Three quick recommendations: an interview with iconographer Aidan Hart and... Annie Lennox & Peter Cook

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(Old Christmas, 1862, “Illustrated London News,” 1862. Creator: Unknown. Photo by The Print Collector/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

This recent interview with the renowned iconographer, Aidan Hart is not to be missed. He is no relation (as far as I know), but he is an acquaintance of my wife, Solrunn Nes, who is — as most of you are aware — an iconographer and the author of two books on the subject. (He has also trained the wife of my parish priest here in Norway in iconography.) Hart’s description of his move to Orthodoxy some decades ago could almost be mine, except for the artist bit: “I trained as a teacher, but left to become a full-time artist, still as a devout Anglican. That was the key to my becoming Eastern Orthodox. I was looking for the early Church, for deeper prayer, and looking for art that would help me indicate the inner spiritual nature of the human person.” (In an upcoming post, I will broach the subject of my own move in the same direction, but that’s not this post.)

Here is the interview in full with Aidan Hart.

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On another note entirely, I watch this video every year during Christmas, at least once. I unabashedly confess that I like it simply because it looks and sounds the way Christmas should — or, at least, as I think it should in my more romantic imaginings. Consider it my musical Christmas card to you.

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Finally — and really on another note entirely — I leave you with twelve consecutive videos which, beginning tomorrow, will carry you blithely through the Twelve Days of Christmas. There’s nothing mystical here, I concede upfront. Peter Cook was one of the great comic geniuses of the 20th century. In 1990, he did a series of 12 “interviews” as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling, poultry tycoon (a character he had portrayed from time to time throughout his career), with Ludovic Kennedy. Each 5 - 7 minute interview, at least ostensibly, has something to do with one of the Days of Christmas. I consider it one of the funniest series of comic shorts ever made. You may or may not agree, but I dare you not to laugh. Here is the playlist:

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(William Ewart Lockhart; Old Father Christmas; Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow)