2022: The year in review – Part 1: Culture

It’s time once again for the annual audit of my engagement with contemporary culture. As ever the full story is on our Tumblr; here are the best bits:

Television – I still subscribe to several streaming services, but despite this I’ve been watching a lot less TV this year compared with last. I was going to say it was mostly lightweight genre programming, but looking back I see it was actually exclusively lightweight genre programming; I evidently no longer have the intellectual stamina for the sort of serious dramas that the critics recommend. I liked Moon Knight, and The Rings of Power was pretty to look at if ultimately rather unsatisfying, but, judged by the speed with which I binge-watched it, my vote for most enjoyably diverting show would have to go to season two of Only Murders in the Building.

Film – At the start of the year I took out a membership at our local arthouse cinema, fully intending to get back into the independent movie habit; let’s just say that hasn’t quite worked out, though I did manage around one film a month. Honourable mentions go to Amsterdam, Licorice Pizza, and Nightclubbing, but I’ll try to maintain my cinephile credibility by nominating a film with subtitles as my favourite; The Worst Person in the World.

Books – My major literary project this year was reading The Brothers Karamazov, which I found every bit as good as its reputation suggests; satisfying philosophically but also narratively, with characters so vividly drawn that one never feels they are mere mouthpieces for Dostoyevsky’s ideas, rather than living, feeling individuals. I have some regret that I didn’t tackle this great work years ago, but on the other hand I also believe that the books that stay with you are the ones you read at the right time in your life; perhaps late middle-age is when I needed to meet Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his sons. My other obsession in 2022, inspired by my trip in the summer, involved books about life in California; highlights in the fiction category included works by Bret Easton Ellis, Edward Bunker, Joan Didion, and Armistead Maupin. My favourite book of the year was something more contemporary though; I Fear My Pain Interests You, by Stephanie LaCava.

Music – I’ve purchased rather fewer albums this year than usual; I think it’s because I’ve not been listening to the radio or reading the music press much. Still a lot of good stuff though; here are my top eleven, since I can’t quite edit it down to ten:

• Bad Wiring – Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage
• Lucifer On The Sofa – Spoon
• Reeling – The Mysterines
• Lunar Reflection – Glacier Veins
• Wet Leg – Wet Leg
• Radiate Like This – Warpaint
• A Bit of Previous – Belle and Sebastian
• Pulse Of The Early Brain [Switched On Volume 5] – Stereolab
• Cool It Down – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
• Blue Rev – Alvvays
• Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You – Big Thief

I didn’t get to see much live music this year; of the shows I did attend Kim Gordon was the one I really enjoyed.

So that’s the year in culture; not particularly adventurous I guess, but not totally ossified either. Next up: blogging.

2021: The year in review – Part 1: Culture

According to the meticulous record I keep on our Tumblr, my consumption of Serious Cultural Experiences was up 17.46% over the course of 2021. This may or may not be related to a loosening of my criteria for what constitutes a Serious Cultural Experience; I’ll let you be the judge…

Television – This year saw me watch a lot more TV than I had for ages, partly because other entertainment options were somewhat limited, but mostly because I had signed up for several streaming services, and was determined to get my money’s worth. I have to admit that I sat through a lot of late-night junk, but I did follow a few of the series that received more positive critical attention, like The Queen’s Gambit, and WandaVision. My favourite was Pretend It’s a City, in which Fran Lebowitz and Martin Scorsese trade anecdotes about life in New York, evoking the kind of classy intellectual milieu that I can only dream of being part of.

Film – I enjoyed WandaVision, but for about 90% of the time I had no idea what was going on, so, since I had already shelled out for the Disney+ subscription, I set out to fill the gap in my pop-culture knowledge by watching all the Marvel movies in timeline order, starting with Captain America: The First Avenger in May, and wrapping up with Avengers: Endgame just a few days ago. I’d hesitate to say that it was the most productive use I could have made of my time, but it was diverting, and there were some interesting themes explored, though personally I preferred the entries that stuck to the comic-book spirit over those that aimed for a more serious tone. I thought the best of the bunch was Captain Marvel, but that might just have been due to the grungy 90s soundtrack. I did go back to the cinema once it reopened, but I stuck to fairly undemanding entertainment rather than anything more heavyweight. I expect that The French Dispatch would have been my movie of the year if I had been organised enough to buy a ticket while it was still playing; since I wasn’t my vote goes to Last Night in Soho, with honourable mentions for Dune and House of Gucci.

Books – I didn’t read much fiction this year, or much non-fiction, or much of anything longer than a magazine article to be honest; too much TV I guess. Of the books I did manage, mostly old ones, I liked Balthazar, the second volume of the Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, Nixonland, Rick Perlstein’s biography of Richard Nixon (obviously), Will Self’s thinly-fictionalised autobiography Will, and, my favourite, John Updike’s The Centaur.

Music – I bought a lot of records in 2021; music is the one area of culture where I try hardest to keep up the pretence that I am somewhat in touch with the zeitgeist, albeit within the narrow parameters of my long-established taste. Here are ten albums I particularly liked:

• The Shadow I Remember – Cloud Nothings
• Flock – Jane Weaver
• Electrically Possessed [Switched On Volume 4] – Stereolab
• epic Ten – Sharon Van Etten
• Bodies of Water – Moontype
• Chaise Longue / Wet Dream – Wet Leg
• Long Time Coming – Sierra Ferrell
• Astral Spectra – Piney Gir
• The Umbrellas – The Umbrellas
• Sympathy for Life – Parquet Courts

I didn’t go to any concerts, even though the music scene did start to tentatively open up towards the end of year. I have tickets for a couple of shows next month, here’s hoping they go ahead.

So that was 2021 in culture; no big surprises, which is only to be expected at my age I suppose. Next up: the year in blogging.

2015: The Year in Review – Part 1: Culture

Here we are at the end of another year; time for a quick run through what passed for cultural engagement in my life over the last twelve months. (As ever, the full list can be found on our Tumblr.)

Music first. I’m old-fashioned enough to still think of the album as the basic unit of music, and I’ve averaged about one new one a week, mainly stuff I’ve heard on Radio 6. Female, alt-rock, and singer-songwriter seem to be the predominant themes. Here’s my favourite ten, in the order that I bought them:

No Cities To Love – Sleater-Kinney
Play Along – The Sorry Kisses
Sometimes I Sit and Think… – Courtney Barnett
Foil Deer – Speedy Ortiz
Hinterland – LoneLady
Welcome Back To Milk – Du Blonde
My Love Is Cool – Wolf Alice
After – Lady Lamb
Divers – Joanna Newsom
Short Movie – Laura Marling

If I had to choose one as the best it would probably be Short Movie, though I think that Welcome Back To Milk is the one that I’ve listened to most.

There’s been a lot of talk this year about how we’re living through some kind of Golden Age of Television, but I must admit that I practically never watch the box these days. The closest I’ve come to seeing a drama series this year is to buy the box set of the first season of Fargo, but I’ve not got round to putting it on yet. Which is a shame, because I’m sure I’d love it, like I love the rest of the Coen brothers’ oeuvre, and it’s likely that I would be entertained by all the other shows that the critics rave about too, but the fact is that I just can’t face committing myself to a lengthy series. My attention span is obviously shot; I blame the internet.

That said, I can at least concentrate for the length of a film, and I have managed to catch a few movies this year, the best of which was the Thomas Pynchon adaptation Inherent Vice, exactly the sort of rambling stoner mystery that I like watching over and over. I did think about seeing the new Star Wars over the holidays, but in the end I didn’t bother. I guess I will go sometime in the new year, but I’m pretty sure it will be a disappointment.

I’ve been reading a bit more too; if there has been a common thread to my choice of books this year it’s been the subjective experience of time and memory. I finished another volume of Proust, The Guermantes Way, which I felt was the most entertaining of the series so far, though that might just be because I’m familiar now with the characters and the pace of the novel. Other highlights were The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño, and this year’s literary sensation City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg. The latter was almost as good as the hype, particularly in its depiction of New York City in the mid-70s (an era in which I like to imagine I would have felt right at home), though the plot petered out towards the end.

Looking to the year ahead, I’m sure it will be more of the same; Proustian reverie and drug-imbued diversion set to a suitably stimulating soundtrack. That’s OK though; I’ve reached a point in my life where I’m reasonably comfortable with my taste in entertainment, which, all in all, I don’t think is too shabby…