As is evident by the sidebar at left, I'm a compulsive list-maker. The habit started innocently enough: I began to keep track of all the films I see so as to ease the composition of a best-of list at the end of the year. The system grew in my personal calendar to include dates, format (unless otherwise noted as screener, DVD, or TV, you can assume I viewed the title in a theater or screening room), and highlights of those that were released in that particular year—again, to ease the annual list-making process.
Then I expanded the log to include the books I read, which, like the neat stacks of books on a shelf, lends a sense of accomplishment to the whole endeavor. Ditto the list of all the events I attend—at once satisfying to see where I've been and encouraging as to what I might yet experience.
So, before I wipe the slate clean for 2008, here's a recap of 2007 in lists:
Books 2007
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges by Nathan Englander
The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
Doing Nothing by Tom Lutz
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Lake of Fire by Kate Gale
In the Middle of All This by Fred Leebron
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power
Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicole Kraus
Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis Lehane
Cry of the Peacock by Gina Nahai
Evening by Susan Minot
The Confessions of St. Augustine
Best American Short Stories 2006
Not on Our Watch by Don Cheadle and John Prendergast
Baltasar and Blimunda by Jose Saramago
You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers
Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences by Lawrence Wechsler
Zodiac by Robert Graysmith
Spy by David Wise
Answered Prayers by Truman Capote
The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez by John Rechy
Capote: A Biography by Gerald Clarke
Readings, Signings, and Other Literary Events 2007
Truth, Lies or Scam panel discussion
Rhapsodancy poetry reading
MPW Halloween student reading
Gina Nahai book signing
MPW student reading
Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
Concerts, Plays, and Other Cultural Events 2007
The Met Live in HD: Romeo et Juliet
Ozzy Osbourne and Rob Zombie
The History Boys
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
The Shins
Bright Eyes
Avenue Q
Norah Jones
Yellow Face
Lily Allen
Modest Mouse
Snow Patrol
Movies 2007
There Will Be Blood
The Bucket List
Charlie Wilson's War
Letters From Iwo Jima (DVD)
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
The Spiderwick Chronicles
The Mouse That Roared (TV)
Flags of Our Fathers (TV)
Juno
Happy Feet (TV)
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
The Savages
P.S. I Love You
U2 3D
Snow Angels
Southland Tales
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Lagerfeld Confidential (screener)
I Am Legend
Margot at the Wedding
Prime (TV)
Now, Voyager (TV)
Casablanca (TV)
Notorious (TV)
The Treasure of Sierra Madre (TV)
Breakfast at Tiffany's (DVD)
Just Like Heaven (TV)
Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project (TV)
Beowulf (digital 3D)
Lions for Lambs
No Country for Old Men
Beowulf (Imax 3D)
Love in the Time of Cholera
Steep
With Your Permission
The Aerial
Enchanted
The Duchess of Langeais
Night Train
Noise
The Year of the Nail
1000 Journals
On the Road With Judas
Confessions of a Superhero
The Mugger
American Gangster
Bee Movie
Saw IV
Dan in Real Life
DarkBlueAlmostBlack (screener)
Saw III (DVD)
Meeting Resistance (screener)
The Ten Commandments (screener)
Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Lars and the Real Girl
King Corn (screener)
Michael Clayton
In the Valley of Elah
The Darjeeling Limited
Eastern Promises
The Seeker: Dark Is Rising
Into the Wild
The Game Plan
Resident Evil: Extinction
Sydney White
Open Hearts (internet)
After the Wedding (DVD)
Dragon Wars
Mr. Woodcock
Shoot 'Em Up
3:10 to Yuma (DVD)
Rocket Science
Halloween
Halloween (DVD)
Death Sentence
Slipstream
Reservation Road
Sweet Land (DVD)
War
Live-In Maid
Illegal Tender
Becoming Jane
Cut Sleeve Boys (screener)
Superbad
The Last Legion
3:10 to Yuma
The Nanny Diaries
American History X (VHS)
Descent (screener)
Hairspray
Bratz
The Nines
The Bourne Ultimatum
The King of California
The Ten
The Bourne Supremacy (DVD)
The Bourne Identity (DVD)
The Sugar Curtain (screener)
The Simpsons Movie
I Know Who Killed Me
No Reservations
Black Dahlia (DVD)
Rescue Dawn
Goya's Ghosts
My Kid Could Paint That
Lake of Fire
The U.S. vs. John Lennon (DVD)
Harry Potter and the Golbet of Fire (TV)
Paris je T'aime
Gone Baby Gone
Time (screener)
Dr. Bronner Magic Soap (TV)
The 11th Hour
The Lives of Others
Transformers
A Mighty Heart
Live Free or Die Hard
Fur (DVD)
The Real Dirt on Farmer John
Die Hard (DVD)
Live Free or Die Hard
Ratatouille
Things We Lost in the Fire
Evening
Trade
Blood and Tears (screener)
Unborn in the USA (screener)
For Your Consideration (DVD)
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Resurrecting the Champ
2 Days in Paris
You're Gonna Miss Me (screener)
Ocean's Thirteen
Brand Upon the Brain!
Hostel II
Sunshine
Hostel (DVD)
Knocked Up
Brick (DVD)
Moliere
Once
Waitress
Bug
28 Weeks Later
Georgia Rule
Shrek the Third
Gracie
Spider-Man 3
Grindhouse
The Condemned
Next
The Damned (DVD)
The Wendell Baker Story
Perfect Stranger
Day Watch
Pathfinder
Trouble in Paradise (DVD)
Blade of Glory
300
Fracture
Eagle vs. Shark
The Prestige (DVD)
Meet the Robinsons 3D
The Hills Have Eyes 2
The Exterminating Angels (DVD)
L'Iceberg (screener)
Shooter
TMNT
Hot Fuzz
El Cantante
Disturbia
Talk to Me
Elizabeth I (TV)
Black Snake Moan
300
Mimzy
Duel in the Sun (DVD)
Reno 911! Miami
Ghost Rider
Gray Matters
Zodiac
The Last King of Scotland
Breach
Providence (DVD)
The Wind That Shakes the Barley
The Ultimate Gift (screener)
Sunset Boulevard (DVD)
The Illusionist (DVD)
Catch and Release
Smokin' Aces
Alpha Dog
The Family Stone (TV)
Persona (DVD)
The Hitcher (DVD)
In Her Shoes (TV)
Pan's Labyrinth
God Grew Tired of Us
All the King's Men (DVD)
Dreamgirls
Junebug (DVD)
Perfume
The Good German
Monday, December 31, 2007
Friday, November 9, 2007
Collision
Off the coast
gentle giants lurk,
feeding, singing
breaching for air.
Leviathan corpses
float belly up,
sharks gnawing at scraped flesh.
Cetacean carcasses
roll in the surf,
gulls pecking at putrid blubber.
Necropsies reveal
fifteen-foot contusions,
crushed spines and smashed craniums,
twelve-inch fragments chipped from ribs.
Manmade vessels
parting water at forty knots
barely slow when they
collide with
beasts so great
the earth can’t hold them.
Buried on the beach or
towed out to sea,
rancid remains refuse to
disappear. Tail flukes
poke out of the sand,
carrion washes back up onshore.
This fall, three blue whales beached or were found floating at sea off the coast of Southern California in a span of two weeks. Each appeared to have been hit by a ship. At first scientists wondered whether the massive creatures had become disoriented and investigated the possibility of domoic acid poisoning. The bacterial product is found in algae blooms and can virtually paralyze marine animals, including 21 whales and dolphins this summer. No evidence of a neurotoxin was found, however.
There were many striking images from these incidents, including a veterinarian who hoisted herself up onto a corpse by using knives like climbing pitons, but I was particularly moved by the carcass that was towed out to sea but kept resurfacing on beaches as it made its way down the coastline. Seaside residents didn’t want to see the putrefying mess or certainly smell it, but the rotting cadaver wouldn’t let us look away.
gentle giants lurk,
feeding, singing
breaching for air.
Leviathan corpses
float belly up,
sharks gnawing at scraped flesh.
Cetacean carcasses
roll in the surf,
gulls pecking at putrid blubber.
Necropsies reveal
fifteen-foot contusions,
crushed spines and smashed craniums,
twelve-inch fragments chipped from ribs.
Manmade vessels
parting water at forty knots
barely slow when they
collide with
beasts so great
the earth can’t hold them.
Buried on the beach or
towed out to sea,
rancid remains refuse to
disappear. Tail flukes
poke out of the sand,
carrion washes back up onshore.
This fall, three blue whales beached or were found floating at sea off the coast of Southern California in a span of two weeks. Each appeared to have been hit by a ship. At first scientists wondered whether the massive creatures had become disoriented and investigated the possibility of domoic acid poisoning. The bacterial product is found in algae blooms and can virtually paralyze marine animals, including 21 whales and dolphins this summer. No evidence of a neurotoxin was found, however.
There were many striking images from these incidents, including a veterinarian who hoisted herself up onto a corpse by using knives like climbing pitons, but I was particularly moved by the carcass that was towed out to sea but kept resurfacing on beaches as it made its way down the coastline. Seaside residents didn’t want to see the putrefying mess or certainly smell it, but the rotting cadaver wouldn’t let us look away.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Day one in the blogosphere
I am a writer, and I am immensely privileged to make a living at it.
For the past nine years, I have worked at Boxoffice Magazine, a trade publication for the movie theater industry. I’ve held many positions there, first as the film and technology editor, later as the editor. Now I’m a part-time editor-at-large. My two major beats are movie reviews and exhibition-related technologies, such as digital cinema. But you won’t be reading any of that material here. You can find it easily enough at boxoffice.com.
Since January 2005 I have been pursuing my graduate degree at the Master of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California. There I focus on fiction, studying with John Rechy, Janet Fitch, Gina Nahai and Judith Freeman, but also have taken nonfiction with the L.A. Times’ Kenneth Turan, playwriting with Donald Freed and poetry with Holly Prado Northup. I’m on track to turn in my thesis, a novel, at this time next year.
I also serve as editor-in-chief of Southern California Anthology, a student-run literary journal published by MPW. Our first issue will be available in the coming months. And this fall I joined the Writing Center at USC as a consultant, working with students one-and-one and in group workshops.
As a result of all this writing and editing and consulting—at which, again, I am extremely privileged to make a living—I have found that my own writing, including work on my novel, has suffered. It’s not often that I compose anything that’s not for a deadline. Regrettably, I have found myself hesitating to take the time to write, say, a poem that won’t be handed in.
And so today, which happens to be my birthday, I am launching a blog. With a debt of gratitude to Holiday Reinhorn, who encouraged me to write 10 minutes a day (it’s only 10 minutes!), and Holly Prado Northup, who introduced me to the concept, here is my online writer’s notebook.
Here I will work on material that’s not for work, that’s not for school, that’s not even necessarily for my novel. It might be poems, in which I’ve discovered an amateur interest, or other snatches of literary writing, fiction and non-. It might be a response to something I’ve read or seen or heard. It might be a current event filtered through a critical or literary prism. It might be a recording of my interactions with the world.
Whatever it is, it will, just by virtue of the fact that this blog exists, make writing—that is, my writing—a priority. I will have to hand something, anything, in, even on an arbitrary deadline. It may not be polished, but it will be considered.
Call it a structured journal. Deliberate contemplation. Purposeful escape. Habit.
For the past nine years, I have worked at Boxoffice Magazine, a trade publication for the movie theater industry. I’ve held many positions there, first as the film and technology editor, later as the editor. Now I’m a part-time editor-at-large. My two major beats are movie reviews and exhibition-related technologies, such as digital cinema. But you won’t be reading any of that material here. You can find it easily enough at boxoffice.com.
Since January 2005 I have been pursuing my graduate degree at the Master of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California. There I focus on fiction, studying with John Rechy, Janet Fitch, Gina Nahai and Judith Freeman, but also have taken nonfiction with the L.A. Times’ Kenneth Turan, playwriting with Donald Freed and poetry with Holly Prado Northup. I’m on track to turn in my thesis, a novel, at this time next year.
I also serve as editor-in-chief of Southern California Anthology, a student-run literary journal published by MPW. Our first issue will be available in the coming months. And this fall I joined the Writing Center at USC as a consultant, working with students one-and-one and in group workshops.
As a result of all this writing and editing and consulting—at which, again, I am extremely privileged to make a living—I have found that my own writing, including work on my novel, has suffered. It’s not often that I compose anything that’s not for a deadline. Regrettably, I have found myself hesitating to take the time to write, say, a poem that won’t be handed in.
And so today, which happens to be my birthday, I am launching a blog. With a debt of gratitude to Holiday Reinhorn, who encouraged me to write 10 minutes a day (it’s only 10 minutes!), and Holly Prado Northup, who introduced me to the concept, here is my online writer’s notebook.
Here I will work on material that’s not for work, that’s not for school, that’s not even necessarily for my novel. It might be poems, in which I’ve discovered an amateur interest, or other snatches of literary writing, fiction and non-. It might be a response to something I’ve read or seen or heard. It might be a current event filtered through a critical or literary prism. It might be a recording of my interactions with the world.
Whatever it is, it will, just by virtue of the fact that this blog exists, make writing—that is, my writing—a priority. I will have to hand something, anything, in, even on an arbitrary deadline. It may not be polished, but it will be considered.
Call it a structured journal. Deliberate contemplation. Purposeful escape. Habit.
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