Many cultural commentators (see, for example, Kat Rosenfield), have argued that we are living through a particularly fallow period, where many artists have concluded that their purpose is not to delight or entertain, but rather to educate and advance an agenda. Others, like William Deresiewicz, have pointed out that the economics of the culture industry have become especially brutal of late, with new technologies making it harder and harder for artists to eke out a living.
These arguments resonate with me. I think both of these forces — politics and business — have undermined the vibrancy of film, music and other art forms in recent years.
Nonetheless, it is also true that some of the same forces that are threatening art — YouTube, Spotify, streaming services, etc. — are also making it easier than ever for consumers to find good stuff. Here is some of the good stuff that I have found over the past 12 months.
Live Music: Of the handful of shows that I saw in 2024, the one that stood out the most was a performance by Jake La Botz in St. Paul, Minnesota.
I was there at the suggestion of my daughter Hannah, who had read some of La Botz’s fiction (La Botz has many talents) and suggested that it might be interesting to see him perform. The show took place at a tiny hipster record store (is there any other kind?) in the middle of the day. There were maybe a dozen people in attendance.
Despite (because of?) the intimate setting, La Botz gave a spirited performance. I’m not quite sure how to characterize his music. The first word that comes to mind is “American.” La Botz is a bit of a magpie — one hears traces of the blues, country, gospel, and folk. While he’s tatted up like a good contemporary hipster, La Botz’s taste in fashion and his slicked-back hair make him seem like a character from another era. Onstage, his persona is that of a sage truth-teller whose wisdom has only emerged after years of hard living.
La Botz played a number of songs that struck a chord with me that afternoon in Minnesota, including “Hair on Fire,” “Hope the Sunshine,” and the one that I have embedded above, “Shaken and Taken.”
Recorded Music: I have mixed feelings about the current music business trend of plumbing the vaults of famous recording artists. How many alternate takes, remixes, and live versions do we really need? For the newcomer who just wants to hear an artist’s best songs, it can a confusing mess to navigate. But for the diehard fan with some time on his hands, there are often nuggets of gold to be found amongst the dross.
One such nugget turned up for me this year when Little Feat issued a 50th anniversary edition of Feats Don’t Fail Me Now.
Slightly longer, looser, and funkier than the original, the alternate version of “Spanish Moon” is probably the song I listened to the most over the course of the past year. For me, it accomplishes the seemingly impossible: improving what was already a classic.
Film: I can’t say that anything blew me away this year. The best movie that I watched in a theater was probably Kneecap, a fictionalized bio-pic about an Irish rap group, but that’s of pretty niche appeal. The movie that I have recommended the most over the past year is probably Plus One, a rom-com from 2019.
Caveat emptor: no one I have recommended this film to has yet agreed with my assessment. In fairness, I can see why someone wouldn’t like Plus One. It isn’t particularly original. It is probably raunchier than it needs to be. I would never claim that it is high art. But it does deliver what a conventional rom-com is supposed to deliver — laughs, tender-hearted moments, and a rousing endorsement of long-term, committed heterosexual relationships, despite all of their flaws. What put Plus One over the top for me was the performance of the female lead, Maya Erskine, who brought an infectious, over-the-top charm to her role.
Television: I don’t consider myself a TV buff. Somehow, I have managed to miss all of the big shows that have defined the past 30 years of television: The Wire, The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, etc. Nonetheless, I find myself watching much more television than I used to. On an average Tuesday night, my wife and I don’t seem to have the patience for a two-hour movie. By contrast, a one-hour TV show perfectly fills the little gap between dinner and bed time.
My two daughters are both advocates of reality TV. Perhaps it is a generational thing. (Hannah is enough of a devotee of the genre that she has written about it for Public Seminar.) Hannah’s taste seems to run to the loud and the lurid (think Love Island and Survivor) while Milly’s taste runs to the culinary and the cultured (think Great British Bake-Off and Portrait Artist of the Year).
I have watched all of these shows at their urging. But when left to my own devices, I often find myself drawn to an exercise in real estate porn known as Grand Designs.
There are three principal things to love about Grand Designs. The first is the way it is structured. Each episode is devoted to a different client (typically a couple) trying to build their own house. What’s remarkable is that the show’s camera crew stays connected with each project over the course of many years so that viewers can see the project evolve from demolition through construction and (hopefully) onto completion. Often the filming manages to incorporate major life changes in the life of a given family, including the birth of children and various business misfortunes. Each episode unspools like a tiny version of An American Family.
The second thing to love about Grand Designs is the B-roll. Over the course of more than 20 seasons, the show has filmed in seemingly every British city, suburb, and hamlet. All of these places are lovingly rendered, with wonderful shots of nearby landscapes and architecture.
Finally, there is the host. Kevin McCloud has hosted the show since it premiered in 1999. He somehow manages to bring a skeptical eye to the outlandish home designs on Grand Designs without ever seeming to condescend to the people who are building these houses. Even when what is being presented is sheer folly — expensive, over-large, garish — McCloud seems to appreciate the can-do spirit and creativity that motivates people to pursue custom-built homes. As a result, the show has a generosity of spirit that is not the usual default setting of reality television.
Books: I only read a few works of fiction this year. I am a sucker for Richard Russo, so I enjoyed Somebody’s Fool, his third book set in the fictional upstate New York town of North Bath. But, if I’m honest, Somebody’s Fool reads more like fan service than a great work of literature, so my pick for my favorite fiction book has to go to Claire Keegan’s 2021 book Small Things Like These, which I read at the insistence of my friend Pat. Set in Ireland in the 1980s, the novel is the story of a decent, hard-working family man who discovers that a Catholic training school on the edge of town has been abusing the girls in its charge. It’s a short book, but it packs a punch.
In terms of nonfiction, the book that resonated the most with me this year was Going Infinite by Michael Lewis. This book seemed to generate fairly intense backlash, including a negative review and a snarky profile in The New York Times.
I can’t really understand the negative response to the book as anything other than professional jealousy. I can certainly see why some ink-stained wretches would envy Lewis’ good fortune. After all, Lewis was already one of the most celebrated and highly-paid writers in the world. And then Sam Bankman-Fried fell into his lap. The crypto currency billionaire agreed to give Lewis access to his life and business, including interviews with his family, friends and business associates. Lewis was essentially embedded with Bankman-Fried when the news broke that the entrepreneur had been charged with fraud by federal prosecutors. (Bankman-Fried ultimately was found guilty and sentenced to prison.)
So Lewis was lucky to find himself with a ringside seat for one of the juiciest business stories of the last decade. This clearly annoyed a lot of people. But what really seemed to drive them crazy is that the book Lewis produced did not portray Bankman-Fried as a cartoon villain. (The title of the Times review gives the game away: “Even Michael Lewis Can’t Make a Hero Out of Sam Bankman-Fried.”)
The accusation that Going Infinite is a sympathetic depiction of Sam Bankman-Fried does not jibe with my reading of the book. While Lewis does write admiringly of some of Bankman-Fried’s qualities, including his belief in “effective altruism,” this is hardly a work of hagiography. Indeed, Lewis highlights Bankman-Fried’s flaws — including his lack of empathy and his utter disdain for good corporate governance — over and over again.
I don’t think any fair-minded reading of Going Infinite can conclude that this is an excessively flattering portrait of its subject. But it is fair to say that Going Infinite is another example of Lewis’ greatness as a writer. I wish every nonfiction book was written with this much style, humor and insight.