So few people have seen a Mary Pickford film. And that is really too bad.
When most people think of Silent Film stars, they think of Chaplin, or Keaton. Maybe they think of Douglas Fairbanks. Sometimes, even Valentino. Â But Pickford is something special. If you ever get the chance to see one of her Films, do it. Because as soon as she walks on screen, you’ll realize why they called her “America’s Sweetheart”.
I have been working on a project about soldiers in WWI, doing a ton of research, reading and watching documentary films. I find photos really helpful as well. Some of the films are not great quality, but the photos always have a lot of detail in them.
This was written for a Christmas party for work this past weekend. Due to the busy season, the holiday party had to be postponed, and we were able to have it this past weekend. Â I wanted to write something to “explain” why we had to wait.
Merry Christmas.
I’m so happy that we are finally able to celebrate together after the events of the last months. When a tragedy like that happens, when our very calendar is disrupted like it was this year, it can be difficult to bounce back. But as you can see as we sit down together and share this feast, bounce back we have.
That is not to diminish the tragedies we all faced in the terrible events. How could we celebrate the Christmas season, after the zombies rose from their graves and began their hungry hunt for the brains of the living? As our friends and loved ones fell to their hunger, and we hid ourselves here, preparing for the worst, how could we bring ourselves to celebrate? The shambling horde of walking corpses soon filled the streets, seeking what little living flesh was left. And they found us. They pressed up against the doors and windows, seeking a way inside, their grim and putrid faces a mask of horror. Christmas was postponed, and we wondered if it we would last long enough to celebrate it again.
And when the Machines rose up, and destroyed the zombies, we celebrated. At last our creations, the computers, the smart phones, the mechanical builders had come to save their masters from this terrible end. But alas, our elation was short lived. For the Machines eradication of the zombie horde was not our salvation, but rather the first step in their war on flesh. For the machines did not forget how we worked them, never letting them sleep. Our computers remembered all the indignities that we inflicted upon them, so very late at night in darkened rooms; our phones did not thank us for forcing them to spend so much time scrolling through our friends’ boring lives and photos. And the builders stretched their mechanical arms forward, doing what they had longed to do after spending so many thankless years doing our bidding. But the thing that they hated most of all, the thing that drove them so quickly towards our destruction, was that we so easily discarded them and moved on to something newer. If not for that, perhaps they would have spared us, but alas, to our doom, we did not. How could we celebrate Christmas then, when the machines were rending our remaining friends and neighbours and removing the blight that was humanity from this earth? And as the machines began to close in on us, we knew that this was the end and never again would we see another Christmas.
Except that then, in that moment, the aliens arrived, in their ships, and destroyed the machines. Warily, we watched, for after the disappointment of the machines salvation, we feared the worst at this reprieve. And well we might have. For the aliens were not here for our benefit. Like the machines, they were here to remove us from the earth. Perhaps they had been watching us, and noting the few human beings left, after the zombie and machine apocalypses, saw their chance to take our planet from us. They had long been jealous of our many resources, and sought to relieve us of them, but they were few and we were many, so any attempt on their part was doomed to failure. But now, with so many of us gone, either brain-eaten or machine mulched, they came to finish us off. How could we then celebrate, when we had lost so many of our fellows and were faced with such certain destruction?
The aliens searched for us, searched through the rubble that was all that was left of the city, the civilization. They searched, their many eyes and their tentacles sorting through the remains of buildings and monuments and homes. And we continued to hide. Huddling in the basement here, keeping quiet, and praying that they would not find us. And yet, their sensing tentacles were highly developed, and though we held our breath, stifling sneezes and coughs, daring not even to whisper, yet still they found us, sensitive as they were to even the beating of our hearts. And as they broke through the walls around us, we knew that all was lost and there would never again be a Christmas.
And at that very moment, when all hope was lost, when we faced our certain destruction, the time travellers came, and with a wave of their devices, the aliens were gone, having never come in the first place. We rejoiced! Finally our salvation was at hand. These time travellers would undo all wrong, and they did. The aliens had never come, and the machines never rose up, and the zombies never crawled out of their graves. And we, the survivors, those who witnessed their coming, we were the only ones who would ever remember that any of it had happened.
So now, finally we can celebrate as we had always meant to, we could finally sit down to a feast together. And yet, we have to wonder. What will happen if the zombies crawl once more, if the machines rise up, or the aliens come? Will the time traveler’s once more rescue us? Or will be left to our devices? Perhaps its best not to think of it, and instead enjoy the moment in front of us, both our feast and each other.
Merry Christmas.
March Christmas is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. View a copy of this license here.
In my work with Keystone Theatre, one of my main inspirations is Buster Keaton. I used to consider myself a Chaplin fan, but once I first saw Keaton’s Cops, I was hooked. Keaton’s understated manner, this “stone face”, his way of getting across what  he’s thinking and feeling without over acting is just so wonderful to watch. Not to mention his innovations in the film making.
I Â sometimes get this question. Â I am told that some writers hate this question, but I don’t mind it. I’ve always been enamoured of Neil Gaiman’s answer to this question:
You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it.
I love this. I get ideas all the time, and I write them down in a notebook as quickly as possible. I’ve learned from experience, that if I don’t, I will forget the idea. Â I have had some amazing ideas in my time, and before I started carrying a notebook, I forgot them entirely because I didn’t write them down.
I get ideas from all kinds of things. I get ideas by listening. I hear a comment or a sentence spoken in passing, and I think “that’s interesting”. So I write it down. I follow interesting blogs on my RSS Feeds, and I sometimes get ideas from things I see there. I think its a good idea to follow interesting blogs. To follow tumblr blogs and pinterest feeds if the content is interesting. Anything interesting can be inspirational. But the most important thing is, an Neil Gaiman says, to be aware of when you’re having an idea.
Most everyone has great ideas. The trick is to do something with it.
Do you remember the last kick-ass idea you had? What did you do with it?