Do all these Mangum sightings possibly mean a NMH reunion?

In case you haven’t looked at an mp3 blog this week: Neutral Milk Hotel front-man Jeff Mangum has turned up on several stops of the Elephant 6 Surprise Holiday tour to sing along with his old buddies from various Elephant 6 bands, namely Julian Koster’s Music Tapes. Seeing Jeff Mangum twice in one week is sort of like the equivalent of running into anyone else 55 times in an hour, as we’ve only seen the reclusive, and seamingly slightly agoraphobic singer a handful of times since the late 1990’s.

So, all these sightings have people asking; “Is there a reunion planned?!” Well, of course that’s impossible for me to know dear reader, but I have a tieline in mind that I’d like to openly propose to anyone close to Merge, Neutral Milk Hotel, or Jeff Mangum who might be out there. By now, the quarterly royalty checks from In The Aeroplane Over the Sea have to be running a bit thin, so I’m sure Jeff has taken to some unfortunate day job – let me propose this as a means of correcting this:

1.) January 2009 – Jeff Mangum releases cryptic press release with shadowy, impossible to make out photograph of himself playing a piano, promising an upcoming album of some sorts.

2.) March 2009 – Merge announced upcoming release of Jeff Mangum solo album, featuring everyone who has ever lived in Athens, Georgia – world goes crazy.

3.) May 2009 – Merge releases Jeff Mangum solo album, with promises of a ten-city tour of the U.S.

4.) June 2009 – Days after the release of said solo album, Jeff gets cold feet and decides to sink back into hiding out in his basement, or whatever he’s been doing all these years.

5.) Late June 209 – Pitchfork gives album a 10.176, officially breaking the ten point barrier for the first time ever.

6.) October 2009 – Jeff Mangum peaks out from behind a curtain at some show in New York and the world goes crazy with rumors of that tour happening after all and another Jeff Mangum album coming out.

7.) October 2010 – Neutral Milk Hotel plays a show in Athens and a show in New York. Now thirty-something hipsters go crazy, spend their entire trust fund to fly there and pay 350 dollars for a ticket to the show on craigslist.

8.) Jeff sinks back into reclusiveness until the funds start to wear thin again. We live happily until then.

[mp3] Neutral Milk Hotel – Holland, 1945
[mp3] Neutral Milk Hotel – Naomi
[mp3] Neutral Milk Hotel – Engine (Live)