12/25/2020> It's been a crazy year of 1sts... 1st time we cooked a turkey on thanksgiving + now today is the 1st time we played Santa Claws on xmas day! Our good friends came down from Bklyn (after self-isolating for a week... also our 1st houseguests this year b-sides our recluse friend that came over for thanxgiving) so figured it would be fun to souprize them (specially since 1 of them is Jewish + had never experienced such things) so we got stocking + stuffers (kazoos, tangerines, etc.) + hid them then after we ate (vongole) + hung out drinking mezcal + cava + shooting the shit (nice to see folks IRL b-sides our bedder-½) + they were joking that maybe we shd leave cookies out for Santa as we were going to bed. So i woke up @ 2 a.m. + lifted the saran wrap + took the cookies, leaving a mess of crumbs + hung the stockings + went back to bed. Then we woke up again @ 5 a.m. cuz we had to pee + noticed their door was open + snuck down + caught him ½-naked snooping around looking confused + when he saw us it spooked the shit out of him + we acted souprized like we caught him in the act + saying we couldn't believe they got us stockings + only then did he notice the stockings + he was trying to act like he didn't know how they got there but we was like "yah, right, we caught u red handed" + saying he beat us to the punch cuz we was coming down to eat the cookies + make it look like Santa had come.

12/26> Almost qualified as a white xmas... walked around town in non-sticking snow flurries then come evening stood outside in sub-freezing temperatures grilling chicken our friends had jerked along w/ some other deliciousness they whipped up then goofed around w/ gazoos + jaw harps (stocking stuffers) + now paying the price for 2 days of overindulgence not just of wine + beer but sweets (gold coins + tic tacs from our stocking + ice cream, homemade peanut butter balls + ginger bread + now cinnamon rolls so delicious we ate 3). Now our friends are gone + while it was good to see them IRL it's good to have our house back, back into self-isolation.

12/27> End of year roundup of books we've read or started to read recently:

—Harvestman by Steve Von Till—we know Von Till as the guitarist/singer for Neurosis but didn't know he was a poet + also makes solo music. These are poems/lyrics from his musical endeavors, tho he doesn't seem to sing that often (so far that we've heard) so makes u wonder if they are more like poetic interpretations of his sonic output, thoughtful meditations on nature + humun's place in it, accompanied by stunning linocuts by Mazatl all bound beautifully in hardback
— Crazy Horse's Girlfriend by Erika T. Wurth—duncan barlow sent us this + the above book, the 2nd he's published by Wurth (the other being Buckskin Cocaine). This 1 is a re-issue of her 1st novel, even grittier + more degenerate than Buckskin Cocaine, quite a contrast after reading Geronimo's autobiography last week.... oh how the plight of Native Americans in this country has changed, but sadly still no future for them
— We also recently started to read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, but abandoned it cuz it just seemed too precious. Being a critic darling has type-casted him, he can do no wrong. But the the accompanying silly comics by Ellen Forney were cool.

—The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Ranier Maria Rilke—we might of kept reading this, but the book was all underlined + highlighted which is always annoying (1 of the problems w/ finding books in boxes)
—House of Prayer No. 2 by Mark Richard—we grabbed this from a book box cuz we loved Richard's Ice at the Bottom of the World + liked this @ 1st but then he gets all religious on us... guess we shd of known by the title
— Fanged Noumena by Nick Land—we've been trying to get thru this for a while + will hold on to it to come back to in the future, but as the pieces progress they get increasingly experimental to the point where we don't know if "reading" qualifies so much as decoding
— The Reivers by William Faulkner—another book we grabbed cuz the title seemed in sink w/ our current river obsession w/ Sound Furies (theme for our next album) + cuz it's 1 of the few we haven't read by him but seems there's a reason this is 1 of Faulkner's lesser known works
— An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin—while Martin's metamorphosis from comedian to art lover is intresting + admirable we just couldn't find ourselves engaging w/ the ins + outs of high-end art collectors

Except for the Astrophil books + Fanged Noumena, we'll be adding these to our liebury boox feeder pile (we've been doing a lot of walking/exchanging lately):