100 things that made my year (2014)

In no particular order:

1. Reading a book instead of looking at my phone.
2. Not finishing books I didn’t like.
3. Going for a three-mile walk every morning with my wife and son.
4. Fela Kuti.
5. Holding office hours instead of answering every email. (Most questions can be boiled down.) (Don’t ask.)
6. The opposite of schadenfreude.
7. Joan Didion on self-respect.
8. Wendell Berry on divorce and putting things back together again.
9. Discovering P.G. Wodehouse. Snorting and snickering and laughing out loud through Right Ho, Jeeves.
10. Losing 25 pounds on VB6 and Isa Does It.
11. Reading old horror novels, like Dracula and Frankenstein.
12. Going to the local comic book shop to buy Saga.
13. Getting huge comic book series from the library. Y: The Last Man. The Sandman.
14. Signing books at BookPeople.
15. Interviewing Joshua Wolf Shenk about his book, Powers of Two. Thinking about creative duos and unsung partners.
16. Watching massive amounts of TV with my wife after putting the kid to bed. The Americans. Justified. Transparent. The Good Wife. Bob’s Burgers. Going Deep With David Rees. Sherlock. Game of Thrones. True Detective. Nashville. Mad Men. Masters of Sex. Hannibal. An Idiot Abroad.
17. Paul Zollo’s Songwriters on Songwriting. 
18. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored History of Punk.
19. Steve Albini on releasing art like a bird or a fart.
20. Carl Wilson’s Let’s Talk About Love.
21. Antonio Sanchez’s drum kit soundtrack to Birdman.
22. Learning how to make an awesome paper airplane.
23. Flying to San Francisco in the morning to see David Hockney’s show at the De Young and then flying home that night.
24. Steal Like An Artist on ESPN. (And in the funny pages.)
25. Seeing Magritte shows in three cities: at the MoMA in NYC, at the Menil in Houston, and at the Magritte museum in Brussels.
26. Thee Oh Sees’ “Encrypted Bounce”
27. Sasha Frere-Jones’ Perfect Recordings.
28. Questlove’s Mo’ Meta Blues. 
29. D’Angelo’s Black Messiah. 
30. Old masters. Documentaries about senior citizen artists.
31. Funny people talking. Joan Rivers. Harold Ramis. Bill Murray. Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Louie. All those great Chris Rock interviews.
32. Visiting the Sackners and touring their archive in Miami, Florida
33. Meeting heroes. Brunch with Oliver Jeffers. Asking Ralph Steadman a question over Skype. Interviewing Stephin Merritt. Signing books with Chip Kidd. (Also: Emailing with heroes.)
34. Meditating. Remembering to breathe. Trying to stay in the present.
35. Not going into debt for art school. Getting out of debt completely.
36. Once a day, giving yourself a present.
37. Writing by hand. The handwriting of Julia Warhol and Henri Cole. How the French teach handwriting.
38. Picasso drawing on vacation. Picasso drawing a chicken.
39. Reading fiction as a guidebook.
40. Finally learning about names you’ve heard before: Sister Corita Kent. John Cage.
41. Big Boi jamming to Kate Bush. Debbie Harry cooking. Jonathan Richman dancing. Cy Twombly and his wife. Ronnie Spector.
42. Giving people the hits so you can do what you want.
43. Playing Andrew Bird’s Pulaski At Night for my son almost every day. Pablo Casals playing the Bach Cello Suites.
44. Collages. Looking at them, making them. Jess. Deteriorating subway ads.
45. Seeing how they did it, and seeing how they do it.  Wayne White on Instagram. Tony Fitzpatrick on Instagram. The Song Exploder podcast. Chilly Gonzales at the piano. Lynda Barry‘s classroom tumblr and her book, Syllabus.
46. Embracing selfies. Vintage selfies. Robot selfies. Vivian Maier selfies.
47. Sunday sketches by Christoph Niemann. Wishing I drew more while looking at drawings by Warren Craghead, Wendy MacNaughton, Hans Hofmann, Roger Ebert, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ohara Hale, Darwin’s Children, etc.
48. Cool instagram photos of my books. A horse sniffing my book. My books at the Matisse show I really wanted to go to.
49. Jamaican Gold on KOOP every Sunday 12-2. Lee Perry in the recording studio. The Congos’ Heart of the Congos.
50. Bob Mankoff’s How About Never — Is Never Good For You? Visiting him at the New Yorker. (Wondering if all cartoonists are crazy and laughing every time I see this cartoon.)
51. Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?
52. One-star reviews that are actually kind of great.
53. Watching Twitter turn to a river of slime. Wondering what Bill Hicks would think. Choosing what to be angry about.
54. Working in the garage. Sorting out mise en place. Adding a third desk, dedicated to reading. Installing a 10,000 BTU air conditioner.
55. Collecting interesting book dedications.
56. Looking at pictures of writers writing instead of writing.
57. Short books. Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams.
    
58. Reading about depression. Feeling like the clown who went to therapy. Doing something with your depression. Not romanticizing dying young. Learning as an antidote to sadness. Snapping out of it.
59. Thinking about photography. Instagram. Contact sheets. Vivian Maier’s rolls of film. Taking photos in video games. (And why does anyone care if you take a picture of the sunset?)
60. Books I wrote that I can’t read.
61. Re-reading books. Silence of the Lambs. A Christmas Carol. American Elf.
62. Re-watching movies. Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. Wayne’s World. Moonstruck. Withnail & I. Blade Runner: The Final Cut. Jaws. Bad Santa. Before Sunset.
63. Ander Monson’s frame-by-frames of Predator. John Martz’s NxNW x Big Lebowski mashup.
64. Not wanting to be famous. Not doing it for the money.
65. Writing newsletters and reading newsletters. The Writer’s Almanac. Matt Thomas’s Sunday Times Digest. Maureen McHugh. Ryan Holiday. Dave Gray. Ann Friedman.
66. The price of getting what you wanted.
67. Watching old television performances on YouTube. James Brown on the T.A.M.I. Show. Jimi Hendrix on the Lulu show. Dire Straits on Old Grey Whistle Test.
68. Boyhood. Richard Linklater.
69. Kindness. The history of Otis Redding’s “Try A Little Tenderness.”
70. Reading old Paris Review interviews. Adam Phillips. Mark Strand. Fran Lebowitz. Maya Angelou. Kay Ryan. Etc.
71. Good novels. Ken Grimwood’s Replay. John Williams’ Stoner. Crying on two separate flights while reading John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars.
72. Thinking about book design. Experimental paperbacks. Bucky Fuller’s I Seem To Be A Verb. Richard McGuire’s Here. Peter Mendelsund’s What We See When We Read. Book covers by Edward Gorey. The work of Alvin Lustig.
73. Don Henley misunderstanding most of modern art history.
74. Cigarette pencils.
75. Keeping a notebook on book tour. Recommending books by other people on book tour. Meeting up with friends on book tour. Coming home from book tour.
76. Erik Satie.
77. Card games.
78. Waylon Jennings’ “Rainy Day Woman.” Dolly Parton slowed down and sped up.
79. The NYTimes finally doing blackout poetry.
80. Future Islands on Letterman.
81. Mac Demarco’s Salad Days.
82. St. Vincent.
83. Looking up a word in a paper dictionary.
84. Wearing a uniform.
85. Pushing back against “do what you love.” Loving what you do.
86. How-tos. How to graciously say no to anyone. How to be polite. How not to write a novel. How to support an artist you love. How to open a story. How to drink champagne.
87. Seeing your work have actual ripple effects. (Ex. Really liking Adam Sternbergh’s Shovel Ready then learning that Steal had an influence on him.)
88. Thinking about the phrase “DNA and daily life.” (From A General Theory of Love.)
89. Using my passport again. Brazil. Belgium.
90. Making new stuff for my website instead of redesigning my website.
91. Replacing the cartridge on the turntable. Bobby Womack. Curtis Mayfield, Live!
92. Taking off all your clothes and lying down for a nap.
93. Walking barefoot on new hardwood floors.
94. Eating breakfast for dinner. Playing ‘Round About Midnight really early in the morning. Having sex at two o’clock in the afternoon.
95. John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things.” Bill Evans. Ahmad Jamal. Vince Guaraldi.  Kind of Blue. Louie Armstrong. Duke Ellington. Benny Goodman. Sonny Rollins.
96. Dad superpowers, like the ability to take a nap at any time in any place. (Scars on my knees from heroically scraping them onto the pavement while saving my son from certain death, etc.)
97. Wilco’s “Impossible Germany.” Tweedy’s “Low Key.”
98. Establishing a routine. Sticking to the routine. Losing the routine.
99. Playing the piano.
100. Feeling the baby kick.