…and
puts its top back on, alas…
Your
Humble Narrator is displeased to report that the Village Voice nerd-culture
website The Robot’s Voice (formerly Topless Robot), to which I was a frequent
contributor for the last two and half years, has been closed. I hope its
editor, Luke Thompson, finds himself up to new mischief soon.
The
Phoenix Film Critics Society, of which I’m a proud founding member, has announced
its 2015 Award Winners. I’m especially happy with this year’s Best Picture
winner, which had my vote. My own Top Ten list will follow shortly after the
New Year.
Here
are some reflections on Christmas music that have occurred to me recently:
“Santa
Baby” is a really impressive piece of songwriting, with a spectacularly
complex, intricate rhyme scheme. Also, did you know it was written by the niece of Jacob Javits? Also, all versions of this song except Eartha Kitt’s
should be banned from the airwaves. Madonna’s coy bimbo version withers
embarrassingly beside Kitt’s sedate, unhurried vocal, a perfect counterpoint to
the infantile acquisitiveness of the lyric.
There
have been many delightful versions of the duet “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” But
the older I get, the more it starts to sound like a creepy date-rape song,
especially in the line “Say, what’s in this drink?"
Mariah
Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” is rousingly performed, but something
has always bugged me about it, and I think it’s this: It’s insulting. She keeps
saying she doesn’t want much this Christmas, she isn’t asking for much, and
then she says the trifling little insignificant thing she wants is…you. Gee,
thanks.
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