Wednesday, December 08, 2004

the uncanny Xmas

We have 2 CDs of Christmas music -- Kent's is old crooners like Bing Crosby and Dean Martin. Bing, however, does not sing "White Christmas." Instead he sings "Holiday Inn", a generic holiday song. "Holiday Inn" is not a Christmas song, not, at least, any more than it's an Easter song or 4th of July song. ... Or was it "Happy Holidays"? Whichever. My CD, which I bought a few years ago, is a benefit for, I think, Choice ... it includes Luscious Jackson and The Presidents of the United States of America. Since I've been burning mix CDs from music I've listened to at my desk at work I thought I could fix the lack of a decent CD of Christmas music by listening to a bunch of samplers and boiling them down to a Best. I now have nearly 3 hours of music in a iTunes playlist. So I'm figuring now that I'll mix up 2 or 3 CDs. A rockin' Christmas, a croonin' Christmas, an are-these-really-Chrismas-songs Christmas. Or something. My sources are a stack of CDs I grabbed from the clearance bins at Amoeba, spent a maximum of $2 per CD (less, as when you buy 3 clearance CDs you get the 4th free). Of course, the library also owns many Christmas music CDs so I've started listening to those, too.

I thought it was gonna be torture. Egad! Tired old Christmas carols! But it's been rather fun. I've heard some pleasant versions of "Merry Gentlemen" and "Silent Night" ... and I've heard rather wearisome versions.

On my way home today I stopped in at the drugstore and at the checkout counter I saw a display of Christmas CDs ... was amused to see one of Bah-Humbug Chrismas songs with liner notes by Harvey Pekar. The CD is called "Yule Be Miserable". Tempting.

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