Since I'm not in the mood to re-live the negative aspects of 2004 (aka My Dark Year of the Soul), I'd rather make a list of my personal picks in the realms of Art, Literature, Music, and Film/TV.
The first I thing I noticed is how economics can determine taste. Last year, when I had a regular income and more money to spare, I was buying/downloading large quantities of new music, seeing/renting a lot of films, and buying enormous amounts of books, new and used. This year, my limited budget has drastically altered my prior decadence. The CD and movie allotments were reduced to almost nothing, and while I still bought and read many books, most were classics and none were actually published in 2004. In contrast, I was able to attend a plethora of Parisian art exhibitions which I'd never have been able to see if I was still in Seattle.
Thus, this list is divided into three categories - Favorites (plus Honorable Mentions), Recommended (all the things that look interesting but I haven’t gotten around to purchasing/reading/seeing/hearing yet), and Upcoming (already looking ahead to 2005). And I'm still accepting recommendations - especially in the realms of music and film!
Music:
Favorite Album of 2004: Tie
Kiss and Swallow, I AM X
and
Before the Poison, Marianne Faithfull
(Has this even been released in the States yet?)
Honorable Mentions:
Once More With Feeling: Singles 1996-2004, Placebo
Trampin’, Patti Smith
Two Way Monologue,Sondre Lerche
The Milk-Eyed Mender, Joanna Newsom
Finally Woken, Jem
Robots in Disguise, Robots in Disguise
Lycanthropy, Patrick Wolf
(technically released in 2003, but not in the U.S. until 2004)
Recommended Albums:
Hymns of the 49th Parallel, k.d. lang
Dear Heather, Leonard Cohen
This Island, Le Tigre
Want Two, Rufus Wainwright
Scissor Sisters, Scissor Sisters
Upcoming Albums:
Next year - Naturally I’m bouncing off the walls in anticipation for the new Tori Amos album - The Beekeeper in February. Also new offerings by Patrick Wolf, Robots in Disguise. Plus Dead Can Dance is re-uniting for a new album and tour! And I’ll always be holding out hope for a new Kate Bush album . . . sigh.
Favorite Song 2004: Placebo - Protège Moi
Honorable Mentions:
Patrick Wolf - To the Lighthouse
I AM X - Sailor
Marianne Faithfull - My Friends Have
Patti Smith - Radio Baghdad
Franz Ferdinand - Michael
O-Zone - Dragostea din tei
Robots in Disguise - Boys
Rammstein - Amerika
Favorite Concert: David Bowie @ the Paramount, Seattle
Honorable Mentions:
I AM X / Robots in Disguise / The Servant, @ Elysee Montmartre, Paris
Fête de la Musique 2004, the streets of Paris
Film/TV:
Favorite Film of 2004: Fahrenheit 9/11
Recommended: WHEN, dear gods, will Alexander, Kinsey, and Finding Neverland be released in France? I am going crazy.
Upcoming: See above.
Favorite TV Show of 2004: The L Word
Honorable Mention: Queer as Folk
Recommended: Nothing, really. Though France has a new all-gay TV channel that looks intriguing.
Upcoming: I MUST KNOW what happens next year in the new seasons of my two favorite queer soap operas . . . thank gods our friend Ida tapes or downloads both.
Literature:
Favorite Book of 2004:
Now this is interesting. For an ardent bibliophile, I can’t think of a single book I purchased this year (and despite my budgetary restrictions, I’m always buying books) that was actually published in 2004. Less money meant I turned to the tried-and-true (and more affordable) classics rather than the latest bestseller or prize-winner. Thus, I can’t really pick a favorite, since most of the books I read were written and published at least fifty years ago. Of the novels, I’d have to say it was a toss-up between Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and Gertrude Stein’s Geographical History of America (though my general immersion in the works of both authors should be mentioned). In poetry, I found Stephen Mitchell’s translation of Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus particularly enthralling, as well as the works of Fernando Pessoa, and my pleasant discovery of Richard Henry Horne’s nineteenth-century epic poem Orion. Favorite plays included Strindberg’s A Dream Play and Federico Garcia Lorca’s Blood Wedding. Short stories - E.M. Forster and Jorge Luis Borges. Among contemporary authors, my two favorite books were A.S. Byatt’s Possession and Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red. Anne Carson’s translation of the complete poems/fragments of Sappho, If Not, Winter also deserves a mention, as well as Thomas Taylor’s translations of the neoplatonists Iamblichus, Porphyry, and Proclus. And need I mention the dozens of marginalized modernist women I (re)discovered this year?
CORRECTION: There was one book - Les Compagnons d’Hela, by my dear friend Manou Chintesco, released this year in French. And Wildstar and I are helping her translate it into English - it’s a truly phantasmagoric reading experience involving a mixture of vampires, alchemy, philosophy, and punk rock in an exquisite prose reminiscent of the French masters . . . imagine if The Hunger had been written by Voltaire.
Recommended Books:
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst.
Winner of the Booker Prize, listed on just about everyone’s “Best Books of 2004” list, I must confess this gay novel has seriously piqued my interest.
The Prodigal by Derek Walcott.
I’ve always loved the work of Walcott, the Caribbean poet and Nobel Laureate - and I look forward to reading what he says will be his last book of poetry.
Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare - by Stephen Greenblatt.
I met Greenblatt at the MLA conference a few years ago - nice guy, interesting ideas, a New Historicist but with a real passion for literature. And his editorship of the Norton Anthology gave the series a drastically needed face-lift which I applaud.
The Best Poems of the English Language: From Chaucer Through Frost - edited by Harold Bloom.
Dear old Bloom - can’t wait to argue with you over every page of this thing.
The Mirror of Love - by Alan Moore, photographs by José Villarrubia.
Comic book LEGEND Alan Moore wrote an epic poem celebrating the history of gay/lesbian love throughout the ages, with gorgeous photographs by a visual master of homoeroticism - José Villarrubia!!! WHY did I just find out about this book’s existence yesterday?!?!?!?!?!? Buying this soon.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.
Another popular prize-winner - and I’m a sucker for both magic and 19th-century England.
Upcoming Books:
2005 brings two translations I’m anticipating - Daryl Hine’s version of Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns, plus Charles Martin’s new version of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Camille Paglia is releasing Break, Blow, Burn : Camille Paglia Reads Forty-three of the World's Best Poems, and Roberto Calasso will release K. a book about Kafka, an intriguing subject, considering this is the fourth in a series - and the three previous books were about Greek myth, Hindu myth, and the birth of modern Europe. I can’t wait. Finally, you know I’ll be the first in line for Tori Amos’ book - Tori Amos: Piece by Piece (co-written with rock journalist Anne Powers) in February. Oh - and I hear Harry Potter 6 is on its way . . .
Art:
Favorite Art Exhibition of 2004: Jean Cocteau: A Retrospective @ Le Centre Pompidou
Honorable Mentions:
Ryan Wildstar - Satellite Somniferum
Pierre et Gilles - Le Grand Amour
Emile Gallé - Hand With Seaweed and Shells, @ Musee d’Orsay
Edith Piaf: A Photographic Biography @ Hotel de Ville
Also, the Louvre opened a stunning new hall consisting entirely of broken classical statues that had been re-fitted with new body parts during the Renaissance - with many a beautiful Antinous among other delights.
Upcoming Art Exhibitions:
Hoping we’ll soon see “Pharoah” - a huge Egyptian exhibit at The Insitute of the Arab World. Also, next year the Louvre has three new exhibits that look interesting - a large exhibition centered around Hammurabi’s Code, Florentine artwork during the reign of the Medicis, and an entire exhibit devoted to ceramics in antiquity. Meanwhile the Orsay has an upcoming exhibition of Neo-Impressionism: Seurat to Klee that I’ll have to attend.