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This list is difficult for me, because eveything I watch, read and listen to is at least a couple of years old, but here are my humble offerings:

CDs
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Dresden Dolls - The Dresden Dolls (Made me, for the first time in my life, want to fuck a mime.)
Modest Mouse - Good News for People Who Love Bad News The 11 year-old in my life (now 12) made me keep this on repeat whenever he was in the car.)

Books
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Romeo Dallaire - Shake Hands with the Devil : The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
Michael Lewis - Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

Movies
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I never make it out to the cinema, so I didn't see a lot that came out this year.
Hero was good.
Napoleon Dynamite was sweet.

I didn't buy any new records or see any movies, but my favorite book this year was Samaritan by the great Richard Price

I hear there's this obscure band from Montreal called Arcade Fire that's pretty good.

I ain't linkin' cause my ass lazy.

CDs: (and by this I mean albums I download from iTunes or stole from friends)
Willie Nelson: It Always Will Be
Garden State SoundtrackThe Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou SoundtrackWicked Soundtrack
All the Bob Dylan bootleg albums (Thanks Allofmp3.com!)

Movies:
The Life Aquatic
(Garden State...not so much, but it had its bright spots)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (this movie was about me and all of my relationships. Any similarities to YOUR relationships is merely coincidental)
I laughed my ass off at I *heart* Huckabees

TV:
Thanks to Tivo, I am now a HUGE fan of shows on BBCAmerica:
Peep Show, The Office, Trailer Park Boys
Also, if you're in a relationship and you've never seen Significant Others on Bravo, shame on you.

Books:
With a new baby in the house, this hasn't really been a good book reading year for me. I've bought TONS of books, I just haven't read any.

Magazines:
Short form reading is really my speed now. My favorite magazines this year are: Giant (fairly new pop culture mag...it shows promise), Vitals (like a GQ that shows its whorishness on its sleeve...got to like that), I'm optimistic about the return of The Oxford American, but looking at the last issue, I'm afraid my heart will be broken again. And call me a woman, but I eagerly anticipate RealSimple magazine each month. The New Yorker was a decent read this year (weaker fiction, but great articles). Oh, and Cook's Illustrated magazine is my newest favorite. No glossy photos, no hype, just sweet technical cooking know-how.

ColdChef, I use Cook's "The Best Recipe" all the time, and it is a fantastic resource.

OK, I've thought about this some more. Death From Above 1979 and Panthers both put out really good albums this year. Also, Hot Snakes. Dizzie Rascal too. And I think that's it for the albums I've purchased this year. THEY'RE ALL GOLD.

I haven't finished a single book this year. I've begun about 40. No, wait, I finished a galley copy of Harold Schecter's Savage Pastimes, which won't be out until next month. About the myth of modern media violence and its effect on the youth of today.

As for movies, I loved Sideways. Really loved it. I don't care that every critic loved it, except for AO Scott, I don't care that people think the director is classist. It's a damned good movie. And it's way better than the House of Flying Daggers, which should be called the House of Flying Suck.

I think the only book I read last year that actually came out in 2004 was 1968 - The Year the Rocked the World by Mark Kurlansky (who most people probably know for Salt - A World History. 1968 was excellent though. Kurlansky focused a lot more on international events than most USian 60's historians and you could tell he just *really* dug writing this book.

I saw 4 movies at the theater this year: The Cooler (pretty good, but nothing spectacular), Control Room (which I cannot recommend highly enough), F 9/11, and then, most recently, The Motorcycle Diaries which was excellent. Walter Salles continues to amaze me.

I did finally see Shawn of the Dead on Wednesday, which was feckin' hysterical.

Musicwise...hmm, I tend to buy most CD's used, so I usually have a lag. "The Earth is not a cold, dead place" by Explosions in the Sky is easily the album I listened to most this year, but I think it came out in late '03. Seems like I'd bought it before last Xmas. Sonic Youth's "Sonic Nurse" has some great, great stuff on it. I've recently been listening to some of Ratatat's stuff, which is simple but pretty fun to groove to, if you're in the mood.

I'll throw a mighty second to Dizzee. I haven't bought his album (either one of 'em, really) but I did LW a bunch of his stuff. He's probably the one man on the planet that bust out: "I'm a kick-arse/Killer MC force" without sounding like an idiot. Plus, if it came down to it, I bet he could totally beat the shit out of that tool from The Streets.

21 Grams was very well acted, but the editing didn't do it any favors. I think it would have been a better movie with a straight linear timeline, but it's still very good as is.

The Door in the Floor is very good, especially if you love John Irving or Jeff Bridges. Or both. John Irving books are not easy to make into movies, and they made a wise decision to use only the first section of "A Widow for One Year" in this.

I liked Eternal Sunshine a lot more than I thought I would. And for brainless entertainment, Bridget Jones 2 and I, Robot (only because I have a pretty huge crush on Will Smith).

"It Still Moves" by My Morning Jacket was my favorite album of 2004, and I think maybe notsnot's too. And it came in #7 in the Top 89 on my favorite radio station (Steve Earle was #1).

I wanna be in a swap group with Tizzie.

Um. Music? What is this thing you call "music?"

I'm stuck with the classics. I can't be bothered to read magazines that tell me about bands that are more interesting than, say, Marvin Gaye or Sly and the Family Stone--so my iTunes is pathetically old school. Eclectic, but OLD.

Books? I'm finishing a horrifying history of the 1918 influenza which killed 100 million people in a year in some of the most grisly fashions imaginable. So, that's been fun. If you like fearing virii, it's called The Great Influenza and despite some annoying stylistic tics, it's a pretty good read.

A must-read is by Jared Diamond called Guns, Germs and Steel, all about why this culture triumphed over that culture when it could have been the other way around. And it's not what you think! Crazy, important, amazing book.

Plus, I read The Elegant Universe otherwise known as "How to tie your mind up in string theory and live to tell about it." I don't understand everything, but I know that there are tiny multi-dimensional donuts living among us, and I guess that's enough.

Fiction: I read Eugenides Middlesex, an entertaining look at a hermaphrodite living in Detroit. What's not to like?

And a lot of Dr. Suess: "Sometimes I'm quite certain there's a jertain in the curtain." This particular line is like an ear-worm that's burrowed in deep. I can't eject it from my mind. Ever. Help me.

There were more books but my memory is conpletely shot. Not bad considering I learned how to grow a human from a small pink grub to a more or less vertical trouble-monkey.

Let's race babies.

And I wanna be in a swap group with coldchef! WooHOO!

chef: yer on. So do we start in Louisiana or Oregon?

Gimme a two month head start. That should be long enough for her to learn to crawl.

UNLESS SHE CONTINUES TO BE DADDY'S LAZY BABY!

Good stuff new to me in 2004:

Music:
Details, Frou Frou
Absolution, Muse
Twentysomething, Jamie Cullum

Books:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, by Robert B. Cialdini

Movies:
I second (third, fourth?) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

One of the best records I bought last year was this. Actually I think the age of the cratedigger compilation has arrived.

I've been trapped in the cellar all year... help!!!

oh crap, here they come again

readymade: The CSMonitor has a review of Diamond's new book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Sounds like an interesting book. You've now got me checking to see if I can get Guns, Germs, and Steel through inter-library loan.

Whee, I can post again.

I was gonna say, readymade and ufez, that there's also a great review in the New Yorker of the new Jared Diamond book. I can't wait to read it. I tried to weasel a promo copy out of a friend of mine who works for the firm who reps him: No dice. Apparently there's only one freakin' reviewer's copy in all of NYC. And it's probably soaked in drool at this point.

I hate to think why the promo copy is covered in drool--I mean, smart is sexy, but ewww.

Anyhoo, the new one looks hot hot hot. My husband just read Diamond's other one called The Third Chimpanzee and it's next on my list.

Plus, you know, CHIMPANZEE. I'm just sayin.'

Heh, I bet the Third Chimpanzee is covered in drool, too.

(I meant that the book seems to be universally fawned, ie drooled, over. But the metaphor in my mind didn't come out so good on the typey-typey-typey thing.)

OH! Another must read which is surprisingly complementary to Jared Diamond is Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire. A history of four different plants from the plant's-eye-view, and if that sounds outrageously dull, it was one of the most gripping and entertaining reads I've had in years.

We've had a weird run in this house where all the books seemed to be a part of some ethno-anthro-botanical-disease exploration, completely by accident. First was Guns, Germs and Steel and The Botany of Desire, then he read about Magellan (Edge of the World) and I read about the 1918 Flu. I don't know what this says about us, but it was an amazing bit of synchronicity which made each book more delightful than the last and seemed to build on this crazy theme. It was a good batch.

And then I read about a hermaphrodite. Way to ruin a streak!

Actually, tizz, that was already one of my "best f 2003"s. the most listened to albums, this year, are No River City's onely full-length, whose name escapes me, Allison Moorer's "The Duel", Tift Merritt's "Tambourine", and althouh a very recent purchase, Ted leo's "Shake the sheets".

I am surprised at how sad this makes me.

On the topic of books:

For those of you that have read it, please list reasons why I should bite the bullet and continue slogging throughreading Foccault's Pendulum.

Seriously. Maybe it's just because I'm reading it in Italian, but I keep passing out from the effortfalling asleep every three paragraphs. I'm concurrently reading In the Name of the Rose in italian also, and unlike Pendulum, Rose has captured my attention.

Help! :(

Oh, and it will be a *HUGE* sacrifice, but I'll volunteer to have Brad Pitt's babies for the good of all humanity.

And i see the strikethrough tags are disabled...

Happy Elvis's Birthday, Everyone!

He would have been 70 today.

Best of '04, ack...

Music: Who knows what's new anymore? I don't watch the MTV (/curmudgeon) But I did discover Butterfly Boucher, Shi, Halo Friendlies, Sahara Hotnights, The Start and Titiyo. Best of all, The Jane Anchor. And the small, chilly part of my heart that inhales the deep red of Velvet Revolver.

Books: Now we're talking. Isaacson's Franklin biography; "An Appetite for Paris" by AJ Liebling; David Allen's "Getting Things Done"; the addled majesty of Kyril Bonfiglioli; Iain Pears' "The Dream of Scipio."

Movies: The only movie I gave a shit about seeing this year was the Dawn of the Dead remake, it ruled, and that was that.

I rediscovered comics this year, or *cough* graphic novels or whatever the groovies call them *cough* and enjoyed Warren Ellis's Transmetropolitan more than I can adequately express.

I reread a lot of stuff. All of Robertson Davies' work, for example, which is just so damn good and so damn Canadian...at the moment I'm going back and rereading all of Robert Heinlein's for-teens type Space Adventure stuff, and having a great time doing it.

Alex Kerr's Dogs and Demons, about how deeply fucked modern Japan is (and by extension, Korea, which is not something he explicity talks about, but is clear to anyone who knows and loves/hates the place) and was well worth the time.

Discovered Takashi Miike movies. Oh dear me.

Also discovered great slabs of new and old music, also thanks to tEh Bittorrent. Not sure what my faves'd be out of it all.

Starting playing the Quake 3 mod Rocket Arena again, but only when drunk. That's been fun.

For those of you that have read it, please list reasons why I should bite the bullet and continue slogging throughreading Foccault's Pendulum.

Foucault's Pendulum is one of my all time faves, and easily my favorite Eco book. I can think of no reasons whatsoever why you should finish it though, if you don't like it.

For what it's worth, I've had the same problem trying to get through The Island Of The Day Before, after like six tries (in translation, of course, 'cause I ain't got me much italiano). I love Umberto, but I just can't get into that book, much as I try.

Speaking of Eco (without any bunnymen to be seen) this is good.

Foucault's Pendulum is one of my all time faves, and easily my favorite Eco book.

I consider that a ringing endorsement (seriously). I think it's just the fact that my English-Italian dictionary is utter crap, which means I struggle to figure out unknown words from context. And judging from Amazon's excerpt, that's not going to be very easy to do. Think I'll retry after I finish Rose.

Stav, would you say Eco's style is fairly uniform? ie, once I finish Rose, Pendulum might be a little easier to chew on?

romakimmy, Eco's style isn't too uniform, I'd say. I first read Foucault's Pendulum and loved, loved, loved it. Then read The Name of the Rose, and liked it very much, but not nearly as much as Pendulum. It took me two-three tries to get through The Island of the Day Before, but I eventually got through it, and felt very disappointed by it.

How to Travel With a Salmon is very good and a quick read (in English, at least, for this monoglot), and both Misreadings and Serendipities look interesting. (I read Travels in Hyperreality, but it was uneven and something of a slog in its slower bits, though there's a bravura essay on Casablanca.)

I didn't see too many movies in the theater this year, but I liked Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Hero (Zhang Yimou is amazing...and I'm disappointed to hear that Flying Daggers is teh suck, Dana), Garden State, The Incredibles, Fahrenheit 9/11 (regardless of your politics, it's a very well-crafted movie.), Super Size Me, and The Fog of War.

As far as music went, not too many new albums really grabbed me, and I listened to a lot of old stuff. I agree with notsnot, though, Tift Merritt's Tambourine is very very good, with a kind of Dusty-in-Memphis vibe about it. (Plus I had a crush on her in fourth grade.) I also loved the TV on the Radio/Pixies show I saw a few weeks ago.

I'm also glad the Oxford American is back, but I hope it won't go away yet again -- I haven't plunged too deeply into the current comeback issue, because I don't want to like it too much and have my heart broken again. I also continue to read the Atlantic Monthly on my usual two-months-behind schedule, but enjoy it quite a bit.

Lotsa good books in 2004, though:
the Chris Ware monograph by Daniel Raeburn;
News Flash by Bonnie Anderson;
Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities by Alexandra Robbins;
Beyond Fear by Bruce Schneier;
Subwayland: Adventures in the World Beneath New York by Randy Kennedy;
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman;
Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life by Steven Johnson;
Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point by David Lipsky;
Candyfreak by Steve Almond;
Blue Blood by Edward Conlon;
the utterly amazing comics issue of McSweeney's, edited by Chris Ware;
Feeding a Yen by Calvin Trillin;
Our Own Devices: How Technology Remakes Humanity by Edward Tenner;
The Miracle Detective: An Investigation of Holy Vision by Randall Sullivan; and
Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay.

I'm also really looking forward to reading/seeing Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, Jared Diamond's Collapse, and Wong Kar-Wai's 2046.

Stav, would you say Eco's style is fairly uniform? ie, once I finish Rose, Pendulum might be a little easier to chew on?

I'd agree with Vidiot that he does wander around the map. Not so much uneven, just polymath. One of his other (non-fiction) books that I enjoy a lot is The Search for the Perfect language, and it is dry dry dry, mostly. The erudition is astounding, as always, but I also like his more playful work (which always what I liked about Italo Calvino, who I discovered at around the same time), and that's what Pendulum is, I reckon. Funny, playful. I also have a weak spot for conspiracy, secret society stuff, and all that Knights Templar Holy Blood Holy Grail stuff, when not taken seriously, so Pendulum was right up my alley, not just because it was Eco who wrote it.

Usef if you liked Shaun of the dead you should check out Spaced , UK tv series co written and staring Simon Pegg. One episode is all about Zombies and many of the characters from Shaun of the Dead are extensions of Spaced characters. You don't seem to be able to get it from Amazon.com hence the .co.uk link but if you can get your grubby mitts on it, it is certainly worth it.

Jared Diamond may be brilliant, but he has some bad hair going on.

He needs to hire Trump to tell him how to rock the combover.

Or just go for the full Gladwell.

He needs to hire Trump to tell him how to rock the combover.

Or just go for the full Gladwell.

This guy has the most outrageous comb-over I've ever seen. I was standing behind him one day, and in the back, he combs his hair UP from a tiny little line at the base of his neck, to meet the side swipe at the crown of his head. It's amazing. Defies gravity. Defies belief.

And he's a neo-conservative jerk, too. Imagine that.

With all this talk of swapping, could it be time for a "best of 2004" CD swap?

(in case you were wondering, I don't actually lurk, I just pop in every 6 months or so to suggest a swap.)

Check the thread next door, Mikro my friend!

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