January 2012
25 posts
Favourite albums of 2011
Year in parentheses if it’s not 2011. Number of plays in square brackets.
1. Tune-Yards: Whokill [9]
2. Miles Davis: Live in Europe 1967 [6]
3. Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What [7]
4. Pistol Annies: Hell on Heels [6]
5. William Parker: I Plan to Stay a Believer (2010) [6]
6. Jens Lekman: An Argument with Myself EP [6]
7. Das Racist: Relax [5]
8. Tabu Ley Rochereau: The Voice of...
December 2011
18 posts
2 tags
Top ten movies (mostly from 2010)
The Social Network (David Fincher): Jesse Eisenberg and bros warn both nerds and wearers of “I love nerds” paraphernalia to take care, lest you end up billionaires.
White Material (Claire Denis): As violence nears, a plantation owner is determined to continue business-as-usual, as if her family’s whiteness made them invulnerable.
Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga): All a lead needs to...
1 tag
Favourite books of the year
My real favourite book of the year was George R. Stewart’s great East Bay novel Earth Abides: it’s the end of civilisation and he feels, well, not fine, but he could be worse. As for books published in the last few years:
1. Ellen Willis, Out of the Vinyl Deeps: She was ahead ahead of all the other rock critics through the early Seventies. Then she moved on.
2. Aimee Bender, The...
“Twin Sister
Top Chinatowns
1. Flushing, Queens, NY
2. San Francisco, CA
...”
– If Flushing counts then the San Gabriel Valley kills all the US competition in this category.
(via the ‘Fork)
"Had I the choice again, I'd enter whole climates...
Favourite poems of 2011:
Anne Carson, Catullus 101, in NOX, which I wrote a bit about a few days ago.
Lisa Robertson, “Face”, in R’s Boat, which is my poetry book of the year.
Alli Warren, “Throwing a Rod on the Benz”, in Lana Turner, which is my favourite journal these days.
Christopher Middleton, “From the Grotto”, in Shearsman, which celebrated its...
1 tag
Five thinkers that helped me keep worrying and...
Paul Krugman: Though he’s been right so long he’s neglecting to check whether he could be more correct.
Mike Konczal: Explaining the battle of ideas through Venn diagrams is a surprisingly effective way of getting to its heart.
Joshua Clover: Still tops at producing radical critique with which I can locate my points of departure and recognise them as judgement calls.
Boots Riley:...
1 tag
OK I'm board with "fuck the cloud" now
200+ song best of 2011 Spotify playlist + Gracenote update = one song best of 2011 Spotify playlist
1 tag
Processing
William Parker, I Plan to Stay a Believer: The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield: Avant-jazzbos, the New Tabernacle Generation of Praise, Parisian schoolkids, and Fuck Yeah Amiri Baraka party like it’s no longer 1953. Mayfield is dead, but he will survive in America.
Das Racist, Relax: Primarily a triumph of tone: the best lines (alleging the unholiness of Rap Genius and Urban Dictionary) and...
1 tag
Artist of the week: Curtis Mayfield
I started this project when I listened to William Parker’s tribute I Plan to Stay a Believer and only recognised half the songs, then spent the week catching up. What I find deepest about his lyrics is his use of religious imagery to historicise the Civil Rights era, incidentally protecting King, Abernathy, and their fellow clergy from secularisation by schmucks like me. “People Get...
Reading notes
Anne Carson, NOX: The art that’s been useful to my grief this year has concerned the practicalities of bereavement. Summer Hours, which I watched last year, has helped me, despite the Musee d’Orsay’s lack of interest in my family’s furniture, through its acknowledgement that mourning can continue while we get on with our changed lives. The flipside, however, is that...
For your consideration: Jens Lekman, An Argument...
When he tries to slip Kirsten Dunst a note, or when he taunts himself with “why you hitting yourself”, you might think him too cute. But his true, brutal subject is the decline of social democracy in the country most associated with it — with non-citizens at special risk if they can’t afford health insurance. Still, he’d rather stumble around drunk in Gothenburg than...
For your consideration: Withered Hands, "Religious...
Music that might be worth a place in your end-of-year list.
Edinburgh strummer Dan Willson describes what it’s like to be faithless in church. Some non-believers can sustain their attendance through the communal features of services, like the massed singing — rare in the non-drunk secular world. Willson can’t do this without feeling dishonest; he wishes all the hymns went...
"Favourite" "short" "stories" of the "year"
All of these were first published in 2010, and all are speculative fiction of some kind.
Catherynne M. Valente, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time” and “How to Become a Mars Overlord”: A brave writer, Valente uses modest formal innovation (yes, the title’s a Stevens reference) to make connections: between myth and physics, poetry and biology, the personal and...
1 tag
Favourite webcomics of 2011
Best webcomic dealing with late modernity in a pre-modern visual style (also best pedagogical webcomic): xkcd
Best webcomic dealing with late modernity in an early modern visual style (also best-drawn webcomic): Wondermark
Best webcomic dealing with late modernity in a postmodern visual style (also best use of art to frame theoretical arguments): Cat and Girl
Best webcomic dealing with early...
1 tag
Favourite sporting moments of the year
Super Bowl XLV, February 6th
Aaron Rodgers levelled up halfway through the 2010 season. This was never more apparent than in the Super Bowl: his stats would have been insane if his receivers could catch.
Barcelona vs Arsenal, Champions League, March 8th
Best team of my lifetime. Better, and much prettier, than Spain because Messi.
New Zealand vs South Africa, Cricket World Cup, March 25th
...
1 tag
Netflixed: Hollywood ruins nerds
X-Men: First Class (2011): On the one hand, the human race is portrayed as stupid enough to initiate the Cuban Missile Crisis after a little mutant agitation. On the other, the human race was stupid enough to initiate the Cuban Missle Crisis without mutant agititation. Historical yuks aside, the movie proves the highly slashable Xavier/Magneto rivalry that even Brett Ratner couldn’t screw up...
1 tag
Some art and architecture I liked this year
The last is the only one I saw in person, but I trust my imagination on the others.
Mike Nelson, “I, Impostor”: In one of the hits of Venice, Nelson remakes a space he previously exhibited in Istanbul. Context matters, if you didn’t know.
Karilee Fuglem: A great user of nylon, especially when she draws contrasts with more rigid materials. My favourite, “there’s a...
2 tags
Best(ish) free games of 2011(ish)
Sample size: Played over a hundred of these this year. Number of times this year I’ve asked myself what I’m doing with my life: Less than that.
Rebuild (Sarah Northway): Solving the zombie apocalyspe through management. A must-play for university chancellors and the rest of the 1%.
Kingdom Rush (Ironhide Games): Accomplished tower defence game, requiring enough strategy to justify...