It’s year end list time. Most blogs and such do this at the end of the year, but I like to wait to the beginning of the new year to read everyone else’s lists, see what I missed, and make sure to check those things out. I’ve got a firm belief that experiencing as much of world as possible is integral to making art in any way. Here are some things I experienced and liked this year.

Music: recorded

I’m putting my top ten records that came out this year in Traci Larson’s zine project bestmusicever.info, so here are my favorite records from the last year regardless of when they came out:

• Dirty Projectors: Dirty Projectors
• Bon Iver: 22, A Million
• Tim Hecker: Harmony in Ultraviolet
• Brian Eno: Music for Airports
• William Basinski: Disintegration Loops
• Caskitt: Old Fires New Frontier
• Operator Music Band: Puzzlephonics I & II
• Sylvan Esso: What Now

Music: live

• Dither playing Brendon Randall-Myers at Roulette
• Sigur Ros + LA Phil
• The Bad Plus and Featherwolf at the Echoplex
• Bjork and wild Up at FYF
• Aperture Duo playing Stand Still While The World Turns
• Alina Bea at the Hi Hat
• Cantata Profana: Ancient Groove Music
• yOya at the Hi Hat

Books

• Cal Newport: Deep Work
• Brad Warner: Hardcore Zen
• Ted Chiang: Stories of Your Life and Others
• Henry Hazlitt: Economics in One Lesson
• Neal Stephenson: Seveneves
• Timothy Snyder: On Tyranny
• Derek Thompson: Hitmakers
• Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers
• Jeff VanderMeer: Annihilation

Movies

• Star Wars: The Last Jedi (This was inevitable, but I really did love it and think it’s maybe even better than Empire)

Movies that aren’t Star Wars

• Blade Runner 2049
• Phantom Thread
• The Shape of Water
• Get Out
• Dunkirk (but probably only in 70mm)

I still need to see The Killing of a Sacred Deer and Lady Bird.

Older movies that I finally saw this year and loved

• Stalker
• Zardoz
• Birdemic: Shock and Terror

And that’s it!