Work stringing lights on the Merry Maple continues for the 3rd day
The art project at base of Merry Maple is scheduled for removal December 1
Kendrick Park tree had been the better of the two for the past few years
Light pole docorations look better than last year
Amherst College new mascot? The Golden Domes
how many freakin' times are you gonna use the same petula clark song reference in your headline? jeeeesh. broken record! jeeeesh. broken record!
ReplyDeleteIf the song fits ...
ReplyDeleteconsidering that more than 90% of your articles are about DOWNTOWN, it ALWAYS fits.
ReplyDelete"I know a place where the music is fine and the lights are always low…"
ReplyDeleteNow don't go pissing off Anon 1:56 PM
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, about 175 "Downtown Amherst" posts from a total of 4032, or under 5%.
Haha. Awesome that you checked. Really BRIGHTENED my day. I'm gonna go.... YOU KNOW WHERE.
ReplyDelete"...DOWNTOWWWWN..."
ReplyDeleteI don't know her, P. Clark. Must be too young, or too old.
ReplyDeleteAnd you don't know how to use Google.
ReplyDeleteDon't know him either.
ReplyDeleteOr her.
ReplyDeleteThe lights are beautiful and take clear effort (and obvious expense).
ReplyDeleteIs anyone else concerned as I have been since I was a little kid, that towns invest much in decorations at the same time so many in the town are in need? This always appears to be a failure in the stewardship of the community by those in charge of town expenditures.
How does a Amherst government official, or citizen for that matter, justify spending a dollar on decorations that could have been spent helping the desperate or most of all, could have been left with the party that earned it freely? I know I cannot justify this. Public holiday decorations always feel like neglect.
The decorations cheer the soul. And that's probably better than what the ten cents everybody would get if we split up their cost among the populace. I hope you won't let it depress you too much...
DeletePetula could sing.
ReplyDeleteAnon 8:28 pm
ReplyDeletePatch your bleeding heart. The holiday decorations are paid for privately.
The lights and decorations are paid for by the BID not the town.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much income anon 8:28 has above what he needs to survive that he doesn't spend on the homeless?
ReplyDeleteAnon 8:28, do you use every single extra penny that your household generates for the bare necessities, and use the rest for altruistic endeavors? No phone, cable, or radio... no toys for the kids, no dining out or movies, no computer, no DVD player, no pictures on the walls, no camera? You know, the things that make life a little happier, things that bring joy or are just nice to look at?
ReplyDeleteHoliday decorations may not be important to you, but they are to many, children and adults alike. They are a tradition in virtually every town and city in this country. They serve to bind a community together in the celebration of a season.
Your post kind of reminds me of a cartoon character who tried to steal Christmas, until his heart grew there sizes bigger. Richard Marsh
"Public holiday decorations always feel like neglect."
ReplyDeleteI consider them money well spent on suicide prevention.
EVERY culture that has evolved North of 40 Degrees Latitude has some sort of festival/event involving lights within 5 days (either way) of the Winter Solstice, the shortest-darkest day of the year -- when the sun rises in the SSE and sets in the SSW.
That said, I have a problem with calling it "Merry Maple" in that we are promoting the Druid religion over the Christian one. Unless we have a deliberate anti-Christian intent, if we can't use a term relating to one religion, we ought not then use one relating to another....
The winter solstice. Oh what fun. I have never celebrated that. Usually involved with a little thing called Christmas.
DeleteRichard Marsh -- you do know that The Grinch who Stole Christmas was an inherently POLITICAL cartoon, don't you?
ReplyDeleteIt was about the DDR (East Germany) and East Berlin in particular. Remember that Christmas started with the Germans (it was German immigrants who brought it here) and that most Germans are Christian as well.
Karl Marx declared religion to be the "opiate of the people" and organized religion was largely banned under Communism. As I understand it, Christmas was banned in East Germany, there were no Christmas decorations in the DDR.
So each year, the citizens of West Berlin would decorate a large tree and hoist it up high so that it could be seen over the infamous wall, so that those trapped on the other side could see it.
The Germans?? Funny. I thought Christmas started with Christ. And, come to think of it, it still does.
DeleteRemember too that The Grinch who Stole Christmas came out in 1957 -- at the height of the Cold War.
ReplyDeleteAnd it, too (The Seuss story, not the Cold Was) also cheers the soul. But some peeps ain't got no soul. Not much will cheer them. Pity.
DeleteInteresting story about the tree Ed, it illustrates the beauty and power of such symbols. And yes, Geisel was a prolific political writer, filmmaker, and illustrator. But probably more importantly, the work he did for children will live forever I'm sure. RM
ReplyDeletere DOWNTOWN: I think that you are very old [or very young]...older than I am. I remember very well PETULA singing DOWNTOWN. It is a "fifties" thing. Which must also date Larry as old too if he knows DOWNTOWN so well. Hilda G.
ReplyDeleteI know the Minute Waltz. But it doesn't mean Chopin and I were contemporaries.
Delete"The Germans?? Funny. I thought Christmas started with Christ. And, come to think of it, it still does."
ReplyDeleteNo, Easter is the most important Christian holiday, not Christmas: It isn't that Jesus was born but that he rose from the dead -- that kinda is what the whole New Testament is really all about...
That said, if you read the Bible, it says that Jesus was born when the Shepherds were in the fields with the Lambs -- Lambs are born in the Spring, when there is food available, and Shepherds don't take the herd out into the fields in the dead of winter when there isn't -- why would they?
No, Christmas was invented by the Catholic Church, which picked December 25th to counter a Roman Pagan festival-holiday, memory is to the God Saturnus. I remember the nuns telling me something about how November 1st is another Catholic holiday, picked deliberately to counteract Halloween. Or something like that.
My Puritan forebears actually banned Christmas until the early 1700s because of their interpretation of the "Gilded Calf" story -- it's why organs and stained glass weren't in Protestant churches until the late 19th Century -- and what the Catholics in Bangor (ME) did was quite ingenious -- rather than confront discrimination and bigotry directly, they started having Sunday Afternoon Masses (in addition to the Sunday Morning ones).
Remember that the Protestants were the businessmen and ship owners (the Catholics were largely French-Canadian immigrants who worked for them) -- they'd learned Latin (and Greek) in high school (which most people didn't attend back then) as well as in college -- and this was in the era of the Latin Mass. And not only was everything closed back then on Sundays, there really wasn't much entertainment anyway -- no TV, no radios, no MP3 files, no computers -- not even a Sunday newspaper as (to this day) the Bangor Daily News publishes it on Saturday for a combined Sat/Sun "Weekend Edition."
Well, the Protestants went to their own churches in the morning -- and then went to the Catholic church in the afternoon to listen to the beautiful music, which they didn't have at the time. And when Fr. John Bapst was run out of Ellsworth (30 miles downriver) and damn near murdered, they let it be known that he was welcome in Bangor, that they stood with the Catholics and would help defend him.
But I digress.
And remember too that the Eastern Orthodox celebrate Christmas later than we do.
Ed, Where did I say that Christmas was the most important to Christians?? What I said was Christmas started with Christ.
DeleteAs an educator, I'm not a fan of Giesel.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with nonsensical stories is twofold - first, children who use logic to understand things can't comprehend them because there is no logical basis for them.
And second, I wonder about the consequences in general -- Dick & Jane actually DID things, those sentences made sense in a way that "Green Eggs & Ham" don't.
Too intellectual. Can't just enjoy the story, can we?
DeleteDowntown, the song, was not 50's. Was Brutish Invasion-era 1960's.
ReplyDeleteThe Brutish Invasion?? Sry. I meant British, of course. Funny though.
DeleteEd, this is a post about lighting a tree on the town common. Kind of far a field aren't we?
ReplyDeleteAnon 6:00... loosen up teach, Dr. Suess books sound nice and look funny. They're not going to screw up any young minds, though they might make kids smile. : )
ReplyDeleteRM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx06XNfDvk0
ReplyDeleteAnd thank goodness that "art" project will be removed. Good thing. I don't blame the artist for trying to inflict his or her ideas on the public . It's a free country, after all. And we're also free to think it's removal is a boon to mankind.
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving to one and all. Art lovers and otherwise.
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving to one and all. Art lovers and otherwise.
ReplyDelete