November Favorites

November was a very tough month for me – it just passed by somehow, and I don´t even really remember how I spent my time. It just felt so mundane, so grey and heavy, but I still wanted to write about my November Favorites because things like music and movies really held me this month.

My grandpa passed away just a few days after my grandma’s funeral, which is really tough on my family. Besides that, I feel like shit just keeps happening, I think good things that happened in November I can count on one hand. I don´t wanna put myself in victim mode and already expect bad things to happen, but for some reason, shit after shit keeps happening, but I´m tightly holding on to the hope that better times are right around the corner.

If someone asked me for my type of music, I´d always say rock music, mostly from the 70s / 80s, and Lady Gaga. She´s my childhood hero, and my love for her never died, even tho there were times in my teenage years when I stopped listening to her. I still have posters of her on my bedroom wall, next to all my other musician heroes such as Patti Smith, Neil Young, Linkin Park, The Cure and many more. Mayhem came out this year in March, and I´ve been listening to it all year, but this month especially. November was the month that the Mayhem Ball finally came to Berlin (which is the name of her current world tour), which I´ve been excited for ever since the tour got announced in April this year.

It was one night of dancing and laughing and crying that made me forget everything else – Mayhem Ball came at the very right moment for me. This was also almost the only good thing that happened to me this month, memories that I carry with me very close to my heart. The show was one of the most incredible shows I´ve ever seen (and I´ve seen many many concerts since I work in the concert industry) and to this day I have to pinch myself to convince me it was real and I got to see it with my own eyes. Also, someone recorded the whole show and uploaded it to YouTube, I hate when the people in front of me film a lot, but at the same time, I was so happy I could watch the whole show again on my computer the night after.

I also finally bought the album on CD at the merch stand after the concert which I wanted to do ever since the album got released, but for some reason I never did until now.

I listened to a lot of music in November, but Mayhem was the album I played the most, because it just gives me so much comfort, and I like dancing to her songs in my apartment to feel better when everything else seemed to fall apart.

The song that carried me through November was Atlantic City by Bruce Springsteen - the studio version, as well as the live performance at Madison Square Garden in 2000. It was love at first listen; I discovered the song when I was on the train back to Berlin from my grandma’s funeral in my hometown. My boyfriend and I wanted to go to the movies the next day to watch the Biopic about Springsteen, which focuses on the making of his album Nebraska, so I listened to the album, and fell in love with the song Atlantic City.

I´ve seen a few good movies in November - After the Hunt with Julia Roberts, a documentary about Hannah Arendt and rewatched the first two Back to the Future movies.

I chose the Biopic about Springsteen as my favorite, because I just love Biopics about musicians (I know many people dislike them, but I really enjoy them) and it´s the movie that shaped my time the most, I listened a lot to the album Nebraska, and only discovered Atlantic City through watching the movie (and listening to the album before watching the movie).

Only downside was that I really had to pee during the movie, but didn´t want to go and miss parts of the movie, which made the watching experience a bit more uncomfortable, but that´s that.

You know I love love love Patti Smith, I marked November 4th in my calendar months ago which was the day her new book was released. The book cover alone is so beautiful, and even tho I finished reading, I keep the book on my couch because it looks so pretty and I can´t put it on my bookshelf yet.

I´m not gonna go into detail about what the book is about, since it was just released weeks ago and people might wanna read it without spoilers. But I highly recommend reading it!

Well, I think these are my favorites this month – I don´t have a meal or food item I obsessed over, I didn’t have the energy to try a new activity, which is okay. I kinda just survived this month, and sometimes, that´s enough.

Feel free to share your favorites of November in the comments – I´d love to read them and draw inspiration from for December.