My Top-10 favorite posts from a year of this blog

I'm still trying to live a life between runs.

It's hard for me to believe, but I have now been posting on this blog for a year. My first post, "A Life Between Runs," went live a year ago today, after a very enthusiastic response on Facebook to the possibility of my starting a blog. In that first post, I established what I'll pretentiously call the "mission statement" for this little project of mine:

I’ve started this blog mostly as an outlet for random thoughts—mostly pop cultural in nature—that I can’t or don’t want to publish elsewhere...This blog will...mostly contain my random thoughts, usually on the various popular culture products I consume (so mostly movies, books, some TV, and maybe a little music). For the real reason I’ve created this blog is that, over the past few months, I’ve found myself desperate to write about things that nobody will pay me to write about...

12 months later, I have done more or less exactly that. Though I reviewed no books here, I've reviewed plenty of movies (and even some television), commented on various social and cultural phenomena that were in vogue, gotten some thoughts out of my head that have been lingering in there for months (or even years), and written way more about Star Wars than I ever expected to, all while trying to live a life between runs. This will be my 59th post, meaning that I averaged slightly more than one post a week over the past year. I've also received about 22,000 page views, though I have no idea how many of them are unique visitors, Russian bots, or what have you. But I don't think these are the best metric by which to measure my blogging frequency. If I felt like it, I could figure out my word count, which has got to be somewhere in the tens of thousands by now. My top 10 alone includes 32,297 words (more words than are in George Orwell's Animal Farm).

To mark my one-year blog-a-versery, I've decided to list my personal top 10 favorite posts of my year of blogging. I determined these using a highly complex, arbitrary, nonexistent algorithm that I can neither explain nor defend. I will note, however, that I did take into account the overall views of individual posts in assembling and determining my top 10 and its order. I also cheated a bit and lumped a few posts together as "one," since I judged them similar enough in character and quality to do that. Also, it's my blog, so if you don't like my choices, tell me I'm an idiot in the comments section. Anyways, without further ado, here, in ascending order of personal affection (so the last one on the list is my favorite) are my top 10 favorite posts from my blog's first year, with explanations of their content and of my choice, and, of course, links to the original posts:

10) "10 Cloverfield Lane": Another (pleasant) surprise from J.J. Abrams' mystery box (1212 words)

This was a review of 10 Cloverfield Lane, one of 2016's most surprising and least appreciated cinematic gems. I liked the movie, of course: A tense paranoid thriller that may or may not be about aliens, with a terrifying John Goodman, produced by J.J. Abrams--how could I not? But this post earned its place in my top 10 because I think it is the best movie review I have written (and there are many). My goal with movie reviews is usually not merely to give my straightforward take on the movie in question. Instead, I try to write an essay of sorts about something related, reviewing the movie as a sort of tangent to or consequence of my larger thought. I think I did exactly that with this review by focusing on J.J. Abrams' creative obsession with mystery, and the strengths and weaknesses of that approach.

9) Reflections on a year since graduating college (2391 words) and The life and death of my manbun (1783 words)

Those who know me well probably know that I can sometimes dwell on--obsess over, even--the past, and also carry thoughts, ideas, and emotions with me for years on end. This post was a product of these two aspects of my character. Written a year after I graduated college, it was my attempt to analyze, assess, and come to terms with the fact that I am now fully at sail in the real world. It also became a means for me to honor the memory of my college house, whose destruction just after I left it still leaves me bitter. It is a remarkably self-indulgent work, but I make up for that, I think, by charging it with genuine emotion. Besides, if I weren't interested in being self-indulgent, then I wouldn't have started a blog in the first place. Also, this ended up being one of my blog's top-five most popular posts, which was a factor in its inclusion in this list as well.

It is with basically identical justification that I included the second post, a retrospective on the incredibly long hair I had during my senior year of college, but cut off to get the job I now have. Boy do I miss that hair...

8) I ate 5 pounds of food in a half-hour at Padrino Italian restaurant (2398 words)

The title says it all. Yet again demonstrating my strange personal characteristic of carrying ideas in my head for years before executing them, I had plotted to conquer this eating challenge at a local restaurant for at least two years before finally getting a chance to do so this past spring. Rereading the narrative, I find it thrilling, amusing, and, frankly, disgusting. I can still remember how it all felt, how close I came to throwing up, and how immobilized I was for the rest of the day afterward--especially with all of that described so vividly in the post itself. I'm not sure I'll ever do an eating challenge like this again, but this post stands as a record that I did at least once, and as proof and precedent for doing it again...if I want. It was also in this blog's top-five most-viewed posts, and justified my creating a category for posts related to food.   

7) Confessions of a former Pokémon addict (1520 words)

I loved Pokémon growing up: the cards, the movies, the games. Especially, obsessively, addictively, the games. I used the occasion of the franchise's 20th anniversary this past February to look back at my Pokémon past, and realized in doing so what should have been obvious: I was an addict. Can you blame me? Those games were freaking great; as I explained in my post here, the mad science and legendary Pokémon were two of my favorite aspects (and predicted some of my current interests pretty well, as it turned out). The North American release of Pokémon Go on my 23rd birthday this year made this post unexpectedly relevant again...and reminded me why it was so important for me not to download that mobile version of my former addiction under any circumstances. Which I did not. The lesson here, I guess, is that introspection can yield good writing, and help you avoid dangerous decisions.

6) R.I.P. Davie Bowie (1947-2016) (1030 words) and Applause for the Waco Kid, aka Gene Wilder (1933-2016) (1293 words)

2016 has proven to be a pretty brutal year for celebrity deaths. Among the first notables to go in 2016 was David Bowie, on whose behalf I wrote this blog's first--and, I think, best--eulogy, managing to summarize his career and to interpret his life through the lens of constant innovation.

But I am loathe not to mention my obituary of Gene Wilder as well, as it does a pretty job, I think, of reading more closely into the specific aspects of that celebrity's performing style that made him stand out. Both are worth a read, even though, as bad as 2016 was for celebrity deaths, I think every year after this one for the next 10-15 will be even worse.

5) In Defense of "The Force Awakens": Special Edition (Parts I-IV combined) (5522 words)

Star Wars has loomed large over this blog since its creation, largely because The Force Awakens had just come out when I created this blog, and I had just seen it. The second post I wrote here actually first existed as a Facebook note as a "pre-action" to the release of The Force Awakens, perhaps the singular pop cultural event of the past 10 years. The inadequacy of Facebook notes for delivering my massive streams-of-consciousness inspired the creation of this blog in the first place. I very much enjoyed The Force Awakens, though I soon discovered that "the Internet" had already split in half over the film, with some of its loudest voices holding it up as a tremendous disappointment. I could not let this stand, so, over a period of at least two weeks, I watched the original trilogy, read every The Force Awakens take I could find, categorized each of the major criticisms I found in them into groups, and offered rebuttals, at first, serialized into four parts, and then combined into one. In all my writing, I don't think I have ever been so thorough. My rebuttal and the process that went into creating it were so extensive, in fact, that I don't know if I'll ever be able to watch a Star Wars movie just for pleasure again. But I can at least be satisfied knowing that I'm capable of defending them.

4) Is Harambe the anti-Christ?* (2389 words) 

Remember Harambe? This past May, when a child fell into Harambe's habitat at the Cincinnati Zoo, a zoo employee shot and killed this gorilla. "The Internet" quickly resurrected him, turning him to the meme to end all memes. Or was it something more? I argued, on the flimsiest of evidence, that in fact it was: Harambe's quick deification actually indicated that there was a strong possibility he was the anti-Christ spoken of in Biblical prophecy. Do I believe this? No, especially not after the meme seems to have died once again. But boy was this a fun creative exercise for something I had never thought about before it happened, unlike many of my years-in-the-making takes. I think I proved with this post that I can make a case for or write about almost anything, and walk quite easily on the fine line between serious and absurd. My readers agreed: This was also one of my blog's top-five most popular posts.

3) My prediction for 'Star Wars Episode VIII': Rey turns to the Dark Side (5081 words)

Another Star Wars post makes its way into the top 10. This is a bit different from my defense of The Force Awakens, though the extensive knowledge of Star Wars I accrued from writing that post certainly helped this one. For this post was my attempt to flex my screenwriting muscles and predict in thorough detail how Episode VIII might unfold. I had resolved, after doing everything I could to avoid spoilers before The Force Awakens, to avoid spoilers and even speculation for Episode VIII. But a random Facebook headline I saw--something to the effect of "What if Rey turns evil?--got my imagination firing, and so I took to the blog to imagine how Rey might turn to the Dark Side, and what that would mean for everyone else. Read the post to judge for yourself, but I would see the heck out of the movie I wrote; I think I did a fantastic job of operating within the constraints The Force Awakens and the broader Star Wars universe have set up to create a dark, compelling story. I'll know this time next year if my predictions were anywhere close to correct. I hope they are, for my own vindication (I predicted an aspect of Rogue One correctly), even if the lack of surprise will disappoint me somewhat.

2) Zen and the Art of Running - 5 years later (3994 words) and The Olympics and man's search for meaning (1663 words)

I am, in all likelihood, never going to be an Olympic-caliber distance runner. I'm really not even all that good of a runner to begin with. But I'm a runner nonetheless. And so I like to think I understand, to at least some degree, what it means to live a runner's life. My understanding of this lifestyle has been the inspiration for much of my writing over the years, as well as two of what I consider my blog's best posts (which is funny, because in my first post I said that "I expect to discuss my running very little here"). The first is a revisiting of an essay I wrote in high school about running, and a consideration of what the sport means in my life now against what I thought it meant to my life back then.

The second is a reflection inspired by the end of the Olympics on what it means to be a high-achieving athlete, and how the sense of comedown Olympians feel after the Olympics to some extent mirrors how I have felt on many occasions, and, in fact, how we all feel. Somewhat unexpectedly, and probably thanks, in part, to retweets from the unlikely pair of @Dumbflotrack and @hughhewitt, this second post became my blog's most popular, reaching 1000 views. Since I consider it some of my best writing here, I'm all right with that.

---AND THE WINNER IS---


1) An Open Letter to Disney/Lucasfilm: 22.5 reasons why I should be the next Han Solo (2021 words)

I'm sure you saw this coming. This is my pride and joy, my piece de resistance, my magnum opus. Much of what I have blogged over the past year has been rattling around in my brain for a long time. But never before I read this article listing the generic young white males up for the role of young Han Solo in the prequel telling the story of his younger self had I thought that I deserved the part. But reading that article popped a stray thought in my head--something like "oh, come on. These guys don't look anything like Han Solo. They might as well cast me!"--that quickly developed into a surprisingly long and compelling list of reasons why Disney/Lucasfilm should cast me as young Han Solo.

I ran with the idea, gathering and creating evidence to fill out what became the best thing I've written in my year at this blog. The result deservedly became the most popular item on this blog, until "The Olympics and man's search for meaning" recently surpassed it. Unlike that post, however, this one had no aid from prominent retweets, but earned its popularity on the attention-grabbing clickbait of the concept and the unexpectedly persuasive content within. It may be a listicle, but it's still easily the best thing I wrote for this blog, and may be one of the best things I've ever written (for now, anyway...). Alas, it was not persuasive enough to get me the gig. But I think Disney, Lucasfilm, and audiences everywhere will end up regretting that (though less so if the creative personnel behind the movie take my screenwriting advice).

So there it is: The top 10 posts from the first year of A Life Between Runs. If you agree with my choices, think I'm neglecting something, think I'm rating something too highly, or just want to say hi, leave a comment below. I myself am pretty happy with this top 10 (a good mix of personal and pop cultural), and with the blog overall (the same). I've had a lot of fun, gotten some old thoughts out of my head, introduced some new takes to the world, and worked out my writing muscles regularly. I don't know how many of you are actually reading what I write, but from Facebook and blog comments, messages, and texts, I've learned that it's enough to make this seem to me like more than just one massive exercise in self-indulgence (though it is certainly that as well). I don't know what the next year of this blog will bring, or how frequently I'll post here. But I appreciate your readership as you've followed my efforts to live a life between runs.