Three Paradoxical Truths

Funerals are for the living.
Graduation is for the parents.
Holidays are for the children.


(Photo of two children in Cambridge Bay standing next to a decorated inukshuk in their treeless homeland courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

WW: Beautiful feral holly

(English holly [Ilex aquifolium] is a favourite since childhood, though it's invasive here. Owing to sexual reproduction that demands a male and female tree in close proximity, and light requirements hard to meet in our woodlands, most feral North Pacific hollies either bear patchy, uninspiring fruit, or none at all.

But this grand girl grows right out in the open, near a forest well-invaded by others of her kind, and so sets memorable finery this time of year.

Her vibrant berries, scarlet against glossy, forest-green foliage, fairly pulsate in the dreich North Coast Christmastide.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Reclaiming Jimmy

As the world swings into Christmas, I believe justice demands I use this forum to correct a historical inequity that's been allowed too long to stand.

I'm speaking, of course, of the studious ignoring of the important œuvre of Jimmy. (Also known, in possible reflection of his troubled youth, by the nom de street "Jimmy the Crow". This in spite of the fact that he was actually a raven, but that's The Man for you.)

Obscurity notwithstanding, this gifted thespian appeared in perhaps a thousand features spanning Hollywood's Golden Age, including several enduring classics.

Yet, due possibly to deliberate suppression by corporate media, few today have ever heard of him.

Abducted from his parents in 1934, Jimmy was schooled Artful Dodger-style in a variety of nefarious skills, including typing, opening mail, and driving a motorcycle. He also learned to recognise "several hundred" English words, generally acquiring new ones, according to his handler, at the rate of just a week per syllable.

In short order, Jimmy was estimated to function at the level of the average 8-year-old, an accomplishment that, along with his verbal intelligence, would qualify him for voter registration in most nations today.

So why is December the best month to correct the likely speciesist repression of Jimmy's contributions to Western culture? Because at this time of year, arguably his best-known performance plays on television in heavy rotation. I'm speaking of course of It's A Wonderful Life, which production profits significantly from his involvement.

Said leading man Jimmy Stewart, speaking on-set, "When they call 'Jimmy!', we both answer." He also judged Jimmy the Crow "the smartest actor on the set," and added that the consummate avian artist nailed his scenes in fewer takes than mammalian castmates.

So this holiday season, when curmudgeonly older relatives gripe that cinema today is "for the birds", remind them in Jimmy's name that we should be so lucky.


(Photo of Jimmy on the set of It's A Wonderful Life courtesy of National Telefilm Associates and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Christmas card sitting

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Magic beads

(Last Christmas I got a tiny cellophane envelope containing half a teaspoon of hard, opaque, plastic-looking multicoloured beads, about the size of pinheads. Amidst a certain amount of Chinese text, the only English was two brief directions.

Make that "English", because the best I could decipher was:

1. Pour water on these.
2. Don't eat what happens.

Not a word about what these things were, or what the water was going to make them do.

So I poured water over them, and next morning found this.

Apparently all they do is sit there being miraculous.

Which is sufficient.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Merry Christmas 2023

On this Christmas of 2023, all of us here at Rusty Ring wish our readers the best and kindest of seasons.

Right in darkness there is light.



(Painting by Ohara Koson. Image file courtesy of Rawpixel.com.)

Happy Chanukah 2023

"Within darkness there is light, do not be against the light."

Shítóu Xīqiān (Sekitō Kisen)

Best of thoughts to my Jewish brothers and sisters worldwide on this first night of the Festival of Light.

Chanukah 2023 - 7 to 15 December.
(5784 - 25 Kislev to 2 Tevet.)



(Photo courtesy of Benigno Hoyuela and Unsplash.com.)

WW: Christmas ornament in the woods

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Hermitcraft: Quick Christmas Tea Hacks

Here are a three easy tricks to spruce up your workaday winter tea for the season:

• Oranges are an ancient part of the holidays, owing to the fact that until recently they were rare and costly in northern countries. To put some of that tradition in your pot, add about half a teaspoon of minced peel to the leaves, either with or without a chunk of cinnamon stick and one or two whole cloves.
  
  
• Peppermint candy, whether in cane or other form, is likewise a timeless Christmas treat. Just bust off about an inch of cane – or unwrap an individual candy – and drop in your cup. If serving guests, hang one of those soprano candy canes on the rim of the mug with its tail dissolving in the hot liquid.
  
  
• To upgrade a pot of ordinary black tea with heady spices, substitute a storebought herbal chai mix for half the black. (If the teas are bagged, cut the leaves out, steep them as-is, strain out while pouring, and put them back in the pot.) Not perhaps as sublime as the real thing, but a quicker route to a worthwhile end.

My very best wishes to readers and fellow travellers, and may this holiday season bring peace and warmth to all.


(Photo courtesy of Robert Gombos and Wikimedia Commons.)

A Trip Home For Christmas

Back in 2014 I shared a little one-man Christmas cheer game I indulge in at this time of year, a simple Google search string that fills your screen with seasonal warmth and goodwill from the past. Now I've found another one that does much the same, except now the pictures move.

Basically, you're going to do the same thing we did then, except on YouTube. You'll load the YouTube home page, enter "Christmas" and a year in the search bar, and hit return. And your results page will fill with home movies.

Case in point: "Christmas 1963", above. Under no circumstances miss the little girl dressed to the yuletide nines, demonstrating the Twist. Nor the fact that this footage was shot a month or less after John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Terrifying things had happened, yet folks were celebrating the holidays anyway, with unstinting courage.

This life passes so fast. You turn your head, and the Twist is old and tacky, and it always was.

But that's not true. For a day or two, one Christmas long ago, it was fresh and futuristic and something old people should learn about.

And the same thing is happening right now. It'll happen tomorrow too, and the day after that, and we need to pay attention to it every day.

So we can remember how new and bright it was, and we were, when we look it up on YouTube sixty years hence.

Better still, YouTube being what it is, you'll find all kinds of other jaunts home in the margins. Old TV commercials; "hip gifts for 1963" news segments; period holiday music. And you can change up that search string: "Chanukah", "holidays", "Xmas", "New Year's", "December", "winter", and every year you've lived.

If you're a native of the pre-Internet world – that place of sustained attention and short memory – you know how miraculous all of this is.

So get out there and take advantage of it. God knows this new realm is annoying enough; might as well get something out of it while we're up.

The very best of holidays from all of us here at Rusty Ring.

WW: Christmas breakfast

(Swedish breakfast laid by me and enjoyed by my brother and I, Christmas morning 2021.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

North Coast Christmas Meditation

the mountain hermit's
fire is rising
winter rain

Issa

(Photo courtesy of Edal Anton Lefterov and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Tiny shop

(A year ago I shared the just-finished foundation of my new shop. This is what that space looks like now. Appropriately cramped and cluttered; right little piece of heaven. Best Christmas present I ever gave myself.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Good Movie: An American Christmas Carol

"Life is cause and effect. And you certainly are no stranger to the cause."

So says the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, aka the Quartermaster of Karma, in 1979's An American Christmas Carol.

As a Dickens scholar, this made-for-television movie – currently available "free with ads" from YouTube, as well as on DVD – puts me in an awkward position. It's from the 70s. It's American (more or less; we'll come to that). It's inspired by, though not entirely based on, a Dickens story that was already fine to begin with.

And it's also better than the source material in several important ways.

That's right, I said it.

From the top, let's put away one common fallacy: AACC is not a version, adaptation, or update of Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It's written as if the writers had never heard the Dickens story, were handed a one-paragraph synopsis of the plot, and told "Go!'. And everything about it works, from the concept, to the casting, to the wintry grey Canadian locations.

In it, Henry Winkler is one Benedict Slade, American boy, grown up through a harsh if unexplicated late 19th century childhood into wealth and bitterness. And now he's floating in the sea of suffering known as the Great Depression, and hogging the lifeboat all to himself. And damned sure he has every right.

The plot's rural New Hampshire setting is brilliant; a small town works much better for this than London, which may come off like a small town in Dickens, but it's not. A provincial miser is not only more conspicuous than an urban one, he's also in a stronger position to influence outcomes, for good or ill. And as a stage for rationalised selfishness in the face of full-spectrum need, the Dirty Thirties are a no-brainer.

Even more gratifying is the way the film's writers have amended certain shortcomings of the Dickens story. Slade quotes economic theory as if it were God's (or even science's) word. And after conversion he remains gruff, laconic, socially awkward, and highly competent, rather than becoming a loony old fool. Finally, the changes he makes are much more realistic and uplifting.

For our Mr. Slade doesn't wait for the new year, or even Boxing Day, to pitch in to the possible. He's out there in the piercing Christmas morning cold, rousting Thatcher, his much-abused clerk, out of his own heartbroken home and forcing him back to work.

Yet somehow Thatcher – whom Slade promises a tidy overtime – doesn't seem to mind, as he drives his employer, Grinch-fashion, from house to blighted house across a bleak landscape, returning and refinancing repossessions. One of which includes a family's freakin' woodstove!

In the midst of a New England winter!

In sum, Benedict Slade is simply much more interesting, and more believable, than Ebenezer Scrooge. (Sorry, Chuck!)

The cast, all but three of whom are Canadian with accents intact, is brilliant. The other two Yanks – David Wayne and Dorian Harwood – are particularly solid in their respective pivotal dual roles. In the Canadian box we have R.H. Thomson's sensitive turn as Thatcher (who apparently has no first name), Friday the 13th's Chris Wiggins as the man who saves young Benedict from an even grimmer future, and, in a rare early appearance… Luba Goy! Look for her in the bonfire scene at about the 1:14:30 mark. Fifteen seconds later she will shout "Eighty-five!"

And, gosh Henry Winkler is outstanding! Young actor, playing a character aging through multiple eras, giving as nuanced a performance as you'll see anywhere. I particularly like his take on Slade's soul. The complex old codger is neither stupid nor ultimately a coward; even in petulance you see a glimmer of irony in his eyes. He knows he's running a scam. On himself as much as the others.

For all this, AACC suffers surprisingly in some corners of the Reviloverse, usually at the hands of people who know little or nothing about Dickens or the original they claim to prefer. Some are offended that the lead appeared in a sitcom. Should any of them stumble in here, perhaps they might meditate on the difference between an actor and his character. As a Zenner might put it, "Whose name is in the credits?"

Not that there aren't some bona fide holes, of course. Of these the worst is the protagonist's age. As we learn, Slade was in his 30s during the Great War, so he couldn't be much more than 55 in the Depression. Yet Winkler's made up twenty years older than that.

And that's a shame, because a Slade just starting to anticipate the last act of his life would have been a richer premise.

There are smaller humbugs. The writers didn't grok inflation. The sum raised at a war bond drive is breathtakingly high in-world, to say nothing of the bids offered at a Depression auction. And for this country boy, the sight of workmen wrestling a hot iron stove – still smoking! – out the door in their leather gloves was not only surrealistic, it amounted to another missed opportunity. How much more dramatic to use 2X4s – the way that's really done – to carry a family's warm literal hearth away over Ontario's frozen December snowfields.

But none of that depreciates the work. I'm astonished to hear commentators sneer down this truly worthwhile experiment as "the dumbest Dickens adaptation ever".

First of all, it's not; I could write a book about the total crap passing for Dickens out there.

And second, it's not. As in not Dickens. It's a little different, and a little better.

So this holiday season, give An American Christmas Carol a stream. Unless you're as bitter as Benedict Slade, you'll be glad you did.

WW: Christmas rhododendrons

(There they go again, those ghostly white rhodies. This time it's another bush, about 100 yards from the house, suddenly covered with blossoms in mid-December. As with other recent Christmas surprises, one suspects a radically changing climate is behind it.)

The Nativity Koan

We in Christian-majority countries are whelmed this time of year in the Nativity. That is, the legend of Christ's birth, with attendant prophetic prognostics. Public emphasis is on the divinity of a baby conceived without sin – functionally, without sex. I could rant about that a bit, but right now another detail preoccupies me.

Namely, why wasn't Mother Mary killed?

Because that's what should have happened. As bluenoses still petulantly carp, past generations, in their presumed moral superiority, hated nothing so much as unkosher sex. And young Mary – about 15 at the time – had only just married the much older Joseph when she came up heavy.

We know from elsewhere in the Gospels that termination of the marriage contract was the least of potential results. Others included execution by having small rocks hurled at you until you died.

By decent good-standing members of the Church, of course.

Under duly-enacted law of a theocratic state.

In short, this act of "restitution" wasn't simply tolerated, it was ordained. In fact, holy.

But that's not what happened, and the solution to this mystery is found in the Shadow Gospel. Turns out, Joseph was a Jew.

Not a respectable Jew.

Not a Biblical Jew.

An actual Jew.

(Frankly, now I think of it, it's a wonder they didn't kill him as well.)

Says Matthew:

…Joseph [Mary's] husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.

It goes by fast; did you catch it? Joseph wasn't religious. He was righteous. And in this case, that meant turning his back on human authority and putting moralism – and indeed, the law – aside. Rather than stalking back to his new wife's hometown and thrusting Mary back into the arms of her parents with loud and public remonstrations, destroying her life and theirs – again, his legal and ethical duty – Joseph decides to protect her from the legal and the ethical.

Exactly what Joseph's long game was is a bit hazy, but at this point God dispatches an HR guy to handle the predicament:

But while [Joseph] thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

Again, Scripture is vague on exactly how God and his Angels prevented the rest of the Hebrew nation from killing them both, but since childhood, the Nativity paradox has fascinated me: it's facilitated by a deliberate rejection of received morality. As my religious education grew broader, so did my grasp of the import of Joseph's decision, and the risk he incurred.

So this Christmas – a time of opening hearts and auditing egos – I suggest we every one, Christian and less so, meditate on the koan of dogma and Dharma.

Because I suspect it's essential to the difference between what we are and what we're not.

(Photo of Joseph and Mary in private conference courtesy of Tomas Castelazo and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Grandchild gift

(Trivet made from an offcut of 3/4 inch plywood, upcycled for the grandparents.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Putting the Chan in Chanukah

A Buddhist bow to the lighted candles of my Jewish brothers and sisters worldwide.

Chanukah 2021 - 28 November to 6 December.
(5782 - 25 Kislev to 2 Tevet.)

(Photo courtesy of Ri Butov and Pixabay.com.)

WW: Christmas Steller's jay

(Cyanocitta stelleri)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Christmas Memory

On this Christmas Eve in the ninth year of Rusty Ring, we wish all Aeruginosists near and far the most peaceful of holidays.

(Photo courtesy of Michal Klajban and Wikimedia Commmons.)