2000-12-28 - Night
Note to krapsnart: My copy of MST3K�s treatment of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is an old (circa 1990), very grainy, muddy-sounding, copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy that was made on the crappy Goldstar that I bought in the mid-1980s because it was cheap and all I wanted at the time was something to watch porn with ... but remind me to lend you the tape next time we visit. You can�t truly appreciate Pia Zadora until you�ve read her in the original Klingon.
***
My parents� nativity scene has a new Baby Jesus this year. We kids all noticed it at almost the exact same time. The scene predates most of us--I think my folks ordered it out of the Sears catalog the first Christmas they were married. For all the abuse it�s taken in 40-plus Christmases--from children, from pets, from wheelchair tires (one time I rolled over and crushed a shepherd�s skull because I didn�t see him lying there on the floor)--it�s held up remarkably well. The cardboard stable needs glue, and only about half of the garishly painted papier-mache figures are left, but all the essential ones are there: Mary (with vintage 1950s makeup, lipstick and hairstyle), Joseph, Baby Jesus, the Three Wise Men, one surviving shepherd and a couple of animals. There�s an Angel of the Lord, too, but he obviously came in later, because he�s only two-thirds the height of the others and looks like a midget Bjorn Borg. My favorite, the camel, disappeared without a trace in 1995.
So what happened to Baby Jesus? One of my parents� dogs, Fab--the sweetest but also the most totally spastic dog I�ve ever known--ate him last New Year�s Eve. I guess she thought he looked like a nummy Christmas treat all wrapped up in swaddling clothes and whatnot. The only traces my mom ever found were tiny bits of balsawood manger lodged in the living room carpet.
The new one is nice enough, but it�s just not the same. For one thing, he looks more like Baby Dick Van Patten. For another, he�s too big--Mother of God or no, she�d have split at the seams giving birth to that one. Finally, it�s not the one I grew up with. I once blackened my brother�s eye fighting over who got to put Baby Jesus in the manger, and now all I have of that triumph is the memory.
All this trouble over a fat little man in a red suit!
***
Saw One Day in September tonight, a documentary about the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Go see it even if you don�t care for documentaries--this one�s worth it. The film�s marred somewhat by Michael Douglas� self-righteous narration (if they wanted an indignant liberal, why didn�t they get Martin Sheen like every other documentary director does?), but the facts it lays out are mind-blowing even 28 years later. I remember Munich vividly--it�s the first Olympics I�m conscious of--but still, I had no idea that the Munich police were so incompetent, the West German government such a bunch of pants-shitting cowards, and the Olympic authorities so cold-blooded and borderline antisemitic (OK, I had that last part figured out already, mainly because the people in charge of the Olympics are still hypocritical cryptofascist pigfuckers). Anyway, just go see it.
Tomorrow night the same theater is showing the restored All About Eve. I may have to go--after all, I can�t be the campy bon-vivant everyone expects me to be unless I toss out a "Fasten your seatbelts, it�s going to be a bumpy night" at least once at every social gathering, and I need to work on my delivery.
***
|
 |