O’ Amazon, a parody of O’ Tannenbaum
https://www.elkgrovenews.net/2019/12/o-amazon-parody-of-o-tannenbaum.html
By Michael Monasky |
Most of what we know today as Christmas lore is based upon marketing strategies to make money. O Tannenbaum is a strictly non-religious but Silesian cultural folk song composed by the late 16th Century equivalent of Sir Paul McCartney; one Melchior Franck. (Lower Silesia was the western lowland of Poland along the Oder River, including tiny parts of eastern Germany and the Czech Republic.) The lyrics for the tune were drafted in the early 19th Century by German poet Ernst Anschutz.
The myth of the yule log hearkens oral history, and is one of those pagan fire-survival rituals adopted with convenient celerity by so-called Christian liturgy. For humans residing predominantly in the northern hemisphere, yule-tide is a period of bitter cold and chronic darkness from winter solstice to the new year; it intersects with the 12 days of Christmas.
Since no Christmas tree could hardly be imagined without wrapped gifts stacked underneath, my parody of these nearly two hundred year old words reminds us of those material relations that motivate past and present cultures. The season is a great excuse for making money and accumulating wealth. It’s what keeps Jeff Bezos richer than Croesus.
Copyright by Michael Monasky © 2019. All right reserved.
Most of what we know today as Christmas lore is based upon marketing strategies to make money. O Tannenbaum is a strictly non-religious but Silesian cultural folk song composed by the late 16th Century equivalent of Sir Paul McCartney; one Melchior Franck. (Lower Silesia was the western lowland of Poland along the Oder River, including tiny parts of eastern Germany and the Czech Republic.) The lyrics for the tune were drafted in the early 19th Century by German poet Ernst Anschutz.
The myth of the yule log hearkens oral history, and is one of those pagan fire-survival rituals adopted with convenient celerity by so-called Christian liturgy. For humans residing predominantly in the northern hemisphere, yule-tide is a period of bitter cold and chronic darkness from winter solstice to the new year; it intersects with the 12 days of Christmas.
Since no Christmas tree could hardly be imagined without wrapped gifts stacked underneath, my parody of these nearly two hundred year old words reminds us of those material relations that motivate past and present cultures. The season is a great excuse for making money and accumulating wealth. It’s what keeps Jeff Bezos richer than Croesus.
O’ Amazon
O’ Amazon, O’ Amazon
Your ozone beams glow
brightly
O’ Amazon, O’ Amazon
A cyber-junket
nightly
While markets flow
and markets ebb
We wander through
your deep, dark web
O’ Amazon, O’ Amazon
A time of year to
celebrate
O’ Amazon, O’ Amazon
To shop and spend and
stay up late
A time to pause, sort
out our fears
[When] “existential”
[is the] Word of the Year
O’ Amazon, O’ Amazon
I’m gazing through my
blood-shot eyes
O’ Amazon, O’ Amazon
Consume and buy, I
wonder why
As time grows short,
my patience thin
Your box displays a
sardonic grin
O’ Amazon, O’ Amazon
The drivers dance a
demanding grind
O’ Amazon, O’ Amazon
Deliver Prime
in manic time
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1 comment
Happy New Year! Amazon warehouse workers earn on average $13.50 per hour. Meanwhile, Amazon stockholders enjoyed a 23% return on their investment in 2019! Making America Great Again?
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