The Year in Review: 2006
2006 was definitely a year of change in my life. I finished my BA and for the first time since Kindergarten was not in an Educational facility of some sort, thrown into the workforce. I started my first four-season year-round full-time job (however temporary it may be). I lost both Grandparents on my maternal, Guenther side. I lived by myself for the first time in my life (but it was only for one week). I lived with my best friend Kelly (who was just recently engaged at the end of 2006). Most significantly, though, was my marriage to Chelsea Krahn (nee Combot) on July 7th, 2006 -- the best day of my life.
Here is the Year in Review regarding Movies, Music and Books.
(yes, some here were released in 2005, but I justify there inclusion here by their inclusion on the Village Voice critics’ poll - most of the 2005 films are included there due to their limited or nonexistent public or North American release in 2005):
1.L’Enfant [Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne]
2. The Ister [David Barison, Daniel Ross]
3. Inside Man [Spike Lee]
4. The Descent [Neil Marshall]
5. Manderlay [Lars von Trier]
6. Mutual Appreciation [Andrew Bujalski]
7. Babel [Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu]
8. When The Levee Breaks [Spike Lee]
9. The Departed [Martin Scorsese]
10. Volver [Pedro Almodovar]
A few comments:
I wouldn’t have thought this to be the year of Spike Lee, but it looks like, for the first time ever, someone has two films on my list.
I watch very few documentaries, but this year two have made my list and for the second year in a row there is a documentary near the very top of the list.
I was unfortunately unable to see The Death of Mr. Lazarescu or Children of Men in the year 2006, and I have suspicions they would’ve made my list.
Worst film of the year: V for Vendetta [McTeigue]
The best non-2006 film I saw was Haneke’s Cache
Movies watched in 2006: 172
I didn’t listen to a bunch of new music this year, nor did I attempt to discover a great number of new faces. But here are the albums I did hear and enjoy from 2006.
1. Destroyer - Destroyer’s Rubies
2. Herbert - Scale
3. The Knife - Silent Shout
4. Ekkehard Ehlers - A Life Without Fear
5. Ne-Yo - In My Own Words
6. Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
7. Swan Lake - Beast Moans
8. Jan Jelinek - Tierbeobachtungen
9. Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up I am Dreaming
10. Tim Hecker - Harmony in Ultraviolet
11. Camera Obscura - Let’s Get Out of This Country
12. Keith Fullerton Whitman - Lisbon
13. Mylo - Destroy Rock and Roll
14. El Perro del Mar - El Perro del Mar
15. Ricardo Villalobos - Achso EP
One of the Best CD (Collections) Released in 2006 that I picked up was the 6-disc first series of a trilogy of the complete Coltrane Prestige Recordings entitled John Coltrane - Fearless Leader
Here are the books I read in 2006:
1. Critique of Pure Reason - Immanuelle Kant (trans. Norman Kemp Smith)
2. The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh - Vincent Van Gogh
3. The Transfiguration of the Commonplace - Arthur C. Danto
4. Lust for Life - Irving Stone
5. The Transcendence of the Ego - Jean-Paul Sartre
6. The Shorter Logical Investigations - Edmund Husserl
7. History of the Concept of Time - Martin Heidegger (trans. Theodore Kisiel)
8. The Art of Writing about Art - Suzanne Hudson & Nancy Noonan-Morrissey
9. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - David Hume
10. Vision and Difference - Griselda Pollock
11. Kant Selections - Immanuelle Kant (ed. Lewis White Beck)
12. Global Political Philosophy - Louis P. Pojman
13. Art and its Significance: An Anthology of Aesthetic Theory - Various (ed. Stephen David Ross)
14. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
15. Story of O - Pauline Reage
16. Platform - Michel Houellebecq
17. In Kant’s Wake - Tom Rockmore
19. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
20. Pensees [trans. Paul Auster] - Joseph Joubert
21. Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
22. Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics - Jean Grondin
23. Paul Ricoeur - Karl Simms
24. On the Incarnation - St. Athanasius
25. Information bomb - Paul Virilio
26. Church Dogmatics Volume 1 - Karl Barth
27. Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
28. The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition Vol. 1 (100-600) - Jaroslav Pelikan
29. Varieties of Religion Today - Charles Taylor
30. Beowulf - Unknown
31. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
32. On the Unity of Christ - St. Cyril of Alexandria
33. On the Holy Spirit - St. Basil the Great
34. Philosophical Hermeneutics - Hans-Georg Gadamer
35. Snow - Orhan Pamuk
36. The Morality of War - Brian Orend
A book released in 2006 which bears mentioning is Lear’s Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation, a book in which the life Plenty Coups, the chief of the Crow people, is taken as an example of what happens to a cultural group as it faces extinction or drastic change. The problem of speculative reason versus practical reason is addressed and seen to have a great deal of impact on the longevity of a culture. The book was recommended in a lecture I attended by Stanley Hauerwas and has received favourable reviews by J.M Coetzee, Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre.
Here is the Year in Review regarding Movies, Music and Books.
(yes, some here were released in 2005, but I justify there inclusion here by their inclusion on the Village Voice critics’ poll - most of the 2005 films are included there due to their limited or nonexistent public or North American release in 2005):
1.L’Enfant [Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne]
2. The Ister [David Barison, Daniel Ross]
3. Inside Man [Spike Lee]
4. The Descent [Neil Marshall]
5. Manderlay [Lars von Trier]
6. Mutual Appreciation [Andrew Bujalski]
7. Babel [Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu]
8. When The Levee Breaks [Spike Lee]
9. The Departed [Martin Scorsese]
10. Volver [Pedro Almodovar]
A few comments:
I wouldn’t have thought this to be the year of Spike Lee, but it looks like, for the first time ever, someone has two films on my list.
I watch very few documentaries, but this year two have made my list and for the second year in a row there is a documentary near the very top of the list.
I was unfortunately unable to see The Death of Mr. Lazarescu or Children of Men in the year 2006, and I have suspicions they would’ve made my list.
Worst film of the year: V for Vendetta [McTeigue]
The best non-2006 film I saw was Haneke’s Cache
Movies watched in 2006: 172
I didn’t listen to a bunch of new music this year, nor did I attempt to discover a great number of new faces. But here are the albums I did hear and enjoy from 2006.
1. Destroyer - Destroyer’s Rubies
2. Herbert - Scale
3. The Knife - Silent Shout
4. Ekkehard Ehlers - A Life Without Fear
5. Ne-Yo - In My Own Words
6. Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
7. Swan Lake - Beast Moans
8. Jan Jelinek - Tierbeobachtungen
9. Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up I am Dreaming
10. Tim Hecker - Harmony in Ultraviolet
11. Camera Obscura - Let’s Get Out of This Country
12. Keith Fullerton Whitman - Lisbon
13. Mylo - Destroy Rock and Roll
14. El Perro del Mar - El Perro del Mar
15. Ricardo Villalobos - Achso EP
One of the Best CD (Collections) Released in 2006 that I picked up was the 6-disc first series of a trilogy of the complete Coltrane Prestige Recordings entitled John Coltrane - Fearless Leader
Here are the books I read in 2006:
1. Critique of Pure Reason - Immanuelle Kant (trans. Norman Kemp Smith)
2. The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh - Vincent Van Gogh
3. The Transfiguration of the Commonplace - Arthur C. Danto
4. Lust for Life - Irving Stone
5. The Transcendence of the Ego - Jean-Paul Sartre
6. The Shorter Logical Investigations - Edmund Husserl
7. History of the Concept of Time - Martin Heidegger (trans. Theodore Kisiel)
8. The Art of Writing about Art - Suzanne Hudson & Nancy Noonan-Morrissey
9. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - David Hume
10. Vision and Difference - Griselda Pollock
11. Kant Selections - Immanuelle Kant (ed. Lewis White Beck)
12. Global Political Philosophy - Louis P. Pojman
13. Art and its Significance: An Anthology of Aesthetic Theory - Various (ed. Stephen David Ross)
14. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
15. Story of O - Pauline Reage
16. Platform - Michel Houellebecq
17. In Kant’s Wake - Tom Rockmore
19. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
20. Pensees [trans. Paul Auster] - Joseph Joubert
21. Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
22. Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics - Jean Grondin
23. Paul Ricoeur - Karl Simms
24. On the Incarnation - St. Athanasius
25. Information bomb - Paul Virilio
26. Church Dogmatics Volume 1 - Karl Barth
27. Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
28. The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition Vol. 1 (100-600) - Jaroslav Pelikan
29. Varieties of Religion Today - Charles Taylor
30. Beowulf - Unknown
31. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
32. On the Unity of Christ - St. Cyril of Alexandria
33. On the Holy Spirit - St. Basil the Great
34. Philosophical Hermeneutics - Hans-Georg Gadamer
35. Snow - Orhan Pamuk
36. The Morality of War - Brian Orend
A book released in 2006 which bears mentioning is Lear’s Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation, a book in which the life Plenty Coups, the chief of the Crow people, is taken as an example of what happens to a cultural group as it faces extinction or drastic change. The problem of speculative reason versus practical reason is addressed and seen to have a great deal of impact on the longevity of a culture. The book was recommended in a lecture I attended by Stanley Hauerwas and has received favourable reviews by J.M Coetzee, Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre.