A Good List Goes a Long Way- The 2015 Edition

What better way to spend New Year's Day than cooking up some lists- since even in the new year I'm still the old me and really can't cook anything else. And I just don't do new year's resolutions either, I like the element of surprise of my accomplishments throughout the year. I could probably pull off a resolution plan for day one, covering stuff like watch the New Year's concert of the Wiener Philharmoniker and the Garmisch-Partenkirchen stage of the Vierschanzen ski jumping tournament (yes, I am flaunting my German and yes, they share the quality of being activities best done lying down with a cup of tea). And I have already shared U2's New Year's Day on Facebook- nothing beats a job well done right from the beginning. 

So then, to the yearly lists. I again bungled the ten in the films category, because every time I wanted to kick one out I had the impression it'd end up feeling like Macaulay Culkin left home alone, and look what that did to the man two decades later. So I hatched the ingenious plan of letting them be fifteen, since we were in 2015, after all. And yet again, some might be 2014 leftovers as well, because the distribution of films hasn't gone stratospheric round here last year either. And also, I intentionally left out two movies, Son of Saul and Aferim!, partly because seventeen would have been a silly number, and partly because, although I do acknowledge them both as being great movies, I just did not love them. Therefore here goes the list of the idiot who prefers The Man from U.N.C.L.E. over the most critically acclaimed movie of the year.

Ex Machina
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Victoria
Amy
Star Wars- Episode VII-The Force Awakens
Spectre
Sicario
Macbeth
A Most Violent Year
La Isla Minima/Marshland
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
The Duke of Burgundy
Relatos Selvajes/Wild Tales
Winter Sleep
Leviathan

The Internet being a glorious thing, my Goodreads account provided me with a list of my year in books- which comes in handy, though I must be the humbug and complain about how it used to be somehow nicer to scribble the titles into a notebook, most likely some tattered thing, and not a Moleskine that costs an arm and a leg. This being said, having the whole registry handed to me on a silver platter made it easier to chose the ten I liked most, and although I am a fiend of new releases, these are obviously written at the most random points in time and space, I just happened to chance upon them in 2015. As a side note, I must absolutely mention how Brooklyn the movie didn't do Brooklyn the book any justice- those little plot tweaks that made it more Hollywood material basically altered the whole meaning of the story, and I much prefer the one in the book.

Elena Ferrante- L'amica geniale/My Brilliant Friend
Jonathan Wilson- Inverting the Pyramid
Haruk Murakami- Hear the Wind Sing / Pinball, 1973
Karl Ove Knausgård- Dancing in the Dark
Christos Tsiolkas- The Slap
Orhan Pamuk-A Strangeness in My Mind
Jonathan Franzen- Purity
Natsume Soseki- I Am a Cat
Meg Wollitzer- The Interestings
Colm Toibin- Brooklyn

Since I pulled the little fifteen trick with the films, I said why the hell not, let's do it with the songs too, which resulted in realizing I had sixteen and binge listening to them to find the odd one out, and the more I listened the more I couldn't decide, so yes I am still crap at sticking to firm rules (you now see why I don't do those resolutions, don't you.)

EL VY- Return to the Moon
Grimes- California
Foals- Mountain at My Gates
Chvrches- Leave a Trace
Jamie XX- Loud Places
Savages- The Answer
Wolf Alice- Bros
Coldplay- Adventure of a Lifetime
Editors-Ocean of Night
Ibeyi- Stranger Lover
Florence and the Machine- What Kind of Man
Ghostpoet-Be Right Back, Moving House
School of Seven Bells- Open Your Eyes
New Order- Tutti Frutti
Foxes- Body Talk
Hot Chip- Need You Know

The albums were an easier task, since the Internet doesn't only compile nice lists for us, but it also gives us ADD, and whenever I settle down to listen to an entire album, I find myself skipping to something else in no time. Therefore, in a resolution of some sorts (see how consequent I am being here), I will try to listen to more albums in 2016, lest the horror of 2014 happen again. Yes, my favourite album of 2014 was actually not on the list I compiled at the end of the year, because I'd never listened to it in full. Well, now I have. A few dozen times at least. For your reference, it's ALT-J's This is All Yours. 

Speaking of ALT-J and them having been to Sziget, the club concert scene was somehow more subdued in 2015 compared to the previous year, at least when it comes to the genres I fancy, but at least it ended on a high with Editors playing in Barba Negra. So I have my new year's wishes too: more great concerts in clubs. Sziget was a blast though, and it brought me Interpol, who were on my wishlist, so this year I'll go for Coldplay, The Last Shadow Puppets and Jamie XX (whose album is great and got extra brownie points for spelling colour right) and I am totally excited for the already confirmed Chvrches and Sigur Rós.

Grimes- Art Angels
Editors- In Dream
Foals- What Went Down
Jamie Xx- In Colour (New XX reference, LCD SS)
New Order- Music Complete
Hot Chip- Why Make Sense?
Florence and the Machine- How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
Ibeyi- Ibeyi
Blur- The Magic Whip
Chvrches- Every Open Eye

Austra /Budapest Essentials

Omar Souleyman/Electronic Beats Festival

Hercules and Love Affair/Electronic Beats Festival

Editors/Barba Negra

Élodie Frégé/A38

Florence and the Machine/Sziget

Foals/Sziget

Foxes/Sziget

José González/Sziget

Katy B/Budapest Essentials

Little Boots/A38

MØ/Sziget

Gogol Bordello/Sziget

The Horrors/Sziget

ALT-J/Sziget

Enter Shikari/Sziget

Passenger/Sziget

A Place to Bury Strangers/A38

Thomas Dybdahl/GMK

Marina and The Diamonds/Sziget

Kasabian/Sziget

Interpol/Sziget

Harcsa Veronika/Puskin utca

Chelsea Wolfe/A38

Best of 2015- Budapest

When people ask me how long I’ve lived in Budapest, I usually have to think quite a lot before giving an answer, and strangely, it’s not always accurate.  I got stuck at round anniversaries, like I would say five years for ages, and then ten- I’m still in the ten phase, actually, and I was counting on my fingers just now to figure out whether I’d made it to fifteen, or would do so next year.  But no, ten it will still be for some time.

Ten is still a lot, I guess, and this last year in particular I kept thinking of how much the city changed since I arrived. The changes have been mostly positive, though I cannot help but feel sad whenever I see a place that used to be something else- though, of course, I have changed as well. I have moved through several neighbourhoods, and found the one I really love- I do sometimes feel the call of the neighbouring Újlipótváros, with its shabby Paris aura, but then I remember that my Terézváros is here and there a shabby Vienna, and I will forever remain partial to the latter.

I do occasionally feel grumpy when I return to Budapest after a longer trip, she seems dusty, desolate and frankly, a bit grumpy too. Then again,  maybe it’s karma, and I just got the city I deserved. These feelings are fleeting, though, because I then remember the million things why she’s actually the best place to call a home.

And because the end of the year calls for lists and the likes, here’s ten totally random reasons why I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else:

• the way the light descends onto the 6th and the 7th districts early in the morning, a lottery of sunshine breaking through unevenly, little old ladies walking their dogs on Andrássy, the clatter of random conversations filling the first corner shops to open for the day.
• Anker köz, with its weird slightly labyrinthine shape, reflecting any light so beautifully no matter what time of the day it is, being a light trap of sorts: there is a weird brightness to it even when the skies are overcast.
• summer lunches turning into dinners in Pántlika, weird electro buzz mingling with the sharp smells of spritzers and wheat beers, no regrets over the size of the meal, since you’ll be rambling around Városliget afterwards anyways
• people watching on the stairs of St Stephen’s, munching on the weirdest flavours of the best ice cream in town, with an added touch of excitement when all of this is done unseasonably early in spring or late in autumn.
• concerts on A38, not just because they bring the best bands, but because it’s a boat, on the Danube, and when the act is really great, you feel the sway of the crowd moving to the rhythm of the music, which becomes the rhythm of the river. Or the other way around.
• soaking in the hot pool of Rudas, particularly in winter, particularly ridiculously early in the morning, getting slightly but pleasantly sleepy while watching the light filtered by the coloured glass windows on the top of the dome.
• making a weekend escape to Normafa, either by the cog wheel train, the children’s railway or the chairlift, like some alternative amusement park that’s not corny or loud, wandering around the forest and ending the day watching the sunset from Jánoshegy.
• running on Margit Island in late spring and early summer- the place is great in any season, actually, and not only for running, but I just get a particular kick from seeing as many blooming lilac bushes and linden trees as I can.
• going to any of the city’s many amazing specialty coffee shops for an espresso and a good talk or a good book, with special mentions going to My Little Melbourne for being on my way to work and having pretzels and Espresso Embassy for having the best random overheard snippets of conversation in town.
• Guinness in Becketts, whiskey sour in Boutiq bar and Campari orange on the terrace of Akvárium. Not necessarily on the same day, I would say, and not only for the sake of the drink.