Back by popular demand, the download for tonight, the fourth night of Chanukah, is Adam Sandler’s The Chanukah Song, Part II. Enjoy!
Adam Sandler – The Chanukah Song, Part II (3.7 MB MP3)
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Chanukah, Night Three: The Chanukah Song
From Saturday Night Live bit on Weekend Update to getting regular airplay this time of year, here’s The Chanukah Song by Adam Sandler. Enjoy!
Adam Sandler – The Chanukah Song (3.3 MB MP3)
Juan Garcia Esquivel — often called just “Esquivel” — is the king of “space-age bachelor pad music”, a quirky, very orchestrated style of music popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It’s sort of hard to describe, but if you’re familiar with the pop culture of that era, you recognize it when you listen to Esquivel’s treatment of Frosty the Snowman. Mix up a martini, ease into your barcalounger and enjoy the space-age Christmas grooves.
Esquivel – Frosty the Snowman (3.2 MB MP3)
I borrowed this image of the “Melnorah”, pictured above, from NPR’s holiday craft contest page and will be using it as the menorah image for the next eight nights in honour of Chanukah. As the folks at NPR wrote: “This menorah works on two levels: It symbolizes a willingness to accept Gibson’s apology for his anti-Semitic rant but also, for skeptics, offers the chance to watch hot wax drip down his punim (the Yiddish word for face).”
(By the way, if you spent money on The Passion of the Christ, now’s a good time to donate an equal amount to the Anti-Defamation League or any other group that works against anti-semitism. If you spent money on What Women Want, you should donate an equal amount to me, because clearly you have no business spending money.)
Anyways, since the Ginger Ninja and her family are Jewish, I take part in Chanukah now, which means that I get some presents and fried food tonight! It also means that there’ll be Chanukah and Jewish-related audio files for you to download for the next eight days (while continuing with the Audio Advent Calendar).
A Hoot and a Challah
Years ago, I was shopping at “My Market Bakery”, a place in Kensington Market that sold some very nice fresh-baked bread. As I was looking for some pumpernickel, two Jewish women were trying to figure out some of the labelling of the bread.
“It looks like challah,” one of them said, “but it’s not labelled ‘challah’.”
“I think ‘egg bread’ is what they call it,” the other said.
I decided to help out. “I’m a ‘they’,” I chimed in. “And yes, that’s challah.”
Needless to say, Wendy rolls her eyes every time I tell this story or refer to challah as “egg bread”.
To kick off Chanukah, here’s a track by a guy from Wendy’s home town — DJBC, who with Luke “Lenlow” Enlow, are Boston’s kings of mash-ups. This one’s called Challaback Girl and mashes up Hava Nagilah with Gwen Stefani’s Hollaback Girl. Enjoy!
(Don’t know what a hollaback is? The Urban Dictionary can help you!)
DJBC – Challaback Girl (3.5 MB MP3)
There’s something not quite right about Santa Claus — he seems a little bit creepy what with the invitations to sit on his lap and his constant monitoring of children, and Shi-Sho sing about it in this track titled Get Behind Me Santa.
Although Vince Guaraldi’s jazz pieces written for A Charlie Brown Christmas is now associated with Christmas (and recently, Starbucks), it was an artistic gamble at the time. Network execs were a bit iffy about airing a cartoon that:
- Didn’t make use of a laugh track
- Quoted a Bible verse
- Used a jazz soundtrack by a then-unknown artist
But somehow, it worked, and A Charlie Brown Christmas is still considered to be one of the best-loved Christmas specials of all time. So here it is: Vince Guaraldi’s Linus and Lucy.
Vince Guaraldi Trio – Linus and Lucy (4.3 MB MP3)
Achewood comic from July 22, 2002 featuring the soul of Billy Idol. Click the comic to see it on its original page.
I mentioned a little while back that Billy Idol had put out a Christmas album. For the benefit of the curious, here’s a track from that album — his cover of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, which was popularized in the movies Holiday Inn and White Christmas.
If you want to order this album, here’s its Amazon.com page.)
Billy Idol: White Christmas (2.8 MB)
Achewood comic from July 23, 2002 featuring the soul of Billy Idol. Click the comic to see it on its original page.