2012 was a pretty hard year to catorize and looking back at music/book purchases it seems to be one of continuously paring down the unnecessary.
For that last 5-6 years I’ve been working to puchase less to make sure that I actually read and listen to what I own. There are the occasionnal trigger purchases, but many fewer than before. I am trying to pare down, reduce and throw away that which is unnecessary.
The house took a great deal of work for the summer. I spent a lot of time busting out concreate and fixing the lawn. The drought took out a lot of my work, but I’m pretty happy with the results. This year will be more of that work with a back porch that needs to go.
I did manage to work on an EP of music that I hadn’t planned on. I had gone a solid year with dismissing everything that I wrote. I was happy to put in the time and get a bit of music down before life got busy.
The little one was the focus for the last part of the year. It’s been great, hard, challenging and rewarding. Jen is the real champion and I’m just the side-kick for now.
I’m planning for 2013 to be a year of less consumption and more production. I have a todo list focusing on new work, reducing the useless and moving everything forward.
Best Music 2012
- Vijay Iyer Trio - Accelerando
- Matt Halmovitz & Christopher O’Riley - Shuffle.Play.Listen
- Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit - Live From Alabama
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!
- Flying Lotus - Until the Quiet Comes
- Donald Fagen - Sunken Condos
- Dan Deacon - America
- Christian Scott - Christian aTunde Adjuah
- Baroness - Yellow & Green
- The Bad Plus - Made Possible
Best Reading 2012
- Skippy Dies - Paul Murray
- The Pale King - David Foster Wallace
- Suttree - Cormac McCarthy
- The Art of Fielding - Chad Harbach
- Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
- Telegraph Avenue - Michael Chabon