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the best things of not-2023

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as ever, the best-of-2023 list has to wait until the 1st, because you never know. the Elden Ring DLC might drop between now and new years. YOU NEVER KNOW.

(also my own best of 2023 lists will be delayed even further since i'm still sitting on a bunch of this year's books and games.)

so for now, as usual, it's time for a look back at the stuff i encountered for the first time in 2023:

📖 the best book i happened to read in 2023: Blackwater by Kerstin Ekman

2023 was the year of becoming a jock, or at least of learning how to touch grass. i started hiking regularly and in the second half of the year spent as many days in the woods as possible, which made Blackwater extra timely. Kerstin Ekman's 1993 novel is a murder mystery, but the identity of the killer ends up being almost an afterthought; of deeper interest is the environment in which the crime takes place. Blackwater begins in 70s Sweden, where the eponymous town is experiencing sudden change. rapid development and the clear-cutting of surrounding woods has invigorated a nascent conservation movement, and tensions are rising between the established locals and newcomers, including a group of hippies who plan to remove from society to a self-sufficient commune nearby.

from this emerges one of the central themes: our relationship with nature, and how, although coexisting with and preserving nature is of profound importance, we are ultimately, and inescapably, members of a larger human society. it is there to which we must invariably return, and learn how to live with each other.

also:

last year: The Terrorists by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

🌲 the best hike i happened to go on in 2023: Chehalem Ridge

in normal circumstances this distinction would have gone to when i climbed Devil's Rest and found a tiny jack-o-lantern there, keeping watch over the Columbia Gorge. but i happened to go to Chehalem Ridge at just the right time of day and year to see it at its best, and most spooky. the upper part of the trail goes through what was once a timber plantation, and the unsettling uniformity of the trees was made more uncanny by the fog blanketing the forest floor. 10/10, won't go again (too many ghosts).

photograph of a timber grove, in fog and dim light; the center row of trees are felled to the stump
*loading a pistol and re-lacing my boots* trail's haunted
made with @nex3's grid generator

📺 the best show i happened to watch in 2023: Dirty Pair

they truly do not make them like this anymore. just some gals being pals and beating up cops, and if they do a few crimes against humanity along the way, well, 🤪.

like any great story it demonstrates an absolute mastery of tone; while it is first and foremost a comedy, it executes serious dramatic beats flawlessly. "The Pursuit of Blues Is the BGM of Murder" is perhaps the finest example of this, and one of the best episodes of the series as a whole.

dirty pair gif; a broken handcuff is on kei's wrist, then we pan out and around both girls standing on a rocky promontory as a volcano explodes in front of them

also:

last year: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

🎥 the best movie i happened to see in 2023: Portrait of a Lady on Fire

still from Portrait of a Lady on Fire; Adèle Haenel as Héloïse looks at the camera with the ocean in the background

my excuses for not having seen this earlier are one, i just don't watch movies that often, and two, i have to be in a particular mood for the sort of film i knew this would be: a bittersweet love story about a relationship that proves to be impossible. what i didn't expect was to find so many parallels with In the Mood for Love. i had just read Kyle Chayka's essay on the lasting aesthetic influence of that film, but it also touches on part of why the ending is inevitable:

In the course of the film, Chow and Su chase and miss each other so frequently that the pursuit becomes an existential joke ... The film’s impossible sumptuousness is meant to be just that—impossible. Wishing that the two of them ended up together means missing the poetry of the dance.

in the most thematically loaded scene of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Héloïse reads aloud the story of Orpheus and Eurydice; in discussing why Orpheus turns to look at his wife before reaching the safety of the surface, Marianne suggests that "He chooses the memory of her. That's why he turns. He doesn't make the lover's choice, but the poet's."

There's a great deal more to say about the idea of being in love with love, and how Portrait of a Lady on Fire complicates the notion by focusing on two women instead of a heterosexual couple, but I'm going to go listen to "Run Away With Me" instead. 🎷

last year: Persona (1966)

🎮 the best game i happened to play finish in 2023: Higurashi

two girls in front of a blurry photograph of a classroom; text in front reads: '\🧱😌
a nurse in front of a blurry hospital setting; text in front reads: 'Listen, boy. What you want is the stamp of forgiveness known as prior consent. Right? What you want is some stamp of forgiveness, some deception to fill your heart so you can atone for your past sins. If you regretted what you've done, then you'd never get involved with brains again.'🧠🙅‍♀️
black screen with text: '\
two girls in front of a blurry photo of a nighttime road; text in front reads: '\girls love doing this
made with @nex3's grid generator

even though all eight core episodes of Higurashi When They Cry had been released in English when i started, it still took me over five years to finish. i would read through a chapter, and step away to let it rattle around my brain. then i would get distracted by other things and not start the next for months. but once i returned i would get sucked right back into the delirium of these crazy kids and all their murder. as absurd as it all is, there is something remarkable about the payoff: seeing a series of events, as bizarre as they are apparently inexplicable, eventually tied together into a cohesive (if batshit) whole.

it's got problems, of course. the pacing could be better (or maybe it's just too damn long), and the writing of the female characters is often weak, to put it kindly. but it succeeds in spite of that, not only as a truly deranged mystery, but also a story about cycles of despair and violence, the necessity of community, and the importance of being able to imagine a better world.

also:

last year: Bloodborne