p.s.  Hey.  Yet another day with nothing much to report on my end.  Just lots of trips back and forth to the Recollets to scrub and gather and tote, but the old place will be history by the next time I see you.  I'm going to post my final 2007 top ten lists on Monday, so if you think you'd like to counter them with yours, which would be cool, you now have 48 hours advance warning to scan your memories and prepare to jot.  Err ... yeah, that it's it for me today, as far as I can tell.  **  Lost Child, Help with 'scorts?  I can do that.  Say the word.  Well, the year's almost over, and this might be one of those situations where imagining something like the click from '07 to '08 is more than a simple click.  I'm determined that next year is going to rule.  Symbolism, here we come.  Power of the mind and all that.  Hang in there.  **  Jax, At last you bring up the subject of your legendary 'smelly cock'.  I've been on tinterhooks over here.  Seriously, it's a ledge.  My toes hang over the edge into perilous space when I stand on it. Isn't that a ledge?  In America, it would be a ledge with a fancy railing thing stuck on it.  Pass on my get well soon to Nick, please, if he's not reading this.  Nick, get back on your feet, man!  I'm glad you got into that course.  That is good news whatever happens, I think.  And I'm fascinated that you're feeling the pull towards prose.  I knew we hadn't lost you.   **  Youngandstupid, I figured you'd have so many 'Aryan genetic perfection' boys up there where you come from, that the strange and confident Swede would get a yawn.  Maybe he really is The One, our only hope, in which case depriving the world of his kids starts to seem like a real hot  bargain at, whatever, $200 an hour.  Hm.  **  Wolf, I thought I felt irony in that Swede boy's 'Aryan' thing, but it might be wishful thinking.  Oh, well.  Has my English changed over here?  Good question.  Well, since 95% of the people I deal with speak English as a second or third language at best, I wonder if I've subconsciously begun to speak English more plainly and with a less dimensional tone and without much subtext.  When I go back to LA, no one's said I've gotten dumb, but my friends might be being polite.  I'm sure there are new Frenchisms in my speech.  I do use French words a fair amount.  I'm going to try to start paying more attention starting today and see what I can learn about my current speech mode.  Interesting.  On Gun Club, a lot of people like the album 'Fire of Love' (or something close to that) a lot too.  See what you think.  Jeffrey has a nice howl.  **  Stan_cz, Well, most people I know who go to university get student loans to pay most or all of their tuition, which they then spend the next twenty plus years repaying in installments.  And there are scholarships you can get where most of the tuition is paid.  And some people get a reduced tuition fee by working at the school in some capacity, like in the library or as a teacher's assistant or whatever.  I think that's how it's possible to go to such expensive schools, and those might be ways in for you.  Take care, Carsten.  You enjoying your presumed non-school vacation?  **  Tigersare, 106 degrees on New Years?  That's ridiculous.  And I say that as an Angeleno for whom holidays were always accompanied by warmth whether we liked it or not.  I'm real glad to hear you're going ahead with that 70s gay singer songwriter project you mentioned here a while.  It's such a good project, and I can't think of anything else out there like it.  I smell not only cultural advancement but an indie hit.  Maybe you can license it to Rhino or something.  Very cool.  Are most of the artists still active?  Are you collecting tracks from the period only or more recent stuff by them or ... ?  **  Blake, Awesome.  All that pen stuff is really getting excellently weird and kind of Bressonian in the transmuting repetitiveness and the kind of autistic attention to detail and to the method by which people do 'minor' things.  The writing's precision is so beautifully wedded to the characters' seeming looseness and casualness, etc. etc.  Just great.  **  David Ehrenstein, What about figuring out some big piece for the Times that would get them to send you over here. Something serious or something fun or arts related or travel stuff?  People love to read about Paris.  You think the Tuesday Weld Day opens the door a sufficiently large crack?  I'm hoping.  **  5stringsA, I did a wallop of drugs for a long time too, but I'm not ... well, I don't think I'm ... what was I saying?  I suspect you've taken the damage like a champ.  You were once a simple tree, and now you're a totem pole.  Much better.  **  Craig, Yeah, sometimes no face pix in escort ads means what you'd expect, but sometimes it's just a choice to keep the escort identity secret.  If that Decemberists guy is for real, he probably has a lot of web surfing friends and would rather not be the brunt of possible jokes and gossip.  But it's also true he might be, you know, not facially worthy or something?  I've had a bunch of friends over the years who've escorted, and most of them did it for kicks as much for the money, which can, of course, be a very good amount of money, and they liked doing it.  Mostly they were guys who either were into older men anyway or had high sex drives and didn't care all that much what their partners looked like.  Obviously, guys sometimes escort for desperate reasons too, but less often than you think, from what I know.  About connecting with your nephew, yeah, it's hard when he's 5, but you're laying the groundwork now 'cos he's observing you and getting to trust you.  My nephew Cody and I started bonding most when he was about 10 or something, and now of course it's easy 'cos he's a formed being, and he and I are into a lot of the same things.  And moving out the parents' home is definitely easier with a partner.  Having a roommate or roommates in your first home away from home is a very good idea.  But it doesn't need to be a partner, it can be a friend or friends or simpatico acquaintances too. Lucky you to have a Wii in the other room.  Mine's in another country.  **  SYpHA_69, I like the idea of a short book on Warhol, if it turns out that way.  Mary Woronov's is a good example.  When I think Warhol, I think big book, so a shorter book has freshness and surprise going for it from the outset.  Nice Bret quote.  Good old Bret.  I wonder what he's working on.  I looked at the first several comments about Steve's interview with me on the Vice blog.  They really are lame and kind of grasping for a way to be sarcastic.  Dumb.  **  Bernard, Actually, the book Joel was telling me about is this new one.  'Little Sammy Sneeze.'  Do you know that McKay work?  I don't think I do.  Word that your McKay post is only a couple of weeks away is very exciting news, need I say.  You lost me on the musical stuff, needless to say.  That stuff might as well be Martian to me.  It's weird.  A failing of mine, no doubt.  **  Killer Luka, I love that Alex drawing, and the newer one too.  How great to see your art again.  What's the latest on the mannequins' progress?  The ghosts are mostly in my bedroom?  Gee, I wonder why, ha ha.  I wonder if they read my blog.  I wonder if they post comments.  **  Steevee, The Pitchfork mention in that ad is the clincher, right?  First and only time I've seen that, and I really scour escort ads, only for the benefit of the fine people around here, of course.  Well, for the stretch that I watched Al Jazeera's Childrens Channel, and I certainly need to see more to give you any definitive read on their programming, I saw two shows, both about kids interacting with the animals and nature native to that part of the world, and that was pretty Nature Channel-like on a much lower budget except for the running through-line/subtext showing the US military crashing through beautiful spots in their jeeps and tanks, and the piles of little dead animal bodies being tossed haphazardly into trash receptacles by military men who'd been shooting them out of boredom, and so on.  **  Dan, Hope you're having good holidays too.  I'll get back to you this weekend.  Sorry, moving and stuff got me off track for a while.  Sounds exciting, man.  Great.  **  Misanthrope, Benjaminbottomboy didn't make my cut because of his face.  I couldn't turn away that email exchange between him and the shit guy, could I?  My 'favorite' comment on the Vice blog was that one said I look dissipated and went on about how horrible my nose is.  There are some very deep people around that blog.  Maybe we over here should challenge them over there to a touch football game, eh?  I've never seen a dead boy's ass I didn't like.  You?  **  Bacteriaburger, He did have a little bit of a flair for erotic writing, right?  Something for him to try his hand at once the inevitable day arrives that his fresh baked bread ass is more suited for croutons than for expectant faces.  **  JW Veldhoen, And you've gotta love the three different, conflicting cause of death explanations so far from Musharraf's government, all in conflict with every witness account and coroner explanation.  It's hell. **  Michael Karo, Lovely Xmas dinner.  If I wasn't a vegetarian, I'd have been drooling.  So Dylan doesn't like you to video his face?  But it's a nice face. I like your new glasses and the picture too.  Very James Dean.  **  Marc, Hey!  What a pleasure, man.  I'm glad to hear you're making good use of Minneapolis.  Last time you were there, it was quite productive too.  Good, good, good.  You have a great New Years too, and come back and hang out when the mood strikes, yeah?  Take care, Marc.  **  Atomic, Joshua seems to have won the most ... uh, hearts here.  And who can blame you all.  He did kind of rule, though I have to say I thought that 'Aryan' thing presented an interesting challenge.  And I quite liked the birdseed guy personally, but I like French guys.  Glad you picked up on the elevator's evil nature.  I thought it was just the Californian in me equating old elegance with the 'out to get me.'  Too bad it only goes from the ground floor to the top floor and not down into that scary basement.  Or does it?  **  J., Hey there.  Well, if Joshua represents your recent sex life, I can't feel that badly for you.  Though hating humanity is an awfully big price to pay.  On your Burroughs question, well, there are many who disagree with me, but to my mind by the time Burroughs wrote 'Cities of the Red Night' there was some automatic pilot going on in his writing, familiar motifs lacking their old craziness.  If you read the great Burroughs stuff -- Naked Lunch through The Wild Boys -- there's a ton of hanging/ejaculation, but it's all mixed in and messed up with the language experimentation, which makes it feel more like the little explosions I think he intends and less just like good old Burroughsian schtick, if you know what I mean.  So I say your having trouble with the repetition is probably because it's a problem, though other equally smart people here may jump and defend/explain it in a more positive light.  I'm not sure if that helps, but thanks a lot for stopping in and asking.  **  Paradigm, Yeah, I was just saying above how ludicrous the Pakistani government is being about the assassination, especially with very solid evidence to the contrary from all sorts of people from the coroner to American journalist eyewitnesses  to simple logic.  I like that they're being caught in their lies so quickly, although the chaos at the top that would have lead to such a lame, incoherent response to Bhutto's murder portends some very bad and destructive days and decisions ahead.  It couldn't be more fucked up, right?  **  Laurabethnoble, Really sorry about your mom.  Listening to your voice mails three times, that's kind of ugly.  Yikes.  Still, disregarding that quite big, sad problem, it does sound like your trip home has been fruitful.  Say hey to Andrew for me.  **  Math T., Get some good sleep, pal.  **  No more teenagekicks, Great essays list.  Randall Jarrell, that's a good one.  I hadn't thought about him in ages.  Why did Sebald have to die?  That loss was a huge one.  Guy was completely cooking when it happened.  **  Jeff, Finland, it is.  Heck, they answer Santa Claus's letters there.  When I was a kid, we had a Finnish mother and daughter team housekeepers for a while.  They were cool.  They made us Finnish food a lot, and it was good,  Finnish pancakes are the best in the world.  I haven't read 'Fires', but I'll mark it down for purchase.  Thanks, Jeff.  You're always so generous.  It's much appreciated.  **  Dynomoose, I will for sure stop Malkovich on the street the next time I see him and tell him about your tree. Talk about an opening line.  I think that tidbit plus his joy at coming across a  fellow freaky American in this godforsaken place should do the trick.  I'm not kidding.  When I see him, I'm going to tell him.  He looks very approachable strangely.  **  Winter Rates, Dude, totally loved the Xmas show.  Thank you for the GBV and the dedication.  Well, two dedications.  Let's see.  ... love that Stereolab track, that Pogues song always gets to me,  that weird R2D2 thing, Dead Moon, Love, Fuck, ... Nonstop goodness.  You warmed my heart and home, as ever.  **  Luke, Hey.  I'd love to talk to you about those mysterious books.  How was the Union Hall gig?  That was on the 27th, right?  Am I wrong?  'Osciller follement' is beautiful.  Lyrics, a poem, ... ?  That line about how strange it is that you choose to entertain such a strange beast is so great.  You're so good with the lines that just sneak up and grab your throat.  Thank you very much for that, Luke.   **  Right, people.  I have to zoom across town to do some shit.  I hope you find Tuesday Weld and her day or rather weekend to be something worth chewing on.  Have very good weekends, and I'll see you on Monday.