Neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night nor frickin’ COVID shall stay the couriers of POmposity and OPinionation from the swift completion of their appointed ruminations. Although, admittedly, last year’s turnout was a wee thinner than usual, the POOP goes on. Please feel free to share this invitation with anyone who might make a contribution to the POOP effort

As in the past two years, POOP is now entirely digital, with Mark Zip shepherding the wayward flock to create the marvelous digi-POOP. Like last year, lists will be posted at pooplist.net soon after Mark receives your 0’s and 1’s through the miracle of email. My function will be to compile the results and to harangue you with January reminders. The deadline this year will be Tuesday, January 25th.

Please email your list to both of us (his to either markzip@gmail.com or zipszig@hvc.rr.com and mine to mark45rpm@aol.com). Earlier submissions will allow Zip to get your list up soon after he receives it and me to compile the results. All two-minutes-before-deadline submissions will of course be accepted.

Some important guidelines from Mark Zip to make his job less miserable:

* Lists can be of any length but please do NOT use fancy formatting

*Keep Artist/Title/Record Company formatting consistent across all your categories. Thus, if you have bolded the artist in your first five entries, make sure they are bolded throughout. If you have italicized the album title, make sure all titles are italicized.

* If you want to link to artists’ pages or videos, write out the link next to the item to be linked. The usual links to the albums themselves will be provided as usual.

* No pdf’s, no weird “publisher” documents or obscure file types.

* Few, if any, two or three column tables.

* Few, if any, internal graphics. If you do want internal graphics, send them separately and tell Zip where they go.

* JPGs or PNGs only. RTF or TXT file types preferred. DOC if you absolutely insist. (All text editors and word processors can “Save as: .RTF”)

* File name: FIRSTNAME-LASTNAME-Poop-2020 (for example: “Joe-Blow-Poop-2020.rtf”) If you want the document to be titled something else, that’s ok.

Do your best to make this relatively easy for Mark Zip. Basically keep your formatting simple, refrain from gimmicks and be consistent throughout. If you have any questions about any of these bullet points, please email Mark directly at his above address for clarification.

Again, DEADLINE IS TUESDAY, JANUARY 25TH. Recriminations and threats will fill your inbox throughout January.

Donations to Mark Zip’s online POOP page are more than welcome to help offset fees and costs. There is a link to donate at pooplist.net. I (Mark Rosen, that is) no longer need donations since there is no longer a hard book or postage to pay for so please take care of our facilitator.

Be well. Stay safe. Take care of one another.

Mark Rosen
Chair of the January 25th Committee