I succumb

So here I find myself surrendering to one of the dumbest conventions of the cyber age: sticking a list of favorite songs on my blog. Next up for me, online dating.

And speaking of dating, I date the list phenomenon back to a 1987 issue of Rolling Stone that ranked the 100 best albums of the past 20 years. Such cut and dried canonizing was a new concept then: while there had already been a few "desert-island disk" exercises out there, those had an undeniable parlor-game feel to them and held no real sway. The RS list's rankings, most of which I remember to this day, seared themselves into my young, as yet untouched-by-lists mind. That list obviously made an impression on a few others as well, for the following decade, in which we RS-fed kids grew up and assumed media jobs, saw a complete overdose of lists. Everybody does them now, whether it's sports writers with their "power rankings," VH1's sexiest celebrity pets lists, or even Rolling Stone itself, which time passed by long ago but which continues to crank this shit out.

And now you don't even need to be a magazine or a network to have a list; you can just be a regular old schmuck with a blog. Like hanging an Egon Schiele print on your dorm wall, such lists are one of the most expedient ways to grab some quick cred for yourself—as if recognizing some artifact's quality is the next best thing to having created it. (Artists themselves are not immune to such associations. I recently saw Muse, who came onstage to Prokofiev's admittedly thrilling "Dance of the Knights"; and, while this definitely lent Muse themselves some grandness, the fact is it was written by an odd and gifted Soviet composer who died over half a century ago. What an effect, though. After a few seconds, it didn't even matter who'd written it, because it belonged to Muse.)

So go ahead and make a list: assert your taste, impress/baffle your friends ("The Ting Tings? Where's he come up with this stuff?"), or just remind yourself what you like—because sometimes you forget. Anyway, here, in no particular order, are my favorites from this decade, which has only a few weeks of life left.

"Reckoner," Radiohead

"I Thought," Bryan Ferry with Brian Eno

"John Wayne Gacy, Jr." Sufjan Stevens

"Diamonds of Sierra Leone," Kanye West

"The Rip," Portishead

"A Love You Can't Survive," Richard Thompson
"White Chalk," PJ Harvey

"Phantom Other," Department of Eagles
"Weekend Wars," MGMT

"I Feel Like Dying," Lil Wayne
"The Island," Decemberists

"Saint Simon," The Shins
"Triangle Walks," Fever Ray
"Comet," Wire
"Revelator," Gillian Welch

"The Modern Age," The Strokes
"Agoraphobia," Deerhunter

"A Good Man Is Hard to Find," Tom Waits
"North American Scum," LCD Soundsystem
"In the Flowers," Animal Collective
"Frontier Psychiatrist," Avalanches
"Gila," Beach House
"Paper Planes," M.I.A.
"I Love My Car," Belle & Sebastian

"Ready, Able," Grizzly Bear
"Cato as a Pun," Of Montreal
"Flume," Bon Iver
"How Kind of You," Paul McCartney

"13 Months in 6 Minutes," The Wrens
"How It Ends," Devotchka

"Things I Miss the Most," Steely Dan
"Analyse," Thom Yorke
"Sunday," David Bowie

"The Crown of Love," Arcade Fire
"Paparazzi," Lady Gaga
"Sunday," David Bowie
"My Rights versus Yours," New Pornographers
"Horse to Water," R.E.M.

"Oxford Comma," Vampire Weekend
"Little One," Beck
"Wolf Like Me," TV on the Radio

"Animal Midnight," Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks

"Xanax and Wine," U2

"Disconnection Notice," Sonic Youth

"The Union Forever," White Stripes
"Crystalised," The xx
"This Tornado Loves You," Neko Case
"Fatal," Pearl Jam
"That's Not My Name," Ting Tings
"Tiger Mountain Peasant Song," Fleet Foxes

"Like Spinning Plates (Live)," Radiohead

My list of the decade's best albums can be found on this blog's younger, crueler sibling.

And let's not forget the man who was pulled over for speeding

Partial list of people we're being asked to pray for by the radio station I listened to last week while driving through North Carolina (an organ playing solemnly in the background and an extremely long pause between each):

* The daughter who has been stealing from her mother. We pray that the little girl sees this is wrong.

* The woman who is in a predicament. We pray that she finds a solution.

* The woman who wrecked her car. We pray that her husband has the courage to tell his mother what really happened to the car and that there are no serious insurance ramifications.

* The man who broke his foot.

* The mother who wants to see her son find employment. (Read: When's that kid of Ethel's going to get damn job.)

This program followed a painfully old-fashioned radio play (possibly recorded in 1971, if not 1743) dramatizing the story of Samuel and Eli that had so many pedophilic overtones in it I thought the dial had somehow landed on America's Most Wanted. Such was my incredulity over these proceedings, by the time I crossed the state line I whipped out my cell phone to relay my experience to the folks back home. I didn't pay attention to my speed, nearly swerved off the road as I flew past a cop, and was smote by the Lord with a speeding ticket in Emporia, Virginia....where, by the way, they put the D.C. Sniper to death last night.

The Inner Circle

My mother, who passed away this summer, cast her last vote for Obama and even volunteered for his campaign. Because she sometimes voted Republican, however, she apparently received all sorts of invitations from the GOP to donate to the cause. I know this because I happen to be receiving her mail these days, and I have to endure letters like this one, from Senator John Cornyn:

"Because you have been an active leader and concerned citizen, you are one of only a few Republicans in Virginia who have been recommended by the Republican Senate Leadership to serve as a member of the prestigious Republican Senatorial Inner Circle.

"Congratulations. This is tremendous honor that comes with both extraordinary opportunity and profound responsibility.

"As a testament to this exclusive organization, former Presidents George Bush and George W. Bush, General Norman Schwarzkopf, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, former Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh have all personally addressed the Inner Circle in the past."

And so on. Following a page and a half of this sort of preamble stuff, my deceased mother is then invited to two fall events, including a golf outing. To take part in this, she need only cough up a thousand bucks. Membership in the Inner Circle comes with a special certificate and lapel pin, a U.S. Capitol lithograph, consideration for special honors such as the American Spirit Medal, and a copy of The Greatest Speeches of Ronald Reagen. And, even if my mother feels it is not the right time to join the Inner Circle--and it probably isn't--Senator Cornyn urges her to nonetheless make a contribution of $250 or $500 to the party, because "Nancy Pelosi and Hary Reid have increased their numbers...their power...and their bitter ultra-liberal stranglehold on Washington."

Eight More Reasons the Beatles Broke Up

* Paul's Rickenbacher ate his Hofner.

* That gay episode between John and George Martin in Barcelona.

* Paul thought Julian Lennon's name was Jude.

* Ringo couldn't shake off that gang of Indian priests after him for his ring with the giant ruby.

* The cops discovered the band's dog-fighting ring in Surry County, Virginia.

* Paul was dead.

* Yoko should should have been named O-yes instead of O-no.

* I was only four years old when they broke up--too young to help!

(First ten reasons are here, but they're not very funny.)

Enjoy it now, while you can still get a seat

Remember when the Bravo channel was just starting out, and all it did was show a bunch of great foreign films and almost no commercials, but hardly anyone watched it, so you felt all the effort that went into it seemed a little, well, pitiful? As we all know, Bravo began to gather steam, gradually rolling out the makeovers, the chefs, the runways, the decadent housewives, and about 37 minutes of commercials per hour. It became the center of the gay-television universe (which means that your mom watches it).

I like to think I'm doing something similar with this blog. No, my blog is not going to turn out to be gay. Let me explain. At the moment, this blog might seem a bit "early Bravo" pitiful, with all the tidy, often slaved-over posts with zero comments, as well as my having only one follower (who happens to live in my house). Just know that I have told almost no one yet that I am blogging. When I do, we may have ten, twelve readers for this thing.

Anyways, I now have a second blog. Because you can't argue with success.

Faucet's fixed

Well, looks like the plumber came, because the Water History web site in my links column is now working again. My many readers and I are happy to see it flowing again. The pipes were shut for a long time, and we all got pretty thirsty.

Hey, everybody, meet my new friend--Agnes

Email from earlier this week...

SUBJECT: I hope my mail will meet you in good conditions.

Hi dear,
How are you today? My name is Agnes Donaldson, i hope that every things is ok with you as it is my great pleasure to contact you in having communications with you, please i wish you will have the desire with me so that we can get to know each other better and see what happened in the future.

I will be very happy if you can write me through my email for easiest communication and to know all about each others, and also give you my pictures and more details about me, here is my email [address] i will be waiting to hear from you as i wish you all the best for your day.

your new friend,
Agnes.

The list all the world has been waiting for

My baker's dozen films of the decade:

There Will Be Blood
Mulholland Drive
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Memento
United 93
Zodiac
Brokeback Mountain
Royal Tennenbaums
Un Prophet (France)
Spirited Away (Japan)
Before Sunset
Election
The Fellowship of the Ring

Plus these other fine films (please go and see them sometime): The Pianist; Control; Children of Men; Sideways; Traffic; A.I.; Gosford Park; Revanche (Austria); Black Hawk Down; Dark Water; No Country for Old Men; Mystic River; Let The Right One In (Sweden); Master and Commander; The Departed; Talk to Her (Spain); 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (Romania); Sexy Beast; Y Tu Mama Tambien (Mexico); Cache (France); The Lives of Others (Germany); The Dark Knight; Pan's Labyrinth (Mexico); Anchorman; Waking Life; Gerry; Far from Heaven; Munich; Amores Perros (Mexico).

Not if, but when

The writing could be more penetrating but, as the sole readily-available account of Stanley Kubrick's never-made film about Napoleon, this turn-of-the-millennium Salon article is about as essential as footnotes get. Hung up by budget concerns and the subject's bad track record at the box office, the film, as we all know, was never made. Kubrick used some its ideas in later works--not only in the obvious Napoleon substitute, Barry Lyndon, but even Eyes Wide Shut, whose strange idea of a good time had its roots in erotic scenes first conceived for Napoleon.

As a young film punk, I actually scored a used copy of the Joseph Gelmis book of interviews with film directors that the article refers to, and it's both fascinating and pitiful to listen to Kubrick talk about when--not if--he is going to make his Napoleon film. His failure to see it through deprives us not only of another (potentially great) Kubrick picture, but also alters the shape of his life's work: there is, for better or worse, no obvious go-for-broke shot at a masterwork, no dream project. Sometimes such all-in bets work out, and sometimes they do not, but they sit at the centers of artists' careers like Kilimanjaro. With 2001 reluctant to be nudged into the centerpiece role, Kubrick's career is just one long, weird, mostly fine, always dogged trajectory. Which may be just as well.

For those of you with a few extra bucks to spend, Taschen has published a $560 limited-edition book on the making--or, in this case, non-making--of the film.