Year in Review, 2008: Pop Culture
I had held off on writing this until now because I thought there might be a couple more books or movies that might squeeze their way onto this list or that; however, my plans for an additional movie were squashed when my Mom got sick last weekend, and instead of reading Meaningful Books, I've gotten on a trashy literature binge again that really doesn't do my literary Top 10 List any favors (but is terribly entertaining nonetheless). So, without much further ado: my Year in Review, 2008, Special Pop Culture Edition!
My top reading choices this year largely fell into three categories: Young Adult, Nonfiction, and Straight Up Fiction (Shaken, Not Stirred). I read other things that weren't in these categories, of course, but these three are the ones I remember enjoying the most and finding the most engrossing overall.
Young Adult fiction used to be hit or miss with me. I resented a lot of authors using a kind of "when I was your age" tone that I considered fake and condescending. I'm pleasantly surprised that the entire genre is in a semi-Renaissance period at the moment, and the hated tone is mostly gone. This year, I loved UnLunDun by China Mieville, which was scary and funny and witty and exciting and chock full of puns, all at once. It was like reading an update of The Phantom Tollbooth with a little of horror around the edge, but all the adventure and wordplay that I adored. I also enjoyed the beautifully illustrated The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which is a modern day fantasy, but along the themes of film and story. The story itself is partly told through pictures, which are often like stills of the movies the plot is leading us towards. Finally, with the scope of an epic movie, Allison Croggan's Pellinore series has reminded me why I loved fantasy adventure books as a kid, with page-turning goodness, epic battles, and heroes compelling and brave.
Nonfiction is a genre that I have been making myself read more of for my own writing purposes because I think that nonfiction writers have an even greater challenge to make the stories they tell exciting and accessible; with fiction, you can make things up to suit your suspense, but with nonfiction, you're stuck with what you've got, and it's in the telling that the story will either fail or succeed. So it's a testament to the beautiful and heartfelt prose of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly that the author never lets the narrative suffer the same horrific paralysis that its author is experiencing. It's a tremendously touching piece of writing. Completely different, but equally engrossing is The Ten-Cent Plague, which recounts a period of American history that I am a bit of ashamed of. However, the author of the book works hard to bring the essential voices and personalities of his subjects to the foreground and never lets sensationalism cloud the thread of the story. Finally, Kevin Starr's history of California has been both a welcome review of things I had previously learned, as well as introducing me to some different historical perspectives on the state I love so much.
Finally, on the uber-literary end of the spectrum, there's W. Somerset Maugham's books. Some days, I am glad these were never assigned to me in school, ensuring my hatred of them and association with deadlines and boring essays to be written. Other days, I am annoyed that I was never introduced to this extraordinary author's writing before now. Be that as it may, Maugham's works are simple, but never simplistic, and despite the difference in our historical and personal experience, I want to speak to him so desperately about writing and life and art. I feel like I know these characters after just a few sentences with craftily chosen words... if I can write 1/10 as well as this man, I will be happy.
In movies this year, I was thinking over the usual divide I make between mainstream movies and art house films, and it suddenly occurred to me that I had enjoyed a lot more art house films than mainstream movies. I certainly hope this doesn't mean that I am becoming more pretentious in my slightly older age.
Blockbuster-wise, I found Wall-E and Appaloosa to be the two best films of the year. Both featured lush and desolate landscapes (the ruined planet Earth and the desert of the Old West, although opposites of one another, do share a certain kind of lost soul between them). Both touched on things that make life worth living (friendship and love). And both were about doing the right thing--not because it's easy, but because it's right.
Art-house-wise, the selection of films opens up. There are the amazing documentaries (Planet B-Boy, Man on Wire) that took me places I had never been before and didn't ever expect to find myself in. There was an excellent thriller, Tell No One, that used violence so carefully that I remembered just how shocking it is supposed to be. There was the horror film, Let the Right One In, that reminded me why I think vampires are scary, and how great movies are when they linger on the smaller details that make their characters human (or not). And finally there were two bio-pics, The Duchess and Milk, that were completely different in terms of their subjects, but brought home the idea that choice and the freedom to experience it are concepts necessary for a happy existence as a human being, and the lack of them is often akin to being unable to breathe.
In the medium that combines all my favorite things about books and movies, I was somewhat hampered this year by a lack of money and my usual snittiness about the art and writing having to be at a certain level. Comic-wise, Air and Rasl have been the two most satisfying reads for both story and pictures, and both of them are at incredibly frustrating cliffhangers, plotwise, at this moment, and so I don't think I can write about them impartially.
Manga-wise, my bewilderment at the plot in Tsubasa grows greater with each passing volume, and yet I continue to buy them. Yotsuba to! is still the best manga in the "slice of life" genre that I adore. I miss being able to grab huge magazines full of separate stories at cafes to pass the time and discover new authors and writers that way. *sigh* In any case, I've been slacking off and reading the English translation of a lot of titles anyway, but feeling only the mildest twinges of guilt. They're so much fun, especially Ouran Host Club and Beauty Pop!
Shifting to music, according to my iTunes program, here are my top songs of the year. These don't count times played on the iPod, which might skew the results a little bit.
1) Three Days to Live, 46bliss
2) Love In Vision, 46bliss
3) The Girl In Byakkoya, Susumu Hirasawa
4) Bull In A China Shop, Barenaked Ladies
5) Snakes On A Plane (Bring It), Cobra Starship
6) Traffic and Weather, Fountains Of Wayne
7) In a Long Time, 46bliss
8) Just For Now, Imogen Heap
9) All Star, Smash Mouth
10) Suddenly I See, KT Tunstall
11) Clear The Area , Imogen Heap
12) The Middle, Jimmy Eat World
13) 19sai, Suga Shikao
14) We Used to Be Friends, The Dandy Warhols
15) The Way You Are, 46bliss
16) Easy, Barenaked Ladies
17) Don't Leave Home, Dido
18) Michael and Heather At the Baggage Claim, Fountains Of Wayne
19) Sakura Kiss, Chieco Kawabe
20) Butterfly, Corinne Bailey Rae
21) Grace Omega (End Theme), Hajime Mizoguchi
22) Daylight Robbery, Imogen Heap
23) Vanishing, Barenaked Ladies
24) Yabaseo, 46bliss
25) Butterfly (From "Dance Dance Revolution"), I Love You! Project
This is actually a kind of goofy list, and doesn't accurately show that I've been listening to more albums straight through lately. Something by Stars should be up there, as should Air and Aimee Mann. However, these are the songs that get put on all sorts of playlists and therefore, get the most attention. There's a lot more electronica on there than I expected!
So, yeah, that's a lot of pop culture stuff. I am looking forward to 2009 for a number of reasons (i.e. continuations of assorted above-mentioned books and comics) and for discovering new things.
My top reading choices this year largely fell into three categories: Young Adult, Nonfiction, and Straight Up Fiction (Shaken, Not Stirred). I read other things that weren't in these categories, of course, but these three are the ones I remember enjoying the most and finding the most engrossing overall.
Young Adult fiction used to be hit or miss with me. I resented a lot of authors using a kind of "when I was your age" tone that I considered fake and condescending. I'm pleasantly surprised that the entire genre is in a semi-Renaissance period at the moment, and the hated tone is mostly gone. This year, I loved UnLunDun by China Mieville, which was scary and funny and witty and exciting and chock full of puns, all at once. It was like reading an update of The Phantom Tollbooth with a little of horror around the edge, but all the adventure and wordplay that I adored. I also enjoyed the beautifully illustrated The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which is a modern day fantasy, but along the themes of film and story. The story itself is partly told through pictures, which are often like stills of the movies the plot is leading us towards. Finally, with the scope of an epic movie, Allison Croggan's Pellinore series has reminded me why I loved fantasy adventure books as a kid, with page-turning goodness, epic battles, and heroes compelling and brave.
Nonfiction is a genre that I have been making myself read more of for my own writing purposes because I think that nonfiction writers have an even greater challenge to make the stories they tell exciting and accessible; with fiction, you can make things up to suit your suspense, but with nonfiction, you're stuck with what you've got, and it's in the telling that the story will either fail or succeed. So it's a testament to the beautiful and heartfelt prose of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly that the author never lets the narrative suffer the same horrific paralysis that its author is experiencing. It's a tremendously touching piece of writing. Completely different, but equally engrossing is The Ten-Cent Plague, which recounts a period of American history that I am a bit of ashamed of. However, the author of the book works hard to bring the essential voices and personalities of his subjects to the foreground and never lets sensationalism cloud the thread of the story. Finally, Kevin Starr's history of California has been both a welcome review of things I had previously learned, as well as introducing me to some different historical perspectives on the state I love so much.
Finally, on the uber-literary end of the spectrum, there's W. Somerset Maugham's books. Some days, I am glad these were never assigned to me in school, ensuring my hatred of them and association with deadlines and boring essays to be written. Other days, I am annoyed that I was never introduced to this extraordinary author's writing before now. Be that as it may, Maugham's works are simple, but never simplistic, and despite the difference in our historical and personal experience, I want to speak to him so desperately about writing and life and art. I feel like I know these characters after just a few sentences with craftily chosen words... if I can write 1/10 as well as this man, I will be happy.
In movies this year, I was thinking over the usual divide I make between mainstream movies and art house films, and it suddenly occurred to me that I had enjoyed a lot more art house films than mainstream movies. I certainly hope this doesn't mean that I am becoming more pretentious in my slightly older age.
Blockbuster-wise, I found Wall-E and Appaloosa to be the two best films of the year. Both featured lush and desolate landscapes (the ruined planet Earth and the desert of the Old West, although opposites of one another, do share a certain kind of lost soul between them). Both touched on things that make life worth living (friendship and love). And both were about doing the right thing--not because it's easy, but because it's right.
Art-house-wise, the selection of films opens up. There are the amazing documentaries (Planet B-Boy, Man on Wire) that took me places I had never been before and didn't ever expect to find myself in. There was an excellent thriller, Tell No One, that used violence so carefully that I remembered just how shocking it is supposed to be. There was the horror film, Let the Right One In, that reminded me why I think vampires are scary, and how great movies are when they linger on the smaller details that make their characters human (or not). And finally there were two bio-pics, The Duchess and Milk, that were completely different in terms of their subjects, but brought home the idea that choice and the freedom to experience it are concepts necessary for a happy existence as a human being, and the lack of them is often akin to being unable to breathe.
In the medium that combines all my favorite things about books and movies, I was somewhat hampered this year by a lack of money and my usual snittiness about the art and writing having to be at a certain level. Comic-wise, Air and Rasl have been the two most satisfying reads for both story and pictures, and both of them are at incredibly frustrating cliffhangers, plotwise, at this moment, and so I don't think I can write about them impartially.
Manga-wise, my bewilderment at the plot in Tsubasa grows greater with each passing volume, and yet I continue to buy them. Yotsuba to! is still the best manga in the "slice of life" genre that I adore. I miss being able to grab huge magazines full of separate stories at cafes to pass the time and discover new authors and writers that way. *sigh* In any case, I've been slacking off and reading the English translation of a lot of titles anyway, but feeling only the mildest twinges of guilt. They're so much fun, especially Ouran Host Club and Beauty Pop!
Shifting to music, according to my iTunes program, here are my top songs of the year. These don't count times played on the iPod, which might skew the results a little bit.
1) Three Days to Live, 46bliss
2) Love In Vision, 46bliss
3) The Girl In Byakkoya, Susumu Hirasawa
4) Bull In A China Shop, Barenaked Ladies
5) Snakes On A Plane (Bring It), Cobra Starship
6) Traffic and Weather, Fountains Of Wayne
7) In a Long Time, 46bliss
8) Just For Now, Imogen Heap
9) All Star, Smash Mouth
10) Suddenly I See, KT Tunstall
11) Clear The Area , Imogen Heap
12) The Middle, Jimmy Eat World
13) 19sai, Suga Shikao
14) We Used to Be Friends, The Dandy Warhols
15) The Way You Are, 46bliss
16) Easy, Barenaked Ladies
17) Don't Leave Home, Dido
18) Michael and Heather At the Baggage Claim, Fountains Of Wayne
19) Sakura Kiss, Chieco Kawabe
20) Butterfly, Corinne Bailey Rae
21) Grace Omega (End Theme), Hajime Mizoguchi
22) Daylight Robbery, Imogen Heap
23) Vanishing, Barenaked Ladies
24) Yabaseo, 46bliss
25) Butterfly (From "Dance Dance Revolution"), I Love You! Project
This is actually a kind of goofy list, and doesn't accurately show that I've been listening to more albums straight through lately. Something by Stars should be up there, as should Air and Aimee Mann. However, these are the songs that get put on all sorts of playlists and therefore, get the most attention. There's a lot more electronica on there than I expected!
So, yeah, that's a lot of pop culture stuff. I am looking forward to 2009 for a number of reasons (i.e. continuations of assorted above-mentioned books and comics) and for discovering new things.