i must highly recommend the tangerine beef and the salt-and-pepper seafood at funky broome, where a bunch of us dined last night to celebrate my birfday. so delicious. i will be returning there for sure. it was a nice night, and i got the greatest presents, including the fabulous mini-tripod that made the above pictures possible. i love it so! soon i am off to chicago to weep with the other sad freaks of the nation, and so no more updates till 2005 probably. you poor dears.

people are braying for updates, and so: christmas was good despite the fact that my mom had NO TREE set up when i got there (!). i had to drag the fake one from the 70s out of the basement. i got the newest gbv box set, myriad other entertainments, and learned to crochet. today is my birthday and so far so good. john and leanne are here, i'm wearing thigh-high legwarmers, and all is well. come stalk me at the dark room tonight if you dare.

hey, it's elise from top model season one's livejournal, and guess what? she's still skinny!

also, i really like the first amazon customer review of the ariel pink album. i've been hearing a lot about it in cool circles. i just hope it doesn't turn out to be a joanna newsom phenomenon, i.e. completely un-understandable on any level.

deep thought of the day: life is too crazy to keep your room clean. does that work for anyone? it does for me. jackets, tissues, underwear -- who has time???

hey, did you know the pixies are in town? they are. and i saw them on monday night. now, they totally rocked, and loud. my ears were throbbing along with the bass. painful! and maura was next to me and did not stop smiling once. and there were lots of people clearly in heaven. but...but...i did not achieve concert nirvana. it was a totally tight, professional performance, but i didn't really feel any passion or urgency there. kim deal looked really happy; that was nice. but frank black said hardly anything. he also looked constipated the whole time. i was a little bit worried for him. it is possible that i am spoiled for all eternity by gbv, but the show just felt really workmanlike to me. verdict: eh.

speaking of gbv, i am listening to almost nothing but in the 15 days left before the last show ever. here's a pretty, slowed-down cover of "motor away" by some band called minor majority.

those of you who don't do santacon truly don't know what you're missing. hundreds of fantastically dressed santas parading and frolicking all over the city, delighting some and irritating others, is still the best thing ever. i want to wear my corkscrew santa hat forever. the times wrote about it, and ray has pics. woohoo to holly, mark, and michael especially for coming up from philly/delaware and making it extra fun. i have a group shot that i'll put up on the fotolog later, so you can see all of our santa-riffic outfits. ho!

aw, gothamist likes us. they're cute, aren't they?

finally, in preparation for this weekend's santacon funfest and in the grand tradition of Videos That I Think Are Hilarious But You Might Think Are Only Somewhat Funny And/Or Dumb, here is some video of my friend brian and a plastic santa rocking out to x ray spex. this cracks me up EVERY TIME.

i spent my entire weekend on guided by voices. that's right, i turned totally hardcore and went all three nights. i wasn't even going to go sunday night, but saturday's show was so amazingly great, i had to find a ticket. saturday night's show, in fact, was definitely in the top couple of gbv shows i've ever seen, and i've seen like 20. possibly even the top couple of shows i've *ever* seen. over three hours of nonstop concert nirvana, and the crowd energy was amazing. they are so absolutely on right now, and have reaffirmed why they are my favorite band. i've been on like a life high for three days.

i told leanne this and she was like, "why, why were they so great?" i just so love rocking out to the early punkish songs the most. personally i view the gbv canon as encompassing three different p's than are usually talked about: pop, punk, and pretty. i've talked a little bit of trash in my time about the last three albums, but they have some really amazingly beautiful songs in there. this setlist they're doing right now is to me representative of gbv's greatness in a way that was not evident the last couple years, i'd say. as i see it, you get the three p's: pop, punk, and pretty. it's just the pretty shit from "half smiles of the decomposed" (which is a lot of it -- if you don't have it, get it), the dozens of insanely poppy, fist-pumping, pogoing anthems that everybody loves, and then the really old, punkish fist-pumping, pogoing anthems that you only know if you have the relevant box set.

other fun things:
- bob claims to be coming out with a comedy album (containing all of his ranty stage banter, i guess), that will be called, i shit you not, he said this, "relaxation of the asshole."

-we saw bright eyes at shades of green before the show. he looked kind of haggard, but still arrestingly hot. he was later sighted at the show. who did bob rag on for sucking? yep. bright eyes. awesome.

-chloe sevigny was also skanking about, in overalls. i wish i could just throw on the ugliest possible thing in my wardrobe and have guys call me hot. i guess i'll settle for the "you've got a liz phair mouth" comment i got (and died over).

-kevin getting up onstage to sing with bob two nights in a row. it was sweet when bob kissed him. however, i need to be a hardass and say the following: fanboys should realize that not everyone wants to see them live their wet dream. a couple is okay, but boys: it's not a fucking receiving line, okay? especially if you can't sing. luckily, kevin can. bob even let him sing the chorus of "tractor rape chain" alone on saturday. kevin then had to go change his undies.

-hanging out with my irrepressible friend brian and his friend mitchell from austin, the hardest of the hardcore, who seemed to know every word of every song they played. i kept leaning over to mitchell and asking him what song this was. i'd get answers like "oh, this is blah blah off the japanese version of 'the pipe dreams of instant prince whippet.'" every time. love that.

-chavez opening saturday night. just why did i sell "ride the fader" again, exactly? they slayed me.

-the trouper of a cocktail waitress, who was bringing whole trays of like 15 beers right up to the front for most of the show. along with sizable tips, she received many words of praise. i told her she was amazing and she responded, "yeah, my mother is real proud. this is what a degree in psychology gets you."

-i was glad to see the blogosphere representin', with jinners bouncing around up front with the rest of the freaks. she has good taste. better than the rest of you killers-loving motherfuckers. i really wish bob would rant about them in the ranting-about-bands section. but then again, they're not even worthy.

since i've never mp3-blogged gbv, my favorite band, and it sure seems like the band isn't against mp3s really, i'm going to go ahead and hit you with a few songs i re-fell in love with this weekend over the course of putting together an "intermediate" mix for some of the more casual fans in my posse of eight people who are going to the very last gbv show on new year's eve in chicago. i'm *really* excited for chicago now.

::: Guided By Voices, "My Son Cool" :::

::: Guided By Voices, "Do the Earth" :::

::: Guided By Voices, "Liar's Tale" :::

let me know what you think. but only if you love them, because otherwise i will just be disappointed in you.

the other big news, second only to new ipod cozies of course, is that holly and nate got engaged! it only took them nine years and about four breakups to figure that out. i kid, of course. very happy for them. can't wait for the wedding. i love weddings. here's hoping they get a chocolate fountain like i advised them to.

this is a few days old but wow, pitchfork makes some serious moolah. found as a result of this dumb new york observer story that is all like, whoa, people read pitchfork.

yay mayor mike! with six shows remaining on the electrifying conclusion tour, he proclaimed december 5 gbv day! this thread on matador is compiling pictures of all the gbv day proclamations, which are pretty funny to read. whereas bob pollard rocks harder than most men half his age....