{"id":5554,"date":"2023-12-31T19:49:58","date_gmt":"2024-01-01T01:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/?p=5554"},"modified":"2023-12-31T19:51:38","modified_gmt":"2024-01-01T01:51:38","slug":"2023-resonator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/?p=5554","title":{"rendered":"2023 Resonator"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What a weird year. I spent most of the year unemployed, working my ass off night and day on an independent short (Jesus 2), trying to develop Hungy Ghost into a series, writing a feature film (Smuggle Brothers), making my first vinyl toy, and trying to find random ways to make money, all while my personal life was coming apart. It was both a year of finally pursuing the fantasy of going back to making things for myself while also paying the price in terms of how that level of grind impacted my life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile I felt the most pessimistic I\u2019ve ever felt about the Future, Art and my industry of creative entertainment. I believe we\u2019ve hit the bottom or close to the bottom of our cultural inverse-potential in terms of political\/industrial incompetence and corruption, social behavior, and creativity. The good news is, they say once you hit the bottom the only way to go is up. So here\u2019s to Hope. There was a point in time where I didn\u2019t think Hope was useful. But in times like this I believe Hope might be our most powerful ally.      Meanwhile 2023 did have some beacons of light. So let\u2019s throw some praise around. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>BEST ALBUM <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>JPEG MAFIA and DANNY BROWN: Scaring the Hoes<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Danny Brown &amp; JPEGMAFIA - Scaring the Hoes (Full Album)\/ New Album 2023\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/videoseries?list=PLyJihFoIZ6EgoxN0E27LJr-GtuJDt6NQH\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>There was a moment on Danny Brown\u2019s podcast where he jokingly threw the gauntlet on the ground saying something like, if you\u2019re not trying to make music in the same league as  Ghostface\u2019s Supreme Clientele then what the hell are you doing calling yourself a musician? I can\u2019t remember what he said exactly. But it was something like that. Like if you are not trying to make the best album of all time, then you are essentially a bitch. I wish I could find the clip but I can\u2019t. Anyway I think he was talking about Supreme Clientele. So with Jpeg Mafia helming production, the two of them have crafted an all-time classic of banger after banger. Just an absolutely chaotic treasure trove of surprising and headbanging tracks that make the most of what we\u2019ve innovated in the music conversation for the past 10 years. From the first track I breathed a sigh of relief that I could live another year knowing someone was releasing decent music. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>BEST MOVIE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>THE BOY AND THE HERON<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I wrote a review for this on my Patreon. Go check it out. Nothing else came close. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>BEST VIDEO GAME<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was the year I fell behind on games. I still have a Playstation 4 so there were some hyped titles I couldn\u2019t play. I did borrow a friend\u2019s Switch in order the play Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I put about 30 hours into it before stopping. Tears of the Kingdom was hugely disappointing for me. I don\u2019t wanna spend too much time on this so the short reason is: It uses the same map as Breath of the Wild except all the reasons to explore that map are now gone. It creates a sparse sky world and an expansive underworld that all looks the same. The strength of Breath of the Wild was the player curiosity evoked through expertly crafted level design. This was completely missing from Tears of the Kingdom. And the story felt exactly the same even though it was technically \u201cdifferent\u201d. There was no reason to finish it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By default the best new game I played this year was Cocoon. Cocoon was a fun puzzle game with genuinely original mechanics, good art direction\/atmosphere and a pretty cool, ambiguous story. It didn\u2019t blow my pants off but it was the best time I had playing a new game this year.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Cocoon - Launch Trailer | PS5 &amp; PS4 Games\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XHfzY-nIQxw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>BEST BOOK I READ THIS YEAR<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I did not finish any books this year. I tried reading Yukio Mishima\u2019s \u201cSun and Steel\u201d. I thought it might inspire me since he was a writer\/poet who was obsessed with his physicality and Bushido. Instead it felt more like the aimless ramblings of a narcissist. Each page was pretty excruciating for me to get through. I gave up about 40 pages in and it\u2019s a very short book. I am currently reading another short book called \u201cThe Will to Keep Winning\u201d by Daigo Umehara. It\u2019s the memoir of a professional esports champion. It was something that was recommended by one of my favorite current Jiu Jitsu athletes Jozef Chen. I was intrigued by the recommendation because he was speaking on competition mindset and how he trained his mind to stay calm at the highest level of competition. This is something I\u2019ve wanted to learn how to manage in my own life when I\u2019ve felt myself giving up under extreme pressure, especially when I\u2019ve convinced myself to compete in Jiu Jitsu competitions. The desire to keeping going even after you\u2019ve proven yourself once is something I feel like I\u2019ve lost since I was a kid. Even more so in my post-lockdown experience. Some vital part of me disappeared during that time and I\u2019m trying to figure out how to get it back. If anyone has some suggestions for how I can reclaim my inner tiger spirit please let me know. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I didn\u2019t finish any books this year. I did however read four volumes of Berserk by Kentaro Miura and that is some good shit!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>THAT\u2019S IT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s pretty much it. I didn\u2019t get much enrichment from the outside world this year. Just from my friends and in some interactions with people online. I mostly decided to retreat into my studio and crank out stuff rather than consume stuff. I heard 2024 will be the end of Nostalgia and I am very hopeful for that. If I begin to sense that, then I will be more prone to leaving my house. Otherwise I will continue doing my part of trying to generate new ideas and pumping them out into the internet. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What a weird year. I spent most of the year unemployed, working my ass off night and day on an independent short (Jesus 2), trying to develop Hungy Ghost into a series, writing a feature film (Smuggle Brothers), making my first vinyl toy, and trying to find random ways to make money, all while my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5554"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5555,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5554\/revisions\/5555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}