My Favourite Stuff 2025
I’m sure I’ve said this before, but I've always been excited by the Holidays. As a kid I'd count the days and I'd barely sleep, my mind filling with an airy, bubbly haze, a kind of pleasant vertigo induced by the sight of snow and the sound of familiar Christmas songs. But there's a new layer to the season. Now, the kids come home. All of us, together, free of the blueish glow of FaceTime calls. The holidays are often about reunions, but their significance takes on a new sheen when you're a parent welcoming children back.
As transitional periods go this year was substantial. Retirement was a big one, whatever form that finally takes; a life-long interest in technologies (and the companies pushing them) that slowly came to an abrupt halt. Photography in all of its forms remained impossible to deny, and my visual reflexes still kick in with or without a camera, on every glance, at any moment. But frankly, I'm already rich with tools and possibilities to choose from. It's a privilege I'm intensely aware of, but it also happens to tame most of my urges for more.
Generally, I find myself seriously questioning the concept of new=better, across all spheres of activity, especially when upgrades suddenly feel more like regressions than advancements. So, you probably won't be surprised by this year's focus: reading, music, stationery—and a couple of twists thrown in.
A whole lot of analog, and a whole lot of tactile.
The Traveler's Notebook (a kit)
I was still trying to figure out the right space for the Traveler's Notebook when I first wrote about it, and it definitely took a bit of reprogramming to switch from typing on an iPhone, to jotting down anything and everything in a pocketbook. But man, I do love this little thing. Despite the obvious inconvenience of an unsteady pen and tiny pages, I tend to write more complete ideas, along with any task, concept, or doodle, that pops into my head. Unlike software, paper is limitless and unbound. As I wrote in ✍🏻 The centre rings - a Filofax exploration :
I circle and cross out words, write down everything that comes to mind as I work. I use coloured pencils to highlight anything important and I add tasks anywhere on the page, with clear symbols that make them easy to spot. It's all a huge mess, but there's a topography to it that prevents me from getting lost. Those pages are living spaces, with identifiable rooms and corridors and brightly hued furniture.
I've settled on a streamlined TN setup:
I got rid of the built-in bookmark string. It was always dangling and I never used it.
Over time I added a few items from Traveler's Company: the kraft folder insert, their 2026 plastic card, and a brass clip. The folder's useful for receipts etc. The card's cute, inexpensive, and it acts as a rigid writing surface (or a ruler) in a pinch. The clip was a bit of a splurge for what it is, but it's real brass, tough, and very well-made.
I use a single notebook insert. I was using three at some point (notes, journal, drawings), but eventually realized that it was 1) wasteful, and 2) unnecessary. It also added too much bulk to the setup.
I bought the 2026 plastic sleeve as well (1) but the jury's still out on that one. I had to hack it in order to use it as an insert which really threw me off initially, and it's gone in and out several times already. It’s in at the moment, but I haven't made up my mind about it.
I keep the plastic card in the front folder, the brass clip on the side. In the back folder I keep a DO Card and a TRACK card: DO is for anything that needs to get done as soon as possible; TRACK is just a simple tracker (I don't care about metrics anymore—it's more of a personal incentive device). I made both of these myself and print them as needed on 3x5 card stock.
The Traveler's Notebook has a vibe similar to my favourite Fujifilm cameras: it's the same attraction that stirs me into action. Surprising.
P.S Doc Marten's wax does wonders for the notebook's leather :)
Uniball Zento pen
I'm not yet that guy who follows "pen trends". But these appeared on my radar a few weeks ago and I was due for a refresh, so I purchased a box on sale. They've become my default writing tool. I don't know if the buzz is warranted, but the ink does glide nicely and it dries pretty quickly on most paper. It's actually the tactile part of it that I enjoy most: the Zento pens use a matte, quasi-rubbery finish that I simply find lovely to hold. They're just the right weight too.
My only gripe: I could only get them with 0.7 mm tips, which is bit heavy for my (rather terrible) handwriting. I had to order 0.5 mm refills as an add-on. Well worth it though.
The Punch
My use of the Filofax system has evolved since I wrote about it last April. Due to life decisions, for one, but also because my renewed interest in paper workflows eventually highlighted a major limitation of the Filofax notebook I was using: it can't contain too many sheets. Much less than your typical bound notebook. Its lightweight ring system gets overwhelmed pretty quickly if you use it as a main driver, which forces constant page management. That said, I still love the idea of a modular system, especially for projects that are meant to be archived once they're finished.
This Filofax Punch isn't cheap, but it's a heavy metal tank. It feels like an office accessory from the 1950s that'll still be around in 2095. And it's freeing: I can create my own templates, make any sheet of paper compatible with the system. I also don't need to buy refills anymore.
Bill Evans Waltz for Debbie
I don't know what it is about this particular record, but it's an elixir. There's the amazing sound and perfect, iconic performance; there's also an ambience: the soft murmurs of the audience, the glasses clinking just before musicians start to play. The result is a time machine, an instant wayback tunnel to a 1960s jazz club in Greenwich Village. A world-dissolving mood that becomes its own meditation.
This version is from Craft Recordings, part of their Original Jazz Classics Series, mastered from analog at RTI. Velvet drenched in martinis I tell you. Ok, that makes it sound weird. It's great, trust me.
Mozart Symphonies (dad's album) - honourable mention
A different kind of time machine.
It's probably a Sunday, maybe a Saturday afternoon. My dad's downstairs listening to this album on the stereo, reading the newspaper, when I walk in. I'm not very old but not a small child either. Probably pre-teen. And I might've muttered something, maybe made a face...I can't recall. But I remember my dad asking if I like what he's listening to. No, not really, I reply. He asks why. I tell him it doesn't sound modern enough. I've held on to that memory for what's now become my own lifetime, longer than his ever was.
It's a fine album.
But it's mostly a living page, torn from my past.
Kobo
I haven't looked back. It’ll be a year in February and, as much as I loved the Kindle, I don't miss it at all. The Kobo ecosystem doesn’t let me down, its store includes an ongoing deals section similar to what Amazon offers, plus I get an email when a book on my wish list goes on sale. And now that I've finally started borrowing books from the library through Kobo's Overdrive integration, the Kindle is even less appealing. The battery requires more frequent recharging but we're still talking weeks and weeks so, not a big deal.
My initial impression stands: the Kobo greets me with my books, nothing else. Not ads for romance novels, not banners of endless crap. It's nice to feel like a reader instead of a target.
Reclaiming art in the age of artifice, by JF Martel.
Speaking of books: I finished this one just as I was beginning work on a Fujifilm talk, for their Create with Us event in Montreal. I'm too rational a creature to believe in synchronicity, but I'll be darned if the themes didn't perfectly fit the moment.
It's one of the most engaging works I've read about the concept of art, not as a product or activity, but as an inherently human endeavour. Something that might even be a biological necessity. The dynamics between what's defined as art and artifice, their political and social ramifications, is a fascinating interpretation.
This is a 2025 re-edition featuring a foreword by author Donna Tartt, and an epilogue by Martel that dives into the new realities we must now confront (AI etc).
Highly recommended.
Alan Wake II
I've rarely played a video game that reminded me so much of the promises of multimedia in the late 90s/early 00s. The idea of a holistic medium combining immersive storytelling, music, sound design, film, acting, and animation, controlled by a user/player. There are tons of fantastic "story" titles out there (Red Dead Redemption, God of War, Elden Rings...), but it's the experimental aspects of Alan Wake II that really drew me in. Parallel storylines that weave in and out of each other, bouncing between real footage and 3D versions of scenes and actors; a decidedly "artsy" direction full of mind bending imagery and puzzles that create a veritable feast for the eyes. Disturbing at times, even disorienting, but impressive.
Alan Wake II is a horror story filled with the usual tropes, but it's also much more.
One-half of The Brutalist
This one's a last-minute entry: I finally watched The Brutalist a fews days ago, after diligently avoiding reviews and headlines for almost a year. It wasn't easy. But I've now satisfied my curiosity and, heads-up, it looks like my general takeaway won't be particularly unique.
I was immediately curious about this movie. Mainly because, despite its coldness and austerity, I'm in awe of Brutalist architecture. An awe that's close to reverential, probably influenced by having grown up in the presence of Moshe Safdie's iconic Habitat 67. At its most successful, Brutalism is an aesthetic so leaden and crushing that, for me, it veers into sacred territory. Like the Pyramids. Lines and shapes devoid of doubt, meant as unreserved assaults on the natural world; monuments that seem almost unfit for existence, and yet necessary—as odes to modernity, as manifestations of the imposing, almost violent, power of humankind. The movie reflects this ambivalence between promise and malevolence not just in its subject matter and visual approach, but right down to the storyline and all of its protagonists. The cinematography, musical score, even the names of the chapters and design of the titles left me breathless. The Brutalist was perfection.
Until the intermission.
The second-half of the movie still offers incredible moments, but it unravels and jumps and leaves threads unanswered to the point where, by the end, I'd stopped caring. And the epilogue is, well...unsatisfying is the only word that comes to mind. I'm not sure it even does justice to what came before, which is a shame. The Brutalist deserves the accolades it received, absolutely, but as a whole it left me downright puzzled.
That first-half however? Without question one of my favourite things this year.
The unchanging nature of physical objects
Let's end with an odd and somewhat abstract choice: I'm increasingly grateful for tools that remain true to their nature. Tools that function today as they did yesterday, and the day before. Objects full of limitations that never expand, but never waver and rarely fail. Things I can hold and touch and put down and pick up again exactly as they were.
A gratitude for tactility, space, and mappable geographies that never drift.
:)
1: As I understand it this is a collectible : there's a new design released each year. Ditto for the plastic card. Fun concept but, really, I'm fine with just one of each (!).
