Baby, it's [not] cold outside.

Something very odd has happened to me this fall. I've started listening to Christmas music. I, who have always been very firm that Christmas music doesn't get played until after Thanksgiving, have broken my own rule quite badly.

I can't understand why, either, but it started when we went to the Newport News Fall Festival at the beginning of October and ran into a guy named Timothy Seaman who was playing hammered dulcimer and selling his CDs. As it happens, I was already familiar with his music because I'd bought a couple of his CDs on visits to the Virginia Living Museum, where they sell them in the gift shop.

Timothy has several Christmas CDs, and I bought one called "Incarnation" and took it home, and just had to have a listen, and it's wonderful. It's not just hammered dulcimer, there's also flute and piano and what-not. Very soothing, very happy music. So I got started listening to that, and then in the past week or so, there's been an insidious creeping through my CDs and mp3s in search of other holiday tunes.

I love digging through DVD and CD racks at stores that don't really sell CDs or DVDs, like at the grocery store or Office Depot. The selection is very random, and sometimes I find oddball treasures, like old Cary Grant movies. Several years ago I found a really strange Bing Crosby holiday compilation at Big Lots.

The last couple of years, I've looked forward to Jo-Ann's putting out their little kiosk with holiday CDs. Last year I found a great Frank Sinatra compilation, and this year, I found a CD called "Christmas Treasures." I love that swing-type of holiday music with Frank and Bing and Ella grooving along, and this CD has some songs I have never heard before: Frank singing "Let It Snow" and Bing singing "Little Jack Frost" with Peggy Lee, who has one of the sexiest voices I've ever heard. Burl Ives sings "Jingle Bells," Doris Day sings "Silver Bells," Nat King Cole sings "Frosty the Snowman." It's all the familiar voices, but they're singing songs I haven't heard them sing before. It was a great find! I know, I know, this list of singers makes me sound like I'm 85 years old at least. I just love that happy swingy Christmas sound. If you do, too, it's worth tracking down.

Anyway, it's still in the 80s here, and humid, and I am fed up with it! Cranking up the air conditioner and listening to Christmas music is my form of protest.

If you happen to be buying something at Amazon, and you need one more little thing to push your total over $25 so you can get free shipping...may I suggest a nice little Christmas album that I bought for that very reason?

The Joy of Christmas

I have old-fogeyish taste in Christmas music (and almost everything else for that matter.) This is an old-fogeyish album--it's almost fifty years old. It features Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. This is not a quiet, contemplative album--it's a big gorgeous blast of sound, a joyful noise.

It's fantastic and it's cheap. Get it! If you're an old fogey, that is.

I bless the rains down in Africa.

And now for something light-hearted...being a true child of the 80's, I have always loved the band Toto's song "Africa." This is an amazing acapella version done by a Slovenian group. They start out by making the noises of a thunderstorm with their hands and feet--so cool. Such a great song, too!

I know it's too early...

...but I'm browsing around at Amazon listening to Christmas music just for fun.

Go listen to the samples from this (I think you have to use Explorer for the player to work) and see if it doesn't make you tap your toes!

I didn't grow up listening to Bing, Frank, or Nat, but they are all a huge part of my Christmas now. I think it's because of the movie "A Christmas Story," with the giant radio playing big band music in the background. How I love that movie!

Listening.

I'm wondering if my relationship with my CDs is typical or not.

Sometimes I buy one, listen to it non-stop for months, and pull it out regularly to have another fling with it.

Sometimes I buy one, like it, listen to it sporadically, and then forget all about it for years.

Sometimes I buy one, get distracted, and don't even bother listening to it for anywhere from 6- 12 months. Then I pull it out, give it a listen, and fall in love with it. Or sometimes not.

Sometimes I buy a whole mess of them, and end up not liking any of them. (Okay, this only happened once, but it was a lesson learned about going outside my genre.)

And now we have MP3s, which add a whole new twist to the experience. You can just buy a song instead of a whole album. This makes me worry that artists will completely stop trying to make their albums cohere into one whole work. And I haven't quite gotten a grip on how to organize my songs now. And what do I do with all these CDs I've ripped? And oh, this MP3 player that I asked for and my beloved DH bought me almost a year ago, and which I've listened to maybe once, because it feels like such a niggling chore to upload songs, put them in groups, and then take them off again and put on new ones. Oh, the guilt of that little blue gadget! I will master it, I promise, honey.

Anyway, what inspired this late-night post is that I'm listening to the MP3 version of an album I've had for years and years, and which falls into the second of my categories above...I listened to it every now and then for the first few years I had it, and now I'd say it's been three to five years since I've listened to it. And yet...as soon as it started to play, it took me right to the era when I did listen to it, usually late at night like I am now. It's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy by Sarah McLachlan, which I bought unheard, solely because I liked the title, in an age before I could listen to it on the Internet or in one of those kiosks at Barnes and Noble or Borders to see if it was worth the $15. So it was quite a gamble, at a time before Sarah became as well-known as she is now.

And I liked it. I didn't fall in love with it, but it completely suited those quiet, semi-depressed nights that I had a lot of at the time. Her voice is like coffee with cream, and the songs have an edginess under the mellow. Listening to it now, I realize how well it holds up. Unlike some of the other CDs I've splurged on over the years. So thanks, Sarah.

Now will someone come and make me some playlists for my MP3?

More Thursday thoughts.

I heard about a website last night called LibraryThing, where you catalog all your books and can browse other people's libraries, get suggestions, form groups, etc.

I'm still trying to figure out if this is worth messing with. The anal-retentive part of me relishes having a nice neat list of all my books...however, this would take AGES to compile. I just entered a few off the top of my head last night and I'm already up to 74 books. The tip of the iceberg, I assure you.

What's really scary is that I've purged my library at least twice in the past year and gotten rid of a good 150-200 books. And you'd never know it. And I suspect there's a box or two that never got unpacked from the move, because I've thought of several books lately that I know I didn't get rid of, yet can't find.

With all that said--is it really worth cataloging such a fluid collection, where I lose 'em, trade 'em in for new ones, and generally just stack 'em around in little piles?

I dunno. Here's the link to what I've entered so far, though.

I pulled out a Dave Matthews CD and listened to it today, after hearing one of my faves on the radio this afternoon. I don't think Before These Crowded Streets is very well-thought of by the devotees, but I like it. He does go on about death, though, doesn't he? I haven't listened to DMB in ages and ages--it's so funny how an album can pinpoint you to a specific moment in your life. You hear it and it's like you were there again. I'm glad that's not really true.

It smells so FABULOUS outside, I wish I could bottle it up and save it for one of those drippy humid stiflingly hot days that's coming just as sure as anything, and sooner than I'd like. We got a dusting of snow today, which turned to rain, and it's just cold and wet and clean-smelling outside. The kind of air that makes your nose shrivel up inside when you inhale it. Yum.

Ring out the old!

Only three hours left in 2006...wow, where did this year go? I was sitting in the living room sipping a cup of tea a little while ago, thinking about the painting and packing we were doing this time last year, and yeah, this New Year's Eve is way better!

We're just spending the weekend being busy little beavers, knocking some stuff off the "to do" list. Kind of fun, actually.

Just for fun, I thought I'd make a little year-in-review list of totally random items:

10 books I read in 2006:

Julie and Julia
Snow Falling on Cedars
Assassination Vacation
A Long Shadow
The Kite Runner
Tender at the Bone
The Reading Group
St. Dale
Locked Rooms
Jane Austen: A Life

8 movies I saw in 2006:
(In a theater, that is--and this is all of 'em, not even ten!)

Casino Royale
Stranger than Fiction
Talladega Nights
The Holiday
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
X-Men: the Last Stand
Flags of our Fathers
Marie Antoinette

10 Movies I rented in 2006:

Walk the Line
A Prairie Home Companion
The Matador
The Reckoning
Memento
Spanglish
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Match Point
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio
Wedding Crashers

10 CDs I bought in 2006:

Wintersong
Barenaked Ladies Are Me
We Shall Overcome—the Seeger Sessions
The Very Best of Marvin Gaye
A Mighty Wind soundtrack
Smart Kid (Clumsy Lovers)
Yours, Mine and Ours (Pernice Brothers)
The Little Willies
Ricky Nelson Greatest Hits
Highway Companion (Tom Petty)

And finally...
10 Embarassing Songs I downloaded in 2006:

Play Me (Neil Diamond)
Looks Like We Made It (Barry Manilow)
Sister Golden Hair (America)
Magic (Olivia Newton-John)
I Say a Little Prayer for You (Dionne Warwick)
Baby, I Love Your Way (Peter Frampton)
If I Can't Have You (Yvonne Elliman)
Crazy Love (Poco)
Everything I Own (Bread)
...and the most cringe-inducing...Afternoon Delight (Starland Vocal Band)

All from the Seventies, Decade of Shame. And Decade of my Childhood...this is my musical heritage we're looking at here. Consider this last list an homage to our late President, Mr. Ford, who presided over a slice of my childhood, albeit a smaller slice than either Barry Manilow or Neil Diamond.

Happy 2007, everybody--may you have perfect peace and contentment this coming year! Thanks for reading my mutterings and crazy thoughts in 2006! Love ya, man!

Monday stuff.

Today's blogging challenge at Two Peas:

1- your worst habit? Procrastination.
2- your best feature? I guess my toes are kind of cute.
3- what you like most about your significant other/spouse? To keep it G-rated, I'll say...his big brown eyes with long lashes.
4- if you could travel anywhere, where would it be? Switzerland/Germany/Alps.
5- what do you admire most in a dear friend you have? I'm going to pick two friends--I admire my friend Bev for her twisted sense of humor, and I admire my friend Cheryl for her outgoingness (is that a word?).

Now, a holiday PSA:

I picked up Wintersong at Target today, which is Sarah McLachlan's new holiday album. It's lovely. LOVELY.

When you were a kid, did you ever lie under the Christmas tree at night and stare up through the branches at all the lights and squint your eyes to make them all flow together? This album would be the perfect thing to have playing softly if you were to relive that memory this year. Very soft, very quiet, a little melancholy as all of Sarah's stuff is, but melancholy in a nice way. And oh, that voice. I recommend it!

Mr. Clean.

There's nothing like getting up early on a Saturday morning and opening all the windows and seeing the chaos and dirt that fill your house. That's when you cue up Elvis on your CD player and go at it.

Cleaning music needs to be cheerful and peppy, and although I've tried other CDs in the past, like the Beach Boys and Abba, I've come to the conclusion that Elvis is The Man for housework.

I have a two-disc album called The Top Ten Hits, which is, amazingly, out of print, but still available used. This is the best compilation I've found...it has almost everything you'd want, including my favorite Elvis song, "His Latest Flame."

The trick is to turn it off at the end of disc two, when you get to "Don't Cry, Daddy" and "In the Ghetto." Talk about a buzzkill. Of course, by the end of disc two, you should have all your cleaning done and be ready to move on to a new CD. Unless your house is as dirty as mine, in which case...push "play" on Elvis again.