SNOW

A major winter storm is promising to bring a white Christmas to parts of the West and Midwest — and threatening to cause long delays and tough driving conditions for countless holiday travelers.

The storm was expected to dump more than a foot of snow on parts of Colorado and southern Utah by midday Wednesday, and blow east into the Plains states through Christmas Day. Blizzard warnings were likely on Christmas Eve in Kansas.

“Pretty much the entire central and southern Rockies are going to get snow, and then it’s going east and will drop more snow,” said Stan Rose, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Pueblo, Colo.

Snow likely to snarl central U.S. travel – Weather- msnbc.com.

I am speaking, of course, of White House Christmas parties.

You can’t judge a president by his parties. But Washington is nothing more or less than high school writ large: a city of socially awkward, judgmental nerds who interpret (overinterpret) the significance of whatever they see. Having been to four presidencies’ worth of press parties, I am a pretty good example of the breed.

So here goes:

The first thing to mention about the Obama’s media party earlier this week: Jazz! Now, the Bushes (father and son) and Bill Clinton had nothing against jazz, so far as I know, but they didn’t feature any at holiday parties. I seem to remember a lot of gigs by the Marine Band in dress reds in the foyer, with brass music stands and Christmas carols by Muzak.

The Obamas are jazz buffs. So when guests walked into the East Room on Monday evening—a very crowded room, by the way—they entered what felt a little bit like a large and loud jazz club. It seemed to me the lights had been dimmed ever so slightly, and there was a jazz quintet at work on a raised stage at one end of the room. They were playing cool and mellow stuff, sophisticated but not raucous, and their music wove its way through the hubbub of the place. It felt more like New York or Chicago.

I noticed that the bass player in the group was a Caucasian female. I’m sorry to deal in stereotypes (but what the heck, that is also what we do in Washington), but I think jazz fans will confirm that there aren’t many prominent Caucasian female bassists around. “Change you can believe in,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, told me with a laugh.

Read more:

Fineman: Inside the White House Christmas Party – Howard Fineman – Newsweek.com.

Tori

It was a sight to behold. Just a couple months ago, Tori Amos could be found playing packed houses at Radio City Music Hall, and wowing audiences in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Rome. And yet here she was in front of a piano at SPIN’s offices in Lower Manhattan playing to no more than 100 people, her legs, as always, straddling the piano bench — a cowgirl in high heels.

Fresh off her multi-continent, five-month Sinful Attraction Tour (Amos, like Madonna, is one of just a few artists who’s allowed to name her own tours), her gig last night at SPIN’s Newcastle-sponsored SPINhouse Live series was, to say the least, a change of pace. But then again so is Tori’s latest record.

Released last month, Midwinter Graces is being described is Tori’s first “seasonal” album, which, in Amos’ agile hands, means part Christmas homily, part pagan ritual. Along with her take on traditional holiday fare (“What Child, Nowell,” “Emmanuel”) are tunes about glitter and snow angels.

Amos, in other words, is still very much her wild, willful self, Christmas album or no. And she reminded everyone attending her performance last night just how powerful that can be. With her perm-straight orange hair, six-inch heels, and electric red dress falling elegantly off her shoulder, Amos was the brightest light in the room. Only her music shone brighter.

Read here..

Tori Amos Celebrates the Season at SPIN | Spin Magazine Online.