Christmas Links #11

 
Links  Rather by luck rather than design, on the tenth anniversary of the annual reviews, Review 2012 was a celebration of the blog with call backs to old writing projects and lists, wrap-ups of things I'd enjoyed that year and basically anything I could think of which could fit within the loose title of "The Projects".  In the spirit of some of those posts, here's a list of links with a few comments on each:

Still I think, the last Biennial I've genuinely loved mostly because of the absolute brilliance of having the late and very lamented City States section in the old post sorting office on Copperas Hill, about the only building in the city capable of housing a giant pillow the size of several buses.  The 2016 Biennial had its moments, but I think I enjoyed finding funny places to put my little plastic TARDIS.

In which I post the contents of an assignment from my Information Studies degree.  At the time a bit of reticence about people being confronted with a younger version of themselves on YouTube led to me only posted clips of the original video without the voxpops but eventually I realised how unlikely it was that these random strangers would stumble upon the thing, so I posted the complete version which currently has 39 views.  You can add to them if you want to see what the 19 year old version of me looks like.

To this day I haven't eaten another one.

Back when I still idolised this egotistical shit, I spent a year watching my way through his projects to date. 

Although I retired the blog years ago, the Hamlet project is still theoretically on-going.  Here's the most recent post about Michelle Terry from 2020.  I really need to do some catch-up.

A survey of the various productions I watched in year when there were a lot of them about, especially on the BBC, thanks London 2012 Cultural festival.

Let's not.

One of the benefits of following Ingmar Bergman's example and watching a film nearly every day (him during the spring and summer, me all year round) means I plough through a lot of product.  In 2012, that was the Sight and Sound list, the films of Anne Hathaway and awards contenders.

In which I try to remember what other films I watched that year without the benefit of Letterboxd, then completely fail to make a top ten.

A return to a month long project from 2007 in which I reviewed series of movies many of which still haven't received the recognition they deserve then added a new recommendation.  Ten years later, here's another one: The Kid Detective, an unofficial sequel to The Mysteries of Encyclopedia Brown books, in which Adam Brody plays a PI who was a renowned child investigator until he "failed" on a case and is still living with the consequences.

A return to a month long project from 2008 in which I reviewed series of songs and albums many of which still haven't received the recognition they deserve then added a new recommendation.  Ten years later, here's another one: Finally Out of P.E. by Brie Larson, a pretty good, sub-Swift pop album and a song called Ugly, the backing track for which sounds like a yassified version of the Sugababes song with the same title.

Which are their own little time capsule.  Some of the prediction have since come to pass, although it took a while.

That took slightly longer than I anticipated (like most of the writing on this blog for the past twenty-odd years) but here, later than usual but as promised are today's ten Christmas Links.

How one town’s terrible Christmas tree captured the mood of a weary nation:
"It’s not every day that your hometown’s Christmas tree goes viral and makes international headlines. You might think that it would be a point of pride. “We did it, baby! We’re on the map!” you might be expected to exclaim. Alas, not in this instance."

"Enjoy a live look inside the South Dakota capitol building rotunda with its beautifully decorated Christmas trees."

"James Burke immerses himself in the modern, intensely manly world of male cosmetics.  This clip is from Tomorrow's World."

"In traditional festive legend and popular culture, Santa Claus's reindeer are said to pull a sleigh through the night sky to help Santa Claus deliver gifts to children on Christmas Eve."

"A large nativity crib in a cathedral has been thatched by members of the same two families every year since it was first created in 1960.  The 10ftx12ft (3mx3.7m) crib is built in Truro Cathedral each Christmas."

"She escaped a tough childhood to become an Oscar-winning star. Now she’s on a mission to rescue country singer Tammy Wynette from decades of feminist dismissal."


"Make venison tourtière, maple ham and sugar pie from Vancouver-based chef J-C Poirier's cookbook debut."

"Christmas parties in financial services aren't what they were. Long ago, banks shamelessly spent huge amounts of money indulging staff. Then came the financial crisis."

"Christmas is, of course, a time for giving – but it is also unfortunately a time of enormous waste. In fact, an estimated £140 million worth of Christmas presents are returned each year in the UK alone, with many of them eventually ending up in landfill."

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