Merry Christmas. May the fat man be good to you too.

I’ve never watched enough television that I thought I’d write such a post, but television has gotten so good that even I’ve noticed. Even then I could have given it all up, though, were it not for:

• Prime Suspect 7 — even now that she’s in retirement, I wonder what Jane Tennison is up to
• The Wire, which every week impressed and surprised me with an intricate and involved storyline depicting the overall crumble of a meretricious society. I especially got caught up in the efforts of the new mayor to make something — anything — better. And Reg E. Cathey’s performance as the chief of staff is an utter delight.
• Battlestar Galactica, for its relevance and high moral ambiguities, especially with regard to the character turns and dilemmas of Colonel Tigh (who sacrificed his own beloved wife in his crusade against the conquerors), the equivocating weakling Gaius Baltar (now navigating his survival among both enemy camps), and Kara Thrace (sundered between braggadocio and self-punishment).
• Doctor Who. This season was the highlight of this series’ 43-year history. Endlessly inventive and delightfully silly, as when the Doctor employed cardboard 3D specs to detect interdimensional rift radiation. If you can watch this show without enjoyment you are bereft of humor.

• Pere Ubu providing live soundtrack to “X: The Man With X-Ray Eyes” at UCLA Live
• Knott’s Scary Farm (despite this year’s absence of the 3D killer clown maze, which must return!)
• Debra Ehrhardt’s one-woman show “Jamaica Farewell” (more about that soon)
• “The Car Plays,” Moving Arts at the Steve Allen Theatre (one of the most memorable theatrical events of my life)
• Election Night 2006 (after a 12-year unhappy spell)
• San Diego Comic Con, of course
• Taking my wife to San Francisco for her first visit
• Seeing Thomas Dolby’s first concert in 25 years with good friend Trey
• Taking my kids fishing (two of them for the first time) and everyone catching a fish
• Being a guest star on Orlando’s Joint and not completely embarrassing myself
• The interactive “Marvel Superheroes Science Exhibition” at the California Science Center (and yes, my kids can shriek louder than Banshee)
• “The Bog People” exhibit at the Natural History Museum — and my daughter deciding to replicate it at home in her own museum
• The dada show at Museum of Modern Art in NYC
• The Paul Auster reading and conversation in LA (even though I didn’t like his new book)
• One night in one of my classes demonstrating conclusively that everyone there could write a play if they’d stop thinking so much, and the feeling of joy and abandon in the room when everyone had done so (if you never get a buzz off teaching, you shouldn’t be teaching)
• Putting together an interactive booth at the Western Food Expo featuring the health nightmare that was “Sloppy Joe’s Cafe” and decorating it with fake roaches, spiders, rats, dung, and vomit
• Seeing Mark Chaet on the back of The New Yorker
• The Black Cat Inn with good friends

• Why I Hate Women by Pere Ubu. Robert Wheeler’s synth and theremin playing brings vibrancy and bristle to all the songs, which comprise the strongest set the band has turned in since “The Tenement Year,” almost 20 years ago.
• St. Elsewhere by Gnarls Barkley. I’m just as hooked on “Crazy” as everyone else.

These were really really bad.

• Poseidon. Who knew that the original was an art film? It’s not just improbable — which we expect — it’s unenjoyable.
• Lady in the Water. Somehow or other, even the billboard made it look bad. Just not as bad as it turned out to be. For some reason the alien mermaid chick sits in the shower for long stretches while a wacky cast of characters talks to her from outside the bathroom. Is it over yet?

Of what I saw I loved these:

• Casino Royale
• Borat (if you haven’t seen it, go now — it demands an audience to be enjoyed)
• The Prestige (clever story and acting — especially David Bowie — marred only by the charmless Scarlet Johansson)
• Curious George (snicker if you like; the storytelling, the artwork, and the wonderful soundtrack made it a thoroughly enjoyable and moving experience)
• Snakes on a Plane (best movie of the year? No — best movie ever. As a comedy.)

Comics I loved in 2006:

• Grant Morrison’s All Star Superman: Volume 1 (All Star) mashed postmodern playfulness with 60’s Weisinger-era camp and Kirby’s early 70’s wild inventiveness to make for a wonderfully strange and fun comic
• Speaking of fun, there was no greater comic-book fun than Marvel’s X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl TPB
• DC’s relaunch of Jonah Hex, as in this collection Jonah Hex: Face Full of Violence, combines strong visual storytelling with a newly deepened psychological portrayal of the laconic gunman
• Horror novelist Denise Mina has scripted a return to form for Hellblazer
• I was sad to see Lucifer come to an end
• I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Marvel’s Civil War titles, especially Iron Man under the scripting of the Knauf brothers (whose work on HBO’s Carnivale I did not enjoy).
• Reginald Hudlin’s take on Black Panther reminds us every month that the character is not an urban Daredevil (as he was so often portrayed in the late 60’s and 70’s), but the king of a technologically superior African kingdom. When one roots for the Panther, one is not necessarily rooting for democracies such as our own.
• Finally, if the cover says “Ed Brubaker,” just buy it. Brubaker is writing three titles I rarely cared about (Captain America, Daredevil, and Uncanny X-Men), has made the first two absolutely gripping and is getting there with the third. His Captain America is caught in the shadowy byways of a spy agency war he doesn’t fully understand, while his Daredevil has been exposed and sent to a prison where every con schemes to kill him.

There were many other great comics this year. I’ve been reading comics for almost 40 years, and I don’t think they’ve ever been better.

Books I loved in 2006 (and if you choose to click through and buy any of these, you’re supporting the site — and thank you!)

• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• Everyman by Phillip Roth (a brilliant meditation on a life lived and died; not previously cited on this blog, but it should have been)
• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
• Drop City by T.C. Boyle (and yes, it didn’t come out this year, but I read it this year).

I read something like 30 or 40 more books this year, but I can’t name one of them offhand. (Except the two I didn’t like:  World War Z and Brooklyn Follies, the first Pau Auster novel I wasn’t glad to be reading.)

Seemingly, all 5900 of the magazines and websites I read are doing their annual “best of” and “worst of” lists. I briefly considered doing a “best and worst of the best and worst of lists,” but given how similar all the lists are, I couldn’t see the reason to do it other than sheer puckishness. And if I’m going to invest that much time in puckishness, I’d rather do it on my new play.

I also couldn’t see any reason to compile my own best-of and worst-of list. Who would act on it? Probably no one. So it would be either a pointless gesture or time spent in ego self-gratification. And if I’m going to do that, I’d rather do it in my new play.

In the interest of economy of my time and yours, I’m just going to plug a few things from 2006 that I feel strongly about and leave it at that — until I get to the final post in this series, the list I’ve decided to actually compile each year.

Some say it’s The New Yorker (and actually, it seems to be The New Yorker that says that). I’m thinking it’s Cracked.

When I was a kid, Cracked was the lame humor magazine you read only if you were bored and somebody had left it behind, or if Mad was sold out, or if you’d already Mad. And once you outgrew Mad, while you might think fondly back onto it, you’d never even recall that Cracked existed.
No more. An old fan (a lawyer, to boot!) bought the magazine, quit the lawyering gig, and has relaunched it as something fresh and funny. Whereas the magazine was once written by failed advertising men, now it’s written by writers for The Simpsons and Comedy Central. Y’know: funny people. I keep it at my office and young or old, everyone who comes to visit me busts a gut laughing. (And at the magazine, as well.)

Click here to subscribe to Cracked. You’ll be glad you did. It’s just twelve measley bucks and your local mail carrier — especially the one I know personally — will look at you with new admiration. And isn’t that what we all want, to be admired by the mail carrier?