Seven Joys for December 2023
I publish Seven Joys ten to twelve times a year, so there is no rush to get through the things that bring me joy. Read, watch, listen, learn, and find some joy.
One. “Wow, The Moon!”
“Night Sky with Moon and Stars." Photo by George Hodan. Public Domain.
Growing up on a farm in Middle Tennessee, with no streetlights, the moon was an important presence in my life. It provided enough light for part of each month to see your way to the outhouse at our Jarrell Ridge cabin (now just a grassy knoll on the banks of the Cumberland River). When I lived in Malawi, the moon determined our social activities — planning nighttime events around our ability to see in the dark as we walked through the villages and towns to share a meal and dance the evening away. In A New View of the Moon, Wylie & Alex of the “to scale series” bring the moon down to earth, creating WOW moments for passers-by. I never see the moon without it bringing me joy and wonder.
WATCH: More in the To Scale Series at https://www.toscaleseries.com. Three minutes and 18 seconds.
Two. Spy Music.
I am a child of the ’60s, and Hollywood’s response to the Cold War was spies and secret agents. The actors who play James Bond may come and go, but the Bond music is ever-steady. Monty Norman and John Barry's music set the standard for spy music -- soaring strings, reverbed guitars, and a sense of drama, but they were not the first. Henry Mancini’s Peter Gunn and Fall Out (1959) and Experiment in Terror (1962) proceeded the James Bond Theme. The ’60s also brought us Mancini’s The Pink Panther (1963), Jerry Goldsmith’s Our Man Flint (1966), Lalo Schifrin’s Mission Impossible (1966), and Neal Hefti’s Batman Theme (1966). I still love and get great joy from this genre of music. It opened a world of possibility and escape for a queer boy in Tennessee and gave me hope that humanity would prevail when nuclear bomb drills interrupted our days.
Main titles for first James Bond film, Dr. No, by Maurice Binder and Trevor Bond.
LISTEN: 7 Joy’s Spy Music Playlist on YouTube. Twenty minutes and 25 seconds.
WATCH: All 24 James Bond Theme Song Opening Credits. YouTube. I don’t know, at least 90 minutes.
Three. “All Aboard!” Joy is a Happy Train Conductor
Jackson is a conductor on the Disneyland Railway.
Seeing someone who loves what they do gives me great joy. Their passion is infectious. It might be my son on the line at the restaurant, an artisan absorbed in their craft, or, in this case, Jackson, a train conductor on the Disneyland Railroad. Jackson safely conducted us around Disneyland Park recently, calling out every station and sounding the “All Aboard” with his bellowing Pavarotti voice. When I asked him about our steam engine, he happily gave us the history of steam engine #3, The Fred Gurley, on the Disneyland line. The oldest engine on the line was built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, Penn., in 1894 and began its journey on the Disney Railway in 1958. Jackon informed us it now runs on biofuel (used cooking oil) from the Disneyland restaurants. All Aboard!
READ: Disneyland Railway on Wikipedia. Ten minutes.
WATCH: Disneyland Railway Documentary on YouTube. Fifty-Six minutes.
Four. A Night on Bald Mountain
I grew up listening to The Lettermen on 8-track tape, Frank Sinatra on LP, Dolly Parton, Porter Wagner, and Bluegrass on the television. Except for occasional snippets of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, rifted in pop culture productions, I never heard classical music until I was a sophomore in high school. The piece was A Night on Bald Mountain (1867) by Modest Mussorgsky, a Russian composer of the Romantic period, and the composition—a tone poem about the Witches' Sabbath on Bald Mountain during St. John's Eve.
During a free-writing exercise, my high school English teacher played the piece on an Audio Plus AV15TX School Classroom Portable Record Player. Our pencils were never to stop moving or lift from the paper until the 10-minute and 59-second composition ended. I became lost in the rapture of the witch’s sabbath. Mussorgsky himself wrote the piece in a fevered frenzy of inspiration. Writing to his friend, Vladimir Nikolsky…
“I wrote it in about twelve days, glory to God ... While at work on St. John’s Eve I didn’t sleep at night and actually finished the work on the eve of St. John’s Day, it seethed within me so, and I simply didn’t know what was happening within me ... I see in my wicked prank an independent Russian product,”
LISTEN: A Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky and conducted by Leonard Berstein. YouTube. Eleven minutes.
WATCH: A Night on Bald Mountain from Walt Disney’s Fantasia conducted by Leopold Stokowski. YouTube. Eleven minutes.
LISTEN: The Letterman’s Greatest Hits. YouTube. One hour and 36 minutes.
Five. Christmas Bubble Lights
It is the holiday season, and many things about the season bring me joy. Most of them center around meals shared with friends, but there are objects rooted in childhood memories that instantly trigger joy in me. One of those is the Bubble Light.
My grandparents always cut their Christmas trees on their farm. They were the Eastern Red Cedar, and the only lights were a couple of strings of Bubble Lights. They were pure magic— bubbling away on the tree, combined with the strong scent of the fresh-cut cedar. They are the one decoration I have always had on my tree. The Bubble Light was invented in 1944 by Carl W. Otis and was first sold by the Nomo Christmas decoration company in 1946. Some 20 years later, I would fall in love with them. What brings you joy during the holiday season?
READ: History of the Bubble Light on Wikipedia. Five-minute read.
WATCH: More than you want to know at Bubble Lights on Cabinet of Curiosities. YouTube. Fourteen minutes.
Six. The Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee 🤷
Photo by Alister White.. Copyright Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
It is sheer joy to wander around Nashville’s West End on a hot day and stumble upon this monstrous edifice smack in the middle of Centennial Park. It is immediately recognizable, but you struggle to name it because it is so out of place. The building is a full-scale replica of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. It was designed by architect William Crawford Smith and built in 1897 as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. And if the building itself were not enough “crazy” for you, then what about the statue inside the building, Athena Parthenos by Alan LeQuire (1990), a full-scale replica of the Athena that held court in ancient Athens. Athena Parthenos is the largest indoor sculpture in the Western world. It brings me joy that humans undertake such follies.
Photograph by Dean Dixon, Sculpture by Alan LeQuire.
READ: The Nashville Parthenon on Wikipedia.
READ: The other Parthenon on Wikipedia.
READ: Sculptor Alan LeQuire on Wikipedia.
Seven. “Posh Nosh”
My favorite cooking show of all time? While Julia has a very special place in my heart, my favorite cooking show is a parody of cooking shows, Posh Nosh, produced in 2003 by the BBC and created by Jon Canter and Arabella Weir. Posh Nosh is composed of nine 10-minute episodes, and during that brief run, you will find joy in the preparation of “Architecture Fish and Chips” and get a taste of the “future” in the “Sauces” episode.
Treat yourself during the final days of 2023 with this delightful series starring Richard E. Grant and Weir as the Hon. Simon and Minty Marchmont, with David Tennant as Simon’s sexy tennis instructor, José Luis. Joanna Lumley narrates the series. WARNING: Vegetables routinely find themselves “embarrassed” and “excited” during this series.
WATCH: Complete the nine-episode playlist on YouTube.
Well, that’s all for 2023, folks. Daniel and I spent a glorious three weeks sailing around French Polynesia, and the holidays were spent with friends and family. I hope this brought you a few minutes of joy. I would love to hear from you by email or in the comment section below. Be grateful, live in the moment, and seek joy. - Kevin