2010 Year-End Musings

As I started to gather my thoughts around the 2010 year’s end, I looked back on blog posts that I made back in the beginning of January and am startled at the similarities to what I’m feeling/thinking currently.

Let’s see – I was complaining about how shitty a year 2009 had been (2010 has proven to be even more tumultuous); I was sick (I still am); dealing with old and/or infirm pets (still); and as I enter what will be the third year in my “new” house, I still haven’t adjusted or settled into it.
So were there any highlights in 2010? Well, maybe a few.

My top 5 Music Moments:

• The dominance of Ray LaMontagne in my life; especially his song "Let It Be Me"
• Songs from Glee – I couldn’t get enough of them. They made me love a Katy Perry song for crissakes!
• Rediscovering the Little River Band after finding an old greatest hits cd buried in the trunk of my car. Move over Journey, LRB is my new karaoke go-to band.
• Succumbing to Lady Gaga fever after resisting for two years
• After decades of singing it in the shower and to myself in the mirror, finally performing “Where Is It Written?” from Yentl for a live audience in November 2010.

Top 2010 Movie Moments:

Never Let Me Go – quietly devastating

Inception - Clever and captivating

Brotherhood – harshly beautiful

Hipsters – amazing snapshot of 1950’s Russia

Black Swan – seriously and gloriously f*cked up


Top 2010 TV:

• The WINTER OLYMPICS! And I actually got to go to Vancouver, albeit by my sad and lonely self, to see a couple of skiing events.
• The SYTYCD All-Stars season which brought Pasha, Allison, Ade, Mark, and Neil back into my life.
• New series – Modern Family, Justified, The Choir, Sherlock Holmes, Huge

Top 2010 Reading:

1. The Hunger Games trilogy came into my life
2. I got a Kindle!
3. The continued awesomeness of Melissa De La Cruz's young-adult vampire books the Blue Bloods series. It kicks all sorts of Twilight ass.
4. Lest you think I only read YA lit, I also enjoyed Pulitzer and National Book Award winners Tinkers, Great House, and The Imperfectionists

In 2010 I also participated with thousands of others in attempting to complete a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I didn’t make it, but it was a great experience nonetheless.

For the past 3 years I’ve said that the coming the year couldn’t possibly be worse than the one that I just lived through, and then that year has tried its best to prove me wrong. I truly hope that 2011, a year filled with mystical and powerful numerological importance, will be the year of healing and happiness.

Happy New Year everyone!

My Top 10 List for Music in 2008

2008 was the year that I really started having a love affair with my iPod. I know, I'm like years behind everyone else on this; I've had an iPod for a long time (and just got a brand new pretty purple Nano for Xmas - thanks Dad!) but this year I actually took it almost everywhere I went, listening to music and podcasts all the time. At work, walking the dog, cleaning the house, packing, on the plane, in my hotel rooms etc etc, my iPod was always close at hand.

Anyway, to that end, on this first day of 2009, I've made a list of the top 10 musical experiences for me in 2008. I say experiences because this top 10 isn't just songs or albums from this year - it's a mixed bag of a bunch of stuff. Enjoy!

Honorable Mention - The album "Black & Gold" by Sam Sparro. This young Australian kid is a genius.

10. "I Will Possess Your Heart", Death Cab For Cutie from their latest album Narrow Stairs
I usually try to avoid all bands that 20 yr old annoying college students and faux-hipsters like but dammit if this single wasn't fawking awesome. Do yourself a favor and listen to the 8 min album cut not the radio edit.

9. The album Sounds Like This but especially the track "Rock and Roll", by Eric Hutchinson
I kept on hearing the really catchy "Rock and Roll" on one of the local Seattle radio stations and then checked on Hutchinson's whole album on iTunes. I liked it so much that I downloaded it and have been listening to it ever since.

8. "Worrisome Heart", by Melody Gardot
I got the title track off the album of the same name by this young chanteuse from Philadelphia as a free iTunes track in the Spring of 2008. I immediately fell in love with the song and listened to it all the time but was always getting Gardot confused with other young lady singers new on the scene like Duffy and Adele. Then I went ahead and bought this whole album. I won't be mistaking Melody Gardot's voice, which has been described as a cross between Billie Holiday's and Tom Waits, for anyone else's again.

7. "Viva La Vida" - Coldplay
I fell for this song like many from the onslaught of iTunes commercials this summer. I've never been a huge Coldplay fan, but this song is so damn catchy it was irresistible.

6. "No Air" - Jordin Sparks w/ Chris Brown
From the very first time I heard this duet I LOVED IT. It's endearingly overdramatic and filled with just the right amount of teen angst. And then it was used to perfection in the first competition dance for Joshua and Katee in this season of "So You Think You Can Dance", cementing it's place in my top 10.

5. "American Boy", by Estelle
I danced around to this song so much when I was in Mexico in late July. It's so fun and funky. I mean I even got it as a ring tone for my phone which was the first time I've ever done anything like that.

4. The Monroes's "What Do All The People Know"

Yes, I know this song is from 1982. But I was reintroduced to its fabulousness this 4th of July and I've become obsessed with finding a MP3 of it. For now, the YouTube video will do.

3. Brandi Carlile's voice on "The Heartache Can Wait" and "Already Home"
Brandi's album "The Story" was probably one of my favorite things of 2007. This year I've fell in love with her voice specifically in 2 songs put out this year. The first was the duet "Already Home" she did with the country duo Ha-Ash. And then recently, the holiday song "Heartache" was released and Brandi's alto voice is so heartbreakingly beautiful that it's quickly become one of my all-time favorite holiday songs.

2. We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things, by Jason Mraz
The best album released this year. Period.

1. Sparkling Choir of Love's performance of "North Port" at the 2008 Seattle Folklife festival
Okay, this is really more than a little self-indulgent, but my choir's performance at the Folklife festival in May of this Shaker shape-note piece was f*cking amazing. I got chills singing it and after our last auditorium-shaking note was sung there was an audible gasp of joy that came from the stunned audience before their thunderous applause and standing ovation. Yes. We rock.