The A Lists: 2006

This is about my year 2006, so I reserve the right to include works from last year or earlier.

50 favourite movies

1. The Wayward Cloud

2. Army of Shadows

3. Breakfast on Pluto

4. Casino Royale

5. Princess Raccoon

6. Three Times

7. Shortbus

8. Why We Fight

9. Heading South

10. United 93

11. Old Joy

12. A Prairie Home Companion

13. Duck Season

14. Iraq in Fragments

15. Tristram Shandy

16. Cafe Lumiere

17. Marie Antoinette

18. Police Beat

19. Oliver Twist

20. Ballets Russes

21. Grizzly Man

22. The Skeleton Key

23. Fast Food Nation

24. The Descent

25. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

26. Fateless

27. The 40-Year Old Virgin

28. Neil Young: Heart of Gold

29. Duma

30. Unknown White Male

31. Mountain Patrol: Kekexili

32. Cache

33. The Heart of the Game

34. Dave Chappelle's Block Party

35. Good Night, and Good Luck

36. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

37. The Constant Gardener

38. Borat

39. Regular Lovers

40. The Holy Modal Rounders: Bound to Lose

41. Something New

42. The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello

43. The Queen

44. Mutual Appreciation

45. Who's Camus Anyway?

46. The Squid and the Whale

47. A Scanner Darkly

48. Murderball

49. Brokeback Mountain

50. The OH in Ohio

Performances

Lino Ventura, Jean-Pierre Cassel and Simone Signoret in Army of Shadows

Cillian Murphy, Stephen Rea and Gavin Friday in Breakfast on Pluto

Daniel Craig and Eva Green in Casino Royale

Maggie Cheung and Nick Nolte in Clean

Will Oldham in Old Joy

Bruce Willis and Ashley Johnson in Fast Food Nation

Helen Mirren and Mark Bazeley in The Queen

Sook-Yin Lee in Shortbus

Lee Kang-Sheng and Chen Shiang-Shyi in The Wayward Cloud

Michael Pena, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Maria Bello and Viola Davis in World Trade Center

50 favourite albums

1. Ghostface Killah, Fishscale

2. Irene Schweizer, Portrait

3. Bob Dylan, Modern Times

4. The Klezmatics, Wonder Wheel: Lyrics by Woody Guthrie

5. New York Dolls, One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This

6. Sonic Youth, Rather Ripped

7. Public Enemy & Paris, Rebirth of a Nation

8. Jon Faddis, Teranga

9. Pink, I'm Not Dead

10. Ornette Coleman, Sound Grammar

11. Golden Afrique Vol. 1 (2005)

12. Todd Snider, The Devil You Know

13. The Vandermark 5, Elements of Styles... Exercises in Surprise (2004)

14. The Coup, Pick a Bigger Weapon

15. Craig Harris, Souls within the Veil (2005)

16. Joanna Newsom, Ys

17. Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars, Carnival Conspiracy

18. Crunk Hits Vol. 2

19. Our New Orleans (2005)

20. Prince, 3121

21. Monk's Casino (2005)

22. Be Your Own Pet

23. Anthony Braxton, 20 Standards 2003 (2005)

24. Tommy Smith & Brian Kellock, Symbiosis (2005)

25. The Klezmatics: Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanukkah

26. Comet Gain, City Fallen Leaves (2005)

27. ZU & Spaceways Inc., Radiale (2004)

28. The David S. Ware Quartets, Live in the World (2005)

29. OutKast, Idlewild

30. TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain

31. Pet Shop Boys, Fundamental

32. World Saxophone Quartet, Political Blues

33. Romica Puceanu & the Gore Brothers, Sounds from a Bygone Age Vol. 2

34. Bernardo Sassetti Trio, Ascent

35. Tom Waits, Orphans

36. Wussy, Funeral Dress (2005)

37. Tom Ze, Estudando O Pagode

38. Tropicalia: A Brazilian Revolution in Sound

39. Arctic Monkeys, Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not

40. Clipse, Hell Hath No Fury

41. The Streets, The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living

42. The Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America

43. Toumani Diabate's Symmetric Orchestra, Boulevard l'Independence

44. Mastodon, Blood Mountain

45. Anthony Braxton, 23 Standards 2003 (2004)

46. Paraphrase, Pre-Emptive Denial (2005)

47. Neil Young, Prairie Wind (2005)

48. The Rough Guide to Planet Rock

49. The Harry Allen-Joe Cohn Quartet, Hey Look Me Over

50. Odyssey the Band, Back in Time

99 Lives: The singles list

25 favourite books

1. Taylor Branch, America in the King Years

2. Roy Fisher, The Long and the Short of It

3. Ali Smith, The Accidental

4. RETORT, Afflicted Powers

5. Mary Gaitskill, Veronica

6. Robert Charles Wilson, Spin

7. The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan

8. Sarah Waters, The Night Watch

9. Imre Kertesz, Fatelessness

10. David Larsen, The Thorn

11. Kelly Link, Magic for Beginners

12. Julian Barnes, Arthur & George

13. Joshua Clover, The Totality for Kids

14. Dubravka Ugresic, The Ministry of Pain

15. Elizabeth Kolbert, Field Notes from a Catastrophe

16. Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

17. Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus

18. Rachel Ingalls, Times Like These

19. Elizabeth Robinson, Apostrophe

20. Charles C. Mann, 1491

21. Drew Gardner, Petroleum Hat

22. Eliot Weinberger, What Happened Here

23. E.L. Doctorow, The March

24. Kate Atkinson, The Secret River

25. Abdellah Hammoudi, My Pilgrimage to Mecca

Ten favourite poems

1. Pamela Lu, "Ambient Parking Lot" (Chicago Review 51:4/52:1)

2. Huang CanRan, "Translation" (Trout 13/Tinfish 16)

3. David Larsen, "On Melodrama" (The Thorn)

4. Susan Browne, "If Not Now, When?" (River Styx 71)

5. K. Silem Mohammad, "The Poordom"

6. David Larsen, "The Diviner Satih" (The Thorn)

7. Anna Moschovakis, "The Future or Optimism, an Epic" (Octopus 7)

8. Aaron Kunin, "Five Security Zones" (Folding Ruler Star)

9. Drew Gardner, "Chicks Dig War" (Petroleum Hat)

10. Louise Glück vs Jim Behrle, "Devotion's Myth"

Ten favourite wrestling matches

1. CIMA/Naruki Doi/Masato Yoshino vs Genki Horiguchi/Dragon Kid/Ryo Saito (March 31st)

2. Naomichi Marufuji vs. KENTA (Oct. 29th)

3. Yoshinobu Kanemaru/Takashi Sugiura vs Ikuto Hidaka/Minoru Fujita (March 5th)

4. Kenta Kobashi & Kensuke Sasaki vs Genichiro Tenryu & Katsuhiko Nakajima (Feb. 12th)

5. Samoa Joe vs Christopher Daniels vs A.J. Styles (Feb. 12th)

6. Mitsuhara Misawa vs. Takeshi Morishima (March 5th)

7. KENTA vs Naomichi Marufuji (Jan. 22nd)

8. Bryan Danielson vs Roderick Strong (March 31st)

9. Rob Van Dam vs Shelton Benjamin vs Matt Hardy vs Ric Flair vs Finlay vs Bobby Lashley (April 2nd)

10. Edge vs Mick Foley (April 2nd)