Best of 2018
Best of 2018
Dear 2018,
It’s hard to separate the good and the bad when so much of you was so very very bad. Still, you had some serious bright spots—amazing art, good books, lovely times with friends. I also moved into a new apartment this year, leaving my old nest of 16 years on Powers Street and heading to Bushwick with Joshua Sanchez. In some ways this felt like the longest year ever, in other ways time seems to be moving at light speed. As always, wishing I could just press pause on life and have a moment to catch my breath and get my head on straight, but instead I’ll take a moment to look back at some of the things that gave some welcome respite from the never-ending political nightmare of the past 12 months. As always, putting together this list is nice because it reminds of how lucky I am to be in a position to write and think about art for a living and how incredibly privileged I feel to both love and be loved by so many amazing humans.
xo COLE
The books I read in 2017 that I couldn't stop thinking about later on…
1 - The Carrying - Ada Limon
2 - How to Write an Autobiographical Novel - Alexander Chee
3 - The Unpunished Vice: A Life of Reading - Edmund White
4 - Evolution: Poems - Eileen Myles
5 - You’re On An Airplane - Parker Posey
6 - Wade in the Water: Poems - Tracy K. Smith
7 - A Cruelty Special To Our Species: Poems - Emily Jungmin Yoon
8 - So Far So Good: Poems - Ursula K. Le Guin
9 - My Life as a Goddess - Guy Branum
10 - Monument: New & Selected Poems - Natasha Trethewey
Maybe not technically the “best” records released in 2018, but definitely the ones I listened to the most.
1 - Low - Double Negative
2 - Cat Power - Wanderer
3 - serpentwithfeet - soil
4 - Robyn - Honey
5 -Beach House - 7
6 - Nils Frahm - All Melody
7 - Amen Dunes - Freedom
8 - Kelly Moran - Ultraviolet
9 - Flasher - Constant Image
10 - Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John
The movies that I couldn’t shake in 2018.
1 - The Favourite
2 - God Knows Where I Am
3 - Roma
4 - Won’t you be my neighbor?
5 - The Rider
6 - Eighth Grade
7 - Revenge
8 - Monrovia, Indiana
9 - Three Identical Strangers
10 - Mandy
My favorite interviews of 2018. These were the people who were the most fun to talk to and said stuff that either made me laugh, think deeply, or cry.
1 - Neneh Cherry
2 - Erica Jong
3 - Nile Rogers
4 - Joan Baez
5 - Eileen Myles
6 - Ada Limon
7 - Kim Gordon
8 - Courtney Barnett
9 - Amanda Duarte
10 - Isaac Mizrahi
My favorite live shows of 2018.
My ears rang and my heart burst.
1 - ELO // Madison Square Garden // August 22nd
2 - My Bloody Valentine // Hammerstein Ballroom // August 1st
3 - Low // National Sawdust // September 19th
4 - Cat Power // Album Release show // October 3rd
5 - Michael McDonald // Cafe Carlyle // October 23rd
6 - Depeche Mode // Barclays Center / June 6th
7 - Hamilton Leithauser // Cafe Carlyle // January 16th
8 - Tremor Festival // Sao Miguel, Azores // April 20th
9 - Boy Harsher // Basilica Soundscape // September 15th
10 - Orbital // Brooklyn Steel // December 4th