Setting intentions for 2022

It's that time: making resolutions, or setting intentions. I've been in a rut the last few years. I say I want to lose weight but I haven't. I mean to study languages but I don't. So this time around I want to shift to giving some more substance to the things I'll do anyway: read, listen, watch. Following Linda Holmes from NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, I want to read at least one book a week. I have a stack of books that will keep me busy for at least a year, and more on my shelves. So, my first intention for the coming year is 50 books in 2022.

The first book I've picked up is Adam Gopnik's Winter: Five Windows on the Season (2011). Drawn from a series of lectures, the essays consider how a modern sense of winter has emerged and manifested itself in cultural production. Modern winter as seen through a window from a warm place, both sweet--picturesque--and scary--sublime--in painting, poetry, music, and novels such as Frankenstein. I have generally enjoyed his essays in the New Yorker about his life in Paris; this will be a re-connection with my graduate student self.

He mentions Vivaldi's "Winter" so I listened to it on YouTube, so familiar. Then he talks about Schubert's Die Winterreise, as sung by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. I have listened to it enough so that it is familiar although I don't know it as well as Die schöne Müllerin.

Along with the "book of the week" I like the idea of an "album of the week." I want to spend time listening to new music, so I will look through my Spotify albums list, and look for recommendations. This can either be listening to one album a week, or choosing my favorite of the albums I listen to in a week. I'll have to see how well I stick to these intentions, but I think I can make time for intentionally listening to music, on my walks or while I read.  There was an episode of the Alt.Latino podcast that was a round-up of their favorite albums of 2021, and it reminded me that I had not listened to enough new music this past year. And also that the album format is still one I enjoy. It made me go off to listen to Cimafunk's album El alimento, and El Madrileño by C. Tangana. Next, I'm going to listen to Alex Cuba's Mendó.

 Look at this absolutely lovely lyrics video for his duet with Lila Downs, "Mundo nuevo"

I already do a "movie of the week" and I might make it a Criterion movie of the week. If I get really fancy I might also try to incorporate a "recipe of the week" into the mix. We shall see.