Thanksgiving Special!

Holiday cartoons, a song parody, songs from Joni, Neil, Van and The Band--and Beethoven.

Greg Mitchell has authored more than a dozen books (see most of them here) and directed four recent PBS films. Subscribing to this newsletter is still FREE—so if you want to help fund, maybe purchase one of my books, thanks!

Nothing heavy today for the holiday so let’s start with a KAL cartoon:

Then we offer this new parody of “Billie Jean” updated for Marjorie Taylor Greene. Apparently the Marsh Family have been doing parodies for at least five years.

Steve Brodner checks in with this:

And David Horsey:

And Ann Telnaes:

Dennis Goris:

And David Horsey again:

Clay Jones:

Will Rogers: “My ancestors didn’t come over on the Mayflower, they met the boat.”

Every year on this date, I post perhaps the greatest eighteen or so minutes in Western music, Beethoven’s “Heiliger Dankgesang” movement, from his String Quartet No. 15—his “hymn” giving thanks for surviving a health crisis and more—here in what I consider its finest version, from the Danish String Quartet:

The most famous Thanksgiving Day concert ever, of course, was “The Last Waltz.” Four song selections below.

[Joni Mitchell, “Coyote”]

[The Band, “Don’t Do It”]

[Neil Young, “Helpless.”]

[Van Morrison, “Caravan”]

Photo Finish

Very near where the Pilgrims first landed, off Provincetown, five weeks before reaching Plymouth, Nov. 11, 1620.