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Husband. Father. And now homeowner. There is an account with a hilarious negative balance in my internet banking, an unimaginable amount of money until you break it down into x-hundred a week. This will be a key driver of so many decisions about how to spend my time and money over the next couple of decades. At this very early stage, with the first planks of borer-riddled wood uncovered and the first tree toppled by the wind, I am excited to get stuck in and learn how to do things yourself. I’ll let you know in a year whether I still feel that way.

As the kids get older, sleep gradually becomes a priority once more. I’ve done two years of thinking five hours was enough to get by – two before the night feed, three after. Now they are sleeping through more regularly, which means I am too. It’s too early to say whether this means my memory will be restored to full function. In its place, I have written a brief note in a physical diary every day to mark what happened that day. I look back over it sometimes and read what appear to be words written in someone else’s hand, about someone else’s experiences… then I remember, in vivid flashes, and think how much has changed since then.

I have a new job, one that challenges me in new ways every day. I have put out an email newsletter stuffed with book and movie reviews every month of the year. I have written bits and pieces of other things (but never enough to be satisfied). Overall, I am content, if a little unsure of what exactly I’m meant to be doing here, apart from continuing to be a husband and father, neither of which is a bad purpose in itself. I guess this is normal for a lot of people in their mid-thirties.

Film

Looking back over my viewing log on Letterboxd, I saw more new (or newly released to NZ, at least) films in 2019 than I thought I did. The answer is the increasingly up-to-date nature of movie streaming. Which is also the defining story of the decade in movies, but if you are anywhere close to the average viewer, who now most likely watches everything down a 100% legal cable from servers on the other side of the world, you’ll know this already.

Going to the cinema is a different story, which is actually the same story. Six NZ International Film Festival screenings aside, I went to the movies four times in 2019. Gone are the fantastical days of my early 20s when I would go to something every week, usually at the now-demolished Regent on Worcester in Christchurch. I could be indiscriminate in my viewing as there was so little riding on each $8.50 ticket: if this week’s film was rubbish, I’d be back the following week anyway. Now, with marriage and parenting and a house to make over, it’s likely to be months between screenings. I have to choose carefully.

I can’t judge. The streaming revolution has come at exactly the right time for me, syncing perfectly with my need to kill time cradling a small child in a darkened room most nights. I am worried about the future, though. My parents are now able to go to the cinema more or less whenever they like, and they are taking full advantage, which is great. They are now invariably the ones filling me in on the latest releases. Will there be enough picture houses around to serve me when I reach that stage of life, though? How much longer can ‘going to the movies’ hang onto relevance, and how detached can it ever be from the octopoid Disney corporation, who will surely decide the answer to the question?

I wait in hope. But in the event it all crashes down, and those who want to watch anything on the big screen have to go cap in hand to the guardians of the galaxy, I am steadily rebuilding a collection of physical media to keep me – and my family – going. A title can disappear off Netflix or Disney+ at the click of a button. No one can take away my PAPRIKA Blu-Ray.

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Enough of that. Taking screen size out of the equation, I saw 24 new-to-NZ films in 2019. In the order I saw them, with hasty ranking in brackets:

THE SISTERS BROTHERS (7)
RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET (21)
SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (6)
WHERE HANDS TOUCH (19)
HOMECOMING: A FILM BY BEYONCE (16)
DEADWOOD: THE MOVIE (4)
WIDOWS (14)
UP THE MOUNTAIN (2)
MILES DAVIS: BIRTH OF THE COOL (22)
HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING (15)
PONOC SHORT FILMS THEATRE, VOLUME 1 – MODEST HEROES (11)
CHILDREN OF THE SEA (23)
AQUAMAN (24)
THE HATE U GIVE (10)
WEATHERING WITH YOU (20)
EIGHTH GRADE (3)
LEAVE NO TRACE (5)
WHEN THEY SEE US (1)
YARDIE (17)
US (12)
THE IRISHMAN (9)
MADELINE’S MADELINE (13)
MARRIAGE STORY (8)
STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER (18)

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One more quick word for an unfinished project of 2019, which was to watch 52 films by black directors. I reached 28. I wouldn’t call it a failure, though, because it opened my eyes to many new ways of seeing and thinking, and it showed me how rare it has been throughout film history for a dark-skinned person to be handed the reins. Thankfully, that rarity is becoming less of an issue, both in the multiplexes and the arthouses, not to mention the big streaming platforms.

This one will carry over into 2020, and you can track my progress here. In the meantime, some highlights so far:

TRAINING DAY
I AM NOT A WITCH
BELLE
I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO
SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE
THE HATE U GIVE
WHEN THEY SEE US
GET ON THE BUS

Books

Look, I read and I read and I read, often outside my privilege, black women as often as possible, and I give five stars on Goodreads and waffle about how my mind was broadened and everyone should read this, but I couldn’t actually have a conversation anything like the ones in the books I’m reading. I can tell you yes, I have read that book and it’s brilliant; I can’t explain to you exactly why.

They say it so much better than I could! And anyway, why listen to me? Another beardy white bloke with his reckons. Get some Maya Angelou or some Bernadine Evaristo into you. They are the ones who merit your attention.

I’ve sought purpose in being a promoter of underprivileged voices, but I’m increasingly finding that ground shaky, a cop-out – especially when you look at my corporatist lifestyle and weasel words about giving up meat and fast fashion and Facebook and hopefully volunteering some of my time at some point in the not-too-distant future. I feel that if I’m out here saying anything, it should be something worth hearing. I also feel like my thinking is not refined enough to adequately parse and summarise what I learn from these books.

What I really want is to let their words sit, drift off into my own meandering thoughts, and produce art of my own that can stand up to critique from people who understand identity and privilege better than I do. Tara always says I am one of the dreamers; that is what I do here, read and dream, which does nothing for oppressed people beyond the tiniest signal boost here and there.

The defence might be that putting so many other voices in my head one after the other – especially with books like NEW DAUGHTERS OF AFRICA and GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER, which themselves contain many points of view – makes them hard to assimilate. That no person can become woke in a hurry, and to pretend you are is to perform it. But I never want to let myself off that easily.

So I continue to read, and listen, and kick the can of action another year down the road, expecting myself to one day be useful to people less privileged than myself.

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For all that pessimistic navel-gazing, I had a great year of reading. Books I loved:

THE 10PM QUESTION by Kate De Goldi (2009)
MAN ALONE by John Mulgan (1939)
INTERPRETER OF MALADIES by Jhumpa Lahiri (1999)
THE BOOK YOU WISH YOUR PARENTS HAD READ by Philippa Perry (2019)
THE REMAINS OF THE DAY by Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
THE RIGHT STUFF by Tom Wolfe (1979)
TRICK MIRROR by Jia Tolentino (2019)
MORIORI: A PEOPLE REDISCOVERED by Michael King (1989)
KID GLOVES by Lucy Knisley (2019)
NEW DAUGHTERS OF AFRICA edited by Margaret Busby (2019) (if I was going to pick one to recommend, this would be it)
THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS by Ursula K. Le Guin (1969)
I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS by Maya Angelou (1969)
TO BE TAUGHT, IF FORTUNATE by Becky Chambers (2019)
GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER by Bernadine Evaristo (2019)
KINDRED by Octavia E. Butler (1979)

Books I disliked:

HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad (1899)
A MESSAGE TO GARCIA by Elbert Hubbard (1899)
AND THEN THERE WERE NONE by Agatha Christie (1939)
FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC by VC Andrews (1979) ← absolute trash

For the very keen, here’s my reading list for 2020.

Politics

People just want the mob who will get things done. It doesn’t matter what things.

The most hated section of society is the group(s) perceived to be sitting on their backsides – for the purposes of my argument, beneficiaries and civil servants – while the rest of us struggle in the real world. Votes therefore follow the politicians who present themselves, however facetiously, as not only just like you but actually capable of changing things. Because things are so bad, right? Surely any change has to be better than this!

That’s why the Conservative Party is going to Get Brexit Done. That’s why Trump is there doing whatever it is he actually does. That’s why, in 2020, the National Party is likely to replace NZ’s “part-time Prime Minister” – a classic slur against working mothers – and “part-time Government”. Whether or not things are actually changing, it’s the image of executive capability that brings votes in.

As for who can actually bring about lasting positive change in society, I wish I knew. But I’m sure there are some great books written by other people on the subject.

(I also wrote this bit of commentary after the March 15 terror attacks.)

Sport

As I write this, my beloved Liverpool are the best football team on Earth. Not just the Champions League holders and Premier League leaders, but probably capable of winning the World Cup if they were dropped into it. It’s an amazing and unfamiliar feeling, almost unsatisfying after so many years of not quite being up at that level, but then I watch another inch-perfect cross-field pass by Trent Alexander-Arnold and just revel in the moment.

The rugby, I barely noticed. Watched NZ lose the World Cup semi-final to a much better team. About time we went through that as a nation again.

The cricket. Oh, God, the cricket. I apologise if you thought I was done with hyperbole, but the World Cup final was the greatest game of sport I’ve ever seen: tense all the way, with several genuinely jaw-dropping moments of skill and luck. I say all this even though my team lost – except they didn’t! I won’t try and explain any of this, but this video may give you an idea of what I’m talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uw5QzbDCbI

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Late in 2019, Shed 1 started recording videos of our lunchtime five-a-side indoor football matches and uploading them to the Glory League website. Privacy implications aside, I’ve found it fascinating to review my own performances back and assess what I am doing well or not well. It’s a relief to learn the kind of footballer I actually am – basically, a lumbering giant with decent technique and passing range and absolutely no hope of outpacing anyone – isn’t that different from the kind of footballer I thought I was.

Travel

We pulled into a large bay at the side of the road on a blazing hot February day in the Bay of Plenty, I think to make sure Nora was buckled in properly. When we set off again, I drove to the left of a large pile of gravel, thinking our Nissan Teana would pass just as easily over the stones on either side. I was wrong.

With the gravel mountain immediately to my right, I heard the undercarriage crunch angrily into stones that were much deeper than I’d anticipated. To my left, Tara knotted her brow in worry. I thought we’d get through if I pressed a little harder on the accelerator. I was wrong.

A louder crunch, a lurch up and to the left, and spinning wheels when I put my foot down. We were stuck. I had marooned my wife, my one-year-old kids, and myself in a hot car miles from anywhere. Panicking and swearing, I leapt out and examined the extent of our submergence. The right rear wheel was slightly off the ground, while the right front wheel was concealed to about a quarter of the way up the tyre. I began scrabbling desperately at the hot, dusty stones, giving myself blisters that would remain red with blood for days and making no discernible impact on the heap in which the car was entombed.

You won’t be surprised to learn my further attempts to drive us out of our predicament only lodged us deeper into it.

As I walked around and around the car, head in hands, still swearing, a van-load of leather-skinned East Coast types pulled over and bounded to our aid. “You guys need a push?” “Bloody hell, it isn’t coming out of there.” “Come on, here we go.” And they just heaved the Teana backwards out of its prison, back to solid(ish) ground. Then they buggered off, waving away my almost tearful thanks. “Drive to the right, eh? This way. To the right. Yep, that’s it. See ya later.”

I choose this story to tell from our Big Family Holiday in Taupō, Ohiwa, and Rotorua, which contained many highs and lows, because it illustrates the precariousness and blind luck of successful travel with young kids. Will they nap when they’re supposed to? (Sometimes.) Will road works bugger the whole schedule? (Always.) Will we get any sleep? (Rarely.) Will we, their hopeful parents, make good decisions that benefit the whole family? (In this case, no.) On the road, you are always ten seconds from disaster or glory. There were some calm hours reading under a tree in the sun, thank goodness, but the bits I remember most are the moments of triumph and chaos, moments that cut through all the noise in your head. I guess that’s parenting in general, too.

Music / Podcasts

It was tempting to choose Blanck Mass’s ‘Wings of Hate’ as my track of 2019, which brings to mind a fiery phoenix soaring high, turning everything we love to ash in its wake. Like the evil guy winning at the end of a horror film. Instead, I give you the mysterious and magical ‘Movies’ by Weyes Blood:

I love movies, too, and the way this song gives language and melody to the way I love them was impossible to resist. I felt seen. I’m going to see her perform it live in 2020 and the anticipation is such that disappointment is assured.

Other new music I enjoyed in 2019:

Edwyn Collins – Badbea
Jenny Lewis – On the Line
Sturgill Simpson – Sound & Fury

That’s not including a dozen or so new releases I listened to once or twice, might have enjoyed or barely noticed, then never listened to again. There were new ones from Angel Olsen and Bedouine, for example, and Charly Bliss, who so captivated me a couple of years ago, and Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, back with the pretty spoken word sadness, and Solange, breaking more new ground. I didn’t let these records sit with me.

I don’t know why, but it probably has something to do with my most played songs of 2019 including Teddy Bears’ Picnic by Anne Murray and Baby Shark by Pinkfong. “One more Baby Shark! One more Baby Shark!”

It might also have something to do with my obsessive listening to podcasts. These are the ones I kept up with, religiously, until I got a job that doesn’t really allow for five hours of headphones in each day:

Against the Rules with Michael Lewis
Chat 10 Looks 3
David Tennant Does a Podcast With…
Football Weekly
Fresh Air
Papercuts
RNZ: Fair Play
RNZ: Mediawatch
RNZ: Morning Report
RNZ: Saturday Morning
Still Processing
THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST
The Bugle
The Empire Film Podcast
The Guardian Books Podcast
The Trap Door
Two Pros in a Pod

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In lieu of a 2019 Spotify playlist, I’ve made a 2010s Spotify playlist. Each track on it has, at the very least, a moment that makes me stop whatever conversation I’m in so I can listen to it properly. As always, I’d like to think there’s something on there for everyone, but especially for people who like long and repetitive electronica.

Tech

If I’m at a loose end, I open Facebook or Twitter and scroll for a while. Both of these sites continue to tweak their designs in ways I find less and less appealing, and to remove features I like and replace them with ones I hate. They contain glorious nuggets: a heartwarming video of a friend rolling on the floor with their new child, a dog playing Jenga. As media, they chip away at their own worth in favour of an algorithm-centric model aimed at keeping your fucking eyeballs on their page. All the good stuff, all the actual content, is contributed by users for free.

I have to stop this. Tara catches up on popular culture and popular tweets by reading Buzzfeed lists, and I’m finding it increasingly hard to argue for sticking with social networks that not only refresh away the thing I was looking at but also promote anger and division. So I’m going to spend more time reading ebooks, reading articles in Pocket, and writing my own rubbish. Not cold turkey; no, that never works. A new suite of phone-based habits to balance the scales a bit. A lifestyle change.

Also, I got an electric drill for Christmas. I’m going to drill some holes in my new house. There’s some tech with real-world implications.

People

I can almost understand why that tech guru on the Fresh Air podcast decided to set up 24/7 surveillance inside his home to ensure no moment of his child’s life would go unrecorded. This is excessive, obviously, and bordering on sociopathic, but I look at my own kids each day and think how much I want to remember about who they are and what they do at this moment in time. Right now as I write this, Tara just said, “I wish we could go back, just for one day,” as she puts together a 2020 calendar from our thousands of photographs from the past twelve months. “Now they’re gone, and they became something new, and we’ll never see them again, except in these pictures.”

The truth is fuzzier than that. Nora and June are developing at an incredible rate, especially their language, but they retain recognisable flashes of their former selves: an eyebrow twitch first seen at a month old, for example, or the tiny bruises that have always just appeared on their shins without any indication of how they got there. If you ask me how they are, I usually explain how well they’re sleeping at the moment because that’s the only aspect of their lives I track with any accuracy. The rest is lost in a haze of unique moments and those several thousand photos, so many as to almost render them useless — almost. But then I go back and trawl through a few to find suitable images to include in this post and a thousand of those moments drift back into focus, filling my brain with sense memories and an emotional high that eventually overwhelms me once more. And back I go to my books and movies to wind down.

Tara remains my partner in the ceaselessly taxing and rewarding endeavour of raising these children. “Nothing confronts you with who you really are more than parenting,” she once said, or something along those lines. This year, I have often been reminded of how close to the surface my anger sits, just waiting for a loose thread to catch on an open drawer so it can explode and dominate everything. Together, we try to support each other through the bad moments and amplify the good ones. Our bleary-eyed, late-night show-and-tell sessions of recent photos on our phones is a joy whenever we remember to do it.

We are also still learning how to communicate with each other in a way that makes both of our lives easier and richer, as I feel good communication in a long-term relationship should. Yes, we still have ridiculous arguments about who should do the night wakeup (“me!” “no, me!”). But I believe we are always getting better at being married, and I think we share a deep satisfaction in each other’s successes, however small.

And around this unit, a small community swirls. We remain lucky to have weekly visits from the kids’ grandmothers and the constant knowledge that a dozen or so family members in the region are there to help us when we need them. But we also had visits from family in Auckland and Dunedin, people we can’t get to easily. And there are the friends who made a point of keeping in contact as we go down the parenting rabbit hole. This time often feels lonely but actually, we and our children are surrounded by people who care.

In 2020, we will extend our household to include Tara’s parents, a huge change in all of our lives. We will drive each other mad with our foibles, and our love. The world is on fire and we gain nothing by marking off our own patches, damn the rest. We must all pull together now.