Bandwagons

Byron, our creative director, breaks down 2013 with his year-end list.

Most year-end blogs consist of lists. People seem to like lists. So I’ve decided to just list a bunch of random things. The numbers are included only to serve the list motif and provide nothing in the form of actual ranking. This theoretically could ruin what people actually find appealing about lists. If this is the case for you, please feel free to send the list back to me in the order you deem most important.

Some of the things I’m about to list I am not even completely sure are true. But for the sake of argument, if we can just assume they are all true it will make the list much more reflective. Fooling ourselves into something is just as effective.

I assure you I did not purposefully attempt to rhyme there; it happened naturally because I am naturally gifted.

Thanks for being awake and I hope 2014 showers upon you a wealth of riches that are beyond anything you could imagine buying at Target.

The Top 20 Things Byron Decided to List at the Time of Making This List

1. This year, I swear, I will finish Infinite Jest.
2. I really liked the movie Spring Breakers. It plays like this tone poem to “escaping” while James Franco says really funny stuff. Also: bright colors.
3. We have five movie theaters in Fresno totaling 72 screens. God forbid one screen is dedicated to art films.
4. I really miss my friend Anthony.
5. They announced they are switching the Mexican Coca-Cola from real sugar to HFCS because of some Mexican sugar tax. I guess what Bob Dylan says about nothing being sacred really is true.
6. This is my favorite quote from the book 1984:
   

   “On the battlefield, in the torture chamber, on a sinking ship, the issues that you are fighting for are always forgotten, because the body swells up until it fills the universe, and even when you are not paralyzed by fright or screaming with pain, life is a moment-to-moment struggle against hunger or cold or sleeplessness, against a sour stomach or an aching tooth.”

   – Pg. 102, Signet Classics Pocket Ed

7. You should watch the movie Prince Avalanche. It’s streaming on Netflix right now and is totally worth your time.
8. “I will not step on your head just to make you feel better.”
9. I am listening to the song “Outro” by M83 while I type this list. I’m pretty sure this may be the most epic list ever written.
10. Everyone would be happier if we all rode bicycles.
11. We, as humans, give up far too easily.
12. Kurosawa’s letter to a retired Bergman: “a human is not really capable of creating really good works until he reaches eighty.” Yes! I still have time!
13. Stay with me. “ADAMS/LOAF 2014” – Bryan Adams and Meat Loaf on tour. The stage is circular and rotates. BA goes on first and he closes with, “Everything I Do (I Do It For You)” then as the song is finishing we hear the piano riff from Meatloaf’s, “I Will Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” start playing as the stage rotates around to reveal The Loaf. Brain explodes. Blood. Ear. Dead.
14. Alternative Tour Title: “BRYAN’S MEAT.”
15. I feel roughly 94.3% of my life is now spent charging my electronics. The other 5.7% is spent using them.
16. If you were having a really good day, watch the movie Dirty Wars.
17. I hate Disneyland. I find it fitting that the trashcans in the park beg you to “waste.”
18. The saddest thing that happened this year was the people who bought the old Hostess recipes thought they could improve upon them.
19. Things much sadder than that happened. But none tasted as bad.
20. If you missed me dancing in a leotard you still have a chance to be happy.