there should be no doubt in your mind

that 2005 was fucking horrible. distaster too frequently graces the newspaper front page. global warming at its worst. dead soldier count breaks two thousand. running man/kindergarten cop tries to destroy california. we lost pat morita, august wilson, richard pryor, robert moog, mrs. robinson and gilligan. and i lost a hundred and fifty-bucks trying to help a fake italian supermodel. this year sucked, and '06 doesn't seem to hold any more promise.

that being said, at least this year didn't disappoint in terms of the things that matter.

the best of 2005, part one: the sounds, the projected image, the written word.


highly infectious yet (in)disposable pop songs, in no particular order*.
1. the beast and dragon, adored - spoon
2. here comes the summer - fiery furnaces
3. the skin of my country yellow teeth - clap your hands say yeah
4. sing me spanish techno - new pornographers
5. the party's crashing us - of montreal
6. festival - dungen
7. feels good behind somebody - dios (malos)
8. idiocy - the double
9. shattered - gogogo airheart
10. this isn't it - giant drag
11. venus - the chris stamey experience
12. ageless beauty - stars
13. fire eyed boy - broken social scene
14. modern world - wolf parade
15. did you see the words - animal collective
16. warm panda cola - the boy least likely to
17. do the whirlwind - architecture in helsinki
18. huddle formation - the go! team
19. tas de tole - stereo total
20. off the record - my morning jacket
21. mushaboom - feist
22. prison on route 41 - calexico/iron & wine
23. cloudberries - super furry animals
24. chariot - page france
25. letter to the east coast - john vanderslice
26. in the pines - smog
27. radio campaign - m. ward
28. funny like the moon - bunky
*i'd be glad to send you a cd so that years from now when you're pining with nostalgia from vh1's i love the '00s you can give it a listen and remember what this year sounded like, through my ears at least. email or leave a comment.


films, in no particular order. '04 and '05 have melded into one year in my mind. there are a bunch of movies that i have a good feeling would be here if i had seen them (broken flowers, mad hot ballroom, etc). also includes anything that holds some sort of significance, from watching it in good company to it reminding me of the mental state i was in at a specific time.
1. me and you and everyone we know
2. thumbsucker
3. the squid and the whale
4. 2046
5. the aristocrats
6. my summer of love
7. the 40 year old virgin
8. the life aquatic with steve zissou
9. everything is illuminated
10. march of the penguins
11. bad education
12. the fearless freaks
13. the 36th chamber of shaolin
14. the wrath of khan
15. the corporation
16. romuald et juliette
17. the adventures of antoine doinel
18. high fidelity (saved my life)


television shows i've obsessed over at some point this year
1. freaks and geeks
2. the british office
3. arrested development
4. the simpsons. this summer my roommate and i purchased a bootleg set of the entire series (up to season 16) from some british guy on ebay for 30 pounds.
5. reno! 911


books i've stumbled upon way too late. (*not finished yet)
1. dress your family in courderoy and denim - david sedaris (for your listening pleasure, the santaland diaries.)
2. take the cannoli - sarah vowell
3. about a boy - nick hornby
4. fraud - david rakoff
5. sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs* - chuck kosterman (thanks cindy)
6. magical thinking* - augusten burroughs


guilty pleasures, feel free to share yours.
1. the cobrasnake
2. laguna beach/my super sweet 16. there's something about spoiled jailbait that makes me weep for the future yet watch for hours. have you seen the princess jazmin episode? yikes.
3. craigslist missed connections/rants and raves/casual encounters
4. myspace. i use friends' accounts to browse because i haven't signed up and don't intend to. i don't believe in the commodification of people, nor do i care to collect "friends." but looking at coworkers and old classmates' profiles is fucking addicting and satifies my voyeuristic appetite. when i was in school my women's studies/sociology TA told me to sign up so we could be friends. i've stayed away this long, but hey, a new year is upon us and anything can happen.

so there you have it. what better way to celebrate the holiday spirit of mindless consumerism than to reflect on my own media gluttony? i'd like to think that we as individuals have our own unique cultural palette, but the items that make up many people's best of lists are pretty much identical (check out metacritic, or better yet type "best music 2005" into technorati and poke around). has the marketing machine become so precise that it knows exactly what we'll respond to? are humans that predictable, that malleable? if something is on everyone's best of list, then it probably deserves to be there. granted, we live in the age of customizable culture, where we actively seek out alternatives to what the idiot box and entertainment weekly tell us to like. but if "best of" lists are any indication, then taste is every bit manipulated as it is cultivated.

but really, who cares. there are people out there whose work i enjoy, and this makes me happy. and thank you for enjoying sic transit gloria.

happy holidays to you and yours.