Review of the Year 2011: November

November smells like fireworks and looks like a moustache. I don’t have much more to say but do keep reading, Bruce Springsteen makes an appearance. That’s worth a few minutes of your time surely?

A month for resignations and ensuing Agatha Christie intrigue in the style of “did they fall or were they pushed?” – step forward Silvio Berlusconi and George Papandreou. Outside of the EU/the earth, we all experienced the closest fly-by of a large piece of rock (what scientists call an asteroid) in 200 years and, with absolutely no chance of hitting us, this was undoubtedly disappointing to those still grasping at “Rapture Reasoning” as we hit the satisfyingly binary date of 11/11/11.

November saw the release the new-look no. 7 of our magazine to an excellent reception. Meanwhile online, Jenny & Lee’s portraits of the girls from Bruce Springsteen songs, the iridescent, macabre niceness of dead pheasants as scanned by Julian Harriman-Dickinson and the much less random, though no less excellent, BERG’s Little Printer dazzled and delighted us.

My 2011 – Sean Pecknold

The staggering animation endeavour of Sean Pecknold for Fleet Foxes’ latest double single The Shrine/An Argument released this month, must surely be his finest and most magnum opus-like. Also, earlier this year we screened a couple of Sean’s older animations at Folly for a Flyover and Pick Me Up, and he was so kind as to contribute a Bookshelf feature. It is for all of these reasons and more that we spoke to him about his very own 2011.

What was the best thing you saw in 2011?

This video…

Who would you give a Best Person of 2011 award to?

Dorli Rainey.

What was the most memorable thing that happened to you?

I humped a black sand beach in Iceland during a two hour sunrise in -40 degrees weather for a film.

Were you in any (metaphorical/not metaphorical) fights this year? Did you win?

I fought the demons in my head and beat them to a pulp. But they could be lurking around any corner in my mind. Next time I’ll be waiting with my metaphorical battle-axe.

What would you take from 2011 and give to 2012?

It’s sense of adventure, gusto, and smell.    

What were you doing in November?

I was in Spain on a beach in a hostel with 100 rooms and no people. I was breaking into an abandoned amusement park in Berlin. I was standing on a cliff during a blizzard with no coat. I was huddled in a pack of wild horses in Iceland. I was eating a Filet-o-Fish.

(Top image by Boo Ritso.n)