At the end of a long day books, music and video can provide a bit of light relief. Cyprus Mail writers outline what kept them going through 2022
THEO PANAYIDES
READING: This was the year of non-fiction: The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber, endless articles and Substack posts on Covid, the energy crisis, the war in Ukraine, etc. Even the Nobel committee agreed – and I’m not always familiar with their choices, but it was nice seeing Annie Ernaux being honoured just weeks after I’d finished The Years, a lovely accumulation of moments and memories, the micro alchemised into macro (even if the micro leans a bit too hard on domestic French politics). That said, there was also Mike and Psmith, a very early – and slightly second-rate – book by the great PG Wodehouse, set in a British boarding school where the boys say “You ARE a chap!” to express admiration and “Oh, rot!” to deflect a compliment. Fiction? Oh yes.
LISTENING: Shout-outs to a couple of earworms that meant a lot at the time (though I’m bored with them now): ‘Ferrari’ was the song of the summer, ‘Youngblood’ by Jonathan Jeremiah – a soul-pop, madly catchy call to revolution – was my daily pick-me-up when I came down with Covid. Most-played combo of the year was ‘Year of Love’ by Jenny Hval immediately followed by ‘Atomized’ by Andrew Bird (I found them that way on a playlist; it works, though!). Mostly, however, I seemed to exist in a kind of limbo, despairing of today’s vapid pop but unable to settle down with the operas and sonatas on CyBC4. I just want music to be fun – so thank goodness for the wacky girls of Wet Leg, whose prolific output included ‘Daisy’ and ‘Wet Dream’, the latter featuring the greatest-ever pick-up line: “Baby, do you want to come home with me / I’ve got Buffalo ’66 on DVD”. That would so work.
WATCHING: So many films (I don’t watch series), where to begin? The Girl and the Spider (2021), a kind of clockwork intellectual Swiss farce, was my favourite new movie – but the most intense pleasures are the ones you don’t expect, like the night in late June when I happened to be in the old town, attending a lecture for work, then happened to run into a friend who more or less guilt-tripped me into coming to the Images & Views of Alternative Cinema festival. It was open-air, in a courtyard – a double bill. The first film was Pasolini’s Notes Towards an African Orestes (1970), fascinating but a little dry; the second was Bava’s Black Sabbath (1963), a dizzying riot of colours, halfway between Gothic and giallo. I lost myself in the sumptuous images, with the smells and sounds of a summer night wafting by on the breeze. Magic.
ANTIGONI PITTA
READING: Losing Eve Babitz and Joan Didion in rapid succession at the end of last year was a wake-up call for me; I wasn’t reading enough books by women.
After finally finishing Keith Richards’ Life, early in the year I picked up Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, which had me so gripped I finished it in three days. The protagonist’s attempt to dull her emotions by sleeping for an entire year (aided by a copious and ever-increasing amount of pills) was almost too horrifying to look away from.
In the summer, desperate for a dip in the sea, I read LA Woman, my first foray into Babitz’s work and a beautiful, shimmering tribute to Los Angeles, as a city and as a concept through the parallel stories of two women.
LISTENING: This was my first year back in London after nearly two years away, and readjusting to its rhythms was hard. The Rolling Stones, my comfort band during the pandemic, saw me through spring, with Exile on Main St. on repeat.
As summer came along, stuck in a sticky and humid big city I gravitated towards the obscure grooves of Habibi Funk, a label that reissues 60s and 70s funk records from the Arab world.
To compensate for the very few books I read this year, I was drawn to detailed, well-researched podcasts.
I loved Lili Anolik’s literary gossip podcast ‘Once Upon a Time… at Bennington College’, about the eccentric liberal arts college and its famous graduates. It was fun learning about the secrets and collegiate lives of three key literary figures of the 1980s – Bret Easton Ellis, Jonathan Lethem and Donna Tartt, all of whom were in Bennington’s class of ’86.
My favourite podcast was ‘Mother Country Radicals’, which tells the story of how a bunch of young activists became America’s most wanted at the tail-end of the 1960s, replacing peace and love with rage and bombs as the Black Panther-affiliated Weather Underground organisation. I have always been intrigued by this chapter of American counterculture, and this podcast, created by the son of two of its core members, was incredibly rich in content and nuance.
WATCHING: I was pleased to welcome quality TV back on my screen, starting the year with creepy Yellowjackets, an exploration of how past trauma affects our lives years down the line. I also enjoyed The White Lotus, a satirical, sordid look into the inner workings of a luxury hotel chain seen through the relationships of their guests and employees.
The unusually hot summer was defined by Fire of Love, a lovely, evocative documentary about two married volcanologists who dedicated their life together to doing groundbreaking (and extremely dangerous) research.
The last film I watched at the cinema in 2022, and perhaps my highlight of the year, was Aftersun, a quietly devastating film about a father-daughter relationship.
NIKOLAOS PRAKAS
READING: “It would suffer a thousand deaths, but it would still be a lion’s heart when it rose from death.” This line from DH Lawrence’s The Rainbow has stayed with me, as it describes Ursula’s independent spirit which guided her throughout the book. I tended to gravitate towards this type of literature this year. Books, for me, should not only transport you to other times, places, and into the lives of people out of your comfort zone, but they have to make me feel colours, scenes, and sounds that make up the quiet parts of the pages.
Another book that took me on a journey was Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan, as her short stories make you feel everything in a short piece. I enjoy living through the eyes of characters in books, so I tend to gravitate to complex characters, with deep stories, or stories that can be interpreted by the reader.
LISTENING: Music was an entirely different journey for me this year, as I moved between beloved genres of folk and indie, to instrumental pieces (mostly piano and flute), to a dabble in Italian rap. If I took my Spotify favourites to account, they would show that I was in love with Italian rap and R&B, but I hopped to some favourite artists like Dermot Kennedy, Hozier and Vance Joy as well. Most recently, I have been listening to Matt Molloy on Irish flute, which really speaks to what I want out of music. I want to close my eyes and travel or let my spirit dance wildly to colourful rhythms that touch you deep down; words are not always necessary for music to be great. It really unlocked something in me, and allowed me to better focus and actually understand what I am listening to.
WATCHING: My tastes really vary, sometimes I like to be in an introverted mood and will fall back on favourite movies like Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke, but other times this year I wanted a good social comedy, which led me to watch Bienvenue à Marly-Gomont. It is known as The African Doctor in English, but the film is really a funny and unexpectedly charming insight into small-town French life. I also kept falling back to the Avatar: The Last Airbender series and its sequel The Legend of Korra, loving just watching a cartoon with a lot of meaning and a variety of messages.
GINA AGAPIOU
READING: Travelling to Holland, I decided to read Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson again. The first time I came across the book was about five years ago during my studies. Back then I didn’t seek to determine the gender of the narrator, but this time I was determined it was a man. I still love how the gender remains unspecified – because really, anyone can do anything.
And as I am writing this, waiting at another airport, I have by my side my favourite Christmas present, the poetry book Love Speaks Its Name. A collection of gay and lesbian poems for every mood, from Shakespeare to Djuna Barnes and WH Auden. Another poetry book perfect for travelling is the Anthology of Young Cypriot Poets, a great initiative that is worth supporting.
LISTENING: Cypriots might have stopped abiding by social distancing rules, reclaiming space in nightclubs but personally, I cannot help but feel that (to quote Fred Again and The Blessed Madonna) we’ve lost dancing. Their hit from last year, ‘Marea’, remains on my playlist, playing on repeat like a mantra. Although those repetitive electro sounds can get on my nerves, a more recent release by Fred Again, this time with Romy Madley Croft, has also hit close to home. ‘Strong’ sounds like what people processing pain wish they hear in a vulnerable moment.
And it might just be my impression, but are queer artists becoming mainstream? Dove Cameron’s ‘Boyfriend’ has 48 million views on YouTube since it was released eight months ago. Meanwhile, Taylor Swift is touring next year with an array of queer guest artists including MUNA, King Princess and girl in red.
WATCHING: Speaking about inclusivity, we must discuss ugly fruit and vegetables. A recent survey showed that more Cypriots will now consider buying fresh perishables with an unsatisfactory appearance compared to last year. Like, why wouldn’t you buy a heart-shaped potato? This is one of the questions that Agnes Varda asks in her 22-year-old documentary The Gleaners and I. During the 82 minutes, Varda, about 70 years old at the time, shows the large amount of perfectly good food humanity just dumps in fields. I suppose most of us will keep putting beauty above everything else, even basic human needs.
Another thing that shocks me is what people are willing to do for money. The Driver, a 24-minute film by Walter Lucaj was screened at this year’s international short film festival in Limassol. A great illustration of how Hannah Arendt defined thoughtlessness, the movie shows a man who is a driver for human traffickers, meaning he drives the girls that are being trafficked. And the typical question emerges: ‘What if she was your daughter?’ Well, one of the girls, raped in the back of the car, was. Some call it karma.
JONATHAN SHKURKO
READING: As far as books were concerned, my choices this year were unsurprisingly influenced by the war in Ukraine, gravitating around journalistic accounts of past conflicts.
I read and loved American war reporter Barbara Demick’s Nothing to Envy. The current geopolitical state of affairs inspired me to read her other opus, Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood.
Like in her book on North Korea, Demick focuses on people, particularly in Sarajevo’s Logavina Street where Serbs and Croats, Muslim and Christians lived together in harmony before the war. Poignant and powerful, a must-read.
If, instead, you think witnessing a live war is enough, Italian novel Heart might lift your spirits. Mind you, you will still shed a tear or two. Set in a school at the time of Italian reunification in the 19th century, the book features high volumes of melancholic nostalgia.
LISTENING: For the first time ever, I think I have listened to more podcasts than music.
My top choice, a consequence of my love of food and everything around it, pushed me right in the hands of ‘Gastropod’, which explores the history and science behind our eating habits, starting from farming and ending up with up-and-coming restaurants.
Accompany everything with a generous dose of Fela Kuti. Gems like ‘Ye Ye De Smell’, ‘Water No Get Enemy’ and ‘Expensive Shit’ are perfect songs for virtually every possible situation or life scenario.
WATCHING: Avoiding the constant feeling of burnout in the age of remote working is becoming a stressful task. Especially in the past couple of years, we are always working in one way or another. Sending out emails at midnight, sorting out excel files while sipping coffee in our pyjamas, we have slowly but steadily lost our ability to unwind. Thanks Covid!
That said, disconnecting from the world has, paradoxically, never been easier with the amount of entertainment choices we can now count on.
Towards the end of 2022, I rediscovered the joys of YouTube, once my go-to source of entertainment before Netflix took over.
Fuelled by newfound curiosity for outer space, I became addicted to a channel, called ‘What If’, which analyses potentially apocalyptic or simply impossible scenarios with a subtle hint of humour.
I particularly recommend ‘What If Earth Reached Boiling Point for 5 Seconds?’ and ‘What If the Largest Black Hole Entered Our Solar System?’, guaranteed to make you go through them faster than the speed of light!
And if you think streaming something for free feels like cheating, give Netflix’s Vatican Girl and Entrapped a go. Church scandals and Nordic murders rarely ever disappoint.
