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Some things that happened + some things I enjoyed in 2023. Happy 2024, everybody.

12 Things That Didn't Suck this Year, plus 12 Films I watched and Liked

For me, 2023 was a somewhat easier year than most in recent memory. In the wider scope, everything remains very demoralizing and bereft of even a shred of hope. With whatever motivation I can find, my aim in 2024 is to refine aspects of my personal life I'm currently unhappy about; outside of that, things feel pretty much unsalvageable. May the new year surprise us all and give us a few glimmers here and there, culturally or otherwise. In the meantime here are 12 points that brought me some sort of comfort or release in the past year -- and also a dozen movies as most would agree it's been a great year for those. Maybe just maybe I'll finally take a crack at writing a screenplay in the new year so long as the world doesn't careen completely off its axis:

Traveling: In late 2022 I got it into my head that it would be really cool and fun to plan a trip as if we were touring, going from location to location within a span of 2 weeks. I really wanted to go back to Spain, James has always wanted to go to Morocco, so I routed a trip from Madrid to Tangier and back, with stops in Granada and Seville along the way (and also we went to see Suede, because why not). This was an intense journey that involved multiple buses, trains, shuttles to ferries, and plenty of taxis, and I'm pretty shocked and impressed that we pulled it off without sleeping through any departure times or losing any belongings (apart from a pair of earrings of mine that fell out of my purse and got crushed in Granada). The whole trip was a highlight not only of the year but of our lives in general and I'll absolutely never forget getting lost in the Ancien Medina in Tangier, something which I still dream about on the reg.

I Think You Should Leave: This has been an intellectually rich year in terms of films and television shows. The third season of Tim Robinson's completely unhinged Netflix series isn't part of that particular conversation, yet nothing I've watched this year has brought me more joy. I've easily watched the "Jellybean" sketch alone about 15 times, and could easily watch it twice that many more with no threat of it ever getting old. Absolutely insane, ceaselessly hilarious, and sometimes even emotionally stirring. May Netflix renew this 100 times over.

PJ Harvey - I Inside the Old Year Dying: I'm maybe a minority PJ Harvey fan because I find her later output far more interesting than her early, more iconic records (excepting To Bring You My Love and Is This Desire? here). This maybe didn't stir me quite as much as The Hope Six Demolition Project, which I found to be truly radical, but it neither felt like a retread (although surface listens might lead some to write it off as a return to White Chalk-era atmospherics). Outside of the record itself, the video for the title song is outstanding, and all her collaborators (including the directors of the video, animators Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña) were expertly chosen. Personally, Ben Whishaw singing lines from "Love Me Tender" is something beyond even my wildest dreams (Fun fact: I met Ben Whishaw forever ago and gave him a PJ Harvey button I made, so this collaboration in particular is quite the full circle).

Books By Friends: This year I read several recent books: HellSans by Ever Dundas, Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez and The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman, all very different novels but all incredible in their own right ( I believe I technically read Ever's book last year but including it here anyway because I loved it that much). HellSans is a dystopian cyber-horror that satisfied my love of experimental writing and body horror alike, Our Share of Night is a touching story about a complicated familial relationship with heavy occult overtones, and The Ghost Theatre is a lush historical fiction that at times reminded me of Patrick Suskind's Perfume in terms of sensory details. All three novels solidified all future output from these writers as must reads for me, regardless of genre designations.

Movies: A short sub-list of 12 movies I watched this year that I liked enough to rank:

12) The Passenger (director: Carter Smith): Kyle Gallner is the #1 scream king to me and I'll watch pretty much whatever he's in as he usual picks interesting roles - plus, he makes me happy to be from Pennsylvania, and I can't say that about many people. Anyway, I've watched like three movies he was in this year alone but The Passenger was the stand out for its Falling Down-esque intro and fucked up reveals.

11) Beau is Afraid (director: Ari Aster): Docking this a few points because I think Ari Aster is pretty overrated, but I can't deny that this was an absolute trip to see in a movie theater. A quietly brilliant performance by Joaquin Phoenix as well.

10) The Royal Hotel (director: Kitty Green): Anything set in Australia instantly piques my interest, even moreso when it's as indebted to Wake in Fright as this film is. It wasn't the strongest year for horror films, and The Royal Hotel would probably be largely categorized as horror-adjacent, but it made me feel absolutely dreadful all the same.

9) Infinity Pool (director: Brandon Cronenberg): The unease I got watching this didn't totally stick, but the weird as shit Mia Goth performance certainly did.

8) Dream Scenario (director: Kristoffer Borgli): Very on the nose but I still laughed like a fiend over the whole "dreamfluencer" bit. Tremendous Nicholas Cage performance to boot.

7) Saltburn (director: Emerald Fennell): Sorry, loved its audacity and the way everybody in it dressed and how everything looked. A bit shallow but sometimes if everything looks great, I can hardly give a shit about any deeper meaning. Also, Barry Keoghan is absolute superstar and I don't use that term lightly.

6) Talk To Me (director: Danny and Michael Philippou): Easily my favorite straight-up horror film (not horror-adjacent) since It Follows, to which it certainly owes a debt. Funny, fucked up, and an amazing debut by Sophie Wilde, who gave the most underrated horror performance of the year imo.

5) Oppenheimer (director: Christopher Nolan): I liked it enough but what I liked even more was an on the surface "men's film" being embraced and subverted by a diverse, sometimes irreverent, audience (just look up Oppenheimer on Know Your Meme or TV Tropes and you'll get what I mean). July 2023 was a glorious period of people celebrating films and for one brief moment everyone seemed to love small, beautiful men just as much as I do.

4) Asteroid City (director: Wes Anderson): I'm generally iffy on Wes Anderson but this was just gorgeous and a truly profound experience that I'm still revisiting regularly and piecing together in my mind. If Jarvis Cocker doesn't get an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song with "Dear Alien," I will punch through a wall and all the way into a different reality.

3) Killers of the Flower Moon (director: Martin Scorsese): No movie has angered me this much since Judas and the Black Messiah in terms of a despicable moment in human history, but of course it was extremely gripping and moving, too. Say it's boring all you want but nothing this year has packed as much poignancy as that ending.

2) Anatomy of a Fall (director: Justine Triet): Best ever child acting in a film, best ever dog acting in a film.

May December (director: Todd Haynes): Todd Haynes is so intelligent, I love hearing him discuss his films and he's without a doubt one of the all-time greats for me. Even with my high expectations for everything that he does, May December still blew my mind. The marriage of Lifetime aesthetics with arthouse cinema is insanely deft, the "final showdown" between Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman's characters is absolutely chilling, and Charles Melton crying behind that fence will stay with me long, long after this year has ended.

Protomartyr Live at Johnny Brenda's: I really liked Protomartyr's 2023 release Formal Growth in the Desert, but it didn't fully hit until I attended this gig. It's been hard to get excited for gigs in the post-Covid era, but when that happens I'm reminded again of the pleasures of live music and its overall importance. I've seen Protomartyr several times in the past but in my humble opinion they've never been better than right now. Wanted to experience the whole show again as soon as it ended. The projections were really cool, too.

Living with a Cat: My parents got a kitten this year and shortly thereafter a cat mysteriously appeared in our alley. She was very scared and hungry, so we fed her and she found her way inside our home shortly after that. Cats are a lot of work, but she also brings us a lot of happiness and comfort. Sometimes she'll for real wink at me and it's very cute. Her backstory is a total mystery but she was clearly a house cat and we're very delighted to give her a new, happy home.

Swarm: Atlanta is one of my favorite things ever, plus fandoms and horror are two major interests of mine, so it was pretty inevitable that I would love this. The show was brilliant in itself, but Dominique Fishback was particularly phenomenal and delivered the horror monologue to beat going forward. A wild, funny, wicked ride.

Our first gig in Boston: We only played three shows this year but the best by far was our set in Boston at the Dark Springs Boston festival this past May. We played a bunch of our new, as yet unreleased, songs for the first time, met some bands we'd been longtime fans of, and just generally had a great time. Sitting down at the bar afterward, we met some festgoers who were genuinely star-struck, which was both flattering and very, very funny. May that be the first of many such experiences.

The Bear Season 2: Fishes and Forks. Enough said.

Cillian Murphy's Radio Show on 6Music: I listened to previous series of Cillian Murphy's Limited Edition radio show and it was my favorite thing then, but 2023's iteration was somehow better than ever. Played lots of Aldous Harding, my favorite cover song ever (Sonic Youth's cover of "Superstar"), and I'm still shocked that he threw in something from Cindy Lee, whose music I had just discovered like two weeks prior (and from a Protomartyr interview! Everything is connected!).

The Curse: There's an episode of Succession in which Roman Roy utters the phrase, "I cringed so hard I turned into a fossil." That's me with every new episode of The Curse. This would be way higher but it won't actually end 'til 2024 so it could possibly show up on next year's list as well! Also, let's give it up for Benny Safdie, who rules in this and in every other role he's played this year (and also on late night tv appearances).

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Wolves enjoy a treat-covered Christmas tree at Wolf Park in Battle Ground, Ind.

Pictures by Monty Sloan

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The Sphere, England, December 24, 1921

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Christian iconography, or, The history of Christian art in the middle ages, 1851 

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The Morning Call, Allentown, Pennsylvania, September 8, 1950

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Who’s your favorite artist?

SWARM (2023) Created by Donald Glover, Janine Nabers Available on Amazon Prime

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I wear suits now, T.

THE BEAR 2.08 “Bolognese”

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Saw Protomartyr over a week ago and am still sad the gig is over. Been experiencing a ton of anxiety lately because I got promoted at my job and have no idea what I'm doing half the time. This gig was the first time in weeks where I wasn't stressing out about something in the future or past and just giving myself to the moment. Protomartyr are one of the few bands I love virtually every song by, but even so I finally got to hear my absolute favorite ("Maidenhead"), plus hearing songs off their new record live really made the album click into place for me (had been in-between about it prior). Plus we were in the front row of the balcony, Kelley Deal's side (she's a live member) and we could see everything that was going on. Also, believe me when I say Joe Casey is a god -- he's usually just standing there and drinking multiple beers, some which seem to magically appear out of thin air, yet he's completely awe-inspiring. Dunno why I'm posting this particular video along with this word spew, other than I think the awkward rollercoaster banter is funny and that guitar riff in "My Children" is so fucking mighty -- I've probably listened to this song and obscene amount at this point and that opening riff still slays like nobody's business. This is a truly special band & I'll probably love them forever at this point.

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[...] and in the night bats came from some nether part of the world to stand on leather wings like dark satanic hummingbirds and feed at the mouths of those flowers.

Cormac McCarthy, from 'Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West'

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MARIANNE FAITHFULL as LILITH in LUCIFER RISING (1972) dir. Kenneth Anger.

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RIP Kenneth Anger. I think maybe my entire aesthetic is based on Puce Moment. 

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Orlando(the Marmalade Cat): His Silver Wedding (source)

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Daniel Miller, Dave Gahan, Martin Gore & Blixa Bargeld, Tokyo, Japan (08/04/1985) Photo ©  水上はるこ‏(?) Source: 水上はるこ‏ [1], [2-3], [4-5]

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David Bowie, "Wild is the Wind"

You kiss me With your kiss my life begins You're spring to me, all things to me Don't you know you're life itself Like the leaf clings to the tree Oh, my darling, cling to me For we're like creatures of the wind And wild is the wind, wild is the wind

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A mesmerizing shot of Ryuichi Sakamoto, early 1980s.

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Just some stuff I’ve been listening to lately. Check it out or not. 

10 Songs I’ve Been Listening to Lately

Listening to music started to become a struggle for me at some point early into the pandemic. It was a combination of having limited internet due to decamping to my grandmother’s before things go super serious, the general uncertainty at the time, and music being so closely linked to New York for me – this last one has likely been the greatest factor, as I’m still trying to get my impossibly jumbled feelings over leaving that city into some kind of working order. 

The last several months in particular have made listening to music very painful, but I’m slowly trying to reconnect. The past three years have led to one adjustment after another and I don’t really feel like the same person anymore a lot of the time. I really don’t know when I’ll feel on firm ground but am really striving to make something happen this year that will bring some semblance of my confidence and joy of listening back. 

In the meantime, here are 5 songs I’ve listened to recently that either engaged me in some way or that I felt moved by. My writing skills aren’t really where I would like them to be, either, and I’m really too drained to even try, so all I’ll say is I hope these will move and / or engage you in some way too if you give any one of them a listen (and yes, two of them are called “Thrasher”). Cheers and love always. 

* Lee Hazlewood - We All Make the Flowers Grow

*Kendrick Lamar feat. Sampha - Father Time

*NightNight - In Your Room (this is kinda a cheat ‘cos Yasmin is a good friend, but would firmly believe this Depeche Mode cover was pretty brill even if she were a stranger)

*Bernard Butler & Edwyn Collins - Can’t Do That (The Hoover) {sorry!}

*Neil Young - Thrasher

*Chapterhouse - Thrasher

*Flatwaves - Cygnus

*Tim Darcy - Still Waking Up

*Fast Car Slow Car - Bow

*Pilgrims of Yearning - La Mar (looking forward to playing with them at a fest in May!) 

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So, just want to set the record straight here ‘cos I see people misunderstanding it often.

People think this refers to Brett Anderson from The Donnas, it does not.

The first Donnas record came out in 1997. This is clearly from 1992 / 1993 because I’m a loser who read too many imported music mags growing up and has a borderline photographic memory for pointless shit like this. 

Yeah, the Donnas formed in 1993 but didn’t garner widespread interest ‘til late ‘90s. The photo of PJ Harvey here is clearly in her Dry / Rid of Me era, she was doing the whole Is This Desire? thing around the time the Donnas became known / the newsprint of the music weeklies in that era was of a better quality, etc. 

Plus, like 99.9% of music press circa ‘92 of ‘93 was throwing as many synonyms for “androgyny” as possible at Brett Anderson (the Suede one).

Like I said, stupid attention to detail / dumb knowledge of niche things like .00003% of the population gives a damn about now, but believe me when I say this has zero to do with the US Brett Anderson. all to do with UK Brett Anderson, sorry I’m so uppity about this, I’m super depressed & trying to make myself feel better by spreading facts. Will probably delete in a minute so read the truth now.