A Few of my Favourite Things (2018 Edition)

Roma by Alfonso Cuarón: As the NY Times writes, Roma, “based on Cuarón’s own memories of growing up in a bourgeois Mexico City household, […] places a young housekeeper named Cleo at the center of a sweeping tale of family life and social upheaval”. Despite its critical acclaim as a masterpiece, there are important barriers to entry. Shot in black and white, in Spanish with subtitles, with a few graphic scenes, the movie is also extremely slow-moving (it actually took me 3 sittings to finish it — be warned, this is definitely not a Jason Bourne movie!) with very long and expansive pan sequences. That said, Roma is emotionally poignant, visually stunning and incredibly human. In a pivotal year for relations with Mexico and border immigration, this felt like the most important movie of the year. Available on Netflix now.

Parts Unknown with Anthony Bourdain: In his last season of the CNN show, legendary traveler and author Anthony Bourdain brings us to a new set of remote locations, and once again makes them feel familiar and within reach. Memorable episodes includes Hanoi (featuring an epic ramen noodle dinner date with Barack Obama), Kenya and NYC’s Lower East Side. As Obama recently tweeted upon Bourdain’s passing, “he made us a little less afraid of the unknown”. In the world we live in, that seems like an invaluable legacy.

[Francophone] Les Fermiers: The show follows popular bio farmer Jean-Martin Fortier and his colourful band of helpers on their quest to reinvent standard modes of agriculture and prove that small-scale microfarming with “low-tech high-yield methods” can be both profitable and sustainable. It’s an interesting look inside how a farm is managed on the daily. Watch here.

Chef’s Table with Jordi Roca: As Eater details, “The Jordi Roca episode of Netflix’s Chef’s Table: Pastry tells the story of how a rudderless young guy found his true calling in his older brothers’ kitchen, and in doing so, turned their restaurant into one of the world’s most acclaimed fine-dining establishments.”, ie three-Michelin-starred Spanish restaurant El Celler de Can Roca. Jordi Roca whispers through the episode as his voice waned after laryngitis. It is a beautiful and dramatic tale of family, creativity, delicious desserts, and “against the odds” business partnership success.

Abstract: The Art of Design: The Netflix show masterful profiles of some of the top creatives of our time. It gets us inside the work of larger than life architect Bjarke Ingels, showcasing how his “Inception”-like architecture brings poetry to functionality. It also teaches us how renowned photographer Plato uses Frank-Lloyd Wright inspired compression and expansion techniques to shoot leading world figures.

[Francophone] Le Cri du Rhinocéros with Marc Labrèche: This short and very offbeat documentary explores a fascinating question, “Do artists have an expiry date?”, via interviews with leading figures in film, music and visual arts such as Atom Egoyan, Denis Villeneuve, Jonathan Franzen and Xavier Dolan. Labrèche hunts for the keys to enduring creative success in a world obsessed with latest new thing, and its message resonates even beyond the artistic world. Read on here.

Tiny Desk Concerts by NPR: Incredible series of genre-expanding live performances from a variety of artists around the world. 2018 brought memorable mini-sets from cerebral Wu-tang emcee GZA accompanied by an eight-piece New Orleans brass ensemble, as well a vibrant set from Mac Miller, one month before his passing, offering a magnificently poignant rendition of his song “2009” with a strings quartet. Fun discoveries included festive samba/cumbia inspired Jenny and Mexicats and the Afro-Colombian beats of Bomba Estereo. A vital series to add performance and visual language back to music in this “post video clip”/Spotify era.

[Francophone] Ouisurf en Afrique by Ouisurf: A band of surf lovers travel the world, looking for waves and adventures. Their new excellent 13-episode series on Africa brings the group to South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Namibia, Morocco and more. Beyond beautiful landscapes, it also shows that the journey is made up of stories, connections and people you meet along the way. It’s funny, ambitious (while of course not taking itself too seriously!) and inspiring, and may make you want to trade in your day job for a one-way ticket and a surf board! Watch it on Ouisurf.tv.

[Jazz] Heaven And Earth by Kamasi Washington: As Esquire explains, “The LA-hailing saxophonist started his career playing for an impressive list of musicians including jazz great Herbie Hancock, Snoop Dogg, Nas, Thundercat and Flying Lotus. His third studio release is a double album and a genre-bending celebration of music which sees soul simmer slowly”. “Fists of Fury”, its first track, swings in epic fashion from rhythmical piano and voice choirs to a raging sax solo, and back again. This record was a standout for me, a total “cocktail of soul and funk” that pushed my musical boundaries. Listen here.

[Francophone] Les Choses Extérieures by Salomé Leclerc: This is a dark, delicate and beautiful album from Leclerc, a one-woman band who played almost all instruments in addition to writing, arranging and producing the record. Voir finds echoes of Karkwa and Radiohead’s heavy but sparse piano. As the CBC puts it, “These are the masterful moments: when Leclerc’s songwriting rises above the beauty of the musical spaces she explores. This isn’t only her best work; it’s a masterclass in songwriting, beauty and restraint”. The sorrow-filled Des plumes et des ombres was its most memorable track for me, but songs each felt naturally connected. Ton équilibre and Entre ici et chez toi are equally remarkable. Listen here.

[Note: Other great francophone full album favourites this year included Simon Laganière’s album Samedi Soir de Semaine and Eli Doyon & La Tempête’s brass-filled L’aube.]

[Classical] Dans Ma Main by Jean-Michel Blais: 2018 was a banner year for neoclassical music “made in Quebec”, notably with Alexandra Strelinski’s successful and excellent Inscape. I really connected with Blais’ sophomore album Dans ma main, a wonderfully dreamy and imaginative piano opus which only gets better after each listen. Exclaim writes “Far from spiralling inward, as always, Blais lets it all flow through him, and as private becomes public, the result is yet another intimate masterpiece”. I really liked its originality combining piano chords and sounds, as well as sampled electronic textures, to craft unique pieces of music. A heartbeat away and Igloo were standouts for me. Listen here.

[Indie] I Shall Love 2 by Julia Holter: After discovering Holter with 2015’s beautiful Sea Calls me Home, full of free spirit and a furious and gravity defying stereo sax solo, she caught my ear again with her 2018 record I Shall Love 2 from the album Have You In My Wilderness. It’s another experimental and mysterious ode to love (and stubbornly falling into it helplessly, perhaps) with an ethereal backdrop and a powerful orchestral crescendo to the end. Also very much worth the listen on the same album: Words I Heard.

[Francophone] Pie IX by Lydia Képinski: Képinski’s debut album Premier Juin was praised far and wide this year, but this song (the last one on the album) deserves particular attention. On its face, it’s a dark, eerie and crackling exploration of death, suicide and finding light at the end of the tunnel. The lyrics are incredibly tight, with vivid metaphors, creative rhyming and rhythmical wordplay. The song culminates in a heavy rock solo, where guitars and strings crash and converge, which in itself is worth the listen.

[World] Filaou Bessame by Amadou & Mariam: This upbeat track from the famous blind African couple (of 35+ years!) brought me to a simple and happy place. As Music In Africa sums up very well, “Amadou and Mariam create eclectic music. La Confusion is a product of the world, for the world. When you listen to it, you feel as if you’re travelling around the globe at a thousand miles an hour, collecting a colourful variety of sounds, each with their own distinct flavour and scent”. Their versatile songs tackle issues like gender inequality or the uncertainties of migration. As Pitchfork notes, the couple offers “uplift in a time of global insecurity”.

Oh Baby by LCD Soundsystem: Just when you thought music videos didn’t matter, this video comes along and changes that. Veterans actors Sissy Spacek and David Strathairn are cast as two scientists building a teleporting machine to move objects from “Here to There”. Letting go of their material worth, they strive to make an impossible dream real, when the unexpected strikes. It’s a mesmerizing short movie featuring scientific discovery and love (“Please wake me / For my love lies patiently / Please baby please”) that brings new life to LCD’s song. As one YouTube comment sums it up: “Wasn’t expecting to cry at 2 am”.

[Note: If you are wondering about the clip’s epic ending, I suggest this other mind-blowing YouTube comment: “Here are two interpretations of the ending: 1) He takes her into the teleporter and into everlasting oblivion together, 2) The kids stole their car so he couldn’t get her medical attention; turning the machine off after entering the first gate but before exiting the second freezes them in time until someone else turns it back on who would presumably have a vehicle they could use to get to a hospital.”]

Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker: Far and away my favourite book of the year. If somehow you thought you were above getting a good night’s sleep, this science-filled must-read study will forever puts that idea to rest. Authored by Matthew Walker, Director of UC Berkeley’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab and former professor at Harvard with 20+ years of sleep research under his belt, Why We Sleep is the definitive guide to understanding the vital importance of sleep and dreaming. My favourite chapters were about the amazing and surprising evolutionary path of sleep habits in animals.

Kinfolk: Kinfolk is an independent “slow lifestyle magazine” with a beautiful clean design aesthetic. It focuses on “home, work, play, food and community through photo essays, recipes, interviews, profiles, personal stories and practical tips”. The quarterly pace is a reasonable cadence. Also, each magazine is focused on a different topic, which allows us to explore new areas in a familiar format. Based in Portland, the contributors (writers, photographers, designers and chefs) are mostly international. I recently also received the Entrepreneur issue (pictured above), one of several “book format” publications such as the Kinfolk Home and Kinfolk Table, which I look forward to reading in the new year.

A Few Good Reads (2018 edition): View the list here.

The Mandela Lecture by Barack Obama: Obama hits on almost all the key issues of 2018 in this speech in Johannesburg. As CBS notes, “Obama, in a speech honouring the late South African leader Nelson Mandela, said he’d try to get some perspective as news cycles bring more head-spinning and disturbing headlines”. And that’s exactly what Obama does here in a helpful and well thought-out allocution. In this excerpt #1, he brings context to the headlines. In excerpt #2, he talks about inequality, greed, and giving back. A particularly powerful line: “It shows a poverty of ambition to want to just take more and more”.

Play 5 by Sonos: If you really care about music (while you work, cook or relax, for example), you’ll want to hear how incredible it sounds on the Sonos Play 5 “all-in-one” connected speaker. Beyond divine sound capable of filling a large room, the latest edition of the device features Alexa compatibility, meaning you can “control the music, podcasts, and radio stations you love all over your home without ever picking up your phone or table” via an Echo or Echo Dot. It also boasts Airplay 2 support, allowing you to cast audio from your phone directly to the Play 5. Finally, in an era of walled gardens, Sonos’ continued multi-platform approach to compatibility should be lauded. This means you can seamlessly play audio from a large number of music streaming apps like Spotify, Apple Music or Pandora, and connect with a variety of hardware ecosystems.

Apple Wallet & Apple Pay: It became clear in 2018 that contactless payment was finally ready for primetime. Tapping Apple Wallet on physical terminals, either with an iPhone or Apple Watch, is a giant leap forward in simplifying and accelerating everyday payments, for example at a restaurant, grocery or convenience store. Apple’s user experience and software design deserve praise here, as the result is simple, elegant, easy to setup, and frictionless. Apple Pay has also made online payments a cinch, storing info securely and enabling faster checkouts.

Expensify: The app takes perhaps one of the most tedious tasks I have on my plate, expense management, and makes it thoroughly enjoyable. It’s even almost now a fun process! The SmartScan technology enables rapid uploading directly by snapping pics via the Expensify app, and then avoiding almost any data entry. It’s also possible to easily and automatically add expense categories, as well as export expense reports for specific timeframes, which can be useful around tax season. Overall, a great functional app for simplifying business trips or other life expenses, and it also works great in a team setting to share/manage expenses of various teammates or collaborators. It’s been a huge timesaver this year.

How I Built This with Guy Raz on NPR: This podcast series invites listeners to learn about how businesses are built. As NPR describes, show host Guy Raz “dives into the stories behind some of the world’s best known companies, weaving a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists — and the movements they built”. Fascinating recent episodes featured the founders of Airbnb, Burton Snowboards, Lyft and fashion pioneer Glossier.

Lamp 2 from Ikea: This uplifting 2018 sequel to the classic 2002 Spike Jonze ad features a young redhead girl picking up a discarded lamp from the trash, and integrating it her home. LBB notes that “This new spot shifts the original idea on its head — giving the original lamp a new lease of life as a metaphor to encourage people to recycle and reuse older products”. It’s also an ode to quality products and timeless design.

Let Go by Tourisme Québec (2018): I felt Quebec’s Tourism Board hit a homerun with this inspiring travel ad, inviting 5 influencers to “let go, and immerse themselves in the beauty of the land and culture”. The ad showcases the best of Quebec, mostly during summertime, “from vibrant cities to larger-than-life landscapes, electrifying festivals to outdoor adventures, their journeys including unique and surprising moments that connected them with the place and its people”. Great song pick with “Wanderer” by local emerging artist Geoffroy.

Falafel Yoni: This small 12-seat shop on St-Viateur in Montreal’s lively Mile-End only has a few dishes (all sub $10) on the menu, but its each is worth the trip. Their speciality: Israeli-style Falafel pitas, made of chickpeas. My favourite: the Sabich. This particular sandwich is a jammed full explosion of delicious colours and textures, including deep-fried eggplant, lemon-picked cabbage, mango chutney and more. Also definitely worth a try: the zaatar-spiced fries. Read more.

Ile Flottante: This Mile-End restaurant, a few doors down from Falafel Yoni (see above) offers inventive tasting menus in 3, 5 or 7 services. Vegetables are the star of the show here, with full vegetarian tasting menu options. Colourful and beautifully plated dishes, surprising tastes and excellent service made this my best meal of the year. Note that the newly renovated open space with indigo walls and an Expo67 theme (ie. the floating island) is a reincarnation of also acclaimed previous restaurant Les Deux Singes de Montarvie. Read more.

Espace Pépin: Located in Montreal’s Old Port on Saint-Paul street, this store is a treasure trove of inspiration for your home. As En Route mentions, “the gallery is set up like an artist’s apartment, with the focus on Canadian talent, like NumérArt and Petits Mots. With furniture, paintings, ­decorative objects and clothing spread out over two locations, there’s a little of everything and something for every budget”. You can definitely feel the artist’s touch (the owner is also an artist) in every corner, with a nicely curated mix of local products, which is an inspiring alternative to big box furnitures stores. Also worth the detour: the beautiful adjacent alley (especially during the holiday season) and the lunch/snack bar.

A Crack in Everything on Leonard Cohen at the MAC: Part of Montreal’s 375th anniversary celebrations, this major contemporary art exhibition celebrated the life of the legendary Montreal-born singer, poet and novelist. It was also the “first to be entirely devoted to the imagination and legacy of this great singer/songwriter, man of letters and global icon from Montréal”, covering many of his work’s key themes of such as religion, politics, isolation and personal relationships. 40 artists from 10 countries revisited his life’s work through a combination of visual art, virtual reality and interactive performances. Canadians artists like Barr Brothers, Chilly Gonzales and Feist contributed musically. Read more.

[Note: My favourite installation was by far the The Poetry Machine by artists Janet Cardiff and Georges Bures Miller, composed of “a vintage organ, a collection of speakers and recordings of Cohen reciting dozens of poems”, which allowed viewers to “hear and play Cohen’s voice and texts as a haunting musical instrument” and create “new poems out of his words”.]

Street mural by Cyrielle Tremblay and Poni: This mural was painted in 2018 on Parc street in Montreal near McGill University in a convenience store parking lot during the awesome Mural street art festival. As per her bio, Tremblay builds “dreamlike worlds where she tells stories of inner gardens where sometimes memory or poetry prevails”. As La Presse details, the work contains “symbols of Montreal to frame the context, such as the Mount Royal cross, the St. Lawrence River water and the Laurentians mountains. It also expresses the idea of ​​the woman who builds her environment, which is part of the story. It was good because the Montrealers recently chose its first female mayor. And the mural speaks of communion with nature”. The work is a collaboration between Quebec artist Tremblay (see her colourful Instagram or read more) and Mexican artist Poni, who often features “women going about their business”.