Tis the season for end-of-the-year lists. Most people either love them or hate them when they’re made by a news outlet. But when they’re personal and idiosyncratic, there’s nothing not to love. They’re a good way to reflect on where or how your time was spent most valuably. What book stayed with you? What movie? Or recipe? Or podcast? Or memory or place?
I’m going to do a little something different this time. This newsletter is essentially a pile of ideas and art I think are worth sharing, but this time around I’d like to hear your end-of-the-year list, the things you were most glad got your time and attention.
Post your list of whatever made your year a little better in the comments.
I’ll give a two lists to get you going. Things are in no particular order.
Best books I read:
Having and Being Had by Eula Biss
It is Going to Be a Good Year by Sasha Fletcher
Poverty, By America by Matthew Desmond
The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty
Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
Best places I spent some time:
My friend’s family’s house in Chelsea, VT: It was my friend’s 30th birthday on a weekend that broke records with the cold. There was a fireplace, baking cake, silly games, snowshoeing, and Aldous Huxley’s favorite chair. A mitten was swallowed by a St. Bernard and chaos ensued.
The White Mountains, NH: I covered the entire Carter Ridge over the course of two separate hikes this summer. But winter hikes will always be my favorite, and Mt. Moriah was the only one I got before I dropped a printer on my toe. Fortunately, it was a very good one.
The river bend at Picnic Rock in Kennebunk, ME: I don’t know if it counts to pick a place I went to all summer any day it wasn’t raining. Daily picnics. A pair of black-throated green warblers nesting in the tree next to us.
The Hokusai Exhibit, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: My friend wrote the labels for this, but even if I didn’t know about the creative process of putting the show together, I would have been completely absorbed.
Race Point, Provincetown, MA: Every day I hiked out to a distant spit of beach and and watched right whales feeding for hours. There are only 340 and fifty of these whales left on the planet, and seeing a mother and her calf a few times was a fragile and beautiful hope.
Ok. It’s your turn now. Give me a top five. Of anything. Post it in the comments.
Flavour combos
cauliflower and chestnut
banana and eggs
lavender and vanilla
mango and sesame
salt and everything else
Books
The Creative Act: A Way of Being, by Rick Rubin
Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design, by Kat Holmes
How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop, by Dave Tompkins
MP3: The Meaning of a Format, by Jonathan Sterne (still reading)
Other reading
Monstress (comic), Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda
Coda (comic), Simon Spurrier and Matias Bergara
Music
Jaguar Sound by- Adrian Quesada. 2022 got hooked on his Boleros Psicodélicos.