deleted tunes

my laptop is bursting with mp3s and photographs, so i recently purchased an external hard drive to help with the storage problem. after backing up the files, i went on a deleting spree. the first files to get the ax were 196 songs (that's about 1 gig) from the paste magazine sampler albums. each of the casualties was first given a 5 to 10 second opportunity to increase its ranking to the 3 star safety threshold, but only 1 song was spared (an arcane fire song).

two deletion observations:

• several of my favorite bands appeared to use paste as their dumping ground for sub-par songs. paste contributions from ben harper, ben kweller, bright eyes, cat power, coldplay, death cab for cutie, solomon burke, and van morrison each found their way to the recycle bin.
• the paste music editors and i strongly disagree on several bands. multiple contributions from bill mallonee, brindley brothers, mary gauthier, michelle shocked, rachael sage, sonia dada, and the black keys were included in paste albums and subsequently deleted by me.

a list of the most recently deleted songs (sorted by artist)


andrew david. "iguanas and the s.o." san ignacio town, belize.

2006 film list

joel hartse has a book review in the latest issue of paste. i hardly ever read paste, but i (am under the impression that i) respect their eclectic, thoughtful arts perspective--that and the free cds that they include with each issue. anyway, i wandered from joel's blog to the paste website, but i couldn't find his book review. instead i found paste's top 40 films of 2006:

1. Half Nelson
2. Little Miss Sunshine
3. Iraq In Fragments
4. L'Enfant
5. The Departed
6. Volver
7. Three Times
8. The Queen
9. The Last King of Scotland
10. Borat
11. Old Joy
12. When the Levees Broke
13. Pan's Labyrinth
14. A Scanner Darkly
15. A Prairie Home Companion
16. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
17. The Science of Sleep
18. An Inconvenient Truth
19. Mutual Appreciation
20. Thank You For Smoking
21. Babel
22. Brick
23. The War Tapes
24. Wordplay
25. Stranger Than Fiction
26. Requiem
27. Factotum
28. The Proposition
29. United 93
30. For Your Consideration
31. Clean
32. Manderlay
33. Fast Food Nation
34. Dave Chappelle's Block Party
35. Marie Antoinette
36. Casino Royale
37. Tristram Shandy
38. Be With Me
39. Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple
40. The Secret Life of Words

blue = movies that i've already seen
red = movies that i already planned to see before i discovered this list

what do you think of their list? i'd remove #15 and consider removing #22 and #25. i'd also consider adding the three burials of melquiades estrada, blood diamond, and apocalypto to the bottom of the list.

andrew david "the cliffs from which we did not jump" somewhere near banff, canada.