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Okay, apologies to everyone who’s not at least part-American as I am. When I moved out of the States in 2017, I was very grateful to leave it behind for a litany of reasons, but I was much less willing to abandon two of its most popular holidays. These being: Halloween (increasingly popular outside the States) and, most significantly, Thanksgiving (which remains a mystery to most abroad, but always results in my family having a table full of friends nervous about trying culinary delights like pumpkin pie and green bean casserole). I blame my grandparents who made the holiday get-together so special every year.
Anyway, American Thanksgiving is Nov. 28th and, whether you celebrate it or not, it provides me with an excuse to ask you a thematically related question this week:
What pieces of 2024 art are you most grateful for this Thanksgiving (or this year, whatever)?
Films, books, TV, music, comic books, art exhibits — blow my mind!
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Honestly, I’m thankful not so much a single piece of art, but that in 2024, I found Substack and stumbled on a number of artists (authors, cartoonists, painters, poets, and film/TV folk, etc.) and discovered so much beauty it filled my heart with joy and brought light into the darkness. Happy Thanksgiving!
Might be a little unoriginal, but I think I’m most grateful for satiric comics this year like Jon Stewart’s triumphant return to the Daily Show and John Oliver on Last Week Tonight. Bringing some sanity to an insane world is always appreciated.
This is vague, but Apple Music as well as their offshoot music app called Classical has sort of been a god-send for me this year. I have discovered some amazing recordings on it.
Most recently, a recording called Angels and Demons by an incredibly talented pianist, Andrew von Oeyen.
Also an album of newer piano music that very much comforted me in the spring of 2024: Stephan Moccio, Legends, Myth and Lavender.
And finally, the recordings of my favorite string quartet, Chiaroscuro.
Music in general, I am inexplicably grateful for, always. I consider it a saver of sanity, as I know it has saved mine. 🙂
Oh, also, I had the opportunity to see some phenomenal artists in concert this year… Sting with Elew (crazy talented!) and John Batiste. I feel very blessed to have two different friends who invited me to those concerts. And then I took myself to see the Jussen brothers perform twice this year (also phenomenal!). And in just over a week, I will be going to hear Chanticleer perform in Chicago… something I used to do annually for Christmas, but have not done in a while. Their performances are always transcendent.
Lastly, I am grateful for the great writing and photography I have been following on Substack. I started my account in 2024, and it has been such a wonderful source of quality art and community. ✨
Three films I was grateful for this year because they all basically made me sob like a baby were INSIDE OUT 2, THE WILD ROBOT and, at the start of the year, Andrew Haigh's ALL OF US STRANGERS. In fact the latter managed to achieve something which I can't remember any other film doing to me, which is: making me cry not just during it but also about half an hour later while talking about it.
I'm also grateful for Josh Margolin's funny and moving THELMA - not just for the experience of watching it but for the inspiration, as it's exactly the kind of movie I aspire to write.
I was also particularly grateful for Canadian singer-songwriter Leif Vollebekk's music this year - seeing him live for the first time was pretty darn special - and the orchestra of Opera North's '80s Classical' concert in Leeds. I realise it will probably sound horrendously naff to some, but I tell you: a full orchestra backing 80s pop stars performing their greatest hits is nothing short of wonderful. Especially when it's Midge Ure and he's leading the crowd in a huge singalong of 'Vienna' :)
You might know that I'm good friends with one of the screenwriters of INSIDE OUT 2 (I was just texting with her an hour ago!). THE WILD ROBOT, ALL OF US STRANGERS, and THELMA are all wonderful, too! As for the concert you're describing...honestly, it sounds kind of amazing.
I loved FURIOSA. I might have liked it more than FURY ROAD, which puts me in the minority, as much as I love FURY ROAD. In books, I loved Robin Sloane’s Moonbound. In comics, I’m enjoying Mark Waid and Chris Samnee’s Batman & Robin Year One. Samnee is such a good comics storyteller, which is a skill I find lacking in too many comics artists today (even when they have good rendering skills, so many just don’t breakdown a story panel-to-panel well). In music, The Third Mind, Dave Alvin’s psych-rock jam band.
Really, it’s Samnee’s art. Ward’s story is good and clever, with a very impulsive, very green Robin (he’s just a kid!). But I just love Samnee’s layouts. I get tired of over-worked rendering in comics these days, and the muddy coloring (where the digital colorist clearly doesn’t adjust from working on a screen to when the ink darkens in print). The coloring here is just right, as is Samnee’s assured, deceptively simple line work. And while Batman is depicted all dark and moody in poses, the comic itself isn’t grimdark. Waid knows this is the fable-world of Gotham, not the real world with traumatized psychos in capes.
The piece of art that most set me back, so much so it immediately came to my mind with this question, was the Cleveland Orchestra's early May 2024 performance of Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique. I thought of it as an orchestral wall of sound. I've never experienced a classical concert so viscerally and don't expect to do so again soon.
Van Gogh - just been to see the Lovers and Poets exhibition at the National Gallery in London. His way of seeing, of humanising and honouring ordinary people, of capturing the beautiful in things that people wouldn't see as beautiful or 'worthy' of notice - a chair, the vase with some sunflowers in, the texture of sunflowers, working people, fig trees on a ridge, the colours in light and shadows. A coffee pot - https://www.vincentvangogh.org/still-life-with-coffee-pot.jsp#google_vignette
I got to see a Van Gogh exhibit in Amsterdam (at least I think it was Amsterdam), and I can still remember how it felt in that room, dizzied by all that color. I have to look up where I was now. It sounds silly to forget something like that, but I spent two years back and forth from London to the continent and every time I saw a different master's exhibit. Geography ceased to matter as much as the art. Anyway, the point is, Lovers and Poets sounds wonderful. I love the National Gallery so much!
There are so many answers to this question—I’ve been saved by art more times than I can count every year. Specifically this year, I’m grateful to have come together with a team of wonderful people and to be founding our own social-impact media company so we can create our own art and share other’s. I’m also thankful for finding a beautiful community of humans on Substack and Medium who are sharing stories that make me weep every week.
The most recent single piece of art that blew me away, made me cry, and left me speechless was the concept album “Warriors” by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis.
I'm grateful for The Glass Scientists! It's a gaslamp fantasy webcomic about mad scientists (main character being Dr. Henry Jekyll, we all know him!) I've been reading for almost a decade, and it brings me so much joy. This year Volume 2 of the printed graphic novel trilogy version was released. It's a beautiful book, and I can't wait to get the third one too, next year!
Another thing I'm grateful for is all the concerts I went to this year. I was pretty new to music concerts so this year was very exciting for me in that regard. I went to a concert on my own for the first time, to see The Black Keys! They were fantastic!!
I had the opportunity to see a local (Las Vegas) production of Tracy Letts' "The Minutes" recently. Great play and a really fantastic production by A Public fit Theatre Company.
I'm gonna say Late Night with the Devil for keeping horror fresh and creating a regular moviegoing habit with my friend, and Kneecap (the biopic) for allowing me to discover the Irish rap group of the same name
Health. I was in the hospital twice for items that could have killed me in the space of three months, and my son was in recently for something we did not know the cause of. I am fine, and my son is getting the appropriate treatment.
And e-readers. Almost as important as health, the ability to read what I want without ending up on an episode of hoarders.
Standouts for me were the Gentileschi exhibition in Naples, the TV series Disclaimer and Ripley, the poetry of Sharon Olds and Jacob Alon's song Fairy in a bottle. All relied on great beauty, subtlety and subtext to make me see things anew. They reminded me how good art can be, how important and how effective.
We passed through Naples just for a day and stayed in the old town, and as we passed by one of the churches there were posters advertising the exhibition inside. Completely chance discovery and a highlight of the holiday. I realise you share an interest in Gentileschi. You wrote a brilliant piece about one of her paintings a few months back. Since reading about her in Katie Hessel's The Story of Art Without Men, I was really taken with this artist. (Great book, by the way - one of the best art histories I've read).
Honestly, I’m thankful not so much a single piece of art, but that in 2024, I found Substack and stumbled on a number of artists (authors, cartoonists, painters, poets, and film/TV folk, etc.) and discovered so much beauty it filled my heart with joy and brought light into the darkness. Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy belated Thanksgiving to you, too, Sally!
Might be a little unoriginal, but I think I’m most grateful for satiric comics this year like Jon Stewart’s triumphant return to the Daily Show and John Oliver on Last Week Tonight. Bringing some sanity to an insane world is always appreciated.
Thanks for sharing, ZK!
This is vague, but Apple Music as well as their offshoot music app called Classical has sort of been a god-send for me this year. I have discovered some amazing recordings on it.
Most recently, a recording called Angels and Demons by an incredibly talented pianist, Andrew von Oeyen.
Also an album of newer piano music that very much comforted me in the spring of 2024: Stephan Moccio, Legends, Myth and Lavender.
And finally, the recordings of my favorite string quartet, Chiaroscuro.
Music in general, I am inexplicably grateful for, always. I consider it a saver of sanity, as I know it has saved mine. 🙂
Oh, also, I had the opportunity to see some phenomenal artists in concert this year… Sting with Elew (crazy talented!) and John Batiste. I feel very blessed to have two different friends who invited me to those concerts. And then I took myself to see the Jussen brothers perform twice this year (also phenomenal!). And in just over a week, I will be going to hear Chanticleer perform in Chicago… something I used to do annually for Christmas, but have not done in a while. Their performances are always transcendent.
Lastly, I am grateful for the great writing and photography I have been following on Substack. I started my account in 2024, and it has been such a wonderful source of quality art and community. ✨
So much music! I've added a few of these to my must-listen listen. Thank you for all the wonderful pointers.
You’re welcome!
My buddy Jason Copland released his OGN “Full Tilt” this year. It took six years to put together but it’s an absolute banger of a book.
I'm going to look it up - thanks, John!
Three films I was grateful for this year because they all basically made me sob like a baby were INSIDE OUT 2, THE WILD ROBOT and, at the start of the year, Andrew Haigh's ALL OF US STRANGERS. In fact the latter managed to achieve something which I can't remember any other film doing to me, which is: making me cry not just during it but also about half an hour later while talking about it.
I'm also grateful for Josh Margolin's funny and moving THELMA - not just for the experience of watching it but for the inspiration, as it's exactly the kind of movie I aspire to write.
I was also particularly grateful for Canadian singer-songwriter Leif Vollebekk's music this year - seeing him live for the first time was pretty darn special - and the orchestra of Opera North's '80s Classical' concert in Leeds. I realise it will probably sound horrendously naff to some, but I tell you: a full orchestra backing 80s pop stars performing their greatest hits is nothing short of wonderful. Especially when it's Midge Ure and he's leading the crowd in a huge singalong of 'Vienna' :)
You might know that I'm good friends with one of the screenwriters of INSIDE OUT 2 (I was just texting with her an hour ago!). THE WILD ROBOT, ALL OF US STRANGERS, and THELMA are all wonderful, too! As for the concert you're describing...honestly, it sounds kind of amazing.
I loved FURIOSA. I might have liked it more than FURY ROAD, which puts me in the minority, as much as I love FURY ROAD. In books, I loved Robin Sloane’s Moonbound. In comics, I’m enjoying Mark Waid and Chris Samnee’s Batman & Robin Year One. Samnee is such a good comics storyteller, which is a skill I find lacking in too many comics artists today (even when they have good rendering skills, so many just don’t breakdown a story panel-to-panel well). In music, The Third Mind, Dave Alvin’s psych-rock jam band.
Tell me more why you're loving BATMAN & ROBIN so much. I haven't got to it yet...
Really, it’s Samnee’s art. Ward’s story is good and clever, with a very impulsive, very green Robin (he’s just a kid!). But I just love Samnee’s layouts. I get tired of over-worked rendering in comics these days, and the muddy coloring (where the digital colorist clearly doesn’t adjust from working on a screen to when the ink darkens in print). The coloring here is just right, as is Samnee’s assured, deceptively simple line work. And while Batman is depicted all dark and moody in poses, the comic itself isn’t grimdark. Waid knows this is the fable-world of Gotham, not the real world with traumatized psychos in capes.
Thanks for the thoughts, Bill!
The piece of art that most set me back, so much so it immediately came to my mind with this question, was the Cleveland Orchestra's early May 2024 performance of Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique. I thought of it as an orchestral wall of sound. I've never experienced a classical concert so viscerally and don't expect to do so again soon.
Well, that sounds impressive!
Van Gogh - just been to see the Lovers and Poets exhibition at the National Gallery in London. His way of seeing, of humanising and honouring ordinary people, of capturing the beautiful in things that people wouldn't see as beautiful or 'worthy' of notice - a chair, the vase with some sunflowers in, the texture of sunflowers, working people, fig trees on a ridge, the colours in light and shadows. A coffee pot - https://www.vincentvangogh.org/still-life-with-coffee-pot.jsp#google_vignette
I got to see a Van Gogh exhibit in Amsterdam (at least I think it was Amsterdam), and I can still remember how it felt in that room, dizzied by all that color. I have to look up where I was now. It sounds silly to forget something like that, but I spent two years back and forth from London to the continent and every time I saw a different master's exhibit. Geography ceased to matter as much as the art. Anyway, the point is, Lovers and Poets sounds wonderful. I love the National Gallery so much!
There are so many answers to this question—I’ve been saved by art more times than I can count every year. Specifically this year, I’m grateful to have come together with a team of wonderful people and to be founding our own social-impact media company so we can create our own art and share other’s. I’m also thankful for finding a beautiful community of humans on Substack and Medium who are sharing stories that make me weep every week.
The most recent single piece of art that blew me away, made me cry, and left me speechless was the concept album “Warriors” by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis.
I've spent the past hour down the WARRIORS rabbit hole - I had no idea this existed. Thank you for sharing!
When I tell you I listened to it 4 times within 24 hours….😂
https://youtu.be/q4Z5v2M7Ae4?si=zU549wyzY2stWbX9
Wonderful film.
I'm grateful for The Glass Scientists! It's a gaslamp fantasy webcomic about mad scientists (main character being Dr. Henry Jekyll, we all know him!) I've been reading for almost a decade, and it brings me so much joy. This year Volume 2 of the printed graphic novel trilogy version was released. It's a beautiful book, and I can't wait to get the third one too, next year!
Another thing I'm grateful for is all the concerts I went to this year. I was pretty new to music concerts so this year was very exciting for me in that regard. I went to a concert on my own for the first time, to see The Black Keys! They were fantastic!!
I'm going to go look THE GLASS SCIENTISTS up, thanks!
I had the opportunity to see a local (Las Vegas) production of Tracy Letts' "The Minutes" recently. Great play and a really fantastic production by A Public fit Theatre Company.
I am grateful for the book ‘3 Shades Of Blue by James Kaplan.
I'll look it up!
I'm gonna say Late Night with the Devil for keeping horror fresh and creating a regular moviegoing habit with my friend, and Kneecap (the biopic) for allowing me to discover the Irish rap group of the same name
I watched it two nights ago, inspired by this comment. I'd been meaning to get to it. So much fun!
Health. I was in the hospital twice for items that could have killed me in the space of three months, and my son was in recently for something we did not know the cause of. I am fine, and my son is getting the appropriate treatment.
And e-readers. Almost as important as health, the ability to read what I want without ending up on an episode of hoarders.
Also, I am an idiot because I completely missed the art qualifier. I am not, obviously, grateful for my stellar reading comprehension.
Art would be the book Shamshine Blind. Excellent, literary sci-fi that is a rumination on hope and depression.
I'm just grateful you and your son are doing better, KC!
Thank you!
Standouts for me were the Gentileschi exhibition in Naples, the TV series Disclaimer and Ripley, the poetry of Sharon Olds and Jacob Alon's song Fairy in a bottle. All relied on great beauty, subtlety and subtext to make me see things anew. They reminded me how good art can be, how important and how effective.
I'm pretty sure you know this, but you're aware I'm a Gentileschi fanatic, yes?
We passed through Naples just for a day and stayed in the old town, and as we passed by one of the churches there were posters advertising the exhibition inside. Completely chance discovery and a highlight of the holiday. I realise you share an interest in Gentileschi. You wrote a brilliant piece about one of her paintings a few months back. Since reading about her in Katie Hessel's The Story of Art Without Men, I was really taken with this artist. (Great book, by the way - one of the best art histories I've read).
I haven't read it. I'll look it up now, thanks for the tip!
Films: Anora, Conclave, Universal Language, Daaaaaali!, A Real Pain, The Piano Lesson, Flow
Albums: Lenny Kravitz's Blue Electric Light, Everything Everything's Mountainhead
Memoirs by Michael Richards, Michael McDonald, Cher, Komail Aijazuddin
TV: Dark Matter, Pachinko, Ripley, The Franchise, Slow Horses, The Diplomat