Things of 2020

[X] Michael Boer
Photo shows six music album covers.
A half dozen of the LPs collected in 2020.

The grinding.


No surprises. A DIY year for all of us. I was ready for this. The masks, the separation, the smoke from California, and the hygiene.


I am my own barista, baker, sprout farmer, bike mechanic, and exercise coach.

The electric coffee mill from Germany which I bought soon after I arrived in Seattle stopped working one morning. I replaced it with a manual burr grinder from Japan (with some parts made in China). With my Aeropress, I am closer than ever to homemade handmade coffee.

I stopped checking Facebook on September 22. In the run-up to the election, FB was toxic. Want to know which kind of meme I really miss? None of them. I do miss trivia about family, friends, and musicians, but not enough to go back to daily check-ins.
 I used that time for lots of books, movies, television, and music.

I have learned a deep appreciation for my home’s transparent views on the world.

Inputs & Consumption

20 Books

Ordered by year of publication, then author’s last name.

21 Movies

It is a shame that Lynn Shelton will never direct Chadwick Boseman. Two great hearts stopped in their tracks.

10 Television Shows

  • The Vahalla Murders (2019, Netflix Series) by Thordur Palsson (made in Iceland)
  • The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2019, Prime). I was drawn into this series for its fictionalized portrayal of Lenny Bruce.
  • The OA (2016, 2019, Netflix) by Brit Marling & Zal Batmanglij
  • Wild Wild Country (2018, Netflix Documentary Series). One of my childhood friends was drawn into Bhagwan’s cult, so I watched this thinking I might spot his face. I did not, but I was touched again by the loss I feel for my friend.
  • Babylon Berlin (2017, 2018, 2020 Netflix)
  • The Prisoner (1967, Prime) by Patrick McGoohan
  • Homecoming (2018, 2020, Prime)
  • Ratched (2020, Netflix) by Ryan Murphy & Evan Romansky
  • The Queen’s Gambit (2020, Netflix) by Scott Frank and Allan Scott
  • Fosse/Verdan (2019, DVD) by Thomas Kail abd Steven Levenson

Music: 15 Albums

During the Pandemic, the record stores closed. If any have re-opened, I am still personally closed. Now, here, vinyl arrives by post, usually USPS media mail, from locations all across the globe. The cardboard mailers do not show return addresses in Hollywood or Manhattan. Brooklyn, yes, but lots of small towns too.

Opening new LPs was a rite of passage toward adulthood for me. Where I lived, the more commercial albums would show up in the local drug store, but the imports and lesser-known labels required a visit to the Twin Cities–a 4-hour drive each way, or else the vinyl arrived via the postal service.

Now, like then, they arrive in brown cardboard containers, taped closed. With a letter opener, you can cut through that tape to unfold the cardboard. Now you hold an LP sealed in cellophane. What is inside is still a mystery. The letter opener lets you slice one edge of the cellophane without risking paper cuts parallel to your nail.

Slip the cellophane off. There is an aroma to freshly unsealed virgin vinyl. Now, as then, an LP cover might contain more than vinyl. The paper sleeve may include information printed in a legible typeface (an accomplishment that CD packages seldom approach). There may be a booklet, a poster, a sheet of stickers. You never know until you slice the cellophane away.

Unlike you, I did not smoke cigarettes on my passage to adulthood. The sound of virgin vinyl was my nicotine.

You need to turn the vinyl over to side 2 when side 1 leads to the sound of a tone arm bumping up against the in-most groove. This is much more pleasurable as a passage through a new work than having a compact disc play through, and even further pleasurable than listening to the work as a stream.

There are two distinct strains of music listening:

Domesticated: Consumed through a headset that is not crappy. I have always preferred the Sennheiser brand. A good headset delivers the highs and lows directly to your ears. Your head.

Wild: Consumed any other way. Could be a live performance. Could be a recording or a stream. Could be high-end audiophile equipment or it could be a network device through its own speakers or through a bluetooth speaker set. Depending on the volume, it enters your whole body.

Some of the vinyl LPs (except as noted) added to my collection in 2020, with my two clear favorites at the top, and the rest tied for third place, in order by artist name:

1. Poison in the Russian Room (2009, remastered 2019) by The Green Pajamas A fiercely magnificent echo of jangling guitary psychedelia from an under-appreciated Pacific Northwest collective, refreshed and remastered. If you are a fan of the “concept albums” of Bowie, Elvis Costello, Tom Petty, The Who, or The Pretty Things, I do not know how you can fail to enjoy this.

2. Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers If you hate Phoebe, I cannot help you. Can’t recall another album that gives someone credit as “sound designer.” This is ferocious by design. This is fiercely written. This is deeper, darker, and more sweetly obscured behind its crust of sweet soprano vocals with an interior filling of lively clamorous ruckus. Mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway.

3. Safe at Home? by Blunt Objects. This is one of two non-physical albums on this list.

3. A Rooster Says by Brandi Carlile. My 2020 Record Store Day acquisition, a 45 RPM 12-inch with two Soundgarden covers accompanied by the remaining members of Soundgarden. Black Hole Sun has had much airplay in Seattle. Unrelated, a late-December NPR story concerning recent discoveries about black holes ended with a chamber music rendition of Black Hole Sun.

3. Singing For My Supper by Early James. This is one of two CDs on this list.

3. Artlessly Falling by Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl with guest vocalist, Robert Wyatt.

3. Devotion by Margaret Glaspy

3. Ride the Fire by Mammút

3. Whole New Mess by Angel Olsen

3. Tethered to the World by Will Rainier and the Pines. Includes a credible country cover of Purple Rain. This is one of two CDs on this list.

3. Segall Smeagol by Ty Segall. The first time I heard Segall’s version of Jump Into the Fire, I assumed it was a dazzling remix of a newly unearthed Harry Nilsson session. This is one of two non-physical albums on this list.

3. color theory by Soccer Mommy

3. somesurprises by somesurprises

3. Blonde on the Tracks by Emma Swift, a collection of Bob Dylan covers.

3. Saint Cloud by Waxahatchee. Country album of the year.

Outputs & Production

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