2012: our top ten lists (round one)

gail’s top ten list

  1. black tambourine hitting the stage at artisphere on april 7, 2012.
  2. pretty much every chickfactor show (there were 12). the things people said to me onstage and off reminded me why I do/did what I do/did and reminded me of my place in the universe. (I love you new york. I love you london. I love you sf. I love you d.c. I love you l.a. I love you portland)
  3. meeting grass widow, having a great photo shoot and seeing them play three times!
  4. going back to school. I studied psychology and the brain and stress management and public health. neurogenesis!
  5. weekend in olympia. lois, tae, momtch, nikki & calvin’s birthday.
  6. the oregon coast.
  7. watching the dolly mixture documentary with donovan kelly (son of debsey from dolly mixture!)
  8. saint etienne on halloween in portland! also: watching an MLS game with bob beforehand.
  9. may 30: spending the day with joe pernice. we ate lunch, we ran errands, we shopped for bmx bike parts, we talked about music, he chased a petty criminal who stole an iphone, he slept in my car, he played an amazing set at our portland chickfactor party at bunk bar.
  10. portland timbers win the cascadia cup.

hannah grass widow’s list

  1. starting our own label (HLR) and releasing internal logic
  2. getting obsessed with silver apples
  3. touring with the raincoats and joining them to sing “lola” every night
  4. discovering pimm’s cup
  5. scrapers band
  6. making 8 music videos and completely losing my mind.
  7. wet hair band
  8. hollywood nails
  9. stray light gray exhibit at marlborough gallery
  10. shockwave video nights in the cinecave at lost weekend

top ten poetry collections by daniel handler

  1. eileen myles – snowflake
  2. matthew dickman, mayakovsky’s revolver
  3. heather christle, what is amazing
  4. frederick seidel, nice weather
  5. emily petit, goat in the snow
  6. emily kendal frey, the grief performance
  7. dorothea lasky, thunderbird
  8. paul legault, the emily dickinson reader
  9. david ferry, bewilderment
  10. mary jo bang, dante’s inferno

jim ruiz’s top ten belgian or dutch beers he tried this year and liked, with insightful comments

  1. lindeman’s apple. this ain’t cider, takes a moment to adjust but then—yummy!
  2. texels skuumkoppe. tried this in Amsterdam, as the name implies, creamy and delicious.
  3. liefman’s fruitesse. light and refreshing.
  4. casteel rouge. on tap. I’m no beer snob, I just like it. my favorite kriek so far.
  5. delierium tremens. if I’m in the mood for the old straight and narrow, this is as good a belgian as any.
  6. brouwerij timmermans—john martins, bourgogne des flandres. bruin sour beer is a challenging but sometimes it really hits the spot.
  7. heineken—on tap at the melkweg. heineken is better in the netherlands, a very pleasant surprise!
  8. unknown brand gueuze—tried this at tim’s house in london. tart but lovely.
  9. la chouffe—a blonde, lighter by belgian standards.
  10. la brasserie dupont—saison dupont. to be honest, one of the first belgians I tried. still love it.

top ten chapters of moby dick by lois maffeo

are you listening to the moby dick big read? all 135 chapters, one a day, read by academics, writers, marine biologists, melville keeners and movie stars! here are my top ten chapters of the 92 chapters read to date here.

  1. chapter 1 – loomings. read by tilda swinton.

“I always go to sea as a sailor because  they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I’ve ever heard of.”

  1. chapter 11 – nightgown. read by neil tennant.

“truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast.” seems like a very pet shop boy-y thing to say.

  1. chapter 24 – the advocate. read by james woudhuysen.

“among people at large, the business of whaling is not accounted on the level with what are called the liberal professions.” defending the whalemen of the charge that they are all misfit wasters.

  1. chapter 58 – brit. read by benedict cumberbatch.

he makes the word “vast” sound way more vast that the way I say it. (when I say it it rhymes with fast. when he says it, it’s like someone fell into deep space. vaaaaahhhhhhssssst.)

  1. chapter 78 – cistern and buckets. read by david piper. in which a fellow with a speaking voice like david niven reads the thrilling story of tashtego falling into a dead whale as it is being butchered. “and with a horrible, oily gurgling, went clean out of sight.”
  2. chapter 65 – the whale as a dish. read by hugh fearnly-whittingstall.

if you are even glancingly familiar with HFW’s food column in the guardian, you will not in any way find it odd to hear him here describing balls of barbecued porpoise.

  1. chapter 54 – the town-ho’s story. read by joanna hollingworth.

this is moby dick in miniature. and if you only have 45 minutes to spare (rather than 4 months) this shipboard revenge tale is the way to go.

  1. chapter 68 – the blanket. read by andrew brewerton.

beautiful, codeine-slow delivery punctuated by an engaging pronunciation of blubber.

  1. chapter 15 – chowder. read by peter burgess.

“clam or cod?”

  1. chapter 42 – the whiteness of the whale. read by will self.

“bethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds of spiritual wonderment and pale dread in which that white phantom sails in all imaginations? not coleridge first threw that spell; but god’s great, unflattering laureate, nature.”

peter momtchiloff’s top 12 favourite recent records

  1. cate le bon: cyrk
  2. goat: world music
  3. beth jeans houghton: yours truly, cellophane nose
  4. om: advaitic songs
  5. the magnetic fields: love at the bottom of the sea
  6. hooded fang: album
  7. nicki minaj: pink friday – roman reloaded
  8. cornershop: urban turban
  9. earth: angels of darkness, angels of light 2
  10. burning hearts: extinctions
  11. django django: django django
  12. cats on fire: all blackshirts to me

top ten words gail doesn’t want to hear in 2013

  1. chillax
  2. chillwave
  3. darkwave
  4. LOL
  5. EDM
  6. skrillex
  7. totes
  8. amazeballs
  9. adorbs
  10. and most of all: just sayin’

top ten words no one wants to hear / other people added to my list on a major social media site

  1. awesomesauce
  2. cray-cray
  3. nom nom nom
  4. hot mess
  5. douchebag / douchey
  6. boom
  7. curated (when it has zero to do with art)
  8. adorkable (see zooey deschanel)
  9. no worries
  10. also: “said no one ever.” wow factor. pop up shop. boutique. artisanal. “I know, right?” really? seriously? webinar. that moment…. melty. moist. chilling out loud. this. best.donut.ever. meme. yay. like. laters. so there’s that.

photograph of black tambourine by jim spellman.