A Humanist Miracle
I wrote a piece for the shiny-and-new HumanistLife on why Miracle on 34th Street is the perfect humanist film. I also have a go at anti-sentiment, er, sentiment, and critics of consumerism.
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A Humanist Miracle
My favourite humanist film is Miracle on 34th Street. Not the Richard Attenborough remake – the 1947 black-and-white original, with Edmund Gwenn and Maureen O’Hara. It’s lovely. Really. There’s a delightful humanist message at its core, and I think it’s the most positive, thoughtful and festively uplifting film out there. Unlike its modern counterpart, which is broken.
Admittedly, at first glance the premise may not seem terribly rational. A man claiming to be Santa Claus is sectioned, and a court case held to determine his sanity. How is a legal battle over the existence of Santa not a done deal? A hotshot lawyer, a judge up for re-election, and a young girl taught not to believe in Santa all have something to say, as the case captures the attention of the nation.
If you’re anything like me, you’re already thinking ‘metaphor!’. And you’re right. In the remake, Santa is standing in for a higher power. It’s not subtle. The climax of the case sees Judge Harper desperately seeking a reason to affirm Santa’s existence, which is provided by the epically cute Mara Wilson. She hands over a dollar note inscribed with ‘In God We Trust’, and Judge Harper immediately sees the potential: since the U.S. government is happy to declare a belief in God without evidence – as do we all, he says – Santa can reap the precedent. Case dismissed!
Ugh.
The original doesn’t do this. The original doesn’t mention God at all. Is Santa real? It’s ambiguous. He’s still metaphorical, and there’s still talk of the virtues of belief, but every mention of the word ‘faith’ is immediately followed by a sentiment expressing the goodness of people, and how it’s people we should believe in. We should believe that things can turn out all right. We should give people second chances, even when things haven’t gone our way. 1994 Santa is an inspiration to believe in magic; 1947 Santa is an inspiration to be all that we can be.
White Wine in the Sun for Christmas No. 1
Tim Minchin's wonderful and festive 'White Wine in the Sun' is out as a single, just in time for Christmas. Here it is:
There's a push to make it Christmas no. 1, and I'm entirely in favour. Not because it's not the X-Factor - that's not very nice - but because it's good and I like it.
iTunes - HMV - We7 - Play.com - TuneTribe - Tesco
If you buy it on iTunes, why not gift it to a friend at the same time? Doubles sales and spreads the word.
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my Skepchick gave to me…
Twelve happy humans,
Eleven Sagan sayings,
Ten Lords repeals,
Nine Godless carols,
Eight God Delusions,
Seven heathen buses,
Six Graylings dancing,
Phar-yng-u-la,
Three God Trumps,
Two Darwin fish,
and The Atheist's Guide to Christmas.
Not that I have a Skepchick. But, you know, in theory.
2009 Advent Calendar
Just to say I've started my annual bloggy advent calendar, which always collects my favourite festive images from Flickr. The first image is a beautiful Christmas tree shot by Tamie Snow.
Update: Hmmm, not a very impressive start. Sorry - Tuesday was a pretty bad day, and I didn't get in until late, then I was straight out this morning. I'll try not to miss any more!
Tim Minchin
I saw Tim Minchin yesterday. I tried to tweet about his show afterwards and couldn't find the right word - 7hrs sleep over 48 will do that to you - but someone else came up with the perfect expression: he was phenomenal. Here's his most well-known piece, Storm:
Proper superstar, that guy. The rest of his act is piano-based, and he closed with his Christmas song, which had me, and half the audience, in tears. He totally deserved the standing ovation.
sum1 may hav flshy-thng-d me
I was groggy on Christmas morning. I wasn't in bed till late, then I must have been yanked out of R.E.M. sleep, or something, as everything pre-breakfast is a bit of a blur. I unwrapped a couple of presents, then began my ascent of the Glasgow Coma Scale before reaching full consciousness sometime after 1000.
I mention this because one of the presents was put underneath a calendar, and I completely forgot about it. Hence my delayed excitement at remembering, this evening, that I HAS IT.
The I Can Has Cheezburger book - it is mine!
Srsly, it is a thing of beauty. I shall carry it with me everywhere to cheer up the glum and the snippy.
Merry Christmas (and how Colin saved Christmas)
My four missing Etsy parcels didn't show up. I was annoyed, and worried they might have been stolen from the communal post-table. Once, though, Postie left a too-big-for-letterbox package with Colin The Butcher, and didn't leave a note. So I nonchalantly ambled into said shop, trying not to look too hopeful. Colin looked up, said 'ah', disappeared into the back, and returned with a stack of five padded envelopes. He apologised for not delivering them, because, you know, butchers don't have much else to do on Christmas Eve. I explained his new status as The Man. He saved Christmas. I bought some ham.
Hope everyone's had a merry merry Christmas so far. I have a lovely Annie Liebovitz book to read, amongst various other entertainments, and am a happy bunny.
Also, here is a useful family tree explaining cousins, x-th cousins, cousins once removed etc.. It was necessary this afternoon.
Nearly there…
Last year I didn't finish present wrapping / delivering until 9pm on Christmas Eve, and I was grumpy about it. I used to quite enjoy the thrill of doing everything last minute, but then it just became annoying. It meant I had three hours to properly relax, which wasn't enough (Christmas Day itself is lovely, but couldn't be described as relaxing 
).
I've done a bit better this year. Most presents have already been delivered, but I'm waiting on four parcels which were posted last Thursday (from different places). Three others, posted the same day, arrived on Monday. I know the Christmas post is slow, but I'm a bit worried now. If they don't arrive I can make do, but it'll be a disappointment. Still, not much I can do other than wait and hope...
I'll move in with my parents for a few days, as it's no fun waking up on Christmas day on your own. Also they have lots of chocolate. Hopefully I'll be ready a bit earlier, too.
Uni project: science-y Christmas cards
Six weeks ago I was given a broad photo project. The possible themes were 'still life', 'a journey' or 'a document', which meant I could shoehorn in anything I wanted; I just needed to come up with something interesting.
I had an idea. It only required dry ice, a prism, fifty light bulbs, and access to a physics lab. So one Saturday morning I was figuring all this out, and at the same time (in an uncharacteristic fit of forward planning) looking for decent non-religious Christmas cards. I idly tweeted about the dearth of good cards from the BHA/NSS, and Andrew of Apathy Sketchpad replied with a comment about making your own. Well, that did it. I couldn't let the opportunity pass, so I changed my entire project in an afternoon1.
So I wanted to produce images for non-religious Christmas cards. Not in an avowedly there-is-no-god way - no need to be a jerk about it - but (somehow) pro-science and secular wonder. My lofty dream result was images that evoked a sense of awe. Not at the aesthetics or my photographic skill or anything2, but at the facets of nature they represented. They'd have a festive air, but be about reality and the joys of discovery. I also wanted them to work as images on their own, but with a 'something else is going on here' for anyone interested. If that makes sense.
That's what I wrote in my project proposal, anyway. I figured this might be pretty difficult in practice, but really I just wanted to produce some cool science-y Christmas cards that I could actually send out. The only catch was the project needed to be on film, so I couldn't use Photoshop - everything had to be done in-camera.
Anyway, I had good fun with this project, and did eventually produce some actual cards (until WH Smiths ran out of photo-card printing packs, anyway). If anyone's interested, here are the final results (the captions were printed on the back of the cards):
The Candle Aquatic
(no Photoshop involved)
http://tinyurl.com/6owruo
Fibonacci Cones
Pine cones grow to the Fibonacci golden spiral:
http://tinyurl.com/6qk3kc
Oh say can you C
(yes, if you know one Smartie = 15mm)
http://tinyurl.com/5pqyff
Bauble Fractals
http://tinyurl.com/69n2hu
More info after the break, for anyone interested.
How good is my tree
a) astonishingly
b) absurdly
c) its majesty has crashed my database of superlatives
Answers on a postcard.
Is it far too big for my flat? Most definitely. But it makes up for it with true awesomeitudemacity. Note the slight back-right leaning. This is a deliberate homage to the pagan tradition of, erm, not making stuff stand up straight.
There's something missing, though...something...it's like there's too much space underneath...can't put my finger on it...
Hello!
Hey, thanks for coming! I'm Andrew, and this is where my headthinks come to breed. They often meander around humanism and photography, but they're flighty and you can't trust them, so anything is possible.
Do feel free to email me - I get lonely:
Your hair looks swish, by the way - have you done something new?
Recent Comments
- vicky: going up this weekend having done all the welsh peaks except 4 snowdon, cant wait
on Climbing Snowdon. - vicky: what, how can u live in the 21 c and say that, probably a sexist thing
on Climbing Snowdon. - vicky: da iawn laura, cant believe what im hearing, all this fuss, anyway love the site, and i agree, normal people who swear and curse clomb mountains cos we live in the...
on Climbing Snowdon. - Andrew: Did a few quick test shots to check the light levels, then balanced the camera on the arm of a bench, set it for a 20s exposure and hoped for the best
on ISS. - lynsey: Wow, how did you take that photograph?
on ISS.
