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My Best of 2003

It’s that time of year when we all become inundated with “Best Of” lists.  So what’s one more batch in this sea of yearly favourites?  Here are my selections of 2003’s finest moments (in no particular order other than that in which they were remembered):

MUSIC

1. My Morning Jacket - It Still Moves
2. M. Ward - Transfigurations of Vincent
3. Junior Senior - D-D-Don’tStop the Beat
4. Yo La Tengo - Summer Sun
5. The Hidden Cameras - Smell of Our Own
6. The Flaming Lips - Fight Test (EP)
7. Blur - Think Tank
8. Cat Power - You Are Free
9. Frank Black - Show Me Your Tears
10. The Kills - Keep On Your Mean Side

MOVIES

1. The Return of the King
2. American Splendor
3. Lost in Translation
4. Kill Bill, Vol. 1
5. Finding Nemo
6. Pirates of the Caribbean
7. Big Fish
8. Spellbound
9. 28 Days Later...
10. Lost in La Mancha

NOVELS & SHORT STORIES
It’s more difficult to keep up-to-date with the world of books than with other forms of media, so these represent the best books I read this year, not necessarily those that were published in 2003.

1. Chip Kidd - The Cheese Monkeys
2. Dan Rhodes - Timoleon Vieta Come Home
3. Katherine Dunn - Geek Love
4. Michael Chabon - Wonder Boys
5. Craig Thompson - Blankets
6. J.M. Coetzee - Disgrace
7. Michael Ondaatje - In the Skin of a Lion
8. Glen Gold - Carter Beats the Devil
9. Ethan Coen - Gates of Eden
10. Ian McEwan - Atonement

OTHER BOOKS

1. Jessica Helfand - Reinventing the Wheel
2. Alex Ross and Chip Kidd - Mythology
3. Tony Millionaire - Maakies
4. Chris Ware - Acme Novelty Datebook
5. Mel Gooding - ABZ
6. Chris Ware - Quimby the Mouse
7. Dave Cooper - Overbite
8. George Herriman - Fantagraphics Krazy Kat reprints
9. Dave Cooper - Completely Pip & Norton
10. Chester Brown - I Never Liked You

Happy New Year, everyone!

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New Bloggy Goodness

Some new blogs worth mentioning, freshly added to ye olde blogroll:

Vitamin Q
Puzzle-writer and poet Roddy Lumsden presents this fantastic collection of banality, trivia, and lists.  Being Scottish, many of his lists appeal to the word-lover in me, especially Scottish name meanings, Glaswegian slang and fictional UK villages.  There’s a lot of good stuff here, and it’s easy to lose track of time browsing through these lists.  I just wish it was better organized and easier to search.

Cagle’s Web Log
One-time president of the National Cartoonists’ Society, Daryl Cagle keeps a passionate, verbose, and regularly-updated journal of his thoughts on the world of professional cartooning in the way that only the ex-pres of the NCS can.  Daryl’s site is also the Internet hub for editorial cartoons.  He keeps a categorized archive of all the latest cartoons on the world’s headlines.

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Idol Schmidol

If one more person tells me I look like Canadian Idol winner Ryan Malcolm I am going to get contact lenses and shave my head.  No, Uncle Brian.  Sorry, co-worker Carolyn.  That’s right, Patricia.  And creepy old man on the street—I am not him.

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Time’s Best Comics of 2003

Time Magazine has named Craig Thompson’s Blankets as the best comic book/graphic novel of the year.  You can still read my review of Blankets, and as if the web won’t have enough of them, I’ll have my own superfluous ‘Best of 2003’ lists once the new year officially hits.

Happy holidays, everyone!

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I’m Dreaming of a Grey Christmas

It’s so dreary and dull outside… where’s all the snow??  I hate walking through snow, I don’t like winter sports, and I hate having to wear boots—but it’s Christmas!  Gimme some of the white stuff…

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In Good Company

My site is now featured in a showcase of well-designed blogs…

Thanks for the nod, Rachel!  It’s flattering to be in the company of such well-designed sites.  (including James over at Ordinary Life, who also has nice things to say about me!)

*blush*

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Girls are Weird: Now in Stamp Form!

My font Girls are Weird is now available as a collection of rubber stamps thanks to Michele at Purple Onion Designs. 

She just sent me a set which are so cool that I plan on using them to label all my Christmas gifts this year.  Go check out her site and buy a set of Girls are Weird for yourself!

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Cilantro: Herb of Unspeakable Horrors

Steven over at The Sneeze has just proclaimed his love for cilantro.  Anyone who knows me knows that I despise it.  I now proclaim Steven to be my mortal enemy since I guess I’m one of those L’Dickheads he speaks of—I think it’s the foulest, most bitter things ever put in my mouth.

And I’ve put a lot of foul things in my mouth.

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Outsider Music and Other Oddio

For a while I’ve been getting into outsider and other types of bizarre music.  I’ve been trying to explain to people exactly what outsider music is, and I usually end up describing it as music created with the utmost sincerity yet, when listened to, seems humourous, kitschy, or just downright weird.  Basically really awful music created by people who, at the time of creation, didn’t realize they were making bad music.

This is everything from music recorded by high school bands, flea market finds, the infamous Mrs. Miller, Wesley Willis, old exercise records, corporate propaganda, etc. etc…

I first heard of outsider music via the compilations Songs in the Key of Z, which seems to offer a good sampling, but if you look hard enough you’ll see that because of flexible or non-existant copyrights, you can find a lot of this stuff online.

Check out the 365 Days Project, which for the entire year of 2003 has been offering one piece of bizarre music a day.  The collection is going offline in January, so be sure to go sample some of these great oddities.  Each track has accompanying ‘liner notes’ which make the songs even more interesting.  One of my favourites is a jingle for Kentucky Fried Chicken written and sung by Murry Wilson, the infamous Beach Boys Father.  But for an example of outsider music that is actually great music download Let Us Make a Record by Sister Gertrude Morgan.

Other great places to source out outsider MP3s are Basic Hip, which has been offering some weirdo Christmas tunes this past month, and Incorrect Music Siftings.

For more links and a perfect starter block for discovering more outsider music, go to weirdomusic.com.

Of course, we all know who the king of outsider music is.

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“We Got Him!” U.S. Forces Capture Santa!

Tipped off by one of his elves, U.S. troops found and captured Santa Claus this weekend after he had been hiding in an Iraqi chimney for an undisclosed amount of time.  Armed with only a pocketful of candy canes and a briefcase filled with 750,000 Monopoly dollars, Santa didn’t put up a fight.  “Ho! Ho! Ho! Don’t shoot!” he said with a jolly chuckle.

Frankly, I’m glad they got the bastard.  This is sweet revenge for that Christmas when I wanted an Optimus Prime Transformer and I got a lousy Leader One Go-Bot instead.  Thanks for nothing, Claus!

Besides, finally the elves of the North Pole are free.

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I’ve Grown Accustomed to His Face

Today was Jean Chretien’s last day as Prime Minister of Canada, and he’s really leaving behind a true legacy.

Not a legacy of political reform or social betterment.  No, I’m talking about the legacy of his gnarled, expressive, weathered old crumpled face.  Once he’s gone, the editorial page of the newspaper will never be the same, and I doubt work will ever be as fun for our nation’s top political cartoonists.

More important people than me have found themselves in hot water for poking fun at the contorted face of our leader (paralyzed by Bell’s palsy), but you simply can’t deny that a politican who literally talks out of one side of his mouth is ripe for comedic picking.  And since he has such a great sense of humour himself, the fact that he looks like a grumpy old fisherman lookin’ to get into a barfight makes him the perfect foil for satirists. 

As for the new PM, Paul Martin, I think Henry Jacek put it best: “He’s going to have to try to make himself look exciting, because he’s boring as hell.”

Making fun of the Prime Minister will never be as fun.  So long, Jean!

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The Last Samurai: A Review

Last night I saw Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai.  For those who don’t know what this film is about, I will tell you.

It’s the late 19th Century and Tom Cruise plays Lt. John Dunbar, “Friend to the Savages”, as he is affectionately known due to his adament befriending of such filthy wild cultures as Indians, the Japanese, and people from Windsor.

After being sent to Japan to teach their floundering people how to be civilized and use proper machine-tooled weaponry like rifles and pepper spray, Lt. Dunbar discovers and falls in love with Japanese cuture.

This is when he discovers chopsticks, Pokémon, and what the Japenese people call ‘Nintendo’.  At first he is unskilled and is even beat by small children who point and laugh at his big nose and impossibly white teeth.  But with much practice, Lt. Dunbar soon masters and conquers a video game called “Starfighter”.

It turns out this was a test, and he meets Centauri, an alien Samurai warrior played by Graham Green, who invites him into his tribe.  “Please save our culture,” Centauri pleads.  “Our nation is being tainted with Western ideology thanks to our 3-year old Emperor, Pu Yi.  Only, you, a white man, can show us the true way!  Also, we will name you Dances with Wolves.”

“I will help you,” says Lt. Dunbar.  He spends the remaining weeks training the small army of Japanese know-nothings how to fight and strategize.  “What we lack in numbers,” explains Tom Cruise, “we make up for in foolhardyness.”

It is the final battle at Helm’s Deep between the 300 Samurai and the 10,000 Mexican Banditos that had everyone in the theatre on the edges of their seats.  Graham Green dies an honorable Klingon death by performing Harry Caray and when Dances with Wolves finally emerges from the bloody battlefields as the only survivor, he looks into the eyes of Claudius, the Head of the Banditos, played by Eli Wallach, and says with his last breath, “I truly am the Last of the Mohicans,” and stabs Claudius in the face with ninja stars.

It is a heartwarming tale of cultural misunderstanding and how one white man made all the difference and single-handedly saved Japan.

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Festive Favourites

It’s that time of the year again—Christmas Special Overload!  There are the stalwart classics, of course, starring The Grinch, Rudolph, Charlie Brown, and Clark Griswold, but here are some of my other favourites:

A CLAYMATION CHRISTMAS
Who knew that when Will Vinton created a simple commerical for the California Raisin Board that it would lead to such magnificently substandard holiday fare!  Along with a sequence with his famous singing raisins, I can recall “We Three Kings” sung doo-wop style by some camels and a dinosaur who thought “Here We Come A-Wassailing” was actually “Here We Come A-Waffling”.

A CHRISTMAS STORY
“You’ll shoot your eye out!” This movie is really unlike any other holday movie.  This isn’t a movie about magic, or that warm fuzzy feeling of sitting around the tree with a cuppa warm eggnog—this is a movie about pure disappointment and hating your family, which probably explains why it’s on the IMDb Top 250 List!  The leg lamp, the decoder ring, the frozen tongue, the snowsuit, the Red Rider BB gun, the soap—Holy Fudge! It’s all brilliant!

THE MUPPET FAMILY CHRISTMAS
Everyone’s familar with the Muppet Christmas Carol with Michael Caine as Scrooge, but this was a made-for-TV special in which all the muppets went up to Fozzie’s mom’s farmhouse for Christmas (Fozzie’s mom was just Fozzie in a floral dress and a grey wig—sort of a furry Norman Bates).  They were joined by the Sesame Street muppets which gave us great moments such as The Swedish Chef trying to cook and eat a juicy, fattened Big Bird and the Christmas pageant in which The Two-Headed Monster plays a retarded Santa Claus.  We’re also visited by The Fraggles and are treated to their pagan “pass it on” holiday ritual.  Watch out for that icy patch.

CHRISTMAS EVE ON SESAME STREET
The most vivid memory I have of this special was the opening skating scene.  A bunch of fully grown adults in Muppet constumes skate around an ice rink, playing jump-the-barrel and, when Cookie Monster suggests it to the cue of some ominous music, CRACK THE WHIP!  I had never heard of Crack the Whip as a child, but this movie warned me of its dangers!  It’s so suspenseful I wouldn’t have been surprised if I actually had a heart attack watching it at the age of six.  Other highlights include the Muppety retelling of O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi in which Ernie sells his rubber duckie to buy a cigar box for Bert’s paperclip collection, but—oh no!—Bert sells his paperclips to buy Ernie a soapdish for the rubber duckie!  The song “True Blue Miracle” sung by the original 1970s cast in bellbottoms and muttonchops is still a damn fine song!  The best thing about this whole special, however, is that it predates Elmo.

SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN
Sure everybody loves Rudolph, but secretly my favourite Rankin-Bass holiday special is this origin story of the Santa.  The Burl Ives snowman is replaced with a letter carrier voiced by Fred Astaire, and the red-haired St. Nick is voiced by the inimitable Mickey Rooney, giving us the most homosexual Santa Claus in film history!  I love the story, though.  Santa Claus starts out as a revolutionary—a guerilla toymaker helping out the children oppressed by the anti-toy regime of Boris Badinov Burgermeister Meisterburger.  The movie teaches children of all ages how to stage a government coup and rage against the machine!  Fight the power!  Ho Ho Ho!

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
Not as famous as their patented Animagic stop motion films, Rankin Bass also did a handful of traditionally animated specials.  This film attempts to build a story around the famous Clement Moore poem.  In it we meet Albert, a pesky instigator of a mouse who is most definitely stirring.  He gets the bright idea to write a letter to Santa telling him that thanks, but no thanks, he’s not needed and that he should stay the hell away.  So he does!  I don’t really remember how the movie was resolved, but I recall it involved clockworks and singing.  The moral: don’t cheese off the big cheese!

SANTA CLAUS: THE MOVIE
What a definitive title!  Dudley Moore plays a disgruntled elf who decides to quit his gig at the North Pole, but not before he steals the reindeer’s secret flying formula which he sells to a greedy candy manufacturer played to malicious perfection by John Lithgow who injects the formula into some puce lollipops guaranteed to make him millions (How 80s is THAT storyline?).  Throw in a romance between an upper class rich girl and a grubby street kid and you’ve got yourself Santa Claus: THE MOVIE!  And, yes, it’s as awful as it sounds!

ONE MAGIC CHRISTMAS
I somehow manage to see this movie every year.  Filmed in Owen Sound and starring Mary Steenburgen as a mother who’s lost her Christmas spirit, it’s a rather unlikely holiday movie in that not much happens that’s happy.  In fact, it’s downright gruesome.  The father is an unemployed bike-maker, the mother works packing groceries at a Knechtel’s, the family gets evicted from their house, they can’t afford presents, every one in the town is miserable and impoverished, then the father gets shot in a bank robbery, the thief steals his car in which the kids were waiting, and drives into a river where—sploosh—they all drown!  Mary Steenburgen witnesses her entire family violently die on Christmas Eve and we’re supposed to wonder why she has no Christmas spirit.  But with the help of Gideon, the Christmas Angel who looks like a child molestor played by Harry Dean Stanton and a Santa Claus with a thick Czech accent, the family actually comes back to life and there’s a happy ending afterall.  But not before I’ve shed a few tears… sniff.  I’m getting weepy just thinking about it!  (Film highlight: Mary Steenburgen’s southern-fried pronunciation of Mista Patayta Head… and we’re supposed to believe she’s from Owen Sound!)

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What’s in a Name?

Oftentimes my site stats show that people are finding their way here by looking for the term “John Martz”.  Now, of course, as popular as I like to pretend I am, I don’t want to assume that I’m necessarily the particular John Martz they’re looking for.

So, if you’re here, dear reader, looking for someone else, then perhaps I can help you!

Perhaps you’re in search of South African Baptist John?  Or maybe Bluegrass Banjo John?  We also have Amateur Poet John and PoliSci John.

Then again, there’s a chance you’re looking for the seedier side of the John Martz world.  Perchance I can interest you in the John Martz luger?  If it’s other types of criminal activity that you’re into, maybe you’d like to get in touch with Incarcerated John.

Finally, the owner of johnmartz.com, Realtor John, is missing in action.  Let’s hope he gets home safe, wherever he is.  And if you’re still lost, maybe you can hunt down your John Martz with these people.

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Art in the City

The Armchair Garbageman points out this Toronto Star story on one of the city’s best-kept art secrets.

I had no idea this existed, so I’m definitely going to check it out.  Besides, I love A.J. Casson (and really, there’s only so many times I want to visit the AGO and stare thoughtfully at that giant stuffed cheeseburger).

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