Unlike most recipe blogs, I value your time enough to put the big show at the top of the page. This link will let you download my all-time best mixtape. It should download as a .zip file. This different link will let you listen to it in-browser, in case you’re a normal person who does all their email reading on their phone. This link will take you to a Spotify version which is missing a few tracks (when will Built To Spill ever officially release their cover of “Linus And Lucy”?)
It’s called Eggnog & Sleeping Pills and it’s a bunch of sad/bummer Christmas and winter songs. I’ve played it in social situations twice in the last week to great acclaim. In case it wasn’t clear, this is the “gift” of the title. I didn’t make any of the music but I “curated” the mix, which in our artistically bankrupt post-influencer society basically means I get full credit for the project. Don’t blame me.
I hope you like it even if you don’t celebrate Christmas. Or maybe you hate this time of year. Maybe you resent that everyone expects you to feel some goddamned magic that isn’t there. Maybe behind your smile you’re dying inside as the capitalist theatre of a major holiday demands a bravura performance. Maybe you feel trapped in an economy you never consented to and every day you live inside it you feel another piece of you die. This could very well be the best Christmas present of your life then.
I don’t hate Christmas. I don’t even believe in the war on Christmas, as some people do. If there is a war on Christmas, it comes from disingenous profit-mongering and forces of exploitation. I’d rather say “Seasons Greetings” than buy a Coke can with a Santa on it. In my life, for a while, Christmas was the only day of the year me, my mom, and my sisters, generally had the same day off work. And since we were all retail flunkies we were exhausted and generally quite sedate as we opened our gifts.
OK and I’m back from making a coffee. Thanks for waiting. (This is the paragraph where I usually run out of steam and resort to something like a gimmick, I’ve noticed.)
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the playlist. I hope you’re doing OK in this world. I hope Christmas (or just this cold, dark season) gives you some joy here or there. Let it charge your batteries if you can. Please take care of yourselves as I really need all the subscribers I can get.
Thank you for this playlist, Adam. Such a solid set of photos in this post as well. All the best to you for the coming year.