The DOBIS Awards

A year-end celebration of excellence in art, life & the jawn sciences: Part I

This year, a GOAT of the animal kingdom died. We’re not talking about the beautiful L.A. “celebrity mountain lion” known as P-22 — though Erin and I did shed tears when we heard about his death.

No, we are talking about another large feline angel who wandered into the backyard here at Spyplane HQ one day in late 2021 and decided to make it his new home — posting up and, in short order, becoming a friend. We named him Dobis after a Tim & Eric joke, fed him, swung twigs around for him to chase, crafted Photoshops for the sletter with his paw resting on our laptops (below left), caught him climbing trees in moments of catly joie de vivre (below right), and could not help but love this big, dog-like, messy good boy.

In June 2022, due to some unknown illness — he seemed pretty old — Dobis departed his earthly frame, returning his life force to Gaia.

In December 2020 we handed out The Gorp Awards. In December 2021 we handed out The Slappie Awards. This week at Blackbird Spyplane, in a special year-end co-presentation with Concorde, we’re celebrating achievements in art, life and the jawn sciences — and in honor of our friend, we’re naming this celebration The Dobis Awards.

Jonah & Erin

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🧶 Coolest Letter of the Alphabet a Garment’s Silhouette Can Resemble from the Side:

A backwards D — whatta great shape for a garment.

Clockwise from top left:

- Lemaire’s beautiful nylon-canvas bomber jacket in “kobicha brown”
- A new Marni x Uniqlo joint
- A Jil Sander mohair intarsia sweater
- Our Legacy’s waxed-nylon Vintrosec parka in black
- Studio Nicholson’s washed-denim jeans in indigo
- And some fantastic Lauren Manoogian Wide Cord pants in “mole”

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📲 Fun Thing People Did for Like 2 Months in Early 2022 and Now It Feels Like It Was 4 Years Ago But it Would Be Funny to Keep Doing in 2023:

🅿️️epper your 🅿️️rose with mad 🅿️️s in homage to Gunna, Young Thug and Future’s “Pushin’ 🅿️️.”

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🎬 Music Video of the Year:

The truly s t u n n i n g stop-motion-animation clip for “Cash In Cash Out” by 21 Savage, Pharrell & Blackbird Spyfriend Tyler, the Creator. Directed by Francis Rousselet. The Cybertruck will never look this fun again.

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🎬 Dopest Misread of Tár:

Much the same way Goodfellas is a movie about how it’s cool to hang out and have fun with your broskis, Tár is a movie about how it’s cool to be an artistic genius (from Staten Island!!) who lives in an enormous apartment; drives around in a precision-engineered, sound-dampening, aerodynamic cocoon of wealth that takes the physical form of a sick late-model Porsche; knows multiple languages; rocks Lemaire, Dries & a black cashmere coat from The Row with a New York Rangers cap; and is intensely beloved except by a few jealous haters who try to f**k up her money 😜.

When movie characters have this much sauce, it’s the filmmakers telling you that they are unambiguously cool

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🎬 Best Supporting Actors of the Year:

• That black Row coat in Tár

• Payakan the mighty outcast Tulkun in Avatar: The Way of Water

• Lee Pace’s entire blissed-out hot-guy aura in Bodies Bodies Bodies

• The Panavision-logo Scorpion King hoodie Daniel Kaluuya rocks in Nope

• The dead-on blandly “tasteful” cursed Airbnb décor in Spyfriend Zach Cregger’s debut horror banger Barbarian

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🎬 Best 26-Minute Movie About Clothes Made in 1986 That Came Out on Blu-Ray This Year:

Caprice, the fantastic student-thesis film by Spyplane Cinematic Hero Joanna Hogg — the making of which Hogg fictionalized in her excellent autobiographical films The Souvenir I & II.

Caprice comes packaged with the beautiful Souvenir Blu-ray set that A24 dropped in April, and it’s also streaming (above). It captures the deep ambivalence of a young jawns enthusiast named Lucky (young Tilda Swinton!!) who loves ingenious, beautiful clothes with a passion, and yet comes to feel there’s something gross about the elaborate machinery of fashion marketing designed to stoke covetous desire in us. Her journey takes the shape of a magical jawn fantasia in which Lucky floats dreamily into the pages of her favorite fashion magazine rocking Manolo Blahnik and Rifat Uzbek bangers — but then the ads come to life and act like a**holes to her, and other increasingly creepy s**t happens. It’s a delight!!

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🧶 The 18 Lines We F**ked with Most in 2022:

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🎨 Coolest Paintings Andrew Kuo Tweeted About that Only 9 Ppl Faved Despite Being Super Sick:

These ones, by Botond Keresztesi.

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📺 Most Blessed, Kindvibed & Funky Reality Competition Show:

Britain’s The Great Pottery Throw Down, on HBO Max, where a bunch of sweet beautiful weirdos make, cry about, and celebrate pottery. Watching this show is like curling up in a bright, warm blanket your daffy UK aunt knit for you. Speaking of which: Special shout-out to Anna & Lucinda, two Auntwave-energy BEASTS who are hella nice with it, from Season 5.

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🐕 Best Tweet from RXKNephew About What’s It’s Like When You’ve Got the Dog in You:

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💿 Album of the Year, Full of Trippy Postapocalyptic Kindvibes, from a blessed Philly visionary who gets off fits, makes cool merch and puts on a great live show to boot:

God Save the Animals by Alex G.

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💿 Best Recording of an Old Favorite We Listened to All the Time:

This laidback version of Dawn Penn’s “No No No” from the Soul Jazz Studio One Rockers comp:

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💿 Best Big, Beautiful Schlocky Christian-Rock Anthem that I (Jonah) heard at random on the radio in an American-made rental SUV driving between Albuquerque and Santa Fe in December 2021 and went on to play numerous times monthly throughout 2022. I just listened to it 3 more times before writing this paragraph, because it has a hella galvanizing slow build; the biblical lyrics about things like “the bones of Elijah” and “the stone that was rolled at the tomb in the garden” are mad cool; and, in a totally unironic way that you can interpret in strictly secular terms if you want, it’s beautiful to hear massed voices singing about resilience, renewal & fellow-feeling:

Elevation Worship, “Rattle (Morning and Evening)”

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🎧 Cool Podcast Deep-Dive into Highly Relevant Modern Jawn History:

Articles of Interest, Season 3. A sweeping season-long investigation into the genealogy of American “Ivy Style” that doubles as a fascinating history of modern trend-mechanics; the development of postwar “youth” marketing; the roots of the contemporary Japanese tradition of doing American things better than Americans; the rise of sophisticated semiotic status-seeking / -signaling thru jawns; the seductive chimera of “timeless” cool; and the invention of ready-to-wear retail — among other things. Mad Spyfriends told us to check this one out, we did, and it’s great. (Apparently the host, Avery Trufelman, is a Spyfriend herself, which is tight.)

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💿 10 Favorite Songs We Played a Minimum of 5 Times in 2022:

• Alex G, “Blessing”

• Rosalía, “Chicken Teriyaki”

• 100 gecs, “Doritos & Fritos”

• Gunna, Future & Young Thug, “Pushin’ 🅿️️”

• Pusha T, “Brambleton”

• Westside Gunn, “Super Kick Party”

• Caroline Polachek, “Sunset”

• Panda Bear and Sonic Boom, “Go On”

• Lil Yachty “Poland”

• Toro y Moi, “The Loop”

Apple Music playlist here.

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COMING THURSDAY — Part 2 of the DOBIS Awards. See you then ! — J & E

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The Cla$$ified SpyTalk chat room is here, full of very cool people with very cool recommendations.

The Global Intel Travel Chat Room is here, featuring earth-spanning GOAT-locale recommendations.

The Blackbird Spymall, full of rare gems, is here.

Our Profound Essays, Mindsets and “Unbeatably Spicy Takes” are all here.

The Master Jawn Index, featuring earth’s best Spyplane-approved things, is here.