double-edged sword

All Songs Considered just ran their staff picks for best-of-the-year music. Good banter, a few great picks, and a couple really mediocre selections. Such is the life of a "Best Of" list.

Variations on these lists pop up every month (Best Cheap Eats, Best New Bands, Best Scarves You've Never Heard Of), but they only really come into their own at the year-end. The New York Times Book Review has put forth their top ten books of the year. Too many magazines to count have already compiled their '08 music picks and Pitchfork will post theirs this week.

For editors, I think lists can become addictive - a crutch to rely on for a space-filling fall-back article. Just look at the glossies on grocery store checkout lines. "42 Resolutions for a New You." "9 Wonder Foods to Eat Now." "73 Worst Confessions." You'd think the staff for these places had forgotten how to write headlines that don't include numbers.

I'll provide an exception for year-end lists. "Best-ofs" and "top-tens" are a definite guilty pleasure. I have to admit that I completely understand the love of categorizing things and making lists - I think it fills a human impulse to collect and organize. There is something in declaring "bests" and "favorites" that gives you a sense of ownership over your preferences. With this act, what were simply a group of books or albums become your books or your albums, because you gave them status.

But this also opens you up to deflation. Usually, these sorts of lists are written up by critics and taste-makers, or else by people with too much time on their hands; in short, a group of people with pompous confidence in their own opinions. Consider them a sort of annual, territorial pissing-match, when geeks can assert their dominance by criticizing what others think is cool. Epicurious.com recently declared their ten choices for food trends in '09, which the Portland Mercury readily mocked. And seriously, it's demanding all of my self-control to hold myself back from weighing in on those stupid predictions. Portland, Maine will be the new Portland, Oregon?! Who came up with that gem?

So with the perils in mind, we're going to run the whole gamut of '08 awesomeness and declare our best of everything from the year.

BEST OF AUGHT-EIGHT!
Dove Vivi pizza
Bon Iver
Homemade pickles and jams!
Hot Chip
Cabinet magazine
Doughnut Plant in NYC
The Magnetic Fields in Seattle
Infinite Regress Collective Mix Tape
Discovering Ayer's Creek Farm at the Hillsdale Market
Slow Food Nation
Lykke Li at the Doug Fir
The Chef Studio
O
Mike Daisey
North Portland
Chest freezer (A's choice)
Bike commuting
Murakami at the Brooklyn Museum