Theoria

In no particular order of importance, of course.  Just proving I do other things than write in this ‘blog’.  Reviews not written by myself (because I am lazy) given when and where possible and links given to potentially obscure references.  I make no claims to the best, just to the awesome.

Albums

• The Cars "Complete Greatest Hits" – clearly old, but only listened to this year for the first time.  A band derided by the all-too-hip because maybe-one-but-I-don’t-know Rivers Cuomo may have said that The Cars were one of his biggest influences.  Just because some egotistical nerd with yellow fever wrote a shitty song called "Hashpipe" doesn’t mean that a band he likes sucks!
• Chad van Gaalen "Infiniheart"
  - the single (and first song) alone makes it awesome.  Rest of the album
  is hit-and-miss, but "Clinically Dead" is indie pop in the Canadian
  style.  That means, when done properly, it is a national treasure.
• Steven Malkmus "Face the Truth"
  - no songs about pirates this time, but I’ll forgive him that.  Songs
  range from delightful ("Mama" and "Post-Paint Boy") to what sound like
  leftovers from Pavement’s Wowee Zowee ("No More Shoes").  Hardcore Pavement fans say he’s getting old; maybe I am too.
• The Most Serene Republic "Underwater Cinematographer" – reviewers seem to not like it because it sounds-sort-of-like-Broken-Social-Scene-but-isn’t.  I, on the other hand, like it for that reason.  Or maybe because "Proposition 61" becomes really jarring half-way through.  (It scared Blythe the first time she heard it, "Why are they yelling?") Another reason to like it.  Combines many sounds and influences without becoming pretentions (say like Godspeed You Black Emperor!).
• Sleater-Kinney "The Woods" – nothing at all like any of their other albums, and all the better for it.  Pop out; rock in.  Loud and noisy — it just isn’t for boys (Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth notwithstanding) anymore.

Books

• Ernst Kantorowicz "The King’s Two Bodies" – the classic work of political theology that is not written by Carl Schmitt or Claude Lefort.  Half of it makes no sense to me because I don’t read Latin and know nothing about Roman Law, but what does make sense is quite interesting.
• Claude Lefort "Democracy and Political Theory" – only knew him as "the guy who edited and introduced Merleau-Ponty’s The Visible and the Invisible".  Still don’t know much about him, but reading this book was quite helpful.  If nothing else, he shows us what is missing from Foucauldian/Deleuzian social and political theory — i.e., a serious recognition of the importance of the symbolic.
• Bernard Mannin "Principles of Representative Government" – only about a quarter of the way through the book, but it is so interesting.  Works as a complement to both Kantorowicz and Lefort and presents a new way of approaching Montesquieu and Tocqueville.
• Charles-Louis de Secondat, le Baron de Montesquieu "The Spirit of the Laws" – a book that I’ve never read and had no excuse not to have done so.  The more commonly read ‘theoretical chapters’ at the beginning are second only to the ‘historical chapters’ at the very end.  There’s a reason why Durkheim, Althusser, Aron, and Foucault all wrote on these chapters.
• Benedict de Spinoza "Ethics" – another book that I’ve never read and had no excuse not to have done so.  The "Appendix" to Part 1 remains the best essay on ideology ever written.

Snacks

• All products from La Soyarie in Hull, Quebec.  The "Nut Burger" and the "BBQ Tofu Nuggets" are especially good.
• Bo De Duyen Chinese Vegetarian Restaraunt in Chinatown, Toronto.  The "chicken" balls are better than the real thing.
• Forfar white cheese curd.
• Raspberry Lemonade from Fresh on Crawford.  Get the large size, despite the cost.
• Shortbread cookies made by Blythe.

Things

• Amazingly, both one of the lamest and one of the most awesome
  things of the year was when Patrick Pentland (of Sloan) nearly incited
  a riot at the tennis stadium at York University.  Sloan, along with
  some other really, really shitty bands were involved in some
  ‘win-to-get-in’ concert event tied to some lame tennis tournament being
  held at York.  There were two levels of ‘winning-to-get-in’.  Regular
  folk got to sit in the seats; special folk got the floors.  Patrick
  Pentland would have none of this and he managed to incite a crowd of
  mostly lame people to (as J.B. Fletcher of "Murder She Wrote" fame
  would say) ‘bum-rush’ the stage.  (Public Enemy uses the same phrase,
  but J.B. did it first.)  Rest of the event sucked, but the near riot
  was awesome.  Also awesome: security at the gate not believing that
  Andrew Scott (of Sloan) was in a band.  Likely the old-man hair colour
  and the cowboy hat.
• Gilles Duceppe’s facial expression and response to the question of
  "Would you hold an open vote to decide on gay marriage?" at the first
  English language leaders debate.  Face: exasperated and confused.
  Response: "We have already had a free vote.  It’s been decided."
• Leaving Toronto.
• Seeing Mark Kingwell
  in a cartoon t-shirt, carrying a CBC bag, and reading some liberal
  magazine at Bar Mercurio.  It was so awesome, I had to phone Blythe
  (who adores him) and tell her.  (Subsidiary awesome: Mark’s fantasy
  life extending beyond all reason — wife and kids? renting or owning?
  Jag or no Jag? future NDP leader?  C’mon Mark!)
• Seeing Sleater-Kinney and Pearl Jam (in Ottawa).  I’ve managed to
  never see either bands, so it was fortunate that they played together.
  What was unfortunate, however, was that it was at the Corel Centre.
  But, what was awesome was that they played past 11:00PM (i.e., standard
  "lights on" time at the Corel Centre) until close to midnight.  The
  last half-hour being Neil Young songs.
• The guy who sat in front us at the aforementioned concert was (1)
  the biggest loser in the world and (2) the best dancer in the arena.
  He crashed about three quarters of the way through Pearl Jam’s set.
  That was awesome.

TV and Movies

• "Alone in the Dark" – I’d like to say that it was lame, but, honestly,
  it was Tara Reid’s best role ever and Christian Slater was at his
  finest since Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.  I like how her costume changes from "sexy" to "smart" (she’s an archaeologist, apparently).  Absolutely clueless when "sexy" knows everything there is to know when "smart".  Apparently based on a video
  game.  I don’t play them; I just watch the movie!  For some odd reason, the geniuses who spend all their time reviewing movies on IMDB don’t like it.  For me, it was even better than "Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse" – the one where they blew Toronto up.  We only watched this movie because we needed something to do.  Glad we did!
• "Arrested Development" – awesome and cancelled.
• "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" – not only the best movie about drugs ever made, but also the best movie about race in America ever made.  Released in 2004, but I didn’t see it until this year.  Having said, Neil Patrick Harris (a.k.a., Doogie Howser) steals the show.
• "How I Met Your Mother" – the show, as such, isn’t that great.  But, what is great is Neil Patrick Harris.  (See "Barney’s Blog", the blog that ostensibly  belongs to his character.)  For me, 2005 was the Year of Neil Patrick Harris.
• "Scrubs" – awesome and on life support.