Slowly Going Bald

A nice little place with some good beer:

The New Guy Visits: Khon's

It's not even to the first round of real cuts yet. We're still in cattle calls.

"American Idol," Week Three: Los Angeles Auditions

"American Idol," Week Three: Dallas Auditions

Over at the Houston Press, I finish my two-part look at the Conan-Jay showdown and what it really means.

Click here for the post.

And for those who missed it, here's his farewell speech:

I waited a month for a new episode of "The Office" and got a clip show. Meh.

"The Office" 6x13: "The Banker"

This season of "American Idol" kept on rolling with more bad singers, good singers, and seriously deluded people. (Also, in re: the art for this post: You're welcome.)

"American Idol," Week Two: Chicago Auditions

"American Idol," Week Two: Orlando Auditions

Over at the Houston Press, I've got a blog post that tries to pin down what's happening with the late-night wars and where the wheels came off the wagon. It's mainly a chance to work through stuff I'll explore more with a follow-up post next week, after (if rumors are to be believed) Conan O'Brien leaves "The Tonight Show" this Friday.

Click here for the post.

Youth in Revolt

The Lovely Bones

Not good:

Click here for the review.

This week's 29-95 assignment took me to my first gay bar in Houston:

The New Guy Visits: Decades

I've started blogging about "American Idol" for the Houston Press. I'd thought my time covering "Dancing With the Stars" was a long stretch, but "Idol" runs into May, by which point I'm sure I'll be half-mad from immersion in America's biggest and maybe weirdest TV show. But for now, on with the recaps:

"American Idol," Week One: Boston Auditions

"American Idol," Week One: Atlanta Auditions

A letdown:

Click here for the review.

For a year and a half now, I've been replaying a conversation I had with my friend's father at the friend's wedding. We (the wedding party) had been pressed into service to set up tables and chairs and place settings for the rehearsal dinner, and though I can speak for no one else, I did my level best to do as little as possible. Once we were done, though, the father chatted me up briefly about my career, knowing that I was a copy editor by day and a freelance film and TV critic on nights and weekends. He decided to ask me about the disparity between critical consensus and box-office tallies; basically, he wanted to know how I could presume to act as if I was in the know when I'd expressed displeasure for a movie that had grossed billions.

I can't reconstruct the dialogue with much accuracy, but I do remember being surprised at his casual glee in asserting that I probably wasn't tuned into the right frequency if something I trashed could make so much money. I didn't know what to say just then, and honestly wasn't in any position to begin to wrap my mind around an actual discussion of the issue; I still had a full weekend ahead of me. But I've been thinking it about it ever since, and I finally figured out what I should have said to him:

I know what I'm talking about.

Does that mean, though, that I know all I need to know, or will ever know, or want to know? No. I am constantly trying to learn more, read more, understand more, etc. Does it mean that I was born with the ability to understand art in a way he never could? Of course not. That'd be ludicrous to suggest and against the whole idea of being a critic, which is to get people interested in and excited about movies they might not know about or might have dismissed the first time around.

But I do know what I'm talking about, and it's falsely modest to pretend otherwise. If I'd had my wits about me then, I'd probably have talked to him about communities of informed judgment, the groups of educated doers in a given field that pass down knowledge and skill through generations. It's similar to an academic field, like mathematics: Every new student isn't reinventing formulas, but being ushered into the world of learning that's been there for thousands of years. Movies are the same way. You start out reaching for anything and everything, and you learn and read and study and analyze and eventually understand, and then that becomes the foundation for the next phase of your learning. The things I bring to the table now are things I wouldn't have known to do five years ago, and they'll seem childish in another five. You're constantly growing, but that doesn't make you ignorant.

I'd also have liked to point out that he's the same, and everyone is. He's a minister, and if I asked him for his opinion on a spiritual matter or scriptural passage, one for which he'd be able to bring his life and study to bear to help me — if I asked him that, and then ignored him because five friends with no training said the opposite, he'd likely be frustrated with the fact that I chose to let a crowd dissuade me from something counseled by a more learned individual. I'd be right to want to get multiple opinions, but misguided to count his as less than or equal to that of someone who lacked the depth of understanding really required by the situation.

That's one of the reasons why I trust some people's analysis of movies more than others. It has nothing to do with personal relationships and everything to do with the fact that they know more than most people (certainly more than me). Quality has nothing to do with reception. A good work of art is a good work of art, whether it's seen by millions of people or just a dozen. And because I trust people who have studied, who have clawed their way to a position of education and reason, and because I am on that path myself, I have to put more faith in their analyses than box-office returns. It's not because I discount the will of the people (at least, not wholly); it's because I know what I'm doing. I ask you to trust me, and see what you think.

What a great little joint:

The New Guy Visits: Etta's Lounge.

Seriously, everyone needs to be watching "Parks and Recreation." Good first season, great second one.

I love reading, and I don't get to do it nearly as often as I'd like. (Between a full-time job and three freelancing gigs, I tend to run out of free time if I don't plan well.) Just putting this meager list together made me regret how much I didn't get done in 2009, and it strengthened my resolve to read more books in 2010 and beyond. In fact, if I hadn't been unemployed for a certain part of the year, I would've read even less. That's criminal.

Anyway, here's what I read this year. I omitted a couple minor titles I reread to kill time as I was boxing up my stuff and preparing to move from California to Texas, since I was only picking out excerpts from certain well-loved books (e.g., "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" from David Foster Wallace's collection of the same name, a hilarious and wonderful essay I could read every month). But I have included a couple of titles that I reread in full, and noted them accordingly. So with all that said, here's what I managed to read in 2009:

How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken (2008), Daniel Mendelsohn
This was one of those purely lucky finds. I was browsing through nonfiction when I came across this collection of essays and criticisms from Mendelsohn that have appeared in the New York Review of Books. He filters most of his criticism through a classical lens, analyzing modern takes on Greek myths and asking important questions about art, film, and theater. His essay on United 93, titled "September 11 at the Movies," is flat-out fantastic.

Black Hole (2005), Charles Burns
A wonderful graphic novel, collected from individual issues that were published over a decade. It uses the premise of a disease ("the bug") that inflicts victims with weird mutations as an examination of youth, longing, and the great and terrible things that are impossible to explain. Burns is amazing at telling a whole story by only showing small parts of it.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union (2007), Michael Chabon
Chabon is great at creating parallel universes, and this is no exception. It's a mystery set in a world with an alternate history in which a Jewish refugee camp was established in Alaska during World War II, and the story takes place in present day. Not his best work, but still worth reading.

Ender's Game (1985) (reread), Orson Scott Card
I grabbed this off the shelf in a fit of nostalgia in the spring. I read the same battered copy I've had for years, which I bought in the third grade at the school's book fair. It held up pretty well, and is still a fun and entertaining sci-fi story.

Speaker for the Dead (1986), Orson Scott Card
Almost daringly awful. Card's follow-up to Ender's Game was the first of several sequels and spin-offs set in the story's universe, but it's horribly plotted and choked throughout with unbelievably terrible dialogue. Halfway through, I found myself skimming, hoping things would get better but knowing that they probably wouldn't.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000) (reread), Dave Eggers
I hadn't reread this since the first time I read it, in the summer of 2003. It was inspirational then, coming along at a time when I was just starting to convince myself I could eventually be a writer, and the story's just as moving now.

A People's History of the United States (2003 edition), Howard Zinn
Zinn's examination of American society is a powerful one. He delves into some of the lesser known moments of the past couple centuries, and makes a compelling and believable case that the country has been built on a pattern of degradation and manipulation.

The Time Traveler's Wife (2003), Audrey Niffenegger
I picked up the sci-fi romance in anticipation of seeing the movie, and though I never got around to the film, I enjoyed the book more than I thought I would. It's an interesting concept — boy meets girl, boy is unstuck in time, tragedy ensues — and Niffenegger pulls it off pretty well.

Consider the Lobster (2005) (reread), David Foster Wallace
Wallace is my favorite author, and I can always pull down his books and dip back into the fiction and essays with ease. This was his last collection of essays published before his suicide in 2008, an event that still breaks my heart to think about. The book is thoughtful, probing, funny, and committed to examining all the truth underneath everything.

The Swap (2007), Antony Moore
A solid little story that feels a little bloated as a small novel but still packs a punch when it wants to. Fun mystery, good jokes, and killer ending.

City of Thieves (2008), David Benioff
Benioff's phenomenal second novel is a moving, engaging story about war and love, and the worthwhile risks of friendship. I devoured it.

Columbine (2009), Dave Cullen
Cullen's exhaustively researched book is awesome for the way it meticulously re-creates the prelude, shooting, and aftermath of what would be the deadliest school shooting until the horror at Virginia Tech in 2007. Cullen reconstructs the 1999 killings and lays out a decade's worth of research, though much of what he knows was established just months after the event in the reporting he did for Salon. For a member of the generation directly affected by the shootings at Columbine High — I was 16 and finishing up my junior year — it's a powerful reminder of what it was like to watch it happen. It's a gripping book.

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned (2009), Wells Tower
Good grief, did I hate myself while reading this. Sure, Tower ties the group of bitter and unfriendly stories together on the last page of the last story, but I don't agree with his conclusions and I barely survived the journey to get there.

Zeitoun (2009), Dave Eggers
Eggers' nonfiction narrative about the persecution of a Syrian-American man in the days following Hurricane Katrina is gut-wrenching in its detail and jaw-dropping in the way he lays out the atrocities and incompetencies inflicted on a man by a paranoid government that placed a higher premium on caging its citizens than on helping its wounded. It deserves to be read.

Blackwater (2007), Jeremy Scahill
Scahill's indictment of Blackwater USA (now Xe Services LLC) is a worthy one, though he occasionally slips into a pissy and partisan rhetoric that dilutes the power of the facts at his disposal. Private contractors working for Blackwater in Iraq did some bad things during the war, and when Scahill focuses on the truth of these violations of justice and ethics, his book is a damning document that recounts the lengths people can go to when responsibility is no longer an issue.