#GOD that inundating all consuming experience with art.... I fucking LIVE for it

[sweetest-devotion]

.

[abelhorwitz]

The year ended quietly, up in Whidbey Island with my family (minus, alas, my sister). It snowed on Christmas Eve, and we woke up to a white Christmas.

As I have done for the last two years I wrote down all of the books, shows, movies and TV I saw this year. 

However, a lot of my writing this year was done by hand, and so even though I went back through my journals to record what I’d consumed, there are still gaps. So this list is imperfect. 

But, as I’m learning, that’s ok.

Let’s start with books: 21 books this year. I tend to read a book every two weeks, so this keeps with that pace. Three of these were audiobooks that I listened to while traveling around the United States, and so I associate those books with a lot of visual memories. 

I also read three classics this year, “The Sun Also Rises”, “Pride and Prejudice” and “Dune”, which was a lot of fun.

“The New Bohemians” has spurred my design for my apartment, “Will in the World” has stirred an interest in doing “Hamlet”, and “Untethered Soul” -- recommended by a coworker -- is a book I think everyone should read.

BOOK

Botany of Desire - Michael Pollan (1/9)

Future Sex - Emily Witt (1/22)

Otherwise Known As Sheila The Great - Judy Bloom (1/26)

The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfus (2/24)

Closer (play) - Patrick Marber (3/7)

The Sun Also Rises - Hemmingway (4/6)

The Wise Man's Fear - Patrick Rothfus (4/11)

A Man Without A Country - Kurt Vonnegut (4/20)

Some Girls - My Life In A Harem - Jillian Lauren (5/11)

Catching the Big Fish - David Lynch (5/22)

The Psychopath Test - Jon Ronson (7/9)

Hillbilly Elegy - JD Vance (audio) (8/15)

The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck - Mark Manson (audio) (8/20)

Total Recall - Arnold Schwarzenneger (audio) (8/25)

The Untethered Soul  - Michael Singer(9/20)

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (9/30)

I Hope I Screw This Up - Kyle Cease (9/29)

Spoon River - Edgar Lee Masters (11/14)

Will in the World - How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare - Stephen Greenblatt (11/14)

The New Bohemians - Justina Blakeney (11/25)

Dune - Frank Herbert (12/28)

The picture above is of me and the rest of the students in the acting class I finished last December. Two years of driving to Santa Monica twice a week. The class started with forty(-ish) people and these are the six of us who made it to the end. I am so proud of myself and my classmates for finishing the program.

Here is the list of shows I saw this year, both concerts and plays. Seeing U2 perform the Joshua Tree album was jaw-dropping. Seeing Tony Bennet and then The Muppets (both at the Hollywood Bowl) was a joy.

I went to two major festivals -- FYF and Arroyo Seco -- this summer, and was lucky enough to see both Tom Petty and Charles Bradley before they passed. 

SHOW

White Guy on a Bus (2/5)

Drunken Devil Bloody Gras (2/25)

U2 - Joshua Tree Tour (5/20)

Don't Call Me Anything But Mother (6/7)

Don't Call Me Anything But Mother (6/14) (Tina Preston, amazing. Saw it twice.)

Lambchop (6/3)

Arroyo Seco (6/24)

Tony Bennett (7/15)

Hamlet (8/19) with Grandma

The Muppets Take The Hollywood Bowl (9/9)

Afro Music Festival (9/9)

Spoon River @ Ruskin (11/28)

Dhani Harrison (11/30)

BØRNS (12/14) at Viacom office

The haunted house list is limited, as I have scaled down the immersive theater elements in my life, but I still love Halloween and cannot believe it has been five years of Urban Death: Tour of Terror. MAJOR props to both The Nest and Kaidan Project, which took the haunted house trope and brought it to levels I’d never seen before. 

Also, this year I went to three branded haunted houses (IT, Horror Rewind and Lore), which shows me that there’s very much a corporate interest in this type of art, which makes me happy and makes me wary to see what comes next.

HAUNT

Tortured Souls (3/4)

Fear is What We Learned Here (3/26)

The Nest - Scout Expedition Co (4/14)

Knotts Scary Farm (9/23)

Urban Death (all October)

The IT Experience (10/1)

Night Shift (10/13)

Kaidan Project: Walls Grow Thin (10/15)

Horror Rewind (10/15)

Lore (10/22)

While on vacation in Mexico City I saw three movies, “Moonlight”, “Split”, and “T2 Trainspotting”, which was such a joy to simply BE in a foreign country, have leisure time, and see a movie every day if I wanted to. I loved that.

The experience I want to hold tight to is going to the Clyde Theater, the single-screen gem near where my parents and grandmother live, to see “Coco” with my brother and my grandma.   

MOVIE

Muppets Most Wanted (1/1)

When A Man Loves A Woman (1/2)

Deadpool (1/8)

Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds (1/8)

Tim's Vermeer (1/13)

La La Land (1/14) director Damien Chazel spoke afterwards

Hyperrealism (2/6)

Top Five (2/25)

Moonlight (3/12)

Split (3/15)

T2 Trainspotting (3/17)

Knight's Tale (4/7)

Ever After (4/8)

What We Do In The Shadows (4/13)

Inside Man (4/14)

Moana (4/21)

Closer (5/6)

City of Gold (5/8)

The Usual Suspects (5/13)

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (5/27)

Wonder Woman (6/4)

Baby Driver (7/7)

Baby Driver (7/14)

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them (8/11)

The Wackness (8/15)

The Tao Of Steve (8/27)

Teaching Mrs Tingle (9/3)

The Third Man (9/10)

IT (9/17)

Total Recall (9/21)

Sicario (10/3)

Love and Mercy (10/8)

Hocus Pocus (10/11)

Blade Runner 2049 (10/16)

Michael Clayton (11/5)

Haunters The Movie (11/14)

Jim & Andy (11/22)

Thor Ragnarok (11/21)

The Meyerowitz Stories (11/27)

Murder on the Orient Express (12/9)

Star Wars Last Jedi (12/22)

Coco (12/29)

As always, TV consumption was my largest category. Most of these were watched inside of my apartment on my laptop. Amazon and Netflix make it easy to binge shows. A lot of these shows I simply loved -- The Tick, G.L.O.W., Kimmy Schmidt, Marvelous Mrs. Maizel, Big Little Lies. A few of these I didn’t (mostly Obama saying goodbye).

I notice that I am drawn to TV series with strong female leads and also late-night comedy that deals with today’s politics.

TV

Good Girls Revolt (1/9)

Obama Farewell Address (1/10)

Good Girls Revolt (1/11)

Blackish - Drumpf Episode (1/13)

A Series of Unfortunate Events (1/13)

Good Girls Revolt (1/13)

Good Girls Revolt (X3) (1/14)

Obama's Final Press Conference (1/18) (Yikes)

A Series of Unfortunate Events (1/18)

A Series of Unfortunate Events (1/20)

A Series of Unfortunate Events (1/23)

Full Frontal With Samantha Bee (1/24)

A Series of Unfortunate Events (1/25)

A Series of Unfortunate Events (1/31)

A Series of Unfortunate Events (2/1)

A Series of Unfortunate Events (2/3)

Z - The Beginning of Everything (2/5)

Z - The Beginning of Everything (X2) (2/8)

Z - The Beginning of Everything (2/9)

Abstract (2/12)

Z - The Beginning of Everything (2/12)

Abstract (2/13)

Last Week Tonight (2/13)

Z - The Beginning of Everything (2/24)

Oscars (2/26)

Z - The Beginning of Everything (2/28)

Abstract (3/6)

Z - The Beginning of Everything (3/10)

Samantha Bee (3/16)

Mike Birbiglia: Thank God For Jokes (3/20)

Series of Unfortunate Events (3/31)

American Playboy (4/15)

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (4/22)

Abstract (4/22)

Abstract the Art of Design (4/28)

Samantha Bee Correspondents Dinner (4/29)

Abstract (5/5)

Kimmy Schmidt (X2) (5/21)

Kimmy Schmidt (5/22)

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (X3) (5/24)

Kimmy Schmidt (5/25)

Kimmy Schmidt (X3) (5/29)

Kimmy Schmidt (6/2)

Kimmy Schmidt (6/4)

G.L.O.W. (X3) (6/28)

GLOW (X3) (6/30)

Attack on Titan (7/4) (X3)

I Love Dick (7/14)

Abstract (7/18)

New Girl (X2) (7/20)

Weekend Update Summer Edition (8/12)

Abstract (8/22)

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (X3) (8/26)

Weekend Update Summer Edition (8/27)

The Tick (X2) (9/5)

The Tick (X2) (9/6)

The Tick (X2) (9/7)

The Tick (9/10)

The Tick (9/15) (X3)

The Tick (X3) (9/22)

Wet Hot American Summer Ten Years Later (9/22)

Samantha Bee (9/24)

Wet Hot American Summer Ten Years Later (9/24)

Broad City (9/28)

Wet Hot American Summer - Ten Years Later (X4) (10/1)

Mindhunter (10/25)

Stranger Things (10/29)

Mindhunters (11/1)

Mindhunters (11/2)

Samantha Bee (11/2)

Mindhunter (11/3)

SNL - Tiffany Hadish and Taylor Swift (11/11)

Mindhunter (X2) (11/12)

Last Week Tonight (11/13)

Disjointed (11/13)

Mindhunter (11/15)

Disjointed (11/15)

Samantha Bee (11/16)

Mindhunter (11/17)

Mindhunter (X2) (11/19)

Disjointed (11/20)

Godless (11/24)

Disjointed (11/24)

Disjointed (X2) 11/26

The Marvelous Miss Maizel (11/29)

The Marvelous Miss Maizel (12/3) (X2)

Community (12/2) (X2)

Community (12/3) (X2)

Marvelous Miss Maizel (12/4)

The Marvelous Mrs Maizel (12/8) (X2)

The Marvelous Mrs Maizel (12/9) (X2)

Marvelous Mrs. Maizel (12/10)

Marvelous Mrs. Maizel (12/11)

Big Little Lies (12/13)

Big Little Lies (12/15)

Big Little Lies (12/16)

Disjointed (12/20)

Big Little Lies (12/22)

Marvelous Miss Maizel (12/27)

And lastly, MAGAZINES/NEWSPAPERS:

LA Times

NY Times

Los Angeles Magazine

Bloomberg Businessweek

Rolling Stone

Hollywood Reporter

Esquire

That’s my list. That was my year in consumption (at least, what I wrote down. If I included the amount of music and internet I inundate myself with it’s a surprise I did anything else at all). Here’s to the new year.