Happy New Year: 10 Things we've learned so Far

We last posted on this blog at the end of December 2006. Since then... well. we spent the better part of the Christmas break hanging out with artistic types. Having rang in the New Year at a party to which they invited us, we got to see Zach sing "My Way" on the karaoke mic, and he got us a job (which we lost subsequently). We did get to hear those silly songs from the Pompeii EP, like, way before the suckers on emusic downloaded them.

And, well, we got really into marmite and building overlarge fires in or smallish fireplace. And we started upping our ratio on Oink. And, uh. We smoked a lot of pot and played some Madden. Oh oh oh oh! And it snowed, like, a shitload in Santa Fe, NM. Like, we were shoveling, for, like days on end. But we thought it was really cute to see all las familias walking to the store pulling in tow children on sleds. Never see people walk around here...

Well. The Christmas break didn't teach usvery much. But we think we've learned, like, a lot since then. James Joyce's birthday has come and gone, and we've decided to start blogging again. (Which decision is really based on material circumstances of leisure and means.)

Top Ten things we learned since the New Year

10. Get blisteringly drunk at a Super Bowl party if and only if you want to blot from your soft head the memory of the wretched game. (You will, maybe, also start lots of fights with your co-revelers; but your beer pong skills may be raised to an illogically keen level.)

9. Guitar Hero--at which we've scoffed to myself privately, with a superior bearing one might say, since we fancy ourselves a Guitarist, and as such, above the game--is really fun. But the songs the game has suck.

8. Reading fiction (opposed, of course, to philosophy and maths books) is surprisingly fun. Gaddis' Recognitions deserves all the credit on this one. And really, the two blank intangibles--ethics and aesthetics--are tied together in that the latter depicts situations in which we may imagine the former existing. Or, maybe we're given an aesthetic appreciation of ethical situations. C.f., Blood Meridian.

7. You really can't tell your friend that you slept with his girlfriend: even if you know and he knows that it's not true; and especially if you know that it will piss him off.

6. Paul Celan was a beautiful genius of man. This title he deserves merely for formulating the word "Worthöhlen," "wordcaves."

A music triptych:

5. So-called noise music includes more than Lightning Bolt. And electronic music includes more than Aphex Twin.

4. If all you do is download lots of music; rarely have time to listen to any of it; delete all your newly downloaded music to make room for to download more music; and end up
only listening to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea anyway: buy a record player, get a few LPs, and listen to those closely. We finally get Black Sabbath and Joanna Newsom. Sweet!

3. Wire. I mean, wow. Really? I mean... Wow. Pink Flag? You've heard it...? You didn't go burn down something? I mean, danced around? ... I mean... wow. Wire. Chairs Missing isn't better than anything Joy Division ever did? Really? Wow... (We're still working on 154.)

2. Ostensibly: you're working on your thesis every day for five hours. Really: you're smoking pot and playing Madden every day for five hours. Then: you realize that you may smoke pot no longer. Finally: you work like hell for two weeks and don't sleep and finish your thesis and the product is awesome. Incidentally: you don't smoke pot anymore because it freaks you out and wastes your time.

1. Try not to fuck over people.