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“The Best” of 2017
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Published: Dec 16, 2017
Category:
Beyond Classification
If you don’t do a “best of” feature, you’re not considered Serious Media. So I’ve made one. The best books aren’t listed in order, though the 3 novels of Mohsin Hamid are my absolute favorites; these are simply the books that I know I’ll never give away. The Things are in no order. But Music and Movies? Yes.
THE ALL-TIME BEST DECEMBER SONG
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BOOKS
Mohsin Hamid: The Most Important Novelist Now Writing
Hamid says he writes love stories. Yes, but not like any you’ve read. All three of his short novels are the best books I read this year.
Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver is the most popular — that is, bestselling — poet in America. If you read poetry, that style and message immediately identify the poet for you. Even if you’re only an occasional reader of poetry, you probably know that conversational voice, because it’s almost impossible to be unfamiliar with her most famous line: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?”
Esther Perel: The State of Affairs: Rethinking Adultery
This isn’t a book about overcoming the crisis of an affair, it’s an attempt to launch a fresh conversation.
Woman Walk the Line: How the Women in Country Music Changed Our Lives
The female contributors to this collection are so passionately committed to the female country stars they profile — these 27 singers and songwriters are crucial to them, both culturally and personally.
A Piece of the World
The immediate inspiration is “Christina’s World,” Andrew Wyeth’s 1948 painting. It shows a woman lying in the grass on a hillside. Anna Christina Olson (1893 -1968) is the woman in the painting. She suffered from a degenerative muscular disorder that made walking impossible. But she refused to use a wheelchair. She crawled….
The Men in My Life: A Memoir of Love and Art in 1950s Manhattan
This is actually two books in one. One is about perseverance and talent and raw courage — about art. The other is about love — really, about sex.
A Dangling House
This is a thin book. Its 47 poems fill just 61 pages, and there’s plenty of white space on those pages. But they’re pure protein.
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
“History doesn’t repeat itself. One person is not another. But the rule of law is a fundamental asset — it precedes democracy, it precedes the free market, everything depends on it. America is a very lawyerly society. Germans also cared a great deal about the rule of law. Yet in Germany, lawyers found ways to reverse the normal understanding of law. After that, anything could be done. So it might make sense for us to think about lawyers.”
Citizen: An American Lyric
“Citizen” has been called “the book of the decade.” These are not “poems” in forms you know. There are lists. Photos. Mini-essays. But taken as a whole, these are poems. You may not welcome them, but these are definitely poems.
Tasting Georgia: A Food and Wine Journey in the Caucasus
The wine world’s cool kids are buzzing about Georgia….the Georgia that is bordered on the North by Russia, to the South by Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. If you’re interested in a culture that, 8,000 years ago, gave birth to wine-making and still makes some wine by the ancient method… if you’re interested in visiting a country that is far off the tourist path….if you’re a foodie who wants to try dishes you won’t find in an restaurant in America, here are 70 recipes… . this is three books in one.
Small Victories: Recipes, Advice + Hundreds of Ideas for Home Cooking Triumphs
Julia Turshen has personality to spare, and she doesn’t hold back. Her book is a collection of the foods she likes to cook, stories about those recipes, life lessons learned from cooking, and “small victories” — little tricks and home truths that make easy recipes easier and better.
THINGS
Nam Prik Asian Chili Hot Sauce Nam Prik Asian Chili Hot Sauce
Nam Prik is an Asian chili sauce that is both spicy and sweet. It delivers fire and flavor, adding personality to eggs, Mexican food, Asian dishes, meat and chicken entrees — it could be the next Sriracha.
Light Up Compact Mirror with Rechargeable Battery Pack for Smartphones
It looks like a standard 3.5” circular compact in a stylish colored shell that comes in a choice of colors (red, gold, purple, rose). But inside the 7-ounce makeup mirror is a battery pack that can charge an iPhone, iPad, Android or any USB-powered devices. Two must-have items in one? Exactly.
Thymes Frasier Fir Candle
This candle doesn’t quite convince you that there’s a fir tree in the corner, but it proposes the idea.
‘Eva’ and ‘Fin’
By the shoddy standards of what is known as the sex toy industry, these designed-by-women vibrators are revolutionary. They use medical-grade silicone. Their tiny batteries power devices that have three speeds, hold a charge, and are quickly refreshed.
Colostrum
Colostrum is said to be useful for adults because it deals with the bacteria in our digestive tracks — bacteria that is there in all of us in large quantities. Our immune systems send soldiers to fight them, but not before there’s inflammation. And our immune systems pay a price for these battles. In this story, Colostrum comes to the rescue.
French Notebooks
When you want something more distinctive than a marbleized composition book.
Emily Dickinson Notecards
A dozen 5-1/2″ x 4-1/4″cards, “made with prints from the beloved poet’s pressed-flower albums, where she collected over four hundred specimens.” With matching envelopes, in a matching box.
Manuka Honey
Manuka honey comes from New Zealand, where it’s made by bees that feed on the nectar of the manuka tree. Their honey is dark and thick. Its aroma has been described as “damp earth, heather, aromatic. And it’s good for you.
MUSIC
Brandi Carlisle, “The Joke”
You’re feeling nervous, aren’t you, boy?
With your quiet voice and impeccable style
Don’t ever let them steal your joy
And your gentle ways, to keep ’em from running wild
They can kick dirt in your face
Dress you down, and tell you that your place
Is in the middle, when they hate the way you shine
I see you tugging on your shirt
Trying to hide inside of it and hide how much it hurts
Let ’em live while they can
Let ’em spin, let ’em scatter in the wind
I have been to the movies, I’ve seen how it ends
And the joke’s on them
You get discouraged, don’t you, girl?
It’s your brother’s world for a while longer
We gotta dance with the devil on a river
To beat the stream
Call it living the dream, call it kicking the ladder
They come to kick dirt in your face
To call you weak and then displace you
After carrying your baby on your back across the desert
I saw your eyes behind your hair
And you’re looking tired, but you don’t look scared
Craig Finn: We All Want the Same Things
Craig Finn does what John Prine and Bruce Springsteen do: he creates vivid music that works in your head like a movie.
Jason Isbell: “Vampire”
Isbell makes human-scaled art, deep truth captured in the moment when the thoughts and feelings are fresh. And he writes simply — his lyrics would make great t-shirt slogans.
Josh Ritter: “Train Go By”
This release is an examination of the greatest — maybe the only — power available to us in a time when someone is riding roughshod over all norms. That is the power to care for one another, to get close, closer than we’ve ever been before. A gathering of two. And then a collection of gatherings: a community, an Ark.
Les Amazones d’Afrique
Kenny White: “A Road Less Traveled”
Kenny White is the urban musician’s urban musician. He’s an astonishingly gifted pianist with a great ability to find a hook at the end of a long phrase. And he writes about romance with a winning mixture of irony, regret and hope.
The War on Drugs: “Pain”
Best show I saw this year.
Sam Hunt – “Body Like A Back Road”
My favorite country song of 2017.
MOVIES
“The Salesman”
“The Shape of Water”
“Lady Bird”
“Their Finest”
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
“Beatriz at Dinner”
BEST STORY OF THE YEAR
Neil Gaiman tells a David Bowie story: “Are you scared? Here’s an invisible mask. It’s magic. Put it on. And I’ll put mine on. And this is how we’ll feel brave in the world.”
My friend told me a story he hadn’t told anyone for years. When he used to tell it years ago people would laugh and say, ‘Who’d believe that? How can that be true? That’s daft.’ So he didn’t tell it again for ages. But for some reason, last night, he knew it would be just the kind of story I would love.
When he was a kid, he said, they didn’t use the word autism, they just said ‘shy’, or ‘isn’t very good at being around strangers or lots of people.’ But that’s what he was, and is, and he doesn’t mind telling anyone. It’s just a matter of fact with him, and sometimes it makes him sound a little and act different, but that’s okay.
Anyway, when he was a kid it was the middle of the 1980s and they were still saying ‘shy’ or ‘withdrawn’ rather than ‘autistic’. He went to London with his mother to see a special screening of a new film he really loved. He must have won a competition or something, I think. Some of the details he can’t quite remember, but he thinks it must have been London they went to, and the film…! Well, the film is one of my all-time favourites, too. It’s a dark, mysterious fantasy movie. Every single frame is crammed with puppets and goblins. There are silly songs and a goblin king who wears clingy silver tights and who kidnaps a baby and this is what kickstarts the whole adventure.
It was ‘Labyrinth’, of course, and the star was David Bowie, and he was there to meet the children who had come to see this special screening.
‘I met David Bowie once,’ was the thing that my friend said, that caught my attention.
‘You did? When was this?’ I was amazed, and surprised, too, at the casual way he brought this revelation out. Almost anyone else I know would have told the tale a million times already.
He seemed surprised I would want to know, and he told me the whole thing, all out of order, and I eked the details out of him.
He told the story as if it was he’d been on an adventure back then, and he wasn’t quite allowed to tell the story. Like there was a pact, or a magic spell surrounding it. As if something profound and peculiar would occur if he broke the confidence.
It was thirty years ago and all us kids who’d loved Labyrinth then, and who still love it now, are all middle-aged. Saddest of all, the Goblin King is dead. Does the magic still exist?
I asked him what happened on his adventure.
‘I was withdrawn, more withdrawn than the other kids. We all got a signed poster. Because I was so shy, they put me in a separate room, to one side, and so I got to meet him alone. He’d heard I was shy and it was his idea. He spent thirty minutes with me.
‘He gave me this mask. This one. Look.
‘He said: ‘This is an invisible mask, you see?
‘He took it off his own face and looked around like he was scared and uncomfortable all of a sudden. He passed me his invisible mask. ‘Put it on,’ he told me. ‘It’s magic.’
‘And so I did.
‘Then he told me, ‘I always feel afraid, just the same as you. But I wear this mask every single day. And it doesn’t take the fear away, but it makes it feel a bit better. I feel brave enough then to face the whole world and all the people. And now you will, too.
‘I sat there in his magic mask, looking through the eyes at David Bowie and it was true, I did feel better.
‘Then I watched as he made another magic mask. He spun it out of thin air, out of nothing at all. He finished it and smiled and then he put it on. And he looked so relieved and pleased. He smiled at me.
‘’Now we’ve both got invisible masks. We can both see through them perfectly well and no one would know we’re even wearing them,’ he said.
‘So, I felt incredibly comfortable. It was the first time I felt safe in my whole life.
‘It was magic. He was a wizard. He was a goblin king, grinning at me.
‘I still keep the mask, of course. This is it, now. Look.’
I kept asking my friend questions, amazed by his story. I loved it and wanted all the details. How many other kids? Did they have puppets from the film there, as well? What was David Bowie wearing? I imagined him in his lilac suit from Live Aid. Or maybe he was dressed as the Goblin King in lacy ruffles and cobwebs and glitter.
What was the last thing he said to you, when you had to say goodbye?
‘David Bowie said, ‘I’m always afraid as well. But this is how you can feel brave in the world.’ And then it was over. I’ve never forgotten it. And years later I cried when I heard he had passed.’
My friend was surprised I was delighted by this tale.
‘The normal reaction is: that’s just a stupid story. Fancy believing in an invisible mask.’
But I do. I really believe in it.
