Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 248

TBWCYL, Inc.'s Top Ten Movies of the Decade Will Change Your Life.

When it comes to movies we like aggression, humor and pain. Throw in some dread and maybe some music and we're down. So here you go:
(1) Punch-Drunk Love/Paul Thomas Anderson (2002). Maximum aggression. Maximum humor. And a terrifically cast Adam Sandler.
(2) Moulin Rouge/Bas Lurhmann (2001). Our brain is still recovering from the opening sequence.
(3) Brokeback Mountain/Ang Lee (2005). Breathtaking and crushing all at once.

(4) The Squid and the Whale/Noah Baumbach (2005). Man do we wish we...

TBWCYL, Inc.'s Top Ten Albums of the Decade Will Change Your Life.

Music is as subjective as anything, but we know what we like, music that brings us joy or slams us into a wall, inspires us when we write and moves us when we run. So without further adieu, the TBWCYL, Inc. Top Ten.
(1) Separation Sunday/The Hold Steady (2005). Druggie storytelling awesomeness.
(2) Feed the Animals/Girl Talk (2008). Pinball and fried chicken. And no we don't know what that means.
(3) We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions/Bruce Springsteen (2006). Ebullient.
(4) Yankee Foxtrot...

TBWCYL, Inc.'s Top Ten Television Shows of the Decade Will Change Your Life.

We understand that people think television is evil and that some even advocate for killing one's television. Yeah, well, in the words of television icon Homey the Clown, "Homey don't play that." Onward and upward then.

(1) The Sopranos. Don't stop believing. Period.

(2) Arrested Development. Man do we miss the Bluths.

(3) The Shield. Just try to turn away.

(4) The Obama acceptance speech in Grant Park. It really doesn't matter who you were rooting for, where you lived or where things sit today...

TBWCYL, Inc.'s Top Ten Books of the Decade Will Change Your Life.

Are we jumping on the decade-ending bandwagon? Way. Still, when your goal is to change lives, its not always clear how you're going to accomplish this. So, as we began prepare our year-end Top Ten lists we started thinking about the last decade as well and like everybody else we thought we would weigh-in on what we liked and/or influenced us and/or brought us joy. Over this week we are going to hit books, movies, television and music. And then next week, or shortly thereafter, we will begin...

This Top Ten Books of the Decade List Will Change Your Life.

Are we jumping on the decade-ending bandwagon? Way. Still, when your goal is to change lives, its not always clear how you're going to accomplish this. So, as we began prepare our year-end Top Ten lists we started thinking about the last decade as well and like everybody else we thought we would weigh-in on what we liked and/or influenced us and/or brought us joy. Over this week we are going to hit books, movies, television and music. And then next week, or shortly thereafter, we will begin...

Orange Alert Press Holiday Sale. Nice.

This is sweet, quite sweet. Please do check it out. And yes, now would be great.

This Self-Portrait Will Change Your Life, Week Forty-Eight - "Readings."

It is week Forty-Eight of This Self-Portrait Will Change Your Life, our most triumphant effort to post one self-portrait per week for one year and this week was filled work travel and readings in both Pittsburgh and Morgantown. It was big fun and we want to offer big thanks to Karen Lillis, Scott McClanahan, Savannah Schroll Guz, Craig Bernier, Jim McKay, the Te Cafe and The Bookshelf. We also want to be sure you know that one, you can follow this project in its entirety at the Flickr and...

Recession. Dislocation. Anger. Downsizing. Social media. Anguish. Miles. Disconnection. Isolation. Clooney. And Sam Elliott's mustache. Up In The Air.

Weren't you just saying how much you wished you knew what we thought were the five best things we read recently? We thought so.

We are unabashed fans of Deckfight's "Friday Five" and so you can imagine how excited we were when Deckfight asked TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer to share the five best things he read recently. You can find the first item on our list below and for the rest, please do hit the Deckfight, as we think it just might change your life.
"Protects minor cuts, scrapes & burns." This was on the label of a very dusty 3.75 OZ. container of Vaseline I bought at a truck stop in Michigan. I'm not sure...

CellStories loves us. Well, they love our new story "That's It" anyway. Which is cool with us. Totally cool.

So yeah, we are really geeked that the new and very cool Dan Sinker joint CellStories has run with our story "That's It" for today's daily dose of awesome. CellStories is accessible through any mobile devise with a Webkit-based browser, i.e, your iPhone, iPod touch or Android-based phone, and we hope you will take a look. We also though you might want to know that this story is part of a so-called "story-cycle" inspired by the discussions we had during This Book Tour Will Change Your Life