Tag: Review

twenty twenty four

Just in time for my always-on-time annual retrospective.

photo of rosebushes on a beach

2024 found me living in Toronto with a pickup truck and motorcycle. And Emmanuela, of course.

I figure I dropped over a thousand bucks on concert tickets in 2024 – money well spent. Sat front row at the DBT’s SRO show, saw Sturgill Simpson (aka Johnny Blue Skies) and Waxahatchee at Massey Hall with Emmanuela, and caught my 3rd Bruce Springsteen show at the Scotiabank Arena. Messi played in Toronto, and I watched him do it. Traveled to Maine, Vancouver, Tofino, Egypt, Mt. Washington, and points in between. What a year.

David “Tank” Abbott’s autobiographical trilogy won the coveted BOTY* award for 2024 – the only official recognition this year, due to the award committee’s extended recess.

I’ve never followed the UFC; I came across the books through an interview that Tank, an early UFC athlete, gave. The series chronicles Tank finding the UFC when he was half-heartedly pursuing a history degree and whole heartedly starting and finishing serious bar brawls in Southern California. I love reading writers who “aren’t” writers – Tank’s stuff is simple and authentic. 

Until (sometime) next year.

-E

*Book of the year

Previous years: 2023: living on rock and roll, review 2022, 2021, the highly anticipated 2020 review, _ _ _ _ of 2019, 2018.

2023: living on rock and roll

An abstract landscape image of a lake at dusk
Looking southwest, where the Petawawa River feeds into Whitson Lake.

2023 rocked.

Albums of the year:
Cat in the Rain – Turnpike Troubadours
Weathervanes – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
History Books – Gaslight Anthem

The Turnpike Troubadours and Gaslight Anthem both ended extended hiatuses by releasing excellent albums.

Jason Isbell continues to kill it, his 2023 album “Weathervanes” has been endorsed by both Barack Obama and Ellsworth Bell.

Shows of the year:
The Mallett Brother’s Band – The Waterhole, Saranac Lake NY
Bruce Springsteen – UBS Arena, Long Island NY
Eyelids – The Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto ON

Emmanuela and I saw the Mallett Brothers rip up the Waterhole in Saranac Lake on NYE. The band played from 10 pm to 1:15 am. I was tasked with dropping balloons from the balcony at the stroke of midnight and met Dean, a groomer operator who records concerts on his days off – the guy has sound board recordings of Grateful Dead shows in the 90s (and much more).

I lived the American cliche, going to a Springsteen show with my father, balancing out my newly minted Canadian permanent residency.

Books of the year:
The Violent Bear It Away – Flannery O’Connor
The Frackers – Gregory Zuckerman
A Late Encounter with the Enemy – Flannery O’Connor

After reading O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find, I was hooked. Her writing doesn’t cater to you, it drops you into the plot and pulls you out into stream of consciousness expositions. But, her stories and prose are so rich that flipping back and rereading doesn’t bother me at all.

I love satire – I still remember reading Swift’s A Modest Proposal in high school and laughing out loud when I caught on. A Late Encounter had a similar ah-ha moment.

Travel back in time: review 2022, 2021, the highly anticipated 2020 review, _ _ _ _ of 2019, 2018.