In many ways 2021 is the year that wasn't, defined by the shroud of uncertainty blanketed over us by an unpredictable pandemic, dysfunctional government, and a corporate class determined to make everything worse if it means a few extra dollars. We have hit 800,000 dead in America, nearly 4 million worldwide, and everyone who cares to end this is now canceling New Year's plans. The year started with an attempted coup by the former president and is ending with inaction by the current one.
Personally, it's been a landmark year for me in many ways, and I am exhausted. I do not want to do anything but vegetate until my brain atrophies before January 2nd.
Rather than bring you anything of substance in this last week of the year, this newsletter is a highlight reel. What I did, what I watched, what I read, and what I listened to. Here's everything notable about 2021 from where I'm sitting.
Columbia exercised poor judgement in giving me an MFA, but it's mine now and there's no takebacks, dummies
When I started in my MFA program in the fall of 2019, I could not have predicted that my time there would be limited to one and a half semesters before the most disruptive event of most people's lives erupted into existence and I was forced to leave the mint-colored accents of the Columbia campus for Zoom rooms full of people far too worried about the state of the world to focus on books. Talk about poor timing.
There is no more surreal experience than closing the lid of a laptop, a thousand miles from your school, and knowing that you are also closing a formative chapter in your life. I finished classes, and then my thesis, from a one-bedroom apartment on the East side of Denver, Colorado.
Diminished as the experience was, I now have a second degree hanging on my wall. It claims I have mastered the fine arts, and I am not one to disagree with officious-looking pieces of cardstock.
(As an aside, current graduate students at Columbia are fighting the university—which based on my experience is truly the most debased, craven, soul-sucking neoliberal institution conceivable—for living wages and adequate benefits. Please consider supporting the strike, or at least spreading the word. I'd also like to be clear that my program and its faculty are absolute treasures, and should not be conflated with the overarching institution that is the university.)
Published a story
I started writing "Ben Zonah" (Hebrew for "son of a bitch") in 2019, around the time I started my MFA, and it was published early this past summer in Fatal Flaw. A collective first-person narration sees a choir of yeshiva boys as they grapple with the strict tenets of their religion and their emerging sexualities. It has since been considred for the Henfield Prize, and nominated for the Pushcarts.
Though it’s my only fiction publication this year, it is perhaps the best story I've ever written, and it would mean the world to me if you would give it a read.
A lot of television was excellent this year, a lot was not
Despite its growing profile and population, Denver is firmly the kind of city that doesn't know what to do with itself after midnight or before 6 p.m., and it is rated the worst city in the world to find love. In other words, I've had a lot of time to watch TV.
That works out, because this year, I started writing news for Looper, and you can read all my reporting here. Having to cover entertainment regardless makes it easy to justify sitting in front of the tube, and some of my favorites this year, in no particular order, included:
WandaVision, Loki, Hawkeye – I'm bundling Marvel's three best shows together here because, let's face it, to call them separate is a bit disingenuous. These are cogs in the great industrial machinery of the MCU, puzzle pieces in Kevin Feige's master design. Nonetheless, all three of these were excellent. WandaVision told a powerful story of grief while commenting on the nature of television itself, while Loki explored self-love in quite the literal sense. Both were mind-bending sci-fi that brought fresh energy to the aging MCU. Hawkeye, which closed out the year, brought a fun holiday adventure to town and proved Hailee Steinfeld should spend as much time onscreen as possible. As for The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, the less said, the better.
The White Lotus – Mike White's twisted satire of the moneyed class became an instant sensation in a time when the wealthy seem totally at ease fucking everything up for everybody and making it our problem. Conceived within the constraints of a pandemic bubble, the single location of a Hawaiian resort provided the perfect backdrop for a comedy of manners which pitted the put-upon hotel staff against their despicable, demanding clientele. I wrote in depth about the show here.
Ted Lasso – I wanted to hate this show and I really did try. On paper, nothing about it appeals to me. I hate sports, I hate sappy sentimentality, and I hate midwestern American yuck-yuckery. Yet somehow I ended up consuming both seasons in fewer than five sittings.
Reservation Dogs – How is this the first show to feature nothing but Indigenous people from the cast to the directors and showrunners? In any case, this show brings a lot more than some long overdue representation. It's a heartfelt, often painful dramedy about yearning to break free from cycles of trauma. From the opening scene, the show is firing on all cylinders and it never stops.
Books were also good this year
Admittedly, I could have read more this year. But when you've recently come out of an MFA which assigned several novels per-week, it feels good to be able to be picky again. Here's what I enjoyed from this publication year.
Patricia Lockwood, No One is Talking About This – In her debut novel, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Lockwood rattles the gates of our social media addled culture with the kind of thunder which theretofore seemed impossible. Many have tried their hand at satirizing or otherwise diagnosing our internet age, and nearly all have failed. Where Lockwood finds her way into the subject is by speaking the way we do on Twitter without ever naming it. The book is mostly comprised of short passages reminiscent of Tweets, demonstrating how we might come across five discordant points of view in a single scrolling session and somehow agree with all of them. When it finally takes a shockingly flesh-and-blood twist, we are blindsided by the fact that our corporeal forms still exist at all.
Lauren Oyler, Fake Accounts – Famously no-holds-barred literary critic Lauren Oyler made her fiction debut this year with a book that is self-aware and painfully aware of that self-awareness. While less incisive than Lockwood and often far more insufferable, Oyler's writing often feels more human with its endless layers of selfishness. It conveys the sense of alienation from both ourselves and those around us that increasingly defines the internet age.
Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You – Much ado was made about one of fiction's youngest stars and the insane rollout of her newest novel. After its release, she made headlines once more by refusing to allow a Hebrew translation for the Israeli market. Rooney may not have a solid grasp on Marxism, but she has her fist clenched tight around what makes people—most especially millennials—tick, and she can karate chop you in half with a sentence like a block of wood.
Music was especially sweet in 2021
Artists who spent their 2020 cooped up and composing music spent their 2021 putting it into our ears. Here's what made the year that much easier for me to survive in sonic form.
Nas, King's Disease II – On the first installment of his King's Disease series, which dropped in 2020, the veteran Queens rapper took home a Grammy, but it's on the second LP that he demonstrated how much of a force he remains. On "Death Row East" he relates his perspective on the beef that tore the East and West coast scenes apart and led to the death of Tupac Shakur, while "40 side" sees him coldly spitting, "Only island that my n****s knew was Rikers or Staten." (Standout track: "40 Side")
Halsey, If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power – The pop stardom of Halsey was originally predicated on her ability to mix underground pop aesthetics with top 40 sensibilities, but her latest album, a collaboration with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails, eschews all that in favor of haunting key beds and droning, anxious synths. Over an increasingly claustrophobic thunderstorm of keys and stabs, Halsey warns, "Don't wait for me, wait up / It's not a happy ending." A UK garage inspired cacophony of drums brings manic energy to "Girl is a Gun," but the piece de resistance is "I am not a woman, I'm a god." Bolstered by slippery synths, she belts out the titular chorus with such ferocity you may feel no choice but to take her word for it. (Standout track: "I am not a woman, I'm a god")
Tyler, The Creator, CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST – Since his turn to a softer, less hip-hop focused sound on 2019's Igor, audiences have wondered where the eclectic rapper would turn next. The answer, as it turns out, was back to straight-up rapping, and the result is a potent masterwork that functions as equal parts confessional tell-all and boisterous, back-on-my-bullshit homage to the 2000s mixtape. (Standout track: “JUGGERNAUT”)
J. Cole, The Off-Season – I'll admit to never having been a J. Cole fan. What it was that tempted comparisons to Kendrick Lamar and other titans eluded me. Consider my mind changed. From multisyllabic rhyme patterns that left my head spinning to hard-earned life advice, this is Cole's best project, and it's not a contest. Try not to crack a smile when he confidently raps, "If the beef do come around / Could put an M all on your head, you Luigi brother now." (Standout track: "9 5 . s o u t h")
Mr. Bill, Phantasmagoria – Few can touch Mr. Bill when it comes to the sheer intricacy of his compositions. The Aussie IDM pioneer has been called, both derisively and not, a "producer's producer." But on his latest full-length release, Mr. Bill proves why everyone wants to collaborate with him. On "Loaf Boi" he plunges unlikely synths through the lyrics of an unnamed female vocalist like thread through cloth. "Useless & Nasty" pairs up with longtime collaborator kLL sMTH for a piece of ear-shredding dubstep that is exactly what its name implies, while the atonal screeches of "Shepherding ut00b" find pockets of pure bliss in unlikely spots. It's an album that feels like getting a head massage while rolling on MDMA. (Standout track: "Shepherding ut00b")
That’s it for now. I’ll see you all in January. Be safe, be kind to each other, and feel free to get blackout drunk before midnight on New Year’s Eve. May 2022 be marginally more tolerable.
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