Not that it makes any difference, really — the year was what it was, and no amount of whining will change that — but I’m not a big fan of 2019.
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If I had to assign a single word to describe 2019, I think I’d choose “rough,” though I’ll admit that I’m not sure if that’s just recency bias; this last semester was especially difficult, and that may be coloring my memory of the whole year.
And I’m sure that it doesn’t help that our political landscape is a dumpster fire, and the people with the power to put it out claim that there is no dumpster fire, and even if there were a dumpster fire, well, what’s wrong with that? And, anyway, if the dumpster wants to burn, that’s its Constitutional right.
Anyway… here is a relatively unorganized sampling of the year, as I experienced it:
The most important book I read
In 2019, I came across two books that impacted me deeply, both of which I wrote about: Tara Brach’s Radical Acceptance and Matt Walker’s Why We Sleep, for which I wrote a “What I’m Reading” and a follow up post. It’s hard to choose between the two, but at the level of purely practical, meaningful change, I have to give this category to Walker.
Walker’s book ties a lot of disparate sleep research together, showing how the different aspects of sleep interact. This enables us to decide which of his (and other sleep experts’) recommendations might be most important for us. In my case, I learned that the “blue light” of computer monitors or phone screens doesn’t really have much effect on me. I can (though it’s still not wise) browse Facebook or slide down the YouTube rabbit hole right until I head to bed, with no noticeable effect on my sleep.
However, if I’m not consistent — if I mess too much with the times I go to sleep or wake up — I find myself in pretty bad shape. If I want to get my seven or eight hours of sleep each night, I need to be sure I crawl into, and drag my sorry ass out of, bed at about the same time every day.
And I can’t emphasize enough what a difference adequate rest makes. I handle all the craziness — national/political, familial, professional, personal — much better when I’ve had my sleep. And I recognize this fact in large part because of Walker’s book.
My most enjoyable (re)read
I wrote earlier about how I’ve grown suspicious of “favorites” in my life. Part of that realization came when I noticed how crazy I get when I hear that William Gibson is going to release a new novel.
I mean, I’ve long said that Pynchon is my favorite author, and I certainly feel a lot of anticipation when I hear he is publishing a new book. But I don’t go back and re-read his earlier books in preparation for the new one. (For one thing, they’re just too long and complex….)
The last two times that new Gibson books were released, though, I did just that: I re-read his whole damn ouevre, including the steampunk novel that I don’t really understand and thus don’t like that much, before the new book dropped.
I didn’t go quite as crazy this time; for his soon-to-be-released Agency, due in January, I decided to re-read two of his books: Neuromancer — one of maybe two exemplars of cyberpunk (the other being Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, though that came out six years later) — simply because I love that book; and The Peripheral, to which the new book is a sequel.
I can’t get enough of Gibson. I expect I’ll re-read the rest of his books over the course of the next year. I like his work that much.
My biggest disappointment
Way back at the beginning of the year, I announced what I called my “year of living short fiction,” in which I committed to write 25 short stories over the course of the year.
I finished one story. I was close to finishing a second; I have a couple days left in the year, so maybe I’ll force myself to crank out the ending. But either way… not 25.
Part of me wants to say that this was just another New Year’s Resolution, and we all know how those go, right? But no. The real issue is that I never followed through with the simplest (though not easiest) of habits: to sit down and write each day.
Lots of excuses, but no defensible reasons — even in a “rough” year.
My favorite cosplay
I have a guilty pleasure: I like cosplay.
I don’t mean that I like cosplaying myself; pretty much every attempt I’ve made at costumery has failed, with one possible exception: one Hallowe’en, I was almost turned away from a party because the hosts thought I really was a homeless drunk.
But I’ve admired cosplayers for some time now — probably at least since I saw this video of London cosplayers lip syncing to P!nk’s “Raise Your Glass.” If I watch it once, I’ll watch it five times in a row; it’s that fun. The song is not only great, but it’s on point; the costumes are top notch; and the editing is both joyful and subtle.
So I’ve been following a handful of cosplayers on Twitter, admiring their level of commitment and the quality of their costumes. (And, yes, I apparently enjoy women in costumes. I did mention that it was a guilty pleasure, right?)
One popular costume is that of Black Cat, a Marvel character who has alternately been enemy and love interest to Spider-Man. Lots of permutations, lost of cool costumes.
One in particular has really stood out. Luna — @lunaevayg on Twitter — just doesn’t look like the others. I’m mean, it’s the same costume. But she wears it with such attitude, with an air of haughtiness that the others just can’t match.
Just as cool is the way she edits her photos: she puts her Black Cat in gritty, urban settings — a subway, a mesh gate, a rooftop skyline, a street of red neon. Gritty.
Technically, I’m cheating here. I first saw her pictures in 2018. But I ordered prints to support her work, and they only arrived at the beginning of this year. And though I’ve enjoyed the creations of lots of cosplayers all year — including lots of Black Cats — very few rise to the level of Luna’s.
There’s been an added bonus to following her on Twitter, too: ella vive en España, y yo quiero aprender español. Soy muy despacio, por supuesto, pero… aprendo. Aprendo.
My biggest challenge
Parenting.
I can’t talk a lot about this; I’ll just say that I’m not thinking here of the challenges inherent in having teenage boys; I’m really thinking about my responses to those challenges. But I can’t write about my responses without explaining what I’m responding to — and the kids have a right to their privacy.
So I’ll just leave it here: parenting has been my biggest challenge of the year, hands down.
A close second for my biggest challenge
I decided that I was going to incorporate video into my online course. This was close to a requirement, if I were to be allowed to continue teaching online.
I say it was “close to a requirement” because, while I did need to incorporate video, I didn’t need to do it the way I chose to. But since I’m interested in building a YouTube channel anyway, I chose to jump right in and replace a lot of the written “lecture” with video explanations. Two birds, one stone, and all that.
A pretty significant majority of the students liked the videos — at least, they told me they did, both in anonymous surveys and in their reflection essay at the end of the semester. But it’s time consuming — adapting written lectures to spoken ones, setting up and shooting video, editing to both cut out the mess-ups and to insert visual aids (usually just text, but still…), uploading, captioning, integrating into the CMS itself. There’s a lot.
In the end, there was no way that I could keep up with both creating video and, oh, say, grading. I had to abandon making videos for the last third or so of the course just to get caught up with feedback to the students.
A definite mixed result. But the delays in grading come pretty close to outweighing the videos’ success. Realizing that or, more accurately, admitting that, especially so late in the semester, created a lot of stress, and is the main reason I would describe the semester as rough.
The movie I found most interesting
I tried to increase both number and range of movies I watched this year. I love movies of pretty much every kind (the main exception: I don’t like slasher films), but if I don’t pay attention, I’ll end up watching only the ones with marketing hype and big explosions.
So this year I put together a little checklist to be sure I didn’t just watch fast-food films; for each blockbuster-esque movie, I made sure to sneak in a classic of cinema, or an old noir thriller, or a documentary.
I’ve really enjoyed the variety. I had kind of forgotten the power and depth that film can have, especially since many of the big tent movies have been so good.
Said another way: I understand Scorcese’s argument about how “cinema,” with its risk and unpredictability, is being crowded out by predictable franchise films. I see value in the latter — hell, I love those films — but I was only reminded how many other things are possible in film when I forced myself to broaden my viewing habits. And I agree with Scorcese: it would be a shame if superhero movies sucked the oxygen out of the rest of the industry.
All that said: of the 40 or so movies I watched this year (I may sneak another one in tonight!), the one that most stood out to me — released at the end of 2018, though I didn’t catch it in the theater until this year — was Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
I loved it from beginning to end. I loved above all that it was animated. As much as I’ve enjoyed the live-action comics films — pretty much all the films in the Marvel Universe, as well as Wonder Woman and the Netflix versions of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage — the animation in Spider-Verse captures something about comic books — a feel, a mood, a flamboyance, a magic — that live-action-plus-CG simply flattens. (Yes, animation is CG, I guess, but if you saw the film, you know what I’m talking about.)
And just a quick aside: I don’t get all the straight-white-boy angst about multicultural and/or gender-bent characters. I mean, we white dudes have been represented quite well over the years, thank you very much. It will be a really long time before we’re even close to under-represented. And — more important to me, anyway — I am really enjoying the renaissance of representation. Black/Latino Spider-Man? Black horror? Women protagonists (and directors)? More, please.
Most delightful music discovery
Billie Eilish on James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke. Seventeen years old, at the time the video was made (she just turned eighteen) — and she’s smart, talented, funny. Just as impressive, given the crazy ride of her popularity, she seems grounded and authentic.
And she recorded her first album at home, in her brother’s bedroom. One barrier to creating great sounding music — the need for expensive studio time — is pretty much gone.
My most read blog entry
My response to the editorial from Christianity Today‘s Mark Galli has more than twice the views of any of my other posts, even though (apart from this post) it’s my latest post. (To be clear, we’re not talking big numbers here: as I write this, “Christianity Today, today” is only approaching 60 views. But other posts only hit 25 views at their best. Humble beginnings…..)
I blame my friend (and bass player from the old band) Curtis for the additional views. After he shared my post on Facebook, a handful of his friends dropped in to see what the fuss was. The power of a published author, I guess.
Speaking of which:
The friend I’m most proud of
The aforementioned Wm. Curtis Holtzen’s first book, The God Who Trusts, was just released (by a real, live, reputable publisher!) a couple weeks ago. I got my copy, which I plan to read over my winter break.
I’m no kind of theist, so I’m sure I’ll be mostly mystified. But the book is has received strong reviews from people who work and write in this space.
So: congratulations, Curtis. (And I don’t want to hear any of that “Aw shucks, it’s nothing” nonsense. It’s a big deal.)
My best purchase of the year (under $50)
Over the past couple of years, I’ve tried a handful of bags for hauling my work around — books, file folders, a laptop. I’ve tried larger or smaller, cheap canvas or mid-rangey leather, backpacks or briefcases. Generally, I don’t like spending money on such things; I always figure I should be able to put up with whatever I choose. So I’ve suffered with each for longer than I probably needed to.
But I finally found one that I like: a Matein Travel Laptop Backpack. Spacious, without being bulky. Comfortable to wear or carry. Plenty room for my laptop. And there’s an external USB port that hooks up to a battery for charging phones and such… I don’t have much else to say about it, as anything I would say should be true of any backpack.
But it isn’t true of just any backpack. I am pleased to have discovered it. I bought one for each of the kids, and they seem to like them, too — but they’re teenagers, so who knows? They’re not easy to read.
My best purchase of the year (over — well over! — $50)
A few years ago, I bought a second monitor for my computer. It was a revelation: I had no idea how much time and mental energy I’d spent sizing and switching among windows. I’m not positive that I actually became more productive — my real problem is usually laziness or procrastination — but I did notice a significant reduction in stress. It’s much easier to see everything laid out than to hunt for the right window all the time.
Last year, I started dabbling in video production, and found myself frustrated with dual monitors. I wanted to stretch my editing program (Adobe Premiere) across both monitors — so many things are easier with more real estate devoted to the timeline — but the gap between monitors made it hard. I spent far too many hours fine-tuning my workspaces, only to mess them up and need to start again.
So I decided to bite the proverbial bullet and get myself a Dell 34″ ultrawide monitor. It has been every bit as revelatory as when I added that second monitor so many years back. It’s big enough to stretch Premiere as wide as I want, and still have space available for other windows. A lot less futzing around.
The bad news, for my bank account: while the monitor itself is not prohibitively expensive — it doesn’t cost that much more than a pair of monitors at similar resolution and quality — it created some downstream expenses. My graphics card couldn’t handle the monitor, so I needed to replace that… but my computer case couldn’t fit an upgraded graphics card. And so on.
After too many hours spent speccing out new computers, I decided that I’d be better off building my own. So I ordered the parts, assembled them, troubleshooted (troubleshot?) some minor issues, and — miracle! — found myself with a screamer that cost $500 less than slower computers. (It was fun, too! I hadn’t built a computer for decades.)
The response to the media that best captures how I feel
Beto O’Rourke’s “Members of the press: What the fuck?”
Looking forward
So: here’s hoping for a 2020 that doesn’t suck. I don’t think I can handle another 2019.
Cheers!
