Running After My Hat

Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody

January 31, 2014 by John 4 Comments

[Video: Sinéad O’Connor, “Nothing Compares 2 U.” ([Lyrics]) See the note at the foot of this post.]

You’re always presented as a kind of loner in the mountains, the man from the farm…

What can you do. You get a name, you’re called “Thomas Bernhard,” and it stays that way for the rest of your life. And if at some point you go for a walk in the woods, and someone takes a photo of you, then for the next eighty years you’re always walking in the woods. There’s nothing you can do about it.

(Thomas Bernhard [source])

…and:

There will come an intermediate, joyous point where you find that certain techniques work even better than the scriptures claim. In the wake of these discoveries, you will also find that life continues to be just as thorny and problematic as ever. Does this mean that the study of Tao is useless? No. It only means that you have been laboring to equip yourself with skill. You must still go out and live your life to the end.

(Deng Ming-Dao [source])

[Read more…]

Here (for Now)

January 24, 2014 by John 2 Comments

[Image: cartoon by Barney Tobey in The New Yorker of September 13, 1982 (source)]

From whiskey river (italicized portion):

The Sensual World

I call to you across a monstrous river or chasm
to caution you, to prepare you.

Earth will seduce you, slowly, imperceptibly,
subtly, not to say with connivance.

I was not prepared: I stood in my granmother’s kitchen,
holding out my glass. Stewed plums, stewed apricots —

the juice poured off into the glass of ice.
And the water added, patiently, in small increments,

the various cousins discriminating, tasting
with each addition —

aroma of summer fruit, intensity of concentration:
the colored liquid turning gradually lighter, more radiant,

more light passing through it.
Delight, then solace. My grandmother waiting,

to see if more was wanted. Solace, then deep immersion.
I loved nothing more: deep privacy of the sensual life,

the self disappearing into it or inseparable from it,
somehow suspended, floating, its needs

fully exposed, awakened, fully alive —
Deep immersion, and with it

mysterious safety. Far away, the fruit glowing in its glass bowls.
Outside the kitchen, the sun setting.

I was not prepared: sunset, end of summer. Demonstrations
of time as a continuum, as something coming to an end,

not a suspension; the senses wouldn’t protect me.
I caution you as I was never cautioned:

you will never let go, you will never be satiated.
You will be damaged and scarred, you will continue to hunger.

Your body will age, you will continue to need.
You will want the earth, then more of the earth —

Sublime, indifferent, it is present, it will not respond.
It is encompassing, it will not minister.

Meaning, it will feed you, it will ravish you,
it will not keep you alive.

(Louise Glück [source])

…and:

Aphorism #33

One of the best means for arousing the wish to work on yourself is to realize that you may die at any moment. But first you must learn how to keep it in mind.

(George Ivanovich Gurdjieff [source])

…and (italicized portion):

Sabbaths: VII

Again I resume the long
lesson: how small a thing
can be pleasing, how little
in this hard world it takes
to satisfy the mind
and bring it to its rest.

With the ongoing havoc
the woods this morning is
almost unnaturally still.
Through stalled air, unshadowed
light, a few leaves fall
of their own weight.

The sky
is gray. It begins in mist
almost at the ground
and rises forever. The trees
rise in silence almost
natural, but not quite,
almost eternal, but
not quite.
What more did I
think I wanted? Here is
what has always been.
Here is what will always
be. Even in me,
the Maker of all this
returns in rest, even
to the slightest of His works,
a yellow leaf slowly
falling, and is pleased.

(Wendell Berry [source])

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Midweek Music Break: Modest Mouse, “Dashboard”

January 22, 2014 by John Leave a Comment

Modest Mouse is one of those bands I’ve heard about all the time — for years — without ever knowing much about them. In fact, for the longest time I assumed it was an individual, not a whole group. The name kept showing up in reviews of albums and songs by other artists, often in a “Featuring Modest Mouse” or “w/Modest Mouse” sort of phrasing. I figured it was a stage name for a producer who didn’t care (for whatever reason) to use his real name. Snoop Dogg, Modest Mouse. Made sense, right? [See addendum below]

Well, duh.

Some things to like about this song (from 2007) and this video:

Per Wikipedia: “The lyric, ‘The dashboard melted but we still have the radio’ references Planes, Trains, and Automobiles when Del (John Candy) is telling the police officer about the car after it is burned.” (The line does crack me up. It shares the ironic, mordant sensibility of the old line about a medical procedure: The operation was a success but the patient died.)
The story told in the video really has nothing to do with the lyrics, except in the most distant, hint-of-an-allegory way. But the video consistently entertains nonetheless — especially at the song’s end.
Guitarist Johnny Marr (originally with The Smiths) became a semi-regular member of Modest Mouse around the time this video was shot. In an interview with David Todd, he reported on his favorite thing about the video:

One of the best objects that I’ve ever come across, I got when we did the “Dashboard” video for Modest Mouse. I’m only in it for a split second*, but I’m playing a guitar that is a record deck with a guitar neck on it. That was the device I’ve been looking for all my life. That’s what I’m trying to do, using the guitar as a record player.

I really do like the lyrics to this song, looooong lines and all. Also according to Marr, Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock more or less wrote them on the fly.

Finally, in the course of preparing this Midweek Music Break, I at last learned the source of the band’s name — a line from a Virginia Woolf story, of all things:

I wish I could hit upon a pleasant track of thought, a track indirectly reflecting credit upon myself, for those are the pleasantest thoughts, and very frequent even in the minds of modest, mouse-coloured people, who believe genuinely that they dislike to hear their own praises.

[Lyrics]

Addendum: oh, this is funny — I knew the band okay, but somehow in my head they got conflated with the musician/producer Brian Joseph Burton, a/k/a… Danger Mouse. This revelation came to me a second after I turned out the light at bedtime last night; I suppose I should be happy it came to me just a couple of days too late. Or ever.
_________________

* The “split-second” in question comes at around the 3:26-3:27 mark.

Uncanny Revelation

January 17, 2014 by John 4 Comments

[Image: photograph of an exhibit, Always Becoming, at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC. The sculptures — “Moon Woman” on the left, and “Mountain Bird” on the right — are the work of artist Nora Naranjo-Morse. For more information, see the description at the photographer’s Flickr page… or, of course, at the Always Becoming site linked above.]

From whiskey river:

Often, change doesn’t come trumpeting itself in. It comes in quiet, barely noticed ways. No bolts of lightning and grand entrances here. Just a subtle relaxation into the body. A tiny shift towards where you are. An old belief, an outdated story, seen for what it is. A new path emerging in the darkness. A vague, unspeakable hope dawning in the first light of the day you imagined would never come. Everything the same, everything different, everything always resting in motion, and the mysteries of change forever unresolved.

(Jeff Foster [source])

…and:

Of Love

I have been in love more times than one,
thank the Lord. Sometimes it was lasting
whether active or not. Sometimes
it was all but ephemeral, maybe only
an afternoon, but not less real for that.
They stay in my mind, these beautiful people,
or anyway beautiful people to me, of which
there are so many. You, and you, and you,
whom I had the fortune to meet, or maybe
missed. Love, love, love, it was the
core of my life, from which, of course, comes
the word for the heart. And, oh, have I mentioned
that some of them were men and some were women
and some — now carry my revelation with you —
were trees. Or places. Or music flying above
the names of their makers. Or clouds, or the sun
which was the first, and the best, the most
loyal for certain, who looked so faithfully into
my eyes, every morning. So I imagine
such love of the world — its fervency, its shining, its
innocence and hunger to give of itself — I imagine
this is how it began.

(Mary Oliver [source])

…and:

Factual information alone isn’t sufficient to guide you through life’s labyrinthine tests. You need and deserve regular deliveries of uncanny revelation. One of your inalienable rights as a human being should therefore be to receive a mysteriously useful omen every day of your life.

(Rob Brezsny [source])

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Midweek Music Break: Nicola Benedetti, “Concerto for violin and strings in D major, RV 208 ‘Grosso Mogul'” (Vivaldi)

January 15, 2014 by John 1 Comment

[Image: Nicola Benedetti and friend. Photo by Simon Fowler.]

Violinist Nicola Benedetti, currently all of age 26, has been rocking critics and audiences back on their heels for nearly two decades. From Wikipedia:

She started learning to play the violin at the age of four. At age eight, she became the leader of the National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain. By the age of nine, she had already passed the eight grades of musical examinations while attending the independent Wellington School, Ayr, and in September 1997 began to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School for young musicians under Lord Menuhin and Natasha Boyarskaya in rural Surrey, England…

At the end of 2004, she agreed to a £1m six-album recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Music Group Classics and Jazz.

Of course, it can’t hurt that she’s photogenic, evidently very pleasant-natured and mature, and dedicated to various philanthropic causes. But the only thing that counts, really, is what happens when she raises the violin to her chin, and her bow to the violin. (Which violin is a 1717 Stradivarius, reportedly worth some $10 million.)

Here she performs the three movements of a concerto by Antonio Vivaldi. The digital liner notes (by Michael Talbot) which accompany this album, Italia, say:

This exuberant violin concerto entitled “Grosso Mogul” is probably from the late 1710s. Vivaldi experts puzzle over the significance of its title. “Grand Mogul” refers to the contemporary ruler of India or his territory, but this is not a descriptive concerto. My guess is that it was played by Vivaldi during the performance of an opera set in India. Like a few other “theatre” concertos, it has demanding cadenzas in each of the outer movements…

The D major Concerto with the title “Grosso Mogul” offers a wonderful opportunity for “extreme” violin-playing, particularly in its long, fully written-out cadenzas. It has nearly the same name as a Vivaldi flute concerto (“Il Gran Mogol”) that came to light only recently in the National Archives of Scotland, but is an entirely unrelated work. Benedetti comments on the slow movement: “You’ll be shocked when you hear it! It sounds like a mixture between Indian classical music and gypsy violin improvisation, yet within the Italian Baroque style. It’s maybe the most unusual movement of all.”

Of all genres of music, I’m least qualified (amateur that I am) to comment knowledgeably on classical (from Italy, India, or anywhere else). I can only fall back on the classic excuse of Philistines since, well, I guess since Old Testament times: …but I know what I like. I could listen to music like this for hours and lose — happily — all sense of the passage of time.

______________________

Aside: Benedetti ~~will be performing~~ performed here in February 2014, as a part of the big local university’s annual arts festival. We ~~probably won’t~~ didn’t attend, alas. Still, whatever else you can say about recorded music, digital or otherwise, I’m very glad it’s an option!

Counter-Existence

January 10, 2014 by John 2 Comments

[Images: Original (as far as I can determine) on the left; as often circulated/reposted on social-media sites, on the right. (Click either for a larger version.) While both carry meanings I appreciate, it’s interesting — if unsurprising — that the original seems to have made much less of an impression on people.]

From whiskey river:

Wake up in the morning and say to yourself, “I do not exist now, I have never existed previously, and I will never exist in the future.” When your mind is calm in the morning hours when you awaken, you say something like this, you will get a beautiful warm good feeling. You will feel wonderful, for it relieves you of the responsibility of taking care of yourself to an extent. You will still take care of yourself, but it’ll be completely different. You will brush your teeth, you will take a shower, you will go to work, you will eat breakfast. Yet when you feel that you do not exist, you are totally free from the reactions to the things that are going on. There is no one to react any longer. Therefore, everything that appears to be done by you, will be done in a wonderful way, all the time knowing that you are not the doer.

I know the teaching sounds absurd to most people. Yet this is the teaching that has been propagated by rishis, sages, since the beginning of time. This is it. This is your opportunity to awaken. Why not use it? Do not let another moment go by where you’re sitting there and believing and thinking something is wrong somewhere.

(Robert Adams [quoted at various sites around the Web — no specific source as far as I can tell])

…and:

To the Hand

What the eye sees is a dream of sight
what it wakes to
is a dream of sight

and in the dream
for every real lock
there is only one real key
and it’s in some other dream
now invisible

it’s the key to the one real door
it opens the river and the sky both at once
it’s already in the downward river
with my hand on it
my real hand

and I am saying to the hand
turn

open the river

(W. S. Merwin [source])

…and:

Staying very still in the darkness, I became less and less convinced of the fact that I actually existed.

(Haruki Murakami [source])

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Midweek Thought Break: Venetian Blinds, and How You Know How to Close Them

January 8, 2014 by John 5 Comments

We’ve got Venetian blinds on most of the windows in our house. Depending on a given window’s age, you open and close its blinds using either a traditional drawstring-and-pulley arrangement, or one of those long rods (the preferred term, apparently, is wands) which hang down the (usually) left side. Twist the wand in one direction, the blinds open; in the other direction, they close.

I have noticed that The Missus and I have different preferences, conscious or otherwise, about closed blinds — preferences in the way they slant: down into the house, or down to the outside. Actually, my preferences differ from room to room, even window to window. The Missus, for her part, seems to always choose the “slanting down and in” option. If you survey the house’s windows by walking from room to room, you’ll see some closed blinds tilting up, and some tilting down. This means that in order to open them, the direction in which to twist the wand depends on who closed them. (You are following this, right?)

I’d noticed that preference a long time ago. As it happens, I’ve got conscious reasons for my preference — can’t speak for The Missus — but the preference isn’t a strong one. (Mostly, I don’t know if my reasons actually make sense or are just the product of an easily distracted imagination.)

Until the last week or so, though, I’d never wondered about the wands. But there I was in front of a window, my left hand on the wand, and I was turning it to open (or close) the blinds, and I suddenly, well, noticed I was doing it. And I said to myself: Huh. How’d I know to do that?

I’d never wondered about The Opening (or Closing) Twist: how do we know which way to turn the wand? Is this a special form of whatzit, muscle memory? (I don’t think so, because there’s a little cognitive switch which has to flip before the muscles take over.) It’s gotta be a learned behavior — can’t imagine our ancestors ever needing the particular skill, right? — and the consequences of getting it wrong aren’t great in any case. (Get it backwards? Oh. Just twist in the other direction.) What interested me at the moment was that I’d surely closed these things thousands of times… and never had to stop and consider — like, “Hmm, which way should I twist this thing for the desired effect?”

Look at the image above. I bet if I asked you to close those blinds so they slant down and in, you’d know which way to twist the wand, wouldn’t you? How did you know to do that?

________________

Aside: We fairly recently got new “French doors” to the back deck. Their glass (like the glass on the regular windows) is double-paned. However, on the French doors, the panes are separated not by a tiny bit of insulating dead air, but by, oh, maybe a full centimeter or two. Sandwiched between these panes are built-in Venetian blinds, which open and close using a sliding switch at the top of the door: push it to the left to tilt the blinds in one direction, to the right otherwise. (You raise and lower the blinds with a sliding switch on the right side of the pane.) This sliding-switch thing still trips me up every now and then; I always have to stop to think which way to push it to open/close the blinds in the direction I want.

Artful Bullies

January 3, 2014 by John 1 Comment

[Image: “Imperial Art Appreciation: Blue,” by JD Hancock on Flickr. (Used under a Creative Commons license.) For more information, see the note at the foot of this post.]

From whiskey river:

We are not transparent to ourselves. We have intuitions, suspicions, hunches, vague musings, and strangely mixed emotions — all of which resist simple definition. We have moods, but we don’t really know them. Then, from time to time, we encounter works of art that seem to latch on to something we have felt but never recognized clearly before. Alexander Pope identified a central function of poetry as taking thoughts we experience half-formed and giving them clear expression: “what was often thought, but ne’er so well expressed.” In other words, a fugitive and elusive part of our own thinking, our own experience, is taken up, edited, and returned to us better than it was before, so that we feel, at last, that we know ourselves more clearly.

(Alain de Botton and John Armstrong [source])

…and:

I’m Working on the World

I’m working on the world,
revised, improved edition,
featuring fun for fools,
blues for brooders,
combs for bald pates,
tricks for old dogs.

Here’s one chapter: The Speech
of Animals and Plants.
Each species comes, of course,
with its own dictionary.
Even a simple “Hi there,”
when traded with a fish,
make both the fish and you
feel quite extraordinary.

The long-suspected meanings
of rustlings, chirps, and growls!
Soliloquies of forests!
The epic hoot of owls!
Those crafty hedgehogs drafting
aphorisms after dark,
while we blindly believe
they are sleeping in the park!

Time (Chapter Two) retains
its sacred right to meddle
in each earthly affair.
Still, time’s unbounded power
that makes a mountain crumble,
moves seas, rotates a star,
won’t be enough to tear
lovers apart: they are
too naked, too embraced,
too much like timid sparrows.

Old age is, in my book,
the price that felons pay,
so don’t whine that it’s steep:
you’ll stay young if you’re good.
Suffering (Chapter Three)
doesn’t insult the body.
Death? It comes in your sleep,
exactly as it should.

When it comes, you’ll be dreaming
that you don’t need to breathe;
that breathless silence is
the music of the dark
and it’s part of the rhythm
to vanish like a spark.
Only a death like that. A rose
could prick you harder, I suppose;
you’d feel more terror at the sound
of petals falling to the ground.

Only a world like that. To die
just that much. And to live just so.
And all the rest is Bach’s fugue, played
for the time being
on a saw.

(Wislawa Szymborska [source])

[Read more…]

Out of Nowhere

December 27, 2013 by John 1 Comment

[Image: by Michael Holler on Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons license.]

From whiskey river:

I Wonder

I wonder what would happen if
I treated everyone like I was in love
with them, whether I like them or not
and whether they respond or not and no matter
what they say or do to me and even if I see
things in them which are ugly twisted petty
cruel vain deceitful indifferent, just accept
all that and turn my attention to some small
weak tender hidden part and keep my eyes on
that until it shines like a beam of light
like a bonfire I can warm my hands by and trust
it to burn away all the waste which is not
never was my business to meddle with.

(Derek Tasker [source: see note at the foot of this post])

…and:

If your yes sometimes feels heavy and silent and still in your chest that is only because it is still looking for a bell tower in the world. Wait. Be patient. You’ll one day again find a bright and worthy place to hang your heaviness, and when it starts to sway — and the clapper of your joy begins to swing in rhythm with it — your bell will at last be heard, even if initially by only one other. And it will be answered, it will be joined.

Have you ever heard a bell ringing in a little valley town? It’s a lovely sound, but there is something mournful about it as well. But two bells, or all the bells in the valley ringing together at once? That is something else entirely. That is the music the human heart was designed to make. That is the definition of a joyful noise.

Wait for that.

(Brad Zellar [source])

…and:

Darling,
You asked me to write you a letter, so I am writing you a letter. I do not know why I am writing you this letter, or what this letter is supposed to be about, but I am writing it nonetheless, because I love you very much and trust that you have some good purpose for having me write this letter. I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love.
Your father

(Jonathan Safran Foer [source])

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A Quirky Eclectic Christmas Mix (2013 ed.)

December 21, 2013 by John 2 Comments

[Video: Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (with She Her & I), “All I Want for Christmas…” See note at the bottom of this post for more information.]

As in every year beginning in 2008, I’ve added ten songs to the bottom of the previous years’ entries. As before, these artists and numbers appear, back-to-back, in the following playlist:

— 2008: —

Peter Robbins et al.: dialogue from A Charlie Brown Christmas
Anonymous 4: Hodie Christus Natus Est
Waverly Consort: Three Spanish Villancicos – Dadme Albcrecias
Perry Como: Home for the Holidays
Mannheim Steamroller: Joy to the World
George Winston: The Holly and the Ivy
Celtic Woman: O Holy Night
John Denver and the Muppets: The Twelve Days of Christmas
Al Hirt: Nutty Jingle Bells
The Roches: Deck the Halls
— 2009: —
Charlotte Church: Mary’s Boy Child
Madeleine Peyroux/k.d. lang: River
George Winston: Variations on the Kanon
Arthur Fiedler & The Boston Pops: The Toy Trumpet
Eartha Kitt: Santa Baby
Mannheim Steamroller: Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Celtic Woman: The Wexford Carol
The Brian Setzer Orchestra: Jingle Bells
Jimmy Boyd: I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
Cumberland Gap Reunion: Silent Night
— 2010: —
Sam Phillips: Cold Dark Night (lyrics)
Elvis Presley: Blue Christmas
Loreena McKennitt: God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (may be my favorite addition to this year’s list…)
The Chipmunks: The Chipmunk Song
Frank Sinatra: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
London Philharmonic Orchestra: It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
Tony Elman: Winter Creek
Sara Groves: Toy Packaging (lyrics) (…and this may be my favorite for grins)
Harry Belafonte: Mary’s Boy Child
Ray Conniff Singers: Ring Christmas Bells
— 2011: —
Ralph Marterie and His Band: Dig That Crazy Santa Claus
Nat King Cole: The Christmas Song
The Indigo Girls: It Really Is (A Wonderful Life) (lyrics)
Johnny Mercer and the Pied Pipers: Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town
Dean Martin: Baby It’s Cold Outside (also see the wonderful American Songwriter writeup on the story of this song’s composition [thanks, Jules!])
Ferrante and Teicher: Sleigh Ride
Bo Dollis & Wild Magnolias: Shakana Santa Shake It
Neil Diamond: Silver Bells
Taverner Consort, Choir, & Players (Andrew Parrott, conductor): Branle de l’Officiel (Ding! Dong! Merrily on High)
George Winston: Carol of the Bells
— 2012: —
Michael Tilson-Thomas & Philharmonia Orchestra: The Nutcracker (Overture)
Vince Guaraldi Trio: O Tannenbaum
Troy Hess: Christmas on the Moon (And don’t worry, it’s not just you: no one else seems to understand the lyrics (other than the refrain), either.* America’s Singing Souvenir Troy Hess was four years old when he recorded this in 1970. )
Barbra Streisand: I Wonder as I Wander
Frank Sinatra: Jingle Bells
Al Hirt: Ave Maria
Art Neville: Christmas Gumbo
Ella Fitzgerald: Frosty the Snowman
Dean Martin: I’ll Be Home for Christmas
Choir of King’s College, Cambridge: Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht
— 2013: —
Knightsong: Christmas Is Coming
Mannheim Steamroller: Pat-a-Pan
Vienna Boys’ Choir: The Little Drummer Boy
Tori Amos: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Cumberland Gap Reunion: The First Noel
I Soloisti di Zagreb & Antonio Janigro: Toy Symphony: I: Allegro
Liuba María Hevia (Spanish-language site): Venid Fieles Todos (Adeste Fidelis) (probably my favorite track in this year’s mix)
Corporal Blossom: White Christmas (see below for more information about this track)
Perry Como: O Holy Night
Enya: Oíche Chiúin [Chorale]

(Note: The playlist goes automatically from start to finish, once you click the little Play button. To fast-forward to the next number, once a song is playing you’ll find a little fast-forward button to the right of its progress meter. And a fast-rewind to the left, for that matter.)

[audio:00_dialoguefromacharliebrownchristmas.mp3, 01_hodiechristusnatusest_anonymous4.mp3, 02_threespanishvillancicos_dadme_albricias_waverlyconsort.mp3, 03_homefortheholidays_perrycomo.mp3, 04_joytotheworld_mannheimsteamroller.mp3, 05_thehollyandtheivy_georgewinston.mp3, 06_oholynight_celticwoman.mp3, 07_12daysofchristmas_denvermuppets.mp3, 08_nuttyjinglebells_alhirt.mp3, 09_deckthehalls_theroches.mp3, 11_marysboychild_charlottechurch.mp3, 12_river_peyrouxlang.mp3, 13_variationsonthekanonbypachelbel_georgewinston.mp3, 14_thetoytrumpet_fiedler.mp3, 15_santababy_earthakitt.mp3,
16_rudolphtherednosedreindeer_mannheimsteamroller.mp3, 17_thewexfordcarol_celticwoman.mp3, 18_jinglebells_briansetzerorchestra.mp3, 19_isawmommykissingsantaclaus_jimmyboyd.mp3, 20_silentnight_cumberlandgapreunion.mp3, 21_colddarknight_samphillips.mp3, 22_bluechristmas_elvispresley.mp3, 23_godrestyemerrygentlemen_loreenamckennitt.mp3, 24_thechipmunksong_thechipmunks.mp3, 25_haveyourselfamerrylittlechristmas_franksinatra.mp3, 26_itcameuponamidnightclear_londonphilharmonicorchestra.mp3, 27_wintercreek_tonyelman.mp3, 28_toypackaging_saragroves.mp3, 29_marysboychild_harrybelafonte.mp3, 30_ringchristmasbells_rayconniffsingers.mp3, 31_digthatcrazysantaclaus_ralphmarterie.mp3, 32_thechristmassong_natkingcole.mp3, 33_itreallyis_indigogirls.mp3, 34_santaclausiscomintotown_johnnymercer.mp3, 35_babyitscoldoutside_deanmartin.mp3, 36_sleighride_ferranteandteicher.mp3, 37_shakanasantashakeit_bodolliswildmagnolias.mp3, 38_silverbells_neildiamond.mp3, 39_branledelofficiel_tavernerconsort.mp3, 40_carolofthebells_georgewinston.mp3, 41_nutcrackeroverture_tilsonthomas_philharmonia.mp3, 42_otannenbaum_vinceguaralditrio.mp3, 43_christmasonthemoon_troyhess.mp3, 44_iwonderasiwander_barbrastreisand.mp3, 45_jinglebells_franksinatra.mp3, 46_avemaria_alhirt.mp3, 47_christmasgumbo_artneville.mp3, 48_frostythesnowman_ellafitzgerald.mp3, 49_illbehomeforchristmas_deanmartin.mp3, 50_stillenachtheiligenacht_choirofkingscollege.mp3, 51_christmasiscoming_knightsong.mp3, 52_patapan_mannheimsteamroller.mp3, 53_thelittledrummerboy_viennaboyschoir.mp3, 54_haveyourselfamerrylittlechristmas_toriamos.mp3, 55_thefirstnoel_cumberlandgapreunion.mp3, 56_toysymphonyiallegro_isoloistidizagrebantoniojanigro.mp3, 57_venidfielestodos_liubamariahevia.mp3, 58_whitechristmas_corporalblossom.mp3, 59_oholynight_perrycomo.mp3, 60_oichechiuin_enya.mp3|titles=’A Quirky/Eclectic Christmas Music Playlist’|artists=Various Artists]

If you prefer, with the player gizmo below you can listen to just the current ten-song list, without having to fast-forward to it through earlier lists. And as in the last couple of years, I’ve also given RAMH regulars (and anyone else who can figure it out!) the chance to use their secret right-bracket decoder rings, to listen to the playlist later without even visiting here. Here we go with this year’s selections only:

[2013 only]

[audio:51_christmasiscoming_knightsong.mp3, 52_patapan_mannheimsteamroller.mp3, 53_thelittledrummerboy_viennaboyschoir.mp3, 54_haveyourselfamerrylittlechristmas_toriamos.mp3, 55_thefirstnoel_cumberlandgapreunion.mp3, 56_toysymphonyiallegro_isoloistidizagrebantoniojanigro.mp3, 57_venidfielestodos_liubamariahevia.mp3, 58_whitechristmas_corporalblossom.mp3, 59_oholynight_perrycomo.mp3, 60_oichechiuin_enya.mp3|titles=’A Quirky/Eclectic Christmas Music Playlist’ (2013 ed.)|artists=Various Artists]

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