Is it really too late to apologize? : The Top 100 Songs of 2007

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Ignorance is… Everything

(Note: I finished writing this at 2:40 in the morning and since I have work relatively early I don’t feel like editing this when I wake up. So basically this is little more then my late night ramblings. I apologize if this is completely incoherent.)

Every few weeks, or when the idea comes to me, I like to send out a mass text message to certain people asking them an inane hypothetical question and then I subsequently judge them based on their answers. Well that’s not true, I just like to see which one of them can come up with the most humorous response*. I last did this a few days ago and I asked people if they thought it was a good idea for me to drop out of school and move to Mexico, specifically the beach Andy and Red are at in the end of “The Shawshank Redemption”. Now who had the funniest response isn’t important^, what is important was my though process that day at work as I received everyone’s answers.

For my entire shift all I could think about was “The Shawshank Redemption”. I’ve seen this movie at least 20+ times and I always love it and I’m always moved by the ending. However, I do have one problem with the movie that I have to try and ignore every time I watch it: The Homoerotic Overtones. Now I realize the irony of me being disturbed by homoerotic overtones in a movie in which one of the characters is sodomized in prison for two plus years, but hear me out. Red and Andy obviously were very close friends in this movie, maybe a little too close.

Now before we go on I’d just like to say that I’m not homophobic. I have a couple of gay friends and acquaintances and their sexual orientation in no way effects my relationships with them. So I’m not saying I’d have any problem if Red and Andy were gay**, I just feel like there’s a lot of subtle homoerotic insinuations between them that are never really addressed. Of course there’s probably something deeply wrong with me that I suspect two men who are good friends in a movie of being gay, but I’ll tackle that another day. The point that I’m trying to make here is that for me to fully enjoy the experience of this film, I have to willfully ignore the homoerotic inferences between Andy and Red.

The hyperbole of the last few paragraphs is all an attempt for me to build to a much larger point. I’m currently reading a book written by a psychologist named Barry Schwartz entitled ‘The Paradox of Choice’. The general synopsis of this book is that the over abundance of choices we have for any given decision, coupled with our need to make the best possible choice, actually robs us a lot of satisfaction and contentment in our lives. In this book, Schwartz suggests that people would be far happier if they ignored their urge to make the best decision and just made one that was adequate. If you ignore all the available options and just make a choice that’ll meet a good number of your needs you’ll actually be better off and happier. Schwartz has a plethora of hypothesis and data to back all this up with and he makes a very convincing argument on his behalf. And obviously it’s not as cut and dry as my 3 sentence summary makes it out to be, but the old saying of ‘ignorance is bliss’ may actually have some psychological data to back up its validity.

Now I bring this up not to try and change the way you make choices in your life, but to get at something that I was building towards with my discussion about “The Shawshank Redemption”. Anytime you watch a movie, TV show or play you have a choice to make. You can either view the actors and actresses as the people that they are or you can apply a little willful suspension of disbelief and actually try to imagine that they’re actually the characters they’re trying to portray. I realize that none of this is ground breaking and that we all realize this, at least subconsciously, at a very young age. The point I’m trying to make here is that to derive any sort of enjoyment from movies, a TV show or a play, you have to willfully ignore the fact that you’re watching actors work.

In one of his books, I’m pretty sure it’s Catcher in the Rye but I wouldn’t bet my life on it, J.D. Salinger writes a long monologue with one of his characters talking about how every time they see a movie or a play they’re fully aware that they’re watching actors trying to portray characters. Because of this the only joy the character (I’m almost certain it’s Holden Caulfield but I can’t shake the feeling that it might be a member of the Glass family) can get out of watching plays and movies is by watching which actor is the best at pretending to be someone else. It seems to me that there can be no actual enjoyment from viewing films and plays this way. The entire point of movies, and TV shows for that matter, is escapism. If you can’t get passed the fact that it’s nothing more then actors portraying characters then what’s the point. So while I’m not sure the Barry Schwartz is fully right about telling us to ignore certain options we have when making choices in life, I’m certain that we have to ignore this options when watching movies, etc. It seems to me that the only choice you have when watching some form of visual entertainment is to willfully ignore the fact that actors are merely depicting other individuals. In this case ignorance isn’t just bliss, but it’s the only choice we can make. So with that in mind I’m now going to force myself into a willful suspension of disbelief anytime I watch a movie or TV show. I think that by doing this I’ll actually enjoy it more, which is basically the entire point.

Now for all you art-house types who want to claim that film and TV shows should be art pieces that show us something about ourselves and/or the world we live in please shut the eff up. Any form of media should be for entertainment first and foremost, if it gives us some sort of revelation along the way then that’s just an added bonus. And if you’re really finding thinks out about yourself or our world/culture trough film and television then you’ve got much bigger problems. Well those last few sentence didn’t really make sense nor did they really relate to the following paragrahs, but I don’t really care at this point. I’m starting to get delirious now so I’m going wrap this up before I go on anymore tangents, which is ironic since this entire post pretty much acted as one big tangent for me.

So now that you’ve finished reading this you’re probably thinking to yourself “Hey this a-hole just wrote an entire post and didn’t really say a damn thing. In fact all he did was vocalize something everybody’s know since the age of 10”. And well, quite frankly you’re right. What can I say, I needed to stall so I could finish writing my top songs of 2007 list and I felt like writing something so I decided to give you the reader this two page puff piece that basically acts as my inner monologue. That said, I hope you enjoyed. I hope, I hope.

Until We Meet Again
* Yes this is actually how I kill time. I know, I live a very sad, shallow existence.
^ It was my main man Travis who deduced that it was only a good idea if I built a bar there like they had in “Cocktail”.
** I realize that Andy says he’s not gay when Red first warns him about the Sisters attraction to him, but that doesn’t exactly clear him. He probably just didn’t want to be raped, I mean who would. So he figures that saying he’s not gay would possibly get the Sisters to not R him.

Right Here, Right Now: The Top 20 Albums of 2007

Probably my favorite writer Walker Percy is famous for writing a certain kind of novel. To a certain degree all his books tend to run together because they’ll all have pretty much the exact same lead character. This character is always male, always southern and always rather wealthy. This character always goes through some sort of life crisis in which he realize how monotonous and repetitive his everyday life has become. In other words these men are overcome by, as he best put it in “The Moviegoer”, the malaise of everyday life.

Now I’m not bringing this up because it has anything to do with the music that came out in 2007. Nor am I just trying to show some of my literary chops (well for the most part I’m not). But I bring this up because this is the general feeling I’ve encountered while trying to write my top albums of the year list. For a little over a month now I’ve been trying to write this and nothing seems to be sticking. It’s not quite writer’s bloc, I just never even remotely like the finished product. So instead of trying to rewrite this list for the umpteenth time, I’m just going give you the list in skin and bones, with none of the frills. Only one album has any sort of description by it, and that’s because I like and it’s short and concise. And for the record this is not an attempt for me to write a top albums list the way Thom Yorke writes lyrics: vague and non-descriptive so that everyone can take their own meaning from it. Nor am I expecting anyone to call me a genius for putting out my list this way. So let’s just get on with it.

Albums I like (or have hear good things about), but need to put more time into:
Spoon – Ga Ga Ga
Wu-Tang Clan – 8 Diagrams
Animal Collective – Strawberry Jam
Sunset Rubdown – Random Spirit Lover
Aesop Rock – None Shall Pass
Great Lake Swimmers – Ongiara
Jay Z – American Gangsta*

Album Everyone Else Seems to Love That I Just Don’t Get:
Battles – Mirrored: Maybe I just haven’t listened to it enough, but after a few runs through I feel like it’s just useless noise. Remember folks, just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it’s good. This applies to all walks of life, not just music.

Albums That Just Missed the Cut:
Ryan Adams – Easy Tiger
New Pornographers – Challengers
The Polyphonic Spree – The Fragile Army
Figurines – When the Deer Wore Blue
Shawn Lee – Voices and Choices
Pella Carlberg – In a Nutshell
Josh Rouse – Country Mouse, City House

Top 20 Albums of the Year:

20. Beirut – The Flying Cup Club + Long Island EP
19. Kevin Drew – Spirit If…
18. Modest Mouse – We Were Dead Before the Ship Sank
17. Wilco – Sky Blue Sky
16. Albert Hammonds Jr. – Yours to Keep
15. Band of Horses – Cease to Begin
14. Shout Out Louds – Our Ill Wills
13. Panda Bear – Person Pitch
12. Jens Lekman - Night Falls of Kortedala
11. Feist – The Reminder
10. Do Make Say Thing – You, You’re a History of Rust
09. Black Kids – Wizard of Ahhs EP
08. Iron & Wine – The Sheppard’s Dog
07. Josh Ritter – The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter
06. Kanye West - Graduation
05. Okkervil River – The Stage Names
04. The National – Boxer
03. Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrpha
02. Radiohead – In Rainbows
01. The Arcade Fire – Neon Bible

Well that’s all for the list. If you want to know how I feel about these albums or why I had them ranked above others, etc., feel free to ask me. You can do so either in person, over the phone, via e-mail or really any possible form of communication. I’ll be more then happy to oblige you, since it’s the combination of two of my favorite subjects: Me and the music I listen to.

Interestingly enough, while I was unable to write my top albums of the year list, quite the opposite was true for my top songs of the year list. So by next week I should have that up, at least partially. So check back then?

Until We Meet Again
* I still haven’t seen the movie or listened to this album. I need to get my priorities in line.