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The Year in Music: 2020 WTF Was That? Edition

December 28, 2020

I started this year like so many of us — by declaring that 2020 was going to be my year.

Narrator: It wasn’t.

Good things happened, bad things happened, and all of it seemed to be a slog. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you about it.

Overall I was scattered and unfocused, and that was the same story with the media I consumed too. I plowed through The Great, only to stop with two episodes to go. I left more books unfinished than read. (I was so proud of myself for starting War & Peace, and then I gave up like eight pages later.) There was a two-month dry spell where I didn’t listen to any music beyond my Quarantine & Chill mix.

That said, every December I write a post listing my favorite new songs, and I have fun doing it. So here we are!

Note: For the past couple years, I’ve mashed up my favorite books with my favorite songs for a year-end wrap-up extravaganza. But in 2020 I just can’t make that work. I’m not even going to try.

If you want to know some of my favorite books of 2020 (ones I DID finish!), you can check them out here. For my favorite tunes? Keep going.

The River • Goth Babe

I listened to this song in February on a flight to San Francisco, when the world felt ripe with promise. I was working on a travel piece for a magazine, and I was thrilled about the assignment, the editor, the fine hotels where I’d be staying, old friends, multi-course meals, sexy cocktails, all of it.

It was the same weekend the city declared a state of emergency due to a growing number of Covid-19 cases.

I polled my friends on Instagram: “Should I be concerned about coronavirus?”

“Nah, just wash your hands,” most of them said.

My story never ran. The magazine has now folded. And I am concerned about coronavirus. But this song was right there with me, teetering on the edge before we plunged into the deep end.

Color My Life • Chicano Batman

In the early days of lockdown, I was diligent about being not sober. This song accompanied me on those nights.

Woo! • Remi Wolf

I know I’m not the only one who experienced this pandemic as a rollercoaster. This song was for the high points — the giddy whoosh of days that didn’t seem so hard, the good writing days or the sunny beach days — when I couldn’t feel gravity holding me down.

Say So • Doja Cat

I had a little crush on someone this spring, and that person loved this song. I still get fluttery stomach feelings whenever I hear it.

Without You • Perfume Genius

A sweet and sad confection, like getting to the middle of a Blo-Pop.

Cheap Regrets • The Districts

Here’s more of that roller coaster I was talking about. But here we’re heading down the hill.

How Will I Rest in Peace If I’m Buried By a Highway • KennyHoopla

Right about the time I felt like a glass bottle full of screams, I heard this song for the first time and instantly added it to my Spotify queue. KennyHoopla electrifies me, like a modern Bloc Party but better.

Lovefool • twocolors

I just like a good cover, and this one makes me feel like I’m a cool person who goes to clubs and NOT someone who longs for bed at 8:45 (a.m.)

IN MY ROOM! • Tatiana Hazel

Obviously this song resonates.

I am so tired of my walls.

Interstellar Love • The Avalanches ft. Leon Bridges

This is maybe the best song that samples the Alan Parsons Project that I’ve heard all year. (Fine. It’s probably the only song this year that samples the Alan Parsons Project.)

Anyway, I love everything in this layered, space-age love song, including Leon Bridges, whose voice can transport me to other galaxies.

Loner • Dehd

I get a Siouxsie Sioux vibe from lead singer Emily Kempf. Then a reviewer said this song is a spiritual cousin to “Only the Lonely,” and now I can’t shake the ghost of Roy Orbison when I listen to it.

This song is an ode to longing and loneliness, two things I’ve become intimately acquainted with in 2020. Bonus points for a video shot in Joshua Tree.

Lancaster Nights • Charlie Burg

Charlie Burg took an immersion blender to a big pot of soul, indie pop, and R&B, and the result is a creamy, comforting soup of everything I like.

Don’t Start Now • Dua Lipa

This is by far the song I listened to the most this year, and it is a direct result of spending so much damn time on the Peloton. I liked Dua Lipa before, but then I started hearing her songs in every pop ride, and it’s like anything on high rotation — one day you realize you’re a fan and you don’t even know how it happened.

(However, I distinctly remember the live DJ ride in January when Cody played air cowbell during this song, and I was IN.)

Virtual Aerobics • Wallows

Fun. Upbeat. And … it’s about a trip to San Francisco.

Wanna see music lists from previous years? Here’s 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, and 2011.

How to make a dream come true

May 11, 2020

First: Make a list of things to do before you die. Realize that you are always inching toward death and still haven’t done a single thing on that list. This is the same thing your mom did; she put things off until it was too late.

Decide to do something about it.

Quit your job. Leave home. Book some flights.

Tell yourself, “If I make it to Ha Long Bay, this trip will be a success.”

Go to Peru. Go to Bolivia. Go to Argentina. Check some things off the list.

Meet a couple of Americans and drive around South Africa with them. Live in a village. Learn to carry buckets of water on your head. Go to Uganda. Ride across the country in a minibus with 24 people and a pregnant goat. Find work as a country-western DJ for the local radio station. Learn to harvest rice.

Go to Rwanda. Spend your days teaching English to genocide survivors. Cry. Teach them to play bingo. Laugh.

Fly to Egypt and immerse yourself in ruins. Find out your grandmother died. Find out your mom is dying, really dying. Fall down a tunnel of darkness. Hole up in a yoga camp on the Red Sea.

Go to your mother’s funeral. Wrap yourself in grief. Return to Egypt on the day a revolution begins. Feel yourself unraveling.

Take a boat to Jordan. Leave when protests begin. Go to Bahrain. Leave when protests begin. Get the nagging feeling that you are creating a trail of destruction around the world.

Go to Ethiopia, an extraordinary country, and plod your way through it. Feel like you’re something less than human.

Go to India, where something in your soul clicks. Love it. Embrace it. Drink in every hot day, every fragrant spice, every bit of eye-popping color. Move into an ashram. Pray.

Go to Thailand. Work with elephants. Meet a friend from home in Bangkok. Travel with her to Cambodia. Stay with more friends. Say goodbye.

Take a bus to Vietnam. Battle Saigon’s scooter-clogged streets and get a feel for the city. Slurp down bowls of noodles. Take a bus north. When the bus breaks down for 12 hours, sleep at a bus station. When the bus works again, it’s the hottest part of the day and the air-conditioning is now broken. Sweat. Make an unplanned stop in a beach town just because you desperately need a shower.

Take more buses. Take a train. Sleep in a dirty train car on soiled sheets. Arrive in Hanoi. Ride on the back of a motorcycle with a man even sweatier than you.

Schedule a boat tour. Pack up. Get picked up at 7 a.m.

Go to Ha Long Bay.

Wake up on a boat in a bay where everything is still. Everything is perfect.

Write that story.

Go to grad school to really dig into it.

Write that story again and again, edit it, excavate it. Work on it in scraps of time between your day job, when you stay up late, when you rise at 4 a.m. to have 20 quiet minutes before the baby wakes.

Sell it.

Have the perfect editor push you where you need it. He makes you laugh, he makes you cry, but most importantly, he makes you better. He reminds you to slow down where it hurts.

And then one day, poof. You have a book.

Your story, between two covers.

It comes out tomorrow.

Enjoy.

The 2019 book and music mashup extravaganza

December 15, 2019

Remember those cologne machines in truck stop bathrooms where you could buy cheap imitations of the real thing? “If you like Obsession, you’ll love Desperate Measures.” “If you love Chanel No. 5, might as well try Channel 42.” “Love Polo Sport? Welp, here’s Fantasy Football.”

This post is like that, but in a good way. And when it’s over, you won’t smell like a quarter’s worth of sadness.

Here’s how it works: I’ve mashed together my favorite books that I read in 2019 (though not necessarily published this year) and my favorite 2019 songs. Each tune has some kind of tenuous connection with the book I paired it with, so if you like a book on this list, you’ll probably like the song too. And vice versa. So if you like Carmen Maria Machado, you’ll love Mallrat! Maybe.

Let’s get this party started!

Good Talk • Mira Jacob

A graphic novel-style memoir about American identity, race, sex, relationships, and raising a brown child in the Trump era, all told in conversations. Jacob goes to uncomfortable places and tackles the things we should be talking about but aren’t.

Mashed with: Truth Hurts • Lizzo

My Sister the Serial Killer • Oyinkan Braithwaite

A darkly funny novel about a young, beautiful Nigerian woman who can’t stop murdering her boyfriends and the exasperated but reliable sister who bails her out of trouble. Until the serial killer falls for the sister’s crush …

Mashed with: Glad He’s Gone • Tove Lo

Lost Children Archive • Valeria Luiselli

A fractured family on a road trip out west, set against the backdrop of an immigration crisis as children crossing the southern U.S. border are detained or dying in the desert. This novel was so stunning and gutting, I think I highlighted something on every page.

Mashed with: Texas Sun • Khruangbin & Leon Bridges

Red, White & Royal Blue • Casey McQuiston

A romance in which America’s First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales. I was clawing my way through a particularly low point when a friend recommended this book. Turned out a fun, flirty, escapist read was exactly what I needed.

Mashed with: boyfriend • Ariana Grande

Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls • T Kira Madden

A queer coming-of-age memoir in essays that instantly became one of my all-time favorite books. As soon as I finished, I went right back to the beginning and read it a second time to figure out how she did it.

Mashed with: Sister Sister • Palm Springsteen

Heavy • Kiese Laymon

I listened to Heavy, which is read by the author, and then I bought a print copy to hold in my hands and see the words on the page. This memoir is about the emotional and physical burden of growing up black in America, examining the secrets Laymon spent a lifetime avoiding.

Mashed with: Water Me Down • Vagabon

Once More We Saw Stars • Jayson Greene

Greene’s two-year-old daughter was sitting on a park bench in Manhattan when a brick fell from a nearby windowsill and killed her. This memoir opens with that incident and follows Greene and his wife through their journey of grief. I don’t know how he managed to craft such a wonder out of true horror, but I’m grateful he did.

Mashed with: Thank You • Quincy Mumford

In the Dream House • Carmen Maria Machado

In this memoir, Machado explores an abusive same-sex relationship through dozens of different lenses, like horror tropes, fairytales, and a devastating Choose-Your-Own-Adventure sequence. This book blew my figurative house down.

Mashed with: Groceries • Mallrat

Daisy Jones & the Six • Taylor Jenkins Reid

A romance written as an oral history of a Fleetwood Mac-ish band in the late seventies? God, just take my money already.

I devoured this book, and then I ripped through a bunch of other TJR books for good measure.

Mashed with: Van Horn • Saint Motel (which includes my favorite lyric of 2019: “Hold it steady, drill it in like you’re J. Paul Getty.”)

Kindred • Octavia Butler

Hi. I’m the one person who never read Octavia Butler before this year, and I don’t know what took me so long. This historical fiction/fantasy novel about an African-American woman in 1976 California who travels through time to antebellum Maryland is considered to be the first science fiction written by a black woman, and it’s a true classic.

Mashed with: Turn the Light • Karen O & Danger Mouse

Convenience Store Woman • Sayaka Murata

A slim novel about a woman who has no friends, no boyfriend, and no real life outside of the soothing structure of the convenience store where she has spent her entire career.

Mashed with: Class Historian • BRONCHO

The Book of Delights • Ross Gay

Ross Gay has written micro-essays about moments of delight. Some of them are guilty pleasures, some are natural joys, but most show how we are always just a few inches away from sorrow – and it can be a radical act to feel joy and gratitude in a sad world.

Speaking of guilty pleasures, I think I like Harry Styles now? And I definitely find joy in watermelon, my favorite food. So this song here is my Tune of Delights.

Mashed with: Watermelon Sugar • Harry Styles

Dreyer’s English • Benjamin Dreyer

This is a funny, clever grammar book that I tore through like a juicy novel.

I’ve paired it here with Goth Babe, which has been my favorite writing music lately.

Mashed with: Weekend Friend • Goth Babe

How to Stay Human in a Fucked-Up World • Tim Desmond

Finally a mindfulness book that doesn’t feel like it was written by a blissful, solitary monk on a mountaintop. This is real talk and real meditation exercises for the real (fucked-up) world.

I Feel Emotion • Operators

Of course I have more favorites that didn’t make it into this smashup. For the books I read this year, peep my Goodreads and to see other 2019 songs I loved, here’s my playlist.

Wanna see lists from previous years? Here’s 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, and 2011.

NOTE: There are affiliate links in this post. So if you click through and buy something, it doesn’t change anything on your end; it just means Amazon gives me a few pennies, which I use to help pay for this site because I am happy to take their money.

2017 Best books + best songs mashup

December 9, 2017

To mark the end of 2017, I mashed up my favorite songs of the year with the best books I read this year – kind of like a “Like that tune? Then you’ll love this book!” (This is not my idea, by the way. I saw @keyairruh do this on Twitter with pairings of albums and books, and I loved it.)

Some of the books and songs are paired because they are thematically similar or share the same sensibility. A few of the songs had lyrics that reminded me of the text. And some are mashed together just because they evoked similar feelings in me.

Keep in mind, I’ve been sick for one-going-on-two weeks and I’m delirious right now. So if these pairings don’t make sense, blame it on Flupocalypse 2017. But if the results are totally awesome, then it was me, all me.

Enjoy.

Split Stones • Maggie Rogers + Goodbye, Vitamin • Rachel Khong

Thirty-year-old Ruth, fresh from a breakup, quits her job and returns home to help her father, who is slipping into dementia. This is a beautiful story about devotion and what it means to be a family, and I found it almost painfully relatable.

Dreams • Beck + The Humans • Matt Haig

I won’t try to describe this novel because then you won’t read it. I’ll just say that it made me feel better about being a human, which is exactly what I needed this year.

Blow Your Mind (Mwah) • Dua Lipa + We Are Never Meeting in Real Life • Samantha Irby

An essay collection that made me laugh until I wheezed. I bought this for my flight home from Spain, and I have zero regrets.

Bike Dream • Rostam + A Separation • Katie Kitamura

A meditative and suspenseful novel about the end of a marriage and the things people never reveal to each other.

Havana • Camila Cabello (ft. Young Thug) + Best Women’s Travel Writing, Vol. 11* • Edited by Lavinia Spalding

*Full disclosure: This anthology contains one of my essays, so you can trust me when I say it was the best book of the year.

Also I had a hard time deciding between “Havana” and this song to illustrate it. I’m kind of obsessed with both of them.

In Undertow • Alvvays + Little Fires Everywhere • Celeste Ng

The book starts with a literal fire and works backward to explore the conflicts that set the community ablaze.

Green Light • Lorde + Catalina • Liska Jacobs

The dark, deeply resonant story of a woman’s downward spiral.

The Underside of Power • Algiers + Born a Crime • Trevor Noah

The harrowing life of a comic coming of age during the end of apartheid in South Africa.

Quiet • MILCK + The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage • Jared Yates Sexton

An honest and often disturbing look at the 2016 election.

Happy Wasteland Day • Open Mike Eagle + The Hate U Give • Angie Thomas

A riveting YA book about a girl who witnesses the shooting death of her friend at the hands of a police officer.

Over Everything • Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile + The One-Eyed Man • Ron Currie

A grieving man devotes himself to radical honesty, which turns out to be equal parts hilarious and infuriating.

Supermodel • SZA + One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter • Scaachi Koul

An essay collection from one of my favorite fresh voices.

Shh Shh Shh • Boss Hog + What You Don’t Know • JoAnn Chaney

A thriller that kept me up all night long.

The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness • The National + The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir • Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

One of the most exquisite books I’ve ever read. It’s a masterful memoir about obsession and how scars can last for generations.

Feel It Still • Portugal, the Man + The Power • Naomi Alderman

I’m still high on this book, in which women suddenly gain the power to shock people with their hands, an exhilarating antidote to the news cycle.

What were your top books and songs this year? Do you have any good pairings for me?

Note: This post contains affiliate links. That means if you purchase a book through my links, it’s no additional cost to you and Amazon will throw a few cents my way. It’s helps to keep the lights on around here, and I appreciate it. Thank you!

Great Books to Read During Bed Rest

September 4, 2017

One of my friends has a friend currently on bed rest, and she asked for some book recommendations to help make the time pass. My friend asked me for some suggestions.

It reminded me of how I passed the month of November 2008. I had just donated my bone marrow to a stranger, and the recovery was longer and more painful than I expected. (I would happily do it again, though.)

My friend Maria showed up to my condo with a brown grocery sack of novels, including the Undead paranormal romance series, about a woman named Elizabeth (Betsy) Taylor who loses her job, gets killed, and becomes queen of the vampires, all on the same day. Betsy is kind of like Alicia Silverstone in Clueless-meets-Pam from True Blood, and the books are every bit as addictive as drinking blood. Or so I’m told.

Maria also brought me a little series called Twilight. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

I loved these books with no regrets, even while others might scoff at them, because they brought me out of my body at a time I didn’t want to be in it. Each novel was highly engaging, page-turny, and exactly what I needed at that time — and I still think about all those stories fondly.

So trust me, I know what a joy it is to receive a huge stack of books during a time of forced rest. The ideal bed rest book is immersive, has quick action, and is compelling enough to transport the reader to some far-off place.

Here are the suggestions I gave my friend. If you have others, I’d love to hear them in the comments:

• The Sun is Also a Star – Nicola Yoon

This is a YA book about two tenagers who fall in love on a street in New York just hours before the girl’s family is about to be deported. The story is told in alternating chapters from the perspectives of different characters (not just the two teenagers, but the security guard at the court building, for instance), and it’s sweet without being sappy.

• Anything by Rainbow Rowell, because her stories are always sharp and funny and compulsively readable, particularly Eleanor & Park, and Attachments

• Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun, and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes

This was less of an instructional self-help book and more of a memoir. Shonda is funny, her life experiences are relatable, and the book is a quick, inspiring read.

• What You Don’t Know – JoAnn Chaney

Into thrillers? I am not, and I loved every word of this one. My friend JoAnn wrote this twisted and gripping novel about a serial killer in Denver and the female reporter who gets a little too close to the story.

• Girl in the Dark – Anna Lyndsey

This is memoir that might be relatable for someone on bed rest. It’s about a woman who develops an allergy to light, so she is forced to stay in her house, only going outside on moonless nights.

• Kitchens of the Great Midwest – J. Ryan Stradal

A novel in connected stories about a Midwestern girl who becomes an acclaimed chef. J. Ryan is from the Midwest and he tells the story with so much warmth for the region and the cuisine.

• Love Me Anyway – Tiffany Hawk

This is another book written by a friend. It’s a novel about two young flight attendants experiencing the world, taking journeys, and coming of age at 35,000 feet.

• Yes, Please – Amy Poehler

Funny, of course. It’s Amy Poehler, and everything she does is gold. And the birth plan chapter still hits home for me.

• Daughter of Smoke and Bone – Laini Taylor

Follow Karou through the streets of Prague with this fanciful, mysterious novel. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious errands, she speaks many languages, and her hair actually grows out of her head blue. Who is she?

• The Uglies series – Scott Westerfeld

The Hunger Games meets that awful show The Swan in this series about a dystopian world in which every 16-year-old is required to have cosmetic surgery to become “pretty.” It’s chilling how such a beautiful world can become so ugly.

Full disclosure: This post contains some affiliate links. If you buy something through the link, you won’t pay any more, but I will get a small percentage that helps keep the lights on around here. Thank you!

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