Christmas Post

 

New Substack post.

Christmas Present

 

I fell in love with this opening to the January 6 Report the moment I saw it last week. Telegraphing the ending instead of jumping into the medias res, it's not Dickens or Tolstoy, but it's the powerful jolt of narrativium I've been longing for in all these productions for the last three or four years. And the report is Dickensian or Tolstoyan in the extreme length of the thing, the panoply of grotesque characters among the occasional sincere and tormented person you can identify with, caught up in the war and seeking redemption.

In fact it's Christmas! It's a big fat novel your parents put under the tree when you're big enough—I know I was pretty young when I first read David Copperfield or Ivanhoe—where you come back from sledding or skating or whatever and you curl up on the couch with it and a cup of cocoa. It's really what I'd want to do over the next week or so, if only there were some snow and a print edition (I'm ordering mine from bookshop.org, an anti-Amazon gesture, but it'll be a while before I get it) and an actual vacation to work with.

For the Record: God Rest You Merry

 

Ecumenical Holiday Ugly Sweater via Zazzle, $31.05

Aren't you special! Happy Kwanzaa-if-you-celebrate to you too. If you don't, what business is it of yours?

— Condemn That Shit ASAP (@Yastreblyansky) December 27, 2021

The "village" in Nigeria she comes from is Owerri, a city of 1.4 million people. It's predominantly Christian, but lots of "villages" in Nigeria aren't. Plenty of Christians in US celebrate Kwanzaa. It's allowed.

— Condemn That Shit ASAP (@Yastreblyansky) December 27, 2021

Kwanzaa is not an alternative to Christmas. The two are celebrated on different days and represent similar social values. I mean I guess you're not too big on Peace on Earth and Good Will Toward Men and Women, but you're unusual. pic.twitter.com/ouiQV7S2Bv

— Condemn That Shit ASAP (@Yastreblyansky) December 27, 2021

Just in case it's not totally clear what Ted is attempting to do here, it's to vilify Kwanzaa without sounding like My Little Margie here:

Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart

 

Remember the political situation this time last year? I seem to have been predicting that the soon-to-be Former Guy wouldn't be endorsing vaccines by way of claiming credit for inventing them, but would mainly be hanging out at Mar-a-Lago pretending he was still president. I missed the coup in Washington, and he did ultimately go pro-vaccine a year later,  but I feel there was something not exactly wrong there. Anyway happy birthday Sol Invictus, I'm running it again

 

'Twas the day before Christmas
And all through the House
All the Members had gathered
To schmooze and carouse;

The president's bluff
On the stimulus bill
Had been called and dismissed,
To the joy of the Hill,

With a pair of amendments,
Just one for each side,
To which, by agreement,
A vote was denied.

"Give us two thousand bucks!"
Representative Hoyer
Had exclaimed as Republicans
Filed through the foyer.

Conservatives in Caves

 

This can't possibly be real, can it? It's like David Lynch hacked Shapiro's email account. pic.twitter.com/bXxnGjIbwe

— Roy Edroso (@edroso) December 24, 2021

Hey, gang,

You're familiar with me as the guy on speedballs and helium who can rant on the day's Murdoch talking point for eight minutes without taking a breath, displaying astonishing erudition and common sense as I disembowel the liberal line, and I know how much you treasure that experience, because you're an essential part of what has made my enterprise and my self the incredible successes we are today. And I am one hundred percent that guy, but I'm so much more. For example, I like to just hang out shooting the shit with my Intellectual Dark Buds in the den. In my new series, Conservatives in Caves Having Coffee, we'll be setting up the camera in my basement and you'll get to be a fly on the wallpaper as I share some of my most intimate thoughts with friends like Dr. Jordan Peterson in his suit and sweater vest. 

Instead of the harsh light and monochrome background for my talking head, we'll have a softer and more relaxed set, though with masculine furnishings like the classic wire wheel coffee table, and I'll be in lighter makeup. Jordan doesn't drink coffee, but maybe I can talk him into a cup of bone broth, and even if he's not drinking anything, it'll be a thrill for you to hear us chat about the masculinity crisis and stuff like that. Stresses of modern marriage. How to raise your kids with the moral backbone they'll need to survive the coming radical left gay trans socialist takeover of our country.

And speaking of child-rearing, you'll be crazy about Badminton? Goodminton!, my new show where I lead my kids and their friends in backyard net games like badminton and volleyball, filmed in natural outdoor light, and you'll get to see me in shorts and sneakers engaging with some of the most precious people in my life. You'll get a sense of what it would be like to have me as a fun but firm father, enforcing the rules but leaving time for hearty laughter. And every once in a while I'll throw a stick at the camera and you can pretend you're the dog.

And then for evenings we'll be streaming My Date With Ben, a series where I go out with my wife, Dr. Shapiro, for some wholesome entertainment. You'll be sharing our table at the tango club as we nurse our glasses of Malbec and joining us on the dance floor trying out some fancy moves, or giggling with us at the bowling alley as I score strike after strike. Or some nights simply behind our heads, perhaps, when we're on the couch relaxing with some Netflix. You'll be wondering if you could make me as happy as Dr. Shapiro does, holding hands and enjoying some fresh-popped popcorn, repeating our favorite lines from whatever the film happens to be. I love her a lot, obviously, but I do love you too. Facts may not care about your feelings, but I do, and I always will.

Cross-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog.

For the Record: American Idolator

Image by Thor.

I made a contribution to the #IfTrumpWereSanta hashtag:

#IfTrumpWereSanta

Dear Santa,

You're incredibly smart and capable, and vigorous for your age. You've accomplished more than any other Saint. You've really made Christmas great again. It's such an honor just to be writing you a letter. Please bring me a million dollars.

— Xmastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) December 23, 2017

I want to pitch a new reality show, American Idolator, where the contestants all have to live for some months in a bubble under a crazed and capricious authority figure whose rages and terrors must be placated at all costs, and they all bad-mouth each other in anonymous interviews (on-camera silhouettes with disguised voices); each week somebody is voted out of the bubble as the subject of the most damaging leak. The hook for an episode is some incident where the Leader makes himself look like an idiot and all the contestants work to devise ways of helping him feel good about himself (like the early episode where he insists, against easily available evidence, that his poorly attended inaugural festivity is the largest inaugural festivity in history), etc. The last segment in each episode is a "cabinet meeting" in which the contestants go round the table vying for attention through extravagant flattery of the Leader, after which the Leader says "I'm not happy with" the preselected victim and they must pack up and go home. When they're down to the last two, the winner gets a Golden Calf or a big stone Ten Commandments or something.

Night Before Xmas

Happy holidays all, and Merry Xmas to those who celebrate, and God Jul to us crypto-pagans! Everything I'm trying to write today is unpleasant or boring or (in most cases) both, so let's just have some music.

Cross-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog.

Kassenpiepsen

Via a colleague at work. Somewhere in Germany an Edeka supermarket, 13 hidden cameras, and 9 (rehearsed) cashiers.

Cheap shots: Advent Edition

Rhetorical question?

why should all mortal flesh keep silent? http://t.co/WYjgbBrgfK #Advent
— Kathryn Jean Lopez (@kathrynlopez) December 19, 2013

OK, it's meant to be cute (From Kathryn Jean's "casual corner" at Patheos):

What do Fifty Shades of Grey, Downton Abbey, Andrea Bocelli, have in common with Benedictine nuns in Missouri? Billboard, and guess who’s been in the lead?

Habakkuk. Russian icon, 18th c. Via Wikipedia.