BloodWaterGodMagic vs. Charlie Brown

Thanks in no small part to Charlie Brown's Christmas Special, we (Christians, non-Christians, and Anti-Christians alike) have been duly guilted into struggling against the insidious and confounding spirit of "commercialism" at Christmas.

Television advertisements extoll the "magic of Christmas" and suggest that that deep and meaningful magic is contained in a Lexus. If you want the magic, you ought to buy one.

I think the ads may be right.

You've got to remember that I come from a magical land of barbed wire and hog manure citadels. The rocks where I make my bed are ensorcelled, and my cave buzzes with the childlike whispers of the faerie-dazzled.

So I don't have the knee-jerk rejection of claims of magic that most humans do. Even if they come from a car dealership.

The fact is this: Christmas is magical. You know this to be true.

The question is, what is the source of the magic?

Some will say that it is a cultural magic: society has determined the Christmas season to be one of familial homecomings and bonding, a time to party with friends and receive presents.

Others will note that there is an inherent magic in the acts of Christmas: that, at some level, Father Christmas is a real spirit, and that gifts are his icons, imbued with some fragment of that unidentifiable joy.

Another possible source is a social-personal one: that there is, as part of the so-called "collective unconscious" a natural "need" for Christmas magic, a sort of primordial, protean phenomenon structured to salve a person's spirit whilst drawing him into the Unknown Greater.

These all have their merits, but none of these notions have the ability to completely describe the source of Christmas magic. After all, gifts can disappoint, depression afflicts, acutely, the lonely at the holidays, and Christmas or its pagan alternatives are celebrated widely, but not universally.

Besides, anyone who knows magic knows that its true source is more, well...sacrificial than that. Whether eye of newt or iocane powder, real magic has components that are rare and hard fought, almost exclusively bought at the risk, and often loss, of blood or life.

Some time ago, near a gnawed-on feed trough, a god burst forth through the blood and water of his mother, in the helpless person of an infant named Yeshua. Certainly, there were miraculous spirits in the world, and strange tidings and joy, but those were ripples from the source of the magic of that hour: a wriggling, swaddled and bloody baby born amidst dung and wheat mash. Those ripples continued out, and later drew rich and educated men to bring extravagant gifts to the toddler to celebrate his reign.

They may as well have left him a Lexus.

That's why I don't have a huge problem with the so-called "commercialization" of Christmas. All of it, the presents and food and excess and laughter, can be taken to points of abuse or exhaustion, but they don't have to be, and, often, more than often, they are not. And these things only exist as radiating ripples of the Magic of Christmas, which has its source in Our Savior, born a man, all those years ago.

The so-called "True Meaning" of Christmas is not "Stop Being Materialistic." It is "Start Living Abundantly in the One Who Loves Abundantly."

And sometimes, just sometimes, an abundant life may be found in the driver's seat of dazzling new Lexus.

Eric Violette: Hollywood Superstar, except not in Hollywood (nor very well-known)

Because television commercials are the most critical contribution that man has made to society since Offa of Mercia built a really good wall out of dirt--Good dirt walls are hard to come by, after all--I bear this planet's burden for highlighting the often overlooked television commercial work of otherwise unheralded actors.

Today's entry is Eric Violette. The talented French-Canadian actor does work that is at turns comic and strange, dramatic and ridiculous. Were we not living in an age where the avant-garde was passe', you might call him avant-garde. Were we not living in an age where the passe' is now considered avant-garde, well...you still might call him avant-garde.

Also, he speaks French. Yes, he's that good of an actor.

I highlight him today for his groundbreaking work in a trilogy of short films that redefine the ancient art of the television jingle.

That's right, he's the hero of the FreeCreditReport.com ads. And he's today's unsung television commercial star:



The important thread that ties the video tryptych together is that the pirate hat from the first commercial appears briefly in the back seat of the car in the final one. Thus the second ad is revealed as the wide-scoping bit, providing the large central frame that gives definition to the accompanying "bookends." Or maybe it is just a pirate hat in the back seat.

Scott Jorgenson Reigns Quietly Over Lap-Band Ad

I just caught one of my all-time favorite actors in the history of the galaxy last night at 2* in the morning on a commercial for Lap-Band adjustable gastric banding system.

In the brief, but moving, drama, Scott Jorgenson complains about his knees with Shakespearean acumen. It takes up about 2 or 3 seconds of screen time, but it haunts me still. Unfortunately, the good people at Lap-Band have only released their commercial at their proprietary site, so I'm unable to embed the performance here.

So go here and click on "View Our Commercial" to enjoy Mr. Jorgenson's riveting performance. Or to learn more about putting a remote-control tourniquet on your innards. Frankly, it sounds like a fun past time, but I don't think I'd like the side effect of wanting to eat less.

Scott Jorgenson: every man's everyman. Next up: Fear of Girls 3.

*This is my dilemma: I can sleep a full 3 hours every night, or I can strain arcane knowledge from the electronic underworld of the mid-night hours. How would you split the baby?