EPISODE 247: WHERE THE TREETOPS GLISTEN

POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW

Hello from Perth, Australia, the most isolated city in the world. Which sounds like the city should be dust bunnies and sidearms, and involve the passage of days. But it’s actually just a four hour flight from Melbourne, and a very pretty place, filled with green trees and blue waters and golden light.

A friend of mine is finishing a six year stint working here, and I’m with him for the holidays, saying some Masses and listening to the toy-flute song of the magpies. It’s a suburban parish in kind of a quiet part of the city, and I’ve had some lovely days here just walking the streets like gardens and sitting along the Swan River, letting life catch up to me.

It’s a bit of an unusual Christmas, I admit, but I don’t know, there’s something about the quiet and the simplicity of it that appeals to me. When you get right down to it, the Christmas story is really not a story so much as an invitation to be quiet and appreciate this special moment and the gifts of family and life we’ve been given. But there’s so much to do up to and including Christmas, man, it’s hard to breathe let alone reflect.

So anyway, that’s my life these days. I hope whatever your holidays entail that it’s a time of joy and rest for you, too. “Merry and bright”.

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I’ve come across a couple neat things in recent weeks that I thought I’d share, little Christmas gifts as it were. Like this home video of kids performing the Nativity scene at some kind of school function while the Charlie Brown Christmas choir sings in the background. It’s all pretty standard...until it isn’t.

Or there’s this year’s John Lewis Christmas ad. John Lewis is that British department store that seems to specialize in the most emotional Christmas ads possible. And this one is no exception. Carry tissues.

(At the risk of overthinking, I find the ad an incredibly moving example of the journey of self-acceptance. Everyone has a monster. Few realize it’s there to set them free.

Also I want that star projector for Christmas, please and thank you.)

For musical lovers, Lin-Manuel Miranda interviewed Stephen Sondheim a while back, and it’s a wonderful conversation about writing, surprise and the importance of danger in one’s writing. “You shouldn’t feel safe,” Sondheim says. “You should feel, ‘I don’t know if I can write this.’ That’s what I mean by dangerous, and I think that’s a good thing to do. Sacrifice something safe.”

The article also features another bizarre New York Times dog photo in the vein of last week’s Mark Hamill.

I mean, what even is this?

For those who find themselves spending some of the holidays cooking, here’s a great piece on how every recipe for caramelized onion is absolutely lying to you.

Lastly, the absolutely true story of how a Scotsman saved Christmas, a piece on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer that explores why the little rag doll is on the Island of Misfit Toys, the way the story speaks to the sense of inferiority every kid feels, and features a 15 year old swearing at Donner, and the bonkers Harry Potter story a bot recently came up with.

It’s only four pages long. You will be glad you read it. Among its highlights: “Ron’s Ron shirt was just as bad as Ron himself.” “The password was ‘BEEF WOMEN’.”

And: “'Not so handsome now,’ said Harry as he dipped Hermione in hot sauce. The Death Eaters were dead now, and Harry was hungrier than he had ever been.”

The title: “Harry Potter and What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash.”

Happy Christmas, everybody.