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Wednesday, December 25th, 2019
| Time | Event |
| 9:00a | Revisiting Band Aid’s Cringe-Inducing 1984 Single, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”
We all know, don’t we, that the 1984 charity hit “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” qualifies as possibly the worst Christmas song ever recorded? Does that go too far? The song’s writer, Bob Geldof, went even further, once saying, “I am responsible for two of the worst songs in history. One is ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ and the other one is ‘We Are the World.’” There’s no objective measure for such a thing, but I’m not inclined to disagree, with due respect for the millions Geldof, co-organizer and co-producer Midge Ure, and British celebrity supergroup Band Aid raised to feed victims of famine in Ethiopia in the mid-80s. Revisiting the lyrics now, I’m shocked to find they're even more ridiculous and cringe-inducing than I remembered. We can quickly dispense with the absurdity of the title. As an exasperated Spotify employee helpfully pointed out recently in a series of annotations, “the people of Ethiopia probably did know it was Christmas—it’s one of the oldest Christian nations in the world” with a majority Christian population. The song’s aid recipients are referred to as “the other ones” who live in "a world of dread and fear." Listeners are enjoined to "thank God it's them instead of you." And two years after Toto’s “Africa,” Band Aid manages to deliver the clumsiest, most ill-informed stanza perhaps ever written about the continent:
Troublingly, the song “peddles myths about the cause of the famine,” writes Greg Evans at The Independent, “suggesting it was down to a drought, rather than the corrupt government misusing international aid.”
But it’s Christmas, as you probably know, so let’s not be too hard on “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” The artists who participated, including George Michael, Bono, Boy George, Sting, and many others had a significant impact on the entertainment industry’s role in international aid, for good and ill. The song was re-recorded three times, in 1989, 2004, and 2014, and it has become, believe it or not, “the second bestselling single in Britain’s history,” Laura June points out at The Outline. Evans notes that “a reported £200m was raised via sales of the single which went towards the relief fund and it later went on to inspire the iconic Live Aid concert in July 1985, which raised a further £150m.” (Some of that money, it was later discovered, inadvertently made it into the hands of Ethiopia’s corrupt government.) Other benefit events, like Farm Aid in the U.S., would follow Geldof and Urge’s lead, and the model proved to be an enduring way for artists to support causes they cared about. See the unbearably earnest original video at the top of the post and, just above, a thirty-minute making of film with a who’s who of mid-1980s British pop royalty learning to sing “let them know it’s Christmas time again” together. Related Content: Stream a Playlist of 68 Punk Rock Christmas Songs: The Ramones, The Damned, Bad Religion & More Hear Paul McCartney’s Experimental Christmas Mixtape: A Rare & Forgotten Recording from 1965 Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness Revisiting Band Aid’s Cringe-Inducing 1984 Single, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.  |
| 12:00p | When Salvador Dalí Created Christmas Cards That Were Too Avant Garde for Hallmark (1960)
The nature of marketing in the nearly-over 2010s, with all its unexpected brand crossovers and collaborations, gave rise to many strange commercial bedfellows. But for sheer artistic shock value, did any of them surpass Christmas of 1960, when Salvador Dalí designed holiday greeting cards for Hallmark? It was the rare intersection of the kind of company that has built an empire on broadly appealing, inoffensive expressions of love and festivity and an artist who once said, "I don't do drugs. I am drugs."
"Hallmark began reproducing the paintings and designs of contemporary artists on its Christmas cards in the late 1940s, an initiative that was led by company founder Joyce Clyde Hall," writes the Washington Post's Ana Swanson. "The art of Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh and Georgia O’Keeffe all took a turn on Hallmark’s Christmas cards." And so, Swanson quotes Hall as writing in his autobiography, "through the ‘unsophisticated art’ of greeting cards, the world’s greatest masters were shown to millions of people who might otherwise not have been exposed to them."
Hallmark signed Dalí on in 1959. The painter of The Persistence of Memory and Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) asked the greeting-card giant for "$15,000 in cash in advance for 10 greeting card designs, with no suggestions from Hallmark for the subject or medium, no deadline and no royalties." The designs Dalí came up with included "Surrealist renditions of the Christmas tree and the Holy Family," as well as some "vaguely unsettling" images, such as a headless angel playing a lute and the three wise men atop some insane-looking camels. Ultimately, Hallmark only produced two of the Dalí cards, a nativity scene and a depiction of the Madonna and Child. Alas, even those relatively tame images didn't go over well.
Dalí's "take on Christmas," as Patrick Regan writes in Hallmark: A Century of Caring, was "a bit too avant garde for the average greeting card buyer," and the negative public response soon convinced Hallmark to drop Dalí's cards from their product line — thus ensuring their future as sought-after collector's items. As inauspicious as the marriage of Dalí and Hallmark might seem, the artist did possess a commercial sense more in line with Joyce Clyde Hall's than not: in his lifetime Dalí created a range of products ranging from prints to books (including a cookbook) to tarot decks, and even appeared in television commercials. Not all of his ventures were successful, but as with his Hallmark Christmas cards — about which you can learn more at the site of Spanish language and literature professor Rebecca M. Bender — sometimes the failures are more memorable than the successes. The images above come courtesy of the Hallmark Archives. Related Content: Salvador Dalí’s Tarot Cards Get Re-Issued: The Occult Meets Surrealism in a Classic Tarot Card Deck John Waters Makes Handmade Christmas Cards, Says the “Whole Purpose of Life is Christmas” Watch Terry Gilliam’s Animated Short, The Christmas Card (1968) Salvador Dalí Goes Commercial: Three Strange Television Ads Salvador Dalí’s 1973 Cookbook Gets Reissued: Surrealist Art Meets Haute Cuisine Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook. When Salvador Dalí Created Christmas Cards That Were Too Avant Garde for Hallmark (1960) is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs. |
| 6:25p | Bob Ross’ Christmas Special: Celebrate, Relax, Nod Off
I don’t know if you got everything you wanted on Christmas, but we here at Open Culture have what you need. And that’s a very special Bob Ross Christmas Special. No special guests, no musical numbers. Just Bob, his palette filled with phthalo blue, Van dyke Brown, and other favorite paints, and a solid black canvas which Bob turns into a Christmas Eve snow scene. (In 2018, Ross' official YouTube Channel posted all 31 seasons of The Joy of Painting online, a total of 403 episodes.) While watching (and maybe following along at home), consider that Bob Ross accidentally invented ASMR with his shows, all those years ago. His pleasant, slightly gruff southern accent complements the sound of the swishing brush and scraping knife on canvas. Consider also the percentage of people who watch these not to paint, but to meditate or go to sleep. (There’s an app for that.) Bob Ross *is* the sound of a Christmas Eve nocturne, a moment when the air is crisp and clean, a little bit of peace falls over the world, and there’s a chance to reflect. It’s time to start a new canvas. The possibilities are endless, and you can always change as you go. Heed Ross’ famous words: “We don’t make mistakes. We have happy accidents.” Related Content: Mr. Rogers Goes to Congress and Saves PBS: Heartwarming Video from 1969 Puppet Making with Jim Henson: A Priceless Primer from 1969 A Big List of Free Art Lessons on YouTube Ted Mills is a freelance writer on the arts who currently hosts the artist interview-based FunkZone Podcast and is the producer of KCRW's Curious Coast. You can also follow him on Twitter at @tedmills, read his other arts writing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here. Bob Ross’ Christmas Special: Celebrate, Relax, Nod Off is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs. |
| 8:33p | Hear Neil Gaiman Read A Christmas Carol Just as Dickens Read It
Image by New York Public Library Last Christmas, we featured Charles Dickens' hand-edited copy of his beloved 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. He did that hand editing for the purposes of giving public readings, a practice that, in his time, "was considered a desecration of one’s art and a lowering of one’s dignity." That time, however, has gone, and many of the most prestigious writers alive today take the reading aloud of their own work to the level of art, or at least high entertainment, that Dickens must have suspected one could. Some writers even do a bang-up job of reading other writers' work: modern master storyteller Neil Gaiman gave us a dose of that on Monday when we featured his recitation of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" from memory. Today, however, comes the full meal: Gaiman's telling of A Christmas Carol straight from that very Dickens-edited reading copy. Gaiman read to a full house at the New York Public Library, an institution known for its stimulating events, holiday-themed or otherwise. But he didn't have to hold up the afternoon himself; taking the stage before him, BBC researcher and The Secret Museum author Molly Oldfield talked about her two years spent seeking out fascinating cultural artifacts the world over, including but not limited to the NYPL's own collection of things Dickensian. You can hear both Oldfield and Gaiman in the recording above. But perhaps the greatest gift of all came in the form of the latter's attire for his reading: not only did he go fully Victorian, he even went to the length of replicating the 19th-century literary superstar's own severe hair part and long goatee. And School Library Journal has pictures. The story really gets started around the 11:25 mark. Gaiman's reading will be added to our list of Free Audio Books. You can find the text of Dickens' classic in our collection, 800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kindle & Other Devices. Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in December 2014. Related Content: Neil Gaiman Teaches the Art of Storytelling in His New Online Course A Christmas Carol Presented in a Thomas Edison Film (1910) O Frabjous Day! Neil Gaiman Recites Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” from Memory Colin Marshall hosts and produces Notebook on Cities and Culture and writes essays on cities, language, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Angeles, A Los Angeles Primer. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook. Hear Neil Gaiman Read A Christmas Carol Just as Dickens Read It is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs. |
| 10:56p | A Simple, Down-to-Earth Christmas Card from the Great Depression (1933)
The Smithsonian sets the scene for this Christmas card sent in 1933, a few years into the Great Depression. They write:
It's a historical case of when less is indeed more... Would you like to support the mission of Open Culture? Please consider making a donation to our site. It's hard to rely 100% on ads, and your contributions will help us continue providing the best free cultural and educational materials to learners everywhere. Also consider following Open Culture on Facebook and Twitter and sharing intelligent media with your friends. Or sign up for our daily email and get a daily dose of Open Culture in your inbox. Related Content: When Salvador Dalí Created Christmas Cards That Were Too Avant Garde for Hallmark (1960) John Waters Makes Handmade Christmas Cards, Says the “Whole Purpose of Life is Christmas” Watch Terry Gilliam’s Animated Short, The Christmas Card (1968) A Simple, Down-to-Earth Christmas Card from the Great Depression (1933) is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs. |
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