It's the End of the Year as We Know It
And it feels ... fine?
Another year is over. Another year is beginning and, largely, you probably don’t feel any different. But I think that having living through 2020, we’re all a little different, aren’t we? Do you remember that year? Do you remember how you felt on New Years Eve of 2020? A bit depressed and a little crazy, like you hadn’t seen the sun all-year-long.
At the end of 2020, in my last piece for Playboy, I wrote a sort-of summation to the year and called it was “a stretch of time that felt like the judgement of every mirror ever broken and every black cat ever crossed.” A few sentences later, I called 2020 a year “that should be written into history only as to be avoided.” Those sentences stand up.
There was a pandemic and wildfires and mass protests. Things still aren’t great but now we all feel a bit different on New Years Eve. I remember last week, I was talking to my neighbor and he said proudly and quietly, as if to himself, “this was a pretty damn good year.” When was the last time you heard somebody call the year good?
And of course 2020 could have been worse, but on New Years Eve of 2020, I remember going onto the roof of my building and cheering with all the people, all of us drunk and six feet apart and all of us hating the year behind us.
You don’t feel like that now, do you? You don’t look back on the year and hate it. This by the way, should be Biden’s re-election strategy. Remind Americans what 2020 was like, when Trump was president. Again, it could have been worse — there could have been a war and the coronavirus could have been the bubonic plague. But at the time, it didn’t feel like it could be a whole lot worse.
So what should we say of this year, of 2023? Everybody on Substack is making end-of-the-year lists, that seems to be the thing to do. And it’s a little self-indulgent but I always seem to find something I like (and missed) in those pieces. So a few of my favorite pieces from this blog:
I wrote about that time those billionaires locked themselves in a discount submarine and exploded on the bottom of the ocean.
I wrote about how to go to my happy place — the National Gallery of Art and how to go to the State of the Union.
A lot of you liked this piece on the workplaces of geniuses, and re-reading it now, I kind of liked it too.
I should probably write about my favorite books of the year too, because obviously, I read a lot of books. The problem here is that I didn’t read many new books. I can’t really afford that many new books. But here are a few of the books I loved this year:
Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre — this one gets down and messes around with the nitty-gritty of ourselves. It’s brief but occasionally beautiful: the cafes, Paris, people gazing desperately at each other — I love it.
The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil — this one is not brief. It’s huge and broad and sometimes it loses you a bit, but this was one of those ones I felt so much it hurt.
Journey to the End of the Night by Celine — I don’t know how the hell I hadn’t read this before, but I hadn’t. And I don’t think I’d call it ‘beautiful’, it’s a rough novel. Rough around the edges and rough inside too (Celine was a Nazi and while there’s no antisemitism, there’s a sort of bitterness to it) but the rhythm and pacing is spectacular.
The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell — I loved this one, loved the dark humor of it and the caricature of society. There’s one particular scene where the pastor is trying to convert people as they’re being blown off the ramparts that made me laugh out loud. I re-read it twice. The vibe reminds you a bit of The Plague but it’s less philosophical.
I should probably write about television or movies or something, but I don’t watch much television, not many movies either. I loved Shrinking and Barbie and I wrote about Napoleon. But none of that is exceptionally interesting. So instead, I’ll just do little capsule reviews of my favorite moments of the year.
We went to a lot of weddings this year but the best was one in October in Rhode Island. It was a Navy wedding and it was bitter cold outside but the sky over New England was a soft blue and the bay had this dark ripple to it. I snapped this photo just before the reception, when I was getting that familiar-and-yet-rare feeling that I would remember the night ahead.
We went back to DC a few times this year and one summer morning, the kid couldn’t sleep so I took him to the park. There was a field spotted with those little white tufts-of-flowers and the sun gleamed through the clouds. I was so happy and I kept thinking about that Elizabeth Bishop line: the white dew and the milk-white sunrise.
We spent a lot of time with friends this summer and one evening, we were all together at the bar, all together and happy as the sun was sinking over the bay and again I couldn’t help it — I turned toward the light and snapped a photo. Here it is.
All in all, it was a beautiful year, some things went wrong and a few went right. The world, more than ever before, seemed to turn madly on. But I suppose you take what you can get.
Happy New Year and as a final note, I’d just remind you that New Years Eve is for the believers.