And so this is Christmas Eve

Pink Slip is doing it's annual end-of-year thing and taking the week off. I'll be back in the new year, training my 20-20 vision on stuff.

Wishing a very Merry Christmas to those who celebrate Christmas. Very Happy Holidays to those who observe something else this time of year. And the Happiest and Healthiest of New Years to all.

Gun wheeler-dealer

I'm not a big proponent of local and state governments crazily sweetening the pot to bring in new jobs. All these crazy bidding wars to buy your town a few years worth a few jobs. And, as the incentives peter out, there's always the incentive for a company to look for another package. To me, it's second only to throwing up yet another casino, with all the swell jobs that brings with it.

But, hey, I'm sure that these payola deals do occasionally work out, and that the folks who get the promised jobs - however temporary - are happy to have the work.

Still, there are some deals that just seem preposterous. And one of them is going down in a small town in Georgia, where they managed to bag a gun factory that will employ 300. For this privilege, they shelled out $39M worth of goodies.

Taurus Holdings, welcome to Bainbridge, Georgia.

What clinched the deal was not just the wining, the dining, the ample tax credits, a free factory, and everything else that went into the competition for those gunsmith jobs:

In late 2017, Rick McCaskill, head of the Development Authority of Bainbridge and Decatur County, began giving tours to Taurus executives of their prospective corporate campus. On a visit, the executives heard a welcome sound: the pop-pop-pop of a nearby police gun range, the sort of amenity that could be a zoning challenge in other jurisdictions.

“That really warmed them up,” McCaskill said. (Source: Bloomberg)

Needless to say, Taurus wasn't looking around New England where they would be far less likely to find a gun range. Not that we don't have them. And not that we don't have gun manufacturers. Smith & Wesson HQ is in Springfield, Massachusetts.

But we're not exactly gun-friendly/gun-obsessed.

Anyway, the going rate of incentives to bring a job to town is $50K. At $130K per job, it looks like Bainbridge and Decatur County overpaid. But they're cool with it. So far.

“Right now we’re heavy on the give-it-away side of the pendulum,” McCaskill said. “If you’re going to get a project these days, you really have to put a lot into it.”

Taurus is actually a Brazilian company, and their claim to fame is that they offer cheap alternatives to Smith & Wessons and Glocks. How wonderful that cheaper guns can get into more and more hands. Good for the Taurus bottom line. 80% of its revenues come for the good old US of A. (American exceptionalism at its finest.)

The plant that's going to Georgia is emigrating from Florida. The paltry sum that Florida had been giving them - just $369K in tax refunds over a seven-year stretch - had run out. Then there was the little matter of those meanies in the Florida legislature - who used to be so gun-fun - who raised the age of firearms purchase in the wake of the Orlando nightclub and Parkland High School gun sprees.

“I think Florida was really up for grabs,” McCaskill said. A big part of his pitch was that Georgia “is a very gun-friendly state,” he said.

Anyway, one of the reasons Taurus guns were cheaper in the past is that they were defective. A few years ago:

Taurus settled a class action lawsuit that alleged nine different models of its firearms fired unintentionally when bumped or dropped, even with safeties on. The company agreed to buy back or repair the models without admission of wrongdoing.

And now that they've had to improve the quality of their wares, they need to wheadle tax incentives out of local government.

So they swapped out oranges for peaches. In October they notified Florida that they'd be parting company, and laying off all their employees.

“That’s a part of life,” McCaskill said.

Interesting to hear the word "life" uttered in the same breath as merchants of death, no?

Little Women

Well, this past Wednesday was Little Women Day in Boston, declared in honor of Greta Gerwig's new movie, which is being released on Christmas Day.

I will no doubt go to see it, as I did the 1994 incarnation, which I seem to recall I saw with my sisters. I liked that version just fine, and I'm sure I'll like the new version even finer, as I'm a big fan of Saoirse Ronan, who plays Jo. Not to mention being a big fan of Meryl Streep, who plays Aunt March.

Like most women of a certain age, I go back quite a ways with Little Women, having read it as a girl (along with Little Men and Jo's Boys). Louisa May Alcott was by no means my favorite writer. I preferred Laura Ingalls Wilder and her Little House books, which I devoured. And I much preferred - over pretty much everything else - Maud Hart Lovelace, at whose altar I worshipped, and whose Betsy-Tacy series was my all-time favorite.

But I did enjoy Little Women.

Jo was, of course, the March girl I liked best. She was fierce, strong, and a writer.

While I've come to appreciate Amy more in my old age, she was just such a bee-yotch I couldn't stand her. Beth was a simpering ninny. Sure, I was sad to see her simper off into the great beyond, but there was no way I was going to identify with her. And Meg was a goody two-shoes who barely registered. A chip off the old Marmee block.

One year, at a Christmas grab at the Y, my prize was a book of Little Women paper dolls. I loved paper dolls (especially after I hit the age of paper doll reason and discovered that paper dolls work a lot better if you don't cut off the little white tabs.) So I loved them, they were just awful. All the March sisters looked more like Little Lulu, with buggy eyes and big, stupid grins, than they did like I imagined the March sisters. Plus their outfits were more Victorian era than Civil War. Nonetheless, I spent many an hour fan-fictioning plots for my Little Women paper dolls.

Growing up in New England, it's easy to get sucked into Little Womenhood.

I've been to the Alcott House in Concord a number of times over the years. It's been kept pretty much intact, and you can even see the deocrations the Alcott girls put up in their rooms. Very sweet and touching.

The last time I was there was maybe 15 years ago, when my sister Kath and I took our nieces. We were the only Americans there. Little Women is apparently pretty popular among young Japanese women. (As is Anne of Green Gables, one of those other books/series I read as a child and knew I was supposed to love, but was sort of luke-warm towards it.)

I also watched old B&W Little Women movies when they showed up on Boston Movietime. I'm sure I wouldn't be so enamored of her portrayal now, but as a kid I admired Kathering Hepburn as Jo. But June Allyson in the 1949 version? Something about her voice that was so, so irritating.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing the new version, which was filmed around Boston.

While they were filming last year, I didn't see any of the stars. No Saoirse Ronan. No Timothy Chalamet. No Meryl Streep. But when they were filming in the Boston Public Garden, which is just across the street from my house, I did see the stars' trailers. The names of their roles were on the doors. Jo. Laurie. Aunt March.

I love to see movies that are filmed locally, or in a place I'm familiar with, trying to see if I recognize the locations. Trying to see if they get it right. (Moonstruck was filmed in part in my sister's neighborhood in Brooklyn, and there's one scene in which Cher parks her car in Brooklyn Heights and then walks around the corner to...Litlle Italy?)

I also enjoy seeing movies that are set here or in a place I'm familiar with, and purportedly shot around here or in a place I'm familiar with. I was once watching a movie that was set in New England, and there were some scenes that were supposed to take place in Worcester County. I remember sitting there thinking 'something's not quite right here.' What wasn't quite right was that the filming took place in Michigan. Which kinda-sorta looks like Worcester County. But kinda-sorta doesn't.

So I'll be all eyes on Little Women. Something to look forward to as the cold settles in...

I believe the fantasy is that these are fantasies...

Yesterday, I reviewed the first half of the Neiman-Marcus Christmas Fantasy Gifts for 2019. Today, I thumb through the rest.

I do fantasize about having a dog, and 2020 may well be The Year of the Pooch, but I will not be investing in A Pet Paradise, a custom made doghouse that goes for $70,000 at minimum. First off, I live in a condo, a small condo, so would have no place to erect a scaled down "Cape Cod beach cottage or a Brooklyn brownstone," let alone a minituarized version of the Taj Mahal. My fantasy dog-of-the-future will have to be satisfied with two dog beds, one up and one down. And plenty of toys. But much as I believe that most dogs are better than most people, I don't think you need to set your pupper up in a mini Taj Mahal.

But I would spend $70K on a dog house before I'd spend $125K to Create a Couture Pair of Christian Louboutins. It does include 3 nights at a swank Paris hotel (and "free" air fare). Plus you get 5 pairs of off-the-shelf shoes to go along with your bespoke pair. And the donation part of this gift is $18K - over 14% - which is on the high side of the ledger. (All the N-M fantasy gifts include a charitable donation.) But Christian Louboutins? Towering spikes? I'm sure some women really like flashing those distinctive Louboutin bright red soles, but even assuming I found an off-the-shelf pair of shoes there that would fit me - 11 Narrow - I wouldn't want to risk a broken ankle. No, my days of teetering around in uncomrtable shoes - which were never all that long to begin with - are well in the past. As for the custom-made pair, would Christian Louboutin be happy designing a couture sneaker, which is what I'm wearing 99.99% of the time? I'd let him include the trademark red sole... 

And speaking of sneakers, for $110K you can Kick It in Toyko with a Sneaker Legend. Other than Chuck Taylor and Michael Jordan, I wasn't aware that there was such a thing as a sneaker legend. But I guess Jeff Staples is to sneakers what Mario Dedivanovic is to makeup: a brand name kind of guy that I've never heard of.  Anyway, as far as I can figure out, Jeff Staples isn't just as sneaker legend. He's a designer who collaborates with companies like Timberland (sweatpants, knit caps) and Yeenjoy (incense holder in the form of a pigeon). Staples is big into penguins, and a penguin icon appears on much of his clothing. In 2005, he released 200 pairs of something called a Pigeon Dunks sneakers. As Staples fans went after those PD's big time - after all\, they were as scarce as pigeons' teeth, riots broke out and the boys in blue from the NYPD had to be called in. Someone's out there on eBay asking for $39K for a size seven pair of those Dunks. (The highest bid when I looked was $6.2K, so the owner is perhaps overestimating the iconness of an icon.) Anyway, for $110K you get to swan (or pigeon) around Tokyo with Jeff Staples, and you get at least 8 items from his collaborations. If you're lucky, one of those collaborations might be a sculpture done in collaboration with James Jean
Washziu. 

I don't know about you, but that sure looks St. Sebastian - if St. Sebastian had worn a pigeon outfit -  a martyr who was tortured by being shot at with arrows, before being clubbed to death. But maybe it's just any old guy in a pigeon suit being shot full of arrows. 

As fantasy gifts go, A Taste of Italy would be more my cup of tea espresso. Except for the price tag of $200,000. That will buy you plane fare, 4 nights in a hotel, a session with a pasta maker, a cooking lesson with a famous chef (not to me, of course), and a dinner at a fancy restaurant. All that and a day spent tootling around the Italian countryside in "exotic cars." At $200K, I'd say that this one is a true steal. I'm just not saying which side's doing the stealing. You decide! (Ciao!)

But it's not quite ciao now, is it, as there's one final fantasy gift, InCircle Around the World. For the low, low price of $575,000 you and three buds get to private jet around the world and stay at posh hotels in Morroco, Italy, Sweden, Saint Lucia and Park City, Utah. Now that doesn't seem so round the world to me. And unless it's buried in fine print so fine I couldn't see it, I'm not sure how many nights per posh hotel we're talking. Ain't none of it my problem. The only folks who can purchase this fantasy gift are Neiman-Marcus or Bergdorf Goodman credit card holders. That's saving me a bundle.

Anyway, my shopping was completed even before I began scanning the Fantasy Gift catalogue. So between that, the price list, and the fact that there was nothing on the list that actually fit my fantasy, I swung through the virtual aisles full of so-called fantasy gifts without tossing a single tihng into my shopping cart. I'm guessing that this is consistent with the experience of, say, at least 99% of the shoppers looking through this catalogue.

Neiman Marcus Fantasy Gifts? Not my fantasies...

Pink Slip can always count on Neiman Marcus to come up with a list of fantasy gifts that are never, ever, ever my idea of a list of fantasy gifts. I mean, tops of my list would be having some Mr. (or Ms.) Fixit blitzing through my condo and seeing to every tiny little repair that needs repairing - the glass doorknob that fell off; the outlet plate that needs to be screwed in; the bathroom sink drain that doesn't open up properly. Then there'd be someone taking that 20 year accumulation of desktops, laptops and printers out of my one and only decent sized closet, and then California Closeting the space. I'd also like someone to sort through my recipes and put the keepers in the cute little recipe box I bought last spring.

Guess I'm just in capable of thinking big. And/or expensive.

Anyway, N-M is at it again, and the first gift up is an Aston-Martin designed by Daniel Craig. Now Daniel Craig has been known to creep into an occasional fantasy of mine, but not as a car designer. But there it is - or there 007 of them are: an "inky blue" Aston-Martin. For only $700,007 a piece. The price may seem high, but it does include a trip to London to watch it roll off the assembly line. Plus a fancy-arse 007-ish watch, and two tickets to the world premier of the new Bond movie, No Time to Die.

Of course, you don't want to show up in boring drab for No Time to Die. I mean, who'd want Daniel Craig to see them looking like that? So if you've got another $250K to throw at a fantasy, you could buy yourself a trip ot four shows at New York Fashion Week. Where, for each runway show you ooh and aah through, you get an outfit picked out for you by N-M. Now as it happens, I happen to know quite a bit about what goes on at fashion week - courtesy of a close friend recently retired from N-M, where she was a senior designer buyer. Joyce was a regular at all the Fashion Weeks - NYC, Paris, Milan, wherever else they're held. (Not being a dedicated follower of fashion, I don't actually know.) While for my friend Joyce, attending Fashion Week was both exhilerating and super-high pressure, to me it would be a colossal nightmare. All those skin and bone models parading up and down in outre outfits. And first name basis with Thierry Mugler and Stella McCarthy? That's a no, I'm afraid. But you could probably come away from it with something decent to wear to that Bond movie premiere.

This next fantasy gift makes absolutely no sense to me. For $400,000 - yes, that's a four with five trailing zeros - you get to attend a master class and then have a personal makeup session with someone named Mario Dedivanovi. Sure, Mario is apparently a celebrity of sorts, and an infuencer (that goes without saying). And he does throw in some of the product he uses to beautify you. But can't you get your makeup done for, like, free at any of the makeup counters at Macy's or Bloomingdale's or even - I'm winging it, here - Neiman-Marcus? I'll also note that each fantasy gift comes with a portion of the sale going to a charity. Twelve percent of the Aston-Martin, for example. Roughly five percent of the Fashion Week trip. But less than four percent of the makeup session. Hmmm. $400K for a makeup session really does seem like some sort of cosmic joke.

I'm just plain not a Boucheron kind of gal. So pretty much the last thing I'd do would be to spend $695,000 on a two-day trip to Paris for a behind the scenes Boucheron tour. Yawn. You do get to take a perle of great price home with you "to commemorate the experience." The Perle Au Tresor is a "precious objet d'art that opens to reveal a necklace, a bracelet, and two brooches." None of which I'd care to wear, but ostentatious and gaudy has never been my kind of thing (other than when I'm trying to seem smart). Besides, none of it would look good with jeans and an L.L. Bean fleece.

I'm not even half way through the Neiman-Marcus Fantasy Gift catalogue and I'm already near-overcome with fatigue, mostly just wondering who out there actually wants any of this stuff. Which is a stupid thing to wonder about, given that I have been to Dallas a number of times - a place where you might actualy see someone wearing Boucheron jewelry...

Anyway, tomorrow we'll be back to report out on the remaining gifts in the catalogue - gifts that actually promise to be more entertaining, in a make-fun kind of way. If I were the type to ever get in a make-fun kind of mude...

Embezzled Heaven

I'm a cultural Catholic. And an atheist. But I was raised a serious Catholic - 16 years in Catholic schools, baby - and there are a couple of things I do admire about the Church. Stained glass. Gregorian chant. And the charitable work - much of it no-strings - that the Church does.

Turns out that a good deal of what's collected by the Vatican in their Peter's Pence appeal, its annual philanthropic collection, which is carried out at the parish level, isn't going to help the poor and downtrodden. It's going to fund the "moi charity." 

What the church doesn’t advertise is that most of that collection, worth more than €50 million ($55 million) annually, goes toward plugging the hole in the Vatican’s own administrative budget, while as little as 10% is spent on charitable works, according to people familiar with the funds.

The little-publicized breakdown of how the Holy See spends Peter’s Pence, known only among senior Vatican officials, is raising concern among some Catholic Church leaders that the faithful are being misled about the use of their donations, which could further hurt the credibility of the Vatican’s financial management under Pope Francis. (Source: Wall Street Journal)

Holy See? More like the Holy No See...

Of course, as Church scandals go, this is the least of the Church's worry. And it's by no means the only financial scandal that's on their plate. They're also in the midst of an "opaque real-estate investments" scandal. (Some of the investment money may have been taken from the Peter's Pence fund.) And "last month, the Vatican was suspended from an international network of anti-money-laundering watchdogs."

As we used to say in Latin class - four years! - "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Who guards the guards? Ain't no one going to let the Catholic Church play custodiet when there's money involved.

And speaking of watchdogs, there are a number of watchdog groups that rate charities based on how much of the money they collect actually goes to do good vs. how much goes to adminstrative (including fundraising) costs. Good charities devote about 75% and more to their actual mission.  Bad charities, well, they're in the 10% range. (I read about one that used only 4% of its take to fund its mission. Why would anyone donate to such a "charity"?)

This is, of course, by no means surprising. The Church has been playing moral limbo of the "how low can you go" variety for years, decades, centuries. Still, it has to be disappointing to "real Catholics." For years, they've been urged not to focus on the bad things the Church has done, but on the good it does. Not to "throw the baby out with the bathwater." Turns out that there's not much baby in that bathwater.

When I was in high school, we were occaionally given the treat of all marching into the auditorium to watch some movie that the nuns wanted to see. Oh, occasionally there was something reasonaby good - The Last Hurrah with Spencer Tracy was one I recall. But mostly they were clunkers, such as a musical starring Mario Lanza. (Mario Lanza? Seriously? This at a time when serious girls listened to Bob Dylan, and everyone listened to the Beatles.)

One of the worst movies ever shown to us was something called Embezzled Heaven. It's about a simple peasant woman who sends all her cash to her nephew the priest. Turns out he's not a priest, as the simple peasant woman discovers when she pays a visit to "his" parish. Turns out, the nephew was a cad living the life on his aunt's largesse. 

Catholics being Catholics, she blames herself for giving her nephew the money in hopes that it would pave her way to a heavenly afterlife. Anyway, she scrapes up enough money to get herself on a pilgrimage to Rome, where her group is blessed by Pope Pius XII. Shortly thereafter, she dies, happy to have been blessed by the Pope, which she takes as her ticket to heaven.

This Peter's Pence scandal reminds me a bit of Embezzled Heaven. 

People need to trust but verify. Charity Navigator needs to start studying the Church, and the Church needs to be a bit more transparent about where those supposedly charitable donations go.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

A tip of the Pink Slip beretta to my sister Kath for sending this story my way. 

You say you want a night at Revolution? No thanks.

Back in the day. Way back in the day. I camped. Sometimes the bathroom was an outhouse you had to walk to in the pitch dark. Sometimes it was a communal but conventional institutional multi-stall bathroom you had to walk to in the pitch dark. Sometimes all you had to do was walk a few steps away from the tent in the pitch dark. Sometimes there was no tent to walk away from.

Back in the day. Way back in the day. I hosteled. The bathrooms were indoors. And (mostly) clean. But they were a walk down the hallway.

Back in the day. Way back in the day. I stayed at some really dumpy hotels. Like the 50 cent a night hotel in Turkey that looked like something right out of a Camus novel, and had a shared toilet in the hall. It was one of those hole-in-the-floor toilets, with the footholds on either side of the hole. But in this particular hotel - you really do get what you pay for - they turned the water off at 10 p.m. So if you had to make a toilet run in the middle of the night, you did it by the light of a 10 watt bulb that "lit" an entire corridor and, when you got to the hole-in-the-floor toilet, there was sewage sloshing over the sides of the hole and onto the footholes.

Back in the day. Way back in the day. I stayed in a few AirBnB precursors. One I remember was in Madrid. There was no window in the room, and the shared toilet had a rim of silt - at least I hope it was silt - around the upper reaches of the bowl.

Back in the day. Way back in the day. My husband and I stayed at a very nice inn in New Hampshire. Very nice, except for the fact the there was a shared toilet in the hall.

That was then. This is now. At this point, I have no desire to stay anywhere without a private bathroom. I'm fine sharing with family and friends. Just not with strangers. And if it requires a long, dark walk in the night. Or a hole-in-the-floor toilet with the water turned off. I'm just not interested. My adventuring days, I have no problem admitting, are OVER.

So I guess it's a good thing I live in Boston. And have my own private bathroom, thank you. Two of them, in fact. Because if I were coming here, and thought to myself, 'Hey, I no longer camp or hostel, why not treat myself to the hotel that readers of Condé Nast Traveler have deemed the best hotel in the city: Revolution Hotel' I might have ended up without a bathroom of my own.

This is a hotel in a converted YWCA that features shared bathrooms. Yes, you read that correctly. Readers of a travel magazine that dispenses tips on where to find the most unique Hermès scarves in Lucerne thinks shared bathrooms are the bees knees. (Source: Boston Globe)

Converted Y? Shared bathroom?

Globe writer Christopher Muther is younger and braver than I, so he checked in to check it out.

The large lobby looked like a history lesson for millennials. Boston’s best and brightest were rendered in street-style murals throughout the expansive space. As the hotel’s website says, “the Revolution will be Instagrammed,” and it’s practically begging for likes at every turn. The lobby, plus the industrial look of the rooms — including some rooms with bunk beds — gave the place an air of a youth hostel with a trust fund. 

Me? I long for the good old days when we thought that the revolution would not be televised. Come to find out, it's going to be Instagrammed. Oh Lord.

Muther estimates that the target Revolutionary is in "around 27" and are okay with a 120-square-foot-room without a bath and are willing to pay $150 for it.

While Muther is younger than I, he's no 27 year old. And it turns out he's no braver than I am. He sprung for a room with its very own bathroom (plus living room and kitchentette). My kind of guy.

He did venture out to take a look at the sharesies.

There is a main room that looks like a locker room. It’s filled with towels. There are petite private rooms inside this faux locker room that include a toilet, sink, and shower, all tiled in basic white. You can lock the door behind you, and do your thing in privacy — or at least some level of privacy. This setup may not be everybody’s cup of Earl Grey, but honestly, it’s not as bad as it sounds. But the best hotel in the city shouldn’t be bothering with a shared bath.

I agree with his opinion here, and I would probably agree with his assessment that, while it may not be the best hotel in Boston, it's probably not the worst. And Chris Muther rates it as just fine for Milennial and younger. 

Muther also unearthed an interesting side note.

The Revolution is part of the Provenance Hotel chain, which was founded by none other than Gordon Sondland, the noted Trump donor, ambassador to the EU, and Ukraine-corruption maven. With respect to the The Revolution, Provenance - which is currently chaired by Sondland's wife - is in partnership with Mt. Vernon.

The Revolution? Mt. Vernon? I'm feeling achingly patriotic. 

Anyway, while The Revolution will not be televised - television? what's that? -  at least Gordon Sondland's testimony was, for all the good it will end up doing...

Bet he never stays in a hotel without a private bathroom...

Meanwhile, since so much leads back to the Beatles, "You say you want a revolution. Well, you know. We all want to change the world." We just don't want to do it by sharing a hotel bathroom in the hall.

Tinner, tinner, turkey dinner

I happen to like turkey dinner. I like turkey. I like mashed potatoes. I like stuffing. I like gravy. I like most veggies, too. And I like turkey dinner leftovers. The only problem I have with turkey dinner is that it's pretty much dished up and out only twice a year, and those dates - Thanksgiving and Christmas - are pretty much within a month of each other. 

Although I never actually make a turkey dinner - my sister Kath does Thanksgiving, my cousin Babs does Christmas - I have observed it closely enough over the years to recognize that it's a pain in the arse in a way that, say, making a lasagna and a tossed salad is not.

All hail those who put a turkey dinner on the table!

But there are some folks who don't have the opportunity to sit down and enjoy a turkey dinner with friends and family. Some of them are those experiencing homelessness. This is, of course, a tough way to live, but if you're homeless - at least in a major city - you probably have a number of options on where to go for a Christmas feast, as plenty of organizations serve up holiday meals with all the fixings. (Including St. Francis House, New England's largest day shelter for those experiencing homelessness and poverty, which deserves support and donations all year round, but especially during the winter months in an area with nasty weather. E.g., Boston.)

Then there are those who can't take time away from gaming to sit down with family or stop by a shelter. Because gaming, apparently, is 24/7/3656. 


While gamers may got game, they still need to eat. So British tech retailer, GAME, created a canned version of a turkey dinner.

I don't want you to strain your eyes trying to read what's in that can, so here goes:


Layer 1 - Scrambled egg & bacon
Layer 2 - Two mince pies
Layer 3 - Turkey & potatoes
Layer 4 - Gravy
Layer 5 - Bread sauce
Layer 6 - Cranberry sauce
Layer 7 - Brussel sprouts with stuffing or broccoli with stuffing
Layer 8 - Roast carrots and parsnips
Layer 9 - Christmas pudding


Event by historic British cuisine standards, this one's a gag-fest. I'd rather eat holly. I'd rather eat ivy. I'd rather eat a Christmas stocking. I'd rather eat Spam. And I'd much rather eat the vegan version.

Layer 1 - Nut roast
Layer 2 - Mushroom wellington
Layer 3 - Sprouts
Layer 4 - Toblerone
Layer 5 - Roast parsnips
Layer 6 - Halloumi pigs and tempeh bacon
Layer 7 - Cauliflower cheese
Layer 8 - Yule log
Layer 9 - Veggie gravy
Layer 10 - Gingerbread pancake
Layer 11 – Cranberry sauce
Layer 12 - Potatoes


I like nut roast, and halloumi pigs with tempeh bacon sounds tasty enough. I don't quite get the Yule log in the middle, rather than at the end. Maybe it's a vegan thing.

This tinner turkey dinner has been around for a few years, and I'm guessing that it started out pretty tongue in cheek. (Because if your tongue is in your cheek, you can't actually eat anything.) But it's caught on - enough so that there was a demand for a vegan variant - and the tinners (which only cost 2 pounds) have sold out. Whether anyone's actually opened a can and eaten the innards is another story. 

Don't know if they're available in the US, but what an excellent Yankee swap a few cans of these would make.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources: NY Post and delish. 

More Goop please, sir!

Into every blogger's life a little rain shall fall, and mine fell when I'd completed part two of my virtually shopping spree through Gwyneth Paltrow's Holiday Gift Guides. There I was, about to hit "Publish" when the entire post disappeared. Which meant that I had to look through all those sub-catalogs once again and pick out the gems to save you the trouble of fully combing through an agglomeration of precious, twee, and mostly just plain irritating items - oozing the lifestyle brandedness that is Gwyneth Paltrow. It is no exaggeration to say that having to look through Goop twice in a two hour period can ruin a blogger's day. Sheesh...

My family and friends are pretty much at that point in life when we're all de-accessioning, not acquiring. So host/hostess gifts tend to be of the edible/potable/consumable variety. No one needs yet another bowl. So I just breezed through the Host's Gift Guide. There were some consumables, like the "ceremonial grade" matcha tea. Alas, no one I know actually performs a tea ceremony. Mostly I'm a bag in a cup of boiling water type of tea-drinker. The organic vegan paleo luxury soap kit (8 bars! only $89.95!) is a bit puzzling to me. I do understand that vegans wash, but paleo man and woman? Didn't they just scrape off a layer of dirt every decade or so? 

On the durable goods side of the gift equation, there's an Oak Table Grater that's presumaby used for grating something at the table, and not for grating oak tables. Essential oils are a big thing in Gwyneth World, by the way. But how essential are they if we've all managed to live our lives without up until now. Anyway, my favorite gift here is the "Martini" Emotional Detox Bath Soak. You're going to need it after I leave...

The Traveler's Gift Guide starts out with a $1,700 29" canvas packing case. The very same style carried by Marilyn Monroe, Elton John, and The Reagans. Nancy Reagan carried one? I'm in! You can finish the look off with a $49 luggage tag that says ESCAPE. (Believe me, I'd like to.) Apparently, those who use essential oils can't leave home withoutt them. And don't forget the portable diffuser.  Travelers, according to Goop, not only like to diffuse essential oils, they also like to groom. And those who groom their eyebrows - and who doesn't? - should consider a $225 eyebrow grooming kit. (Or just grab a tweezer at CVS.)

Gifts for the One Who Has Everything seems a bit oxymoronic, but even those who have everything could use cashmere jogging pants, I guess. And bling. Say, an incredibly ugly malachite monogrammed signet ring ($2,500). Or an incredibly ugly pink heart signet ring ($3,420). Or an incredibly ugly - and downright declasse - pinky ring ($1,880). Apparently, those who have everything already have their lifetime supply of essential oils, but you can get them serums. Expensive serums. But those who have everything may not have all the Hermes bags they desire. You can start low-end with a Birkin bag for $10.5K and move on up to a Epsom Kelly bag for $22.5K. And take a picture of it with a cute little Polaroid camera. (They still make Polaroids???) Even those who have everything have to contend with gravity, so may favorite gift on this list is the 24-karat gold T-bar used to lift and sculpt the face. Only $195. 

Goop likes children, and has gifts in The Kid's Gift Guide that take you from newbie - with a sweet little cap that says "I'm Coming Home" on  it, because a Goop kid shouldn't be satisfied with the little stripey freebie they give you in the hospital - on up. (And when you get that bambino/a who's coming home home, you swaddle them in muslin swaddling clothes.) There are cutesy booties. And cutesy books. And cutesy hats. As kids progress, things get a tad bit less cutesy, but remain precious and costly. Like the $650 Sunburst buffer jacket with a gold zipper. 

To my mind, the worst thing in the kid's catalog - perhaps the most FFS thing in the entire world of Goop - is the smartphone controlled paper airplane. 

The perfect precursor to the remote-controlled plane, this paper version (equipped with FlightAssist™ technology) is ideal for young pilots-in-training. It comes with two easy-to-fold templates, spare rudders and propellers, and a micro-USB cable for quick and convenient charging. The tilt-to-maneuver smartphone controls are so intuitive, really anyone can do it.

Templates? Rudders? Propellers? Isn't the point of a paper airplane to teach kids folding skills, to have them figure out a tiny bit of aerodynamics, to let them learn how to set a folded piece of printer paper on a glide path? Tilt-to-maneuver smartphone controls my arse! It may be only $50 but this one is ridiculous, even by Goop standards. This is a true abomination. What's the world coming to?


At least the petal pink and robin's egg blue surfboards for the older kids don't appear to be tricked out. Alas, it's too late to get one of these under your tree. Delivery takes 3-4 weeks before surf's up.

The final catalog is The Lover's Gift Guide. If you're thinking hearts, flowers, chocolates, perfume, you've got another think coming. We're talking sexy lingerie, dildos that aren't called dildos, massagers that are called massagers - including one that looks like an out-sized Hershey's Kiss - and some BDSM gear. (Goldent handcuffs, anyone?)

I am officially Gooped out...

Goop, glorious goop. (Or, the well curated shopping experience.)

For a while there, I had almost (blessedly) forgotten about the existence of Gwyneth Paltrow, the perfect avatar of wacky luxe consumption. And then my niece Molly went and texted me a link to an article on this year's holiday gift catalogues from Goop, Paltrow's lifestyle company. "Might be good for your blog," she added. That girl sure knows me.

Ah, there is so much there there, that I could devote a week's worth of Pink Slips - perhaps more - to exploring them. Instead, I decided to pick my favorite gift from each of her sub-catalogues. Which will occupy just two posts, today and tomorrow. So let's go window shopping!

Well, I'm no one's idea of a Wellness Junkie. Nevertheless, I plowed right in. Those cute little cinchable bags for veggies (organic cotton) and grains (hemp) caught my eye, but at $24 they barely qualify as a stocking stuffer. Then I spied the darling little indoor sprouts garden for $799 (subscription to seeds: $29 per month). While I do like sprouts on sandwich or salad, $799 + $29 monthly to grow my own? Ah, no. So, since I'm just window shopping, I settled on the $222/month (6 months minimum) online group coaching aimed at "awakening & empowering the sacred feminine within." I'm 70. About time I started "manifesting the life you want." And, as someone who is just so sacredly feminine, I'm rarin' to go.

The Under $100 Gift Guide represents a nice change of pace. Many of the items were make-up-ish. And $13 for a deck of Go Fish cards seems excessive, when you can use any old playing cards to do the deed. Not to mention that $34 is a bit much to fork over for a navy blue bandana. That's a price that's way anti the bandana ethos. And anyway, I'm happy with the 50-year-old bandana I probably got at an Army surplus store for 99 cents. 

I must say I was tempted by the Barbie pink and green flowered rolling papers - just in case I ever have reason to do some rolling; you never know - but $28 is steep, even if the kit comes with filters. (Filters? Huh?) Between the price and the filters, I'm wondering what the Zig Zag man would say? (And, by the way, I wouldn't have figured Barbie as an herb-smoker, even though she is partial to pink.) In the end, I'll go with the $25, weather-predicting storm cloud.

No need for the Men's Gift Guide. The couple of guys I buy for get books. Period. But it can't hurt to look. Which I did and found all sorts of guy stuff, much of it related to drinking, hanging around in comfy pants and shirts, manly cooking out, and grooming, including beard wash. (Somehow, I don't think the men who Goop folks are buying for have those grodie beards with the food stuck in them. Now those fellows could use a good beard wash.) But my favorite was a subscription to salami - $13 per salami. 

For pure goopiness, it's hard to beat The Ridiculous but Awesome Gift Guide, because if there are two words that come to mind whenever the name Gwyneth Paltrow is uttered, they would be "ridiculous" and "awesome", no? $99 might seem like a lot to pay for a dehydrated caviar bar, but when compared to $16,000 for a 1 kilogram tin of fancy-arse caviar, it's a ridiculously awesome bargain. Us nobodies, if we so desire (I don't), can purchase Norman Mailer's MoonFire on Amazon for $15. But if you're a booklover with too much money, you can go for the Lunar Rock Edition:

Limited to just 12 copies, one for each astronaut who walked on the Moon, the Lunar Rock Edition of Norman Mailer's MoonFire is designed by Marc Newson. Each book is contained in a case inspired by the Apollo 11 LEM (Lunar Excursion Module)—its surface an actual 3-D topography of the Moon—and comes with a unique piece of lunar meteorite. Accompanying this edition is a Basalt-Bearing Mingled Feldspathic Breccia, fresh and solid, it is a rare main mass of a meteorite.

Maybe the guy who paid $120K for the duct-taped banana is still doing his shopping...

If you don't want to settle for a book written by and about someone and something else, for $75 K you can hire two photographers to trail you on your vacation and turn the trip into the ultimate personal coffee table book.

I have no more business on the Cooking Gifts Guide than I do on the Wellness one, but I can look, can't I? There are a lot of cook books on there. And cookware. And utensils. And jars of stuff. And items like an organic waffled dish towel ($36 for a dishtowel? really?), and paleo and vegan chocolate chips. I'm going to venture an opinion that anyone who buys the blush-colored cookware set is going to live to regret it. I did like the looks of the portable grill. Way cute. But my fave is the $400 a year "Adopt an Olive Tree" subscription, which lets you help an Italian farmer and entitles you to 3 liters of olive oil from your tree (sure...) and an artful ceramic jar into which to decant the oil.

I'll be shopping the other Goop catalogues tomorrow.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
A feint with the Pink Slip shopping cart to my niece Molly for sending this one my way. 

Yes, we have no $120,000 bananas

Well, by now you've no doubt heard about Comedian, a work by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. Only the piece might be better know by its description: a banana (a real, live, ready-to-peel-and-eat banana) duct-taped to a gallery wall at Art Basel Miami Beach.

It was purchased by a collector for $120,000.

The work comes with a Certificate of Authenticity, and owners are told that they can replace the banana, as needed.Instructions on how to replace the banana are not included. (Source: Miami Herald)

Too bad those instructions weren't included, because after word got out about the price that was paid for a banana duct-taped to a wall, a performance artist named David Datuna un-duct-taped it and ate it.

While the banana was indeed consumed, apparently that doesn’t diminish the integrity of the six-figure art work, said Lucien Terras, director of museum relations for Galerie Perrotin.

“He did not destroy the art work. The banana is the idea,” Terras said.

The banana is the idea? I am the eggman, I am the eggman, I am the walrus? Or was it I am the eggplant? 

Oh, where to begin on this one.

First off, I've got nothing but props for Maurizio Cattelan, who is a legitimate (albeit controversial) artist who specializes in satirical works. 

If you took Modern Art in college, think Marcel Duchamp and the Dadaist movement, fast forwarded 100 years. One of Cattelan's most famous works, La Nona Ora "consists of an effigy of Pope John Paul II in full ceremonial costume being crushed by a meteor." Another, America, an 18-karat solid gold toilet that was stolen when on exhibit at Blenheim Palace, which was once the home of Winston Churchill. So I guess Cattelan's works have a habit of being stolen. But, jeez, you can eat a banana, but where do you fence an 18-karat gold toilet? (Source here: Wikipedia. And, yes, I made a small donation.)

If Cattelan wants to put something on the wall that's off the wall, and someone's willing to part with $120K for it, more power to him.

But the guy who paid the $120K? Huh? If he wants to support Cattelan, well that's his prerogative, but it does seem just a tad bit absurd. "I paid $120K for a work of art and all I got was a banana that rotted and some duct-tape" might not fit on a tee-shirt, but I might go with a smaller font and have one printed up and sent to the buyer. He did get that Certificate of Authenticity, however, so that's something.

As for Datuna, the performance artist...

He's not just a performance artist, a "profession" I equate with pretentiously acting out every little asshole impulse you have.  He's a legitimate artist, with a number of interesting works to his name. And he sometimes operates satirically, in Cattelan-mode. So eating the banana could be considered kind of a cool thing to do. Satirizing the satirist. If Cattelan is who I think he is, he's probably amused. 

The gallery owner was less so. 

Emmanuel Perrotin was about to head to the airport when he heard that the banana was eaten. He darted to the space, clearly upset. A fair goer tried to cheer him up and handed him his own banana.

Perrotin and a gallery assistant re-adhered the borrowed banana to the wall just after 2 p.m.

The show must go on!

And indeed it did, a silver rope line (and four Miami Beach cops) keeping the crowds at bay. There was a claim that "the banana has been more photographed than the Mona Lisa." Which, having been to the Louvre, I do not believe for a New York - or even a Miami - minute.

For the record, Datuna won't have a record, as he wasn't arrested for his stunt.

Oh, what a curious world we live in.

Airline fast food. Yummers.

I don't know about you, but I've had plenty of memorable airline meals. Memorably awful.

The worst was a beef meal on Alitalia. We'd ordered the chicken option, but they'd run out by the time they got to our row, so we were presented with a little round steak that resembled nothing more than a hockey puck. It was about the consistency of a hockey puck as well, as we found when we attempted to cut into it with our little plastic knives and forks, which shattered on impact. 

Then there was the NY shuttle which, back in the day when quickie flights fed you, gave flyers on the 6:30 a.m. a hardboiled egg in a little plastic cup. Arguably a better meal than the sticky mini-blueberry muffin that left a residue of cake on your fingers. And better than the plain, taste-free, partially frozen bagel. But still, there's something queasy-making about being handed a boiled egg - boiled when? - in a lidded plastic cup at 6:30 a.m. I can't remember which airline it was. There've been so many that ran the Logan-LaGuardia route over the years, and during my peak business travel years when I was a regular on that run, I took them all at one point or another. But, since that little boiled egg breakfast was so nauseating, I'm going to go with Trump Air.

Oh, traveling in first or business - thank you, oh frequent-flyer-genius husband - I have had some reasonably edible food. But mostly meh. So meh that when American Airlines - again, this is in the wayback when I traveled frequently on business -  stopped giving hot meals to passengers in steerage and handed flyers a half of a Subway sandwich and a bag of Sunchips, it was cause for celebration.

When I travel these days, and it's a longish flight, I bring along something to snack ot - nothing messy or smelly, mind you, unlike the louts who bring on hefty, suppurating, odiferous tuna subs, and are always sitting next to me. But sustenance, especially needed in case of any problems with the flight.

But I must admit that, when a meal is offered, I generally take it, even though if you were blindfolded you probably couldn't say exactly what you're eating. And I'll pick around the edges of the soupy ravioli, the tough chicken, and past-prime salad. Mostly out of boredom rather than hunger. And never worth the calories. 

Apparently, there are others who have a greater appreciation of fine culinary offerings from airlines. Or maybe AirAsia really does have good food. Anyway, they've just opened a fast-food restaurant that serves airline meal:

"We have seen a significant appetite for our in-flight menu offerings beyond our flights across the region and this is our answer to that demand," said Catherine Goh, general manager of Santan Restaurant and T&CO Cafe. "We are very proud to extend what started out as an inflight menu into new markets." AirAsia is so confident that its unique establishment will be a massive hit that it already has plans for rapid expansion.

“By the end of 2020, we aim to have five owned Santan restaurants and 100 franchisee-operated restaurants and cafes within the next three to five years with expansions in global markets,” said Goh. (Source: ABC News)

Okey dokes.

I guess it can't be any worse than Taco Bell, Roy Rogers or Arby's, can it?

Still...

The high-techniness of the Santan operation will no doubt add to the overall experience, by providing its customers with something called a "personal digital journey." Also known as find a way to sell you more.

The restaurant and cafe features a smart menu equipped with Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, which is able to recommend popular dishes based on time, past ordering patterns as well as demographic tast," said Goh.

Well, a truly smart menu probably wouldn't offer airline food to begin with. But what do I know. My niece Molly was in Thailand this past spring and said that on a one-hour flight, they were offered a duck dish that was okay. In any case the company's "ultimate goal is to open a location in New York's Times Square."

With all the places to eat in NYC, who'd go for fast airlines food? Worse and more improbable things have happened, but seriously folks, airline food is bad enough when it's free and you're trapped in a metal tube, tens or thousands of feet above earth, hurtling towards your destination. Who wants to actually pay for it when you're free to walk around the cabin of life and get something good?

Not this Boomer!

The headline was ominous: Boomers have outgrown real Christmas trees

Not okay, Boomer. Not this Boomer, anyway.

But I'm apparently, metaphoricallly speaking, a lonely balsam in an increasingly shrinking and thinly-wooded forest. 

According to the federal Census of Agriculture, which used the earliest year for which data are available, Christmas tree production fell nearly 30 percent from 2002 to 2017. National surveys point to the reason: Each year, fewer Americans are putting up trees during the holidays. And those who do are increasingly choosing artificial ones.

Aging baby boomers are driving much of this shift, as they opt for the convenience of plastic trees that can be reused year after year. (Source: WaPo)

Oh, swell. We're responsible for global warming, income inequality, housing prices, tuition costs, and - lest we forget - Trump. And now it's on us that the market for real Christmas trees is being killed.

But the facts don't lie: in 2014, 44% of those between 30 and 49 put up a real tree. Only 16% of the plus 65 crowd did. Having turned 65 in December 2014, I was part of this rarified group. 

Only 76% of households had any tree up in 2018, down from 90% in 1989. And in 1989, more than half the trees on display were real. Last year, of the 76% with a tree up, fake trees accounted for 55%, real trees for a paltry, Charlie Brown Christmas tree 21%.

Are we going to have to change the words of the carol from "Oh, Christmas Tree" to "No Christmas Tree"?

I know, I know. Fake trees are convenient. My cousin Ellen, who has an enviable amount of storage space off of her family room, keeps her fake tree fully decorated, and rolls it out every Christmas. Not that I blame her. Ellen and her husband are snowbirds who come back to Chicagoland for Christmas with family, then immediately flee back to Florida. 

Putting any tree up is a pain in the butt, especially a real one. 

You have to go out and buy it. Put it up. Decorate it. Undecorate it. Take it down. Dispose of it. Live with pine needles all over the place for 12 months. In my case, I have an additional step. I have a mild allergy to balsam. It used to be that I was stuffed up the entire time my Christmas tree was up. That was until I discovered that you could hose down or shower your tree and rinse away all those nasty allergens. Well worth it!

Despite the gloom and doom trends, Tim O'Connor - the Executive Director of the National Christmas Tree Association - is optimistic about the future for Christmas trees au naturel. 

"The trends are very favorable to real trees today," O'Connor said. "Many families want to have authentic experiences, do good things for the environment and know the story behind the products they buy. Real trees match up completely with that; a fake tree made from PVC plastic in a Chinese factory does not."

I'm with Tim O'Connor!

Tomorrow morning I plan on venturing out on an authentic experience and buy my Christmas tree at the annual Hill House Christmas Tree sale. With luck, there'll be someone who can carry it home for me and tuck it into the shower stall so I can water it down. 

I will venture into my crawl space and, commando wise, crawl through the tunnel to retrieve my boxes of ornaments and the tree stand. 

Next week, at some point, it will be all decorated and just bee-yoo-tee-full. 

Fake tree? Never say never. But NEVER! 

There's résumé inflation, and then there's RÉSUMÉ INFLATION

Plenty of people lie on their résumés. And some of them even get caught. But I'm guessing that even in an era when many employees are pretty serious about vetting, there are many small things that sneak through, especially in less easily checkable parts like titles, responsibilities, and dates.

But when it comes to résumé inflation, some folks go all out. 

One such person was Veronica Theriault who managed to con her way into a plush $185K (US) job in an executive level role for the South Australia government.

Along the way, she fabricated her educational credentials and past employment records. She faked up a reference from a Ms. Best (as in Be Best), who just happened to be Theriault's alter ego. In other words, Ms. Best just happened to be one and the same as Veronica Theriault. Needless to say, Ms. Best had fabulous things to say about Veronica Theriault. (Wonder if they asked my favorite reference-checking question: would you hire this person again? Which, in this litigious age, you probably can't ask anymore. Sigh.)

To ratchet up her salary, Theriault ginned up a fake pay slip that proved she was worth that much. And also came up with a fake doctor's letter attesting to her good health. (Hmmm. Who does that sound like? Anyone come to mind?)

Once Theriault got the job, she hired her equally-unqualified brother. Nepotism at play, but also a nice payback, as her brother had also given her a glowing reference. What's a family for?

Theriault lasted about a month as the chief information officer for South Australia’s Department of Premier and Cabinet, but eventually the ruse broke down. On Tuesday she was sentenced to 25 months in jail — 12 without the possibility of parole — after pleading guilty to deception, dishonesty dealing with documents and abuse of public office, ABC said. (Source: Washington Post)

The ruse came to light when Theriault had some sort of mental breakdown shortly after starting her new job.  

Theriault, according to her lawyer, had pulled off the scam while going through a mental health crisis. The judge took Theriault's bi-polar diagnosis into account when sentencing her, but wasn't going to let her get totally away. Especially given that she'd pulled a similar stunt in 2012. And in 2014. 

So this was something of a repeat performance.

The most bizarre aspect of this case is that Theriault had posted a picture on her LinkedIn profile. It was a very nice picture. It just didn't happen to be of Theriault. Theriault is a perfectly ordinary looking woman in her mid-forties. But on LinkedIn, she's the model Kate Upton, who is nearly 20 years Theriault's junior. And married to the baseball star Justin Verlander. 

Theriault is reportedly ashamed and embarassed. As she should be. She's also going to prison.

I'm always amazed when someone gets caught up in something like this. Or embezzling from their employer. Or leading a double life. Don't they worry about getting caught?

Of course, there may not be all that much to worry about. For all we know, for every scam that gets uncovered, there are dozens of people who get away with it. Maybe 90% of the time, this sort of crime does pay.

No word on who her brother has picture on his LinkedIn profile.  Maybe he's Justin Verlander.

1949? That was the year that was...

Turning  70 - and doesn't that just trip off the old tongue? - has got me thinking about 1949. Even though I just spent a month in it, 1949 is my year. So my mind got to wandering (as the 70 year old mind is prone to do) to what other significant events happened that year. 

There was some serious news.
NATO was formed to help keep the European peace. So far, so good (unless between when I'm writing this on 11.30 and this morning DJT manages to f it up). 

And Mao Tse Tung and his Communists beat Chiang Kai-Shek and his Nationalists to set up Red China. Mao vs. Chiang Kai-Shek? It would have been hard to pick a side on that one, but bad as Chiang Kai-Shek was, if he'd prevailed I'm guessing that there would have been a bit less death and probably no Cultural Revolution.

And back in the USSR, boys, the Soviets set off their first atomic bomb.

But let's get to the good stuff. 

At the movies

Movies that came out that year were a mixed lot. The Third Man, which familiarized the world with the zither, was released, as was All the King's Men, which familiarized the world with a fictionalized Huey Long.

No surprise that there were plenty of World War II movies out. Sands of Iwo Jima. Twelve O'Clock High. and I Was a Male War Bride. At least Twelve O'Clock High, in attempting to deal with the psychiatric perils of war made an attempt at realism. On The Town was also turned into a movie in 1949. Don't know if it counts as a war movie, but it had fun music and great dancing. (Crushing on Gene Kelly in his sailor suit...)

White Heat, with Jimmy Cagney chewing the scenery and hollering "Top of the world, Ma" was another 1949 film.

Adams Rib or, Tracy v. Hepburn in a battle of the sexes, and yet another version of Little Women, this edition with the whiney June Allyson as Jo. (Oh no!)

Film-wise, there was something for everyone in 1949.

Paul Ryan wasn''t yet around to enjoy it, but wooden writing and wooden acting were combo'd to bring us the film version of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. On a slightly less dour note, Esther Williams, Red Skelton, Ricardo Montalban and Xavier Cougat starred in Neptune's Daughter. Would someone offer me $1K to sit throug that doubleheader? I think that would be my price...

Religos got to watch Come to the Stable, and the country dealt with its race problem via Pinky, about a woman who passed for white. 

On the jukebox

1949 was not a great year for music. Ghost Riders in the Sky? Come on! But the year did give us a few holiday classics" Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Mele Kalikimaka, and - switching holidays - Here Comes Peter Cottontail.

The best "normal" song of the year was probably Some Enchanged Evening. But If I Had a Hammer, while probably neither on The Hit Parade or in a juke box, came out. And thanks to The Google, I discovered that my husband's favorite Irish pub song, Ewan MacColl's Dirty Old Town, came out in  1949. (And, yes I know that MacColl was a Brit, but he still writes a mean Irish pub tune. Unless, in this case, you listen to the lyrics, which are a tad bit violent...)

The East German national anthem "Aufterstanden Aus Ruinen" (Risen from the Ruins) was introduced in 1949, although one might argue that East Germany never did quite manage to rise from the ruins until The Wall started to crumble.

What About TV?

Americans were starting to buy into television, buying 100,000 sets a week during 1949. But there wasn't all that much on. Some shows I watched as a kid were first on in 1949: Candid Camera, The Life of Riley, I Remember Mama and The Lone Ranger. Did we really all parrot Chester A. Riley's line, "What a revoltin' development this is?" Did I really have a crush on Dick Van Patten, who played Nels on Mama? 

On the library shelves
Eleanor Roosevelt’s This I Remember was published. But every book that year wasn’t quite as forgettable. There was Paul Bowles The Sheltering Sky. And the brilliant German writer, Heinrich Böll, published his first novel, The Train Was On Time. (Note to self: reread Böll.) Death Be Not Proud, in which John Gunther chronicled the death of his teenage son from brain cancer came out that year. It was staple reading when I was in high school, reinforcing the lesson that the good died young and we were all too rotten to do so. Most significantly, George Orwell’s 1984 was published.

And on the children’s book front, there was The Color Kittens, a delightful Golden Book. In a home full of Golden Books, this was one of m favorites. 

And in other cultural news
South Pacific opened on Broadway and Death of a Salesman won the Pulitzer Prize

But wait, there's more...

Silly Putty came on the market. The most popular toy of the year was Cootie. (Yay!) And Meryl Streep and Bruce Springsteen were born. So I'm in good company.

That was the year that was!