Tag Archives: Pittsburgh

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ode to The Muppet Christmas Carol

Instead of a post about teaching and learning, today I want to share with you a brief homage to one of my favorite Christmas movies (though, now that I think about it, there’s a lot of teaching and learning going on in A Christmas Carol). Earlier this month, my parents treated their kids and our spouses to a delightful gift: a screening of The Muppet Christmas Carol in Pittsburgh’s beautiful Heinz Hall, the music track replaced with a live performance by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (which was fascinating–I heard things in the music that I’ve never noticed while watching the DVD or VHS). This gift prompted me to write the following reflection in my journal. Regardless of your favorite adaptation of A Christmas Carol (I know this can be a heated debate), I hope this post brings a little joy to your Christmas celebration. God bless us, every one!

What do I love about The Muppet Christmas Carol? First and foremost, it’s Michael Caine’s performance as Scrooge. He holds nothing back; there is not “I’m acting opposite puppets” wink in his eye. He is one of the sincerest, most sinister, and yet most sympathetic Scrooges ever.

Another thing I love is the script. Though Muppet jokes and silliness abound, the language of Charles Dickens (who loved jokes and silliness where appropriate) permeates the movie. I give it a large share of the credit for why I fell in love with Dickens’ writing. Similarly, the film’s set–which, now that I’m an adult, I can see isn’t going to win any production design Oscars–still gave me an early love for the close-knit, crowded, alternately dark and brilliant world of Dickens’ London.

The music, of course, is what prompted the live screening we attended. The songs have a very Muppety essence to them, but that doesn’t stop them from containing some of the profoundest lines in the whole Christmas movie canon. The score is tonally spot-on: very British in is instrumentation, ominous when it needs to be and joyous when it needs to be, Christmasy all the way through.

Of course, there are nostalgic reasons too. I can’t picture a Stockslager family Christmas without it. I don’t remember when we started watching it on Christmas Eve night because “after all, there’s only one more sleep ’til Christmas,” but I know we’ve been watching it every year pretty much since it came out in 1992.

Watching the movie with a huge crowd and hearing their reactions was really special. Of course, laughter is the easiest reaction to hear, as well as the one we’re most likely to express aloud in public, so we heard a lot of laughter. But it was all at tonally appropriate times (unlike some cringy inappropriate laughter responses I’ve heard during live theater performances), and besides, both Dickens and the Muppets would love knowing that their work brought a crowd together with laughter, especially at “this most festive season of the year.”

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beautiful sights in “Rust Belt” America

I put the term in the title in quotation marks because it often connotes ugliness and depression, and while it’s certainly true that much of America’s Midwest has experienced economic decline over the past decades, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t beauty–in all its senses, including aesthetic beauty–to be found throughout this region.  Here are a few word pictures of beautiful sights I saw in Ohio and western Pennsylvania this past weekend.

The Laurel Highlands with a dusting of snow: I always say that the temperature drops five degrees as soon as you cross into Somerset County, PA, and it sounds like a joke, but it’s a real weather phenomenon that others besides me have observed.  Last Wednesday as I drove west on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Somerset County–the crown jewel (or the frozen heart) of the Laurel Highlands–was the only place where a powdered-donut coating of snow lingered, from a previous shower, on the trees and hillsides along the road.  I’m glad no new precipitation fell during my trip, but the snow coating added to the festive feeling of driving home for Thanksgiving.

Entering Pittsburgh through the Squirrel Hill tunnel in daylight: On Saturday, my dad and I took a day trip west to Ohio.  It was a sunny day, and when we hit Pittsburgh around 9:00 am, the city appeared to advantage, with the sun glinting off the rivers and the colorful bridges, which are always striking no matter how many times you’ve seen them and no matter how much bridge maintenance is occurring at any given time.  I remarked to Dad that Pittsburgh is fun to drive through (as long as traffic isn’t too heavy) because it’s a little like a roller-coaster, with tunnels, bridges, level changes, and exit ramps in odd places.

Patchwork farmland in Holmes County, Ohio: I’m not sure if Holmes and its neighboring county, Tuscarawas, actually count as part of the Rust Belt because they’re rural areas that have always (as far as I know) been rural and home to large Amish communities.  I did see a factory as we were driving, but even it looked old-fashioned and charming, with brick chimneys instead of metal.  Anyway, around 4:00 as we were leaving the retirement community in Walnut Creek where my grandfather lives, and the sun was just starting to think about setting, I remarked that the scene in front of us should be on a calendar (and it probably has been at some point).  Ohio has a gentler topography than western PA and West Virginia, with rolling hills rather than mountains.  At this time of year, the fields have been harvested but the pastures are still green, and the trees still cling to some leaves as they make architectural shadows against the hillsides.  The landscape isn’t dramatic, but the colors are, especially when the sun hits them just right.

Entering Pittsburgh through the Fort Pitt tunnel at night: There was a Penguins game Saturday night, so traffic was a little backed up going into the city, and Dad and I were musing about whose great idea it was to make tunnels the only non-aquatic way to enter a relatively major city.  The tradeoff, of course, is the breathtaking view when you exit the tunnel and immediately find yourself in the middle of a light show, with the bridge lit up above you, the skyscrapers lit up in front of you, and lit-up boats on the rivers on all sides.  On Saturday night, the effect was heightened by the gleaming yellow bowl of Heinz Field, where all the arena lights were on (apparently in preparation for Sunday night’s Steeler’s game?), and there was also a large, lit Christmas tree below us to the left.  The whole experience was like driving through a Christmas tree.

There’s beauty everywhere, and contrary to popular belief, it isn’t that hard to find in Western PA and Ohio.