SANTA BLOGS XLIV

Dear Santa Blogs:

     I have a niece who sends me entertaining emails and who really deserves to get a present this year in exchange for all the gloomy Goth humor she sends my way.  But I’ve never shopped for a Goth before and, anyway, I don’t have any idea what kids want for Christmas these days.  Can you help me through my predicament?

                                                            LOST IN THE SENTIMENTS

Dear Lost Sense:

     How wise of you to have consulted a neutral authority!  Of course, there are plenty of gift guides out there, but the majority sponsored by some commercial enterprise or another, and lack considerations of things like cost and convenience.  For example, the possibility of assembling twelve drummers to drum in one place at one time is limited by how much trouble you’re prepared to put up with (not least from your niece’s parents.)

     So it is best to look at these guides for suggestions, but not consider them too literally.  (But don’t outsmart yourself: one of the lost souls on my list did immeasurable damage to his matrimonial prospects by sending his true love eleven plumbers plumbing.  Not a pretty story…no matter how many rentals the video got.)

     It may be best, in fact, to settle for a simple present.  We must understand that not every gift recipient is going to find something this year which makes them jump for joy.

     Tickets to a concert on New Year’s Eve, for example, may be exciting, but involving, as they would, changes to a schedule for that holiday, plus transportation expenses and the possibility of having to be accompanied by a spoilsport parent who will reach down and cover the listener’s ears at certain points in the performance, embarrassing her forever at what was supposed to be a glorious and parent-gobsmacking…where were we?  Anyway, if you don’t know what she likes, you probably aren’t up to date on her musical tastes either, and would probably send her to hear some death metal group she considers dead and gone.

     Sending food has similar dangers.  Is the recipient lactose intolerant?  Allergic to nuts?  Someone with a deep internal loathing of fruitcake?  Perils abound.

     And for goodness sake (my specialty) don’t send pets without a lot of preliminary research.  Sending an Old English Sheepdog to someone in a tiny studio apartment may make sense for January, but would become unbearable in July.

     The response of many people to your quandary is to spend more money, feeling that to goose the price will cover up any ignorance.

     But it honestly is the thought which matters more, even if that thought was only “I wanted to get you something nice but had no idea.”  If your recipient is in the right holiday spirit, she will attend to the first part of that thought and forgive the second.

     You could go back through all those emails she sent you during the year and hunt for clues.  I will assume that you have already done this AND that you are running a little late for doing a lot more research.

     I am also considering the possibility that you have considered just sending a prepaid gift card or plain cash in an envelope.  Many people are shy of this kind of gift, fearing that no matter how much they send, it will strike the lucky recipient as chickenfeed.

     One of our problems nowadays is that we simply expect too much.  Remember that your niece is getting other presents, that it would be piggy to insist that YOUR present be the biggest part of her day.  Resign yourself to the possibility that she will be unimpressed and/or critical of your gift.

     Just do your best and be prepared for a “Better luck next year” response.  Anything too big wouldn’t make it to her through the mails in time at this point anyhow.  That’s the best I can do as a neutral advisor not trying to sell you something.  (Except to point out that vintage postcards are cute, cover a lot of ground, and can be sent in an envelope with first class mail and be pretty much guaranteed to arrive by Christmas.  This neutral advice has been brought to you by….)

SANTA BLOGS XLIII

Dear Santa Blogs:

     What are you doing this year to provide us with a really good Christmas cong controversy?  I rely on this every year as a chaser for all the good will and cheer being tossed at me, and so far, I haven’t heard a peep from you about it.

                                                                                             Grumpy In Chicago

Dear GrInCh:

      Controversy to popular belief, this department does not take care of that particular tradition.  Charles Dickens covered this in the Ghost of Christmas Present section, but I suppose you never read farther than the first part of the book.

     I have observed, myself, a great deal of backlash against the souls who feel the need to point out flaws.  A groundswell of complaint against “Jingle Bells” (which was written for a minstrel show entertainment, it seems) was being countered by yeasayers in August and September, and those who have been pointing out, as usual, that “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” incites gun violence and that “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” AND “Winter Wonderland” each try to smear Christmas with suggestions of illicit sex have been met with “C’mon, Man!”   (Dibs on writing a Christmas C’mon Man song: although I suppose those folks who object to “Good Christian Men, Rejoice” as an exclusionary lyric will have a field day with it.)

     However, inspired by that viral video based on the proper punctuation in “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” (or what have you: one of the earliest printed copies of the song leaves all punctuation OUT of the title, perhaps foreseeing the problem), I would like to note that no one except folklore collector Walt Kelly has pointed out a similar problem with another mispunctuated Christmas classic.

     Kelly was complaining about the violence done to the beloved Christmas anthem “Deck Us All With Boston Charlie”.  I have not heard whether he ever learned about the expert who claimed the song was a hodge-podge of songs composed by prison inmates; I did not see any commentary of his on this weighty topic.  Nay, Kelly was outraged by the inclusion of a comma in some misguided printings of the song.

     He felt people who performed the song as “Deck Us All With Boston, Charlie” were ignoring the years of heartfelt sentiment behind this Yuletide staple, muddying the ancient and traditional meaning.  As is usual with holiday purists, he was mocked for not going far enough by critics who claimed the entire song, with or without comma, was sacrilegious, an accusation Kelly found as funny as the comma.

     I don’t know if this helps, GrInCh, but it DOES bear out the feeling of another scholar, Will Cuppy, that “there’s always something.”

SCREEN SCROOGES: Silent Supplement 4

     Much as the previous silent Scrooges interested me, I am fascinated by the 1914 version.  It runs to 22 minutes (some cuts are abrupt enough to suggest something is missing) and although Charles Rock makes a lively Scrooge, this is decidedly a Cratchit movie.

     We open with Bob Cratchit putting up holiday greenery in the office—just a little, perhaps hoping the boss won’t notice, and then puts coal on the fire just as Ebenezer Scrooge walks in.  Scrooge berates Cratchit for wasting coal, and actually takes a lump of coal OUT of the fire  Spotting the sprig of holly, he throws that down toward the fire, and Cratchit makes THAT face.  (Though Charles Ogle uses a similar face in 1910 when reacting to his employer’s tantrums, George Bellamy is somehow channeling Marty Feldman: even his hair takes on a Feldmanesque cachet.  Scrooge, meanwhile, comes across as something of a phase between the 1913 Seymour Hicks and the 1935 Seymour Hicks.)

     Fred now arrives with his wife, who is so appalled at Uncle Scrooge’s response that she leaves at once.  Fred makes his pitch for Christmas, and Cratchit applauds, for another scolding.  After Fred departs, the charity solicitors appear: Bob tries to hand them two copper coins without the boss seeing.  He is not very successful at this.  He also grooves along with the carolers outside, whom Scrooge threatens with his ruler.  At the end of the work day, Scrooge scolds Cratchit again about the coal, and walks off, when wished a Merry Christmas, to the tavern where, as Dickens noted, he takes his supper.  Before sitting down, Ebenezer takes time to scold the other guests, who are drinking Christmas punch.

     We now follow Bob from the office to the Cratchit house as a contrast to Scrooge’s lifestyle, and to remind us whose movie this really is.  There are roughly four Cratchit children (the number seems to depend on how much room is available in the scene) and they are the smallest, youngest Cratchit children ever.  Tiny Tim hides, rather than Martha.  Once Tim wins the game of hide and seek, we go back to the tavern, where Scrooge pauses to growl again at the revelers on his way out into the snow.  On the way home, Scrooge chases some children, knocks an apple from the hands of an apple seller, and marches on home, where a reasonably scary Marley takes up roughly a third of the front door.

     Scrooge mounts the stairs to a rather flat apartment.  We were shown the stairs because not long after, Marley starts up them as well, pausing to pull bell chains just as Scrooge is taking that bit of gruel.  Reaching Scrooge, he delivers so few lines that it hardly seems worth his walking upstairs.  Scrooge, shocked, staggers to bed.

     A robed man carrying a Christmas tree enters and tells Scrooge to come along, touching Ebenezer’s hand to his heart to uphold him.  But since Scrooge does not have a window, instead of flying, they walk out the door and around the corner into the past.  Ebenezer is shown his younger self weeping at school (the lad is NOT rescued by his sister) and then goes to the Fezziwig party—nine people and a fiddler.  The Scrooge of the present dances along a little, in a melancholy way, and is then walked back home to bed.

     The Ghost of Christmas Present is not very tall, but is dressed in true Ghost of Christmas Present garb.  He also walks Scrooge outside and around the corner.  They arrive at Fred’s party in time for Blind Mans Buff, which Scrooge enjoys, after which Fred proposes a toast to his uncle.  The Niece refuses to drink it but Fred talks her ‘round.  (Is that painting hanging on the wall a portrait of Uncle Scrooge as a young man?  Fred IS attached to family memories.)  Scrooge is having such a good time he objects to being marched out, but it’s time to visit the Cratchits.  THEY drink Bob’s toast to his boss without apparent objection.  Again, Scrooge would like to stay but is taken home to bed.

     He is now wakened by a chap in medieval cloak and cowl, and taken up an invisible flight of stairs to a gravestone WE can’t read.  The title card obliges with “His Own Tombstone”.  He pleads with the spirit, who points up in the air and rises with Scrooge back into Ebenezer’s bedroom.  Scrooge pleads a little more and the spirit leaves.

     Scrooge wakes in the morning, is for some reason amazed to see his bedcurtains, and feels his arms and face to make sure he is still solid.  He thanks God on his knees, and then jumps up, making plans and getting dressed.  (Doesn’t take long: he barely UNdressed the night before.)  Outdoors, he calls out to some children, who back off, suspicious, until he hands them coins from a little pouch we clearly just saw him empty into his pocket (maybe he carries a LOT of money pouches)  The charity solicitors nearly don’t see him, but he stops them and pledges a hundred pounds.  He then goes to the poulterer’s shop and, in a bright, chipper mood, demands the best turkey in the joint.  He has the delivery boy take it with a note “To Bob Cratchit from Mr. Scrooge.”

     We return to the Cratchits’ place, where we are having a good time and then pause to despair over Tiny Tim’s health (since we have not mentioned this so far).  Mrs. Cratchit strays under some mistletoe, and good spirits are restored.  A boy arrives bearing a turkey and Bob is positive there’s been some mistake.  Mrs. Cratchit swoons when she hears it is from Mr. Scrooge.  Bob, eventually convinced the turkey is for him, hands the boy an apple from the table as a tip.  Meanwhile Scrooge is making his way into Fred’s dining room, where the three of them (the Niece, as the titles call her, is not at all frightened) sit down to eat.

     Scrooge hurries to the office early; he is thrilled that Bob is not in yet.  Chilly, he bends down to inspect the fireplace and is grieved to find the holly he threw down on Christmas Eve, and has to wipe his eyes with a kerchief out of the tail pockets of his jacket.  When Bob arrives, Ebenezer has a rough time keeping a straight face as he plays his little joke (again prefiguring the 1935 version).  Cratchit recoils in horror on being told his salary will be doubled, and even after Scrooge has counted all the coins out of a little pouch (another?) and put them back in and put the pouch into Bob’s hand, grabs a ruler to strike down the madman.  Ebenezer finds the threatened assault hilarious, and somehow gets Bob to drop the ruler and believe.  We then “in the days after” see Ebenezer, with Fred and Niece, arriving at the Cratchit home, to be welcomed to the table, where Scrooge bounces Tiny Tim on his knee and BOB raises a mug to call out “God bless us, every one.”

    Scrooge does his very best to hold our attention. The ghosts are not much competition, as usual in the silents, despite Marley’s awesome demeanor.  But George Bellamy’s Cratchit steals the show whenever he appears, though he does have to compete with Mrs. Cratchit, played by Mary Brough (who has no other acting credits the Interwebs could find for me.  Watching her makes me wish this had been a sound picture.)

FICTION FRIDAY: No Cellar Door

     “Welcome, oh seeker of knowledge, to the serene sanctuary of Madame Silsallabeth, whose eye sees all and whose mind…oh wow!”

     “Yeah, I’m back.”

     “Is that Patty?”

     “The last time I was here I was Lucid Student Patricia.”

     “The last time you were here you had two ears.”

     “And ten fingers.  But I still have both middle ones and I’ve saved ‘em both for you.”

     “What happened?”

     “You’re the one who sees all.”

     “Don’t tell me you confronted Mr. Frederickson once I gave you that counterspell.  I told you not to….”

      “And I told you he lived in Pennsylvania.  Even to watch him die, I couldn’t afford to go there.”

     “You had no relief at all?  That spell should at least have neutralized his control of the doll he made of you, and perhaps even reversed his curses.”

      “The pains got better for a while and it didn’t take so long for my eyes to focus in the morning, but then things got way worse.  Notice my hair?”

     “You used to be a blonde.  Did you dye it?”

     “It got ripped out one day.  One long day.  This is a wig.”

     “Perhaps he has a counterspell of his own  Well, let me check the infinite.  Can’t do these things without checking the infinite.”

     “Oh, thank goodness you still have that big crystal ball.”

     “Yes.  With this, I shall seek….”

     “I’ve been imagining where I’m going to shove it when I come around that table.”

     “Violence is so seldom the answer, Lucid Student Patricia.”

     “That crystal hasn’t been much use so far, either.”

     “Ah!  Mr. Frederickson felt the counterspell and knew who sent it.  He hated you more than ever.”

     “So he’s thought of new things to do to the doll.”

     “He’s dead.”

     “Many happy returns.  So it’s got nothing to do with him and it’s got nothing to do with you, huh?  Watch very carefully where I’m holding your crystal ball so you know which way to turn and what to open wide.”

     “He gave orders to his heirs om how to continue torturing you.”

     “So who are they and what are they doing?”

     “They don’t come into your story.  The only one who heard his orders was the nurse, and she assumed he was delirious.  His son threw all his tools of mystic enlightenment away, calling them mumbo jumbo.”

     “Imagine that.  So we’re back to Frederickson is dead and has nothing to do with me any more, and me grabbing that crystal ball and putting it where mystic light don’t….”

     “What’s happened, Patty, is that doll of you is still imbued with malevolent energy.  But it wound up in a dump, where the rats have gotten hold of it.  They’re trying to tear it into nesting material, but it is resisting them.  So except for its hair, fingers and toes….”

     “Ooo-Kay.  So now you curse the rats?”

     “Everyone curses rats.  It never seems to do them any harm.”

     “What, then?”

     “You need to buy long, stiff gloves, and a mask.”

     “Will that ward off the curse?”

     “No.  But it should hold off the rats while you’re fishing through dumps in Pennsylvania to find your doll.”

      “Oh, all-seeing wizard, oh wise one, are you sure you’re seeing me in Pennsylvania and not standing right here about to do a couple of things I only just now thought of with that all-seeing crystal?  YOU go fish through the ratholes.”

     “You were always hasty, Lucid Student.  Do you see that if I go to Pennsylvania, then I will be the one holding your doll?”

     “Maybe you see us going to Pennsylvania together, oh insightful seer, so I can check in the crystal while we’re searching.”

     “I would be the one looking in the….”

     “Not where I’m going to put it.”

     ”Listen, for no additional charge, I can throw in this flute which will help you charm the rats.”

     “I think it would be MUCH more charming to….”

     “And once they have brought you your doll, you can instruct them to build a new den underneath a tombstone that says ‘FREDERICKSON’.”

     “Gimme that.  You’re sounding wise again all of a sudden.  And I guess I can see you later and decide where to put that crystal.”

     “You’ll need me to fully deactivate that doll.”

     “And you’ll need to give me a good reason not to experiment with what rats will do when I tell them.  See you then, oh fount of wisdom.”

     “If you get back before I’ve packed, Lucid Student.”

Fishing for a Laugh

     Last week we went through a quick update on the large number of postcards new to my inventory concerned with dogs and their bladder relief.  Today we will revisit another topic we have considered before: the ever-popular fishing postcard.

     Sending a postcard JUST because you are on vacation is a phenomenon f only the last sixty years or thereabouts.  But the basic custom of sending people word to say how your time off was progressing was established early on.  AND if that respite from labor involved a fishing trip….  So there are several postcards featuring Victorian and Edwardian men, often in a summer straw hat, trying their luck.

     No one was better with a fishing postcard than Teich artist Ray Walters.  His fishermen are very much of a type, but he shows his artistry (and love of fishing?) in is glorious, glorious fish, which appeared only in the dreams (or nightmares) of the dedicated angler.

     What with one thing and another, I’ve never seen a postcard where the omnipresent icons of 1910s postcards, the Dutch kids went fishing.  But they were ahead of their time, as usual, with an early postcard sneering at such tiny fish as could be had these days.  (No, I haven’t had a bunch of the Dutch lids arrive in inventory, so we will not be revisiting them in this series of updates.  This could change without notice, if you are weeping on your screen.)

     If I didn’t expect to see the Dutch kids here, I also didn’t expect to find one of the inspirations for a major fishing movie in postcard form.

     As always, we have the philosophers of fishing, who reflect on how the sport reflects the rest of life.  Romance, as they would no doubt point out, has many angles.

     And in romance as in fishing, either sex can be the hooked (or the hooker.)

     The mishaps of fishing are the most popular theme of fishing postcards.  Did I mention Ray Walters and his glorious, fearsome fish?

     Not catching fish is a perennial topic, and the caption here is an equally perennial complaint of fisherman on their short break from the workaday world.  THIS example also repeats the theme of the really dedicated fisherman, who is so intent on catching fish, he doesn’t even notice what the vacationing fish has come here to see.

     This card concentrates on one theme only: that it IS possible to have a miserable time fishing.

     Of course, if you want to discuss miserable days, you can look over this card, which features a man who wasn’t even going fishing, but caught some anyway.  (You DO see his trunks are hanging on that branch, right?  Anyone who asks what he was using for bait has to stay after class and untangle fishline.)

SCREEN SCROOGES: Silent Supplement 3

     “Scrooge”, rereleased later as “Old Scrooge” for no apparent reason, appeared in 1913 and was the longest (known) version of the story up to that time, clocking in at some forty minutes.  It opens with a little pseudo-documentary beginning with shots of Charles Dickens’s birthplace (with people pointing at it in part so we know this is not just a stil picture) which relates the plight of the Dickenses to that of the Cratchits.  We then see Charles Dickens pacing a little in a book-lined study before sitting down to write “A Christmas Carol”.  This Dickens is the bearded version, though I believe that in 1843, the real Charles hadn’t grown the beard yet.  However….

     We are finally introduced to someone who looks like he just got out of prison and needs a bath.  He limps through the streets of London as though walking is difficult.  If you look closely, you may recognize Sir Seymour Hicks, who had been playing Scrooge on stage for a dozen years at this point and would reprise the role in 1935 as the first talking picture Ebenezer.  This Ebenezer, referred to by one critic as the dirtiest Scrooge in cinema, is not a terror to EVERYONE, as we see him pelted with snowballs by children (“though of course they shouldn’t”, the title tells us.)  When he gets a little peace and sits on a snowy bench to read his account book, we understand at once that he has done this so the children can regroup and jeeringly wish him a Merry Christmas, allowing him to deliver his first thoughts about the holiday.  His apparent difficulty walking reappears as he goes to his office door.  Behind this are steep and inconvenient stairs up to a wood-filled and cheerless office.  Meanwhile, Bo Cratchit, carrying Tiny Tim, has made his way to the same door.  He sets Tim down and sets him to walk home alone (different movie).  Blowing kisses to his son, he is snarled at by Scrooge through the window that it’s time he was at work.  After Bob hurries inside, we watch Nephew Fred approach, “poor and carefree”, and spot the “carolers” (those kids have done no singing up to this point and are now tossing around handfuls of flou…snow) and gives them all his money.

     Fred and Scrooge have their scene together: Fred seems shocked to find his uncle unmerry, and Cratchit rises to show him out long before Fred is ready to go.  Bob then lets in a poor woman begging for money so Scrooge can tell her off, using both the “poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket” line AND the “decrease the surplus population” one.  Bob tries to give her some money quietly, but she gives him away by kissing his hand, allowing Scrooge to threaten that Bob will keep Christmas by losing his position.

     Cratchit makes matters worse not long after that by trying to replenish the fire and is told not to waste coal, as the chill will make him work faster.  And NOW the charity solicitor comes in.  Presumably whoever put this version together wanted a lot of little short scenes and speeches, because otherwise there was no reason for the begging woman at all.  (Maybe they just needed one more female character; somewhere in the cast you will find Ellaline Terriss, Sir Seymour’s wife.)  On leaving, the solicitor shakes hands with Bob, which sends Scrooge into another rage, allowing him to do the “all day tomorrow” speech.  We’re getting everything IN; we’re just doing it in our own order.

     It seems to be a very short work day, for Scrooge now hands Cratchit a new pen, hoping it will make him work harder, and reminds him to be here all the earlier the day after Christmas.    Muttering, Scrooge takes off coat and waistcoat, revealing the scruffy individual we saw at first, pauses to be annoyed by the sound of chimes and carolers, and then puts on a dressing gown.  He fetches a bag of gold that he keeps hidden in his writing desk, and settles into a comfy chair (which has been blocking our view all this time) to count and cuddle it.

     We are told he hears a chain, and a cadaverous man in a sheet moves into sight.  Presumably recognizing this figure, Scrooge drops to the floor in front of the chair where he will writhe through much of the traditional conversation with Jacob Marley.  The ghost does begin this by telling Scrooge “I come to your representing the Ghosts of Christmas past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet To Come”, which the dead man MUST know means nothing much to Scrooge and is just a note to the viewer that this is all they get in the way of ghosts.  We see a younger Scrooge rescued from school by his sister “whom you abandoned in later life” and then we see his fiancée delivering her big speech to us, as we are apparently standing in for Ebenezer.  Scrooge asks why Marley delights in torturing him and Jacob replies that the vision for the present will be a happy family.

     We get a tight shot of the Cratchit Christmas dinner.  As Mrs. Cratchit brings in the goose, Bob proposes a toast to Mr. Scrooge, which his wife objects to.  Bob changes the toast to “us all”, allowing Tiny Tim to chime in with his bless us every one.  Scrooge admits he’s been a fool and asks if Tiny Tim will live.  Jacob delivers the “decrease the surplus population” reply and moves immediately to Tiny Tm’s deathbed, followed by “a neglected tombstone”, on which we read that Ebenezer “died without a friend”.  Scrooge implores for mercy or more time, and collapses when Jacob turns away.  When Scrooge wakens (we know he’s awake because the office desks, which disappeared for a while to make room for the visions, are back) he goes back to pleading, clutching his comfy chair instead of bedcurtains.  Realizing that he is still alive and that it is “not too late for me to have my first Merry Christmas”

     Clapping and laughing and occasionally spinning a hand in the air above his head (something he also does in the 1935 version) he throws open the curtains and windows and calls to a boy we can’t see.  When the boy enters the office, Scrooge grabs him by the collar and demands to know if Tiny Tim is still alive.  Only after he is told that the boy saw Tim does Scrooge ask about the prize turkey.  “Here’s gold.  Gold!”  Scrooge gives him money from a bag hidden inside those baggy pants and tells him to buy the turkey and take it to Bob Cratchit.  And to take a cab.  And to keep the change.  Then, in a move seldom imitated by subsequent Scrooges, he enjoys both the Cheat Ending we mentioned in the main article AND the canonical ending.

     He IMAGINES himself attending the Cratchit Christmas dinner, handing money to all the little Cratchits, kissing Tiny Tim, and causing great hilarity by producing mistletoe and kissing Mrs. Cratchit.  The shabbiest person at the table, he has a good laugh (reminiscent of Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster) and no doubt proposes a “God bless us, every one” toast.  (He got the last word on this in the 1935 version as well.)  Back in reality, he hears carol singers outside the window and desperately scrabbles to get the coins which fell from the bag he was cuddling earlier, so he can throw these.  He then rushes back inside to grab up even more coins to throw to them.  After this he gets dressed (throws the coat and waistcoat back on) to make “Christmas calls”.  We are told this includes dinner with nephew Fred, but do not see this.

     We jump to December 26 as Cratchit rushes into the office late and Scrooge plays his prank, suddenly calling his clerk “Bob” instead of “Cratchit” and eventually ordering him to go out and buy a ton of coal.  He even, apparently, allows BOB to say “God Bless Us Every One”.  Scrooge does get one last swirl of tone hand in the air to end the picture.  (This gesture also turns up several times in the 1935 version.  Must be a British thing; we see Bob make the same gesture on his way out to buy coal.)

     This version does a lot of trimming and a little padding to make its points.  On several points it either misunderstands Dickens’s intention or MAY be cutting corners because it is pressed for time.  Not everything it attempts succeeds.  But it’s a robust retelling and if you like Sir Seymour Hicks’s 1935 Scrooge (not everyone does, but I rejoice in it) then you ought to look over this scruffier take on the old miser.

     Next time: a clone of Seymour Hicks apparently encounters an ancestor of Marty Feldman.

FICTION FRIDAY: Knit Wit

     “Who goes there?”

     “A friend.  Winky sent me.”

     “What’s the password?”

     “More is more.”

     “Enter, friend.  But remember, no telling people….”

     “Oh, jingles!  Owwwww!”

     “Winky should’ve warned you to put these dark glasses on.”

     “The colors!  The….  Thank you, that’s better.”

     “Yes, we wear ‘em all the time.”

     “That explains a lot.  So this is the place all of the….”

     “Not all of ‘em.  But Santa likes to think we turn out the best new ones every year.”

     “Does Santa pick them out?”

     “No, he said he has to save his eyes for making lists.  He appointed Agent Gold, Agent Silver, Agent Green, and Agent Red to judge our designs each year.”

     “And they’re all…experts?  Or just colorblind?”

     “We’re not partial to judgmental strangers, stranger.”

     “I beg your pardon, Ma’am.  It’s just all a bit much to take in.”

     “I understand that.  Apologies accepted.”

     “It must be a challenge every year to produce even uglier Christmas sweaters than last year.”

     “That’s something else we’re not partial to, pilgrim.  We’ve got a poster on the wall about that.”

     “I see.  ‘The Only Ugly Sweater Is An Empty Sweater’.”

     “You should see them shiver when they wind up on the Island of Misfit Sweaters.  But Santa rescues ‘em and finds people who will love them.”

     “I’ve noticed that.  There doesn’t seem to be any sweater too….”

     “Step carefully, mister.”

     “Too unusual to find somebody who will wear it.  I expect they are all nice and warm, and the person wearing one doesn’t have to look at it.”

     “You might just catch on yet, pard.”

     “Don’t some of the designs make you a little uncomfortable, though?  I mean, I have seen several obscene sweaters that seem at odds with the season.”

     “Doesn’t bother Agent Orange.  He came down with Agent Green to be in charge of good taste.”

     “Is he acquainted at all with Charley the Tuna?”

     “If I was old enough to understand that joke, sport, I might resent it.  In that case, I’d have to tell Santa to put someone on the ‘Fruitcakes Only’ list.”

     “I’m sure I meant no offense.  Perhaps I’d better go and not get in the way of your important work.”

     “If you say so.  Now, remember not divulge our location to anyone.  I don’t want all your friends crowding down here to ask for the latest Christmas sweaters.”

     “Oh, if I were you, I wouldn’t sweat that.”

     “Wait, we could use you in the writing department.  We…consarn it, lost another one.”

GOING TO THE DOGS (or vice versa)

)

     Among the highlights of a recent influx of postcards into my inventory is a healthy assortment of dogs.  Now, as we have mentioned hereintofore, the number one activity of dogs on postcards is, well, Number One.  Note this card, for example, in which the puppy’s name, Pee Wee, is pretty much a safety rail to make sure you don’t miss the joke on your way to reading “I am fine.  How are you?” on the flipside.

     As mentioned before, this is a little unfair.  Dogs are capable of doing so many other things.  (My personal favorite in this picture is the underling coming sheepishly, or sheepdogishly, through the door, possibly with a late or negative report.)  But this collection does offer us dogs in roles other than hero of bathroom jokes.

     We can see in this example that they are capable of complex financial negotiations: not exactly WOLVES of wall Street but nonetheless puppies obviously in the know about what to do in business districts.

     In fact, this seems to be a fairly common concept.  The look in THIS dog’s eye, for example, indicates his confidence that he knows what he’s doing.

     But the mid-century canine was also capable of cultural pursuits.  Not only is there one glamourhound starring in the movie here, but one of the moviegoers has been moved to an appreciation of architectural layout.

     And here we see a group of neighborhood activists interested in architectural preservation.

     These might be dogs from the same group, or from another group concerned with ecological pursuits.  Their appreciation of neighborhood beautification is something it would be nice to see in other bland, comfortless areas.

     Of course, from the earliest days, the bloodhound was seen as a competent investigator, on or off the police force, but this does not get as much representation on postcards as it deserves.  Here is a longlost still photograph from the first episode of an early television detective show, airing at a time when you’d think dogeared old bathroom stereotypes were everywhere.  Instead, we see two detectives meeting at the same crime scene, initially suspecting each other of being responsible for the evidence.  (For those who do not remember the show, they eventually team up with the jovial criminal responsible, the family’s pet monkey, to enjoy a long run on TV as the team of Monkey Puppy Baby.)

     In view of all this evidence, it’s hard to imagine why  so many other postcard artists believed all dogs do all day is empty their bladders.  Perhaps some sinister postcard rivals were responsible.

SCREEN SCROOGES: Silent Supplement 2

     This is a supplement to the comparison of film versions of A Christmas Carol, taking a look at the surviving silent versions.  We considered the earliest surviving version, from 1901, last week.  After a lost version of A Christmas Carol made in Chicago in 1908, the next, and first American, Christmas Carol was released by Thomas Edison in 1910.  Marc McDermott was Scrooge, but Bob Cratchit was Edison reliable Charles Ogle, who, I believe is the only actor to appear as Bob Cratchit AND Frankenstein’s monster.

     We open as Scrooge enters his office, shakes snow from himself, and then scolds Bob Cratchit, having spotted a piece of coal missing from the scuttle.  Moe, Shemp, and Larry then barge in, shaking away snow and asking for a charity donation, to be sent away crestfallen at Scrooge’s reply.  Fred then comes in, accompanied by three friends—one male and two female—whom Scrooge sternly bows out again.  Fred, having shaken snow from his jacket, lingers, trying to get at least a Christmas handshake, but gives up.  Cratchit is scolded for putting on a coat, points out the clock, and is sent home.

     Going home himself, Scrooge appears startled by his doorknocker even before a see-through Marley face appears there (a little error in special effects timing) and goes into a room with a bed, a grandfather clock, and an undraped window (so we can see the snow,  Have you guessed yet that this takes place in winter?)  A filmy Marley with a chain hanging around his waist has an argument with Scrooge which you can follow if you remember the story, but fades away after shouting at his old partner.  He is replaced by the Spirit of Christmas; this gives our movie twice as many ghosts as the 1901 version.

     The visions of the past appear in front of the bed.  We see Scrooge’s sister rescuing him from school, the Fezziwig Christmas party (which does pretty well, considering what a small space it has to take place in), and then the breakup with the fiancée.  Scrooge reacts to these, most visibly as he is dancing along to Fezziwig’s fiddler.  The Spirit seems to disappear for a second and then come back, unless there is a difference in costume or face I’m not picking up.  That’s certainly the same fixed grin.

     The visions of the present appear in front of the clock (symbolic of time, or just a prop).  We are told these are scenes of what Scrooge’s money could do) and he frequently reaches for his pocket as he watches the Cratchit family toast his health, and then Fred at the Christmas party, where the young man is forbidden to marry the young lady we saw earlier, being broke.  This is the first but not the last movie where Fred has not yet married Mrs. Fred.  We are then shown the imploring hands of Want and Misery from the bottom of the screen, the Significant Children left out of so many movies.

     The Spirit disappears and comes back with a veil over his head and minus the grin, which makes him at once more human and less interesting.  Scrooge sees himself choking out his last breaths, in front of the housekeeper who, when she is sure the miser is dead, pulls a ring from one of his fingers and hurries away.  We briefly note his tombstone, which states that Ebeneezer Scrooge (sic) “lived and died without a friend”.  Scrooge, shocked, staggers over to collapse on his own bed.

     Scrooge is wakened the next day by carolers, to whom he throws some money.  He hurries around the room, pointing at things, convincing himself it all happened) and hugs his bedclothes for not being torn down.  (They weren’t torn down, actually, but we must move along.)  Heading out, he spots Fred and fiancée entering a building, but then spots those three Charity Stooges (who have snow on their jackets again).  He gives them money and a promise of more.  Fred and his fiancée are heading out again, and he accosts them, scolds them, and then hands his nephew a piece of paper on which he states that as his partner, “my nephew will be able to marry any girl you choose”.  This doesn’t make a LOT of sense, but Scrooge had kind of a sleepless night.

     The three of them head for the Cratchit place, where Scrooge terrifies the family, allowing Fred and fiancée to slip in with a basket of goodies, including a sizeable turkey.  When Cratchit, now armed, has this basket pointed out to him, the holiday spirit is restored, and Scrooge sheds a tear of happiness before Fred and his future niece-in-law hug him.

     It all makes for a reasonable condensed version (ten minutes) of the story.  Marc McDemott is an appropriately threatening and imposing old miser, and if his reformation involves a little too much hand wringing and fist pumping, well, he didn’t get to SAY anything, after all.  This is the last of the really short Christmas Carols.  Three years later, a British version came in at forty minutes, giving it not only space to show more of the story but to play around with it, AND produce a truly unique Ebenezer Scrooge.

FICTION FRIDAY: Grading on the Curve

“We’re glad to see you again.  What have you learned?”

“Well, it isn’t just folklore: your Dead Man’s Curve has indeed been the site of a strange series of fatalities.”

“That’s what we assumed.”

“In 1915, a Mercer Raceabout was the first car to crash, killing its driver.  But the car was salvaged and, two years later, sailed off the same spot, again killing the driver. It was restored but not used again until after the war, when, in 1919, a driver was killed flying off at the same spot.  The car was destroyed in that crash.”

“That’s true.  We knew all that.”

“But in 1921, a pre-war Imp was driven off the cliff at the same spot.  The driver was killed but the car was salvaged.”

“We know that. too.  We want you….”

“The buyer of the wreckage left a diary with a complete account of the renovation of the car.  It was completely rebuilt using parts of other old Imp automobiles from before the war.  There were, at least at this point, NO parts from that 1913 Mercer Raceabout.”

“Ah.  See, Jenkins?  I told you.”

“The Imp was completely destroyed in 1923, when it sailed off the cliff at the same point.  There were no more fatalities until 1925, when a Model T tumbled from the cliff.  The driver was killed.”

“And no parts from that Imp…the name, see, kind of suggests….”

“I have no data on that, but it would have been unusual for a Ford to have been repaired with anything but Ford parts.  The Model-T was easy to repair, it seems, and it survived crashes from that same point in 1927, 29, 1933, and so on, plunging over the same cliff at the same spot every two years, killing its unfortunate driver and sometimes passengers, until the war.  At that point, it waited in a garage until it was donated to a World War II scrap drive.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any way to find out what it was made into.”

“That would be problematic.  But the fatal accidents began again in 1949 When a Ford Sportsman went over the cliff, killing the driver.  The same Sportsman was involved in several crashes until it was in turn destroyed and a Corvette began to take the plunge.  In due course, it became inoperable and then a Triumph crashed in the same spot.  And so on until the present.”

“So all you’ve done is establish that these different cars had no ‘cursed’ parts in common, and that the money the Council spent over the years on exorcists and Native shamans to remove the curses was a waste.  Do you expect payment for that?”

“I did go further, sir.  I was able to engage the services of a reliable medium who, after some work through intermediary spirits, was able to contact the spirit of Billy Ilmandotte.”

“Who?”

“The driver killed in the original crash in 1915.”

“Ah!  Now you’ve got something.”

“Yes, sir.  It was not what I expected, however.  I frankly thought that Mr. Ilmandotte wished to avenge his own death by killing other drivers.”

“No?”

“No, sir.  What his restless spirit is actually doing is possessing cars that he likes and forcing the drivers eventually to go somewhere by way of Dead Man’s Curve just to show he CAN make it around that corner at that speed.  He’s sure he just needs the right car and the right timing.”

“I see.  So can you think of any way to convince his spirit to go somewhere else?  Can this medium you employed do something along those lines for us?”

“Well, actually, sir, since I also found out how much the City Council has spent over the last century on candlemongers and shamans and priests, I did wonder why you don’t just put up a guard rail.”

“That seems…what?  Yes, Jenkins here is right.  Why spend tax money on a thing like that when we only have one person killed up there every two years?  We wouldn’t need it all once this fellow…wait.  Do you suppose if we awarded him a posthumous trophy for making it around the corner that he’d take that as a sign he was finished?  Silver, yes, Jenkins, with a mahogany base and….”