So I missed the train on the KINGS Thanksgiving holiday and it's honestly pretty late in the season for the Christmas KINGS thing but, eh, better late than never. In an ideal blog-post world I would have got this up right after Thanksgiving.
So Christmas is almost upon us and we all know how I feel about holidays and the cold. Though I do have to admit that the last two holiday seasons have been the best in recent memory. Being back in a city where I can actually see my family at the holidays and, even more recently, accruing a new family, sort of a surrogate for the big family or brothers and sisters and whatnot that I never experienced, has been wonderful.
I am so thankful for the amazing Schweigerts. Thank you for taking me in and treating me like a part of your family. It's weird, I have always been very into being an only child. In fact, when I was little I had a lot of anxiety about my parents having another kid. But somewhere in the last five years or so I have begun to really wish I had had a little sister, a bigger family. Consequently, having Jenn's family around me now has been a treat that I cannot really describe. It's like getting a second chance for something, late in life. It's like having experienced, fully, one side of a coin and then somehow getting to see what it was like on the completely opposite end of the spectrum.
Last year was my first Christmas with them and it was really nice. One of my favorite memories of which was everyone, all however many of us, 10? 12? hanging out in the living room and people taking turns playing Rock Band, which I had never played before (or Guitar Hero or any of those for that matter). Highlights included everyone doing "Naked Eye" by Luscious Jackson and "Feel Good Inc." by Gorillaz. Later, we distributed all the DMB CDs (see story below) and we all took a spin through the hits and everyone's personal favorites. It reminded me of me and Coree listening to DMB that first KINGS xmas (again, see story below).
Having finally caved in, in deference to Jenn, and started reading the Harry Potter books (I know, I know, there are scoffs and guffaws from the unconverted, I've done it myself, all my life) I have to admit that there really isn't anything wrong with them at all. All of my reticence was apparently based solely on the people that love HP. said people espousing and exuding the fanatical, precious, cloying, childish, and obnoxiousness I have always associated with the books.
Turns out the books themselves are wholly unoffensive and written fairly unassumingly. Go figure. I'm a grown-up, I can admit when I'm wrong. (Also, having read the entire Twilight series this year really set me up to be able to differentiate between good young adult writing and BAD young adult writing, or good and bad writing in general. Kudos, Stephanie Meyer, for making it possible for me to see past my prejudices about JK Rowling.)
So yeah, I'm almost finished with them now and I have had a particularly nice experience with the charracters/family of the Weasleys. I won't spend time here going on about the plot and character elements of the series. I will suffice to say that I have found a pronounced parallel between the Weaselys and their relationship to Harry and my own relationship with Jenn's family. It's nice.
Anyway, the point of this post is to acknowledge another KINGS holiday, reminisce briefly about it and, most importantly, issue a suggested listening statement. As I was telling Coree recently, that first Christmas after KINGS really got going was one of my absolute favorites. We had a nice time one night buying xmas lights at CVS for the Castle and listening to Dave Matthews and Smashing Pumpkins. I think this was actually the experience that opened up the whole 90's guilty pleasure obsession in the KINGS mixes and my own life. It was nice to share some embarrassing tastes with others. Shortly thereafter I came to Atlanta to visit my mom. I remember corresponding with the Kings via emial and wracking my brain for all the 90's hits I could recall.
This was right around the time that "Stadium Arcadium" and "The Information" came out I think. I remember making a chart in my notebook to mix from, designating specific artist quotas that needed to go on each mix. A checklist of stuff to adhere to. (When I've got a little more time than I do now I'll take some pics of some of this stuff to pin to the top of this post).
So, merry Christmas close friends, happy holidays. Everyone (and yeah I know pretty much no one has access to most of these mixes or their current incarnations besides me but I am going to keep on with these suggestions and references as if you all do, because someday you will have a working library of them all and these posts will be invaluable mile markers) should take some time this Christmas season to listen to, what is now, one of the single longest mixes in our shared history:
--125e/177c/178c/205c/240++ "BOX SET" (The Storm/Silent Night [Live In Japan, February 19th, 21st & 22nd, 2003])......./.......) (K8)
Had I gotten this up sooner, and had everyone out there had a copy of this, the length would have been perfect. We could have all spent the whole month taking our time and slowly working through the many hours of it. Oh well. I remember last year listening to a portion of this on the way out to Jenns' family's place. I don't think she was enjoying it very much. And, I will certainly admit that my version of a Christmas mix is a little obtuse. A lot of personal moments that are not readily understandable as holiday-centric. And also the fact that I tended to include some of the hardest to listen to xmas tracks out there. Oh well.
I'm not going to talk any more extensively about the actual contents of the mix, I'll save that for when this comes up in mix-profile post rotation.
And with that, I am off. We've had a relaxing morning here, making breakfast, watching xmas episodes of The Simpsons and putting the finishing touches on the "Christmas Mix-off" that Jenn and I decided to do as a gift for everyone in the family. We do this every year I guess, pick a thematic, series type idea to give to everyone (last year we burned a different Dave Matthews album for each family member and I tried to draw the covers for them, I'll definitely need to get pics of that up too when I fix-up this post,, after xmas.) This year Jenn suggested we just make a CD for everyone with stuff we really like on it, which then turned into both of us making one each, which, of course, became a xmas mix-off. I think they both came out very good and very different. Now we'll just hope any of our family member likes them at all.
Merry Christmas KINGS,
I love you and miss you.
it is 12:46pm (xmas eve)
this is the seance.
xx
sounds like a lovely xmas! miss you guys!
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