On The Top Twenty-Nine of Everything, 2010 (An Arbitary and Undefinitive List)

SIn no particular order.

1. Michael Raymond-James on "Terriers," as that guy we've all known.
2. The claustrophobic office sets on "Rubicon."
3. The Marc Maron-Louis CK podcast.
4. Bully.
5. Michael Stuhlbarg, Michael Shannon and Michael Pitt on Boardwalk Empire.
6. Abed.
7. The Hunger Games scenes from the first book of the trilogy.
8. This quote, from David Foster Wallace, in David Lipsky's Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: "I don't think writers are any smarter than other people. I think they may be more compelling in their stupidity, or in their confusion."
9. "Swim," by Surfer Blood.
10. John Legend (?!?) on "Blame Game."
11. Spike Jonze, "The Suburbs."
12. 400.
13. My friend Sean Howe's L.A. Burnout mixtape.
14. Jamey Johnson, "Lonely at the Top."
15. Fly.
16. You Are Not a Gadget. 
17. The shock and awe and cultural re-examination engendered by The Decision.
18. Deer Tick, "Twenty Miles."
19. The harmonizing in "Let's Go Surfing," by the Drums.
20. Mr. Peanut, by Adam Ross. 
21. The Suitcase.
22. Vampire Weekend, "White Sky."
23. Michael Vick, rolling to his left.
24. Drive-By Truckers, "The Fourth Night of My Drinking."
25. The last shot.
26. 30 for 30.
27. Roger Greenberg: The thing about you kids is that you're all kind of insensitive. I'm glad I grew up when I did. I'm freaked out by you kids cause your parents were too perfect to parenting. All that baby Mozart and Dan Zanes songs. You're all ADD and carpal tunnel. I hope I die before I end up meeting one of you in a job interview.
28. The shock and awe and cultural re-examination engendered by Cam Newton.
29. The End.

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me (Mash-Up Edition)

1. You Are Not a Gadget

"The cumulative result is that online culture is fixated on the world as it was before the web was born."

I'm going to keep on pimping this book, and pulling out-of-context quotations, because I think it's tapped into something essential about technology, and about the development of the Internet, and about how many of the "open-source" developments we think are broadening our culture are, in fact, stifling it. Think about it--how much time have you spent in the past year combing YouTube for mash-ups of Muppets lip-syching Hold Steady songs? Now, don't get me wrong--this is great, and it brought me a great deal of enjoyment the thirty-seven times I watched it, but there is nothing inherently original about it. In essence, modern technology encourages us to repeat ourselves, to embrace was essentially schlock. And you know, maybe this is why I still love basketball and football as much as I ever have--because even in the face of an increasingly recycled culture, both of these games continue to evolve.* Sports are one of the few things that continue to breed originality.

2. Bunning!

I love it when athletes-turned-politicans lose their minds, because it reminds me of one of the inherent absurdities of our political system, which is that we're all really trapped in the seventh grade. I mean, isn't the fact that an athletic career makes one more amenable to a large segment of the voting population proof enough that we never really evolve beyond junior high school? Why was the fact that Bunning retired twenty-seven batters in a row considered an advantage in forming complex social policy?**Sometimes I wonder if the Congressional cafeteria isn't like something out of Freaks and Geeks. In which case, I'll bet Waxman gets wedgied on a daily basis.

3. Lost

Yeah. At this point, I have no f-ing clue what's going on.

UPDATE: I should clarify--this is not a complaint. In fact, I find myself growing increasingly annoyed with the people who seem compelled to complain about Lost, but refuse to stop watching. I've just given up on trying to figure it out, which is actually something of a relief.


*Interestingly, baseball's recent evolution appears to have occurred almost entirely A.) On paper, and B.) In a test tube. Which may explain why some people love it more than they ever have, and some people have turned away from it completely.
**The only supremely influential professional athletes-turned-politicians I can recall in the past generation are A.) Jack Kemp, and B.) Bill Bradley. Though I expect the Sarah Palin-Jay Feely ticket will be a formidable one.

On The Most Intriguing Book I've Read In Recent Months

"Without an independent press, composed of heroic voices, the collective becomes stupid and unreliable..."

"Anonymous blog comments, vapid video pranks, and lightweight mashups may seem trivial and harmless, but as a whole, this widespread practice of fragmentary, interpersonal communication has demeaned interpersonal interaction."

I could quote several more passages from Jaron Lanier's You Are Not A Gadget (and maybe, at some point, I will), but I implore you to read it instead; I am halfway through, and I find it is the kind of cogent and rational and humane and hyperknowledgeable treatise about a subject--the Internet, and specifically, the hive mentality of Web 2.0--that might actually be able to transcend the knee-jerk criticism and inhumanity generated the medium itself. I don't know if it will become a seminal text of this era--though Lanier's credentials as a computer scientist/programmer/thinker certainly give it added weight--but I hope it does, because I agree with pretty much everything he says. And just for having said that, I presume my entire life will be hacked and the comments section of this entry overrun by anonymous commenters calling me a Luddite Communist homosexual.