Doctor Who: Jumping the Christmas Shark?

And so it came to pass in these days, that a decree went out from BBC America that American fans of Doctor Who should not be kept waiting to see the annual Christmas episode until Easter, as they had been in days of old.

This was the first Christmas special with Steven Moffat as executive producer and Matt Smith as the Doctor: it was quite a pop cultural mashup.

The most obvious riff is the permutation on Dickens A Christmas Carol. Moffat added a twist of more far-reaching time travel, as the Doctor tries to change Scrooge/ Kazran by being his Ghost of Christmas Past and giving him a better past so that he will be a better person in the present and help a ship that’s in trouble.

I thought it was delightful, capturing a spirit of “Christmass-ness” in many ways, from the Doctor arriving via chimney, to the giddy joy of "Merry Christmas" that he and Kazran Jr. greet Abigail each Christmas Eve, to the Christmas Eve dinner they share with Abigail's sister’s family.

The mashups came as smaller plot points: the Doctor spending one Christmas Eve at Frank Sinatra’s lodge where he becomes engaged to Marilyn Monroe; the bridge of the spaceship that’s in danger looking a lot like the Enterprise; Abigail (the Welsh singer Katherine Jenkins) singing Holst’s "In the Bleak Midwinter."

But my favorite is that the “monster” of the episode is an enormous shark. When it tries to kill the Doctor and Kazran Jr. it looks like it’s straight out of Jaws---all that’s missing is a quip about needing a bigger boat (Moffat doesn’t seem to know that the line is de rigueur for that trope.)

But more than that, the Doctor tames the shark until it is dolphin-like, and then hooks him to a sleigh for a fanciful flight over faux Victorian London.

Hmm. We know that Moffat chafes at all the Russell Davies particulars that he inherited. In this episode he has the all powerful psychic paper short out-- with the “serious and mature adult credential” being a lie that is just TOO big for it--- and he chips away at the even more powerful sonic screwdriver, as the Doctor asks “what good is the screwdriver” when half is stuck in the shark.

Is it possible that Moffat resents needing to provide a special Christmas episode, which as Ross Ruediger pointed out to me, only started with the reboot? Methinks the flying shark would suggest so. You just don't get to use a shark as a character without the "jumping the" baggage. Moffat, a consummate tv writer, would know that.

Nonetheless, even with the playful jibe, he has added a memorable episode to the Doctor Christmas canon. Casting the great Michael Gambon was an enormous gift itself, as are the songs from Jenkins.

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 Mapeel     12/26/2010     Christmas, Doctor Who   

The Hopes and Fears of All the Years . . .

. . . are met in thee tonight, O little town of Bethlehem.

And the Word was made Flesh, bringing salvation. It's the human side that has led to centuries of anxiety and destruction. But not tonight.

Merry Christmas to all in whatever that merriment means to you.

Thoughts on Christmas Eve from the poet John Ciardi, from 1947.


Salvation's angel in a tree
Stared out at Blake, and stares at me
From zodiacs of colored bells,
And colored lights, and lighted shells,
A cherub's face above a sheet:
No arms, no torso, and no feet,
But winged and wired against the Fall,
And a paper halo over all-
A nineteen-hundred-year-old doll
In a drying tree. What does it see?

The house is sleeping; there's only me
In the cellophane snow by the lethal toys
That wait all night for the eager boys:
Metal soldiers, an Indian suit,
Raider's tools, and gunner's loot.
I mash my cigarette, and good night,
Turn off the angel and the light
On a single switch. The children toss
In excited sleep. Alone in the house,
I feel the old, confusing wind
Shake the dark tree and shake my mind,
Hearing tomorrow rattle and bang
Louder than all the angels sang.
By feel, I lower the thermostat
And pick my way through a creaking flat,
The demon children, the angel doll,
Sleep in two darks off one dark hall,
I move through darkness memorized,
Feeling for doors.

One half-surprised
Wish stays lit inside my head.
I leave it on and go to bed.

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 Mapeel     12/24/2010     Christmas, poetry   

The Very Best Christmas Movie: The Thin Man!

Much of the sparkle and fun of Christmas is for children, even after Santa fades into parents.

But one great bauble for grown-up holiday spirits is the 1934 film The Thin Man. I don’t know why it isn’t on best Christmas movie lists across the land.

The oddly non-eponymous series (the Thin Man was actually the victim Clyde Wynant, not Nick Charles) began with this first of the six films, set during the holidays. Nick and Nora Charles are pulled into solving a mystery, but their real talent is throwing a Christmas Eve party in their hotel room---is there anything more glamorous than the rich staying in a hotel suite over the holidays, complete with a Christmas tree?

Nicky’s old crime buddies hear he is town and stop by. The suavest of hosts, Nick glides around the room with a tray or martinis offering his guests “Ammunition.”




Nick: Do you want a drink?                          

Guest: No, I’m okay
Nick: Oh, that’s a mistake

 As the murder plot thickens, "Jingle Bells" is in the background, the gang sings a blurry “O Christmas Tree,” and Nora, in a chic dress with a candy-cane motif, calls down to the concierge to send up sandwiches for everyone.

After the party a thug comes by with a gun and Nick is grazed by a bullet. Scene up, Christmas morning. The Charles’s have opened their gifts. Nora is sitting in her new mink coat, Nick is recuperating on the couch, playing with his air gun, firing at the balloons on the Christmas tree. Their banter sparkles amid the gift wrappings. It’s a lovely scene.


Surely Nick and Nora Charles should be seen as much a part of the cinematic fabric of Christmas as that Bailey clan.

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 Mapeel     12/18/2010     Christmas, Film   

A New Gerund Enters My Life

Rolfing. And two new nouns: facia/myofascial system, and structural integration.

The verb is not the sophomoric slang for vomiting. It comes from Ida Rolf, an extraordinary if mysterious woman, born in the Bronx in 1896. She graduated Barnard in 1916, and then from Columbia University of Physicians and Surgeons with a doctorate in biochemistry. Beyond that, details of her life are extremely vague. Somewhere along the line she sustained an injury. One site said it was a horseback riding accident, and that she used her knowledge to find ways to heal herself. Somehow that grew into a practice called structural integration, nicknamed after its founded and then copyrighted.


“Dr. Ida Rolf developed Structural Integration, in the 1950s, a holistic system of soft tissue manipulation and movement education based on yoga with the goal of balancing the body by stretching the skin in oscillatory patterns. She discovered that she could change the body posture and structure by stretching the myofascial system.“

I went to a Structural Integration therapist as on outgrowth of my Pilates work. I’m having trouble with some of the movements, and the root of the trouble was structural: how my pelvis is tilting, how my shoulders sit, things like that that aren't so obvious to the casual observer. My muscles are also very tight, but what I learned is that it’s really the facia that’s tight.

Ida’s system is a 10-part series of manipulations. The Rolfer applies a lot of pressure deep into the facia, the amazing fibrous tissue that connects everything in your body. That intense pressure releases the facia that is tight or even foreshortened from chronic tension; that then allows muscles and bones to return a more optimal alignment.

“They say,” the body adapts, but remembers. I’ve been plagued by extreme emotions my whole life. I’ve had to submerge them in order to be able to simply live day to day without medication. I know that some of that intensity burrowed into my body. Every disappointment, and there have been some whoppers, also knotted some of that connective tissue a little tighter, and then tighter, and then tighter over the years. The Rolfer sees that as overstimulation.

“Put another way, Rolfing allows the brain and nervous system to “re-boot” areas of the body that are receiving too much electrical stimulation (chronically tight or sore muscles). And once a healthy level of muscle contraction is established, someone’s entire structure is free to express a pain-free form.”

I’m up to #4 in the 10-part series, (which will actually be 12 to work on jaw and neck tension.) It’s not a panacea. I’m skeptical that anything I do reset won’t just fall back into old ways. But I’m open to possibilities. And that may be the most important element of this process.

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 Mapeel     12/12/2010     current events   

Right Place, Right Time

Our bartender friend Scribbler of Behind the Stick has an amazing story up at his place, recounting his cosmic experience of going to Elaine’s last Friday, following the news of her death. It has to do with a key lost, and a key returned. Go visit to read his strangely magical tale.

His story reminded me of a time when the universe put me in a very specific place, at a very specific time, in order to help someone I didn’t know.

(Time Tunnel music up here.)

October 3, 1995
Does anyone remember that date?

It was the day the jury came back with the verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial.

I watched the verdict on TV at work, with literally half the population of the U.S. (according to Wiki).

The media played up that there was “concern” that there might be rioting in the city over the verdict. The details are now fuzzy in my head, but I think I decided it was as good of a reason as any to go out to Long Island to see my mom.

I think I left work a little early, and I walked down to Penn Station. Which meant that to get to my train I was going down the main, big staircase at 7th avenue and 33rd street. It was a little early for rush hour, but hundreds and hundreds of people were already streaming down those steps.

And that’s when it happened.

Going down the stairs I was behind a man in his sixties, grey hair, wearing a red plaid chub jacket and grey pants. Midway down I saw a basic number 10 envelope fall out of his back pocket. I picked it up and taped him on the shoulder.

He turned around and looked at me, then looked down at the envelope.

“Oh my God,” he said. “Thank you for returning that to me. I can’t lose that.”

It’s not what he said, but the way he said it. There was sheer terror and exaggerated relief in his eyes at the same time.

We were stopped for a nanosecond on the steps as the crush of commuters flowed around us. The energy between us was so strange, so odd: as I handed the envelope to him I felt that like I was literally handing his life back to him.

I really can’t imagine what was in the envelope. It wasn’t flat, it felt like it had several pages in it. It crossed my mind that if it was so important, what was it doing in his back pocket?

It was the briefest of encounters, but it has haunted me a bit since then. It may be that the action of getting that envelope back into that man’s hands is the single most significant thing I will ever do on this earth. That’s okay with me.

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 Mapeel     12/06/2010     current events   

I Would Follow Bergdof's Anywhere

My own official kickoff of the Christmas season begins with my visit to the windows at Bergof’s. Midtown is so glutted with tourists that it took me almost 15 minutes to make the 5 blocks journey north on 5th Avenue between my office and BGs.

The arduous trek was well worth it. The theme of the windows this year is one near and dear to my heart: TRAVEL.

They’re called “Wish You Were Here,” and David Hoey’s signature wildly sophisticated vistas are visual meditations on the romance of different modes of travel: train, ship, mythological Pegasus; "day tripper" to the stars; hot air balloon; and Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang-like jalopy; as well as fantastic features of stunning ensembles with globes and maps. The zodiac pops up in various windows as part of the detail of the heavens.

Each window really is a masterpiece of art and design. The ultimate holiday windows for grownups.

What I also like about them is the “making of” video that Bergdof produced uses the song “Follow Me” by 17-year old Audrianna Cole. She’s the aural cousin of Pamplamoose, the other holiday go-to group this year (you know, those Hyundai commercials). Cole’s song is a nice echo of Twitter’s constant entreaty, and thoughts that travelers often have about loved ones who are nontravellers: Why don’t you follow me?

TV Imitating My Life

After my Bergdof’s visit I caught an episode of CSI: New York, which I never watch. But the plot was that Gary Sinises and Sela Ward go see the unveling of a department store’s holiday windows. And they see a pickpocket working the crowd, lifting wallets while people’s attention is focused on the windows.

That exact thing happened to me!! The ONLY time I have had my pocket picked in Gotham was many years ago, while I was looking at the windows of Lord & Taylor. I was working down on Wall Street at the time, but a meeting brought me to 42 street, and so I took the opportunity to see the windows. I felt so stupid. I live here, I’m supposed to know better. So this year I was extra careful and alert, and I left Bergdof’s with wallet and spirits intact.

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 Mapeel     12/04/2010     Christmas, holidays   

Where's M.A.?

I was happily one of 15,000 people on Thanksgiving morning in Manchester, CT, participating in a 74-year-old tradition of running 4.7 miles to usher in the holiday season.

The Manchester Road Race started in 1927 when the captain of the Manchester High School cross-country team was sad that his track season was over in early November, and thought it would be fun if there were a Thanksgiving Day cross-country race for the town. The Manchester recreation director got on board and then the town government, and so a tradition was started.

Today it’s competitors and customs. Generations of families run together, and there’s a contingent of imaginative costumes, including: blue bodied smurfs; suit and sunglassed Blues Brothers; an entire Thanksgiving dinner; a running Christmas tree; and several different groups of men in Hawaiian hulu outfits. Townspeople line most of the route, cheering people on, some blaring some inspiring music, which really does help. Various homegrown bands play for the crowd: rock bands play some mean Leonard Skynard and the Stones; there was a brass quintet; an accordion band; and the St. Patrick's bagpipe band from Glastonbury. The whole atmosphere is incredibly festive.

I was happy with my 63 minutes finish time for 4.7 miles. I had to power-walk up the big hill, but since I’ve been power walking in NY a lot longer than I’ve been trying to run, I didn’t fall too far behind in time.


Manchester, Then & Now
I wasn’t familiar with Manchester before my friends invited me along. I learned it was the site of the first successful professional silk mill in the US, founded by Ralph, Ward, and Frank Cheney in 1838. With the success of Cheney silks, Manchester grew into a quintessential company town. The town has preserved the remnants of the dynasty’s homes and mills, and its archives are an important source of knowledge for the mill production work of New England.

The family ran the company until they were bought out by JP Stevens in 1954. The town never recovered its company town prosperity and it has suffered in the recnt economic downturns. It is sprinkled with antique stores, and I guess it sees some business from the NY to Boston “antique-ing” seekers.

The race begins with the "Star Spangled-Banner," and after “on your marks, get set, go” is proclaimed, the race kicks off to a recording of Kate Smith singing “God Bless America” followed by Springsteen’s “Born in the USA.”

Somewhere amid all this ceremony I heard the announcer say something like “let us remember our neighbors,” and he read a fairly long list of names.

And then a chill went down my spine. I remembered. Manchester. There was a shooting in Manchester in August. A worker at a beer distributor was accused of stealing, and was asked by his boss to resign or be fired. After viewing videotape surveillance they had of him stealing from his route, he signed a resignation. He then asked to go get a drink of water, and he picked up 2 guns he had brought with him in his lunch pail. He shot eight people, and then himself. He had complained to his mother and girlfriend of racist treatment from his employers, though he had never filed a complaint with the union.

The announcer was reading the names of the those who were shot dead. Standing amid 15,000 people it was a poignant reminder how much our lives are affected by our neighbors. There are times when we celebrate together, sometimes even in running shoes. But the fabric of individual life and collective society is always very, very fragile.

Update 11/29: Turns out that Sports Illustrated columnist Peter King was at the race too. Here's his account (h/t my brother):

A good time was had by all at the 74th annual Manchester (Conn.) Road Race in central Connecticut Thanksgiving morning. What a slice of Americana. Ran in memory of my late brother Bob with his widow, Caroline; visiting daughters Laura and Mary Beth; nephew Evan and niece Laila, Bob and Caroline's children; along with their teammates from the South Windsor (Conn.) High cross-country team ... all in bright green "Bob's Team'' T-shirts designed by Laila. A great morning, though it was 29 degrees at the start of the race.

This was one of those leisure 4.8-milers, even with a mile-long winding hill early in the race, with 15 bands playing by the side of the Manchester roadways, and some of the most incredible costumes. Eight guys streamed past at one point in little loincloths and native-American feathers around their heads, wearing nothing else but running shoes. As one of the rock bands played "Fortunate Son'' on a lawn 1.5 miles into it, a guy dressed as one of the Hanson brothers from "Slapshot'' danced on the lawn with a woman dressed from head to toe as a bright red lobster. And so it went. Never had more fun running a race, even though I finished around 11,000th out of 15,000. At least I edged out 90-year-old Betty Hutchinson. Now that would have been embarrassing.

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 Mapeel     11/27/2010     current events, holidays