2009- The Year That Was and Never Will Be Again

Things I Liked In 2009– Some of these things I may have actually liked in 2008. Anyway.

Eleanor Wachtel’s Interview with Lynda Barry

I Never Liked You by Chester Brown– There is a lot I liked about this graphic novel. One thing was that it reminded me of a really good piece of flash fiction which looks deceptively sparse and simple but carries a lot of layers.

The Bad Rhyme Generator

on seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful april morning by Haruki Murakami

Laurie Lipton

Elephantiasis Pills– The thought behind them touched me most of all. It was like the government was really worried that I would get elephantiasis and they really wanted me to be ok so they sent people to come all the way to my house to give me these free pills to take so I wouldn’t get elephantiasis and I would be ok.

The Enormous Space by JG Ballard– Amazing short story. Daisy Owl- Telephone Baby

The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers by Sarnath Banerjee– Sometimes the text seemed to be telling a different story from the visual and you had to pay attention to both because both were relevant to the overall piece. One of the many reasons I thought this book was awesome.

Fractals Jay Smooth – There are many, many, many reasons to love Jay Smooth. Good Time Girl by Shilpa Ray

Ianto Jones– There are many, many, many reasons to love Torchwood and they are all called Ianto Jones. If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso by Gertrude Stein Tropical Ice-land by The Fiery Furnaces

Locus Novus – I love this magazine. Love. If this magazine was Ianto Jones I would marry it. See this and this. Goodnight Nurse’s Cover of Milkshake

Things I Shouldn’t Have Liked In 2009 But I Did

The Beechnut Tobacco song– "Girls in bars, girls in pants, A man just don’t stand a chance, But there’s still ways to show ’em who’s who, You treat your dogs with respect, You keep your traps oiled and checked, And Beechnut’s the tobacco you chew"

Janice Dickinson in Finland Yelling at Models– Specifically ‘my leg isn’t working’ and ‘do something, you stupid models!’

The “Pakistani” version of Papi Chulo– Special props to the dancers who shattered the restrictive confines of synchronized choreography to creatively interpret the song in their own varied and unique ways. Also shart burger, pant pizza, chaal disco Mona Lisa.

The Wow I Must Be Really High Experience of 2009– The sixth season of The L Word, which was a lot like being on drugs without actually being on drugs and then the swimming pool kills somebody.

John Abraham in Yellow Trunks Moment or the Unexpectedly Delightful in An Otherwise Giant Clusterfuck Experience of 2009– Javier Bardem in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. A movie I thought was not just bad but zomgwtf bad, made so much worse by the fact that it had Scarlett Johansson in it. And yet I watched it all the way to the end solely because of Javier Bardem. Totally worth it.

Doordarshan Superfly Flashback of 2009– Something called James Bond 2007, which involved a very thin man wearing sunglasses running around a mofussil bus stop and then up some stairs carrying a plastic gun which, in true Doordarshan style, abruptly ended right at crucial moment when keyboard background music began to really bust out and shudder.

okbai.