New Tour Dates! New York, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, and more!
Plus a new video and my favorite books, movies, and games of 2023
Happy 2024 everyone! I’m back on the road this month with a brand new set of tour dates. I’m going to be taping this hour of standup in March, so if you haven’t seen it yet live, this is your last chance!
Ticket Links:
New Video: The Awful Truth about Online Shopping Returns
I had a great time growing my YouTube channel this year - thank you to all of you who supported it. My most recent video, Your Amazon Returns Are Thrown in the Trash, was a holiday special - hope you enjoy it.
My Favorite Media of 2023
Last year, I quit Letterboxd and Goodreads — instead, I just wrote down every movie, book, and video game I played in a giant notes file. I found this way of logging my media much more personal and rewarding — it let me see everything I consumed in one place, enabled me to come up with my own organization system (create a special heading for standup specials? Why not?), and let me record my impressions privately. Because who gives a shit about what I think? Why share my private viewing habits with the public at all?
And now, the year is over, and I am consumed by the desire to share my private viewing habits with all of you. So, without further ado, here is a disorganized list of some of my favorite books, movies, and video games I consumed this year:
Times Square Red, Times Square Blue. SF legend Samuel Delany writes a stunningly beautiful account of his time in NYC’s gay cruising mecca, the porno theatres of Times Square. By the end, I was absolutely convinced of how important NYC’s sex district was to the fabric of the city, and what a crime it was when Giuliani demolished it. Gave me direct insight into a time, place, and way of life that those in power tried to render invisible and forgotten, and I can’t think of a more important thing for a book to do than that.
RRR. Makes every American blockbuster released this year look like shit. Three hours of pure entertainment. Left the theatre I was in gasping for breath from laughter and joy. Not to be missed.
Chants of Sennar. If you like a) puzzles, b) the pleasure of learning to communicate with someone in a new language, c) environmental storytelling, d) vibrant color schemes, you simply have to play Chants of Sennar.
Kyle Kinane’s Shocks and Struts. My favorite standup special I saw this year. Kyle is so effortlessly funny, and this special is so beautifully directed by Jonah Ray. Watch it.
Kenny DeForest’s Don’t You Know Who I Am? Kenny is a wonderful comedian who we lost this year. This special came out four months before he passed away. It’s beautiful.
Godzilla Minus One. Godzilla was really good in this, he should get a nom for sure.
Doppelgänger, by Naomi Klein. I’m still working my way through this, but Klein weaves together disparate events to make you see the currents and tides running through our present like no one else. She plays with and recombines ideas in a way I’ve always aspired to. I stupidly interviewed her before reading this book, not after, and now I want to talk to her all over again.
Armored Core 6. I’m going to admit that I haven’t finished this yet, nor is mech-customization really my bag. But the look, feel, and play of the game is just the sickest thing I’ve ever fucking seen. Aesthetic specificity and coherence taken to its crunchiest degree.
The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin. My favorite LeGuin I’ve ever read. Famous for a reason. “Science fiction” doesn’t even begin to encapsulate the imagination she displays in conceiving of alternate means by which humanity might live.
Raw Dog, by Jamie Loftus. Jamie is either the funniest journalist in America or the most rigorously-reported comedian. She literally breaks news about hot dogs in this book. I love her.
Stop Making Sense. Turns out that when your favorite film of all time is rereleased in theatres you like it even more.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. My personal GOTY. (I didn’t get that far in Baldur’s Gate, okay? Don’t fight me.) Feels like the game they were trying to make BOTW into the first time. The sheer tectonic weight of imagination in this game is off the charts. The number of different types of “play” found within it is staggering. I can’t even wrap my mind around how it was made. Just a titanic achievement.
This Coming Year
I want to thank everyone for your support during what turned out to be a year of enormous growth for me. In 2024, I will be taping my first standup special, making more YouTube videos, hitting the road as much as possible, and taking the first steps on some new TV/film projects. I’m also hoping to rest a hell of a lot more than I did in 2023. I’m a little unsure that these goals are compatible, but we’ll see how it goes. In the meantime — thank you all again, and see you out there.
-adam