Vintage Whisky, 2018

I dragged my heels culling this “best of” for 2018. It was a difficult year for personal reasons, some of which I touched on, so I was slow to revisit it.

It was also a year I devoted an undue amount of energy trying to track how I found myself trailing so far behind anything that could be broadly considered as . . . well, relevant. Here is just one example, but I won’t link to the others. I won’t delete them either — they remain a testament to the times and to my headspace at this particular moment, I guess. But when it comes to what I posted it wasn’t as if mine was a singular POV — many others said the same thing, only better. And that is personally disappointing. I’ve blogged for 15 years and counting. When I’m not linking to other pieces I truly attempt to post original work — stuff I’m not seeing anywhere else. 2018 sometimes reads as if I gave up on this loftiest of aspirations.

There were other vistas to conquer.

NEVERTHELESS — here are a few posts that stand up fairly well, I think, insofar as summary goes.

Music:

• Roy Orbison: Black & White Night was a treat to discover.
• The Rhino reissue of T Bone Burnett’s Trap Door/Proof Through The Night records was a balm.
• Dan Baird & Homemade Sin were killer.

Movies:

• What four films define me? (No, really.)
• You want evidence that I was struggling in '18? Solo was the only movie I bothered to blog about.

Mennonites:

• That’s what this blog is about — sez so right there on the masthead. So I commented on MSM coverage of my misbehaving Paraguayan brethren and sisteren.

Books:

• RIP, William Goldman — master of the airport thriller (my personal favourite from 2018).
• A Wrinkle In Time, Madeleine L’Engle, and Great (readerly) Expectations.
• Re-essaying Groovy Gurus.

Miscellaneous:

• In praise of podcasts — particularly as embodied by the Christian Humanists.
• Puppet Uprising — now more than ever.
• Justin Sandercoe took on a student — and prompted me to write a fan letter.
• Facebook sucks — do you have a newsletter?

And finally, a surprisingly pleasant memory from that year — the last time I cried (a status that abruptly changed, needless to say).