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Holiday Stars at The Shops at Columbus Circle

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One of my very favorite holiday displays in the city is the light-up stars at Columbus Circle. This set-up is in the atrium of the shops that take up the first three floors of the Time Warner Center.  The stars themselves are impressive constructions of frosted plastic, metal and electronics. They are each fourteen feet tall, and are suspended from the ceiling by heavy cables. Each panel can light up different colors, the edges have more tiny LEDs, and there are bulbs that can throw out a flash or strobe at the tip of each point.  Through most of the day, the stars gently shift in color every minute or two. In the evening, it's a bit different. See below for more pictures, and video. I think the effect has been better in years past; it's more suited to orchestral work than jazz, but it's still pretty impressive.

Twilight Zone: The Night of the Meek (1960)

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One of the things I like most about The Twilight Zone is how earnestly everyone plays their lines. It can verge on melodrama, but in this context it just causes me to completely accept the reality of the characters' experience. This is a particularly sweet and fuzzy episode for this series. The episode follows Henry Corwin, a drunken Department Store Santa who wishes that he could see some actual kindness and giving for the season. He gets fired from his job, then finds a sack that seems to contain an unlimited supply of Christmas presents. He proceeds to grant wishes for the poor and downtrodden, and anyone else he meets. He runs briefly afoul of the law in a very funny scene, but there's not really much suspense to be had here. I could have used a slightly less corny or more ambiguous ending, but this tale of a poor man getting his wish to make others happy activated my holiday warmth centers. Go in aware that it's pretty straightforward - just a short exercise

Holiday Brit-Coms: Keeping Up Appearances: A Very Merry Hyacinth (AKA The Father Christmas Suit) (1991) & Are You Being Served?: Christmas Crackers (1975)

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I'm more of a fan of British Sitcoms than Erin is; I watched them a lot on PBS when I was in high school, and again when I worked nights when we lived in DC. However, I, uh, wouldn't start with either of these episodes. Keeping Up Appearances , in case you don't know, is a comedy of manners and class about a woman (Hyacinth Bucket) born to a lower-class family, now living a middle-class lifestyle while reaching for upper-class respectability. She, of course, constantly postures and overreaches herself, and annoys those around her to no end. I rather like how indefatigable she is, though. The Father Christmas Suit (called A Very Merry Hyacinth in US release) is a highly farcical episode, that definitely relies on the viewers knowledge of the characters prior relationships for its humor. As seemingly simple a thing as handing out presents in a church charity drive becomes a fiasco when Hyacinth decides just how it has to be perfect. It isn't a great episode, thou

Lassie: The Christmas Story (1958)

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This thing was hilarious. The special starts with Lassie, Timmy, and the parents in town for some Christmas shopping. Across the street, a young girl rolls a toy ball into the road in an apparent attempt to lure Lassie into the path of an oncoming truck. When she realizes that he's not that dumb, she tries larger bait, running out after it herself. Lassie leaps into action, knocking the petulant child out of the way and taking a potentially lethal blow to the head in the process. The heroic dog is then whisked away to the doctor's office, where a waiting newsman pounces on the story. But... will Lassie die? Cue the solemn Christmas music. How about dramatic close-ups of Timmy praying for her recovery, a parade of supporting cast members and their pets visiting, and as much dramatic tension as the producers could wring out of this half-hour melodramatic episode. Lindsay and I laughed out loud. The best part, in my humble opinion, was when Timmy prayed to God, asking

Holiday Comics! JLA #60, DCU Infinite Holiday Special, Larfleeze Christmas Special

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2011 Bonus! The BEST holiday comic experience this year is the delightful one-page piece over at Mike Maihack's blog. Click HERE! In my quest to experience as much Christmas as possible, I picked up a couple of holiday-looking issues during a sale at my local comic shop. The Larfleeze Special I got when it came out last year. These are all really fun issues. Happy Holidays and Merry Reading! JLA #60 (Released 2001) Writer: Mark Waid, Pencils: Cliff Rathburn, Inks: Paul Neary, Colors: David Baron “Twas the Fight Before Christmas!” This is an incredibly silly little one-shot story, in which Plastic Man tries to convince a kid that Santa is on the Justice League. His explanation of how this came to be involves Neron, demon elves, evil gingerbread men, and Santa's surprise super-powers. The kid often knows more about the League than Plastic Man, and corrects the hero, like any good comic nerd. It's extremely zany, and I definitely enjoyed it. DCU Infinite Holida

Fifth Avenue Windows 2011, Part Two: Taxidermy and sculpture inspired by taxidermy

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The best part of checking out window displays in New York is usually the windows at Bergdorf Goodman. This year I took a few more pictures, but I still didn't get everything. On one side of the building, everything was horses. Then you round the corner, and there are a few long skinny windows: The main windows, this year, are titled "Carnival of the Animals". Each window has a different color theme, and a different material. The first window was all brass metals: The second window, white, done up in fur and crystal: There was a tiny window near the door that held, well, this: The third big window was blue, and all done with mosaic tile: The fourth window was black and white, and all the animals there were made of paper! The fifth was brown, and all of wood.  From across the street you can see the effect of the colors: If you keep going around the third side

Nestor: the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey (1977)

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I'm not sure whether I'll be able to coherently describe what happened in the special, but I know I can explain how it came to be. There was a meeting, quite possibly in a studio boardroom, where someone said, "Hey. You know what we need? Another Rudolph." To which someone else added, "And we need something that's religious, really puts the Christ in Christmas." And fifteen minutes later the storyboard for Nestor: the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey was born. I don't think I've ever seen this before, probably because it doesn't have the same exposure most of the other specials have. This is kind of a shame, because it's just about the most screwed-up thing I've ever seen, and I feel like more people should be familiar with it. This is narrated by Nestor's descendant, whose name escapes me and I don't care enough to look up. I should probably add that Nestor's descendant works for Santa Claus at the North Pole. This i