Few of us have made it to the end of 2020 without feeling a sense of loss, I suspect, even if we’re fortunate enough not have been directly visited by the most unspeakable of tragedies.
I’ve rarely strayed into social commentary here on the blog, preferring to keep it focused on fun stuff and critiques of pop-cultural pursuits.
We finally learned the name of the little guy who’s taken popular culture by storm on last week’s episode of The Mandalorian, and it reminded me that I never shared here the brief parody lyrics I posted on Twitter a year ago before we knew anything of his background.
Yoda clo-o-one
He is pale green in color
Plays with a knob and slumbers
Fifty years old, looks more
like fifty days (oh yeah)
Now you’re a kind of family
He led you down a nobler path
Mando, I hope that Yoda clone’s okay
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver was not on last week, but will be on tonight — and with John Oliver. What are the odds, I ask you?
If you’re looking forward to it then you might be interested in Oliver’s chat with Ari Velshi on the subject “The Rigors of Laughter” [38:58] from December. Velshi is a correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC who serves on the board of The Philadelphia Citizen, which presented the interview as part of a day of programming “that brings the most innovative urban thinkers and global thought leaders together to share and discuss bold ideas”. Although neither gentleman was quite sure how to interpret the conversation’s title, it focused on Last Week’s process and purpose.
There wasn’t much in their exchange I hadn’t already heard or read, and Oliver isn’t
as engrossingly hyper-articulate as fellow Daily Show alum Stephen Colbert when he’s questioned in such a setting, but it was still fun seeing Oliver express his delight over the absurd expenditures of time, money, and other resources that his staff concocts.
I brainstormed the following list a few years ago on a lark. While I shared on Twitter and Facebook, I didn’t here at the time because I knew activity would be light and wasn’t keen to have dated Yuletide content atop the front page year-round. Posting it now is relevant to the cultural moment, of course, but also helps ensure that I finally get crackin’ on the blog again so we don’t have to keep looking at…
My Top Eleven Star Wars Holiday Songs
11. “Silent Night, Carbonite”
10. “Here We Come a-Wookieeing”
9. “O Little Town of Walrus Men”
8. “Winter Wampaland”
7. “X-Wings We Have Heard on High”
I didn’t know Tom Spurgeon, a longtime critic and lover of comics who passed
away last week at just 50. We met but once at a convention. I know his work, though, and I know a lot of other people in the comics world who did know him, admire him, care for him.
Spurgeon was editor of Fantagraphics’ The Comics Journal for several years before launching his website The Comics Reporter.
