DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

I really enjoy holiday music. Not most of it, of course; just because I’m filled with the good will of the season doesn’t mean I can tolerate choirs of sappy voices going on about Rudolph and Frosty and the rest of the Hallmark-mythology gang. Most of the holiday music I like is instrumental.*

Not all of these are strictly “Christmas music,” although all feel appropriate for the season:

December, George Winston
George Winston’s solo piano music is hauntingly beautiful, and December is surprisingly evocative of the season. This album gets my highest recommendation.

Autumn, George Winston
I bought this recently after realizing how much I enjoyed December. Within a few listens, this album became as familiar and evocative. (And I’ve never even been to Montana.)

Christmas (1984), Mannheim Steamroller
Amazon describes the Steamroller sound well: “a blend of Renaissance-flavored moods and instrumentation … intertwined with polite pop instrumental music”. Although at times a bit dated in sound, this album remains a holiday classic. The renditions of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen and Stille Nacht give me chills, even after 15 seasons.

A Fresh Aire Christmas (1988), Mannheim Steamroller
More great arrangements, unusual instrumentation, and compelling compositions from Chip Davis and Mannheim Steamroller.

The New Age of Christmas, Danny Gottlieb and Pete Levin
Don’t let the name fool you — this is not “newage” (rhymes with “sewage”). Gottlieb is jazz drummer, and Levin is a keyboardist and composer. Together they’ve arranged ten classic Christmas songs for keyboards and drums. Some of the synth patches sound dated, but the arrangements are fun and (as with Mannheim Steamroller) sometimes unexpected. The original album is out of print (click the album cover to check half.com’s inventory); you could instead opt for the duo’s second release, recently remastered: Masters in this Hall.

4nyc, Jordan Rudess
Rudess is a Julliard-trained pianist who performed a benefit concert after the 9/11 attacks. He recorded the show, and produced a CD that mixes live improvisations with studio recordings. The music is mostly acoustic, mostly improvised, and entirely inspiring.

*Now you might ask me if I have something against vocal music. I don’t, in general, although I’ll admit that much of the time I wish the guy standing in front of the drummer would just shut his yap, step to one side, and let the band get on with it. Still, I wish all you singers out there a very happy holiday season!

Andrew (who owns Tap on DVD) points out that This Is Spinal Tap has been admitted to the National Film Registry. This isn’t an empty award; the NFR’s goal is to “ensure that the film is preserved for all time.”

Congressional Librarian James H. Billington explains, “The selection of a film, I stress, is not an endorsement of its ideology or content, but rather a recognition of the film’s importance in American film and cultural history and history in general.”

CNN reports: National Film Registry to preserve ‘Spinal Tap’ (local mirror)

Why does film need to be preserved? Because it’s art, man! Especially This Is Spinal Tap. Read more about film decay.

(On that note, the documentary on the remastering of the original Star Wars trilogy, available on the VHS Special Edition, shows a remarkable amount of degradation in just 20 years. The original prints had turned green — which, now that I think about it, makes me question the efficacy of the NFR’s preservation efforts, given that Star Wars was admitted to the registry in 1989.)

Power came back Tuesday afternoon, several hours ahead of schedule. The outage lasted three days and three hours, as determined by the cron log on my router.

I was wrong about being at the end of the line. The Press Demo reports: Thousands still without power.

Relevant statistics from this article:

• 1.8M customers lost power this week
• 8400 homes in Sonoma County remain without power
• Areas of Laytonville and Albion won’t be restored until Thursday

I don’t know where Laytonville and Albion are, except in the sense that they’re “further out” than I am, and I’m apparently already in generator country.

PG&E’s press release describes the damages due to winds:

• 460 damaged poles
• 296 miles of downed lines
• 560 damaged or broken cross arms
• more than 240 damaged transformers
• more than 8400 customers who are hungry for a PG&E executive’s blood because their power is still out

OK, I extrapolated that last one from the context.

The company claims it pays half its claims. The claims-program FAQ admits guilt: “If any … property is damaged because we … unreasonably fail to do something that should have been done, then we have an obligation to pay for reasonable damages.” What did they unreasonably fail to do? Trim trees.

PG&E has a long track record of failing to properly clear trees around its lines, according to the Chico Examiner. There’s more than a hint of scandal: “PUC investigators charged that PG&E had taken money from its ratepayer-funded vegetation management budgets to boost profits, which resulted in bonuses for PG&E managers as reward for cutting jobs. From 1987 to 1994, PG&E diverted $77.6 million from the tree-trimming budget, the investigators said.”

So, file those claims today!

48 hours after our lights went out, PG&E deigned to release an estimated repair time: 8:00 PM tomorrow. In the meantime, I’d seen lights all over town going on and off for two days. Every time the wind blows, another section of the county goes dark.

I knew there was some risk in moving farther out into the country, but I didn’t expect to be out of power for three days. It’s especially incongruous that the weather has been beautiful all day, and the utility is still blaming “storm conditions.”

We’re fortunate in some ways. We were out of town the first night. The second night was inconvenient but interesting, with rustic-adventure appeal; I read by candlelight, and wrote on my laptop in front of the woodstove. The third night began to suck, as food spoiled and the water pressure dropped to nothing. (Well pumps require electricity.)

My house is a wreck of takeout containers and unread newspapers. It smells of woodsmoke and scented candles. It sounds of silence — a sharp contrast to the loud music that is the pulse of the place whenever I’m conscious (assuming the power is on). Behind the silence is the low throbbing of the neighbors’ generators.

Yeah, we should have bought a generator too, but after five years at the old house we’d never needed one. Now, at the new house, we’re apparently at the end of the power line, lowest priority on the repair list for the guys in leather gloves and rubber boots. i think we’ll forego the generator and put a solar array on the roof instead.

An acquaintence on a local mailing list phrased it well: “We’re learning to live like the Amish, but are doing it with a lot less grace.”

Amen to that. Or, maybe, gesundheit, or something.