Christmas Cheer

Charlene, from Char's Adventures talks about her class Christmas pageant. It just happens to be the same day I am reading David Sedaris' book Holidays on Ice (just arrived from Amazon Saturday!!!). I like his view on school pagents...

Here again the first through third-grade actors graced the stage with an enthusiasm most children reserve for a smallpox vaccination. One could hardly blame them for their lack of vitality, as the stingy, uninspired script consists, not of springy dialogue, but rather of a deadening series of pronouncements.

Mary to Joseph: "I am tired."
Joseph to Mary: "We will rest here for the night."

There's no fire, no give and take, and the audience soon grows weary of this passionless relationship"

A strong proponent of trendy racially mixed casting, Michaels gives us a black Tiny Tim, leaving the audience to wonder, "What, is this kid supposed to be adopted?" It's a distracting move, wrongheaded and pointless.

There is also a lovely story of one of his childhood Christmas memories.

Were I to receive a riding vacuum cleaner or even a wizend proboscis monkey, it wouldn't please me half as much as knowing that we were the only family in the neighborhood with a prostitute in our kitchen.

Really great stuff. I was looking for some of these on-line, and couldn't find the text, but found a link that has lots of recordings of Sedaris reading some of his work.

I met a fun guy this weekend who is a designer of buttons (the type you see on a computer program). He also does other design and illustration. He was telling me about how when he worked for Sony, drawing Sesame Street characters on children's products. I always wondered how they got every single Big Bird to look the same as every other Big Bird. Now I know. Apparently, after he would draw a character, he had to send the drawing to New York, where someone would make corrections by drawing over it on a piece of tracing paper. They would make comments such as "Ernie's belly aint so big". What an exciting job they must have.

Our office was robbed last week. They didn't take much, only a lap-top, a brief-case, and a couple computer mice. Or so we thought!!!! Today, I realized that my expensive (2,300 yen) Sony headphones were gone!!! A year ago I spent three days deciding if I should buy them or not! Now I have to go through that again.

I found this out today, but it is not as bad as what my co-worker found out by a phone call from his wife as work ended. His house was broken into and robbed today while they were at work. So I want to hear all you people who have these dreams and fantasies of Japan as a safe place to take note.