Goodbye 2013

"It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment."

The above quotation is from The Great Gatsby, a book which I decided to give another go after first reading it in my first year at uni and not enjoying it. Giving it time and space to whirl around in my head, I found it a greatly enthralling experience; rich and vibrant and haunting. 2013 was a year of reflection, but also a time for pushing on from the base of reflection. Something that Gatsby and his acquaintances should have done themselves.

Here are the simple resolutions I made last time round:

1. Just keep swimming.
2. Start on that bloody breakfast eating next week.


I think I achieved these. The breakfast blog has been the primary reason that this blog has remained dormant for the last few months, with all of my writing energies being invested there. You can read that output if you have yet to do so by clicking here. I also made more of an effort to document books, films, and gigs, which has made compiling this review a much easier task than last time. It's also made re-reading my wee diary a bit more interesting.

So far, so successful. Now for the most fun bit; the lists. I didn't really make the same kind of culinary discoveries this past year, but I did continue to try listening to new music.

January: Passenger
February: Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan
March: Tori Amos
April: John Grant
May: Kate Bush
June: Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard
July: Ibrahim Ferrer
August: The Magnetic Fields
September: 10cc / Goat
October: TV on the Radio
November: Iron Maiden
December: Public Service Broadcasting

A good mix of older classic artists I should have been aware of much earlier, and newer prospects with plenty of opportunities to catch live in the future. Here now are my songs of the year:


Best tracks:
1. Arcade Fire - Reflektor
2. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Jubilee Street
3. John Grant - Pale Green Ghosts
4. Pixies - Bagboy
5. Leona Lewis - One More Sleep
6. The National - I Need My Girl
7. Arctic Monkeys - Do I Wanna Know?
8. Electric Six - The New Shampoo
9. Janelle Monae - Dance Apocalyptic
10. Kanye West - I Am A God

It felt like 2013 was a year full of big exciting musical returns; David Bowie, Nick Cave, Arcade Fire, Franz Ferdinand, Queens of the Stone Age, The National; the list goes on. I was surprised to find myself most captivated though by Arctic Monkey's album, AM, having dismissed them a long time ago. It was an album where all of the praise and hype seemed to finally fall into place for me, and I now view Alex Turner with some of the regard that critics have lavished on him since their first album. No matter what big new releases came out, this was the album I was constantly coming back to.


Best films...well...to be honest these are the only new films I saw:
Rush (4.5/5)
Gravity (4.5/5)
The World's End (4/5)
Les Miserables (4/5)
Sunshine on Leith (2.5/5 or 3/5, depending on whether you're a Proclaimers fan)
Escape Plan (2)

I generally lacked the get-up-and-go to see new films last year. There were one or two that I regretted not seeing, so this is something I need to work on for 2014. 


Best gigs:
Passenger @ Concorde 2
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds @ Brighton Dome
The National @ Alexandra Palace
Franz Ferdinand @ Electric Brixton
Youngfathers @ Brighthelm Centre (Great Escape)

Hopefully this represents a nice mix of gig experiences; in genre, scale, prestige, and mood. It was a good year for gigging for me, and I even ended the year having attended more gigs than I watched films (old and new). I would like to repeat this in 2014 as well, and have already got John Grant, Youngfathers, Arcade Fire, Franz Ferdinand, and Manic Street Preachers lined up.


Best books read:
Donna Tartt - The Secret History
Nick Cave - The Death of Bunny Munro
Mervyn Peake - Titus Groan
Margaret Attwood - The Year of the Flood
Jamie Doran & Piers Bizoni - Starman

I was much better at recording the books that I read, as well as reading in general. 2013 marked the first year in a long time where I would actively seek out spare moments to read, and relish spending an hour or two after getting in from work to plough into a novel, whereas before I would be more inclined to play video games or just faff around on the Internet. The Secret History was one of the most tantalising novels I have ever read, conjuring up a world that is at once both glamorous and sickening; a car-crash that you just can't help but be transfixed by. It shares quite a bit of ground with The Great Gatsby; perhaps you could describe it as a cross between that novel and American Psycho.
Honourable mentions must also go to Edward Knight and Denny Ledger, two friends whose debut novels I also read over the course of the year. Both were greatly enjoyable, and I would recommend them fans of post-modern literature and Bukowski respectively.


Achievements:
Obviously the breakfast blog is the major thing I set out to do last year, so that is an achievement I am proud of. I also finally completed NaNoWriMo after several years of trying (more of that in a sec). Another thing was playing a part in my friends Mike and Rosie's wedding. Both the run-up and the day itself took a lot of work, but the results of which were brilliant. Overall, it was a very happy year, and I'm looking forward to more of the same.


New Year's Resolutions:
 
I want to get back to using this blog more. I think the most practical thing will be to use it, as well as to record thoughts and lyrics and poems, is to chronicle my efforts at writing my novel, Captain Iguanodon, a fantasy-sci-fi tale involving steampunk dinosaur pirates and the incoming meteor. It's going nicely thus far, and I managed to lay down over 50,000 words for it this year spurred on by NaNoWriMo. I will use the blog to lay my thoughts out from time to time, to help me keep control of where it's going. I would like to finish a first draft of the story by the end of the year at least, and hopefully using this blog will also help to create some kind of routine for me to stick to.

Myself and Claire will also travel to as many Kingstons in the UK as we can (as long as she's still up for the challenge!). There are at least 20, including the wonderfully named Kingston Bagpuize. This may be another thing to document here on the blog.

2014 feels like it's going to be a good year. 2013 served to create a strong foundation, now let's see how these seeds grow.