Hats off to 2023 for being a year. Some things happened. Others didn’t. It was a barrage of poignant moments begat by ever humbling circumstances. The choices made were a range from skillful to not so much. Here’s a hopeful limp across the Roman Catholic finish line.
With a London street aesthetic, a dash of Amy Winehouse debauch, and some Adele-level soul, Lola Young is already a star with ‘Conceited.’ The algorithm served her up in my feed — an earworm I couldn’t shake for nearly three months. Metric captured the moment with their latest, Formentera II, imploring us to not burn the world to ash when the past becomes too much to bear. It’s a beautiful synthy universe where stone windows and parallel roads play out possible scenarios, all of which lead to oblivion and nothingness. Meanwhile, CMAT feels passé sticking to cutting lines rather than cherishing her wine like a good garden variety drunk. Crooning to dead friend David Berman, Empty Country’s Joseph D’Agostino writes of the other side’s dark allure. ‘Mom’s gone / No one to tug your sleeve / In all this something-ness / Could it really be there’s nothing?’ Jenny Lewis, and Róisín Murphy too, showed us how deeply we can connect and how fully we can live when we say ‘fuck it,’ allowing ourselves the freedom of true creative expression, yonic or otherwise.
MANCHILD LOSES SOCIAL TOOTH, CONTEMPLATES LEAP OFF TALL BUILDING Take a Xanax on July 4 and wake up with a chipped tooth, a couple of loose ones, a black eye, and lacerations on your face. Several months later, you’re short a front tooth, revealing a vast space the blackest black you can imagine. I swore long ago that I’d off myself if I ever lost a social tooth. But I’m still here, and with a replacement tooth to fill the void. Aging and poor life choices are too much fun, which is why it’s important to acknowledge your shortcomings, visit the dentist, and take medications only as prescribed.
‘FAREWELL, NEIGHBOR’ TACO PARTY YIELDS GIANT TRASH HEAP OF REGRET AND SADNESS We both spent much of the first year and a half of her living in the building in isolation. I was dying; she was terrified and made anxious by the whole COVID thing. It wasn’t until I locked myself out of my apartment that we finally connected in a deeper, more meaningful way. A fellow Virgo, we both skew intuitive and curious about the permeable layer between what we know and see and what we think and feel. Just a few months into our blossoming friendship, she decided to move out to the ’burbs for more space, to be closer to work, and give her lady pupster more room to grow and play. As a going away, we had a taco feast from my favorite neighborhood taco spot, La Serpiente Emplumada. It was delicious, as was the company, which I sorely miss.
FREELANCE WRITER COMPETES AGAINST GLOBAL WORKFORCE FOR SO-CALLED ‘GIGS’My current client is an education nonprofit based in Boston, and I work with a team I’ve never met except for the occasional Zoom call. Distributed teams and totally remote companies make working for anyone anywhere part of the new reality. This also means that the talent pool for each and every position includes anyone with a pulse and a WiFi connection. Jobs are filled by the time I’ve fulfilled a request for more info that came in just a half hour ago. The wasted hours, days, and months doing interviews with companies then learning of a sudden strategic shift eliminating the role I’d been jockeying for takes the wind out of one’s sails. But I’m optimistic for the future, and I know where I want to go. Join me on my journey.
LYFT DRIVER BLESSES PASSENGER WITH EXACT WORD FOR IMAGE IN HIS MIND The Lyft driver asked me what I thought the smallest thing that exists is. I said God. He said Love and Truth. He said his favorite word is ‘holon,’ which is something that is simultaneously a whole in and of itself, as well as a part of a larger whole. I said that sounded like a circumpunct, which is a dot with a circle around it, an ancient symbol that symbolizes consciousness. The dot in the middle connotates Source, the I-am-ness, the origin. The circle on the outside represents the expansion that you have done wth your soul through all your experiences and all your lifetimes. The holon in a way relates to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, representing the creation of the material world. It references Gnostic thinking and early mystical Christianity.
STOCK PRICES FOR DADDYISSUES® FLUCTUATE WILDLY IN Q4, GLIMPSE UNCERTAIN 2024Daddy issues took center stage IRL – a married architect, the leader of a European sex cult, and a Jewish mensch all up for the title of #1 Dad. At the end of the day, I’d rather the issues find a more appropriate digital home, which is why I’ve placed them here in the bottom right-hand side of a website dedicated to 2023’s highs and lows. Estranged from my actual father since 2018, it’s only natural for me that a good amount of mentorship and care come from a father figure. Oy vey.