Top 10 2006
- The Wire – Oh. My. God. This is the best season yet, and there was a VERY high threshold. Two eps to go for me, but I can feel my heart breaking already. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s not a documentary. The paradox of hopelessness and potential that drives the kid characters is more compelling than anything I’ve ever seen on the big or small screen. The best writing for television ever.
- November 7, 2006 – I’m not going to dive too heavily into this one, because I think there might be one or two Pernice supporters out there who might still get upset with our (the Ashmont Records family) propensity for wearing our politics on our sleeves, but this was a VERY good day. Time will tell, but I certainly see a better Massachusetts, and can only hope that – well, let’s just leave it at I can only hope.
- The Pernice Brothers – “Live a Little.” No one will believe me, but I think it’s their best. Just don’t call it “literary.” He gets made. Like Charlie Ashmont when you try to make him take a bath. (payroll)
- “The Year of Magical Thinking” - Joan Didion. I know it came out in 2005, but I didn’t read it until January, and it’s my blog. The things we think about when dealing with loss have never been more clearly and beautifully articulated in all of their perplexing glory.
- “Angels in America” the opera, by Peter Eotvos, performed by Opera Boston and Boston Modern Orchestra Project in June 2006. I have no idea if you had to know the play and/or HBO special to be as taken with this production as I was, but I was taken. When I first read that to cut almost four hours from the six hour work, the politics had been left behind in favor of the human side of the story, I was a doubter. But it worked for me. And it was way more punk rock than anything I’ve seen in forever. (payroll)
- The opening of the ICA in Boston. Finally, a world-class contemporary art museum in the stodgiest state in the U.S. See “paradox” for the ways in which a state can be “stodgy” and still be held up as its own Governor as an example of the decline of western civilization.
- “Easter Rising” by Michael Patrick MacDonald - I’m interested in knowing if this book has resonance with people who don’t have the same experience, and I wonder if his particular “exile” status depends on his relationship with home to such a degree that it doesn’t apply if you’re not from the Irish ghetto, but I love this book.
- Dixie Chicks – “Taking the Long Way.” Not solely on artistic merit, though I am, and have for a long time been, a fan. More because I feel bad for what they’ve been through. The uproar was entirely inappropriate for the original action, and I’m glad they articulated some of their experience on this record. It would have been easier to make a record that country radio would play.
- “The Pillowman” by Martin McDonagh performed at New Rep in Watertown, MA. Yup, it’s dark and disturbing. (And I wish I’d had the opportunity to see the New York version with Billy Crudup.) But it’s also makes you laugh at the unthinkable while looking at the relationship between art and crime. I’ve also never seen more people leave during an intermission.
- The Arctic Monkeys – “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not.” I really like this one. Is it just that I live in a bubble, or was this kind of a bad year for music?