What's Left of 2022
The stuff I've carrying into the year ahead
A new year signals a fresh start — a chance to hit your goals, create new ones, and leave behind all the stuff about the previous year you really don’t care to revisit. But there were a lot of highlights in 2022 that bear revisiting.
For many, it was a year of great finds! A Southern California woman found $36,000 in cash in a chair she scored for free on Craigslist. A baseball card that sat in storage for years sold for $12.6 million. Connecticut car mechanic John Whipple came upon millions of dollars worth of art in a dumpster. An Austin woman thrifted a marble bust at Goodwill for $35, only to discover it was a priceless artifact looted during World War II.
As far as tangible finds, I had a lot of good ones, too (maybe you’ve read my book about my love of good finds?). But I also found great stuff via various forms of media — great podcasts, great documentaries, really great pop culture stories.
Wit that in mind, and because today is a holiday that should be full of eating black eyed peas and greens, streaming tv shows and just generally relaxing, here’s a roundup of the best bits of 2022 I consumed via media and entertainment. May your year be full of reading about other peoples’ scandals, and not actually being involved in any yourselves.
My favorite news & pop culture reads of 2022:
A Virginia woman completely swept the regional bake sale at the Virginia-Kentucky District Fair, taking top honors in 25 of the fair’s 80 different home-cooking contest categories (she even swept entire categories, taking all three top spots among the best cookies). When fair organizers attempted to track her down, the story went viral — inspiring really incredible TikTok songs and a litany of pleas for Linda Skeens to come cook for the rest of us.
I love a celebrity scandal. Here’s everything you need to know about the Try Guys scandal. And here’s what to know about FTX, a scandal that will seep into 2023 as we continue to learn more.
As always, The Cut got to the heart of the matter in the Adam Levine saga: why are even hot celebrity men so criminally poor at sexting?
The weird story of how the entire Basquiat exhibit at the Orlando Museum of Art was comprised of a bunch of fakes.
Two workers at the Pennsylvania M&M factory fulfilled my life-long dream of falling into a vat of chocolate while on the job.
This story might (will) terrify you, but I found it suuuuuper fascinating. People in four states, with no seeming connection to one another, came down with the same very rare, very dangerous illness. It turns out, they all got sick (some, fatally so) from a lavender-scented room spray purchased at Wal-Mart. This has all the makings of a Law & Order episode but I would definitely watch a multi-episode docuseries.
A family in Montana talked about what it’s like having a nuclear missile (one that’s ready to launch from any second) just sitting on their ranch. (I would personally just…never sleep and die of stress.)
Corn kid is doing just great, thanks for asking.
From the archives:
The best things I watched or listened to in 2022:
ABC News’/Hulu’s The Murders Before the Marathons looks into a 2011 triple homicide — and how preventing it could have prevented the Boston Marathon bombings. This was a great, very informative watch.
Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey tells the story of the rise of Warren Jeffs in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and how he exploited thousands of people (notably, women and children) to do his bidding. And also how he was living it up in Vegas and riding Harley-Davidsons, while the folks back home were living Little House on the Prairie-style because he told them if they didn’t they would face eternal damnation. (Turns out, he was not a great guy!) It is horrifying, fascinating, and a really educational watch.
I love a good boom-then-bust story, and Netflix’s doc, White Hot, which details the rise and fall of late ‘90s/early aughts darling Abercrombie & Fitch, was such a good one. It goes deep into the aesthetic that reigned supreme at Abercrombie, and the company’s problematic hiring and employment practices.
You’re Wrong About is simply the best podcast. Each episode offers a deep dive into some pop culture moment you likely remember, but probably don’t remember accurately. I loved the episodes on online shopping, Flight 571, Martha Stewart and Tom Cruise on Oprah’s couch.
The Dropout delves into once of the most-covered scandals in recent memory: that of Theranos, the blood-testing startup that grew to a $10 billion valuation in under a decade, and then all fell apart (because, well, spoiler alert: they weren't exactly doing what they said they were). I listened to the ABC News podcast, watched the HBO documentary, and read the Wall Street Journal reports that ultimately led to Theranos’ doing. So I didn’t necessarily think I needed anymore Theranos content. I was wrong. The Hulu show hits all the notes for me: the acting is terrific (Amanda Seyfried really embodies the awkward-but-still-somewhat-conniving Elizabeth Holmes), the settings, soundtrack and costuming brings you back to the early aughts, and the storyline manages to illustrate the seriousness of the scandal. Highly, highly recommend.
Apple TV’s serial killer drama Shining Girls has everything: great cast, killer acting, and is very. Very. Creepy. I’ve had dreams about it. And not good ones. But it’s worth the watch! The first episode was a little confusing (I didn’t read the book so I didn’t totally know what to expect) but once you understand what’s happening, you’ll find this is a show that gets under your skin.
Pachinko, based on the book of the same name, is beautifully done, incredibly cast and so so riveting. The intro is the best of any show I’ve ever seen and I love the care they take with showcasing Korean dishes. I can’t even imagine what went into filming this show (some of the roles even required learning Japanese, as many of the characters are multilingual). Also: read the book! It is WONDERFUL.
And I’ll leave you with this….