I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: AN OLDE WORLD CHRISTMAS (European Holiday) (1990?).

While yesterday’s Norwegian Christmas album was awesome, this one falls very very short.  The premise of the album is so promising: Christmas songs from around the world.  There are Spanish, French, English, German, Scandinavian and Italian songs here!

Well, the problem is that this entire record was recorded (apparently) by one guy on a keyboard with five preset sounds.  It is so disappointing.  I mean sure it’s pretty (sort of).  But there is no sense at all that these are different countries’ songs.

For instance, “Angels We Have Heard on High.”  Who knew that that was originally a French song?  Not me.  And in no way does this keyboard instrumental version of “Les Anges Dans Nos Campagnes” convey that it is anything other than “Angels We Have Heard on High.”  How about the fact that we get “O Tannebaum” instead of “O Christmas Tree”?  Well, without words, what’s the difference?

So, there are pianoish sounds and harpsichordish sounds and a flute-ish sound.  And this would probably be a nice thing to put on as you were falling asleep on Christmas Eve and wanted visions of synthesized sukker plomme dancing in your tête.  Thank goodness I got it for 99 cents.

[READ: December 16, 2014] What in God’s Name

When I grabbed Simon’s Rich’s last story collection, I also grabbed this novel, assuming that, you know, it would be hilarious.  And it is.

This story is set in Heaven, Inc.  The CEO, God, is more interested in watching NASCAR than actuality attending to any miracles or crises on earth.  In fact, we learn that Earth was created primarily to produce Xenon, and that humans were just a pet project of some angels.

Angels, yes.  The entire story is written from the point of view of some angels working in heaven.

We meet Craig who has been in Miracles for a few years.  And there’s a new addition to the team Eliza who spent many years working in Prayer Intake but really wanted to move up to Miracles because it just sounded so much more interesting.

One of the best parts about the story is the way Rich envisions angels performing small miracles every day–adjusting the world without transgressing any of God’s major laws (gravity, physics, that sort of thing).  When an angel goes too far (like when Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 pints in a game because God liked him and the angel wanted to impress Him), that angel gets punished.  So I loved watching the convoluted ways angels did things to make people act or react.  Small things to help avoid getting a paper cut or assist in catching a fish.

I also loved that dreams are just angels doing beta testing on new ideas.

And things are going along pretty smoothly.  Heaven is an awesome place to live (like the Google campus only better).  Although Craig is a something of a workaholic, so he never really explores outside of his small house and his route to work (he is very excited to win a coupon for a free medium pizza).  When * comes into his department, he immediately crushes on her but he too shy to do anything about it.

But then * makes a huge mistake.  She gets a fatal error that she is about to cause a tsunami.  She runs to talk tell God, but He pretty much ignores her.  She eventually asks him what’s the point.  Why does He do what he does if He doesn’t care about the people of Earth.  So God decides she’s right and he’s going to blow it up.

Craig and * plea for earth and ask for one chance–if they can answer a prayer (something God was never able to get the hang of) within 30 days, God agrees not to blow up the Earth.  And the prayer that they choose is getting two people together.

Unfortunately for the angels, the two people are the most unmotivated slugabeds in New York City.  They live only 6 blocks away from each other but since she only goes to the Dunkin Donuts and he only goes to work, how will they ever meet?

They plan for a coincidental meeting and it works…except that these two are such duds that they can’t even get past saying hello to each other.  The earth is doomed.

So Craig and Eliza have to call in one of the big guns.  They ask for help from an Archangel (he was an angel who did some impressive miraculous stunts (landing a plane in the Hudson River) and was instantly promoted.  Craig thinks he’s a show off, but he gets results.

And so they set in motion some elaborate plans (just how many people have to be inconvenienced to get these two together?).  And what started as a funny story about God and angels quickly morphs into a very exciting story about the end of the world and the romance of a fairly pathetic couple (or is it two fairly pathetic couples?).

I’m used to Rich being funny, but I’m not used to him being exciting as well.  I really enjoyed this book a lot. It’s an incredibly fast read (especially if you stay up all night two nights in a row).  The humor is great.  The way he explains so many weird things that have happened–and the secret to getting into heaven (sorry landlocked states–are silly and yet kind of make sense.

And of course, Freebird!