The Mix Tape Metaphor
When I was growing up, my family's (exceedingly modest) Christmas record collection was composed of LP compilations, the kind you get at the Marathon station--ONLY 99 CENTS WITH FILL-UP!! I loved those albums and played them over and over, listening to Johnny Mathis back-to-back with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the banality of the Mitch Miller Singers followed by the massive chords of the New York Philharmonic. To me, the records always seemed like the musical counterpart to the actual experience of December: a little sacred, a little commercial, a touch of rock and roll--a glorious mess.
When I left home, my mother gladly relinquished those albums, and I started building my own collection. In 1984, I created a mix tape of my "greatest holiday hits" and gave it as a gift to my teacher colleagues. It became an annual tradition, a built-in excuse to buy lots of new music every year, and drive my family nuts auditioning
