A - Many of you have been saying I’m an idiot for a long time. B - Chiefs fan, you might want to skip this one. I’ve been claiming, for years, that I’ve shed many of my sports superstitions. And that’s true to a point. Back in the glory days of my superstition-dom, game days involved elaborate ceremonies of picking the correct clothes, going through proper pre-game activities, finding the correct seat, saying and thinking the proper things before the game, and so on.
Our girls keep using the word “awkward” incorrectly. For example, earlier this week we ran into their Uncle D at the grocery store and then him again with Aunt J walking their dog through the neighborhood the next day. Both times the girls kept shouting, “AWKWARD!” I had to explain that awkward means uncomfortable, weird, strange, not just an expression surprise. So it’s not awkward to run into people you want to see.
In case you missed it over the holidays, the New York Times had a fun quiz that, based on the words you use for certain terms and how you pronounce those words, shows how you compare to people across the country. The first time I took this, my most similar cities were Denver and Aurora, CO and Albuquerque, NM. Later I read that it works best if you use the words and pronunciations you grew up with.
Happy New Year! We woke to 4-5” of new snow on the ground, with even more predicted for Saturday night. The girls are excited. I’m excited I can finally get them outside of the house for awhile. With apologies to all the fans of Epiphany out there, the holiday season has officially ended. Yesterday we took our tree to the recycling pile at the park and packed up all our decorations.
I know none of you probably pay any attention to these monthly accountings of my music listening habits. Like most of what I do here, it’s mostly for my amusement. First, what I listened to in December. As always, it was a little different that what I listened to the other 11 months of 2013. Frank Sinatra - 68 Bing Crosby - 45 Dean Martin - 40 Vince Guaraldi Trio - 30 Ella Fitzgerald - 26 Next, a look at the artists last.
That’s what the family calendar on the refrigerator shows this morning. Three hundred sixty-five days down, zero to go. Which means, though the sun will rise in the morning and the normal work-week will continue (for some) on Thursday, today is still an end and tomorrow another beginning. 2013 was, for the most part, great for our family. Three big family trips (Disney in January, spring break in Florida, Boston for a family wedding).
I woke up early this morning, for no real reason. I had been sleeping until 8:00, even 8:30, much of the past week. Something caused me to wake up shortly after 6:00 today, though, and after trying to fall back to sleep, I gave up. I went downstairs, made coffee, and enjoyed the silence of the morning with my current book. S. was off to work early and the girls all kept with their holiday trend of sleeping in.
First, my obligatory annual statement about how fast Christmas flies by when you’re an adult. The time from final dismissal before Christmas break for the girls to about 9:30 last night, when the kids were all in bed, most of the clean-up was done, and we could just sit and relax seemed to pass in a blur. I think that’s because we had a fine Christmas. As is tradition, we had an uncle and two aunts join us for Christmas morning.
Here we are. Two days left on the Advent calendar. A couple loops left on the Christmas ring chain C. brought home. Done with school for the year. The cookies have all been made. Christmas day menu planned. Yep, it’s Holiday DEFCON level 1. All three school programs went well. M. shined as Mistletoe the FBI agent in her grade’s The Christmas Files program a week ago. She had one minor hiccup with a line, but caught herself quickly and powered through.
1 - “Holy” - Frightened Rabbit This is the fourth time FR has cracked my year-end list, and the third time they’ve grabbed the #1 spot. Yes, I’m a massive fan and this spot was pretty much reserved for them the moment I learned they would release an album in 2013. But still, they had to deliver. At least three of their songs were in the running for this spot, most notably “The Woodpile,"1 the song I nearly made co-#1.
Before some kid notes, another holiday jihad for you. Years ago I sent a Christmas card to the parents of a college buddy. I found out later I had misspelled his mother’s name - I thought her name was Lara but it was actually Lura - and I was horrified. I quickly apologized and she shook it off, saying I wasn’t the first to make the mistake. There’s a simple act of respect that goes into getting someone’s name right.
2 - “Song For Zula” - Phosphorescent. It takes audacity to open a song with a line that mimics massive hits of both Bette Midler and Johnny Cash. But Matthew Houck, the man behind Phosphorescent, does exactly that here, when he sings “Some say love, is a burning thing. That it makes a fiery ring.” He definitely gets your attention from the first note. Beyond that first line is a wonderful, mournful backing track.
3 - “Recovery” - Frank Turner. I do love a good break-up song. So, no surprise that the top three songs feature two break up songs plus a band that I first fell in love with because of their most-excellent album all about getting your heart smashed. Here Turner sings a very masculine break-up song. I say masculine because musically, this is a rollocking, sing-along with your boys while the pints are flowing at the pub song.
4 - “Wakin In A Pretty Day” - Kurt Vile. This song was a lifeline during the endless winter of 2012-13. When the temperature refused to rise and it seemed like spring would never arrive, this was the promise that warmer, better days would eventually, finally, arrive.
5 - “In The City” - Caveman It seems like each year there is one synth-heavy song that I can listen to repeatedly and just get lost within its layers. Here is this year’s example. At first listen, this would seem to be a rather cold, serious song. Each note sounds carefully planned. The transitions are perfect. The ratio of dense synths to delicate yet distorted guitar feels as though it was arrived at through careful mathematical study.
6 - “The Mother We Share” - CHVRCHES At first listen, these Scots sound cotton candy light, an updated take on Nu Shooz, straight out of 1986. But there is weight behind the layers of keyboards and synthesizers. There is depth to Lauren Mayberry’s voice that surprises upon repeated listens. And, good Lord, that hook! Great bands spend their entire careers attempting to come up with a hook like this, and CHVRCHES do it on their very first song.
A couple articles about Christmas music to share. First, the Legend himself, Darryl McDaniels, aka DMC, talks about the surprising RUN-DMC holiday classic, “Christmas In Hollis.” I say surprising because an awful lot of people scoffed when it appeared on the first A Very Special Christmas album next to songs by Madonna, Springsteen, Mellencamp, U2, and Whitney. “That’s not Christmas music!” Au contraire! And I think the importance of food is a big part of the reason why that song was able to touch so many people—Asian people; Hispanic people; Italian people; Catholics and Buddhists and Muslims.
7 - “Royals” - Lorde What a run. I first heard of Lorde late last year (iTunes tells me I added “Royals” to my library on Jan. 26, 2013). Then, the novelty of a sixteen-year-old New Zealander making interesting music was enough to get her some attention. By spring all the cool music websites were in love with her. Come mid-summer, the smart people station in Bloomington had her in heavy rotation.
Deep into the holiday season, are we. The DVR has gone from about 30% full to nearly 70% of capacity thanks to all the holiday shows we’ve recorded. The pantry is full of the dry ingredients for our annual Christmas cookies, which we’ll make soon. I’m beginning to run out of new places to put Elf on the Shelf each night. But our holidays got a jolt of newness Saturday when L.
8 - “Diane Young” - Vampire Weekend Modern Vampires of the City is getting a lot of Album Of The Year run. While I liked it a lot, too, I may be one of the few who liked their last album, Contra, more. It was tough to pick a favorite track from this fine collection. But this song’s frenetic tempo grabbed me the most.