Three Things We’re Diggin’
Ashleigh | Noah Kahan
December is all about Christmas. Listening to Christmas carols, thinking about what gifts will spark joy for friends and loved ones, planning what cookies to bake, and of course, as an Italian, The Feast of the Seven Fish. But this year, thanks to one man, my Christmas December has turned into Noah Kahan December.
I’ve known about Noah, a folk-pop-rock-(fill in the blank honestly) singer-songwriter from New Englander for a while. He’s a local celebrity - we love anyone who hails from New England and we can claim our own (see; Ben & Matt). Noah looks like a guy we all went to high school with. But his key difference is…. he is SUPER talented and is now a global powerhouse.
Noah’s songs are CATCHY. I’m talking can’t get it out of your head, constantly singing, wake up thinking about catchy. And the lyrics - wooooie, you could think about them for a while, just on their own. He’s got a voice that can break your heart, and make you swoon. He’s one of those artists who I want to see in a dark, dingy pub but would also pay to see in a stadium because I know I’d be belting out his songs with strangers, which is one of my favorite things.
He was on SNL last week and was a ball of excited, talented energy, which was a joy to watch. I feel like we’ve become immune to successful people. They make it look so effortless and carefree, but they have to work hard to make it look that way. You can tell Noah works hard, and his gift is sharing his hard work with his fans in a way that says “yes, this was hard work but also fun and I love it.” And Noah, I love your songs. Keep putting in the work and sharing your talent with us all!
And he’s also brought me my new favorite line/excuse, which is:
“Forgive my northern attitude, I was raised on little light.”
A.J. | Children of Paradise
This week I'm digging the novel Children of Paradise by Camilla Grudova. I picked up a copy at my local library and was sold on the title (an homage to the 1945 French film that somehow was produced in Nazi-occupied France during WWII) and its creepy cover with its image of moviegoers seated in a theater, each of their faces a glowing orb of light. The story is centered around an aging single-screen movie theater called the Paradise and the peculiar folks that are drawn to its screen. Like the film industry itself, the Paradise eventually buckles to changing tastes, sells out to a media conglomerate that swiftly transforms the theater into a multiplex, and scrubs clean any character that it once had. Grudova's prose is both elegiac and grotty. There are passages that relish in nightmarish imagery and lots of unexpected body horror. I also related quite a bit to the workplace culture decay that follows a sellout. At 196 pages, this is a short and mesmerizing book to sink into during the darkest days of the year.
Bubba | The Grinch (2018)
Shout out to Peacock for streaming one of the most underrated Christmas movies for free this season. No, I’m not talking about Christmas with the Kranks (also entirely underrated) — I’m talking about the 2018 animated The Grinch starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Yup, that one.
Look, I get that you’re skeptical. This movie has a pretty bleak 59% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from the critics, with the audience score coming in even lower at 52%. Now, please don’t ask why — no one quite knows the reason. But I think that the most likely reason of all may have been that these critics’ hearts were two sizes too small. I kid, I kid (but not really)!
There’s a lot to love about this version (e.g. the cutest version of Cindy Lou Who to date; the infectious joy in Kenan Thompson’s delivery of, “Hey Grinchy!”; Tyler, The Creator’s updated version of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”), but what truly sets it apart from the previous Chuck Jones and Ron Howard iterations is the backstory and transformation. Without giving anything away, let me put it like this: Chuck Jones has the Grinch return stolen presents to fanfare and the unquestionable honor of carving the Roast Beast. Ron Howard has him do the same, but not before he inadvertently steals the heart of the Mayor's fiancé (whose attraction is predicated on a superficial affinity for green), gloating with an unhinged end-zone celebration. See what I'm saying here? It’s almost too easy. These Grinches experience a deus ex machina-esque heart enlargement and instantly realize that Christmas means a little bit more, magically erasing years of trauma without doing much, if any, of the work to earn their transformation. The end doesn't justify the means. On the other hand, the 2018 version of The Grinch flips the script by suggesting that trauma is the stuff you need to confront if you’re ever going to love anything, regardless of how many sizes your heart grows.
That’s the type of Christmas movie message that will make me sing fahoo fores dahoo dores all day.
