Christmas in August.　-Afternoon on the Islands of Langerhans-　Haruki Murakami

　　　There are some types of tasks in the world that, although not particularly difficult in themselves, are somehow difficult to do. One of them is buying a Christmas record in the middle of summer. Buying a record is not a particularly serious decision, but just the fact that it's a Christmas record and the season is August makes my heart wander through the deep, dark depths of the "Sea of Indecision" (I wish there was one on the moon). Will I really want to listen to a Christmas record this Christmas? And is Christmas really that meaningful? It's quite painful to be forced to make value judgments about Christmas and related things in the middle of August. That's why I've missed out on a lot of rare Christmas records in the past. I missed Ella Fitzgerald's old Christmas record, and Kenny Burrell's too. For some reason, I always end up finding a little unusual Christmas record at a used record store in the middle of summer. And I always end up regretting it in December, thinking "I should have bought it back then." But this winter, I will never regret it. That's because I made up my mind in June to "buy lots of Christmas records on sale this summer," and boldly put it into action. I even gathered ten Christmas records in Honolulu in August. I was even called "Merry Christmas" at one store. But the seeds I sowed in the summer have grown splendidly, and Christmas is about to visit the town. And Frank Sinatra, Patti Page, and Chet Atkins are waiting patiently for their turn on our record shelf.