Sunday Links

Published in the January 4, 1957, edition of Collier's magazine, "Christmas Party" was a murder mystery novella written by Rex Stout where oddball detective Nero Wolfe has to figure out who killed an esteemed furniture designer. PUBLIC DOMAIN

How Christmas Murder Mysteries Became a U.K. Holiday Tradition 

“In a case in Paris in the seventeenth century of a conjoined twin stabbing a man to death, the sentence of death was commuted rather than executing the innocent twin.” - Futility Closet brings us a few interesting facts from Christine Quigley’s Conjoined Twins (2003)

Good news: The Shrimpmas Tree is back.

Never Take Selfie With A Walrus (I shouldn’t have to tell you this)

Christmas Wrapping: The 'anti-Christmas' song that's become a festive favourite (via perfect for roquefort cheese) 

What a year it’s been! 2023 in Photos (NYT link)

 Edward Gorey's Illuminated Envelopes I’d like it if everyone decorated their envelopes. Opening the mail would be much more fun.

A repost from 2010: Rudolph (You Don't Have To Put On The Red Light)

Toilet Brush Christmas Trees  and other evergreen decor evolutions.

“Heartwarming Christmas story” was not the first thought that came to mind when I read the title of this book. 

This Same AI Image Keeps Getting Shared How Facebook is being increasingly overrun with stolen, AI-generated images that people think are real.

John Waters' Hand-Made Christmas Cards over the years are as weird as you might expect (via perfect for roquefort cheese)

Pat Hobby’s Christmas Wish - a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Up for auction:1960s radar training station in Fleetwood, Lancashire. The perfect place to listen to that long-unplayed Doc At The Radar Station album? (Via Things Magazine)

“Yank the restrictor out of your Peychaud’s bottle and pour it freely. Ice, shmice! Heard of mezcal, Cynar? They’re your new best buds.” The book that rewrote the rules of modern bartending

“Other men in history have fathered children in four decades, but all my children are with the same woman” - The Bluebird, a short Christmas story by my friend Kate.

Card dominos Wow!

On Christmas Eve of 1974, Jean Shepherd reads from the story that would later become the movie, "A Christmas Story", live on his long-running WOR-AM radio show. Listen to it while you’re doing some Christmas bustling.

   

 If I Must Die On December 7, Palestinian poet and activist Refaat Alareer was killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike that also killed his brother, his sister, and four of her children. He pinned this prophetic last poem to his Twitter profile on November 1.

Vince Guaraldi, the jazz composer who created the best seasonal album ever, A Charlie Brown Christmas.