Love is the only bow on life's dark cloud. It is the Morning and the Evening Star. It shines upon the cradle of the babe, and sheds its radiance upon the quiet tomb. It is the mother of Art, inspirer of poet, patriot and philosopher. It is the air and light of every heart, builder of every home, kindler of every fire on every hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody, for Music is the voice of Love. Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of the wondrous flower -- the heart -- and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven and we are gods.

• Candy Cane for your Portrait: Taken in Brooklyn a week before Christmas, here's a series of portraits taken in exchange for, well, a candy cane. There's some great faces here, and one idea that would be fun to try out in Saskatoon. (thanks, Patrick)

• Buy Nothing Christmas: Yes, yes, we've been through the throes of Buy Nothing Days, how's about a Buy Nothing holiday? This movement was started by a bunch of Canadian Mennonites, and it's a movement to decommericalize Christmas and re-emphasize aspects of the holiday that are often neglected in its consumeristic glory. I'm still in the midst of discovering the different aspects of the site, but I really liked their tract Jesus Shops for Sandals, and I'm trying to articulate my reaction to it. I'll save that for another post down the line, though.

• Roger Ebert's 10 Best Films of 2004: I admit it, I'm an Ebert fan, for the most part. He's particularly literary in his reviews, which is something a geek can appreciate. And typically, we see eye-to-eye on qualities of film. This list is interesting, especially considering the number of films that NEVER made it to Saskatoon (grrr). I am excited, however, that Vera Drake is finally making its way to The Broadway this week.
  

• Speaking of movies, if you have a lot of time to kill, go try out The Guardian's 2004 Film Quiz. I've had the window open for a couple of hours, and every now and then I fill out a question. I think graduate school has given me a shorter attention span for examinations.

I'm sitting in the railway station.
Got a ticket to my destination.
On a tour of one-night stands my suitcase and guitar in hand.
And ev'ry stop is neatly planned for a poet and a one-man band.

Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought's escaping,
Home where my music's playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.

Ev'ry day's an endless stream
Of cigarettes and magazines.
And each town looks the same to me, the movies and the factories
And ev'ry stranger's face I see reminds me that I long to be,

Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought's escaping,
Home where my music's playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.

Tonight I'll sing my songs again,
I'll play the game and pretend.
But all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity
Like emptiness in harmony I need someone to comfort me.

Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought's escaping,
Home where my music's playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.
Silently for me.

Only when we take human existence upon ourselves in its starkest and most humiliating misery—a misery in which nothing has meaning—can we win through to the only possible way to live. Only when we taste the lot of all, when we become involved deeply in world suffering, one in heart with the need of humanity, can we win through to our true vocation. Only when the conscience becomes active, only when love is born out of suffering, only when hardship leads to liberating action, is victory near.

The suffering of the world is ours.

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For the journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death,
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!

Oh, come, our Wisdom from on high,
Who ordered all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!

Oh, come, oh, come, our Lord of might,
Who to your tribes on Sinai's height
In ancient times gave holy law,
In cloud and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!

Oh, come O Rod of Jesse's stem,
From ev'ry foe deliver them
That trust your mighty pow'r to save;
Bring them in vict'ry through the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!

Oh, come, O Key of David, come,
And open wide our heav'nly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!

Oh, come, our Dayspring from on high,
And cheer us by your drawing nigh,
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!

Oh, come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Oh, bid our sad divisions cease,
And be yourself our King of Peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!

That's more or less what we had in mind when we began talking about killing the Buddha, and about what a Bible filled with heresy might look like, and about what Bibles and Buddhas, killings and heresies, had to do with each other. We had lost faith in the way faith gets talked about in America, the way it's seen as either innocuous spirituality or dangerous fanaticism, perfume or mustard gas. After years of writing about religion, for newspapers and magazines and in letters to each other, we'd come to think that it is almost always both: Show us the truth and we'll show you a lie, prove God is dead and we promise a resurrection.

... Like everyone else who knows how to read or count the stars, we've spent our whole lives studying scripture. When we were kids it was the story of Apollo's chariot pulling the sun, and Bilbo Baggins with his ring, and Harriet the Spy writing her own Book of Revelation. Later, there was Marx on money, Darwin on your mother, Virginia Woolf on each minute passing. There were also the Batman comic books we read in the first grade, the Challenger explosion we watched a few years later, the Penthouse magazine we found down by the river in junior high.

There was a billboard that read, "Jesus Christ, King of Newark;" a paperback copy of the Koran we stole from our high school library; a letter from Einstein we found pressed between Yiddish pages. Not to mention the texts we share with everyone: strange desert flowers and rain making streams in the gutters, headlines of nuclear threats and the most up-to-date mass murders; the lines that cross our palms, the creaking reports of our bones, everyone's X rays, interchangeable.

So many sutras. We made this book not to replace the Bible but to light it and its successors on fire; when you're done with it, you should burn this book, too. Or you could make like the prophet Ezekiel and eat it.

(a holiday for the rest of us)

Main elements of Festivus: (via Wikipedia, of course!)
The Festivus celebration includes three major components:

The Festivus Pole:
During Festivus, an unadorned aluminum pole is displayed, apparently in opposition to the commercialization of decorated Christmas trees, and because the holiday's creator, Frank Costanza, "find[s] tinsel distracting." Local customs have changed and you may be able to decorate your pole with non-threatening plain decorations.

The Airing of Grievances: At the Festivus dinner, the celebrant tells their friends and family all of the instances where they disappointed the celebrant that year.

The Feats of Strength: The head of the family tests his or her strength against one participant of the head's choosing. Festivus is not considered over until the head of the family has been pinned. A participant is allowed to decline to attempt to pin the head of the family only if they have something better to do instead.

You look like... a perfect fit,
For a girl in need... of a tourniquet.
But can you save me?
Come on and save me...
If you could save me,
From the ranks of the freaks,
Who suspect they could never love anyone.

'Cause I can tell... you know what it's like.
A long farewell... of
the hunger strike.
But can you save me?
Come on and save me...
If
you could save me,
From the ranks of the freaks,
Who suspect they could
never love anyone.

It struck me down, a Greyhound,
Like Peter Pan,
or Superman,
You have come... to save me.
Come on and save me...
If
you could save me,
From the ranks of the freaks,
Who suspect they could
never love anyone,
Except the freaks,
Who suspect they could never love
anyone,
But the freaks,
Who suspect they could never love anyone.

Come on and save me...
Why don't you save me?
If you could save
me,
From the ranks of the freaks,
Who suspect they could never love
anyone,
Except the freaks,
Who suspect they could never love anyone,
Except the freaks,
Who could never love anyone.

I'm a sucker for a good Christmas movie.

Here are some of my favorites:

• White Christmas -- Probably my favorite, ever. It's got Bing, Danny Kaye, and the amazing Rosemary Clooney. I know all the songs, and sing them karaoke-style whenever I watch it. One of my favorite memories attached with the movie has to be watching my (canadian) friends laugh incessantly at the "Snow" song -- specifically the "It won't be long before we'll all be there with snow \ Snow \ I want to wash my hands, my face and hair with snow"

• Christmas Vacation -- Chevy Chase's classic. This is one film that never ceases to make me giggle, and yes -- even snort. It's infinitely quotable, and presents that picture of an old fashioned dysfunctional family Christmas.

• Christmas in Connecticut -- another old movie classic. This one stars Barbara Stanwyck, and it's based on the life of a journalist who poses as a Martha-Stewart wannabe in her weekly column. She's about as domestically inclined as someone like myself (which is to say, not very) -- and one Christmas she's forced into posing as her alterego. What happens as result is hilarious. I think I'm a sucker for these old movies.


• The Preacher's Wife -- yeah, yeah. Maybe it's the symmetry of Denzel's face that attracts me to this movie ... maybe it's the gospel music ... maybe it's just because I'm a sap for cute child actors. It's on the list, though.


• Elmo Saves Christmas -- seriously, this is a good show. It's based on something we all wished for when we were kids, Christmas being EVERY day. Elmo makes that wish, and then he sees how the holiday loses its "specialness" with each repeated day -- with the Count counting each day that passes ("325 Christmases, mwah, wah, ah!"). I suppose it helps that Maya Angelou is the narrator of the story, too.


• A Christmas Story -- Ralphie and his Red Ryder beebee gun, and the danger of shooting your eye out. It's a classic, and one channel here shows it ALL day long.


• Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean -- timeless. There's nothing funnier than an idiot walking around with a turkey on his head, or watching him play with a nativity set. I can't tell what's more fun, watching the video, or watching my friends watch and respond to the video.

And, finally -- It's a Wonderful Life. A film that bombed at the box office, and now is THE Christmas movie to watch. I especially liked SNL's skit where they changed the ending to the film (and had Potter getting his just desserts).

What films did I miss?

Christians and traditionalists across the nation, fed up with what they view as the de-emphasizing of Christmas as a religious holiday, are filing lawsuits, promoting boycotts and launching campaigns aimed at restoring references to Christ in seasonal celebrations. From New Jersey to California, Christians are moving to counter years of lawsuits that have made governments wary about putting Nativity scenes on public property, and that occasionally have led schools to drop Christmas carols from holiday programs.

... In a new CNN/USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, 44% of Americans surveyed said the trend toward "Happy Holidays" is a change for the better, and 43% said it wasn't. Only 11%, however, said they avoid saying "Merry Christmas" out of fear of offending someone.

LONDON (Reuters) - The British aristocracy has long been an exclusive club but now anyone can become a Lord or Lady -- for as little as 30 pounds ($58).

A raft of British Web sites are offering one square foot of the Glencairn Estate in northeast Scotland and, with it, access to the prestigious-sounding title of Lord/Laird and Lady of Glencairn.

Buyagift.co.uk is offering the "fun" title as the "ideal gift for anyone who aspires to greatness" for 29.99 pounds, which includes a deed of ownership, a map of the Glencairn estate and a card which proves their title.

Lastminute.co.uk and thanksdarling.com are also offering shoppers the chance to lord it up as a Glencairn, which is believed to be nothing more than a small plot of croft land with the title invented for it.

One incensed aristocrat is fighting back at what he sees is a scam and is warning potential shoppers that buying the title of Lord, Viscountess, Baron or Earl is meaningless.

The Earl of Bradford, whose own title dates from the 1800s, set up www.faketitles.com, after someone fraudulently passed himself off as Lord Newport, which is his son's title.

"I will put it very simply: You cannot purchase a genuine British title," he warns on the site.

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came--next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams--visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!

[then comes the patriotic, "spirit-filled" prayer by the minister -- when an older man walks up to the pastor and proclaims he has a message of his own from God]

...

"I come from the Throne--bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import--that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of--except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two--one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this--keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer--the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it--that part which the pastor--and also you in your hearts--fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory--must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle--be Thou near them! With them--in spirit--we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it--for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause.) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.