Well, since you mention it, Marcello — and thanks for popping in — one of the pieces I spent a good deal of time looking for by you was your amazing writeup of “Kung Fu Fighting,” which I believe was part of this project also, no? But I could not find it anywhere — is it currently in hiding? If so, hope it makes it into your book (also recall loving your thoughts on “Beach Baby”).

Anyway, thanks for all the great stuff this decade — really looking forward to your book and all the best to you & Lena for the holidays. (But just to clear one thing up: I’m in fact the Second Best Wedding DJ in the World Ever. The Number One Best is my friend and mentor, David Newfeld. Though I guess because he’s officially retired — unlike me who is merely semi-retired — I’m the current holder of the trophy.)

Just to clear one matter up: all the good stuff from Naked Maja was reposted on Clothed Maja but I got rid of quite a few posts which I considered substandard and unnecessarily sour. There is also the blog which never quite took off, Koons Really Does Think He’s Michelangelo; I’ve kept a few posts from that up but all the posts, including my 2004 best-of lists, still exist in draft form and if enough people want me to republish them I will. I may or may not go back to the 1974 project at some point in the future but in truth this territory is going to be covered pretty thoroughly by Then Play Long when it reaches that point.

As far as comments boxes are concerned, I sympathise greatly with Momus when he talks about letting your enemies on board, because that’s how you learn new things. I certainly wish I had his amused tolerance of the eejits he gets on Click Opera from time to time. But at least with those there’s a semblance of thought-through argument at work and a good, hearty examination of ideas. If I had top quality nay-sayers commenting I’d let them straight through but I’m afraid career trolls who want to make things personal and offensive without even having the courage to append their own name (and indeed frequently without any evidence of their having read any of my writing other than perhaps the first or last two lines of any given post) will be kept well away; if they want to have a go at me, then they can set up their own blogs and do it there or else go let off steam on ILM or Dissensus or wherever. My blogs have taken a great deal of time, effort, energy and resources to set up and I’m not having any dope coming in off the street with their spray can and trashing the place.

Anyway, there’s a bit of steam being let off in time for the festive season. Best possible wishes for Xmas and for 2010,
MC