A short week in the U.S. has begun.  The holiday season is in full swing, and we are all waiting to see what inflation snow looks like.  Today we talk about Christmas stories, the debate of dawn, a Stoic bed and legacy, and finish up with a prince of indie rock named Thurston. 

A Christmas Story initially released in 1983, starred a young Peter Billingsley as Ralphie.  If you can’t remember seeing at least part of the original movie during every Christmas season over the last decade, we can label you as Anti-Christmas.  Consequence wrote a couple of pieces we read this weekend on the original, and it’s the lasting power and the reboot that hit HBO Max late last week.  The movie was set in the 40s, and part of the reason we think it continues to stand up falls into some things never change category.  We did not grow up in the 40s; some of us were at peak Christmas age in the 70s and 80s – had kids of our own and went through it again in the 90s and 00s. 

Every Christmas from the 40s until the present, many experiences remained the same:

There are also many documentaries about the original film, and several are referenced in the articles on Consequences.  One of our favorite stories is about the fake snow they were forced to use during the shoot.  As the story goes, they filmed many outdoor sequences in Cleveland, Ohio, and shot during a rare winter in Cleveland without snow.  The decision to shoot scenes in Cleveland is another reason we think the movie is becoming the It’s a Wonderful Life of another generation.  That neighborhood would be difficult to recreate on a sound stage in another state.

The trailer for the update looks a bit like A Christmas Story meets Adam Sandler’s Grown Ups.  The new cast, headed up by Peter Billingsley, are all of drinking age with their kids.  A Christmas Story Christmas is now streaming on HBO Max, and we plan on grabbing a few Clark Griswald Moose Mugs full of booze and hot chocolate while we reminisce over the ghosts of the Christmas past.

Four Minute Books summarizes The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber, and the book takes you on a journey with scientists and historians from the beginning of what we think is our world.  A walk-through of our global industrial design.

In the book summary, lesson 3 talks about how monarchies gained power.  The three ways:

We mentioned that some things never change earlier in today’s newsletter, but it is apparent that in Christmas tradition and government, that is the case.

Ryan Holiday, who writes Daily Stoic, a newsletter about the great Stoics of the past, wrote about a famous painting from Eugene Delacroix depicting Marcus Aurelius in his final days.  Aurelius, one of the great and lasting Stoics, wrote in his renowned book Meditations (at least we think it was a book, it was a long time ago), “Why do you weep for me?”  In Holiday’s short piece that goes with Aurelius and the painting, we were struck by how similar the story of; a great man, after a hard life, surrounded by his friends near the end of his life, has the same advice as many other historical and religious figures. 

The article lists a few of the final statements from Aurelius; here is our favorite:

The Guardian talked with Indie Rocker Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth in one of those WebChat gigs.  Moore doesn’t look like he has aged a day since his band Sonic Youth poked its head through the ceiling of indie and punk rock and danced with popular music for a brief moment.  Moore has always been a Kool Thing (look it up, kids), and he continues to explore boundaries and make exciting music.  With a new album called By The Fire, Moore took time to answer audience questions via web chat.

Moore is in the business and continues producing music to be connected. 

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