Archive | December 2005

When Time Is of the Essence

Dec3

You’ve probably already seen this site, but I got a chuckle from it: Book-A-Minute Classics The authors, and I use the term loosely, claim to have “taken all kinds of great works of literature and boiled them down to their essence, extracting all the filler.” So here’s sample of what you get when you take out all the good stuff excess verbiage.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Ebenezer Scrooge: Bah, humbug. You’ll work thirty-eight hours on Christmas Day, keep the heat at five degrees, and like it.
Ghost of Jacob Marley: Ebenezer Scrooge, three ghosts of Christmas will come and tell you you’re mean.
Three Ghosts of Christmas: You’re mean.
Ebenezer Scrooge: At last, I have seen the light. Let’s dance in the streets. Have some money.

THE END

Christmas in Denmark, 501 A.D.

Dec3

Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.
Hamlet by William Shakespeare

In Lars Walker’s Blood and Judgment, Will Sverdrup is playing Hamlet in a local production of Shakespeare’s play. So how does he end up becoming Hamlet, transported back into medieval Denmark and into Hamlet’s body?

As they say on TV, tune in on Monday to find out.

Friday’s Center of the Blogosphere

Dec2

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. Blaise Pascal

Acute observation from my pastor: In Narnia it’s always winter and never Christmas. As I fight my way through the stores listening to the Chrismas elevator music, I’m convinced that in Houston it’s always Christmas and never winter.

Go To Bethlehem and See is an advent blog run by “The Friends and Fellows of the Boar’s Head Tavern.” It looks as if someone is trying to change the focus of the conversation, and I’m looking forward to enjoying the contributions.

George Grant at King’s Meadow, again, focuses my attention on the tragedy of abortion, and one of its unintended (?) effects: “the prevalence of abortion and infanticide targeting girls has caused a critical global gender imbalance–with a disparity of more than 200 million worldwide.” Do feminists who support abortion for any reason, at any time during the pregnancy, also support the genocidal destruction of females around the world?

Donna on True Love. “True Love takes on a much less naive and romantic bent when one looks up the word for ‘true’.”

Cindy Swanson has an email interview with Steve Beard of Thunderstruck.org. Thunderstruck is a linking blog that provides a daily list of links to stories on the web concerning the intersection of faith and culture.

Zach Wendling of In the Agora tries to figure out why people give gifts. Maybe it doesn’t make economic sense at all; maybe it’s just a fun game?

Tim Challies reviews The Jim Elliot Story, the first in a series of animated biographical videos about Christian heroes set for release this year and next. The series is called the Torchlighter video series, and if they’re as well done as Mr. Challies indicates, the videos sound as if they’d be a great homeschooling resource. Available from Vision Video.

Via Worldmag Blog, a Flickr post documenting the updates to Richard Scarry’s books. Apparently, the author approved or did the updates himself, but I still think it’s a shame that all the policemen must become police officers complete with skirts. And the little Indian (native American) mouse in a canoe has lost his feather; now he’s just a plain old mouse, no fun at all.

Kate at The Little Bookroom adds her list of the 100 Best Novels. Anyone, including Kate, want to tell me more about these novels from her list that I haven’t read: Possession, Tam Lin, Bread Alone, In Pursuit of Love, The Deed of Paksenarrion?

I just discovered this Carmelite Catholic blog by Steven Riddle, Flos Carmeli. Good stuff about literature and faith.

Scandinavian Christmas on the Great Plains

Dec2

Christmas was an especially warm time. The sod house, despite its drawbacks, was well insulated against the harsh outdoors, and the kitchen fire glowed with burning corncobs or dried cornstalks, a substitute for hard-to-come-by wood. Careful hoarding of raisins, candied fruits, nuts, sugar, and well-liked spices like cardamom seed and anise seed meant that a Swedish family could have a yule bread asparkle with candied fruit or a frosted Christmas tea ring studded with nuts. Best of all, there might be an assortment of Swedish Christmas cookies, particularly the buttery spritz cookies that could be shaped into stars, wreaths, crowns, and even Christmas trees.
The holiday was a suitable time for reflection and for thanksgiving. The pioneer family of the plains gave thanks for another summer’s harvest safely delivered, for the winter wheat sowed snugly beneath the snow ready for sprouting in the spring, for the hard-earned rewards of having established a foothold and brought forth a living from the forbidding terrain and climate of the Great American Desert.

From Hunter’s Stew and Hangtown Fry: What Pioneer America Ate and Why by Lila Perl

Is your Christmas celebration tied to a particular ethnic tradition? What foods make your Christmas special? Feel free to link to a recipe or a memory posted at your blog or tell us here in the comments section.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born December 1st

Dec1

A great compilation of information about Nero Wolfe, Archie Goodwin, and creator of both, Rex Stout.

Rex Stout, b. 1886. Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin are two of my very favorite fictional detectives.

Anyone in the mood for some Christmas mysteries? The following list of Christmas mystery novels is mostly taken from the book Murder Ink; I’ve not read all of them, but I have tried most of these authors. If you read one this Christmas, let me know how you liked it.

Agatha Christie: Murder for Christmas (Holiday for Murder)
Mary Higgins Clark: Silent Night
Charles Dickens: The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Martha Grimes: Jerusalem Inn
Georgette Heyer: Envious Casca
Michael Innes: A Comedy of Terrors
M.M. Kaye: Death in the Andamans
Ngaio Marsh: Tied Up in Tinsel
Elis Peters: A Rare Benedictine
Ellery Queen: The Finishing Stroke
Dell Shannon: No Holiday for Crime
Peter Tremayne: The Haunted Abbot

As for Rex Stout, his only Christmas contribution is a short story called “Christmas Party” featuring Nero Wolfe dressed up as Santa Claus. If the costume seems a bit out of character for Wolfe, he does have a good cause–he’s concerned about Archie Goodwin’s impending wedding! This story is one of four in the book And Four To Go.