Eclectic Company: Happy Merry Yule, Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year, Eastern Christmas

The POSSLQ and I returned from our November circumnavigations on the last day of the month, and rushed into warmer clothing to hear my old pal Robin Greenstein and her singing partner Cecilia Kirtland offer their seasonal program at the 17th Annual Port Jefferson Village (New York) Charles Dickens dress up and act up Festival. For three days, along with numerous musical offerings, visitors could join the “cookie walk,” participate in a gingerbread house contest, or a “Dear Santa” writing workshop, watch a performance of The Nutcracker, or attend the “Crystal Ball.” As we drove slowly through the town trolling for parking, costumed revelers, and sightseers on their way to the Ball strolled by, bundled up against the frigid air in accurate and authentic character clothing. Since we had just flown in from New Orleans, where the temperature was at least thirty degrees warmer, we were inappropriately underdressed for the occasion.

At their performing venue, in their elegant red, white and green holiday Victorian finery, Robin and Cecilia took to the pulpit of the beautiful old and restored Island Christian Church, formerly the Baptist Church (with an incredible pipe organ, set into the stage right corner of the pulpit) to sing and lead us in singing familiar but not worn out songs in English (“Here We Come A-Wassailing”), Hawaiian (“Mele Kalikimaka”), Danish, Swedish, Yoruba, German, Spanish, Hebrew and Ladino (“Ocho Kandelikas”), the mediaeval Jewish Spanish language preserved since 1492 when the Jews were expelled from Spain by Queen Isabella and Torquemada, the high priest of the Inquisition). Kwanzaa – the African American holiday – was celebrated with both a Gospel number (“Go Tell It On The Mountain”) and the Yoruban “Odun De,” that I’d never heard before, but found easy to sing along to. Robin and Cecilia, whose mother is Chilean, segued easily from Chanukah songs in Ladino and Spanish to Jose Feliciano’s fantastic Christmas favorite “Feliz Navidad,” that EVERYONE knows (and from which many of us learned our first Spanish words), and connected all their material with brief explanations that added just the right touch of information and respect for every tradition that avoided both preachiness and treacle – a miraculous thing in this season of excess and endless repetition. At the end of the Robin and Cecilia show, we just had to pick up a copy of their CD Songs of the Season, which you can find on www.robingreenstein.com.

One of the sweetest short programs for the holiday season was produced by HBO in 2001. I was always a sucker for that fantastic Art Linklater radio segment and Bill Cosby television show, Kids Say The Darndest Things, so this half hour of Louis Armstrong reciting Clement Clarke Moore’s poem “A Visit From Saint Nicholas” in its familiar version, “The Night Before Christmas,” interspersed with songs sung and played by and interviews with kids (oy vey, the small boy playing cello! on “The Dreydl Song” and the twin African-American sisters talking about their favorite holiday foods: “I like macaroni and cheese, but she likes knishes”), animated vignettes from the paintings by Grandma Moses and others about Christmas, Chanukah and Kwanzaa, and parts of familiar holiday songs from among others, Bing Crosby with the Andrews Sisters (“Jingle Bells”), Judy Garland, Eartha Kitt, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, Los Lobos (“Feliz Navidad”), Bette Midler (“Oh, Chanukah”), Macy Gray (“Winter Wonderland”), The Drifters, and Louis Armstrong (“What A Wonderful World”). I started to play it for the POSSLQ, who stood watching for a few minutes, but then he said, “You’ve forgotten that I’m diabetic!” and stepped out of the room. Well yes, it is almost unbearably sweet, but that’s why I loved it. Look for it from HBO Family.

To round out our first weekend home, the POSSLQ and I went to hear Tony Kushner and Rachel Maddow have a conversation onstage at Joe’s Pub, the Public Theatre’s intimate bar and performance space. Tony kicked off by asking Rachel about her definitions of liberal and progressive, which soon turned into a conversation about progressive and liberal versus conservative politics. Both acknowledged that they were glad to be having their conversation under an Obama presidency, Rachel admitting she had been thinking she’d have to change her country if (he who shall never again be named by me) the Republican candidate had won. They touched on specific political issues of importance – gays in the military, inadequate medical treatment for injured warrior returnees (“the signature wound of this war is traumatic brain injury, but it can take a year to get an answer on disability benefits”), and the seeming exchange of positions and tactics from liberal to conservative by the progressive left, and from conservative to liberal by the rigid right (“you’d think the liberals would be for progress and the conservatives for slow and cautious moves, but their pacing is the opposite of what you’d expect”). They talked about media figures’ responsibilities to present facts – Rachel explained the rigorous fact-checking process she follows, and Tony told us that Jon Stewart made sure to be fact perfect although his show is clearly entertainment and not intended to be taken as news, because the audiences and the anti- pundits would be all over him – but then he said that being a playwright implied a certain freedom from and irresponsibility toward facts, because the author’s license to imagine things that can’t necessarily be proved is part of the art of playwriting.

Of course they spoke of Tony’s brilliant screenplay for Lincoln (high on the Oscar nomination list, go see why, now) that he claimed was 500 pages long, but filmed only up to about a quarter of the whole, and Rachel asked if more would be filmed in the future. “I don’t see it,” Tony said, explaining that Daniel Day-Lewis completely inhabited the Lincoln he’d written, and not seeing how he could reprise his performance, let alone be replaced by any other actor. He brought the conversation around to a comparison between Lincoln and the 1850s, and the politics of present day: “It’s not just that the parties have switched places since the 1850s [ed. Note – Lincoln was a Republican]. What you give up is stability of the system. Each party has to agree to hold all the little parties within it. [Today] if you get rid of the theocrats, the plutocrats, the racists,” Tony enumerated, speaking of the familiar factions characterized by the Tea Party, those who want to return to the alleged values of the country’s founders, and the haters of the 47% of us who supposedly contribute nothing (“and isn’t it great that he got exactly 47% of the vote? I love that” they both smiled broadly), what’s left on the right?”

Surely a question to ponder in the New Year, after a nice, long hiberation. We’ll be seeing you in 2013, after Eastern Orthodox Christmas. Happy Yule, Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year, and whatever other events you and yours may celebrate between now and then. Keep music, laughter and love in your minds and hearts, and to all of you, dear readers, a very merry good night!

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