any animal, what would you be?

Probably some kind of cat.

    Who do you trust the most in your life?

The Wife.

    How many languages can you say “hello” in?

Let’s see: English, German, French, Spanish, Elvish, and…that’s about it.

    What is your favorite kind of weather?

Cool, and little wind. For photography currently I need no precipitation, as Miranda is not weather-sealed.

    How did you discover that Santa wasn’t real and how old were you?

In 2nd Grade we spent Christmas on vacation in Florida, going to Disney World and other locations. I bought the idea of Santa finding us in our camper in whatever campground we were in on Christmas night. But also at that point I was losing teeth occasionally, so there was the tooth fairy to contend with. One day I lost a tooth and dutifully stuck it under my pillow…without telling my parents. I just assumed. Next morning the tooth was still there. Some time later, after I mulled this over, I asked my mother point-blank if there was a Santa Claus. She shook her head, maybe a little sadly.

    What is the best feeling in the world?

Laughter that’s not born of meanness or spite. Having a dog curl up with you. Smelling the morning coffee on a day when you’re not going to work. And the sound of people laughing at you when you’ve been hit in the face with a pie. I doubt that one’s terribly relatable, but there it is.

    What is your favorite color?

Blue! And red. And green. And yellow, and purple, and pink, and gray, and brown, and black, and white. Oh yeah, orange.

    Is there a language you would love to learn?

I wish I would have kept up with my high-school French. Spanish, too. 

    How do you feel about reality TV?

Which kind? Cooking shows usually make me happy. I enjoyed the first few seasons of The Real World way-back-when. But reality teevee also normalized a certain businessman-turned-politician-turned-would-be-dictator, so there’s that.

    Did you ever skip school when you were a kid?

Sure, didn’t everybody? Not very much, though. Maybe only once.

    What is your least favorite food?

If I was James Bond and I was up against a super-villain whose scheme was to rid the world of broccoli, I’d stand down and let them have at it.

    Do you have a good luck charm?

Nah, I don’t believe in good luck charms…but maybe there’s a kind of minor superstition to wearing overalls each and every day? Hmmmmm. And I also feel like myself more when I have a camera in my hand….

 

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A few tabs to close….

Here’s some stuff that’s been languishing in open tabs on my browser:

::  Matt Zoller Seitz on Clint Eastwood’s current movie, both as a movie and as a data point in how movies are exhibited and marketed these days. The movie biz has always been a cynical one run by people who would steal the coins from a dead man’s eyes, but sheesh. Read the article for more. (The article has spoilers for the actual movie, but they’re forewarned and they come pretty late in the piece.)

::  There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of buzz in the fact that Americans are currently slated to launch a crewed mission to the Moon in less than two years, does there? But Swapna Krishna has thoughts on the likelihood of that mission launching as scheduled. Spoiler: she is not optimistic. (I highly recommend Ms. Krishna as a source for space science news. She’s excellent.)

::  I remember years ago when my mother had me read Roald Dahl’s Danny, the Champion of the World (still a favorite of mine), and one detail in that story (set in rural England sometime in the mid-20th century) that always stuck with me was when Danny and his father eat a couple of apples. The apple they eat is called a “Cox’s Orange Pippin”, which is apparently a very special variety of apple indeed. (To this day I’ve never had one.) See, at the time, the whole idea of special varieties of apples was alien to me: you had Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, and Granny Smith. That was it. Nowadays, the apple is an astonishing source of variety and joy. Here’s why.

::  Sometimes I have a tab open so long that I can’t remember why on Earth I had it open in the first place. Here’s one such thing: 11 places that have the same name in Britain and America. I assume this topic came up on one of the social media sites, but damned if I can remember the context.

:: Here’s a video. I’ve written on the subject of roundabouts before, but this video goes a bit into why Americans have been so slow to adopt what is clearly and objectively a superior way of managing traffic at intersections. I’ve come to rather cynically view roundabouts, train travel, gun control, and universal healthcare as my main Exhibits for the Prosecution when making my case that Americans are stubbornly resistant to obviously good ideas that clearly work better than what we’re doing.

 

::  I hate to close with a bitter pill about this past election, but here we are. Roxane Gay writes in the New York Times (I think this piece is unlocked, but it might be paywalled now, I’m not really sure how that works) about what the odious results of this election say about us. Spoiler: it’s nothing good.

Mr. Trump’s voters are granted a level of care and coddling that defies credulity and that is afforded to no other voting bloc. Many of them believe the most ludicrous things: babies being aborted after birth and children going to school as one gender and returning home surgically altered as another gender even though these things simply do not happen. Time and again, we hear the wild lies these voters believe and we act as if they are sharing the same reality as ours, as if they are making informed decisions about legitimate issues. We act as if they get to dictate the terms of political engagement on a foundation of fevered mendacity.

We must refuse to participate in a mass delusion. We must refuse to accept that the ignorance on display is a congenital condition rather than a choice. All of us should refuse to pretend that any of this is normal and that these voters are just woefully misunderstood and that if only the Democrats addressed their economic anxiety, they might vote differently. While they are numerous, that does not make them right.

I have nothing to add to this, other than to note my view that this election represents a collective failure of citizenship in this country. My thoughts are now increasingly tilted toward the possibility that America has entered her inevitable and irreversible decline.

(Comments off for this post.)

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