Best of 2008 Picks -- Gary Whitehouse

Recordings

I didn't find it to be an exceptional year for recordings. There were several that Iiked very much, but few that blew me away. Topping my list, though, is Jolie Holland's, The Living And The Dead. I've been following Holland with great expectations ever since her first release, 2003's Catalpa, and with this album she's fulfilling the promise implicit in her earlier work. While still working the Americana and folk sides of her repertoire on songs like "Palmyra" and "Sweet Loving Man," she adds rock to the mix with the stirring drumming of Rachel Blumberg and electric guitar work from M. Ward and Marc Ribot on songs like "Your Big Hands" and "Mexico City," one of my favorite songs of the year.

Some of the runners-up: Elliott Brood's Mountain Meadows, an album of catchy, rocking, dark Americana; Two Cow Garage's Speaking in Cursive, an entertaining set of loose-limbed roots rock exploring the hope, disappointment and joy of trying to make a living in an independent band; and Pistolera's En Este Camino, sexy and danceable music on political themes from this Brooklyn-based rock and roll combo.

Performance

My favorite live performance of 2008 came from one of my favorite musicians. M. Ward played Portland, Oregon's Crystal Ballroom September 4 as part of the citywide Musicfest NW. He wasn't promoting a new release -- his latest was 2007's Post-War -- but his set drew heavily from that album. He was relaxed yet intense, and his seasoned band -- including, again, Rachel Blumberg on drums -- was in the pocket all night. It was a joyous celebration of music from one of Portland's best musical voices.

Other excellent performances included Crooked Still's set at Pickathon, Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band at the Doug Fir, Tiger Lillies Nov. 5, also at the Doug Fir, and Kitka Nov. 2, at Euphoria Studios in Portland.

Books

Science fiction -- Hands down the best sci-fi I've read in years was Neal Stephenson's Anathem. The decision to read it was a daunting one. This 900-some-page tome is a challenge just to pick up, and it's not a book to try reading in bed! But as I neared the end, I found myself wishing it wouldn't end. The plot is essentially the same as that of The Hobbit or any of a horde of other tales: A young member of a marginalized group is taken out of his idyllic surroundings and embarks on an epic adventure in which he seems to play only a minor role; he learns much about himself and life, and incidentally helps to save the world. And its central idea is much the same as one explored by other writers, including Heinlein in his The Number of the Beast (without the icky incest or human/computer sex) -- the concept of alternate realities that is a logical outgrowth of some of the basic ideas of quantum physics: every action taken unleashes a causal chain of events, creating in effect a new universe (or cosmos, or narrative, or world line). Much of the body of this book, which takes place on an alternate earth named Arbre, consists of a meta-history of philosophy and science, delivered as a series of Socratic-type dialogs between the main characters, who are "fraas" and "suurs" in a cloistered community of geniuses. That sounds dry, but I never found it so, because of the entertaining way Stephenson tells the story through his narrator, Fraa Erasmus, and the vivid alternate world he creates. It takes a long time (which I didn't mind) to reach the actual crux of the plot, which is that an alien space ship has been detected in orbit around Arbre. In the meantime, we see a reflection of our current social order in the tensions inherent on Arbre between the cloistered "Mathic" world and the Saecular world of functional illiterates who incessantly yak on their "jeejahs," entertain themselves at casinos and eat food that contains a mood-altering chemical that's better than Prozac. The book even contains a CD with several tracks of choral music meant to resemble the songs sung in the Mathic "concents." An adventure tale that's brimming with ideas and humor, Anathem is a perfect companion for long, dark, cold winter evenings.

General fiction -- Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. This small book is a nearly perfect character study of a steely but ultimately lonely New England woman. Told chronologically in a series of linked short stories, it's the tale of how this woman, who lives a mostly unexamined life, slowly learns to accept the frailties of human love into her heart. Beautifully written, it's alternately sad, poignant and darkly hilarious, but never sentimental -- Olive wouldn't stand for that.

Another top contender is The Ginseng Hunter by Jeff Talarigo. It's a stark, disturbing story of a solitary man, half-Korean, half-Chinese, living in China's mountainous Korean border region. His metered solitude is disturbed by the arrival of starving refugees from Korea who cross the border in search of sustenance. It's a more emotionally complex tale than Talarigo's debut, the excellent The Pearl Diver, which similarly explores themes of isolation, despair and human connections.