It is finally the last day of 2022 and we are firmly in the anthropocene, which feels less like an “era” at this point and more like the point - “the end of history”, “there is no alternative”, all that good stuff. We’re launching sulfur into space, the technologists have used AI to outsource creation, everyone is being cringe as hell on the TL, it’s been pretty rough out here. So what is the Last Man to do but Post? And what better content to start posting on the last day of 2022 than my favorite things I consumed this year, seems nice and wholesome.

Music

Mainstream music seems to be getting worse every year. I’m really over this “everyone is now alt” and so now all opinions are “subculturally valid” present that we find ourselves in. Why is Snoop Dogg the poster-child for “Music NFTs”? Why does every song clock in at 1:50? Why is your favorite artist of all time Lana? I don’t have the answers rn but I find comfort in knowing that there are a few good folks still out there doing the thing, and I’m grateful to have found a couple of things I like through all the noise.

1. Bad Vibes - Palmisty + Bladee + Isabella Lovestory

This song goes hard. It feels like the present. Bad vibes.

2. Poland - Lil Yachty

This will be the Levels of the 2020s, I’m calling it. Lil Yachty hasn’t even ever been to Poland. Someone saw a Tiktok of a guy taking a frying pan to Poland and was so outraged that he decided he needed to take the walk with a real wok. Music is supposed to make you feel things.

3. miracle crush - bar italia

I think I’ll be doing ketamine at midnight.

4. Gfortune - Overmono

Electronic music is finally getting better, I’m kinda optimistic. These guys have known their shit for a long time and this whole EP is so incred, and it has inspired me to get back into making dance music.

5. Speeding 72 - Momma

Have you ever wondered what the future would have looked like if the Silversun Pickups went to therapy?

6. Plonk IV - Huerco S.

BRB I’m about to write a thousand lines of Javascript today.

7. Fine Pink Mist - Purelink

I like saunas. I used to own a sauna. This is a really good sauna song.

8. KH - Looking At Your Pager

I first heard this song in a live setting. It was extremely disorienting and extremely familiar. He’s peaking.

9. Problems - Floating Points

That live set was actually them DJ’ing together opening for Jamie XX. It was probably a hundred times better than the main event. I think it was maybe the best set I’ve ever been to. I don’t even remember if they played this. He’s also peaking rn.

10. qotsa cover - Dean Blunt

It’s such a bummer that he played (idk if he actually did) the Bored Ape X NTS Art Basel Party this year. But I still love Him.

Film

Movies are also kinda bad now. It seems like it’s on purpose, it’s sus. Maybe this is what happens when you take noblesse oblige to its most extreme version and start applying it to the arts. Thankfully for them, I love a bad movie.

1. TAR

Idk this movie just makes sense to me. I’m Tar-pilled I guess.

2. TraumaZone

I didn’t grow up in the States. But also I didn’t grow up in Russia through the fall of both communism and capitalism. It’s good to have some perspective.

3. Crimes of the Future

I watched Crash on Christmas Day and it made me appreciate Crimes more. Surgery is definitely the new sex.

4. Barbarian

Remember to call your mother.

5. Jackass Forever

I’m excited to age gracefully.

The Past

We don’t revisit the past enough. I don’t want to listen to Radiohead in my Soulcycle class but I have found so much comfort in discovering old things for the first time. They’ve always been there. It’s beautiful.

• Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters - This movie is so rich, the score is one of my favorite albums of all time, I think about Mishima’s life often.

• The music of Arvo Part - He stopped being a hipster and writing 12-tone, retreated and found God, returned and sent it. His music also makes hiking so much better.

• Factory Records - I watched 24 Hour Party People last year and loved it, but didn’t dive in until this year. Vini Reily is perhaps the greatest guitarist of all time, Kanye is an amazing sampler, this is a great 85 BPM song to start or end a set.

• Last Night The Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes In The Street + Hollow Bamboo - RIP Jon Hassell.

• Je Te Veux - People probably went so hard for this when it dropped in 1897.

• Coil, Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV - I didn’t like Trent singing at the end of Bones and All (terrible) but he’s a hero and it’s always worth diving into your hero’s heroes.

• My Way by Frank Sinatra - It’s 2am you’re in the Philippines on your Asian sprit quest trying to find yourself at the neighborhood karaoke bar, the big guy comes on and you start singing, 5 minutes later you finish and go outside for a cig to celebrate your big W, and in a flash you get capped. True story.

• Monkey 23 by The Kills - There’s a monkey on my back, makes me act like that. I feel that sometimes.

Thank you for reading! I usually don’t write but I’m maybe going to start posting more and creating more in the new year.