The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit’s house; the dwelling he had visited before; and found the mother and children seated around the fire.
Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were still as statues in one corner, and sat looking at Peter, who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet!
“And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them.”
Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not go on?
The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her face.
“The colour hurts my eyes,” she said.
The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!
“They’re better now again,” said Cratchit’s wife. “It makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn’t show weak eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It must be near his time.”
“Past it, rather,” Peter answered, shutting up his book. “But I think he’s walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings, Mother.”
They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a steady, cheerful voice, that only faultered once.
“I have known him walk with—I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed.”
“And so have I,” cried Peter. “Often.”
“And so have I!” exclaimed another. So had all.
“But he was very light to carry,” she resumed, intent upon her work, “and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble—no trouble. And here is your father at the door!”
Some filmmakers are in a hurry to get to the BIG scenes, and skip past this, with Bob Cratchit already on the scene, or just arriving. Those screenplays which do include it do most of it as written, but generally have Mrs. Cratchit’s eyes weakened not by the color, but by something else handy. Those who know about such things have explained that the women are sewing funeral garments, which are naturally black: hence the line about “The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!” The boom Peter is holding is likely a Bible, the line spoken is from Matthew 18, and, if continued, would have reached the admonition to turn and become like a child. Dickens’s first generation of readers would have known this, and correctly applied the line to Tiny Tim.
March. Magoo, Matthau, and McDuck skip the scene. Sim II sweeps through the streets to the Cratchits’, but enters in the next sequence. In Stewart, the Spirit raises the sleeve it did not raise in that previous transition, and we see Bob coming home.
Hicks sees Mrs. Cratchit weeping as she leaves an upstairs room; She descends to where her daughters are definitely sewing away at black garments. Peter reads as in the text. Tucking away her handkerchief, Mom smiles encouragement to them all. Sitting to sew, she has to turn away, saying “The colour hurts my eyes–makes them weak by candle-light” and so on, trying to smile throughout to show she’s all right, really. The children are all very solemn. We see a shot of Bonb trudging home, and she exclaims, “There’s your father at the door!”
Owen peers through the window (the Cratchits ALWAYS have a large window just where it’s convenient for passing Spirits and misers) and finds Cratchits at work on black garments. Peter himself is all in black. The dialogue is performed as written.
Sim I arrives as Peter is reading from Psalm 91, concerning the long life granted to those who know the name of the Lord. At one point, apparently in her thoughts since her lips aren’t moving, Mrs. Cratchit takes over the reading; our eyes stray to the empty seat in the chimney corner. Peter begins to feel the silence; he turns and asks “Shall I stop reading?” “No, no. It’s only the colour. It hurts my eyes.” The dialogue proceeds as written, Peter staring straight ahead throughout. Mrs. Cratchit breaks down just after “no trouble—no trouble”, as we hear Bob’s footsteps at the door.
This is Rathbone’s first stop with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Martha and Mrs. Cratchit are sewing while Peter just stands and watches. Most of the dialogue is here, except for the colour hurting Mrs. Cratchit’s eyes.
Haddrick drops through a sky shot to the house in time to hear Mrs. Cratchit wondering where Bob is. The dialogue proceeds from there, with one shot of the empty stool and the ownerless crutch. “And there’s your father at the door!”
The Spirit directs Finney away from the parade in his honor. Pouting a bit, Scrooge walks over to the window indicated. Mrs. Cratchit complains about her eyes and Bob’s lateness. Peter notes that his father has walked a little more slowly the last few evenings. She replies with the line about carrying Tiny Tim; they all look to the crutch. “Where is Tiny Tim?” Scrooge pleads. “Take me to him?”
Scott recognizes the neighborhood. “There must be some confusion. Your fellow Spirit brought me here earlier.” The Ghost points, and Scrooge moves on, grumbling, “Very well.” He glances back at his companion. “You’re devilish hard to have a conversation with.” Peter reads as in the text; the women are sewing ordinary rags. The children are solemn as Mrs. Cratchit complains about her eyes. “This work makes my eyes red, and I wouldn’t show red eyes to your father when he comes home. Not for the world.” The rest of the sequence proceeds as written.
Caine pleads, “Let me see some tenderness connected with this world, or I’ll be haunted by that terrible conversation forever.” He is profoundly grateful to recognize the Cratchit house, and says so, calling it “A place of joy and laughter.” Then he hesitates. “It’s so quiet. Why is it so quiet, Spirit?” The Ghost merely points; after another pause, Scrooge looks through the window. We discover Mrs. Cratchit in the same position as in our first sight of her, and, just as at that juncture, her daughters come up to accuse her of something. This time, though, they say she is crying. And once again, she denies it all immediately. “Oh, it’s just the lamplight…it hurts my eyes.” Scrooge guesses. “Not Tiny Tim!” Mrs. Cratchit explains about not wanting to show weak eyes to their father, and remarks how late he is. Peter, turning the spit for Christmas dinner as before, haltingly notes that his father has walked a little slower these last few evenings. Bob enters.
Curry exclaims, “This is too harsh to bear. Let me see some tenderness connected with a death, I beseech you.” “The lamp is so bright it hurts my eyes,” Mrs. Cratchit explains to her family around the kitchen table. “I must not show weak eyes to your father when he comes home. It must be near his time.” Martha answers that her father has walked more slowly these last few evenings. The two speeches about Tim follow.
Gather round, kiddledybooks! It is that time you wait breathlessly for: the appearance of Uncle Blogsy’s Annual Holiday Shopping Guide! We will once again…..What’s that? You don’t recall Uncle Blogsy’s Annual Holiday Shopping Guide from last year? Listen, mistletoe meatball, these annual traditions have to get their start somewhere. You didn’t realize you’d been waiting for the First Annual Holiday…kiddo, I hope you get sticks and coal. And not nice BIG lumps of coal but those miserable little gravelly ones.
Anyhoo, for those of you who are willing to play along, we are going to examine postcard suggestions of what you can buy for your nearest and dearest. A nice and decorative utensil, for example, perhaps an antique, is always a surprise to the recipient, and something they’ll remember whenever they think of you. (“That looks like Uncle Jasper coming up the sidewalk. Get that weird pitcher out and put it on the coffee table!”)
A utensil they need is always welcome, as well. Having a relative who keeps losing their watch or their pocket knife is an ever refreshing well of suggestions.
Of course, something vintage and useful and wonderful perfectly describes, say, any of the vintage postcards Uncle Blogsy has for sale. Take this one, for example. Yake it, but don’t GIVE it to anybody unless you are REALLY sure of their sense of humor and can include it with, say, a bottle of good champagne or a fifty-pound box of chocolates.
This sort of postcard certificate comes in all manner of varieties, and is BOUND to add a note of cheer to any family get-together. (Has anybody written a Hallmark movie called “Holiday Tear-Apart”? Dibs!)
If you are somehow determined NOT to give your deserving and long-suffering relatives postcards, there are always boring things like jewelry. Birthstone jewelry hints that you actually remember when the person’s birthday is, too, which should score you extra points. (Although a birthstone jewelry POSTCARD would be even…okay, okay.)
For those especially dear deserving friends, there are, as always, lacy garments which can be excused by the recipient on the grounds of how much egg nog you’ve imbibed. (This fine postcard, by the way, was created by gluing actual lace to the card. Excellent bargain if you know someone named Alma.)
Lace or no lace, and in spite of those great Fruit of the Loom commercials of a few years back, you should probably think twice before buying anyone underwear. It’s not that you shouldn’t do this, of course; Uncle Blogsy just wants you to be a little discriminating in your choices, pine cone casserole. I KNOW your Uncle Jasper, and he would appreciate those socks with the naughty gingerbread boy on them, but think twice before sending Aunt Petunia that sport bra featuring the Elf on a Shelf. (Aunt Booney would be jealous anyhow, if she didn’t get one, too. You don’t want to start any NEW family…wait. I’m getting ideas for the plot of that Hallmark movie.)
In some cases, of course, a nice check would be the all-around gift. (A gift card, of course, would be almost as useful in this newfangled century. Either way, be prepared for the traditional holiday joke about exchanging it for a larger size.)
These are just suggestions, of course. Naturally, there are people to whom you will extend the Grand Gesture. Go ahead. Knock yourself out. It’s just once a year, after all.
Pop songs are just like pop singers. If they want to become really, really big, they have to be prepared to take a lot of abuse. A song which becomes popular has to deal with critics who find it shallow, derivative, and overly simple (which some critics feel are basic requirements for even being a popular song), listeners who find it annoying, extremely bad singers who do their own versions, and, of course, the song parodists, from skilled comedians to the kids on the playground who can find a bedroom or bathroom theme in any song that ever existed. (I recall fights on the playground over the Winston cigarette jingle parody, of which there were two competing versions: one in which the singer smokes “cotton-picking paper” and one involving “dirty toilet paper”, the latter being a parody of a parody.)
And then there are the cartoonists, postcard or otherwise, always willing to exploit the public’s familiarity with a tune. (HOW many cartoons did I see in the day of Frankenstein’s monster and a detached body part with the caption “I Want To Hold Your Hand”? For a few years…oh, yes, that was a song. Look it up under ancient history.) The pop song didn’t have to be a current hit, as seen in these ironic interpretations of “Home, Sweet Home”, a song loved and parodied. The fact that the author of this immortal hymn to home was single, and never owned a home, was not lost of postcard publishers, either.
But we can’t spend an entire blog on John Howard Payne’s creation. There are songs which could use more attention, having passed from the peak of their former popularity into obscurity. Annie Moore was a celebrity of sorts in her day, the first immigrant processed at Ellis Island, but it was her name, not her story, which attracted a songwriter, who wrote that we’d never see “Sweet Annie, sweet Annie any more.” We ignore both story and song for this picture, though.
Here we have an example of applying a title to a picture which COULD logically fit the line but doesn’t. The original was a lovelorn song, not at all involving Hubby’s late hours.
At least these folks ARE being “rocked in the cradle of the deep”, though they are hardly laying themselves down in peace to sleep. The original hymn (a good seventy years old by the time this card was published) WAS asking for God to watch over someone’s rest and safety at sea, so perhaps this isn’t as far from the original as that last example.
On the other hand, this hymn had nothing to do with railroad tracks, rails or ties.
This postcard keeps a little of the philosophy of the original, but switches the roles. This early twentieth century hit, which spawned a LOT of movie dialogue, was a bachelor’s song about how great is was to live alone, so you can eat and drink whenever you want. To judge by their facial expressions, this bachelor is completely surprised by someone who wants what SHE wants when she wants it.
While this one, and half a dozen like it, keeps only the title and changes the subject. We have spoken of Bert Williams, and how so many of his hit songs were swiped for postcards. If you recall, this was a song about financial troubles, NOT about the problems of the seasick. (Nor, as mentioned hereintofore, the processes of the laxative company which swiped the song for its advertising.)
And let us finish with another song that launched a thousand postcards. I would guess, though I have not seen enough to prove it, that some postcard cartoonist, as some time or another, has depicted just about anything the can be done in the shade of an old apple tree being done there (even if sometimes the tree trunk…well, that’s a whole nother blog, really.)
“If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion caused by this man’s death,” said Scrooge quite agonized, “show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!”
The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing; and, withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and two children were.
She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; for she walked up and down the room; started at every sound; looked out from the window’ glanced at the clock; tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly bear the voices of the children at their play.
At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was care-worn and depressed, though he was young. There was a remarkable expression on it now; a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress.
He sat down to the dinner which had been hoarding for him by the fire; and when she asked him faintly what news (which was not until after a long silence), he appeared embarrassed how to answer.
“Is it good?” she said, “or bad?”—to help him.
“Bad,” he answered.
“We are quite ruined?”
“No. There is hope yet, Caroline.”
“If HE relents,” she said, amazed, “there is! Nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened.”
“He is past relenting,” said her husband. “He is dead.”
She was a mild and patient creature, if her face spoke truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of her heart.
“What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last night, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a week’s delay, and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid me; turns out to have been quite true. He was not only very ill, but dying, then.”
“To whom will our debt be transferred?”
“I don’t know. But before that time we shall be ready with the money; and even though we were not, it would be bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creature in his successor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline!”
Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The children’s faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what they so little understood, were brighter, and it was a happier house for this man’s death! The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure.
“Let me see some tenderness connected with a death,” said Scrooge, “or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just now, will be for ever present to me.”
This scene always appealed to ME, but I guess it’s wrong to introduce new characters so late in the story. In any case, only two versions bother with Caroline and her husband, and only Stewart does much about them.
Haddrick demands, “But is there no one in this city who feels some emotion for this poor man? If there is, show me that person, I beseech you!” But the Spirit takes him to the Cratchit house.
Stewart asks “Is there no one who feels emotion at this man’s death?” The Ghost raises one arm; the scene comes out of his sleeve. A thin woman carries a baby along a poor street and stops before a door. Seeing a shabbily-dressed young man approach, she turns; they converse on the doorstep. Their dialogue follows the text from “Is it good or bad?” to “He is dead.” She then asks to whom their debt will be transferred, and he gives most of the textual reply. Her face slowly brightens, and when he has finished, declares, with shaking voice, “I never thought a death could bring such happiness!” All tears and smiles, she falls against the man’s shoulder. Scrooge shakes his head. “No no. Show me some tenderness connected with a death!”
The Interwebs, when it is not shooting me news stories it knows will upset me enough to open them, has been tossing seasonal trivia my way: what you don’t know about Thanksgiving turkeys, what you don’t know about Christmas trees, what you don’t know about A Christmas Carol. They are apparently unaware that I am a blogger and know almost everything.
One of the things I didn’t know was that, besides being a box office bust, the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” got a lot of complaints because it violated the rules about morality in Hollywood movies. These rules were starting to come apart a little when George Bailey had his crisis, but they were still there. And it had clearly violated one of the longstanding rules of morality imposed on Hollywood productions: the rule that anyone who commits a crime in the movie MUST be punished.
See, when Old Man Potter (some people’s very favorite Holiday Scrooge) hangs onto the money Uncle Billy accidentally gives him, he is committing an illegal act. And yet, when last seen in the picture, he is the same cheerfully hateful curmudgeon, glowing in the belief that he has brought ruin to the hero. And this was taboo. (I think Frank Capra got it right: not only would giving the banker his comeuppance have introduced a lot of distracting business to the ending, it would have meant the cop, Bert, wouldn’t have been able to go arrest George and thus attend the Christmas party.)
So, in the name of bygone conventions, I felt we should cover the aftermath of the crimes committed by heroes of postcards in our last column.
See, punishment was regarded as humorous by our cartoonists as well as the original crimes. (Must do that spanking blog one of these days, to show how some of them REALLY got into it.) So the wild, macho types who are holding guns on citified wimps in some postcards wind up with their heads shaved and their legs weighed down by chains and heavy iron spheres.
The ball and chain would seem to be essential to the gag, which generally involves a message that the sender is going to be a little later than expected. A barred window also helps show the protagonist’s plight, thus enhancing the definite nature of the sender’s difficulties.
The cliché of breaking big rocks into little rocks doesn’t turn up all that often here, but the business did exist. And you will observe that Wheeling, West Virginia, a city blessed by comedians for generations, was also present for the busy cartoonist.
You may also notice that, just like the postcards in the last column, we are somehow made to feel sympathy for the crook here. Life in prison, though it might be funny, was not especially fun. And as OUR lives are not always a basket of victories, we understand the prisoner’s emotions.
Laughing at them at the same time.
After all, as we were told in those days and continue to be told today, we have to make the best of things, and accept our lot. Those who grumble at what has come their way will never stop grumbling, we are told, and we must always look on the bright side, laughing at our troubles and enjoying the little benefits which come our way.
I try, Heaven knows, to run a lighthearted blog, which tries to avoid current issues and the dark side of life. (Okay, we just had a blog where the hero considers a corpse. Yes, we did discuss profanity a few columns ago. If you’re not going to work with me on this, you’ll get nothing but turkey sandwiches for the rest of this week, too.)
But the time has come to address a pressing problem: is there too much violent crime on postcards? What is it teaching our young people? (Whom we must protect from every possible influence we disagree with, even if that influence is over a century old and would not have even been noticed by them unless we told them not to look, and…sorry. Got stuck in the twenty-first century there for a moment.)
Aside from public drunkenness, and the occasional pickpocket, as seen at the top of this column, crime generally involved a thug with a gun. Sometimes it was an urban thug and sometimes a bandit from the Old West tradition. This one is also unusual in that it involves a more practical plan than most: one man to hold the mark steady with the guns while another goes through those pockets.
This masked malefactor, for example, could be in trouble if that rather robust victim decides to take a swing at the weapon involved (admittedly a fifty-fifty proposition, and he IS a bigger target. Still, he looks as if he could do it and is just waiting for the right moment.)
Another practical consideration which you see being practiced more often on postcards is choice of victim. The victim is almost always better dressed than the crook (A man who was dressed for the city was guaranteed to be a weakling, lacking the strength and moxie of the rough-dressed denizen of the underworld. AND he was unlikely to be packing a gun himself. There is the faintest hint in a lot of these postcards that our sympathy is supposed to be with the daring bandit, and not the wimpy victim. This may be why you almost always see a MALE victim. Robbing a woman–unless she was the crook’s wife, of course–would have roused a chivalric impulse and spoiled the joke.)
In postcards of the nineteen-oh-somethings, you almost never see the cartoonist letting the victim catch a break. Some of this continues in later postcards.
This gag, for example, exists in numerous cards by numerous artists.
But as the world moved toward the era of the daring bank robber and powerful gangster, the Dillinger and/or Capone years, we begin to see more postcards where the joke is on the bandit. Maybe this was more acceptable if the victim was female, because this turning of the tables often features a woman.
Approaching a point at which we have to wonder just who the victim is. (Note, also, that the gun and the punchline are almost always on the same side. I suppose humor depends on who gets the last shot.)
He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed; on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful language.
The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man.
Scrooge glanced toward the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger on Scrooge’s part, would have disclosed the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it; but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre ay his side.
Oh, cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy dominion! But of the loved, revered, and honored dead, thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand WAS open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a man’s. Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal!
No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge’s ears, and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. Ge thought if this man could be raised up now, what would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard dealing, griping cares? They have brought him to a rich end, truly!
He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child, to say he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What THEY wanted in this room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think.
“Spirit!” he said, “this is a fearful place. In leaving it, I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go!:
Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head.
“I understand you,” Scrooge returned, “and I would do it, if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I have not the power.”
This corpse scene is frequently left out: not, I suspect, because it is nasty (though even those filmmakers who use it leave out the rats and the cat) but because it is one of the most difficult scenes for screenwriters dealing with a delicate problem. It is getting harder and harder to have scrooge see all these scenes and still not suspect that they are (spoiler alert) dealing directly with his own future. He is still convinced this all deals with a dead stranger, or at most a business acquaintance, and to show him now standing, without realizing it, in his own bedroom runs the risk of making him seem a complete chucklehead.
It’s all very well for Dickens to say it is dark, or for me to point out that when confronted with a corpse few of us are going to observe much about the furniture. A screenwriter cannot distract us with that marvelous paragraph on Death and the unloved, and only a few even make the attempt at all.
Hicks just looks at the body and demands, tragically, “Is this the man they spoke of? Neglected? Robbed? Hated? Can you not show me some tenderness connected with death?”
Owen stands by the bed. He tries to reach out, but gives up, stepping back. He seems more discouraged than frightened, and looks a plea to the Ghost. “Is death always like this? Is it never followed by sorrow and weeping?”
Haddrick reaches toward the sheet, but pulls away. “I can’t look, Spirit. I can’t.”
Sim II finds himself in a very dark room, looking at a body feetfirst. The Ghost points. We get both of Scrooge’s speeches, and then, “Let me see some tenderness connected with a death.”
Curry, as the Spirit raises an arm, finds himself in a large, empty room, where WE, at least, immediately recognize the tiled fireplace. He puts out one shaking hand, but before things can go further, the thieves arrive and we move into the scavenger section described in the last section.
Scott passes a quick shot of his doorknocker and then sees the body on the bed. He asks to leave here; thunder cracks. When the Ghost points, Scrooge reaches for the bed and then pulls back. “No, I will not. This you cannot make me do. I say I understand you: that is sufficient to the moment. Furthermore, there must be someone in this city that feels emotion at this man’s death. I demand to see that person.” A streak of lightning passes, and he also is taken to the ragpicker scene of the last section.
Stewart is in a very dark room. He delivers only the second speech, splitting it in two. He tries to reach out to the body, and finds he can’t.
I admit that, despite my omnipresence on the Interwebs, that I am not in the mainstream of pop culture. I am kept so busy producing brilliant work that I have o time to attend to the alerts on radio, TV, and social media. So I do not know yet what this year’s big controversy is in the world of Christmas music.
If you are among the multitudes who are in a store, realize suddenly that the seasonal Muzak is playing, lower your head, and soldier on, you may be unaware that at least one song each year is targeted by the uncommonly sensitive who have appointed themselves unofficial advisers to the rest of us. These stories do sometimes make the evening news, but unless you are a subscriber to some service which alerts you to things which are unclean, unworthy, and otherwise evil (and even then, you will probably get only one side of the protests, as these come from many directions) you may have missed the last few decades, from the move to erase “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” from radio playlists through the more recent effort to ban “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”
Well, as noted, I am not up to date on this sort of thing, but I CAN let you know about a few of the controversies about what will be playing in the background everywhere you go (to quote on of the controversial songs.)
JINGLE BELLS: You have to be a thorough purist to object to this number, which in the United States is THE musical cue to let audiences know it’s winter, or that Yuletide is approaching. But there are those who refuse to sing it at Christmas on the grounds that it was WRITTEN as a Thanksgiving song. Just like “Over the River and Through the Woods”, this was meant to tell of a trip during November, primarily in regions where there is more snow that month. The whole problem bothered one writer so much that somewhere toward the beginning of the twentieth century, someone wrote a new verse, specifically mentioning Christmas, so it would be okay. This does not fool the Truly Traditional.
GOD REST YE MERRY, GENETLEMEN: Yes, I know, but I was taught that’s where the comma was meant to be. This song has been banned and rewritten in several markets for several reasons. One church group had it removed from the hymnal on the grounds that the Gentlemen were so Merry because they were drunk, and this had no place in a sacred service. Other groups have pointed out that women are not included in the title, and the lyrics are thus not inclusive enough. This resulted in a new version called “God Rest Ye Merry Gentle Friends.” The same controversy has plagued “Good Christian Men Rejoice”, which is now frequently sung with the first line in the original Latin, “In Dulci Jubilo . Some versions make the second line rhyme with Jubilo, and some keep the second line as it was, even if it doesn’t rhyme.
IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS: It’s that jaunty little bit in the middle, where we learn BOYS want a pair of Hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots, thus not only forcing violent toys and male children but also endorsing the theft of the West from the native inhabitants) while GIRLS want dolls, which reinforce typical stereotyped sex roles in a patriarchal society. Some rewriters have simply switched two names, making the guns the choice of Barney and Jen, while the dolls are for Janice and Ben (spoils the alliteration of the original, but it’s in a good cause.) And that bit about Mom and Dad wanting school to start again suggests that adults don’t want to spend quality time with their families.
HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS: The FIRST rewrite of this song came at the very beginning, when Judy Garland complained to the songwriter that the song was WAY too depressing, whereupon it was rewritten as we know it. However, in later years, the songwriter went through a religious conversion, and was troubled by the line “if the Fates allow”, since this referred to a non-Christian mythical entity, and rewrote it himself as “if the Lord allows”. It was his song, and his conscience, so I GUESS it passes muster, but gee whiz.
We do not have room here to continue through the entire controversy of “Winter Wonderland” (I heard a neighbor of mine rebuke the organizer of a Christmas singalong in 1997 or thereabouts for including such a scandalous song in the program), or Poor Little Jesus Boy, or The Little Drummer Boy, or…. But the overly sensitive are always on the lookout—that’s what Social Media is FOR—and there will be more exclamations of dismay this year. Away in a Manger may be up for attack again, or even Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Keep your ears open. In the meantime, I’m going for a walk. Sleigh bells ring—are you listening? In the lane….
One of the saddest, funniest book donations I received, and due to the nature of the donor, I received it more than once, as she donated things in small, easy installments, was a collection of books on the subject of, um, how to win friends and influence people. Nah, let’s put it right out there. She was donating her collection of books on how to catch a man.
There’s a large literature on this and, naturally, plenty of books on how to catch a woman. And there is no shame in buying these, especially, either on the part of someone who is just figuring out that meeting people you want to become involved with romantically can be awkward, OR for experienced rovers who want to know if there’s any gambit they’ve missed. I would not have observed anything amiss about her owning one, two, or a half dozen such books. It was never my job to criticize anybody’s reading choices, and I hope things stay that way.
BUT I had noticed in other books her habit of dog-earing pages she wanted to return to. She also highlighted pages. A LOT. Sometimes a whole page would be highlighted, and she’d go back and underline things as well. That this renders a book almost impossible to resell was not her concern, and she was not alone in this among my donors.
But these books on how to meet a man exceeded even her books on how to get a job. See, you can dog-ear a page by folding down a corner. You can double dog-ear a page by taking that folded corner and folding part of it back up. In these books, she had highlighted, underlined, dog-eared, double dog-eared, triple dog-eared, and even quadruple-dogeared pages. Some of these books were three times as thick at the top as they were at the bottom. They had been rendered unsaleable except as art objects. She had really STUDIED these books (and apparently had no qualms about passing them along to people who might mention how thoroughly she had studied them. I did hint at this once, and received the answer I expected: she thought EVERYBODY did that.)
What she would have done with a man if she’d gotten one is unclear, as she told me about a number of her broken relationships over the years. They frequently ended when…but we are taking a long detour to get to what I wanted to talk about, which was the pick-up line. (We do not have the space, nor I the degree in psychology, to discuss her romantic life, real or imagined.)
Postcards of the past have plenty of suggestions, some for first encounters, some meant more for use on people you knew somewhat, but wanted to tell that you were interested in knowing them better. I have my doubts about how well some of them would work, but there are passive ones, aggressive ones, and passive-aggressive ones, so take your pick.
I do know someone else who studied the question at length, and was much impressed by a book which suggested a general approach was best. Everyone, it noted, was willing to talk about food, so that was a non-threatening way to get someone to talk to you. Start with something noncontroversial, it suggested, like “Some of my friends don’t eat breakfast” or “Do you like cheese?”
She reported that “Do you like cheese?”, in actual practice, never got QUITE the response she was going for. In fact, rather than attracting men, it had the opposite response.
Another acquaintance of mine, on meeting a young lady who sparked his interest (so to speak), who try a simple opening line of “Will you marry me?” This had pretty much the same immediate response as “Do you like cheese?” The lady would back away a bit and whisper to someone nearby “How much has he had to drink?” But her interest (and eyes) would grow on learning that the man in question didn’t drink at all. So this line, at least, won some response.
So choose what you like from those approaches, or the possibilities offered by the postcards of our ancestors. Let me know what happens, but remember the first rule of dating: bloggers assume no responsibility if you wind up in court.
They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before although he recognized the situation, and its bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow, the shops and houses wretched; the people half-naked, drunken, slip-shod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets, and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery.
Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed, beetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal, were brought. Upon the floor within, were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would like to scrutinize were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a charcoal-stove, made of old bricks, was a fray-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age; who had screened himself from the cold air without, by a frousy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters, hung upon a line; and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement.
Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman, similarly laden, came in too: and she was closely followed by a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight of them, than they had been upon the recognition of each other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh.
“Let the charwoman alone to be the first!” cried she who had entered first. “Let the laundress alone to be the second; and let the undertaker’s man alone to be the third. Look here,, old Joe, here’s a chance! If we haven’t all three met here without meaning it!”
“You couldn’t have met in a better place,” said old Joe, removing his pipe from his mouth. “Come into the parlour. You were made free of it long ago, you know, and the other two an’t strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop. Ah! How it skreeks! There an’t such a rusty bit of metal in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I’m sure there’s no such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha! We’re all suitable to our calling, we’re well matched. Some not the parlour. Come into the parlour.”
The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, and having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night), with the stem of his pipe, put it in his mouth again.
While he did this, the woman who had already spoken threw er bundle on the floor and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and looking down with a bold defiance at the other two.
“What odds then! What odds, Mrs. Dilber?” said the woman. “Every person has a right to take care of themselves. HE always did!”
“That’s true, indeed!” said the laundress. “No man more so.”
“Why then, don’t stand staring as if you was afraid woman; who’s the wiser? We’re not going to pick holes in each other’s coats, I suppose?”
“No, indeed!: said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. “We should hope not!”
“Very well, then!” cried the woman. “That’s enough. Who’s the worse for the loos of a few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose.”
“No, indeed,” said Mrs. Dilver, laughing.
“If he wanted to keep ‘em after he was dead, a wicked old screw,” pursued the woman, “why wasn’t he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he’d have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself.”
“It’s the truest word that ever was spoke,” said Mrs. Dilber. “It’s a judgement on him.”
“I wish it was a little heavier one,” replied the woman; “and it would have been, you may depend upon it, if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open the bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out plain. I’m not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to see it. We knew pretty well that we were helping ourselves, before we met here, I believe. It’s no sin. Open the bundle, Joe.”
Vut the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first, produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A deal or two, a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no great value, were all. They were severally examined and appraised by Old Joe, who chalked the sums he disposed to give for each, upon the wall,, and added them up not a total when he found there was nothing more to come.
“That’s your account,” said Joe, “and I wouldn’t give another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it. Who’s next?”
Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two big old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall in the same manner.
“I always give too much to ladies. It’s a weakness of mine, and that’s the way I ruin myself,” said old Joe. “That’s your account. If you aske for another penny, and made I an ope question, I’d repent of being so liberal and knock off half-a-crown.”
“And now undo MY bundle, Joe,” said the first woman.
Jow went down on his knees for the greater convenience of opening it, and having unfastened a great many knots, dragged out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff.”
“What do you call this?” said Joe. “Bed-curtains?”
“Ah!” said the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her crossed arms. “Bed-curtains!”
“You don’t mean to say you took ‘em down, rings and all, with him lying there?” said Joe.
“Yes I do,” replied the woman. “Why not?”
“You were born to make your fortune,” said Joe, “and you’ll certainly do it.”
“I certainly shan’t hold my hand, when I get anything in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as he was, I promise you, Joe,” returned the woman coolly. “Don’t drop that oil upon the blankets now.”
“His blankets?” asked Joe.
“Whose else’s do you think?” replied the woman. “He isn’t likely to take cold without ‘em, I dare say.”
“I hope he didn’t die of anything catching? Eh?” said old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up.
“Don’t you be afraid of that,” returned the woman. “I an’t so fond of his company that I’d loiter about him for such things, if eh did. Ah! You may look through that shirt till your eyes ache; but you won’t find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It’s the best he had, and a fine one, too. They’d have wasted it, if it hadn’t been for me.”
“What do you call wasting of it?” asked old Joe.
“Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure,” replied the woman with a laugh. “Somebody was fool enough to do it, but I took it off again. If calico isn’t good enough for such a purpose, it isn’t good enough for anything. It’s quite as becoming to the body. He can’t look uglier than he was in that one.”
Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat grouped around their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man’s lamp, he viewed them with detestation and disgust, which could hardly have been greater, had they been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself.
“Ha, ha!” laughed the same woman, when old Joe, producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their several gains upon the ground. “This is the end of it, you see! He frightened every one away from him when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!”
“Spirit!” said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. “I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is this?”
Well, now. Just about everybody loves these rascals: they provide a quick dash of nastiness in a tale of good will. The company will vary, with the den of garbage not QUITE so nasty as Dickens wrote it up (filmmakers making do with darkness and clutter) but it is hard to resist the delight and horror of those bed curtains, torn down, rings and all. And it is delicious, too, to see the death of some old miser being an occasion for buying and selling.
Several versions give us the corpse scene first, as a natural answer to Scrooge’s concern with who is dead. And some lighter, quicker versions—Owen, March, Finney, and McDuck—skip this business establishment.
Hicks gives us a smoky store, cluttered and dark and inspired by German expressionist film. Joe is a smallish fellow with a clay pipe; we watch the three conspirators arrive separately. They peer at each other, suspicious, and then laugh as they realize the coincidence. They deliver just the high points of Dickens’s dialogue. We see some of the totals old Joe chalks on the wall: the undertaker’s man gets eight shillings for his lot. Joe laughs with admiration at the idea of that shirt being removed from the dead body. Soon everyone is laughing, turning into cackling, gap-toothed demons in shadow and flickering light. At the woman’s laugh about “This is the end of it, you see!” we get a close-up of grasping hands reaching for payment. Scrooge delivers the closing speech in a dead tone.
Sim I reverses the three visions of the future, so this comes after the visit to the Cratchits’. Coughing children sort the wares in this establishment. Joe is a fat, sagging man who is losing his teeth. The two ladies arrive first, followed shortly by the undertaker we saw much earlier, at Marley’s deathbed. They laugh at the coincidence, and joe invites them into the parlour, noting jovially “We’re all suited to our calling.” The conversation slithers along as written until the bundles open. The undertaker announces he will go first, “Just to show we all got trust in one another.” The loot is displayed and accounts settled; whenever Joe announces a total, everyone’s eyes roll skyward. (The undertaker gets eight shillings again, the first woman 17/6. The two women are obviously rivals, each a bit jealous on seeing what the other got away with.) The rest of the party are suitably stunned when they hear about the shirt being taken from the dead man. Then they have a good laugh at the justice of it all; in fact, the undertaker calls it poetic justice, and gets the line about “This is the end of it, you see!” Scrooge will now, in this version, move that overhearing the gentlemen at the Exchange.
Rathbone puts this third, after the Cratchits and the Exchange. Scrooge is led by the Ghost to a door suspended in the fog. A sign with three balls on it hangs somewhat farther up, the indication of a pawnshop. One woman waits inside; the pawnbroker is asking her, “You don’t mean to say you took his bed-curtains down, rings and all, with him lying there?” She notes what the dead man should have done if he’d wanted to keep ‘em after he was dead, and how he might’ve had someone with him to look after him when he was struck with death. The pawnbroker offers her three shillings. Scrooge is appalled and reflects that the case of this unhappy man might be his own.
Magoo is led by the Spirit, one bony hand upon his shoulder. Three shadowy figures enter “Ye Olde Junk Shoppe”. It s shabby and cluttered, but clean. A rat spots the spectral Scrooge, and flees. Old Joe inquires “What poor stiff have ye robbed now?” They quickly show their booty—the undertaker shows off cufflinks with the monogram “ES”—but te only new dialogue is about the bed-curtains. Scrooge shudders. The villains then break into a major musical number, “We’re Despicable”, which is there just for the fun of it. Scrooge delivers the speech at the end of this sequence, and bridges the gap to the next one with “Oh, please, kind Spirit! Let me see some tenderness connected with a death!”
Haddrick, offended by the men at the Exchange, demands, “Is there no reverence for the dead in this time of yours?” He is taken to the rag and bone shop in the middle of the two women’s announcement about “a judgement on him”. The undertaker’s man does not appear, and the dialogue is abbreviated. The group, who look just a bit like gnomes, declare this is “Justice: he made hardship for our tribe while he was alive and now we profit from his death.” Scrooge thinks he has understood, and delivers the speech at the end; he is breathless, and a bit cowed.
Sim II sweeps quickly through a sequence f shadows and alleys; a baby cries, a rat scampers by. Children sort among the rags. Thre whole shop is a more venomous version of that in Sim I. The group is moving into the parlour, declaring that this is a judgement. Joe says “Come into the parlour” three times. He is amazed by the blankets, and then by the bed curtains. They agree that the wicked old screw should have been more natural in his lifetime, and laugh about it. Scrooge says, “Spirit, I see, I do. I do see.”
Matthau is brought her directly from his bedroom. The shopowner asks a woman, “Where’d you steal these, Love?” and is told “from a dead man’s home.” Scrooge asks who has been robbed, and is whisked to the graveyard.
Scott has the corpse scene first and is then taken to a foul, foggy part of town. Scrooge declares this must be a mistake: the Spirit has taken a wrong turn. This slum is unpleasant and Gothic. When the Spirit points to a low, doorless hovel from which firelight emerges, Scrooge protests, “I have no business to transact in there.” Mrs. Dilber is alone with Joe. “You’ll not ask me how I came by these?” The proprietor looks to be in his forties; he replies that every person has the right to take care of themselves. “He always did.” She asks who’s the worse for the loss of a few things like these: not a dead man. “No, indeed,” says Joe. She goes on about what he should have done if he wanted to keep ‘em when he was dead, and produces spoons. Scrooge recognizes these. “These are my things. She’s stolen my things. I’ll have her before a magistrate.” We see the chiming watch that stood by his bed; Scrooge, realizing that this loot was taken from a dead man, convinces himself that they aren’t his at all, merely similar. The conversation continues, voices fading a little when money comes into question: the bed-curtains are omitted. Joe finally offers one pound, five, and threepence, “and I wouldn’t give another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for it.” “You’ve hardened, Joe, and no mistake.” “I’m always kind to the ladies. That’s how I ruin myself.” They laugh. Scrooge is indignant. “Spirit, what perversity is this? I ask to see emotion associated with this man’s death and you show me only greed and avarice! Let me see some tenderness, some depth of feeling!”
Caine enters fearfully into a shadow indicated by the Spirit. Joe is a huge spider, inquiring of his visitors, “Back from the house of sadness?” One woman snaps, “It’s only sad that he didn’t die sooner, the old skinflint.” “What’ve you got for old Joe? What’ve you got for me…to remember him by?” Collar-buttons and bed-curtains get less attention than the blankets. “They’re still warm! I don’t pay extra for the warmth, y’know.” “You should!” says Mrs. Dilber. “They’re the only warmth he ever had.” They laugh. Scrooge turns away. Saying “I understand, Spirit.” He delivers the closing speech as written, as far as “Merciful Heavens’, which becomes a general comment on the whole scene, rather than a lead-in to the next.
Curry has the corpse scene first, in answer to his “Who has died?” as he hesitates by the dead body, a man enters, and a woman rises from where she has been stealing teaspoons hidden under the bed. “His tea-stirring days are over.” “If he wanted someone to look after hs belongings after he was dead, he should’ve made friends while he was still breathin’.” “Aye, Love. Truer words was never spoken.” She takes the slippers from the dead man’s feet; the man is carrying the bed-curtains. They agree that the man is not likely to catch cold without ‘em. “Spirit, this is a fearful place, but I see the lesson. The case of this unhappy man might happen to me some day.”
Stewart is led up a narrow alley where a small stream meanders up the pavement. Aimless drunks and the usual crying baby ornament the scene; Scrooge moves on to a battered little shop. A man in an old dressing gown is surprised to see guests. “What’s this? An undertaker, a laundress, and a charlady?” They explain it’s a coincidence and not conspiracy. “I can’t be too careful. As it is, you’re welcome.” “Howe goes the day, Joe?” He replies with bits of the speech about old bones and rusty hinges, and notes that we are suited to our calling, matched in Heaven. He is a rag and bone man by trade and a rag and bone man by nature. But trade is not what it was. Now Mrs. Riggs demands, “Why you looking, Mrs. Dilver? Everybody’s a right to take care of theirselves: HE always did!” “No man more so, Mrs. Riggs,” says Mrs. Dilber (who is played, by the way, by Liz Smith, who was Mrs. Dilber in the Scott version as well.) The dialogue about what the wicked old screw should have done while living is split between Mrs. Riggs and the lugubrious undertaker. Mrs. Riggs tells Joe to open the bundles; she’s not afraid to go first. “It’s no sin.” “Only if we get caught.” “No chance of that. No one cared what happened to him, then or now.” The undertaker, one Mr. Crump, insists on going first; he gets seven shillings for his swag. Mrs. Dilver produces teaspoons, sugar tongs, sheets, and towels, and some boots in need of repair; she is offered one pound, one, and ha’pence. When she cries out in protest, old Joe replies, “I always give too much to ladies. It’s a weakness of mine. If you asked for one more penny, I’ll repent and knock off five shillings.” (Obviously an effect of decimalization.) Scrooge has grown confused, and demands, “What are we doing in this place, Spirit?” Mrs. Riggs now produces the bed-curtains; Joe exclaims, “God in Heaven! The rings are still on ‘em!” Blankets come next; Mrs. Dilber is the one who asks if they’re HIS blankets. Scrooge cringes on hearing the shirt came off the dead man’s body; even Joe is stunned. Scrooge, gritting his teeth, backs away. When he backs into a bedpost, he turns and finds himself in the next segment.
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