Listmas 2023 miscellany

With minimal commentary!

2023 was the most fun I’ve ever had listening to music, edging out the year I was fourteen, primarily because—pace my decreasingly accurate last.fm—it was the most time I’ve ever spent listening to music, as I cleared out extra hours to grind out another album or two. However, while I can do (most kinds of) reading while listening to (most kinds of) music, my time for watching stuff has suffered. I’ve learned how to play f/k/a HBO Max at x1.5 speed, which is fine for most TV, but I still need to set aside enough time to catch up on my backlog of “movies that probably deserve my full attention.” So my New Year’s resolution is to give up on more albums three songs in.

MOVIES

1. The Fabelmans (Spielberg, 2022)

2. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Hamaguchi, 2021)

3. Oppenheimer (Nolan, 2023)

4. No Bears (Panahi, 2022)

5. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Wrench, 2023)

6. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (del Toro, 2022)

7. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Dos Santos/Powers/Thompson, 2023)

8. Pig (Sarnoski, 2021)

9. Kimi (Soderbergh, 2022)

10. Killers of the Flower Moon (Scorsese, 2023)

And I also appreciated Avatar: The Way of Water, Barbie, EO, Love in the Time of Fentanyl, Nope, Past Lives, and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.

Best performance was Lily Gladstone, with an assist to whoever was lighting her to look like a Leonardo in the first act of Flower Moon.

Best new-to-me old movie: Touki Bouki.

TV EPISODES

The Last of Us: “Long, Long Time”
The Last of Us: “Left Behind”
What We Do in the Shadows: “Pride Parade”
The Bear: “Dogs”
The Other Two: “Cary & Brooke Go to an AIDS Play”
The Other Two: “Brooke Hosts a Night of Undeniable Good”
Last Week Tonight: “Artificial Intelligence”
Gudetama: An Eggcellent Adventure: “Ahhhh”

Best series was The Last of Us. Relieved that now I won’t have to play the second game!

MUSIC VIDEOS, EXCLUDING NEWJEANS, OLIVIA RODRIGO, AND ANYTHING IN MY TOP TEN SINGLES

1. Xiangyu: “道端にネキ”

2. Bas Jan: “At the Counter”

3. BigXthaPlug: “Texas”

4. Jiraya Uai & MC Tarapi: “Hoje Tem Rodeio, Baile de Favela”

5. Jordan Davis: “Next Thing You Know”

Plus fine, “Planet of the Bass” was funny when it was under a minute.

LIVE MUSIC

Ceramic Dog in Indianapolis and Speedy Ortiz in Bloomington. Honorable mention to George Clinton, who certainly deserves to just sit down and enjoy the show as much as anyone, even if he does so on stage.

SPORTS

Pretty tense year to be a New Zealander.

1. All Blacks vs. Ireland, Rugby World Cup quarterfinal

2. England in New Zealand, second cricket Test

3. Alcaraz vs. Djokovic, Wimbledon

4. South Africa vs. France, Rugby World Cup quarterfinal

5. Georgia vs. Ohio State, 2022 Peach Bowl*

6. Women’s 5000 meters, World Athletics Championships

7. Sri Lanka in New Zealand, first cricket Test

8. France vs. Australia penalty shoot-out, Women’s World Cup

9. England vs. Australia, first Ashes Test

10. Man City vs. Arsenal, EPL, April 26

*Saw it in 2023 in the time zone I was in.

ART

Well yeah that Vermeer show was pretty good, as was the Van Gogh in Auvers exhibition I caught the following day. Less exaltedly, the collection of Frank Stewart’s photographs I saw at the Phillips in Washington was appropriately jazzy and quite moving.

ARCHITECTURE (OVER 500 YEARS OLD)

York has ended up being the one that stuck with me—impressive size, best windows, good variety. Sorry, Gothic-cathedral-as-a-harmoniously-integrated-set-of-structural-components snobs!

ARCHITECTURE (LESS THAN 500 YEARS OLD)

Not sorry, Rotterdam rules.