Old Country Sounds

While trying to dig out the Christmas music records, I went back through a collection of old singles -- 78s? -- that I found when cleaning out Dad's house. It was a collection buried in the back of the last place we cleaned out, the crawlspace under the stairs to the basement. There's a bunch of them. A few of them probably belonged to my young father, but I think most of them were my grandfather's. 

Here's a small sample.

That's Marty Robbins, 1957. Dad would have been eleven, so I think too young to like songs about lost love. My grandfather would have been in his forties, I guess.

1954, that one, Carl Smith having fun on the same theme.

1951. It amazes me a little to see the artist given on the record as simply "Hank Williams." 

Hank Thompson, not singing about lost love.

Les Paul and Mary Ford, 1951. That's the fellow whose gold-top guitar was one of only two wishes of a young Ray Wylie Hubbard. 

I wish I had a Wurlitzer jukebox to put these things in. I probably have enough to fill one, but I definitely don't have ten grand for anything I just want.

Great Moments in Progress

Headline: "Giant Kites That Drag Cargo Ships Across Oceans Go on Trial."

So we've re-invented sailing, but without the systematic rigging that would give you much control. 

Low Down Freedom

"Too much freedom makes young people feel unsafe and unprotected: a possible explanation of alarming myocarditis events." 

Did the UK suddenly become a lot more free this year? Must have been Brexit.

The polling must have been brutal

The Biden administration has withdrawn from negotiations to pay $450K to each illegal immigrant family traumatized by the experience of enforcement of the border laws. In other news, Build Back Bankrupt and the Election Fraud Enabling Act both apparently are on the rocks.

Mixed Feelings

On the one hand, I deeply disapprove of this kind of secret police stuff. On the other, this guy actually managed to take down a corrupt high public official. 

Latex Glove Bagpipes

A how-to video:

I dated a girl many years ago who was fascinated by music theory. At dinner one time, while we were chatting, she took out a small pocket knife and made a playable recorder with the straw in her drink. I don't remember the tune she played on it, and yeah the sound quality was what you would expect, but it was a recognizable tune. She made other impromptu instruments at times as well and even got me playing an instrument for a while.

Ode to Dragons

This is a lovely instrumental piece that falls near the end of a new album. If you stay for the rest of the album, be ready for Black Metal -- but this piece is just a beautiful ode.

#Trillionaire

On the upside, I was briefly a trillionaire this afternoon thanks to my crypto earnings. Sadly, the titanic market spike only lasted a few minutes and I did not find any buyers at that price.

I suppose Senator Warren will be stopping by to tax my unrealized gains. 

The Home Front Is the Front Line

In What I've Learned Rescuing My Daughter from Her Transgender Fantasy, Charlie Jacobs shares how she discovered she was in a fight for her daughter as well as how she reclaimed her daughter from transgenderism. It's long and worth the read.

A quick excerpt:

My daughter was an ultrafeminine girl since birth. She insisted that her room be painted pink, and she refused to wear anything but dresses until third grade. She avoided her older brother’s toys and sports, choosing tea sets and Shopkins, a series of tiny, collectible toys.

Her favorite activity was to slip into my closet and don my few sparkly clothes and shiniest of heels. She rejected sports in favor of art and sewing.

That all abruptly changed when she turned 12. As her body matured into young womanhood, she stopped begging for a bikini and avoided any clothing that accentuated her figure. She hid her breasts under men’s extra-large sweatshirts.

I remembered doing similar things as my body changed, so I didn’t worry at first.

Then, my daughter immersed herself into anime art and cosplaying, the hobby of dressing like fantastical characters. I supported her creative side.

I didn’t know that anime and cosplaying can overwhelm a young mind. I didn’t know that anime and cosplaying involved gender-bending themes and that the community crosses into pedophilic and sexual themes.

I also didn’t know that the older cosplay community groomed the younger cohorts. 

During that same time period, my daughter went through Teen Talk—a Manitoba, Canada-based program that says it provides “youth with accurate, [nonjudgmental] information” on “sexuality, reproductive health, body image, substance use awareness, mental health, issues of diversity, and anti-violence issues”—at her public school.

She came home with a whole new language. She and all her girlfriends discussed their labels—polyamorous, lesbian, pansexual. None of the five girls chose “basic,” their term for a straight girl. 

Now, I was worried.

She distanced herself from her old friends and spent more time online. I checked her phone, but I was not astute enough to know that she had set up “appropriate” fake social media accounts for my viewing.

Bacteria

I've been increasingly down for about a week, with my wife finally dragging me (and herself) to the doctor  yesterday. It's a bacterial infection of my head and chest, for which I was assigned antibiotics. These are not sitting well, so I'm feeling a bit down about that too.

Hopefully that will explain why I've been quiet. Antibiotics can work pretty fast, though, so maybe it won't be much longer.

A Biker Rock Advent

YouTube being an interesting space, here's an opera coach reacting to the same video you just saw. It's worth watching it again just to see her face as she listens to it.

 

More About the Orkney Dig

Quite a lot more detail about the Viking sword mentioned last week, and other findings. 

Baboon percussion

In AVI's honor

Christmas meerkat, part of the animal musical band on 3-inch disks:

Nerd humor

Wassail

Love in the Midwest

I guess there’s something to be said for Texas. 

Navy Beats Army

It’s an upset, but I suppose it’s not a surprise. Army couldn’t even beat Afghanistan this year. 

Language Warning

Today I was traveling down the highway and I turned on the radio -- always a mistake -- and heard some kind of 'country' on the broadcast that was half hip-hop. Now I like hip-hop; there's a lot to admire in the best of it, especially in terms of poetry, although here too I tend to like the older artists than the newer ones. That's probably just generational, or mostly: music in general has been getting objectively worse for a while.

All the same, it reminded me of this Dale Watson tune I haven't posted because of its foul language. I don't know why I try to maintain standards about that; I've long belonged to communities, both here and in Iraq, where good men frequently resorted to strong language. I won't claim that I don't occasionally use it myself for emphasis. Maybe just because it's a marker for standing for something; John Wayne used it once in a while, but only just once in a while when it really belonged.

Anyway, here's Dale, who is a great singer songwriter and has a good point about what's getting sold to us these days.

Instapundit: Self-Described Cabal Must Answer

Ideally, I guess. Good luck making them.

I'd be satisfied if they'd learn a pragmatic lesson. Their way doesn't work. Their idea that they're the right ones to be in charge is therefore manifestly false. I imagine it's hard to let go of power, prestige, and the money that come with them. But they have proven that they are not the right ones to lead. If they could accept that and get out of the way, I'd be happy to waive vengeance.