Sunday, December 30, 2007

Through the snow

... well, not literally. But it was cold here this morning, and it's going to be colder as the New Year comes in. Today's post is a finished-object report at Toxophily, but while I've got you here, let me remind you about the Archies.

Inaugurated in last year's blockbuster list, the Archies garnered a handful of participants from my blogroll. This year I suppose I should have started beating the drum a little sooner than New Year's Eve Eve to get some more folks on board. How about if I give you the whole month of January to complete it? Although Petunia Town Girl beat me to it in only her second year of participation, so it seems we're all behind, really.

I'll be posting mine tomorrow to round out the year. In the meantime, here's the descript/instructions so you can start assembling your top however-many things in the world list now!

The religious studies blogekklesia participates sporadically in an exercise in list-making called "The Ralphies," named after the son blog of the guy who made them up. It's a typical year-end round-up of the blogger's media best-of's -- song, album, TV show, movie, book.

I spend all year writing about movies and books and TV shows (though, admittedly, not music). The Ralphies, for me, would be supremely redundant.

So I hereby institute and found a new tradition, to be engaged in by Friends of Mine, loosely defined as whoever happens across this post or subsequent annual editions, or whoever happens across the similar posts I encourage you and other readers to construct around the New Year and its anniversaries to come.

The Archies, named after my son (or the pride of Riverdale HIgh, take your pick), is a list of the Top ___ (your number here) Things in the World. Listed items must be things in the world, and must have played a significant role in your year. Significance, as will soon become clear, is to be defined solely by subjective criteria.

As in the non-existent previous years of this brand-new tradition, I refrain from mentioning the perennial Top Things in the World: Noel, Archer, and Cady Gray. To avoid tiresome repetition, immediate family members have been retired as members of the Archies Hall of Fame. Things done by said family members remain eligible for the annual list.
Gentlereaders, start your browsers!

6 comments:

heyrocker said...

1) Drupal - The potentially world-changing open source software I spent most of the year wrangling.

2) Music: LCD Soundsystem, Low, Wilco, Of Montreal, Radiohead

3) my new cat Ozu

4) Movies: Offside, King Of Kong, The Host, Guy Maddin's live performance of Brand Upon The Brain

5) TV: Big Bang Theory, Amazing Race, Curb Your Enthusiasm

6) Wikipedia

7) Watching traditional media companies implode

8) Peggle

9) All AVClubbers, you are all awesome

10) Almost everyone I work with is fantastically talented and inspiring, hopefully we won't all get fired in the coming year.

Anonymous said...

I sort of ticked off some things in my own year-end wrap up, but I wouldn't go so far as to title it My Favorite Things in the World. So...

1. Flickr. It is solely responsible for pushing me to advance a hobby I didn't even have a year & a half ago. In 2007 I moved to film and in 2008 I'll be taking photography classes.

2. I second heyrocker with Wikipedia. Not a day goes by that I don't look up about 10 or 100 things.

3. NPR, particularly the Evening Music program. Finally, a classical station that isn't stuck in the 19th (or earlier) century!

4. Artrocker. Finally, some new and interesting punk rock on the radio!

5. Panda Bear (musician).

6. Erik Friedlander (musician, son of Lee).

7. How I Met Your Mother. So silly.

8. Mad Men.

9. Bodie Brodus.

10. Proc fastclus. Sweet, simple SAS procedure, you are making my career.

11. The Brooklyn Academy of Music (also known as BAM). In 2007 I saw some of the most highly regarded contemporary dance as well as Bela Tarr's Satantango there. Sufjan also played an ode to the Brooklyn-Queen Expressway at BAM.

12. Film Forum.

13. The handful of days each year when I'm able to cast two shadows from the sun's reflections in lower Manhattan.

14. The Happiness Project; Marginal Revolution.

15. The Economist.

16. Happy babies (not mine, of course).

17. Happy Baby yoga pose.

18. Transportation on foot.

19. Tennis.

20. This year's TIFF.

Adam Villani said...

1. New job working at city hall.

2. Taking the bus to work.

3. The observation deck on the 27th floor of city hall.

4. XM Radio's POTUS '08 channel.

5. The Wii.

6. Getting the Wii by working my connections.

7. NavigateLA, showing all sorts of different layers on maps of L.A.

8. Bollini's Neapolitan Pizzeria - real non-American-style pizza in my neighborhood.

9. Living in the best neighborhood in the country for Chinese food.

10. Impromptu overnight 1100-mile trips to Flagstaff and back.

11. "Transit Maps of the World" by Mark Ovenden.

12. "Historical Atlas of California" by Derek Hayes.

13. Dollar coins. But not the lame designs on the presidential dollars.

14. Lust, Caution.

15. Hamsters.

16. The Onion AV Club.

17. Sleep.

18. The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway.

19. Peter Gabriel's bizarre costumes back when he was with Genesis.

20. The Comics Curmudgeon.

21. Cute Overload.

22. Rayman Raving Rabbids.

23. The various Smithsonian museums all being free.

24. The Jamestown 400th-anniversary stamp.

25. Finishing my quest to visit all 58 counties of California.

26. Having good friends from past workplaces, schools, etc.

27. The Amazing Race.

28. The state department getting me my passport nine days after I sent away for it - with no expediting.

29. National Parks.

30. IKEA's SKALBAGGE plush pillbug.

Paul C. said...

Just posted mine. Pretty film-heavy, but then so's my life.

Anonymous said...

No... the Ralphies are not named after my son, who is not named Ralph. It's named after the name of the blog. Sorry, I thought it was obvious.

donnadb said...

It should have been. Consider my misinformation corrected, now and in the future!