Forget holiday cheer. Forget about the roast beast, the stockings hung with care, the new bike under the tree and the warm fuzzy feeling that giving and receiving evokes. Forget every notion held dear about yuletide cheer. David Sedaris, in his collection of Christmas stories titled Holidays on Ice, has reclaimed the meaning of the holidays: tis the season to be cynical.
On Nov. 20, long lines formed at Target stores across Minnesota. Hip mothers, emphatic teens, jazzy bachelors and college students of all kinds waited side by side, all united in their mutual affinity for music. These queues anticipated the release of the 15th Anniversary Limited Edition Cities 97 Sampler CD, released exclusively at Target stores.
Theater during the Christmas season is not necessarily synonymous with A Christmas Carol. Certainly, attending the production of A Christmas Carol, showing on the main stage at the Guthrie is a worthy winter activity. But Shakespeares Othello, staged in the smaller, more intimate Guthrie Lab until Dec. 21, should not be overlooked. Theres nothing like a good tragedy to fill the heart with Christmas cheer.
Forty years ago, on Nov. 22nd, one of the most culturally and politically significant events of the last half-century was played out in gruesome detail. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the youngest, most popular, and arguably the most progressive man elected to that prestigious office, was struck down by an assassin in Dallas, Texas. His premature death had a broad and deeply resonating effect on the entire world; after forty years, the consequences of Kennedys assassination still seem to affect modern society.
