Tag: #FOWC

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The Metrics of Scrooge

pictures of "A Christmas Carol"
The many versions of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”

What a favor I have done you, my gentle readers and Dickens lovers! I have taken it upon myself, in keeping with the situation, to evaluate the universe of versions of “A Christmas Carol.”

This was no easy task. There are four or five widely known versions of this holiday classic, but the off-versions, the non-Scrooge versions–the American, Scottish, musical, Rankin-Bass, Disney, Pixar, pop star, African-American, Canadian, mobster, Susan Lucci, British, and trailer trash versions have become plentiful, indeed!

Since the Seymour Hicks first non-silent ACC (“A Christmas Carol”) film debuted in 1935, another 43 film and television-based versions of Scrooge’s story have been produced, not counting several live once-on-TV teleplays done in the 1950s and also not including every single skit or sitcom-inspired takeoffs ever done.  (Ref. see Alex P. Keaton and French & Saunders).  My universe included anything recognized on IMDB (or Rotten Tomatoes) or on a Scrooge ten best list. Interestingly, at least five sites purported to have the complete list, but none did. Even Wikipedia under the heading “Adaptations of ‘A Christmas Carol’ only listed 25 of these 43 adaptations of “A Christmas Carol.”

Meanwhile, I have cracked my ol’ Excel Ninja knuckles and settled down to pivot table away to provide some Fascinating Analysis ™of these versions. Continue reading “The Metrics of Scrooge”

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Homo Sapiens at the Monuments

I was inspired with today’s word “camera” to share mostly photos rather than words, although some explanation is required. You see, I have a penchant when we travel for capturing the interaction between humanity and monuments. What tends to catch my eye is potential humanity, in particular, which is to say children being children.

The earth is 4.5 billion years old, humans around 6 million years, and civilization about 6,000, so you might say the rocks have it all over us. As Virginia Woolf once said,

The very stone one kicks with one’s boot will outlast Shakespeare.
–To the Lighthouse

Yet while we stand around in reverence, snapping photos of the million-year-old natural rock bridge or a Michelangelo masterpiece, children do what they do, which is to say play games, be naughty, and generally act as if they own the place. Which they do, in the most essential way.  I first observed this at Arizona’s Canyon de Chelly back in 1993, where a late April water gully created a stream where a dozen Navajo children played. The sight of the massive rock edifice and 500-year-old abandoned Anasazi ruins carved out of the walls, set against the kids splashing water around and shrieking with laughter was both incongruous and perfectly natural. To me, it was like our genetic potential breathing.

Those are highfalutin’ ideas, but I frame them around this “photo essay” to help explain why these photos were taken in this way.

OK, it’s not Stonehenge, it’s Carhenge in Alliance, Nebraska. But wouldn’t be cool if you saw a toddler running through the sarsens erected by the ancient Celts?

Carhenge
Toddler at Carhenge, Nebraska. Photo by kajmeister.

Continue reading “Homo Sapiens at the Monuments”

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The Origins of Greensleeves and Syphilis

Greensleeves illustration
Greensleeves illustration by Walter Crane. Based on a theme written by ??

This may not seem like a holiday-themed post, but in the theater of mad decorating that took place at our house last week, listening to Christmas carols led to all sorts of topics. One of my favorite carols popped into the mix: “What Child is This?” played by Vince Guaraldi on The Charlie Brown Christmas CD.  Naturally, the song led to a discussion of “Greensleeves” which naturally led to… anyone? anyone? Henry the Eighth… which naturally reminded of something I recently learned about syphilis.

The Earworm Virus of “Greensleeves”

The lyrics to “What Child is This?” were written as a poem by William Chatterton Dix, who mused on what the magi might have said besides, “Where the Holiday Inn?”  Dix was an English insurance company manager whose near death illness invoked a spark of divine inspiration so intense that he began writing poems like “The Manger Throne.”  At some point, when a hymnal was later created in 1865, his poem was set to the ‘borrowed’ tune from “Greensleeves.”

The little ballad, played by strolling bards at Renaissance festivals and the more famous pick-up lute quartets, had been around for nearly three centuries. The song has long been attributed to Henry, and the legend goes that he wrote it for Anne Boleyn as she was rejecting his advances. Continue reading “The Origins of Greensleeves and Syphilis”