Thursday, December 20, 2007

ok, i’m a sucker for classic carols

And I like Gregorian chants as well and a lot of liturgical music. Even though I’m one of them wicked atheists (gasp!) Love Handel’s “Messiah,” the “Ave Maria,” the “Little Drummer Boy,” and, most of all, “Silent Night.” Not too crazy about non-religious Christmas songs with the exception of “White Christmas” sung ONLY by Bing Crosby or Andy Williams. But back to “Silent Night.” Found it on iTunes tonight—still setting up my new computer—working on the nice-to-have stuff now that most of the need-to-have stuff is done.

But not just any version of “Silent Night.” No, a version by Fredo Viola, a singer I tracked down after hearing his “Sad Song” on “CSI: Miami.”  “Sad Song” wasn’t available for purchase anywhere at the time (it is now, sort of, from a European site) so I fear I drove up Fredo’s bandwidth playing the song over and over. It was supposed to be on iTunes, but never showed up there. Fredo couldn’t really tell me what the problem was with iTunes not loading it because he didn’t know, but he did tell me that he signed with Because, a French label, which will release his first EP next month. I hope. On vinyl and digitally, I think.

Fredo’s version of “Silent Night” blew me away, so I bought it, then headed to his myspace page to catch up on what’s happening with him. And found this video:

Pretty amazing, eh? Nils Christian Fossdal sings the bass notes (Fredo is the guy on the right.)

I’m glad that things are moving along for him. I lost track of what was happening with Fredo’s music, sort of, when Stanley got so sick last May. I think I listened so obsessively to “Sad Song” for the couple of months before Stanley went to the emergency room because, I believe, it was speaking to the “something is wrong” feeling I couldn’t shake, but at the time couldn’t identify, either. Then, afterwards, I couldn’t listen to it for a while, not until October or so—Stanley’s second near-death experience shredded me and “Sad Song” was unbearable. Now I can listen to it a lot again and I’m very much looking forward to paying for it. I’m really glad I could listen to it when I needed it so much. (Yes, I know, a lot of Fredo Viola’s music is strange—but I love it.)

I’m sitting in my new chair as I write this. Very weird this afternoon: I reached for a pen the cat knocked to the floor and my office chair made this weird noise and suddenly I was sitting on a 30° angle. My left butt cheek was higher than my right butt cheek. Very uncomfortable. Knew I had to get to Staples before it closed to buy a replacement and was worried that Stanley wouldn’t get home in time to help me decide what to get. He’s been working like crazy this week—everybody wants stuff done in time for Christmas and they wait until the last possible minute ... we go through this every year, twice a year, before Thanksgiving and then Christmas. Anyway, he made it, and we ended up going to two Staples because the one up the street had a good supply of crap chairs, one decent floor model I liked that I would have taken if the maximum they were going to give me off wasn’t a stinking 5%. For a beat-up, discontinued floor model! Five percent off of $300 was a joke, so we headed for the Staples near Home Depot (which was our second destination for the evening, anyway).

A much better selection (the one I really want costs $500—more like an arm chair on wheels than a desk chair!) and I found one for $100 (on sale, $50 off), a cushiony micro suede number that 1) will be covered with animal fur in about eight more hours and 2) will start looking like a shag rug pretty soon as Twitch sharpens his claws in it a couple of hundred more times. But it’s very comfortable—I liked my old chair and that model is still available, but I like having a headrest. Stanley says I will fall asleep more, be asleep all afternoon. Maybe.

What got me is the Staples clerk tried to sell me a three-year warranty on a $100 chair.

I think I’ll go to bed now—maybe by the time I get up the music files will have all transferred to my new computer. Then tomorrow I’ve gotta find my iPod, which I stashed somewhere to keep it safe while we were away, just where oh where ...

posted by lee on 12/20/07 at 08:37 AM

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