Tis the Season. Merry Happy Ramadan Christmas Vodun Kwanzaa Hanukaa Festivus!!! :)

Holidays are upon us.

That we, reading this, have the luxury of celebration and remembrance and family, is a blessing. Many do not.

 

And we are stuck in the middle.

Time keeps on rolling… rolling… rolling… into the future.

 

Sorry bits of archaic, near forgotten song lyrics, stuck in my head. 🙂

 

Glad for so much here at the end of this cycle of days.

Here at the end of days, glad for so much.

But also aware of so much… that I should have made better.

 

We are almost a hundred years removed from the wonders and horrors of 1920, and almost a hundred removed from the wonders and horrors of 2120.

Here is hoping that in 2020, that our wonders transcend our horrors. That the places where we aspire, transcend the places where we tear down.

Speculative.

All speculative. All we have of any real import, is our pressure on the moment.

Is our will… applied.

Do we make a better world or a worse one.

Depends on you.

It ripples outward.

Intent.

Will.

No guarantees, but we fall down going forward… it matters. The intent transcends the fall.

Rambling.

Slightly.

All this to say… embrace… better. ‘Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable.’, Blanche DuBois said in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. We are all at times cruel, and petty, but I try to always remember that line, and not be.. cruel, or petty.

Because Tennessee Williams was right, right in his 1947 Pulitzer prize winning play, and right in the Elia Kazan, nearly x-rated for the time, 1951 Academy Award Winning movie… deliberate cruelty is not forgivable.

But it is avoidable and it is correctable.

Here at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, with change like the stuff of science fiction upon us, we must hold to that one true thing… to aspire to better. To be better. And to spend less energy trying to make things (our phones, our tablets, our tv, our refrigerator, our voice operated Alexa assistants, our drones)… human, and more time making humans… humane.

God, whatever God or Gods you bend your knee to, bless you and yours, and give you the wisdom here at the figurative ending of days and at the beginning of a new cycle of days, to judge your wrongs… right.

Be well.

 

 

 

If you enjoyed this rambling, but heartfelt, post, then like and subscribe to this blog, and click the link below and peruse some great gift ideas (ideas for 2020, it is too late to make it for the 2019 holidays). Your purchases keep the proverbial doors open, and are greatly appreciated. And you get great stuff. (ie Everyone should have an emergency bag , one in their car, and one in their house. It’s good karma to be… prepared. )

Today’s Deals of the Day.

Thanks and Happy Holidays to You!

Thanks and Happy Holidays to the followers and supporters and visitors of this oft different blog on our pop culture and our times as seen thru an admitedly biased lens.

To paraphrase the great conversation between Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles characters in CITIZEN KANE (the product of 27yo wunderkind Orson Welles) :

Cotton: You know your problem, you want love on your own terms.

Welles: In the end those are the only terms anyone ever knows, their own.

This blog at its best is about things worth loving, on their own terms.

Thank you for a fantastic year of likes, comments, emails and suggestions, and of your own excellent content.

I am going to be shouting out all my followers (probably starting at the end of the day), from WAYLAND PROD of the excellent, and award winning podcast WE”RE ALIVE (https://www.werealive.com/) to one of the most talented people, writer, podcaster, reviewer DERRICK FERGUSON of the brilliant and must visit FERGUSON THEATER (https://derricklferguson.com) to THE GODLY CHIC of the always uplifting and rewarding GODLY CHICK DIARIES (https://gcdiaries.wordpress.com/) and every follower inbetween.

I’m going to try and space it out and do maybe 25 to an update so as to not inundate you guys, and keep my overview on their site very brief.

But I do want you guys to patronize some of the wonderful people who have patronized me over the years. Giving back and paying forward, I would like that to be how I end this two thousand and eighteenth year of a crucified lord, and begin the two thousand and nineteenth.

Happy Holidays to all of You!

 

 

 

GREAT Last minute / END OF YEAR GIFT IDEAS! Day 2 of 15! CANDLES!

GREAT GIFT IDEAS for the Homemaker or Survivalist Among you!

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7-Day Beeswax Candle

 

7-Day Beeswax Candle

 

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Puracy Natural Liquid Dish Soap, Sulfate Free Dishwashing Detergent, Green Tea and Lime, 16 Ounce Bottle, (Pack of 3)
Puracy Natural Liquid Dish Soap, Sulfate Free Dishwashing Detergent, Green Tea and Lime, 16 Ounce Bottle, (Pack of 3)

 

TriWick 120 Hour Candle & Camping Stove – Survival & Emergency Light Source

TriWick 120 Hour Candle & Camping Stove – Survival & Emergency Light Source

 

Volcanica Candles Dendritic Pillar Candle, Medium, Maroon/Gold

 

Volcanica Candles Flora Vase Candle, Creme

 

Candle by the Hour 120-Hour Beehive Candle, Eco-friendly Natural Beeswax with Cotton Wick

GREAT Last minute / END OF YEAR GIFT IDEAS! Day 1 of 15!

Whatever Holiday you or yours are gearing up to celebrate, be it Ramadan, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, Vodun or the Mass of Christ, chances are you are swept up in the very American magnate propagated desire to buy things, and an older, more selfless desire to give stuff.

Here without further ado are some GREAT last minute gift ideas!

 

KIDS UNDER 15 (And fun for their parents too)

Carrera GO!!! – GT Contest Track Set

 

GIFTS FOR THE HOROLOGIST (CLOCK LOVER) OR TO IMPRESS A BOSS OR FAMILY FRIEND

Vivid Large Deer Handcrafted Wood Cuckoo Clock CC105

 

 

GREAT GIFT IDEAS FOR YOUR COWORKERS or CRYSTAL LOVERS!

 

Amlong Crystal Globe on Crystal Stand with Gift Box – 4.75 Inch

 

GREAT GIFT IDEAS FOR THE GRAPHIC NOVEL/COMIC BOOK FAN or WEREWOLF FAN!

 

Werewolf by Night Omnibus

FOR THE ART BOOK LOVER /COFFEE TABLE FAN!

 

The Art of Jock

 

Cover Image

The Signature Art Of Brian Stelfreeze

 

Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years

 

 
Matt Baker: The Art of Glamour

Happy Holidays, Merry Mass of Christ and Improbable Heights

‘When you strip everything away from Batman, you are left with someone who doesn’t want to see anyone die.’ — KINGDOM COME by Alex Ross and Mark Waid

When I think of humanity in general, and the holiday season in particular it strikes me that that should be our goal. The pursuit of a world, where nobody dies in vain.

But the reality, particularly in America, this time of year is that with the eyes of the media diverted; government sponsored mass-murders actually ramp up, bombings ramp up (now of the drone and unmanned variety, machines murdering men.. what an unholy road we walk), the terrorism of the rich… ramps up.

I’ll not forget the media celebrating the death of Bin Laden. Death and Murder and Torture are never things to celebrate, no matter the justification.

While I am savage enough to know that killing may be a necessary evil, I am human and moral enough to know it is never a joy, never a victory, never a cause for celebration.

Be the murdered Bin Laden, or Hitler or insert bogieman here, bringing murder to murderers is never anything less than a soiling, and a failure, necessary though it may be, it is a failure of reason. And as such is a solemn time, not a glorious one.

Because to do otherwise, to take joy from death, and celebration from degradation and horror… is to devoid you of moral high-ground, is to make you (in ways stark and true) worse than those you would revile, worse than your Hitlers and Bin-Ladens. It makes you a lynchmob, a coward, and an opportunist of carnage.

We must strive to be better than that, otherwise your protestations of Christianity, and Holy Nights, and piety are just lies, are hypocrisy and mendacity most foul, that you use to conceal your roman desire to see people bleed and suffer and die.

You become that lowest form of life, a gibbering coward among cowards, you become nothing more than a grasping claw, a rolling eye, and a screeching mouth… in the creature we call lynchmob. And there is no lower, and ultimately, more inhuman form of life.

Our goal therefore must be to reject that, to reject the easy lies and the easy hates, and work toward this wildly improbable world where no one dies in vain.

But humanity’s very existence is an improbability, so we can bend that already fanciful existence to either improbable heights of good, or improbable depths of evil. We just have to pick a direction.

‘We do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. ‘ — John Fitzgerald Kennedy when imploring men into space

Here, on this holiday season, more fiction than fact, ‘goodwill to all’; look into yourself and find what is hypocrisy, what is lies, and find it in yourself to make truths, and truly believe and act on this idea…. of a time of peace.

Here endeth the lesson.

Last Minute HOLIDAY SHOPPING Guide! Under Construction

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Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection (Limited Edition) [Blu-ray] (2012)

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Bond 50: The Complete 23 Film Collection with Skyfall [Blu-ray]

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Broken Bells

Holidays in December! or ‘Santa you gonna Pay what you owe!!!’

Rosa Parks Day Dec 1

National Day – United Arab Emirates Dec 2  – I have problems with Dubai, located in the United Arab Emirates. Mostly being that much of American tax dollars is funneled into this pleasure palace of the ultra rich. I think the rich are robbing from America, to set up a deluxe retreat from which they can sit out America’s fall. The fall they are pushing us to.

Anna’s Day Dec 9 – A Swedish holiday, celebrating people with the name Anna? That appears to be a good amount of the population. 🙂 .

Human Rights Day                                        Dec 10
Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe             Dec 12
Winter Solstice & Yule Festival                Dec 21
Boxing Day Dec 26
Kwanzaa                                                            December 26 – January 1
Jose Rizal Day                                                 Dec 30

Wait— did I forget one? Oh yes—Christmas. The Mass of Christ- Dec 25

Here’s the thing about the Mass of Christ.

There is no evidence of the month or year of the birth of the person referred to as Christ. And indeed the modern construct of Christmas, is very much that… a construct. A product of crass commercialism, the date 25 December, having historically nothing to do with the figure of Christ.

What we do know is there was a celebration the Roman’s performed, on December 25th, to their pagan gods. That holiday would seem to be what we are, with television’s help, still celebrating, but have simply renamed their pagan god, with a christian appellation.

The truth of this, you can take, or you can leave alone.

If the holiday brings you a moment of true brotherhood that’s fine. But largely it’s not. Bombings and invasions of other countries by America’s Industrial War Complex tends to ramp up around the holiday seasons, while Americans are sidetracked stuffing their faces, and trying to buy things they can’t afford, and generally making lip service to a man of peace, while following men of war, into spreading blood and gore and death around the globe.

Merry Christmas. :).

My friend who is a huge Christmas fan could not disagree with me more. And that’s her right. If Christmas or anything brings you true joy, that’s fine. I’m all for it. I have no problem with ritual and myth.

I enjoy a midnight mass as well as a Buddhist temple or a Mosque or a Synagogue or a Vodun Temple. I enjoy anyplace where people genuinely seek something higher, something better, something sincerely sacred.

But make it something sincerely sacred.

Something without too much hypocrisy, and not built on mountains of lies and greed.

Don’t lose the meaning in the merchandising.

Happy Holidays, however you choose to meet the end of the year.