To close out the year, GQ is revisiting the most fascinating ideas, trends, people, and projects of 2023. For all of our year-end coverage, click here.
1. Time Change Generator/Alex Lockwood/Brett Douglas Hunter
Time Change Generator is a brand based out of Cleveland, Ohio. This artist, Dan Bortz, started out making these customized Levi's, where he'd paint on the pants. My friend Alex Lockwood, who runs Elephant Gallery in Nashville—which has a surprisingly vibrant art scene, most of my friends in Nashville are food people or art people—is an amazing artist. Look at his stuff on Instagram. He'll take 10,000 old lottery tickets and hire all of our friends in East Nashville to fold them meticulously, and then he'll sculpt 'em into something beautiful. And he curates this gallery, and he told me about Dan Forts and Time Change Generator. Dan makes these incredible pants that are custom, and then he does these collabos, and we're actually gonna do a merch collabo next year. I highly recommend the Time Change Generator pants. And if you're in Nashville, go check out the Elephant Gallery, and-- I know this is three in one-- look for my friend Brett Douglas Hunter. He's an artist in Nashville who makes these big creature sculptures. He's incredible. And he does the creature garden at Bonnaroo every year, which is, I think, the best part of Bonnaroo. I would love to play in the creature garden rather than the main stage or the second main stage.
2. Hayden Pedigo
He put out a record called The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored, and he lives in Amarillo, Texas, and we became friends on Instagram. This is a beautiful instrumental guitar record that came out on Mexican summer earlier this year. It's my favorite record of the year, and I took him on his first-ever tour, opening for me and Cass McCombs. Hayden is this amazing guitar player who also ran for city council in Amarillo and is becoming this unlikely fashion model. He was in a Gucci show; these fashion people are just loving Hayden's vibe. He and his wife L'Hannah, they collaborate on all of his looks, and they put together these outrageous outfits and photograph him in Texas. He's so charismatic and such a sweetheart. I call him my son. He is my son. I love my son. He's opening for Devendra Banhart in the wintertime, and that'll be great.
3. The Holdovers, directed by Alexander Payne
Best movie of the year. And I've seen everything else, including Killers of the Flower Moon-- which I loved, but this somehow felt more in line with my mood. I read an interview with Alexander Payne where somebody said, "People are calling the movie 'cozy,'" and he's like, "Cozy? I don't know why you're calling my movie 'cozy'-- I don't know what you're talking about." I kind of got upset on his behalf, although I guess anything set during the holidays could be construed as cozy. But it's so much more than cozy. It's such a great film about characters. And one of my favorite scenarios in film, where an unlikely group of people are forced to hang out with each other, and then you learn all about the characters, like in a mystery or a haunted-house movie. Great music. Great film.
4. Ryobi Leaf Blower
When you go and you get your first set of power tools, you have to make a decisions. Are you a Milwaukee person? Are you Dewalt? I am a Ryobi fan, mostly because of the color scheme. They're lime green and black. I've had a Ryobi kit since the pandemic, where I got a power saw and a drill and two batteries-- which, that's the most important thing to have, more than one battery. And then I went over to Lowe's, and saw that there's a leaf blower attachment. So you just plug your battery in and then you can blow all the leaves around, and not wait for someone to come help you rake the leaves. You get a good blast, but you don't have a lot of time on the battery. You only have a couple minutes. That's why you need the backup battery, because you only get about three to five minutes per sesh. But it doesn't really take that long to blow stuff around.
5. Wild Things: Siegfried and Roy, AppleTV+ podcast
A beautiful and very tragic story set in Las Vegas, which is my hometown. I didn't know this existed until my friend Pearl Charles told me about it last week. We were out in the desert in Pioneertown, so I listened on the way back to L.A. There's more to the story, and their relationship is really special, and there's a lot of stuff going on. The beginning of their act-- no spoiler alert, but it's pretty cool how they came together, in Germany after World War II. They grew up in post-Nazi Germany. The [tiger-mauling] is unfortunate-- it's deeply disturbing. I do believe Roy did love those cats. You learn that it was not a total anomaly, but after 40 years, it was a pretty wild thing to have happen. But they're wild animals, and you can't let your guard down.
6. Chez Panisse, Berkeley, California
I had a beautiful meal there while playing with the Postal Service-- we got to do three nights at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, and we lived at the hotel there that's kind of like the Overlook. And I walked down to Chez Panisse. Alice Waters is still my favorite. I'd been two other times, but this was my favorite. It was lunch on the little patio area, and it was just a fresh, lovely meal. And the dessert was an Eton mess, which is what they served at Eton College, outside of London-- it's meringue and fresh berries. My favorite dessert. And it's gluten-free, and easy to make.
Jenny Lewis will be back on tour in February, supporting her 2023 album Joy'All.
