Tops and Bottoms

Don't be dirty-minded... we're talking rankings, not sexual role preferences.

You may recall that Fosco loves rankings (especially of cities). And because Fosco is not alone, the media has realized that rankings always make popular news stories.

So what's new in the world of rankings? Well, there's a bunch of Bay Area-related news to share.

First, the good news: California's 14th Congressional District is the happiest in the nation. This district covers most of the Peninsula south of San Francisco and stops just north of Santa Cruz. Because Fosco lives in Santa Cruz and Oz lives in Daly City, Fosco ends up driving the length of the 14th District several times a month. He must admit that everyone in it sure looks pretty happy--and rich.

Speaking of rich, the district contains most of Silicon Valley, including Google, Apple and Mmm Carpets. However, as this article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel notes:

While higher income and greater opportunity associated with these districts didn't hurt their standing, Amy Neftzger, the lead researcher with Gallup's partner Healthways, said money didn't necessarily translate into happiness. Work, she cautioned, took a toll on physical and emotional health in many parts of the country.

Any guesses as to the least happy congressional district? No, not Indiana's 2nd, but close. It's the bleak Kentucky 5th, on the border with Virginia and West Virginia (median income $21,915).

But not all is pleasant in the Bay Area. As this piece on SFGate notes, San Francisco is one of the ten WORST cities to be unemployed in.

Forbes has compiled a list of the 10 best and 10 worst U.S. cities when it comes to stretching unemployment dollars -- calculated based on benefits versus the cost-of-living. Sadly, San Francisco is the fourth worst city to be on unemployment, better only than New York, Miami and Phoenix.

Phoenix? It turns out the problem there is stingy unemployment benefits (imagine that!). This is how it was all calculated:

In San Francisco, the maximum unemployment benefit is $450 a week, and the cost of living is $113,576 a year. That means the benefits only cover 20.6 percent of the cost-of-living, making getting by on the checks in San Francisco a pretty bleak prospect.

Sigh. And lest you think that the top of list is populated by cities that you would prefer not to live in (employed or unemployed), you should know that both Boston and Seattle somehow made the Top 10.

Let's wrap things up with some college rankings. According to this piece in the Sentinel, surfline.com has named UC Santa Cruz the second best campus for surfing in the nation. The top? UC San Diego. No surprise there, really. The worst surf campuses weren't ranked, but I'm pretty sure the University of Oklahoma is near the bottom.

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25 Things About Fosco (Sort Of)

February is the month that the NY Times discovered the "Twenty-Five Things About You" meme that whipped through Facebook during late January. You know, it's that thing where you are tagged by a friend/acquaintance/coworker to post 25 random things about yourself--your choice. Several of Fosco's blogopals, like Jill and Ted, have even relocated this task from Facebook to their blogs.

In one recent piece in the Times, they discuss the ways in which the list can be used (like everything else on Facebook) in the service of self-presentation. So, in the spirit of that Times piece, Fosco offers you his own 25 list today. Note: the Times's recommendations for each number are in brackets and italics. Fosco's actual answers follow the recommendations.

1. [Say that you hate things like this, and are doing it only to get the (oh, so many) friends clamoring for your list off your back.]
   I'm actually not a fan of this kind of thing, but people keep asking me. (Although, the very fact that I blog at all should suggest that I actually don't mind this kind of thing too much.)
   
2. [Describe “embarrassing” high school incident that makes you look cool.]
   I was the valedictorian of my high school, which was pretty embarrassing at the time because our school did not strongly value academics.
   
3. [Confess to crush on a) third-grade teacher b) obscure indie actor or actress c) your significant other, especially if he or she is on Facebook.]
   My third grade teacher was a giant lesbian, so I didn't have a crush on her. I do, however, have a (not exactly sexual) crush on Alan Tudyk.
   
4. [Identify real, but minor, flaw.]
   I noticed last week that, in profile, I have Lincoln's nose.
   
5. [Identify major flaw by suggesting how it may also be major virtue.]
   I have absolutely no control over my book-buying habit. It's a terribly expensive habit for someone with a grad student's income. However, it is very nice to own a large library--especially when much of it is useful for your work.
   
6. [Cite mean nickname you were given as a child.]
   As a tween, I was occasionally called "Spanky."
   
7. [Follow with offhand mention of receipt of high professional honor or athletic or artistic achievement.]
   After graduating from Harvard, I received a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship to study psychology.
   
8. [Describe meeting a celebrity and how it a) disillusioned or b) thrilled you or c) if it’s a really good celebrity just the name will do.]
   I've met Bruce Springsteen and it was a little thrilling.
   
9. [Mention small adversity, like long commute or annoying neighbor, and the unexpected, preferably funny, way you overcome it.]
   I would really love to own a pug dog, but almost all Santa Cruz leases don't allow dogs. So instead, I have bought a Pug-A-Day Calendar the last three years. And every day, I name the pug(s) of the day.
   
10. [Cite an actual random thing that comes to mind while writing this list.]
    John Cameron Mitchell saw my penis once.
    
11. [“Admit” that you always identified with weird ancillary character on popular TV show in 7th grade, as if you didn’t know that everyone in retrospect agrees that was the best character.]
    It doesn't quite fit, but in seventh grade I thought I was Alex P. Keaton of "Family Ties."
    
12. [Expose something genuine and poignant about yourself, such as untimely death of close relative or rare genetic condition.] I have a genetic non-Parkinsonian tremor, which will probably slowly get worse over the rest of my life. Most of the time, people just think I'm very nervous.
    
13. [Express heartfelt thanks to friends or family for helping you through #12, or just for being there, or whatever.]
    My boyfriend Oz has been extremely understanding and supportive about my tremor (and it's potential for future degeneration).
    
14. [Conclude sentimental portion of list by citing the scene in movie X that always makes you cry. Could also be a lyric, or a memory, so long as it involves crying.]
    I always cry during the prom scene in Buffy Season 3.
    
15. [Something about drugs.]
    I think cocaine is much more interesting and useful than marijuana. I'm not really into drugs, but if I were, it would be coke all the way.
    
16. [Tell a story of how you stood up to authority. Dwelling on descriptive details can help it not seem like you are making yourself out to be a hero even though you are.]
    When I was an announcer for a classical music station, I once chose to play a piece that contained the full text of Allen Ginsberg's Howl as the libretto, insisting that the station's obscenity policy could not apply to art. I was wrong. All of the announcers had to take obscenity training because of me. They weren't thrilled.
    
17. [Recount a dramatic moment, like having your heart broken or getting arrested, but withhold details, forcing readers to ask for them in your "comments" section. In case you didn’t know, comments equate to status on Facebook even more than number of friends.]
    I once failed a field sobriety test when I was completely sober.
    
18. [Make one up.]
    I've appeared on "Card Sharks."
    
19. [Say “one of these is completely made up.”]
    One of these is completely made up.
    
20. [If you have kids, a) cite weird names you wanted for them and how your more rational, if less creative, spouse rescued them from a lifetime of torture,]
    I don't have kids, nor do I want kids. But if I accidentally ended up with three kids, I would probably name them Foucault (boy), Derrida (girl), and Dickens (either). Luckily, Oz wouldn't let these names happen (because he hates creative names).
    
21. [and/or b) relate story that appears to expose your inept parenting while in fact highlighting their precocious brilliance. If you don’t have kids, relate a cute anecdote from your early life to show everyone that you’re still a kid at heart.]
    When I was six, I was in an art class at the local nature center. I made a model that I called the "Hall of Justice." The teacher was so impressed with my precocity until the mother of one of my friends/rivals explained to her that the "Hall of Justice" was the headquarters of the Super Friends.
    
22. [If you have a pet, you have one item only through which to convey its superlative nature. If you don’t have a pet, talk about how much you yearn for an obscure breed of cat/dog/reptile or, alternatively, how much you hate animals and the people who love them.]
    Oz and I have a cat named Isis who loves to play "fetch" with her catnip-stuffed fish (named "Tina Tuna").
    
23. [Something about parents.]
    My mother is a distant relative of Abraham Lincoln. My father is a distant relative of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
    
24. [Name skill that you are proud of by recounting unexpected way you acquired it.]
    I learned to smoke a pipe while I was (briefly, in college) a member of a shadowy conservative organization. College was a very confusing and awkward time for me.
    
25. [Close with the unusual: a) recount a genuinely traumatic event you witnessed or b) name an exotic location that is your favorite place on earth or c) cite a dubious world record that you performed.]
    I love Reykjavik, Iceland and have been there twice. It's one of my favorite cities in the world.
    

Cleveland Rocks? Not So Much.

Fosco loves city rankings. He could look at a different list of city rankings every day (10 Pinkest Cities! 10 Worst Smelling Chinatowns! 10 Itchiest!). So naturally, he can't resist Forbes.com's ranking of the Ten Most Miserable Cities in the US.

But what do they mean by "miserable"? Here is the methodology:

We compiled our rankings by looking at the 150 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the U.S., which meant those with a population of at least 378,000. We ranked those metros on nine factors: commute times, corruption, pro sports teams, Superfund sites, taxes (both income and sales), unemployment, violent crime and weather.

Of course, there are aspects of this method that we could disagree with (are income taxes really a good proxy for misery? Don't taxes often provide important, life-improving social services?). Even so, the resulting list does seem to be pretty face valid--after all, I think most people could name Detroit, Buffalo, Flint, and Cleveland as miserable, miserable places.

Here's the top ten:

10. St Louis
9. Miami
8. Buffalo
7. Detroit
6. Flint, MI
5. Modesto, CA
4. Cleveland
3. Chicago
2. Memphis
1. Stockton, CA

Fosco has visited seven of these cities and he can heartily agree with all of them, except Chicago. Chicago is something of a surprise, because it's actually a pretty great city. However, the weather is cold. And most Chicagoans have a punishing commute. And the Cubs suck SO MUCH ALWAYS. And corruption... well, we know a little more about that than we might like.

If you're not a Californian, you might be surprised to see two CA cities on the list. But here's what you need to understand: just as California is divided along a horizontal axis into NorCal (good) and SoCal (bad), the state can also be divided vertically into the Coast (good) and the Central Valley (bad). The Coast contains places like San Francisco, San Diego, and Santa Barbara. It's people are well-educated, attractive, and tolerant (for the most part). The Central Valley is like a little taste of Oklahoma. It contains cities like Stockton and Modesto. There is no reason to ever venture into the Central Valley. Ever.

You know what makes me sad? I'm sad that South Bend, Indiana is too small to be eligible for the list. Because, well, I think I know where it would place...

The Year in Arts and Letters: Some Half-Baked Recommendations

The New Year, the New Year. Everywhere the New Year! The Old Year was already looked upon as dead; and its effects were selling cheap like some drowned mariner's aboardship. Its patterns were Last Year's and going at a sacrifice, before its breath was gone. Its treasures were mere dirt, beside the riches of its unborn successor!
Charles Dickens, "The Chimes"

It's the end of 2008 and Fosco has that same urge as every other blogger to write an end-of-the-year list. While Fosco admires the ambition of a project like The Golden Teddies, he just doesn't have the energy to pull it off. Also, as Fosco has admitted several times recently, he just isn't in close enough touch with culture (popular or otherwise) to feel comfortable choosing a whole bunch of definitive bests and worsts. So, instead of a set of lists or rankings, Fosco is just going to do a half-baked post on some things that he liked this year. Obviously, Fosco probably forgot some things; he also probably made some bad choices. But, to quote Don Rumsfeld: "Stuff happens." So let's get to it.

• Fosco read a ton of books this year--after all, that's kind of his job. However, most of those books were school-related and so he consequently doesn't feel like recommending them here at Fosco Lives! (I mean really, who wants to know how I feel about La Déclosion?) However, Fosco did engage in a few "pleasure-reading" projects this year.
  
  Early in the summer, Fosco read through a giant pile of 9/11 novels (with an eye to possibly teaching a seminar on that topic at some point in the future). Sadly, the big conclusion here is that most 9/11 novels are pretty bad--even those that are supposedly good. In the category of 9/11 novels was one of the best-reviewed books of the year, Joseph O'Neill's Netherland. Fosco did not love this book.
  
  Now that it's the end of the year, Fosco is doing his annual pleasure-reading marathon. So far, he's read two clearly great books: Roberto Bolaño's 2666 and Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.
  
  Fosco is only too happy to name 2666 as the best book he read this year, but this is really no surprise. After all, pretty much every media outlet named this book the best of 2008. Not to mention that it's the book that everyone is currently reading, from Ted Gideonse to Christopher Hayes to the Guanabee Book Club. Pretty much the only place that didn't love this novel was The New Yorker, but even so, they've started publishing Bolaño short stories. Fosco has never seen this kind of cultural excitement about a novel this long (or, at least, one that doesn't star pubescent wizards) and it's really kinda neat.
  
  
• When it came to summarizing the year in pop music, Fosco tried for methodological rigor: he ranked his iTunes library by "Play Count" and looked for the 2008 releases in the resulting list. Sadly, what Fosco learned is that his 2008 year in music consisted mainly of songs released in 2006 and 2007. Oh well.
  
  Of songs released in 2008, it turns out that Fosco listened to these five songs the most:
  
  1. Bob Mould, "The Silence Between Us"
     
  2. High School Musical 3 Cast, "Right Here, Right Now"
     
  3. Mike Doughty, "Fort Hood"
     
  4. MGMT, "Kids"
     
  5. Taylor Swift, "Fifteen"
  Fosco is only too happy to recommend any of these singles and is even willing to take responsibility for recommending a country song! (Taylor Swift is just that good.)
  
  In terms of pop albums, Fosco would like to recommend three: Portishead, Third; Mates of State, Re-Arrange Us; and, wait for it... Kanye West, 808s and Heartbreak. Yes, that's right: Kanye West--a guy that Fosco had never even heard of six months ago and still probably couldn't pick out of a crowded room. Fosco listened to this CD by complete accident, but he just can't stop listening--it's really good. Of course, you have to like electronica. And you have to be able to tolerate the frequent and intentional use of Auto-Tune. But if you can handle that, these songs are incredibly catchy and enjoyable. Seriously. Now Fosco isn't the only one who enjoys this CD. Oz hates Kanye and was so skeptical of this disc, but then he had to admit sheepishly that it's really good. You have to trust me on this.
  
  
• Thanks to the influence of Oz, Fosco saw more movies this year than he has in a long time. What was good? Well, he really liked Wall-E--especially the Hello Dolly! parts. Really, it was about time someone recognized how good some of the "lesser" songs from that musical are.
  
  
• Fosco's favorite CD of the year was classical and so he's putting it in a category by itself. In 2007, Fosco was lucky enough to see the US premiere in San Francisco of the new John Adams opera A Flowering Tree. This fall, the two-disc recording of the opera was released. While Fosco will probably always love the sheer bombastic spledor of Doctor Atomic, A Flowering Tree is a much more beautiful work. It is delicate and assured and the story-telling is stream-lined and emotionally appealing. It contains some of Adams's most gorgeous vocal writing and one of his most transformative orchestral passages (the long final crescendo almost causes Fosco to stand up every time he hears it). If you have the opportunity to see this opera, I cannot recommend it highly enough. And if you can dedicate an hour and half to active listening, this recording should enthrall you.
  
  
• How about something like "Blog of the Year"? While not everyone was as completely obsessed with the presidential election as Fosco was, I think you still have to recognize the extraordinary importance of Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight.com. In retrospect, it's a brilliant idea: take the well-developed statistical tools that have been used to analyze baseball and use them to analyze politics. Silver's models turned out to be almost perfect in predicting everything from Senate races to the final Electoral College vote tally. In the world of political opinion, it turns out that there is nothing more comforting than strong statistical reasoning. The pre-election anxiety would have been completely unendurable without the existence of this blog/website.
  

So that's that. Here's to a 2009 filled with great books, great music, and great friends.

It's Christmas In Your Ears!

Maybe it's the threat of theapproaching meltdown of our entire society, but Fosco is kinda getting into the Christmas spirit this year. And you can too, if only you listen to some good Christmas music. To that end, Fosco has chosen ten great Christmas songs.

[N.B.: all of these tunes are available on iTunes!]

• "Once in Royal David's City" performed by Sufjan Stevens. Stevens's box set of five Christmas EPs is the gold standard for contemporary indie-pop holiday music, including both traditional and newly-written songs. It's hard to choose a fave from this box set, but Fosco is really drawn to the somewhat obscure carol "Once in Royal David's City." The box set includes two versions: one with full-band and vocals and one solo piano. It's a beautiful song either way. And be sure to listen to the other tracks.
  
• "Christmas for Cowboys" by Jars of Clay. It hurts Fosco to put this one on his list. He hates Christian rock, especially when Christian rock acts try to "cross over" onto the secular charts (like that bitch Amy Grant!). And Jars of Clap Clay definitely attempted the crossover in the mid-1990s (and Fosco neither forgives nor forgets). However, all that being said, this is a really great Christmas song. Fosco has a soft spot for the cliches of cowboy life (loneliness, wide open spaces, etc.) and this song serves them all up with a hearty side of Christmas gravy (yum!). In my head, the video for this song features Jake and Heath.
  
• "Coventry Carol" performed by Allison Moyet. A Christmas classic performed by one of the great voices.
  
• "Wonderful Christmastime" performed by Tom McRae. You know this song as written and performed by Paul McCartney. Like most of Macca's music, it's cheesy and chirpy and impossible to banish from your head. I hate it (and so does Todd, I know). But McRae's stripped-down, melancholy version completely changes things for me. It turns out that a really good song was buried under all that synth.
  
• "Ho Ho Hopefully" by The Maine. There aren't a lot of good new Christmas songs being written now, but this is one of them. It's not overly cheerful. But it's also cautiously hopeful. Which seems to be about the right attitude these days. In fact, Fosco is willing to recommend the entire holiday EP (available on iTunes) from this band.
  Oh, and the chorus has killer harmony:
  

  Ho ho hopefully this holiday will make us believe that
  We're exactly where we're supposed to be
  And we're ho ho hoping that
  We all come back and as a matter of fact I know
  We're exactly where we're supposed to be
  Together by this Christmas tree

  Aw, shucks.
  
• "Carol of the Bells" performed by The Bird and the Bee. Another classic carol, reworked into an electronic bonbon.
  
• "Yule Shoot Your Eye Out" by Fall Out Boy. This one goes out to all of you who plan to spend Christmas hating your ex. A great chorus:
  

  Don't come home for Christmas
  You're the last thing I wanna see
  Underneath the tree
  Merry Christmas, I could care less

  Fosco saw them perform this one live a few days before Christmas in 2006.
  
• "All That I Want" by The Weepies (you have to follow the link and shake the snowglobe!). Fosco heard this song last holiday season when it was the centerpiece of the JCPenney television campaign. It is such a good song that Fosco listens to it during the year!
  
• "Last Christmas" by Wham!. Yes, this is an old song. It's also one of the most frequently covered contemporary Christmas songs. Fosco particularly enjoys the covers by Jimmy Eat World and Ashley Tisdale. However, Fosco was recently surprised to find that the original is actually the best version out there. Granted, the '80s synths sound a little dated, but George Michael's voice makes this song.
  
• "There Are Much Worse Things to Believe In" performed by Elvis Costello and Stephen Colbert. Fosco is happy to recommend any of the songs from Stephen Colbert's Christmas Special (especially the Willie Nelson song "Little Dealer Boy"). However, Fosco thinks this song stands above the others for clever writing--both lyrics and music. Fosco thinks this is actually a song that could enter the Christmas canon. In it, Stephen makes a good case for Christmas spirit compared to the many worse things one could believe in:
  

  There are cynics, there are skeptics
  There are legions of dispassionate dyspeptics
  Who regard this time of year as a maudlin insincere
  Cheezy crass commercial travesty of all that we hold dear.
  When they think that
  Well, I can hear it
  But I pity them their lack of Christmas spirit
  For in a world like ours, take it from Stephen
  There are much worse things to believe in.

  And with that sentiment, Fosco advises you to listen to some Christmas music.

Album Cover Roundup

We are approaching the End of the Year (good riddance 2008) and that means lists! Here's one of Fosco's faves: Pitchfork's 20 Worst Album Covers of 2008. There are truly some aesthetic atrocities here, especially the Brad Paisley (sorry, BeeMistress, I know you love him).

While Fosco can't argue with any of Pitchfork's choices, he has some "runners-up" of his own:


Are we really supposed to believe that anyone, anywhere in the world (even in China), would spray paint "Guns N'Roses" on a wall? Or is this photo from 1985?

Even though Fosco loves Taylor Swift (more on that, someday), he thinks it's rational to fear this album cover (how ironic!). For one thing, she's like 15 and shouldn't be wearing those hooker eyelashes. And then there's the problem with her hair and how it looks like gemelli.

Fosco really likes this album, but he thinks the cover is kind of a letdown. Maybe it's just too literal.

The next two covers are similar in that they both feature a sex symbol of yesteryear attempting to reclaim her sex appeal (when did that ever work?):

Is Britney forty years old? Is one of her eyes a lot smaller than the other? Is that a Farrah Fawcett wig? What is wrong with her arms? Is she supposed to have arms in this picture? Or is she doing a circus-themed impersonation of a girl with flippers for arms? Is that what she wants me to think when I look at this picture? Eeek.

My God. Is this supposed to be sexy? I'm retching. Retching!

Perhaps (just perhaps), this cover is a parody of those horrible sentimental paintings of animals decorating for Christmas. But I think it's actually meant sincerely. I can't decide whether my favorite part is the weasel who lives in the fox's anus or the strangely self-satisfied badger. Either way, it's just an art trainwreck.

What about you, commenters? Any faves this year?

Boo!

I mentioned in passing in yesterday's (new, improved, and expanded) post that ghosts and haunting are hot, hot, hot right now in critical theory.

But what is doing all this haunting? As a service to my non-theory-head readers, I offer a primer that I will call

What's Haunting Us Now

• history
  
• queer things
  
• Marx
  
• the postcolonial
  
• gender
  
• bees
  
• our childhood
  
• pre-modernity
  
• Enya
  
• the academic job market

Feel free to add your own...

Year in Discoveries: 2006

I love this list: the things that Fosco discovered in 2006 that gave the year its identity. Of course, many of these things were actually not new in 2006--just new to Fosco. With that in mind, let's tour Fosco's 2006 discoveries...

• Arrested Development: Fosco watched all three seasons on DVD during his recuperation from The Accident. I don't want to exaggerate (or to come across as a pussy), but I think that without this series, I would have been crying most of that first week.
  
  I've always loved Jason Bateman--ever since as a young queer boy, I crushed hard on him as the lead in the short-lived It's Your Move. I think I even bought a novelization of an episode of that show from the elementery school book club--remember those? But it's not just Bateman that makes AD (as the Kids call it) brilliant: the entire cast is superb and the writing is funnier than anything I've seen on TV, INCLUDING The Simpsons (which is not easy for me to admit...). I mean, this is the show that featured guest appearances from Liza Minelli as a sex-starved widow with vertigo. And then there are the words and phrases that I can't stop repeating to my sister: nevernudes, Bob Loblaw's Law Blog, Motherboy, the dizzies, Anne Paul Veal, "Marry Me."
  
  At this point, there is no question that this is the best television series to air in the first decade of the 21C. There, I said it.
  
  
• Illinois by Sufjan Stevens: released in 2005, but Fosco didn't start listening to it until the beginning of 2006. It became particularly important to Fosco in November of this year (and, in fact, he is listening to it as he writes this). While Sufjan's Michigan disc was high-quality (and captivated Fosco because of home-state pride), Illinois is truly exceptional. How is it possible to write an achingly beautiful song about the life of John Wayne Gacy? Or a jaunty bluegrass ode to Decatur? Oh, and did I mention that he's hot?
  
  
• In-N-Out Burger: the West Coast institution, praised extravagantly by Fosco here.
  
  
• Kathy Griffin: I know, I know... This is so cliche: a homosexual who likes Kathy Griffin? Shocking. But, to tell the truth, I never really cared about her until I watched her My Life on the D-List. She's really so appealing and down-to-earth. And she tells such funny stories about Anna Nicole Smith and Gay Gaykin and his Gay-Mates.
  
  
• blogs: As 2006 was the year that Fosco launched this little project he likes to call Fosco Lives!, blogs were clearly an important influence on him this year. But which blogs? Almost every morning, Fosco gets his niche news from several outposts of the Nick Denton Empire, including Deadspin, Defamer, and Gawker. And Fosco never travels somewhere without researching Gridskipper for tips on where the cool kids hang out.
  
  More importantly for Fosco and Fosco Lives! however, are two personal blogs: Ted Gideonse's The Gideonse Bible and John Mackey's blog at OstiMusic. These two blogs have served as inspirations for what Fosco Lives! can be and I read them religiously (which is really the only way to read a Bible). Merci, gentleman for a great year of blogging.
  
  
• John McPhee on geology: his Pulitzer-Prize-winning Annals of the Former World served as Fosco's guidebook as he drove from Michigan to Santa Cruz along I-80 this summer, stopping along the way to pick up rocks. You can read about Fosco's adventures along the way in the Fosco Lives! Archives here and here.
  
  
• "The Nietzsche Family Circus": I have literally spent hours on this website this fall. It cheers me up whenever I'm down. Who would have thought that pairing a random Nietzsche aphorism with a random "Family Circus" cartoon would be the best thing ever? I've permalinked to some of my favorites here, here, and here. Oh God, I'm laughing too hard...
  
  
• Matthew Barney's Drawing Restraint 9: Fosco saw this art film three times, despite it running three-ish hours. Do yourself a favor and watch the trailer. Then read Fosco's earlier review.
  
  
• Lindsay Lohan and her vulva (SFW). First, I would like to explain why I refuse to participate in the popular convention of referring to pictures like these (NSFW) as pix of Lindsay Lohan's vagina. I may be a homosexual who hasn't touched a woman's vagina in like five years (or so), but I did take Health Class in Junior High and I think what we are looking at is actually Lindsay Lohan's vulva.
  
  Whatever we are looking at, I'm pretty compelled by it. Not the vulva per se, but the idea that a popular teen star would regularly flash her privates to the paparazzi. This plus her drinking problems, her barely literate emails, and her strange belief that she will be aided by Al Gore, make her the most fascinating case of pub(l)ic self-destruction I've seen. Britney (NSFW) is a total amateur compared to Lindsay. The way I see it, Lindsay is one marriage to a homosexual (does she know Clay Aiken?) away from becoming the Judy Garland of this generation. And I can't wait to see what degradation is yet to come!
  

Year in Music: 2006

I think it would be better not to embarass myself too much by admitting my too-mainstream taste in non-classical music. Other than my complete obsession with Sufjan Stevens (which I've noted in almost every post in the past week), I would make a top ten list with a truly pathetic amount of emo on it. So I'm not going to do that.

Non-Sufjan disc of the year? Two words: Black Parade.

There, I've said it and I'm thoroughly ashamed.

Year in Books: 2006

It's the last day of 2006: let the Listmania begin! Let's start with the year in books:

Best: Special Topics in Calamity Physics. No surprise here. The long-time reader of Fosco Lives! knows that Fosco loved this book. Haters need not reply.

Second Best: Twilight of the Superheroes. Sometimes Fosco thinks that he is one of the last 100 readers in the world of short story collections. In the past, he has had a fraught relationship with the short stories of Deborah Eisenberg. Not anymore: four of the six stories in this collection are masterpieces.

Best Cover: Icelander. McSweeney's books are almost always beautifully designed. You can't really get a sense of this cover from the picture (because there's glitter embedded in it!). Good cover.

Biggest Disappointment: Against the Day. Fosco was so looking forward to this novel--for months! After all, Pynchon's previous novel, Mason & Dixon, instantly became one of Fosco's five favorite books ever. So you can imagine Fosco's disappointment to discover that Pynchon's new novel is... terrible. I mean really bad. (True-blue Pynchon fans shouldn't bother to accuse me of misunderstanding on this one: I've read every word he's ever written and I understand the virtues of Pynchon. This novel just doesn't contain most of them.)

Second Biggest Disappointment: The Keep. How did this book make the cover of the NYT Book Review? Did the reviewer only read the first half? And why can't Jennifer Egan write a good second half of a book?

Book I Keep Forgetting That I Read: Trance. Huh. Apparently this book came out in 2005. But pretty much everything about this book is news to me anyway.

Book I Started and Never Finished: Icelander. Fosco loves Iceland and so this well-reviewed book should have been a slam-dunk. But he only made it through page 11, to the end of the descriptions of the characters in the novel: a character list which included "Philip Leshio" and "Constance Lingus" (wait for it...). After he read these names, Fosco thought to himself: "Do I really need to read this?" The answer was no.

Book I Probably Should Have Read: The Emperor's Children. I heard it was good.

Well-Reviewed Book I Have No Intention of Ever Reading: Absurdistan. I don't care if the NYTimes Book Review editor knocks on my door and begs me to read this novel. I won't. I read the excerpt in The New Yorker and I hated it. As far as I can tell, this book is like Borat for highbrows.

Book Everyone Hated That I Liked: This Book Will Save Your Life. Maybe most readers found the title to promise a bit too much. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for A.M. Homes and maybe that's why I was willing to accept the emotional resonance of this novel.