To be alphabetical about it, I like the following: Animal Collective, Arcade Fire, Erykah Badu, Beirut, Andrew Bird, Blur, David Bowie, Broken Social Scene, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Leonard Cohen, The Good, the Bad & the Queen, Islands, Dean Martin, Menomena, Modest Mouse, My Bloody Valentine, The National, Nirvana, Pavement, Peter Bjorn & John, Radiohead, Shaky Hands, Silver Jews, early Smashing Pumpkins, Elliott Smith, Smog/Bill Callahan, Spoon, Talkdemonic, Tapes 'n Tapes, Mister Tom Waits. Also, I'm not ashamed to say that I never stopped liking P.M. Dawn.
Movies
Annie Hall,
Manhattan,
Crimes and Misdemeanors,
Hannah & Her Sisters,
The Life Aquatic,
The Royal Tenenbaums,
Rushmore,
Raising Arizona,
Miller's Crossing,
Barton Fink,
Chinatown,
The Long Goodbye,
An American Werewolf in London,
Shawn of the Dead,
Marathon Man,
Donnie Darko,
The Science of Sleep,
The Squid and the Whale,
Half Nelson,
Brick,
Children of Men,
Highlander (1st only, obviously),
Goodfellas,
The Empire Strikes Back,
New York Stories,
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis,
Come and See,
Black Orpheus,
Army of Shadows
Television
Arrested Development (R.I.P.!),
The Simpsons,
Curb Your Enthusiasm,
Jeopardy!,
Flight of the Conchords
Battlestar Galactica,
Freaks & Geeks
my local PBS affiliate.
Books
Some of my all-time, life-altering favorites are: Primo Levi- "The Periodic Table", Leslie Epstein- "The King of the Jews", Gabriel Garcia Marquez- "Love in the Time of Cholera", Tim O'Brien- "The Things They Carried", Giorgio Bassani- "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis", Jonathan Safran Foer- "Everything is Illuminated", Andre Schwarz-Bart- "The Last of the Just", Bruno Schulz- "The Street of Crocodiles", Elie Wiesel- "Night", Art Spiegelman- "Maus", Jonathan Lethem- "Motherless Brooklyn", Bernard Malamud's short stories. More recent favorites are: Dave Eggers- "What is the What", W.G. Sebald- "Austerlitz", Jonathan Safran Foer- "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close", The whole Best American Nonrequired Reading series, Philip Roth- "The Plot Against America", "Operation Shylock", Yann Martel- "The Life of Pi", Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons- "The Watchmen". Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policeman's Union" and Cormack McCarthy's "The Road" killed me in special ways over the past year. "Sharp Teeth" by Toby Barlow was fun in a "Lost Boys" kind of way. "Fun Home" by Allison Bechdel just gave me a huge dose of inspiration in the autobiographical comics arena. I've been reading the comics journalism of Joe Sacco and graphic novels by Jason as well.
six years!!! wow. you two totally rule! This is what happened: i wrecked my bike! I either cracked or just bruised really badly one to three of my ribs. wah wha. I'm sleeping a lot, and resting. and reading. and getting acupuncture. fortunately, i have no cast to show for it like you did... just some bruises and a shuffling limpy way of walking. aw.
that's okay...i got a new cell phone the other day and the first ring tone i downloaded was "take on me" by a-ha...it's mostly the keyboard part. derek and i just about died laughing. i want people to call just so i can hear it. i don't want to actually talk to anyone.
apparently there is theme of people around YOU burning other things...hhhmmmm...actually i believe it was the third fellow's fault for raising HIS leg up to meet my cigarette. this is IN FACT what happened.
I just remembered a moment that i completely forgot about: remember when we all went out that first night in that little oceanside town by napoli? and that guy came around the bar and you started singing. "I'm wild for yah babay" mmmmm SO SO good
Yo, the D.W. Schmaltz posse stole the show at last nights Elliott Smith tribute! Way to breathe some life into an otherwise somber evening. And you guys even added some bombast to the set with that vicious kick drum! That shit was rad.
