best of 2012 | larry's favorite music

It's time for Larry's annual guest post listing his favorite music of the past year. I still haven't convinced him that he needs to write his own music blog (I think you'll agree once you read his review below) or that I should be allowed to film him playing 'massive air guitar' to Truckstop Darlin's "Dead Roses," but I'm thankful to share my life with someone who has such great taste in music and who is willing to write about it once a year.

Larry actually wrote this post weeks ago, and it's my fault for not publishing it sooner, but I just about tore my own hair out and punched my computer while trying to figure out how to embed a music player into this post. I finally gave up and resorted to embedding Larry's playlist from Spotify. I realize the player won't work for those of you who do not have Spotify accounts, and for that I both apologize and encourage you to sign up for a free account - you really don't want to miss out on listening to Larry's selections.

-Rachel

All ‘Best of’ lists are subjective. This one is no different. I can’t claim to have listened to everything released this past year. This list isn’t a duplicate of Pitchfork, NPR, Rolling Stone or any of the other usual suspects for music round ups. I know I missed a lot of albums that are going to end up high on those lists – Japandroids, Fiona Apple, Tame Impala, etc. I like what I like and make no apologies. Bear in mind that this isn’t a Best of 2012 list though. I’ve called it 'Favorite of 2012', because these albums have meant the most to me this year and have seen the most action on my iPhone and iTunes.

As I sat down to write this year’s ‘Favorite of' list, I realized that there was a ton of great music released in 2012. It was quite a chore to get this down to my favorite ten albums. It’s also why you’ll see almost as many albums in the Honorable Mentions. I just couldn’t bear to leave some of these out.

So anyway…Favorite Albums of 2012…

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Delta Spirit | Delta Spirit

The Twilight Sad | No One Can Ever Know

Chairlift | Something

Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires | There is a Bomb in Gilead

Justin Townes Earle | Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now

Jason Isbell | Live From Alabama

THE TOP TEN:

10. The Menzingers | On the Impossible Past

This is a great pop-punk album from some Pennsylvania boys. Sometimes you just need something to turn up loud and scream along to. This fit that bill for me this year. Plus, “The Obituaries” has the best chorus of any song this year.

9. Lucero | Women & Work

Lucero just keeps on doing what it does best – writing songs about girls, cars, whiskey, and all of the other good things in life that may not be exactly what you want or need them to be. Ben Nichols voice sounds like a smoky old barroom ashtray (with horns!). “I Can’t Stand to Leave You” is a monster track. I love this stuff.

8. Of Monsters and Men | My Head is an Animal

A few years ago I wouldn’t have put this album on this list just because it got popular. I’m trying to work my way out of that particular form of music snobbery, so I’ll admit that this is indeed one of my favorites of the year. 

7. The Gaslight Anthem | Handwritten

I’m fairly new to The Gaslight Anthem fandom – just having really gotten into them over the past year or two. They’ve quickly become one of my favorite bands and I was ecstatic that this new one lived up to their previous. A lot of folks compare them to early Springsteen. I think they have their own special thing going on. 

6. Andrew Bird | Break It Yourself

How much talent can one man have? Singer, songwriter, fiddler, whistler. Keep your dictionary and encyclopedia handy though. The man uses words/ideas no other songwriter would dare touch  “You’re the one who sank my Lusitania” to describe a heartbreak. Awesome.

5. The Lumineers | The Lumineers

See number 8 above. Good music is good music – no matter how popular it gets. “Ho Hey” was inescapable for good reason this year. One of the best tunes of ’12. Bonus – they’re a fantastic live band. They tore it up when we saw them open for Josh Ritter and Brandi Carlile this summer.

4. Truckstop Darlin’ | Hope and the Heart it Breaks

This album just hit me in my southern rock loving gut. Another one to turn up loud. Thank God for digital music or I would have worn this one out. I play some massive air guitar when “Dead Roses” is playing.

3. Joe Pug | The Great Despiser

He’s a fantastic songwriter and only getting better. “They called you a dreamer, when you were 17.  The years went by so fast, now they call you other things.” Joe can devastate you with one simple turn of phrase. He’s also a great and engaging presence on a stage – as evidenced by his show in June at the 9:30 Club. One of my favorite shows of the year.

2. Divine Fits | A Thing Called the Divine Fits

A little side project/super group from Britt Daniels of Spoon and a couple of other guys from Wolf Parade/Handsome Furs and New Bomb Turks. Probably the most fun album in my rotation this year. Just works on all levels. Pop-y. Rock-y. Catch-y. I know – not funn-y.

1. Shearwater | Animal Joy

Hands down the album I listened to more than any other this year. I love the fact that they’re not afraid to sound majestic and intelligent – but still rock. Plus I love all of the animal imagery. If “Animal Life” or “Breaking the Yearlings” don’t move you or make you feel alive, then you may not be. Might want to get that checked out.

best of 2012 | best books

I had two reading goals in 2012. First: To spend $0 on books this year by reading library books and unread books from our overflowing shelves at home. This was an easy goal to accomplish and I still have a huge collection of unread books at home, so I'll repeat this goal in 2013. And Second: To read more. This is a goal I have every year. And I was a little disappointed in myself for not reading more this year. Ok, a lot disappointed. So disappointed that I almost didn't write this post. But I liked looking back and being able to see a list of what I read last year, so I'm forging ahead. I'm surrounded by voracious readers - Larry reads on average 55 books a year and my mother confessed that she read 60 books over the summer. 60 BOOKS in three months, people! So my grand total of 15 books this year feels downright embarrassing...

Year after year, I find that I read the most in the first half of the year. January is consistently a big reading month for me - I don't know whether it's the post-holiday nesting urge/winter blues that leads me to snuggle up on the couch and read book after book, or the fact that each year one of my new year's resolutions is to read more, but more than 25% of the titles on my 2012 book list were read in January.

I read throughout the spring and usually polish off a couple more books during summer beach trips, but I find that by the time September rolls around, I am pretty much done reading for the year. This isn't a conscious decision and I am always disappointed in myself that I can't seem to concentrate on reading at the end of the year - the perfect time to curl up under a blanket with a cup of cocoa and a good book - but that just seems to be the way it is for me. October through December is the busy season for my shop and also the stressful season in my personal life, so books are forced to take a back seat to holiday prep. And once the holiday season comes to a close, and the new year has been rung in with champagne toasts, I know that I'll make up for it by spending the first thirty-one days of the new year with my nose in a book (or four).

As usual, my reading list contains a good mix of fiction and non-fiction and includes a classic, two Pulitzer winners, an Oprah book club book, and some young adult fluff:

The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels by Ree Drummond
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
Where She Went by Gayle Forman
Blue Nights by Joan Didion
Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Defending Jacob by William Landay
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Total number of books: 15

Fiction: 9

Non-Fiction: 6
By Male Authors: 4
By Female Authors: 11

It wasn't difficult to pick my favorites this year: Water for Elephants was pure magic (though I thought the movie sucked) and Unbroken was fascinating and shocking and the story permeated my dreams for weeks. Honorable mention goes to Wild, which I also loved and which made me bawl my eyes out. Twice.

And now back to my annual resolution: reading more...

battle of the alma maters

Don't worry, I'm not going to blog about sports. I have zero interest in watching football or discussing football. However, when I learned that my alma mater (Syracuse University) and Larry's alma matter (West Virginia University) were facing off in the Pinstripe Bowl, I thought party time! Because while I may not give two shits about football (Correction: I don't even give one shit about football), I do love hanging out with friends, drinking beer, cooking up a big pot of chili to share, and making team-themed treats:

The morning of the big game, it was snowing here in Virginia! I took that as a good sign for Syracuse:


The pups insisted in dressing up in pinstripes to support their favorite teams. As I explained to my friends, Gravy was rooting for Syracuse because he's orange and Banjo was rooting for WVU because...he's a redneck? Or perhaps hillbilly would be a more accurate term? Just kidding, WVU fans! I don't think you're hillbillies. Although your mascot does wear a coonskin cap. (Whereas Syracuse's mascot is a perfectly respectable oversized piece of fruit...)

Our friends arrived. Larry and I are lucky that we both have college roommates who live in the area. Unfortunately, none of our classmates could come to our party, so they shall be referred to as ninny poo-poo heads from now on. Anyway, our other friends arrived. We stuffed our faces with guacamole. We ate chili. We drank beer. We did not watch the game. That was just background noise.

Unfortunately, I had to feed my homemade Otto the Orange and Flying WV cookies to a bunch of UVA and VT alums...



Three things: 1. No, no, I did not stay up until 2 am the night before decorating these cookies. (I totally did.)
                      2. Cookie decorating skillz run in my family...
                      3. Notice my sneaky SU-themed centerpiece: bowl of citrus!

Ok, we so we did watch the last five minutes of the game. My view was partially obstructed by dog butt:


Go Orange!

christmas 2012

I'm starting to realize that our Christmases look the same every year: The dogs shred wrapping paper. We eat delicious food. We exchange bottles of wine and liquor.

Still, I like to document the event, if only to see who's been wearing the same sweater to Christmas dinner three years in a row (cough*Larry*cough)...

Christmas morning was a little more relaxed in the Smoellke household this year since we had already torn into our presents on Christmas Eve early Christmas morning. The pups had to wait for Santa until they could open their gifts, though. And they celebrate Christmas with the joie de vivre of a pair of six year old children. There was shredding and prancing and pouncing and jumping in celebration of their new stuffed shark and dragon.

Every year, I think I will get some cute pics of the dogs enjoying their gifts by the tree, and every year, I GET THIS EXACT SAME PHOTO:

We ate breakfast and then headed to Maryland for Christmas afternoon/dinner/gift booze exchange at my aunt and uncle's:





CAAAAAAAAKE! Yesssssss!



BOOZE! Yesssssss!

GRAPEFRUITS! Yesssssss! (This would be way funnier if they were melons...)

We ended the day with some Glogg...

...and a family photo:

And here's our family photo from Christmas 2011. See what I mean about our Christmases starting to look the same each year?

Speaking of family photos, once we got home to Virginia, it was time to attempt to take a family photo of our own. With the pups. Banjo was confused:

We tried bribing them with treats:

And Banjo tried his best to photobomb our attempts with his less-photogenic end. "Thanks for the treats, Mom, now take a picture of MY BUTT!"

Ok, so Gravy got in on the photobombing fun, too. "Time to clean out my eye socket with my tongue!"

As it turns out, the pups aren't the only photobombers in the family:

Does that face look familiar? Perhaps eerily similar to a photo from Christmas 2010...

(Remember back when our fireplace actually worked and we didn't have a bad ass metal deer head hanging above it???)

Best attempt after banishing the dogs:

Anyway, screw it. Time to put my feet up and tap into that booze...

(To clarify, I'm drinking a glass of white wine, not a glass full of St. Germain.)

The end.

scenes from christmas eve 2012

Last year, Larry and I hosted a small Christmas Eve dinner at our house. This year it was even smaller: just the two of us. (And the pups, of course.) We continued our new tradition of eating comfort food on Christmas Eve - Larry cooked up our favorite Beef and Vegetable Pot Pie recipe while I started on the Christmas baking.

The best chocolate crinkle cookies:

We lit some candles, ate dinner, and drank some beers. I cursed at my failed pie crust. We drank some more beers and hung out by the glowing tree. We snuggled some puppies. We pretended our fireplace wasn't broken.


Larry tried to convince me we should open all our Christmas presents early. I resisted. I cursed at the pie again. We drank some more beers...

And then it was 4 am.

So we opened our presents:

And it was awesome:

Also, Larry and I are clearly the perfect match. On the left: Larry's gift to me. On the right: My gift to Larry:

(Either that, or we are equally despicable.)

We went to bed happy and even better - got to sleep in on Christmas morning! Perfect.