an opinionated list of things i really loved this past year.

in summary

  • shows: fifteen
  • films: seventeen
  • books: fifteen-ish
  • audio: seventy tracks
  • lukewarm disappointments: a small handful

see scrapbook 2022 for all the other stories from 2022


this is a day late—year after year, i compulsively rank the best of what i’ve watched in a year. but i spent a lot of this year looking backwards and inwards, and nothing i name here can quite capture all that time spent elsewhere.


tv shows

sixteen tv shows
  1. house of the dragon, s01 (oct 2022) — imagine my surprise when i watched the dragon show and found it awfully good
  2. bridgerton, s02 (mar 2022) — a reminder that enemies-to-lovers still exists in perfect form
  3. the bear, s01 (sept 2022) — episode seven, one-take
iconic for different reasons
  • the crown, s01-02 (nov 2022)
    • i can only take the monarchy in bite-sized twenty hour chunks.
  • all around, some excellent sophomore seasons of the sex lives of college girls (dec 2022), industry (sept - oct 2022), the white lotus (dec 2022) and euphoria (jan 2022). the discourse was all about euphoria a year ago, and it feels like an immoveable age earlier.

films

seventeen films
  1. everything everywhere all at once (apr 2022) — in my unknowable depths, all the conversations inside my head sound like two boulders perched atop a precipice.

audio

(dear 2022)

my music this year didn’t make any sense. there was a fair share of new albums such as taylor swift’s midnights and harry styles’ harry’s house and florence + the machine’s dance fever, plus everything on the study playlist for all things go (lorde, mitski, bleachers, lucy dacus, peach pit, hippo campus—repeat)

some mornings i’d wake up and listen to the artic monkey’s “i wanna be yours” or prep vegetables for dinner to lana del rey’s “brooklyn baby” or write to raleigh ritchie’s “bloodsport” like a teenager in the year twenty-fifteen.

on repeat
  • “first love / late spring” — mitski
  • “satellite” — harry styles
  • “i know the end” — phoebe bridgers
  • “brando” — lucy dacus
  • “illicit affairs” — taylor swift
  • “the great war” — taylor swift
  • “bad religion” — frank ocean
  • “about you” — the 1975

reads

fifteen-ish books
  • glittering, luxurious prose: on earth we’re briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong
  • romance novel brain: book lovers by emily henry
  • i’d probably recommend: pop song by larisa pham
  • most proud of finishing because it only took me four years: circe by madeline miller
longform reads and highlights from the lighthouse

the backlog has since ballooned, but here are the pieces that resonated with me most:

on the cutting room floor

guilty pleasures

yes, of course i watched this
  • the summer i turned pretty, s01 (june 2022)
    • i did not enjoy the plot of this show at all but the taylor swift music cameos were otherwordly. love live that early summer coastal grandmother aesthetic.
  • inventing anna, mini-series (mar 2022)
    • i read the original the cut article and still can’t believe they made tv out of it. julia garner does incredible accent work.
  • the hating game (jan 2022)
    • the most enjoyable hate-watch to start the year; sent me on a whole spiral in defense of the romance genre
  • last night in soho (nov 2022)
    • the punk london neon aesthetic is just so good


lukewarm disappointments

i’m sorry i wanted to love this but really couldn’t
  • partner track (sept 2022)
    • a friend reminded me that woc-led tv shows are allowed to be bad and that made me feel better about it.
  • the idiot by elif bautman (sept - nov 2022)
    • i did like it but this novel was not as piercingly transformational as promised. i think i’m defective when it comes to these contemporary interior novels. nothing quite resonates.
  • surrender by maggie rogers (july 2022)
    • highly-anticipated sophomore album just didn’t hit for me, i really do love her folk-infused genre more than the electronic-bent she went for on this record
  • i didn’t watch a single marvel film this year? like, i kept talking about going to see these marvel films but the circumstances never worked out. so it’s been a full 365 days since i’ve had superhero-schtick injected into my veins.


leftovers 2022 🥡

everything that got left on the queue

films: enola holmes 2, not okay, rosaline, the menu, fresh

books:

  • 26% through wolf hall by hillary mantel
    • i’m not a historical fiction person and sometimes the prose is economically beautiful but i mostly doubt if i will ever get through it all
  • 30% through lolita by vladimir nabokov
    • like, i don’t fully get it but i set out to read more of nabokov’s writing so here we are
  • i skimmed a tessa bailey book and booktook really doesn’t know what it’s talking about when it talks about tessa bailey (it’s… horrific)
  • when conversations with friends came out on hulu, there was a non-trivial possibility i would read past the second chapter of the sally rooney novel but that has yet to, and may truly never, come to fruition. it’s a little nice to exist outside mainstream marvel, for a bit.


predictions 2023 🔮

revisiting predictions 2021
  • 1989 (taylor’s version) (early summer 2022)
    • ❌ no, but we got a whole brand new album instead!
  • new hozier album, vol.3 (late spring)
    • ❌ no, this is going on my 2023 list
  • persuasion adaptation
    • ❌ yes-ish, if you count the ill-fated netflix one with dakota johnson. apparently the sarah snook one is cancelled. someone give these film rights to autumn de wilde
  • enola holmes sequel
    • ✅ yes, but i still need to watch it so does it really count?
  • never have i ever, s03 (late summer)
    • ✅ yes, though the time jumps were extreme
  • olivia rodrigo, vol. 2 (fall)
    • ❌ no, rollover to next year
  • harry styles, vol. 3 (late fall/early winter)
    • ✅ yes, wrong time frame, but it was here!


culture crystal ball for 2023
  • speak now (taylor’s version) (early summer 2022)
    • easter eggs mean nothing if they don’t eventually amount to something
  • hozier, vol. 3 (late spring)
    • there is going to be a fae / fairy microtrend this coming spring that will require a soundtrack from hozier
  • olivia rodrigo, vol. 2 (summer)
    • post-tour the people demand a new album and it is already time for an album cycle refresh
  • succession, s04
    • the internet is going to become kendall-apologists again, shiv and tom gleefully implode, and roman roams. also the invasion of the tech-ego takes up more screentime than warranted. connor secures a nomination, even.
  • barbie, dir. greta gerwig (fall)
    • is going to change lives (mine, included) when it comes out in theatres. i will finally finish my barbie essay when this happens.


🌠 aspirationally top of mind

read: start and finish some elena ferrante, also feeling compelled to try anne carson. finish a poetry collection. get halfway through wolf hall via audiobook, at least. maybe this will be the year i lockdown to start-finish pachinko. pare down the backlog to <250 unreads.

watch: finish the leftover 2022 films. babylon, if it gets critical buzz. get through the next chunk of s03-04 of the crown. maybe don’t find a new fixation.