Mainlining Christmas

We're back! In the new episode, we explore how the holidays are celebrated among the stars, where no one can hear you sing Christmas carols. Listen above, or on Soundcloud , Stitcher , iTunes , or almost any podcast app. References: Prometheus (2012)  Alien: Covenant (2017)  The Golden Bough "Dialogue: Sir Ridley Scott Explains 'Prometheus,' Explores Our Past, and Teases Future 'Alien' Stories" Also mentioned: Black Christmas Brazil Santa Claus Conquers the Martians Children of Men Christmas on Mars Transcript below Lindsay: In the eight years we’ve been Mainlining Christmas, Erin and I have seen hundreds of movies. As you’d expect, many of them blend together. Erin: The vast majority fall into a handful of buckets: comedies where someone rekindles their love of the holidays through family, self-aware noir action flicks juxtaposing the trappings of the season with violent shoot-outs, zany fantasies involving Santa, angels, o

In case you missed  the release announcement , this is a quick reminder that our gift to you this season is the pilot episode of the Mainlining Christmas Podcast. In the first episode, secular holiday nerds Erin and Lindsay get a visit from their own Christmas future, along with a lesson on the true reason for the season (spoiler: it's time travel). Listen above, or on Soundcloud , Stitcher , or iTunes . Pieces of media discussed or mentioned: Back to the Future, Part II (1989) It's a Wonderful Life  (1946) A Christmas Carol   by Charles Dickens, 1843 Quantum Leap: "A Little Miracle"  (1990) Blackadder’s Christmas Carol  (1988) Real Ghostbusters: "X-Mas Marks the Spot"  (1986) Back to the Future: "Dickens of a Christmas"  (1991) Saving Santa  (2013) Doctor Who: "A Christmas Carol"  (2010) Doctor Who: "The Unquiet Dead"   (2005) Doctor Who: "The Doctor, The Widow, and The Wardrobe"  (2011) "Chr

For the better part of a decade, we've been sifting our way through an endless ocean of yuletide specials and sharing the experience with those of you willing to follow along. Over the years, something odd happened: we started to learn something. This was unintentional, I assure you. We started noticing patterns and trends, and we began piecing together theories about the holidays' odd relationship with pop culture, genre, and literature. I'm not sure it's fair to call us "experts," but we certainly developed a rather unique perspective. But while the blog has been a good forum for reviews and the occasional think piece, it's a poor environment for more in-depth discussion. We wanted to try something new. And that brings us to The Mainlining Christmas Podcast. We're working on pushing this out to various podcast outlets, but for now you can listen at Soundcloud. We've got plans for several more episodes, assuming there's interest

I don’t have much time these days for Studio 360. A radio show from WNYC about art, creativity and culture, I have loved some episodes and been bored by others. Even if I wanted to listen to it more often, it’s a weekly show that’s an hour long in full, and that’s a time commitment. I do sometimes check out the podcast feed to see what’s been on recently. I have always loved the shows they’ve done about great American art and artists. This year, the podcast replayed a fantastic interview from 2012 about the composition of the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas. Even a Grinch like me likes the music to A Charlie Brown Christmas. Even if you’ve never been curious about the composition of “Christmas Time is Here” and “Linus and Lucy,” the piece is only 7 minutes, and it’s definitely worth your time. Hear from Jean Schulz, Jerry Granelli (the drummer who played with Guaraldi), and Lee Mendelson, the producer who worked closely with Schulz on the Christmas special, on St

I love podcasts, and one that I quite often find charming is The Allusionist, a series about language, etymology, verbiage, puns, and other wordy pursuits. The most recent episode is a bit of a holiday special. It’s all about Winterval, a portmanteau invented in 1997 in the British city of Birmingham to market all of their winter and winter-holiday events together in a grand festival. Of course, someone took it the wrong way, someone was quoted out of context, and a poisonous myth was born about “political correctness gone mad.” This is an interesting entry in the history of Christmas, culture, and a timely example of how repeating a story doesn’t make it true, but it can make people believe it. All that in 15 minutes. Check it out at: http://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/winterval

This American Life is one of the better radio shows/podcasts out there. I got hooked on the show last year. At times, the series can be whimsical, sad, funny, and dark. They've got almost two decades of episodes archived online. I decided to go through and listen to all of the holiday episodes. While there hasn't been one every year, they've got quite a few of them kicking around: nine in all, unless I missed any. At an hour each, that's quite a lot of public radio Christmas. I started with the most recent then worked back to the beginning. Act 1: Christmas 514: Thought That Counts (2013) As is typical for the show, it's broken into a number of stories (or "acts," if you want to maintain Ira's terminology). This time it's three "acts" plus a prologue. Four stories in total. The prologue is actually a little different this time: instead of a single short, it's several, and they're peppered throughout the episode. Thes