I've been dogsitting for a friend all week, and as such have paid a bit more attention than usual to my neighborhood's sidewalks. As I've been walking the pooch, I've noticed in the past few days that a large number of Christmas Trees have been placed out on the side walk...which makes me wonder: Are the people who kept their trees up hardcore Catholics who actually know that it is appropriate to leave your tree standing until the Feast of the Ephiphany (The 12th Day of Christmas) or is it just that these people were lazy?
I mean sure you have your people who take down the tree on Dec 26th, Christmas is over, time for the tree to go. You have your people who take it down on Jan 1st or 2nd (the end of the holiday season for most of the secular or protestant world) and then you have people who left it up till this week. We've had a weekend since New Years, they could have taken their trees down then. So does that mean my neighborhood actually has that many serious Catholics in it? Or is it simply that my neighborhood has that many lazy fucks in it? These are the questions that weigh on my mind.
Anyway, Chin Up Chin Up does a kind of watered down Modest Mouse thing here with a little bit of swirly keyboards to make sure we know that this was recorded in the middle 2000's and a lackadasical approach to singing that only barely qualifies as such. Nice enough, but doesn't blow me away.
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Friday, January 9, 2009
Monday, December 29, 2008
April Showers - Secret Agent Gel - No Floor - 2006
Well, I'm back from my Christmas hiatus in the land of sweatpants and melted cheese and I managed to come back relatively unscathed. However...
For various reasons, I decided to rent a car and drive to visit my parents this winter. By and large this was a good decision that I do not regret, with one exception.
The drive from NYC to Cincinnati is about 11 hours long, and despite getting a late start and the fact that NYC got snow on the day before, our trips were relatively uneventful. 11 hours in a car can be a test on even the best of relationships, but my lady and I managed just fine enjoying the music and the sites and the road food. All was good.
The drive from my parents house in Cincy to my grandparents house in butt-fuck Indiana (Poland, IN, if you want to get technical about it) is typically about 2.5 to 3 hours. Shortly before we got to Indianapolis traffic began slowing down due to the freezing rain on the highway. By the time I pulled onto 465 (Indy's bipass) I was gliding through curves and clutching the wheel to make sure I stayed on track. Just west of Indy I got on 70 and stopped at the rest stop (which would later prove to be a great idea). Within ten minutes we were in completely stopped traffic. Between the hours of 430 and 1130 we moved about a mile and a half. I have to say both of us kept our temper pretty well (and hats off to my diabetic girlfriend for making it through without a potty break...or killing me). It wasn't until about 830 that I really started throwing my shit out the window (so to speak). For the first couple of hours you just sit there thinking "Well, this is annoying, but I'm just going to hang out with my grandparents, nothing that I can't be late for...surely it'll clear up any minute" And then it doesn't...and it doesn't...and it doesn't.
Even when we finally started moving again the roads were so icy that not much progress was being made. The fifteen mile drive to the next exit took an hour, when we finally got there we immediately went flying to the gas station bathroom and then went looking for hotel. Despite the fact that we were only 15 miles from my grandparents house, it was well after midnight and I wasn't sure I could navigate the country roads in the ice. However, the fact that all 4 hotels in the truckstop town were completely filled (People were even sleeping in the hallways and lobby) meant that I had to try my luck.
By the time I finally arrived at my grandparents it was 1:30...so it actually took me an hour longer to drive from Cincy to Poland, IN than it did from NYC to Cincy. But on the plus side, it's all over now.
This is my buddy Corey performing as Secret Agent Gel. His music is a bit more dancey and electronica-y than my usual taste, but I've gotta give my man credit for sound quality on this stuff and, as always, for having the hussle to produce his own work. That's more energy than I generally exert.
For various reasons, I decided to rent a car and drive to visit my parents this winter. By and large this was a good decision that I do not regret, with one exception.
The drive from NYC to Cincinnati is about 11 hours long, and despite getting a late start and the fact that NYC got snow on the day before, our trips were relatively uneventful. 11 hours in a car can be a test on even the best of relationships, but my lady and I managed just fine enjoying the music and the sites and the road food. All was good.
The drive from my parents house in Cincy to my grandparents house in butt-fuck Indiana (Poland, IN, if you want to get technical about it) is typically about 2.5 to 3 hours. Shortly before we got to Indianapolis traffic began slowing down due to the freezing rain on the highway. By the time I pulled onto 465 (Indy's bipass) I was gliding through curves and clutching the wheel to make sure I stayed on track. Just west of Indy I got on 70 and stopped at the rest stop (which would later prove to be a great idea). Within ten minutes we were in completely stopped traffic. Between the hours of 430 and 1130 we moved about a mile and a half. I have to say both of us kept our temper pretty well (and hats off to my diabetic girlfriend for making it through without a potty break...or killing me). It wasn't until about 830 that I really started throwing my shit out the window (so to speak). For the first couple of hours you just sit there thinking "Well, this is annoying, but I'm just going to hang out with my grandparents, nothing that I can't be late for...surely it'll clear up any minute" And then it doesn't...and it doesn't...and it doesn't.
Even when we finally started moving again the roads were so icy that not much progress was being made. The fifteen mile drive to the next exit took an hour, when we finally got there we immediately went flying to the gas station bathroom and then went looking for hotel. Despite the fact that we were only 15 miles from my grandparents house, it was well after midnight and I wasn't sure I could navigate the country roads in the ice. However, the fact that all 4 hotels in the truckstop town were completely filled (People were even sleeping in the hallways and lobby) meant that I had to try my luck.
By the time I finally arrived at my grandparents it was 1:30...so it actually took me an hour longer to drive from Cincy to Poland, IN than it did from NYC to Cincy. But on the plus side, it's all over now.
This is my buddy Corey performing as Secret Agent Gel. His music is a bit more dancey and electronica-y than my usual taste, but I've gotta give my man credit for sound quality on this stuff and, as always, for having the hussle to produce his own work. That's more energy than I generally exert.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Apples in the Trees - Mirah - Advisory Comittee - 2001
If you read this blog, you probably know that I am a fairly cynical person. (Actually, if you read this blog, you probably actually KNOW ME...so that's probably an unneccesary statement). I dislike forced sentimentality or any easy play on my emotions. I find traditions for traditions sake appalling, and I find the state of modern religion to be horrifying.
Having said all that, it might come as something of a surprise that I am a sucker for Christmas. And no, not cause of gifts, I rarely get many. No, I love the whole thing...okay, that's not true either, I hate the crass commercialism of the current incarnation. But I love the spirit of Christmas. The idea of a day in which we celebrate the possibility of good, of charity and love and hope in our darkest hour, the idea that God sent someone to help us...all of this fills me with warmth. I love the lights and the songs and the good cheer. I even love fucking egg nog.
And perhaps absurdly I love A Christmas Carol...and in particular the 1984 made for TV version with the incomporable George C. Scott, which I watched on TV last night.
I remember the Christmas of 1984 when it ran on TV laying on the floor of the living room of my grandmother's house with the other grandchildren (of which I'm the oldest) watching in awe and comforting the younger kids (I was all of 9) during the "scary" parts. And this became a tradition for the may years in which they continued to run it. I remember reading and re-reading the little leather bound copy my grandmother had on her book shelf. To me, this movie is Christmas.
It's memorable for many reasons, probably most for Scott's performance which is never cartoony and just campy enough to be vastly entertaining. You have all of the Dickensian/Victorian trappings...God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Here We Come a Wassaling, bed curtains, Jacob Marley's chains, Mr. Fezzywhig, Belle's punch, Scrooge's maid...and of course Tiny Tim's RIDICULOUS British lisp.
The thing that really struck me the most in this viewing though was that...viewing the film now, as an adult, the reactions of the various characters to the reformed Scrooge are really wonderful. To them, without the benifits of specteral holiday visitors, it must have seemed as if Scrooge has had a stroke and accidentally emerged a better man. They look at him out of the side of their eyes, as if expecting at any moment for the miserable old fuck they knew for all these years to emerge, only to still be talking to this strangely jolly old man. Fred Hollywell can't even figure out why he'd be at the front door. The men from the orphanage wait for the moment where he reveals he's fucking with them, only for it never to come. Bob Cratchit assumes he's about to be fired at any minute.
Really really good stuff, and all in the holiday spirit...and we certainly need that these days. Between world events and the fact that it is 443 PM and already pitchblack here in NYC...we could use a little of the Ghost of Christmas present with his bright torch and jolly ways.
Anyway, this in no way connects to Mirah and her hippie Portland lesbian ways...but while I prefer You Think It's Like This...to the more adventuresome and less succesful Advisory Comittee, this is one of the better songs on the album.
Having said all that, it might come as something of a surprise that I am a sucker for Christmas. And no, not cause of gifts, I rarely get many. No, I love the whole thing...okay, that's not true either, I hate the crass commercialism of the current incarnation. But I love the spirit of Christmas. The idea of a day in which we celebrate the possibility of good, of charity and love and hope in our darkest hour, the idea that God sent someone to help us...all of this fills me with warmth. I love the lights and the songs and the good cheer. I even love fucking egg nog.
And perhaps absurdly I love A Christmas Carol...and in particular the 1984 made for TV version with the incomporable George C. Scott, which I watched on TV last night.
I remember the Christmas of 1984 when it ran on TV laying on the floor of the living room of my grandmother's house with the other grandchildren (of which I'm the oldest) watching in awe and comforting the younger kids (I was all of 9) during the "scary" parts. And this became a tradition for the may years in which they continued to run it. I remember reading and re-reading the little leather bound copy my grandmother had on her book shelf. To me, this movie is Christmas.
It's memorable for many reasons, probably most for Scott's performance which is never cartoony and just campy enough to be vastly entertaining. You have all of the Dickensian/Victorian trappings...God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Here We Come a Wassaling, bed curtains, Jacob Marley's chains, Mr. Fezzywhig, Belle's punch, Scrooge's maid...and of course Tiny Tim's RIDICULOUS British lisp.
The thing that really struck me the most in this viewing though was that...viewing the film now, as an adult, the reactions of the various characters to the reformed Scrooge are really wonderful. To them, without the benifits of specteral holiday visitors, it must have seemed as if Scrooge has had a stroke and accidentally emerged a better man. They look at him out of the side of their eyes, as if expecting at any moment for the miserable old fuck they knew for all these years to emerge, only to still be talking to this strangely jolly old man. Fred Hollywell can't even figure out why he'd be at the front door. The men from the orphanage wait for the moment where he reveals he's fucking with them, only for it never to come. Bob Cratchit assumes he's about to be fired at any minute.
Really really good stuff, and all in the holiday spirit...and we certainly need that these days. Between world events and the fact that it is 443 PM and already pitchblack here in NYC...we could use a little of the Ghost of Christmas present with his bright torch and jolly ways.
Anyway, this in no way connects to Mirah and her hippie Portland lesbian ways...but while I prefer You Think It's Like This...to the more adventuresome and less succesful Advisory Comittee, this is one of the better songs on the album.
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