2023 lists

Music #

I keep forgetting to log all the music I listen to, I then have to painfully recall from memory what I actually enjoyed each year. The sheer amount of great music released this year however made this way easier than 2022.

I'll say without caveats that it was "a great year for music". In pretty much every genre (that I keep up with) there was something interesting released. For the most part the "discourse" was very ignorable because it was so easy to find something else to listen to. It feels like the strongest year of this decade so far and one that I think will be looked back on very favourably at the end of the 2020s.

Here are some lists of what I've been listening to the most this year but also I've probably forgotten, like, more than half of it lol

New releases 2023 #

Archival releases 2023 #

Previous releases < 2023 #

Goblin mode #

Books #

After finishing The Woman in White (really liked it but doesn't top The Moonstone), I picked up a Philip Marlowe omnibus from a random street market (so I wouldn't have to read any of the books over 600 pages that are still on my shelf).

Over the course of 2023 I ended up reading most of the Marlowe books (shout out to 3-for-2 on books at Fopp). Similar to Hangover Square and Crime & Punishment, I love how evocative Raymond Chandler's works are of a particular place (that's familiar to the author) at a particular time (in their own lives). Taken as a whole, I think the series is a rumination on how one's perspective changes as they get older. Reading all the Marlowe books, as time goes on and the author ages and L.A. changes, you can see how the aim of Marlowe/Chandler's ire gradually moves from indviduals to the system that those individuals are caught up in.

It's why I'd recommend The Long Goodbye (it's the second last in the series) as the must read of the ones I've read. It has a high concentration of conversations with weird little guys (clearly Chandler's favourite part about writing the Marlowe stories); a (mostly) followable plot which acts as (slightly) more than just a weird little guy delivery mechanism; and Chandler turning his weaponised cynicism on himself.

I'd still say read them all to get an engaging developing portrait of a place (L.A.) and a person (Chandler). And it's pretty fun to read Chandler rip into every person he met during his tenure as a screenwriter in Hollywood in The Little Sister.

Movies #

I fell way behind on movies this year (again). My highlights this year are pretty much all films I saw at various retrospectives.

One of these highlights was going to The Cinema Museum to see a selection of rediscovered rarities from the 1920s. It was my first time going to The Cinema Museum. Big fan of chaotic volunteer-run museums that have the feel of exploring the collections store of the museum rather than the museum itself (see also The Centre for Computing History in Cambridge). Of the movies I saw on that day, I particularly enjoyed Ozu's Dragnet Girl (ended with a chase scene that seemed plucked out of a film made 40-50 years in the future).

There was also the New Taiwanese Cinema Retrospective at The Garden Cinema. I saw A Brighter Summer Day (my first Edward Yang) and Rebels of the Neon God (my first Tsai Ming-liang). Both were fantastic and I want to watch more films by both directors.

It was also great to see Film Orchestrated: Silent Slapsticks with the Brixton Chamber Orchestra live at the Ritzy Picturehouse Cinema. I had seen silent movies with instrumentation before but never with a full orchestra. My favourite of the shown films was The Goat (with Buster Keaton).

The 4K IMAX re-release of Stop Making Sense was also very good (but I want them to do a remaster of the bootleg Rome 1980 concert).

The only 2023 releases I saw this year were Beau Was Afraid, Barbie and EO. Next year will be the year I watch more movies (I say this every year). To hold me accountable, please follow my Letterboxd.

Video Games #

Started the year playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, ended the year playing Baldur's Gate 3. The other game I played that came out in 2023 (that I remember) was the Resident Evil 4 remake.

This year I also played The Case of the Golden Idol which was the best thing I played this year (and I won't stop telling people about it). Psyched for the the sequel they've just announced.

I really wanna play Chants of Sennaar and the new Armoured Core and get a Steam Deck.

I also finally played God Hand and it totally whips. OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast is still probably the best game ever made.