You're the top, you're 2010

The Best of Me:
A year ago I couldn't have compiled this list, but I've massaged my writing brain more and more this year. And  sometimes even I like the results:
1. Nanowrimo: the more I look at the draft I plugged away at during the month of November, the harder it is to find something I want to share. Not that I'd forgive myself for not achieving perfection on the fly. No. But sometimes, it was close enough for jazz.
2. My Blogcritics review of  The Wonderful world of Kittens. Really one of my best reviews ever.
3. From my work blog, a tribute to Lawrence Welk.
4. Ditto, an announcement for a lecture by Greil Marcus, which gave me the opportunity to pay homage-cum-satire to his associative leaps, if not to his signature contradictions which run along the lines of,  "It was the yes that means no; it meant nothing; and everything"  not a direct quote but That's How He Writes And In What World Is That Good Writing I Ask You? Anyway, it was a grand chance to reference Bigfoot and Marie Osmond in the same post.
5. From DCist, my review of Robert Ryman and Pousette-Dart at the Phillips.

Best Sandwiches:
Classic bahn mi at baoguette (NY)
Meatball bahn mi at BaBay (DC)
Pastrami on rye at Eisenberg's (NY)
Firehouse 14 at JJ's Cheesesteaks (DC)
Cheesesteak with wiz at Cosmi's Deli (Philadelphia)
Spike's Sunnyside @ Good Stuff Eatery (DC)


Art:
Otto Dix @ Neue Gallery
Yves Klein @Hirshhorn
Robert Ryman @ Phillips
Miroslav Tichy @ICP
Muybridge @Corcoran
The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry @Met
Bern Porter @MOMA
Artifice @ Delillis
Pieter Hugo's Nollywood @Yossi Milo
This clock, from a gift shop in Front Royal, VA:

Movies:

Winter's Bone

Last Train Home

The Social Network

Marwencol
And I named it last year but it only got a semi-commercial US release this year so it's worth mentioning twice: Henri-George-Clouzot's Inferno, which features some of the most stunning cinematography I've ever seen.

honorable mention: Easy A, Daybreakers, Runaways

Meh: Wild Grass, Black Swan, Piranha 3-D

Music:

I've barely listened to any new music this year, and none of what I heard (pace nice albums from younguns Allo Darlin' and oldies the Vaselines; new ones from Taylor Swift and M.I.A. haven't hit repeat for me yet) knocked me out like the Chic box set. But I heard a number of revelatory things from the past and far away thanks to my homie lapinfille's voracious youtube investigations. These are just a handful:

Rita Pavone, "My name is potato"
Bruno Lomas, "Ven sin temor"
Michel Polnareff, "La poupee  qui fait non"
Olavi Virta, "Hula hula hula hoop"

And one of the most amazing things she has ever found:



Happy New Year!