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Heeb's Best of 5765


You all know the story: God handed Moses the first top-10 list ever, and the rest was history. Now, we’re not saying that our top 10s should be taken quite as seriously, but the next time you’re out at night, trying to act like a big shot, and someone says, “Hey, how about The Further Adventures of Lord Quasimoto and you have no idea what they’re talking about, and the derisive laughter begins, and the next thing you know you’re fetal on the floor of your shower muttering “unclean, unclean” while desperately trying to scrub away the stench of rejection with a Brillo pad—well, don’t say that you weren’t given the chance to say, “I obey, and I hear.”
TELEVISION
Arrested Development (FOX) — It’s been lauded for its breakneck pacing and brilliantly intricate plots, but we love FOX’s perennial underdog for its blink-and-you-miss-it profanity. We’re not even talking about its major plotlines—gleefully dark riffs on incest, dismemberment, alopecia, frozen semen and Saddam Hussein. We’re talking about those double entendres (“I came home and blue’d myself,” says Blue Man Group-wannabe Tobias), so whiz-bang they escape network censors and prove entertainment can be smart and juvenile at the same time. EMILY FROMM
The other nine: Chappelle’s Show (Comedy Central); The Colbert Report (Comedy Central); Deadwood (HBO); Entourage (HBO); Family Guy (FOX); Six Feet Under (HBO); The Daily Show (Comedy Central); The O.C. (FOX); The Office (NBC).
BOOKS
Home Land, by Sam Lipsyte (Picador) — Lipsyte’s protagonist, Lewis Miner (aka “Teabag”), is as salty as Yosarian, as bitter as Alexander Portnoy and as maniacal as Humbert Humbert. The book, in the form of a series of blistering newsletters to Teabag’s fellow high school alumni, feels less like a novel than one long caustic rant, a courageous journey of existential deep-sea diving into the darkest waters of the human psyche. Just listen to this guy: “Newly infatuated couples are repellent. They can’t decide whether they want you to disappear or stand witness to their giddiness…. Plus they stink of nookie.” Utterly sublime. SHANA LIEBMAN
The other nine: Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro (Knopf); Epileptic, David B. (Pantheon); The London Years, Rudolf Rocker (AK Press); Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers’ Rights at Wal-Mart, Liz Featherstone (Basic Books); Runaway: Stories by Alice Munro (Knopf); Willful Creatures: Stories, Aimee Bender (Doubleday); The Design of Dissent, Milton Glaser and Mirko Ilic (Rockport); I, Fatty: A Novel, Jerry Stahl (Bloomsbury).
MUSIC
The National, Alligator (Beggars) — The National’s fourth record may at first sound effortless and offhand, but with each repeated listen, this rough, shimmering gem unfolds into complex characters and transcendent instrumental subtleties. Alligator successfully finds the meeting point for Joy Division, Wilco, strong whisky and great literature. This is a quintessential American document of unpretentious greatness. Trust us, this Alligator’s got teeth. ARYE DWORKEN
The other nine: Sufjan Stevens, Illinois (Asthmatic Kitty); M.I.A., Arular (XI/Beggars US) ; Stars, Set Yourself on Fire (Arts and Crafts); Quasimoto, The Further Adventures of Lord Quasimoto (Stones Throw), Antony and the Johnsons, I am a Bird Now (Secretly Canadian); Low, The Great Destroyer (Sub Pop); Ari Up, Dread More Dan Dead (Collision); Edan, Beauty and the Beat (Lewis Ent); Bloc Party, Silent Alarm (Vice Records).
ART
“Greater New York,” (PS 1, Queens) — On the opening weekend of PS 1’s Greater New York show, people packed into the hallways, stairwells, former classrooms and auditoriums of this deconsecrated school for a glorious graduation ceremony. The ratio of quality to hype was just right, like the egg white fizz on a retro cocktail. Some pleasures were room-filling events, like Matthew Day Jackson’s ten-foot pirate ship ferrying a fallen biker to his Viking funeral. Others were private peeks: Yuken Teruya’s miraculous little trees, each cut and folded from a paper shopping bag. ANYA KAMENETZ
The other nine: “Beautiful Losers” (Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco), “Something is Somewhere” (Monya Rowe Gallery, Manhattan), “Jules de Balincort: This Is Our Town”(LFL/Zack Feuer, Manhattan), “In Practice” (Sculpture Center, Manhattan), “Martha Cooper,” (Powerhouse, Manhattan), “Sigalit Landau: Forthcoming” (Tel-Aviv Museum), Tim Gardner (303 Gallery, Manhattan), “Tim Hawkinson: Uberorgan” (Whitney Museum of Art, Manhattan), “John Grimoprez: Looking for Alfred” (Photographers’ Gallery, London).
FILM
Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle (New Line Cinema) — We know, we know: Our favorite film of 5765 first hit theaters at the end of 5764. But the DVD came out this past year, and so we couldn’t resist bending the rules a bit. In the tradition of the great Cheech & Chong movies of the 1970s, this film is a Garden State Parkway of earthly delights: Neil Patrick Harris (“The NPH”) doing blow, the greatest Holocaust joke ever uttered (believe it or not it involves Katie Holmes), the first pube-trimming scene in the history of Western cinema, a fantasy marriage to an enormous bag of weed, and, of course, the quest for the perfect meal—what’s more Jewish than that? JOSHUA NEUMAN
The other nine: Kung-Fu Hustle (Sony Picture Classics); Vera Drake (Fine Line Features); The Incredibles (Buena Vista Pictures); Tarnation (Wellspring Media); Oldboy (Tartan USA); Me and You and Everyone We Know (IFC Films); Or (Kino International Corp.); Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (Magnolia Pictures); Save the Green Planet (Koch Lorber).
A Exclusive

7 thoughts on “Heeb's Best of 5765

  1. uh. the colbert report hasn’t premiered yet. did jewschool see previews or something? either way it wasn’t a 5765 product…
    arrested development is definitely the best though.

  2. Heeb is so full of trendy, brainless shit. Sounds like their musical taste comes straight from Pitchforkmedia.com. I won’t comment on the other categories, but owing to my lofty perch in the media cabal, I have had full access to the year’s output. The only one they get right is the Low album. Otherwise, ignore their list and check out the following:
    *Gogol Bordello – “Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike” (Ukrainean Gypsy punk! And it’s good too.)
    *Portastatic – “Bright Ideas” (Tuneful, gorgeous pop-rock from Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan)
    *V/A – “I Believe To My Soul” (Amazing re-creation of classic soul with Irma Thomas, Billy Preston and others)
    *Marah – “If You Didn’t Laugh, You’d Cry” (Great rock band from Philly.)
    *Dr. Israel – “Inna City Pressure” (Dub reggae and punk and tons of soul)
    *Four Letter Word – “Like Moths To a Flame” (Welsh political punk band. Very powerful.)
    *The Proclaimers – “Restless Soul” (Laugh if you like, but they write fantastic songs)
    *V/A – “Choubi Choubi – Folk and Pop From Iraq” (Amazing how distinctive and strangely catchy this stuff is)
    *Grabass Charlestons – “Ask Mark Twain” (Band from Florida recalls H?sker D? and the Replacements.)
    *Joe Strummer – “Walker” (His brilliant take on latin music, long out-of-print.)

  3. Hey Adny. I’m not sure why I’m responding to your comment now considering you wrote it on 10/16 and will most likely never come to this page again…but I just found your post and thought I should respond.
    When you say “trendy, brainless s***” which albums were you referring too? Sufjan Stevens? The National? Stars? I have to disagree with you. Having spent time with most of the aforementioned artists (incidentally, Sufjan has a staff fact-checking his lyrics), there’s nothing brainless about their respective songwriting or lyrical content. In fact, some of the words found in Antony’s ballads or in M.I.A.’s rebel/world music are more thought provoking and sincere than those of “a great rock band from Philly” (incidentally, I’ve seen Marah before and I think this band exists only because Nick Hornby wants them to).
    While your random and eclectic choices are commendable, it is my duty as a music journalist to recommend accessible and digestible music. Somehow your Four Letter Word album does not fall in either category. I can’t in good conscience recommend a No Idea hardcore band. Sorry.
    Moreover, I’m not sure why people like you sitting on your “lofty perch in the media cabal” are so dismissive of Pitchforkmedia.com. They’re introducing great music to a lot of people. Since when is that a bad thing? In fact, isn’t that what you’re attempting to do by providing your own list?
    And finally, before you suggest that we at Heeb have no minds of our own (we actually discussed the music list as a staff), consider that we have heard just about every album you listed but they didn’t do it for us. Personally, I’m not in the music journalism business to list obscurities and show off my eclectic music collection. I do this so people can hear a great, albeit not brilliant, album like Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm. I’m sorry if the trendy suggestions offend you but then again, I can’t imagine anyone taking me seriously had I recommended a Proclaimers album.

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