#48: "for fun and general merriment"
Welcome to issue #48 of THIS NEWSLETTER CANNOT SAVE YOU. You know, friends, holidays are a time of tradition. Every year my family loves trimming the tree, and baking cookies, and caroling on our neighbors' doorsteps, although we might mix up the set list a little this year, maybe throw in some hot new arrangement that experiments boldly with harmonics to emphasize the potency of the lyrics, and they'll be like, "I know this one, oh man I just heard this one at the dentist, hang on let me Shazam this," and we'll be like, "HA mfs it's the Coventry Carol, the Coventry Effing Carol, you didn't see THAT medieval shit coming, because Shazam's coverage of 16th century mystery play music is minimal at best!"
Anyway a more recent tradition for me is crafting recommendations for the year-end issue of this newsletter. This is our third one.
Holidayvision
It's a mix of classics and new discoveries this year. Consider sharing these delightful holiday videos with your family and friends, for fun and general merriment, or to get them to leave or whatever.
"Happy Holidays" (2010) - This will likely lead off my holiday recos from now until the merciful collapse of society. Brought to you by the directing duo DANIELS, it's a seasonally-appropriate, action-packed, maniacally chaotic short film from their back catalogue.
"HAPPY HOLIDAYS" (2017) - One of my favorite animators, Hideki Inaba, produced this one-minute psychedelic holiday film, an abstract visual feast culminating in an appearance by some kind of dark matter Santa. Put it on repeat instead of watching a fireplace on TV.
"Happy Holidays" (2015); "Christmas In Space!!" (2021); "Hail Santa" (2022) - Eoin Duffy offers a trilogy of tiny animations giving us a rather hapless view of poor Santa as he tries to enjoy Christmas. I'm sure we can all relate!
"Snowmen" (2017) - In 2007, David Lynch released an art book containing photographs of snowmen he'd taken in the early 1990s in Idaho. This film is a one minute tribute to that book, slightly animated by Rino Stefano Tagliafierro.
"A Holiday News Report from the Horrifying Future" (2012) - A video from Cracked exploring what will become of Christmas when the bees mutate and take over.
"New Year’s Honey Glazed Ham" (2021) - I wondered if my heroes at Meow Wolf had contributed anything to the holiday repertoire, as it were, and sure enough, a YouTube user managed to rescue this Omega Mart commercial from obscurity and posted it for our enjoyment.
"Liberace's Musical Tribute to the Holidays" (1981) - Liberace welcomes guests Orson Welles, Ethel Merman, and Elton John to his heartwarming Christmas special - uncannily good impressions by Dave Thomas, John Candy, Andrea Martin, and Rick Moranis in this short clip from the Canadian sketch comedy show SCTV.
"Think Better This Christmas" (2021) - In this animated short from Adult Swim, a group of cynical friends tries to cheer up their lonely chum. They fail.
"Silver Bells" (1980) - The story goes that Steve Martin and Paul Simon bumped into Billy Joel at a restaurant in NYC one night. "We had a little bit of wine, and then we had a little more wine," Joel said in an interview in 2001. "Nobody was feeling any pain." They retreated to the studio where Joel was recording, and produced this heavily bootlegged but never officially released Christmas single. If I had a heart, this is the sort of thing that would warm it.
"O Holy Night" (2008) - You'll probably never hear a weirder version of this carol than this recording by Steve W. Mauldin, but the additional layer of wtf here is the devastating lip sync interpretation by Martin Landry. Genius performances on both fronts, and you can, of course, buy the track.
"TV Funhouse, Ep. 3 - Christmas Day" (2000) - TV Funhouse began as a series of filmed sketches that ran on Saturday Night Live for several years, before it got picked up for a short-lived series on Comedy Central. In this 20-minute episode, the "Anipals" - the weird group of animal puppets that star in the show - get high by snorting powdered "Christmas cheer" that they've refined from the spinal fluid of an elf, and then charge into the streets of New York City to aggressively Christmas carol at real New Yorkers. This will not be everyone's cup of tea.
Also!
I wanted to say thank you to everyone who supported my novel WILD MASSIVE this year by offering a small gift. It's a short story called WILD MASSIVE: AFTERSHOCK and you can snag it as a free epub until the end of the year. I'll provide no spoilers, other than to tell you it's set immediately after the events of the book.
If you haven't heard about WILD MASSIVE, it's a sprawling science-fantasy adventure - I've posted blurbs & reviews here. But you could also listen to a recording I made of my book launch event at Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, where I got a chance to read a couple excerpts and answer some fun questions. I only recently remembered this recording exists, so you'll be the first (only) people to hear it!
Exit Music
Closing out this holiday issue with the 7" version of Max Headroom's "Merry Christmas Santa Claus (You're A Lovely Guy)." The song was the grand finale of "Max Headroom's Giant Christmas Turkey" special in 1986, and features an appropriately bonkers performance from Matt Frewer as Max. However, the 7" single featured a completely different vocal take by Frewer that's both more absurdly intimate and more ludicrously over-the-top at the same time.
Here's the YouTube playlist with this issue's recos. I shall endeavor to rejoin you in the new year for more shenanigans like these.
Until next time, I remain your friendly correspondent, thinking of you,
Scotto
Scotto Moore is the author of WILD MASSIVE, BATTLE OF THE LINGUIST MAGES, and YOUR FAVORITE BAND CANNOT SAVE YOU.
MORPHING DISCO SANTA
DANCING XMAS CATS
XMAS DISCO BALL CHAIR
DISCO BALL XMAS TREE