THE THREAD | An incomplete list of things I loved this year
I love a good year-end wrap up. At the end of such a strange and challenging and exhausting year, it actually feels possible to look back and find small slivers of moments and momentos that were truly good and glorious and amazing and generative and worthy of hope for the years to come. So here’s my very incomplete list of things I loved this year, which is another way of saying: Here’s a snapshot of what fed my soul and challenged my mind and lifted my spirit in 2021.
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An album I loved: Joseph’s Good Luck, Kid
I heard the band describe the first song on the album as “a song that looks you in the face and says, "COME ON, BRING IT ON.” The rest of the album clicks into place from there.
A novel I loved: George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo
The basic scene is the historical moment when President Lincoln visited the grave of his recently-deceased son in order to cradle his small corpse and weep over him. Saunders is able to take such a devastating scene and turn it into a powerfully beautiful and brilliantly hysterical ghost story combined with some crucial commentary on American life. It's a trip.
A drink I loved: Lifted Spirits’ Barrel Reserve #2 Gin
No one I know has ever said, “Let’s drink straight gin!” and lived to have a decent morning. So when my friend put an empty glass with an ice cube in front of me and began pouring gin and nothing but gin into the glass, I thought, Bad idea friend bad idea friend bad idea friend. But this gin was so . . . sip-able. I sipped it and it was delicious. I did not need to mix it with tonic. I did not taste pine needles in my mouth. I might’ve licked the ice cube clean.
A live performance I loved: Sleater-Kinney at Crossroads
I had never heard a single Sleater-Kinney song before. They were the openers for Wilco at an outdoor venue. Moments before they came on stage, the sky let us know that there was a strong chance this show would not last long. By Sleater-Kinney’s second song it was starting to rain harder but I wasn’t going anywhere because Carrie Brownstein was shredding so hard on the guitar and I realized right then that the main thing I needed was rock and roll at any cost. By the third song it was pouring rain, I was drenched and dancing, and everyone in the crowd was energized by all of it. They raced through a 25-minute set, the venue announced that Wilco probably wouldn’t play, and I didn’t even care. Those 25 minutes were all I needed.
A song I loved: Natalie Hemby’s “Radio Silence”
She’s written more hit songs than you’ve got distant cousins in Calhoun. This one from her new album is just the right touch in describing a relationship that somehow goes still. And there’s a moment in the second verse when the pulsing pause of the bass matches the lyrics, and I am floored every time I hear it.
A work of nonfiction I loved: J.D. Daniels’ The Correspondence
This book came out of nowhere for me. The presence of his voice is forceful and phenomenal. It’s short. It’s intense. It’s about a dude navigating American dude-ism.
A coffee drink I loved: Sea Salt Latte at Onyx Coffee in Bentonville, AK
You know those sea salt caramel things at Costco? It’s like that, but liquefied in a mug.
A new item from Aldi I loved: Sea Salt Caramel dessert hummus dip
It’s like chickpeas, which are healthy, combined with sugar and salt, which are . . . whatever, it’s delicious.
A You Tube sensation I loved: Big Bankz
He tours abandoned and weird mansions. And his aesthetic is like a work of art that lacks focus and standards, and yet draws you in all the same with the sheer exuberance of his enthusiasm for dilapidated shit, particularly his grand tour of the glass castle currently for sale on Table Rock Lake for $80 million.
A poem I loved: Claudia Emerson’s “Pitching Horseshoes”
Witnessing someone else work through something hard, without being able to understand the completely interior experience of such a process. Amazing.
An encounter with a work of art I loved: The accidental nap I took on the couch while staring at a Mark Rothko painting
I might eventually take the time to write something lengthy about Mark Rothko paintings, or I might not. But the gist is this: His paintings offer me the chance to adjust my eyes to find so many channels of seeing and encountering the depth of color present. (I'm colorblind, so this is interesting to me.) Last weekend, while gazing at his painting in the contemporary wing of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, I just might’ve adjusted my eyes in a way that was very squinted and blurry, and the world shifted slowly, and I briefly dozed off. I woke up and sat up a bit straighter, remembering I was in a public space. But for a split second, it was some sort of heaven.
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Hope you're finding ways to enjoy this holiday season and encountering plenty of things, people, and places that you love.
Peace,
Andrew