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Created this meme.  Feel like it’s a good meme.  Like ‘it’s a little guy’ but ‘it’s got a lot of heart.’  Feel like I might finally be able to top the unprecedented number of hits I got when I philosophized about this picture or blogged about a a celebrity sexchange. Feel like I’m kinda sad that no one wants to click through brief thoughts or illegally download free music, but also feel like I’m ready to wise up and embrace the new day.

Feel like this might be the day when my blog finally goes progressive and post-web 2.0.  Feel like I don’t want to be ‘left behind.’

What’s the memiest part of my meme? What part of it will get the most ‘mad hits’?

- The ‘exclusive’ (Clash of the Titans) pics meme?
- The The Ugly Truth-bro meme reference meme?
- The vagina meme?
- The vagina dentata meme?
- The xxx hot girls free vids meme?
- The at least ostensibly only appealing to the lowest common denominator so that you can also appeal to higher denomininators (via HuffPo) meme?
- The pictures of celebrities when they’re at their least presentable meme?
- The Kraken meme?
- The actionizing Greeks/Romans meme?
- The meme meme?
- The futura bold meme?

How many hits do you think I’ll get? Should I complement my posts with meme-worthy celebrity porn? Did I write this whole post just because I felt like making this pic? Is my meme ‘good enough’?

*Fingers crossed*

- TBWE

Delorean’s Subiza (store-shelves 8 June) could hardly sound more made for its moment.  Mixing Passion Pit-like synth-pop with Animal Collective-like exuberant multi-track harmonies¹, it sounds both immediately familiar and immediately now.

Given the promise so obvious in the Ayrton Senna EP, a strong full-length from Delorean is no surprise, but Subiza represents a healthy lunge forward.² By using melody to bind their tracks together into songs, by moving Ekhi Lopetegi’s vocals more into his (less juvenile-sounding) chest voice and above all by taking advantage of lush production values to open it all up to the listener, Subiza represents the flowering of all Delorean’s potential.

“Stay Close” has been making the rounds, but the leak which emerged around the same time reveals the album to be hits start to finish. Viz.:

Delorean – Simple Graces
Delorean –  Real Love

¹I refuse to mention “and chillwave-tagged sunny vibes.”
²As well as, for the author, faith restored in Spain’s ability to make stomachable pop.

Disclaimer: These songs are up for listening purposes only for a short time. If you’re an artist or label who wants a song taken down, please write me.

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Making one of these decade lists seemed too reductive and too vain (moreso than usual), and it still is those things, but it turned out that hearing everyone else’s lists was way too much fun.

A quick note on the number: killing your darlings ain’t easy, but only at the top did my “favorites” and my “bests” resemble each other, so I’m posting fifteen.

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15. Adaptation. (2002)
14. Zodiac (2007)
13. WALL·E (2008)
12. Children of Men (2006)
11. Grizzly Man (2005)
10. The New World (2005)
9. The Dark Knight (2008)
8. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
7. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
6. Punchdrunk Love (2002)
5. The Lord of the Rings (2001/2002/2003)
4. There Will Be Blood (2007)
3. Memento (2000)
2. Almost Famous (2000)
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

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That turns out to be two each for Chris Nolan and PT Anderson, as well as for Charlie Kaufman, Emmanuel Lubezki and Roger Deakins (not to mention Jon Brion).  The only year from which nothing placed is 2009, and The Lord of the Rings is the only entry to have won the Oscar for Best Picture (and it took three tries).  On a more trivial note–unless I’m just a sucker for this–I believe almost half of these movies forgo opening credits.

Still haven’t gotten around to seeing: In The Mood For Love, Yi Yi, Caché, Battle Royale.

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Yes, A Serious Man and The White Ribbon are oppressive.  Yes, Where the Wild Things Are never needed to be expanded upon.  Sugar and Humpday are small movies, The Hurt Locker is mostly just an action one, and Up‘s message is not deep enough to merit more than a sentence.  Yes, Avatar is Dances With Smurfs.

That said, here we go:

1-10/Great:

Up
Avatar
A Serious Man
Sugar
Humpday
Where the Wild Things Are
The Hurt Locker
District 9
Inglourious Basterds
The White Ribbon

11-25/Very good:

Fantastic Mr. Fox
Anvil: The Story of Anvil
Public Enemies
The Cove
Star Trek
In the Loop
Drag Me to Hell
(500) Days of Summer
Brüno
A Single Man
An Education
Up in the Air
Bright Star
Adventureland
Crazy Heart
The Baader-Meinhof Complex

(All above in rough order)

Also Recommended (alphabetical):

Funny People
Away We Go
Coraline
Crude
Food Inc
The Hangover
I Love You Man
It Might Get Loud
Moon
Observe and Report
The Soloist
Watchmen

Yet to see: Summer Hours, Un Prophete, The Last Station, Fish Tank, Taking Woodstock, Sin Nombre, The Messenger, others.

Past lists:
Best of 2008
Best of 2007

Hey dudes,

Finally saw the Avatar movie.  Don’t know what to say.  Was a really like weird experience for me.  Really felt like I was dreaming at times, like the movie made me feel the excitement of flying, at moments like I was ‘out of my body’ even though I was only in my seat, but also I could tell that this was just  visuals and that the movie was sort of like silly, like not serious because there were blue people and maybe I shouldn’t see something if it isn’t real, and many other things that made me feel like it could not be a good like film, which is something I care about.

Don’t know if I should mention the flying feeling or mention it as just visuals or just pay more attention to how a couple lines made me giggle, and how it made me giggle when I realized that the man getting it on with the blue chick was a man getting it on with a blue chick*, or about how I could tell that the evil cobra commander was not like complicated.  Need to make sure whoever’s listening feels that they can trust my optinion or they won’t take me seriously.

possible list of things to make sure to mention in review:
- “chunky” dialogue (esp from the aliens, space scientists and evil cobra commanders)
- predictable space plot
- questioning whether so much money should be spent on such big-budget, unoriginal movies, like maybe more money should be spent on the more original movies like the Slumdog Millionaire, the Pirates of the Carribean sequels, the Iron Man movie which I relaly liked, or maybe ‘the Precious based on the Novel Push by Saffire.’
- how it reminded me of other movies I saw when I was a child which I can name but I now know I don’t think I liked: dances with wolves, pocahontas, that rainforest movie with the fairies by the company that’s now pixar that i really liked, apocalypse now, the new world, star wars, pretty much all westerns, any other movie i can think of that had blue and/or feline people in it.

Know that the one thing I should definitely acknowledge is the good 3DFX. How I heard the 3DFX was ‘revolutionary’ and how I heard the FX were photo real and how it’s weird that they made the cartoons with human voices look so real–how did they do that?  How I know I was impressed by this and brought in by this and how they made my jaw drop in both awe and excitement but also how I like don’t think anything comes of money spent on just empty FX.

Also feel like I definitely need to acknowledge the obvious allegory that I noticed, like the Iraq war elements, the rainforests+global warming environmental destruction element, the loss of humanity to industrialization element, the loss of humanity to corporatization element, the hypermediated society forming and becoming attached to virtual identities element, and the getting lost in other worlds and being able to do things you could never do or see in your own body by technology (magic of cinema?) element**, and also how I know these elements should have been more subtle.

What do you think I should go with for my review?  Should I make sure to say now that I didn’t like it because the movie might seem even more silly in ten years? When I watch movies is it more important to try to enjoy myself or to figure out out what I am like supposed to think about it?  If I don’t make lots of criticisms of blue people movies will no one take my optinion seriously?

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*Feel like to sound mature I also probably definitely shouldn’t mention how I actually totally kinda got into a chick even though she was blue.  Feel like this would totally not be appropriate to put into a movie review or anywhere.  Or if I mention this I feel like I should make it clear that I was surprised by this, make it clear that I am not normally a person who is attracted to aother species.

**also the vietnam war and we-destroyed-a-race-to-found-our-society elements

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Christmas is a holiday of waste.  Of the estimated $507 the average American spends on gifts every year, over a hundred dollars would just as well have been tossed in the bin, about $13 billion in waste nation-wide.

Unfortunately the music released tends to be junk in even greater proportions.  Bands go through the motions of putting out cheap stocking stuffers of songs, which while appropriate in celebrating a holiday of absurdity and bric-a-brac with absurdity and bric-a-brac (self-consciously and not), rarely resonate.  Meanwhile the classics pale and yellow, more and more alienated from our experience every year.

So if most Christmas music is about junk and antiquated clichés, most of this music does it’s best to take that on.  ”Come on! Let’s Boogey to the Elf Dance!” mixes irony with sincerity and precious details at just the right ratio, while in “Just Like Christmas” Low confronts what meaning is and isn’t left in Christmas.

Maybe trying to piece together a Christmas album is a doomed enterprise from the setting out.  But for better and worse we’ll always be stuck with Christmas and Christmas music.  Nothing left to do but to wade through the kitsch and old hats and make the best we can of all of it.

Happy Holiday.

Download.

1) Bright Eyes – The Night Before Christmas
2) John Lennon – So This is Christmas
3) Low – Just Like Christmas
4) The Sonics – Don’t Believe in Christmas
5) Sufjan Stevens – Put the Lights on the Tree
6) Feist – Lo, How a Rose E’re Blooming
7) Laura Gibson – It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
8) Sufjan Stevens – Come On! Let’s Boogey to the Elf Dance!
9) Stevie Wonder – What Christmas Means to Me
10) James Brown – Please Come Home For Christmas
11) Death Cab for Cutie – Baby Please Come Home
12) Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds – The Christmas Song
13) Sufjan Stevens – Bring the Torch, Jeanette, Isabella
14) Banjo or Freakout – White Christmas
15) Sufjan Stevens – Come Thou Font of Every Blessing
16) Low – Long Way Around the Sea
17) Sufjan Stevens – That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!
18) Sufjan Stevens – Sister Winter
19) Low – Taking Down the Tree (Song for Little Baby Jesus)

Also recommended:
David Bowie & Bing Crosby – Little Drummer Boy / Peace on Earth
Blitzen Trapper – Christmas is Coming Soon

Disclaimer: These songs are up for listening purposes only for a short time. If you’re an artist or label who wants the song taken down, please write me.

Allen Toussaint - The Bright Mississippi (Jazz)

The Dream – Love vs Money (R&B)

Baroness – Blue Record (Metal)

Intend to listen to these more / That said, they didn’t grab me:
The Clientele – Bonfires on the Heath
Japandroids – Post-nothing
Converge – Axe to Fall
Yacht – See Mystery Lights
Why? – Eskimo Snow
White Denim – Fits

Mixed/Good, not great:
Matt & Kim – Grand
Discovery – LP
jj – jj nº 2
The Dead Weather – Horehound
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart – The Pains of Bein Pure at Heart
The Big Pink – A Brief History of Love
Andrew Bird – Noble Beast
Them Crooked Vultures – Them Crooked Vultures
Death Cab for Cutie – The Open Door EP
Holopaw - Oh Glory, Oh Wilderness
P.O.S. – P.O.S.
Conor Oberst – Outer South
Beirut – Realpeople Holland/Zapotec
Mos Def – The Ecstatic
Dangerhorse/Sparklemouse – Dark Night of the Soul
Monsters of Folk – Monsters of Folk
Bear in Heaven – Beast Rest Forth Mouth
Patrick Watson – Wooden Arms
Cass McCombs – Catacombs
Major Lazer – Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do
Various Artists – New Moon OST
Real Estate – Real Estate
Modest Mouse – No One’s First and You’re Next EP
Atlas Sound – Logos
Mew - No More Stories…
Bon Iver – Blood Bank EP

35) The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love
34) Amadou & Miriam - Welcome to Mali
33) Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle
32) Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
31) Destroyer - Bay of Pigs EP

30) Volcano Choir - Unmap
29) Nirvana - Live at Reading
28) Bowerbirds - Upper Air
27) Do Make Say Think - Untruths
26) Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - Up from Below

25) The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
24) Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains
23) Girls - Album
22) The Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa
21) Bat For Lashes - Two Suns

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20) The Dodos – Time to Die
19) Various Artists – Dark Was the Night
18) Passion Pit – Manners
17) Bibio – Ambivalence Avenue
16) Wild Beasts – Two Dancers

15) Ramona Falls – Intuit
14) Sunset Rubdown – Dragonslayer
13) The xx – xx
12) Wilco - Wilco (The Album)
11) Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

10) Dan Deacon – Bromst

9) The Rural Alberta Advantage – Hometowns

8) Tyondai Braxton - Central Market

7) St Vincent - Actor

6) Animal Collective – Fall Be Kind

5) Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca*

4) The Antlers - Hospice*


3) Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix*


2) Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest*

1) Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion

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*Almost put it at #1.
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Favorites of 2008.
Favorites of 2007.