Let it Snow.

Had a snow day yesterday. It took two hours to get just over halfway to work so I gave up and burned a vacation day. We got about five inches here. Totally screwed up everything around here. People in Maine are laughing at us.

But I got a snow day.

The best part of the drive was just before we got to daycare (Yeah we went to daycare. Tilda was there for about twenty-five minutes.) when Tilda got excited by a song on the radio and asked, "One more time?" It made me happy. The song?

"Santa Claus is a Black Man," by AKIM and the Teddy Vann Production Company.

It's on the A John Waters Christmas CD and it's brilliant. I'd first read about the song in John's essay "Why I Love Christmas" in Crackpot. , where he calls it the best Christmas song. I disagree. Until the CD came out a few years ago it was practically impossible to find, which is a shame. It's one of the few perfect things in the world. Basically, it's a Kwanzaa-themed variation of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," but to describe it doesn't do it justice. You have to hear it. It's earnest and beautiful and wonderful and there's this word in the first line that I can't quite make out. It could be "fantabulous." It could be "fantackulous." It could be something else entirely. I don't know. But what I do know is that this song will make you fucking believe.

But it's not the best Christmas song ever. Why? Because this is:

"Fairytale of New York," from The Pogues' third album If I Should Fall From Grace With God is, like "Santa Clause is a Black Man," one of the few perfect things in this world. It's haunting. Beautiful and sad, and full of regret and longing, it alternates between romantic ideals and bitter reality. I can't do it justice, but it really is something great. When we saw The Pogues in March last year this showed up in the encore. Towards the end, when Shane MacGowan and (ack! I can't remember her name, but I think she's Jem Finer's daughter) begin dancing they dropped fake snow from the ceiling. It should have been the corniest thing in the world. But it wasn't. It was wonderful.

And...

And...

They're coming back! When I wnet to grab the image there's a note on the front page of pogues.com that they're playing DC and Baltimore in March. No dates announced yet, but tickets may be on sale as early as next week.

Woo-Hoo!!!