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I know that this blog hasn't had any original entries for quite some time now. I was stuck at a place that does not have a reliable internet connection, a ridiculous limit and my old laptop aka the pain machine (I like being with my family, but the infrastructure was a big part of the reason why I struggled so hard to get out of there).

Anyways. Going into December, I did not realize that "a decade was coming to an end". This is the first decade that I've captured from beginning to end, a decade in which my taste in everything was shaped, and a good part of who I am now and possibly who I will be in the future. I also like lists, but 2009 didn't feel like the date to do lists about what happened in the ten years previous (the "oughts"? Seriously?). I could do a list of the greatest records of the decade but that would contain exactly the same artits artists I keep on raving about here. You already know what I like. Some people try to continue the conversation about how TV shows turned into art by naming the most important shows of the decade but every single show I've considered important has already been talked about (but how can you compile such a list and name "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" after "Survivor" and "American Idol"?)

I don't see the point in compiling such lists. I'd be more interested in hearing why some people chose particular records or shows - why they became so important to them individually, instead of attempting to decide how influental a particular record or show was. I'd name "Lifted Or the Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground" as one of the most important records for me personally because it was one of the first that drove home the importance of lyrics. They got stuck in my head and I HAD to listen to the entire record at least twice a day to exorcize the ghosts (in 2003). I'd probably mention that I was watching ridiculous German "reality" TV while doing my first ninth grade math homework when the news of a burning sky scraper in New York scrolled through the lower part of the screen, and everyone I called spent the entire day glued to the screen, feeling that this would change the course of history immediately. I'd talk about the evening when I was sitting in a cinema alone for the first time, in a daze for about 85 minutes, and so happy that I didn't have to talk about it afterwards, that I didn't have to share the experience (the film was "Gespenster" by Christian Petzold). I'd try to make up a story about an endless summer in which I was finding so much new music and sitting outside in my parents' garden, listening to "Nude as the News" again and again. No list could capture any of this. I'm happy to sum up a year, but ten years of my life?