2012: The Year in Review (WIP)

1. Escape From New York (1981)
2. Die Hard (1988)
3. Fleetwood Mac, 'Over and Over' Tusk (1979)
4. How to check your drinks for roofies. Kind of.
5. William Gibson, Zero History (2011)
6. Richard Price, Lush Life (2008)
7. Quantum reality.
8. The limits of intuition.
9. The far side of the moon.
10. "Accused Picasso Thief Pleads Guilty" Article @ NYTimes. (This will become important later on.)
11. Woody Allen's first version of Midnight in Paris was a 1971 short story. 
12. Modern polling research. 
13. Boss (2011) 
14. Diana Krall, 'Let's Face The Music and Dance,' 1999 (Irving Berlin, 1936)
15. Eve Arnold
16. Janwillem van de Wetering, The Corpse on the Dike (1976) ("I can never hit anything after I have been riding my bicycle; it seems that the vibration of a cycle affects the muscles of my arm." pp. 46-47)
17. 1970 Camaro data. (This will become important later on.)
18. "Alien lights on Pluto" article @ Time magazine. (This will become important later on.) 

(Pic: Oscar Wilde's tomb, Pere Lachaise 2012)

Oracle Id (old joke)

David Brooks writing about something else entirely in the NYT, labels it:

About a decade ago, one began to notice a profusion of Organization Kids at elite college campuses. These were bright students who had been formed by the meritocratic system placed in front of them. They had great grades, perfect teacher recommendations, broad extracurricular interests, admirable self-confidence and winning personalities.

If they had any flaw, it was that they often had a professional and strategic attitude toward life. They were not intellectual risk-takers. They regarded professors as bosses to be pleased rather than authorities to be challenged. As one admissions director told me at the time, they were prudential rather than poetic.

Message of Love

East London, very late. Been working with the White Album on a big sound system (borrowed) and thinking yeah, actually, 'Birthday' actually is pretty punk insofar as that's what the people making punk were referencing. It must surely have been a template, as much as 'Taxman' anyway - you can hear it in Magazine and the Buzzcocks. Conversely Chris Thomas - also Roxy Music's producer - said he was merely doing glam with the Sex Pistols (layered guitar, no bass) and there are plenty of vids / documentaries around demonstrating the fact. Maybe you and your friends can find some of them online - ask mum or dad to help.

Anyway... So then it was The Pretenders for Chrissie's voice. Debbie Harry was the one you dreamed of but Chrissie Hynde was the one who'd call back. Hopefully dressed as a diner waitress but we'd go for the puffy shirt look as well. All good things. And now it's down to Harold Budd and The Plateaux of Mirror and, after lotsa words, bed. The new ms is all spick and span and ready to go out into the real world. It's raining like crazy and there's a good bar up the road but I've uncovered vodka and the IHT is sitting ready to go and, you know - we're all going to die some day. I say that without rancour.