Following on my last post wherein I gave a Top5 sampling of my favorite songs of the year. I am going to develop another Top5 of 2022 list. This one, a bit more general. After finishing my previous list I reflected that: “yes, I like pop music”. This isn’t to say that the music I chose was completely devoid of poetry, just that each song was wrapped in the warm embrace of rhyme and rhythm.

I have been picking my way through Michael Robbins’ Equipment for Living: On Poetry and Pop Music and recently read the passages concerning the Grumbler’s Contention that rhyme merely evokes the sensuous pleasure of a drug and has little artistic or scholarly merit.¹“Rhyme is a Drug” chapter Robbins observes there is a distinction between (1) pairing common rhymes and (2) pairing likely rhymes expected in the context of a work. The difference is how something is rhymed, not the rhyme itself. To this point, he quotes Alicia Stallings who said that “There are no tired rhymes. There are no forbidden rhymes. Rhymes are not predictable unless lines are. Death and breath, womb and tomb, love and of, moon, June, spoon all still have great poems ahead of them”. To which I would agree. A pleasant rhyme isn’t a miracle drug. On the other hand, “Originality, fetish object of the young and naïve, is no virtue in itself”.²Robbins p57

Because there is stylistic connection between rhyme pairs that persist over time, rhyming can add a layer of meaning which, as Robbins observes, can make a project “deeply autobiographical”. Robbins also remarks on the perspective that rather than drugging us with Dionysian revelry, rhymes might be charming us, as through witchcraft and “occult affinity”. By their persistence over time, rhymes might mysteriously bring otherwise unrelated things in contrast with each other in a revealing manner.³“As Yeats writes, it is ‘in custom and in ceremony’ that innocence is born”. (Robbins p63) This stochastic association makes space for poesis, perhaps in a mystical sense. Call it stochasticism.

Robbins notes that his house “serves the song” and provides an excerpt from Yeats’ “Vacillation”.

While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessed and could bless.

That is good verse. Here’s my entry, from MF DOOM qua Madvillain in “America’s Most Blunted”.⁴Selected not only for its flow but also the song’s engagement with the “drug as creative muse” trope, another possible commonality between drug and rhyme.

DOOM nominated for the best rolled L's
And they wondered how he dealt with stress so well
Wild guess? You could say he stay sedated
Some say buddha-ed, some say faded
Someday pray that he will grow a farm barn full
Recent research show it's not so darn harmful

THUS in consideration of the foregoing and by way of example, my next Top5 will be selections of 2022media that had pleasing, familiar patterns, which is also to say the consumption of this media engaged the senses.

Andor (TV Series)

Though Disney’s Star Wars serial offerings have been inconsistent, they really hit on Andor. Set in an era of political mistrust and rebellion under a (more clearly) fascist empire, Andor presents as a pre-war (perhaps cold-war) spy thriller. Within this wrapping however, are expertly navigated multiple episode acts of other genres, including a daring heist,⁵See e.g. assembled team heists, Baby Driver, The Italian Job, Ocean’s 11, The Fantastic Mr. Fox a prison break,⁶See e.g. The Great Escape, The Last Castle, Chicken Run, and a suspenseful public event.⁷See e.g. parade scences in The Dark Knight, The Fugitive, the terminal scene in Bourne Ultimatum These beats are all familiar territory but they are extremely well done. What makes Andor stand out from the equally well done Star Wars: Mandalorian series is that while Mandalorian seems content to play within the trope of “nameless Western hero solving the problems of the new local town”, Andor is willing to explore the banality of evil in a bureacratic, fascist, empire. It has always been interesting to me that Storm Trooper branded widgets have become incredibly marketable commodities. Perhaps more than any other Star Wars offering, Andor explores the politics underlying the symbols of Star Wars.

Everything Everywhere All At Once (Film)

I don’t think I can describe this movie well, partly because it has been a while since I watched it and partly because it was so enjoyably densely packed with symbols that there is so much to say. At one point, one of the characters says, “it’s like that movie”, which you might find yourself also saying, many times. This movie is a perfect example of stochastic popular culture references that are both pleasingly familiar yet employed for narrative purpose and intention. The movie also has a great sense of humour in using its familiar “rhymes” and explores the power found in combination. What happens when you put it all on a bagel?

TopGun: Maverick

Tom Cruise action movies rhyme in a really fun way. In Tom Cruise we have the return of the magic of practical effects. Watching that stage fall around Buster Keaton is just as thrilling now as it ever was. A Tom Cruise action movie similarly has visceral moments, largely in part to Cruise’s method, which seems to be: just do the wild thing. This movie hits all the beats of a good action movie, rhymes with the original Top Gun, and also does at a Movie scale, what Andor did: it has more than one rhyme. The first part of the movie plays out like the Top Gun we know, notably including an updated “volleyball scene”, while the final act reminds me of the exploits of an Ethan Hunt or James Bond. Each part done exceptionally well. Welcome to the Top5, Top Gun.

Welcome to Wrexham (TV Series)

Ryan Reynolds is ubiquitous, and pleasantly so. I also really enjoyed this series. Welcome to the Top5, Welcome to Wrexham. This sports documentary pushes the genre in interesting directions to the point that I often wonder how much of the project is sports doc, public relations effort, genuine storytelling, surreal art project, or autobiographical exploration. The project spends time telling the stories of people from Wrexham and their relationship to its long-standing football club which is why this series has so much heart and why I was hooked. At points, these stories made me weep, that’s gotta count for something.

His Dark Materials (Season 3)

Speaking of weeping, would we classify this as a melodrama? I’ve started a Facebook group alleging that Season 3 was actually designed in a laboratory to elicit widespread and planned cryings of catharsis. This selection perhaps fits less with the “rhyming” of its Top5 companions; however, it was based on a trilogy of books, which means it sounds like something else (not to mention its subject matter concerns the second coming of Eve). While I enjoyed the entirety of this series, Season 3 really kicks the story into gear and showcases absolutely brilliant performances by James McAvoy and Ruth Wilson.⁸In addition to many of the other cast members, Will Keen often had my rapt attention. In three seasons the series told a complete and complex tale, and communicated its themes consistently and clearly. Unlike, say, Game of Thrones (which in terms of adventure and production value is a reasonable peer).⁹Game of Thrones being an unfinished tale with annoyingly frayed loose ends. We really can have it all.¹⁰wink