Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Year's End, Berlin's End, Begin Again


Yes, all right, I'm feeling more than a little nostalgic lately.

The thing about timing things such that the year is ending just at the same time that you're uprooting your entire life is that it makes everything feel really rather cataclysmic!

I was in the supermarket today (some of the employees were wearing party hats – aw!) and even the sight of the rows of jam-filled doughnuts in the bakery (it's a new year's tradition in this part of Germany, with one unlucky person biting into the one in each batch that's filled with mustard, a practice that reminds me of the lucky toy or coin hidden in a king cake on Twelfth Night or Mardi Gras...except, you know, less pleasant, 'cause it's mustard) made me sigh with fondness for dear, strange, often exasperating, yet entirely familiar Germany.

In an odd way, I hope that leaving will make me love Berlin even more, and that coming back to visit will allow me to just 100% enjoy this place, rather than trying to enjoy the cool stuff about it while also being bogged down in the frustrations of daily life. Who can say (since I never can seem to plan my life more than a couple months ahead), but my idea is definitely that Berlin will continue to be part of my life, a place that I can always visit back to and that will always feel at least in some way like home.

And Iceland. I want Iceland to continue being part of my life, too. (In my head, I've been working on a goofy metaphor wherein the US is my family and always will be, Germany is my friend and housemate of so many years that we know all each other's quirks, but Iceland is my (not-so) secret crush, the one that gives me butterflies in my stomach even just to say its name.)

Oh, by the way, here's how empty the apartment looked in the end – yesterday, when I handed over the keys. Looking very pretty and tidy and clean, if I do say so myself! (Germany, possibly the only country where you have to invest more time and money and energy in an apartment when you move out than when you move in.)


Feeling nostalgic, I also took a bunch of pictures of the rest of the building, and some silly self-portraits in the cool mirrors in the entryway – it's one of these gorgeous turn-of-the-last-century, art-deco-y classic Berlin apartment buildings.


Happy new year, everyone! What a year it's been. May the next one be just as exciting, but with way fewer of the terrible things going on in the wider world. Once again, I'm going to close out the year by quoting Josh Ritter, because I really think he's got the right life attitude in so very much of what he does:

I'm inside with my friends
We build fires and pretend
That the night could just bend on forever
While outside in the frost
Are the wolves and the lost
And we sing to the dogs or whoever

Singing don't let me into this year with an empty heart
With an empty heart
Don't let me into this year with an empty heart


Music: A Year in Review

Last year, I got inspired to write a "top 5" list of the books I'd read; this year, even though I wrote and read a lot (I read 38 books this year! I'm pleased about that!), I think I'm going to reflect on music instead.

Here, in no particular order, is a completely inconclusive and off-the-cuff list of just a few of the musicians I loved discovering this year:

Svavar Knútur! His music certainly wasn't new to me, but this was the year I also got to know him as a friend, while hanging out in Iceland. He's an awesome dude, with a sometimes truly wicked sense of humor and an incongruously sweet voice. I can never pick just one song of his, but here are two that have been in my head lately: Wanderlust (gets in my head whenever I think about leaving; also, before his Berlin concert this fall, I asked him if he was going to play it, and when he did, he dedicated it to me!) and Clementine (sweet and sad and yet somehow the tiniest bit hopeful, too).

Halla Norðfjörð: Another Iceland discovery; she's a friend of Elín Ey (a musician I deeply admire and was deeply thrilled to get to know a bit while I was in Iceland). I met Halla in Elín's kitchen, and only later discovered how wonderful her music is and how captivating her voice. Check out her title track, The Bridge.

Lucie Thorne: She played at one of my friend Sam's Sofa Salon concerts, and I fell in love. Try Till the Season.

Laura Marling: I certainly can't claim to have first discovered this year, but her cover of Bruce Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark, oh my god.

Markéta Irglová most certainly was not new to me this year, either, but she was a big theme to my year (we almost got to meet...so many times!) and this song is one I sang to myself as I walked around Reykjavík in the sunlight, thinking about the future: Only Love Is Real.

• Honorable mentions: I periodically rediscover Rufus Wainwright, and love him even more each time. Also, is this video of his not the sexiest thing ever? Ásgeir Trausti is yet another fantastic Icelandic find! I enjoy him so much, I bought his album in both English and Icelandic. A friend pointed me to this song by Vienna Teng – isn't it lovely? And of course I never get tired of Glen Hansard, and I love how he leads me to other musicians I might otherwise never have gotten around to – like when he covered Drive All Night. And then there's my friend/acquaintance/admiree Elín's new band with her two sisters, they of the family heritage in beautiful voices and gorgeous harmonies. Individually, all three of them do quiet, acoustic stuff, but together they're a super-hip techno outfit called Sísý Ey (named after their grandmother!), who wear wild outfits and dance around to the beat and just totally own the stage. Their big single is Ain't Got Nobody.

• And it's not music, but John Finnemore's stunningly talented writing continued to make his radio comedy Cabin Pressure one of the best things on the airwaves anywhere. The long, long awaited final episode just aired last week.

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Moving Progress


YES. YES YES YES YES.

Empty apartment achieved! Here it is on the last night before the painter started work, with nothing left but two boxes I then shipped to the US the next morning, plus a mattress that's now being stored with my neighbor.

YES.