These things are good:

• The Vaz's new album, The Lie That Matches the Furniture: Heavy, layered, deliberate, and loud. Perfect for January. Must-have. [Live review TK]


• Maud Newton's essay on Mark Twain, in the new American Prospect. This is good for manifold reasons: One, because it is. Two, because we've sat around for a while now, Maud discussing composing this piece, me discussing composing another (yet-to-be-commissioned, but when has that stopped me?) piece, mostly as a means to procrastinate actually writing anything. Guess who made it to the finish line first?


• This musicblog, which has tons and tons of SXSW band mp3s. LISTED ALPHABETICALLY!


• This Is My Demo, by Sway DaSafo: I finally got it. It, and This Is My Promo 1 & 2. With lines like "Rappers couldn't see me comin' if they were vaginas with spectacles," how could I not love this? [Review TK]


• This cute little Jens Lekman dude. Hadn't heard about him until NPR hepped me to the Swedish pop marvel, who is apparently all the rage with the kids these days.


• This review: To be frank, I wouldn't read this book if I had a gun (or a Guynd) held to my head, but the review cracked me up. As someone with a one-eighth Scots ancestry who has more than once contemplated trying to salvage a broken wine glass**, I wonder if there is something to this whole "stingy Scottish" stereotype, and if it is genetic.


• Finally, Ali Smith's The Accidental: As good as everyone says. [Review TK]

These things are bad:

• My best friend is moving to Italy in less than a week. We've known each other for 12 years. We've had so much fun together so far. We've made art. We've done naked jumping jacks on the campus lawn. We have examined mystery spots in each others' bikini areas and offered our expert diagnoses. We have gone to Mardi Gras together.

  We have consoled each other.

  We've basically grown up together, but she always was one step ahead of me. This was a good thing, as it meant that only one of us was fucking up at a time. Anyhow, she and the Great Leader are leaving. I know N and I will be visiting them soon enough. And she and I have certainly lived apart before--SF and Savannah, respectively. (And really, how much different are SF and Rome? Buncha smelly people on Vespas who don't speak English. Yeah, I said it.) Nevertheless, I will miss her greatly.



• Just received word that one of my art history professors--the one who inspired me to change my major to art history, in fact--is dying of inoperable brain cancer. He remains one of my favorite professors, even though his focus was modern art, and mine was Renaissance and medieval. See, he could tell these anecdotes. Their veracity, in retrospect, is somewhat questionable. But he made memorizing 100 bajillion slides per exam almost fun. On the topic of van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion, he told us that it wasn't demolished, as is often reported, but was, in fact, brazenly stolen from the train somewhere between Spain and Germany. "And when they opened the boxcar doors...IT WAS EMPTY!" And he'd place his hand to his chest, lightly. Or on the amazing transformation of Joseph Beuys from SS to emo-prototype by the Tatars: "Imagine, being swathed in the fat and the felt, burns covering his body...the meaning of his life crystalizing right there." Or on Jackson Pollock's last words: "'See that tree?'" I mean, sure, those are probably all lies. He had a hundred of them. I got an A in all his classes. Enough said. Outside of class, he was quiet and guarded. He didn't need to pal around with us, because he did a good enough job behind the podium. I'm lucky to have had him as a teacher, and I still use that Pollock quote at parties because what do you motherfuckers know about Pollock?


• Finally, why am I in penury because of a freakin' nightguard? It's a molded piece of plastic, and it's the most expensive item I own. For the pricetag, it should have come with gold-and-diamond guitars implanted in the front.

Gah, this doesn't make me feel any better. Have I dragged you down to my level at least? I'm going to console myself with fantasies involving Sam Elliott and moustache rides.

*20 years later and that still makes me laugh. Welcome to hell, here's your accordion.
**See also.