Michael

I listened to Michael Buble's "Christmas" album, which came out very recently. Of course reminding us that the most commercial and superficial season is just creeping around the corner waiting to frighten us. Yes folks, I'm not talking about Halloween. Prepare for the yuletide because you'll be scared to death by how much you are actually going to spend courtesy of relentless marketing and Christmas-whoring, sometimes unconsciously. But I'm not going to talk about Christmas. Not just yet. But I like Christmas songs though. Though they are haphazardly rehashed to death by numerous artists, the glow of Christmas songs bring a cheer to me. The songs are what I really like about Christmas. Of course, the gifts too. But the joy in hearing a familiar tune, I'll Be Home for Christmas, for instance, covered to death by a lot of singers, is genuine. At least for me. I mean, others get irritated hearing Christmas songs because they are reminded of the horrors of the season, as I mentioned. This is beginning to be a Christmas post and I said I'm not going to have an early post about it so what I really wanted to talk about is Michael Buble. Because when I played the album, I remembered this companion we have on one of my work-related trips who commented that she does not really like Michael because he cannot or does not give justice to the songs he covers. I was going to argue with her but I was so looking forward to the prospect of an unforgettable adventure minutes away that I let it pass. What I wanted to tell her though was that when Michael covers the songs he covers, his purpose is not to give justice -- of course you want to do that to Sinatra -- but it's more of like paying tribute. After all, you cannot really give justice to an original. When you sing an original, you do not mean to give it justice by being equal to it. There's no such thing as that. You just have to make the arrangement cool, make it your own and not disparage the original in the process. Of course, it takes one's musical acuity to say that, otherwise we'll be okay-ing to just about every revival. But surely Michael's versions are a cut above the rest. Even if they are not to some, I hold it dearly because I have always this thing, this love affair for the past. Grew up with Abba songs, The Beatles, a handful of not-so-known pop tunes like The Monkee's She's Not There and Lesley Gore's It's my Party, Johnny Mathis, The Platters, and handful of others and although I find Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdink songs irritating especially when sung by drunken masters of the videoke, I still sing along with Kiss or It's Not Unusual (but please no Green Green Grass of Home or That Wonderful Sound). What I'm really saying is that when Michael (I keep on referring to him first-name as if I really know him that well huh) is that link between the past and present. In Woody Allen's recent film Midnight in Paris, there's this supposed syndrome where one constantly fantasizes of living in the past. I have yet to google if it really is something like that syndrome (forgot the term, d'or something) but when I hear Michael singing For Once in My Life or Summer Wind or You Don't Know Me, it's like that moment when the character of Owen Wilson is being fetched by the Parisian carriage to meet, unknowingly, Hemingway, Fitzgerald or Dali in the midnight air of 1930s Paris, amid smokes and intoxicating jazz music, somewhere where time is not hurried but savored, where life undulates in meaningful reveries and longings, ruminations of an unpredictable future.

Top Shelf

I was looking at the top shelf of my books today. The lower three "stories" are filled, though not exactly to the seams yet but filled from edge to edge, and not entirely with fiction and non-fiction I bought over the years. The space is co-occupied by my siblings' accounting books, folders and other stuff with words in it. Considering that I've only had the time to read excessively after college, and yes, considering that I am only financially capable of buying books after college, the amount is considerable enough. And yes, considering there are a handful below the top shelf's rungs that I have yet to lay my eyes on. Recently, I have successfully shied away from booksales because they are so irresistible. And also recently, the unread books in the top shelf have been piling up. I promise to read 4 more from the unread heap before the year ends and it sure is good luck to me. I was looking at the top shelf, the blend of colorful spines, pink from Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, red from Ellis' The Informers, gray from McEwan's Amsterdam, and wonder how lovely it is to spend your time reading away the days, weeks and years of your life. Escaping to the worlds both fantastical and lifelike. But while I find their stories most of the time interesting and worthy than real life, I guess I'm stuck with real life.