My 2009 Favorites List

Anastasia
Fri, 01 Jan 2010 02:52:24 +0000
What's Happening, books, family, friends, movies, music, retrospective, travel

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.