I’ve been lying on the couch these past few days in post-Christmas crash and burn mode, sniffing and sneezing my way through a bad cold, reading my gift books and flipping through downloaded magazines on my iPad. The weekend Globe & Mail was full of the usual, for this time of year, compilation of lists. The best of, the worst of, the most newsworthy, the most deceased…
I decided to make my own lists. Here’s what caught my attention this year.
I don’t read a lot of fiction but my favorite novel read this year was Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan, a story of a group of black jazz musicians trying to survive in France and Germany during World War 2. The narrator is Sid, one of the musicians, telling the story of friendship, loyalty, deception and treachery 50 years later.
In the Best Book Title category are 2 finalists – Willie Nelson’s memoir Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die and the Swedish novel The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson.
Best mystery series this year that kept me amused all summer was written by Louise Penny, author of the Chief Inspector Gamache series set in Quebec, mostly in a small town in the Eastern Townships.
In music the album I’ve played most this year is ‘Til Your River Runs Dry by Eric Burdon, which is getting better and better with every listen, and which also sent me off to play an old Animals compilation a couple of times.
Another favorite, released this year, is Get Happy by Pink Martini. For a long time I’ve been a huge fan of this Portland band, this hip, jazzy, imaginative orchestra with outstanding vocals and one of these days, before too long I hope, I’ll see them live. Love this new album, the first out in several years. Their version of Sway, a favorite of mine, with vocals from Storm Large is the best. They play songs from everywhere in many languages and certain tracks have special guest appearances including one by a particular surprise speaking/singing the song Smile.
New (for me) discovery, a Canadian singer called Amanda Martinez, singing a jazzy latin magic.
Tim, the guy who owns the little one-man shop in Parksville selling new and used CD’s, recommended I check out The Very Best of the Ethiopiques, a French produced album, a 2 disk compilation of all kinds of stuff – jazz, blues, soul, big band and stuff I can’t begin to put a label on, from the best musicians in Ethiopia. Some of the instrumental tracks are outstanding, many of the vocals sound strange to this ear and I’m not as fond of. No problem, that’s what playlists are for. I’ll name my playlist Best Expanding the Perimeter Music of the year. This kind of unfamiliar music is where the photos and text of liner notes really gets interesting.
On the subject of CD’s and fading out used CD stores, I still prefer to search and find my music in this form – I prefer bits to bytes. I like to listen to albums in their entirety, the choice and sequence say a lot about the artist and producer and I love liner notes. I like physically leafing through a stack of CD’s coming upon, in tangible form, something I didn’t know I wanted until I see it. Even the physical act of putting a CD in to the music machine seems part of it, the tactile sense. By the way, finding the machine itself that plays CD’s is starting to become a bit of a challenge which I found out recently when I went shopping for a new music system for The Bunkie.
Of course, I also upload all this music as well and sync it to both iPods – one for the GreenHouse and the other for the music machines in the main house and The Bunkie, where I usually put it on Shuffle and find stuff I haven’t listened to since forever. So both ways of listening to music are just fine.
I’ll continue to check in to Tim’s shop every month or so to browse for an hour and buy lots. Buy local, support your local music store.
Finally in the Best Music Find category, from my browsings at Everyday Music in Portland, the song Hushabye from the Beach Boys. I found it on a new, remastered 2-CD All Summer Long, where one side (CD) is in “mono” and the other is in “stereo”. I remember looking for it a long time ago pre-iTunes but then later forgot about it.
Listening to Hushabye again gave me a chill. A memory chill. Not only did I used to sing along to this song when I was a teeny bopper, I used to sing this lullabye to The Babies. Along with Jimmy Buffett’s A Pirate Looks at Forty…
I’ve done a bit of smugglin’
I’ve run my share of grass.
I made enough money to buy Miami,
But I pissed it away so fast, Never meant to last,
Never meant to last.
I have been drunk now for over two weeks,
I passed out and I rallied and I sprung a few leaks,
but I’ve got to stop wishin’, got to go fishin’
I’m down to rock bottom again. Just a few friends,
Just a few friends.
Gee, do you think they remember that?
The other night I was up late channel surfing and came upon the Keeping Up With the Kardashians Christmas marathon. I dropped in for a look see. Of course I’ve heard of the Kardashians, including the always tasteful and fashion conscious victim Kim, but I’d never watched the show. Well, two and a half episodes later I managed to tear myself away from the train wreck I was watching and take myself to bed, where I proceeded to toss and turn in uneasy sleep amid nightmares of THE KARDASHIANS. That’s right. They were in my dreams. Now that I think of it, that was just before I got sick. Do you think it’s possible…? Coincidence? I think not.
Speaking of Kardashian (who are these people, well you might ask), The Funniest Thing I’ve Seen So Far This Year award goes to the Kanye West Bound 2 music video (on You Tube) with a naked Kim Kardashian in stiletto boots straddling him (face to face, or whatever) on a motorcycle as they drive through the Grand Canyon. Check it out to see the face (literally) of porno. If you do, you will join us in 22,376,084 views so far (they are far from stupid, even if they are). It is beyond hilarious as are all the spoofs and parodies coming out around it including Saturday Night Live and Seth Rogen/JamesFranco. Still the original is the one to beat.
So while the Kardashians may not make any of my “Best Of’s”, there is a so-called reality show that does. Wait for it.
This was my favorite show. It follows a bunch of heavy recovery tow truck guys working on the Coquihalla in the wintertime. This is a highway through the interior of BC where Jamie Davie and his group of color-coordinated crew and trucks go to the rescue of big semis that have gone into the ditch as a result of really heavy weather. Darkness, snow, ice, storm whatever, they’re out on the job with their motto “Closing is not an option” as well as all the avalanche experts, paramedics, RCMP and a gazillion big semis on their way through the Rockies delivering things on schedules, or trying to. Every episode follows a couple of epic smash-ups in horrible weather conditions and how the team is going to extricate the mess and get it out of there so traffic can flow once again. It’s a gas, sitting in my cozy, warm TV room watching winter mayhem. My motto is “Coquihalla in the summertime”.
Also on TV, the Biggest Disappointment Award goes to Homeland. I loved this show in its first season. The second season I was less keen on and the third I stopped watching mid way through. However, all was not lost. I ended up watching the 2 seasons of Prisoners of War, the Israeli TV series Homeland is (very) loosely based on. They’re very different. In the Israeli version the story is about 3 Israeli soldiers who have been prisoners of war in Lebanon, held for 17 years, and what their return is like, the challenges of trying to adjust to families, society, post traumatic stress problems, all with a thread of suspense and suspicion thoughout as things unfold and all is not as it might appear and secrets are revealed. Watching it requires attention. No multi-tasking as the dialogue has subtitles, which you have to follow and even then they don’t translate all the words, so you need to follow the actors more closely, if that makes sense. They say there is to be another season eventually. I hope not. Most series are ruined when they go on too long. Too much shark jumping.
So that’s it, the entertainment world according to me, 2013. Back to my couch reclining, to get in shape for New Year’s Eve, where maybe I’ll make it past 10:00.
Happy New Year and may 2014 be the best year yet.