TBT^2: Christmas Eve

23 December 202121 December 2021 The Portly Politico30 Comments

Well, it’s not exactly Christmas Eve—more like Christmas Eve Eve, which probably has some liturgical significance that my Southern-fried Protestantism doesn’t know or appreciate—but given the way Christmas is falling this year, as well as my own laziness, I thought it’d be worth looking back at this classic Christmas Eve post, with my timeless “Christmas and Its Symbols” post for Flashback Friday tomorrow.

That scheduling also lets me do my beloved “^2” addendum with the titles, adding another layer of Talmudic-esque commentary onto my past scribblings: the ultimate in authorial self-indulgence.

Of course, the season isn’t about my half-baked musings about Christmas, Christmas Eve, or the rest. It’s about the Birth of Our Savior, Jesus Christ. As I wrote last year, Christmas Eve seems to perfectly capture the spirit of mystery of that night, “a night full of magic, mysticism, and wonder.” Christmas Day is a flurry of activity: opening presents, yelling at parents to wake up, cleaning up piles of wrapping paper. Christmas Eve, especially Christmas Eve night, has always seemed more mystical, more reflective—the true celebration of Christ’s Birth.

It was also the night my Aunt Cheryl—the best one-eyed piano player in Aiken County—used to throw her big, bodacious Christmas Eve bash, featuring her incredible lasagna. So maybe that’s why it fills my heart with a warm, fuzzy feeling (these days, it’d be a welcome dose of heartburn—totally worth it for a thick section of her lasagna).

This year, I think I’ll be spending Christmas Eve with my niece and nephews, waking up at their house Christmas morning for the second year in a row. That’s always a fun way to spend the season. Here’s hoping there’s some Christmas Eve Chinese food thrown into the mix. God Bless General Tso—he was a bloodthirsty dictator, but his chicken is delectable.

With that, here is “TBT: Christmas Eve“:

TBT^2: O Little Town of Bethlehem and the Pressures of Songwriting

16 December 202114 December 2021 The Portly Politico11 Comments

It’s Exam Week again, and I’ve managed to stay on top of grading as of the time of this writing. My school only requires teachers to be on campus this week for exams we’re proctoring, so it’s been much quieter and more relaxed than the two weeks preceding this one.

It’s interesting looking back at this post in its prior permutations, though they both explore the same idea: the genius that arises from pressure.

I don’t work well under pressure, but if I have to twenty-three-skidoo together a song in twenty-four hours, I’m far more likely to get it done than if I have an amorphous, open-ended deadline. I’ve been approached on a small number of occasions to compose music for certain purposes, and I usually fall down on the job. I find that while I can write a song fairly quickly, I do not compose instrumental music terribly well under pressure. That requires a great deal of thought, especially if the music is programmatic in nature.

That said, I’ve been listening to more of my buddy Frederick Ingram’s work, and even some of my old EP. It’s pretty remarkable listening back to some of the songs that I wrote, a few of them nearly ten years ago! I also realize that I actually wrote some pretty good songs—and I’ve been trying to figure out where that inspiration and lyrical subtlety went.

For example, I’ve long written off one of my songs, “Funeral Pyre,” as kind of a throwaway tune. I wrote it the morning I was supposed to begin recording the record (but that session was rescheduled due to a snowstorm). It was based on an interesting line that popped into my head one night before bed: “That crackling fire/was the funeral pyre/for the flame that I held out/for you.”

The song was intended to be a Meat Loafian ballad about unrequited love and romantic mistakes that, despite the pain, bring with them growth. But it’s never been a fan favorite, and I gradually stopped playing it at live shows except only occasionally.

In listening back to it now, I’m actually pretty darn impressed with some of the poetic imagery I managed to evoke (I was probably twenty-nine at the time I wrote it, if I have my dates right). It is very much inspired by Jim Steinman’s writing for Meat Loaf, and the piece is actually quite vocally demanding (though not nearly as impressive as Loaf himself). It doesn’t have the toe-tapping, singalong quality of “Hipster Girl Next Door” or the iconic hooks of “Greek Fair,” but I find that I am finding depth in my own song that I didn’t realize was there!

Well, anyway, that’s enough navel-gazing. I promise I’m not trying to brag about how brilliant younger me was, but it’s pretty cool revisiting my older works. To be sure, listening back to some of those tracks now almost sounds like karaoke, with my voice over pianos that are mixed—why am I only noticing this years later?—a little too loud, giving the sensation of a karaoke track.

With that, here is “TBT: O Little Town of Bethlehem and the Pressures of Songwriting“:

TBT: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

9 December 20218 December 2021 The Portly Politico2 Comments

My school’s big Christmas concert is tomorrow—the first once since December 2019, the infamous “Corporate Christmas” concert—and my Middle School Music class is playing and singing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” It’s one of my favorite carols, and is apparently my pastor’s favorite.

We’re doing the iconic first verse, as well as the third verse, which echoes the themes of the first. There’s a great line—“ris’n with healing in His wings”—that just sounds epic. It’s such a regal tune, perfect for The King of Kings arriving on Earth to save His fallen Creation.

Fortunately, my Middle School students seem to agree, and I am proud of their rendition.

With that, here is 8 December 2020’s “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing“:

TBT: Singing Christmas Carols with Kids

2 December 202130 November 2021 The Portly Politico4 Comments

December is here, and that means it’s time for Christmas music! My students and I are prepping for our annual Christmas concert—back after The Age of The Virus—and have been playing and singing quite a bit of Christmas music.

Indeed, my Music Club—a club designed to get students involved in playing and performing music who, for whatever reason, could not get a music class fit into their schedules—met Tuesday to sing some carols, with the idea being that we will spend lunch and break periods next week caroling for the student body.

As their voices came together in sparkling purity, it reminded me of this post from last year. We started our short rehearsal with “Silent Night,” one of my all-time favorite Christmas songs, and the sweetness and fullness of it with eight or so singers really swelled my heart. We also sang “Joy to the World,” “Away in a Manger,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” and one or two others that escape me.

I once heard that singing is good for you, both physically and mentally. Christmas carols—songs about the Birth of Our Savior, Jesus Christ—surely are good for you spiritually, too. Sing some today.

With that, here is 4 December 2020’s “Singing Christmas Carols with Kids“:

Lazy Sunday CXLI: Thanksgiving Stuff(ing)

28 November 202125 November 2021 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Another glorious Thanksgiving Break has come and gone, so yours portly will have to struggle through another three weeks of work before enjoying another ridiculously generous break at Christmastime.

In keeping with the spirit of doing a lot of “rerun” posts this past week, here’s a Lazy Sunday dedicated to various Thanksgiving posts from yesteryear:

“It’s a Thanksgiving Miracle!” (and “#TBT: It’s a Thanksgiving Miracle!“; “TBT^2: It’s a Thanksgiving Miracle!“; “TBT^4: It’s a Thanksgiving Miracle!“; and “TBT^16: It’s a Thanksgiving Miracle!“) – The original post in this long series if reblogged posts dates to Thanksgiving 2017. The Saturday prior to it I shattered my wrist falling from an extension ladder, and I was just thankful to be alive. Since then I’ve layered on more and more commentary—commentary on the original, then commentary on the commentary, and so on—exponentially adding to the titles and the navel-gazing involved with the posts.
“Thanksgiving Week!” (and “Memorable Monday: Thanksgiving Week!” and “Retro Tuesday: Thanksgiving Week!“) – In the vein of phoning in Thanksgiving posts, I also recycle one about the glories of Thanksgiving Week. The original post pitched my idea for schools taking the entire week off for Thanksgiving, instead of “just” Wednesday through Friday. It seems my vast wisdom—all in the service of laziness, I assure you—has reached the ears of school administrators, who have dutifully fulfilled this self-evidently great suggestion.
“Giving Thanks (and a Sales Pitch)” (and “TBT: Giving Thanks (and a Sales Pitch)” – Ah, marketing—is there anything you can’t do? Well, it turns out that marketing can’t move my products—subscriptions, books, and merch—but it doesn’t stop me from trying. Eventually someone will feel guilty enough to buy something—right? Perhaps the oiliness of linking a holiday designed to thank God for His Blessings to a crass play for commercial gains is off-putting, but it works for Black Friday, so….
“SubscribeStar Saturday: Thanksgiving Weekend” – The only post that has yet to repeat, probably because I felt guilty enough about charging people to read about what I did over Thanksgiving Break. If you want to know how I spent my Thanksgiving at the age of thirty-five, here’s your chance!

Apparently, I write a lot of posts about Thanksgiving, and I recycle almost all of them every year. I think a good bit of that is because I am usually worn out by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, and rather than tax my weary brain with fresh material, I just reuse the treacly tripe I wrote in prior years. Also, pageviews are way down during the week, chiefly because people are enjoying time with their friends and family, rather than wasting time at work reading the angry screeds of a portly man.

Regardless, Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT^16: It’s a Thanksgiving Miracle!

25 November 202118 November 2021 The Portly Politico8 Comments

In the tradition of the past few Thanksgivings (2020, 2019, 2018, and 2017), I’m reblogging my annual “It’s a Thanksgiving Miracle!” post, originally from Thanksgiving 2017 (and on the old blog). The Saturday before that Thanksgiving I fell from a ladder and broke my left wrist (and also got a nasty gash in my left leg). I was thankful to be alive, and to have avoided brain damage (my head, thankfully, was unscathed).

Usually this part of a TBT post is italicized, but to help keep it clear which year’s post you’re reading, I’m alternating between italicized and non-formatted text. I’ve also added some headers to keep the prior year’s posts straight.

It’s a been a good year—a very busy one, but a good one. It seems that life is beginning to resume its usual rhythms (and tempo—mine is, apparently, prestissimo).

In looking back at last year’s commentary, I see quite a few changes from 2020 to 2021. For instance, last year I enjoyed distance learning; the few times we’ve done it this year, I’ve found it unsatisfying and ineffective (but I still like working from home—ha!).

On a brighter note, my private lessons empire has come roaring back. From a low of just one loyal student, I am back to teaching around ten to fifteen lessons per week—sometimes fewer than ten, rarely more than fifteen, and often somewhere in between the two—which has been fun, lucrative, and exhausting. I love teaching private lessons; the problem I am running into now is that, in order to accommodate the maximum number of students, I’m having to eat into time spent on other things—writing, lesson planning, and grading. It’s worth it financially, and lessons have become the highlights of my days, but it’s definitely created some time constraints, especially when tacked on after (and, increasingly, during) a busy school day.

Regardless, I am thankful for the opportunity to work with these students, and for the funds that come with teaching them. I now have two students who take lessons twice a week, which is fabulous, and I’m looking to add two or three more in January. I’m looking into shifting students at comparable levels into group lessons to lighten my load a bit, but also out of sheer necessity—I’m literally running out of times to slot students.

Beyond lessons, it has been a very eventful year. I was elected and re-elected to Lamar Town Council; wrote and published a book, The One-Minute Mysteries of Inspector Gerard: The Ultimate Flatfoot; and got a dog. My SubscribeStar page is up to ten subscribers, though two of those are inactive; at one point, I’d reached eleven!

That’s all to say that I have much to be thankful for this year. I’m also very thankful to you, my readers and commenters. The comments thread on the blog has really come alive in the past few months, and has brought a refreshing energy that motivates me to keep writing. Thanks to all of you for your continued support, in whatever way that support comes.

With that, here is Thanksgiving 2020’s “TBT^4: It’s a Thanksgiving Miracle!“:

TBT: Hand it to Handel

18 November 202117 November 2021 The Portly Politico8 Comments

We’re back in the Baroque Period in my Pre-AP Music Appreciation course this year, though based on the timing of this post, we’re just a few days behind this year. We’ve watched the excellent BBC documentary on Handel linked below, and just got into his works this week (we also recently viewed, in snippets, Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas, which is really great—and, at just under an hour, perfect for classroom viewing).

Regardless, it’s good to see that my pacing from one year to the next is mostly on track. It’s one of those things that teachers like to see, especially when it’s only the second time running a course. I guess I am just more long-winded this year.

What’s not long-winded—I hope!—is this post on Handel’s music.

With that, here is 10 November 2021’s “Hand it to Handel“:

TBT: Veterans’ Day 2018, Commemoration of the Great War, and Poppies

11 November 202110 November 2021 The Portly Politico3 Comments

Today is Veterans’ Day, formerly known as Armistice Day, marking the end of the First World War.

Seeing as it falls on a Thursday this year, it seemed overly appropriate to feature this 2018 Veterans’ Day post.

I don’t have anymore to add that I didn’t say better in 2018, so with that, here is 13 November 2018’s “Veterans’ Day 2018, Commemoration of the Great War, and Poppies“:

TBT: The Morning After

4 November 20214 November 2021 The Portly Politico9 Comments

It was one year ago today that The Z Man wrote that “America died” on 3 November 2020. I don’t think he meant it melodramatically, and it certainly encapsulated what a lot of us were feeling as we watched the fraudulent votes magically appear in the middle of the night.

The 2020 election woke a lot of people up, but even blatant fraud across multiple States has, sadly, gone largely ignored. The silver lining is that folks seem to have abandoned national politics and are focusing on what’s happening at the local and State levels. Indeed, there seems to be a general disengagement from politics, something that in the past I would have decried, but that now I think might actually be healthy—provided people are willing to make tough decisions for themselves.

Regardless, it’s hard to think about the 2020 election. Since then, we’ve been stuck with a old man who is essentially a corpse dangling from the strings of invisible hands. I thought a year ago that The Usurper Biden would be tossed from office at the first opportunity, but it’s occurred to me that he is too perfect a patsy for the radical elitists performing the marionette. For one, Kamala Harris somehow manages to be less likeable and more phony than Hillary Clinton, and progressives don’t like her. For another, it’s better to have a hollow man like Biden than a strident floozy like Harris, who might occasionally make a decision on her own.

Well, this topic is depressing. You can see why I’ve switched over to writing about music and the weather.

With that, here is 4 November 2020’s “The Morning After“:

TBT^2: Happy Halloween!

28 October 202125 October 2021 The Portly Politico24 Comments

Another Halloween is nearly here! This year, Halloween falls on a Sunday, which has thrown everyone into a state of chaos trying to figure out when to trick-or-treat (the correct answer is “Saturday”).

October always passes by so quickly, no matter how much I try to savor the season. Predictably, it’s gotten warmer here again after a week or so of blissfully autumnal weather, though the forecast for the Spooktacular is looking appropriately cool. If it gets cool enough, I’ll brew some coffee and make some hot chocolate for guests. As long as it doesn’t rain, I’m happy!

In the tradition of the last two “Happy Halloween!” posts (the original and last year’s TBT), here is this year’s Jack O’Lantern:

I don’t have much more to add, so with that, here is 29 October 2020’s “TBT: Happy Halloween!“:

The Portly Politico

One Southerner's unique, erudite, conservative perspective in a hectic world

Tag: TBT