The barricades are going up in Times Square for Sunday's tinsel-flecked tourist-fest, which means I'm pulling down the shades, locking in some DVDs and some books, stocking up on magazines, and settling in for the long winter's nap.
Yes folks, I hate New Year's - all of it; the symbolic flipping of the damned calendar, the amateur night frenzy of New Year's Eve, the forced revelry, the long boring day itself. It's a lousy date and me being me, I tend to remember things and people lost during the year ending rather than imagining myself in more glamorous, successful settings during the year ahead. A pox on New Year's.
But it is a good time for making lists, the usual best-of and worst-of queues that newspapers put into the can ahead of time so that editorial staffs can get properly toasted at year's end. Of course, blogs do it too and in many cases, they do it better - they take more chances, offer more personal assessments, and carry more validity (if any list can). So here's my list of year-end lists, a work in progress I'll update over the next couple of days:
- Steve Gilliard's list of winners is top-drawer and he has particular praise for the tandem of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart: "Stewart comes out swinging, when he finishes, you know you've had your ass kicked. With Colbert, he's standing on you before you realize what happened. But the result is the same. You got beat." He also lauds Howard Dean, Sasha Cohen, (wouldn't make my list, but it's not mine), Ned Lamont (who would), and Keith Olbermann.
- Flip-side time and who lot more cussin' from Steve, who also gives us his biggest losers of '06. the obvious ones include Karl "The Magic is Gone" Rove, Bush 41, Ken Mehlman, Rahm Emanuel (he'd be on my winners list with Howard Dean, but I get Steve's anti-DC venom), Lincoln Chaffee, Liddy Dole, and Michael Steele. Biggest loser? Here I agree entirely: almost former Senator George Allen, whose racism and base boorishness ended a career - thankfully.
- Thanks to Jason's urging, I've been playing a lot of Solomon Burke's fantastic Nashville, as a fine a record as was released in 2006 - Chervokas names it album of the year in his year-end music list. He also singles out Ray Davies' masterly Other People's Lives (the wonderful Life After Breakfast became my personal anthem at times this year), the self-titled record by Psychedelic Furs front man Richard Butler, Dylan's Modern Times (which Jason thinks was not a masterpiece, and I do not agree), and The Crane Wife by the Decemberists, which I also enjoyed.
- At last count, Fred Wilson had 93 year-end posts (some from Italy no less!) and at least a dozen on music, but here's a link to the wrap-up. Fred's top record was Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not by Arctic Monkeys, which to me was a very good but not great album (I still played it a lot). No. 2 was Stadium Arcadium by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, which is a great (and very mature) rock album, though possibly not a fulsome double record. Fred also highlighted All the Roadrunning by Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris, perhaps the year's most beautiful pop record. Between Jason and Fred, not much use for my list but I'd add the surprisingly brilliant One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This by the "reunited" New York Dolls and parts of the new Pete Townshend, er, "Who" record. Dirty Pretty Things, Tom Petty, and the single of the year When You Were Young by the Killers were also in heavy rotation. Quite the year for geezers, too - quick, who was the biggest touring act of '06?
Got list? Send note. I'm huddled away and hiding from the crowds and the cold.
- A reader sent a link to Dahlia Litwick's top 10 human rights abuses in 2006 - all committed by our current President. There were certainly far worse abuses internationally this (and every) year, but the fact that an American leader committed these shakes the foundations of our open democracy.
- Looking ahead (and these lists sometimes do) is Jon Swift's conservativotopian view of next year's trends - very amusing. My personal fave: "Increasing strife in the blogosphere leads to the appointment of a Blog Study Group, which proposes dividing the blogosphere into three autonomous Liberal, Conservative and Moderate blogistans." Good one.
from Amazon.
