flare out across the room

Slim Harpo, Live in Concert
Human Switchboard, Who's Landing in my Hangar? Anthology 1977-1984
The Quadrajets, Alabama Hip Shake
Felt, Poem of the River
The Beatles, Rob's mixtape of collected Fan Club Christmas singles
Belle and Sebastian, The BBC Sessions
Dean & Britta, The 13 Most Beautiful: Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests

• Rainy gray December with mellow English pop going on the hi-fi reminds me of sitting in the living room of my friend's apartment playing Scrabble with him and his trainwreck girlfriend. Everyone involved was in pretty sorry shape and fixing to get worse, a tragicomedy punctuated by glows that flare out across the room of memory like Christmas lights that have yet to burn out on the string.


• How has Belle & Sebastian not done a Christmas record? Like a resigned, vaguely bitter one with songs about Marks & Spencer's clerks cleaning up the cafe after the final holiday rush, popping out for a drink, just one before catching the train, which turns into an awkward hungover Christmas morning. There are no trains running, the shops are all closed and both are missing the presents and feast at mum's, instead sharing the last teabag in the cupboard. There, that's a start. They can call it "Gifts of the Magi" if they like.


• This brief wave of bullshit holiday melancholy is sponsored by a lingering sinus infection, pathetic fallacy, and a innate fear of success. Really, everything is gangbusters up in here. We are busting up a gang as I type this.


• Rob's compiling this mix of Beatles Christmas fan club singles is an act of mesmerizing devotion. I love how the tunes get weirder as they got weirder.


• The secret to Dean Wareham's particular musical genius is that he can ride the lowest wave for longer than anybody and and it never crests and suddenly picks up just a touch and you shake awake and go "I'm surfing! I'm doing it!" and you are for just a second and then you get deposited on the sand on your wetsuit, the empty beach staring right at you.