“Andriy was dead: to begin with.”

Staring out a hotel window this morning onto a still-dark street—frail skirts of light clinging to the legs of the streetlamps; black-coated passers-by gliding along like ghosts from a dead commercial about the legroom in business class; every signpost sheathed in pine branches and with a floppy red bow around its neck, like someone’s country cousin at a slightly upscale buffet—I realized that I’d forgotten to post the batch of holiday links that I meant to include with the Christmas poem. And now I don’t have them with me; but I don’t want to miss the chance to point out the Onion Bag’s holiday podcast, a retelling of “A Christmas Carol” that, if you like soccer and Dickens as much as I do, is well worth a listen. It’s my firm opinion that soccer and Dickens should be brought together whenever possible, and I think this is a great start. Listen to it here, and enjoy.