Somehow, the world keeps turning, even as the news breaks that Karate has broken up. Yeah, they were pretentious, and I haven't bought an album since The Bed Is In The Ocean, but when they were on, they were on. And Geoff Farina could turn a beautiful phrase when he wasn't dropping lines comparing German and Croatian kids ("The Last Wars"). But listen to "Today or Tomorrow" and not imagine misspent youth and Boston winters, all in nine lines.

Those songs used to have an effect on some of my writing, especially the more pretentious stuff. Who will inspire the pretentious notebook scrawlers of the future? I guess they'll always have Bright Eyes.