Another thing I learned yesterday was that a Jazz Butcher single called “Time” had come out earlier this year. It’s a little spooky:

My hair’s all wrong. My time ain’t long.
Fishy go to heaven, get along, get along.

But also funny, and surprisingly funky. I give it two thumbs up:

I also ran across a video of his last performance, which apparently was on a Spanish radio show. Ignore the blaring tabloid headline — it’s actually quite a lovely and dignified moment:

He does not look like a man who is about to drop dead. But I guess that’s how it goes.

Well, there’s been a lot of death talk in this space lately, so in the interest of honoring a vertical man, and at the risk of becoming an uncompensated subsidiary of The New York Times, I thought I’d share with you all a profile I read the other day. Si Spiegel, now 97, is not only a decorated World War II bomber pilot with epic tales of derring-do to tell, but also the father of the artificial Christmas tree as we know it:

He Bombed the Nazis, Outwitted the Soviets and Modernized Christmas

Honestly it’s worth reading the whole thing, especially if you’re a sucker for those classic WWII tales like I am. And again, if you run up against the Times paywall, let me know and I’ll share it with you directly.

Now go have yourself a merry little Christmas, or a superior secular Saturday, your choice.