Epiphany of the Lord: Matthew 2:1-12
The Magi's alien exoticism is an intrinsic part of Matthew's story.
American Bandstand and I came of age together. As I was entering my teens, Dick Clark’s television rock ’n’ roll dance party was cresting in popularity. Like many of my classmates, most days I would postpone algebra homework after school to watch Philadelphia’s youth bopping to the tunes of Danny and the Juniors, Lavern Baker, Dion and the Belmonts, and Gene Vincent.
At its peak, Bandstand drew more than 20 million viewers, and it was assumed that the audience was so large because of an expansive and shared youth culture. We teenagers, in other words, simply wanted to see people like us doing on national television what we liked to do ourselves at sock hops in the school gym.
Well, maybe for some, but not for me. I was an anxious adolescent in Georgia, glued to the television not because the kids on Bandstand were just like me but because they were not. There they were, these sleek and confident avatars with their Italian-cut suits, moussed hair, and tight skirts, wheeling with ease around the dance floor. Then, during the Rate-a-Record segment, they smacked their gum and told Clark in their almost indecipherable South Street accents that “they liked the beat and gave it a 90.” I knew they were from Philadelphia, but they might as well have been from Persia.
