Not Ep. 107: The 12 Interminable Days of Xmas: A Musical Extravaganza

0:06 Mark: Hi, this is Mark Linsenmayer and you are listening to the Partially Examined Life, but not a regular episode. Episode 107, Edmund Burke on The Sublime, will be released shortly, and if you want, you can take this as a precognition or non-verbal exemplar of The Sublime.

0:22 Unknown speaker: Maybe.

0:22 Mark: According to Burke, philosophers before him talking about aesthetics were too focused in general on the beautiful. But Burke rightly thought that there are plenty of things that are artistically interesting that beautiful is not the word you would use. And by the sublime, Burke was pointing out phenomena like a giant, imposing mountain, a ferocious tropical storm, a deep black ominous pit. And he thought that you could give a completely different origin story for our experiences of the sublime as compared to our experiences of the beautiful. What you're about to hear, at least as much as you listen to, is our special musical holiday gift to you.

For a number of years now, I have periodically driven my family crazy by singing a little of the song at an aggravatingly slow speed. And finally, this year, I got up the gumption to record it. The whole thing. With every verse slower than the previous one. And I could make this actually listenable, even with my voice doing hideous and unnatural things, if each verse had its own very interesting arrangement. That when you slow down a melody enough, it stops being a melody. It starts being a piece of atmosphere. It's so legato, it doesn't even set a particular tempo, a particular rhythm.

It goes with almost anything. So I put out a call to all my musician friends and P.E.L. listeners, even celebrities that I thought might participate, and largely in the space of one weekend, we as a group pounded out this epic. Dies ist eine weltweite Anstrengung mit Tracks, die über das Internet zurück- und fortgeschrieben werden. Nicht viel zweistimmiges, sehr spontan. Ich möchte einen besonderen Dank an Jonathan Segel, der für eine meiner Lieblingsbanden spielt, Camper Van Beethoven, und hat viele Solo-Alben und andere Projekte gemacht. Auch Daniel Gustafsson, Jason Durso, Shannon Farrell, Wilson, Max Bartko, Timo Carlier, Alex Vasella, Al Baker, Ken Bush, Jenny Green, Kylie Jordan, Ray Tango, Greg Thornburg und Adam Sank.

If you want to send this monstrosity to your friends and enemies, check at PartiallyExaminedLife.com or link to an mp3 that does not have me talking at the beginning of it, as well as a link to a YouTube version. Thanks from all of us here at the Partially Examined Life for a great year. We appreciate your support, your indulgence, your ambivalence, and your friendship. Now sit back, close your eyes, and surrender yourself to the twelve interminable days of Christmas.

2:35 Unknown speaker: On the first day of Christmas My true love give to me each in a pear tree. The second day of Christmas and a partridge in a pear tree.

Of Christmas My true love Give to me

Heavenly Frenzy

True Turtle

Doves

The partridge

in

a peach tree.

Time, they say, rushes by way too fast. Time slipping through our fingers until we die, or those we love die, or they grow into people we no longer recognize. Or maybe we grow into

people we no longer recognize. We feel like we want

to grab time, to slow it down. to properly savor it. But if you try to do this, try to consciously experience

life in real time, instead

you get a sense of vertigo, of poisonous self-consciousness. We only really feel our lives when we don't try, when it just happens, as when you're absorbed in music, or difficult technical or athletic feats, or if you're lucky, very good sex. When time moves slowly, We don't feel like we're getting the most out of each moment. We feel bored. We want time to hurry the hell up and make something interesting happen.

What we need is

to embrace boredom. To enter deep into it until we come out the other side. To what? To something that can't be communicated. It can't be analyzed or dissected. To the inside of a shadow. To the backside of air. To the place you dream about and can only barely remember on waking with a lingering, desperate ache. To time itself, inverted. Twisted into a Möbius strip. To the you that you haven't met.

And upon each

beach E.

I will have your markers.

I will have your dimes.

I will

have your nickels.

ទំទំ ទៅទៅ

Oooo…

ស្រុងស្ក្លើង្នៅលើក់។ Die auf Christmas

bei

Chore

me.

Six pieces,

Ale…

ទំទំ ទៅទ

ទំទំ ទៅទៅ ទះទះ ទ់ទ់

ទ្ទ្ ទោទោ ទៃទៃ ទែទែ

ទៀទៀ ទេទេ ទ៊ទ៌ ទ៌ទ។ ទ៎ទ៎ ទ៏ទ៏ ទ៍ទ៍ ទ។ ὦ, ὦ, ὦ, ἐ, ἐ. ლალელა

ლილქიარიქრანავეა

It's

funny how if you slow down time enough, you realize it's just all the same thing. It's like one long moment of history. History beginning to escape

the wall. Have you ever heard about

something called M-brane theory? You see, in our three-dimensional universe,

time is a straight line. But in the vantage

point of eternity, time would not exist.

So all your life, all

your hopes, all your fears, all your

movements just laid out, going through

your motions like carts on a track. It's all the same thing. It's all the same dream. The dream you had inside a locked room. The dream about being alone for 14 hours staring at dead bodies. That's the kind of thing you think of. I mean, happy Hanukkah.

To be

ទំទំ ទៅទ

Heeeeeeeeeeeees

Žišković

Žišković O.k.

Seven swimming swans Swimming all

day long No, there's

nothing wrong with seven swimming swans

Seven swimming swans

Six laying geese, laying at your feet Laying in the hay if

that's

where you sleep

I'm a princess, and I… I got two turtledoves, I got two, I got two I got two turtledoves I don't know what to do with my new turtledoves I got two teenage mutants and two turtledoves this year You got me a pet tree. You got me a pet tree. A partridge in a patch tree. Not a pair of pet trees, but just one pet tree, but just one partridge. I could have used another tree Oh, faith me, that's an anery I've got so many birds now to fence in that patchy The geese even sleep in patchy Go

On

the night

My

true love Give truth Mī

nā

i lī

dī jē Eid Mīn Jā O gilgul sebe,

Sway

with me Sing

ស្រាន់ន្ល្នែលានាន

សេរាន់។

Górin! ÍÍÍÌÌÌ Ažliko zvuli

byt Sifo.

ænda ænda fërië ægina.

Žižek, žižek…

Úúúú

ស្រុងស្ក្លើង្នៅលើក់។ Is now dead! Oooooooooooooooooooooooooo Hrm… Oooooooooooooooooooooooooo

ទំទំ Ííí…

ლილელალქიანიქეარექრასამადავაეჁრქტაღაბახაყაუაშიទსიកსქაოაჟატიចი។ლ

არ

ლიელეალარიანიქექლქრასამადავაეჁრქტაღაბაყახაგაუათაშე�ლჁსიទსქაოატე�აჟაფაწაიកუოე�აცაკაქე�აა�

ស្រាន់ស្ម្ន្ល្ត្ប្ស់នែម។

ლიელეალარიანიქ

S'bîn ლიელეალარიანიქექლქრასამადავაეჁრქტაღაბაყახათაუაგაშაიទსიកსქბიបლ

მა სა და ლა მიមნაჟი។რა면ი მქატე��

Go.

ὑπὸ ὑπὸ ὑμῶν, ὑμῶν ὑμὸν ὑπῶν

oh

ლიელეალარიანიქექლქრასამადავაეჁრქდიទსიបლ მა სა და მიមნაიកსქბაში។ლ

… … …

… … … ლიელეალარიანიქექლქრასამადავაეჁრქტაღაბახაშეအააყაუაგათაიទსიបლ მიមსქდიកრა면აოე�იយაჟაწატეၡაქვ� ლალელა

ទំទំ

Twelve Days of Christmas is the worst fucking song ever written. And not because it's nauseatingly repetitive and takes forever to get through. No, what makes it shitty is it's a song about getting the most horrible Christmas gifts of all time.

is

birth my

First

and

foremost, we've got the partridge in the pear tree. That's the worst gift ever. Assuming you'd want to have either a partridge or a pear tree, There's no way to ship either of those via UPS. Once they arrive, what's to keep the partridge from leaving the pear tree? Partridges don't even nest in trees, you know that? I looked it up on Wikipedia. They are ground-nesting birds. You might as well get me a fucking gerbil in a pear tree, okay? Because the gerbil is just as likely to stay up in the tree as the partridge is. Then the song keeps going. And in all but one of the first seven days, you get more birds. You get seven swans swimming, six geese laying, four calling birds, three French hens, and two turtle doves. Who in

hell wants all these birds? What have you

got, some kind of aviary zoo in your backyard? Oh, it's just what I've always wanted, a house covered in bird shit.

Swing low ទំទំ

So…

Now, there is the fifth day of Christmas where you get the five gold rings, which are at least of some monetary value. But why five? Wouldn't one gold ring suffice? Who are we buying these Christmas gifts for? Liberace? I'll tell you what, why don't I keep one gold ring and I'll sell the other four on eBay, all right? Dumbass.

ទំទំ ទៅទៅ ទ់ទ់ ទោទោ ទ្ទ្ ទៃទៃ ទែទែ ទៀទៀ ទះទះ ទេទ៎ ទ៌ទ។ ទ។ទ៌ ទ៎ទ៏ ទ៏ទ៓ ទ៍ទៗ ទ៊ទ៍ ទ័ទ៑ ទ៑ទ័ ទៗទ៊ ទៈទ៉ ទ៉ទៈ ទ៓ទ៘ ទ� Þa! ទ្ទ្ ទំទៅទំ ទំទំ ទៅទៅ ទោទោ Nós And then if you think about it, the

rest of the song is really all about human trafficking. My true love gave to me eight maids a-milking, nine ladies dancing, ten lords a-leaping,

eleven pipers

piping, and twelve drummers drumming. Hi, you know what I'd really like for Christmas? Some human beings. Send them to my house and I'll keep them in bondage for the rest of my life. Maybe I'll even eat them. I'll eat some of them if I get hungry, that's what I'll

do.

You know what? I'll eat some, and I'll keep the rest alive so that they can take care of all those fucking birds you sent me.

ទំទំ ទៅទៅ

The end of a year is an arbitrary marker, but we need markers to keep life from slipping away from us. We're naturally forgetful, neglectful, undisciplined. And though too much attention to the numbers will kill you early, entirely disregarding them will make you late, taking the wrong bus to the wrong destination on the wrong day, and no one will know you when you get there. So perch there, will you, on the edge of your arbitrarily drawn line, knowing that it's okay if you step off and miss the beat, play a wrong note, or a hundred of them, or, hell, redraw the line in some place that's better suited to your individual constitution.

But even if you're stepping between the lines, denying that they're ultimately real or ultimately matter, you'll want to keep one eye on the ground on those arbitrary markers that keep us from drifting so far that there's no way to get back. Whatever. You're gonna do what you're gonna do and nothing I say is gonna change that, I know, I know. But I

love you anyway.

You can't help me.

ទំទំ ទៅទៅ ទ់ទ់ ទ្ទ្ ទោទោ ទៃទៃ ទែទែ ទៀទៀ ទេទេ ទះទះ ទ៌ទ៌ ទ៍ទ។ ទ។ទ៍ ទ៎ទ៎ ទ៏ទ៏ ទៗទៗ ទ៊ទ៑ ទ័ទ៊ ទ៑ទ៓ ទ៉ទ័ ទ៓ទ៉ ទៈទៈ ទ� ទំទំ ទៅទៅ ទ់ទ់ ទ្ទ្