To remember is to restore. To return to one’s memories, particularly the painful ones, is to revisit a place of holy ground. It is to return to the breaking ground and the winnowing field. In drear nighted December John Keats, 1817 In drear nighted December, Too happy, happy tree, Thy branches ne’er remember Their green felicity— The north cannot undo them With a sleety whistle … Continue reading Waiting to Remember
Though cars, planes, and trains contrive to bring all your holiday guests around the table, circumstance doesn’t necessitate community. The black and white 1942 Holiday Inn understands this all too well. When the holiday performance trio of Jim Hardy (Bing Crosby), Ted Hanover (Fred Astaire), and Lila Dixon (Virginia Dale) collapses into a love triangle, Jim heads for the country to escape the hectic pace … Continue reading Holiday Inn (1942)
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Come December (or November, or October—there’s no accounting for taste), when our townspeople begin to erect, not only trees and lights, but monstrous, inflatable snow globes; when entire radio stations change over to non-stop holiday music, oppressive with a surfeit of sleigh bells; when our august retail institutions flood the market with plastic consumer goods designed to … Continue reading Caroling with Scrooge
Hillsdale Forum 