It's been a long year filled with too many Greek letters, but in spite of
the ongoing pandemic, this year brought many exciting new experiences.
I've never done anything like this before, but one of my friends recently
asked me what my favorite movies, books, songs, etc. were this year, so I
was inspired to reflect back and compile a list of my favorite things.
I know there's probably already thousands of these articles out there by
now—it seems to be an entire genre at this point. But somehow I always
thought it strange that people posted their year-end lists before the
actual end of the year. I mean, it's entirely possible you eat the best
thing of that year on New Year's Eve? I do realize that this post is
coming out on the 30th of December rather than the 31st, but I feel
sufficient confidence that there won't be anything exciting while I'm
waiting at home for 2022's arrival. These lists also always feel rather
self-indulugent, a vehicle to show off one's erudition in books read and
cultural sophistication in movies watched. But regardless, this post is
out in the wild for the world to see, so I hope you enjoy and I'll see you
again in the new year.
Music
Album, 2021: An Evening with Silk Sonic (Silk Sonic),
El Madrileño (C. Tangana)
Album, pre-2021: thank u, next (Ariana Grande),
4 (Beyoncé)
Song, 2021:
Leave the Door Open (Silk Sonic), Comerte Entera (C.
Tangana)
Song, pre-2021: The Story of O.J. (Jay-Z),
Forgive Me (Chloe x Halle), La Noche de Anoche (Bad
Bunny and Rosalía)
Classical: Bach: Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin (Isabelle
Faust), Liszt: Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses (Brigitte
Engerer)
Book
Fiction: Homeland Elegies (Ayad Akhtar)
Nonfiction: The Right to Sex (Amia Srinivasan)
Movie
New, 2021: Minari
New, honorable mentions: No Time to Die and
Judas and the Black Messiah
Old, pre-2021: Lust, Caution and In the Mood for Love
Papers
Markus Meister. On the dimensionality of odor space. eLife
2015.
John Jumper, et al.
High accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold.
Nature 2021.
Jingjing Xu, et al.
Magnetic sensitivity of cryptochrome 4 from a migratory songbird.
Nature 2021.
Fei Chen, Paul Tillberg, Edward Boyden.
Expansion microscopy. Science 2015.
Food
Chocolate croissant at Kusama (Chicago, IL)
Barbeque short rib and hush puppies at Toutant (Buffalo, NY)
