As I get into my Best Of 2011 lists, I'd like to quote from Stephen
King's introduction to his own "2011 Pop Culture Favorites" in Entertainment Weekly:
"I'm more interested in entertainment than in greatness. Sometimes the
two things go together, but not this year."
In my own experiences, greatness and entertainment do in fact overlap in elements of pop
culture, and they did in several instances this year, but not nearly as much as they should have. As I
began to compile all my retrospective lists, I noticed that rather than having massive
lists of so many awesome things in each category which I then had to
cull down, as has been the case in years past, I was instead struggling
to find enough truly viable candidates to fill my lists. Don't get me wrong, the good things of 2011 are
very, very good -- there just isn't an overabundance of them.
I went to only 8 (really 12, if you count each LCD show
individually) truly memorable concerts this year. There were only 15
songs (as opposed to my usual 20) that really stood out for me. And
while I managed to come up with 10 albums worth highlighting, I only
feel madly passionate about a few of them. Books and movies seem to have
been a bit more forgiving, but then I had a much wider collection from
which to choose in each of those categories, thanks to the fact that I
seem to be a literary and cinematic savant in so many ways so much of
the time. It all comes down to focus and priorities (or, in the words of Twitter, "look at my life; look at my choices").
Yet, as always, quality trumps quantity; I gladly accept
2011's handful of precious experiences and memories, which I can, and will, savor
for a long time to come.
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