Do you really need another catalogue of the world's ills? Doubt it. Did I do anything worth cataloguing to alleviate a single one of them even slightly? Not so as you'd notice.  I've looked over old blog entries and realized I was a better writer Fifteen Years Ago than I am today. That realization is bothering me in ways I'm unable to put into words (and it's distressing to hear a mental voice whispering you wouldn't have had trouble expressing this fifteen years ago, you hack). I long ago gave up believing that practice makes perfect, but isn't practice supposed to make better?

But I'm here at the appointed time and place to drop the ball again. Let's do this thing. 

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I stopped sharing news this year. Facebook didn't give me a choice on that: our federal government mandated that Meta pay Canadian publishers for the privilege of disseminating their content and Zuck said 'fuck you, Canada' and we can't post or even view links to anything Facebook considers a news site. 

But you know, it's been a blessing in disguise. I've been disillusioned with media for roughly ever and that disillusionment is starting to spill over into heated contempt for reasons that are both wearily familiar to you and completely off topic here. Also, my followers on Facebook fall into two categories: those who care about news and have probably seen whatever I would have posted anyway...and those who don't care about news who have no desire to find it on my wall. It's addition by subtraction.

I read Stranger many years ago and absorbed all but one word of that quote: "read". I stopped watching TV news and yes, my life was better for it. I can't say I've entirely ceased with the news, but I've learned to skim it rather than wallowing in it. It has made a positive difference.

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2023 has not been the kindest to my tribe. I'll spare you a litany of laments, as much for privacy's sake as anything else. Suffice it to say there have been deaths of very good people both sadly expected and shockingly sudden. Death is bad enough: its effects on survivors are unpredictable, occasionally ugly, and far-reaching. 

Pain and trauma are a constant backbeat to our dance. They coruscate in surprising new patterns atop ancient injury, defining our days and narrating our nights.  Yet we still heave ourselves out of bed in the morning, don those itchy leggings and torture shoes, and go through the steps. What other choice is there? (I'd prefer if that question went unanswered...) 

Pain is only interesting to those forced to live with or beside it. If you bleat about it in public, people yawn at you. Or worse, sneer that you're attention-seeking. 

I've always found that phrase, or more pertinently the venom with which it is customarily spit, puzzling. Humans are social animals. There's a reason solitary confinement is reserved in prisons for the worst of the worst behaviour and challenged on constitutional grounds even then. Attention is how we live. I'm sure you can say it by rote at this point (while hopefully recognizing it's a core value of mine): SHARED PAIN IS LESSENED.

And it really is. I lost myself in 2020-2021 as the pandemic raged, and thought I might indulge in a wee nervous breakdown when Russia invaded Ukraine. The initial U..S reaction was a pleasant surprise to me and shouldn't have been; the subsequent engineered fade in support has been anything but a surprise. Americans are no longer quite so keen on being Team America: World Police and can you blame them? It's not as if their government cares about them. 

You're seeing that everywhere just lately. People are sick to death of politicians bought and paid for when they themselves are denied a voice and forced to pay more and more for less and less. The environment? Oh, we'll make you think we're doing something when all we're really doing is funnelling hundreds of billions of dollars to the same people using different pathways with...would you look at all the pretty green signs!

It's all predictably sickening. Sickeningly predictable. And more of what you're not here to read.

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The title of this blog is a departure for me. It's modelled on the chapter titles in Susanna Clarke's PIRANESI, which I just finished extolling a couple of entries ago. In my entire life I've never had a book fall into my hands precisely when I needed to read it the way this one did. I think about it constantly and try to embody its luminous, almost numinous tone. I think with some success: I certainly feel better since I took that novel into myself.

You have to focus on the joys with increasing intensity as the world darkens around you. You have to narrow your heartbeam  down to the person in front of you, be the best person you can be for that person, and let them not be the best version of themselves.

To that end, and in no particular order:

-- I got to see my dad three times this year. 

That's not enough and I know it but when you don't drive and the people in your life who do are on different schedules, you take what you can get. I'm very grateful to dad (and his wife Heather) for keeping space for me and for making that space as welcoming as they do.

-- We got to see Danny Bhoi.

Stand up comedy is one of the things that keeps Eva sane. We've seen our fair share of comics, and Danny was one of the better of those we've seen. 

-- We got to see The Phantom of the Opera for the second time. Well, it was the first time for Eva. The first time for me was, yike, 32 years ago.  This production was much smaller than the one that haunted the Pantages in Toronto, but it did have the virtue of my pal Craig on lead (only, in this case) trumpet. 

-- We got to go on the fourth annual Road Trek (TM), the most ambitious action packed trip yet, which was a series of joys large and small. Highlights included our favourite waterfall to date;  several unforgettable meals capped by an exquisite repast courtesy my father at Made In Canada Eatery and Whisky Pub; and probably the nicest rooms we've stayed in yet. 

All of these things are escapes from the world that happen to still take place in the world. That makes them extraordinary. 

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This past year has been a musical goldmine for me. Please indulge me as I list the four best tracks of the year, in my view, and I'd be freakin' ecstatic if any of you listen to even one of them in its entirety. I don't expect that you do so: I'm routinely gut-punched by people who dismiss the music I share, or worse, hear six notes and recoil. 

Not all of these came into the world in 2023, but they came in to my world and made a place for themselves this year. 

Ren Gill,  "Hi Ren"

I put this one first because it's the most important song I've heard in my lifetime. I didn't say "best", I said "most important", and I will die on this hill. 

This dropped in late 2022 and went viral in the best way possible. As Ren says in the song, "My music is really connecting, and  the people who find it respect it, and for me that's enough, 'cause this life's been tough, and it gives me a purpose I can rest in."

He understates how tough his life has been. That itself is an understatement. The fact he took his pain and did THIS with it leaves me in utter awe. If you have ever suffered from a traitorous mind or body, hearing this will do you a world of good. Don't take my word for it: there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of YouTube reactors who have said the same.

Ren himself is a bard. That's the highest praise I have for a musician. He's a multi-instrumentalist comfortable in a wide variety of genres; he produces his own work; and he's just an all-around fine example of what it means to be human.

Christopher Tin and VOICES8, "Hope Is The Thing With Feathers"

This brings me to actual tears, it's so beautiful. There are probably ten Tin tracks I could have put here. Many of his sweeping epic chorales are sung in languages not often heard in the concert hall. He has an album called THE DROP THAT CONTAINED THE SEA which is a tour de force.

Jukebox the Ghost, "Ramona"

The world is hurting in the background of this song, and its singer is opening his heart and hearth to his love. The chorus is a simple epigram for this departing year:

Allison Russell, "Eve Was Black"

You will actually find this one on more than a few critics' best-of lists for the year. This has disturbing echoes of Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit".  Powerful, haunting, and oh so cutting. The anger in her voice is something to behold. 

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I went within this year. I am getting much better at seeking, finding and appreciating the little moments that make life bearable. I'm going to have to have all my wits about my going forward. And every scrap of heart I have. I'm feeling down on myself as 2024 breaks, but it won't last. 

Happy New Year, one and all. Keep your love flowing: the world needs all you can give it.