Camille E. Acey

WOW, where did the year go? Let’s get into a final gratitude list round up before it’s gone.

Sampha’s Latest Tiny Desk

What would my gratitude list be without a Tiny Desk link? It is just consistently so damn good. Sampha’s new album, Lahai, is another triumph and I am glad it brought him back to this small office. The whole set is golden but the mashup of Without and Roy Davis Jr’s classic Gabriel totally murdered me. I can’t stop listening to it over and over and over.

Lily Gladstone

This fall I binge-watched Reservation Dogs and among all the amazing performances, the one that stood out the most was Lily Gladstone’s two-episode turn as Cousin Hokti. She had a totally gripping presence and I couldn’t turn away from the screen. So I was glad when I learned I could see her again quite soon in Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon. The movie was flawed in a lot of ways (the FBI as the heroes, no thanks, bro) but Lily was amazing and mesmerizing as ever. She is beautiful inside and out and I hope her star will continue to rise.

Close To The Knives by David Wojnarowicz

Wojnarowicz was an artist, activist, and rabble-rouser who tragically died of AIDS in 1992. In this heavy and heart-shattering memoir, he delivers unto us a searching and fearless portrait of a terrifying, thrilling, and oddly beautiful time. As a person and an artist, he kept staring where others winced and looked away. He also walked down the alleys others avoided, and recorded what he saw and how he felt, not with cool remove but with a deep sense of anger, rave, and belonging to these funky, dirty, drug-infested, and queer spaces — spaces where he could be free, if uncomfortably so.

The central question he pleads from beyond the grave for us to answer is whether the oppressive suffering is necessarily bound up with the human condition or if there exists some possibility for it to lift, for us to lift it ourselves.

We owe it to him — and all those that died too soon due to hatred and ignorance — to keep wrestling with that question.