and if you want to be free, be free (10. 397)

Premiering on this day in 1971, as our faithful chronicler informs, the romantic black comedy by Hal Ashby and Colin Higgins relates the narrative of Harold Chasen, an adolescent obsessed with the macabre, staging elaborate fake suicides, driving a hearse and attending the funerals of random strangers to the dismay of his wealthy, socialite mother, who goes to great lengths to try to make him more respectable, and Dame Marjorie Chardin, a seventy-nine year old he meets at a funeral mass, who counters his morbid demeanor and teaches him joie de vivre for the first time as their relationship develops into a more intimate one. The film’s soundtrack is provided by Yusuf Stevens. Producer and writer Higgins had expressed an interest later the decade after his work attained cult status after its initial mixed reviews in both a prequel, Grover and Maude wherein Maude learns how to break into cars and fence stolen property and a sequel, Harold’s Story about his life after meeting Maude though neither were pursued though was adapted into a Broadway stage play, a French made-for-tv-movie and a musical version.

schnappschüsse vom krieg (10. 396)

Born this day in 1922 and still taking pictures, Michelantonio “Tony” Celestino Onofrio Vaccaro immigrated back to the US to avoid being conscripted in Italy and despite already having an impressive photographic portfolio just out of high school his first draft assignment as a photo-documentarian with the Army Signal Corps didn’t pan out and was instead assigned as a scout, fighting in Normandy, Luxembourg and Germany—though still affording opportunities to shoot images, evocative impressions of the front captured in 1944 and 1945. After being discharged, Vaccaro remained in Germany, contributing to the Army newspaper Stars & Stripes and recording life post-war in Frankfurt. Returning to America in the early 1950s, Vaccaro took assignments with Look, Life and Flair magazines as a society photographer, marrying a model for fashion house Marimekko, and after a decades’-long stint teaching at Cooper Union published a selection of his extensive wartime archive, under the imprint Entering Germany: Photographs 1944 – 1949. Click here for a gallery of Vaccaro’s diverse subjects.

7x7 (10. 395)

munro: better known for his violent Tom & Jerry shorts, Gene Deitch (previously—not the best counter-example) an acclaimed, award-winning animator 

thirty by thirty: environmentalists and delegates reach a landmark agreement to conserve nature and protect the rights of indigenous peoples 

incite a riot: January Sixth committee recommends a range of charges to be levied against Trump  

santaland: department store Christmas monorails—via the Everlasting Blört 

scootch over: on the quarter-century anniversary of the premier of Titanic, director James Cameron wants to put to rest a roiling debate  

a slice of the cosmos: an interactive map of the observable Universe from Johns Hopkins University  

lichtspiel opus i: the Avant-Garde animation of Walter Ruttmann

reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some (10. 394)

For the 1843 anniversary of the first printing of the novella by Charles Dickens—see previously—Open Culture treats us to a accomplished recitation of the work as the author himself would have delivered it, by Neil Gaiman, through studying the hand-edited copy he used for public readings. The Victorian morality tale relates the profound redemption, on Christmas Eve, of a bitter miser with the aid of supernatural intervention. The narration begins at about the eleven minute mark.

New York Public Library · Neil Gaiman Reads "A Christmas Carol"

modernmas (10. 393)

Courtesy of the Everlasting Blört, we really enjoyed this re-introduction to the portfolio and biography of graphic designer, architect and Modernist Master Paul Rand through this collection of hand-painted original Christmas cards. Rand was one of the first American commercial artists to adopt and champion the International Typographic Style (otherwise known as the Swiss Style), whose hallmarks were asymmetrical layouts and legibility.  Much more at the links above.

7x7 (10. 392)

the gate of the exonerated: a new entrance to be named in honour of the falsely accused Central Park Five, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, Korey Wise and Kevin Richardson 

mighty mikko: a 1922 adaptation of Finnish fairytales 

time performance: taipa (タイパ) and the Ukrainian pronunciation of Kyiv (キーウ) are among Japan’s neologism—not characters—of the year  

mpi: social contagions, mass psychogenic illnesses, can lead to physical maladies—see also, and certain platforms may be superspreaders 

feliz navidad: beautiful vintage Christmas cards by artist Alejandro Rangel Hildalgo—via Marco McClean’s Memo of the Air  

blue light special: more Kmart reel-to-reel soundtracks—this one from December 1974  

heroes act: US supreme court admits more challenges to Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan

01-811-8055 (10. 391)

Airing on BBC1 from for five seasons from 1982 to 1987—with a format matching its predecessor hosted by presenter Noel Edmonds, Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, the children’s call-in programme featuring talent shows (more clips here) had many memorable moments, including the appearance of Margaret Thatcher taking questions ahead of a re-election campaign and being berated by a small girl who demanded to know the prime minister’s whereabouts in the event of a nuclear war and numerous musical guests, like Wham!, The Pet Shop Boys and Kate Bush or as on this Saturday morning in 1983, when Culture Club, Duran Duran and The Police all performed and were jury members judging the entrants’ talents. The episode is split into several clips but should play sequentially.

mistletoe and magic ✨ (10. 390)

Whilst OpenAI’s ChatGPT (previously) invent more plausible and predictably formulaic output instantaneously and in a way that addresses all the tropes—and stereotypes—in a more natural and less forced way, these rather vanilla spec-scripts for a generic Hallmark Holiday special, safe and concise as they may be, do fall short of the genius of an earlier artificial intelligence model’s product, set in a small town snow-globe refillery. Plus as a bonus treat, we are referred by Strange Company to the origin story of the Snow Globe—through the lens of its most famous cinematic appearance in the first few moments of Citizen Kane—from a Viennese family trying to provide surgeons with brighter operating theatre lighting, a convoluted story that sounds like it could have been written by the above neural network.  Give it a try yourself at the link up top and be sure to share.