Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Comic Satire for Christmas

New World Notes #407, 27:15 (December 22)
Broadcast quality MP3 (labeled as #355 -- 39 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (labeled as #355 -- 13 MB)


This year's Christmas show bears a certain relationship to last year's Christmas show.  The name of that certain relationhip is "identity."  (Yes, I stole that one from Peter Schickele/PDQ Bach.)

The show contains brief commentary by me, five satiric seasonal songs, and one imitation Broadway "big production number." All take a comic but critical view of American hypocrisies, religiosity, commercialism, class warfare, and other Christmastime traditions.

I'm especially fond of the pseudo- "big production number": Stan Freberg's 1958 masterpiece, Green Chri$tma$.  The audio fidelity is very good even by today's standards; the production is rich and sophisticated; the script is witty; and the message (alas) is still relevant.

Other contributionsare by Hugh Blumenfeld, Simon and Garfunkel, Anne Feeney, Roy Zimmerman, and Tom Lehrer.

Bah! humbug! and merry Christmas to all!



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