out with the new, in with the old

From the "in" column of the "what's in and out" for the upcoming decade feature from the January 1980 issue of 3-2-1 Contact:

Startling in its prescience, isn't it? It makes me wish I could locate my copy of the "Welcome to the 1990's" special edition of the Tanner Banner, Woburn High's school newspaper, to scan -- specifically the prediction a classmate of mine made for the funky-fresh new decade where he decreed that there would be no new developments in the field of communications technology, as humanity had achieved all it could ever hope to achieve in that field.

Bright kid. I heard he's working for the Federal Reserve now.

So we bid adieu to 2007. This is supposed to be where I list the bests and worsts of the previous three-hundred and sixty five days and offer up my predictions about what lies in store for the upcoming year, but seeing as how the majority of my time is spent hip-wading through the sewers of retrological backwash, it would be a pointless exercise. I'm still too busy catching up with stuff from 2006...and 1993...and 1979 to even think of any 2007 releases that caught my attention.

Wait, no. There was The Hives' new album (which was dire), Kylie's highly-anticipated X (which was a mixed bag), and The Kind of Goodnight by Tiger! Tiger! (which was great fun). Otherwise, my plate has been full with reissues, rediscoveries, and collections of material from yore, and that applies to the realms of videogames, books, and comics as well. I'm sure there are some things I'm forgetting, but the fact they're not springing to mind with ease speaks for itself.

As for predictions? I dunno. The human race will continue to respond to serious long-term problems with convenient-yet-insufficient short-sighted fixes? The antics of an over-privileged celebrity will take media precedence over issues that actually impact our lives? The upcoming presidental election season will succeed in revealing that all the candidates are power-hungry cretins? That I will continue to muddle along here at Armagideon Time, alternating my self-conscious ramblings with gimmicky paeans to rightfully forgotten fifth-string comic book characters?

As if you needed me to tell you that. At least I can nod off to sleep at night with a conscience clean of having ever made hyperbolic claims -- which I've seen in several places already -- that prog rock is poised to make a huge resurgence in 2008. Sweet fucking Providence, isn't the world in rough enough shape without evoking the spectre of greasy-haired hipsters unironically rhapsodising about Keith Emerson and Yes?

Lord Sitar - I Can See For Miles (from Lord Sitar, 1968) - I accept no other lord but Big Jim Sullivan and his sympathetic strings.

Gleaming Spires - The End of All Good Things (from Songs of the Spires, 1981) - Why? Because I didn't think you were ready for the sex girls. The "right-right ultraviolet real nice girls", I mean.

(I suppose I could have gone with "I Predict" by Sparks, but as the Spires were affiliated with the early 80's version of the band, you've got your ration of Mael by proxy.)