A Solstice Encore: Imaginary Carl Sagan, a Holiday Mix Tape and the Tannahill Weavers

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A few years ago, Maria “Brainpicker” Popova and Mel Exon of BBH Labs put together an online holiday mix tape. Friends were asked to claim a date, suggest a song and write something about the season. I drew December 21, the solstice.

Below is the entry reprinted, but to see it in all its original Taped Together glory, click here and page down to the 21st.

Happy Solstice One and All!

“If Carl Sagan had lived long enough to have owned an iPod, what would have been on it?”

In my quest for the perfect solstice song, I found myself channeling a dead astronomer hoping for inspiration. I had learned—the hard way—that solstice music as a genre is dominated by the tenderizingly sweet sounds of New Age artists. Alas, I am Old Age and, apparently, diabetic.

I briefly explored the limited but promising niche of hibernation songs. I thought about my friends who had married on this day-of-longest-night many years ago. So brilliant. I tried conjuring up Chinese astrologers, Egyptian priests, Aztec mathematicians and, of course, those henge-loving Druids. Surely they must have chanted or hummed or sang or drummed as they witnessed time writ cosmic in the swinging perfection of the planet’s seasonal pendulum? Sadly, nothing that has survived to rank on Amazon…

Finally, I asked Imaginary Sagan.

“Good Morning, Starshine?” he offered, apologizing for having come of age in the Hair-y Age of Aquarius.

"H’mmm. Might work in the southern hemisphere, where it’s turning into summer, but it’s not festive enough.”

“Let’s go to the pub,” he suggested. “You wouldn’t believe how many award-winning thoughts I used to have in pubs. Billions and billions of them.” And he was right. Sitting in the cozy glow, with laughter and live music—and the cold Chicago winter on the other side of the door—I watched a parade of Imaginary Ancients troop in, grateful for a pint and some company. It’s a big, cold, lonely universe out there.

So it’s the last call of the night, the last call of the last season of the year. Close your eyes. You are in a pub somewhere in Scotland. You are surrounded by friends, feeling warm, rosy, loving and loved. Now, raise your glass and sway along to The Tannahill Weavers singing “Auld Lang Syne” in deliciously indecipherable Scottish. Here is to you, Robert Burns. Here is to you old friends, stars all.

— J. A. Ginsburg