Librari[d]an

For some reason I didn’t think Benazir Bhutto could be assassinated. Successful assassinations seem like something from a bygone era. (Case in point: Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Viktor Yuschenko are still alive.) It’s distressing to think how this event will further destabilize Pakistan. I wasn’t particularly fond of Bhutto or Pervez Musharraf’s politics, so it’s painful to see their positions depicted as polar opposites. (They certainly are not opposites, or the only viable options.) Of course, this artificial dichotomy will only be reinforced by - what I consider insinuations from this New York Times article - that the Pakistani government neglected Bhutto’s security to discourage her from speaking publicly. (”The aide dismissed complaints from members of Ms. Bhutto’s party that the government failed to provide adequate security for Ms. Bhutto.”)

Things to ponder: Is it the United States’ role to protect voices of dissent abroad? And if we do, is it ethical to pick and choose who is safeguarded and who is not?

:: Bibliography ::

Masood, Salman, Graham Bowley, and David Rohde. “Bhutto Assassinated in Attack on Rally.” The New York Times, 28 December 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/28/world/asia/28pakistan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin (27 December 2007).

This season I scored an aluminum Christmas tree at the Salvation Army! And let me tell you, Charles Shulz got it all wrong when he criticized them in A Charlie Brown Christmas. They were depicted as the embodiment of the holiday’s commodification: an economical and soulless alternative to the charming tradition of decorating a real tree. At the time, adopting this reactionary opinion was acceptable. Nowadays, I’ll take you to town if you talk smack on my delightful, foliose foil tree.

Let’s challenge the arguments - both past and present - against the aluminum tree (in brief):

1. Consumerism - Schulz’s baseless, Marxist criticism. Consumerism is consumerism, whether the tree has been raised on a farm or synthesized in a factory. The alternative, cutting a tree down in the wild, is simply not environmentally responsible.

2. Anti-tradition - It’s common knowledge nowadays that the tradition of the Christmas tree is rooted in pagan, Germanic folk traditions. This, combined with the fact that tradition is inherently fluid, sort of undermines any pro-tradition arguments. Let’s move on.

3. Ugly - If you’re reading this you’re using the internet, and if you’re using the internet you know how ugly the world can be. Can a glittering, silver, tree-shaped apparatus be any uglier than some of the .jpgs you’ve come across? I thought not. Of course, accidentally seeing heinous images on the net is very different from bringing something into your living space. My answer to this is that standards of beauty differ widely, and that aluminum trees come in a variety of colors. (Pink! Gold! Hurrah!)

4. Nostalgia / kitsch - The intellectual’s criticism of an aluminum tree is that it cultivates nostalgia and encourages sentimentalism, locating the best part of our lives in a highly Romanticized/fictionalized past. This is especially pertinent to the time when the trees themselves were introduced in the United States–the late 1950s. To remember the fifties fondly is, apparently, complicity in a sexist, racist, and ultimately conservative world view. I reject this criticism because it is a reductive way to envision an entire decade of a nation’s history. I also reject it because nostalgia plays no part in my enjoyment of an aluminum tree; I just like the way multi-colored lights play on the metal.

5. Dangerous - Aluminum trees are metal. Christmas lights have an electric current running through them. Put them together and the whole double wide goes up in flames. Happily, those of us with a lick of sense will not suffer from self-immolation.

Please consider a (second hand) aluminum Christmas tree next year. (If it must be a plastic pre-lit type, get one with LED lights! They use less electricity.) I will think you a better person for it.

L’amour de l’étymologie is a feature exploring the etymology of English words. Today’s entry is carom, also sometimes spelled carrom. Visit this link to hear the folks at Merriam-Webster pronounce it. Lord knows why the OED only uses the international phonetic alphabet. Some people are auditory learners. (…or lazy types like me who haven’t bothered to learn the IPA.)

The first recorded use of the word was by Charles Jones in 1775 in the book Hoyle’s Games improved. An abbreviation of carambole, a noun meaning the red ball used in a game of billiards, it has since developed a distinct meaning. Carom can act as a noun, and refers to a shot in billiards when the cue ball hits two balls in succession. (Need to visualize? Check out this video of Semih Sayginer showing off his caroming skills/knowledge of trajectory angles.)

Carom also has a more generalized meaning when used as an intransitive verb. To carom is to “strike or glance and rebound”. So, flat stones can carom across the surface of a pond when thrown properly. It can also be employed figuratively: Bernard Wolfe wrote in Limbo ‘90 that a “phrase caromed through his mind.” Carom is used figuratively chiefly in the good old US of A.

:: Bibliography ::

“Carom.” Oxford English Dictionary. 2007. 21 Dec. 2007 <http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/findword?query_type=word&queryword=carom&find.x=0&find.y=0&find=Find+word>.

                                        Looking for the lyrics to “The Nun’s Litany”? Click here.

I have never come across a Magnetic Fields album that did not immediately speak to me. The first of their songs I ever heard, “Long-Forgotten Fairytale”, hit me like a punch in the gut. I was in pain, I was smitten. It was like Merritt and co. had found a pop grimoire containing an enchantment to make me theirs forever. This new album is challenging our innate entente cordiale. I have only listened to Distortion once all the way through, and am afraid to do so again. Should I have to first think critically about a Fields album in order to appreciate it? I’ve never had to before.

I am trying to be receptive to this sound. It’s a fact of playing and recording music that not everything can be as crisp and perfect as an interested party might wish. But as I am no stranger to intentional distortion - fuzz was practically my middle name for a while there - it’s sort of weird that I’m finding the vast majority of the tracks relatively inaccessible. So far, the only one I honestly have no reservations about loving - in terms of music, lyrics, and performance - is “The Nun’s Litany”. (It helps a bit that I prefer Shirley’s vocals to Stephin’s.)

Of the reviews I’ve read, critics have been linking Distortion in tone to Charm of the Highway Strip (one of my faves) and in execution to any number of past songs. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Charm did deal extensively with isolation and loneliness, but the mien is very different: Charm had a warmth and fortitude that you don’t see in Distortion. As for stylistic choices, the use of distortion itself is nothing new for the Magnetic Fields. It just hasn’t permeated an entire album this way.

I cannot even think about this anymore. I need to listen to the album again, on a better sound system, stat.

Many Christmas carols are maligned. This may occur for any number of reasons: songs may be instrumental, depressing, non-nostalgic, contemporary, or too religious/too secular in nature. I think the most likely reason of all, however, is that these orphaned songs aren’t drilled into the collective unconscious by television ads, chain store playlists, radio, and film. Let’s revisit them, moving from awesome to slightly less awesome to “not exactly awesome but he needed ten.”

1. “Christmas is Coming” by the Vince Guaraldi Trio.

“Christmas is Coming”, from Guaraldi’s soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas, is consistently overshadowed by “Linus and Lucy” and “Skating”. However, this infectious, jazzy little number perfectly personifies the anticipation leading up to everyone’s favorite birthing. Whether it’s the pert little rest at 0:37 or the meandering interlude at 1:05, “Christmas is Coming” is more vivacious and musically interesting than anything else on the album.

2. The entirety of Nat King Cole’s Christmas-themed works.

Yes, his Christmas album is wildly popular. Yes, he butchers the German language in “O Tannenbaum”. But it’s the best ever, so people aren’t listening to it enough. (Epicure friend Lisa says there is a Nat King Cole children’s Christmas album. Must acquire!)

3. “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” translated from the Latin by John Mason Neale.

More poetry than carol, this magnificent Advent song is of unknown pedigree and seems to be rarely used even in Church services by Roman Catholics. Sober and solemn, I have seen people moved to tears by it. Not exactly holly jolly fare, but I’m sorta down with that. (Interestingly, the version I learned of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” has variant stanzas. For example: “O come thou wisdom from on high / Who ordered all thing mightly / To us the path of knowledge show / And teach us in her way to go” etc. Check out more variants here.)

4. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Judy Garland.

Sweet Jesus Christ, the melancholy! Old blue eyes’ cover of this song - the one you know and love - is nothing like Hugh Martin’s original and can be safely called a bastardization. The carol, already once revised because of its brooding nature, first appeared in the 1944 film Meet Me in St. Louis and was marked by its bittersweet tone and Garland’s pained vocal delivery. Haunting, perhaps the very embodiment of sehnsucht, this song is a staple for those of us who’d like a taste of our soul being crushed by profound emotion. For a bit more history, check out this article.

5. “Final Waltz and Apotheosis” from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker.

While the average Christmas enthusiast will immediately recognize the Valse des fleurs or any of the Divertissements from Tchaikovsky’s 71st opus, it is much less likely that they will be able to identify the Final Waltz and Apotheosis. Sweepingly Romantic and alive with a sense of triumph and accord, it perfectly exemplifies the elegance with which the work as a whole has come to be associated. I am particularly fond of Peter Wohlert and the Berlin Symphony Orchestra’s rendition of the Valse finale et apothéose; it is slightly faster and more expertly conducted than most other recordings.

6. “Here We Come A-Wassailing”.

A traditional New Years drinking song that has become associated with yuletide, this little number is a blast to belt out on a snowy doorstep. Nowadays you’ll usually hear a version with drastically sanitized lyrics, about caroling and Christmas rather than drink and cash. Wassailing, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (Oh no, L’amour de l’étymologie!?!), means to toast to one’s health, and has connotations of “carousing”–their word, not mine! I strongly encourage people everywhere to reclaim the original version of this song by acting out the lyrics as frequently as possible.

7. “I’m Gonna Lasso Santa Claus” by Brenda Lee.

Miss Lee is best known for “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”. In “Lasso” she employs an even more bizarre-cutsey voice to relate a child’s conviction to truss, shoot (with a water pistol), torture (tickle…), and finally steal the presents of Saint Nick. The reason for this glut of deviancy? To supply poor kids with presents, Communist style! This isn’t the only socially conscious, underrated Christmas carol; check out James Brown’s “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto” for a more saccharine song about impoverished, gift-hungry brats.

8. “Christmas Wrapping” by The Waitresses.

A Christmas carol that begins with “Bah! Humbug!”? Yes please! These deadpan ’80s ladies explore the delight an isolated cynic finds in rediscovering the pleasure that is the Christmas season. “Christmas Wrapping” is consistently recognized as a new classic by music-savvy hipsters, but is relatively unknown to the Christmas-celebrating population at large. It has been covered quite a great deal, on and off retail albums; however, alternate versions are odious and should be avoided like the plague.

9. “Once Upon a December” by Deana Carter.

Yeah, I’m man enough to admit that I like it. For the uninitiated, “Once Upon…” is a song from the animated film Anastasia. It occupies a precarious place in this list, as it is popular in the mainstream - with little girls and big fat women that never stopped being little girls - and not really a Christmas song. The in, of course, is the fact that it’s generally despised by anyone whose musical sensibilities command respect. Now all you smack-talkers take notice: Hear those sinister chimes in the intro? The rather interesting (for a children’s movie) imagery in the lyrics? The shamelessly hilarious backup singer that starts bellowing at 1:03? All pretty damn good reasons to give it another shot, to my mind.

10. “Good King Wenceslas” by John Mason Neale.

Another traditional carol to round out the top ten; I really just love this song because I can shout “Bring me meat and bring me wine, bring me pine logs hither!” at the top of my voice with impunity. Eighteenth Century British scholar John Mason Neale, translator of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”, composed the lyrics to accompany the 13th Century spring carol “It is Time for Flowering” (”Tempus Adest Floridum” in Latin). Methinks I’m going to have to look into this bloke for a future post; seems he has a monopoly on carols from antiquity.

And we’re done! Go out into the world and get these songs from your local library, illegally from the internet, or make them yourself by playing your nose and singing aloud. (If that last one really occurs, please post to YouTube for reasons that need not be verbalized.) Also, look forward to my next Christmas post, which will be about the “Top ten Christmas horror films of ultimate depravity”!

L’amour de l’étymologie is a feature exploring the etymology of English words. Today’s entry: Estivate, from the original æstivate, is a word I came across and wrote down, only to forget about and find years later on a scrap of paper. As you can imagine from the ash (”æ”) in the alternate spelling, estivate is rooted in Latin and came to anglophones by way of French.

The first recorded usage occurred in 1626 in Henry Cockeram’s The English dictionarie, or an interpreter of hard English words. (Strange subtitle, that.) The meaning has remained surprisingly unchanged over the centuries: It’s a verb that means “To spend the summer.” So the next time your parents are going to summer estivate in Cape May, use this more interesting and precise word instead!

Estivate also has a zoological meaning: “To pass the summer in a state of torpor or suspended animation.” So it’s basically the summer equivalent of hibernation, and occurs when reptiles, small mammals, and other organisms go into a state of dormancy to avoid the harshness of - what should more accurately be described as - the dry season. One super neat example is the lungfish, a fish that burrows deep into mud to survive summer droughts.

:: Bibliography ::

“Æstivate.” Oxford English Dictionary. 2007. 16 Dec. 2007 <http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/findword?query_type=word&queryword=aestivate&find.x=0&find.y=0&find=Find+word>.

Yes, we’ve all heard Ben Gibbard’s slow, sullen cover of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and perhaps you’ve even held onto your copy of Ted Leo’s version of “Since U Been Gone”; these re-imaginings are indicative of a larger trend to cover popular songs, especially whilst performing live. The problem I have with these covers is that people invariably contextualize them using pseudo-intellectual bombast. For example: “I can see redeeming qualities in this mechanically reproduced art. Blah blah mass produced blah blah auteur theory blah blah… (etc.)” Don’t you hate it when people spit Walter Benjamin at you and pretend they just cooked that up on their own?

So I am conflicted as to whether or not I detest the covers themselves or the people who claim they are elevating - pop trash to indie treasure - a popular form.

This all came about after watching this video of Owen Pallett (a.k.a. Final Fantasy) covering Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy”. Pallett is awesome - I’m sort of his groupie - but look at the infuriating way he laughs at the end of the song. (Edit: The original for comparative purposes and - dare I reveal my hypocrisy? - laughs.)