2004 -- Dec Nov Oct Sep Aug Jul Jun May Apr Mar Feb Jan
Amulet of Samarkand
Posted by James on December 26, 2004I added an entry to BiblioTravel: Amulet of Samarkand
My Thoughts on 2004 (long)
Posted by James on December 24, 2004Tis the time of year for crappy music on the radio, rampant/crass consumerism, and an endless supply of year-end lists. In the spirit of surfeit, here are my thoughts on 2004.
Most Disappointing Book
This would have to be Brilliance of the Moon by Lian Hearn. It's the final book of a trilogy that was ripping along in the first two books, kind of a combination of Kurosawa's best and a really well-written young adult novel. Neat cultural insights, fast-paced plot, some (admittedly revisionist) equality between the male and female protagonists... I was already planning on buying the trilogy for friends. Until I read the third book. It's fine for most of the way too, except that it has a stinker of an ending. A real beauty of a bald-faced deux ex machina. I could hardly believe that a writer so aware of story (up to that point) could have such a lapse of judgment.
Book: With Least Reaction for Me/Most Reaction for Others
Stephen King finished his Dark Tower series this year. The eponymously titled book had an ending that outraged a multitude of fans. I thought it was... decent at best, but not worth complaining about. More on this on my Cultural Gutter article next week.
Favourite Book(s)
This year I liked: Perdido Street Station by China Mieville, Tomorrow Now by Bruce Sterling, Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross (which I read in an omnibus... both are short).
Most Disappointing Movie
I would have to nominate all of the science fiction movies of 2004. Not a standout in the bunch.
Best Movie
This year I liked: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Super Size Me, The Incredibles, and Show Me Love.
I have some thoughts on music for the year and a few other things, but I'll have to continue this post later.
A Starter Guide to the World's Biggest Movie Indus
Posted by James on December 24, 2004Not a completely authoritative guide, or thorough, but it's got some song recommendations and a few explanations about basic Bollywood facts.
Slate's Military Reporter on the Year's Best Jazz
Posted by James on December 24, 2004All That Jazz - the year's best records
I liked Fred Kaplan's writing, especially in his War Stories column on Slate. And this is a decent article recommending some jazz records for the year. And I should be able to get my head around the fact that he does two things... still seems strange though.
Cleaning Out Old Links, Continued
Posted by James on December 19, 2004Sci-Fi Lists - Top 100 Sci-Fi Films
Old links indeed. Actually it's kind of scary how many of these films I've already seen. There's nothing for me to do now but wait for new SF movies to come out and that's been a chancy business at best lately.
Citizen Kane is Not First? Thank Goodness
Posted by James on December 19, 2004I've got nothing against Citizen Kane... it's a great movie. But this list shakes it up a bit, and it's a welcome change. Although I have to severely disagree with Berardinelli about Decalogue.
Jeff VanderMeer's Music 2004
Posted by James on December 19, 2004Some interesting picks. He tends to lean towards what could be called post-punk (if you're into categorizing music).
Music Store Picks 2004 Best
Posted by James on December 18, 2004This kind of reminds me of a store in Ottawa that Fiona and I went in last weekend. We got laughed at for taking a look at the latest Le Tigre on vinyl... and that was one of the 3 items in the whole store that I recognized! Anyways, I went through this list and downloaded some stuff from Emusic. Sometimes it is indeed good to branch out.
Erikson
Posted by James on December 17, 2004I've just finished reading Memories of Ice, the third book in Steve Erikson's appallingly titled Tales of Malazan Book of the Fallen. I find that I get hooked while I'm reading each one... tons of action, magic out the wazoo, gender and racial equality, and a real sense of the complexity of history.
But I also find that I need a big break in between volumes. The action is sometimes too sketchy, and there are too many last minute twists; not quite deus ex machina, but not quite organically grown from what's come before. The writing is good enough that I'll keep up with the series, but with reservations.
Suzanne Vega: 99.9 F
Posted by James on December 17, 2004This one goes back even further than Le Tigre. If Le Tigre represents grad school, than Suzanne Vega is undergrad. I think I even had this album on tape, which sounds more and more shocking as the years progress. I bought the CD a couple of years ago, just for nostalgic reasons, and I discovered that I still liked it as much as ever.
Suzanne Vega started off as a folk singer, but her albums have always been distinctly their own entities. I don't even know how to describe 99.9 F... it's not folk, it's not really interested in the 'alternative' thing. A singer-songwriter? That sounds off too. The lyrics are smart, the sound is intriguing, and that's probably enough for me.
Grass Vs. Snow
Posted by James on December 17, 2004My attempt at an artsy picture: Grass Vs. Snow
Le Guin's Side of the Story
Posted by James on December 16, 2004Earthsea in Clorox by Ursula K. Le Guin
I haven't had a chance to watch the Earthsea miniseries yet, but this is a fairly complete version of Le Guin's side of what happened with the adaptation. An old story, has happened many times before, hurts just as much every time.
Word of Caution
Posted by James on December 14, 2004What the Bleep Do We Know is one of the worst movies ever made.
Capable of saying "Most of what humans have known at any point in history was wrong" and following it by making a lot of certainty-filled statements. Science writing takes a great deal of finesse; this movie had none.
Blew a lot of graphics on a truly bizarre middle section that had nothing to do with quantum physics and everything to do with dancing lust molecules at a wedding reception. And most of the points here actually were in the mechanistic-biology camp, rather than the my-thoughts-can-uplift-my-life style of patter.
My friends didn't actually get any new information out of it.
Everyone who was in the movie came out smelling bad. By association, or by the things coming out of their mouths.
Gilberto Gil
Posted by James on December 08, 2004We Pledge Allegiance to the Penguin
In some ways this is a typical Wired article, but I enjoyed the parts about music.
Two New Items
Posted by James on December 06, 2004I've been getting a little more ambitious for Uberblog lately, and I just added two things to the blog. The category on the left formerly known as Pictures is now Pictures - By Event, and the links still lead to my separate photo database. I've added a category called Pictures - Artsy, which is meant to liven up this blog a bit, and give me the chance to post pictures that aren't necessarily part of any group or series. Also, maybe, possibly, sharpen my photography skills. And since I'm a code masochist, I've coded it myself rather than use something like Flickr (I mean, why pay when I already have my own server?).
The other item is my Music category. After a couple of years of not much new music, I've plunged back in with a vengeance, and I'm planning to blog a few of the sounds that have gotten my attention. The Le Tigre post below was for purposes of working out some of the kinks in the system, and also because the band has been such a part of my soundscape.
Le Tigre: Le Tigre
Posted by James on December 06, 2004I was listening to Brave New Waves on CBC late one night... this must have been fall of 1999 or spring of 2000. I heard an awesome song, it had a great catchy sound and lyrics that were smarter than expected (rather than dumber... see: most pop songs). But I didn't really catch what it was called, and I had even less of a sense of what the band might be called. Maybe I knew that the singer's first name was Kathleen.
The tale of how I found out that Kathleen Hanna was the lead singer of a band named Le Tigre (great band name, horrible for searching based on partial pronunciations) is one more suited for obsessive-compulsive googlers... and I was in library school after all.
In any case, it's hard for me now to describe how much this CD has become part of my life. There must have been a Le Tigre-sized hole in my listening habits beforehand, because the band and the sound and the lyrics and everything fit right in.
Deceptacon, the track I heard on the radio, is probably one of the better songs on the album, but my other favourites are Hot Topic, What's Yr Take on Cassavetes (a song I used for part of a project in a pop culture class that year), Eau D'Bedroom Dancing, Friendship Station, and Les and Ray. Don't care that much for The Empty or Phanta.
Ironically, after the release of Le Tigre's latest album (more on that when I get around to it), they said (on their excellent website) that the sound of the first album was mainly due to their inexperience in the studio. That's part of what I liked about it!
Fahrenheit the First
Posted by James on December 04, 2004I wrote an article for The Cultural Gutter: Fahrenheit the First
