No. 154: BROWN, BLUE, BUTKUS, BROOKS, BOBBY et al: The 2023 In Memoriam in progress. So far I've got a little farther than the B's.

They're gone and I'll do my little part to appreciate them. And the time the Nature Boy survived my obit.

WITH Black Friday upon us, well, for me, that means the countdown to end-of-the-year lists begins. My whole month of December rises and falls with the appearances of lists—the New York Times’ Best Books lists is like Opening Day for me. From back in my high school days I tried to see all the movies, read all the books and own all the albums on Time’s year-end 10 Best lists. It’s a way to play catch up on stuff you missed the first time round. These are also close to matters of merit than say the Oscars or Emmys or Bookers or whatever. Historically, a lot of prizes age poorly than the lists of their years.

(On this matter, the best thing I read all week is this Vulture interview, linked here, with Philip Kaufman, the creative force behind one of my ten favourite films of all time, The Right Stuff: ‘It’s Probably the Longest Movie Ever Made Without a Plot’ If someone can explain to me how The Right Stuff didn’t win Best Picture and a rack of Oscars lemme know.)