This Is The Song And Video For The Last Ever New Year's Eve

Ugh Life

Well, There Goes MY New Year's

French Inventors Continue To Not Invent Hoverboards

Neanderthals: SOOOO anoying

Happy Christmas!

Look, we all know all about Christmas.

We all know about how it is derived from the Saturnalia and from the celebration of the virgin birth of Sol Invinctus and from Germanic and Scandinavian Yule festivals and, obviously, from Christian celebration of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.

We know about Santa Claus and we know all the movies and all the songs and the cookies and the cakes and the roasts and the drinks and the lights.

And I am certain we all know how hectic it is this time of year when all we really want to to be able to soak it in like we did as kids.

so go soak it in and I'll do the same. who needs some rambling blog post about xmas, anyway?

Merry Christmas! (it's the bestest of the holidays, so enjoy the hell out of it!)

My Fingers Hurt Now

You Are Welcome

Top Eleven Of 2011

After much consideration, here are my top eleven albums (which is not to say songs) of the year, and YES, i AM aware how WHITE i am:

1. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy





2. M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming



3. Destroyer - Kaputt




4. Washed Out - Within And Without


5. Bon Iver - Bon Iver



6. Dum Dum Girls - Only In Dreams



7. Real Estate - Days



8. Tune-Yards - Whokill



9. Tom Waits - Bad As Me



10. Tennis - Cape Dory



11. now here is where i cheat, because i don't understand how to choose between Wye Oak's Civilian and Atlas Sound's Parallax and White Denim's D and James Blake's self titled album and i STILL haven't even listened to PJ Harvey's Let England Shake.

so:

here's the video for the runaway song of the summer 2011 and let's just pretend all of the above albums shared that 11 spot.

This Cat Jump!

I'm Told You Can See How Awesome This Is From Space

Is THIS What the Afterlife Is Like? If So Then Fine

Some Songs Are Great Enough That Even Underwhelming Videos Of Them Are Necessary Viewing

I Could Make A Whole Top Ten List Of Great Rappers In Front Of Brick Walls Making Me Fall In Love With Them

French Inventors Cruelly Avoid Working On Hoverboards

Natura!

Good Call, Stereogum - It's Like They Made Twilight Into A Music Video (In A Great Way) And Smeared It With Eyeliner

Record Contract In Three, Two . . .

You Guys! The GirlWalk All Day Project, Part The First!

Is It A Guilty Pleasure If You Don't Feel Guilty?

Sometimes People Ask Me What It Is Like To Be A Lawyer

It is pretty much like this:

Alright, Free Jazz Horn Freakout, I Accept You

The New Feist Video Is Like A Nightmare Straight From Chiara's Id

In that it features both CAMPING and THAT HAIR:

Somebody Remind Me About This In June, Because Right Now It Just Seems Cruel

I Suppose The Adjective Is "Lynchian"?

Perhaps It Is Very Late At Night And You Are In A Cab . . .

. . . coming home from a date that has gone especially well and there is a light drizzle on the cab's windows and you are gliding through the neon encrusted caverns of your metropolis.

Well, here is a song for that:

You Guys: THE EARTH!!!

He's Like They Made The Day Of The Dead Into A Guy

Being My Response To A Request To Discuss The Greatest Sex Scenes In Art

Is This The Official Themesong Of Winterlude?

Probably! (ask me again when it is Winterlude)

Confirmation That SOME Close Is Definitely TOO Close To Be To A Whale

Dogs! Also: Sweaters!

Is French Photographer Guy Bourdin The Greatest Photographer Of All Time?

YUP.

The 9th Symphony Of Synthpop

I'm not sure this video really does anything for me. I mean, Akira; whatever. Mostly I just listen to this song so much that I felt increasingly guilty for not commemorating that fact on this blog.

Apparently, In 2011, You Must Be In Some Kind Of Small Watercraft To Have Any Kind Of Experience At All

Also:

Pipes!

Halloween 2011

Halloween is one of the good ones, isn't it?

I mean, what a holiday! Masquerade parties! Candy! Ghosts! Draculas! Werewolf Barmitzvah! Mummies! Witches! Creatures From Black Lagoons! The Skeleton Dance! Horrible Monsters Defying Description! Zombies Intent On The Destruction Of Society Itself! Whatever THIS is!

So: All Hallow's Eve. Also called Samhain. The night before the Day Of The Dead. The Celtic New Year.

The good ones always collect lots of names. Here's the point, though: In many (most?) traditional cultures, there weren't four seasons, but only two. And this is the night that we pass from one (Summer, if you like) into the other. It is the transition, the cusp into the dead time of year, and so this is the night on which it is supposed that the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead is at its thinnest, its most porous.

So definitely girls should wear their sluttiest costumes and we should all watch Peter Jackson's wonderful wonderful WONDERFUL gorefest Brain Dead/Dead Alive. 

Whatever. Have a big bonfire and remember your forebears or go out and stuff your gob with twix. I don't care; just so it matters. Halloween has everything that a holiday should have and the wheel of the year is better for it.