The article discusses Johnny Marks as a Jewish composer who wrote iconic Christmas songs like 'Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer' and 'Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree' - readers would benefit from learning more about his fascinating career and the broader phenomenon of Jewish songwriters shaping American Christmas music
The article explicitly references 'Yacht Rock anthems' and includes a yacht-rock cover video - this soft rock subgenre from the late 1970s-80s has a fascinating cultural history that readers encountering the term may not fully understand
(For the View From Your Window contest, the results below exceed the content limit for Substack’s email service, so to ensure that you see the full results, click the headline above.)
Some highlights from this week’s write-up:
A sleuth who got engaged in this view, and another who honeymooned there.
A band named Bumpin’ Uglies.
A super-sleuth with a moving tribute to his dad, who died in hospice not terribly far from this window last week.
I’m chuffed to receive the following note from a “long-time reader and off-and-on subscriber here”:
The last time I paused my subscription, I wondered what would make me reactivate it. Yesterday morning, when I opened the VFYW write-up and saw photo #487, I found out! I glanced at it and thought, “Huh, that looks an awful lot like downtown!” Zooming in confirmed that the photo really was taken three blocks away from my house, here in my adopted hometown of Hamilton! Of all the college towns I’ve lived in, it’s the smallest — and the one I’d have guessed to be the least likely to show up in VFYW!
So congratulations, Chris, you got me to resubscribe!
I always enjoy the follow-up notes, so I’m sharing a few of my own here. A few things my fellow sleuths didn’t cover include:
Two doors down from the Zen Den is Flour and Salt Bakery, where they make the best pain au chocolat that I’ve had outside of Paris.
Hamilton is delightfully walkable, so I’m including a few views from my walks, including the exterior of Oliveri’s from the corner of Lebanon and Maple (the well-lit place on the left side of the street):
… the tree in the Village Green lit for the holidays (which will be joined by a menorah next week):
… and a bridge over Payne Creek, which leads into Taylor Lake:
As you can see from the photos, winter is well underway here.
On the movie front, I was surprised no one mentioned The Addams Family. While several towns have houses they claim inspired Charles Addams, he attended Colgate for a year and we have our own Addams Family House.
And for the entrepreneurial among us, if someone has a cool million dollars
