A Year of Juke
Not exactly a "best of" list. More of a "Wow, I can't believe everything we published this year" list.
I’m not a big fan of “best of” lists, especially when we’re talking about art and literature. My idea of what’s best is probably different from each of yours, and I hate the idea of ranking our pieces as if we were all figure skaters competing for a gold medal. There is no judge’s box on Juke, only a lasting conversation among friends. So, instead of a ranking, I’m sharing ten works that are some of my personal favorites from the last year. I know they were favorites of yours too (I do, after all, see the readership numbers) and I hope you agree that they show the extraordinary breadth, depth and creativity of our ongoing conversation here on Juke…
On a personal note, I cannot thank each of you enough for being a reader of this page. I wish you a warm, safe holiday season. And I’m so happy to know our conversation will be continuing into the new year… TM
*p.s. My web editor is warning me that this post is very long. If your email cuts off before the end, just click the title above to open the full page on our website.
*Let’s begin with the first show-stopper piece we ran in 2023…
I think of one of my private guilty pleasures - of when I finally get out west to the desert, find a place to park, turn off the engine, then just sit back and let the quiet envelop me. The emptiness expands and something shifts inside. It’s the same feeling I get when I slide into a primitive hot spring. But I realize now it’s not quiet and noise that are really on my mind. What’s really on my mind is solitude. I have felt a bit alienated lately.
Silence and Solitude
*Then an extraordinary film screening…
There Is No Separation is a short documentary portrait of a woman who has tried to live without harming the world, while remaining present to its changes. Laura Jackson has spent over 40 years cultivating 10 acres of the Bitterroot Valley in western Montana. Her life has been one of kinship with place and the slow revelations of family history. We see Laura nurturing a landscape, speaking to environmental change, and ultimately, asking questions of our shared mortality. Her story is one of crafting a life, yet perhaps never knowing home.
"There is No Separation": A Limited Screening
*In February, a writer, a photographer and an up-and-coming country star walk into a bar…
At exactly high noon plus about ten minutes, we meet in San Antonio at Garcia’s restaurant, open since 1962. The dining room is adorned with vintage bullfight posters and a curious number of very sincere paintings of roosters. My buddy, the photographer Kirk Weddle, joins us too.
Capps is a tall, young, man in black—head to toe except for the beard, including pearl snap shirt, a “shrewdly black” western-style hat, and circular sunglasses. He’s not Johnny Cash man in black as much as he’s a young Kinky Friedman man in black.
Bread & Space Circuses
*Then a new voice (and a surprise from the past) in the spring…
The memory of Maura Dedwich played behind my eyes… Maura in the snow, singing her heart out on that snowy night, her small figure swaying in the falling flakes, her long white-blonde hair shining under the streetlamp. “It can’t be her,” I said. “I mean, what are the odds?”
Out of the Blue
*A smart and wistful short story about love…
The years mean learning to bend. Age is a trick of the light, cellular and failing mechanics. Opening a box one day and finding a faded letter from Morocco, before things had turned cold. I read it out loud every so often, the words ringing in my ears. Bringing her back to life for however many words it takes.
Straight from the Horse's Mouth
*A blossoming of art and wisdom in the desert…
To me at 24, Nevada was the great beyond, a vast, empty space where people could make big mistakes or disappear. In fact, whenever my job and school stress overwhelmed me, I'd jump in the car and drive into the desert. Somehow the open bowl of sky and that long straight highway cleared my head. Lee's escape to Tuscarora made perfect sense. I couldn't wait to see it and to meet her.
Tuscarora
*A heart-stopping essay about family in June…
My not knowing stories about my mother’s childhood is both mysterious and sad to me. It would be convenient to tell myself that she simply doesn’t have any stories about being a child, but this is not true. She has stories, as we all do, except she will not speak of them.
Mothers and Sons
*Then a memory from “one of the beautiful girls” of the Sturgis Rally…
Each night at closing time, I would finally let my face down. I liked the restaurant best in that half-hour after midnight. The air was cool on the patio. The tables were empty. I could think while I gathered the condiments from the patio tables and swept the floors. I could hear the traffic out on the main road. Around me were the muffled sounds of life from the thousands of campsites.
When everything was ready for the next day, I would fold my tips in my back pocket and drive back up the canyon. Each night, I washed the smell of grease out of my hair before I went to sleep.
One of the Beautiful Girls
*An exploration of creativity…
To see what is possible
To be amazed
To share that which only I can offer
To feel alive
To dig deep into places within that have been hidden/protected/avoided/forgotten/buried/ignored/left behind/missed/loved/hated/feared…
*And, as the year ends, the words we all need to hear…
when the crow’s keening call is
a promise shattered, then, my
beloved sister and brother,
wherever you may be, breathe.
Breathe again and find the breath
between breaths.
*Finally, as a bonus from last year, an impossible-to-replicate Christmas playlist…
A Christmas Jukebox
Thank you, all of you.
congratulations Tonya.....you have brought quite an eclectic group of talent together...Im looking forward to seeing what Juke 2024 brings
- Will