Dec 31 2009
My 2009 Favorites List
in London (photo by Chris Dent)
On this eve of a new decade / year, here’s a retrospective of 2009 with some of my favorite things. (This is a personal post; check out this blog post for our 2009 biz/Juxtaprose thanks!)
places visited:
- Myvatn Nature Baths, Myvatn, Iceland
- the chocolate stores, galleries, and museums of Paris, France
- wandering through London on a beautiful fall day
concerts / live performances:
- Leonard Cohen (Coachella)
- The Flaming Lips (Marymoor Park)
- Akron/Family (Bumbershoot)
album(s) (in no particular order):
- The Avett Brothers: I and Love and You
- Bill Callahan: Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
- Amadou & Miriam: Welcome to Mali
- Built to Spill: There Is No Enemy
- Yo La Tengo: Popular Songs
- Wilco: Wilco
- The Flaming Lips: Embryonic
- St. Vincent: Actor
- Rodrigo y Gabriel: 11:11
- Mr. Smolin: Bring Back the Real Don Steele
- Akron/Family: Set ’em Wild, Set ’em Free
- Taken By Trees: East of Eden
- Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion
- Neko Case: Middle Cyclone
- Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest
- Leonard Cohen: Live in London
movies (note: I didn’t check the dates; I think these were all 2009; or at least I saw them in 2009):
- Inglorious Basterds
- Man on Wire
- Up
- The Fantastic Mr. Fox
- Extract (just saw this last night; so funny!)
tv (basically didn’t watch any live tv this year; all tv shows were via web streaming / DVD; we’re still 1-2 seasons behind on some of these; shhh):
- Dollhouse
- Damages
- Mad Men
- Battlestar Gallactica (maybe not the ending, but the rest of it was very enjoyable)
books I read this year (not all from 2009; I rarely read books when they first come out):
- Revenge of the Spellmans: Lisa Lutz (the exception to the 2009 pub date; I also read the first draft of The Spellmans Strike Again (coming March 2010!)
- The Girl who Fell from the Sky: Heidi W. Durrow (one of our clients, I got a manuscript version of her book, coming February 2010—definitely keep an eye out)
- What the Dead Know: Laura Lippman
- The Maisie Dobbs series: Jacqueline Winspear
- Innocent Blood: P.D. James (I picked this up at an “English Pub” in Paris, where they had a wall full of English language books)
- The Road: Cormac McCarthy (I don’t think I’m going to ruin the book by seeing the movie)
food / dining:
- Chez Omar, Paris
- all the fresh food from our garden!
- weekly fresh salmon from the Farmer’s Market during the summer, grilled on our grill with freshly picked corn, and a bottle of wine
- John Henry’s, Palm Springs
chocolate (yes, it gets its own category):
- La Chocolaterie de Jacques Genin, Paris (no website, but check out this article)
- Chocolate Mussy, Paris (8 rue du Bourg Tibourg, Marais)
art:
- André Kertéz photography exhibit at the Reykjavik Library (Iceland)
- Ara Güler photography exhibit, Paris
- Ferdinando Scianna photography exhibit, Paris
- Photoquai 2009, Paris
- visiting the Louvre, the Rodin Museum, and seeing all the amazing art in Paris
chance meeting:
- meeting and talking with the fine art photographer Tim Rudman and his wife, Ingrid Rudman, at Lake Myvatn in Iceland; then running into them again, two days later, in a totally different part of Iceland and having another great conversation
spa experience(s):
- Olympus Spa (Lynnwood, WA) – where I spent 6 hours of my 38th birthday!
- all the hot pools of Iceland: Myvatn Nature Baths and the “swimming pools” of Husavik and Reykjavik
None of these things would have been the same had I not shared them with friends, family, a cranky cat, and “strangers” met along the way. Mostly none would have been the same without Jay (I love you!). Looking forward to more adventures in 2010 and beyond.