Oh Formats!

I am not a particular fan of the top-ten list. I watch Letterman for the double-breasted suits and passive aggression. I read Artforum for the ads (or not really at all). I simply ignore the Times's end-of-term lists, because they involve extreme predictability and the possible misuse of the words hipster, fedora, and Downtown (found throughout the fluff of the Papier of Record). All the same—my-oh-my—I feel the need, in the gloaming of '08, to make a list of favorite somethings, if only to remind myself that at least ten good things happened this year.

10. The Snuggie—The blanket with sleeves!TM 

9. Spicy Ripped Beef Soup with Glass Noodles at Kunjip Korean BBQ on 32nd Street. 

8./7.5/7.25. In Film: The Duchess (here, a scene from a ghostly, wonderful Korean bootleg). Amanda Foreman's biography of the Duchess of Devonshire is a favorite, and, before viewing it, I was mighty skeptical of the film adaptation, which stars one tremendously overexposed English Rose. It is, in fact, transportative and utterly feeling. Ms. Knightley's performance is magnificent, and I'm afraid I can't complain about her Chanel campaigns and possible eating disorder any longer (which is cool, because bitching about actresses is so very 2008). Reprise, or, more specifically, the beautiful Scandos of Reprise. And Film Forum's October run of Max Ophul's Lola Montez, the best moving photograph in all of the land and a much needed dose of 1848 cum 1955.

7. The James Brown estate viewing and auction at Christie's.

6. Leona Lewis's "Bleeding Love" and Usher's "Love in This Club," two of the best pop singles of the year, one, a pretty ballad with an unexpectedly evocative, difficult chorus, the other, a shallow, smarmy ballad with a sweet, peace and people-loving subtext. 

5. Asa Ames: Occupation Sculpturing, the small, bewitching show of twelve wooden sculptures sat in state in a dimmed, black gallery at The American Folk Art Museum through the summer, a trusty friend that bore much revisiting. 

4. A.M. in New York: Live with Regis and Kelly, The Tyra Banks Show, The View.

3. Ditmas Park

2. Hillary Clinton

1. Barack Obama 

And this didn't even cover it. I could have mentioned The Olympics or The Spitzer Scandale or Memphis Basketball or the Russian and Turkish Baths on E. 10th Street or fresh sage or dried strawberries or Mad Men (good to know).