Review of the Year 2011: May

Date
23 December 2011

The best thing about May is four days in when you can scream in peoples faces: “May the fourth be with you” – like saddos with imaginary light-sabers before returning to a less pathetic existence a full 24 hours later. Three days earlier, if you’re of a Pagan persuasion, you can get your Morris dance on around the maypole and celebrate May Day. In the US it’s Labour Day which sounds less fun but also involves not going to work.

May started with the reeling news of Osama Bin Laden’s mortal exit followed by a cryptic epitaph/conspiracy theorists’ fix from Barack Obama and the White House, a vote for an alternative vote in UK elections was… baffling and ultimately disappointing, no one I know watched the Eurovision Song Contest and Oprah had her televisual swan song.

On the site things were a little brighter (normally are, really). There was a sterling example of a bad situation made aesthetically good in the nice arrangements of precious bits saved from the hypothetical flames on The Burning House blog, a delightful skin vs. design collaboration between David David and Glass Hill and finally, the ambitious and triumphant re-landscaping of a Dagenham swimming pool thanks to Nike.

My 2011 – CANADA

Providing insight into their year and the month of May are directorial trio, CANADA. Former guest posters on the site, Luis Cervero, Nicolás Méndez and Lope Serrano are the worthy recipients of the best music video award at the UK Music Video Awards this year for their video for Oh Land’s White Nights, but it was their May release of Battles’ Ice Cream video that really won us over…

What was the best thing you saw in 2011?

Lope: The sea, in the south of Italy, in July, with my ex-girlfriend, going from Ischia island to Naples one sunny afternoon.
Luis:  If you mean artistic stuff probably Zurbaran’s Saint Francis paintings at the National Gallery, there are two of them real close in the same room. If you mean real life, my wife’s face when she doesn’t realise I’m watching her. I love to do that.
Nico: Bambi. And the DVD extras. 

Who would you give a Best Person of 2011 award to?

Lope: The real hero is not aware of its condition. I don’t know.  
Luis: To someone you don’t know at all.
Nico: He’d be soooo embarrassed if I write his name here.

What was the most memorable thing that happened to you?

Lope: Nothing in particular. Just these moments that look like being part of a love stream.  
Luis: Making love is always the most memorable thing that can happen to you.
Nico: I found this guy selling original cover illustrations in a flea market. And he didn’t really know what he had. Written down it does not sound too thrilling, but believe me, it really was. 

Were you in any (metaphorical/not metaphorical) fights this year? Did you win?

Lope: I’ve been not involved in a real, not metaphorical fight. But the other one, the metaphorical one, it’s always present. I mean, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but each day it’s a little piece of a loooooong fight.
Luis: Yes of course. It’s sad anyway, whether you win or loose.
Nico: I’m fighting all the time for the tiniest stupid things and the general feeling is that I never win. Whether it’s true or not, it’s awful.

What would you take from 2011 and give to 2012?

Lope: All the people that surround me and love me, all the people I really love.  
Luis: All the laughing. If I ever lose that, I will be totally doomed.
Nico: I’m taking my girlfriend and my dog. And also my computer, I’m afraid.

What were you doing in May?

Lope: I was at the final process of a music video for The Vaccines, beginning to edit a long music documentary, pitching for one commercial we finally won and enjoying Barcelona’s Champions League final victory at Wembley stadium.
Luis: Just checked my mail: delivering Battles’ Ice Cream, pitching for Oh Land’s White Nights, shooting a commercial for the French Air Force and putting out the second LP from CANADA record label.
Nico: I was shooting landscapes for a music video in the Pyrenees. Beautiful.

(Top image by Tom Darracott)

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About the Author

Bryony Quinn

Bryony was It’s Nice That’s first ever intern and worked her way up to assistant online editor before moving on to pursue other interests in the summer of 2012.

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