American Fez

New York Cold Snaps

Why do I only ever visit Manhattan in December? New York is an eternal city of ice and snow for me, somewhat like Stalingrad in that respect, but with NoHo-ites instead of Nazis and A-trains instead of T34 tanks; yet the perpetual threat of complete encirclement does still persist, if only by heaps of unruly garbage and frozen dog turds rather than Soviet battle groups.
Anyway, for what it's worth, here are a few "cold" snaps of New York hot spots captured during my most recent trip, beginning with SoHo streets deluged with yellow cabs and freezing rain

A moment with Claude Monet's water lilies at the Museum of Modern Art

An accidental image taken while lugging luggage along the lighted staircase at the SoHo Grand Hotel

And finally, abstract winter weather through the car window on our way up the Hudson Valley to Rhinebeck

Please pardon my alliteration, and thank you for indulging my digital camerawork.

The Third Wise Man

Santa in Greeneland

Cue Zither ...."I never knew the old Main Street Mall before the Holiday Season, with its normal music, ample parking and single-level Pottery Barn (CostCo suited me better). I really got to know it in that classic period of the last shopping days before Christmas. We could sell anything anything, if people were desperate enough and had a credit card to pay with. Now, the Mall was divided into four zones: the familiar-sounding-designer-name-perfume-in-a-damaged-box zone; the gift-card-amount-entered-incorrectly zone; the won't-operate-properly-until-you-bring-it-back-to-the-store zone; and the anything-to-do-with-pirates-or-Harry-Potter zone. Each of these zones was responsible for ruining somebody's Christmas. Anyway, there was this fellow by the name of Claus, Santa Claus, just about the worst racketeer this Mall has ever seen. There wasn't one lousy scam or phony layaway scheme that he wasn't mixed up in ..."

Behind the Music: Special Christmas Edition

The Reverend Aloysius Brown, model for the inquisitive parson name-checked Walking In A Winter Wonderland, would surely have disapproved of snowman building, especially in such a willfully disrespectful manner as that detailed in the famous and festive song. He was a gaunt and severe man, prone to nervous spasms of screaming obscure passages of blood-curdling scripture at his only friend and companion, a cowering and mangy mastiff called Agrippa, and it is safe to assume that the Reverend would have cut a darkly ominous figure in that wintry landscape; a character more at home with funeral rites than with nuptial celebrations. Indeed, it is absolutely unthinkable that Reverend Brown would have agreed to perform in any marriage ceremony involving those two (obviously inebriated) snowman-building reprobates who narrate Walking In A Winter Wonderland, even if he were unfortunate enough to find himself "in town" on the designated date.

The Nativity on Twitter

You are now following A_Star

BethlehemInn All rooms completely booked tonight - w00t! from Web

KingOfOrient1 Word to the wise guys: Flash Mob this evening at lowly cattle shed from Tweetdeck

KingOfOrient2 RT @KingOfOrient1 Me and @KingOfOrient3 will be there. The myrrh the merrier! from Tweetdeck

KingOfOrient1 RT @KingOfOrient2 LOL! from Tweetdeck

LittleDrummerBoy Invited to live-blog the Virgin Birth tonight at http://blogspot.com/parumpumpumpum Will be first with pix of newborn king from Tweetie

StephenFry Oh Lordy Lord! Roll me up in excelsis and call me a Christmas tree! from BigTwit

Herald_Angel How did he get in here? from Trumpet

Walk Out To Winter

As a Christmas-loving post-modern Marxist, the concept of Jesus as either "Lord" or "King of Israel" is completely anathema to all my ideas and principles. I much prefer to think of him as Brother Jesus of the Carpentry and General Woodworker's Union, an ordinary blue-collar messiah whose birthday just happens to be celebrated by strike action at Heathrow Airport and other important British Airways hubs.
So let us hope that more wise men will also let themselves be led by a Red Star and instruct their members to further disrupt the holiday schedule with lengthy industrial protests over unmet Herald Angel wage demands and long shepherding hours.
You think there's going to be a silent night soon? Not while this Voice of the People has a megaphone, I can assure you of that.

Company Revelry

Dancing frenziedly around some vertical totem to repetitive rhythms is a primal human instinct, whether it is the cannibalistic Ogzobi tribe and their fertility god symbol or middle management and their office Christmas tree. Personally I prefer the music at the Ogzobi festivities, but that's just my opinion. Their fire-water is also vastly superior to our case of Stella Artois and bargain bin Pinot Noir, although when it comes to party finger-food I draw the line at Ogzobian petit-fours (apparently they discard the thumbs along with most of the elbow meat).
Still, however awful the prospect may be, you must wear the mask of jollity and join the merry throng in decorated conference room or torch-lit jungle clearing; become trapped into a tedious discussion about fax paper protocol with that idiot from sales, or a dreary symposium on spear-sharpening with the headhunter from the hut next door; pretend that you really like the seasonally scented candle from your Secret Santa, even if it actually smells like a reindeer stable after feeding time, which it undoubtedly will, or grudgingly agree that the Chief can have the extra eyeball, which you know damn well that he'll snatch up anyway.
Such is human nature and its proclivities at group gatherings. The uncivilized gatecrash the uncivilized, whether it is the Ogzobi tribe and their ancestor-disrespecting outcasts or middle management and its greasy lounge lizards. Ah yes, company revelry: the flesh is always willing but the spirit is forever weak.

Community Center Holiday Bulletin

Greetings folk,
In order to promote diversity and awareness at this year's nativity play we will be making one of the three wise men a woman. Her name will be Afghanastasia and she will be bringing the gift of myrhh for our symbolic Peace Child, as well as two free condoms and a pamphlet outlining current gay, lesbian and transgender issues in the Bethlehem community.
After the presentation of the gifts we will join hands in a chorus of Red Flag, Jingle Bells and a medley of Michael Jackson hits. Fu Chung will once again be singing the role of Nelson Mandela, Sal Goldberg will sing Confucius, Brother Hussein will sing Joan of Arc, and Phyllis MacCatholick will mime the Ghost of Christmas Recyclable.
A selection of herbal teas and rice cakes will be served at intermission and the Merry Mops team will be cleaning up all the sick as usual.

Nativity Cover Up

Today, of course, most experts accept that the "yonder star" followed by the Three Wise Men was in reality a UFO, probably a mothership from planet Saeltag in the Merchandize Nebula, and that our modern concept of Christmas actually celebrates "first contact," not with any so-called Christ child, but with a Saeltaggian representative bringing their message of peace, goodwill and sensational bargains from Star Malls beyond our solar system. The Virgin Mary was obviously the name of some sort of interstellar landing craft that he arrived in, and Joseph the booster rocket.
"Buy one get one," he would have announced in his strange, unearthly Saeltaggian tongue, and it is interesting to note that at least one of the wise men was able to purchase a Wii 'Slaughter the Innocents' game and still get change from half a bag of frankincense.
But apparently the general public is not yet ready for the sight of a little green alien in a manger surrounded by discount astral shopping seekers, and so the International Carol Singing Conspiracy continues. The truth is out there, it is just hidden by a US Government backed winter wonderland window display.

Santa Claus vs The Amazons

I was probably approaching five years of age when I dispatched my last Christmas list to Santa Claus. There was only item on it. I merely asked the great man for a postcard from the North Pole proving that he existed. Unfortunately I received no such communication, and consequently I endured that holiday season with a sort of steely, childish detachment bordering on the pathologically misanthropic. Not even a new bicycle, deluxe Ludo game, some sort of rubber thing, three cotton sweaters, several mandarin oranges and assorted nuts could console me for the absence of signed and stamped proof that my former friend Roger Eccles was a miserable liar of the most base and ignoble kind.
Of course, careless elves, the inadequacies of the Greenlander postal service, or possibly Santa's own failings - illiteracy issues? - might have been responsible for my missing missive, but even a idealist like myself was forced to admit that such excuses seemed flimsy and fanciful in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. If Santa Claus could cart sackfuls of wooden trains, candy canes and Kewpie dolls through the freezing winter night, then mailing a small picture postcard, even a zany reindeer-shaped one, shouldn't have caused him or his pointy-eared minions too many logistical problems. Only one conclusion could be drawn from the fact that my letterbox remained devoid of a jolly Yuletide message from the North Pole: Roger Eccles, rat-faced runt though he may be, was telling the truth: Santa Claus actually lived in Miami.
Fast forward many, many years to today. Now, obviously, I know that Santa Claus is really just a Northern folk memory of the Norse God Odin riding through the December night on his eight-legged horse Sleipnir, distributing loaves of bread to the worthy Viking peasantry below. However, this morning, Melanie Garfield, a triple-chinned religious zealot with whom I work, said that Santa is without doubt a commercialized version of some do-gooding early Christian bishop called Saint Nicholas. I just yawned in her fat face and told her to please keep her stupid, pious opinions to herself. Frankly, I'm all through with the shifting snowdrift of fact and fiction that is the Santa Claus story. These days I'm all about the Amazon Wishlist and one-click online ordering.

Clone Christmas Is Coming

Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat. Too fat according to many health experts who claim that problem levels of obesity among geese are on the rise. "Foie gras on legs" is how one eminent gastro-ganderologist, Dr Felix Navidad, described the current climate. "We all know geese waddle," he added while putting a penny in an old man's hat, "But this is ridiculous."
Navidad notes that some goslings as young as two weeks old already weigh as much as mature geese: "They just squat in their so-called nests all day stuffing themselves with high-calorie bird seed. Many of them can't even migrate because they're too fat to fly in formation. You can blame the parents if you like, or even modern farming methods, but frankly I think that Christmas is the culprit here. It's a Yuletidal wave of heart-disease waiting to happen." When pressed, Dr Navidad refused to be drawn on the subject of future Christmas dinners artificially grown from cloned goose DNA.