It Will Never Be 2011 Again

Another year.

Lies. Lies. Lies. Lies. Lies.

Thus 2012, the least productive year on the blog, comes to an end,
And the passage of time cannot help but remind us:

It will never be 2011 again.

The year of the Arab Spring, the Israeli Summer, the American Fall, the Russian Winter, and the Chinese New Year,
The year of Occupy Wall Street and the murder of Osama bin Laden,
The year the sea swallowed Japan, and Iran swallowed Jafar Panahi,

When the Republican primaries were still in their earliest, most experimental and fruitful days,
When the mania of our sexual deprivation was at its most delirious, and resignation only a distant eventuality,
When a black man could not walk to the bodega without being stopped by the cops and, crucially, no one yet cared,

When planking was the new vuvuzela,
When the Higgs Boson was still just a theory,
and we were just friends with The New Inquiry,
When Terence Malick was but a glimmer in Jessica Chastain's eye,

The year History came back to collect,
the year of kings laid low by dreams
and dreams laid low by philistines
backed by force of arms.

That was our year. When shit was real.

One day graduate students scavenging from the dustbins of culture will write universally ignored monographs citing, in passing, this bunga bunga blog as an essential cultural expression of the year 2011. A phenomenon truly, irrepressibly, irresponsibly of its moment--a moment now forever past.

That's why we're giving up.

Our world-historical mission has been accomplished, and after the long, hard comedown of 2012, we've realized that we'd be kidding ourselves if we thought we could ever match that incandescence again. Our man on the West Coast is heading off to convalesce in Mexico after a bout of brain fever. Our Brooklyn personnel were last seen somewhere in the Meadowlands, jabbering on about Elysium. And our Nashville office has been burned to the ground so that nothing shall remain for those who survive.

And you, dear reader... You have our thanks and our pity. What have we given you all these years but lies--bread and circuses!--petty amusements that, by soothing your wounds, have only enabled you to endure yet more of lifes countless indignities?

Do not forgive us. Hate on, you crazy diamonds. As they say in Mexico, the night is always darkest just before it is black forever.

- The Editors