They've done it.
The New Yorker, in a maddening meta move bound to get your Inception-sense tingling, released a list of the greatest lists on Wednesday. Judging by its placement in Shouts & Murmurs, I'm going to give the magazine the benefit of the doubt and assume this is a wonderfully satirical look at our obsession with creating lists at the end of the year. And not an exercise in forcing my brain to do seven backflips in a row.
Exponentially confounding indices aside, it certainly has been a great year for — well, pretty much everything. I mean, we're still standing here after December 21, so we must've done something right, right? Even though I have several pop culture adventures yet to go on before the clock strikes midnight next Tuesday, I've compiled my favorite things of the past 361 days. Don't go looking under your chair though, Oprah fans. There's no copy of "The Dark Knight Rises" waiting for you.
Favorite news item:
Higgs Boson found
It wasn't the sexiest story of the year. I mean, what could be sexy about a bunch of scientists in a Swiss bunker pursuing the so-called "God particle" by shooting lasers at each other. Actually, that does sound really cool, when you stop to think about it...
What really made the story interesting and my favorite of the year, though, was the attempts by lay journalists to explain what a Higgs boson was. Some failed miserably — and hilariously.
It was also nice to see those billions of dollars actually produce something. Even if it only lasted as long as it takes that impulse of dread to shoot up your spine when you see the bill for the project and the number of countries now in crippling economic straits. But enough of that, this is a best of list!
Favorite read:
"Snow Fall" by the New York Times' John Branch
It's not a story. It's not an infographic. It's not a photo gallery, nor is it a video or a GIS-powered map.
It's all of those things.
The New York Times, as only it can, combines brilliant narrative storytelling with all the bells and whistles the semantic web has to offer, and plops it down for readers, viewers, clickers to enjoy. It's a fascinating piece that is not only interesting in its own right, but shows the direction journalism is likely to go on the semantic web in a way only the most prestigious name in worldwide journalism could pull off.
And audiences responded. More than 3.5 million people have viewed the package as of this writing.
Favorite game:
You Don't Know Jack (Facebook)
There were so many triple-A titles on consoles this year. Black Ops 2. Halo 4. Assassin's Creed 3. Mass Effect 3. New Super Mario Bros. Wii.
And they all got outclassed by a free-to-play, Flash-based game.
You Don't Know Jack has always been a pleasure of mine. I love when the worlds of high and pop culture collide to create a serendipitous mess that questions you whether an item is a piece of Japanese origami or a position in the Kama Sutra. Putting it on Facebook, with new episodes to play every day, was just like sprinkling addictive drugs on a Chicago deep-dish style pizza.
The addition of themed episodes and iPod/Pad functionality only means good things in the coming year.
Favorite sports moment:
Kansas City fans boo Robinson Cano in 2012 Home Run Derby
WAAAAAH!
Here's why Kansas City fans booing Cano was awesome and not classless, as many East Coast-based sportswriters would have you believe:
1. Kansas City fans showed that, even in the midst of another losing season, they still cared about the game of baseball enough to make asses out of themselves on national TV.
2. A Yankee player was subjected to harsh criticism. You know, something they all experience daily from the New York media. Except it was Midwest-flavored.
3. Cano proceeded to go oh-fer after the rousing round of jeering.
Say what you will about the supposed importance of "tact" and "class" in a competition where the goal is to hit a ball over a fence, and that previous champions who were cheered breathlessly were actually steroid-popping cheaters. Watching Cano get what was coming to him was the highlight of an otherwise ho-hum All Star weekend.
Favorite movie:
Moonrise Kingdom
I know, I know. It's really difficult for me to conceive a world where I don't put The Dark Knight Rises or The Avengers at the top of the list. And, likely, 2012 will be remembered as one of the peak years for the comic book renaissance that has been in full gear for the better part of a decade.
But Wes Anderson outclassed every other title released in 2012, with perhaps his most precocious and accessible film to date, populated with a brilliantly familiar ensemble cast, a fairy-tale like visual style, and another hauntingly beautiful soundtrack. Well done, Mr. Anderson. Well done.
Favorite album:
Fun. "Some Nights"
This was perhaps my toughest choice. I really wanted to give it to Mumford's spirited release "Babel," which follows up "Sigh No More" fearlessly with a bevy of tracks that are just as memorable. Ben Folds Five also released a wonderful comeback album, "The Sound of the Life and the Mind," that made it sound like 1998 in my car all over again.
But Fun hit a level of enthusiasm, catchiness, and lyrical genius that just doesn't let go for the entirety of the album. While the tremendously popular "We Are Young" made my mind dizzy by mid-March with its inundation of every popular radio station and PA system in my general vicinity, the quality of the rest of the album more than makes up for being subjected to replay hell.
Favorite show:
"Boardwalk Empire"
While I didn't love the finale, it's clear Boardwalk Empire, after the death of one of its major characters in Season 2, rebounded with a series-defining season over the past three months. Showrunner Terence Winter took Nucky Thompson to places it seemed inconceivable he'd go three years ago when the show premiered. There was an epic weight lent to the events onscreen, and the decision to crucially break with reality in certain instances left the impression the show could pivot in a heartbeat to unexpected and horrifying territory.
2012 also saw the appropriate end of House, a breathtaking freshman effort for The Newsroom, a lackluster calendar year for How I Met Your Mother, the autumn absence of Psych and a slew of...hmm...reality shows. So, let's not overstep the significance of my favoritism toward Boardwalk.
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