Year End Corsair Awards, Part the Third
Slow kisses to 2023, as it recedes into the rear-view mirror.
Military Technology of the Year: Drones. AI, no doubt, will be with us for the foreseeable future (ask any venture capitalist). And in fact, the Pentagon’s Replicator initiative might see the roads of AI and drones converge. But drones themselves, right now, are changing the schematics of the battlefield — in Ethiopia, in the Ukraine, the Red Sea and the Middle East. Even the United States recognizes the necessity of having a strong drone warfare game. The Air Force’s FY24 request involves heavy increase in investment in autonomous aircraft. And, despite Pope Francis’s pleas in his Urbi et Orbi, megadeaths.
The world is not fair: Henry Kissinger. And on the theme of megadeaths at year’s end— Kissinger. He died this year, outliving almost all of his political enemies. Fareed Zakaria whitewashed his legacy. At his 100th birthday party at the New York Public Library, attendees included: David Petraeus, Larry Summers, Jane Harman, former New York schools chancellor Joel Klein and Diane von Furstenberg. Granted, these are all amoral status-chasers, but why would they publicly celebrate someone responsible for so much human suffering? Because the world is not fair. The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser this month called Kissinger “the paradigmatic Washington figure.” And, despite the mega deaths in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos and Chile, Glasser said the American national-security establishment had a “collective addiction” to his “big brain.” The world, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is not fair.
Quixotic: Cornel West. What is Cornel’s motivation? “Black voter turnout in the 2022 midterms was down nearly 10 percent, according to the Census Bureau’s turnout survey, and now Cornell West wants to run a third party campaign against Biden,” I wrote in June, flummoxed. He’s been railing against the Democrats since Obama, who, one would think would be his natural ally. It all seemed, despite his objections, to be something quite personal. Is he angry that Obama didn’t appoint him Ambassador to Ethiopia? Quixotic! His third party run in ‘24 will almost certainly hurt Joe Biden’s candidacy more than it will hurt that of the presumptive Republican nominee. So — why? Cui bono?
Back: Superyachts. Superyachts, as a mode of conspicuous consumption, are the new international crime platforms. Inequality and crass taste will always be in vogue to the overclass. Sales are up, according to something called YachtHarbor.com. Despite the President’s best efforts to villainize the state of being, Superyachtiness persist. “But as the summer of 2023 rolls on, it appears that the good will effort by mainstream media organizations to villainize SuperYachts has, quite frankly, altogether evaporated in the swirl of the infinity pool,” is how I described it. For a while it was seriously uncool to be a part of Superyachting, but the wealthy have never lost their loyalty to those “floating theaters of inequality.” Basta!
Best TV Show: The Gilded Age. The narrative tensions, slowly building up to Opera night, were exquisitely played. This season Peggy Scott in HBO’s The Gilded Age, went down South, despite her mother’s protestations, to report on the progress of Tuskeegee. And in so doing the show added a level of social consciousness that heretofore eluded The Gilded Age — a Julian Fellows creation. And so, the more than just the rise and the fall of families and fortunes in a small portion of white New York, the story expanded and deepened. The ending (spoiler alert) was a pleasant surprise, a rarity among high caliber tv shows, which often revel in meting out cruelties to their fans. And, finally, Cynthia Nixon is a marvel. Honorable mention: Marie Antoinette, Beef.
Most Dramatic Thaw: Sino-American Relations. Make no mistake about it, the world’s most successful joint venture is broken. China is America’s greatest geopolitical competitor. But the tensions between the two are now dramatically less dangerous than they were at the beginning of 2023, when the Chinese spy balloon hot air fiasco threatened to unravel the world. I wrote in March, at the tail-end of the debacle: “The United States spies on China; China spies on America … That is how great powers behave, and even with diplomatic agreements between two great powers against spying, there will still be spying.” At years end, Biden and Xi talked it out. Protocols are back in place between the militaries of both respective countries. The chances of a world war — at least between China and America — are far less now than they were in March.
Underreported Story of the Year: Artist Yayoi Kusama’s Racism. The writer Karen K. Ho did not get nearly enough attention for this story from the contemporary art world, which considers itself congenitally woke (but really isn’t). Yayoi Kusama’s bigotry is truly next level. “… Kusama’s 1984 short story The Hustler’s Grotto of Christopher Street also featured ‘grotesque and voyeuristic depictions’ about the smell and genitals of its Black characters, a treatment not applied to the narrative’s white counterparts,” Karen K. Ho writes. “In the 1971 play ‘Tokyo Lee,’ which was excerpted in the career survey Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now, the Japanese artist also describes its lone Black character as a ‘WILD-looking, hairy, coal-black savage.’” WTF?! In her apology, Kusama writes: “I deeply regret using hurtful and offensive language in my book.” I call bullshit. She merely regrets getting caught.
Celebrity Pro-Am Ironman Nightlife Decathlon Winner: Eric Adams. Some people run for Mayor to run for President; some people run for Mayor of New York to launder their ruined reputations. But Eric Adams was in it for the party, and by party I do not mean “Democrat.” I mean the after-afterparty (with wardrobe changes) at Marquee. Check out this wild ride with Eric Adams on HellGateNYC involving a six thousand dollar tab at Zero Bond with Knicks stars and lots of fake laughter (“you’re my BEST friends”). Anthony Haden-Guest, eat your heart out. Honorable Mention: Anthony Haden-Guest (because, he’s still rocking).