Felix the Cat in "Astronomeous"

The Fauns//"Seven Hours"

Maná//"Clavado En Un Bar"

Tame Impala//"Feels Like We Only Go Backwards"

Joel Compass//"Back To Me"

Future Islands//"Seasons (Waiting On You)"

The Great American Traffic Jam

Space Dandy

We Are Scientists//"After Hours"

Hospitality//"Going Out"

Look around you.

There are beautiful things all around you. There are inspiring things all around you. If you can't find them, look harder. Look closer. Or maybe, look farther away. Because if the most inspiring thought that comes to you today is that there are other places that you need to be, and that you need to find your own way there...well, at least that's something.

That's something.

World Party//"Put the Message in the Box"

Jermaine Jackson//"Perfect"

France Gall//"Laisse Tomber les Filles"

Darci

Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings//"Retreat!"

Bobby Vee//"Pretty Girls Everywhere!"

Stacy Lattisaw//"Miracles"

Madi Diaz//"Love You Now"

BOY//"Skin"

Alcoholic Faith Mission//"Throw Us to the Wolves"

Folger's Papa Eddie Solves a Crime

I Have Your Heart

Athlete//"Superhuman Touch"

Memoryhouse//"Lately"

School of Seven Bells//"Windstorm"

Young Prisms//"Floating in Blue"

P!nk//"Glitter in the Air"

Farrah

Jill Sobule//"Underdog Victorious"

Gemma Hayes//"Oliver"

Camera Obscura//"Troublemaker"

Gloria Grahame//"I Cain't Say No" (from "Oklahoma!")

Postiljonen//"All That We Had Lost"

Shakespears Sister//"I Don't Care"

Olivia Newton John's Hollywood Nights

Peeping Penguins

Shirley Brown//"Woman to Woman"

David Poe//"When I Fly"

The World Outside My Window - Time Lapse of Earth from the ISS

Whatever you are dreaming about...whatever you have always dreamed about...make it happen.

Dan Fogelberg//"Same Old Lang Syne"

The Jewbadours//"It Might Be You"

Mac and Me

Somewhere in Dreamland

Bert Parks//"Let 'Em In"

Vienna Teng//"Level Up"

Carnie & Wendy Wilson//"Hey Santa"

Wendy & Lisa//"The Closing of the Year"

John Denver//"Please Daddy (Don't Get Drunk This Christmas)"

"The Carpenters at Christmas" TV special

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Bob Hope, Marilyn Maxwell, William Frawley//"Silver Bells"

Marilyn McCoo & Donna Summer//"O Come All Ye Faithful" (Solid Gold)

Billy Idol//"White Christmas"

Cast of "Promises, Promises"//"Turkey Lurkey Time"

Paul McCartney//"Wonderful Christmastime"

Sandra Lee's Kwanzaa Cake

Christmas Comes But Once a Year

Kristin Chenoweth//"Christmas Island"

"Hard to Be a Cat at Christmas"

Friskies will donate one can of food to animal rescues and shelters nationwide for every view the video receives (up to 500,000).

The Weather Girls//"Dear Santa (Bring Me a Man This Christmas)"

Yoko Kanno & Maaya Sakamoto//"Kissing the Christmas Killer"

Jane Monheit//"The Man With the Bag"

Show Your Joe (Kmart)

Christmas Comes to Pac-Land

Ariana Grande & Elizabeth Gillies//"The Christmas Song"

Grace Jones//"Little Drummer Boy"

Judith Owen & Julia Fordham//"White Christmas"

Glasvegas//"A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like a Kiss)

Still less creepy than "The Polar Express".

Ivy//"I Hate December"

Need I say more?

The Star Wars Holiday Special

Though this is popularly known (and universally reviled) as "the Christmas special", the Holiday Special was actually first broadcast on CBS on November 17, 1978, that is, it was a Thanksgiving special. I believe it was rerun a month later closer to Christmas, and possibly combining memories of Meco's classic "Christmas in the Stars" LP lead to the popular idea that "Life Day" is the Star Wars universe equivalent of Christmas. I personally consider it Thanksgiving, and I (and many other Star Wars fan the world over, even the ones who don't like ANY part of this special, not even ironically) acknowledge Life Day every year on November 17 (which is close enough to my birthday that I acknowledge it literally as "Life Day").

What can I say about the Star Wars Holiday Special? I like parts of it. Diahann Carroll has a beautiful number, as long as you ignore the fact that Itchy is jerking off to it. I love Bea "Beatrice" Arthur's song, both in and out of context - it's a great show-stopping cabaret number that is simultaneously joyous, poignant, fun, bitter and sad. And finally there's Carrie Fisher's Life Day anthem, which I enjoy for its sheer, extraordinary strangeness.

As for the rest of it...I don't love it. In fact, I find much of it disturbing, even horrifying (the bits with Itchy and Lumpy in particular - those faces). Even the bit that even the haters acknowledge to be at least interesting - the animated part - I personally find to be ugly, and even sort of nauseating. That's pretty much my final thought on the Special as a whole, in fact: ugly, and even sort of nauseating.

The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan

Dead Can Dance//"The Carnival is Over"

The Beautiful South//"Old Red Eyes is Back"

David Ford//"State of the Union"

Christina Aguilera//"The Voice Within"

April Stevens & Nino Tempo//"Land of A Thousand Dances"

Electric Dreams

Daicon 4 (ELO//"Twilight")

Annie Lennox//"Why"

Al Stewart//"The Year of the Cat"

Tracey Ullman//"Terry"

Della Reese//"If I Never Get to Heaven"

Double//"The Captain of Her Heart"

The Trip Back

Pinwheel

Little Boots//"Satellite"

Sylvie Vartan//"What I Say"

Andrew Gold//"One of Them is Me"

Au Revoir Simone//"Crazy"

Primar Scream//"Movin' On Up"

New York in the 1970s

Lassie's Rescue Rangers

Slowdive//"Catch the Breeze"

Wilson Phillips//"Dream is Still Alive"

Garbage//"Queer"

PXL 2000 school video, ca. 1988, 1989

Marty Balin//"Hearts"

Head & Shoulders commercial, 1988

Honey, Honey

Trip Around the Moon, Wernher von Braun