A Protest Against Forgetting #4: "Things I Liked in 2021"
by Kevin Smokler
Hello, you.
My friend Jason Diamond structured an issue of his newsletter The Melt (which ya'll should already be subscribed to. Seriously) as a vertical column of "Things I Liked in 2021" to feed the hungry mouth of "my favorite movies/music/shirts/stupid ideas of the year" ever writer by law must offer up. I usually spend 90% of such an endeavor recalling what I did 7 months ago that would qualify, rather than writing at all. And the act and activity of writing is why I am with you, here.
Mr. Diamond began with the reasonable question "Does Anyone Remember Enjoying Things?" My answer: A few, with some effort to remember them.
Therefore...
B. Happy Snacking Peanut Butter. The very name sounds like guaranteed failure--Peanut butter with chocolate and pretzels and assorted buried treasure that you're only supposed to snack on? I'm hear to tell you it can be done. A single teaspoon of this stuff after a meal is a great dessert. And I have all the discipline of a sailor on shore leave around peanut butter.
B. Happy is based in Indianapolis as was started by a guy I grew up with in Michigan (I learned of it through my high school alumni newsletter). It comes in nine flavors and, at a teaspoon or so per day, a single jar will last a good few weeks. Really though, the best sales pitch this stuff has are the words "Snacking. Peanut Butter" What does that do for you?
Breaker Nation. I've enough methods to discover new music to leave me drunk and happy on sonics for the rest of my days. I didn't need a new one until I discovered how much fun the smartphone app Breaker Nation is. Its first audience is musicians, who use its community tools to build and communicate with a new fanbase they build themselves organically. For us listeners, you can select music by genre or listen via Breaker Nation's charts. For each song you review, you get points which entitles you to new perks and privileges. It also keeps a running log of every song you review, making downloading or circling back to artists you discover through Breaker Nation super easy.
I've gotten in the habit of listening to one new song on Breaker Nation during my morning walk. Helps each day feel musically new and full of promise.
Flat Pack Wooden Models are essentially kits of plywood you snap together to make structures, animals, vehicles and objects. They vary in complexity depending on what you want them to do (you can get a grandfather clock wooden model kit with a working pendulum and hands) but it my experience, the more complicated, the more you will be asked to do stuff with a ridiculously low margin of error (i.e. snap off this toothpick in this hole and if you are 1/18 of an inch off, none of it will stand up). Which I don't see as the point.
The point, for me at least, is the same meditation as putting together a jigsaw puzzle only the puzzle is three-dimensional and defined by structure rather than graphics. Different companies focus on different things (Australia's Gin and Apathy did the Hotel Yorba model pictured here and offers almost entirely building-shaped kits). I also like Wooden Town who has a lot of vehicle-shaped kits made of environmentally-sourced wood that don't involve gluing or toothpicks or holes 1/18 of an inch in diameter.
"Listen Throughs." That's just a term I came up with to mean "the act of listening to every album in an artist's catalog in order." I did that 3 times this past year (with Depeche Mode, Devo and Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, respectively). I don't sit down and complete the task in one afternoon but rather listen, give an album a few days to sink in, then scrawl some thoughts down and repeat. Use whatever format (vinyl/streaming/cylinder) works best for you.
The idea came about when I realized the album that brought Lizzo into our lives was her third, not her first and 20 seconds of searching informed me that Depeche has recorded and released 7 album AFTER Violator. But you can't keep track of everything and even the great treasure of music can seem dull at times. I’ve found that giving over real considered time to an artist’s work has taught me so much–about art, about creative decisions and really just about how we all get up in the morning and have to make that day happen in a way that it mattered.
I’ve quit making thoughtless judgements about how successful a band actually was. I’ve learned through enjoyment. If we need to change into our relationship with music to keep it from dulling, To "listen though "has provided the shine.
The Soul of America by John Meecham. Presidential historian John Meecham published this collection of historical moments and analysis of when fate and horrific events brought America to the brink and how America pulled itself back in 2018, the dead middle of the Trump era and before the coming of the pandemic. Still his message, that we have been here before, we persevered and to persevere requires hard work and the best parts of ourselves, feels like he could have written this yesterday.
I'm an American history buff and get a lot fiber in my diet from the tales of our recent past. But if you're just looking to feel a bit better and have a wider lens on the 10 tricycle pile-up we seem to be living through, this book'll give it to you and more.
At Home Film Festivals. One of the few "benefits" of a worldwide pandemic is attending events you couldn't otherwise in the real world, like a film festival that happens thousands of miles away. The app Eventive (I've got it on the Apple TV. I'm sure it works on your desktop or Roku too) is the biggest of maybe 3 players in the online film festival space and will list upcoming festivals that will be offering virtual screenings. You'll still have to buy tickets or a festival pass via that festival's website (it ain't free). But if you've always dreamed of attending a film festival and could never find the time and money...? Here it is, at least in some form.
Collage Atlas. Beautiful, huh? Artist John William Evelyn hand drew and composed the music and code for every frame of Collage Atlas, a game for Apple Arcade that involves finding your way through a dreamlike landscape and really, just being there, listening to the world of the game and yourself breathing. If video games seem loud and intrusive to you, this is the experience with them you have been waiting for.
Bad Women Podcast. Limited series (15 episodes I think) concerned with making the five victims of Jack the Ripper real people instead of wayward sex workers or collateral of what became a century-long fascination and now grizzly field of study and tourist industry. Host/creator Hallie Rubenhold has a perfect tonal mix of extensive historical research, private eye inquiry and disbelief. How have we gone 130 years, examined Jack the Ripper and his victims from every possible angle, and still gotten the basics of who they are as women, as human beings, so wrong?
Library Re-openings. Your public library's probably re-opened after many COVID-related closures. Here's the staff of my local (San Francisco Public. Main branch) cheering as neighbors who lined up the morning off come back to the great good place they missed so much.
Go to ya damn library. Libraries are an unalloyed good in a world with very few of those. And they are not promised forever.
More "Out" than "In"
An idea I started throwing around at the end of 2021 when I counted all the books in our house and realized I'd read slightly less than 50% and would probably not live long enough to finish them all (because I do not see myself living to be 159 years old). Maybe then their presence doesn't equate to some some imaginary finish line (if it ever did. I've always said a library is a wish list as much as a list of chores) but a principle: I'm very good at ingesting new information and below average at doing anything with it (sharing, gifting, writing or making something inspired by). Which at some point is not learning or enjoyment but pigging out.
A month now into 2022, I'm leading with this idea of "more out than in." If I'm bring new books into the house, they are library books with will return to the library in a few weeks or something I have already read. I'm good with the number of records I have right now. And everything I read/listen/watch/experience needs to be written down and shared with at least one other person whom I think would like it too. Because I ain't doing this to amuse myself but, hopefully, to communicate and share and bring something nice to you.
Until next time,
Kevin
Logo by Dave Linabury
Written while listening to "Hello, Sunshine" by Aretha Franklin
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