So 2000 began with Brian and I watching the New York City fireworks across the Hudson River in Jersey City. We were waiting for the city to burst into flames at the stroke of midnight when the computers launched us back into 1900. But nothing like that happened and we survived into the year. 2001 is "the real millennium," as purists like to call it, but no one wants to pay attention to those people. Maybe the computers have something up their hard-drives to pull on us when the clock strikes its stroke this time. In any case and in no particular order, here is a list of things from the past year that tickled my fancy:

• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is director Ang Lee's new film after Sense and Sensibility and the Ice Storm. Jane Austen's view of England and actress Joan Allen's frustrated housewife worked well within the extremely reserved depiction of early 19th century England and 1970s Connecticut respectively, but the problem remained just that: everything was a bit too reserved. And that may remain the same in this new film, but subtle mannerisms work better with medieval Chinese characters bound by codes of honor. The story as it is revolves around the theft of a sword and a royal daughter's search for her place in society. But the action scenes are what everyone will remember--the fighters lift up into the air at will. In one scene, two characters sword fight at the bending tips of bamboo trees. Unfortunately, when I left the theater my fight were still firmly planted on the ground, but I never trained at Wudan mountain.

• Lynne Ramsay's first film, Ratcatcher, follows an adolescent boy around 1970s Glasgow during a garbage strike. The film works best as a series of beautiful images (the director began her career as a photographer), like when the camera lingers on a boy winding himself in a sunlit curtain. Although life depicted is rather dour and unforgiving, the film's most successful sequence involves a neighborhood boy tying his mouse to a balloon for a visit to the moon. And the mouse does visit the moon, conveniently inhabited solely by other mice on the cheese planet. Obvious film references would be Truffaut's The 400 Blows, but Ratcatcher lacks that certain pleasure in being young that Antoine Doinel epitomizes. Ms. Ramsay is reportedly working on a movie version of Alan Warner's novel Morvern Caller, a something to look forward to in the next year.

• I used to bemoan the fact that I had no records older than a few years (that was a long time ago if anyone is interested). The music critic establishment's invariable love of certain performers only seemed to justify the distance between "old" and "new". But they are not entirely wrong in some cases. I bought my first Beatles record (1) last month; I'm only thirty years behind. Other new old favorites are Dusty Springfield, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Dionne Warwick with Burt Bacharach, Nico, et al. Besides when an Orange Juice record is over twenty years old, age just doesn't really seem very important. What's a little time between friends?

• While Baxendale were busy declaring their love of pop electronics and Top 40 music, the band seems to defeat themselves with songs firmly entrenched in the indie ghetto. Which is not at all a horrible criticism--their album You Will Have Your Revenge makes for breezy, forgettable pop fun. Perhaps that does keep them more in line with chart toppers. Napster made locating and downloading mp3s of Britney, Christina, Destiny's Child, Steps, All Saints, Madonna, Janet Jackson, Spice Girls, S Club 7, et al, quite simple. Pop music is supposed to be the quick three minute romance of a song so why exclude the songs that manage that all too well? This is not even a guilty pleasure anymore. Besides, the girl groups of the 50s and 60s, French yeh-yeh girls, Astrud Gilberto, et al, were the same thing of their days. It's just music anyway.

• David Sedaris' essays about his life in Naked and Me Talk Pretty One Day managed to be both hilarious and poignant. My love affair with Jack Kerouac continued as well. After the initial distaste for On The Road, I left him alone for a few years. Later I picked up Maggie Cassidy, a hymn to teen-age life and youth. Big Sur depicts the more wretched side of a wandering lifestyle. Years ago, my brother told me to avoid all Hemingway, and I did. But relatives can lead you wrong. Hemingway's short stories followed his career from Paris to Spain to the Caribbean. Complaints of machismo seem to miss the point, but that is another story for another day. Three novels by George Friel were published in the US as The Glasgow Trilogy; each loosely revolves around the working class life in the Scottish city. Unfortunately, Friel's other novels have not been published in the US and are out of print in the UK.

• The Clientele have taken residence in the rainy, autumn days of England that exist in memory of things past. Lines, like in "Bicycles": "Three balloons in a white sky, 1978" sound like a caption to some old photograph. The band should be getting more attention with the release of album/singles Suburban Light on Merge in the US. See photographs of the band at performing live at Angels in Cigarette Plumes.

• The WB network has made its reputation peddling sloppy teen dramas to the marketable youth demographic. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel being exceptions because those two shows are written with more character depth and development than, for example, Dawson's Creek. However, new series Gilmore Girls tells the story of a thirty-two year old mother living with her sixteen year old daughter. Instead of sizzling teen hormones bouncing between episodes, this show offers thought out plot and character developments. The quick, rapid-fire comic dialogue is reminiscent of a Hollywood film that could have starred Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey. Apparently the show was created with "wholesome" broadcasting intentions and is being endorsed by "family friendly" sponsors. Don't let that put you off. I am hard-pressed to think of another such show that features an unwed working mother who had a child at sixteen. Of course, she manages an inn, lives in a big Victorian house, and knows everyone in her Connecticut hamlet. Well, it is television after all, and that has nothing to do with real life.

• A few years ago, Broadcast made noise with their singles album Work and Non-Work. Samples and sounds were layered above a steady rhythm, with the singer Trish singing about the politics of leisure and boredom. The band's first album proper, The Noise Made By People, uses the same approach to their songs. The best sentiment is on song "Come On Let's Go" for just that. Let's go--we'll figure out where after we are there.

• "Hello, it's the 21st century," I was told in response to Xmas gifts of T-Rex, David Bowie, and Velvet Underground cds. Well, the Philips EXP103 Expanium Portable MP3-CD Player certainly sets me in the modern timeframe. Mp3 files themselves can be burned onto a cdr for playback; there is no more need to convert audio files to aiff format. As well, this discman plays regular audio cds. It costs a clip less than a device that plays only mp3 files. Hello, brave new world.