Answers from Bryan Charles, author of Grab On to Me Tightly as if I Knew the Way:
What was the best book of the year?
I didn’t read too many books that came out this year. Sometimes it screws with my head to read too much new fiction. I did read Tree of Smoke, though, and thought it was pretty great. It was a commitment, you know. Total immersion. I lugged that thing around for a month. Denis Johnson’s always been a favorite of mine, plus he’s older than me so the hype and the good reviews were easier to deal with.
What was the best movie?
I can’t remember the movies I saw earlier in the year but I’m sure none of them were as good as No Country for Old Men. That was a great movie. I’m a big fan of the book too. I thought it was underrated. I thought Margot at the Wedding was probably the most overrated movie. I went into the theater with a lot of goodwill—Squid and the Whale is one of my favorite movies of the last few years—but it all drained away in the first five minutes.
What was the best song/album?
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, by Spoon, was my favorite album this year. Boxer, by the National was pretty good too. A couple of my favorite songs were “Black Like Me,” by Spoon and “Paper Planes” by M.I.A. Pretty much in line with Pitchfork, I guess, except I thought that Arcade Fire record was overrated. I loved their first record but I couldn’t get into Neon Bible. On the other hand I thought the new Smashing Pumpkins record was somewhat unfairly maligned, even by me. I wrote a bad review of it for a paper in Cleveland but ended up coming around to it months later.
Favorite blog?
I’m conflicted about the blog scene. Most of them just seem to pull a bunch of shit together from all over the Internet and say: Hey, here’s a little sample of this great/stupid/outrageous thing, you really should go check out the full deal elsewhere. The one blog I read regularly is Fluxblog. It’s my friend Matthew’s music blog. He posts mp3s and writes little blurbs about them. Other than that, I don’t know, blogs are exhausting.
Who was the person of the year?
All the people I can think of are either demented maniacs like the president or people like Barack Obama, who’s pretty inspiring but falling into this rabbit hole of bland, broad-statement politicking. The 2008 election already feels twenty years long. Sometimes I feel like an apathetic stoner teenager somewhere in the heartland, thinking screw it, who cares, nothing’s ever gonna change anyway so why bother, and I’ve never felt like that before. So I’m sort of torn on this whole person of the year thing, but since Barack’s my MySpace friend I’ll go with him.
What is your New Year’s resolution?
To get the old NordicTrack back in action and sweat my way down to my college football-playing weight.
Any predictions for 2008?
Status quo to slightly worse, politically. Up and up and up forever, personally.
