People Get Ready

This week I discovered something. It explains a lot.
I was driving in the car with my brothers, Ty and Treb, and I realized that the music was turned up pretty loud. And that rather than turning it down, we were all yelling over it. At least talking very loudly. And I realized that this is what I always want to do and can't because courtesy doesn't permit it. Suddenly I remembered that the night before, Treb and I were swapping music and he put on some Mingus and it was also loud - a little too loud to comfortably talk over, but not loud enough that it bothered me because I wanted to be able to actually hear the music.
So I brought it up, and we came to the conclusion that we are a rare breed of people for whom time in the car is sacred music time. We are willing to be a little inconvenienced in the conversation department (and believe me, we still talked plenty - although I think part of this has to do with the fact that we are quite often talking about the music) because unless you have it at a certain level you can only hear the drums - sometimes you can't even tell what key the music's in, if you know what I mean. And as Treb pointed out, you can always talk quietly over dinner.
Of course, over dinner (actually over dessert after the movie the next night) we talked about the suckiness of country music today - not the kind my dad brought us up on (although even some of that is a bit much for me) like Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash - but the sappy crap that was going at the steak house. (Treb: "The difference between what Dad brought us up listening to and this is like the difference between Coltrane and Kenny G." Well said, big brother.)
Anyway, Treb, Ty and I hit I Am Legend and Juno on Wednesday, and the whole fam (minus Spence and family, since they were in CA) went to see The Great Debaters on Thursday night. I still haven't seen The Golden Compass or The Kite Runner, but I guess there's still time for that. I Am Legend was seriously creepy, but I was really impressed with Will Smith. Juno was funny and sweet even if the feeling was a little Napolean Dynamite-esque at first - I liked it more by the end that I thought I was going to at the beginning. The Great Debaters was quite wonderful all around - I think I can recommend that one to anyone.
Today traded the copy of Pirates 3 I got from Santa for a Brandi Carlile CD and Double Indemnity. A good trade, I thought. Also, staring at the two books I got for Christmas and thinking about the huge stack that's sitting upstairs. I wish that I wasn't always so anxious to read everything. Almost done with Dragonhaven, but then will I read one of the new ones (Saturday, Tender is the Night, The Bridge of San Luis Rey) or one of the older ones (The Kite Runner, Thunderstruck, The Road . . .) or finally finish Dracula? Hard question.
The following video is one I found of an amazing song Ty played for us in the car the other night. It's kind of a cool video, and the song is WOW. "People Get Ready" by The Frames. Amazing.
Merry Christmas/Happy New Year, etc.