Another Trip Around The Sun

This is one man's list of the best things seen, heard, or read by him in 2006:

Best Thing of 2006
Proposing to Deborah Joy Smith on October 20 in the Truman Capote Suite at the Painted Lady Inn in San Antonio, watching her cry as I knelt, hearing her say YES, Yes I will and repeating the process another time for posterity, just to make sure it happened. It happened and it shines on. I think we might even get married soon.



Best Movie Type Thing I Watched That Was Made in 2006:
When The Levees Broke

I just had a chance to see this. It's an epic account of an unforgivable American tragedy. Not only do I think it's the best film I've seen in a long while, I also think it's as important a historical document as anything produced in this millennium. If you see this film and do not feel the entire range of human emotions, foremost being outrage, then I really don't want to talk to you ever again. I'm serious. If this isn't enough visual proof for you to actively loathe the political administration of these fallen United States, then I'll leave you to rot with your dollar bills in your pocket when disaster befalls your house.

For me it tops the list of the Year of the Documentary, nestled along such powerhouse films as An Inconvenient Truth, Who Killed The Electric Car?, and Why We Fight. All of these films mark the true movement of the information era, and all of them might have come about twenty years too late.

There were many fictional movies that helped me escape for two hours from this mess of a world we're plundering through - Borat, Beerfest!, Talladega Nights, Dave Chappelle's Block Party - as well as TV shows that broke through - Weeds, The Wire, House, Family Guy, American Dad, Futurama - but nothing really moved me like the truth.

Best Five Albums I Heard in 2006
TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain
The sounds on this album are unlike anything I've ever heard. There is a lot of noise in between the notes, there are no guitar solos, and the melody isn't always catchy. But I've listened to this album a hundred times already, and every new time something else reveals itself.

Arctic Monkeys, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
I really don't care what people have to say about this band or album, comparing them to the Strokes or berating the myspace hype machine. From what I understand, the lead singer Alex Turner wrote these songs when he was twenty years old, and they have immeasurable amounts of wit and balance to go along with their urgency. This is what you wish you could have done and didn't do when you thought about starting a band, so shut up already.

Decemberists, The Crane Wife
There's a couple grating songs on this album, but "Shankill Butchers," "Sons & Daughters," and "The Perfect Crime, No.2" are the closest anyone's come to writing hyper-literate amazing songs since Neutral Milk Hotel.

Harry Nilsson, The Point
I rediscovered this record amongst my vinyl collection, and remembered it right away as something I loved as a child. There's an accompanying movie that's also incredible, about a boy named Oblio who is born without a point in the Land of Point and who goes searching for this point with his dog, Arrow. It's the most valuable artistic endeavor of the acid era, in my opinion, outlining all the absurdities of accepted ordinary life in the most basic, beautiful way. This also led me to get Harry Nilsson's entire catalog, which I highly recommend.

James Brown, James Brown's Funky Christmas
If you listen to this album and don't cry, I also don't want to talk to you ever again. And not just because Papa's got a brand new bag in heaven. Because James talks right to you in this album, and because he asks the tough questions, and because he asks Santa to visit the ghetto for once, and because it's got moments so drippy with soul that your speakers ooze hot butter. Being able to listen to music like this is really what America is all about.

Best Three Books I Read in 2006:
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
This book, once read, cannot be unread. It's the darkest, most unflinching book I've ever read, and it burns right into your imagery. It's about a man and his boy walking through the charred remnants of America, in some distant (or not-so-distant) hellish future. The world is barren, covered in ashes and bodies. Cannibals roam the hills, the few discards of the human population fending over the scraps. Through this we have a simple story about survival, about what it means to be a man and a father and a son, and where all of this leads. Favorite line: Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.

Buddha, Vol. 1-8 by Osamu Tezuka
My children will read this, and hopefully their children after them. It's a wonderful eight volume graphic novel masterpiece that shows the story of Buddha from before his childhood to after his death, and it's rendered with humor, balance, integrity, and grace. The first three hundred pages are set before Siddhartha's birth, and this back story gives depth to the ridiculous sacrifices Siddhartha made, leaving behind a kingdom, a wife, a child, a people, all during wartime no less - and there's nothing flowery about his "awakening."

Spanking the Donkey by Matt Taibbi
This book was old news, but I had my head buried in the sand throughout the 2004 elections, so it was news to me. I discovered Taibbi through a devastating Rolling Stone piece where he dismantled the 109th Congress for the collection of callous shitheels that it is, and I've been reading everything he's written ever since. If you're into Hunter S. Thompson, pick up this book today.

So, onward into the future we go.

posted by ZHorton at 1:58 PM