Week sixteen
The game: Bills at Patriots
The beer: True North Wee Swally Scotch Wee Heavy
The result: Loss, 38–9

Week seventeen
The game: Jets at Patriots
The beer: Lakefront Eastside Dark Lager
The result: Win, 28–14

The commentary: Where were we? Right: sub five hundred, no playoffs, Brady wins, Newton re-signs (not “resigns”). Sallah didn’t know what to make of it all but an oversized, oversaturated Major Toht sets things straight: this is not the way it was supposed to go.

Is it coincidence that (more or less) weekly commentary halted once eight-and-eight became unattainable? I don’t know. It might have been more closely related to the fact that my layoff was imminent. Drag; though I can’t say I would have thoroughly enjoyed another fourteen-plus years doing work that was slowly being automated out of existence. “A weird exits,” indeed—I’m just glad there’s a Democrat in the White House. And that we bought a couple of tight ends.

What else is new? Well, regular readers (!) will miss a fifth volume chronicling, for some reason, every book and short story I read in 2021. Titles are haphazardly tracked in my new Goodreads sidebar widget that seems to favor what I’ve recently added as “To be read” over those I might have finished last week but TBR’d months ago… now there’s an inconsequential complaint from someone forced to apply to dozens of jobs every week without the benefit of an interview! Priorities.

Since I don’t feel like tossing more resumes into the void this afternoon, how about revisiting the revisitation of some original furious madness? Ladies and gentleman, Pank Floyt! From the top, then, and call it: Pass the Tequila, Manuel, and Leave the Bottle for Completionists Who Seek Glory at Sun-Up.

1. Astronomy Domine
Smoking Blues, November 1970
My first Pink Floyd ROIO, back when it was folly to rely upon fellow Napster enthusiasts to accurately tag their files. I sought the album version and ended up with this—it’s probably better, though it took awhile to realize the greeting was Roger Waters’s and not Syd Barrett’s, who by then was long gone.

2. Fat Old Sun
Meddled, September 1971
“But the new 1971 version of the latter is superior, due as much to the recording as to the playing, so it slots in as the new number two.” Right-o.

3. Atom Heart Mother
Smoking Blues
I am a recent convert regarding Atom Heart Mother the album, but I agree with my six-years-ago self that the title track is “vastly improved” here when “stripped down from its overindulgent studio source.” Don’t get comfortable, six-year-old self. I suspect overindulgent “Summer ’68” will contribute to Volume 13 next month.

4. Grantchester Meadows (a.k.a. “Daybreak”)
The Man and the Journey, September 1969
The opening track of “a two-part conceptual touring suite featuring four grown men drinking tea onstage.” It sure beats “Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict.”

5. Green Is the Colour
Electric Factory 1970, September 1970
Nick Foles can kiss my ass.

6. Careful With That Axe, Eugene
Live in Montreux, September 1971
“Helen Hunt and Sidney Poitier are… Beset by Creatures of the Deep.” This is why I revisit my old posts.

7. If
Atom Heart Mother Goes on the Road, July 1970
Addition! Addition! More love for Atom Heart Mother. This might as well be a remix of the studio version but it fades nicely into…

8. The Narrow Way (Part 3)
Gentle Stirring Sounds, May 1969
Addition number two! Out of how many? I’ll check. [Departing footsteps.] Pardon? Two? I’m running through what again for two lousy songs? They’re not going to like this. [Approaching footsteps.] Right. It is two. At least this BBC Night Ride performance accommodates the best portion of the best solo song from Ummagumma after David struggled badly to reach the high notes during The Man and the Journey. Cringe-worthy and non-compilable.

9. One of These Days
Meddled
Forever cutting the “Careful With That Axe, Eugene”/“Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” morass into little pieces.

10. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
Electric Factory 1970
Doug Pederson can kiss my ass.

11. The Grand Vizier’s Garden Party (a.k.a. “Doing It”)
12. Cymbaline (a.k.a. “Nightmare”)
The Man and the Journey
“…suffering from night terrors about special teamer Matthew Slater being the Patriots’ MVP for the second week in a row.” Try Jake Bailey! The punter! “The alarm clock bleeds beautifully into…”

13. Echoes
Live in Montreux
“Ping!”

14. Interstellar Overdrive
Electric Factory 1970
Brandon Graham can kiss my ass.

15. Pow R. Toc H. (a.k.a. “The Pink Jungle”)
16. The Labyrinths of Auximenes
17. Behold the Temple of Light
The Man and the Journey
“‘The Labyrinths of Auximenes’ incorporates parts of ‘Let There Be More Light’ and ‘A Saucerful of Secrets’ but I don’t hear it.” Still don’t.

18. The Embryo
Meddled
“This is WNEW-FM, 102.7 on your dial.”

19. A Saucerful of Secrets
Electric Factory 1970
Nelson Agholor can kiss… the end zone? Six or seven times?

20. More Blues
Smoking Blues
“Ze Pank Floyt!” New? Improved? Unknown. But I had to do this. I had to move on, to close the book on a season I’d like to forget and am most of the way to doing so. We’re on to 2021/2022 XII… and that begins with tape-delayed-live-blogging the draft for the first time in five years! Fresh starts, folks. Now let’s find another all-time great in the sixth fucking round.

Up next: An odd entrances? Are you hiring? Cheers!