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Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Christmas 2017: Yule tree Horned God decoration
On Thursday's Winter Solstice, I created a Horned God effigy for my synthetic Yule tree ππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππ
— oioiiooixiii (@oioiiooixiii) December 24, 2017
info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horned_God
Christmas music & the speed-listening approach: 44 classic Christmas songs mashed into one
Christmas can be a busy time, too busy for music even. Perhaps you just need a festive punch in the face. Enjoy this Christmas time-saver...
— oioiiooixiii (@oioiiooixiii) December 25, 2015
content originally published: December 24th, 2010
PNB's Nutcracker: The ever increasing athleticism of ballet
I had never felt inclined to watch an entire version of the Nutcracker ballet, until last December, when I happened upon a Pacific Northwest Ballet GIF animation on tumblr, and decided to source a copy of PNB's 1986 movie version, choreographed and designed by Kent Stowell and Maurice Sendak. And what a wonderful production it is. The Peacock divertissement alone, as danced by Maia Rosal, made it worth watching.
Leah Merchant's arabesque in the GIF of the modern version is stunning. One must comment however, that it does lose the context of the move representing a bird preening it's tail feathers. It is now a show piece, offering the dancer a chance to show off her technical prowess. That's not meant as a criticism by any means, but as an observation of the increasing athleticism of ballet.
I once had a blog post sketched out, which documented the increasing heights of leg extensions and the evolution of the arabesque through the centuries, and ended in a humerous envisioning of what obtuse angles the leg would take in the not too distant future.
notes:
http://oioiiooixiii.tumblr.com/post/69584518064
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091658/
http://www.pnb.org/Artists/Corps/LeahMerchant.aspx
"Krampus: The Yule Lord" - Brom
I have always enjoyed Gerald Brom's art. Fantasy art with a wide ranging themes, gothic and macabre, where gender sometimes seems insignificant; often ambiguous. This variegation follows through in the writing of this book. Morality becomes complex and indiscreet. This is not some "good verses bad" Disney story.
Briefly, it is a modern story involving a battle between Krampus, the Pagan elemental of Christmas, and Santa Claus, the Christian - mixed with some Norse mythology. This gets entangled with a side story about Jesse, a down and out musician, battling to save his family.
One of the reasons I felt inclined read the book, was because of the Native American aspects Brom had used for his paintings of the Belsnickels. I had feared he might have just appropriated some "cool" looking bits from native dress, but it turned out that these characters are actually of Native American origin, and because of the nature of the story, it makes perfect sense for these characters to be so.
It was the audiobook version that I consumed, and the narration by Kirby Heyborne really set the story alight. The voices and characterisations were perfect. With a few sound effects and a little less "he said - she said" parts, some of it could easily be turned into a radio play.
There is a nice epilogue where Brom describes the origins of his story, through analysis of the Krampus and Santa Claus folklore.
Briefly, it is a modern story involving a battle between Krampus, the Pagan elemental of Christmas, and Santa Claus, the Christian - mixed with some Norse mythology. This gets entangled with a side story about Jesse, a down and out musician, battling to save his family.
One of the reasons I felt inclined read the book, was because of the Native American aspects Brom had used for his paintings of the Belsnickels. I had feared he might have just appropriated some "cool" looking bits from native dress, but it turned out that these characters are actually of Native American origin, and because of the nature of the story, it makes perfect sense for these characters to be so.
It was the audiobook version that I consumed, and the narration by Kirby Heyborne really set the story alight. The voices and characterisations were perfect. With a few sound effects and a little less "he said - she said" parts, some of it could easily be turned into a radio play.
There is a nice epilogue where Brom describes the origins of his story, through analysis of the Krampus and Santa Claus folklore.
What if... Home Alone was really a movie about time travel?
Admittedly, I'm not overly familiar with the conventional storyline anyway...
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