Best of the 2010s
Usually when I try talking about my favorite music/movies/books or whatever, I end up talking instead about the significant events that were going on in my life whenever I fell in love with that book, album, movie (or whatever).
This decade was easily the most important ten years of my life. We bought a house. I became a father. I learned what it meant to be a (good?) husband. I lost a close friend. My grandmother passed away. I watched as our family grew in unexpected ways. I played in a couple of different bands with some of my favorite people in the world. My iPod went gently into that great night. I worked. I travelled. I waited for some big breaks that never came. I got some big breaks I never saw coming. Somehow we accumulated three cats. I took some L’s. I kept trying.
So here’s my best effort to talk about my favorite music/movies/books of this decade along with the significant events in my life that were going on in the foreground.
Part One: Best Music of the 2010s
1- The National- High Violet (2010) / Trouble Will Find Me (2013)[1]
When I think of these albums I think of:
For High Violet--Midnight drives back and forth between our duplex in Johnston City and Night’s Shield in West Frankfort on the summer that we found out Stacy was pregnant with our first child.
For Trouble Will Find Me—being in Sioux Falls, SD, when I ruined Stacy’s surprise by guessing that our 3 would soon become 4. Also, I know Trouble Will Find Me seems somewhat ominous for expecting a beautiful bright new life into this world, but given how ornery Eli is now, I stand by it.
2- Phoebe Bridgers- Stranger in the Alps (2017)
When I think of this album I think of:
There’s this line on “Funeral” that goes: “I have a friend I call/When I’ve bored myself to tears/And we talk until we think we might just kill ourselves/But then we laugh until it disappears.” This friend for me is Major.
3-Joyce Manor- Never Hungover Again (2014)
When I think of this album I think of:
My friends’ old apartment in Carbondale, road trips with friends, going to shows with friends, pretty much just being with friends.
Also, the time we covered “Christmas Card”:
4- Kendrick Lamar- good kid, m.A.A.d City (2012)
When I think of this album I think of:
I was working a midnight shift, trying to find new music to help pass the hours, when I came across a review of good kid on Pitchfork. I clicked the link not expecting much, but what I heard was the best new artist of the decade (sorry, Frank Ocean).
5- David Bazan- Care (2017)
When I think of this album I think of:
Walking in the park in summertime, sitting out on my front porch trying to write, tossing and turning at night with the lyrics to “Care” tumbling through my head, late night drives listening to “Keep Trying” on repeat because it calms me down.
6- The Front Bottoms- Talon of the Hawk (2013)
When I think of this album I think of:
Driving back from Texas in Night Rainbow Super Moon[2] in May 2013. Coleman and I played this album over and over without saying much other than, “This is pretty good. Do you want to run it back again?”
Major, Nick, and I make a very brief appearance in the video for “Twin Size Mattress” if you look hard enough. It’s from when we were in the crowd to see them open for Bad Books at the Newport Revival House in Kentucky, so yeah, you gotta look really hard.
7- MewithoutYou- Pale Horses (2015)
When I think of this album I think of:
Jogging around Arrowhead Lake following a particularly rough day at work in 2015.
The lyric, “if you can change your shape that easily/can you take the form of my dead father/because I think he would’ve liked to meet my wife/And I know for a fact he would’ve liked my wife” still gives me chills too. I wish my mom could’ve met my sons. I know for a fact she would’ve loved my sons.
8- Sufjan Stevens- Carrie & Lowell (2015)
When i think of this album I think of:
My friend Bryan that passed in 2015 and my grandmother who passed in 2016. I remember driving home after my Grandmother’s funeral, I hadn’t really cried yet, and it’s not like I put this album on because I was wanting to, but for some reason or another I put it on, and the line hits “We’re all gonna die.” Ezra and Eli were in the backseat and I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. The simple universal truth was comforting in that moment and it remains so now.
9- Touche Amore- Parting the Sea Between Brightness & Me (2011)
When I think of this album I think of:
Recording Soul with Ravenhill during the winter of 2013. I almost left. I almost gave up. I almost lost my mind. This album[3] helped hold me together as I slept on Brady’s bedroom floor every night and as we passed the construction yard every morning on the way to the studio.
10- Manchester Orchestra- A Black Mile to the Surface (2017)
When I think of this album I think of:
Picking Ezra and Eli up after work everyday. Not to overwork the metaphor, but sometimes I feel like I’m trapped underneath this pile of anxieties, the air tastes like poison, picking up those two always brings me back to the surface, reminds me that everything is going to be okay.
Like a Coen Brothers film, this album pulls together a wide array of images, characters, and themes to create a narrative that works for me on several levels. I think “The Gold” may be my favorite song of the decade too.
Next Ten (I’m not going to have the covers here because I’m tired of looking them up and I can’t even get them to size up right)
11- Frank Ocean- Channel Orange (2012)
When I listen to Frank Ocean I feel less like an-ever-approaching-middle-aged white dude and more like a cool guy. I like feeling like a cool guy.
12-Sleep Well Beast (2017) / I Am Easy to Find (2019)- The National
For Sleep Well Beast, it always reminds me of driving to Alabama last October to see some of our favorite people get married on the beach there.
For Easy to Find, it reminds me of all the ups and downs of this past summer. For better or worse, it guided me through it all.
13- Self-Titled (2010) / Charmer (2014) / Spin (2017) – Tigers Jaw
Those first two albums helped me want to write songs again after leaving Ravenhill. I don’t think the Sleeping Tapes stuff or later Alliswell EPs would’ve happened without this band.
For Spin, this was the album I listened to all weekend when we went to stay with Stacy’s newly discovered half-brother Ethan for the first time. Spin soundtracked our trip to the Chicago zoo and the museums then to Whiting, Indiana to eat at Dino’s. Since then, we’ve went on many more adventures with Ethan and Jason. Even going to Disney World together this past summer, which was an all-timer on the memory list.
14- Strange Negotiations - David Bazan (2011)
Like many Bazan fans, this album has helped me find my way through my spiritual beliefs these last ten years.
15- My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010)- Kanye West
When Stacy and I were moving into our house in WF in November 2010, this album served as a constant soundtrack for all the packing and unpacking. Nicki Minaj’s guest verse on “Monster” is still an absolute all timer. Jay-Z’s still not so much.
16- Bad Books (2010) - Bad Books
When I think of my friendship with Major, I always think of Bad Books. I knew him before the decade started, but just barely. It was a van ride back from Cornerstone in 2011 (I think?) that really formed our bound. While everyone else slept, he sat co-pilot with me as we drove through the night. We talked through everything and he made me think about some things in new ways. It reminds me of Kevin Devine’s first verse on “Mesa, AZ”: “We passed 800 miles talking circles about living with loss/You said your sense of humor always helped you get above & across/Every hurdle, every chasm, every shocking & unspeakable blow/Just proves the universe is chaos/ So you laugh to clear the lump from your throat.” It parallels so closely with a lot of the advice Major has given me these last ten years.
17- How to Socialise & Make Friends (2018)- Camp Cope
This album reminds me of visiting friends in Chicago last summer. That opening bass riff of “The Opener” takes me back there every time.
18 Joy As An Act of Resistance - (2018)- IDLES
The title says it. This was my go-to album this fall for countless drives back and forth between work and home.
19- Albatross – Foxing (2014)
Hearing the first notes of “Rory” on a late night in 2014, it felt like the beginning of something.
20- Flies In All Directions- Weatherbox (2014)
In the summer of 2014, Alliswell got to open for Weatherbox in the Skihaus basement. It was one of the sweatiest, booziest, rowdiest, most fun shows of my life.
Next Five:
21- Suburbs- Arcade Fire (2010)
22- Bubblegum- Kevin Devine (2013)
23- Kintsugi- Death Cab For Cutie (2015)
24- Two Hands– Big Thief (2019)
25- Modern Vampires of the City- Vampire Weekend (2013)
Just Missed the Cut:
Worry by Jeff Rosenstock
Holy Ghost by Modern Baseball
Best Friend Music: Run Kid Run- Patterns (2011)
Best Friend Music Part II: Horrible Things by The Bedroom (2015)
Best Friend Music Part III: Bricks by Hot Mouth (2016)
Best Friend Music Part IV: this split by The Backyards & The Regulars (2017)
Best Comeback Record: Phoenix by Pedro the Lion (2019)
Album/Band I Like Way More Than I Let On: Wilder Mind by Mumford & Sons (2015)
Best Album Where I Only Understand Maybe Half the Words: Bon Iver by Bon Iver (2011)
Best Non-National Dad Rock Album: Sound & Fury by Sturgill Simpson[4] (2019)
Best New Indie Band of the Decade: Big Thief
Best Fall Road Trip Album: Intersections by Into It. Over It. (2013)
Best Winter Time Road Trip Album: Winter Wheat by John K. Samson (2016)
Best Spring Time Road Trip Album: Suburbia, I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing by the Wonder Years (2012)
Best Summer Time Road Trip Album: Damn by Kendrick Lamar (2017)[5]
Best Hey Man, I Think You’re Relating to These Depressive Lyrics A Little Too Much: Teens of Denial by Car Seat Headrest (2016).
Best Album that I Discovered Much Later: Threads by Now, Now (2012)
Best Came In Swinging Like A Fistfight, Concrete Colored Basement Alright, Alright Debut Album: The Front Bottoms (2011)
Best I’m Legally Obligated to Tell You That My Band Opened For Them If You Mention Their Name in My Vicinity[6]: The Front Bottoms.[7]
Favorite Song by a Band I Really Like But Say I Don’t: “You Can’t Look Back” by Taking Back Sunday
Favorite Song by a Band That I Don’t Really Like But I Say I Do: “No Hard Feelings” by The Avett Brothers
Biggest Drop Off: Coloring Book by Chance the Rapper
Best Video: “This Is America” by Childish Gambino
Best Song: “Redbone.” I mean there could be no other.
Worst Album By A Band I Love: Cope by Manchester Orchestra (2013). I mean, it’s still pretty good though.
Best Album By A Band I No Longer Care About: Brothers by the Black Keys (2010)
Best EP: “Boygenius EP” by Boygenius (2018)
Best EP Not Made By A Supergroup: Dumb Muscles by Baby Ocho (2016)
Favorite Local Bands: Backyards (RIP), Trophy Shop, Hans Predator, and any band with Brice Evans.
Most Underrated Album: Anything by Vince Staples / Simple Math by Manchester Orchestra.
Best Music Year: 2017: Top Five of Care by David Bazan, A Stranger in the Alps by Phoebe Bridgers, Sleep Well Beast by the National, Damn by Kendrick Lamar, and A Black Mile to the Surface by Manchester Orchestra
Hey, I put out some music this decade. Here’s some stuff I’m proud of being a part of:
1. Eleanor by Alliswell (2014)[8]
3. Blankets by Sleeping Tapes (2018)
4. Catch by Sleeping Tapes (2016)
Most Surreal Music Moment of the Decade:
David Bazan playing in our living room on 9/9/14. I don’t know why the picture is so blurry maybe our phones were worse then.
Also, I’m proud of this music video Major and I made together for my favorite Alliswell song:
You can hear a playlist of my 100 favorite songs of the 2010s here
Part Two: Best Movies of the 2010s
1. Short Term 12 (2013)
Defining Dialogue:
Grace: “Mason, you have no idea what I'm going through right now.”
Mason: :Then tell me. That's how this works. You talk to me about it so that I can take your hand and fucking walk through this shit with you. That is what I signed up for, Okay? But I cannot do that if you won't let me in.”
Grace: “I can't. I'm sorry.”
Why I Love This Movie: It’s people helping people. It’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to what we do at Night’s Shield. More importantly, it reminds me of what it’s like for the kids that have to go through this. I first saw this movie in April 2014 when we were in the hospital following Eli’s birth. Right after finishing it, I decided that I wanted to try and write a book so I spent the next year and a half doing that. That book led to me signing with a literary agent in summer 2016. We ultimately were unsuccessful with finding a publisher for it. But I’m still writing and still trying, and this movie helped start that.
2. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Defining Dialogue:
Jean: “You don't want to go anywhere, and that's why the same shit's going to keep happening to you, because you want it to.”
Llewyn Davis: “Is that why?”
Jean: “Yes, and also because you're an asshole!”
Also this quote-- Llewyn Davis: “If it was never new, and it never gets old, then it's a folk song.”
Also, also this quote: “I don’t see a lot of money here.”
Why I Love This Movie: It reminds me that sometimes just creating stuff is enough, or at least it should be.
3. The Master (2012)
Defining Quote:
Lancaster Dodd: “If you figure a way to live without serving a master, any master, then let the rest of us know, will you? For you'd be the first person in the history of the world.”
Why I Love This Movie: It reminds me that we’re all searching for something to hold onto.
4. Inside Out (2015)
Defining Quote (for me):
Sadness: “Crying helps me slow down and obsess over the weight of life's problems.”
Why I Love This Movie: Because I’ve spent most my life trying to figure out my own head and this movie did more in 90 minutes to help me than all my sleepless nights combined. Plus, being a parent and seeing your kids grow up, going through the same things you’ve went through, struggling with the same struggles, it can be a lot. This movie makes me feel like it’s going to be okay.
5. Whiplash (2014)
Defining Quote:
Terence Fletcher: “The truth is, Andrew, I... never really had a Charlie Parker. But I tried. I actually fucking tried. And that's more than most people ever do. And I will never apologize for how I tried.”
Why I Love This Movie: It always makes me want to make something, write a song, write a story, just make something. Keep trying.
6. Lady Bird (2017)
Defining Dialogue:
Marion McPherson: “I want you to be the very best version of yourself that you can be.”
Christine 'Lady Bird' McPherson: “What if this is the best version?”
Why I Love This Movie: It reminds me that it’s just as hard to grow up and become yourself as it to be a parent while continuing to be yourself. That’s a weird sentence but I think it makes sense.
7. Once Upon A Time in Hollywood (2019)
Defining Dialogue:
Rick Dalton: Hey! You're a good friend, Cliff.
Cliff Booth: I try.
Why I Love This Movie: (spoiler) Because sometimes when it feels like your life or career isn’t going quite the way you want it to, all you need to do is go eat some Mexican food with your best friend, have some drinks, have some laughs, and then (maybe) come back home to blend some margs and stop one of the most historic multiple murders in our nation’s history.
9. Social Network (2010)
Defining Quote:
Mark Zuckerberg: “You know, you really don't need a forensics team to get to the bottom of this. If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook.”
Why I Love This Movie: It reminds me of the time my friends and I made a shallow rate-ur-hotness app in college that went on to become a multi-billion dollar social media company that rotted the minds of multiple generations and uprooted the very notion of democracy in our country all while creating a surveillance state that was impossible to manage, but hey, we still stayed pals.
10. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
Defining Quote:
Kylo Ren: “The Empire, your parents, the Resistance, the Sith, the Jedi... let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That's the only way to become what you are meant to be.”
Why I Love This Movie: Beloved billion dollar corporate franchises often feel stale and safe (and I usually still love them!). But this one doesn’t feel that way at all. It’s unpredictable, looks incredible, and feels truly inspired. Watching this on opening weekend with Tyler remains one of my favorite theater experiences of all time.
Next Twenty Or So (Listed in Descending Order)
Best Movie to Make Me Want to Hug My Kids: The Killing of A Sacred Deer (2017)
Best Movie to Make Me Want to Hug My Wife: Marriage Story (2019)
Best Movie That I Actually Like Way More Than This But I Am Too Proud to Put It Higher: A Star Is Born (2018)
Best Movie with the Most Unsettling Dialogue: Django Unchained (2012)
Best I’ve Never Been to LA But I Have Seen[9] This Movie: Nightcrawler (2014)
Best Wolf Movie: Sicario (2015)
Scariest Movie to Make Me Miss My Mom / Movie I Claim to Love But You Couldn’t Make Me Watch It Again: Hereditary (2018)
Best Adaptation: Inherent Vice (2014)
Best Forget Paris[10] of the Decade: Uncut Gems (2019)
Best One Shot: Birdman (2014)
Top Three Sci-Fi Movies: Arrival (2016), Interstellar (2014), Annihilation (2018)
Best Movie About Fashion Design: Phantom Thread (2017)
Best Movie Character of the Decade (And It’s Not Even Close): BB-8
Best Movie to Make Me Involuntarily Scream Out Loud In the Theater: The VVitch (2015)
Best Movie Where I Refer to All of the Character as “That Guy”: Dunkirck (2017)
Funniest Movie of the Decade/The Only Extended Universe I Want: Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
Second Funniest Movie of the Decade: Bridesmaids (2011)
Third Funniest Movie of the Decade: The House (2017)
The Movie Scene That Made Me Laugh Embarrassingly Hard in the Theater:
Hands Down the Best Marvel Movie: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Best “I Should Text My College Friends More” Movie: Frances Ha (2012)
Best Movie For Parents of Teens: 8th Grade (2018)
Most Paranoid Movie Theater Experience of the Decade: Green Room (2015)
Best Ending of a Trilogy: The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Best Ending to a Beloved Franchise: Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Best Title To Make Using Emojis (Don’t Think About It): It Comes At Night (2017)
Best Golden State Warriors Blowing a 3-1 Lead Movie: La La Land (2017)
Best “This Movie Seems Like It Came Out A Million Years Ago”: The Descendants (2011)
Best Dinosaur Movie / Favorite DVD to Let Ride Around in the Front of My Car for the Last 11 Months: Tree of Life (2011)
Honorable Mentions (I’m definitely forgetting something):
Her (2013)
The Farewell (2019)
The Conjuring (2013)
Swiss Army Man (2016)
Lost City of Z (2016)
Personal Shopper (2016)
The Florida Project (2017)
Inception (2010)
The Hateful 8 (2015)
The Force Awakens (2015)
Calvary (2014)
Boyhood (2014)
Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (2018)
Booksmart (2019)
OJ: Made in America (2016)
Get Out (2017)
The Favourite (2018)
Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Mad Max Fury Road (2015)
End of Tour (2015)
Moonlight (2016)
Thunder Road (2018)
You Were Never Really Here (2018)
Room (2015)
Won’t You Be My Neighbor (2018)
Favorite Music Doc: Mistaken For Strangers (2014)
Honestly, My Favorite Movie of the Decade: Jurassic World (2015)
Favorite Soundtrack: Swiss Army Man (2017)
Favorite Movie Year of the Decade: 2014
Least Favorite Movie Year of the Decade: Probably 2019. Though that’s probably on me for just not seeing enough great stuff.
Worst Movie of the Decade[11]: Sherlock Gnomes (2018)
Part Three: Best Books of the 2010s
1. Tenth of December by George Saunders (2013)
“Based on the experience of my life, which I have not exactly hit out of the park, I tend to agree with that thing about, If it's not broke, don't fix it. And would go even further to: Even if it is broke, leave it alone, you'll probably make it worse.”
2. Just Kids by Patti Smith (2010)
"Where does it all lead? What will become of us? These were our young questions, and young answers were revealed. It leads to each other. We become ourselves."
3. The Goldfinch[12] by Donna Tartt (2013)
"That life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch."
4. I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson (2014)
"Or maybe a person is just made up of a lot of people,” I say. “Maybe we’re accumulating these new selves all the time.” Hauling them in as we make choices, good and bad, as we screw up, step up, lose our minds, find our minds, fall apart, fall in love, as we grieve, grow, retreat from the world, dive into the world, as we make things, as we break things."
5. Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmine Ward (2017)
"Home is about the earth. Whether the earth open up to you. Whether it pull you so close the space between you and it melt and y’all one and it beats like your heart. Same time."
6. Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer (2016)
"It’s easy to be close, but almost impossible to stay close. Think about friends. Think about hobbies. Even ideas. They’re close to us—sometimes so close we think they are part of us—and then, at some point, they aren’t close anymore. They go away. Only one thing can keep something close over time: holding it there. Grappling with it. Wrestling it to the ground, as Jacob did with the angel, and refusing to let go. What we don’t wrestle we let go of. Love isn’t the absence of struggle. Love is struggle."
7. The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner (2016)
"If you're going to live, you might as well do painful, brave, and beautiful things."
8. Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock & Roll in New York City 2001-2011 by Lizzy Goodman (2017)
"You know how they say Black Flag got in a van, and they brought punk rock to the world? The Strokes got on a bus, and they brought “downtown cool” to the world. Along with the Internet, they were changing everything, not just music. They were changing attitudes. The Strokes were making New York travel with them. I saw kids in Connecticut and Maine and Philadelphia and DC looking like they had just been drinking on Avenue A all night. Sixteen-year-old kids in white belts and Converse Chuck Taylors with the greasy hair—hair that had been clean a week ago. Those kids had probably never even smelled the inside of a thrift store before Is This It came out. They found a band that they wanted to be like. They found their band.”
9. Wolf In White Van (2014) / Universal Harvester (2017) by John Darnielle
"People trying to help you when you’re past help are raw and helpless. Nobody wins: you get nothing; they feel worse." –Wolf in White Van
"Not everybody wants to get out and see the world. Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you just want to figure out how to fit yourself into the world you already know." –Universal Harvester
10. To Rise Again at a Decent Hour (2014) by Joshua Ferris
"The most unfortunate thing about being an atheist wasn’t the loss of God and all the comfort and reassurance of God — no small things — but the loss of a vital human vocabulary. Grace, charity, transcendence: I felt them as surely as any believer, even if we differed on the ultimate cause, and yet I had no right words for them."
11. But What If We’re Wrong by Chuck Klosterman (2016)
"History is a creative process (or as Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “a set of lies agreed upon”). The world happens as it happens, but we construct what we remember and what we forget. And people will eventually do that to us, too."
12. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (2017)
"Strange, isn't it? To have dedicated one's life to a certain venture, neglecting other aspects of one's life, only to have that venture, in the end, amount to nothing at all, the products of one's labors ultimately forgotten?"
13. Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin (2018)
"Strange can be quite normal. Strange can just be the phrase 'That is not important' as an answer for everything. But if your son never answered you that way before, then the fourth time you ask him why he's not eating, or if he's cold, or you send him to bed, and he answers, almost biting off the words as if he were still learning to talk, 'That is not important', I swear to you Amanda, your legs start to tremble."
14. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (2017)
"What's the point of having a voice if you're gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn't be?"
15. You Think It I’ll Say It by Curtis Sittenfield (2018)
"I had no idea, of course, that of all the feelings of my youth that would pass, it was this one, of an abundance of time so great as to routinely be unfillable, that would vanish with the least ceremony."
Best Book That I Forgot About That Belongs in that Top 15: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (2011)
Favorite Graphic Novel: All Summer Long by Hope Larson (2018)
Most Powerful Graphic Novel Series: March by John Lewis w/ Andrew Aydin & Nate Powell (2017)
Best Comic Series: Runaways by Rainbow Rowell & Kris Anka (ongoing)
First YA Novel to Really Hook Me Since Perks: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell (2012)
Book Most Likely to Make Me Cry: More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera (2015)
Best Once Upon A Time in Hollywood Except with More Manson Girls and Less Middle Aged Dudes: The Girls by Emma Cline (2016)
Some of the Most Gorgeous Prose / Best Title: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (2019)
Favorite Dad-Rock Memoir: Let’s Go, So We Can Get Back by Jeff Tweedy (2018)
Favorite “Quiet” YA Book: Rayne & Delilah’s Midnite Matinee by Jeff Zentner (2019)
Favorite Multi-POV / Criss-Crossing Storylines: There, There by Tommy Orange (2018)
Favorite Sports Book: Boys Among Men by Jonathan Abrams (2016)
Best Sports (& Other Things) Book: Basketball & Other Things by Shea Serrano (2017)
Sigh, whenever I start coming up with categories like that ^^^ it usually means I should wrap it up. So last one:
Best Stephen King Meets Stranger Things: Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky (2019)
Part Four: Last Thing—Pictures That Sum Up the 2010s:
NYC—July 2010
Grandmother with Baby Ezra, 3/29/11
Ezra’s first snow, December 2012
Recording Soul with Ravenhill in Nashville, Winter 2013.
Ezra meets Eli for the first time, 4/29/14
NYC in 2014.
Matt, Bryan and I, November, 2014.
Ezra remembers the ocean. Summer 2015.
Setting up for the first Sleeping Tapes show Spring 2016.
Mission Taco after the Chuck Klosterman reading in St. Louis on 6/15/16.
Halloween in Paducah, 2016
Meeting Ethan & Jason for the first time in Spring 2017
Jake & Lindsay’s wedding in Alabama, November 2018
Disney Trip—August 2019
It always comes back to us. Fall 2019
That’s all. Thanks for reading.
[1] There are no rules. Or no, I make the rules, so I can have two #1 albums if I want to.
[2] Those that know, know—for everyone else I’ll just tell you this is the silly name we came up with for the repurposed church van that was Ravenhill’s van from 2011-2015.
[3] And Stacy, and Major, and my bandmates.
[4] Anything by Wilco would also be applicable here.
[5] Anything by The Lonely Island would also be applicable here.
[6] It’s flat out admirable that I’ve mentioned the Front Bottoms a couple of times already without mentioning this.
[7] Into It. Over It. would also be applicable here.
[8] This is honestly my favorite creative project I’ve ever gotten to work on.
[9] Ugh, yeah, I’ve actually said this to people multiple times.
[10] I assume most people will see this and think of the awesome local band circa the early to mid 00s. But no, I’m referring to the 1995 FILM starring Billy Crystal in which he plays an NBA referee and I’m honestly not sure what else happens, because when I was a kid I rented this movie just because I saw Reggie Miller and a few other NBA players in the preview. The NBA player scenes composed like maybe 2% of the movie but that was enough for me, I was so pumped to see Reggie. Which is how I felt for all the KG scenes in Uncut Gems. It’s a really awesome movie besides those scenes though unlike whatever else went on in Forget Paris. Anyways, this is really great reference I made here and the sheer amount of time I’ve spent explaining it just proves that rather than disproves it.
[11] It’s obviously on me for seeing a movie called Sherlock Gnomes and expecting it to be anything less than terrible, but also, whew, watching this movie IN THE THEATER ON OPENING WEEKEND was one of my least favorite experiences of the decade. I haven’t seen CATS though.
[12] Tragically, the subpar film adaptation of this book knocked it down a spot or two.