The Third or Fourth Day of Christmas

On Christmas: watched “Sweeney Todd” with the siblings at the Cobble Hill movie theater. Sondheim musical; the music was excellent; movie was otherwise eerie and creepy. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter turned out to be talented. Alan Rickman – thumbs up as the villain/victim. Timothy Spall, as eerie as ever as Rickman’s kind of sidekick (Spall – who plays Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter movies, and Rickman who’s Prof. Snape, plus Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange of the Potter movies)? — honestly, British actors get around). Sasha Baron Cohen (the ex-Borat/ex-Ali G) was quite good too. But, as the movie critics noted (including NY Times’ A.O. Scott), it is a bit bloody; beware to the squeamish…

Stuff I noticed in the Times from Christmas day:

NY Times’ Jennifer 8. Lee on NYC Chinatown’s Church of the Transfiguration.

In the op-ed of the NY Times, Prof. John Anthony McGuckin, of religious history at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia U., writes on St. Nicholas.

A Christmas poem by Patrick Muldoon: “Myrrh.”

A New York Times’ story on Christmas in Iraq, as observed by Christian Iraqis. I thought it was a poignant story, as Damien Cave writes:

The service began with traditional hymns. Some songs were sung in Aramaic, the language of Jesus. It was a reminder of the 2,000-year-old history of Iraq’s largest Christian group, the Chaldeans, an Eastern Rite church affiliated with Roman Catholicism.

Initially the sermon seemed equally traditional, beginning as many do with phrases like “This day is not like other days.”

Yet the priest, the Rev. Thaer al-Sheik, soon turned to more local themes. He talked about the psychological impact of violence, kidnapping and a lack of work. He condemned hate. He denounced revenge.

“We must practice being humane to each other,” he said. “Living as a Christian today is difficult.”

A few moments later he asked, “If the angel Gabriel comes today and says Jesus Christ is reborn, what do we do? Do we clap or sing?”

His parish, quiet and somber — with the drab faces of a funeral, not a Mass on Christmas Eve — took the question seriously. And responded.

“We ask him for forgiveness,” said a woman, her head covered by a black scarf. Her voice was just loud enough for everyone to hear.

Then another woman raised her voice. “We ask for peace,” she said.

Father Sheik looked disappointed. “We are always like beggars, asking God for this or that,” he said. “We shouldn’t be this way. First, we should thank God for giving us Jesus Christ. He would say, ‘I came to live among you. I want to teach you how to be compassionate. I want to teach you how to be more humane.’” [….]

But even Father Sheik could not resist asking God for a little help. He ended his sermon with a request that all Iraqis would love to see fulfilled.

“We call on God for equality, freedom — an end to war and an end to hunger,” he said. “We only demand from God peace for all of you.”

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan.

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