Gosh, it’s been like, a foreverlong time since I’ve been baited by the breath. Too busy, too little sunlight, air conditioning. Spent Saturday night choking down Kitten Gurgles chased with a double shot of Gaucho, which needs some grand exhumation, perhaps partially on my part.

I should’ve mentioned this a month ago when I read it, but Franklin Bruno’s 33 1/3 book on Armed Forces was very good. It’s one of those instances in which the criticism and interpretive work on a record actually enrich it, rather than either degrade it or stand alone in self-satisfaction. I was only reminded because I got my Amazon UK package today, containing a legit copy of the Kano album (which was great to hear again), a UK-only edition of Yeats (for Dad), and Simon Reynolds’s Rip It Up and Start Again, a massive tome on post-punk. I would’ve waited for the US version, but when I met him for the Stycast a few weeks ago, he helpfully informed me that it would be trimmed considerably before making it over here. The publisher’s got to be out his motherfuckin’ mind to think that there aren’t millions of seething Americans dying to read a 500+ page book on a lot of ne’er popular and now defunct leftist British bands. In other news, Laguna Beach is on television.

I can’t want to get all saucy with this place (make the bed, trim the turkey) once the shitstorm lets up a bit. Stay tuned for pounds of lace and lots of opium smoke, I promise.