The Day After Christmas 2011

Here it is at the end of Christmas Day and I didn't get around to writing a blog post for today, Monday. All I can say is thank god for you, readers, specifically right now, Cathy Johnson who sent the video below.

Yes, I know, Peter Tibbles gave us his definitive Christmas music post yesterday - and if due to your family festivities you missed it, do go there now). But this one, too, is good in a whole different way and it's a long time to wait until next year to show it to you.

This the Kuinerrarmiut Elitnaurviat 5th Grade class from Quinhagak, Alaska (say that three times fast) and wait till you see what they have done with the Hallelujah Chorus.

Now wasn't that worth extending Christmas a little?

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Ralph Lymburner: Air Raid Warden

ELDER MUSIC: Christmas 2011

You never know who you're going to meet on the internet and I came to know Peter Tibbles (bio here) via email over the past couple of years. His extensive knowledge of most genres of music and his excellent taste became apparent only gradually (Peter's not one to toot his horn) but once I understood, I knew he needed his own column at Time Goes By - or, better, that TGB needed his column - which appears here each Sunday. You can find previous Elder Music columns here.

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On the 25th of December, a saviour was born.

• He revealed eternal truth, bringing enlightenment to millions.
• He astonished the world with his command over nature.
• He changed history forever.

Happy birthday Isaac Newton, the most important person in history born on this day.

I couldn’t find any songs written for Isaac - more’s the pity - so I’ll just have to go with more traditional songs - well, what passes for traditional in my household. I want to play a few tunes that probably won’t be played at your local shopping mall or most radio stations.

The first time I did one of these, two years ago now, Norma, the Assistant Musicologist, said, “You have to include CHARLES BROWN." I ignored her at the time as I had already chosen who I wanted; I believe I used an Elvis version of the suggested song. Finally I’m taking her advice.

Charles was classically trained on the piano but switched to blues when he couldn’t get a job in that area. His style of singing was more akin to Nat King Cole than the usual blues at the time. His piano playing also was like Nat’s. Both of those features are okay by me. Here he is with Merry Christmas, Baby.

♫ Charles Brown - Merry Christmas, Baby

MABEL SCOTT really deserves to be better known.

She had a powerful voice and could hold her own against all comers. Mabel was born in Virginia but her family moved to New York when she was six. As a teenager she went to a local theatre and told them she could sing.She was put on in the amateur afternoon program and hired on the spot after they heard her.

Over the years, she played with Ethel Waters, Bessie Smith, Lena Horne and many others. In the 1930s, Mabel toured Europe and England where she was a great success. She stayed there for several years until war broke out.

Oh, to keep it all in the family, I should mention that she was married to Charles Brown for a couple of years.

Mabel had a big hit with Boogie Woogie Santa Claus in 1947. Patti Page recorded it as the flip side to Tennessee Waltz. Unfortunately, due to record company shenanigans, Mabel didn’t receive the considerable royalties due to her.

♫ Mabel Scott - Boogie Woogie Santa Claus

BILL EVANS was one of the musicians who played on the seminal Miles Davis album “Kind of Blue.” Each of those players went on to become legends in the jazz world and all of them became leaders of their own groups.

Miles, who was not one to praise unnecessarily, considered Bill the finest pianist he’d ever played with. Here’s Bill with Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

♫ Bill Evans - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

The most unlikely musician I found to perform a Christmas song this year is LOU REED. I always try to find a surprising one.

Those who know Lou’s work realise they are not going to get mistletoe and holly in his song. Indeed, listening to it will probably bring your festive celebrations to a grinding halt. Just take a good stiff drink before you listen, some eggnog perhaps or chilled chardonnay or riesling if you live around my neck of the woods. Here is Xmas in February.

♫ Lou Reed - Xmas in February

NINA SIMONE's track really has nothing to do with Christmas unless you listen to her piano playing, of course.

There are far too many interesting details about Nina’s life than I can cover in a short piece like this. She deserves a column of her own (mental note to self).

Nina sings the Rodgers and Hart song, Little Girl Blue and plays something else. This is a really good example of a quodlibet.

♫ Nina Simone - Little Girl Blue

Long time readers of this column, at least those with a good memory, would know that my all time favorite band is the appropriately named group, THE BAND.

They produced one Christmas song on their throw-away album, “Islands”. This one is closer to a traditional festive tune than most of the others today, but hey, it’s The Band. That’s good enough for me. It is Christmas Must Be Tonight.

♫ The Band - Christmas Must Be Tonight

I’m indebted to the A.M.’s brother-in-law for this next track. The A.M., however, looked somewhat askance that I’d really like to have a collection of WILF CARTER's music.

Wilf was Nova Scotia’s (and probably Canada’s) first singer/songwriter. He was born in 1904 and was inspired into the music biz when he saw the Swiss performer, “The Yodelling Fool,” when he toured Canada. There’s quite a bit of yodelling in his music, but not in today’s tune.

He became a huge hit in his native country and moved to New York in 1935. He was generally known as Montana Slim in America. He spent the rest of his life moving between the two countries (and others as well, including my own). Wilf’s song is The Night Before Christmas (In Texas, That Is).

♫ Wilf Carter - The Night Before Christmas (In Texas, That Is)

Here is a fellow countryman of mine, TIM MINCHIN, encapsulating how Christmas is celebrated here in Australia.

I really can’t add anything to his song. This is Drinking White Wine in the Sun which is what we generally do at this time of the year. Okay, I try to stay out of the sun as I have pale skin and freckles, but the sentiment still holds.

And for a bit of a counterpoint because like Tim, I quite like the music, here is my now traditional ending, if three of these could be considered a tradition: some fine music. This year’s bit of couth is by J.S. BACH.

It’s taken from his cantata “At the 3rd day of Christmas BWV133.” I don’t know if today is the first, last, 3rd or whatever day of Christmas, but I’ll use it anyway. This is Coro Ich freue mich in dir.

♫ J.S. Bach - Coro Ich freue mich in dir

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No Interesting Stuff on this holiday Saturday, but here is some wonderfully silly, seasonal music for you from Darlene Costner: The Animals of YouTube Sing Jingle Bells.

And I'm pretty sure I'm going to make this Simon's Cat an annual ritual from now on:

Strange Holiday Costume, Christmas Movie Montage and a Fun Surprise

Ollie the cat, snoozing on the desk next to the laptop yesterday morning, woke suddenly – and grumpy about it, too - when I burst into laughter at this image that arrived in an email message:

Clearly a Christmas tree costume but with a star of David on the top rather than the usual five-pointed Christian star.

It was sent, in response to my Hanukkah greeting, by TGB reader, John Baeder. John doesn't know what the provenance of the photo is – just something he had tucked away for amusement value sometime in the past. Whatever do you suppose it could be about.

John's name seemed familiar to me and when I poked around the web, I found that he is an artist associated with the photo-realist movement well-known for his paintings of roadside diners and I must have recognized his name because I have his 1980's book, Gas, Food and Lodging.

This is one of John's paintings of the Empire Diner where I ate lunch fairly frequently over the years in New York City and now, sadly, gone.

There's no telling who you can meet online via a Hanukkah greeting or a funny Christmas costume. You can find out more about John and his work here and here.

Television, this week, is devoid of nearly everything except Christmas movies so I checked out montages of them at YouTube. Most aren't very good and they all include clips of Will Ferrell as Elf and that creepy Home Alone kid. Am the only person in the U.S. who can't stand either one of them?

Anyway, here is one that is tolerable.

Having nothing to do with Christmas, this is way too good to pass up - Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman playing keyboards - Johnny B Goode with the Letterman show band Wednesday night. And he's pretty good, too. Take a look:

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Barbara Sloan: Christmas Tradition Survival

The Legends of Santa Claus

In the past on this blog, I have ignored big holidays except on the date itself. For some reason this year, that seems hard to do – maybe it's the seasonal videos and other stuff I've been finding - so it's Christmas all the way until next week.

Santa Claus is a legendary, mythical, folkloric figure of many cultures under many different, although mostly similar names. It follows, then, that the details of his origin are contradictory, confusing and fascinating.

There is a documentary titled The Legends of Santa I discovered recently and am delighted with. Narrated by Sir Richard Attenborough, it is beautifully produced and stuffed (like a Christmas stocking?) with a whole lot of information about how the jolly fat man came to be.

Here is Part 1 of 4. You can watch the other three here at YouTube.

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Herchel Newman: No Appreciation

Happy Hannukah 5772

Hanukkah began last evening. It's not that I do much about being Jewish but if nothing else, I enjoy the candles for eight nights. And I like the story.

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Not to mix the holidays (oh go ahead, Ronni, mix 'em up) here's a wonderful Christmas video of an elder flash mob in Lawrence, Kansas, singing along with Last Christmas by the cast of Glee. Gotta love it. (My apologies - I've forgotten who sent this to me and have deleted the email.)

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Marcy Belson: The Neighborhood Christmas Party

HBO Tackles Aging

[WHERE ELDERS BLOG: There are two new entries in the Where Elders Blog feature. You can see the page for MissKriss here and for MizBonnie here. Here are instructions for submitting your own blog writing or reading workplace.]

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Anyone who has been reading TimeGoesBy for awhile knows my feelings about cosmetic surgery and other medical interventions that attempt to camouflage age by make the person appear to be younger than he or she is.

Most obviously, the injections and surgeries don't work. Botox, etc. might fill in a wrinkle for a period of time and a nip/tuck might smooth out a line temporarily, but it always must be redone again and again. It fools no one because those procedures cannot reinvent the amazing, dewy complexion of a teen or early 20-something which is the greater hallmark of youth.

At their worst, those injections freeze the face into something like rigor mortis and the surgeries turn people into mid- and late-age grotesqueries. Several aging television personalities who had a too much enthusiasm for the knife in the past are on the verge of slipping into that latter category any day now.

But my number one objection is that all attempts to appear younger than what is naturally written on one's face are ageist. And more, every person who makes the attempt is telling the world that growing old is the worse thing that can happen.

You may think that has nothing to do with you. After all, you are perfectly comfortable in your aging self, right? But you would be mistaken to think you are unaffected.

The attitude and belief that old age must be avoided even at the cost of dangerous surgery and poisonous injections is the reason for the social invisibility of elders. It gives certain politicians' cover to repeatedly try to cut programs elders have spent their lives paying for and it causes age discrimination in the workplace that shortens the careers of thousands every year long before they are ready to retire.

All this came to mind recently when I ran across a reference to a new HBO documentary, About Face (clever title). From what the short, teaser trailer shows, the film addresses the topic of aging and facelifts with a bunch of older fashion models such as Paulina Porizkova, Carmen Dell’Orefice, Jerry Hall, China Machado and Isabella Rossellini. Take a look.

Isabella Rosselini notes the truth that as we get old, “we don't count anymore,” and another of the women points out that the “whole society makes us want to stay young.”

Yale psychologist Becca R. Levy has been studying aging for more than 20 years. Her research shows that the constant bombardment of negative stereotypes about age increases blood pressure – ageism can literally make old people sick.

Levy told the Washington Post:

“[W]e have found that when we activate negative age stereotypes, older individuals tend to show a decline in memory performance, self-confidence, will to live and handwriting,” said Levy.

“In contrast, we have found that when we activate positive age stereotypes we tend to find beneficial changes in these same areas.”

Good luck finding any of those “positive age stereotypes” anywhere in your day-to-day life.

It remains to be seen if HBO's About Face has a point of view on ageism. The doc will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2012.

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It is Christmas week and readers have been laying some fine, fun seasonal videos on me in the past few days. Because they tend to get stale when festivities are finished, I'll include as many as possible during the rest of this week.

Here is the first from Nancy Leitz, a long-time contributor to The Elder Storytelling Place. The blurb at YouTube from pet owner Paul Ciampanelli of Paw Nation, says this:

”Cat owners know that setting up and decorating the holiday tree may be made into an infinitely more harrowing ordeal than usual if there's a curious cat around. It turns out that whether or not that cat can see makes little different.”

So here is Oskar the Blind Kitten and the Christmas Tree.

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Stroppy: Old Kitten on the Keys