Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used to Be: Eighty years ago this Christmas, a singer named Bing Crosby stood in front of a mic and first recorded his first take on “White Christmas,” a haunting piece of melancholia that riffed ever-so-secularly on the origin story of all Christianity. Not coincidentally, this song — brimming over with unquenchable wistfulness and longing — happened to be composed by a Jewish immigrant from Russia named Irving Berlin.
At the time, Berlin commented that “White Christmas” was not just the best song he ever wrote, but the best song ever written. If anything, history would later prove, Berlin didn’t know the half of it. His song would go on to sell 100 million copies.
I mention all this because four years ago, all of us here in Santa Barbara were celebrating a very gray Christmas as the ashes from 440 square miles of trees and homes fluttered magically, beautifully, and oh-so-ominously down to earth, courtesy of a conflagration dubbed the Thomas Fire. We’re told we’re doomed to repeat history if we don’t remember it, but some things — almost everything, I’d say — I need to forget. If you can’t have peace, maybe a little quiet will do.