Mike O'Connell

I was nervous about watching Amazon’s heavily-touted new film, Sylvie’s Love. Looked kinda like people trying to win Oscars and a musical version of The Help. I figured it would be patronizing and shallow and full of cliches.

Yup, it is. And somehow it’s still fantastic.

Forget Soul, forget Wonder Woman 1984, Sylvie’s Love is the movie you want to watch this holiday season.

Usually billed as a Black Mad Men, it’s actually more of a Black Diner, a subject that’s about 40 years overdue. Add to this premise an awesome soundtrack of jazz and “good” R&B, like if you shifted the songs from American Graffiti back 5-10 years but kept the quality constant.

There really are only three aspects to any movie: the picture, the sound, and the story. Sylvie’s Love, like Mad Men I suppose, is just visually appealing, there’s no other way to say it, and the sound is pure artistry, whether taken from old 45s or music composed new for the film. The story is a bit cliched, yes, but not, as I’d feared, in a patronizing Black way. That the main characters are Black actually has little to do with with the plot, and damn that’s refreshing. The story is boy-meets-girl. So are 99% of all movies.

Do yourself a favor and watch Sylvie’s Love. I probably will again before Winter Break is out. In the mean time I’ll be dusting off some old LPs and suiting up for old times’ sake.

A little over a year ago I published my “Christmas List,” a list of things one must see and do between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Or else let’s face it, Christmas isn’t really here.

There are TV specials and movies to watch, songs to hear, food and beverage to consume, and various other things to witness. Literally “observing” the holiday, as I often express it.

There were 50 things on the list.

In this unusual and challenging year I’m happy to say I missed only four of them. As of tomorrow it should be only three, as I do plan to attend a small, socially-distant “Christmas party” at (as reads list item #39) someone else’s house (preferably way nicer than your own). Unfortunately I will have to leave three items off this year’s list: #32 [travel down Broad Street (Virginia Route 7) in Falls Church]; #34 [walk through the “Winter Walk of Lights” at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens]; and #44 [the mall]. Whether for crowds or an unwillingness to travel, these things were just not happening.

But 47 accomplished? That’s something to be celebrated.

I’ll admit that some things this year were completed in modified form. For example, donating toys to charity this year happened virtually, and for “putting money in one of those red kettles,” well, luckily the Salvation Army now has its kettles online. What was once a Rite Aid in Sterling is now a Walgreens, and though I did complete the task with a trip to said Walgreens the show just wasn’t the same. So that one’s off the list now.

Which got me to thinking…

are there others I should add?

Eighteen as a matter of fact.

In no particular order…

Listen to Tony Bennett’s A Swingin’ Christmas in its entirety. Recorded with the Count Basie Big Band in 2008, proof that at 82, the man could still swing.

Listen to Ella Fitzgerald’s Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas. Recorded in 1960, it took nearly a half century for another Christmas album to swing as hard.

Make s’mores. Preferably outside, but inside if you must.

Have one of those Reese’s peanut butter “trees.”

Watch 1942’s Holiday Inn, the movie which originally introduced the song “White Christmas.”

Watch 1954’s White Christmas, the movie most people assume introduced that song.

Listen to Les Brown’s recording of “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.” The lyrics don’t even mention Christmas but it’s probably my favorite Christmas song.

Watch the Season 9 Christmas episode of Family Guy, “Road to the North Pole.” Family Guy actually has a bunch of Christmas episodes; this one’s the only one that’s an hour long. And it’s the best.

Treat yourself to a “grownup” egg nog.

Visit two adjacent shopping centers in Great Falls, Virginia. Counts as one item because they’re across the street from other. At the intersection of Georgetown Parkway and Walker Road you will find the world’s classiest Safeway (I know, it sounds like an oxy moron, just trust me), and then across Walker Road you have the Village Centre shopping mall. (Classy enough to warrant the British spelling of centre.) Drink in the holiday awesomeness of both shopping plazas.

South Park. “Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo.” Still hilarious 23 years later.

Stovetop popcorn. Whether you string it up or just eat it, this is a holiday must.

Hot chocolate. Duh.

Chips and dip. My only childhood memory of my father’s parents house is eating potato chips and sour cream and onion dip on Christmas Eve from a garish ’70s-era green chip-and-dip bowl set. In your recreation any bowl will do.

Read Mercer Mayer’s Merry Christmas Mom and Dad.

Watch the BBC broadcast of Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman. (One of those rare circumstances in which the movie is better than the book.) Double bonus if you watch the American version with an intro from that famous American, David Bowie!

Watch one of your old home movies filmed at Christmastime. Double bonus points if it’s on VHS.

Make a new home movie. Triple a million bonus points if you’re recording it on VHS. Minus a million points if you’re recording on your phone.

Even if you know nothing about jazz.

Even if you don’t know who Dave Brubeck is.

Even if you’ve been on another planet the past 60 years with your fingers in your ears…

you’ve heard the standard “Take Five” and, likely, the other half dozen songs on the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s historic album, Time Out.

(That “Take Five” piano vamp is now stuck in your head. You’re welcome.)

Time Out was the first jazz album to sell a million copies (it has since doubled that), and was later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

And now… you’ve got more of it.

Yeah, 60-plus years after it was first released, “Brubeck Editions” (whoever that is–Columbia released the original album) has dropped 43 minutes of alternate takes and studio chatter. This is not a collector’s Christmas gift. It’s a collector’s wet dream.

I know every note of every song on Time Out. And I thought I was going to be listening to Outtakes with a pencil and paper, trying to decipher the subtle differences between the two. Nope. In most cases my six-year-old could hear it in about three notes. The takes are very different. And, though I miss what could have been a great challenge, shows the development of a song and album in studio, and adds to the Brubeck mystique.

And portends the awesome future awaiting us all.

This is either a new high or a new low.

My local school district has all campuses closed today for the impending snowstorm headed our way. Mind you not a flake has yet fallen, and–I probably should have led with this–our classes are all online.

I can see it now, later this afternoon, that there is so much snow outside it has actually crept in the house and I can’t even plow through the living room to get to my laptop.

That’s a storm.

As a teacher I’m somewhat ambivalent towards snow days. I see both sides of the argument. I do enjoy the day off, of course, but concerning a professional responsibility I do bemoan the lost instructional time.

My son, meanwhile, embraces snow days to the fullest.

(Don’t we all, as kids?)

He does forget a few school lessons on these days, though. For example, the meaning of the word “or.”

As in, pancakes or waffles or an omelet.

Yeah, I’ll be back later… makin’ three things for breakfast right now

One of the few bright spots of 2020 living is that people have a lot of time at home to do silly things like put up Christmas decorations at their homes. Actually, some of my neighbors have really gone nuts. In a good way. Driving around looking at Christmas lights for me has gone from a kinda-fun activity to must-see viewing holding this whole upside-down world together.

Thanks, neighbors!