Thanksgiving, is my favorite holiday. Why? I’ll tell you why. Unlike Christmas, you not worrying about the money you had to spend on all the presents you bought, or how you’re going to mange to pretend to enjoy whatever awful thing your Aunt has gotten you this year. It doesn’t have all the religious significance, so it’s everyone’s holiday. It’s really just a lot less tense and stressful in general.

If you’re not American, or if you are an American and your really haven’t been paying attention. Thanksgiving is the day we celebrate the fact that the pilgrims managed to survive till the first harvest, and to be thankful  that this land is so rich in resources, and to remember that their survival and their ability to use those resources is really all thanks to the help Native Americans .

What ever happened next in American history, however we managed to squander our country, and the unspeakably awful ways the native Americans were treated after that. Thanksgiving reminds us that this country began by only the very narrowest of margins how close it was that it almost didn’t happen at all.

I guess I wanted to make this post cause it feels like every year people pays less and less attention to Thanksgiving and just want to get passed it to all the black Friday sales the next day. There’s already Christmas music and decorations up in all the stores. Personally I think thanksgiving is too nice a part of our traditions to just forget about.

Also this is the first year I won’t be seeing my family on thanksgiving, so I guess it’s just got me thinking about,  getting older. How when you’re a kid these days just seemed perfect and it never occurs to you that things would ever change.

        Another movie to watch before you die is Tim Robbins'  "Cradle will Rock". The movie is centered on the Federal Theatre Project's production of the Marc Blitzstein play. But it doesn't confine itself to the struggle to bring this particular play to the stage. The ultimately doomed Federal Theatre Project's, the willingness of American business men to fund Mussolini, and the commissioning of Diego Rivera to paint a mural in the lobby of the Rockefeller building (a mural which was destroyed soon after it's completion), the looming shadow of Fascism in Europe, and even the death of Vaudeville, all of these threads come together to support the ultimate moral of the original play. That society's greed makes "prostitutes" of us all.
       
        The movie is so honest in it's portrayal of the arts community of the time, if you are at all interested in that sort of thing, you will instantly love it. But it also captures the fear and uncertainty of the depression and the world on the verge of a devastating war. The most astonishing thing about this movie is that the majority of what takes place on screen actually happened.

        This movie is about the struggle between artists to be genuine in their own time, and the political and financial power's desire to keep art on a leash. It's most evident in one of the final scenes where Nelson Rockefeller and other Barons of big business, sit around discussing how they will control art and censor those artists whose ideas are rebellious. Their discussion echoes Hitler's view of art.

        It's spectacularly cast, and thoroughly interesting so give it a try.