But not today, my friends! Today I return to these dusty columns — which by now should have contained a Best of 2011 list — to explain why they do not.

The short version: you don’t need one. No one really does any more, do they? I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that pop culture has exploded in quantity and quality, ease of access and abundance of enthusiasm to the point where suggestions arrive so steadily they’re becoming meaningless. We’ve reached a level of entertainment saturation such that the expanding class of culture junkies are largely redundant and potentially harmful to us as mortal beings with a finite amount of life-minutes to spend on said entertainment.

We need fewer recommendations, not more.

Think about it. Everyone sharing a list presumes to be doing the world a favor by steering us toward transcendent works we may have missed. And sometimes they do. Sincerely, I thank you, wise writers, for helping me discover such overlooked cultural treasures! I will also admit that were it not for best-of lists and award recognitions, I may have missed out on A Single Man, which is a beautiful, moving film. Same with The King’s Speech. But aside from learning I should pay closer attention to the career choices of Colin Firth, any given list is going to have some picks I will love, some I will not enjoy at all, and some that are fine but don’t leave an impression on me the way they did the list-writer.

Here’s the root of the problem. Say I were to take the best-of lists of films, albums, books, TV shows, podcasts and video games of 10 major outlets and follow every single one of their recommendations. After accounting for the certain percentage I’ve already seen/heard/read/watched, it could still easily take all of 2012 to catch up with what was supposedly the best of 2011. There’s my entire entertainment agenda set out for a year, with no room left for discovery, serendipity, or personal preference. The pressure to stay current could simultaneously keep me from ever living in the present.

Or take just one site, a personal favorite with critics I’ve found both insightful and adept at pointing me in the direction of quality work: The A.V. Club. They employ a full staff of writers to examine the best across all of pop culture, to go back and mine treasures from the past, and provide an all-around primer on everything worth my time. At least in theory.

But let’s be honest. Even setting aside the time it would take to read all of their criticism (some of which is seriously illuminating and valuable, I should note, particularly the ‘Scenic Routes’ column), which could become a whole hobby unto itself: if I were to subscribe to every podcast, play every game, dive into every bit of Cult Canon or Undercover artist, I would have to quit working, exercising, socializing or daydreaming just to keep up with all this great stuff. As they dig deeper into culture gone by or further off the beaten path in search of more pop art to feed their opinion machine, no human can possibly have time to enjoy everything they work so hard to determine as enjoyable.

In fact, once they’ve interviewed every auteur, considered every hypothetical, and list-ified the world from every possible angle, they risk going beyond expert, past obsessive, and entering a whole new dimension of hyper-pop-literacy. A sort of geek singularity in which everything is amazing and disappointing all at once, whose paradoxical vortex of arcane knowledge threatens to spaghettify Nathan Rabin’s head while Tasha Robinson screams on in horror, eyes bleeding. No one wants to see that happen. Maybe we need to establish some personal boundaries to prevent it instead.

The alternative for the community of enthusiasts could be to put value in critics who help us scale back, filter out, and maybe even determine there are plenty of things that aren’t worth our time [*cough*MarthaMarcyMayMarlene*cough*] instead of making lists of “Standout Episodes of Shows that Aren’t Great but Are Worth Checking Out Just This Once.” I’m at the point where I want a critic who says definitively, “Dexter only gets worse after season one; don’t bother.” or “You know what, the Harry Potter books are great for kids and it’s good they exist, but as an adult there are better ways to spend your time.” Of course then the issue becomes one of lack of choice and freedom and diversity of opinion, which no one wants either. And we still end up with all these goddamn lists.

Not to sound merely negative or contrarian, I offer a counterpoint. But first, a goddamn list:

No Color by The Dodos
David Comes to Life by Fucked Up
Attack the Block
I Saw the Devil
Bridesmaids
Batman: Arkham City on Xbox
Bastion on Xbox
Louie on F/X
Breaking Bad on AMC
Game of Thrones on HBO
A Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Bossypants by Tina Fey
The Visible Man by Chuck Klosterman
The essays of John Jeremiah Sullivan
The WTF podcast by Marc Maron

These are some of the things I enjoyed the most in 2011. If you haven’t heard of any of these, by all means look them up and enjoy them. Maybe you already have! There are certainly enough people in the world telling us these things are good (or bad) that you’ve probably made up your mind by now anyway.

The point is, I’ve realized I would much rather talk at length with one person who loved — or even hated — any of these things listed, rather than have the satisfaction of knowing I turned 100 new people on to any one of them. The discussion, the analysis, the extrapolation, these are all way more valuable to me as a human being than convincing a bunch more people to enjoy what I enjoyed, before immediately moving on to the next shiny thing.

So, after some delay, that counterpoint:

We need fewer recommendations, not more.
We need better conversations, not more judgments.

Here is something that has happened to me several times recently, to the point I’ve become very self-aware when caught in its clutches. It’s a lot like this already-classic Portlandia sketch, but for television shows and without the competitive edge or paper-eating. It’s a friendly and well-meaning conversation that goes like this:

“Have you watched Louie?”
“Oh yeah, it’s so good. Man, I love Louie.”
“Me too, it’s sooooo gooooood! You know what’s great in a totally different way, is Archer.”
“Yeah, I watched a few episodes but it didn’t really do it for me. Have you seen this season of Always Sunny though? They are so back on their game!”
“Oh, I’m not caught up yet, don’t spoil it! I’ve been burning through Boardwalk Empire though and that show is sooooo goooooood. Especially season two.”
“Totally! It reminds me of The Sopranos, which I just started re-watching. Man, what a great show…”
“That should keep you busy until Mad Men and Game of Thrones come back, right? Oh my god, I can’t wait.”
“Me neither!”
[everyone dies. the end.]

Okay no one dies. But there is a zombie quality to this conversation once you become self-aware. Everyone spending hours and hours absorbing these deep, complicated, wonderfully high-quality series, just to gloss over them all with a quick thumbs up or down. If you’re lucky someone might pause to identify a scene that was particularly memorable, so others can nod in agreement. Everyone has proven they are current, they are with it, and they have opinions, without committing to anything of substance or actually engaging in a meaningful discussion.

No one asks, “How do you feel about fatherhood as presented by Louie’s character?”, “Why are we so drawn to protagonists trying to balance power struggles and family life in all these HBO series, and how does Daenerys flip that trope on its head?”, “Do we really want Don Draper to shed his false exterior and be genuinely happy despite his natural skill at manipulation, or do we get more satisfaction by seeing a handsome uber-man fall repeatedly into misery despite his outward perfection? And what does that say about us?”.

I’m not saying every conversation should be exactly that (or that pretentious). But I would hazard a guess that the people making all this art, television or otherwise, were hoping to spark thoughts, emotions, and discourse. If art is supposed to convey meaning, why don’t we spend more time talking about that meaning instead of just rendering verdicts on any artwork’s supposed quality? Perhaps we’ve been conditioned by a culture of Like buttons and American Idol text-to-votes to express opinions in binary, or a lack of the vocabulary to articulate our reactions because we’re starving out all the good high school English teachers. Or as I suspect, it may be simply that it’s much easier to take another trip back to the stimulus buffet than spend much time savoring those rare morsels of truly great work.

At the end of my life, I can’t imagine laying back in pride at having stuffed my every waking minute with as much entertainment as possible. All these nuanced expressions of human emotion shouldn’t be reduced down to a checklist. What I can imagine is relishing all the meaningful exchanges of ideas, facilitated through moving, provocative art, that enriched my understanding of others’ experience in this world. Those moments brings us closer to other humans, not our glowing screens large and small, and expand our minds, not our pupils. As Mr. G.R.R. Martin himself wrote this past year, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies…The man who never reads lives only one.’ Though I would amend the fact that a thousand lives aren’t much good either unless they’re shared with other people.

All this is to say, that’s what I hope to do more of that this year now that I can stop pretending it mattered what I liked most last year. More posts if I can (last year was a weird mix of busy and lazy), with a mission to consume less, consider more.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go try to finish season three of Doctor Who, book four of Song of Ice and Fire, and part two of Assassin’s Creed. They’re soooooo gooooood.

Well let me tell you right now, the wait is over, sort of!

I recently had the pleasure of being a guest on The Brad Bogner Show, and it was a delight as always to match wits and opinions with its host in our first (but hopefully not last) podcast together.

Brad’s show is a lot more free-form than ours used to be, so it ended up being a marathon 2+ hour affair covering a wide range of subjects, not all of them strictly cultural. Though I have to admit, I’m a big fan of his “Watch Out for That Guy” segment and his ability to flow from one topic to the next without missing a beat, whether it’s personal anecdotes, sports fandom or serious literary debate.

So if you’d like to hear our conversation on…

• The recent films Drive and Red State
• Tina Fey’s Bossypants and Patton Oswalt’s Zombie Spaceship Wasteland
• Favorite Shakespeare plays
• Netflix ‘Watch Instantly’ picks of the week
• Artsy video games like Bastion

…and don’t mind some detours into the merit of chain wallets, the unsanitary habits of street people, and fantasy football strategies — to name a few — then please give it a listen! It was lots of fun and nice to be back on the mics again.

Check it out on The Brad Bogner Show site.

Or subscribe/download on iTunes.

……….

If art is meant to convey or provoke emotion, then surely this is one way that games are unique among all other art (gasp, he said it!): we the players are free to make decisions, and then we have to live with them. Only games offer the firsthand experience of regret. Yes, a book or song or film can get us to empathize with someone’s remorse, even reflect on our own past errors. In a game, though, we can make a choice in the present, and feel for ourselves that very next moment where it becomes painfully clear we’ve made a terrible mistake. That’s something special. That’s an emotion only games can simulate so truthfully.

At the end of Bastion, I thought I was a hero. In most world-ending Christ parables, a character choosing to sacrifice himself for the greater good is the closest thing he’ll get to a happy ending, and as a player, I was ready to make that choice. I did make that choice. I wanted to be the good guy, the selfless guy, the legend; so I gave myself up that the world might be reborn.

At that point, I could have walked away satisfied. I’d enjoyed an excellent little game and my adventure was over. I saved everyone! Bad guys, vanquished. World, fixed. Right?

But I’m not normally a replay kind of guy, and the game was so well done I was curious about what the other, more selfish option led to (and admittedly, what the couple achievements I’d missed might be). Based on what I found, it would seem the alternate narrative is encouraged, subtly, by the game. Had I played through a second time, small cues would suggest that by saving the world, I’d just doomed it all over again. Helpless to prevent the Calamity, destined only to relive its aftermath, a replay would have suggested it’s better not to go back. That sacrificing oneself to return to some ideal past is foolish and naive, and life can only be lived looking forward.

The tricky part is, I totally agree with that as a human being. I don’t dwell. I try not to see the past through rose-colored glasses. I find people who call high school or college the best years of their lives incredibly depressing. Yet I’d never know the game wanted me to shake free of those traps without booting it up a second time. To get it “right” the first time, I’d have to choose what may seem counter-intuitive as a gamer — and less heroic as a character  — the first time through.

As far as the games go, or films or books or any other stories for that matter, this was the first time the central meaning of a work wasn’t necessarily contained within that work. Some games (or novels or films) contain a twist at the end that make us realize what we’ve been assuming was “wrong” all along. I know I started out thinking I was doing those Little Sisters a favor by releasing them, just as I had to take down a Colossus or two before realizing who the real monster was. I pulled for Memento’s Leonard right up until the finish, and felt sorry for Verbal Kint just like he wanted me to. But in each of those cases, the work itself offers the realization that mistakes have been made to everyone who engages with it. That’s part of the thrill.

Bastion, not so. The ending offers no big reveal, no winking epilogue. Only by revisiting the work in its updated form do we get the full meaning. Only by seeing what’s changed in response to our actions — another trick only games can play — can we learn the true consequences of those choices. Save the world, start all over with the same problems and a disturbing sense of déjà vu. Move on with your life by evacuating, and get the final achievement (”The Beginning”) and walk away knowing what’s done is done.

Plenty of games offer branching stories, and I generally applaud that. It feels good to see choices affect my version of the story in a meaningful way. But most games also allow me save at any juncture, to go back and retry until I’m satisfied with the outcome. They don’t make me stick with my choices. For those games, choice is more a function of variety than meaning, leaving me to instill my own meaning in the path I take.

Bastion goes one admirable step further by making me commit to a decision and see it through to the end. And with this small adjustment, it drives home the emotional experience of regret all the more. It commits to its theme that there is no going back, no correcting the past, only moving forward and learning from our catastrophes. I made a mistake. I thought I could fix the world and I couldn’t.  Now that decision, and this game, is something that’ll stick with me forever.

Living 30 minutes away from work is the perfect length, really. Not long enough to drag or rob a valuable chunk of the day. Not so short to incur guilt for not biking instead. Live too close to the office and it’s like always being at work. Never too far to pop back in. Same neighborhood restaurants for lunch and dinner.

I love my car, and I never minded driving it. Now I live in a city with easy public transportation (SF), not one that expects — no, requires — car ownership (LA). And there are plenty of upsides. It’s better for the environment. It’s cheaper. At some point I may sell my car altogether. But the one thing I truly miss about driving: it was the 100% perfect way to listen to podcasts.

30 minutes really was the perfect length. Start one in the morning, finish in the afternoon. But most importantly, it was the perfect the listening environment. There you are, sealed in a private capsule, maybe a window down for the breeze. Your hands and feet occupied enough to never feel physically restless, but the effortless routine leaving your mind free, able to pay complete attention. Walking or running are close, but those aren’t relaxing. Riding a train, there are so many people around it’s hard not to be distracted by all that bustling humanity. What’s the man across the aisle reading? Am I creeping out the woman sitting under the overhead rail I’m gripping for balance? Why haven’t we left this station yet? In a car you’re in control of your own little world, and everyone else is safely encased in theirs. It’s just you and the story, the conversation, the information.

I like it here a lot so far. Now that I’m settled, I hope to get back to writing a lot more. Seeing movies and playing games and reading books that give me interesting things to think and write about. But I have to say, I miss the roads, the wheel, and the podcasts.

……….

[Note: this is an abstract way of saying I've moved, among many other life changes this summer -- a wedding and honeymoon! a new job! a new living situation! -- which is why it's been all too quiet around here for months. Time to change that. Pleased to be back at the keyboard again. Hugs, --The Management.]

And yes, this is relevant to what I chose to do instead, which is track down the one theater in Los Angeles playing the super-violent Korean revenge movie, I Saw The Devil — directed by Ji-Woon Kim (The Good, The Bad, The Weird; A Tale of Two Sisters), starring Byung-hun Lee (TGTBTW) and Min-sik Choi (Oldboy).

The premise of I Saw The Devil is very straightforward: a government agent finds out his wife has been gruesomely murdered by a serial killer, and sets out to find and punish the man who destroyed his life. But punishment doesn’t begin to describe what follows. For this agent, simply killing or imprisoning the monster won’t be enough; only by inflicting an equal amount of pain will he feel that justice has been done.

As one can imagine, this pursuit gets disturbing quickly. The bulk of the film follows the main character as he tracks, subdues, and essentially tortures the object of his fury. Though the chase elements make for great suspense, the violence of the confrontations is brutal. I fully admit that this movie made me cringe, curl up in a ball, avert my eyes and hope for scenes to end soon, in more than one place. And yet, I thought the movie was great.

Why is that? The acts of the characters in I Saw The Devil aren’t much different from those of the ‘torture porn’ movies that seem to be cranked out annually, and which I hate for replacing what we used to call horror with vapid gore-fests. Nasty, nasty things are done in this film, as they are in other intense Asian imports like Oldboy and Ichi the Killer, movies which I also love and respect. Why the difference?

At first I thought it may just be international bias. “Oh, sure, gratuitous violence is fine in the confines of an art theater, behind subtitles, in a movie that most people have probably never heard of. But in a mainstream Halloween-time schlock movie, no way. That’s for the animals.”

I realized that wasn’t it though, as my stomach unclenched on the way home from the Laemmle’s. The difference is that the violence in these movies is something that American movies are forgetting how to do, which is the right kind of violence for the right reasons. That is, violence that is both a) actually supposed to upset the viewer, not give them a gleeful sense of blood lust, and b) entirely driven by character motivations contained within the film, as conveyed by talented actors.

When we watch Lee’s protagonist perform increasingly savage acts, we stop being on his side. We want him to stop, not because the villain doesn’t deserve it, but because through the fingers we hold up to cover the bloody brutality, we can see him losing his humanity. There’s no pleasure in this, only desperation, anger, fear. Real emotions. Real, but unsettling.

And yet understandable, because the role is played by an actor with real ability. We feel his loss and pain, and can see it taking him over. Just as we know the unfeeling depravity of his victim, the killer, played in an (I’d argue) Oscar-worthy performance by Choi that rivals Hopkins’ Lecter. Though this isn’t the cold calculation of Silence of the Lambs, or the emotionally blunted but occasionally explosive Oldboy. Here he’s unhinged, inhuman. An unstoppable force who does see violence as a gleeful pleasure, which the film is deliberate in condemning. But both characters do what they do for a reason, each character is grounded in their own twisted logic. None of this is pointless B-movie exploitation. One sick individual infects the other, and in watching that story unfold, we are rightfully sickened, but hopefully not infected ourselves.

Which brings me back to seeing this movie instead of going to a nice, fun party. If art is supposed to expand our human understanding, take us places and show us things we might not otherwise experience, this movie accomplishes that no matter how bloody the journey. Chances are I’ll never go to the dark places these characters go. Let’s hope not anyway. I will, however, go to lots of fun parties where I drink and chat with friends, but only once in a great while will one of those parties really get inside my head and affect me this strongly. Sometimes the easy pleasant option isn’t always the most interesting. Just because a thing is shocking, or even sickening, doesn’t mean it can’t be worthwhile.

Though I Saw The Devil may be difficult to watch, it has value as art for that reason. It made me feel something few movies do, as brutal and boundary-pushing as that something may be. That’s why I can “enjoy” these fucked up Eastern horror-dramas that lots of people would just call weird and gross, while feeling totally justified looking down on each successive Saw sequel. The former are rooted in emotion and skillfully performed. They do violence right.

The latter? They’re just disgusting for all the wrong reasons.

Still, while thoroughly enjoying Toy Story 3, I couldn’t help but notice a few quirks to what is ostensibly a kids’ movie. Little details that certainly don’t ruin it, but gave me just enough pause to the point where I couldn’t help sharing — and in enough places I couldn’t fit them all into quick bursts on Twitter.

Since basically everyone’s already seen this movie, maybe someone else noticed these and can tell me whether or not I’m crazy.

1. The voice of the movie’s villain, Lotso Huggin’ Bear, is the same man who played the ‘pig’ in the movie Deliverance. Not to brand a guy for life or anything, but you have to admit there’s something funny about that.

2. The toddlers in the ‘Catepillar Room’ were portrayed as terrible, torturous, unbearable things, in a movie aimed largely at kids in that very age range. The toys would rather risk death than be stuck in a lifetime of service to a room full of small children! Not to mention that the human baby doll was a terrifying, head-spinning Frankenstein. Okay, I take it back: this point is actually kind of great.

**In fairness though, contrast those points with how great the little girl Bonnie was. Her outfit in that last scene, with the yellow galoshes and pink tutu? Oh man, so adorable.

3. I won’t pretend I didn’t laugh too, and Michael Keaton was great in the part, but seeing the toys making faces at each other over Ken’s more flamboyant habits felt like a tiny bit of homophobia, did it not? I mean, Pixar’s a progressive Bay Area company, they did that great ‘It Gets Better‘ video, and right, he’s in love with Barbie. But how does this movie want me to feel about his prancing and glittery handwriting? The grimaces and raised eyebrows by the straight male toys bordered on making me uncomfortable about laughing at the Ken jokes, is all I’m saying.

4. Aside from the whole heading toward ovens thing — which, let’s not even go there — was there also a whiff of old southern plantation racism/anti-immigrant vibe to that bear too? He puts up a front of folksy hospitality with the cane and the hugs, but then makes the new (non-native) people do the shit jobs and sleep in cages while he and his fat cat buddies live the good life? I may be reaching with this one but I guess I just really hated that bear.

5. No joke, here’s one that really bothered me: so Mr Potato Head’s pieces, when attached to a tortilla, retain his ability to move freely. Also, his arm can crawl around all on its own in order to retrieve said tortilla. Essentially, they are ‘him’ without his body. Mrs Potato Head’s mouth, however, when removed from her face by that jerk bear, stops her from talking; yet she can still see out of her eye that’s lost back at the house (ignoring for now the fact that actual Potato Head eyes only came in attached pairs; we’ll chalk that up to artistic license). The question, though, is what exactly makes the Potato Heads themselves? I’m not a religious person, but if their body is just an empty shell, where exactly does their ’soul’ reside among their discrete physical components? Is a statement being made here that we are only vessels, and it’s our senses of sight, touch, sound, etc. that give us life and self? I doubt the makers gave this level of thought to the existential puzzle posed by the Potato Head family’s conveniently peculiar form of sentience, but I have to say it distracted me through most of that sequence. Also, it was kinda gross how we was all flopping around on that windowsill. I did like when he punched that pigeon though.

Admit it. Half the time when making a top ten list for the year, by the seventh or eighth slot you’re starting to get generous. A few choices you ‘respect’ but didn’t enjoy that much if you’re being honest. A favorite artist’s latest work was sort of a let down. At least one gets put on solely for credibility. We all know it happens.

So at Under Culture we nixed the top tens, top fives, or what have you. Instead, we highlight only our absolute favorites of the year — in every category we could think of covering movies, TV, games, books, comics, music, and more — and set about explaining why each one made the list. This way you know everything that shows up here really deserves it. If your favorite isn’t mentioned, maybe it’s because we didn’t get around to it. Or it came in a close second. Or you are simply wrong. If so, let us have it in the comments with your own choices.

Some of these we’ve probably discussed on our podcast too, but it helps to have all the best stuff collected in one place. If you’d like to hear about what we love on a monthly basis, why not subscribe to that while you’re here?

And because we can’t resist a bad pun, we’ve dubbed these awards The Undies. So here they are: a long, thorough list of our favorite shit from 2010, in the third annual Undie Awards.

……….

WATCHING

Best Movie

It’s a shame this category has to come first, because it’s the one I struggled with the most. In terms of calling a Best Picture winner, I’d be totally happy with either The Social Network or The King’s Speech. Both were exceptional in their own way. Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush acted circles around their contemporaries in a very moving, uplifting story. Fincher and Sorkin’s collaboration is expertly written, shot, paced, as well as scored by Reznor and Finch, on top of being a fascinating document of our transition into a new digital era in media, business, and modern social life.

If I’m being honest though, the movie that hit me the hardest, that I’m more likely to argue must be seen, is Black Swan. The Facebook movie has amazing dialogue and shows masterful film-making craft, but doesn’t reach the emotional heights of what one might call a truly powerful film. Inspiring period pieces often reach rare emotional heights, but without any risks taken. We know the hero is going to triumph over something and can predict which heartstrings will be pulled along the way.

Black Swan tells a classic story — of identity and expression, the pursuit of art and self — in an intense dramatic gut-punch. It mixes beauty and horror, family drama and sexual tension, career politics and personal growth. Not to mention that it managed to keep me transfixed through a freaking ballet movie (there’s a reason we don’t have a ‘Theatre and Dance’ tab at top of this site).

It may be melodramatic at times, the dialogue isn’t without its flaws, certainly. But Black Swan is about leaving it all on the stage, as it were, and the film itself does that. I’m of the camp that Portman deserves her Oscar for a performance no one thought she was capable of, going from meek and fragile to a frightening command of the screen. We see her literally transform and she’s impressive in both modes. Aronofsky isn’t known for subtlety, but here that works in his favor. Ballet as we know it may be a subtle art, but the way we feel its movement on screen, and are absorbed into the dancers’ absolute dedication to their art, we’re not supposed to sit back and clap politely. We’re supposed to feel spent, exhausted, emptied. Changed. That’s what I mean by a powerful film.

Best Netflix Rental

Looking over my rental history as I usually do for this list, two things were apparent. One, I liked a lot of the movies I saw, but nothing leapt out in a “You have to see this!” kind of way that isn’t totally obvious (or mentioned in categories below). I mean, “Guys, have you seen this movie Schindler’s List? It’s amazing!” doesn’t do anyone much good. Unfortunately, the second apparent thing isn’t any big surprise either.

This was the year I finally caught up on the Joss Whedon oevre, and wouldn’t you know, I loved it. I’m most of the way through Buffy as its quality wanes (it peaks seasons 2 and 3 I’d say), and I particularly loved Firefly and Serenity. As a whole though, I finally understand the obsession with Whedon. He may pick kinda silly genres to set his work in — which explains why I resisted diving in for so long — but the guy knows how to write. I don’t know if I can think of another TV creator who can blend consistently clever dialogue, seriously strong character relationships, and play with the format and structure of episodic storytelling for maximum creative results. For lots of pop culture geeks this is no surprise, but if you were holding out like me, the fact that the whole catalog is on Netflix Instant should sway you to finally join the club.

Best Documentary

This one is a total no-brainer for me. In fact, I had to seriously consider if Exit Through the Gift Shop wasn’t my outright favorite movie of the year. Not only is it a fascinating look behind the scenes of the street art community, and particularly its mysterious superstar Banksy, but it goes beyond telling the story of a bunch of artists to questioning the nature of art itself.

A lot of the buzz around the movie focuses on whether it was an organic story or not; a true documentary or an elaborate prank perpetrated on the art world by Banksy himself. It does seem almost too perfect that this laughable simpleton who comes to be known as “Mr. Brainwash” could so perfectly illustrate the underlying shallowness of commercial pop art, and Banksy did come to fame by pulling off elaborate stunts to make a statement. The beauty of the film as a whole though is that it doesn’t really matter.

If it is some sort of hoax, it’s still supremely entertaining start to finish, with its real insight into a subculture that by its nature takes place in the shadows, and a central “trick” that drives the point home cleverly. If it isn’t, it may even make the point more effectively in exploring the fine line between “good” art that meaningfully expresses an idea, and “bad” art that recycles iconography to appeal to an art consumer who wants art for art’s sake. Either way, we get to see some daring street artists doing what they do best, we meet a hilarious lunatic who crashes their party, and we leave the theatre with enough fodder for a discussion on “What is art?” that could last for hours afterward. Not accidentally, I’m sure, these are the things good art is supposed to do, so as far as the art of documentary film-making goes, this is one that shouldn’t be missed.

Best Movie That Not Enough People Saw

When’s the last time you were shocked and affronted while also laughing hysterically? If you’re lucky it was when you went to see Four Lions this year, but almost no one I know had that privilege. Unsurprisingly, the super-satiric black comedy about a British terror cell of misguided buffoons didn’t get a very wide release. It’s not just worth watching for the taboo premise though; it’s a striking takedown of the whole idea of suicide bombing — and the type of people who might be drawn to it — while also lampooning the wider culture’s total inability to react rationally to the threat. Plus, by showing that even these guys are actual human beings, it plays with your expectations by making you almost like them despite their totally abhorrent decisions and “career goals”. Writer Chris Morris made a rare thing here that’s funnier and smarter, in equal measure, than most of the movies I’ve seen this year, and I just hope more people catch this when it comes around to DVD.

Best Worst Movie

It would be futile to make the argument that there was anything valuable in terms of dramatic story or meaningful commentary in Kick-Ass. It tries to examine the super-hero myth through a twisted kind of parody, but doesn’t have much to say beyond how stupid you’d have to be to try this at home. Not exactly revelatory. On top of that, I kind of hate the main character: a delusional whiner who pretends he’s gay to get closer to a girl he likes, which is about on par with Soul Man in terms of offensiveness. However, I also won’t pretend there weren’t several sequences that had me clapping. Pretty much every scene with Chloe Moretz as Hit Girl is packed with gleeful martial arts energy, and Nicholas Cage’s Big Daddy character is a hilarious send-up of the brutal vigilante with a nice-guy alter ego. If the movie had focused on them entirely it could have avoided some of the bullshit that drags it down to being essentially stupid, but at least those high points made for some great stupid fun.

Best Animated/Anime Movie or Show I Saw This Year

I wrote a post earlier this year after watching the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, saying that even though it aired on Nickelodeon and is ostensibly a kids’ show, it’s actually a very grown-up story that avoids condescension and outstrips its occasional silliness. Well, after finishing the other two seasons I never got around to writing a follow-up post, but if I had, it would have been titled “Holy Shit, That Was Just The Beginning: Don’t Miss This”. Avatar gets darker and more grown-up as it builds. The more time I spent with its characters, and the more complex their relationships got, the more attached to them I became. It’s a real achievement in animation, voice-acting, and storytelling — in individual episodes and as an extended, complete story arc. Now I don’t worry about whether there’s enough substantial about the show to make it worth watching for adults; I just worry the childish touches will scare people off from an excellent comic fantasy epic. (Plus the whole thing’s on Netflix Instant, making it an easy thing to get addicted to and burn through in short order.)

Honorable mention to Archer, though, the animated secret agent spoof on FX that’s easily one of the funniest shows I’ve ever seen. I’m so happy it’s returned after a long absence, since the first season aired way back at the beginning of 2010. “Yuuuuuup!”

Oh, and because I’m that guy who has to show some international cred, a quick nod to the anime film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. It’s a great coming of age story with a sci-fi twist, and avoids a lot of the trappings that might alienate people put off by the genre. If I had to sit my girlfriend down for an anime movie that both isn’t embarrassing and she might actually enjoy, this would be the one.

Funniest Show on TV This Year

Making this call based solely on the number of laughs per show, I’d probably end up with one of the shows I’ve talked about before: Community, which has had a really strong second season, or possibly Archer, which I have to hold back on laughing at to make sure I catch all the jokes.

I get a sense that there’s another element to consider though, which I’m not sure how to describe. I want to call it depth of humor — as in, the jokes are funnier because they’re more true. This is humor based more on humanity than absurdity, humor that explores existential questions through laughter instead of relying on unexpected associations to surprise our verbal brains.

Whether “depth of humor” is the right term or not, Louie has set a new bar for that style of comedy this year. His stand-up segments explore aging and fatherhood with brutal, hilarious honesty, and the bits from the show are as strong as anything he’s done in comedy specials. Then the filmed portions, often just as funny and awkward as a show like Curb Your Enthusiasm, also play like good indie cinema, with surprisingly poignant moments about childhood fears and adult insecurities, all shot with the eye of a genuinely talented director (Louis CK writes and directs every episode). There’s really never been anything quite like it, and we’re lucky he had the creative freedom to get something this dark and sincere on TV in the form of a comedy show.

Best Series on TV This Year

I don’t think there’s a question among the most discerning viewers that Breaking Bad is an almost unbeatable choice, and this year’s season was spectacular. But since that was my pick last year, I’ll take the new show, Justified, a fairly straightforward cop-hunting-crooks yarn. Though it lacks the emotional weight of its more dramatic peers, Justified never tries to be that kind of story. What it does shoot for is well-written swaggering style, and it hits that bull’s-eye in every fucking scene.

The show just does everything right to win me over. They put Timothy Olyphant back in the tough sheriff role from Deadwood, only now they let him unleash his smooth-talking charisma instead of being the strong silent type. By setting it in the backwoods Kentucky of the present, they can mix elements of westerns with gang and mafia stories, while coating every conflict in a strained sense of southern charm. Then throw in a few gorgeous women with adorable accents for good measure. What really ties it all together though is the amazingly sharp dialogue from every character on screen; the show just oozes suave Elmore Leonard badassery with every line. Holy shit, I loved every second of it, and I can’t wait for season two to really hit its stride.

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PLAYING

Best Video Game

Though die-hards will probably list a dozen or more reasons why I’m wrong about this, I wasn’t crazy about the year in games that was 2010. I skipped several of the otherwise massive releases because it felt like so many of them were just retreads of games I’d played before. Another Halo. Another Assassin’s Creed. Another God of War. Another Call of Duty. Not that there isn’t a place for sequels, but a lot of these just didn’t feel like they were worth my time and money, at least not this soon on the heels of their predecessors. I wanted newer experiences.

So the list of contenders is short, consisting of Red Dead Redemption, Heavy Rain, a few surprisingly good downloadable games, and the one I have to say stood above all the others for me: Mass Effect 2.

It dodges some — though not all — of the sequel fatigue by being a continuation of the previous game in the truest sense: if you played the first, decisions you made have repercussions in the second. Talking to recurring characters is wildly more satisfying when the only reason they’re alive to shoot the shit with in the present is because you saved their life in the past. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Mass Effect 2 is the possibly the first game in which I made decisions based on my character’s relationships to his fictional friends, and not simply based on the constructs of the game world. Facing a choice, I didn’t think, “What option do I pick to win? What’s the right answer here?”, but “How do I earn this guy’s respect?” Or alternately: “I can’t do that to her!” Honestly, this game lets you seduce several of the female characters, and instead of bedding them all just to see what happens, the instinct of any ‘completionist’ gamer, I said to myself: no, don’t go there, that isn’t right. I liked my chosen in-game girlfriend (Tali, that adorable nerd) so much, I made a moral judgment like a human being. That’s pretty powerful stuff.

When it came to the final mission, a whole-team effort I knew not everyone was guaranteed to survive, I had another revelatory moment. I was so caught up in the climax, I commanded my crew based on what I knew about them as people, by the gut, in the moment. Then, based on that intuition being right, everyone did their part and they all lived. To me, that was winning the game, not killing the final monster. One of the most satisfying game endings ever. Stuff like that can only come out of a game with a great engine built around characters, conversation, and decisions; not just pulling a trigger.

Of course, space operas are rad and there’s nothing quite as cool as flinging evil robots in the air with your psychic powers then vaporizing them by pulling the trigger of your thermally-charged automatic pistol. So, you know, that too.

[ed: yes, this is extremely long, but I never got around to writing a proper review so I had a lot of praise stored up on this one.]

Best Downloadable Game

To balance out my lengthy Mass Effect love-fest, I’ll keep it short and sweet: play Machinarium. You can download it to any computer, it takes only a few hours to play, and it’s pure delight. A point-and-click indie puzzle game with gorgeous art, a well-suited score, quirky humor, all wrapped around a robot love story — it’s a truly beautiful bit of fun. You can even play the demo online before buying. I promise, you won’t regret giving it a try.  (If you really want a lengthier argument, check out my original review.)

Best Game to Play with Friends (Online or Off)

Having skipped Halo and Call of Duty, there wasn’t an ‘it’ game for me this year in terms of online multiplayer. So is it safe to call this the year of Catan? I don’t know if this was a nationwide phenomenon or not, but it just so happens that several of my friends (including Spencer) independently bought and subsequently became addicted to the old-fashioned board game version of Settlers of Catan. This year I spent more than a handful of long nights trading sheep for bricks to build roads to nowhere and cursing drunkenly at someone else’s placement of the bandit. If you’ve played it, you know the maddening anger of exactly this situation, as well as the joy of strategic building and resource management. If you haven’t, you’re missing out on one hell of a tabletop classic.

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READING

Best Contemporary Book I Read This Year

It wouldn’t be fair of me to pretend that just because Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom was one of the most-hyped pieces of fiction of the preceding decade, that it wasn’t still the best book I read this year. We discussed it at length on a recent podcast, so I’ll only reiterate my praise in brief. Franzen is a master of prose, who writes with a love for language that makes him a joy to read. He crafts a family of imperfect characters with very human insecurities that make them tragic, relatable, and ripe for redemption. Then he pays off a lifetime of these characters’ mistakes and regrets with a satisfying and well-earned conclusion. It’s a moving and skillful modern classic that’s fully worth the fountains of admiration it’s received.

Best Nonfiction Book I Read This Year

Certain writers drive me insane, no matter how much I love reading them, because they make it look so god-damned easy. And even though he makes the case in this very book that it’s not easy — that re-writing is central to the craft, and that choosing every word with agonizing precision leads to greatness — George Saunders’ The Braindead Megaphone still seems effortless. The originality in the way he comes at a topic, and the approachable intelligence of his style… well, it’s as enjoyably edifying as it is envy-inducing.

If you’re looking for a gripping, slightly fictionalized history lesson instead, check out Devil in the White City. A true-crime serial killer story set against the architectural wonder of the Chicago World’s Fair. Surprisingly riveting and chock full of Windy City trivia.

Best Classic Book I Read This Year

This is probably nerd treason, so please don’t break my glasses and melt my action figures when I admit I’d never got around to Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles until this year. Man, was I not expecting how fascinating it would be. I assumed I was in for a meticulously detailed otherworldly epic in the vein of other sci-fi classics like Dune. Instead I plowed through what’s essentially a short story collection full of almost Twilight Zone-esque premises, examining what happens when American values are transported to an alien landscape. Some of them were chilling, some of them were touching, and there were almost no spaceships or little green (or any other colored) martians. It’s a shame it took me so long to pick this up.

Best Book Of The Year That I Haven’t Read Yet

Oh my god the number of books I wish I’d got around to this year could fill another multi-page blog post. Someday I’ll make room for Karl Marlantes’ Matterhorn, the Vietnam epic which Spencer’s recommended pretty highly already. I was a huge fan of Cloud Atlas and Then We Came to the End, so I really wish I’d been able to squeeze in David Mitchell’s Japanese historical fiction, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, or Joshua Ferris’s surreal family drama The Unnamed. I’ve heard some great things about Skippy Dies by Paul Murray too, and since stories of weird kids coming of age are always close to my heart, I’m sure that’ll be a pleasure once I find the chance to pick it up.

Best Comic/Graphic Novel I’ve Read This Year

Brian: Okay, I was sort of remiss this year in terms of picking up new titles. Most of the comics I read were just further volumes in series I’ve been picking my way through like Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, or Daredevil. Not really groundbreaking recommendations. So I’ll play it super-safe and continue the trend of my Whedon-filled year. If you’re into the X-Men at all and have never read any of his run writing The Astonishing X-men, you’re missing out. Unsurprisingly, he turns the fantastical world of super-mutants into a platform for tense interpersonal conflicts between the well-known cast of heroes, and gives them dialogue that does so much more than get in the way of the action sequences. The series is so strong, it almost gives me hope for that upcoming Avengers movie he’s working on. Almost.

Best Paperback Page-Turner for an Airplane

I’m a bit sad to report I didn’t read any mystery thriller type books this year, but as far as gripping genre stuff goes, I’ll lean on the well-regarded Song of Ice and Fire series. I thought I’d put my days of swords-and-castles fantasy behind me, but this one was well worth digging into for its interpersonal drama and scheming power plays. It reads more like medieval Sopranos than Tolkien worship, which is probably why they’re turning it into an HBO series this year. Here’s hoping George R.R. Martin gets his act together and writes the concluding volumes before he drowns in his voluminous beard while sleeping.

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LISTENING

Best Album That Didn’t Make It On Many Other Best Of Lists

I seem to have a weakness for wordy songwriters with strange (or as some might say, annoying) voices. Among my favorites are The Mountain Goats, The Decemberists, The Thermals, and everyone’s classic “It’s not grating, you just don’t GET IT, man” pick, Neutral Milk Hotel. This year, that role was filled with the somewhat overlooked Tallest Man on Earth album, The Wild Hunt. Maybe not overlooked in that no one heard it — it did get Best New Music on Pitchfork — but in that no one I know seems to have picked up on it. Possibly because its first impression is a Dylan-esque high-pitched wail that could easily drive off the casual listener.

Get past noticing only the shriller moments though, and there are a great collection of songs here. Singer Kristian Matsson, a Swede disguised as a folky country star, plays stripped-down Americana loaded with yearning and heartbreak. The simple arrangements are entirely guitar picking and strumming, no percussion, placing the focus squarely where it belongs: on his soaring voice, belting out soulful pleas for a love never quite fulfilled. Because of its straightforward sound, the album radiates raw emotion. After a few listens, that distinctive voice isn’t a barrier, it’s the hook that gets in you and keeps pulling you back to listen again and again.

Favorite Album That IS on a Lot of Other Best Of Lists

When it comes down to it, the top of my music pyramid is passion. Passion sells a record for me. Passion energizes me as a listener and gives music its purpose as a mood changer, body mover, or mind opener. This year, it was the Titus Andronicus album, The Monitor, that just dripped with dirty, sweaty emotion. Whether in the quiet moments of regret, loneliness, and doubt, or the loud blasts of anger, frustration, and release, this band wants you to feel something with them — a fact that’s even more apparent once you’ve seen them perform the songs live.

If a band has passion, they don’t have to play perfectly. Which is good because this band doesn’t, though The Monitor does have some of my favorite guitar riffs and screaming solos of the last several years. If they’re pouring their hearts out, they don’t have to have flawless voices either. Which, again, is not something singer/guitarist Patrick Stickles will be accused of, but goddamn if his raspy yelling doesn’t demand attention all the same. Passion may even trump the lyrics themselves. Though The Monitor is reportedly a concept album about the Civil War, you’d never get that from a single listen. What you would get is a rollicking good time with some mournful interludes during which to catch your breath.

If passion didn’t have the power to outweigh things like musical prowess, vocal perfection, or lyrical profundity, I’d be giving the top prize to my runner up, The New Pornographers‘ Together. An album of pure skill at every level. Amazing harmonies, use of language, arrangement — it’s everything you’d want out of such a talented group of people. And in its more impassioned moments (eg: Neko Case songs) it’s incredibly moving and beautiful. But overall there’s almost a coldness to their mastery. Though it’s a joy to listen to, live or on record, I almost get the sense that at this point they’re collectively so good at making songs, it doesn’t take anything out of them to write or perform them. Meanwhile, Titus Andronicus leave it all on the stage. For that, they get the edge. But hell, it’s a good year when you’re choosing between passion and perfection.

Most Overrated Album

If I were to make a list of bands I respect and enjoy, this band would definitely be on it, which is why it kinda hurts to say my Undie for overrated album goes to LCD Soundsystem. Though admitting it publicly will surely get my hipster card revoked, I just didn’t have the patience to make it through This Is Happening more than once or twice. James Murphy knows what he’s doing, no doubt; the production is flawless and a few transcendent moments crop up, particularly when “Dance Yrself Clean” starts to hit its climax. Still, none of the individual songs popped the way their best work of the past has, and though it’s not a terrible album, I shouldn’t have to talk myself into “enjoying” what other people are calling one of the year’s best.

Best Random Single Track I Listened to Repeatedly

I like giving this award to a track off an album that might not even make my top 10, but which manages all on its own to jam itself into my brain for weeks. For 2010 that distinction goes to the pure exuberance of Yeasayer’s “O.N.E.” I won’t pretend that the hints of Erasure don’t contribute to the pleasure, or that the crazy-ass future disco party music video isn’t a great mental image to play out every time I hear the song. All I know is that I spent a solid month humming the chorus to this every night in my kitchen, or playing it at inappropriate levels driving around town — and you better damn well believe it’ll be on the set list at my wedding. It’s time to dance, motherfucker! See you in the laser cage.

Best Live Show (Concert or Otherwise)

Though my concert attendance has dipped in 2010, let that not diminish what would be the clear winner even if I’d gone to one every week this year: a fucking Pavement reunion show. Who would have thought that after ten years they’d come back for a victory lap? Thank Christ they did though, because it truly was victorious. Malkmus and crew whip out a brand of sloppy but striking guitar rock that demands to be heard live, and I could have stood there letting that distorted 90’s goodness wash over me for hours. Listening to the albums since have not done the live experience justice, so I couldn’t be happier that I shelled out to see them — twice, even — while I had the chance. If they make a habit out of this touring thing again, you can count me in every time.

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ETCETERA

Favorite Blog or Podcast I Discovered This Year

Has The Awl caught on in a big way yet? If not, allow me to help it along. A friend introduced it to me this year and it’s gone on to be one of my most must-read sites. Like the less cynical antidote to the Gawker network, they tackle any and every topic in popular culture with commentary that ranges from incredibly short to surprisingly in-depth, the common factor being intelligence. Some of it’s silly, but that works as a palette cleanser for the bulk of the content which is whip-smart and well-written. As far as broadly-ranging blogs go, it’s among the best, and one of the few sites that could get me to read a dozen paragraphs on why football is socialism, the precise reasons women are powerless before Twilight, or why being a hipster is actually great.

Also on the topic of lengthy and in-depth works, my absolute favorite new thing of the year is the emergence of Longreads. It’s a communal effort, both in website form and as a hashtag on Twitter, to highlight the best long-form pieces of writing from an internet cluttered with short bursts of inanity. Though The Awl are among the supporters and frequent contributors to this cache of deeper, more thought-out essays, Longreads also highlights other greats like Wired, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, feature pieces from The New York Times, and on and on. If you’re a Kindle owner like myself and route these babies through Instapaper, it’s a true joy to rediscover the thorough reporting, considered arguments, and detailed stories in current nonfiction that’d be easy to miss in a mile-a-minute internet culture. It’s a refreshing way to look at the web, what writing in this medium can still be, and a workable model of how to bring periodicals into this century. Long live #longreads, say I!

Most Eagerly Anticipated Things Coming in Early 2010

[note: this was originally written in January, so is somewhat outdated. But I'm pleased to report all three things available now turned out to be pretty great!]

Well, as I mentioned in the games portion, there wasn’t a lot of originality in this year’s big games, so I can’t wait for LA Noire and Portal 2. Patton Oswalt’s first book Zombie Spaceship Wasteland is probably out as we’re finishing writing this, and the early reviews indicate it won’t disappoint. The new Decemberists‘ album The King Is Dead is out this month too. TV, I wish I could say there were things I’m looking forward to other than shows I love coming back; maybe Bob’s Burgers will be good with Eugene Mirman, Kristen Schaal and Jon Benjamin in the cast, but I can see that show getting Lone Star-ed even if it is really funny. Movies, I honestly don’t have a lot of hope. Fucking Thor? How about we just bash my head in with a hammer instead. At least in Your Highness we can look forward to a Natalie Portman bathing scene and Danny McBride swearing a lot.

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**If you made it this far, thanks for reading! Let us know anything amazing we missed down below!

First, in regard to the embarrassment of riches: so many compelling, well-written shows aired in that time frame, it’s commonly agreed that we’re living in a Golden Age of TV. Since HBO’s 1999 launch of The Sopranos, a raft of other outlets — FX, AMC, Syfy (ugh), even the major broadcast networks — have followed their lead in stepping up production and storytelling quality. Even accounting for the reality TV counter-trend, and the weekly deluge of pseudo-celebrity dreck that produces, a fan of scripted drama or comedy should never find themselves lacking for something to enjoy.

Second, though, is the almost embarrassing amount of time even viewers of good taste are now socially permitted and/or expected to spend watching it all. A common refrain of the 90’s was that, “Oh, I don’t watch TV, only movies,” because the majority of shows were seen as fluff. Now the pendulum has swung to the opposing extreme, where it’s paramount that you’re caught up on Mad Men, Lost, Dexter, and a dozen other landmark series just to qualify as “with it”. We’ve reached the point where not having seen the full run of The Wire is akin to never having read Shakespeare; one can’t possibly claim to be cultured otherwise. (And one certainly wouldn’t.)

Of course, to keep up with this flood of must-see TV, we require better tools, and I for one have been a willing consumer. Since escaping home and high school and setting up my own media kingdom, I’ve adopted Netflix, TiVo, video on demand, even a little BitTorrent. I’ve bought or rented box sets of entire series, and more recently streamed full seasons thanks to Hulu, or Netflix’s Watch Instantly feature on my game console. With this plethora of entertainment technology, it takes near-constant vigilance to stay current. A few days away on a business trip, and I return to hours of pop-culture homework filling the DVR menu. It’s a silly thing to complain about, and I’m not so crass as to call it a problem exactly. But it is a peculiarly 21st-century predicament. There are so many great things to watch, it’s getting hard to keep up.

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The tension brings to mind a passage from a spectacular (and prescient) essay by David Foster Wallace titled, “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction”:

Since television must seek to compel attention by offering a dreamy promise of escape from daily life, and since stats confirm that so grossly much of ordinary U.S. life is watching TV, TV’s whispered promises must somehow undercut television-watching in theory (”Joe, Joe, there’s a world where life is lively, where nobody spends six hours a day unwinding before a piece of furniture”) while reinforcing television-watching in practice (”Joe, Joe, your best and only access to this world is TV”).

And this was written before any of these advances in TV-watching technology made their way into our homes, allowing for a whole new level of dedication to this glowing “piece of furniture”. More importantly, the swing of the social-acceptability pendulum undercuts even further the notion that there are better ways to be spending so much time. Not only is the quality of these shows making us feel better about riding the couch for hours at a time; our water-cooler (or Facebook) conversations very nearly demand it.

Extrapolating out from there a bit, psychological studies and trend-watching types have said that real happiness comes from a variety of experiences over an abundance of possessions. But in a down economy where both possessions and experiences are harder to sample widely, an easy solution is a nice big TV with a cable and internet subscription. Lacking the resources to travel, eat out, mingle in bars, or quit one job and try our hand at another, our easiest access to the varied experiences that might make us more interesting human beings ends up being a wide selection of mental journeys, i.e. TV shows. If you are what you watch, and there is currently a near-infinite selection of things to choose from, the pressure is to ‘travel’ as widely as possible.

Plus, all of this only addresses the issue of staying current. We’re talking about a decade or more of good TV, some of which surely happened during a busy semester at school where there was no time for TV (leading to a 2005 multi-season Sopranos binge, let’s say), between apartments while the cable was disconnected (but I made it up to you, Deadwood!), on channels we don’t subscribe to (whose idea was it to put Party Down on Starz anyway?), or just slipped through the cracks somehow (how in the wide world of sports did I miss Freaks and Geeks when it originally aired!?).

In short, not only is there a constant stream of TV of now to be watching. With media entities shaking the content tree for every dollar they can, all of the TV of then is available too. For the obsessive pop-culture junkie, being well-versed could amount to a full-time job. On top of everything airing on TV in the last year, I’ve watched all of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I’ve worked through almost the entire run of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with my girlfriend. And I spent a few weeks on the first season of 24. The problem is, they were all great.

Now I have a taste for a new anime series. I might transition into Angel soon, and can’t help but wonder what Jack Bauer’s next adventure is. Plus The Larry Sanders Show is out on DVD now; I’ve heard that’s pretty influential and should probably check that out. Several people have told me it’s high time I get into Sons of Anarchy. I’ve love Aaron Sorkin but have never seen Sports Night. I’ve always wondered how The X-Files wrapped up, and I’ve literally never watched Star Trek or Dr. Who, which almost seems like a crime.  Isn’t it easy to see how quickly this can spiral out of control?

Then project this forward ten or twenty years. What will it be like for the next generation of TV fans hoping to catch up on all the great stuff that was before their time? I’m not sitting here wishing I’d seen the full run of The A-Team — though I could if I wanted to. But if my nieces and nephews never get to experience Friday Night Lights, they will have really missed out on something special. It’ll be fascinating to see how the rebooted Battlestar Galactica holds up in a time less overshadowed by 9/11. And just those two would require hundreds of hours of TV time to get through. The nerds of 2021 don’t stand a chance.

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This particular conundrum was addressed in a way by Patton Oswalt’s recent essay in Wired, which raised a bit of a stir in the nerd community for accusing today’s nerds of being ‘weak otaku’ — nerds who didn’t have to earn their stripes in a world where they have instant access to everything:

Waiting for the next issue, movie, or album gave you time to reread, rewatch, reabsorb whatever you loved, so you brought your own idiosyncratic love of that thing to your thought-palace. People who were obsessed with Star Trek or the Ender’s Game books were all obsessed with the same object, but its light shone differently on each person. Everyone had to create in their mind unanswered questions or what-ifs. What if Leia, not Luke, had become a Jedi? What happens after Rorschach’s journal is found at the end of Watchmen? What the hell was The Prisoner about?

None of that’s necessary anymore. When everyone has easy access to their favorite diversions and every diversion comes with a rabbit hole’s worth of extra features and deleted scenes and hidden hacks to tumble down and never emerge from, then we’re all just adding to an ever-swelling, soon-to-erupt volcano of trivia, re-contextualized and forever rebooted. We’re on the brink of Etewaf: Everything That Ever Was—Available Forever.

The result he projects outward from this point is one possibility. ‘Etewaf’ may in fact cause everyone to be instant experts at everything, therefore making us all less interesting in our sameness. But the real result might be the opposite. The sheer volume of great stuff — far too much for even the most devoted to properly consume and internalize — might force us all to re-evaluate our priorities. Is it more valuable to have seen everything our chums are saying is so great, and spend night after night trying to absorb it all? Or will we learn to step back from the heaping entertainment buffet and start really choosing again? With limitless options but limited capacity, we may have to adjust our appetites.

I could watch another 100 episodes of real-time counter-terrorism action, probably enjoy it, and say I’ve ‘finished’ 24, adding another notch to my entertainment belt. But maybe I don’t have to see everything that’s ‘good’. Maybe it’s better that I don’t try to keep up, but cultivate sharper tastes instead of broader ones. Instead of plunging back into Jack Bauer’s world, I could crack open that complete Deadwood box set and revisit one of the best things I’ve ever seen. Really get to know it, get inside it, pick it apart and chew on every morsel of Swearingen-ian monologue (delivered Hamlet-like to the boxed head of an Indian chief; how great is that!?). Love a few things as opposed to liking everything.

At the outset of this shift, the only criteria we had for worthwhile television was if it was good or not. We craved goodness from this serialized medium, and goodness came, and we just kept lapping it up. Once there’s plenty of goodness to go around though, the answer may be to shift our criteria. Not trying to see everything that’s good, but really seeking out what speaks to us as individuals. And then instead of every conversation being about, “Have you seen this? Are you caught up on that? You really ought to watch those!”, the conversation can get back to what we have seen, why we like it, and how it speaks to us as people beyond the couch. We can spend less time comparing inventories, an more discussing out ideas, emotions, and reactions to whatever we as individuals find stimulating. The pressure won’t be to keep up, but to explore and engage. And at the very least, it’ll make for a much more interesting dialogue.

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Image from flickr user gnackgnackgnack

So many questions accompany this choice, it’s not an easy one to make. Is the transition inevitable, or should I fight the trend? Will it hurt or help the authors I want to support? Will I enjoy reading as much with this gadget as I do with printed pages? The doubt and uncertainty can be paralyzing.

But for my part, lacking the apartment space for more bookshelves, and with the current ones filled to bursting, it seemed like time to make the leap. So a few months ago, I gave in. I bought a Kindle.

Not that months of waffling, wondering, and even a bit of soul-searching didn’t precede my decision. I’ve loved books my whole life, and I’ve only ever read them one way: by turning pages. How strange that one day I’d switch to a form factor totally unlike my prior 25 years of reading experience — not to mention the thousands of years of readers before me. A paradigm shift like this certainly wasn’t to be taken lightly. After all, once I’d paid money for this thing, it would become my primary reading method. So this purchase felt like a point of no return. A potentially life-changing moment.

But you know what? My Kindle is wonderful. It’s an unexpected joy to read. It’s much easier on the eyes than reading computer screens, and my current crush on this beautiful new thing is making me read more. Its quick button-press page turning even lets me read faster once I get in the groove. Or maybe it just feels that way. Maybe it’s the reading more that helps me finish books sooner. The point is, I’m a fan.

However, despite my infatuation — I might even call it full-fledged love at this point — there are elements of physical books I already miss, some of which I never would have anticipated. So as I move forward into an e-book future, here are five short love-notes to my bound-paper friends.

But since I have no regrets, only fond memories, I’ve paired each with things the Kindle does well in its own right, to be fair. Some bright points to ease the fearful transition.

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1. Covers
Book covers can be beautiful. Evocative. Perplexing. They’re an art form. On Kindle? Not so much. Either a hazy black-and-white photocopy of the real cover, or a plain text title page. Not something you stare at, puzzle over, daydream about. No wonder the default starting point for a Kindle book is page 1 instead of the cover image. Their method is to get you straight into reading, and think of books as texts, not objects. (I’m sure Amazon would prefer if only the Kindle is treasured as such).

Plus, covers let people see what you’re reading and ask questions. Covers start conversations, whether lying on the coffee table, or in your hands at the airport. With Kindle, the only question you’ll get is, “How do you like your Kindle?” — a question which won’t be fun to answer forever. Covers make books fun to carry around as a badge, even when you’re not engaged with them. So why can’t the Kindle screen at least show the cover of the book I’m reading when I’m not reading it? What’s with these weird old public-domain screen savers?

However…
Okay, so the screen savers kind of grew on me. Though less artsy than designed covers, the mix of old author portraits and classical artworks does make them worth staring at now and then, and the fact that they rotate randomly adds an element of surprise. In fact, it’d be nice if they built in more, or updated with new ones every month or two. After a few weeks of flipping it on and off, I’d cycled through them pretty quickly and the sense of wonder started to fade. Would it be so hard to design Kindle edition covers and display my current selection, or even a random pick from my stored books?

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2. Back Covers
Surprising, I know, but I never realized I had a certain fondness for blurbs and quotes. After reading a while, I would occasionally flip over to the back cover and compare my experience of the book to its description. I’d measure if I was far enough in to form a picture that matched that alluring paragraph. Or wonder if I’d ‘caught up’ to the broader themes described there. Had I even met all the characters, been to all the places hinted at in those lines?

And let’s not leave out the superlatives used to describe the book. Weighing my own thoughts, they may seem well-earned or merely generous. Spot-on, or over-blown. (This also applies to the first few pages of praise that come in most paperbacks.) In a way, it was like having a conversation in my head with the critics or authors quoted there. In a healthy, non-lunatic way, of course.

However…
I am fully aware that those blurbs are mostly intended as a weak form of marketing, geared toward the bookstore browser. But, as a person who keeps an ever-growing list of books he’d like to read in the future, my browsing days are long past. With the Kindle, I can focus on that list and happily buy away, since prices are low and delivery is instantaneous. Perhaps best of all, new releases still in hard cover are practically half what they are in stores. Now I can read a book for a reasonable price while it’s still being discussed in lit blogs, news outlets, and social circles, instead of comparing my thoughts to a sampling of edited compliments. So far I’ve found this newer, non-mental conversation to be much livelier, and do not miss the obfuscation of ellipses.

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3. Bookstores
Despite not being much of a browser, there was something special about the feeling of wandering the stacks, which I genuinely miss. Being surrounded by hundreds and thousands of books that I might someday pick up and read gave such a feeling of potential. In my single days, the thought of meeting someone in the fiction aisle was a favorite fantasy too, especially since a giant Barnes and Nobles is within walking distance from my apartment. But even now, the satisfaction of strolling over, picking up a few paperbacks, and walking home with a bag full of future reading pleasures allows for an anticipation that a few clicks on a Kindle menu doesn’t quite match. And of course, the chance of a cashier striking up a conversation about your selections moves to zero in a one-click-purchase scenario.

However…
There is something to be said about immediate gratification. With a Kindle, as soon as I start nearing the end of a book, I start pondering what I might read next; and since issues of travel time or available inventory are eliminated, the possibilities are endless. The question is no longer, “What does this store have on hand?” or “Am I willing to wait for shipping time?” Whatever mood strikes, I choose another from my list and dive in, usually the same day. In an e-book world, it’s much easier to never not be reading something.

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4. Bookmarks
Since high school, a succession of very personal, dependable bookmarks have traveled with me through everything I read. Before graduating, my favorite teacher gave us all a beautiful laminated strip with colorful Renaissance astronomy charts, just like we’d learned about in his history class that semester. It lasted me years until I left it in a copy of Madame Bovary tucked in an airplane seat pocket. Distraught, I scrawled ‘Bookmark’ in big graffiti letters on an index card, and used that for the next several years until it literally fell apart. Since then, I’ve used a sticker with a Robot fish that one of my college housemates found and bought for all the rest of us (inside joke). Now, I may never use a bookmark again. That’s got to be worth mourning for at least a moment.

However…
Something about the lack of physical pages — which, yes, renders bookmarks quaint — also leads to an easy drop-in, drop-out quality with books on a Kindle. When you see the entirety of a book at once, picking it up to start reading feels like a commitment. I was always one to flip ahead to see how long I had until the next chapter break, just to know where I stood in relation to the book and the next potential stopping point. In fact, in the beginning that was another thing I missed about books.

But as I’ve spent time with e-books, there’s a distinctly different sense that it’s okay to just read a few screens worth and put it back down. Then, when I return, I’m back into the flow of the book more quickly. This is probably the hardest contrast to explain or elaborate on. It could be due to the abstraction of the text, and pages not needing to be physically flipped, just quickly advanced by button. It could be the difference between page numbers and physical size of a book versus the always-on percentage meter across the bottom of the screen. All I know for sure is that this light, attractive piece of electronics just begs to be picked up often, even if just for a few minutes here and there. And for some reason, the transition from not reading to reading has become more fluid, and going from reading a little to reading a lot happens more easily.

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5. Bookshelves
For my whole book-loving life, I’ve dreamed of having a library. Wall-to-wall shelves, my whole reading life on display, and a big comfy chair. A place where I could hide out with a great novel, but also show off my literary love to friends and family, loan out favorites, or reference passages of particular interest. My small apartment bedroom got halfway there, but with no more space for shelving, the dream was put on electronic hold. And though I love the idea of displaying my library and lending books to friends, that’s never really happened. People don’t visit that often, and even fewer of those are looking for something to borrow. Maybe the fantasy was never meant to be. Maybe it’s an old-media dream in a new-media world (I also still have shelves full of CDs and DVDs cluttering my living room). Or maybe I need nerdier friends.

However…
There is enormous potential in the connected book. Being able to highlight, comment on, and share passages in places like Twitter or Facebook can generate so much more discussion than notes in a margin. Even if the functionality is limited at this point, a system through which you can leave thoughts attached to a page, or see what others have left before you, could add so much value. By eliminating the perennial book-club problem of reading the book on a set time line, you can have an asynchronous discussion with anyone else who’s read the book before you. I imagine the 4th or 5th generation Kindles being extremely capable of creating a sort of ongoing social annotation, and I can’t wait to read books that way.

Plus, there’s the ability that comes with any digital media to share the books themselves with less effort, damage, or responsibility for timely returns, which only encourages more book-club-like behavior, and which I fully support. The more books become a part of our social lives, the more we’re encouraged to keep reading, and reading more, and buying new books to keep new writers writing.

The future of books may lack some of the romance of our bound paper past, but it’s an exciting time to be a reader nonetheless.

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A few notes:

Another Kindle feature I adore is its compatibility with Instapaper. In fact, that may be my favorite use for the e-reader. However, as that love note could go on for pages, we’ll save that for another post.

Also: Check out a similarly themed post that came over the wire between revisions of this article, “I, Reader” by Alexander Chee on The Morning News.

As usual, join in the discussion with comments or questions, or anything you’d want to hear us to discuss next time, and we’ll respond on the next episode. Either in the comments section below or via email, we love getting feedback. If you like listening (or even if you don’t), don’t be afraid to leave a review in the iTunes store either.

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(Show notes below…)

Oh, wikis. Here is the article in question for that wonderful movie, She’s Out of My League.

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Albums discussed:

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Girl Talk - All Day

No Age - Everything In Between

Superchunk - Majesty Shredding

Music breaks:
1. No Age - Fever Dreaming
2. Kanye West - All of the Lights
3. Girl Talk - Get It Get It
4. Superchunk - My Gap Feels Weird

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TV Shows discussed:

Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men on AMC

And if you’ve never read Revolutionary Road, you really should. It’s fantastic. The movie? Probably skippable.

Also, a moment of silence please for the wonderful one-season gem that was Terriers. We got the news the day after recording, and it’s truly a shame that show couldn’t find a bigger audience.

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Books discussed:

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Kapitoil by Teddy Wayne

Also briefly mentioned:

Serious Men by Manu Joseph

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson