Good morning! Here are a few links to brighten your day: how A Charlie Brown Christmas almost didn't get made, being offended, male friendship and the lost art of conversation, and more.
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It's a safe bet that if A Charlie Brown Christmas was being pitched to television executives today there is no way the program would get made. A brief look at the special's history explains why.
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On being "offended":
No one has a right not to be offended. Sometimes there are questions of such importance that we are compelled to engage in public discussion knowing that it will be upsetting to do so. Imagine how you would feel if someone suggested that you shouldn't be allowed to argue for positions with which they disagree simply because they are incapable of controlling their emotions.
Indeed.
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A library designed to look like a bookstore:
Wow.
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Speaking of libraries, one Ohio library unearthed quite a surprise: a first edition of A Christmas Carol was in their collection.
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A collection of 12 epic reading rooms:
I want one.
Hat tip: Book Riot
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Why we sing Auld Lang Syne on New Years' Eve.
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A wonderful piece from Acculturated on male friendship and the lost art of conversation:
Men tend to take more time to reach the good depths of conversation, the deep personal stuff that women can plumb to in a few minutes. This is why I believe that one of the factors leading to the erosion of male friendships is that our digital culture doesn’t allow men the time necessary to truly talk to each other, and thus get to know and love each other. I went to high school at an all-boys Prep school in the 1980s, and while a lot of the usual male traits were evident at the place – drinking, girl chasing, sports obsession – there was also the cultivation of conversation. We didn’t have cell phones. We would routinely stay up all night talking, especially in the summer when we would spend weekends at the beach. It was in such conversations that deep bonds were forged. You might start out the night with jokes and sports and girl talk, but as the hours passed you’d move into the heavier stuff: God, the meaning of life, what you live for, what makes you cry. A particularly vivid memory is when a popular kid was killed in a drunk driving accident. After the funeral a bunch of us went up to the roof of an apartment building where his family lived and stayed up all night talking. There was no bleeping iPhone, no constant texting to interrupt the rhythm of the journey ever deeper into a genuine and non-sexual intimacy. It just took us longer to deal with the heavy stuff than the girls, who were more in touch with their emotions.
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