Returned, all waterlogged and pine-scented from a couple of cities I haven't visited in approximately a decade, which count as their inhabitants now pretty much all of my near relations (with the exception of my sister, though she was there last week as well).
One morning dawned dry and blustery and we headed out along the Columbia Gorge in the direction of Mt. Hood, which stood off, rather aloof and self-satisfied in the eastern distance. The gorge was a lovely vastness which seemed to chiefly exist to funnel a great deal of cold wind toward the Pacific. We concluded our drive as clouds came on, at Multnomah Falls, an impressive double-waterfall with an elegant bridge spanning the lower part. Very Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
The rest of our stay in the Northwest was sunless and damp, although since we'd come to see my parents' new house and to dazzle Theresa and her mother with the intensity of a marathon week of in-law exposure (mission accomplished), it wasn't of the greatest consequence. It cleared up long enough for my uncle to show off his favorite view of downtown Seattle, from a little hillside park in the Queen Anne district. A picture-postcard view, that remained jaw-dropping despite the fact that it was almost certainly the viewpoint of a million banal, um, postcards. The light-filled bowl of the city center, with the utopian spike of the needle enthroned within, presiding over the darkening Sound.
The rain started again the next morning.
***
Some people have been making with their year-end Top Tens. I would have a hard time with this task, because as much as I ransack the cluttered closet of memory, I can't come up with ten great movies or plays or books or records that I'm certain I saw or read or heard for the first time in 2002. It seemed preposterous at first; I cast my nets out again, and came up with the same pathetically small catch.
Hypothetical reasons: (a) I read too many magazine articles, (b) I'm too cheap about buying new CDs, (c) I make awful, awful impulse choices when I *do* buy new records, and (d) I stay in Brooklyn too much on weekends to catch many plays or films.
Some standouts from what I did manage to stumble across in what seems on my part to have been an aesthetically somnolent 365 days:
Atonement, Ian McEwan. Simply the most riveting and satisfying story I have read this year; and I think it beats anything from 2000 onward that I can remember reading (save perhaps a quite different book with a confusingly similar title: Austerlitz). A Rush of Blood to the Head, Coldplay. Not revolutionary by any means, but seductive and grand and as involving as a rock record ought to be. Y tu Mama Tambien. Alfonso Cuaron; Minority Report, Steven Spielberg. The only two new films I saw in which I found myself completely wrapped up -- despite rather heavy-handed moves by both directors. Neither was as good as Jacques Becker's Le Trou (1960), which was the best film in revival I saw this year.
Finally, a note about a trio of books not published this year, but which I discovered for the first time: Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. I'm not someone who has kept up with SF as it's developed in the last fifteen or so years, but I'm glad that these finally intruded long enough on my consciousness for me to give Red Mars a shot. Robinson has been lionized as past of a renaissance in "hard" (that is, science-fact-oriented) science fiction, but to emphasize the technological and scientific detail of this epic is to sell it short. It's the kind of complex envisioning of the future that science fiction (or speculative fiction, if you like, whatever) aspires to and rarely achieves. Deeply imagined characters, finely worked-out political problems, and brilliantly rendered landscapes of Mars both real and possible. I can't recommend it if you don't like science fiction -- but if, like me, you walked past these on shelves because you just don't read these books anymore...well, perhaps it's time to revisit a former interest.
Posted by BT at December 30, 2002 12:33 AMGood to see that we concur on book and album of the year. Austerlitz didn't grab me for some reason, though it had its moments. Ditto Minority Report. Haven't seen Y Tu Mama Tambien, so will have to catch a late night screening sometime.
On the SF side, have you read any Neal Stephenson? He's been my main SF fix of recent years, after I'd neglected the genre for a long while also. Snow Crash is a good place to start.
Posted by: Rory on December 30, 2002 02:04 PMI wasn't even thinking about Stephenson, Rory, but I agree he's good -- as Gavin noted in a conversation he and I had some time ago, he's quite skilled at keeping the plot moving by continuingly throwing larger and more challenging obstacles to his main characters; a talent that kept Cryptonomicon from getting bogged down in either history or its various computing/cryptography themes.
I liked Cryptonomicon thoroughly, the Diamond Age also (though it fell apart at the end, it had some great ideas), and Snow Crash was precocious and fun. I'm glad to see Stephenson working out of the science fiction box.
It's interesting to compare the two writers -- Stephenson is essentially a comedian, who enjoys spinning clever narratives: his pop sensibility is very apparent -- none of his books ever stray far from a sense of sheer fun at setting a bunch of balls in motion, be they characters or notions of a new world order built out of nanomachines and synthetic diamond.
Robinson's Mars books (I haven't read any of his other stuff) are quite different, almost a polar opposite: slowly paced, almost stately, with the point of view carefully modulated through the varying registers of a large cast. There's a curious mixture of tragedy and optimism, and the tone is purged of irony-- although old-fashioned dramatic ironies are part of the weave. If Robinson's weakness is that too often his story gets bogged down with its weight of speculative political systems and alien geology, it's strength is the author's thorough investment in such things, and his ability to actually make them work in narrative. The result is a bit taxing in places, but so throughly created as to leave the reader constantly aware of the richness.
Anyway, I guess that's another SF writer I've actually read of late. But really, that's everything...
Posted by: BT on December 30, 2002 11:55 PMSome really good albums came out this year by, in no particular order: Cornelius, The Flaming Lips, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, The Roots, Boards of Canada (the new Geogaddi and not the re-release of their older stuff). Low put out a pretty good one with a couple of amazing songs. Both Cex and The Streets have some entertaining moments. The Lovage album (side project of many, most prominently being Dan the Automator) grows and grows on repeat listening. Queens of the Stone Age is the guilty pleasure you should be enjoying instead of all the New York New-esque Rawk being foisted upon you. There is much more, but I'm at work and sleepy.
Best Movie: Spirited Away. I like both of Wombat's choices, too, though.
Next year I'm going to relearn How To Read.
Happy New Year, everyone! Except you crazy people with different calendars!
For the truth of the conclusions of physical science, observation is the supreme Court of Appeal. It does not follow that every item which we confidently accept as physical knowledge has actually been certified by the Court, our confidence is that it would be certified by the Court if it were submitted. But it does follow that every item of physical knowledge is of a form which might be submitted to the Court.
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