All the best books of 2012

I love top ten lists. I especially love them about movies and books. It doesn't really matter to me whether I agree with the person who is choosing; what I like is that someone took the time to assess their year, with their particular lens, and puts their opinion out there for the rest of us. My friend Rupert would always have talk about our top ten significant moments of the year at his and Scott's beautiful New Year's day gathering.  Not necessarily the best,—but the most significant. Now that I live far from him, and rarely get to celebrate New Years together, I still make my list.

Here you go, more or less chronologically (but not necessarily in order of importance.)

January. My friend Howard died after a very fast, very aggressive illness. He actually died on my birthday, which of course was just coincidence, but gives me one more way to stay connected to him. I miss him daily. He was one of the warmest, smartest men I've ever known, and he was a huge model for me, because he changed careers more than once, and figured out how to integrate his many skills and varied pasts into his new pursuits.

February. I started performing again. Not a lot yet, but very comfortably. I stopped when I came to NYC, and focused more on writing, and less on performing. Now it's time to step out front again (and keep writing.) The first thing I did this year was a Busby Berkeley-style dance number choreographed by Ariel Speedwagon. I went on to sing a few times, sometimes solo and sometimes in a group, most significantly, here. (That link will only be live til mid January.)

August. Some very skilled surgeons but a valve from a very generous cow into Josh's heart, and it works.

September. I spent a week writing a screenplay I've been thinking about for years. I didn't finish it yet because then I had to go back to work, but it was a great start. 

Also September. My friend Lori died. She was the best friend of one of my closest friends, and the mother of one of my favorite people on the planet. She had an incredible capacity to love, and she was also a brilliant writer and activist.

October. I moved to a huge apartment and actually like coming home for the first time since moving to NYC. I waited 14 months for it -- from August 2011 to October 2012 (is that 14?) and it is still not actually done (the landlords are here most every Tuesday-Saturday working on it) but it's big and light and in a wonderful neighborhood near good friends.

Also October. Hurricane Sandy. 

November. Obama got reelected. I was very scared that maybe he wouldn't. I was pretty disappointed in much of what he did over his first 4 years, but I also respect much about him and with all my soul wanted him to win against Romney, and not just as a less of 2 evils—but because I think he's humane, brilliant, and reachable.

Out of chronological order, but taking place from January to December: I met and/or got closer to a slew of wonderful artists: Yehuda, David, Rachel, Shane, Anthony, Lily, Liz, Jawole, Maria, Paul, Susan, Alicia, Morgan, another Alicia. If I left you off, you too.

And that leaves one slot open -- either for things you think might have been significant in my life (because I don't always have the best memory) or for something that still might happen in the last 24 hours of 2012. I'm open to your suggestions! Maybe it's actually (I am suddenly inspired by Taylor Mac's recent FB update about his top ten artistic delights of the year)

Also all through the year, from January to December: Taylor Mac's workshops of what is going to become a 24-hour concert of the history of popular music in America. They are brilliant, entertaining, and fascinating. He does a gorgeous job of integrating historical context into a cabaret show of songs that one might (often) not expect to hear in a cool kids' club. I suggested one to him (I told him the Jews need a decade) and he did a brilliant job of 1900's tenement songs, at the JCC. Also, I've had a wonderful time as an audience member at every single one of these shows—have made new friends, because he is actually succeeding in building community through his performance.

So yes. there's ten. But I'm still open to suggestions. I probably won't bump anything off the list I already have, but I'll add it on.

But I digress. (But I don't.)  I love top ten lists. Especially about books and movies. And so for my selfish pursuit of joy, I read the NPR list of best books of 2012, and the NYTimes list, and the Salon list. I looked for some less mainstream lists as well, but didn't come up with much to recommend to you. Anyhow, I looked at all these lists, and I made some choices, and I downloaded a bunch of e-books to read on the subway on my long commutes. 2 hours a day—that's some serious reading! Starting with NW, The Yellow Birds, Far from the Tree, The Marseille Caper, and The Round House. See you with my nose in a book, and hopefully you'll have a nose in yours.

The Hobbit

Yawn. Except that I saw it with Taylor, and when ridiculous things happened, we got to clutch each other and giggle. Which was actually pretty joyful. Also, the scene between Bilbo and Golem was really quite excellent drama.

Songs of our Randy Fathers

I consider myself a good Googler, but it took me a minute to find the melody to the song I posted yesterday.

But find it I did, and I've been playing it since then—first on the piano, and then on the ukelele. Looks like I think I might be homing in on a concept for the Jewkelele orchestra, or at least the first recording, with apologies to Andy Statman and David Grisman: Songs of our Randy Fathers.

Her name was Lil and she was a beauty

It was my father's yortzayt, so I made sure to take out the baritone ukelele and play a few songs that he used to love to play, and when I was looking through one of his old books, a paper fell out. My father had notoriously bad handwriting; he had a tremor, and it showed on the page. After years of practice, I could make out almost all the words, and what I couldn't, I found the old fashioned way: Google, which turned up several more elaborate versions of the song. Here's Walter's version:

Her name was Lil and she was a beauty
She lived in a house of ill reputy
The men would come from far to see
Lillian in her deshabillé.

She was comely; she was fair
She had lovely yeller hair
But she drank too much of the damn rum
And she smoked hashish and opium

Lillian called the house physician
To report on her condition
He said dear Lil I'm sorry to say
You have pernicious anemia

Day by day as Lil grew thinner
Because of the lack of protein in her
She grew deep hollows in her chest
And she had to go round completely dressed

As you know Lil's clientele
Rested mainly on her belly
Lillian left her house of men
When she had to conceal her abdomen

As she lay there in her deshabillé
She felt the hand of the lord upon her
She said, "Dear Lord, my soul repents
but it's still gonna cost you 25 cents."

Now I just need to find a melody, and learn it on the uke.

Pitch Perfect

It usually takes 4 hours to drive from New Hampshire to Brooklyn, but it took 8, because somewhere in Connecticut it started to snow, and then rain, and then sleet, and then freeze rain, and then snow some more. By the time we hit the state of NY (but not yet the city) my body was entrenched in what I can only call a physical boredom. I wanted to get up and move SO BAD. I wanted to go for a run, a walk, a ski, a sled, it didn't matter what, I didn't want to be sitting in the car any longer. Also, I had to pee and we had passed all the easy exits and road side rests. And also, it was still gonna be another 2 hours before I was home. OK, jump over those two hours. Really, you don't want to hear me complain. Home safe, salt washed off car, dinner on the table, phone call that one of my dearest friend's momma's had just passed, calls to other friends about that, and then finally realizing I hadn't taken any me time yet, and so flipping through the TV movie channels, I found the aca-romp Pitch Perfect, which had been on my list since it came out. I could have lived without the stress barfing, but it was otherwise a decent comedy with some decent acapella numbers, a few good actors, and a few good laughs. And I wasn't sitting in the car. (Which seems to be my new definition of joy.)

I slept in

I woke up in Brunswick Maine on Christmas morning. I woke up very very early—like 4AM early, and I lay awake for a long time—til about 5:30 I think, negotiating with myself. Don't think about work. (I thought about work.) Don't think about that stressful thing. (I thought about that stressful thing.) Just relax, and you will go back to sleep. (I thought about that stressful thing at work.) Eventually I allowed myself to think about something quite private and quite hopeful and quite .... yes, private. But it was first thing in the morning, and it was all for me (so much for me that I am not going to tell you what it is) and it eventually allowed me to go back to sleep, and I slept until 9:15AM, which is just incredibly unusual and luxurious for me. It goes against my nature to think about sleeping as something selfish and joyful (more like necessary but elusive) but when I woke up after 9, and felt the surge of joy go through my rested self, I just smiled.

World's End

After I visited Anna—one of my parents' oldest friends who was an incredibly positive force in my growing-up life—and before I drove many hours to Maine, I know I wanted to take a walk somewhere beautiful, since I was on the South Shore, near where my mom grew up, so I looked on the interwebs to see if there was a good place not too far out of the way (I was in Hingham) and I found lots of reviews for World's End, also in Hingham.