The Best Things #2

We’re basking in the easy-bake oven glow of sunrise hope and spinning ourselves around for no reason. It’s a glorious supernova of mirth borne in campfires at dusk and quiet moments among friends. It’s a new kind of literature, combining the optimistic with the existential. It just might lead to the greatest development in Venetian blind technology humanity has seen in centuries. It’s affectionately dedicated to all those people who misuse the word ‘literally’. You’re all literally kings among men.

This is the Best Things Ever for August 5, 2004.

NUMBER FIVE

Summer

As I drove home from work today, the radio station I listen to was once again playing Modest Mouse’s Float On. I almost drove my car into the highway guardrail. It’s not a BAD song, really, but it’s not a great song either. It’s a decent song that’s been relentlessly overplayed to an obscene level.

The same thing happens every summer. Decent songs are played over and over again. At first we sing to the chorus and drum on the steering wheel and scare the hell out of the people behind us when we tap the gas pedal to the beat. But it dies out. First it goes to a point of oversaturation, and then to a point where you barely even hear the song anymore. It’s been playing for so often for so long that it just sounds like noise.

And we miss the randomness of the other seasons. The eclectic sounds of months we lose track of and days erratic and brilliantly unique.

NUMBER FOUR

M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village

I know it was widely panned, but I really enjoyed this. It’s rather amazing that Shyamalan remains a mainstream writer and director despite not having done anything really audience-pleasing since The Sixth Sense. He doesn’t make movies about ghosts, monsters or aliens, and that’s why it’s so infuriating when smart guys yammer on about how stupid it is that the aliens in Signs invaded a planet that was 80% water.

His films are usually intensely personal. They’re about family, faith, relationships and, with The Village, politics and community. If you’re looking for straight-forward scary movies, you’re better off elsewhere. Though I think Shyamalan has his flaws, I think he’s a talented director and, more importantly, produces fascinating and layered work.

NUMBER THREE

Big Ideas

I’m going to combine the reality show with the literary novel and bring about a revolution. It’ll be literature for the masses! Subtlety crossed with outright brazenness. A big ball of contradictions that somehow even out with an ending that makes sense from three different angles! Reality Fiction, people, it’s fucking genius and I swear to god I’ll write it at some point.

Of course with my track record that point will be years from now, if ever. I have three different long-form novels swimming my head, two videogames, one epic comic series and more short stories or vignettes than I know what to do with. What, exactly, am I supposed to do with all this crap?

NUMBER TWO

This website’s new look!

I know, I have to add a ‘Home’ link to the top. It might already be there by the time you read this! Who can tell at this point. My own actions are a mystery to me. It’s also very left-aligned, especially if you’re operating at a large resolution. But, you know, I’ve been craving some change for a long time. It makes me feel refreshed! Reenergized! Gosh darn it, I may even update this site more often!

NUMBER ONE

Bill Cosby’s Grover Henson Feels Forgotten”

It’s rare that a piece of audio comes about that is both poignant and terrible, but I think this fits the bill nicely. Most people know Cosby from his awesome 1980s sitcoms, or his terrible 1990s sitcoms, or GHOST DAD, the film that helped so many children get over the loss of a loved one. But most people haven’t heard this. A bizarre track that somehow made it onto Cosby’s Best Of CD, it’s really… something. The best part is when the fucking choir kicks in. Brilliant.

Click here to get it

I think we’re all slowly learning that the best things don’t have to be good things.

Matt