God Rest ye Merry TASPers

1. Silent Night - Pat Donohue and Jim Beal (as played on Prairie Home Companion)
2. Skating - Vince Guaraldi
3. Christmastime is Here (instrumental) - Vince Guaraldi
4. Riu, Riu, Chiu; E la Don, Don, Verges Maria - Waverly Consort
5. Carol of the Bells - Mannheim Steamroller

We got our (real) Christmas tree this morning (yay!). And I've been enjoying our killer collection of Christmas music - I think a sixth to an eighth of my dad's record collection is Christmas stuff. Hence the top 5. I have decided jazz is especially accessible when Christmas-themed; as a relatively untrained listener, I have a tough time distinguishing the basic melody of many jazz tunes, especially because most recordings are 90% solos. Christmas music, on the other hand, is completely recognizable, and I can really appreciate the artists' embellishments.

I performed "Big Chief" with the jazz band last night. It was pretty sweet.

The Duke Supplement has this optional section where you put in "a short description of any significant research activity you have participated in outside of school," so I dug up my TASP paper and recapped the main points. This got me going on a nostalgia trip, so I went back to the good ol' Living Music website and read Nestor and Isaac's interview with John Sinclair. Man, I'd forgotten just how crazy he was - and yet at the same time, so funny. One of these days, somebody's bound to do a little TV or magazine spot on him or something, and we'll all be like "I met that guy!"

Strangely, I don't feel very loquacious (can that apply to blog posts?) tonight. Maybe sleep deprivation is finally setting in. Maybe I've just eaten too many neon-green and -blue gummy dolphins.

Contemplatively yours,

Sam

PS: Bern, what was it those witty Common App folks slipped into their application to make you laugh?