end of the year post 3.5 - modern songs of the city

Some stats: Act with the most songs at a whopping seven is Vampire Weekend.  2nd with 4 songs each are Annie (and she only put out an EP this year), James Blake, and Ivan & Alyosha.  And with 3 songs each are:  CHVRCHES, Daft Punk, Jake Bugg, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Olly Murs, and Tom McRae.  Yay for Tom McRae for putting out an excellent album this last year.  I've been a fan for a long time.  I know very few people know of him, so it's my own private party.

And then based on my very scientific calculations, with weighted scores and some very fancy formulas, my top ten music acts of 2013 are:
1.  Vampire Weekend
2.  Annie
3.  James Blake
4.  Jake Bugg
5.  Tom McRae
6.  Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
7.  Ivan & Alyosha (again, who?)
8.  Olly Murs
9.  Miley Cyrus
10. CHVRCHES

end of the year post 3 - how do you solve a problem like miley?

My top 100 109 songs of 2013 are presented below. Notes: 1) I keep changing my mind about the particular placement of some songs. 2) As you can see, I really like Vampire Weekend's new cd. 3) I know some of these songs are not technically from 2013 (e.g., Chicken Fried is really old), but they are new to me this year, so I get to keep them on. 4) There are 108 songs because I just cannot limit to 100.  5) I have a surprisingly high number of songs from Ivan & Alyosha. Who dat, you ask? Yeah same here. 6) How do you solve a problem like Miley?

1 Wrecking Ball - Miley Cyrus 2 Ya Hey - Vampire Weekend 3 Two Fingers - Jake Bugg 4 Thrift Shop (feat. Wanz) - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis 5 Hannah Hunt - Vampire Weekend 6 Step - Vampire Weekend 7 All That's Gone - Tom McRae 8 Stay (feat. Mikky Ekko) - Rihanna 9 Take a Look At the World (feat. Annie) - Ralph Myerz 10 Overgrown - James Blake 11 Obvious Bicycle - Vampire Weekend 12 Back Together - Annie 13 Dull Tool - Fiona Apple 14 Kiss Me I'm Irish - Gaelic Storm 15 Shake - The Head and the Heart 16 Loud & Clear - Olly Murs 17 Let Her Go - passEnger 18 Gone, Gone, Gone - Phillip Phillips 19 Tube Stops and Lonely Hearts - Annie 20 Roar - Katy Perry 21 Retrograde - James Blake 22 Small Plane - Bill Callahan 23 Summertime Sadness - Lana Del Rey 24 Next to Me - Emeli Sandé 25 Life Round Here - James Blake featuring Chance the Rapper 26 Nothing on the Dry Land - Tom McRae 27 Ralph Macchio - Annie 28 We Can't Stop - Miley Cyrus 29 Demons - Imagine Dragons 30 Over Your Shoulder - Chromeo 31 Lightning Bolt - Jake Bugg 32 Can't Hold Us (feat. Ray Dalton) - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis 33 Barside - PHOX 34 Far Celestial Shore - Mavis Staples 35 Easy To Love - Ivan & Alyosha 36 Recover - CHVRCHES 37 Chicken Fried - Zac Brown Band 38 All The Times We Had - Ivan & Alyosha 39 Home - Jack Johnson 40 Garden - Noah Gundersen 41 Don't Get Married Without Me - Punch Brothers 42 Unbelievers - Vampire Weekend 43 Throw Your Arms Around Me - Eddie Vedder & Neil Finn 44 Instant Crush - Daft Punk Feat. Julian Casablancas 45 I Got You - Jack Johnson 46 Story of My Life - One Direction 47 Right Place Right Time - Olly Murs 48 Locked Out Of Heaven - Bruno Mars 49 Broken - Jake Bugg 50 Back Together - Jesse McCartney 51 When I Was Your Man - Bruno Mars 52 The Best Summer Of My Life - Graham Reynolds 53 Diane Young - Vampire Weekend 54 What I Like - Charli XCX 55 She's Got Something - Greg Holden 56 The Fold - Ivan & Alyosha 57 The Mother We Share - CHVRCHES 58 Confidence - The Dodos 59 Diamonds - Rihanna 60 Brutal Love - Green Day 61 You Never Need Nobody - The Lone Bellow 62 Just Give Me A Reason - P!nk Feat. Nate Ruess 63 Let Go (feat. Kele & MNDR) - RAC 64 I See Fire - Ed Sheeran 65 Free Your Mind - Cut Copy 66 Dear Darlin' - Olly Murs 67 Give Life Back To Music - Daft Punk Feat. Nile Rodgers 68 I Want You Back - Janelle Monae 69 Lately's All I Know - Tom McRae 70 Our Love Comes Back - James Blake 71 Feel Again - OneRepublic 72 Cups - Anna Kendrick 73 Same Love (feat. Mary Lambert) - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis 74 Bigger Than Love - Benjamin Gibbard 75 Entertainment - Phoenix 76 What Can I Do - Sally Shapiro 77 San Francisco - Foxygen 78 I Should Live in Salt - The National 79 We Sink - CHVRCHES 80 Young Men (demo) - Tyler Lyle 81 Dark and Stormy - Hot Chip 82 Dance Apocalyptic - Janelle Monáe 83 Hey Lover (Blake Mills) - Dawes 84 Everlasting Arms - Vampire Weekend 85 Better - K'naan 86 Starman - Sally Shapiro & Electric Youth 87 A-New-Life - Jim James 88 You Know You Like It - AlunaGeorge 89 Running for Cover - Ivan & Alyosha 90 Pompeii - Bastille 91 Restless Heart - Matt Hires 92 Little Games - The Colourist 93 Royals - Lorde 94 Atlas - Coldplay 95 The Ghost - Efterklang 96 If I Lose Myself - OneRepublic 97 Young And Beautiful - Lana Del Rey 98 Sea of Love - The National 99 A Tattered Line of String - The Postal Service 100 Symptoms - Atlas Genius 101 Get Lucky - Daft Punk Feat. Pharrell Williams 102 Closed Hand, Full of Friends - Foy Vance 103 All You're Waiting for - Classixx 104 Binary Mind - Ra Ra Riot 105 Katachi - Shugo Tokumaru 106 & It Was U - How to Dress Well 107 Reflektor - Arcade Fire 108 Another Guy - Travis 109 Leave - Steve Kazee

end of the year post, two: it was fine

This is the essay edition.  Doing lists is sort of cheating.  It's easier than actually composing something that has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  Something with an arc.  I am not sure whether 2013 as a year had an arc for me.  It was just one of those years that just happened, played itself out without much fanfare.  The biggest thing personally was that Chi Young went to study in Ireland, and I went along for three weeks.  It was somewhat nerve-wracking trying to find an apartment within the short time before his semester started, but we did eventually find a place within ten minutes walk from campus.  My mother is having somewhat of a health scare (I spent seven hours in the ER with her last weekend).  It turned out to be less dire than the ER docs made it seem.  We are doing more tests now and are hoping she won't need surgery.  My own health has improved; the abdominal pain I complained much of last year about has gone away, on its own.  I had an unpaid vacation, during which I got a letter from IRS saying I owe the government money, but fortunately it turned out that I only needed to supply some documentation to IRS to support something I claimed in my prior year return.  So maybe that is the arc:  things happen, and you worry, and you do stuff, and then things turn out fine.

Well not everything turned out completely fine.  There were a few things that I wish had turned out differently.  For example, I wish Before Midnight was different.  I waited nine years for the sequel to probably my most beloved movie of all time, Before Sunset.  And it just didn't, or couldn't, live up to my expectations.  I wish:  1) Celine and Jesse didn't have those blonde twins (I am not a fan of blonde twins - it's like a sitcom convention to me, a la Full House or The Suite Life of Zack and Cody); 2) that whole meal scene with all those other people didn't exist (it felt as if I were stuck in the middle of a most pretentious conversation with a bunch of pretentious, well-to-do white people); 3) Jesse didn't turn out to be so obsessed with sex (he played like a dirty, middle-aged man); and 4) I didn't see Celine's boobs, for an uncomfortably looong time (I don't know why, but it just felt wrong to me).  Don't get me wrong - I still find Celine to be the most interesting, complex, and lovably neurotic female film character that ever was.  But whereas Before Sunset and Before Sunrise felt ethereal, Before Midnight felt heavy.  I know Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke wanted to take Celine and Jesse to darker places and explore what relationships feel like after the initial magic has worn off and familiarity took its toll, but I am not sure that's what I want to see between Celine and Jesse.  I want to believe that magic exists, whether it's nine or eighteens years later.  It can be in a different form - I am alright with that.  But I don't want them to suck the magic out completely.  That scene where Celine is watching the sunset and commentating, "Still there, still there, still there, gone..." - well, I don't like the "gone" part.

But gone is how things go sometimes.  And fate is twisty and sick.  How else to explain what happened to Asiana Flight 214 and that teenage girl who had actually survived the crash only to be killed by being run over on the tarmac by an emergency response vehicle?  If you think about it, with every tragedy like this, it takes an entire series of events to put a person at the wrong place at the wrong time.  Call it coincidence and randomness, or call it fate and destiny.  Regardless, there she was.  And there those Boston marathoners were when the bombs exploded at the finish line.  One minute faster or slower, you wouldn't be there.  If only we can travel back and forth through time and space like the Doctor.

Oh the Doctor!  I would say if there were anything that satisfied me completely this year, it is catching up on all seven series of Doctor Who.  I have become a complete fanboy.  I even bought a license plate frame that says "My Other Ride Is A Tardis."  Blink with the weeping angels, the episode with Vincent Van Gogh, Vastra with Jenny and Strax, the second half of series 3, and the Christmas specials were all highlights.  But more than anything, I was charmed by Matt Smith's Doctor Who - his ability to be a young child and an old man at the same time, his fish-out-of-water mannerisms (his awkward air kisses kill me everytime).  I cannot express how sad I am that he is leaving the show.  Tonight is his last episode as the 11th Doctor.  Matt Smith will regenerate into Peter Capaldi, by all acounts a great actor.  Whovians are actually quite happy with this choice.  So maybe things will turn out fine.  That's the great thing about Doctor Who and time traveling and regeneration - you almost always have a chance to make things okay.  Whereas in the Before Sunrise series, time is actually the greatest foe against Celine and Jesse's romance (in the first two, too little time; in the third, too much time), in Doctor Who time is the Doctor's greatest friend.

So back here on earth, where time is linear and marches on without regard, the older I get, the more I appreciate things being just fine.  It used to be that I crave for things to happen, to put a jolt in my life.  I wanted grand gestures.  I wanted to be swept off my feet by the giant waves of life.  I thought of how every year that something doesn't happen, then nothing happens.  But lately, I am grateful of any year that I make it out to the clearing with barely a scratch.  I am too aware that if things didn't go fine, I cannot actually fix it.  I haven't been able to fix anything from my past that went wrong.  My other ride is not a Tardis. Fortunately, this year 2013 was fine, just fine.  No time travel required.  I am happy to leave things alone.

end of the year post

End of the year post, 2013:

Somewhat of a letdown but I don't really want to admit it, movies:  Before Midnight, Star Trek Into Darkness, Gravity
Somewhat of a letdown but I don't really want to admit it, music:  Jack Johnson's From Here To Now To You, Arcade Fire's Reflektor
Somewhat of a letdown but I don't really want to admit it, gadgets:  Apple's iPhone 5s, 5c, iPad Air - all were less than exciting to me - where were the wow upgrades???
Best 2012 movie that I saw in 2013:  Perks Of Being A Wallflower
Best 2013 movie that I saw in 2013:  Pacific Rim, The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug (this one is actually way better than the first Hobbit movie - I liked it quite a bit, and it brought me back to my love of all things LOTR)
Surprisingly good movie I saw in 2013:  World War Z
Surprisingly bad movie I saw in 2013:  On The Road
Worst movie:  Sharknado - I honestly expected it to be so bad that it's good, but it was just bad period.
Best new tv show:  The Goldbergs, Bates Motel
Favorite tv show:  Doctor Who
Favorite tv show, reality: Amazing Race
Best actor, tv:  Matt Smith, Doctor Who
Best actress, tv:  Vera Farmiga, Bates Motel
Best actor, movie:  Michael Fassbender, Prometheus
Best actress, movie:  Julie Delpy, Before Midnight
TV cancellation that still hurts:  Happy Endings, Bunheads
Best cd:  Vampire Weekend's Modern Vampires Of The City, James Blake's Overgrown
Person I surprisingly did a 180 on, for the better:  Miley Cyrus
Show I surprisingly did a 180 on, for the worse:  New Girl
Person I still don't get what the big deal is about:  Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, Matthew McConaughey
Should have been a bigger deal:  Pacific Rim
Favorite new store:  Grocery Outlet
Favorite website:  Slickdeals, Amazon
Guilty tv:  QVC
Favorite daytime tv:  The Chew
Things I am collecting:  Flashlights, Lock & Lock storage containers
Saddest celebrity death:  Paul Walker
Goodnight sweet prince:  Nelson Mandela
Hello sweet prince:  Prince George
Biggest fall from grace, sports edition:  Oscar Pistorius, Aaron Hernandez, Lance Armstrong
Biggest injustice:  George Zimmerman acquitted of Trayvon Martin murder
Flop that makes me happy:  Lady Gaga's Fartpop
Success that makes me happy:  Veronica Mars Kickstarter campaign, Sandra Bullock, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Favorite female, music:  Annie
Favorite male, music:  James Blake
Favorite band, music:  Vampire Weekend
Most horrific event on the news:  Asiana flight crash, Philippines typhoon, Boston marathon bombing
Most hopeful event on the news:  The new Pope, Malala, gay marriages, and Batkid
I wish I knew how to quit you:  The Patriots, online shopping
Douche bag of the year:  Justin Bieber (peeing in a mop bucket, getting carried up the Great Wall)
Favorite name:  Chris (Chris Pine, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt, Chris Evans)
Most charming, European style:  Tom Hiddleston
Most charming, American style:  Jennifer Lawrence
Most disappointing breakup:  Matt Smith and Doctor Who, Orlando Bloom and Miranda Kerr
Adventure of the year:  Ireland
Biggest relief:  My abdominal pain went away
Pop cultural phenom I know nothing about:  Breaking Bad, Cronuts
Pop cultural phenom I want nothing to do with:  Twerking
Favorite book:  Madonna NYC 83 by Richard Corman (yes, it's a photo book requiring no reading but I love 80's Madonna)
Favorite celebrity progeny:  Rocco Ritchie
Craziest:  Kim Jong Un (for executing his own uncle who used to be his former mentor - I think he's been watching too many Korean soap operas)