Did he just say "steely knives"?

As it's clearly been way too long since I've posted anything, I won't even bother attempting to recap all that has transpired since my last real communiqué here (like Mark McGwire, I'm not here to talk about the past). Let's just say that skiing was totally awesome. Instead of coherence, I've opted for random anecdotage:

• Last night there was an 'open-mic night' at the bar in our dorm. As our friend Constantine organized it, I played a bit. It was ok, very very casual, but nice to be able to sing loud without fear of disturbing the neighbors. High point: a big African--sorry for the generic description, but I don't know what country he comes from; besides it reminds me of the guy from TV on the Radio's response when he was asked to account for the fact that there was a big African influence in their music: "that's probably because there's a big African in the band"--Anyway, a big African named 'Divine' played an acoustic, all-falsetto, totally unironic, and totally lovely version of the Backstreet Boys' "I Will Love You More Than That." It was sort of the best thing ever. He kinda sounded like Ben Harper, but, you know, good. You could tell he'd been singing it, very quietly, in his room every night, to learn the guitar. Low point: a sing-along of "that Eagles song," led by a very, very serious Albanian classical guitarist. Lesson learned: never trust anyone who knows all the lyrics to "Hotel California."

• Willy, did you know that genius (and perhaps cocaine) was so close to you?

• Questions raised by the Terri Schiavo case: 1) Can Congress just do this sort of thing whenever they want? Like if Bill Frist gets a parking ticket, can he summon an emergency session to quickly make legislation that says "Anyone named Bill Frist shall not be fined for parking illegally"? 2) How Kafkaesque is a government refusing to let one of its citizens die in order to protect 'the sanctity of life' (the sanctity, in this case, lying in the fact that without consciousness, she can't sin!)?

• I've started recording a demo in my very, very minimal spare time (I gets some more of that after the term ends wednesday. Woohoo!). Songs will be posted here as they get finished, in the next couple of weeks I hope.