FundamentallySound Blog

Today I'm making some effort to get back into the mindframe of music work, upcoming projects, planning for Japan, and so on. But for about the last two weeks Jano and I have been completely in holiday mode. And what a holiday it's been.

I grew up not celebrating Christmas, my family was in this weird DIY religion which mixed all of the Jewish holidays (and dietary laws) with a kind of fundamental Protestant ethic and guilt. In it, all the usual Christian holidays were forbidden, Christmas being by far the biggest offender. After the church went bankrupt my parents gave up on it, and now they're more agnostic than anything else. But as a teenager, I would clandestinely celebrate Christmas, with my best friend M and her mother who was completely cosmopolitan and full of stories. These included her recollections of growing up in Manhattan as a little girl, being in a plane whose landing gear wouldn't come down, the runway lit by brave people holding candles, taking picnics with her friends to the hills in Israel, school trips to the Museum of Natural History, and so on. To a kid who grew up in the rural south, she may as well have been describing life on another planet. She was and is a kind of a second mother to me.

So I would secretly buy presents, wrap them, and leave them under the tree (oh my!) then on Christmas eve spend the night at M's house. Her mom would make us Bailey's and coffee, and I remember once she even let us watch My Own Private Idaho. Watching Keanu Reeves give head to River Phoenix (or was it the other way around?) with Christmas lights blinking all around the room, could it have been anymore subversive?

Since those early heady days I've not really cared much for the holiday season. But this year I had a blast with long afternoons spent at double features at the Castro Theater, sampling Peruvian food in the outer Mission, hours spent making playlists, dancing to nonstop Grace Jones videos and 80's disco to ring in the new year, long discussions about whether we are more Pierre et Gilles or Gilbert and George (definitely Gilbert and George, they're more conceptual), contemplating which city in the world would fit us best (Antwerp, in my opinion). For all this I have the lovely and handsome Jano to thank. Yes, 2007 looks promising.