Festal time.

So many year's end lists are evaluative of things produced, ordered into bests and almost bests. I don't think I can do that (aside from saying that Andrew Bird's Break It Yourself is the best album), so I want to use some space here to point towards people I know who are doing amazing things. I find myself so often sitting in my home with a glass in my hand, marveling at the people I know and the creations they offer. I would like for so many more people to know who they are as well.

Musicians:

Lifestory:Monologue retired their band after many successful years, and following the release of their great album Drag Your White Fur, Make It Grey. I miss them already.

Nick Ferrio is an old friend who has played in a million great bands (including The Burning Hell), and he released his full-length country album this year. The man knows how to make a song, I'll say.

Drew Nelles and Derek Lappano have a new band called Debt. But before it, they had a band called Wind-Up People that I hardly found out about before it was over, and I wish I could have seen. Since I met them years ago, I have loved the music these two make.

Ryan Turner, one of my oldest friends, has been playing jazz around Guelph. When you get the chance, go have a look. He is an amazing musician, and I've been lucky to play in a band with him again this past year.

Spencer Burton's band Grey Kingdom released Light, I'll Call Your Name Out "Darkness" this year, and the album is great, particularly the bookend tracks. He's great.

Olenka & The Autumn Lovers are from London, and released their new album, Hard Times. I love the lyrics, and the music always feels good and warm. Like autumn lovers.

Hinindar belongs to my friends Steve Sloane and Jeff Woods, and they released their album Absalom this year. It's been the music I drive to late at night.

Steph Yates, who had previously played in Hinindar, now has a band called Esther Grey. She combines that grit of the garage with some really virtuosic songwriting.

Pchan is a musician and DJ (Wolfh34rt) in Toronto, and I can not believe I have yet to see him perform. When I can, I will.

Mike Contasti-Isaac's project The English Premiership is some studio wizardry. He writes for mood at atmosphere, and accomplishes these things very nicely.

My friends in Teenage Kicks are doing amazing things. They started a Singles Club to release music every month and they released a live album, all in addition to their album Be On My Side.

Writers:

Iris Hodgson writes Bossy Femme, a personal blog about all things good. She also includes important reflections on broader topics that interest her, like styling life, knitting, and a great dog.

Andrew T does everything, and very well. He creates a zine for his writing called Give Up, which you can go and get right away, and he pairs it with a monthly podcast.

Drew Nelles is the Editor-in-Chief of Maisonneuve, a quarterly magazine based in Montreal that you probably already read. The publication is always a great collection of articles on culture and politics. I have always known Drew to be someone who works very hard, and I am always so pleased to see his name on the masthead

I met Cameron Anstee at a conference in Ottawa, and have been excitedly and enviously following his press, Apt. 9, which publishes works of poetry.

My graduate program has created Song, and Sin where a collection of my classmates write about all kinds of things. The primary contributor right now is the eternal Dru Farro, and every day that passes is one that I regret not writing for it. To the new year.

Though I have only met her a few times so far, Misha Bower easily shows herself to be a wonderful person. And she published Music For Uninvited Guests, an excellent collection of short stories that includes a mixtape with songs by your favourite artists.

Photographers:

Cristina Naccarato is a good friend who has been photographing for years, though I have only known her for a little over one of them. She takes a lot of live performance photos, and she also works with Broken City Lab, an important creative collective in Windsor.

Jacklyn Barber takes photos of places and people and the things that furnish them, and there is always something wistful about them. In addition to her Flickr account, you can find her on the Gram.

Nicolette Hoang uses her photos in a really nice way, as a documentation of her surroundings and those she spends her time with. Her blog is a great thing to explore, and she is also on the Gram.

Derek O'Donnell is a good, old friend of mine who largely does portraiture. His manner of composition is great, for me at least, as someone who likes to learn through people's faces.

More:

My friend Jeremy Klaver, in addition to his move into artist management, is an integral part of London's music performance community. He organizes and promotes concerts for both local and touring musicians (and even helped me get my first start in the city, too).

Sara Froese owns All Sorts Press, a custom letterpress studio. The products she makes are versatile and all look lovely, including CD packaging, business cards, and posters.

Kelly Hardcastle-Jones has two radio shows: Pioneer Radio, which explores a new theme per episode, and Books For Breakfast, which, I think, describes itself in a better way than I could. She also had a sweet little baby this year.

The studio that has welcomed a couple of the musicians I mentioned above, both for shows and for recording, is the Sugar Shack, and it is run by Simon Larochette. With any luck, I will be working with him soon as well.

There are so many more that I know, and who I know I must be missing but whose importance is worth a spotlight, and I apologize for my slanting memory. So many more musicians, as well as painters and academics and more photographers and store owners, and people whose careers are to save lives or build homes. Shine on, you crazy diamonds.

--

To the new year.

Clarity in those moments.

At the museum, where the two were looking at paintings. They were passing through rooms, well-lit galleries where you can never actually see the source, the fixtures. The one, trying hard, stood in front of a painting, feet steady but leaning forth and then tilting, even though a few rooms back the other said, "That's not how you should look at paintings. You stand here, then you move here, and then here." The one stood before this painting, leaning and tilting in place, and passed over the figures and the colours. The shy flecks of white and pink coming bright when close to the canvas, and laying hidden when distant. This painting was filled with folds that bloomed as shard and sum together. The one saw how the painting sent along line and mood, to where particulars vanished for the whole. It was dazzling. It reached out from its frame, the mounted texture of painted face and brow, and looked upon a room where the two now circled back to each other in its corner. To the next painting, where the other said, "I don't like the colours." And the one said, "Neither do I."