Osler's Razor

I just can't bring myself to plunge into politics during Advent. It's supposed to be a time of quiet anticipation, and it just doesn't fit. Yes, I understand that there are important things going on right now-- beyond the usual mayhem, even. But for me, I need to be a little more contemplative.

One thing I love about this time of year is the music. There are certain hymns of advent--"O Come Emmanuel" is one-- that basically make me bust out in tears. Happy ones, drawn from a deep well of meaning.

Then there is the song above, which is vapid, stupid, and rooted in a bizarrely materialistic sense of Christmas where people tool around in Jaguars (to get the full effect, check out this video). But... there is something that hooks me every time in the version of the song featured above. At about 41 seconds in, the second voice, a woman, enters and starts singing in German. There is something so wonderfully jarring about that language shift mid-song that I go back and listen to the transition over and over.

Why does that get to me?

It might be because speaking a foreign language feels like some kind of magic trick, something unattainable and fascinating. Or it might be the exoticness of it, the switching from one language to another on the fly-- can you imagine? 

But, Advent always has its mysteries.