Safe As Milk

This is a terrific essay. I’m constantly looking for results in the tools so it really hits home with me.

Kottke was clearing out the year’s best links and that was one of them.

In my never-ending effort to get my money’s worth out of my Netflix account I watched ‘Three Days of the Condor’ after only havng the movie in my house for 2 weeks. I know I let down the Netflix people by not keeping the movie, unwatched, for my customary 3 months but I’m trying to turn over a new leaf when it comes to this stuff.

Great movie. I’d go all the way to 4 out of 5 stars on it. It’s always been one of those movies that (faceless, nameless) people love and it’s been in my queue forever. I’m glad I got to it now, but it’s tough to tell you why without blowing a major plot point. Suffice to say it’s a very prescient and despite being 30 years old hits a major 2005 nail right on the head.

Two great things about the movie:

1) I had to do some thinking to keep up. It’s a fairly complex spy thriller but there is very little spoken exposition. I felt like a smart filmgoer. American movies from the 70’s did a good job of keeping the expositional dialogue to a minimum. The other edge to that sword is that a movie has to be well-made to not need all of that telling. ‘Three Days of the Condor’ is very well-made.

2) Faye Dunaway was smoking hot. Fer rillz.

[Wabash talks about his entry into the US intelligence field]

Mr. Wabash: I go even further back than that. Ten years after The Great War, as we used to call it. Before we knew enough to number them.

Higgins: You miss that kind of action, sir?

Mr. Wabash: I miss that kind of clarity.

John Houseman as Mr. Wabash, breaking it down. Good stuff. Go rent this movie.

Every year we, as a family, drive to visit my in-laws in Front Royal, Virginia. It’s up in the Blue Ridge Mountains and I think it’s a beautiful bit of country. There really isn’t a lot up there except trees and farms. I love it.

I took a couple of photos that came out well enough to share:

What a great year for music. So many of my favorite bands put out new albums this year: Oasis, The White Stripes, MF Dooom, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, The Wedding Present, The Warlocks, Queens of the Stone Age, Nine Inch Nails, the New Pornographers, The Kingsbury Manx, Frank Black, Foo Fighters, Doves, The Chemical Brothers, Blackalicious, Beck; that’s a murderer’s row of music.

And there’s the lengthy list of new bands and groups that I heard for the first time this year: Brendan Benson, Felt, Emiliana Torrini, Stars, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Perceptionists, The Shout Out Louds, and Bloc Party are just a handful of new names that I loved in 2005.

Paring this lot down to just a Top 10 wasn’t easy (some years it’s tough to get 7 good ones) but I did it. You knew I would. What sort of self-loathing music snob doesn’t have an annual top 10?

(click on the album cover to read what I wrote about it back when I got it; click the band name to go their site; click the album name to buy the damn thing at Amazon)

10. — Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings - ‘Naturally’ — the #10 spot on my list will always be for a pet favorite band of mine that might not really be the 10th best album I heard this year but it’s by a band that deserves to be heard by more people. If you dig on soul music you have probably already heard of Sharon Jones. If you haven’t please please rush right out and buy this album. It’s worth however much time it takes you.

9. — The Shout Out Louds — ‘Howl Howl Gaff Gaff’ — This was the one huge Subterranean find for me this year. I saw the video for the single ‘Very Loud’ a dozen times and liked it more every time it came on. I was sold. Great pop songs with serious sing-a-long-ability. Plus, they’re Swedish.

8. — Bloc Party — ‘Silent Alarm’ — This was a real grower for me over the course of the year. It was maybe mid-summer when it grabbed me and it’s only loosened in the last couple of weeks. Great dance music. I even bought the remix album (it’s not very good).

7. — Felt 2 — ‘A Tribute to Lisa Bonet’ — This was a perfect Summertime jam. Great beats, great rhymes and it even came with it’s own comic book. That’s like a hip-hop trifecta!

6. — Oasis — ‘Don’t Believe the Truth’ — They had beaten me down. I’ve been a self-professed fanatic for this band since the beginning but their sad output over the last couple of albums even had me longing for the good old days and doubting if they could ever make new, good music. I was so, so wrong.

5. — Stars (careful, music at that link) — ‘Set Yourself On Fire’ — I’m a little sad at all of the time I didn’t have this to listen to this year. The first song, ‘Your Ex-Lover Is Dead’, justifies the #5 rank by itself. The rest of this great album is gravy.

4. — The Perceptionists — ‘Black Dialogue’ — What a great year for hip hop. For anyone willing to look deeper than Kanye there was a ton of worthy music. The Perceptionists should be required listening for anyone who put ‘Late Registration’ on their year-end best-of list.

3. — Dangerdoom — ‘The Mouse and the Mask’ — Seriously, another classic hip hop album. MF Dooom shines though all of the jokes and the Dangermouse beats are insane. There might be 3 or 4 songs off of this album that make the year-end mix, and it will be a tough task to get the number that low.

2. — Emiliana Torrini - ‘Fisherman’s Woman’ — What a find! I just can’t stop listening to this wonderful, fragile, and hauntingly beautiful album.

1. — Clap Your Hands Say Yeah — s/t — I tried to deny it but this was really the best album I heard all year. There isn’t a single second of this album that I would change or wish away. If you’re hating on it because of the hype (and brother, there was hype) then you need to get past that and soak up the goodness. It’s the good stuff and when we get it we need to hug it tight. If you don’t like the dude’s voice then, well, you should go get that Emiliana Torrini record. It’s awesome.

So there it is, my 2005 in music. I hope at least some of you went and checked out something based on my recommendation. If I can steer one of you away from Diddy and his evil minions then I consider all of this worthwhile. I’m going to be cleaning out the Heavy Rotation sidebar sometime after the first of the year and then we’ll start this whole thing over for 2006. I got 29 different reviews up this year. That’s not too bad. Maybe I’ll get 50 next year. Hey look! I made a resolution.

Check it out, sauerkraut!

The kind folks over at the Whiskerino have cooked up this tasty bit of code so you will be able to see me in all of my bearded glory (on a very tiny scale) every time you swing by Safe As Milk.

I’m going to add it to the right column shortly, I just wanted you all to see it.

**Updated** Okay, I finally got the formatting trouble sorted. No worries. I’m going to cut out the older Whiskerino banner too. The handful of you that come by regularly know what the Whiskerino is all about. New folks will just have to click and learn.

I’m sure you’ve all seen the ‘Lazy Sunday’ video from SNL the other weekend. It’s still pretty funny after a couple dozen viewings.

Now there is a host of icon-y goodness courtesy of Ian Meyer.

This is really an amazing little (custom-made) box of art.

These are the prints. In person, the deep blacks and blues look so rich it’s hard to believe they’re computer generated. Those IO Labs folks have the process down.

Brad hipped me (and you other regular readers of his) to a 5-song ep that you can download for free over at throwingmusic.com. If you were a fan of Golden Ocean then you’ll like these new (and free!) songs.

Be sure you tell your friends about them. More people should be listening to this band.

Airbag Industries is one of my daily stops. There’s usually some good design related news that I don”t see anywhere else and the guy’s sense of personal design is top-notch.

He’s whipped up a new desktop wallpaper that is definitely worth checking out. And he’s got all of your monitor dimensions covered for you dual-monitor hi-res design types.

I’m not going to beat you guys over the head with the Whiskerino stuff every day (even though there is enough goodness there that I could) but I just had to share this sweet video Mackle put together and posted.