I love the (uncomfortable, unconvincing) attempt that the Kinks made with this late ’70s song to try and be relevant in the era of punk. There’s a real sense of old men wearing the latest fashions and looking ridiculous to this song, which just seems oddly appropriate considering the family feeling that Christmas brings… Not that these other versions sound much better, it has to be said…
And I Feel Fine
Appropriately enough, my final Time essay of the year is all about the end of the world. In the real world, I’m just trying to get all my deadlines hit before the holidays so that I can have something resembling some time off next week (Note: I’ll still be working on some things, just less than usual. Yes, I’m at the point where that pretty much counts as a vacation for me…).
Ground Control to Major
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
US astronaut and international space station crew member Thomas Marshburn has his space suit checked by technicians at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Russia. Photograph: Reuters
Light reflected in an astronaut’s helmet = Always a visual that wins me over. Always.
366 Songs 353: Merry Xmas Everybody
Another British holiday favorite that just hasn’t crossed the Atlantic, and really kind of deserves to, I can’t hear this without immediately feeling like a kid again during the run up to the big day, with the Advent Calendar and the sleepless excitement that always overwhelmed me at the time. It’s that hardwired into my Christmastime DNA.
If Noddy Holder’s screech is too much for you, there’s always this far more mellow version:
On Being Ready To Start Over
The trick — and it’s imperfect and can take a while, but — is simply to write something else. Don’t let your hands go cold. Don’t let yourself stop thinking. Shift to something different. I think it was Robert Silverberg who used to do his (type)written correspondence on bad days, and then “trick” himself into writing by slipping manuscript paper into the machine once his fingers were flying.
It’s about letting your backbrain chew on the problems while your frontbrain is amused by the new and shiny things. Find an essay to write. Do some flash fiction, or a short story, or a novelette about dancing gravediggers written in the style of Cormac McCarthy. An audiobook about dirigible vampires who shit sexy babies down chimneys. Whatever. I’ve read of several writers from eras past who would type out passages from their favourite writers, to get a feeling of what it’s like to make sentences like that.
Write something else. Anything else. Either you’ll solve the problem in the background, or get the taste back for what you’re stuck on — or, guess what, maybe that whole thing was dead and you were just shoving electrodes up it to make it twitch in an awful semblance of life the whole time. I mean, that happens. It doesn’t mean you were blocked, it means that you were zapping a big stinky corpse with all your electricity and wondering why it wasn’t sitting up and calling you Mummy. It was dead. Bury it and never speak of what you did to it again.
From here.
One of the lessons I’ve learned this year, in terms of writing, is to recognize when things aren’t working and be okay with just starting over. It normally happens with the Time pieces, although SpinOff has had more than a few, as well; depressingly, it usually only occurs to me right at the end, when I realize that it’s really not coming together like I’d hoped, and I also realize that I’ve wasted a lot of time in trying to make it work. There’s a depressing moment where I want to give up because, wow, that was a lot of time/effort down the drain and the deadline is now even closer, but instead, I start over and hope for better with Attempt #2. Or #3. Or #4.
Take One of These Tablets and See Me in The Morning
Since the rise of the Internet, print media — most notably newspapers — have faced a big problem with younger readers. But according to a new study released today by the Pew Research Center and The Economist Group, when you look specifically at the devices they love — the smartphones in their pockets — young adults rival or even surpass their parents and grandparents as news consumers.
According to the report from Pew’s Project in Excellence in Journalism, 37 percent of smartphone owners between the ages of 18 and 29 get news on their devices daily, along with 40 percent of smartphone owners aged 30 to 49. Those are slightly higher than the equivalent rates for 50-64 (31 percent) and 65-plus (25 percent). Among tablet owners, news consumption numbers were broadly similar across age groups, with 50- to 64-year-olds being the peak news consumers.
From here.
I admit, I read the Guardian, Slate and Talking Points Memo daily over breakfast on a tablet, and sometimes the Oregonian, too. Pre-tablet, my news consumption was far lower.
A Little Bit Of
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
An Artwork by Romanian born artist Mircea Cantor intlited “Stranieri” 2011 made with wooden round table, bread, knives, salt is displayed during the press preview of the exhibition “Food” on December 18, 2012 at the Ariana museum in Geneva. The international travelling contemporary art exhibition will be presented later in Milan, Sao Paulo and Marseille. AFP PHOTO / FABRICE COFFRINIFABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images
Art or breakfast?
366 Songs 352: You’ll Never Find My Christmas
I know nothing about Bishop Allen, the band behind this song – which I found, I think, on a freebie download Christmas album from superstore Target, but I may be misremembering – but I can only hope that the rest of their music has exactly the same combination of twee, ramshackle and somewhat catchily adorable that this one does. There’s something heartwarmingly slapdash about this song, but it’s one that I find myself singing when I least expect it. It’s very good as accompaniment to doing the dishes, I find.
“To A Point, Stress is Helpful. Then There’s A Point Where Stress Becomes Overwhelming”
“All journalists are constantly negotiating stress in both positive and negative ways,” said Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma in an interview by phone. “There’s the stress of the deadline itself, there’s the stress of the subject matter in the story, and there’s whatever personal stress and professional stress we’re carrying. To a point, stress is helpful. Then there’s a point where stress becomes overwhelming and performance declines.”
From here.
To The Stars
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
The Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft is lifted on to its launch pad at the Baikonur cosmodrome this morning. The Soyuz spacecraft is to bring US astronaut Thomas Marshburn, Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko and Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield to the International Space Station later this week. Photograph: Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters
I adore this so much. It’s so well composed, there is so much to unpack in it…