2Q12 faves
Ab-Soul ft. Danny Brown: “Terrorist Threats” [1]
All Blacks vs Ireland, Christchurch Stadium
Andy Serkis in Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Arrested Development (I’m slow, I know)
The Avengers (Joss Whedon)
Azealia Banks: 1991 EP
Beach House: “Myth”
Ben Katchor: The Cardboard Valise
Black Terry vs Chico Che, IWRG, Jan 19th
Blue Panther vs Negro Casas, CMLL, March 2nd
Carly Rae Jepsen: “Call Me Maybe” [2]
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog)
Chelsea vs Bayern Munich, Champions League final, May 19th
Chief Keef: “I Don’t Like” [3]
Dave Alvin: Live at the Ark
Dawn Richard: Armor On
Eric Church: “Springsteen”
Grant Morrison: Batman & Robin #1-16
Haruki Murakami: The first third of 1Q84
Helen DeWitt: Lightning Rods [4]
Hospitality
Issa Juma: World Defeats the Grandfathers Vol. 2
Jenny Browne: “The Deceased Hope the Farm Stays in the Family for Generations” [5]
Juliana Spahr: Well Then There Now [6]
Killer Mike: R.A.P. Music [7]
The Last Mistress (Catherine Breillat) [8]
Steve Lehman Trio: Dialect Fluorescent
Lobi Traore: Bwati Kono
The Lombard, Zero Zero, San Francisco
Loudon Wainwright III: Older Than My Old Man Now [9]
Mark Waid & Paulo Rivera: Daredevil #1-10
The Men: Open Your Heart
Mervyn Cooke: A History of Film Music
Metronomy: The Bay
Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen) [10]
Nicki Minaj: Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded
Papaya salad, TAC Quick, Chicago [11]
Peter Gizzi: Threshold Songs
Polvo: In Prism
Portal 2 [12]
Queen Anne Stakes, Royal Ascot, June 19th [13]
Screaming Females: Ugly
Sofie, Goose Island Wrigleyville, Chicago
The Streets: “We Can Never Be Friends”
Teju Cole: Open City [14]
Tokushima ramen with pasteurised egg, Men Oh, Union City, CA
The Tree of Life, I guess (Terrence Malick)
La Ventanita
Veggie combo, Zeni, San Jose
Yoon Jeong-hee in Poetry
Ziggurat (Action Button Games)
[1] Gangs are the 99% too.
[2] People don’t magically change at the age of twenty (well, I did, but not everyone does). What changes is that you can publically admit the existence of sexual desire without your parents getting in your face about it.
[3] Wakaism stripped to its essentials to become even more brutal.
[4] She dispatches your major objections with such hilarious efficiency that you have no doubt she could do the same to your minor ones.
[5] “Edamame? Uncle Joe laughs. I got you a whole goddamn field of edamame.”
[6] Whitman contained multitudes; Spahr lets multitudes spill out on to the page without attempting to contain them, which is more appropriate for our era and possibly flat-out truer. Best US poetry book in yeeeaaars.
[7] Not always novel — hey, I half-heartedly pissed on Reagan’s grave in print when it was freshly dug, but Mike is better at sticking to themes than I am.
[8] Opera-sloucher Asia Argento escalates run-of-the-mill vulgarity into bloodsucking hunger. With Breillat taking the high road for once, they shake bourgieness by the throat and balls. But who gets to eat the heart?
[9] That Rufus and Martha aren’t clones of their late mother — that they have some of his DNA in them — is just one more reason for his mixed emotions.
[10] The historical parts are a zillion times better than the present day parts obv. We get it, Woody, only other artists understand you, we really don’t mind if you only hang out with them at this point of your life, in fact we’d encourage it.
[11] Some heat is essential and I’m not going to complain if you throw in some blue crab, but what matters to me is the texture. Work that mortar!
[12] “Remember before when I was talking about smelly garbage standing around being useless? That was a metaphor. I was actually talking about you. And I’m sorry. You didn’t react at the time, so I was worried it sailed right over your head. Which would have made this apology seem insane. That’s why I had to call you garbage a second time just now.”
[13] Srsly this was a Secretariat-level trouncing.
[14] He hasn’t found the form he needs to write the book he wants to (I suspect it’d have to be 3rd person), but it’s great to read a novelist who knows both that there are literary traditions outside the purview of the New Yorker[15], and that there are New Yorkers outside the purview of the New Yorker.
[15] I mean I guess so, it’s not like i read the New Yorker more than once a year.
