therealchrislee.com

Welp, another year in the books. Posting this a little late after recovering from a whirlwind trip through India and Asia in January—more about that later (i.e. probably in 2019’s review 😅)—but I’m certainly not gonna pass up the opportunity to celebrate what turned out to be a great year indeed. It’s insane to think that this decade is almost over, that I’ve been living in New York for so long etc. etc. but time don’t stop so let’s get on to the things! I’ll do a separate post for 2018’s Top Movie rankings but otherwise here are some of my favorite things from 2018:

Celebrating Anthony’s birthday at least three times in January, the treasure trove of science fiction artifacts in the Museum of Pop in Seattle, the croissants at Arsicault Bakery in Scott’s neighborhood in San Francisco, the single burrito I had at La Taqueria this year, Alex and Amy’s breakfast wedding in Pasadena, packing up the Crystal Lake house with my family, seeing “In the Heights” at Prairie Ridge, driving an actual bulldozer in Vegas at Kishan’s bachelor party, performing best man duties at Kishan and Elizabeth’s picturesque Sedona wedding, the legacy of Anthony Bourdain, my three-day solo retreat at Bard with an extra large pizza, the Far Rockaway beach trip with Ashleigh and Mackenzie and crew, any visit to Spicy Village and/or the Up Stairs Bar with Jing, every afternoon or evening spent at the beautiful new Domino Park, streaming play-throughs of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and the Overcooked! games with Ben, Key Bar drinks with Son, every Ghibli Fest or MoMA movie screening I made it to, Michael Swanwick asking for a round of memorial applause for Gardner Dozois at his KGB reading, the brief and wondrous life of trivia nights at Golden Years, our second straight year of Honey Deuce cocktails at the U.S. Open, seeing the column of science fiction authors’ autographs at Powell’s Books in Portland, attending the New York premieres of “Eighth Grade” and “Mid90s” with Jenny, any sandwich from Faicco’s, the surreal moment when I found myself doing tequila shots with a well-known author and a famous actress, dinners at Sushi Noz and Decoy with Felicia, any karaoke or movie night with the Stanford writer crew, any dive bar in the Lower East Side, new Thanksgiving traditions in Philadelphia with Val, Thomas, Clarissa and Max (including my first Escape Room experience), the incredible stagecraft and special effects of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” Christmas at Mom and Dad’s new SoCal house with Aunt Crystal,

Olivia Colman in “The Favourite,” Lana Condor in “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before,” Steven Yuen in “Burning,” Zoey Deutch in “Set It Up,” Michelle Yeoh and Awkwafina in “Crazy Rich Asians,” Raffey Cassidy in “Vox Lux”, the power of croquettes in “Shoplifters”, Michael B. Jordan and nearly everything else about “Black Panther,” Carrie Mulligan in “Wild Life,” Ethan Hawke in “First Reformed,” Cynthia Erivo in “Bad Times at the El Royale,” Viola Davis in “Widows,” the score for “First Man,” the score for “Annihilation,” the first half hour of “Sorry to Bother You,” the helicopter crash finale in “Mission: Impossible Fallout,”

the “Metalhead” episode of “Black Mirror,” Brian Tyree Henry and Lakeith Stanfield and all of “Atlanta” season 2, Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh in “Killing Eve,” most of “The Haunting of Hill House,” the workman-like precision of “Better Call Saul,” the short episode lengths of Sam Esmail’s “Homecoming,” the “Diner Lobster” sketch from SNL, “Aggretsuko,”

“What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky” by Lesley Nneka Arimah, “How to Write an Autobiographical Novel” by Alexander Chee, any story by Karen Joy Fowler, “Triumph of the City” by Edward Glaeser, “Thrill Me”
by Benjamin Percy, “Stories of Your Life and Others” by Ted Chiang, “The Gone World” by Tom Sweterlitsch, the short stories of Gene Wolfe, this piece on how to be an artist by Jerry Saltz,

“Delicate” by Taylor Swift, “God’s Plan” by Drake, “Lost in Japan” by Shawn Mendes, Childish Gambino’s “This is America” video, “Nobody” by Mitski, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears (you know why), this Pomplamoose cover of “Make Me Feel,” “Thank U, Next” by Ariana Grande,

this episode of “The Daily” about North and South Korea, The Dave Chang Show, the Cast Royale podcast, every postgame show of the newly renamed Chicago Audible podcast, the Coin Talk podcast, the Robin Hood app, Swift and Node.js courses on Udemy, working afternoons at any Spacious location,

Tom Brady’s “Tom Vs. Time” series on Facebook Watch, Doug Pederson’s play calling and the Philly Special in Super Bowl LII, this Cubs walk-off grand slam, any Chicago Bears play with Khalil Mack on the field, jet sweeps with Taylor Gabriel and Tarik Cohen and any other crazy offensive formation, any pass not overthrown by Mitchell Trubisky, Club Dub, Matt Nagy, Matt Nagy, Matt Nagy.