Tubercular Bells

Okay, so this title is obscure and convoluted even for me, and thus, I fear, needs explanation, although I know that dissecting anything kills it.

1.)  'Tis the season of bells, of various sorts: jingle, silver, sleigh, and cash register (yeah, yeah, that's a "beep" now, but you know what I mean).  Even that most iconic of Christmas movies, It's A Wonderful Life, albeit in its dark middle section, has a scene wherein Nick the bartender repeatedly opens the register drawer and gleefully says "Dig me--I'm giving out wings" after Clarence has informed him that "every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings," and of course the movie concludes with Zuzu echoing that line.

2.) The cash registers' ring has become the most holy of bells in current American Xmas (Christ is definitely gone from this view) celebrations, as we literally trample (sometimes to death) and tase our fellow "humans" in an effort to beat them to deals on merchandise we and they often don't need or want.  Xmas has become a sort of secular Confession; in the Catholic orthodoxy (and I may be oversimplifying a bit), one sins and sins, then receives absolution from those sins by confessing them to a priest and doing a minor penance--a couple of "Our Father"s, a few "Hail Mary"s.  In our American Xmas celebrations, people can apparently treat others--up to and including their children and other family members--like shit all year and then be cleansed by showering them with lavish gifts 1/365th of the time.  And in order to be able to buy those gifts at the cheapest prices possible (we want some form of absolution, but not at full retail, for Christ's sake), we have caused stores to open on Thanksgiving day, promising fabulous savings.  People camp out in front of their chosen store for days, eagerly awaiting the possibility of somehow saving money, while ignoring the holiday right in front of them, Thanksgiving.  Store clerks have to work on Thanksgiving now or risk being fired, people somehow feel pressured into joining the herds, throngs, packs or risk missing out on something apparently important to someone. We have traded one holiday for another; giving thanks for what we have has been superseded by giving gifts to expiate the guilt for what we have not (done). Consumed by guilt, perhaps, we are driven to consume gilt.

3.)  Wendell Berry (essayist, novelist, environmentalist, poet, former tobacco farmer from Kentucky--hey, nobody's perfect)  has noted that when Tuberculosis was prevalent, into the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was often called "consumption," and known as "the wasting disease" because one of its effects was significant weight loss--sufferers wasted away.  Berry made the connection between the wasting of that form of consumption, and the effects on our lives and on our very planet of our culture's ravenous and insatiable consumption and waste of goods and resources.  Waste is waste. Ain't it ironic that our destructive consumption reaches its feverish apogee annually when we are ostensibly celebrating the birth of an ascetic savior whose major teachings concern caring for the poor and afflicted.

4.)  In 1972, William Friedkin directed a movie called The Exorcist (full disclosure: I'm the person from my generation who has never seen the film).  I trust that you all know its basic premise; if not, you can Google it. Basically, it deals with demonic possession of the body and soul of a young girl, and two priests' attempts to exorcise the Devil.  The main theme song to the film was "Tubular Bells," by Mike Oldfield. 

So there you have it:  the bells, consumption in a couple of senses, the impression that far, far too many Americans become possessed by possessing at this time of year, and the theme music for it all. 

Whew.  It's enough to make your head spin.

Some songs, then:

Caravan                                                                                   Van Morrison
Black Friday                                                                            Steely Dan
Maximum Consumption                                                          The Kinks
Shopping Trolley                                                                     Beth Orton
Trick Bag (Shoppin' For My Tombstone)                               John Lee Hooker
Mannequin Shop                                                                      Paul Westerberg
Last Of The Big Time Spenders                                              Billy Joel
Window Shopping                                                                   Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings
Time To Spend                                                                         Chris Smither
Can't Buy Me Love                                                                  Fabs
The Busy Girl Buys Beauty                                                     Billy Bragg
Try Some Buy Some                                                                George Harrison
Buy For Me The Rain                                                              Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Somebody Buy Me A Drink                                                    David Johansen
Buy It In A Bottle                                                                    Richard Ashcroft

I'll Buy                                                                                     The Replacements
You Can't Buy My Love                                                          Robert Plant
Ain't There Something Money Can't Buy?                              Young-Holt Unlimited
Ring Them Bells                                                                      Bob Dylan
Painted Bells                                                                            Boz Scaggs
Tollin' Bells                                                                              Butterfield Blues Band
The Bells                                                                                  Laura Nyro
Bells                                                                                         Monty Python
Junk                                                                                          Paul McCartney
Singalong Junk                                                                        Paul McCartney
Junk                                                                                          Victoria Williams
The Gift                                                                                    Bruce Cockburn
Gifts                                                                                          Bruce Cockburn
The Sweetest Gift                                                                     Sade
The Gift                                                                                    David "Fathead" Newman
The Greatest Gift                                                                      Robert Plant
Tubular Bells                                                                            Mike Oldfield

See you Tuesday, noon till two, wool.fm, "tollin' like the tongue of doom."