As I was saying to a mate the other day 'I'm an enthusiast, not a critic' so here's things I'm enthusing about this year. Obviously this list is pretty subjective - it was probably a pretty shit year for Freedom, Democracy, Human Life, and all the other things you capitalise when you undermine them.
1 Getting and being married to my beloved. What's better than that?
and in no order:
my drum machine. I bought an electribe drum synthesiser and now sit around twiddling knobs making science fiction noises and tapping along to electro records. Class.
Brian Eno's 1994 diary. Perfect toilet book. I love him for the reason that I love Laurie Anderson (meeting her was a highlight of 2005) and Sophie Calle: he makes you feel capable of creating by being interested in the world and engaging with it simply and continusously. They have an idle thought and follow it through; sometimes what follows is art, sometimes it isn't. That's not the point, keeping alive and interested is the point.
Pere Ubu gig: how can they be so great thirty years after they started up? I didn't see that many gigs this year but this one would stand out in any year.
Singing. I started singing lessons, my teacher moved me up from baritone to tenor which makes it hard work. Everything I did when I was singing was wrong. That and the hard work means improvement is immediately audible. At the end of my first lesson she said that being in a choir would be good for me and the started rehearsing next week and would be singing in the National Concert Hall in a month. So I made my debut in the Concert Hall. How cool is that?
Mexico where we went for our honeymoon. I remember going to a Yucutan restaurant in DF (I had already discovered that Mexican food isn't hot at all - they don't use the right kind of chillis except in the Yucutan where they have habaneros) where I had my first marguerita in Mexico, the waiter warned us off one of the condiments so we piled it on. I had a chilli and marguerita buzz. The band was singing so I asked them for the most romantic song in the world for our honeymoon. They sang Besame Mucho (soprano and two tenors) so I added a very loud baritone to the mix to my beloved's embarrassment. Oaxaca was lovely and we bought a beautiful tryptich of oil paintings. The pacific coast (where they shot y tu mama tambien) was marvelous.
Spain in September. We went to two weddings in Spain a week apart in September. The two couples didn't even know each other: the first time they met was at our wedding. We drove around Andalucia for a week and visited tiny towns and had lovely food and fino, and montilla morile. And carried home loads of olive oil which smells of ripe fruit and the farmyard from Baena.
My sauces: they've really improved. I can finally make a nice beure blanc, my gravy is pretty good, I usually have a nice stock or fumet in the fridge so I have a good basis. I've been saying for years that the problem with being a vegetarian is not 'what do you eat?' it's 'how do you make sauces?' I've been promising myself for a few years now to get that sorted out and I'm finally getting there.
Archeology: I started reading a bit of archeology and found it has profoundly influenced my understanding of the world. Never since I started reading evolutionary biology has a science had such an impact on me.
Things that will be great in 2006
Not being sick in a low grade constant, immune system undermining way. I'm really looking forward to that.
Learning to draw. I think that drawing is a basic skill like being literate, numerate, and the ability to make music. I feel inadequate and intend to fix that. I tried before and found it exhausting, which means it is good.
Learning to read music. Well I've got a head start on that - my sight reading has come on from having to read a score recently.
People in work have just suggested that New Zealanders call the year two thousand and sex. Which is good. Northeners do the same thing too.
