October Worthwhile Stuff

📚 Books
Our Missing Hearts, Celeste Ng: This is a gorgeous, touching book that imagines a dystopia not far removed from our own world. It’s about libraries and folktales and parent-child bonds and courage and so much more. This book feels extremely relevant to our present moment in America, and yet also feels like a timeless, inherently human story. A must read.


🎶 Music
5SOS5, 5 Seconds of Summer: It has been a pleasure to listen to this brand grow and mature. 5SOS5 is their most sophisticated album yet, both lyrically and musically. Some of my favorite tracks are "Easy for You to Say", "You Don't Go to Parties", "Bad Omens", "Me Myself & I", "CAROUSEL", and "HAZE". All the songs on this album are so thoughtfully crafted and richly evocative & emotive.

Being Funny in a Foreign Language, The 1975: I am completely in love with this entire album, and I owe a debt of gratitude to Instagram ads for "Happiness" to putting it on my radar. The lyrics are clever and sophisticated, which won my heart right off the bat. Sonically, this album is like a sequel to John Mayer's Sob Rock and is clearly influenced and inspired by so many of my favorites from over the years: LCD Soundsystem, Broken Social Scene, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Christopher Cross, general Yacht Rock vibes... but combining these sounds in new ways, resulting in music that is familiar and comforting and exciting and new all at once. Standout tracks include "Happiness", "I'm In Love With You", "Oh Caroline", "Wintering" (the opening is like Sting crossed with Paul Simon), "Part of the Band" (which includes the amazing lyric "I like my men like I like my coffee / Full of soy milk and so sweet it won't offend anybody"), "When We Are Together" ("Central Park is Sea World for trees"), and "About You" (which would be right at home on the Drive soundtrack). However, this album is my very favorite kind: one that is a pleasure to listen to from beginning to end with no dud songs. Strong contender for best album of 2022.

CHARLIE, Charlie Puth: It took me a while to warm up to this album, but seeing Charlie Puth in concert revealed its genius to me. Aside from "Left and Right", my fave song is "Smells Like Me" This song has been stuck in my head ever since Charlie's concert. I love the lyrics and the phrasing. The synths are beautiful and the chorus is damn catchy. I also love "There's a First Time for Everything" and "That's Hilarious". While this album isn't quite as strong as Voice Notes, it still has many well-crafted, earworm-y songs.

🎤 🎭 Performance
Orfeh & Andy Karl: Legally Bound: Orfeh & Andy are always a delight, but this was by far their best concert yet. It was at Sony Hall, and the larger stage meant they could have a larger band and just "go big" all around. They added lots of new songs to their repertoire, including Bruno Mars's "Treasure" and TLC's "No Scrubs." However, the highlight of the evening for me was the Andy-led cover of Rick Astley's "Together Forever" as part of their encore - it was a truly wonderful and unforgettable moment that made me giddy.

Charlie Puth: Despite a tall man standing in front of me and a generally obnoxious audience, I really enjoyed this show. It has taken me a while to come around to liking Charlie Puth, but I admire his audio geekery, and he is damn good at crafting songs. He seemed to be having fun performing, and thus was fun to watch and to listen to. Plus, he just has so many bops.

Leopoldstadt: While this play doesn't quite fit with what I have come to expect from Tom Stoppard in terms of lofty discourse, it does offer a tender, moving look at a Jewish family in Vienna from 1899 to 1955, and all the joys and terrors held within those years. David Krumholtz and Brandon Uranowitz both give masterful performances as two patriarchs within this sprawling family, and they are supported by a large and talented cast. Faye Castelow is another standout as the wife of Krumholtz's character. Even though the outcome of the play's story is no surprise, I still found myself moved to tears by the final act.

Richard Marx: This show was postponed several times, but seeing Richard Marx live was well worth the wait! He is a cool dude, a gifted songwriter, and an entertaining performer. This was a solo acoustic show, and he played all his hits, took requests, and developed a great rapport with his audience. Like Charlie Puth, he is someone who clearly loves performing and showing off a bit, but is down-to-earth about it all.


🎬 Film
Decision to Leave: This film is a well-crafted, engaging, and complex mystery,  and also a captivating romance. There is so much to take in that it can be a challenge to appreciate the excellent performances, luxuriate in the gorgeous cinematography, keep up with the mystery, and read the subtitles all at once, but it's an exercise worth trying. Ultimately, I would like to see this film a second time now that I know and understand the story, so I can pay less attention to the subtitles and appreciate all the other wonderful things on the screen.