‘A Klingon Christmas Carol’ Attacks A Holiday Classic (Video)
First a Klingon opera, now this. Klingon (the language) sure has a lot of traction for one invented for a Star Trek movie in the ’80s. And this is also a non-Christianized version of the Dickens classic, because as I learned from the story, the Klingons killed their gods. Douglas Belkin reports in the Wall Street Journal:
The arc of “A Klingon Christmas Carol” follows the familiar Dickens script: An old miser is visited on a hallowed night by three ghosts who shepherd him through a voyage of self-discovery. The narrative has been rejiggered to match the Klingon world view.
For starters, since there is neither a messiah nor a celebration of his birth on the Klingon planet of Kronos, the action is pegged to the Klingon Feast of the Long Night. Carols and trees are replaced with drinking, fighting and mating rituals. And because Klingons are more concerned with bravery than kindness, the main character’s quest is for courage.
For the Christmas Season, It Costs $82,000/Month To Light This House
Casey Chan writes on Gizmodo:
The Faucher Family in Delaware have built extravagant Christmas lights setups for 25 years now. How extravagant? They use 1,000,000 lights. So how much does it cost them to run the lights for a month? $82,320. Gulp.
HouseLogic estimated the total cost by using the average price per kWh in the Faucher Family’s region and assumed each of their 1,000,000 bulbs were the average 5 watt C7 bulb. They then figured the lights to run for 4 hours each night and 30 nights in total. The estimated cost came out to be $686/hour and $82,320 for those bright 30 nights. A lot of money to get in the Christmas spirit!
Happy Saturnalia To All!
A celebration dear to the hearts of the Disinformation team at this time of year is Saturnalia, one of the most popular Roman festivals. It was marked by tomfoolery and reversal of social roles, in which slaves and masters ostensibly switched places, with expectantly humorous results. Saturnalia was introduced around 217 BC to raise citizen morale after a crushing military defeat. Originally celebrated for a day, on December 17th, its popularity saw it grow until it became a week-long extravaganza, ending on the 23rd.
Our favorite exposition of Saturnalia has long been the Electric Sheep comic strip, no longer easily available on the web, but we dug in the crates and are pleased to bring it to you. We did find it here and in a video created from the original website posted to Funny or Die:
The Lost Ads of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” Of Yesteryear
The first Peanuts TV special followed six years of animated advertisements selling Ford motor cars, and originally, even “A Charlie Brown Christmas” featured two scenes advertising Coca-Cola!
One of the deleted scenes still appears in a YouTube video, which shows Snoopy tossing Linus into a sign which reads “Danger.” (According to Wikipedia, that sign originally read: “Coca-Cola” — and the hymn at the end of the program was interrupted by a voice-over thanking “the people in your town who bottle Coca Cola.”)
Maybe “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was ultimately the cartoonist’s own silent protest against the commercialization of his work…
Foxs’ Report On ‘War On Christmas’ Never Actually Happened
Via Media Matters:
Fox & Friends reported that a school in central Florida had banned the “traditional Christmas colors” red and green from classrooms. In a statement to Media Matters, the school’s district spokesperson, Regina Klares, has denied this, stating, “There is not a ban on the colors red and green at Heathrow Elementary.”
[Continues at Media Matters]
Christmas Lights + Slayer = Holiday Magick (Video)
One homeowner’s breathtaking homage to those titans of metal in holiday lights, makes me wonder what he had going for Halloween:
Mall Fever: Will Christmas Shopping Revive The Economy This Year As It Hasn’t In Years Past?
Funny how, back in 1929, we had a black Thursday and then a Black Friday as the market crashed, plunging the country into a depression. Now we have every retailer in every mall in America on their knees praying for a prosperous black Friday the day after Thanksgiving.
The Shops at Wiregrass in Wesley Chapel, Florida. Photo: Wdwic Pictures (CC)
If you read this argument before, it’s because I have been making it since 2007, year in and year out. That’s on account of the reality that our economy is driven more by consumption than production, and most consuming takes place during the holidays.
So once again we are being asked to join a global ritual even if we are broke.
Get in gear people, and get your wallets back to the mall: do your duty for Santa and Wall Street. It will be difficult for the economic recovery to make much headway without…
Christmas With A Capital C Trailer
The weather’s growing a little colder, and before we know it, the holidays will be upon us. One of the seasonal highlights this year will be Christmas With A Capital C, starring a Baldwin brother and the Bundys’ neighbor from Married With Children, an insane film about spiteful atheists attempting to hijack Christmas. This is going to be big among the tea-partier crowd in three months.
Tesla Christmas Tree
Are you a lover of a weird science with a knack for holiday decorating? Next year you might want to try creating a Tesla coil Christmas tree.
Amateur physicist Peter creates jaw-dropping Christmas displays using Tesla coils. I don’t understand how these work, but I’m guessing they may be semi-dangerous.
He comments:
This year I did another Xmas tree based on the success of the one I did in 2007. I made it bigger (30 ft) and more spectacular by using a different technique. It still uses a long exposure and a rotating colored filter but the tree shape is outlined by sparks from a rotating rod on top of the Tesla coil. This gives the “Eye of Sauron” effect. Imagine then if that rotating rod is able to be raised from horizontal to vertical while still rotating.
Santa Bank Robbery
Authorities in Nashville are reporting that a man dressed as Santa Claus committed a gunpoint bank robbery on Christmas Eve. A witness says that Santa was “actually jovial, which was scary. He explained that he was robbing the bank because Santa had to pay his elves.”
There have been a number of infamous crimes in U.S. history involving Santa Claus; perhaps the worst occurred when a “Santa” shot dead six people during a bank robbery in Texas in 1927.
Only a Game: The Joy of Swik
Via Only A Game:
Among the many Winter Festivals that are practised, none is stranger than the Discordian festival of Swik, pronounced ’swik’ or ‘christmas’ — although not to be confused with the Christian festival with the same pronunciation and dates. An ancient Discordian tradition, dating back at least twenty years, states “the joy of Swik is Getting, Shouting, and Passing out”, but it is widely recognised that Swik is a festival to be endured rather than enjoyed (much like a Klingon rite of passage). One does not have to be a Discordian to be participating in Swik … most people are simply trapped in the festival through no fault of their own.
No-one is really sure when Swik piggybacked onto Christmas, although it happened a long time after Christmas piggybacked onto the Pagan Solstice celebrations, which also fall at this time each year. Perhaps it was the Victorians who began to…
Woman Knocks Down Pope at Christmas Eve Mass
ARIEL DAVID writes on the AP via Yahoo News:
VATICAN CITY — A woman jumped the barriers in St. Peter’s Basilica and knocked down Pope Benedict XVI as he walked down the main aisle to begin Christmas Eve Mass on Thursday.
The 82-year-old pope quickly got up and was unhurt, said a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini. Footage aired on Italy’s RAI state TV showed a woman dressed in a red jumper vaulting over the wooden barriers and rushing the pope before being swarmed by bodyguards.
The commotion occurred as the pope’s procession was making its way toward the main altar and shocked gasps rang out through the public that packed the basilica. The procession came to a halt and security rushed to the trouble spot.
Benedettini said the woman who pushed the pope appeared to be mentally unstable and had been arrested by Vatican police. He said she also knocked down Cardinal Roger…
Sweden’s Bizarre Donald Duck Christmas Obsession
Slate has a report on Sweden’s bizarre Christmas tradition: watching Donald Duck cartoons.
Every December 25th, approximately half of the nation sits down in front of the television to watch Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul (”Donald Duck and his friends wish you a Merry Christmas”). The special has been aired on TV1, Sweden’s main public television channel, each Christmas Eve since 1959 without commercial interruption:
The show’s cultural significance cannot be [over]stated. You do not tape or DVR Kalle Anka for later viewing. You do not eat or prepare dinner while watching Kalle Anka. Age does not matter—every member of the family is expected to sit quietly together and watch a program that generations of Swedes have been watching for 50 years. Most families plan their entire Christmas around Kalle Anka.
Jesus Shooting Santa
A man in Santa Maria, California has stoked outrage locally with his lawn display of Jesus shooting Santa Claus with a double-barreled shotgun, to protest the lack of attention paid to Christ at Christmastime. Residents are concerned by the scene’s close proximity to a school bus stop. I think it’s healthy for kids to see Jesus “taking out the trash.”
This Christmas, Bring Home A Crucifix Tree
Christian-themed retailer Boss Creations is “putting the ‘Christ’ back into Christmas.”
Putting one of these in the living room is a real conversation-starter…and after the holiday season is over you can hang laundry on it, or something.
Merry Mayhem: Rampaging Santas Take to the Streets for SantaCon
Just happened this past Saturday in NYC, according to Santarchy it’s actually worldwide:
Every December for the last 16 years, Cacophonous Santas have been visiting cities around the world, engaging in a bit of Santarchy as part of the annual Santacon events.
It all started back in 1994 when several dozen Cheap Suit Santas paid a visit to downtown San Francisco for a night of Kringle Kaos. Things have reached Critical Xmas and Santarchy is now a global phenomenon.
Enjoy the pics:
Presents for the Godless: the 13 Days of Atheist Christmas
From The Telegraph:
Don’t believe in God, but want to celebrate Christmas anyway? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Here are 13 suitable gifts for the heretic.
It’s not unreasonable to want to enjoy Christmas despite not believing in all the stuff about virgin birth and angels. A lack of faith doesn’t get in the way of enjoying family, togetherness and generosity, not to mention presents, mulled wine and good food.
So in the spirit of the season, here is a list of 13 suitable presents for the godless in your life.
Please note: The Daily Telegraph accepts no responsibility for loss or damage to your immortal soul through the purchase of these gifts.
On the first day of Christmas, an atheist gave to me: a Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People DVD
Robin Ince, a comedian, atheist and sceptic, first organised this cheery variety-show celebration of atheist Christmas last year. This DVD of the Hammersmith…
Krampus Visits Stephen Colbert
Krampus is awesome. Way to discipline your kids, Austria.
Santa’s demonic companion shows up about halfway through this segment on The Colbert Report:
Sketchy Santas
I’m glad to see someone is collecting these precious moments. This blog has a great collection.
Burning Giant Santa Disaster In Brazil
Geekologie has photos from an unfortunate disaster which occurred in Santa Catarina, Brazil this past weekend. A 50-foot-tall Santa Claus in the middle of the city somehow managed to go up in flames, blanketing the surrounding area with dark smoke, and burned until nothing remained but a blackened skeletal structure. This is something you don’t want your kids to see.
