My Favorites of 2023

book, movie, music, television, etc.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

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Hello, Subscribers,

I meant to send this yesterday! So, a day late, here are my favorites of 2023:

Non-Fiction:

Simultaneously a biography, memoir, and polemic against the mental healthcare system. A tragedy. But also a love song. And a mourning ceremony.

More about the book here.

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Fiction:

Lydia Davis writes very short stories, some just two or three sentences. They’ll knock you over with their intelligence, wit, sorrow, and mystery.

More about the book here.

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Poetry:

So honest about love, pain, sorrow, love, lust, and every other damn thing that you’ll be ducking your head.

More about the book here.

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Movie:

Directing, writing, acting, editing, cinematography. Everything is near perfect. An incredibly painful experience for a reservation-raised Indian like me because my family and I, and every Indian around us, directly experienced various forms of the capitalist exploitation that is portrayed in this film.

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Music:

Kara Jackson’s Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love.

Her lyrics are poetry and she sometimes sounds like Joni Mitchell and sometimes like Nina Simone. And sometimes like a combo of the two.

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Television:

The Great Gatsby on 21st Century steroids without a moral voice like Nick Carraway’s to guide us through the narrative. Also, in Succession, the Jay Gatsby avatar is a villain. Also, this show is filled with so many amazingly profane and accurate insults that you’ll be flinching all the time. One of the best TV shows ever made.

I also love that, amidst the rapacious capitalist Republicans, is one rapacious capitalist Democrat that leftist critics kept trying to shoehorn into the hero role.

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Song:

I think this song came out in 2022 but it is my most-played song of 2023. It kills me.

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YouTube:

I never could’ve predicted that I’d so love watching somebody watch and react to musical performances but I’m hooked on The Charismatic Voice where Elizabeth Zharoff, an opera singer, reacts to rock music.

Here’s her reaction to Heart covering Lee Zepplin:

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Tortilla Chips:

Open bag, eat all of them, buy new bag, repeat.