Top 23 of 2023

1. A Play for the Living in A Time Of Extinction by Miranda Rose Hall

A dramaturg walks onstage and tells the audience the actors haven’t shown up. They won’t at all, actually. And so, instead, the dramaturg takes us on a meandering exploration of climate change and death, inviting the audience to help create landscape and mood in place of the actors. As the dramaturg talks, two cyclists generate all the electricity needed for the production with their bodies.

I watched this play as part of the International Online Theatre Festival in April and I honestly can’t remember many details of the text of the show. But I do remember how it felt to be able to attend a show when most of my hometown has made theatre inaccessible to me, and I remember being inspired by the ways the show engaged with theatre’s complicity in climate change (and admittedly a little wary! It’s easier to make a production about it than change the whole system.)

1. Angella Dravid on Taskmaster NZ

Season 1 of Taskmaster NW aired in 2020 but I just started watching it with Pete this year. This is all I have to say.

1. Dandelion Dynasty by Ken Liu

If you’re looking for a fantasy series recommendation, I will suggest this a thousand times over. A series that truly believes we can be better together and that we can do incredible things even when we feel alone.

1. Foot massager

A late entry in the top 23 - I got a foot massager with heat and air compression for Christmas and let me tell you this ill lad is going into 2024 with one of the best solutions for my body issues since medication.

1. Friends’ wedding

In June Pete and I went to our first Event since the pandemic started - a beautiful outdoors wedding between two lovely friends. From a heartfelt ceremony made up of loved ones seated in a circle sharing their fond memories and hopes to wedding cake I could actually! eat! the whole experience meant so much to me. There was also a great live band and dance floor under a tent and while I am not a good dancer, I am someone who has desperately missed dancing. 

I was so grateful to be able to share in that moment. Also thanks Matt and Pippa for driving us, you’re incredible road trip and party buddies.

1. Green sauce recipe

I saw someone on TikTok make a creamy white pasta sauce with silken tofu and it Unlocked Something In Me. Below’s my green sauce recipe, I’m actually gonna make some tonight!

One regular package of silken tofu (how much exactly? I dunno, I just buy a package)A bin of baby spinach (how much, I dunno, however much feels right! As much as will fit!)A bin of basil (see above)Olive oil (some drizzles)Lemon juice (some drizzles)~A cup of pasta waterSome oregano, salt, pepper, garlic, and Calabrian chili peppers (I have a jar from Dellalo) to taste

I boil the spinach and basil first so they’re easier to blend then throw it all in a food processor. I wish I could tell you exact amounts, but I just add stuff until it tastes good and looks a nice green color. I serve it over pasta with veggies like zucchini, peppers, broccoli. It happens to be vegan (and GF in our celiac-friendly kitchen), with a pretty good amount of protein, and delicious imho.

1. Companion Piece & How to Be Both by Ali Smith

Ever grateful to my parents-in-law for introducing me to Ali Smith. Companion Piece is an incredible book for 2023, Smith never shies away from the realities of our world, whether difficult or precious. 

Smith’s books delve into the messiness of being human and of needing other humans and also needing yourself but maybe a version of yourself you haven’t met yet - especially in How To Be Both, published in 2014.

How To Be Both is joy for structure lovers, providing a different experience based on where you start. One half of the book follows a contemporary teen, George, who recently lost her mother. The other half follows Francesco del Cossa, a Renaissance painter who, in the book, is AFAB and lives as a man. 

My parents-in-law started with George’s section and felt it was the best way to read the book. A bit unsurprisingly, I started with Francesco’s section and felt that was the best way to read the book. 

1. In a way that matters

In 2022 I wrote a newsletter about needing to “stop writing for theatres and start writing for people.” I dove in at the start of 2023, workshopping in a way that matters at the Kennedy Center with collaborators Joan Cummins and navi. I continued to have support and luck with the piece, working on it more with feedback from Caridad Svich and support from the Lucille Lortel Theatre.

I futzed with it for about ten months before landing on the format I really wanted from the beginning (a lesson in trusting my instincts) - a live streamed show from my own apartment, where I virtually invited the audience into my home as I shared my questions and musings on past selves, death, and legacy. 

I also did a Hamlet monologue, because who else was going to hire me to do that.

I’m really proud of this piece and how, for the most recent iteration, I took on all possible roles beyond writer/performer, including stage manager, director, and marketing team. 

And huge thanks go to Tia Shearer Bassett and From-Home Fest for giving me a home for this more recent showing. And you can still watch the performance on YouTube!

1. It’s True It’s True It’s True: Artemisia on Trial

Another play from the International Online Theatre Festival that really stuck with me. It’s True… is based on transcripts from the trial of Artemisia Gentileschi’s rapist. Three actors whir around, recreating the myriad of people involved in the trial, in consistently clear and exciting staging. The piece doesn’t shy away from rape and injustice, but handles them deftly. 

1. “We Cannot Cross Until We Carry Each Other” - a letter from the editor-in-chief of Jewish Currents

Strong piece which features a portion of Aurora Levins Morales’ poem “Red Sea.”

1. My most viewed newsletter issues

My two most viewed newsletter issues are below - if you missed them, check them out. They’re also a great way for you to promote my newsletter to potentially interested parties. ;)

1. The mushroom vendor gave us extra matsutake once

It’s really this simple. I picked out a small basket of matsutake and chatted about how we cook it (in a pan, garnished with squeezed lime). While I was distracted, taking a deep sniff of another matsutake, he tossed a couple extra in the bag. A true gift, Pete and I ate like kings.

1. Name change paperwork can be submitted online

It worked, I can now do most of this online, I just need to get a notary.

1. ND Stevenson’s I’m Fine I’m Fine I’m Fine newsletter

A starter for you:

1. Past Lives & Wes Anderson’s 2023 films

Wildly enough neither of these are my “top ” movie of 2023. And at first glance these probably don’t seem connected. And maybe I’m stretching it! But here, let me just tell you a little of how I felt watching them.

Theatre is not dead. Not even dying.I’m not talking about the industry, the theater houses, the stages, the nonprofits, the plays, even. I’m talking about Theatre the form. The aesthetic. The meeting of its presentation and ephemerality. 

People love the theatre of Wes Anderson’s films. His aesthetic, much teased, is pure theatre. He plays with planes, blocking, the fourth wall, who we are under who we are, when presentation is not enough. People love his shit! And his 2023 movies leaned in hard. Asteroid City made it textual - a play within a movie. But Henry Sugar (and the other Dahl adaptations, to a lesser extent) especially relished the style of theatre, playing with puppetry, flat backgrounds, narrators.

Past Lives, an incredible directorial and screenwriting debut from playwright Celine Song, in comparison doesn’t feel very Theatrical at all. But as I watched, her interest in ephemerality and missed connections felt incredibly tied to the experience of live performance. And even more I kept thinking “a playwright wrote this” - because Celine seems to have such a clear understanding of what stories must be films versus plays. 

And because I’m a big cheater and finding ways to include more than 23 things on this list, here’s an essay from Analisa Dias about theatre that likewise resonated with me.

1. The person wearing the same 3M aura n95 as me who gave me the dude nod

Missed connection: We passed by each other while walking through the Takoma Street Festival. I think you might have been carrying something. We had very similar energy and style, not just in our clothes and presentation, but we even wore the same 3M Aura N95 (which I lovingly call the ill crew mask because of the way many of us have gathered around it for its seal and comfort). I think it was the mask, but it may have been something else - you saw me and gave me the dude nod. You know. The Dude Nod. I tried to give it back but probably didn’t achieve it. Still, felt great, 10/10, thanks, hope you’re well.

1. Replicating outfits from online

I don’t remember how to dress myself. Matching sweatsuits have done a Lot of Work in my closet the last three years. On days I go into work I throw on a jumpsuit (combined top and bottom and it matches itself?? heaven).

But I still have a lot of great clothes and I wanted to relearn how to wear them, so I copied a friend and started saving pictures of outfits that seemed cool and trying to replicate them. I think it works!!!

1. Rez Dogs Season 3

I enjoyed some great TV this year - The Bear, Slow Horses, some other stuff I can’t remember right now - but the third season of Rez Dogs sticks with me. A strong close to an incredible show, season three explores the experiences that isolate us and bring us closer together. It made room for grief with the understanding that all things end. And in a way, this show doesn’t exactly end - I can always watch it again. Feels appropriate for a story of spirits and lost heroes and returning elders.

From another show that gets it: “Will happen, happening, happened.”

1. Sam Campbell on Taskmaster Season 16

Honestly some of this list is just things that brought me joy in tough times and I think that’s great. This whole group was incredible, I easily could’ve replaced Sam on this list with anyone else and it’d be fair, but I really just wanted to share this clip with you.

https://www.reddit.com/r/panelshow/comments/16vkv8z/sam_campbell_can_i_ask_questions/

1. Snoopy making a comeback

The deep love for Snoopy in his puffer jacket brings me such joy. I keep getting ads for Snoopy merch and stationary and ornaments. Maybe I’m just a mark and think this is more widespread than it is? Anyways, I love him, especially when he’s writing at his typewriter.

1. Station to Station

It’s a train game for the tra(i)ns people in my life! Trust me, you’ll love it! There is no greater joy than making railroads and shouting through the apartment “choo choo!!!”

1. Stay home pen

Around the fall holidays I left my favorite pen at my workplace and didn’t see it for about a week. I was bereft, down, like truly really torn up about it. And then I realized I could just buy another one that lives at home so if I ever lose the one I take everywhere I have a spare.

Get yourself a stay home pen.

1. Vinn_ayy continues giving in 2023

The one TikTok account that consistently makes me cackle. There have been No Good, Very Bad days where I have just scrolled through Vinny’s videos to get some joy in my life. 

Some good starters from this year:

That’s it, folks. Looking forward into 2024, expect me to reach out about a move from Substack to a different newsletter service. Won’t take any work on y’all’s part!