Just to let you know, I’m having connection problems on my home computer, and depending on how long I spend in Customer Service Purgatory, I may or may not get a real post up tonight. Or tomorrow. Or this week, or year.

Update: My connection miraculously regenerated itself while I was gone at work. This does not make me complacent. I know well that once a connection starts acting this way, complete breakdown will follow as night the day. But for now, I’m in business.

I had a bizarre dream last night. Bizarre enough to tell you about.

Like most dreams, it was sparked by an incident during the preceding day. I had checked my mailbox and found it completely empty, even of junk mail. Which is a fairly uncommon thing, especially this time of year.

In my dream, I went out to check the mailbox again, and found it full of stuff. Not only mail, but packages. And there were packages, some of them Christmas wrapped, lying on my front step.

So I gathered what I could, took them inside, and went out to get the rest.

And there was Santa Claus, standing just outside the front awning. This was a huge Santa Claus, maybe twelve feet tall. I couldn’t actually see his face, but I recognized him from his outfit.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but these packages were meant for another address.”

So I went in to bring them out again, and that’s when I woke up.

I got a note today from an acquaintance who is a European and is involved in a sort of rear-guard action to attempt to salvage some scraps of European culture out of the ongoing slow deluge.

Thinking about that noble, perhaps quixotic, effort, I had an epiphany. I think I know why European intellectuals hate the U.S.

(I’m not saying that all Europeans hate us. I believe [on the basis of limited personal contact and some reading] that most Europeans like us just fine, at least as individuals. A lot of them probably believe our country is the root of all evil, but they don’t mean us to take it personally.)

It occurred to me that the “native” European is under tremendous cultural pressure. The orthodoxy of our time proclaims that all evil in the world—without exception—is the fault of old Christian civilization. Which essentially means Europe. Therefore the conscientious European feels obligated to despise himself.

Well, what does a person do when he’s full of self-hate?

He looks for a scapegoat.

America is the scapegoat. When the European intellectual feels at his worst, his most sinful and guilt-ridden, he still has the satisfaction of pointing at America and saying, “Well, we may be evil, but we’re not as evil as that!”

This concludes my epiphany.

Note to aspiring criminal masterminds:

If you intend to embark on a career of larceny which may require you to assume a fictitious identity for a while, it’s probably not a great idea to have your real name tattooed on your neck.

This public service announcement has been brought to you by Brandywine Books.

Over at Culture 11, Nicola Karras has written an outstanding essay on how she moved from the liberalism she absorbed as a child to a conservative world-view.

From Nietzsche, from René Girard, from history, I had taken an important lesson about the darkness at the heart of Man. The human race is not, at its core, nice. For every worthy urge, there are a dozen unworthy ones: violence, lust, anger, greed, ressentiment… Society’s job is then to teach us to be better. Plato thought that once we knew the Good, we would have no choice but to follow it, but he was wrong.

She doesn’t say much about religious faith, but it may be implied, or perhaps she’s still on that journey.

The article’s a little highbrow for those of us whose philosophy reading is spotty, but well worth the effort.

It’s winter, it’s getting near to Christmas, and so my thoughts turn to Norway (oddly enough, they do the same thing in summer). Someday I’d like to spend Christmas in Norway, though that would probably be a cruel abuse of my relatives’ hospitality.

I long for even shorter days, I guess.

Here’s a series of three, related commercials from Norway. They appear to actually be Swedish, but the company, Freia Chocolate, is an old, beloved Norwegian one (now owned by Hershey, it almost goes without saying, but it’s still really good chocolate).



Continue reading All Norwegian, all the time →

Another Advent service tonight, and so another late (and superficial) post.

I’m disappointed, mostly in myself. I set my VCR to tape “Pushing Daisies,” but it didn’t occur to me that under the rules of the new technology I have to engage that digital converter thingy I sent away for. And so I missed the show for the second week in a row.

(TIVO? What’s that? Who do you think I am, Lileks?)

Which wouldn’t be a big deal, except I read that they’ve cancelled “Pushing Daisies.” Soon it will be just a fond memory, a cautionary lesson for network executives not to get too creative, or to respect the audience’s intelligence too much.

In my heart, I’m convinced it’s really my fault. I missed the first couple episodes when it (finally) returned, and now I’ve missed two more, and surely that’s what tipped the scales. Kristin Chenoweth will certainly hunt me down and murder me slowly with a blowtorch.

Which, in winter in Minnesota, is almost a merciful death.

For the record.

Everybody in the conservative world seems to be talking up the possibility that President-elect Obama was conniving with Gov. Blagojevichowitzsteinhoffer to broker his former Senate seat.

From what I’ve heard and read of the Governor’s recorded statements, it seems to me he was quite upset that Mr. Obama wasn’t playing ball with him.

Time may bring new facts to light, but for now I think it’s unwise and uncharitable to play that particular card.

I actually did more this weekend than sit around waiting for tows and feeling sorry for myself. On Sunday, while working on Christmas cards, I watched a couple Favorite Movies.

First Ladyhawke, which I hadn’t viewed in a while. I think that, of all the movies I’m especially fond of, Ladyhawke has to be the cheesiest. It’s not just the jarring musical score. It’s also the stilted dialogue. And the odd costumes. And the fact that we’ve grown accustomed to impressive CGI in our fantasies nowadays, and this production doesn’t measure up. And the plot holes you could ride a war horse through (why, for instance, after you’ve spent a whole day and nearly gotten yourselves killed capturing Etienne [in his wolf form] in a pit, do you just let him go the following morning?).

But the silly thing works. Mainly because the cast is absolutely top-notch. Rutger Hauer in his prime, when he’d freshly dropped his Dutch accent and made himself sound like Kirk Douglas, and was very nearly worthy of the sound. Michelle Pfeiffer at her most luminous (though I could have done without the short haircut). Matthew Broderick when he was still amusing. Leo McKern doing that Leo McKern thing. John Wood as a crazy, evil bishop (though the script—oh, what an innocent age that was—made it clear the Church had rejected him). Even Alfred Molina when he wasn’t famous yet.

And then I watched Scrooge, the musical production with Albert Finney. It’s part of my Christmas tradition to watch three different versions of A Christmas Carol, and this is first in the rotation.

It has many flaws, notably the weakish songs (though I’m quite fond of “December the 25th,” and “Thank You Very Much” always pleases). Tiny Tim makes me want to vomit, but all Tiny Tims do that.

On the plus side, it’s got Albert Finney, young and vigorous but doing a creditable old man. The screenplay benefits from highlighting the failure of his marriage engagement, which focuses his whole character arc.

And it occurred to me on this viewing that the big (rather overblown) production ending actually grafts the climax of the Gospel story of Zaccheus onto Dickens.

Can’t do better than that.