With close to 300 posts to choose from, our readers and contributors have cast their votes. In some categories the winners were clear; in some, multiple-way ties were the order of the day, and we’ve no choice but to list more than three. If you’re new to The Great Whatsit, use the links below as a way to see what we’re made of. If you’ve been hanging out a while, take the chance to remember why you chose to stay in the first place. Either way, here’s to more of the good stuff in 2007!
The accountants have delivered the envelopes.
And the Whatsies go to …
Funniest Post
Scott Godfrey, “The church of manlove”
Nathan Waterman, “Communication breakdown”
Jeremy Zitter, “Dealing with divorce: a child’s guide”
Most Confessional Post
Farrell Fawcett, “Peeing in the sink”
Scott Godfrey, “The lüv that dare not speak its name”
Stella, “I’m OK, I’m OK”
Jeremy Zitter, “Dealing with divorce: a child’s guide”
Best Political Post
Dave B, “The Coming Shitstorm” (Parts 1 and 2)
Dave B, “Hope: a non-sermon”
Scott Godfrey, “A journal of hope”
Best Work-Related Post
Pandora Brewer, “Table talk”
Cedric Cedarbrook, MD, “Tales from the Office: Barnaby”
Literacy H. Dogfight, “Becow’s I’m ever so bewildered”
Most Moving Post
Literacy H. Dogfight, “Senseless”
Bryan Waterman, “Five years on: The things I can’t forget”
Wendy West, “Budaghers”
Most Controversial Post
Literacy H. Dogfight, “Strip maul”
Lane Twitchell, “Various cults”
Tim Wager, “My left hand”
Best Review (Long)
Dave B, “Not afraid (but the ass-beating shall remain strictly metaphorical, thank you very much)”
Dave B, “One way of looking at a Judd”
Trixie Honeycups, “Radiohead at Tower Theater, Philadelphia”
Bryan Waterman, “Summer Soundtracks” (Parts 1, 2, and 3)
Best Review (Short)
Dave B on indoor heating
Rachel Berkowitz on The Duke Spirit
Lisa Parrish on Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man
Queerest Post
Cedric Cedarbrook, MD, “Dear Cedric: ejaculatory distance”
Scott Godfrey, “The church of manlove”
Lisa Parrish, “My gay secret” (Parts 1 and 2)
Jeremy Zitter, “Amusement-phobic”
Most Undeservedly Undercommented Post
Pandora Brewer, “Roses are red, aphids are dead”
Dave B, “Ghosts”
Brooke Maury, “Life and death in the long tail of music”
Lisa Parrish, “And the lord said: ‘Ask her about her sex life'”
Lisa Parrish, “My friend the spy” (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5)
Bryan Waterman, “Going back to Webster Hall”
Bryan Waterman, “Coach”
Most Self-Indulgent Post
Pandora Brewer, “Miracle bra”
Farrell Fawcett, “Farrell Fawcett’s six degrees of separation”
Stella, “Stella’s treasure chest”
Funniest Comment
Andrea, #6 on “Six more degrees of GW nation”
G-Lock, #10 on “I’d like to spank the academy”
Scott Godfrey, #8 on “U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no a-li-bi”
Ashley Hahn, #7 on “U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no a-li-bi”
Stephanie Wells, #16 on “East meets West: A haiku extravaganza”
Best Comment
Farrell Fawcett, #7 on “Found”
Missy, #76 on “My left hand”
Bryan Waterman #35 on “The church of manlove”
Best Regular Commenter
G-Lock
Scott Godfrey
Ruben Mancillas
MarleyFan
Lisa Tremain
Bryan Waterman
Best Photo/Illustration (Single)
Cedric Cedarbrook, MD, The Healthy Colon, from “Dear Cedric”
Farrell Fawcett, The Davy Cockett, from “Dispatch from Sundance”
Lisa Parrish, Ugly Baby, from “U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no a-li-bi”
Best Use of Photos/Illustrations in a Single Post
Trixie Honeycups, “Philadelphia’s Italian Market (or, My plot to generate as many visits to this site as Jeremy did with his Liz Phair post)”
Lisa Parrish, “I’d like to spank the academy”
Lisa Parrish, “U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no a-li-bi”
Bryan Waterman, “American thigh”
Post of the Year
Dave B, “Ghosts”
Farrell Fawcett, “The crazy things we do”
Lisa Parrish, “My friend the spy” (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5)
Best of Dave B: “Ghosts”
Best of Rachel Berkowitz: “Happycakes, part 1”
Best of Pandora Brewer: “Choosing to Reply”
Best of Cedric Cedarbrook, MD: “Tales from the Office: Elaine”
Best of Literacy H. Dogfight: “Be-cow’s I’m ever so bewildered”
Best of Farrell Fawcett: “The crazy things we do”
Best of Scott Godfrey: “The lüv that dare not speak its name”
Best of Trixie Honeycups: “How did I get here (Part 1)”
Best of Ruben Mancillas: “Girls gone mild”
Best of Jen Mandel: “Slapshot”
Best of Brooke Maury: “Life and death in the long tail of music”
Best of Lisa Parrish: “Thou shalt not tell” (Parts 1 and 2)
Best of Slade: “Home”
Best of Stella: “Stella at the races”
Best of Lisa Tremain: “How we roll”
Best of Lane Twitchell: “Various cults”
Best of Adriana Velez: “Love me three times”
Best of Tim Wager: “Pandora’s jukebox”
Best of Bryan Waterman: “Sunset sail, Schooner Pioneer, Port of New York”
Best of Nathan Waterman: “Lone, lonely, alone”
Best of Stephanie Wells: “Those men inside my brain”
Best of Wendy West: “Budaghers”
Best of Jeremy Zitter: “Dealing with divorce: a child’s guide”
And so … disputations? Diatribes? Acceptance speeches?
yay, us!
yeah to bryan for typing in all those (blankety blank) links.
Congrats TGW….here’s to 07
this is a really interesting list. it was also interesting to sit down with dave last night and tally things up. one thing i noticed was that whereas a majority of voters had favorite posts from most contributors, for pandora and stella almost every vote was different. the “best of” for each came out by a hair. i take it as a sign of consistently high quality writing on fridays.
i had a couple posts i’d voted for that didn’t make it into the final list, but i really want to call attention to them anyway. and why not? isn’t that what the comments section is for on this post?
among my favorites of last year were jeremy’s “Not in My Nature”; adriana’s “longing for barragan”; lisa parrish’s “do you believe in goats?” (which was my favorite title for a post last year); and parrish’s post about her grandmother.
also, later last night and early in the a.m. this morning a few stray ballots came in, though we didn’t see them until this morning after the post was up. most categories would have remained the same, but lane’s “Slalom” would have nudged its way into the top of the “Most Self-indulgent” category.
last night and this morning, swimming through all of last year’s content nabbing links and titles here and there, scrolling through individual contributors’ archives, i was really struck by how much amazing content people produced in the last year. this has been a more rewarding experience than i could have imagined. here’s to a new year of new daily content.
are there additional posts you wish had been earmarked, linked, flagged for posterity?
Or is this to be the most undeservedly undercommented post of 2007?
Okay, for starters, though I heartily agreed with most or all of the selections, I felt “The Bowie Factor” should have been second-Most Controversial (of course, nothing rivals “My Left Hand”). Also, how about “Conventional Wisdom” for most self-indulgent? (that’s TGW iindulgence, not indulging the writer himself). Or perhaps today’s post is most self-indulgent! And deservedly so!
I also love that you guys are so generous, in a Special Olympics kind of way, that you even gave awards like “Best of ________” (insert writer’s name here) to writers who only have one post to their real name. I don’t know HOW my single post got chosen as my best . . . but isn’t it also my worst? It’s very nice of you to focus on the positive.
Finally, rereading so many of these posts over the past few weeks has been incredibly inspiring (and again, as someone with only one real post to my name, I can brag on the site without braggin’). Y’all are somethin’! Makes me proud.
I don’t mean to gripe, but I just think I should have been nominated for more things. Oh well, there’s always next year.
I am amazed that you guys managed to organize this into any kind of coherent voting process. This looking back has led me to lots of great things I missed. (Like the fabulous A Triangle Has Three Sides.)
I think I may be the Kucinich voter in TGW world of democracy — I heartily support all the fab winners, and genuinely loved all those posts, but I feel like I voted out of synch on nearly every category with the majority of TGW nation. And, perversely, where I was in synch I suspect my vote was superfluous. Ah, the joys of democracy.
(Can’t wait to share with my therapist that I’m confessional and self-indulgent…she may up my rate.)
Dave and Bryan, Scott and I are curious: how exactly was the voter turnout? And did anyone besides contributors vote? Or is that confidential?
Some of my favorite unmentioned posts: WW’s “Under the Tape,” BW’s “Tears for M. Wollstonecraft” and “Mary Shelley, Morrissey, and Me,” Literacy’s “In the same danger with himselfe” (most controversial?), Scott’s “The Monkee on My Back,” and Adriana’s “Longing for Barragan” (I agree, Bryan–that was my pick for Adriana too) and, well, too many others to mention. I had selected “Not in My Nature” as my favorite post for myself but was clearly outvoted–and it made me wonder how many others imagined a different post being their own best/favorite.
YES, “Under the Tape” and “Not In My Nature” were big huge faves of mine. Also truly deserving of frankincense and myrrh are Farrell’s 6-stanza post-election haiku and Dave’s best comment of all time: “Macacacacacacaca, ca-caw!”
why don’t the rest of you lazy asses provide links to those?
and to the Q of numbers pf votes: more than just the contributors, but nowhere near the number of people we know click on here every day.
I’d like to thank the Academy for a nod in the contorversial category. God knows I try.
I want to shout out my favorite post, I voted in three different catagories but it did not show–Dave’s Cooking Koan. I read this, did some research (being a bit clueless on the koan concept), the more I read, the more brilliant the post on multiple levels. Deceptively simple, like the best zen.
I also loved Farrell and Lisa’s post of the year.
I was sad not to see my favorite Bryan posts about aliens and superman.
And to Jeremy’s point–I would have voted my best as Bowie, but then I am just a self-indulgent comment whore. And Lane, Bowie IS the coolest.
sorry Bryan:
aliens and Superman, I am called many things . . . lazy ass will not be one!
I really wanted a teary acceptance speech for the teary Tears for Mary Wollstonecraft. I loved this post. And there’s your link Bryan. Nobody’s gonna call me a lazy ass.
Gotta go, the Golden Globes are on. I’m studying acceptance speeches now.
Oh, wait, I’m also totally pissed that Poetic Lie-sense wasn’t a winner. That was some post-modern shit.
Yes…cheers for Tears for Mary Wollstonecraft and Parrish’s blog about The Goats! I loved those posts. I am not lazy but I am stupid and do not know how to link, so just look to comments above.
Thank you for the votes…goodwhatsies.
In my own defense, I’m not actually a lazy ass (at least with regards to this), but a luddite: my computer is not advanced enough to allow me to use the links thing in comments. Believe me, I have tried, and when I do, Bryan just has to go in and fix it, so I thought it would be better without.
so that this comment remains relevant, I must offer a few more (non-linked) props to Dave’s “I Want an Atheist for Christmas” and “Junk,” Scott’s “Monkee on my Back,” Brooke’s “My Girlfriend is Vietnamese,” and Pandora’s “The Pen of Reality.” Oh hell, you’re all geniuses.
A collective huge applause (give ’em the Clap, people), goes out to Bryan and Dave for all the hard work in collecting, organizing, and especially the linking of the THE WHATSIES, 2006. That was alot of work!
PS: Will someone list the steps on adding a link correctly?
The comment box allows some HTML tags, including the Anchor tag that lets you link things. Go here to learn how to use it.
i also wanted to plug tim’s “and it’s only a dollar,” which was my personal favorite among his posts.
Thanks, Bryan! Right back atcha with “Bearded”.
I feel kind of like Stella, too, in thinking that hardly anything I voted for won. I mean, how could you all ignore Farrell’s “All about the ass”? It’s pure genius. Most moving? How about “Happycakes, part 1”? We’re still waiting for part 2, btw, Rachel.
I’d like to second, too, what a revelatory joy reading, commenting, and posting on this site has been for me. It’s been a real pleasure getting to know all of you. Here’s to meeting every one of you in the near future and to an increasingly prosperous ’07 on the GW!
Looking over my own list a little late, I don’t think a couple of my favorites got mentioned: PB’s “If only it were just the breasts” and Stella’s comment on “Lone lonely alone.”
i’ve been meaning to leave this comment since Monday, but the title of the Eherenreich book I wrote about here reminded me of this comment from Stephanie Wells, which I had, at the time, heralded as the best comment ever. It deserves to be archived with this thread. The post it’s attached to also happened to have been my favorite post from Pandora.
I also loved this comment from Bacon (and the exchange with Tim that followed). Bacon was for some reason posting under a second pseudonym, AA. And I liked this one (and its followup).