2018 - It's a Wrap

What a wild year it was.  Among other things I got accomplished, I stuck to my goal of posting weekly to my blog.   Some weeks were better than others, but I plan to continue this into 2019 and hope to write more interesting posts, or at least write about pedestrian things in a more interesting way.  I was very pleased with a few of my posts, which were of professional quality and I have attracted a nice little core of regular readers.  My goals are to post weekly, revamp my blog a bit, and not disappoint.  

Anyway, here are my thoughts on the best of 2018, and here's to a Happy 2019 to my readers.

Music

Live

I did have an opportunity to see a fair amount of music this year…and a great deal of variety, from rock to jazz to classical and sacred music, a bit of country and folk, and even a fusion bluegrass and rap group called Gangstagrass.   I opted mostly for smaller venues, although I did take in a few concerts at Ravinia (ZZ Top).   I saw a lot of tribute bands--- Brit Floyd at the Chicago Theater was wonderful and almost indistinguishable from Pink Floyd.   Deacon Blues, a Steely Dan tribute band is quite good and features the talented niece of Koko Taylor in the chorus. Time Traveler, a Moody Blues tribute band was also quite good.   Schola Antiqua, a choral group that sings music of the Reformation is a can’t miss.

But my favorite performance of the year was Eddie “the Chief” Clearwater, who played with Ronnie Baker Brooks at Evanston Space on his birthday in January.   I had a front row seat and Eddie, at 86 could still play.  I was able to snap a photo (featured) which I have titled “Two Boys Having Fun.”  I loved this performance and I loved this photo as it captured these two musicians in a moment of pure joy.  Brooks gushed with praise for Eddie as his mentor and sadly Eddie passed away in June.  I was happy to be able to see one of his last Chicago performances.

New Artist

Greta Van Fleet.   This band caught my attention right away.   There have been some new performers that I have liked (Arctic Monkeys, Cage the Elephant, Florence + the Machine), but none that can deliver classic rock.  Greta Van Fleet is what you would get if Led Zeppelin were reincarnated.  The lead singer sounds astonishingly like Robert Plant and the rhythms, although original are unmistakably Zep influenced.   It is sobering to see a YouTube video of them and see how young they look.   I hope they have staying power for they are fresh faces playing some classic licks.

Books

Fiction

My fiction book of the year is not going to go to a contemporary writer.   Much of the fiction I read this year was good, but didn’t wow me.  The Friend by Sigrid Nunez about a woman who adopts a Great Dane left behind by a friend and former lover that committed suicide won the National Book Award and I liked, but didn’t love it.  Lake Success by Gary Schteyngart.   None of them knocked my over, though (my librarian said I just didn’t read the right ones and shoved 4 more in my book bag).

My best read this year goes instead to My Antonia by Willa Cather.   2018 was the 100^th anniversary of the publication of this novel about Bohemian immigrants adjusting to life on the Great Plains.  It is even more relevant now because of the current political turmoil over our immigration policy and the difficulty people from a distant land have adapting to a new life.  In Cather’s novel, Mr. Shimerda simply cannot adjust and commits suicide.   I loved this novel because of Cather’s talent in describing place as well as character.  I read her novel at the same time I read Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser --- the biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, so I was immersed for some time in the harshness of pioneer life on the prairie, especially for women.   I did write an email to the Willa Cather Foundation telling them how delighted I was to discover Cather’s talents a bit late in life and received a nice email back from them. 

Pressed to name a contemporary novel that I liked best, I would go with Gary Schteyngart’s Lake Success. Schteyngart has a knack for creating a little sympathy for otherwise unsympathetic characters.  Lake Success does just that and rolls elements of The Great Gatsby, A Man In Full  and On the Road into a dark, sometimes comic novel about a deeply flawed character whose successful, but fragile life comes unglued.

Nonfiction

Bad Blood by John Carryrou was absolutely my favorite.  Bad Blood is the story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, and is more fascinating than the Madoff affair.   Bad Blood is actually two stories wrapped into one.   It is the story of how this driven young woman fooled a host of seasoned investors, board members, and directors.  People like George Shultz, Jim Mattis and senior executives at Walgreens got snookered.  But it is also a story of the tremendous courage and persistence of the Wall Street Journal writer John Carryrou himself, who uncovered the fraud and risked his career to pursue the story.

Film and Television

The paucity of quality film coming out of Hollywood this year left me with few recommendations.   I liked A Quiet Place, although it received some criticism.   I also kind of liked The Death of Stalin, although  this comedic take on the Stalin terrors was a bit weird and quirky.  My favorite film of the year was Leave No Trace, which I reviewed last summer. (http://commonsense-mark.blogspot.com/2018/07/best-summer-film-leave-no-trace.html).

I have even less authority to recommend television programs, but I do like The Last Alaskans.   It is a reality show that portrays the handful of people that were grandfathered into living in an Alaskan wilderness area.   They show depicts their day-to-day lives and it is probably the last group of individuals living as pioneers depicted by Willa Cather and Laura Ingalls Wilder.  There is something about this show that brings me peace.

Best Lecture

I was fortunate enough to attend a number of very high quality lectures and presentations this year of fascinating people in a variety of fields, and had the opportunity to have lunches with economist Deirdre McCloskey and historian and Middle East expert Daniel Pipes.   In addition, I heard interesting lectures by University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan, Frederick Douglass descendant Kenneth B. Morris, Jr., New York Times religion columnist Ross Douthat on the state of religion in America, economist Martin Feldstein, author Stuart Dybeck, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson on the Great Recession and back to back lectures on free expression by Jason DeSanto of Northwestern and Geoffrey Stone of the University of Chicago.

But the most interesting lecture was by Jordan Peterson.  As I  wrote in my blog post of May 10,   Jordan Peterson (http://commonsense-mark.blogspot.com/2018/05/jordan-peterson.html) may be the most influential public intellectual since William F. Buckley and he is focused more on social rather than political or economic issues.  Peterson is also part of the Intellectual Dark Web, a group of independent thinkers and writers such as Eric Weinstein, Sam Harris, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Camille Paglia (see NYT article https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/opinion/intellectual-dark-web.html).  These are thinkers that abhor the notion of an intellectual safe space.

The Silenced Voices

Many publications have their tributes to those that have passed during the year, and I would like to call out two voices that I will miss the most—Aretha Franklin and Keith Jackson.  Aretha, of course, was the Queen of Soul.  Keith Jackson was the Voice of College Football.  Both were sui generis.   Who could forget Aretha’s performance of Think in the film The Blues Brothers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vet6AHmq3_s) and who will forget Keith Jackson’s signature “Whoa Nellie!” after a long touchdown run.  I was fortunate enough to attend Aretha’s final Chicago performance at Ravinia at the end of the summer of ’16.   It was a great sight to see a number of fathers dancing to Respect with their little daughters on the lawn—a sight I won’t ever forget.   I will miss these two great voices.