Sexdecennial

Yes, the earth has made another loop around the sun, and today is the sixteenth anniversary  of the founding of this blog.  

But I post this observance more in shame than in celebration: In calendar year 2022, only 59 essays were posted.  This was the smallest number in the history of "Confused Ideas from the Northwest Corner."  Fewer essays even than those posted in 2007, the year of the blog's founding, when the blog was open for business during only ten months and a eleven days.

I made similar sheepish confessions last March 20, with far less justification.  I can't explain the downward trend.  I can only express hope that I'll do better in the year to come.

But enough of self-flagellation.  Let get right down to the nuts and bolts of the year's review -- the quantity and quality of those essays that were posted.  

The essay most viewed during this past year was a June tribute to my sister's return from Chiang Mai, where she had spent over two months visiting with her son and granddaughter.  A close second was my January summary of a Maui celebration of the eightieth birthday of twins -- "boys" I met when we were undergraduates, and who have become virtual members of my family.  And third was my October  summary of a two-week stay on the shores of Lake Como, Italy.  These popularity awards are almost certainly skewed, however, by the fact that they were travel-related, and I had sent sent their links to a number of relatives and other persons with personal interest in reading them.

With the more general public, by far the most popular essay -- for reasons that escape me --was a discussion in June of my attendance at a Seattle Symphony production of Verdi's Requiem.  Was it an unexpected outpouring of interest in classical music?  Was my essay title --Day of Wrath -- sensationalistic enough to draw the mass market's attention?  I'll never know.

Second was another June essay, commenting on my attendance at a Mariners' home game.  Followed by a three-place tie between a March review of a musician's memoir, Every Good Boy Does Fine; a June story of my adventures catching a mouse humanely and returning him to the wild; and an ironic June editorial encouraging those in Texas who wish to take their state out of the Union to do so quickly.

So much for quantity, an easily determined matter of presenting the statistics.  Quality is more difficult, and certainly more subjective.  As in the past, I present the nine essays that, in retrospect, please me the most.  Rather than rank them -- impossible-- I present them in chronological order.

1.  A review of pianist Jeremy Denk's memoir of his life and musical education.  Slurs and Humility. 

2.  A review of Still Life, a moving and funny novel of post-War II life in Florence and London.  Such Stuff as Dreams are Made On.

3.  Basking on my back deck in the sun, appreciating the sight and smells of a flowering plant.  Mock-orange.

4.  A review of an Ishiguro novel of a future time when our friends are A.I.  And what about the A.I.'s need for friends?  Klara and the Sun.  

5.  A dislocated shoulder in Milan.  Dislocation. 

6.  A summary of my week hiking the West Highland Way in Scotland.  West Highland Way -- 2022 Version.

7.  Summary of two idyllic weeks in Italy.  Two Weeks at Lake Como.

8.  An appreciation of the proper protocol for eating the soft-boiled egg.  The Egg and I.

9.  Hiking with friends in the hills of eastern Maui.  Hiking the Waihe'e Ridge.

I've arbitrarily limited myself to nine posts, because that was the number I've used in past years.  I had to pass over some good ones.  And others not all that good.  Go back and read them all, and arrive at your own judgments.

I look forward to a more productive year in 2023-24.  But I've said that before!