Esteemed members of the venerable Tiny Mix Tapes Tote Society: As you well know, 2008 was a landmark year for toters the world over. Who could forget the night Orson Tagliacozzo set New York’s Spring Tote Week ablaze with his unctuous bricolage of pre-Jacobin debasement and post-Verhoeven dystrophy? And what of that enchanting Milanese afternoon when Howard Bacchiglione sent Totecon ’08 into hysterics with a deeply sexual yet staunchly antediluvian tote-isé on Tajik callipygia? Yet despite its myriad peaks, this sublime year, of course, was not free of tragedy’s snares… we’ll see you and your immaculate totes at the crossroads, Sherman de Montefeltro.
Many of you thought that once ’09 wrenched ’08 of her breath with time’s annual garrote, toteistry’s zenith was poised to pass into memory. Fie! Fie I cried on you then, and an even more furious fie I cry on you now! Behold: Merge Records has proposed a challenge to tote, t-shirt and mixtape lovers alike. In conjunction with their mammoth 20-year anniversary compilation SCORE!, Merge wants you, the tote-adoring consumer, to shoulder the task of curating your very own Merge compilation CD. Simply pick 20 of your favorite songs available from Merge’s digital store, put them in a list, post them on Merge’s Make Your Own SCORE! message board, and wait until March. A winner will be chosen at random, and along with the dubious honor of having their mix made available for sale in the Merge digital store, they will also be able to choose between either some pitiful, most likely rabies-laden t-shirt or this exquisite, penguin-bearing tote.
Your choice is simple, seasoned toter. I know not how the rest of you feel about this “indie-rock,” but I do know this: Were that sumptuous tote possessed by the Morningstar himself, I would hasten forthright to Abaddon to massage his loins until his demon seed gushed an unholy fountain upon all the damned. I know what I must do, and I trust you do as well. Semper Tote!
