Top 5 lists

I went into this year planning to watch 50 movies I hadn't seen before and to read 12 books. I finished 18 books and saw 54 movies. I watch numerous TV shows on a regular basis and listen to podcasts daily. I wouldn't say that I only watch, read or listen to the same type of thing over and over again, but there are certain genres I avoid, like for example horror movies or reality TV.

Making year-end lists is somewhat of a staple of critics in the entertainment industry, but most of them are Top 10. I feel if you don't reduce it to a small enough number the selection doesn't mean anything. And if it's good enough for Nick Hornby, John Cusack and Jack Black, it's good enough for me.


When you actually try to make a list like that you realize a.) how hard it is and b.) that you need some criteria to help you make the decisions. I didn't want to make this an exercise in cultural criticism. I don't feel qualified to judge the technical skill involved in making the objects and I also don't think that's the criterion I would want to use. These are not best-of lists, they're not Desert Island Top 5's, which should take compatibility and rewatchability into account, they're not End of Human Civilization Top 5's, where you try to preserve something important, they are my favorite books, movies, etc. of 2012. In the end, I I decided to rank them by how much I enjoyed them and how much I was emotionally invested in them, which is not exactly the same thing.


The plan is to count down from 5 to 1 and release all number 5's, 4's, etc. at the same time and to write a short paragraph on what it was I enjoyed about them and why your life would be much improved with them in it. Because I really only have your best interests at heart.

Opening salvo

Some theoretical thoughts among the following, so tread carefully or avoid altogether if that's not your cup of tea. 
 

Where is the fringe and what lurks there?

Not too long ago, people smarter than me wrote about the state and seeming fate of geek culture. Geek culture once was the epitome of the fringe, a place where you were alone with your obsession and sometimes the shame this obsession engendered. And that's exactly the way geeks and nerds wanted it. While being on the fringe may have made you an outcast, it also made you special, a member of a select inner circle with its own rituals and codes. Never mind that no-one wanted to be initiated into this not-so secret society of the socially awkward.

Now, of course, the geek have inherited the earth. The IT revolution is the work of geeks. Role-playing, once the province of nerds armed with dice, pencil & paper, and tomes of arcance tables and instructions on how to conjure up whole worlds, has gone big business with the advent of processing power capable of making the imagination superfluous for all but those who create the games. And while comic books may still be considered kid's stuff by most, you can't seem to publish a comic book without selling a movie option. Comic books, for better or for worse, supply the material for a significant part of the big-budget productions each year.

However, the blurring of the fringe goes well beyond the mainstreaming - some might say co-optation - of traditional geek territory. The simultaneous differentiation and integration that is one of the primary traits of complexification and globalization constructs a world where the formerly outlandish has become if not the norm then at least so widespread that it is hard to say what the mainstream is anymore. There is something for every taste and if you set your mind to it you can find it. Consequently, where there once were a few small communities of outcasts - or connoisseurs, depending on your perspective, obviously - meeting to perform their strange rites largely in annonymity, now everyone with an obscure hobby has a platform - like this one - from which to announce their existence and activities to the world. The result is a plethora of voices that is nonetheless navigable, thank Google. In principle, it is as easy to look for the complete works of Joss Whedon as it is for those of William Shakespeare.

To repeat my question from the beginning, where, then, is the fringe here? I suppose it is appropriate in a time of search engines to define the fringe in terms of statistics. The fringe is where a search term doesn't return you hits in the 7 figure range and up. The fringe is where a picture search doesn't show you exactly who and what you want to see. The fringe is that last piece of actual or virtual real estate that hasn't been colonized to the extent that it would take you the rest of your life to see and read everything that's been posted about it. The fringe may be a vast stretch of cyberspace - and many would say that cyberspace is the fringe's natural habitat - but its individual components are the tiny refuges of those who are not interested in the scores from last weekends' Bundesliga matches or who got kicked off American Idol.

What lurks there? Who knows. Let's go find out!

Mission Statement

This is my blog and I will say whatever damn well pleases me.

Having said that, I want to focus on the fringe, on what's non-mainstream, not only because my tastes tend towards the obscure anyway but also because the mainstream, being what it is, is being exhaustively covered already.

Ironically, most of the early entries here will be my Top 5 lists (movies, books, TV shows, podcasts) of 2012 and I don't think you will see too many esoteric items there. We'll see.

I'm not making any promises. I hope some of you are, if nothing else, at least a little entertained.