Best of 2008: Albums

I can’t tell you how surprising a musical year 2008 turned out to be. I went in thinking it would be one thing, and ended the year with more new artists dominating my listening habits than any year in recent memory. The volume of new discoveries was only bested by the quality: this past year has given me a slew of artists (especially numbers one and two on this list) I will lovingly follow for years to come.

This list admittedly has a lot of gaps. If it’s not on here, I didn’t hear it. I bought more albums this year than ever before, but a lot of my purchases were devoted to catching up on things I missed out the first time. So rest assured anything not on this list I will get to in due time.

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Best of 2008: Live Art

I saw nearly 100 live performances in 2008. An astonishing number, to say the least. The live art I witnessed was diverse: theater, literary readings, performance art, and of course, concerts and festivals. I went to five this year, and worked another. Some were more exhausting than others, but all were more than worth my while. Here then, with audio and visual accompaniment (thank you, internet), is my list of the best live art of the past year.

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Fly Fly Away

When I inevitably ask people about their weekends tomorrow, I really hope they ask me about mine. “And what did you do this weekend?” they’ll say. “Oh, nothing really… I cleaned and read and made CDs and watched Six Feet Under and the Olympics,” I’ll tell them, before dropping the announcement of what really consumed my weekend. “Oh and I committed fruit fly genocide.” “What?” they’ll ask, confused. And then I’ll have to explain just why I spent hours on end over the past few days eradicating these tiny, flighty bugs with all manner of tools and the dedication of a serial killer.

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New Work: A Run for the Kids

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Best Movies of 2007

I’m getting to my Best Movies list a lot earlier this year. I did a much better job in 2007 actually seeing things in the theaters and on DVD as soon as they came out, so this list is coming out as early as I have ever had the chance to make it. There are still a few “great” movies from last year that I haven’t seen (American Gangster, La Vie en Rose, 12:08 East of Bucharest and others), so I reserve the right to update this later. For now, though, this is the definitive list. As always, I begin with my ten runners-up, in alphabetical order:

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