In Praise of A Charlie Brown Christmas

Hey if you're like me, this week has been straight-up garbage, and for emotional ballast you're now compelled to luxuriate in the most beautiful and devastating piece of music in the western canon. If you don't share this opinion regarding A Charlie Brown Christmas, march down here to the Village Voice offices and I will fight you.* With all due respect to the annual Lousy New Holiday CD Roundup glut mandated by various publications at this time of year, this is the only Christmas album that really exists for me, with possible exemptions granted to the Muppets and the Kinks. I have given way more thought than is probably healthy to the precise brew of joy and pathos that makes good ol' Charlie Brown resonate so strongly, but what's killing me with this clip at the moment is actually the dialogue, the deathly quiet echo of it, plus the huge buildings dwarfing the kids as they trudge through the snow, etc.

Tell it to your blog, I know. Let's pick this up again next week.

* Don't do this.