what happened in 2023

here are the things

Jan 01, 2024

More and more with each year, I hate the idea of year-end recaps. As we all know, it’s an arbitrary boundary. But also, I think the growing aversion is because for roughly a decade the tone of all these recaps has been something along the lines of: This hellyear was an unhinged, chaotic dumpster fire and we all deserve an A+ simply for making it to the end — under late capitalism. Stay hydrated, because next year and every year after that is gonna be even worse! (Climate change.)

I’ll pass on that, even if I don’t disagree with the underlying sentiment. Nobody has ever accused me of being too optimistic. But I don’t have a narrative arc for this year, or big thoughts about computers, and I am unimpressed with what passes for “memes” right now, which continue to be infinite lazy variations on roughly three ideas. As far as I can tell, this year’s major innovation was hypercharging the willful misinterpretation videos from TikTok, along with the old standby of making generalizations about Gen Z and Millennials that are, at best, so overly broad as to be useless. Aren’t you guys tired?

I don’t have any notable writing to plug and I don’t have any broad proclamations to make. Instead, here’s a just bunch of stuff from this year that I experienced, in no particular order.

social media became genuinely useful again

Alright, let’s get the big one out of the way.

I no longer have social media apps on my phone, and I don’t log into any of them on my work computer either. It kept feeling bad to use them and I don’t have any professional justification for it. For most of this year, I’ve easily managed to not spend a ton of time flipping through endless social-media feeds. I check my RSS reader a couple times a day and that keeps me well-informed enough. Except in one very particular case…

A big part of the Hebrew School experience for me was constantly being reminded that the Holocaust was terrible and that it’s important to be able to recognize and speak out when you see the signs. “Being against genocide, always” is a core value of modern Judaism, as far as I can tell. For the past three months or so, social media has become essential again because that’s where I am most informed about what is happening in Gaza.

The stuff I’ve been seeing out of Gaza has been truly horrifying and edifying. I’ve seen more dead bodies this year probably than during my entire lifetime of stumbling around the sicker parts of the internet. The words “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “genocide” currently apply to what Israel is doing to Palestine, and have for years. An immediate, permanent ceasefire and adequate humanitarian aid are the absolute bare-minimum needed here.

A relatively small aspect of the atrocities being committed is that the gulf between what I’m seeing on social media and what I’m seeing from standard news outlets is the widest it has ever been in my adult lifetime. This is not just a case of the same thing being framed as good in one place and bad in another; I’m seeing completely different things. A near-total omission of the suffering of Palestinians (and knock-on effects like stateside Islamophobia) in larger news outlets.

You’ve got tens of thousands of dead civilians, scores of targeted journalists and medical professionals; the deliberate, repeated bombings of hospitals and refugee camps; the killing of hostages who are waving white flags of surrender, borne out of justification for treating any civilian as a combatant; the Israeli military ordering people to seek protection in territory it decides to target anyway, the wanton destruction of historic and culturally important sites, the list goes on — and it’s all with the substantial monetary and military backing of the U.S. government. I find out most of this stuff from social media platforms and independent outlets first because all the big newspapers are too busy swarming Ivy League campuses or transcribing IDF press conferences in passive-voice cop-speak.

Here are just a few things I’ve read over the past few months that have stuck with me.

Palestinian Suffering Is Never As Urgent As The Counterfactual:
“The nature of Zionism treats Palestinians not as humans but as part of an amorphous pestilence capable of anything, shifted to fit any reason. When they are alive, they are a potential threat; when they are dead, they are a victim of their own circumstance. There is always some impossible counterfactual, some exonerating hypothetical. This process is how a child’s death can be blamed not on the Israeli soldier who fired the rocket, but on the imagined Palestinians who failed to put the child out of harm’s way.”
‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza

As the A.I. thought leaders in the U.S. wrestled with its hypothetical and overstated ability to destroy civilization this year, this sort of technology is already being deployed in Gaza to accelerate killing to an inconceivable pace.
According to the sources, the increasing use of AI-based systems like Habsora allows the army to carry out strikes on residential homes where a single Hamas member lives on a massive scale, even those who are junior Hamas operatives. Yet testimonies of Palestinians in Gaza suggest that since October 7, the army has also attacked many private residences where there was no known or apparent member of Hamas or any other militant group residing. Such strikes, sources confirmed to +972 and Local Call, can knowingly kill entire families in the process.
There Can Be No Critique and Masha Gessen on Israel, Gaza, and Holocaust Analogies

I found Judith Butler’s piece helpful for cutting through the distracting hair-splitting of the campus-speech debate, and Gessen is admirably more clear-eyed and articulate on the issue when many (myself included) are not.

Okay, time to segue to other stuff from this year…

100 gecs

At the top of my Spotify Wrapped in 2023. I also saw them live twice and they were great both times. Cannot stress enough how much they rule. I hope they make one zillion more stupid albums that make me feel like if I play it loud enough I’ll be able to vibrate through solid objects — but also if it’s just the two, that’s fine.

The Power Broker, Robert Moses

It was really nice when, in September, I got to take a break from having a personality for a month. My personality became “guy who is reading The Power Broker” and then “guy who understands exactly why New York is messed up because he just finished The Power Broker.” WHY doesn’t the SUBWAY go to the AIRPORT?? Please congratulate me on reading The Power Broker. It’s a very big book and it’s not even on Kindle.

Killers of the Flower Moon

Marty has done it again! The three and a half hours fly right by. Gladstone great, and you gotta give it up to Leo for wearing the bad teeth — but the unexpected MVP for me was De Niro. Crazy how good he can still be when paired with the right director, his best friend for like 600 years.

(I also enjoyed Scorsese appearing in his daughter’s TikToks. He’s always curious about stuff, always willing to lift up younger filmmakers. One of our best. And I’m glad he squashed his beef with The Pope.)

manga

Manga, like MMORPGs, has long been one of those things I’ve completely avoided because I knew that I’d just go down a rabbit hole and lose a lot of my precious time on this earth to the interest. Anyway, I started reading manga this fall after finding Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life on a friend’s shelf. That memoir was great, and I’ve liked some of his other work but from my perspective, that work also has a bit of an “angry incel” vibe.

I’ve mostly been reading Osamu Tezuka stuff, though the one Yoshiharu Tsuge collection I read, The Swamp, was really good and I’ve been meaning to get back to the other volumes. Dororo was great, and I got real Jeff Smith’s Bone vibes from it. The epic scope of his eight-volume Buddha was really astounding to me as well.

Plus, Melody of Iron has one of the goofiest comics panels I’ve ever seen. It’s a cheesy revenge drama about a guy who has his arms cut off by mobsters and so he acquires prosthetics that he controls with psychokinesis, but at night, his subconscious sends the arms out on their own… to kill!

404 Media

I don’t think it’s a secret that (as a petty and jealous loser) I find most internet culture writing to be… lacking. A lot of reaching via generalizations. A lot of doomsaying and a lack of curiosity. A lot of assumptions that the internet that the writer is experiencing is the internet that everyone is experiencing. If this frustrates you as well, I cannot recommend 404 Media enough.

404 Media, since it launched earlier this year, has put out something almost every day that I want to read. Stories about weird, and funny, and terrifying stuff happening thanks to modern technology, with a focus on specific people and specific events and specific technical mechanisms. A refreshing change of pace from the bland and broad proclamations about “what the internet is doing to our brains” and TikTok writeups or whatever. They published the only article I wanted to read about Sam Altman getting fired.

Subscribe! I really can’t recommend it enough.

Hell Gate

Look, if you live in New York, you’ve gotta subscribe to Hell Gate. We have this incredibly stupid mayor who says some of the dumbest stuff, and does some of the cruelest and stupidest things that make the city worse, and the only publication up to the task of demonstrating plainly that Eric Adams is a corrupt buffoon is Hell Gate. Plus, $20 Dinner is a food feature made for me, a guy who loves counter service.

May December

Haynes has done it again! He’s so funny. It’s in the little details. Nora’s Ark is an incredible name for a bad network television show. The ghost tour in the background of that one shot. The guy who plays the son is really unsettling. The ending is such a good payoff.

Hi-Fi RUSH

An incredible surprise at the start of the year, a rhythm-combat game that looks great too. One of a few things this year where I was like, “How’d they get it to look like that?”

But I do want to point out something important and infuriating: all of the marketing for this game mentioned Zwan being on the soundtrack. They licensed Zwan.

So I went through this entire wonderful game eagerly anticipating the Zwan sequence. “WHEN do I get to hit robots with my guitar to the rhythm of a Zwan song?” It never happened because the only time you hear “Honestly” by Zwan is over the end credits. It’s not really in the game. Disrespectful — to me and to Zwan.

everything by Charles Portis

Right now my current ranking is:

The Dog of the South
True Grit
Masters of Atlantis
Norwood
Gringos

but those top 3 could shift around depending on how I’m feeling that day and they’re all pretty excellent.

I also recommend Escape Velocity, a collection of highlights from his brief journalism career, as well short fiction and appreciations from other writers. There’s an old piece by Ron Rosenbaum in there about how everyone who reads Portis becomes a fanatic who recommends him to everyone and I guess now I’m one of those guys. Do you like good books? Check these out.

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part 1

I saw this in true IMAX and every time there was a close-up on Vanessa Kirby, I thought she was gonna pop out of the screen like a monster in a 3-D movie in the 1950s and eat me. The behind-the-scenes mini-doc on Tom Cruise jumping off that cliff is the best film of 2022.

The Holdovers

Universally excellent performances all around and what seems like a solid script. (People like complimenting scripts but does anyone actually read them? I don’t.) What I really want to highlight is the liquor store clerk who says “Here you go, killer.” to Paul Giamatti. He really makes that line — one of only two — his own. A great, extremely brief performance.

Bruce Springsteen @ the Barclays Center

I got to WALK to a Bruce Springsteen concert. Didn’t even have to take the subway. An incredible luxury. Thank you, Bruce!

City of Quartz / Planet of Slums / The Monster Enters / Buda’s Wagon / Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis

This guy rocks. I’m mad it took me so long to read his stuff. All of it is deeply researched, clear-eyed, gracefully presented, and every paragraph has some wild fact or anecdote that makes mad or surprises me. He’s such a good writer. He could just do really good research and be a mediocre writer and it’d still be great but he’s also a great writer. He’s constantly flexing on everyone.

the final season of Reservation Dogs

Unsurprisingly, they stuck the landing. A perfect three seasons of television.

the final season of The Other Two

The episode set at the AIDS play was one of the best eps of the year. Unfortunately, that strain also meant the writers were too tired to put any jokes in the series finale. :(

the final season of Succession

A great show that could never quite overcome how annoying its fans are.

the final season of Barry

Very bold of them to just not write any jokes this season. It didn’t quite work, because it made the season suck, but I respect that they tried.

the final season of Winning Time

The second season of Winning Time ends with the Lakers losing to the Celtics in '84 and Magic Johnson crying in the shower, clearly setting up a redemption arc for the next season. But the show got cancelled and so Winning Time ends with this impromptu coda — a tonally bizarre ending montage that explains “Actually, the Lakers ended up being really good.” The funniest finale of the year.

Tom Scharpling’s Ant-Man saga

I’ve listened to a lot of The Best Show over the past few years and I laugh every time Scharpling tells the story of getting cut out of all three Ant-Man movies. Really funny that he finally made it — into one of the worst movies I saw this year even before Jonathan Majors’s IRL heel turn.

Godzilla Minus One

What a great, fun movie! You know a movie is gonna be good when a scientist with unkempt hairs shows up with one of the dumbest schemes you’ve ever heard in your life: sinking Godzilla to the bottom of the sea and then raising him really fast so he gets the bends. And you’ve gotta respect that they stick with this Godzilla design that has those silly little beady eyes.

the following exchange at my screening of Wonka as the WB logo appeared while people were still talking

Guy at front: Shhhh stop talking.

Guy several rows back: Movie hasn’t started yet.

Guy at front: Doesn’t matter.

Guy several rows back: Word.

The Righteous Gemstones, season 3

The Steve Zahn-aissance shows no signs of abating.

Sharper

A twisty, heist thriller that seems like it was made in 2008, which I mean as a compliment. Annoying that this got buried on Apple TV+ early in the year. “Check out Sharper” —Brian

The Burial

Similarly buried on Amazon Prime this fall, it’s a feel-good legal drama starring Tommy Lee Jones and Jamie Foxx. Another sort of movie they barely make anymore and they should make more of. “Check out The Burial” —Brian

Vanderpump Rules, season 10

I have a couple of rules about this show.

It is the only one of these shows that I will watch.
I will not follow anything outside of the show. I only want to learn about these people through the events of the show’s episodes.

These rules have mostly paid off and kept me sane for the last few years, especially given recent events. I was already hyped on this season as a rebuilding year given a renewed focus on the core squad of freaks and Tom Schwartz and Katie’s long-gestating divorce. But the latter half of the season was so fun to watch because the Toms are freaks.

Also, good for Scheana! She seems to have figured it out.

Essays Two, Lydia Davis

I spent a lot of this year having to listen to countless executives and managers talk about how AI was going to supercharge everything and do a bunch of our work for us. Translation is one of those things that a lot of technologists see as a simple problem to solve with AI: a word or expression in one language has an equivalent in another, and more robust systems powered by LLMs can account for context or multiple meanings.

I found an enlightening and unintentional counter to this idea in Davis’s collection of essays about her translation work. In reality, or at least in Davis’s work, a lot more effort than one might think goes into it. It requires a lot of consideration and historical research that helps frame translation not as a logic problem to be solved but as an art like any other form. There’s no replacement for people who actually care about something enough to do a good job.

the shorter books of David Graeber

I read a few Graeber books this year, and while I appreciate the titanic scope of The Dawn of Everything (with David Wengrow) and Debt: The First 5,000 Years, I found myself more drawn in by Bullshit Jobs and The Utopia of Rules. Short, pithy, books about why work sucks and why nobody makes anything cool anymore. Easy recommendations for anyone in your life who works anywhere.

The Morning Show

I cheered when, after alluding to it in the premiere, they showed a flashback of Reese Witherspoon at the capitol riot. AI will never be able to write this stuff.

Yakuza 5, Yakuza 0, Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, Yakuza: Like A Dragon, Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

The Yakuza series is a towering achievement in storytelling and worldbuilding. It has more personality in its pinky than most games have in their whole body. One of the best things I saw this year was in Yakuza 6 when, if Kiryu gets in a fight while carrying around an infant child, he just hands the baby to a random pedestrian before the raising his fists. (Also, this.) The attention to detail is killer. The final cutscene of Like A Dragon Gaiden made me lose my mind (compliment).

“103 fever,” Conner O’Malley

One of my more annoying periods of this year was the week that I spent doing the bad Drake impression, saying “I heard you got a 103 fever for the past six months… I just wanted to say… me too.”

Tim (Let It Bleed Edition), The Replacements

Fans of Tim were feasting this year. The new mix sounds great. The vinyl set I got came with a hat that, bewilderingly, says “The Replacements” on the front and “Tim” in the Tim font on the back. They should’ve put “Tim” on the front of the hat instead. As for the album itself, I have no issues.

Fortnite

They recently added a LEGO mode and a Rock Band mode to this game, making it the virtual equivalent of my parents’ basement.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

One of the best moments of the year was when I went down to The Depths for the first time and spent 20 minutes says “Oh wow, I hate this, oh wow what the hell is that?” over and over again. That’s a sensation only video games can deliver. Loved the li’l mushroom town too.

Chants of Sennaar

I love feeling like a genius and Chants of Sennaar makes that happen. Really smartly designed and a great little ditty to play on my Steam Deck. I do wish the guy walked a little bit faster but other than that, I loved everything about it. I even went back and did the optional stuff.

The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen

Read this one on vacation in like three days, which is pretty quick for me. Lives up to the hype. (The sequel is take-it-or-leave-it.)

The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu

Similarly devoured this one in a weekend. It’s been a while since I read something that really puts the “sci” in “sci-fi.” Can’t wait to see the terrible Netflix show that the Game of Thrones bozos are making out of this. I’ll keep drinking that garbage.

the Daily Mail article about the woman who took Prince Harry’s virginity

The Daily Mail tracked down the woman who Prince Harry lost his virginity to and it featured this MS Paint-annotated photo that I think speaks for itself.

The Creator

A mostly competent sci-fi movie that I enjoyed simply because it’s so rare now to see a big-budget movie not based on existing intellectual property. And it’s not even big-budget really, they made it for like $80 million with a camera that costs $4,000 and it looks better than anything Marvel has put out in the past three years. Exciting!

The Wager, David Grann

I’m already a member of the Grann-ary, but I also love books about maritime disasters. He’s done it again! Not nearly as long as the big prestige hardback format implies. A breezy, easy read. Where does he even find this stuff?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

I saw this the way all childless adults should see animated movies: alone in a completely empty theater on a Sunday morning. All eyes are on Spider-Verse but this is the movie that made me spend the most time asking “Damn, how did they get it to look like that?” Jackie Chan as Splinter has a line reading that made me ijbol, which is extremely rare for me, especially when I’m by myself.

Cocoon

A great puzzle game and a nice way to spend three hours. Meticulously designed aside from some initally confusing internal logic on how the orbs work towards the end. I guess I also didn’t like the boss fights that much, now that I think about it. Still, an easy recommendation.

“Between a Ring and a Hardass,” American Dad!

Possibly recency bias, but this could be the single funniest episode of television I saw this year. Really good sitcom hijinks happening here. I don’t know what else to say except it came along at exactly the right time and I spent all 21 minutes in awe of how funny I found everything happening in it. Just trust me on this.

Starfield

It is kinda exhilarating to load up a game that you are eagerly anticipating and then immediately realize, “Haha wow this sucks!” They spent eight years on this? Good grief! It’s tough to know if I’ve changed in that time or if Todd Howard bit off more than he could chew or both. Anyway, I think I played it for like 40 or 60 hours.

GUTS, Olivia Rodrigo

Just a great album. I was worried that “get him back!” was going to be at the top of my Spotify Wrapped because I listened to it on a loop so much the first week but it was only #2.

The Gilded Age, season 2

Julian Fellows knows exactly what he’s doing. He walked into the writers room and scribbled “boy invents clock” in big red marker on the whiteboard and walked back out. Special shout out to Robert Sean Leonard’s Boston accent work this season. And of course, the line reading of the year:

“Soup??! At luncheon????” —Christine Baranski

Great stuff.

BNet

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