THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON LIVING

Melanie Hoch bought me an incredible album for Christmas; Kreng's Works for Abatoire Ferme 2007-2011. Within the past twenty-four hours this frankensteined masterpiece has become my favorite album (I'll consider all four 12" LPs and the 10" record in the box set to be one complete album.) Thank You, Mel, for being an amazing friend and sharing a very wonderful 2012 with me.
For everyone who reads C.O.P: You might absolutely want to listen to this...

"CHRISTMAS TIME TRAVELER" RETURNS SAFELY TO POST-12-21-12-CHRISTMAS EVE! (AGAIN?)

Merry Christmas, Everyone! And Happy Birthday , Mithra, you old fart (not the Son of God, but the God of the Sun- whose birthdate was lent to Christianity in order to nail down a day for the merry-making we know today to be Christmas) Christmas certainly does garishly mark the passing of a year for me and most Americans. Even New Year's Eve/Day doesn't have a marketing campaign that completely envelopes the senses the way Christmas does. We always seem surprised that Christmas is here again, and that it's over so quickly, and then we're quick to look forward to Spring and Summer. I remember teasing a friend, who was exhausted from the holidays at the start of the year, by saying, "Before you know it, it will be Christmas again!" I feel that just by repeating that phrase in my head now, I have managed to somehow skip those 360 days and here I am back on Christmas Eve. I time traveled! Even the same tree found its way into my living room, and if it wasn't for a few new ornaments on that tree I could almost assume I traveled back in time. Yes, Christmas is here again. Familiar holiday sights, sounds, and smells have been assaulting me for over a month now and I can only hope to make it safely back to my time machine to do it all again next year... or last year... or maybe on another planet...

NUTS ABOUT DROSE

Drose is a band from Akron Ohio and they have problems. The music is irritated and distressed. The singer is scared and may be a ghost. I love the minimal complexities of the instrumentation (and how that oxymoronic description embodies said tension). The singer pretty much displays the same cadence in each track, but it's a style that's pretty unique so I allow it to do it's haunting on me.
Hear for yourself! click here!
Also, kudos to the band for making one of the creepiest album covers. Look at that thing!

THE END

The Mayan calendar ends on the fast approaching 21st of December, 2012. Does this mean the world as we know it is going to come to an end? No. It's certainly more likely that I'll be filing my taxes come February.
Suppose, just for the sake of this post, that the world is going to end on Friday the 21st and maybe we're even as ill-prepared as ever. How can one say his goodbyes to everything? If you're made aware of your own passing; you can muster up some noble form of reflection, but knowing that everything will be gone along with you is a different breed of eternity.
My long farewell would go something like this:
Does a peace need to be made now? Or will it be made regardless? Will my enemies finally face their doom? Or will I just think about them a lot less? I won't miss my loved ones. That seems to make the most sense of all. Don't miss your loved ones. Friends, Family, Pets; they have connected with, and not missed, you. Beautiful architecture that I have not hardly begun to understand will finally be relieved of its duty. All color will turn off the light and sleep in an abyss of non-color and the abyss itself will suddenly be nothing more than awake. Goodbye to every small item on the far side of this planet, and at the far edge of this universe, to where I never travelled. Were those items ever real? or were they only illusions? Now they are as real as gods and I too will soon be that real. Although, anything that might survive to bear my footprint would remember the impact as having lacked any god-like oomph. Goodbye silly words like 'oomph'. Goodbye.