Spend time with our writers’ picks this weekend.
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This was the 12 months of the sold-out stadium tour, double-feature mania, celeb memoirs (and documentaries), and superhero fatigue. It was additionally the 12 months of the Hollywood strike, controversy over guide bans, and the rise of AI music. The Atlantic’s Tradition crew appeared again on 2023 and compiled lists of the 12 months’s greatest films, TV exhibits, albums, books, and podcasts. Spend a while with their picks this weekend.
First, listed here are three new tales from The Atlantic:
Better of 2023
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By David Sims
“I opted for a mixture of outdated and new, small and big … from a modest YouTube documentary to a near-billion-dollar-grossing dramatic extravaganza. The enterprise continues to be figuring itself out, maybe, however the medium is as vibrant as ever.”
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The 15 Finest TV Reveals of 2023
By Megan Garber, Sophie Gilbert, Hannah Giorgis, and Shirley Li
“The twin actors’ and writers’ strikes in Hollywood shut down productions whereas exposing the issues diminishing the standard of the exhibits being made. Nonetheless, the checklist under exemplifies the small display’s artistic breadth this 12 months.”
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By Spencer Kornhaber
“The music business has been beset by considerations about market saturation, brought on by an ever-rising flood of recent songs onto streaming providers … However wanting again over a 12 months of nice albums affords a reminder that extra actually could be extra: extra melodies, extra breakthroughs, extra artwork.”
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By The Atlantic Tradition Desk
“We had been drawn to bold initiatives, and appeared for writing that was clear and exquisite. Most vital, we looked for books that you just received’t be capable to put down.”
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The 25 Finest Podcasts of 2023
By Laura Jane Standley
“These exhibits premiered contemporary frameworks, experimented with sound design, and elevated underrepresented voices and tales … We provide them as a compass for unpredictable instances, a pick-me-up for winter blues, and, we hope, a touch of readability in instances to come back.”
Dispatches
- The Weekly Planet: A very powerful expertise of 2023 wasn’t AI, Saahil Desai writes.
- The Books Briefing: Authors have discovered themselves blindsided by the conclusion that their very own books have been used to coach AI, Gal Beckerman wrote in a September version we’re revisiting right this moment.
- Atlantic Intelligence: What is going to subsequent 12 months maintain for AI? Damon Beres explores our writers’ evaluation of the expertise’s trajectory from right here.
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Night Learn
Max Mikulecky The Nocturnals
By Religion Hill
Whereas most individuals are quick asleep, there’s an entire world of people who find themselves unsleeping. They go to work, drive round, run errands at 24-hour shops. On this parallel universe, there are hardly ever crowds, nor visitors, nor traces; no awkward shuffling round different customers within the grocery aisle, no run-ins with neighbors or cacophony of e-mail notifications. Because the solar rises, these nocturnal individuals settle all the way down to sleep.
They don’t all need to reside this fashion. A few of them should; they’ve sleep problems, or night-shift jobs. However a few of them need this very a lot—sufficient to hunt out these evening shifts, to coach themselves to wake at nighttime. They do that as a result of of the isolation, not despite it. I talked to individuals who painted me a magical image of their nighttime world: of beautiful, profound solitude; of reduction; of escape.
Tradition Break
Jonathan Wenk / Columbia Photos / Everett Assortment Learn. “Valentine,” a brand new poem by Rachel Coye:
“The deer within the snow turned away / from my flashlight and kettle / to let me struggle with the ice alone. / I used to be pondering of you then, / of your sleeping head, / of your maskless mouth.”
Watch. You’ll need to revisit these 25 feel-good films, compiled by our critic in 2020, repeatedly.
Play our day by day crossword.
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