Old Christmas is passed, and I too will be moving on.
Please come and visit me here:
http://thewintersolstice.blogspot.com/
I envision an old black and white movie where the calendar pages turn as I turn the page and write towards the Spring.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
January 9
The stars called me to the window this morning
and bade me to begin anew.
The stars bade me to the window this morning
so I could hear the song
they sing the night long
as mortals dream.
Changing with the seasons
Changing with the light.
They sing the night long
and they sing it short again..
They sing to the mother who wakens for her child
The child still remembers and wakes to hear their song.
Januarius is the month of stars.
heralded in by the great star the three kings followed.
Of Yuletide slipping away
and Brigid's whisper
that she is on her way.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
The Play
Fool:
Room! Room! Brave gallants all
Come give us room to rhyme
Come give us room to rhyme
We’ve come to show activity
While it’s still Christmas time.
Beneath the stars on this 12th Night
We’ll bring to life the age old fight
A hero will battle with all his might
To defeat the darkness and set things right.
Come forth Saint George!
Don’t be so proud!
Address yourself to this fine crowd.
Saint George:
In comes I, Saint George,
a man of courage bold.
With my broad axe and my broad sword,
I’ve won three crowns of gold.
Father Christmas:
In comes I, old Father Christmas,
welcome or welcome not.
I hope old Father Christmas
will never be forgot.
Christmas comes but once a year
And when it does, it brings good cheer.
Twelve nights of roast beef, strong ale and mince pie.
Does anyone like that any better than I?
Even at my advanced age of two thousand and ten.
Christmas Tree:
This country’s gotten so P.C.
I’m told I can’t say “Christmas Tree.”
So, in comes I,
the tree that dare not say its name.
At Saturnalia in ancient Rome,
they welcomed me in to their home.
After the Romans took a fall
I decked the merry Yuletide hall.
Artificial, live or balled,
it matters not what I am called.
Ever green am I!
I raise my branches to the sky!
Saint George:
Good morrow sire
Father Christmas:
Good Morrow Son.
Our long year’s work
is nearly done.
Dark Knight:
In comes I the old Dark Knight.
I’ll give Old Saint George a fright.
I’ll split his skull and break his bone.
Then I’ll steal his cellular phone.
(Marches up to George and taps his shoulder)
I’ll Pinch your cheeks.
I’ll box your ears.
With my rapier wit
I’ll reduce you to tears.
Saint George:
Oh please, I’m English, do remember.
With my sharp tongue, foes I dismember.
I look down my nose.
I thrust out my chin.
My tsk, tsk, tsk will do you in.
A Battle ensues. Saint George falls.
Father Christmas:
Oh, Dark Knight, what have you done?
Robbed the life of this my son,
Whose life had only just begun,
Now set too soon, like the winter sun.
A doctor!
A doctor must be found! (pronounce so it rhymes with wound)
To save him from this grievous wound.
A doctor could save one, this I'll wager
I'll try to beep one on his pager.
(Take out cell phone and dial. Speak in to the cell phone as if you are speaking to a doctor.)
Yes! I paged you on your beeper!
Please come at once to raise this sleeper!
The Doctor:
In comes I, the doctor
The best you’ve ever seen.
I can put the lead back in your pencil
and the jump in the jumping bean.
I have snake oil, brake oil,
Hot Jalapeno and extra strength Tylenol.
My remedies all taste delicious.
Oh come now, don’t look so suspicious,
I can cure the worst affliction—
PMS, caffeine addiction,
male pattern baldness, or hidden rashes
but I draw the line at stock market crashes.
If there’s nine demons in I’ll fetch ten out.
I’ll make this sleeper rise and shout!
They say THIS works on the internet!
(Administer remedy. It doesn't work)
Father Christmas:
Enough with all the New Age hoaxes
Just give me a diagnosis!
Doctor: Dead as a doornail.
Doctor:
Green in winter when all lies dead,
come, lay your branches at his head.
Water of life, pray be forgiving.
Bring this one back to the living.
Doctor:
He lives again, neither dead nor ill
The time has come to pay my bill
Father Christmas:
I’ll file this with the new health care
They’ll pay at once what they think fair.
Tree:
They’ll be sad when they discover.
Resurrection isn’t covered.
Saint George:
Now Christmas is past,
Twelfth Night is the last.
To the Old Year adieu,
Great joy to the new.
Doctor:
So come Saint George, with all your ego,
our play is done, it’s time that we go.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
12th Night
As most of you know the "Hat City" Mummer's Play is a blend of old and new. The old story is the battle where Saint George dies and is brought to life again. Marnen and I wrote the original Hat City Mummer's Play over the phone one afternoon many years ago. Most of it is new material—a re-telling of the old story. But we did leave in certain lines which have been recited for centuries. Yes, centuries. There are hundreds of transcripts of plays from different villages, going back to the early 1700s. Certain lines repeat themselves including "In comes I, Old Father Christmas, welcome or welcome not..."
I always wondered about the "welcome or welcome not" line. I was aware that Christmas was once outlawed, both in Puritan England and in the New England colonies. While they were having a fine old time down in the Virginia colony, it was against the law to celebrate Christmas in any way, shape or form in Boston. So stringent were the prohibitions that in the Boston and Connecticut colonies "mince pie sniffers" were hired by the local authorities to go about the settlement sniffing out anyone who might be making either mince pie or plum pudding! Now there's a municipal job for you.
Suddenly the "welcome or welcome not" line made sense. Oliver Cromwell was the driving force behind Christmas being outlawed in England, and laws were passed to this effect in 1645. In Connecticut the laws went in to effect in 1657. So "welcome or welcome not" speech with the listing of "banned" delicacies is clearly a reference to the odious ban on Christmas.
Another line which comes is repeated in many of the plays is the wound/found line:
A doctor! A doctor must be found
To save him from this grievous wound.
To save him from this grievous wound.
I suppose it's obvious that "found" and "wound" once rhymed, at least in some dialects. Certainly my Scottish grandfather would have said "foond" rather than "fownd".
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