From The Morgue

I’m stretched thin right now. This month has turned out to be really busy, although it hasn’t been really stressful, which is an okay combination actually. But means little blogging and a backlog of email and feeling guilty about leaving lots of cool comments unanswered.
But it’s Christmas very soon. I hope anyone reading this blog has been nagged by me into keeping a mindful eye on their Christmas experience, looking for ways to improve it for next time around.
I had a bit of a windfall the other week – an unexpected tax refund from the last financial year (i.e. the year that ended 20 months ago, pretty much). I’ve spent this month talking about having a conscious Christmas and now I receive some free money – believers in synchronicity, stroke your beards now. The phrase ‘put your money where your mouth is’ certainly comes to mind.
Anyway, I’ve decided to give most of it to charity. My annual Christmas donation to Amnesty International NZ just got covered, but there’s plenty left over, so I’m wondering about another charity or two. Probably something in Palestine, since that experience had such an impact on me. Suggestions of appropriate charities welcome.
(This has the added advantage of making it harder the next time I try and convince myself I don’t need to buy some roleplaying book or other. Did I say advantage? I mean, disadvantage. Honest.)
Things I don’t have time to talk about just now:
* The Jodi Jones murder case here in Scotland – this upsets me.
* Palestine and Israel post-Arafat – a rare chance for progress, likely to be squandered.
* Band Aid 20 – please, no.
* Finally started working on a page with photos from Ireland. Up soon.
Off to London for Christmas in two days. Back on the 29th.
Oh, yeah: Merry Christmas!
Peace, love and antelopes…
~`morgue

Just like I’ve been saying all along, Christmas is under siege by godless progressives and wicked Jews!
Oh, hang on.
Worth a read. (It’s Salon – you need to watch an ad first.) It’s coming out of Murdoch’s operation and the Sun here in the UK is pushing the same line.

Two years ago today the plane landed in Edinburgh and I hopped off and rode into town. Still vividly remember that breathtaking first view of the city centre, and finding the Salisbury Centre where Brad was staying, and wandering the streets with Brad, and climbing Arthur’s Seat in the middle of the night.
I am celebrating by being way busy. Or maybe that isn’t celebration? Anyway.
I’ve been blogging for over a year too. Eee!

Spent three hours writing in the Ephelant House after work today and completed the first half of Ron the Body. I’ve spent a week now on this one conversation between the two main characters, and it all seemed to gather too much steam to stop today. Lovely. Although I think some of what the characters have revealed about themselves is going to – yet again – change what will happen in the second half. Oh well, that’s how the game is played I suppose.
Another step to a conscious Christmas – track your food miles. Here’s a nice Guardian article about it, from the UK perspective – but the notion still applies in New Zealand (where, of course, you can’t tell at a glance how far your vegies have travelled).
And there have been more comments to the original Christmas post. Very much worth your time. Also, playing in UK cinemas now: the wrong message about what Christmas is all about.
New Zealand has passed the Civil Unions Bill. This pleases me.
How did life get so busy?

Beastie Boys last night, SECC, Glasgow.
Good to see a big show. There’s always that hesitation in heading across to Glasgow to see something – transport back to Edinburgh gets a bit spotty post-midnight. But – Beastie Boys! Cool. And we were not disappointed.
Bonus Maximum Surprise: hadn’t known who support would be, and was stunned to find it was none other than Talib Kweli. Hell, I’d’ve made the trip to Glasgow just for him. Outstanding stuff, turntables manned by someone I’ve never heard of named DJ Chelsea. The real deal. Kweli’s of the mid-90s ‘conscious underground’ in hip-hop, and it was oddly sweet to hear him mixing up serious lyrics about serious stuff with unabashed party-starting crowd-hooping warmup for the main event. He had a good time on stage, that was clear, with some nice freestyling.
Then the Beasties emerged. Mixmaster Mike delivered a stellar scratch set to open, then the Boys themselves bounced out and went right into Super Disco Breakin’, Root Down and Sure Shot. Some of the newer material got a workout in the middle of the set, but the big finish was Intergalactic (delivered from the back of the auditorium) and finally, dedicated to GWB, Sabotage.
It was great. It doesn’t quite crack my top three concerts evar (Portishead in 97 (?), Shihad in ’95 and Spearhead in ’95), but it’s up there.
Then we had to get home. The house lights came up at a surprisingly early 10.45, but we had to spend 45 minutes queueing for the cloakroom, then after arriving in time for the midnight bus had to wait a further two hours at the bus station until one turned up. Two hours in a queue at a bus station sucked. There were people who waited longer, though. It just boggles the mind that transport connections between Edin and Glasgow are so poor – there’s a civic need, there’s a commercial opportunity, there’s resources going to waste. Bizarre.
=============
Some random stuff:
Finally sat down and read the second half of Rory Stewart’s ‘The Places In Between’, about his walk across post-Taliban Afghanistan. It was a great read, full of detail and insight, and having seen Rory talk at the Book Festival his distinctive voice leapt off the page. Also, I learned a hell of a lot about Afghanistan. Highly recommended. Here’s a taster.
If you haven’t yet found the very-new Muppets web page, go take a look (highspeed connections advisable). New Muppets content, lots of animations and weirdness. Check out the game where you get to mix “coffee” for Beaker. Poor Beaker.
And if you’re not yet reading Teresa Neilsen-Hayden regularly, you should fix that. Read this for an example – it’s a screen or two in length, but it is absolutely top-notch. The truth about the McDonald’s hot coffee spillage case is covered, among other things – and it isn’t what I thought it was.
A link from TNH also stands out for attention: get wise to phishing scams. It drew my attention because I received a phishing email claiming to be from paypal just the other day – some snooping around on the offender’s site revealed it was hosting phishing scam pages for PayPal, Ebay, and a bunch of other less-well-known sites. Also revealed that it wasn’t nearly as secure as it could have been, so I drafted in a friendly hacker to wreak some damage to the site. (Also reported it to Paypal and Ebay, if you were wondering.)
Cal is out doing the shopping. She works near RealFoods, where we do most of our shopping, so really she does most of our shopping. I’m working on getting her doing all the cooking and cleaning too, with some success. Everything is proceeding according to plan.

Just back from ‘Translations ’04’, which was an evening of music, prose, poetry and “twisted shit” from the students of the Edinburgh Uni Masters in Creative Writing or whatever the hell.
It was kind of endearing, actually.
Oh, god, I’ve become a lit bitch.
=======
A few nice comments have been added to the Xmas post. Do looksee.
Also on the subject of good ideas for a conscious Christmas:
Over on his blog, which seems to be refusing my connection so I can’t link to it, Famous Writer Dude Neil Gaiman* suggests a nice Xmas present for the First-Amendment-loving American in your life would be membership in the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. They do good work, and since US comix are read everywhere, they deserve international support too. But isn’t it weird that this world needs one of these? Seduction of the Innocent was a long time ago, wasn’t it?
* Just because he signed some crappy Wolverine comic one time doesn’t mean you shouldn’t trust his judgement. There were extenuating circumstances with that. And he only signed under duress. Ask Pearce.

700 parliamentary hours devoted to decision to implement hunting ban.
7 parliamentary hours devoted to decision to go to war against Iraq.
(from Private Eye No. 1120 26 Nov)
“There are easily nine varieties of Diet Cola! And there are only two major political parties in this country! Our priorities are messed up!”
(from Diesel Sweeties; click for punchline)
“In a savage post-apocalyptic future, a hunted man struggles to free his beloved from a harem so he can escape with her to safety.”
(okay, this one’s a movie pitch. you may laugh now.)

Christmas was always a pretty cool time of year, growing up. Best part was always the gathering at my grandparent’s home, my immediate family, my grandparents and my aunt and uncle (usually with at least a cameo by the priest who baptised me – for those who were at Fish&Sam’s wedding, he was the chap what sang).
Sitting around that great front room, talking and smiling, hearing my grandfather hold forth and tell corny jokes, settling back on the gold couch that the Todman Street irregulars knew so well.
Sitting at the big table for dinner and filling my plate with roast potatoes slathered in gravy. (Mum: Morgan, eat some meat! Grandma: Oh, let him have what he wants.) (My Xmas meal was roast potatoes and only roast potatoes for most of my life, actually. I was well into my teens before I started adding bits of meat or vegies to the plate.)
Sitting in the car, in the dark, driving back home at the end of the evening, looking out the window into the darkness, filled up and complete and never wanting to actually get home. Better that moment last forever.
Also: Castle Greyskull. Best. Xmas Present. Evar.

The Christmas lights came on in Edinburgh tonight at 5.45pm. The ferris wheel started to turn. The German Market opened its gates. Princes St Gardens was transformed. Less than a month until Christmas.

Christmas is the single biggest event in our cultural life. As it rolls around, you’re either caught up in it or – much harder – you’re avoiding it. While still a spiritual/religious occasion, Christmas’ cultural importance is largely secular, crossing as many cultural divisions as possible.

The secular meaning of Christmas is an uplifting one: it is a time of goodwill and generosity. It’s pretty hard to fault these principles. The world could do with a lot more goodwill and generosity. Of course, Christmas as enacted in Western culture often falls short of this.

In fact, our biggest cultural event is also our most compromised and unsatisfying. There are enormous problems with many aspects of Christmas: the massive consumerism that underlies the occasion is a very obvious example.

So do something about it.

Fix Christmas.

(Now here’s the breathtaking revelation. I bet it is so startlingly clever no-one reading this has ever thought it before!)

Christmas isn’t something mandated by the world outside your door. There are no Christmas police checking up on your adherence to evil Capitalist principles. Christmas – here’s the kicker! – is something you and your family can do your way.

Okay, so it isn’t a huge revelation. Most people have had these thoughts before. Well, start turning thought into deed. Have a conscious Christmas, one that celebrates the values you cherish and denies the values you don’t. Why not now?

Here’s my request of you all, then: this Christmas, think about how to fix next Christmas.

Over on Musical, Cal talks about a bunch of ways to do Christmas differently. Check them out. We’ve timed our posts to appear together for a reason, folks.

Over here, I’d love to hear from people who’ve already adapted Christmas to suit. Tell people what you/you and your family/you and your friends have done to make Christmas a time of year you savor. Let this comments section be a big ideas bucket.

After all, our biggest cultural festival should be a good time, shouldn’t it?

————-

This, of course, ties in to the greater goals of the progressive movement that I’ve been rabbiting on about the last few weeks. We want everyone to be more aware of the cultural forces acting on us, and the hidden paths we are constantly skipping past unawares.

You and your family, or whoever you celebrate with – your Christmas is one small thing. But: journeys, single steps, think global act local, etc etc etc. In other words, it matters. Actually, it more than matters – it’s the whole point.

Matt’s comments on the previous post.
I’m not gonna reply yet. Because I’m well busy at the mo. But it’s great stuff. Go read.
Matt, with lovely wife and little ones, is in India. There’s lots more fascinating stuff on their own site, too.
———–
Also, if you haven’t read my livejournal lately, you aren’t yet in the know about Santa Rhymez. You should correct this immediately.