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Favorites of ’09

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HoDpic1bigMovies:

1. Wendy and Lucy

This came out last year, but I saw it in ’09 and no other movie affected me as much.

2. Coraline

3. Adventureland

4. Ponyo

5. House of the Devil

6. Up

7. Drag Me To Hell

I’ve slacked off on movie viewing this year.  Still need to see:  Antichrist, Avatar, The Girlfriend Experience, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Humpday, District 9, A Serious Man, Where the Wild Things Are, Precious, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, The White Ribbon

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Music :

papercuts-you-can-have-what-you-want

1. Papercuts, You Can Have What You Want

Songwriter Jill Sobule said this year, “I think today, instead of everyone being famous for 15 minutes, everyone will be famous for 15 people.”  Papercuts have toured with some of the most acclaimed and popular indie bands around – Grizzly Bear, Beach House, Camera Obscura – yet even modest popularity eludes them.  There’s pleasure in liking things nobody else knows about, of course, but that’s not why this is my favorite album of the year.  It’s the music.  I’ll take this over any of the bands I previously mentioned, some of which have showed up on multiple best-of-09 lists while this album has been largely forgotten.  Guess I’m one of the lucky fifteen.

Instead of listing other albums I liked this year, I’m doing individual tracks:

Annie:  “I Know UR Girlfriend Hates Me,” “I Don’t Like Your Band,” “Songs Remind Me of You”

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart:  “Ramona,” “The Tenure Itch”

Washed Out: “New Theory”

Atlas Sound: “An Orchid,” “Sheila,” “Criminals”

Deerhunter: “Disappearing Ink”

The Hidden Cameras: “He Falls to Me,” “Colour of a Man”

Here We Go Magic:  “Fangela,” “Tunnelvision”

Cass McCombs: “Dreams-Come-True-Girl,” “Don’t Vote”

Grizzly Bear: “Two Weeks,”  “Cheerleader”

Animal Collective: “Summertime Clothes”

Air: “Bee a Bee”

The Flaming Lips: “Watching the Planets”

Girls: “Lust for Life,” “Hellhole Ratrace”

Camera Obscura: “James”

Phoenix: “Lisztomania”

Vitalic: “Poison Lips”

Black Moth Super Rainbow: “Tooth Decay”

Jarvis Cocker: “Pilchard”

Books:

All I read is old stuff, though I did enjoy Dennis Cooper’s Ugly Man.

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New Website Alert!

So yeah.  New website.  Hopefully everything is self explanatory.

I’ve posted a new story, “Biology Lesson,” which is from the November 2009 issue of Handjobs Magazine.  I had a good time writing that one.

You may have noticed that my Blogger blog is gone. Well, I haven’t deleted anything, but I wanted to start fresh. I plan on recycling my old posts periodically, which will hopefully allow me to post more frequently (with old content, natch).

I spent a lot of time designing this site and it’s been fun. I’m glad to be done, though. Much thanks to Rob Wolfsham, my WordPress guru (who nevertheless defected from WordPress in the time it took me to get this site up), who provided much help and moral support.

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Quote

One huge problem with art lies with the extent of artists who need to connect with an audience. What I’m talking about is a relationship with art. The success of this relationship seems to rely on a certain limitation of public interaction. It’s not absurd to regard art as a coded outcry to be loved properly; therefore when you start giving it away it invariably dilutes in an almost alchemical sense. This pervading sort of pathetic hopefulness—the idea of wowing people, is corrupt from the start. I find it disgustingly vain and needy. So to undercut all that it’s been my method of obsessively questioning the purity of an expression and accepting its expiration date so I’m only left with the inception of the idea when it’s most exciting. I realize that some of the truth behind this is that I can’t endure defeat gracefully, so I act fast and take what I can. Achievements mean little; any enjoyment I’m lucky enough to scrape up usually just gets buried in the process anyway.

– Mark McCoy (from DC’s)

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