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Friday, December 7, 2007
What to Wear?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Holiday season is party season, so what are you wearing to all the festive fetes the ATL will be throwing over the next few weeks?
Do invitations spell out clearly enough what you’re supposed to wear?
Guys usually have it a little easier. “Black tie” is pretty easy to figure out. (Although S.B. doesn’t actually recommend a plain old black tie/cumberbund set. Consider garnet, tartan plaid, paisley or houndstooth instead. H. Stockton has a fab selection. You don’t want to look like a waiter, do you?)
It’s not uncommon to show up at event and see people in everything from sequined pantsuits to ball gowns. Last night, at the Atlanta Press Club holiday author’s party at the new World of Coca Cola, we saw attire ranging from tux to jeans and everything in between.
But it can be puzzling trying to figure out what to wear sometimes.
At the Nov. 10 Jaden’s Ladder benefit, hosted by Andruw and Nicole Jones, the attire was “Atlanta chic,” which I hope meant a black dress and fur-trimmed jacket, because that’s what I wore. The invitation to the Nov. 28 Trump Towers Atlanta reception had a plaintive ring to it: “Cocktail attire please.”
My favorite sartorial directive has to be from “Amuse’UM,” coming up Feb. 9 at the Children’s Museum of Atlanta. Attire for the event, chaired by Amy Barnes with Bert and Stacey Weiss as honorary chairs, is “playground chic.”
Do you have your giant lego hair accessories ready?
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What’s your favorite book of 2007?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s a simple question that may be rather hard: What was the one book you read in 2007 that you would like to recommend to everyone here?
I was inspired to frame the year-end question this way by (read: I ripped off the idea from) Paste magazine, the excellent Decatur-based culture mag that covers music, film, books and whatnot. Instead of having book critics come up with snooze-inducing Top 10 lists, where everyone puts Philip Roth at the top, they asked various smart readers to name one book they read in 2007 that rocked them the hardest.
Dave Eggers chose “Life Laid Bare: Survivors in Rwanda Speak,” which I had never heard of. Charles McNair, Paste’s book review editor, chose “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” a brave choice when you’re being judged by other litcrits. Rosanne Cash named “The Kite Runner,” which is actually a couple years old, but she just got around to it this year.
I’m going to go with “Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches From America’s Class War,” by Joe Bangeant, a book I have mentioned previously, as the one book I read in 2007 that I would like all of you to read.
According to his blog, Bangeant is a Vietnam veteran who became a hippie, then a journalist. He moved back to his hometown of Winchester, Va., a blue-collar, economically struggling small town he loves but sees differently from the people who have always lived there and never left.
Bangeant writes about the real people in his town, whom he knows inside out, and not like a reporter who has just parachuted in for a month. They are people with serious health problems but inadequate health insurance (or none at all), who work and shop at Wal-Mart and listen to country music and love their country and don’t go in for a lot of irony or using air quotes when they talk.
These are the people that every politician tells us are the real Americans, and yet as Bangeant shows, they are getting shafted in so many ways by the government, society, the media, the Machine, whatever you want to call it. He does not spare either political party, and both liberals and conservatives, if they approach with open minds, should be squirming over how Bangeant frames the issues facing these people.
It is hilariously funny, very angry and somewhat depressing.
So here are my two calls to action: Go buy “Deer Hunting with Jesus.”
Then tell us what one book you read in 2007 (published whenever) you would recommend, and why.
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Is Hanukkah too gift-oriented?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Jewish Festival of Lights, Hanukkah, can sometimes be overwhelmed by that other December holiday, Christmas.
“The Christmas season is an extremely seductive season for Jews, ” Rabbi Jeff Salkin said in a 2003 article in the AJC. “While it is delightful to be able to enjoy the festive nature of this season, Hanukkah reminds us that there are times when we must stand apart from the majority religious culture.”
Traditionally, Jewish children received small presents, sometimes candy, on each of the eight days of Hanukkah. Some people say that Hanukkah presents are getting bigger and bigger, though.
If you celebrate Hanukkah, how do you manage gift-giving? Has the festival become too gift-oriented?
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Are there any new movies out there merry and bright?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The song may say, “Oh by golly have a holly jolly Christmas this year,” but the main tones at the movies this season seem to be, well, morose and dark.
Just in time for Christmas, we get “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” (opening Dec. 21). In Tim Burton’s artistic hands, necks get sliced open and blood sprays with abandon.
“The Savages” is about siblings dealing with their dad’s worsening Alzheimer’s. “The Bucket List” is about Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman sharing one major thing together: cancer.
“Charlie Wilson’s War”? No matter how perky and cute the marketing campaign tries to make Julia Roberts and movie look, it’s still about the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, guns and death.
Another of Hollywood’s idea of fun for Christmas Day is “Alien vs. Predator: Requiem.” Do I really have to spell out what the movie will be about?
Is Hollywood making the kinds of movies you want to see this season?
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Should you tell the truth about Santa?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
‘Tis the season of that jolly old elf from the North Pole.
You know who I’m talking about. Chris Cringle. Father Christmas. St. Nick. Santa Claus. He who’s making a list, and checking it twice…
But as a parent, I’m not so sure that my children’s Christmas experience should be defined so heavily - if at all - by Santa and whether they landed on his “naughty” or “nice” list.
As a kid, I long suspected that my parents were pulling my leg about our Christmas Eve visitor. We didn’t have a chimney for him to climb down, and his taste in cookies, oddly, resembled that of my dad’s.
When they let me off the hook at age 10, they were a little disappointed that I wasn’t surprised.
I was a bit put off that they wanted so much for me to buy into their deceit, and that they’d been carrying on the charade for so long.
OK, maybe I was a bit too analytical for your average 10-year-old, but you get the gist. Now, my oldest child, at 4-years-old, is becoming more aware of what Christmas is, and he can’t help but have Santa shoved down his throat.
As much as I want him to enjoy being a kid during this season, I want it to be for the right reasons.
And it should be because he’s expecting gifts from a pudgy elf legend to reward his good deeds.
My son should learn to be “good for goodness sake” without it being an afterthought to the promise of Santa’s benevolence.
OK. It’ll be difficult to explain to a 4-year-old that Santa is only a legend to personify that spirit of Christmas. But telling him the flat-out truth is the only thing I know to do.
Of course, my wife thinks I’m being too serious, and hints that I was somehow traumatized in my childhood.
But more than anything, I just hate lying to my children.
Should I just tell my son where Christmas gifts come from, or perpetuate a hoax I believe is unhealthy and could end badly for him?
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