Daniel Handler: Best breakfasts I had in 2021
Huevos Rancheros, Pork Store, San Francisco CA
Cream-cheese icing cake, unknown shop, Oxford UK
Kimchee fried rice, Robert’s house, Boonville CA
Leftover flank steak, fried eggs, homemade tortillas, Air BnB, Napa CA
5-minute egg, rye toast, off-season strawberries, home in SF
Peanut butter toast, my sister’s car after various ocean swims*
*most frequent
Clare Wadd’s Books I Read in 2021: the ones I loved and the ones that will stay with me
1. Dreamland, Rosa Rankin-Gee
2. I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain, Anita Sethi
3. Small Pleasures, Clare Chambers
4. The Doll Factory, Elizabeth Macneal
5. My Rock ’n’ Roll Friend, Tracey Thorn
6. Skint Estate: A Memoir of Poverty, Motherhood and Survival, Cash Carraway
7. Fake Accounts, Lauren Oyler
8. The Pursuit of Love, Nancy Mitford
9. Mort Sur La Lande (Vera), Ann Cleaves/Claire Breton
10. Pirenesi, Susanna Clarke
With apologies to the boys as none of them made the cut
Beth Arzy’s Top 13 Records
The Shop Window, The State of Being Human
Lancashire Bombers, Into the Sun
Wild Billy Childish & CTMF, Where the Wild Purple Iris Grows
The Umbrellas, The Umbrellas
Massage, Still Life
Hadda Be, Another Life
Reds, Pinks and Purples, Uncommon Weather
Swansea Sound, Live at the Rum Puncheon
The Jazz Butcher, The Highest in the Land
The Catenary Wires, Birling Gap
Durand Jones & the Indications, Private Space
Chime School, Chime School
Shoestrings, Expectations
Beth plays in The Luxembourg Signal, Jetstream Pony, Lightning in a Twilight Hour
Michael Azerrad’s Ten Best Vegetables and Fruits of 2021
1. Snap peas
2. Peaches
3. Ramps
4. Borlotti beans
5. Corn
6. Small russet potatoes*
7. Heirloom tomatoes
8. Golden Russet apples
9. Lion’s mane mushrooms**
10. Red Boston lettuce
* Higher skin-to-flesh ratio
** Yes, I know they’re technically not a vegetable or fruit.
Gilmore Tamny’s Chronicle of Things of Note 2021 List.
1. I started talking to myself more, drinking my coffee black, painting in earnest, eating lots of wavy potato chips, wearing eye makeup (per resolution 2021), and getting up at 5:30 a.m.
2. Turns out, I like ambient/ASMR video. There are a lot of crackling fireplaces and candles. Are the auteurs morally obligated to show responsible fire safety? I found this question more central to ethical code than I would have thought.
3. I drank coffee and made a to-do list at about 6:00 a.m. while watching a pre-recorded video of myself drinking coffee and making a to-do list about 6:00 a.m. on youtube as part of the Non-Event TV 24-Hour Fundraiser
4. I decided I wanted to grow my hair long at least once before I croak, whether it is flattering or not.
5. I enjoyed hearing Mero (of Desus and Mero) describe watching the Jan. 6 insurrection.
6. My tomato plant grew and grew and grew and finally produced one single chestnut-sized tomato.
7. Cottagecore? Hmmm.
8. I need a soap dish and discovered in resulting search I have a fairly narrow and inflexible idea of the soap dish I want.
9. Was on the receiving end of possibly the dirtiest look someone’s ever given me. No threat, –just weary disgust.
10. After watching and reading about secret societies in history, I tried to figure out a way to talk about secret societies without sounding credulous. Harder than I might have thought.
11. I found a good gingerbread recipe. Works very well with substitutes to make it vegan.
12. I discovered a friend was named after the Hawthorne story “The Old Stone Face.”
13. Learned: always close the door – car door, outside door to your building, your own apt./condo door – and lock it behind you (watch enough true crime—you’ll take my point). Stalin was involved in a bank robbery. My cat doesn’t just want me to throw any toy—but a specific toy—bouncy ball not wool ball, rattle mousekins not stuffed mousekins, etc. Hull isn’t where I thought it was. Lenin and Trotsky were Freemasons.
14. Sciatica.
15. While practicing genuine gratitude for having a roof overhead, union job, good human friends, and cat friend, I stopped smothering my distress to death with gratitude.
16. Miriam Toews’ book Fight Night is great.
Gilmore Tamny lives and works and frets in Boston, MA.
Mike Slumberland: The list nobody wants… my top new jazz/jazz-adjacent records of 2021
1. Nat Birchall – Ancient Africa (Ancient Archive of Sound)
2. Tara Clerkin Trio – In Spring (World of Echo)
3. Emanative & Liz Elensky – The Volume Of The Light (Home Planet)
4. Sam Gendel – Fresh Bread (Leaving)
5. Makaya McCraven – Deciphering The Message (Blue Note)
6. Natural Information Society – Descension (Eremite)
7. Sons of Kemet – Black To The Future (Impulse!)
8. Emma-Jean Thackray – Yellow (Movementt)
9. Rosie Turton – Expansions and Transformations: Part I & II (no label)
10. Wildflower – Better Times (Tropic of Love)
Angelina Capodanno’s 2021 lists
(Team CF, also Sony Music / Legacy Creative + Packaging, Brooklynite, Destroyer’s #1 fan)
My favorite 2021 albums:
1. Hand Habits – Fun House
2. Bachelor – Dooming Sun
3. Cory Hanson – Pale Horse Rider
4. Wednesday – Twin Plagues
5. Colleen – The Tunnel and the Clearing
6. The Mountain Movers – World What World
7. ANIKA – Change
8. Dry Cleaning – New Long Leg
9. Dummy – Mandatory Enjoyment
10. Painted Shrines – Heaven & Holy
Plus 13 more albums I liked a lot:
Nightshift – Zoe
The Goon Sax – Mirror II
Pip Blom – Welcome Break
Lewsberg – In Your Hands
Kiwi Jr – Cooler Returns
Mdou Moctar – Afrique Victime
Jane Weaver – Flock
John Andrews and the Yawns – Cookbook
Caleb Landry Jones – Gadzooks Vol 1
Snapped Ankles – Forest of Your Problems
Weak Signal – Bianca
Goat Girl – On All Fours
Circuit does Yeux –io
Favorite Concerts
Yo La Tengo Hanukkah + Low + Fred Armisen @Bowery Ballroom
Yo La Tengo Hanukkah + 11th Dream Day + Joe Pera @Bowery Ballroom
Young Guv @ Cat’s Cradle Back Room
Sweeping Promises @ Cat’s Cradle Back Room
Wet Leg @ Baby’s All Right
Mdou Moctar @Motorco Music Hall
Favorite things I watched:
PEN15
The Velvet Underground
The Wire
The White Lotus
Syracuse’s surprise Sweet 16 run in the 2021 NCAA tourney
The Card Counter
Insecure
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Breaking Bad
Favorite things I read:
But You Seemed So Happy – Kimberly Harrington
Love and Trouble – Claire Dederer
Empty: A Memoir – Susan Burton
Blow Your House Down – Gina Frangello
Somebody’s Daughter – Ashley C Ford
Sleepovers – Ashleigh Bryant Phillips
Detransition, Baby – Torrey Peters
Favorite Podcasts
The Experiment
Let’s Talk to Lucy
The Devil’s Candy: The Plot Thickens
Radiolab – Mixtape
Ali on The Run
Running Rouge
Shattered