I’ve been going through computer hard drives
both at home and work, clearing things out, because you should do that
periodically. And I came across some photos of the environs of my last
residence.
That's one of the downsides of living on a ridge: the climb is always on your return trip. Sixty-three steps up this hill every afternoon
on my way home from work. I’m very glad indeed that I don’t have to walk that
any more.
Right after the 2016 election, I gave my
thoughts on what we were in for with the least-qualified president in history
(yes, worse than Warren G. Harding and James Buchanan). While I was right that we
were in for a nightmare, I actually grossly underestimated the scope of the
possibilities for catastrophe. I’d been counting on the checks and balances put
in place by the founding fathers, and did not anticipate the level of
sycophancy to which the GOP in Congress would sink—turns out they’ve all had
their spines and their consciences surgically removed, and their only position
is self-abasement before the Chaos Monkey in hopes that they can retain control
of the legislative branch (and therefore access to their big donors’ money).
At this point, I have no words for the lot of
them, from Ryan and McConnell on down. There are a few who talk tough, but in
the end vote for whatever the Kleptocrat has decreed. The founding fathers,
having just fought a war against a system of government based on the Divine
Right of Kings, just never imagined they’d have to hardwire in protections
against a class of legislative toadies. Oops.
In the year since the inauguration (fun fact:
not only was the event sparsely attended, but turns out that many of those who
did show up were Russian “businessmen”,
hoping to be first through the door to cut deals with their new tovarich-in-chief;
quelle surprise), we’ve seen a constant stream of lies; missteps;
unconstitutional executive orders; playground-bully diplomacy; assaults on consumers,
immigrants, workers, science,the environment, our allies, history and basically
everyone/thing that doesn’t fit into his view of Those Who Can Further Enrich
Me. He and his Keystone Kops Kabinet have made the United States an
international laughingstock, as he blusters and preens, while the GOP keeps
nodding and applauding him.
(I personally had never imagined that we would
witness a group of high officials go round the room and give public thanks to
God on camera for the opportunity to
serve any elected official, much less an American one—but we have, twice. So
far.)
And every single revelation of yet another
scummy, disgusting behavior only makes his supporters like him all the more.
Because he is living proof that—when they win the Powerball—they too can be as
disgusting and scummy as he is, and no one will turn away from them. This is
especially true of his “Christian” supporters, who have been remarkably silent
about his affair with a porn star that began four months after his third wife
gave birth and continued for a year. They’re apparently not only down with the
adultery, but with him paying the woman $130,000 hush money a month before the
2016 election. Hey—if that was necessary to put a racist, misogynistic,
homophobic, ignorant xenophobe with no notion of governing and no human empathy
into office, then it was clearly God’s will, and therefore money well spent.
(Well, okay—they’re used to that sort of payoff from the likes of Jimmy
Swaggart and Jim Bakker.)
That ignorance of how government works has
resulted in this administration looking like amateur hour, from the first
immigration bans (overturned again and again by the courts) down to the current
government shutdown. Mitch McConnell (R-Bring-back-slavery) basically said he’d
be all for whatever the Chaos Monkey wanted, if he could just figure out what
that is. And Chuck Schumer (D-NY) declared on the Senate floor that trying to deal
with the Orange One is like “negotiating with Jell-O.” Klepto, of course
(and his supporters) thinks that’s good business practice, when in fact it’s
ineptitude.
And so here we are at the #TrumpShutdown.
(I make it a point never to use the Kleptocrat’s
name online, because I don’t want to contribute to his Klout score, even if the
context is negative; he and his ilk think that every mention of him attests to
his greatness. However, given his/their pathetic attempt to place the blame for
the current federal shutdown—the result of a Republican-controlled White House,
Senate and House’s inability to pass even another Continuing Resolution on the
budget—on Democrats, has led me, this once, to include this hashtag, which
burns his bacon: #TrumpShutdown. Feel free to use it on every social media
account you have.)
The Kleptocrat had Air Force One’s engines all
warmed up to fly him down to Florida on Friday, so he could get another weekend
of golf in and be the star of a fundraiser at his West Palm Beach club. He had
every intention of going there no matter what, but someone (my money’s on John
Kelly) took away his car keys and told him the optics of him doing that while
the government ground to a halt would be bigly bad. So he reverted to type and
tweeted how the Democrats were being mean
and making him suffer!
As Saturday came and went, with no escape to
Florida and counting the $100,000- and $250,000-a-couple gate for the “celebration”
of his inaugural anniversary, I’m picturing a toy-tossing tantrum of titanic
proportions at the White House. (The event went on, although I wonder if there
were refunds of the $250,000 tickets, which included participating in a “roundtable”
with the Kleptocrat. No Klepto, no roundtable, so… Yeah, okay, no—obviously it’s
harder to pry money out of the Chaos Monkey’s tiny hands than to get sense out
of one of his supporters. So there were no refunds.) At any rate, I would not
want to be the White House staffer who had to bring him his 14th
Diet Coke of the day.
But, hey—you want to celebrate the achievements
in the first year of this #shithole administration? How about these for
starters: first to be elected with the help of a hostile foreign power; most
days vacationing; most games of golf played; least number of bills signed;
lowest approval ratings; most provable lies; most cabinet firings/resignations;
most criminal indictments. (Also: first to make one of George Carlin's Seven Words You Can't Say on TV publishable in broadsheet newspapers.)
So that’s where we are today. But there’s cause
for hope, and therefore for gratitude.
A year ago, I reported on my experience at the
Women’s March on DC. There was so much to describe, it took me all week (here,
and here,
and here,
and here,
and here,
and here).
It was an extraordinary day, not only being part of it in DC, but also knowing
that women (and men and children) across the country and around the world came
out in their millions to serve notice that they weren’t going to stand idle
while a pussy-grabbing (and—as we now know—porn star-banging) ignoramus used
the planet as his personal piggy bank.
By way of reminder, here’s a comparison of the how
the National Mall looked at the Kleptocrat’s inauguration:
Versus the same real estate an hour before the
Women’s March on DC was supposed to have begun:
This year I was unable to join the first
anniversary march, being laid up with what I’m hoping is not the flu. But I am
greatly heartened by the reports of hundreds of thousands of women and men and
children who took to the streets in US cities in every state, and tens of
thousands more who did the same around the world—to remind those who try to
pervert the principles of democracy and decency that we the people will resist
and we the people will prevail.
(I—and thousands of others—got a laugh out of
him tweeting about the great weather across the country on Saturday being
perfect for marchers to get out and celebrate all his accomplishments. Although
it is concerning that delusions of tertiary syphilitic proportions seem to be
the guiding lights for someone
with this much power.)
I am grateful today for these people, and the millions
of more like them, for literally standing up and being counted. I am grateful
today for the voters
in elections around the country—from Alabama to Minnesota—serving notice
that even in the face of GOP voter suppression, we the people reject the party
of plutocrats and racists. I am grateful today for the 23 (so far and counting)
congressional Repugnants who’ve announced their retirement or resignation
because they know they wouldn’t win if they ran again, or because they’re
fleeing the results of being caught out in various crimes. (I resent every
nickel in retirement pay they’re getting, and look forward to the door hitting
their butts on the way out.) I am grateful today for Special Counsel Robert S.
Mueller, III—USMC combat veteran of Vietnam, former director of the FBI; and
generally acknowledged straight-arrow, unflappable, untouchable in pursuit of
the truth—and his team, who are continuing their probe into Russian
interference in the 2016 election despite the #TrumpShutdown, and despite the
efforts of GOP apparachiks in fear of being uncovered for their own kompromat
to close down the investigation.
And I’m grateful today for a new crop of
Democratic politicians who are standing up for the interests of all, regardless
of ability to grease their palms. Like Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill., and Lt.
Col. USA, Ret.), who lost both legs and suffered damage to an arm when an RPG shot down
the Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting in Iraq. A few years ago, while in
the House of Representatives, Duckworth neatly flayed a
federal contractor with a “disabled veteran” status whose “disability” came
from injuring his foot…playing football at a military prep school.
So watch her this weekend flay the five-time-Vietnam-era-draft-deferred
Chaos Monkey for flying the false flag that the #TrumpShutdown will cripple and
penalize our armed services.
I love her choice of words—she won’t refer to
him as president, just current occupant of the White House.
This year has taken a toll on me—the actions of
#CadetBoneSpurs, his appointees and his congressional toadies scare the bejesus
out of me and depresses me, both for my own future, but also for that of the country, the world
and the future. It’s true that the evil that men do lives after their time in
power, and we’ll have a crap ton of evil to clean up after this lot are
frogmarched out of office. But this weekend’s activities give me hope—the reminder that we march, we run, we vote and we take back—and for
that I am grateful.
The other day I was at
a thrift store, browsing through the housewares aisles (sometimes you can find small
Corning casserole dishes, which I seem to use at a rate of knots) and my eye
was caught by the stemware. I don’t know how this happened, but—while I have an
abundance of wine glasses—I’m down to only two Champagne flutes, so I looked a
bit closer.
It was too much to hope
for actual crystal in this setting, but what made me stop and wonder was this
random glass:
It’s hard to see the
actual words, but trust me on this:
Ryan
& Lindsey
August
12, 2006
(And a seahorse. What do
you suppose the seahorse signified?)
That’s nearly twelve
years ago. I wonder if Ryan and Lindsey are still together?
First: I don’t know the story behind this
company, but I just can’t help thinking that it’s a rather unfortunate name.
Kind of unfortunate for any company outside of the Disney® family, but especially
so for a moving service.
But while considering this notion, I got behind
this car and had more to ponder:
Several possibilities here. The numeral 1 could
be just that, or a substitute for the letter I. So is this an errand-running
service? Or a traveling nurse? Or a number-one nurse?
Year-end cleaning out my desktop brought these
photos I took at Wegmans a couple of months ago. (When I run out of things to
marvel at on the road, Wegmans never lets me down.)
These containers are in a refrigerated case in
the prepared fruit-and-veg aisle. (That’s where you go if you’re too pressed
for time to slice apples, peel carrots or chop celery. It’s also the place
where you can relieve yourself of discretionary income for the convenience.)
In case you’re not sure what this is, it’s 32-ounce
bottles of water-and… lemon slices, watermelon chunks, cucumber slices and
pineapple chunks.
And here’s what you pay for water flavored
according to someone else’s specs:
Yes, $3.49 for a quart of water with a handful
of fruit or veg in it. In a container that I hope to God you’ll at least put in
the recycling.
However, here’s the part that I find
disturbing: the disclaimer on the label warns that this very expensive water “May
contain Crustacean Shellfish, Eggs, Fish, Milk, Peanuts, Soy, Tree Nuts, Wheat”
on account of the handfuls of fruit and veg being tossed into the bottles in a “shared
preparation area”.
Maybe wanna toss your own fruit-and-veg into
your own purified water?
I find it interesting that so many businesses
don’t close down during the period between Christmas and New Year. Trust me:
enough folks take time off because their kids are off school and they don’t
want to pay for either babysitters or the childcare premium that nothing gets
done anyhow.
This is the case at pretty much everywhere I’ve
worked in the past 20 years. Where I am now, you could hold World War II there
this week and no one would get hurt. I’m one of the ones there, since I only
take time off when I can use it productively.
This doesn’t stop me from collecting oddities,
however. As in this thread I found some time ago on LinkedIn—the “careers
networking platform” that has long since devolved into a cacophony of “look-at-meeee”
and sales spam. Here’s how it started out:
I don’t know whether this Mark Sloan bloke was deadly
serious or taking the piss; either way he exemplifies the whole LinkedIn ethos. However, the responses were definitely in the latter category:
Our culmination of the
songs of the season for 2017 goes back to 14th Century Germany, by
way of one of my all-time favorite collector/composers, Michael
Praetorius, with some input from our pal Martin
Luther.
It came down to us via
the 19th Century translation that swaps out the German for English,
retaining the Latin. We know it as “Good Christian Men, Rejoice”. (Fun fact:
when I was a kid I wondered why all the good Christian women were excluded.
Were they out fixing a meal? Or putting the kids to bed? I did not know.) It’s
also often sung in such a way as to make me think the choristers have been
hitting the Wassail—lotta glissando. It’s also one that I very often hear
performed by brass groups. It seems to suit those instruments particularly
well.
To give you an idea of
the macaronic thing, here are a couple of verses of the German version:
In dulci jubilo
nun singet und seid
froh!
Unsers Herzens Wonne
leit in praesepio,
und leuchtet als die
Sonne
Matris in gremio,
Alpha es et O, Alpha es
et O!
O Jesu parvule
nach dir ist mir so weh!
Tröst mir mein Gemüte,
o puer optime;
durch alle deine güte,
o princeps gloriae
trahe me post te.
Here it is, sung by the
choir of Exeter Cathedral:
The English version
(kind of mid-way between German and “Good Christian Men”) goes:
In dulci jubilo
Now sing with hearts
aglow
Our delight and pleasure
Lies in praesepio
Like sunshine is our
treasure
Patris in gremio
Alpha es et O
Alpha es et O
O Jesu parvule
For thee I sing always
Comfort my heart’s
blindness
O puer optime
With all thy loving
kindness
O princeps gloriae
Trahe me post te
Trahe me post te
And, “Good Christian Men,
Rejoice”:
Good Christian men,
rejoice
With heart and soul and
voice!
Give ye heed to what we
say
News! News
Jesus Christ is born
today!
Ox and ass before Him
bow
And He is in the manger
now
Christ is born today!
Christ is born today!
Good Christian men,
rejoice
With heart and soul and
voice
Now ye hear of endless
bliss
Joy! Joy!
Jesus Christ was born
for this
He hath ope’d the heav’nly
door
And man is blessed
evermore
Christ was born for this
Christ was born for this
And here it is sung in a
typically upbeat performance by a serviceable choir I’ve never before heard of.
On this Christmas morning—one of the Big Days
for gratitude—my wish is that you have all you need, as well as all of what you
truly wish for.
The world is not equitable, a fact down wholly
to the thoughts and actions of mankind. And I am frankly not sanguine about the
prospects for improving this condition, especially given events of the past
year. The pre-ghost Scrooges of the planet appear to be in charge, and they’re
bent on giving themselves a raise at the expense of everyone else. Moreover, I see no indication that they are capable of redemption, even by getting the tour by the Ghost of Christmas Future. This frankly frightens me; I cannot tell you
how much.
I’ve spent the past few weeks trying to
reassure myself with Christmas music. Some days it worked better than others. So
today I’m doubling down on gratitude, on counting my manifold blessings, and on
building hopes.
We’ve had music about
the visitors to the stable, but it’s getting close to the birth, so I think it’s
time to bring it back to the person critical to such events.
The mother.
Yes, Mary has been a
real trouper throughout the months that led up to the Nativity—fielding visits
from archangels, enduring all the village gossip about her pregnancy, morning
sickness, retaining water, having to pee all the time… (Look—do you think the
presumptively male celestial beings considered maybe cutting her a little slack
in this regard, tossing her a prophylaxis against the water retention or the
nausea? No, I thought not.) Then, in her final month of pregnancy, here she is,
riding an ass all the way to Bethlehem—can you imagine her misery?
Yeah, yeah—carrying the
godhead, blah, blah, blah. That don’t feed the bulldog when it comes to the discomfort
of being in your 39th week and having to make a long journey. On a
donkey. In winter.
Our Medieval and
Renaissance brothers and sisters often referred to Mary as a rose, as in today’s
pick, “There Is No Rose”, which dates from around the 15th Century.
It’s interesting to note that the “virtue” in the opening line isn’t just
purity or chastity, but strength and even power. The Latin root of “virtue” is “vir”:
man, virility. Those Romans might have thought strength and power exclusively
male characteristics, but we needn’t be bound by those limitations.
So let’s hear Benjamin
Britten’s arrangement of “There Is No Rose”, sung by the Elektra Women’s Choir,
from Vancouver, B.C. Consider the power in these voices as you listen.
Yesterday and the day before we had the
lowly visitors to Christ’s nativity, so today why don’t we go to the other end of the class system.
You know: the kings.
(I don’t want to hear
from purists sniffing that the kings didn’t arrive until twelve days after the
birth. Not my fault that they couldn’t ask for directions. Besides—if you’re going
to go full-metal realism, there are enough natural elements to make the case
for the big day not being in December, but in the Spring. The early Christians
just moved it to mid-winter to co-opt a lot of pagan holidays. So just back
off, have a glass of something and breathe deeply.)
“We Three Kings” is of
American origin. It was written by a Pennsylvania Episcopalian rector in 1857
for a Christmas pageant. And it’s been sung by kids at every Christmas pageant
in the country ever since.
When I went hunting for
an interesting rendition of “We Three Kings Are”, I came across this one, which
I believe fits the bill. Not being a fan of the X-Men franchise, I didn’t know
a lot about Hugh Jackman, and I knew nothing at all about Peter Cousens and David
Hobson. But it turns out that the latter is an operatic tenor, and the other
two have well-respected musical theatre chops. They’re all Australian, and I’m
guessing that this was for some Aussie TV Christmas special.
Warning: this is not your ordinary Christmas pageant. They're all having a bang-up time singing this; this level of fun is illegal in many states south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
But the rest of us can’t help but wonder at these stars.
So, we’ve seen the farm
girls hurrying to the stable; let’s have some of the other observers of the
Nativity. Namely: we need sheep. And shepherds.
First the sheep. Which
we’ll round up from Messiah. Yes,
they’re not real baa-baas. It’s a simile for sinners who have strayed from
righteousness. “We have turned every one to his own way.” See a lot of that
these days, don’t we? So, let’s listen to the Bratislava City Choir knock it
out.
(Fun fact: I've listened to "All We Like Sheep" for...decades. It wasn't until I started singing it, from an actual score, that I realized it wasn't "Oh, We Like Sheep". Which is a whole other thing.) But the shepherds were
out watching over their flocks, probably huddling close to the fire and taking
a well-deserved snooze. The dogs are out making sure the sheep don’t get into
trouble—why not drop off for the night?
So, picture this: they’re
drifting off (possibly after a few slurps of wine), and all of a sudden, boom!
Some angel appears and yells at them,
telling them to hot-foot it to…a stable!
In Bethlehem! How will they ever explain this one to the guys?
Well, this carol, from
Besançon, in eastern France, is all about the angel-shepherd experience. The
melody is probably from the 17th Century; the carol was first
published in 1842.
Here’s the choir of New
College, Oxford, singing “Shepherds, Shake Off Your Drowsy Sleep”:
Let’s hop over to
France, and specifically to Provence, for today’s piece. Because “Un flambeau,
Jeannette, Isabelle” originated there some time in the 17th Century.
It’s all about two farm girls who have found mother and child in the stable,
and rush to tell the villagers of their discovery.
I learned this in a
French class, and in fact I don’t know the English words. But here’s one
translation of the first verse:
Bring a torch, Jeannette,
Isabelle,
Bring a torch to the
cradle, run!
It is Jesus, good folk
of the village,
Christ is born and Mary’s
calling,
Ah! Ah! Beautiful is the
mother!
Ah! Ah! Beautiful is the
son!
It goes on to describe a
celebratory feast, and to admonish the villagers to hush because the baby’s
sleeping.
Since we’re less than a week from Christmas,
you’ve no doubt heard “Deck the Halls” about 42,736 times since Thanksgiving. If
you for some unaccountable reason do not actually know the words to the first verse,
you at least can join in on the chorus, which consists of “fa”, followed by
about 42,736 “las”.
Easy-peasy, although it helps if you've been nipping at the nog.
The song comes to us from Wales, dating back to
the 16th Century, and the English lyrics were added (by a Scotsman)
in 1862.
Here’s the original Welsh “Nos Galan”, sung—appropriately—by
a Welsh men’s chorus, Barbers and Bishops:
But I don’t think I can hear “Deck the Halls”
without having this classic Christmas dinner scene flash into my mind:
I got some not very heartening news last week,
which I’m still processing. But instead of doing something like opening a bottle
of single malt and sticking a straw in it, I decided to get a Christmas tree. I
haven’t had one of those since 2008—for a number of reasons, including travel
at the holidays and living for five years in a third-floor walk-up.
I got a small tree—maybe 5.5 feet—at Home
Depot. (Note to self: don’t go there again. The woman at the garden center cash
register could not bear to tear herself away from her mobile phone to do more
than take money; God forbid she should have to do something like help a
customer.)
Then I realized that in my last major move, I
got rid of most of my fairy lights, so I had to run out to Target to get a
string. Evidently everything is cold-looking LED, and twinkling is so last
century. But I got the lights sorted, and pulled out my carton of ornaments
that have survived. Some of them go back to the 70s—maybe a little worn, but
still meaningful—every one of them represents either a gift or a trip. With a
tree this small, I can only put on about half of them, but it gave me pleasure
to do that.
I have to say that the final product is not up
to my usual standard of just so-ness, but I am out of practice, so I’m cutting
myself some slack. In the evenings, with just the lights on the tree and
candles about the room, I’m grateful to be able bask in the glow of the season,
and shut out everything else.
Martin Luther is generally acknowledged to be a
badass hymnist—he made congregational singing a key fixture in the Lutheran
worship service, so it makes sense that some extra primo good Christmas music
should come out of that tradition.
What you may not know is that one of the 19th
Century’s great translators of German Lutheran hymns was an Englishwoman named
Catherine Winkworth. Daughter of a silk merchant, Winkworth was influenced by a
couple of Unitarian ministers and brought a lot of power to expanding hymnody. Not
even in her 20s, after spending a year in Dresden, she published a book called Lyra Germanica, which was a collection
of German hymns she liked and had translated. Winkworth essentially opened up
the world of Lutheran music to Anglophones, which enriched Advent for us all.
In addition to her interests in German and
sacred music, Winkworth actively promoted women’s rights, particularly to
education. But my first introduction to her intelligence was a delicious pun
that was published in Punch when she was
16 years old. In 1844, Britain was expanding and solidifying its hold on India,
and one of its imperial coups occurred when General Charles James Napier’s
ruthless campaign to conquer the province of Sindh. In a droll play on two
languages, Winkworth remarked to her teacher that Napier could have announced
his victory with a single word, “peccavi”—Latin for “I have sinned.”
The pun has been credited to Napier himself, perhaps
by persons who could not believe a female—much less a teenaged one—capable of
such dexterity. But records back her as the author.
Today, we’ll have an Advent hymn translated by
Winkworth. The text of “Comfort, Comfort Ye My People” is based on Isaiah 40: 1-5.
The German was published in 1671, set to a tune called “Freu Dich Sehr”, a
setting for Psalm 42 that dated about 100 years earlier. You can hear the
Renaissance in this music—almost see glittering court dancers moving in and out
in an intricate pattern, possibly alternating with wassail. And at the same time, it feels so contemporary, as though you could see speakers-in-tongues dancing in the church aisles. Yeah, a lot of dancing in this one.
So, it’s joyous and energetic—absolutely perfect
for the third week in Advent, when we’re rounding the final turn to Christmas.
I love this one so much, Imma give you a couple of tries at it.
First off, the Cantorei from Saint Olaf College,
Northfield, Minn. Seems only appropriate, as Saint Olaf is a Lutheran liberal
arts college, and every year they put on the blow-out of a Christmas Eve concert
with about the entire student body in a lot of choirs.
And here’s the First Plymouth Church of Lincoln, Nebraska, letting
loose on it at an Advent ceremony of lessons and carols. They got chops, too.
Today is Gaudete Sunday, the day when we take a
step away from the spiritual preparation for Christmas and invite joy into our
lives. It’s a precursor to the joy we’re meant to take of the Messiah’s birth.
The “Gaudete” comes from today’s introit, “Gaudete
in Domino semper; iterum dico, Gaudete.” Which is to say, “Rejoice in the Lord
always; again I say, rejoice”. Today we add the rose candle to the purple ones
on the Advent wreath to emphasize this shift.
Let's hear “O thou that tellest good tidings to
Zion”, also from Messiah. Because,
after all, it’s those good tidings that we’re meant to rejoice over.” Here’s
the Swedish mezzo Anne-Sofie von Otter singing it:
The thing I loved most
about PB Santa Clara was Kenyon, the store manager, who—the minute I walked
through the door and before I’d settled my laptop on a table near an electrical
outlet—would start making a decaf latte for me. If he was with a customer, he’d
have one of his staff do it, but whenever he was making it, there would be exquisite
latte art, even though it was a take-out cup with a lid on it.
Anyway, back to three
years ago. I was in PB, sipping my latte, listening to KDFC and writing, when I
took out my earbuds to visit the loo. I became aware that the store’s Sirius
station was playing Bing Crosby singing “Christmas in Killarney”. I thought
this a very interesting choice given that PB’s customer-facing crew were Asian
millennials on the young side of that demographic, and the baking staff looked
to be largely Latina.
So when Kenyon had a
break in serving customers I asked him who chooses the station. He had to stop
and actually listen to what was
playing, whereupon he kind of shrugged and said, “Management.”
Yeah, I can see that.
When I returned to my
table, I considered that if sitting in a Korean-owned French-themed bakery in California,
listening to “Christmas in Killarney” is not America in a microcosm, I don’t
know what is.
Which brings me to today’s
selection for Advent. No, it’s not Bing, nor is it “Christmas in Killarney”. (I
nearly went into insulin shock listening to it.) But it is from Ireland, at
least this recording of it is. “Past Three O’Clock” is a carol set to a
traditional tune called “London Waits”.
And the “Waits” being
referred to is a category of watchmen common in England and Scotland from
Medieval times up until the 19th Century. City waites (the early
spelling) patrolled the streets using musical instruments to mark the hours. (Carrying
something musical also distinguished you from other bands of night-crawlers.)
It’s not clear to me how they knew, precisely, what hours they were sounding,
but apparently it worked quite well as a system for a number of centuries.
So, “London Waits” as a
melody captures the functions of the waits of that city, and George Ratcliffe
Woodward put words to it around the turn of the last century. It’s in The Cambridge Carol-Book, Being Fifty-Two
Songs for Christmas, Easter, and Other Seasons, published in 1924, so it’s
still somewhat new on the Christmas carol continuum, although—because of the
provenance of “London Waits”, it sounds much older.
This recording is from The Bells of Dublin, by The Chieftains,
and it features along with them the Renaissance Singers.
I like it fine. But I
wouldn’t push it onto Kenyon and his crew at Paris Baguette.
