Yukon Cornelius, the great mountain man of the frozen north and a hero of the 1964 classic Christmas film Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, is a larger than life figure who taps into hidden universal forces to perform mighty feats.

In the original film, Cornelius wields a revolver. Now he prefers a lightsaber -- an elegant weapon from a more civilized age. In Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back he almost dies when captured by a Wampa.

Travis Chapman, a pop culture artist with a great gift for humor and the Christmas spirit, shows Cornelius at his best.

YouTuber Jonas Wolf and his friends adapt modern songs for the choral styles of the Renaissance and early Baroque period of Western European music. Past recordings include "Let It Be" by The Beatles and "Last Christmas" by Wham!

Embedded above is the 1977 disco hit "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees--a song made most famous for its appearance in the film Saturday Night Fever. Like many of Wolf's recordings, he and his colleagues are performing the 20th Century song as a madrigal. That's a polyphonic form of vocal chamber music that originated in Renaissance Italy and now grooves on the dance floor.

-via Kottke

Like most states, Illinois allows residents to choose combinations of letters and numbers to reflect custom messages on their car license plates. But, the state warns, applicants must follow certain standards of decency and decorum.

NBC News 5 Chicago reports that the state received 55,600 requests during the past year. It rejected more than 550 of them because they were "inflammatory, profane, or offensive...."

In this video, Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias reads off some of the funniest license plate requests that he has had to turn down. I had no idea that "bricked" had an offensive connotation, but Urban Dictionary was unfortunately informative.

-via Jalopnik

Will my shipment arrive before Christmas? I have proceeded through the five stages of grief and reached acceptance: it will arrive at my home on the 27th.

But Flo & Joan, the musical comedy duo from the UK, are not working with the psychology of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, but instead that of Joseph Campbell. In this song, they go on a hero's journey to seek their missing parcel which itself is on a great journey.

Watch this beautifully staged performance that rises to a crescendo of anxiety combatted with courage as the women find the parcel serves as a boon that transforms them.

-via Nag on the Lake

To torment me, my teenage children introduced me to a YouTube channel filled with AI-generated Christmas carols filled with Gen Alpha slang. The slop flows melodically and the lyrics are far from mid, inducing much gyatt with their rizz rhythms.

In addition to the above embedded "Six Seven on Merry Rizzmas", there is "12 Days of Rizzmas", "Rizzmas Bells", "Oh, Rizzmas Tree," and "Six Seven Christmas."

No cap, they are all very skibidi.

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is one of the most popular and respected anime and manga franchises of the past few years due to its emotional depth and character development.

It is a story about regret.

The second season of the anime adaptation of the manga premiers in about three weeks. It's definitely on my must-watch list.

Last year, cosplayer Hanami made this cosplay of the main character, Frieren, dressed for Christmas festivities.

Historians will study how bad this book is. English teachers will hold this book aloft at their students to remind them that literally anyone can write a book: Look at this, it’s just not that hard to do.

That's how Scaachi Koul describes American Canto, a memoir by journalist and political operative Olivia Nuzzi. Koul reviewed the book for Slate. This review is one of several collected by Literary Hub for a roundup of the most cutting book reviews for the past year.

Other books considered and then eviscerated are the first novel by comedian Louis C.K., a memoir by former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and a posthumously published collection of short stories by Harper Lee.

-via Nag on the Lake | Illustration: Dawn Hudson

Peppermint is a flavor often associated with Christmas and peppermint-flavored candy canes commonly appear in Christmas decorations and gifts. Sweets master Elizabeth LaBau--known on the internet as the Sugar Hero--proposes 35 uses for peppermints that are appropriate for the season.

My favorite are her candy cane cups, which are pictured above. These are little cups made from whole candy canes. She partially melted them in an oven-safe shotglass-sized mold until they held their shape as functional cups when cooled.

LaBau then filled them with peppermint hot chocolate, whipped cream, and crumbled candy canes. She proposes an alternative drink for adults: peppermint schnapps. Yummy!

Artist Tom Jung got his start in film illustration in the 1950s. In 1977, he composed this image to promote the first Star Wars film. We've all seen this image or parts of it since that time. The original is a half-sheet illustration that was recently sold by Heritage Auctions for $3.875 million (USD). That makes it the highest priced piece of Star Wars memorabilia ever sold.

It was the most expensive item taken at the December 9-10 event which totaled $7.71 million in sales of Hollywood treasures, including the hat of the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz and a harem girl costume once worn by Marilyn Monroe.

-via My Modern Met

The first step to cleaning your pet Himalayan marmot is to acquire a Himalayan marmot.

If you have a Himalayan marmot, lay the creature on the floor of a drainable area. The marmot is very good at lying flat; I suspect that its napping skill is exceptional.

After applying water and soap, brush the marmot gently with a paint roller, then brush it dry. The marmot present in this demonstration appears to actually enjoy the process. And I can't blame him! It looks very relaxing.

This is one of at least two marmots in the care of YouTuber Exotic Black TV.

-via David Thompson

Or, to be more precise, it's a didgeridoo with a curved shape that resembles a saxophone.

The Strawberry Man is a musician who got is name by wearing strawberry-themed outfits early in his career. When he encountered the didgeridoo, he was fascinated with its mesmerizing sound and decided to learn how to play it.

The didgeridoo looks like a simple pipe, but playing it is a physically demanding task. It requires circular breathing--simultaneously inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth without pausing.

The Strawberry Man took his didgeridoos on tour, but found transporting them on planes very challenging. He needed a more compact instrument. The result of his experiments with collaborators is the Saxo-Didge--a didgeridoo that retains its traditional sound while fitting into a much smaller space.

-via The Awesomer

Nathan Yau, a statistician who runs Flowing Data, created an interactive chart that illustrates how are we connected to the people that we spend time with over the course of a typical day. Yau used data from the American Time Use Survey conducted by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics between 2022 and 2024. The tool is adjustable by sex, age, and either weekend or weekday.

As a chronologically well-endowed man not yet retired, most of my time is spent with co-workers, but that trends toward my wife in the evening. I assure you that under no circumstances am I with friends at 2 AM.

Some people find the 6-7 meme frustrating. My teenage children found it amusing until I started working it into every conversation that we had. Then they stopped using it. Victory!

The only way to defeat being ambushed by a youth meme is to charge into it and never let it go.

In-N-Out Burger disagrees. People magazine reports that the In-N-Out Burger restaurant chain, upset at people yelling 6-7 when number #67 would be called, remove it from the enumeration. The number that is called after Order 66 is number 68, thus disarming would-be memers among the customers present.

-via First We Feast | Photo: Wikimedia user Wgreaves

Vinnie's is a pizzeria in the Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn is famous for innovative pizza designs, such as pizzas topped with smaller pizzas and a pizza box that is itself made of pizzas. Its menu is always startling.

Most recently, the culinary wizards at Vinnie's have devised the ultimate comfort food pizza. What could be better to eat on a cold winter's day than tomato soup paired with grilled cheese sandwiches? Vinnie's proposes a pizza covered with that meal.

Gourmand and committed New Yorker Nicholas Heller visited and recorded this video of its production. The carefully prepared sandwiches are added halfway through the baking process so that the entire pie bonds together.

-via Born in Space

Deke Cameron is The Glass Clown, a stained glass artist in the Austin, Texas area. You can commission him to create windows and pieces so suit your own needs or consider purchasing one of his passion projects inspired by popular culture. Here, for example, is Swedish Chef, one of the finest cooks the Muppets ever produced.