LoL 2011

Due to a technical mishap regarding My Documents late in 2011, some categories will be skipped owing to my inability (or laziness) to reconstruct them. Nonetheless, the categories that remain succinctly sum up my year. Entries will be in ascending order of rating.

Football Match

It seems almost strange to have football matches of the year when football seasons are four months out of sync with calendar years. But 2011 was quite an intriguing year of football. Robin van Persie broke Thierry Henry's Arsenal record of 34 league goals in a calendar year by scoring 35 (with the great man now back for a short loan), yet was not nominated for the Ballon d'Or at all (although Messi would win it anyway). Being such a busy year, I was unable to watch too many games, but those I did watch included some absolute classics.

Manchester United 1-6 Manchester City - Both teams had started the season playing beautiful attacking football with slick interplay, putting a gap in the table between them and their rivals, but Manchester City showed their sheer superiority in this match. The first half was a tightly contested affair, with Balotelli putting City ahead. The second half started with Jonny Evans getting sent off, and the contest was effectively over. City put on an attacking masterclass with the magnificent David Silva pulling the strings, which was only briefly interrupted by an equally amazing goal from Darren Fletcher. The scoreline flattered City, but it was nonetheless their biggest win over United at Old Trafford, and their best win in recent years since they won 4-1 at home back in 2004, before their Arab sugar daddies took over.

Arsenal 2-1 Barcelona - Barcelona took a lead at the Emirates and looked like holding it all the way, but van Persie and Arshavin had other ideas. Koscielny failed to play Villa offside, and the Spaniard dispatched his one-on-one against Szczesny calmly. However, the home team had been troubling the visitors as well in a game of attack and counterattack. Alex Song came off for Arshavin in a very attack-minded substitution that paid dividends. In the 78th minute, van Persie scored a half-volley from an almost impossible angle from the left wing, putting it into Valdes's near post where he might have been expected to cross. Then in the 83rd minute, Andrei Arshavin arrived late to curl a shot past Valdes, accomplishing what no one had thought possible. Although Arsenal would go on to lose the second leg 3-1 in controversial circumstances (van Persie was sent off for shooting after the referee blew his whistle) without having a single shot on target (their goal was an own goal), the result of this match was most inspiring, infusing Arsenal fans with euphoria and a sense of possibility for the two weeks after.

Chelsea 3-5 Arsenal - Pulsating end-to-end action. Chelsea took an early lead, and it looked like the same old story for Arsenal again, but Arsenal capitalised on Chelsea's high line to claw their way to victory. Arsenal's players all stepped up their games, and at 2-2 Theo Walcott showed amazing reflexes and agility to get up after being fouled, dribbling past four players to score while Chelsea looked on dumbfounded. Mata equalised for Chelsea with a long shot after a mistake by Andre Santos, and the result seemed very much in doubt. John Terry then slipped on a pass from Malouda, allowing van Persie to round Cech and put the ball in the net. Van Persie then grabbed his hat trick with a sensational, venomous finish that left Cech with no chance. Gripping stuff.

Movies

Johnny English: Reborn - Rowan Atkinson's blend of physical humour and dry wit (now that his character can actually talk) makes for a quintessentially English comedy. The plot is typically predictable, but the movie is a real blast from start to finish.

Primos - The title of this light-hearted Spanish comedy can be translated as 'cousins' or 'suckers'. A man dumped just before his wedding decides to return with his two cousins to the village where they grew up to search for his childhood sweetheart. They find more than they were looking for, meeting her and her son, as well as others in the village. The characters are all very human, and grow on you as the film progresses. And it is never certain how the story is going to turn out for all of them. An enjoyable journey.

Non-Fiction

The Most Human Human, Brian Christian - An engaging record of Brian Christian's attempt to win the Most Human Human award at the 2009 Turing Test, in the process discussing artificial intelligence, philosophy, literature, conversation, pickup lines and information theory amongst other things. Somewhat eerie was the high proportion of books referred to which I'd read recently.

How to Win Every Argument, Madsen Pirie - An intentionally provocative (yet also pretty accurate) title for a witty and informative read on logical fallacies. In Pirie's words: "In the hands of the wrong person this is more of a weapon than a book, and it was written with that wrong person in mind." 'Nuff said.

The Stuff of Thought, Steven Pinker - The comprehensive guide to what the way we use language says about the human mind, and how that affects our social relations. If you've ever wondered about the trends of names, what innuendo accomplishes or what the ungrammatical 'fuck you' really means, this is the book for you.

The Brain That Changes Itself, Norman Doidge - Neuroplasticity is nowadays a very established phenomenon that I'd learned about in uni all year. Yet the degree of plasticity possible is stunning. Doidge chronicles the experiences of doctors and patients (and even doctors who became patients) alike, showing the remarkable potential of neuroplasticity in recovery and therapy, and its implications for human nature and society.

Metamagical Themas, Douglas Hofstadter - Possibly the definitive book of my year. This book is a compilation of Hofstadter's articles from the Scientific American in the early 1980s. According to the cover it is "an interlocked collection of literary, scientific and artistic studies", covering disparate topics such as self-reference, self-replication, jurisprudence, language, art, nonsense, mathematics, Rubik's cubes, chaos theory, programming, computing, cognitive science, game theory and superrationality. Hofstadter makes these abstract topics accessible and relevant, and a link between all these topics emerges, hence the subtitle "Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern".

Novels

The Helmet of Horror, Victor Pelevin - A conte philosophique told entirely in the form of an internet chatroom convo, this myth for our times is easy to read but hard to understand. Elements from Theseus and the Minotaur are transposed, as strangers stuck in a labyrinth communicate via chat, pondering about the nature of the labyrinth(s) they find themselves trapped in. Thought-provoking.

Our Ancestors, Italo Calvino - A trilogy of mediaeval romances. The Cloven Viscount tells the charming fable of a viscount split in two by a cannonball, with his right half becoming evil and his left virtuous. The Baron in the Trees is about a baron's heir, who renounces his family and takes to the trees, living on the outskirts of society. The Nonexistent Knight is set within the Matter of France, and recounts the adventures of a knight perfect in every way except he does not exist. Calvino takes these simple premises and renders them in the Middle Ages of our fantasies, which makes for very pleasant bedtime reading.

Blindsight, Peter Watts - This is hard science fiction (in both senses of the word hard), as evidenced by the bibliography that follows the novel. Blindsight is a story of first contact that turns into a desperate struggle for survival. Earth's hopes rest on a crew investigating an extraterrestrial vessel, whose inhabitants turn out to be so alien that they ironically force us to come face to face with the deepest questions residing in our heads. All of these coalesce into a coherent and horrifying thriller. But Blindsight also doubles as a disturbing piece of neuro science fiction, which will mindfuck you so hard you'll wonder if you even have a mind to be fucked. Plus, it features vampires. That are also (philosophical) zombies. And even a main character named Siri. Just in time (2006) to ride the pop culture undead wave.

Life: A User's Manual, Georges Perec - A visit to the rooms in a French apartment block reveals the stories of its inhabitants. Perec's world is populated by the unlikeliest of characters, who lead remarkably fantastic lives. Plans, conspiracies and romances of all sorts abound. The numerous subplots justify Perec's description of the book as "novels". The main story involves a millionaire who paints ports and has his paintings converted into jigsaw puzzles which he must then solve. Analogously, the book itself is a puzzle (each room being a piece), which requires the reader to piece the stories together. But of the 100 rooms in the block, only 99 are described, so the futility and vanity that permeate the book also haunt the reader's quest for completeness. Perec has a talent for making the infra-ordinary come to life, although there is hardly anything infra-ordinary about the characters, their stories or the book. Incredibly rich in both details and recherché allusions, this book is best read with Wikipedia by your side.

If on a winter's night a traveller, Italo Calvino - This is a book I have already waxed lyrical about. But it is worth writing about again. If on a winter's night a traveller is the greatest piece of second-person literature ever, where our adventures have been chosen for us, or so it seems. Your reading of If on a winter's night a traveller is interrupted after the first chapter by a printing mistake, and attempting to replace it at the bookstore leaves you with another book instead. You then fail to get past the first chapter of that book, and of all the subsequent books you end up with due to a chain of accidents. But the hand of conspiracy soon reveals itself, and in unravelling that conspiracy you end up living a more unbelievable story than any of the novels you were trying to read. If on a winter's night a traveller is a dazzling piece of metafiction that contemplates the acts of reading and writing, and also those who partake in them. Calvino's deep understanding of the above acts and actors is implicit in his writing, as seen in the way he plays with his readers, always surprising us with the "new in the not new, and the not new in the new". Some books are novel only once, but this surely merits its description as a hypernovel. Calvino appears many times on these lists, and for good reason: good writers write books, but great writers write reading experiences.

Short Stories

Sum, David Eagleman - A collection of short pieces that aren't really stories, Sum deals with a myriad of possible afterlives (and by extension universes, spacetimes and Gods) which reflect the author's possibilian beliefs and dazzling imagination. Indeed, the book has been lauded by atheists and religious folk alike. Due to its structure, the book naturally invites comparisons with Invisible Cities (see below), which likely inspired it on some level. Eagleman is a neuroscientist, so the cerebral nature of this book should come as no surprise. Brilliantly creative.

The Garden of Forking Paths, Jorge Luis Borges - This collection of short stories is Borges at his imaginative best. Several stories stand out. The title story is a spy thriller that muses about contingency and the multiverse. The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim is a review of an imaginary novel that perhaps does a better job of telling the story than the novel itself would have by leaving us room to imagine that novel as we would want to read it. Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote is an essay about a fictional author who rewrites Don Quixote word for word, thus raising questions about the roles of author, reader and text. Yet the reflexive nature of the stories in this collection means that they take on far greater meaning when juxtaposed. Fortunate are the universes to which this garden has been left.

Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino - The only thing one can say with certainty about this book is that it is about much more than cities, although urban planners will find it very instructive anyway. Invisible Cities is a seminal work which has inspired many writers, architects and other artists alike, but thus far none have approached the level of Calvino yet. In the frame story, a fictional Marco Polo regales Kublai Khan with accounts of cities he has visited. The cities he describes are sometimes anachronistic, but always timeless. All manner of fantastic poleis make their appearance here, and in Calvino's prose we can almost see these invisible cities. Most of his visions turn out to be dystopias. Visiting these cities by reading the book is however a most utopian experience. But perhaps all of us are already living in our own invisible cities...

Talks

I've had the fortune of attending some very enlightening talks by leading thinkers this year, even if a lot of them were held during my exam period.

The Evolution of Purposes, Daniel Dennett - Or rather, how purpose, in the form of Aristotle's final causes, has long existed, but we humans have evolved to be able to represent purposes in our heads. In fact, that purpose is what drives evolution - organisms evolve to be better at surviving in their environments. The word "why" is polysemous - it can mean either the purposeless "how come" or the purposeful "what for". Abiotic cycles are algorithms that accumulate change and create new conditions, increasing the probability that something new (i.e. life) can occur. When life appeared, the first sense could evolve into the second. This allows life to emerge from Absolute Ignorance rather than the Absolute Wisdom of an intelligent creator. Video here.

Nanotechnology - The next 10 years, Paul Mulvaney - According to the Gartner hype cycle, nanotechnology is now past the Trough of Disillusionment and is climbing up the Slope of Enlightenment. Yet there is no proper definition of what constitutes nanotechnology. Nonetheless, many advances have been made in the field. Nanomaterials have very different properties from their macro counterparts. For instance, at the nano scale, gold is not golden - the colour varies with crystal size. Scientists are now able to control the crystallisation, which has applications in many areas, such as energy-efficient displays and lighting. However, medical applications are likely to take much longer, as long clinical trials will be necessary.

Changing Contours of Global Order, Noam Chomsky - The primary motivation of the United States is to maintain its hegemony in what is known as the Grand Area, in which different parts of the world serve different roles. Its aims have been to control certain areas for their resources and prevent the spread of independent nationalism in those countries, and its methods have included setting up NATO (which expanded despite the collapse of the USSR) and establishing and supporting dictatorships and hindering democracy. Viewed this way, the events of the last century suddenly make sense. However, American decline has meant that the US is less able to maintain its hegemony. The massive expansion of the financial sector and a shift to offshore production has led to concentration of wealth (and thereby political power) to rich corporate interests, which allows them to lobby for legislation to further reinforce that power. Left unchecked, this could undermine democracy and lead to plutocracy or even plutarchy. Startling and sobering revelations. Lecture and Q&A here.

Words

Words that, for some reason or another, found greater usage, meaning and relevance for me in 2011. The following definitions are taken from Dictionary.com.

idiomatic (adjective): peculiar to or characteristic of a particular language or dialect. - Sometimes expression can be idiomatic; sometimes idiotic; sometimes both, and sometimes neither.

vanity (noun): lack of real value; hollowness; worthlessness. - In Ecclesiastes, life is considered the "vanity of vanities". Vanity has come to mean something else these days though, and "vacuity of vacuities" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

verisimilar (adjective): having the appearance of truth; likely; probable. - "Verisimilar" sounds very similar to "very similar". In today's world, things are often verisimilar, and very similar.

eisegesis (noun): an interpretation, especially of Scripture, that expresses the interpreter's own ideas, bias, or the like, rather than the meaning of the text. - As opposed to an exegesis, which is an interpretation that attempts to lead out of confusion. All experienced life is an eisegesis.

tergiversate (verb): to change repeatedly one's attitude or opinions with respect to a cause, subject, etc.; equivocate. - Coincidentally, this was also Dictionary.com's word of the year. When so much is in flux, it is little wonder that people tergiversate and vacillate. Do we change the flux or do we change the people? I'm tergiversating between the two.

Looking Forward

Surfaces and Essences, Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander - The culmination of years of research by Douglas Hofstadter, one of the most ingenious cognitive scientists, this book will shed light on how metaphor and analogy underlie thought and intelligence.

Tonnes of promising movies - The range of movies being released this year is truly staggering. Leading the lineup are the superheroes - The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spiderman and The Avengers. Science fiction will have a prominent showing with Prometheus, Men in Black 3, Evangelion 3.0, Cloud Atlas and Jodorowsky's Dune (alas, only a documentary about the abandoned film and not the film itself). The fantasy genre will feature The Hobbit and Snow White & the Huntsman. Action and spycraft see The Expendables 2 (more of the same, but with Chuck Norris), Skyfall (If James Bond fell from the sky, would it also be Spyfall?), The Bourne Legacy, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and 47 Ronin. Funny stuff will include Dictator, Iron Sky, Madagascar 3 and Ice Age 4. And the genre of movies-with-really-long-phrases-for-titles will give us Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.

Diablo 3 - With the 15th anniversary of Diablo just past, Blizzard is set to release Diablo 3 soon. The graphics look spectacular (and the lead character is cute), and it should be cathartic fun to smash stuff with the Barbarian's Seismic Slam.

L'Arc~en~Ciel World Tour 2012 - Probably the greatest active J-Rock band, the musical talent of hyde, tetsuya and ken give them a diverse yet readily identifiable sound. And they're coming to Singapore at last. Ready, steady, go!

Euro 2012 - The appetiser before Brazil 2014. The German Wunderkinder should be ready to stake their claim for silverware, but the impeccable Spanish stand in their way. Yet it is the Dutch who find themselves ranked world number one, and this could be the last chance to earn European glory for the members of the Magic Square. But as always, it would be foolish to write off the Italians.