and i took that personally.
I actually was going to use this headline for 2022, but (Taylor’s Version) seemed a better fit at the time, and looking back on ’23, well, I really did take this year personally.
One charge I am not beating is that I quote The Tempest every time I write about the ups and downs of aging: “Nothing ... doth fade, / But doth suffer a sea-change / Into something rich and strange.” However I’ve yet to find something that captures how bizarre life is better than the phrase “rich and strange.” This year was certainly no different. If you couldn’t tell from the abstruse posts about feeling insecure online, I definitely Went Through It (or at least lower case went through it, lest I be too overly dramatic here) with a strange friendship with a semi-notable person this year. It burned bright and fast and like all other normies who come into the orbit of people with a modicum of notoriety, even if you can hang, it hurts to get dropped for a shiny new thing. The best thing for me to do was to step away from Twitter in August and never look back. Sometimes I miss knowing what stupid thing is going on online (#GagCity) however, if I ever get around to finishing my novel, it’s great fodder for plot. (“How do you serve cunt in a roman à clef way?”)
Besides that personal drama, which wasn’t too bad (frankly, I just got caught up in a one-sided friend crush that took up a majority of Qs 2 and 3), the year was filled with so many interesting things: The movies are back, baby! Country music’s revival won me over. I went to Germany, Switzerland, England, Ireland, and I met a special needs Alpaca named Waffles in Litchfield, CT. Succession ended (RIP Kendall I could fix u), and The Bear’s Copenhagen episode made me cry. I read 30 books, and not all of them were garbage (though some of them truly were). I discovered a brown butter buttermilk cake recipe that I can't quit. It felt like live events were properly in the mix again too; I was able to convince more people to go to Cyclones games with me, but I’m still hitting up Lincoln Center solo (don't men know this is a big date flex??). And how could I not brag about seeing my favorite artist, Ed Ruscha, in the flesh at the opening night of his retrospective at MoMA. But I’ll get into all of that and more below.
Since this annual recap is not a tradition I’m willing to step away from and never look back (yet), here are my highlights of 2023:
Thanks to my SAD in the winter, I plowed through the bigger novels in Q1 (e.g., Confederacy of Dunces, I Have Some Questions For You, Birnam Wood). Though the best books I read this year were slimmer like Big Swiss, Cleopatra and Frankenstein, and Trespasses. I believe someone tried to trendcast this, but I think short books have been a thing since ... checks notes ... people started reading? I am still trying to figure out if I cared about The Guest, but I suppose a sense of low-lying dread and hating the narrator meant it worked. I tried to add more urban history into the hold list (NYC, LA, and Palo Alto), but couldn’t get through the latter two before year-end so that’s going on next year’s reading challenge. Seeing as I do LA every January anyway, I’ll save the California books for the West Coast.
I’m a little disappointed that there weren’t many novels I couldn’t put down this year. But I really did focus on contemporary fiction and I think next year I should spend more time on both nonfiction and “canonical” works that I still haven’t gotten around to yet. That is, it may be time to start reading like my dad.
If Spotify is to be believed (it is), I was in.my.feelings. this year (I was). My erstwhile friend crush was a huge Country head, and I am grateful that brief friendship brought more Country--both classic and contemporary--into my life. (I have joked that women will inhale an entire discography/filmography/oeuvre in a weekend for a crush, but honestly show me the lie.) I’ve always been into Americana and bluegrass, but it was good to dig deeper into true country. At the pottery studio I would start with Johnny Cash and just let the algo take it from there for the next 3 - 4 hours. Beyond the musicians I was already listening to a lot (John Prine, Willie Nelson) I listened to more Townes Van Zandt, Nikki Lane, Jess Williamson, and Tyler Childers.
But of course my top artists were the same as every year: Coltrane, Paul Simon, Prokofiev, Steely Dan. Dean Wareham came up huge for me because I think I played “The Last Word” maybe 400 times this year. You get to the 2:53 mark with the sun shining on Memorial Day Weekend? That’s heaven on earth.
Music was my sanity this year more than it usually is. I had my sad playlist (Jeff Buckley, The Smiths, SZA) for the myriad breakup walks; my Drake playlist for running; my jazz playlist for cooking; and my work party afterparty playlist was even dowloaded by the bar for future use because I spent HOURS figuring out the best arrangement of Beyoncé into Fleetwoord into Dua and they got it.
I also spent a lot of time behind the wheel with the windows down listening to prog rock, too. Told you I was going through it.
As the year progressed, my already incoherent listening habits became very movie-forward. That is, I started putting on more movie soundtracks to work to (Nebraska hive we stay riding!! Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross run me over with a truck!!!) and I basically only ended up listening to podcasts about movies (Big Pic, Blank Check, Rewatchables). But the synergy between music and movies was strong this year, as evidenced by the thrilling re-issue of Stop Making Sense and the Eras/Renaissance films. (As always, I implore you to listen to Wesley Morris about everything, forever.)
After leaving Twitter, Letterboxed became my primary Social Network (lol). Thankfully it’s helping me keep track of what I watched this year. I did a lot of back-list catching up: I watched all the Miyazaki Studio Ghibli films in time to catch The Boy and the Heron the week after I got to The Wind Rises. In no particular order, my favorites: American Fiction, Oppenheimer, No Hard Feelings, Fallen Leaves, Past Lives, Maestro (but that’s because of Lydia Tàr), and because I quite sensibly spent most of this year catching up on Tom Cruise’s entire filmography, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, pt. I. This man will do anything to save cinema! I love it!!!!
The Lawyer Movie Draft match up of Blank Check and Big Pic was one of my favorite podcast episodes of the year. I definitely re-watched The Firm and The Pelican Brief after it. Luv u too, Michael Clayton.
My two goals this year were to leave NYC once a month and see a concert/show once a month. I was close to 100% on both, which was nice. If you go to Dublin, be sure to check out Bar 1661. I had an amazing lunch at this Italian place in Bern, Switzerland. If you are in London, I demand you go to Fortitude Bakehouse. As always, the BEC on a croissant at Arethusa is a religious experience. And Zapp’s chips + oysters + wine + this view in Maine = I can die happy.
I saw three live podcast tapings--my second time seeing both Odd Lots and Who? Weekly and my first time seeing How Long Gone (I’m not proud of it, but I love those two bros and John Early was a great guest). Relatedly, Kate Berlant's one woman show lived up to the hype and Just For Us made me laugh enough I told my folks to see it. I finally saw ABT do Romeo & Juliet at the Met, and there were too many classical concerts to count (highlights being: the Made in Berlin string quartet at Lydia Tàr's Berlin Philharmonic, the Emerson String Quartet performing Shostakovich No. 12, and Chamber Music Society presenting the full Brandenburg Concertos).
On the TV front, for what I lost in Succession this year, I look forward to getting back in Industry next year. My "Smooth Brain Award" for best background streaming goes to And Just Like That and Suits for being too dumb to function. A friend has promised to watch The Curse with me, but that has yet to materialize. At some point I'm going to have to get Apple TV back so I can finally watch the new season of Slow Horses, the first two seasons of which I binged in about a week in February.
Since I’m not actively tweeting, I’m going to put my in/out list here. I was actually on the money with some of my predictions from last year (all light yellow everything and bankruptcy is chic again) however none of you fools got on the “friends holding hands in an 1800s novel way” and I didn’t see enough old bay fries at the bar to make me happy. Let’s see if I can improve my trend casting odds for 2024:
IN: robin’s egg blue, Acting Like You've Been There, cassis and soda, Harvey Wallbangers, Meg Ryan's curly hair in When Harry Met Sally, pretending you know how to sail, whistleblowing, marbled paper, voice notes.
OUT: hard seltzer, oversize blazers, Substack, the pop punk revival, calling things “transcendent,” renter’s insurance, engagement announcements on social media (just get married), Reykjavik, Threads.
I’m probably wrong on all fronts! This take on my predictions is likely also my mantra for 2024. Happy New Year, and to the two to three people who read this whole thing, may it bring you peace and prosperity. Praying the world becomes a little easier to be alive in next year, though I’m not sure that’s how things work these days. If I don’t abandon this effort entirely next year, I’ll be sure to recount what rich and strange experiences came about...
