Let’s Have A Kim Novak Christmas
This week’s writing
Christmas is coming. Not even the Grinch can stop it. Our holiday skeleton is already decked out in smart elf-wear. This is probably the last year for the skeleton because his cheap plastic construction was never intended for multiple costume changes every year. Also, my wife can’t stand him. My son and I will have to find another, new tradition to drive her crazy. That’s perhaps the true meaning of Christmas.
Now’s a great time to take advantage of our Christmas subscription deal. Become a paid subscriber for 40 percent off the usual annual rate. That means you can help keep this newsletter survive the winter for just $30 a year. Thanks to all who have upgraded to paid subscriber status recently. In lieu of cat photos like my friend Noah Berlatsky at Everything Is Horrible, I’ll share one of my 11-year-old son’s gruesome animation videos whenever we gain a new paid subscriber. He’s currently performing in the Portland Playhouse production of A Christmas Carol, so give him some time to catch up on the videos.
This week, I quibbled over the ending to Wicked: For Good, which has a political theme that’s relevant for today’s horror show.
I kicked off my weekly Christmas Carol series and discussed how too many Republicans want to decrease the surplus population. Not sure even three spirits could save their souls. They’d just have them deported.
I got my covid vaccine booster and flu shot. Unlike Robert F. Kennedy Jr., I trust vaccines but am rightly skeptical of raw milk and bear road kill.
I spoke with my friend author Cassandra Neyenesch about her upcoming book, A Little Bit Bad, and the important work she’s doing through her Abortion Stories project.
Here’s where I ask everyone reading this to hop over to YouTube and subscribe to my channel. It’s greatly appreciated!
I had a chance to talk about Cheers with my friend Ryan Daly at Cheers Cast. Check it out below.
Catch you next week! I’m already watching Christmas movies, starting with my favorite one featuring Jimmy Stewart — Bell, Book and Candle. This romantic comedy reunites Stewart with leading lady Kim Novak just five months after Vertigo was released in theaters. Novak casts a fatal spell on Stewart in both films.
I have watched both Vertigo and Bell, Book and Candle as a Christmas double feature, but for most people, the latter is probably more ideal holiday viewing.
If, as some quarters report, Vertigo is the greatest movie of all time, why is Bell Book and Candle not better known? I love and have been frightened by Vertigo ever since my mom sat me down--RIGHT AFTER A DAY AT DISNEYLAND--at age 9 to watch it on ABC...damned good thing she did because the lawyers caged it for decades. But Bell Book and Candle is something I saw on Dialing for Dollars and I loved it ever since. We were in Greenwich Village in the snow and I tried to find an analogue for the Zodiac Club but no such luck; where do you go where the Freres Collodi are doing avant-garde chansons and Hermoine Gingold is there to translate the lyrics? The gay subtext is as elegant as all get out--the way the phrase "People like us" is used, and is this the best Jack Lemmon movie ever? (It's certainly Ernie Kovac's best.) Love love love BB&C, and it is a great Xmas movie, but Herself wanted to watch it prematurely during Halloween. So what's actually left for the big day itself? Miracle of Morgan's Creek--hurry senility so I can watch it for the first time--the Sweeney Todd on YouTube with Emma Thompson as Mrs. Lovett and Bryn Terfel as Todd (because the solstice makes me crave death and night and blood), and of course (if I can get the TV to myself) Blofeld informing the awkwardest of Bonds that he's about to send the United Nations a very special Christmas greetings.
Time for a Fetivus Pole SER!