"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
Author: David
Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
Two things I dislike intensely: “gospel” used as a description of a style of pop music and “Christmas Carol” used to describe a song that has nothing whatsoever to do with the Advent of Christ.
It would take to long to explain, so as Inigo Montoya put it, let me sum up:
A gospel song is rightly (and only, as far as I am concerned) a song that relates the good news (euangelion, evengel, GOSPEL) of Christ. Period. A Christmas Carol is a song on the theme of Christ’s birth. Songs about “traditional” goings-on around the holiday of Christmas, as celebrated as a secular event, or songs that are about secular things surrounding traditions that are NOT about Christ’s birth, or simply “Winter songs” of some sort, are not Christmas carols, and in fact, most are only marginally about peripheral traditions that have come to be associated with the holiday, not the event the holiday supposedly celebrates.
Oh, and “Christmas magic” or “the magic of Christmas”? The terms are pure, unadulterated nonsense when used to refer to Christmas, which is ostensibly an observance of the LEAST MAGICAL but one of the two most miraculous events ever to occur. Magic =/= miraculous, and in fact, the two are in no way related.
But, maybe it’s just me. . .
Oh, and I find both real gospel music and real Xmas music appropriate any time of the year. Here:
Mitt hjerte alltid vanker
– English translation (my favorite of various translations)
My heart will always wander
To where our Lord was born,
My thoughts will always go there
And take on their true form.
My longing heart belongs there,
With the treasure of my faith;
I never shall forget you,
O blessed Christmas night!
I’ll willingly spread branches
Of palms around your bed.
For you and you alone
I will gladly live and die.
Come, let my soul find joy
In this moment of delight:
To see you born right here,
Inside my loving heart.
Admittedly, our diverse and “integrated: home network involves devices using (at least, by last count) six different OSes, though most are just different versions of Windows, Linux (and another ‘nix OS), and Android, but of the Windows boxes, only one was still using my fav, to date, Windows version, Win7Pro. Oh, well, no more. One hour into the upgrade, and the installation process notes 12% installed (though it lies; it’ll take quite some time to get it really installed, locked down, and configured). Amusing thing is that although I really only needed a valid license key, the least expensive license key from a genuine M$-authorized retailer was only available by purchasing a USB drive with the installation files. It was a little over $1 cheaper than purchasing a license key “with download.” Didn’t need the flash drive (have the latest installation files; I download them monthly just in case someone needs repairs that Win10 borks on–it’s happened more than once), but bought the flash drive/license key combo, ‘cos, well a lil over $1 cheaper and included a flash drive I could repurpose.
I only, finally, caved, because recent iterations of Win10 work pretty well with a music transcription software I consider an essential program (and no, it does NOT work well on a Linux box, no matter how much I have tweaked WINE–THE reason I kept that particular Windows box at Win7: poor Linux execution of Windows calls on that software and slightly hinky operation in earlier Win10 operation). Oh, and Me$$y$oft is making their noises about end of support for Win7. Still not real happy with some parts of Win10 (and utterly despise some others *cough* Cortana among those *cough*), but it’s good enough for some uses.
After that computer is set up right, time for monthly checks on the ‘nix boxes.
Some 40 years ago, when we were “young marrieds,” before our first child, we purchased a nice set of “waterless” cookware. And it was nice, with but one flaw that made itself known over the next 20+ years: the pseudo-bakelite handles were not really all that durable, and as the less-than-durable handles (including the pot lids) failed, replacements. . . weren’t. Available, that is. Still, some components remain useful.
Fast forward to today when I was looking for a way to “fry” eggs in my air pressure/fryer/sous vide/slow cooker (love these combo appliances, when they work). Ah! The lil cups for the steamer/egg poacher add-on to the waterless cookware set! Yep. All six of them fit very nicely in the cooker. I love it when past and present come together to make things work well.
Granted, rifles are used–willfully or accidentally–in a wee bit south of ~400 deaths per year in the US, and deer are only responsible for killing ~150 people per year, but why aren’t people who are concerned about deaths from abuse of AR-15s (a fraction of that less than 400 deaths) also clamoring for the elimination of deer and celebrating those heroes who go out into the deer woods to thin the numbers of these murderous beasts? Why? Because they just do not care, that’s why. *heh*
Of course, Leftoid morons would probably prefer to deal with the problem of Kamikaze Deer murdering innocent motorists by more effective signage telling the deer to cross at places where they are less likely to kill or maim humans (more than 10,000/year injured in less successful deer attacks), or cause the ~$1,000,000,00 of damages they do yearly.
Consider reading the manual on a piece of equipment before blithely screwing things up in a confident burst of incompetence.
I once tossed a copy of a Haynes manual on a particular car to a mechanic who had screwed up work on that make/model and told him to do his homework before he touched another one. He did NOT like it. Don’t care. I didn’t like him. Heck, the Haynes manual was not nearly enough to cover all the intricacies of that car, but had he referred to even a Haynes, he would have had a really hard time screwing up as badly as he had. At the time, the manual was only $10, so I felt the snub was well worth it.
Was at my fav “fell off the back of a truck store,” today, and passed through the “$1 salvage items” aisle. Saw a $1 box of 12 bottles of BSP (buffered sodium phosphate) solution–bottled and prepped for use as enemas–and thought to myself, “Self, since thou doest always gargle salt water (sodium chloride + h2o) and this BSP is sodium phosphate+sodium chloride+water, and ingestion of “gargle water” ain’t on the menu, why not? Yeh, if and or when I get a sore throat this winter, I’m-a giving my mouth an enema. (Small amounts of sodium phosphates via mouth–traces not spit out with “gargle water”–are not harmful, and. . . prepackaged!)
I don’t like to travel out of the county, much. Oh, if “out of the county” is no more than 30 miles or so (INCLUDING miles in-county), I can manage it, and have as chauffeur for Son&Heir’s recent back injury (compression fracture of T-12 vertebra), but I do not like it. I consider an arduous trek to WallyWorld (15 miles away from TWC Central) to be far enough, most times, now.
Some of the places I like to visit are as far away as the mid-20s in miles from TWC Central (A.K.A. “Ye Olde Homestead”), so there’s that. But. *profound sigh* My sisters are trying to promote a family get-together next fall in Branson for a “gospel music extravaganza” type thing. *sigh*
#1 I HUGELY dislike Branson, “The Vegas of the Ozarks.” Even w/o the gambling and the other “Sin City” activities (at least in the open; there’s plenty of sin anywhere one goes, even if it’s just to the kitchen and back *heh*), Branson is just. . . tacky, IMO.
#2. Crowds. For me a crowd is more than somewhere between 2-5 people (and my sisters and their spouses, let alone brother and his spouse, not to mention children and grandchildren) exceed my capacity by themselves, and that’s before Branson-level crowds. (Didn’t use to be like this; being in/performing for large crowds used to be enjoyable. Touchy old bear, now.)
#3. The activities they are touting are NOT my cuppa, not in any way, shape, fashion, or form. I like real gospel music well enough, but done for a performance? No. Just no.
#4. And then there’s all that travel to get there. Must be 80 miles or more! *heh* (Yeh, yeh: all of them would be coming from out of state, but they LIKE travel and do it a lot.)
*shrugs* Happy to offer a cookout for ’em on their way through, though. Limited crowd exposure (time and numbers); no glitz and faux “gospel” singing. If they wanna see me, they can look at my profile pic. Visit? Sure. Drop on by, one (or two)-on-one, or use email or phone. Mass get-togethers? Please, no. Last one was Mother’s funeral, and while the funeral service itself was a blessing (apart from being forced to lead the congregational singing–multiple reasons that was a bad idea at the time), the travel and “family meal” afterwards was not. I took my fellow travelers and di-di-maued as expeditiously as possible.
“Auzenne was a vocal advocate for stricter gun control in the United States with multiple social media postings calling for an end to gun violence and Facebook profile pictures that bore the hashtags #Enough and #EndGunViolence.”
Well, killing her own children certainly makes her point. Not. The article hand waves a bit of “depression” and “anxiety” along with physical problems, NONE of which are excuses or reasons for killing her own children. The only explanation is that she embraced evil and made it her own.
Well, I used to start listening to Xmas music fairly soon after Easter (I had my reasons–good ones), but in recent years that has faded to somewhere around the end of September/into October, as I begin compiling playlists for the season. The other day, a review of and selections from Il Volo’s “Buon Natale” album. Nice stuff. Fun to hear young voices doing so well that I’m generally happy to ignore the surprising (for Italians) incidents of poor vowels–largely dipthongs that would, in Italian, be much purer vowel sounds. (“Ave Maria,” for but one example, with a beautiful initial vowel on “ave” that lapses to a seriously distracting “uh” at the end of “Maria”–but not consistently or with all three voices. *shrugs* I’m really baffled by that.)
All but two songs on the album are going on one of my Xmas 2019 playlists, although I might cut two more “not really Xmas” pop songs. No, not “might”–definitely will.
Oh, and although I am very familiar with the piece, I am aways a bit surprised that “Panis Angelicus” is in 4/4 time. Just one of those quirks of my mental ear. I have no idea why that is.
After this, a quick listen through (or three–ended up being more< *shrugs* ) to An Emmylou Harris Xmas album. I don’t know if I’ll get to include “Christmas Time’s A Comin'” in a playlist this year. Maybe in one that only I listen to, ‘cos my Wonder Woman really dislikes it for some reason. *heh* I’ll probably cut “Man Is an Island,” “Cherry Tree Carol,” and “Angel Eyes” for idiosyncratic reasons, but “Light in the Stable,” “Beautiful Star of Bethlehem” and the rest are pure gold, IMO. (I have NO idea why Emmylou Harris is so easy for me to listen to, since her vocal habits are a conglomeration of things that annoy my ear, and her musical style as a whole is one of my least favorites, but there it is: her singing appeals to me anyway)
That reminds me I need to also pick through a Christmas album from the George Shearing Quintet. Yeh, and I missed some YoYo Ma selections last year, so I need to find those, as well.
Compiling Xmas playlists has become a standard (and much enjoyed) activity around this time of year. And since I don’t really “do” Halloween, it’s also a nice anodyne for all that, urm, stuff.
Oh, and it’s a kinda different exercise for other reasons, For one (two and three), I’m not concerning myself with making it “programatic”–that is, concerns of “storytelling” (lyrics of one song leading to the next), tone, key, and tempo, etc.–as all that is out the door for this. I’m simply arranging them willy-nilly (<i>or will he nil heWell, I used to start listening to Xmas music fairly soon after Easter (I had my reasons–good ones), but in recent years that has faded to somewhere around the end of September/into October, as I begin compiling playlists for the season. Today, a review of and selections from Il Volo’s “Buon Natale” album. Nice stuff. Fun to hear young voices doing so well that I’m generally happy to ignore the surprising (for Italians) incidents of poor vowels–largely dipthongs that would, in Italian, be much purer vowel sounds. (“Ave Maria,” for but one example, with a beautiful initial vowel on “ave” that lapses to a seriously distracting “uh” at the end of “Maria”–but not consistently or with all three voices. *shrugs* I’m really baffled by that.)
All but two songs on the album are going on one of my Xmas 2019 playlists, although I might cut two more “not really Xmas” pop songs. No, not “might”–definitely will.
Oh, and although I am very familiar with the piece, I am aways a bit surprised that “Panis Angelicus” is in 4/4 time. Just one of those quirks of my mental ear. I have no idea why that is.
After this, a quick listen through (or three–ended up being more *shrugs* ) to An Emmylou Harris Xmas album. I don’t know if I’ll get to include “Christmas Time’s A Comin'” in a playlist this year. Naybe in one that only I listen to, ‘cos my Wonder Woman really dislikes it for some reason. *heh* I’ll probably cut “Man Is an Island,” “Cherry Tree Carol,” and “Angel Eyes” for idiosyncratic reasons, but “Light in the Stable,” “Beautiful Star of bethlehem” and the rest are pure gold, IMO. (I have NO idea why Emmylou Harris is so easy for me to listen to, since her vocal habits are a conglomeration of things that annoy my ear, and her musical style as a whole is one of my least favorites, but there it is: her singing appeals to me anyway)
That reminds me I need to also pick through both an album by Pacido Domingo and a Christmas album from the George Shearing Quintet. Yeh, and I missed some YoYo Ma selections last year, so I need to include those, as well.
Compiling Xmas playlists has become a standard (and much enjoyed) activity around this time of year. And since I don’t really “do” Halloween, it’s also a nice anodyne for all that, urm, stuff.
Oh, and it’s a kinda different exercise for other reasons, For one )two and three), I’m not concerning myzself with making it “programatic”–that is, concerns of “storytelling” (lyrics of one song leading to the next), tone, key, and tempo, etc.–as all that is out the door for this. I’m simply arranging them willy-nilly (or will he nil he *heh*)
*huh* More than three hours on one playlist, so far. NO “pop” pseudo-Xmas songs, just songs in some was really related to Christmas.
And, as always for the last decade or more, my fav Xmas song, Mitt Hjerte Alltid Vanker, is on the main playlist in several instrumental renditions (yes, by the same artist–Tine Thing Helseth) and another time as performed by Sissel. And, of course, O Helga Natt (twice–different artists–Sissel and Jussi Bjorling) and Cantique Noel (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau). I’ve not found a performance in English that is as well-performed as those three in their respective languages (2-Swedish, one French–as originally written).
Mitt hjerte alltid vanker
– English translation (my favorite of various translations)
My heart will always wander
To where our Lord was born,
My thoughts will always go there
And take on their true form.
My longing heart belongs there,
With the treasure of my faith;
I never shall forget you,
O blessed Christmas night!
I’ll willingly spread branches
Of palms around your bed.
For you and you alone
I will gladly live and die.
Come, let my soul find joy
In this moment of delight:
To see you born right here,
Inside my loving heart. *heh*)
