Ralphies 2024

 I observe that "Ralph" began 20 years ago, in November 2004.  At the time, it seemed like a cutting-edge thing to do.  Then Twitter with its hot takes came along, and Reddit with its memes, and Donald Trump to corrupt everything, and Elon Musk to corrupt what Trump overlooked.  Now social media is a vast wasteland. Blogging seems like a quaint holdover from a simpler era.  I'm OK with that, because I get to do ...

Ralphies! Here we go ..

Movies: It's getting harder to distinguish movies from TV these days; it's all streaming content, and I don't go to theaters anymore.  Not against it or anything, but, hey, everything winds up on Netflix or whatever eventually.  I don't think I saw anything that came out this year, but I did catch up by watching Oppenheimer from 2023-pretty good, I guess? But the one that wowed me the most was 1917 (2019), innovative filmmaking and an exciting, moving story. It gets the Ralphie.

TV: Again, what is TV? Something you watch on a TV network? Or something called TV on a streaming service? I'll opt for the latter, since actual TV we use only for news, weather, and sports.  I enjoyed the series Dark Winds, although Zahn McClarnon is not at all my idea of Joe Leaphorn (probably not Tony Hillerman's, either). But the Ralphie goes to Arcane for the action and highly imaginative graphics and world-building, although it has more characters than War and Peace. 

Music: This, too, is affected by the streaming trend.  People used to get albums; now it's replaying your favorite track on a streaming service (take your pick).  But there were some good songs this year.  I got into listening to acoustic versions of rock hits; among them I give high marks to "1979" by Freedom Fry (Smashing Pumpkins cover) and "Wonderwall" by Ryan Adams (Oasis cover). But there was plenty of good new music too: "People Watching" by Sam Fender, "SPEYSIDE" by Bon Iver, "Josh Tillman and the Accidental Dose" by Father John Misty; "kisses" by Slowdive; but the Ralphie goes to "Candy" by Mk.gee, because I'm a sucker for melodic guitar playing.

Books: This one is always tricky, because I read a lot, both for business and pleasure.  For fiction, I'm going to give the Ralphie to Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock, and for non-fiction to All of the Marvels: A Journey to the Ends of the Biggest Story Ever Told by Douglas Wolk.  I'm sure I'm forgetting some, so I might revisit this later.

As far as current events go, I can't think of a more distressing and worrisome year, and 2025 doesn't look like it's going to improve things.  So I guess the only answer is to keep calm and keep blogging. See your around, true believer. Nuff said.