Top 10 of '10 #5

5) #1 TV experience: Lost

I have Darick to blame for Lost. I went along with him to a Lost watching party some time during the 5th season. Though it didn't make a lot of sense at the time, I actually remembered enough to piece some things together. Actually, very few things. The characters I met in that episode were in completely different situations up until the 5th season. But it was fun to forget about it and then feel like things were clicking in place. I watched the first 5 seasons between January and March on Netflix and then had to somehow catch up on the 6th season (with a lot of googling and bad picture quality). I got caught up and was able to watch the last 3 or 4 episodes live on tv, watching the final episode at my parents' home with my sister (another Lostie) and parents. Watching something like Lost with my dad is always an exercise in patience: he doesn't always hear or understand everything and so if ever he doesn't understand something, he wants us to explain. But what if it's meant to be ambiguous? What if we don't know yet? But it wasn't so bad, and I thought the ending provided just enough closure and unanswered questions. Now I really want to get into Twin Peaks just to see what the fuss is about.

Top 10 of '10 #6

6) #1 Meal: Birthday dinner at Longman & Eagle

I almost picked the dinner at the Gage with Lisa, which I remember being really good... but I can't remember what I actually ate there. Some sort of fish, some sort of good beer. At Longman, I had a gathered a small group (Corbett, Grace, Laura, Joe, Anna) out to celebrate the end of my 31st year, and I remember exactly what I had. Well... except for the appetizer, which was really good but fuzzy in my recollection. I had a sour beer--some sort of Belgian concoction, like a Lambic or something (something about a Duchesse, possibly from Burgundy?)--that complemented the pork belly like peanut butter complements Marshmallow Fluff®. (According to popular legend.) And I think there was dessert. Ok, so I was probably paying more attention to the group symbiosis than the food itself. In fact, in both situations, I think I was more concerned with the human energy than the tastiness of the food. Which is probably the opposite of what you or I might have assumed.

[Maybe I'm getting older (i.e., mature) but I am noticing the taste of food less and less, thinking more about how it feels and, often, how it makes me feel. That could be why I love going to Kuma's. It doesn't make me feel good, necessarily, but it tastes good and feels good going down. It completes you and gives you the ability (and the necessity) to get on the bike and ride for a couple thousand calories.]

Top 10 of '10 #7

7) #1 Hitchhiking Story:

This was a category fraught with competition. It was like watching a race between 3 or 4 stories, running around and round inside my head, when, at the last moment, a dark horse rode came out from the shadows of memory and won by a nose. It beat out the ride from the Jehovah's Witness who bought me lunch, the ride from the Private Detective in an ancient minivan on the country roads back to Paris, and the ride from the Czech truck driver who bought me a 1.5 liter water bottle filled with beer. The winner was from a time in Germany. I was trying to get from Köln to Hannover and was having no luck. I got to a gas station (Tankstelle) and asked a pretty straight-laced guy in his mid-40s if he'd give me a ride. He said it would be no problem and that he would make his kids sit in the back seat. So I made it pretty far with this Pater Familias and his two kids--a 16-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl--both of whom didn't mind relinquishing shotgun to some vagabonding American. Both of the kids had that quizzical look in their eyes that betrayed the novelty of the situation. I felt like how American tourists must feel in parts of China without the propositioning and profiteering. Unfortunately, they took a highway that got me closer but farther at the same time: slightly off course.

Then I was stuck for a good long while. I tried standing at a gas station for about an hour, but no one seemed to be going that far. Finally, I stood right at the on-ramp and after about 20 minutes got a ride from the cutest Dutch couple in a convertible VW bug--(a new one). They even had a flower in the flower holder. Unfortunately, they were exiting the highway onto another highway and there was no good place for me to "aussteigen". So I got out right on the on-ramp that connected the two highways. And after a lot of really dirty looks from the people passing, someone finally stopped. It was two blond-hair, blue-eyed men in their mid-20s, early-30s in peak physical shape, wearing sunglasses, and driving a white car with green lettering and flashing blue lights: Polizei! It was a good thing I spoke some German. First: "Was machen Sie hier?" Then: "Sie können nicht hier bleiben." Then: "[something, something] Passport." Then, he went back in the car, did some computing or some conversing (or just stalled for time to increase the suspense) and then finally came back. "Wir werden Sie mitnehmen nach die nächste ausfahrt." And then, while in the car, going nearly 200km/h: "Die nächste ausfahrt ist nicht gut für Sie. Es gibt ein Tankstelle die ist besser." So they took me about 30km down the road. I was taking this opportunity for make Smalltalk. They wanted to know if I was trampen all around Europe. And that's when I learned how to say hitchhiking in German. Finally got to the Tankstelle and I waited (and waited) und so weiter. The German vs. England World Cup game was on, so there wasn't much traffic on the road. And so it was not surprising that the people who ended up giving me a ride weren't even German but Polish. They were headed back from Holland to Poland and could take me pretty close to Hannover. Score.

Literally: score. During the whole train trip into Hannover, like my dad at the dinner table, the conductor would periodically give us a score update--usually good news for Germany. I took the train into the city and was greeted by an Insane Clown Posse of German soccer hooligans celebrating Germany's win (or England's defeat). (Can you imagine ICP doing a tour of Germany? Verdammt Magnete, wie functioniern sie?) Germans don't get to be very nationalistic any more, so any socially acceptable time and place to let it out, it ejaculates like from a firehose. All their rules and order are thrown out of the open car windows from which bare-chested males are shouting and waving flags.

Google images thought I wanted to see this:

It knows me too well.

Top 10 of '10 #8

8) #1 Bike Race: Indian Lakes

Really?  A bike race beats out Sufjan?  Maybe Sufjan is not doing what I thought he was doing; it's still great but it's not transcendental.  This bike race, my 6th this year, was the first that I got on the podium.  And my parents were there to see it.  As much as I would like to pretend like it doesn't matter to me whether or not they (or even friends) come to watch me race, it was nice to have them there.  And they got to see a good race.  The first one, I went out hard and pretty much stayed between 10th and 14th the whole race, finishing 11th.  The second, I went out like a bullet, led for the whole first lap and part of the second, was called a "sandbagger" (and sort of agreed), finally got passed by a guy who really was a sandbagger, got caught by my teammate who then fell, and ended up finishing well ahead of him: 2nd place.  I got 2nd again the next week and then fell off due to excessive Thanksgiving food consumption and a complete lack of training.

Here I am a sandbagger in the sand.

Top 10 of '10 #9

9) #1 Rock/Pop Concert: Sufjan at the Chicago Theater

I heard Sufjan was coming, forgot, remembered again, and then, right before his concert, was hanging out with a girl (3 dates, yer out!) who had tickets to the show. Not extra tickets, just tickets for her (and a friend, possibly a "friend"). I had to go. I found some tickets on the internet, paying slightly more than I would have otherwise, and went (by myself). It wasn't the concert I expected (involving a lot more new music (exclusively) and less Illinoise (limited to the encore)) but was inspired and inspiring. It was like going to a symphony concert with just a little more dancing in the aisles. (Almost like the time I saw Youssou N'Dour.) And when he finally played Chicago, John Wayne Gacy, something something UFO sighting, and probably the Decatur song, the place exploded, the almost sexual frustration boiling over and flowing out into the ether.

Sufjan infringing on Roger Ebert's trademark

Top 10 of '10 #10

I am typically a little fuzzy on the concept of a guilty pleasure.  People talk about certain pop songs, certain tv shows, and certain movies with a certain embarrassment.  Fortunately for me, I am neither embarrassed by my own tastes nor by the tastes of my friends.  (Which may be the precise reason why they're my friends.)

But as I was getting swept up in the end-of-2010 top 10 lists, I realized I was feeling pleasure.  And then I felt guilty.  [Maybe guilty pleasures, in general, come from our American brand of puritanical revulsion at the indulging our fleshy pleasures.]

So I came up with my own list.  

Top 10 #1s from Top 10 lists of 2010:

10) #1 Documentary: Scott Walker: 30th Century Man

I was going through the movies I've watched on Netflix this year and totally forgot about this one.  Somehow it came to me like in a dream: I watched it at Darick's right around the time (before or after) my friend Ryan I. exposed me to his music at a party.  It was like synchronicity.  Or happenstance.  It made Scott Walker seem like a über-talented musician with a visionary/artistic process.  I have since tried to get into his music but find it difficult: on the logic-intuition continuum it is on a different side than I.  It'll probably grow on me like some sort of acquired taste.

Scott Walker