Eat The Darkness

I love reading through the different end of the year, best-of lists for music, movies, news stories etc… So I thought I would piss away some time and make some lists of my own as 2008 comes to an end.

Lets start with the tunes. Looking back, I don’t feel like I really listened to a lot of new music released in 2008. I used to pore over all the monthly music mags, trying to keep up with all the new bands and and all the hot new music being released. I don’t know what’s happened over the last couple years though. Too busy? Not interested? Too much work? Who the fuck knows. Anyway, here are some of my favorite releases from 2008.

10. Juno: Music From the Motion Picture. “All I Want Is You” by Barry Louis Polisar could possibly be our wedding song when Jessica and I get married.

09. Sea Wolf: Leaves In The River. This didn’t leave the CD player in my truck for weeks earlier this year.

08. Land of Talk: Some Are Lakes. Never heard of these guys until Alex and I saw them open for Broken Social Scene in Pompano Beach. They were killer. Still absorbing this one.

07. R.E.M.: Accelerate.  Never a huge R.E.M. fan, but this is good shit.

06. The Walkmen: You & Me. (Thanks John!)

05. Deerhunter: Microcastle. Don’t have much to say here. I just really like it and listen to it a lot.

04. Elbow: The Seldom Seen Kid. Such a grossly underrated band. They just keep getting better and better. A beautiful recording.

03. Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes. I resisted this one for a long time because they seemed like the flavor of the month. I stand corrected. It’s fantastic.

02. TV On the Radio: Dear Science. Can’t stop listening to “Love Dog.”

01. Radiohead: In Rainbows. Technically released in late 2007 digitally, but I listened to it mostly in 2008, and am still enjoying it quite a bit. Saw the first show of their North American tour with John and Judyta earlier this year. A little rusty as they worked through some of the new material, but a fucking amazing show none the less. One of my favorite bands of all time.

Just like my new music experience in 2008, I didn’t see a lot of new movies. I saw a lot of older ones at home, but didn’t see a lot on the big screen. However, there were a few I did see and enjoyed very much. Now Jessica would probably disagree with most on my short list below, because her list is even shorter. In her mind, there was only ONE movie this year. “Mamma Mia!” She almost got me to watch it last night. For some reason I bought the DVD for her for Christmas. If I didn’t buy it , she would have. It’s inevitable, I will see “Mamma Mia!” in the near future. Who knows, maybe I’ll like it and take part in the sing along version. Highly unlikely, but you never know. The things you do for love. Anyway, in no particular order, these are the movies that were most memorable (that I can remember seeing) to me in 2008.

• Slumdog Millionaire

• The Dark Knight

• Tropic Thunder

• Iron Man

Like I said, not much. Maybe I’m forgetting something I saw and it will come back to me. However, I am looking forward to seeing these 2008 releases as soon as possible:

Gran Torino, The Wrestler, Rachel Getting Married, Doubt, W, Quantum of Solace, Defiance, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Religuious, The Reader, Let the Right One In, Role Models, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, The Visitor and Milk.

Shit, I guess I didn’t really get out too much this year. I have a lot of catching up to do. Almost forgot, Step Brothers cracked me up!!! I was in tears when I saw it for the first time. Haven’t laughed that hard in a while.

I would normally list my favorite photo books of the year, but I didn’t buy too many this year. I’m seeing a pattern here. Must be the poor economy and my lack of money to have fun with. Anyway, I did buy a couple traditional photo books that I really like: 

Findings: by Hiroshi Watanabe

Stuff I Gotta Remember Not to Forget: by Darin Mickey

And some independent, self-published work too.

One: by Romain Blanquart

38: by Kevin Miyazaki

Superficial Snapshots Zine 2: An Issue With Lomos: by Allison V. Smith

Rank Strangers: by Susana Raab

I also purchased this print by Andrew Hetherington and this print by Beth Dow at 20×200.

More important than the music, photography and the movies is the fact that some very cool things happened in my life this year. I started this blog. Sold some prints (the print sale is still up and running here with a possible second sale with different images in the future). I finally got www.matthewratajczak.com up and running, getting one step closer to going out on my own. But bigger, better, more important, more beautiful and wonderful, is that Jessica and I got engaged! It’s changed me forever.

Overall it’s been a great year. I hope next year is even better and that it brings happiness, love, adventure and success to all of you. Happy New Year!!!

 

Jessica and I were lucky to have one day of wintery bliss while visiting her family in Ohio last week. We didn’t have a white Christmas at her sister’s in Marietta, but we did have a couple days of snow while visiting her father earlier in the week along the lake near Painesville in northeastern Ohio. It was so great to get out of Florida and spend the holiday with family. Hopefully next year we will spend the week with my family in Michigan.

 

 

 

These are just some random photos from the couple days we spent with my future father-in-law, Joe Elliott, and no he’s not the singer with Def Leppard, at and around his home in the country. Yes, that is a bullet hole. Don’t worry, nobody was killed. It’s a long story and it didn’t happen while we were there.

 

 

 

One of the highlights of the trip was visiting several of the local wineries in the area, tasting and comparing a variety of the local wines (we were  happily buzzed, and sometimes pretty drunk, from about noon until late that night). I especially liked Grand River Cellars’ 2005 Cabernet Franc, their Merlot, a grape I normally don’t care for, their delicious ice wine (a sweet dessert wine produced from grapes frozen while still on the vine) and South River Vineyard’s ”Trinity,” a blend of Chambourcin, Cabernet Franc and Pinot Noir. I had no idea the region was such a big, ever-growing wine producer. Driving along the winding, snow-covered country roads of the Grand River Valley, frozen grape vines were everywhere, just waiting for the coming thaw. A real treat. Happy New Year!!!!

 

All Photographs Copyright © 2008 Matthew Ratajczak. All Rights Reserved.