SamuraiFrog Archives - Page 15 of 22

Advent/Christmas stories and songs

A Charlie Brown Christmas almost never aired

MUSIC:

Jaquandor has been offering Your Daily Dose of Christmas.

About.com’s Top 100 Christmas songs

The Bells of Christmas by Julie Andrews from a Firestone tire LP I still own.

Nat King Cole -The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)

Snow from White Christmas (Bing Crosby, et al).

The Dream Isaiah Saw, plus the backstory of the song, the lyrics and another rendition.

Tamale Christmas by Joe King Carrasco

SamuraiFrog’s contributions include Good King Wenceslas and the original Santa, Baby, as well as my favorite, A Christmas Carol by Tom Lehrer. But you should READ what he has to say about It Feels Like Christmas.

Eddie, the Renaissance Geek’s usual offering.

A Moose in a Maple Tree – The All Canadian 12 Days of Christmas

Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer in Latin, set to plainsong.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen if it were played in a spaghetti western

The Beatles’ Christmas Record 1963

Vince Guaraldi Trio – A Charlie Brown Christmas (Full Album)

A very Coverville Christmas 2013; I especially enjoyed the Led Zeppelin.

dj BC writes, “I just dropped Santastic 8, the 8th annual Holiday mashup album in the series … This year we offer 14 new Christmas mashups and one old one which was reissued because it is great and it matches the album cover so well.

A goldmine of mostly very obscure, very bad seasonal music! Examples: a surfing Little Drummer Boy; a Jimi Hendrix version of Auld Lang Syne; and the truly awful Debbie’s Last Christmas.

VISUAL:

NORAD Tracks Santa Command Video 2013

The Bear and the Hare

That WestJet ad

Peanuts, 1966 and Peanuts, 1967 and Peanuts, 1968; in a similar vein, Off the Mark.

1966 CBS promo I remember watching at the time

Varicolored Christmas ChemisTREE

You do not want your school Christmas party to go like this.

Vintage Christmas cards; he’s gotten more, but this was the first one.

NARRATIVE:

Sharp Little Pencil: The Advent of the Adventure and Christmas Traditions.

Why NORAD tracks Santa

Yes, Megyn Kelly, Santa Can Be Black (and Jesus, Too), assuming Santa is real. Oh, Megyn was just kidding…

The White House has NOT decreed that its 2013 Christmas trees will be referred to as ‘Holiday trees’. So are you being persecuted?

Arthur’s wonderful Christmastime.

Fred Hembeck’s tote of notable holiday gifts connected to the comics medium

A Charlie Brown Christmas almost never aired.

Cherie Currie, chainsaw artist

Cherie Curry “did the most amazing carving in memory of Runaways drummer Sandy West when she died a few years back.”

I’m working on a library reference question last month. Someone wants to be a chainsaw artist, i.e., take wood and make art out of it, using a chainsaw. I don’t do this all the time, but when I’m dealing with an industry I am not familiar with, or for which there is little standardized information, I’ll take a look at Wikipedia. The chainsaw carving post reads: “Many new artists began to experiment with chainsaw carving, including Brenda Hubbard, Judy McVay, Don Colp, Cherie Currie (former Runaways lead singer) …” Whoa! And I came across this YouTube video of her woodworking.

For those of you unfamiliar, the Runaways was a rock band, all women, mildly popular in the latter half of the 1970s, whose most popular song was probably Cherry Bomb. There was a 2010 movie about the group based on Cherie Currie’s memoir. She and another former Runaway, Joan Jett, were interviewed about the film.

I figured he already knew, but I told SamuraiFrog, who has become friends with Cherie, about my chainsaw art discovery. He said, “Isn’t she good? She’s got a website devoted to it. She did the most amazing carving in memory of Runaways drummer Sandy West when she died a few years back.” He’s particularly fond of the little bears she carves.

One of the things people wonder is how I know all the arcane things I know. Part of it is that I have to look some of it up for work. That is the part of the job that I really love.

November Rambling: Candy, Poetry, and 50 Shades

SamuraiFrog, bless his heart, is writing 50 Shades of of Grey, as Summarized by a Smartass.

An Opinion Piece On A Controversial Topic. “Pretty awesome meta.”

Gettysburg Address at 150.

Heidi Boghosian joins Bill Moyers for a conversation on what we all need to know about surveillance in America. “Spying on democracy,” indeed.

The defense should not be permitted to refer to the prosecutor… as “the Government.” It might sound… prejudicial.

Texas Man Sued for Defamation by Fracking Company that Contaminated his Water Supply.

“You could get better if you wanted to.” “You should just try harder.” “You’re being lazy.” “You need to be more motivated.” “You’re so needy.”

Methodist Pastor Has 30 Days to Renounce His Gay Children or Be Defrocked; it’s a matter of right and wrong.

Always Go to the Funeral.

Exclusive excerpt from Art Spiegelman’s Co-Mix retrospective. Some lifetime ago, before Maus Continue reading “November Rambling: Candy, Poetry, and 50 Shades”

October Rambling: artist Indigo Anderson; Arthur and Nigel get married

Olivia Pope’s dad reminds us of black parents’ favorite expressions. But I DON’T think they are limited to black parents.

Amen, 39.

The Perfect Epitaph for Establishment Journalism: “In other words, if the government tells me I shouldn’t publish something, who I am as a journalist to disobey? Put that on the tombstone of western establishment journalism.”

I just don’t have the energy to blast the jerks responsible for the 16-day US federal government partial shutdown. Fortunately, Dan is both willing and able to do so.

Reader Wil: After our time as p.o.w.’s in Japanese concentration camps, we were liberated by the British. Two months after the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki we could escape a new danger.

Arthur and Nigel got married today. Or yesterday – that New Zealand time zone stuff always confounds me. Arthur’s observations before the big day. (I still think it’s because of the broken stemware.) Congratulations!

Amy’s Sharp Little Pencil wrote The Migraine Speaks (much to my dismay) and In the Palm of God’s Hand.

Mark Evanier’s Tales of My Childhood #3, which made me cry.

Leslie on setting boundaries as a teacher.

Steve ponders The Things We Say When Drunk.

Young Indigo Anderson is passionate about manga, anime, cosplay and making comics. “That is why when her tenth grade AP World History teacher asked for a paper about the relationship between North and South Korea, she requested to do it as a comic.

“Give plenty of credit to her teacher for allowing her the opportunity! The result titled North and South is a wonderfully succinct, heartfelt, eight-page insight to a piece of history that continues to impact the entire world even today.”

I was in Bill and Orchid Anderson’s wedding in 1997, and Indigo may have been the youngest attendee at Carol’s and my wedding in 1999.

Esteemed Comic Artist Stephen R Bissette Educates and Amuses University Audience. One of the joys of blogging is giving props to your friends.

Speaking of friends, MIGHTY Q&A: Fred Hembeck from 13th Dimension.

Superman 75th Anniversary.

How were animated cartoons made in the thirties? This is an episode of a travelogue-type series narrated by the great broadcaster, Lowell Thomas. He takes us to the Walter Lantz cartoon studio.

Dustbury pointed me to Grace Braeger Has Been Driving The Same Car For Fifty-Six Years. We Asked Her Why.

How DID they make that Honda CR-V commercial? I think its really cool.

Why you may never see the definitive Shel Silverstein biography

10 Mind-Boggling Thought Experiments

Olivia Pope’s dad reminds us of black parents’ favorite expressions. But I DON’T think they are limited to black parents.

Ken Levine on writing for Barney Miller, which may be the most underrated TV show ever.

Speaking of cop shows, 27 Actors Who Got Their Starts on Miami Vice.

The Ghost of Stephen Foster by the Squirrel Nut Zippers, and the cartoon is marvelous.

The History of Music Media: Infographic.

A song from Carole King’s Tapestry, an album I’ve only purchased thrice. Plus a saudade for Patsy Cline, and other music stars who died too soon.

From BoingBoing: Singer, songwriter, guitarist, poet, and artist Lou Reed has died.

From Nippertown: Vancouver musician Michelle Kwan plays Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child o’ Mine” on an ancient Chinese stringed instrument known as a guzheng. Also, Stephen Clair’s “Love Makes Us Weird”.

History of lyrics that aren’t lyrics.

Chuck Miller: When “The War of the Worlds” played in Albany

Crease and Desist and The Down Rule.

Are Oreos as Addictive as Cocaine?
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Jaquandor picked such great links last week, especially about writing, that you might as well visit them all.

GOOGLE ALERTS (me)

Dustbury: “Roger on the dodgy subject of avoiding conflict.”
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SamuraiFrog: “Roger recently did a post about his favorite albums of the 50s, in which he name-checked me, and I figured that I’d try and come up with a list for myself.” (I LOVE this post.)

GOOGLE ALERTS (not me)

Colonel Roger Green (National Disaster Medical Systems for the 5501st U. S. Army Hospital), son of the late Rev. Reubin Green and Daisy Green has been awarded the Legion of Merit for exceptionally meritorious service with the U.S. Army spanning more than 30 years.

Halloween 2013

Zombies vs. animals? The living dead wouldn’t stand a chance

breaking bad kids — via Aaron Paul’s Instagram

Each year, I just post seasonal links. I used to post them on the 31st, but then you wouldn’t have time to make use of those costume design ideas. Here’s a terrible joke I saw: A skeleton walks into a bar and says “I’d like a beer and a mop.”

Census: Halloween Facts for Features

IBISWorld: Halloween Sales to Grow a Slow 3.0 Percent in 2013

All month, there are Pagan Scares from Postmodern Barney

The A to Z of Stephen King Cinema, a comic of greatness

Listing Toward Forty is Listing Toward Halloween

Stephen R. Bissette’s WE ARE GOING TO EAT YOU!

The work of the devil…

11 Halloween Freebies: Where to Eat Free for Wearing Costumes

Transforming black-light Bride of Frankenstein makeup

Hauntbox: open-source hardware box for controlling your automated, electronic haunted house

This Family Wins All Costume Contests For Forever Continue reading “Halloween 2013”