THE KRIEGER LIST: I ON THE ARTS' TOP 2023

Hello readers! 

Wow... the years start coming, and they don't stop coming. I think someone very wise once said that. 

As of July 2023, I am now an Angeleno again, and in November 2023, I began a new job as the gallery assistant at Louis Stern Fine Arts in West Hollywood. As such, this blog will largely be quiet for the foreseeable future to avoid conflicts of interest. However, you can always keep up with my life (and the art and culture I experience) on Instagram.

Anyway... Enjoy my list of artistic and cultural things I watched, read, saw, heard, or otherwise consumed in the year 2023. Most of them will be in alphabetical order (unless they are chronological articles/essays or if I loved them head and shoulders above the rest of their category, and will be bolded and at the beginning of the list). You know the drill. 

You can find almost a decade of previous round-ups here.

Movies:

• The Silence of the Lambs, dir. Jonathan Demme, 1991 (available on HBO Max).
• American Fiction, dir. Cord Jefferson, 2023.
• Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, dir. Kelly Fremon Craig, 2023 (available on Starz).
• Bottoms, dir. Emma Seligman, 2023.
• It Happened One Night, dir. Frank Capra, 1934 (available for free on Tubi).
• Oppenheimer, dir. Christopher Nolan, 2023.
• Nimona, dir. Troy Quane, Nick Bruno, 2023 (available on Netflix).
• Sunset Boulevard, dir. Billy Wilder, 1950 (available on Kanopy, which is free with many library cards).
• The Lady Vanishes, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1938 (available for free on Amazon Prime).
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, dir. Tomas Alfredson, 2011.

Books:

• The Lions of Al-Rassan, by Guy Gavriel Kay, 1995.
• Biography of X, by Catherine Lacey, 2023.
• Daughter of the Empire, by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts, 1987.
• The Memory Police, by Yōko Ogawa, 1994. Translated by Stephen Snyder into English, 2019.
• The Sarantine Mosaic duology (Sailing to Sarantium, 1998, and Lord of Emperors, 2000), by Guy Gavriel Kay.
• The Yiddish Policeman's Union, by Michael Chabon, 2007.

Television Shows:

• Jury Duty, available on Freevee (Amazon Prime).
• Abbott Elementary (season 2), originally aired 2022-2023 on ABC, available on Hulu.
• Moonlighting (season 2), originally aired 1985-1986 on ABC, available on Hulu.
• Suits (season 2), originally aired 2012-2013 on USA, available on Netflix.
• The Bear (season 1), 2022, available on Hulu.

Music:

• "American Teenager," Ethel Cain, 2022.
• “all-american bitch,” Olivia Rodrigo, 2023. 
• “Hits Different,” Taylor Swift, 2023. 
• "I Can See You," Taylor Swift, 2023.
• “Sextet Montage,” Gizel Jiménez, Joshua Henry, Cast of “Superbia” Workshop, from Tick… Tick… Boom!, dir. Lin-Manuel Miranda, 2021, available on Netflix. 
• "Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat," from CATS (2019).
• "Stay Don't Go," Taylor Swift, 2023.
• "Stick Season," Noah Kahan, 2022.

Articles:

• David Grann, "True Crime," The New Yorker, February 4, 2008.
• Elizabeth Gilbert, "The Muse of the Coyote Ugly Saloon," GQ, June 4, 2012.
• Maya Jasanoff, "Our Obsession with Ancestry Has Some Twisted Roots," The New Yorker, May 2, 2022.
• Seyward Darby, "Fault Lines," The Atavist Magazine, no. 130 (August, 2022).
• Clement Gelly, "Graffiti, Through Grief and Discovery," Hazlitt, October 5, 2022.
• Nile Cappello, "Crushed," The Atavist Magazine, no. 135 (January, 2023).
• Helen Shaw, "Did This Writer Actually Know Tennessee Williams?" The New Yorker, June 5, 2023.
• Seth Simons, "Who's Afraid of Lorne Michaels?" Longreads, August 17, 2023.
• Tom Lamont, "The Race to Catch the Last Nazis," GQ, September 12, 2023.
• Margaret Talbot, "Behind a Locked Door," The New Yorker, September 25, 2023.
• Leslie Jamison, "A Friend Died, Her Novel Unfinished. Could I Realize Her Vision?" The New Yorker, November 20, 2023.

Performances:

• Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction. 
• Andrew Garfield, Tick… Tick… Boom!
• Ebon Moss-Bachrach, The Bear (season 1).
• David Gyasi, The Diplomat (season 1), 2023, available on Netflix.
• James Marsden, Jury Duty. 
• Rachel McAdams, Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret.
• Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri, Bottoms.
• Ryan Gosling, Barbie, 2023 (available on HBO Max).

Live Performance:

• I saw Hadestown at the Providence Performing Arts Center in March 2023. It was amazing!
• I saw Taylor Swift's Eras Tour at Sofi Stadium in August 2023. It was also amazing!

Articles I Wrote/Things I Did:

• At my previous institution, the Museum of Work and Culture in Woonsocket, RI, I curated an exhibition about Woonsocket's Jewish community and history that was so popular it was extended by a month! You can learn more about that show here.
• I visited the Zimmerman and Kalil Houses (both by Frank Lloyd Wright) in Manchester, NH. I also visited the Gamble House (by Greene and Greene) in Pasadena, CA.
• I also reviewed two gallery shows for Artillery Magazine in the fall of 2023:
• "Soumya Netrabile at Anat Ebgi." October 18, 2023.
• "'Del Cielo' at Rose Gallery." November 15, 2023.