The Apple iPhone 3G

iPhone 3G, App Store.
While the first-generation iPhone grabbed a greater-than-expected market share, it was the 3G version that truly catapulted the iPhone brand into prominence. A $199 price point made the device a palatable option for those accustomed to a free, subsidized LG or Samsung. The brand new app store created a revolutionary business model for developers, albeit a tightly-monitored one. A new era has arrived in the tech world: the iPhone has surpassed the Moto Razr in worldwide sales, challenging other manufacturers to respond with premium devices at affordable price points.

The iCompetition: The HTC Touch Pro, the Sony XPERIA X1, and the Blackberry Bold.
And respond they did. This year’s crop of premium Windows Mobile devices, though innately hampered by their OS, trounced the iPhone’s feature set. The Bold, mixing classing Blackberry functionality in a sexy package, added its name to the list of potential rivals. It is unlikely that one of these devices will unseat the iPhone, but it’s a step in the right direction, and an indication that HTC and RIM will not sit idly by and let Apple raid their customer bases.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
and Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang

Microhoo/Yahoosoft.
On again, off again - this year’s most mercurial celebrity couple was Steve Ballmer and Jerry Yang. Yang declined a proposed takeover at $31/share, and again at $33, only to watch the stock plummet to single-digit lows. Only time will tell whether the as-yet-unannounced new Yahoo! CEO will try to resurrect merger talks, or whether the FTC would even allow any.

The T-Mobile G1.
Despite the inevitable shortfalls of a first-generation device (one bug reset the phone whenever the user typed “reboot”), the world’s first phone running Google’s open-source Android platform recorded solid sales and garnered a following in the gadget world. While the device operates more like a prototype than a finished product, it is only a matter of time before an inspired manufacturer taps into Android’s rich potential.

Blu-ray wins; nobody buys any Blu-rays.
February 19th saw Toshiba’s concession in the next-gen format war, essentially ending HD-DVD’s bid to become the new standard. But despite the resulting coronation of Blu-ray, consumers failed to flock to the platform. Thus far, DVD has been just fine for most people, thank you - and with the proliferation of free, nearly-HD content from iTunes, Hulu, and Netflix, it may be a long time before demand meets expectations.

The Netbook Revolution.
Once seen as delicate toys, these mini-laptops enjoyed a serious boom in 2008. Increased migration from desktop to browser based apps created a niche for an ultraportable, underpowered, underpriced alternative to traditional laptop systems. Expect to see more and more such diminutive devices in 2009.

The Nintendo Wii

The Wii’s Domination.
At the end of 2007, Nintendo’s quirky console seemed like a short-lived fad. Surely gamers would turn back to high definition and lifelike blood splatter, right? Instead, a rapidly-expanding pool of soccer moms and grandparents become Wii devotees overnight. Nintendo has not only grabbed a huge piece of the pie, but made it bigger as well. The question in 2009 is whether they can actually sell software for their little white cash cow.

Bill Gates Retires.
While the head geek himself will certainly still figure in Microsoft’s business operations, his retirement was confirmation of the passing of the old guard in the tech industry. Fortunately, his newfound free time will not be wasted away on the golf course: In addition to running his billion dollar charity, Gates has quietly founded a mysterious “think tank” named bgC3. Watch this space.

Obama’s CTO.
A sign of the times: After securing a historic election victory with the help of a online fundraising arsenal, the president-elect is set to appoint the nation’s first-ever Chief Technology Officer. The brand-new “Tech Czar” will oversee issues from net neutrality to nationwide broadband, helping ensure that the U.S. remains at the forefront of innovation for years to come.

The Large Hadron Collider

Large Hadron Collider.
While critics lambasted the particle accelerator’s approximately $10 billion price tag and potential to collapse our solar system like a bag of chips in a campfire, the project was widely considered a success by scientists - that is, until it broke. Now we’ll have to wait until summer 2009 to collide microscopic proton beams at 99.999999% the speed of light.

Top Ten TV Shows
By Kevin Gosa

Tech Top Ten
By Ty Fujimura

Ten Favorite Recordings from 2008
(Give or Take Fifteen)
By Jeffrey Overstreet

Top Ten Reasons Real Books
Are Better Than E-Books
By Christy Tennant

Top Ten Reasons to Love Snail Mail
By Jenni Simmons

Top Ten Movies
By Alissa Wilkinson

Not much. Even an elaborate description of how the selection process would not be enough to make sense of such a list. We all experience music differently. We have very personal encounters. And while there is such a thing as excellence, and yes we can discern the difference between a good song and a better song, it’s almost impossible to come to a decision about which works of art are “the best” of a given year. It takes years, decades, even centuries for us to see clearly which art is really built to last.

And considering how many hundreds of albums were released this year, who can really claim to have heard and comprehended them all?

So… instead, let me humbly offer you a list of the music that caught my attention, held it, thrilled me, and ministered to my mind, heart, and soul in 2008. I highly recommend you check them out. But keep in mind, if you ask me in a few years about the music of 2008, you might get a very different list. That’s the way art works. And aren’t you glad?

1. Sam Phillips – Don’t Do Anything
Since the late 1980s, Sam Phillips has been, in my opinion, America’s best answer to The Beatles - an inspired songwriter, a poet, a whimsical imagination, and a writer of profound spiritual insight.

As she outgrew the limitations of the Christian music industry’s propaganda machine, and left behind the name “Leslie” for her childhood nickname “Sam,” the legendary producer T-Bone Burnett made her the primary focus of his creative energies. He’s produced more of her work than anyone else’s, to the point that it’s been hard to imagine them apart. When their marriage of almost two decades ended, Burnett stayed on as her producer, even overseeing A Boot and a Shoe - that beautiful piece of heartache, that monumental breakup record.

Thus, it was 2008’s most exhilarating surprise when Phillips released her first self-produced album this year, and it turned out to be inspired, unpredictable, and even hopeful.

She’s learned quite a few tricks from Burnett, but she’s got a spirit and an impetuous style all her own. And the songs on this record have what it takes to live on. One in particular, “Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us,” has already been covered by Allison Krauss and Robert Plant on their acclaimed record Raising Sand, where it was hailed as the best track on that collection.

Phillips deserves to be recognized as a standalone talent, and with Don’t Do Anything, she spread her wings and soared, solo and spectacular, for the first time. Here’s to the wild blue yonder of her future, in which reviews may at last forego any mention of her former producer, and simply consider the riches that this mystic pop poet has to offer. She hasn’t released a bad record yet, and one can’t help but suspect that her best work is still ahead of her.

(Watch for my in-depth interview with Phillips about her career in the next issue of Image.)

2. Bob Dylan – Tell Tale Signs
In 2008, the word “maverick” was used, abused . . . beaten senseless. But Bob Dylan is stealing it back.

Does this project really qualify as an “album”? It’s more like a scrapbook of music recorded over the last 20 years. Tell Tale Signs is a double-album, 27-track treasure trove of adventure, poetry, humor, wisdom, folk music, and rock-and-roll. Even more amazing - these songs, like those on Tom Waits’ awe-inspiring Orphans collection, are leftovers from Dylan’s recording sessions dating back to 1989. Other artists have every right to shake their fist at their muses and cry, “It’s just not fair!”

Some of these cutting-room-floor discoveries are better than the studio versions of the same songs that we’ve known and loved for years. (An alternate take of “Born in Time” and a live version of “Ring Them Bells” are particularly memorable.) Dylan’s castaways are better than most artists’ best work. Here’s hoping he’ll keep recording for another 25 years, so listeners can continue to enjoy new discoveries like this for a century to come . . . or more.

3. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks – Real Emotional Trash
For the hilarious cleverness of the wordplay and rhymes, for the inspired and invigorating - sometimes exhilarating - guitar work, and for the fact that most of these long songs never wear out their welcome . . . this is the most extravagant and exciting release of Malkmus’s career, the record that fulfills the potential he’s shown all along. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it rivals the best work he did with his 1990s band Pavement. But be careful if you’re thinking of putting this disc in your car stereo - it’s likely to turn even the most responsible citizen into a reckless driver.

4. Plants and Animals – Parc Avenue
Imagine if The Arcade Fire went to a big family renion and had a jam session with their crazy uncles. Or, imagine if they moved to a hippie commune full of nostalgic rockers. Montreal seems to be a flourishing hotbed of community-rock efforts, and Plants and Animals is barrels of fun.

5. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Dig! Lazarus! Dig!
Two years ago, Nick Cave released a glorious double-album of subversive psalms and apocalyptic prophecies: Abattoir Blues and The Lyre of Orpheus. This year, he introduced another album of Biblical proportions, but this one is darker, stranger, more accessible, and sometimes downright rude. Cave, always a formidable and threatening presence, has never swaggered with more machismo than he does in the open number, or rocked with tongue so firmly in cheek. And the mustache he sports on the liner notes . . . that’s worth the price of the record.

6. Allison Moorer – Mockingbird
It should have been billed as Allison Moorer & Buddy Miller, because Mockingbird has Buddy Miller’s signature guitars and style all over it. Moorer’s voice is both powerful and flexible, bringing fire and eloquence to such ambitious covers as “Ring of Fire,” “Dancing Barefoot,” and Gillian Welch’s “Revelator.” Here’s hoping that this singer/producer team stays together for many records to come. (And here’s hoping that the Buddy and Julie Miller album Written in Chalk, coming in 2009, is every bit as good.)

7. Drive-By Truckers – Brighter Than Creation’s Dark
I’m late to the Truckers’ party, but I’m glad I showed up, because this is a generous album full of humor and heartbreak, powered by blazing guitars and whiskey with lemon. It’s as rusty and dusty as an old Ford truck, and yet the singers aren’t afraid to turn whole songs into meditations on the cinematic philosophies of the great John Ford. The Truckers have made their camp at the border of Country and Rock, and it’s the biggest bonfire in that region. Watch out for rattlesnakes.

8. The Welcome Wagon – Welcome to the Welcome Wagon
The best record for Sunday morning came from Sufjan Stevens, and sounded like the much-anticipated sequel to his acclaimed Illinoise. Strangely enough, though, he was just the producer: The songs belong to the husband-wife team of the Reverend Vito and Monique Aiuto. It’s as casual and improvised as Stevens’ own Christmas albums, but it has moments of real rapture, and enough humor and courage to include a cover of The Smiths’ “Half a Person.”

9. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
Seattle’s Fleet Foxes prove that the Emerald City will not tolerate being classified as “the Kingdom of Grunge” any longer. With harmonies so pristine that Crosby Stills & Nash would weep to hear them, these Foxes are aiming alternative rock in the direction of monastic chants. In a year of maddening campaign cacophony and bad news everywhere you turned, there was something especially affecting about such distilled and timeless beauty.

10. Fifteen-album tie!
Portishead – Third
The year’s most welcome comeback, Portishead sound as bleak and desolate as ever, while smashing their techno-punk sound into alarming, abrasive new shapes.

Loudon Wainwright III – Recovery
Need cheering up? Spend some time in Wainwright’s contagiously joyful company. In the hands of producer Joe Henry, he’s some of the best songs of his career and rerecorded them in the warm, simple settings that serve them best. The lyrics may be blue, but the deliver is bright as yellow.

Lizz Wright – The Orchard
Her debut album of covers was a breakthrough. Her follow-up, filled with her own songwriting, is just as enjoyable. And most of that is due to her astonishing, sultry vocals. There’s nothing showy about this record at all, but I’m smitten. If I was up past nine any evening this last year, I was most likely listening to this seductive, luxuriant, exquisite music.

David Byrne and Brian Eno – Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
This, their second collaboration of Byrne and Eno in 27 years, will only make you ache for the records they might have made if they’d worked together during all those years in between. And while Byrne has a reputation for cryptic lyrics and and a satirist’s smirk, Everything That Happens is pumped full of pop optimism. Unless I’ve missed something, this is the Talking Heads’ most enthusiastic performance since the Talking Heads parted ways. Eno’s inventive production recalls his work on Paul Simon’s underrated Surprise . . . and that’s a good thing.

Marco Benevento – Invisible Baby
My favorite instrumental record of the year. A fusion of so many styles, it’s hard to keep track - but why bother? Invisible Baby makes a great score for any day of frantic multitasking. One moment, you’re thrilling to the power chords of anthemic rock a la Oasis or Sigur Ros, and the next you’re shooting Asteroids on an old Atari. Fun, funny, and phenomenal. If there’s a film that fits this soundtrack, I want to see it.

Calexico – Carried to Dust
I’m also late to the Calexico party, but I was entranced by this record. It feels like a world-music jam session on the border of Texas and Mexico. Or a cinematic soundtrack to a dangerous road trip. Or a spaghetti-western with meatballs.

She & Him – Volume One
At her best, Zooey Deschanel is charming in her retro, girl-nextdoor style. And M. Ward understands that, capturing her personality in a perfect pop package. Personally, I think she has a lot of room to grow as a vocalist - there are a few sour notes here. (The opening line of “Take It Back” really makes me cringe.) But nevertheless, this is a contagiously good-humored record, and it became my record of choice for sunny afternoons.

Mudcrutch – Mudcrutch
Tom Petty should take a break from the Heartbreakers and stick with this impressive band for a while. It’s more collaborative than anything he’s done since the Traveling Wilburys, and that’s a good thing. It’s also a very generous record—fourteen songs long with one track nearing ten minutes. And there’s not a bad track in the bunch.

T-Bone Burnett – Tooth of Crime
If Cormac McCarthy made rock music, it might sound something like this. Burnett’s songs from the Sam Shepard play of the same title have been anticipated by his fans for about two decades. It’s hard to believe that the record is finally here. It’s also amazing that it’s been worth the wait, especially since Burnett’s last solo record was something of a letdown. And isn’t it a little spooky to hear Burnett singing heartbreak duets with Sam Phillips?

Sigur Ros - Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust
I was beginning to think Sigur Ros had run out of good ideas. I was wrong. You may not be able to pronounce this album’s title, but you sure will enjoy listening to it. Sigur Ros sound like a band tired of their own conventions, turning themselves loose to run naked into new fields of discovery. Okay, if you think that description’s ridiculous, just take a look at the album cover.

B.B. King – One Kind Favor
A solid performance from a living legend, produced with remarkable restraint by T-Bone Burnett. Other producers might have felt compelled to give King a showy, flashy package for his work, but this is just the kind of frill-free recording the master deserves. It lets his artistry speak for itself. In a time when the music industry tries to make pop out of everything, this is what stylistic integrity looks like.

Bill Frisell – History, Mystery
My favorite soundtrack for creative writing this year - a moody, 30-song program from one of America’s most adventurous guitarists. Frisell’s musical wanderlust is so ambitious, it’s hard to know what a “typical Frisell record” might sound like. Perhaps this is as close as he’ll come to it: A fusion of almost everything he’s done so far, characterized by simmering strings. At AllMusic.com, Thom Jurek takes a stab at summing up the styles represented here: “ . . . bebop/post-bop, Malian folk music, tangos, Delta blues, modern classical music, vintage soul, and rock.” Get the idea?

Elvis Costello – Momofuku
Costello’s albums have become mixed blessings. I haven’t heard one that was a knockout beginning to end since All This Useless Beauty. Momofuku may not be as adventurous stylistically or improvisational as other recent works like When I Was Cruel, but the songs are solid and rowdy rock and roll numbers. Given time, they open up as impressive, thoughtful, well-written works recorded while the songwriter was still enthusiastic and inspired.

Over the Rhine – Live From Nowhere, Volume Three
My favorite band celebrated their 20 years of composing underrated, overlooked treasure by putting on a three-concert weekend in Cincinnati. It’s the first time I’ve ever taken an airplane to see live music, and it was worth all of the trouble. Those performances will be ringing in my ears for a long time to come, more exciting than any recorded “best-of” the band could have assembled. But since that anniversary celebration is, alas, unavailable as a recording . . . check out Live From Nowhere, Volume Three - the third installment in Over the Rhine’s series of special releases “for the fans,” a collection of memorable live-performance highs from the preceding year.

U2 – No Line on the Horizon
Okay, it’s not here yet. But the superlatives being thrown around by Bono, the producers, and those who have heard snatches of what is reportedly another ambitious reinvention have filled my head with wild guesses. And I like what I’m imagining. Let’s hope it delivers.

I also enjoyed:
• Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
• Beck – Modern Guilt
• Jolie Holland – The Living and the Dead
• Woven Hand – Ten Stones
• Sun Kil Moon – April
• Sixpence None the Richer – My Dear Machine
• Ryan Adams and the Cardinals – Cardinology
• Ron Sexsmith – Exit Strategy of the Soul
• Lucinda Williams – Little Honey
• Emmylou Harris – All I Intended to Be
• The Dodos – Visiter
• DeVotchka – A Mad and Faithful Telling
• Cat Power - Jukebox
• Beach House - Devotion

Alejandro Polanco in Chop Shop

There were many truly worthy films that didn’t make it onto this list - in fact, a top twenty probably would have made more sense - but these are the ones which I found to be artistically excellent, and skillfully made, which I believe have made a long-lasting, positive contribution to the film canon. They also stuck with me in some way. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I didn’t manage to see Frost/Nixon or I’ve Loved You So Long before I had to put this together.)

10. Chop Shop
If you didn’t know it was set in New York, you’d think it was in the Third World; if you didn’t know it was a narrative, you’d swear it was a documentary. Director Ramin Bahrani’s sophomore effort is a sweetly heartbreaking story of a pair of siblings living in Willets Point, Queens, and pays tribute to neorealists such as Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardennes, with an American twist.

Michael Shannon, Douglas Ligon,
and Barlow Jacobs in Shotgun Stories

9. Shotgun Stories
The inimitable Michael Shannon (also seen in #4 below!) leads a cast of talented actors in a tale of revenge and family guilt that is equal parts Greek tragedy and gritty Southern gothic, set in a forgotten town in southern Arkansas. First-time director Jeff Nichols is one to watch.

8. Wendy and Lucy
Director Kelly Reichardt’s films carry an often biting social commentary underneath their stillness and naturalism (see 2006’s Old Joy, but this one, starring an understated and stunning Michelle Williams, preserves some notion of hope in the world, through the kindness of strangers. This is a sensitive, generous film.

7. Synecdoche, New York
Charlie Kaufman has written many gloriously messed-up films (Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich). This, his directorial debut, stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and a bevy of today’s most talented art-house actresses in a convoluted, excruciatingly sublime plunge into the disintegrating psyche of one regret-paralyzed man. (See my review in Christianity Today.)

Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson
in Låt den rätte komma in

6. Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In)
This year’s “other vampire movie” (and the one worth actually seeing), Let the Right One In is a spare and surprisingly beautiful Swedish film about a lonely twelve-year-old boy with a bully problem who befriends the girl next door. It’s mostly a film about love and trust, with some, well, vampires thrown in. See it now, because the American remake is on the way.

5. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Strange in its beauty, David Fincher’s epic has a distinct affinity with Synecdoche, New York, but a larger sense of hope. A measured meditation on mortality, and the weight it gives to the sacredness of each life, both individually and in relationship.

4. Revolutionary Road
Not just another Sam Mendes film about the suburbs. Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio are reunited in this magnificently despondent adaptation of the Richard Yates novel about the disintegration of a marriage, shot so beautifully that it will break your heart.

3. Un conte de Noël (A Christmas Tale)
Loaded with mischief, contention, and dark delight, A Christmas Tale is Arnaud Desplechin’s way of wrapping up all the best actors in French cinema in one big house, turning them into a dysfunctional family, and letting them loose on one another. Capricious, humorous, sad, and purely delightful. (See Alisa Harris’s Curator article and my review in Paste.)

2. Rachel Getting Married
Anne Hathaway takes a detour from her usual fare to portray Kym, haunted by her past and let out of rehab to attend her sister’s wedding. Packed with painfully honest dialogue, it’s also full of beautiful, joyous celebration. Director Jonathan Demme has thrown a party, and you’re invited. (See my review in Christianity Today.)

WALL-E

1. WALL-E
It’s not just the best animated film of the year, or the best children’s film, or the best robot love story. WALL-E takes Pixar’s trademark bleeding-edge animation and storytelling and ramps it up five notches, starting what is ostensibly a “kids’ movie” with a solid dialogue-free half hour. It’s also a worthy parable for our times about the dangers of materialism and the too-easy life. Pixar might be the only company consistently turning out world-class films for the widest audiences, and for that, we can all be grateful.

The Amazon Kindle and iPhone apps like Stanza are beginning to make inroads in the e-Book market. But nothing will ever really replace paper books. Why, you ask?

10. No need to wait until the pilot gives you permission to use personal electronic devices.
9.  It’s OK if you forget to charge your real book.
8.  Unwrapping a download is so anti-climactic.
7.  Speaking of which, it’s hard to wrap a download.
6.  Eye strain caused by too-small font is way better than eye strain caused by too-few pixels.
5.  You’d look silly burying your head in your iPhone.
4.  Real books give you tactile pleasure; e-Books give you carpel tunnel.
3.  You can’t judge an e-Book by its cover (because it doesn’t have one)
2.  A real book will dry out and still be functional if you accidentally drop it in the toilet.
1.  Curling up with a cup of tea and your e-Book reader is completely uninviting.

Image.
This is my favorite periodical, ever.  I am utterly inspired by the fusion of “art, faith, and mystery” in short stories, poetry, essays, interviews, and contemporary art; I’ve discovered some of my favorite writers and visual artists through these pages.  It’s a challenge to combine faith and art and do it well, but the folks at Image make the combination an art form in and of itself.

The Sun.
Other than great writing, the two best things about this magazine are the amazing black & white photographs, and the Readers Write section (I keep meaning to submit a piece).

Dwell.
I’m not a textbook minimalist, but I lean in that direction.  I love this beautiful magazine full of clean lines and modern architecture - flipping through each issue makes for good mental housecleaning.

Poetry.
The design of this journal caught my eye; the cover art, in particular.  It’s just the right size to stick in my purse, and of course, it’s filled with great poetry (the November 2008 issue featured two poems by Billy Collins).

The New York Times.
As much as I love online publications, I’m adamant about reading at least one physical
newspaper a week.  However, the local Houston paper leaves a lot to be desired.  I take the
Sunday Times for well-written articles, the Book Review, the Magazine, Arts & Leisure, and
newsprint on my fingers.

Eighth Day Books catalog.
Firstly, this voluminous catalog is free by merely joining the mailing list.  And not only do they offer the best book selection, but the reviews are beautifully-written.  I’ll curl up with any book of fiction they recommend.

Books & Culture.
I love this oversized periodical for great book reviews covering all manner of culture, especially history and science in which I have a healthy interest.  But I don’t read the two subjects enough, so I appreciate a nudge in the right direction.  I’m particularly fond of the reviews by one of my favorite authors, Lauren Winner.

Mars Hill Audio Journal.
The only exception to snail mail on my list, this bimonthly MP3 journal is perfect for my iPod and Houston traffic.  The audio articles are the same intellectual quality as my favorite NPR programs, yet “committed to assisting Christians who desire to move from thoughtless consumption of contemporary culture to a vantage point of thoughtful engagement.”  I’m a big fan of the classical music between each segment, too.

Good.
This is the most creatively designed magazine I’ve ever seen, and each article features people doing good all around the world. Every single dollar of my subscription goes to the charity of my choice - I’ve selected the likes of Room to Read and Slow Food USA; you can’t beat that.

Paste.
Well, who doesn’t love a free sampler CD with every issue?  I’ve discovered so many incredible musicians by popping those samplers in my car stereo.  I dig Paste’s whole vibe of finding “signs of life in music, film, and culture.”

* Honorable mention: Toast catalogs.
You have to fill out an online form for each seasonal catalog, but they are free, too, and by God, the photography is gorgeous.  I’d like my wardrobe and life to look just like a rustic Toast catalog.

1. In none of its 32 small-screen incarnations will CSI make an appearance on this list.
2. Nor will any other absurd crime or medical or crimedical dramas or comedies. This includes House, Bones, Law and Order, Boston Legal, Dexter, ER, NCIS, Grey’s Anatomy, Cold Case . . .
3. Lost will not be found here.
4. Any show featuring the bald head of Howie Mandel will be considered an affront to the taste of this reviewer and subsequently not found on the list.
5. I really, really wish I could put Heroes on the list. But this season, it stinks. Hey Kring, how many plots does it take to make it seem like you have any idea what you are doing with this show? (And yet, I still TiVo it.)
6. Any and all shows currently or formerly connected to or associated with MTV, VH1, MTV2, E!, Spike or Carson Daly are also terra inconcessus.
7. No “real” news shows. (Though Rachel Maddow gives one hope that intelligent news reporting might still exist.)
8. No game shows (see #4), no talent shows, no reality shows, and definitely no soaps, daytime or nighttime. (Yeah, I’m talking to you, Desperate Housewives.)
9. Since I don’t subscribe to them, there won’t be any shows from premium cable channels on the list. Tough crap Californication.
10. I do have a life, and as result of this fortunate situation in which I find myself, I have not seen every TV show that deserved to be watched, nor have I seen all the episodes of the shows on the list.

All that said, here goes.

10. Spongebob Squarepants
Not since George Carlin’s seven words has potty humor been this funny. I dare you to watch this show and not find in it at least half the people you work with and half the people you are related to. Zany, slapstickian comedy with a touch of good ol’ childhood morality. Plus, it’s on at least seven times a day, so it’s impossible to miss.

9. Mad Men
Mad Men places just above the animated yellow sponge, not because I think it is only slightly better than Nickelodeon’s offering, but because - honestly - I haven’t seen it. “How,” do you protest, “dare you put a show on your TOP ten list that you haven’t even seen?”

“Well,” I reply, “let’s just say that my hippest, savviest, designy-est friend - who doesn’t ever watch TV - loves Mad Men.” And that, dear readers, is enough of a reason for me to put it on the list. And I wager that, indeed, it does belong above the slightly less sophisticated Mr. Squarepants.

8. 30 Rock
Unlike Mad Men, I have seen 30 Rock; but, I usually only see the first five minutes or so that TiVo records after The Office ends - which is more than enough to put this comedy romp into position number eight. I have no doubt that I would love the remaining 25 minutes (minus the crappy commercials of course) as much as I do the first five. So be sure to watch and let me know how much funny I missed.

7. SportsCenter
I think all news programs should approach their subject with the same verve, intensity, and honesty as SportsCenter does sports. I mean, for crying in a bucket, they take sports news and events more seriously than all the major and cable news networks do “real” news and world events combined. Here there is a clear distinction between what is fact and what is expert opinion. No such distinction remains in “real” news. Fact is either a dirty word or a simple tool to convince simpleton tools that what they are watching is even slightly objective - which it is not. SportsCenter is as timeless as a show can be in our age of volubility. (100 points to the first person to guess the origin of the preceding sentence.)

6. The Daily Show/The Colbert Report
To me these two are inseparable. Like Clinton and Clinton. Or Huckabee and Norris. Or Stevens and felony counts. They’re consistently funny, and often a better source for news than the networks. Somehow in the midst of the satire and silliness there are meaningful interviews, with the likes of Tony Blair, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. There’s disagreement (see Tony Blair), and yet, civil discourse. There’s outright lampooning, and serious questions. Once again, “real” news programs, with your marshmallow journalism and Nerf questioning, take a long hard look at what you look like to the rest of us.

I was worried about the future of these two shows with the coming administration, but thankfully, there’s Joe Biden.

5. Ben 10: Alien Force
Cartoon Network delivers again. From the network that gave me years of immeasurable, childlike bliss with Samurai Jack, Dexter’s Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, and the original Ben 10, comes the latest installment in our protagonist’s journey.

Love it, love it, love it. I mean, what’s not to love. Kid finds a watch from outer-space that lets him turn into unstoppable alien superheroes in order to battle DNAliens bent on “cleansing” earth of the filthy humans and moving onward to universal domination. Pure and beautiful entertainment. As Dana Gioia might say, it’s a predictable pleasure in a predictable medium - but once again, chock full of life lessons, action, adventure and just enough Looney Tunes-esque satire and insider sci-fi homage to keep it interesting.

4. Battlestar Galactica (BSG)
I’ve clearly showed my hand as an out-of-the-closet sci-fi nerd. (I grew up on every type of Star Trek, and even as recently as the day after Christmas, watched a half-day’s worth of episodes of Star Trek TNG.) So, it should be no surprise that I’ve got BSG near the top of the list.

Now, I would LOVE to make it my number one. But, sadly the execs at Sci-Fi seem to think that airing 6 new episodes every year is sufficient to continue to be considered one of the great TV shows of all time. Which it is/would be.

Seriously. It’s that good. The cable lines are full of programs that present themselves as having something distinct to say, but most are just a retreading of the same played-out plots and ideas. BSG is actually different. Few shows dare tackle the science/religion question with such honesty, and even fewer tackle hyper-nationalism, suicide-bombing, genocide, human depravity, power, love, commitment and truth. I don’t think I am overstating the case here. It is worth every minute you’ll spend catching up on what you’ve missed.

3. Chuck
I’ll admit I was a sucker for Alias in its prime: the twists, the turns, the love triangles. But Chuck has taken the spy drama to a new and much more enjoyable level. With the overblown seriousness of 24 dominating the genre, Chuck comes along with a really fresh variation on what could be considered a tired theme. Equal parts unrealistic spy drama and bumbling idiot retail comedy, the writers continue to weave two very out-of-sync elements into an exciting, entertaining, and cohesive whole every week. (The addition of Tony Hale as the overzealous assistant store manager was a stroke of comic brilliance.) And, the love saga is getting to be as compelling as the Jim/Pam affair of early The Office seasons.

2. The Office

Ah, The Office. It should be number one. It really should. It just doesn’t get old. That’s what makes it so good. This show could have been a one-trick pony that breaks its leg in season three and has to be put down, but it remains fresh. I, for one, am quite glad that the writers didn’t draw out the love drama year after year, and instead have focused on what my wife would call “the adventures of Jim and Pam.” I must admit that I thought going down that road would lead quickly to the “final episode” where they get married and ride off into the Scranton sunset. But the comedy rolls on. This show is passing Seinfeld in my book for most re-watchable TV program.

1. Jamie at Home

What’s that? You’ve never heard of Jamie at Home? I can’t say I’m surprised, because unless you find yourself glued to the Food Network every Saturday morning, I am not sure how you would have heard about it. Jamie Oliver, of Naked Chef fame, invited viewers each week to his home outside of London to explore a fresh and seasonal ingredient or type of food every week. Eggs, onions, broad beans, wild game, fish, pizza, tomatoes, just about everything. Of course that’s not much of an argument for this being the number one show of 2008.

So, I’ll start with this: the cinematography was groundbreaking and beautiful. Usually, food on TV looks fake, and you rarely get to see the food other than at the very end when it’s swapped out for a plastic counterpart. But Jamie at Home plopped you right into the midst of the chopping, rolling, grilling, pouring, and serving. Every element of the show was given the highest level of care and it showed. The food was art, the show was art.

Jamie’s show was unlike any other ever on Food Network. His cheekiness, his excitement, and his ease in the kitchen (or woods, backyard, or garden) drove this show to convince you that you can cook. And not simply “cook,” but cook like a chef and learn to savor, smell, taste and feel your way around food. Not find a recipe, disinterestedly slop ingredients together and slavishly follow instructions. He made you believe that it isn’t an unattainable, culinary Mt. Everest to become a better cook; to make food that is fresh and delicious; to make food that stops you from settling for second-rate flavors when it comes to what you eat and instead grab the reigns of your diet and savor every bite.

I think, though, what brings it to the top of this list, is how much it has actually changed my life. Really. TV isn’t supposed to change you. It’s supposed to entertain you just long enough to hear from advertisers. It has rarely been about art and often been about commerce. But this show has the power to affect the decisions you make daily about how and what you eat. Everyday I live out a new food paradigm I was blessed to inherit from having watched every single episode. It was like going to food church.

Fifty years from now, I’m quite uncertain I will not remember or care much at all about these shows - except for Jamie at Home.

So, there you have it - what I believe to be the top ten TV shows of 2008. Well, at least the top ten that I “watched.” Bob’s your uncle.

New York, as far as it is understood, is still the reigning capital of the contemporary art world (to those in London, you’re not far off). Aside from its few hundred galleries, one expects to find some of the strongest art being made in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the other three boroughs. The last significant exhibition held in the city by Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA), a non-profit, was at the Museum of Biblical Art in 2005. I bought the catalog, but I couldn’t say I was satisfied with “The Next Generation: Contemporary Expressions of Faith.”

Photo: John Silvis

Now, the latest CIVA exhibition, called “I Am Not a Machine”, acts as a fitting follow-up for those curious about Christian belief and new art practices. On view until January 16, 2009 at the gallery of the New York Center for Arts and Media Studies (NYCAMS), this selection of New York-based artists is arguably more “Next Generation” and “Contemporary” than those represented by recent exhibitions of Christian artists. Curated by Christina Beckett, the current show features artists who skew towards their twenties and thirties, and the works suggest Christian expression has more integrity when addressing God in less-established terms.

Resisting the establishment is the tone set by the show’s title, “I Am Not a Machine” (in assertion, not unlike the “I-Am”, as pronounced by the organization which publishes this magazine). A subtitle adds, “This life is not the last painting.” These two declarations recall two possible tropes circulating in Evangelical conversation: dehumanization, and the afterlife. However, seeing the works makes one wonder, “Does the machine and that painting in question actually stand apart from our transcendent identity?”

All the works included in “I Am Not a Machine” reveal the dynamic pivots between material objecthood and immaterial experience. But the most captivating pieces demonstrate a no-holds-barred confrontation, considering the simplest of materials with the most complex of processes.

One work, by Jimmy Miracle, graces the exhibition’s announcement card. In Ascension, Miracle composes a mise-en-scene using what he could find from trash at the beach. The brilliant yellow color of the shirt he pegs up above the pale sea and ring of shells becomes easily seared into the viewer’s memory. For his C-print, A Symbol for Sight and Reality Artist, Jay Henderson scans a simple three-dimensional object and, on Photoshop, repeatedly and flatly describes the solid forms until it recedes into digital oblivion. Jonathan Cowan’s Untitled, a large picture built of (and installed with) clear office tape, embeds an overwhelming assortment of disparate, largely everyday figures surrounding the artist: his wife’s face, reproductive and birth diagrams, talking heads from TV, office memos - including himself hand in hand with a pop-ified Jesus. Its earthy quality is further accentuated by the additional self-portrait of the artist as a contorted, Siamese twin-like face accompanied by open-palmed hands.

Perhaps Christians are better off facing the stuff of this present machine, because it seems immaterial benefits, like the “I Am” so sought after, especially arises out of existing conditions.

Building Hope Through Sustainable Design
An Interview with Margaret Smith of Clean Green Studios
Creating green products that make the world spin more smoothly.

“I Am Not A Machine”:
Addressing God in Less-Established Terms
By Samuel Kho
The latest CIVA exhibition, called “I Am Not a Machine”, acts as a fitting follow-up for those curious about Christian belief and new art practices.

Moskow, Belgium
By Sarah Hanssen
This the kind of film that appeals to both the hopeless romantics and the sarcastic cynics.

Margaret Smith is the founder and CEO of Clean Green Studios, a for-profit company that couldn’t have appeared at a better time. They combine great design with sustainable construction, and all with an eye toward creating sustainable dwellings for people in developing nations. Below, we talk with Margaret about how Clean Green Studios got started.

For more on Hope Studios and Hope Shelters, visit the Clean Green Studios website, or visit them on Virb, Twitter, or Margaret’s LinkedIn page.

Tell me a little bit about the “seed” of the idea for Clean Green Studios.
I’ve been a writer most of my life, and though that’s fun, it’s a solitary occupation. I’ve always been happiest when working with beautiful people in poverty in Latin America, combining my passions of design and social justice.

For years I wondered how to make those twin passions of design and social justice work into a career. In 2007, my son Eric came back to the States from a trip to Central America, with the most amazing photos and videos of a garbage dump community of 1600 people called La Chureca, Nicaragua. The images touched me, especially as I thought of the kids who live in nothing but cardboard, bent tin and other nailed-together trash.

As I thought about what I could do to help the people, I started sketching out a design for a small, sustainable house that could be built by volunteers. With the house would come several attached modules, such as a rain catchment and water filtration system for fresh water. I called it Hope Shelter. That was the seed of the company, and in March 2008 we became a limited liability corporation, designing green products with the world in mind.

What’s a Hope Studio? Who designed them?
Think of a Hope Studio as a backyard retreat that reminds you of your favorite treehouse. It’s a 120-square-foot studio for creativity: art, woodworking, writing, music and entertaining friends. It has French doors, two large windows, a storage loft and built-in bookcase.

A Hope Studio is a small, sustainable backyard studio that I designed with Sebastian Collet, who studied sustainable architecture at the University of Oregon. Right now on the website you’ll see the company’s first green product, a set of blueprints for Hope Studios, with architectural renderings showing exterior and interior. (See photo below.)

Most of the materials have sustainable features (such as galvanized steel, with about 25% recycled content) and are available at large building supply companies. We ship you the blueprints with a supply list. You and your contractor shop for materials at your building supply store. This keeps it local, which of course is another mark of sustainability.

When someone buys blueprints for a Hope Studio, we will send (when available) blueprints for a Hope Shelter to a non-profit that builds homes in a developing nation.

What’s a Hope Shelter? Who designed them?
Hope Shelters are built on basically the same footprint as Hope Studios, with different features. In contrast to Hope Studios, a Hope Shelter is a permanent dwelling for people in developing nations. Whereas in America, green features like stick-on LED lights are something of a fun item, green building and green energy just make great sense in developing nations, since so many families there need sustainability in every part of their lives: food, water, shelter and energy.

As with Hope Studios, we’re just selling the blueprints and supply list for Hope Shelters, not the materials. People shop for materials at their own local building supply store. Right now we are putting the finishing touches on blueprints for Hope Shelters.

These blueprints will be available for sale to groups of volunteers who want to build sustainable homes in Latin America. The groups can take the supply list to pick up materials at a building supply store before heading off to the site with a contractor. We see this as a green alternative to stick-built homes that we Americans normally build for families in Tijuana and other areas in poverty. With Hope Shelters, there’s less wood in the construction, less construction waste, and more features for the family to sustain a livelihood, once the team has left the families in their new homes.

Why would a person want to build a Hope Studio?
I see it as a chance for Americans to have a necessary place away from home, to create and rest. It may be in their backyard, or it may be on a piece of property that’s been waiting for a quiet retreat.

Our first buyer bought a Hope Studio as a quick green getaway to build on her riverfront property in Washington State. Her adult siblings and her mother live near the property. After she drives 3 hours from her house to spend time with them, she retreats to her Hope Studio to read, watch the birds and get some time to herself.

When you buy blueprints for this studio, Clean
Green Studios sends blueprints for a home in a developing nation.
© Clean Green Studios

Who will be living in the Hope Shelters?
I often picture a small family in Tijuana - maybe a couple with a child. The child can sleep in the loft, while the couple sleeps in a hammock below, or the other way around. The hammock can be stored during the day, making more living space. A small stove and sink can be built on the deck, and a compost toilet takes care of things in the outhouse in back.

In 1998 on an old dumpsite in Tijuana, while surrounded by kids watching my every move, I made a mosaic with broken glass and pottery in the drying cement of a daycare center we’d just built, called Casa de Esperanza, House of Hope. They all gathered around, pointing and asking, “Quien es? Who’s that?” Not what’s that, but *who*? I asked each kid’s name and pointed to a shard in the mosaic, saying, “Este es Maria. Este es Juan. This is Maria. This is Juan.” The mosaic became a happy sun surrounded by flecks of light in the multicolored sky. When I look back and try to find a defining moment for Clean Green Studios, that’s it, ten years before I started the company.

Who runs Clean Green Studios?
It’s actually just me right now. Sebastian has his own green building design company, and I’ve hired him to co-design Hope Studio and Hope Shelter. I’m happy to have advisory board members I can call on when necessary, but they have their own busy companies to attend to. Clean Green Studios has some great social networking going on with Twitter, Virb and LinkedIn, and I’ve found encouraging people there, from Russia to Scotland to New York and Portland. In Portland, the company belongs to Clean Tech Alliance and Oregon Entrepreneurs Network.
As CEO, creative director and all-around organizer of Clean Green Studios, I’m looking for some great people to partner with. In particular, I need a great chief operating officer right now, as well as a development director. We are seriously ramping up!

What’s your vision for the future of Clean Green Studios?
We create green products that make the world spin more smoothly. That’s our mission; it’s not just something pretty to say. This whole thing started just because I wanted to make something beautiful and useful for impoverished people in other parts of the world, and it’s amazing to see it coming to pass.