Treat yourself to a Christmas story by Mark Twain…
The Christmas Fireside (for Good Little Boys and Girls) Click here (PDF) to read it—free!
Mark Twain (1835–1910)
From Mark Twain: Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays 1852–1890The year 2010 has become, somewhat unexpectedly, the Year of Mark Twain. And so, for this holiday season, we present a Christmas story that only he could write, about the wicked boy who got everything.
When Twain arrived in San Francisco in 1864, he quickly landed a job writing for a newly launched literary weekly called The Californian, which was co-edited by Bret Harte (future author of “The Outcast of Poker Flat”) and Charles Henry Webb. With their encouragement and guidance, he honed his skills as a satirist and within a few months he was paid $50 a month to write one piece per issue—a respectable amount at the time, although never enough for the young Samuel Clemens, whose financial woes were a recurrent theme in his journals and letters. The newspaper was a success, but turnover among owners and editors led to its eventual demise. Before the periodical ceased publication in 1868, it had also introduced Ambrose Bierce to its readers.
Published two days before Christmas in the newspaper’s first year, “The Christmas Fireside” features a character familiar to readers of Mark Twain: the naughty boy. Compared with the affably mischievous Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, however, “Jim” is a downright monster. But Twain’s satire isn’t really about boyhood. If anything, Twain has written what might be called an “anti-story”—less about what does happen to Jim and more about what does not. He has two targets: the laughably implausible Sunday school catechisms of the era and (particularly in the closing paragraphs) the American propensity for rewarding corruption and vice among members of its political and entrepreneurial class. “Bah, humbug!” one might think, but what keeps the young Mark Twain from being the Californian Scrooge is a sense of impishness to mitigate the cynicism.
Bach: Cantata, BWV 147, Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
via youtube.com
Timeless, esp. this time of year! I heard a lovely rendition of this on strings yesterday in church.
Measured Music
Perplexed Music
– Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Experience, like a pale musician, holds
A dulcimer of patience in his hand,
Whence harmonies, we cannot understand,
Of God; will in his worlds, the strain unfolds
In sad-perplexed minors: deathly colds
Fall on us while we hear, and countermand
Our sanguine heart back from the fancyland
With nightingales in visionary wolds.
We murmur ‘Where is any certain tune
Or measured music in such notes as these ?
But angels, leaning from the golden seat,
Are not so minded their fine ear hath won
The issue of completed cadences,
And, smiling down the stars, they whisper –
Sweet.
A Hat Trick: And This Is Better Than Cricket!
That’s what its called: when you do it three times in a row, that is! That’s what a hat-trick means in the game of cricket. As also in the game of life, if you will. 🙂
And that’s what I’m celebrating today. This one particular staff-writer at The Emery, Huron High School’s newspaper, who happens to share a last name with me, had her story featured on the cover of the paper– three times in a row.
For a look at the album, click right here!
Let Them Eat Cake!
So this past summer, I wrote a piece on my private blog about cakes and such. The post is duly reproduced below for your reading pleasure just as much as it is to add the image of yet another cake as an illustration that serves to support all the points previously made. And to recognize yet again this tradition of eating cake, especially when a birthday rolls around– this one being my husbands’!
This one is a red-velvet one with a creamcheese frosting. Mmmmmm!
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Let them eat it everyday (if they can and wish!), but let them eat it for sure on their birthdays! Well, the title of this post is a phrase oft-attributed to Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France known for her lavish ways for whom brioche or cake was as ordinary as bread. But cake is not ordinary. It is extravagant in every way: butter, sugar, flour and flavorings come together to create a decadent sensation for the palate and the eyes. It is the signature food for special occasions: weddings and birthdays, in particular.
And so, last week we had cake. To celebrate Samira’s 14th birthday. Not one or two, but three altogether! And here’s why: there’s the main one– a very fancy guava-and-lime tiered cake on the day of her birthday (which happened to be a Wednesday); another small one which was a double-chocolate fudge brownie cake (which is a tradition in our house to have a smallish one on the side, just for fun!); and a standard yellow sheet-cake on the day of her party (Friday of that week) with her friends that has a lovely blue-and-yellow frosting of flowers that also look like butterflies! Needless to say, all three were delicious!
And speaking of cake, I read this article the other day on an interesting concept in designing a dinner menu for a wedding reception– a novelty idea to have each dish catered by a different source, including the cake which looks oh-so-gorgeous in all that chocolate glory and those pink flowers (orchids?) as a shocking and delightful contrast against the rich brown chocolate exterior. Mmmm… I think that cake might have even stolen the show at that reception!
Oh, and by the way, that phrase Let Them Eat Cake, well, there is controversy on whether or not the line was truly uttered by Marie Antoinette. Here’s some more info on that.
So, enjoy these pictures of birthday cakes. They were certainly good enough to eat! Now, if only we could have eaten our cake and had it too… 🙂
NPR Double Take : Editorial Cartoons
via npr.org
Gotta love these double-takes! And gotta love editorial cartoons in general! Click on the link below the pictures to go directly to NPR’s website.
2010 Pictures of the Year – Photo Gallery – LIFE
TIME's Person of the Year: All 84! – Photo Gallery – LIFE
via life.com
Complete collection of all Time Magazine covers of the Person of the Year starting w/ Charles Lindbergh in 1927. Click through each one (small arrow on far left side of the photograph) and see if you can identify the person/image without reading the caption below. (My fave US Prez FDR made the cover at least four times– and rightfully so!)
Happy viewing this photo gallery, thanks to LIFE Magazine.
