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By Kerry, January 5, 2010 1:36 am

You never forget your first photo credit.

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By Kerry, December 17, 2009 1:32 am

Because everyone else already has, I offer you this selection of my favourite Christmas-related videos currently available on the free time-eating video repository known as YouTube. (By making it subjective, I avoid accusations of missing certain ones!)

In no particular order:

Epic! Random! And, at the time, “surreal!” To be fair, David Bowie had been an active part of the music world for more than 20 years by the time people my age were born, so a lot of us grew up thinking that odd-couple pairings like this were just something that happened all the time in the 1970s. Yet some people still remember where they were when the Thin White Duke showed up on Bing’s fake doorstep. How moon landing-esque.

Film critic Leonard Maltin dismissed the songs in Scrooge, the 1970 musical version of A Christmas Carol as forgettable — save for “the effervescent ‘Thank You Very Much.’” Call me crazy, but it’s just not Christmas until a throng of Dickensian revelers led by the late Anton Rodgers perform an elaborately choreographed (and highly morbid) musical number. And in case you were wondering, it’s not all schadenfreude: the film ends with a less sarcastic rendition once Scrooge snaps out of his humbug-laden funk and forgives everyone’s debts.

Somewhat more recently, the short-lived and much-missed animated series Clone High spoofed holiday specials with its “Very Special Snowflake Day” episode. This particular clip begins with a spot-on send-up of the ubiquitous Rankin-Bass stop-motion holiday specials. The episode’s premise is that the UN has banned religion-specific holidays in favour of the more inclusive “Snowflake Day,” when Snowflake Jake delivers gifts of delicious spices. Specificity be the enemy of unity! (The knork is also memorable.)

Lots of groups (including Toronto’s Tafelmusik) stage sing-along performances of Handel’s Messiah during the holiday season, but this is one of the few videos of such a performance’s climax. It’s like listening to a gargantuan choir.

And finally, my other oldest and dearest friend Renée arranged “White Christmas” for her choir, which then went on to win first place in a competition.

Also, the CBC’s arts team has a really good roundup of holiday specials, though I’ve been protesting the omission of Christmas Eve on Sesame Street since it was published last week.

Did I miss something? Go on and comment.

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By Kerry, December 15, 2009 2:15 am

A package from Alex, my oldest and dearest friend, arrived in the mail last week. I managed to abide by the instructions not to open it until Christmas for just over eight hours before finally succumbing and tearing into it on the subway ride home from work. If I wanted proof that she’d been reading this blog, I had it: inspired by my slow-going attempt to learn Russian, she’d sent me a copy of Lynn Visson’s the Russian Heritage Cookbook.

I haven’t tried to make anything yet, though an upcoming holiday potluck at work might be an ideal reason to try something from the dessert section. It probably won’t be the chocolate cake, which requires a whopping 12 eggs in addition to an entire stick of butter and lots of cream. Some of the cookie recipes seem a little less daunting, so maybe I’ll give those a try.

Of course, many of my attempts at baking — even Christmas baking! — have turned out to be epic failures. Perhaps that will change this year. Да!

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By Kerry, November 26, 2009 1:33 am

Speaking of Karon, his copy editing of the menu from the recent White House state dinner deserves to go viral.

Just doing my part.

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By Kerry, November 4, 2009 4:07 am

Congratulations are in order! My good buddy and frequent sushi companion Karon found himself mentioned on a recent episode of TVO’s The Agenda. Further to that, the quoted article he wrote in 2008 was also nominated for a Canadian Association of Journalists’ award last year.

Dear Karon: Stop making the rest of us look bad! (I kid.)