My favorite culture things, 2020
I do one of these every year and every year I apologize about it, because what do I know, and it’s a silly thing to do anyway. But I still enjoy it and it’s a ritual, and so here are some things I read or watched or listened to that I enjoyed this year.
BOOKS
A book I read this year that absolutely floored me (which came out in 2010) was The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. The sheer breadth of the reporting and the synthesis of personal stories and social science was so smart and so compelling. Then I read Caste (which came out this year) and it was great but I guess, to be honest, The Warmth of Other Suns is an absolute towering achievement and Caste is merely a good book.
I finished Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels (masterpiece) after allowing myself to read only one per year, then I turned around and read her The Lying Life of Adults, which was also very good. I read some pandemic books, The Great Flu by John M. Barry and The Plague by Albert Camus (shout out to Zoom book club). In March I got out a number of big long books and left them on my nightstand untouched.
My favorite books of 2020:
The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
This is Chance!: The Shaking of an All-American City by John Mooallem
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
MUSIC
Fetch the Bolt Cutters is such an obvious masterpiece that I am not even sure I have much to say about it. I’d like to note that it is funny as well as brutal and dark, and I appreciate that. I enjoyed the highlights of the Taylor Swift records very much. Learning about Boldy James was a musical highlight of this year but he had *checks notes* four albums come out this year? They are all good imo. And the Jay Electronica album that was secretly kind of half a Jay-Z album was a fun listen but I never really came back to it.
Albums:
Fiona Apple, Fetch the Bolt Cutters
Run the Jewels, RTJ4
Thundercat, It Is What It Is
Phoebe Bridgers, Punisher
Freddie Gibbs, Alfredo
Boldy James, The Price of Tea in China
Boldy James and Sterling Toles, Manger on McNichols
Megan Thee Stallion, Good News
Four Tet, Sixteen Oceans
Taylor Swift, Folklore
Songs:
“Blinding Lights,” The Weeknd
“Physical,” Dua Lipa
“WAP,” Cardi B feat. Megan Thee Stallion
“The Last Great American Dynasty,” Taylor Swift
“Wolves,” Big Sean feat. Post Malone
“Sweeter,” Leon Bridges feat. Terrace Martin
“Savage (Remix),” Megan Thee Stallion feat. Beyoncé
“Kyoto,” Phoebe Bridgers
“Scottie Beam,” Freddie Gibbs/The Alchemist feat. Rick Ross
“Marjorie,” Taylor Swift
“Gaslighter,” The Chicks
“You’re Too Precious,” James Blake
TELEVISION
The pandemic certainly appears to have led to me watching more TV.
In the early, emotionally acute phase of the pandemic Laura and I watched the entire run of Schitt’s Creek through, and its emotional intelligence makes it genuinely one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. In March I watched all of Joe Pera Talks with You and was totally soothed by its slow, gentle rhythms (but it is also funny). Ted Lasso: also funny, but I think its main appeal is that it’s nice to go to a place where decency is rewarded. The Good Place stuck the landing in its last season.
Can I say: There was a lot of reality TV I found amusing and distracting this year? Like, from the Before Times, remember The Circle? That seems like a long time ago but that show was hilarious. But then, also, World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji was kind of thrilling and emotional, Floor is Lava was fun to watch with your kid and Repair Shop may have been some of the most relaxing TV I have ever witnessed.
The Last Dance was a monumental example of the literary form of the unreliable narrator. It seemed like a sports documentary but in fact it was a study in how a vindictive, narcissistic asshole would settle scores and offer self-justifying half-truths for his bad behavior. The text of the documentary was okay — that Bulls season is a compelling story for sure. But the discourse around the show was amazing and I ate it up for weeks.
I began Tiger King somewhat agape, like everyone else. By midway through my considered opinion was that I did not like it. It never really moved past being agape at its own characters.
The Mandalorian looked cool. I wanted to like Star Trek: Picard but I liked it only a little. The former stoner in me quite enjoyed the fake-profound Devs. Its philosophy is a little silly but it’s extremely adept as a thriller and I like thrillers. As a Ulysses S. Grant stan I enjoyed the Grant docuseries, even with the weird jarring made-for-TV recreations.
I have just started watching City So Real by Steve James tha god and I can’t wait to watch more.
MOVIES
I am going to tell you my favorite movie of 2020. It was The Personal History of David Copperfield. It’s super funny, it’s warm, it’s tightly constructed and it works. For reasons I cannot quite articulate it also seems like a nice movie to watch around the holidays so I recommend you do that. I loved it.
Like everyone else, I very much enjoyed seeing Hamilton when it came out on Disney Plus. Sorry! It’s great! And since filmed plays are good, two others that were excellent this year are What the Constitution Means to Me and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
Comedies! I liked The Lovebirds, Eurovision and Palm Springs.
I have never seen a movie quite like My Octopus Teacher and I was moved by it.
More good ones: First Cow, Jingle Jangle (worth watching for Forest Whitaker’s beautiful singing voice alone tbh); The Trial of the Chicago Seven.
P.S. I am dying to see American Utopia but I do not have the proper streaming service.
OTHER THINGS
For my birthday I got an inflatable kayak and it was a delight because I could just put it in the trunk of my car and go kayaking, and if I ended up only being out for like an hour or whatever it was fine, because it wasn’t a whole thing to make it happen. I don’t know if this is culture but it is an endorsement of a thing.
The Miracle Sudoku is absolutely one of the loveliest pieces of video I watched this year. It is well worth 25 minutes whether or not you have ever done Sudoku, as I had not when I watched it. I just watched it again while making this post and it is still great!
(A much less time-intensive entry into the category of “people showing amazing skill” was this video from something called the World Indoor Bowls Championships.)
This was probably my favorite funny video on Twitter. The deadpan is so good, to me. As a series, Leslie Jones’s twitter videos watching the election on MSNBC were also very funny.
For Christmas 2019 we got an Oculus Quest. Virtual reality is incredibly fun, it turns out, and this has also been a nice escape at times when we have been at home for months. My favorite games so far have been Red Matter, Room: A Dark Matter, A Fisherman’s Tale and the new Star Wars game Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge.
I don’t know much about games and didn’t play many on other platforms, besides chess on my phone.
P.S. I am not going to do a whole best-podcasts list but obviously “The Case of the Missing Hit” was a huge highlight. I also enjoyed Hit Parade’s magisterial yacht rock episode, and just this month the “Last Last Dance” one-off was great.