SOUNDTRACK: JAMES TAYLOR-At Christmas (2006).
James Taylor is a folk icon with a smooth voice. It seems like it would be perfect for a chill Christmas album.
Well, since I last heard Taylor (1976’s Greatest Hits album) he has gotten a little away from that folk sound (imagine that) and more into a kind of bland(er) adult-contemporary sound. This album has hints of light jazz in it too. And, worse yet, he tries to lighten some of it up with humor. Gasp.
When we got this disc we were so disappointed that I don’t think it has been listened to since. Well, it wasn’t as bad as I remembered, but it’s a pretty long slog through the holidays (and it was nominated for a Grammy, of course). Almost any one of these songs is a fine addition to any Christmas mix, but too many will put everyone to sleep.
This was originally released in 2004 and distributed by Hallmark Cards, which really does tell you all you need to know. This was resequenced and a couple new songs were added.
“Winter Wonderland” has all the jazz trappings–muted trumpet, brushes on drums and Taylor’s voice which isn’t quite as comforting as it used to be.
“Go Tell It On the Mountain” sees him modifying this song somewhat and turning it far away from the gospel tradition.
“Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” has him scatting and be-bopping a little…which is not really his forte I hate to say.
“Jingle Bells” has him making it jazzy. It’s a bit too much frankly. Especially when it’s followed by
“Baby It’s Cold Outside” a duet with Natalie Cole, which really tells you everything you need to know about this disc–safe, safe choices. The “joking” in this song was meant to be cute, but it comes off a little creepy.
After getting annoyed by the first half, I felt like the rest of the album worked pretty well. He lays off the jazzyness and focuses on his voice.
“River” open with a pretty “Good King Wenceslaus,” on the acoustic guitar. It switches to a fine version of Joni Mitchell’s “River.” This is my favorite song on here and it was not included on the original Christmas release of 2004.
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” sticks in my head because he changes the words from “from now on” to “in a year our troubles will be out of sight.” Why so specific? And why every time?
“The Christmas Song” In this nice version, he sings “some holly and some mistletoe” like Paul McCartney does. Interesting, as I don’t think he’s a vegetarian.
“Some Children See Him.” This is a song I was unfamiliar with until a couple of years ago. It’s quite sweet and suits him well.
“Who Comes This Night” I didn’t know this song at all. But again the piano and bells suit his voice better than the jazzy songs.
“In the Bleak Midwinter” is a slow song, but man he slows it down even more. And the disc ends with “Auld Lang Syne” which is surprisingly long and would be much better served without the “wailing” guitar solo.
Not every Christmas CD can be a winner.
[READ: June 16, 2017] Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine
This is the third McSweeney’s book in a row (all read around the same time) that I really didn’t like.
It’s not surprising, as I tend to not like Diane Williams’ stories at all (looking back, I don’t think I’ve ever liked anything she’s written). I only read this because McSweeney’s sent it to me.
The book jacket is just covered with hagiography about what great writer she is and how she upends convention and stuff like that. But to me, these aren’t stories at all. And most of them don’t even make sense as themselves.
Rather than saying much more, I’m just posting some stories in full, to show what I mean.
Head of a Naked Girl
One got an erection while driving in his car to get to her. Another got his while buying his snow blower, with her along. He’s the one who taught her how to blow him and that’s the one she reassured ‘You’re the last person I want to antagonize!’
The men suspect her of no ill will and they’ve stuck by her.
She’s enjoyed their examinations of her backside in her bed.
And although there’s no danger, one of the men had a somewhat bluff interest in her. He was handsome with dim-lit eyes. She liked to joke with him.
While she bent forward to her comfort level, at her sink, without holding her breath, she kept her mouth open. He applied himself against her and she allowed his solution to gently drain from her.
The paper she’d gathered together, and added to several times—to dry herelf—was unfairly harsh—so often, such a number or times, regularly, usually.
But something more. Another man, when he stopped by noted that things had become almost too satisfactory. He saw copies of old masters on the wall, not obvious to him on his previous visits.
Is something wrongs? the girl asked.
As a rule, she blamed herself—for yet another perfect day.
Lavatory
There had been the guest’s lavatory visit—to summarize. She did so want to be comfortable then and for the rest of her life. She had been hiking her skirt and pulling down her undergarment, just trying not to fall apart.Once back in the foyer, she brought out a gift for her host. “I tried to find something old for you to put on your mantel, but I just couldn’t. I tried to find something similar to what you already have, to be on the safe side, but I couldn’t.”It was difficult for the guest to comprehend easily what the other invitees were saying, because she wasn’t listening carefully. One man happened to have a son who knew her son. He had learned something of importance about her son—about his prospects. Something.
But the guest interrupted him, “I don’t agree that there is a comfortable space for each of us out there and we have to find it. I think this is so wrong. It assumes there is a little environment that you can slip into and be perfectly happy. My notion is you try to do all the things you’re comfortable with and eventually you will find your comfortable environment.”
A man they called Mike smoked a maduro and he had a urine stain on his trouser fly. He was very attentive to the host and to his wife Melissa.
“Stop!” his wife cried, but he’d done it already—tipped the ashtray he’d used—the dimpled copper bowl—into the grate behind the fire screen. The ashes fell down nicely, sparsely. There was still some dark, sticky stuff leftover in the bowl.
The host called, “Kids! Mike! Dad and Mom!” He called these copulators to come in to dinner. In fact, this group represented a predictable array of vocations—including hard workers, worriers, travelers, and liars—defecators, of course, urinators and music makers.
When I Was Old and Ugly
The creature had come absurdly close to our window. It had lifted its chin—face—specifically toward mine while we were at breakfast in the country.
I’d say the animal looked and looked at me and looked, ardently.
I was reminded how to fall in love by meeting its eyes and by how long the rendezvous lasted—until doomsday, say.
I am unhappily married. Today I was dressed up in red-fox orange—orangutan orange—apricot orange, candlelight orange. I had on a wool plaid coat and had been racketing around my city precinct doing errands.
On the avenue, I was unavoidably stuck inside of an uproar when the wind locked itself in front of my face.
Nevertheless, I had a smeary view of a child in the whirlwind who was walking backward. He was carrying his jacket instead of wearing it. And he kicked up his feet with such aptitude.
In a luncheonette that I took cover in, I overheard “Yes, I do mind…”—this while I was raising and rearranging memories of many people’s personal details, tryst locales, endearments—faces, genitalia, like Jimmy T’s, or Lee’s, which I pine for.
Returning home, while in the elevator of our building, facing the closed door, I combed nearly every hair—all that thinning hair—along the sides of my skull.
That massive man that I didn’t know at all, who had a stiffness of manner at the back of the elevator, he acknowledged me. And the doorman Bill had not averted his eyes.
No, not the sort of thing that I usually report. No, that I had withdrawn the tortoiseshell comb from my purse to do the smoothing with and then re-stowed it on the way to 3A, our apartment.
The comb I keep in the quilted sack, where I also conceal a tiny toothpaste, the easy-to-carry traveler’s toothbrush, and my eyeglass-lens polishing cloth.
The carpet was unmarked by dirt, but one important thing in our foyer was missing—the color with the green leaves in a vase. The old floor gets better with age, but boy it needed to be cleaned up—then it will shine.
I also have affectionate and friendly wishes for the brass, crystal, silver dishes, vases, and pitchers.
I am unemotional about the abrupt ending of friendships and there’d be no purpose, no benefit, none, to exploring these subjects further—such as: have I come clean enough?
I am—yes—utterly at ease in the company of others secretive, sexually active, quite adaptable.
And many have said of me, I hear—She’s very charming.
Specialist
‘For a blue sky, that blue’s a bit dark, don’t you think? And the sea’s a bit too choppy,’ I said, ‘for that dog to be dashing into it.’
‘You mean the man threw something into the water?’ my son said, ‘–that’s why the dog jumped in?’
An hour passed. Why not say twenty years?
In the Green Room, I had fortunately ordered Frenched Chicken Breast – Chocolate Napoleon.
And at a great height – up on a balcony, as I readied to leave – a pianist began his version of Cole Porter’s ‘Katie Went to Haiti.’ I waved to him.
He nodded, likely pleased by the attention, but it was hard to tell – for only his radiant pate was made visible by a tiny ceiling light.
To my surprise, the air in the street was too hot to give pleasure and a cyclist was mistakenly on the sidewalk.
The cyclist hit me, and it’s vile after my life ends in the afterlife. Lots of incense, resin, apes, and giraffe-tails – all acquired tastes. I don’t like that kind of thing.
And so as with most flash fiction, I just don’t see the point. They are nuggets of ideas, sometimes they are interesting all the way through. Sometimes they’re just confusing. Sometimes they start as one thing and then haiku into something unrelated in the last line. And sometimes you think, that was great now tell me the whole story. I guess I don’t understand the mind of the person who reads this and goes ‘Yes this is what I was looking for!’
Often times, I like the sentences. I just don’t like how they are arranged.
Contents
- Beauty. Love and Vanity Itself
- A Gray Pottery Head
- Cinch
- Gulls
- To Revive a Person is No Slight Thing
- Head of a Naked Girl
- Rhapsody Breeze
- Lavatory
- People of the Week
- The Romantic Life
- The Great Passion and Its Context
- Specialist
- The Poet
- At a Period of Exceptional Dullness
- Head of the Big Man
- Living Deluxe
- Personal Details
- Flying Things
- How Blown Up
- Sigh
- There is Always a Hesitation Before Turning in a Finished Job
- The Mermaid Pose
- Greed
- Clarinda
- The Skol
- The Thickening Wish
- Lamb Chops, Cod
- Of the True and Final Good
- Glimpses of Mrs. Williams
- Girl with a Pencil
- Perform Small Tasks
- With Red Chair
- Try
- Removal men
- A Mere Flask Poured Out
- Band Bang on the Stair
- A Little Bottle of Tears
- When I Was Old and Ugly
- Palm Against Palm
- Human Comb
Leave a Reply