Inappropriate Christmas

One of my and my brother's favourite Christmas traditions is arranging the creche scene (the figurines were handmade by my Grandma and given as a Christmas present long ago).



As you can see, we decided to depict the scene shortly after the shepherds arrived. As the biblical account states, Mary and Joseph didn't consumate their marriage until after Jesus was born (that's a long time to wait on top of the whole waiting 'til marriage thing ;) and here they have commandeered the shepherds as emergency babysittters.

Meanwhile, the wise men have entered the scene. Being quite far-sighted fellows, they're actually able to spot the angel and (at least initially) they pay more attention to it than that spitty poopy thing. (Meanwhile the sheep are all like 'get out of the way of my food!). One of wise men is partiuclarly prescient however, and spots the ghost of Christmas future looming over the whole scene — the giant spirit that will soon overshadow this whole 'babe in a manger' scene.

...

A little later in the night, the angel and the sheep started playing poker while drinking. The results can still be seen here. (Mary and Joseph took their time getting back to that stinky burping creature; the formerly prescient wise man starts wondering what they're up too — 'hey we have some important gifts to give here!)'.

Merry Christmas!

Here's the least merry of Christmas carols!
Hey... It's not my fault my favourite Christmas carol (I think the most beautiful one, with all due respect to Silent Night) just so happens to be in a minor key and have lyrics full of longing.

So that's my beautiful new ukulele. During the Blessing Tree tour, my old cheapie got broke trying to fix the intonation on it; an anonymous donor gave us money for this beautiful Kala tenor ukulele. $115 US, and I would definitely recommend it. (As 'kittenmildew' put it: "Get a uke! it will change your life for the better.")

The song is based on a medieval chant (Veni, Veni Emmanuel) that dates back as far as the 9th century. 19th century priest and hymn-writer John Mason Neale was the first to translate the text into English and use it as a carol.

There's six or seven verses (more if you count translation variants). I sing the following three (if you can't make out my mutter-y words):

O come, o come Emmanuel
and ransom captive Israel
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the son of God appears.

Rejoice, rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, of Israel.

O come thou day-spring, come and cheer
our spirits by thine advent here.
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
and death's dark shadow's put to flight

O come, desire of nations bind
all people in one heart and mind.
Bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease;
fill the world with heaven's peace

For those who care...
I tuned the ukelele down a half-step to try and bring the melody closer to my vocal range (I need all the help I can get and it probably still isn't enough). If you're interested in learning it, the chords are
Verse - Em Am G Em, G Am D Em, Am G D D7, Em Am D G
Refrain - D Bm Am D Em, G Am Em
(I got them out of internet guitar chord database and modified them a bit).

Photo Album

We interrupt the boredrom of your regularly-scheduled-text-based musings for a (probably equally boring) spasm of Facebook-like photo posting. (Of course if you have yet to join FaceBorg you do this where you can).

So... this is a few of the places I've been to as we've gone down the West Coast on this tour. Some have been mentioned in the newsy e-mails I've sent out to friends and family. 

Here are the wackos I've been touring with.

Here is some shots from the camp at Bowen Island (off the coast of Vancouver), where we held 'band camp' (pre-tour practice) and rolled and dragged logs through hills so they coud become firewood.

This is the ferry ride to Vancouver.

Crossing the mountains into eastern Washington looked like this.

This is right before we dropped into the Columbia River valley (i.e. heading back to the coast in Oregon).

We got visit ranch in (very) northern California, (just across the border from Oregon, near Yreka CA and Mount Shasta). If you went for a walk, you would see things like this.

As the walk continued, Ben got trapped in a Western movie.

We met a horse.

Alex and the horse went for a picnic.

I climbed a big rock and looked around.

Ashton got in touch with an other side... of Bob Dylan.

(Unwittingly, for she's never seen the album cover.)

Crystal (daughter of James Shepherd who co-owns the ranch) and I found some treasures.


All of these photos were taken by Alex. Except for this one, which was taken by a girl name Julie Furbush.

I'm not trying to break your heart

"Awww. I thought you guys were coming to live here."
-Kid from a housing project in Santa Barbara

Just stole this from my friend Rachelle's blog.

"We just find it easier to hate a rich man than to love a poor person with our actual resources and energy. Most people who rail against how the mega-corps are exploiting human life try to put a stick in the spokes of the mega-corps rather than trying to meet the urgent needs of the poor that made them willing to exploit themselves as cheap laborers. The "machine" may need to be dismantled, but it needs to be done with caution, because its moving parts are human lives."
-from The Apparent Project; "Haiti Wants Some Sweatshops"