WHAT I’M SPINNING NOW

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SpinningSoundOfMusicOSTBaja

This album gave the Beatles a run for their money in the 60s, especially in the U. K.  Help replaced it in the number one spot, but it came back.  Then Rubber Soul replaced it and it came back again.  Then Sgt. Pepper’s replaced it and it came back again, rising to the top only to be replaced once again by Sgt. Pepper’s.  The two albums went on to trade places in the top spot two more times.  The Sound Of Music made it into the top spot one last time between Sgt. Pepper’s and “The White Album”.

The battle was similar, though not quite as protracted and closely fought, in the U. S.

MariaMountains

The Sound Of Music soundtrack album is not quite as appealing as the Broadway cast recording.  Maria’s numbers in the film are aided immeasurably by Julie Andrews’s visual performance of them and by the cinematic settings created for them by director Robert Wise.  It’s still a delightful album, and you can see why it was so persistently popular, perhaps as much as a souvenir of the wildly popular movie as for its musical charms, considerable as those are.

WHAT I’M SPINNING NOW

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SpinningVenturesChristmasAlbumBaja

Los Straitjackets do wonderful rocking Christmas instrumentals but the Ventures were the original masters of the form.  Big fun, which almost got me to go for my third cup of egg nog this evening — but I’m not that far gone . . . not yet.

Click on the image to enlarge.

FIRST SPIN OF THE SEASON

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SpinningJollyChristmasBaja

. . . for this delightful masterpiece.  Just listening to it for the first time this year compelled me, quite against my better judgement, to break my ironclad rule and have two — two — cups of egg nog in one night.

Click on the image to enlarge.

THE MANGER AND THE CROSS

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Nativity

The cross is supposed to be the center of Christianity — it is the expiation for sin which redeems humanity, the cosmic turning point of history.  That may be, theologically speaking.  But if this redemption doesn’t take us all back to the stable in Bethlehem, to the hillside where the shepherds heard the angels sing, to the joy of the first Christmas — what the hell good was it?

Crucifixion1317Baja

If the cross was just a last-minute reprieve, a back-stop catching us up slightly short of the abyss, it might be worthy of eternal relief, but not of eternal enthusiasm.

Annunciation_to_the_Shepherds_1663_Abraham_Hondius

The cross is not the center of the moral universe — the cross places the stable in Bethlehem at the center of the moral universe.  When a man or woman of faith sees a cross, he or she should ask, “Which way is that manger I’ve heard about?  Can I still get there in time for the big event, even with a change-over in Denver?  What are the chances of picking up some myrrh in the airport gift shop?”

Halt-of-the-Wise-Men-John-LaFarge

Suffering marks out the road to Heaven, sure, but as Blake said, gratitude is Heaven itself.  Gratitude is the destination.  Hit the trail to Bethlehem and bring a gift.

WAR CRIMES

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George-W-Bush-Baja

I understand that Bush and Obama and their CIA teams were working under extraordinary and in some ways unprecedented pressures when they committed war crimes.  A case can be made that they should receive pardons after their convictions for those crimes, and I’d be more than willing to listen to it — but first, the convictions.

FIRST AMAZON CUSTOMER REVIEW!

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WesternLoveStoriesCoverBaja

Fonvielle’s ‘Six Western Love Stories’

. . . isn’t a romance novel. No moon in June, pie in the sky, lovey dovey BS. The love in these short stories is sometimes given and sometimes taken, It’s hard and it’s rough, born of necessity, lust and greed. There are turns of tenderness though but that tenderness seemingly comes with time and life lived. Descriptive and colorful, I found myself living through these stories, being in them for the moments they took me to read. That’s the best I can say about these stories. They draw you in and make you partake. The only disappointment is when they’re over.

For book details go here:

Six Western Love Stories

WHAT I’M SPINNING NOW

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SpinningBlueBaja

Rock albums don’t get much better than Blue by Joni Mitchell — from a time when artists regularly put out LPs on which every track was a classic.  (When did that stop seeming like a good idea?)

The modern pressing I’m listening to now, on 180-gram vinyl from Rhino, is clear and bright but the sound is slightly brittle –without the depth and roundness of the original.  Someday Mobile Fidelity will put out an edition and that will be the one to have (unless you’ve got a nice clean copy of the first pressing.)  Until then, this will do very well.