Lee Mendelson ~ RIP

Lee Mendelson, executive producer of the celebrated Christmas classic, A Charlie Brown Christmas, died on Christmas morning. He was 86. His son called the timing "serendipitous."

I didn't know he wrote the lyrics to the show's song, Christmas Time is Here, on the back of an envelope.


More memories here following the animated special's 50th anniversary in 2015.

The 15 most awe-inspiring space images of the decade

With a new decade coming next week, there are many best of the decade lists about books, movies, music, etc.

Outer space always gets my vote – The 15 most awe-inspiring space images of the decade.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory ~ Juno Spacecraft's JunoCam

Merry Christmas

Nick Downes ~ The New Yorker

Santa Claus is right - more toys!

More toys, iPhones and 4K, flat-panel LCDs!

2019's Word of the Year ~ They

According to Merriam Webster:

"English famously lacks a gender-neutral singular pronoun to correspond neatly with singular pronouns like everyone or someone, and as a consequence they has been used for this purpose for more than 600 years. More recently, though, they has also been used to refer to one person whose gender identity is nonbinary, a sense that is increasingly common in published, edited text, as well as social media and in daily personal interactions between English speakers. There's no doubt that its use is established in the English language, which is why it was added to the Merriam-Webster.com dictionary this past September."

Everyone's a Comedian

The denizens of New York City have a sardonic sense of humor.

West 10th Street, Greenwich Village

Weill Cornell Hospital ~ East 70th Street

P.S. Of course, at Art Basel Miami Beach this week, sometimes art is honestly intended and titled.

Maurizio Cattelan ~ Comedian, 2019 

Hyperspace ~ "Gentle Existential Duress"

Beck always seems to be contemporary music's outlier. In and out, but when he's in he's in a league of his own.

More in The New Yorker ~ Beck is Home, by Amanda Petrusich.

"He's a smart guy – he understands the seasons, he understands the public temperament, he knows exactly when to show up," Pharrell Williams told me of Beck. "And it always feels good, because he delivers it his way. I've always loved that about Beck. He's out-careered all of his contemporaries. He was never really in the same lane as them. He was always this guy walking in a green pasture. They were on a highway in Los Angeles or Seattle, and he was in a green pasture in his mind."

Beck ~ Hyperspace – Chemical