Thursday, December 15, 2005

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

I'm totally into the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Christmas trilogy this year. I found this excellent interview with Paul O'Neill at Christianity Today, and thought I'd pass it along.

I especially like this quote from O'Neill:
I've been asked if I think Christmas is hypocritical in that people treat others so badly for the other 364 days of the year. But the problem is not Christmas. The problem lies in how we treat people the remainder of the year. There's just something inspiring about Christmas. For one day a year, people just seem to "get it."

This is among the most unique Christmas music I have found. And "Wizard in Winter" which is on the third album, The Lost Christmas Eve, is the song to which the lights on that super-cool Christmas Lights House that's traveling all over the Internet are synchronized.


I've written out a Kostelanetz-ly* long review of some of my favorite Christmas music, which I'll probably post pretty soon (I need to think of a few more superlatives to describe Ella Fitzgerald's voice).

Merry, merry, merry Christmas!

*Kostelanetz is an all-purpose word that can be used as a noun, adjective, adverb, verb, etc. It is named in (dubious) honor of Richard Kostelanetz who is a frequent writer of tediously boring, self-aggrandizing, belly-button-gazing, conceited essays in the otherwise excellent libertarian periodical, Liberty. As you may have already figured out, it is used to describe writing about an author that would only be of interest to the author (and maybe the author's mother). A typical Kostelanetz article will describe his library, or complain about how his alma mater, Brown University, fails to recognize him among its distinguished alumni, or reflect once again about living in NYC on 9/11 (the first two times were plenty for me). Oy vey! This is an understood conversational colloquialism between me and my dad, but I am hoping, Kostelanetz-like, to introduce it to wider circulation. Use it well, use it often, use it proudly -- I'll be listening for it in all pop culture media. Peace!

1 comment:

Arielle said...

I really enjoy what I've heard of TSO. I love how exhuberant their music is!