Your Unemployed Friend on a Tuesday
There are so many hours in a day, and minutes in a year. Remarkable really, being able to choose my own adventures so freely. Among the various ways I filled my time I took a personality quiz to discover which Skins character I am. An old pal once told me I was a Freddie McClair. Can’t say I’m surprised that my most recent result was Tony Stonem. Either way I may be destined to meet ill fate. But let’s hope not.
I can happily report that I spent a great deal of time during the pandemic sourcing a replica duvet cover as seen in Tony’s bedroom in Series 1 & 2. The duvet cover I eventually found on Etsy is currently living in my mom’s basement and I’d like to keep it there like a time capsule, and revisit it amongst my comic books and zines one day.
Penned a tracklist that would be killer on a CD mixtape:
I watched this trailer:
I’ll use every opportunity I get to say: I’ll never forget you crazy sluts at NYU that said you would bend over and let Timothée Chalamet give you chlamydia. Hilarious, yes- but uncalled for. With a finger directly on the pulse of chronically online 20 somethings I absolutely lost it when scrolling and watching a Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest in Washington Square Park last week.
Had the opportunity to explore the Coolest New Art Gallery in FiDi : Institute of Contemporary Art / San Francisco
(Bale Variant No 0014, 2008 - Shinique Smith)
Was thrilled to see a Fairuz album cover on this piece entitled Swan. I first heard Beiny We Beinak some time last year and I don’t think I’ve ever added a song to a playlist faster.
The downstairs portion of the gallery reminds me very much of a brutalist approach to an open air Shakespeare theater.
An ah-ha moment in the gallery: As of late I’ve started to feel like I’m gnawing at the bars of my enclosure. Seeing this I immediately was like,“Wow it’s a bird cage, and look at how strange and beautiful it is!” It was not only reassuring but a great way to reframe my experience.
(Screwdriver, 2023 - Kathleen Ryan)
(Bad Lemon, 2023 - Kathleen Ryan)
(The Martyrs of the Race Course, 2023 - Nari Ward)
I also revisited Prada’s 2007 commercial featuring Daria Werbowy. Daria’s recitation has been a dull echo in the back of my mind since I first heard it over a decade ago.
The words are cited directly from a text titled The Thunder, Perfect Mind, which is among a collection of ancient Coptic texts discovered in Egypt in 1945, and compiled into The Nag Hammadi Library. After investigation into its history through various scholarly texts and anecdotal interpretations it’s safe to conclude that this poem despite its paradoxical nature has an undeniably authoritative and feminine voice. Some have even asserted the author to be as old as Eve herself. Through the unraveling of the text my takeaway is that it must be interpreted not only for the title of the text, but as a name for the speaker, her thundering utterances, and her place of dwelling within those who hear her voice and know her mystery with salvific gnosis and hearing of perfect mind.
Most notably I’m anxiously awaiting the release of Joshua Slone’s debut album. I haven’t been this excited about an emerging artist since I found Phoebe Bridgers on Soundcloud via her contribution to Sloppy Jane. In the early days when you could still purchase Phoebe’s Killer seven inch for less than $30 bucks- these days it will run you a cool $230. I think my generation is ready for a stripped down acoustic musician à la Neil Young, and listening to Joshua Slone feels a lot like that. We’ve already been presented with a modern day Keith Whitley via Zach Top, now I’m waiting on the real deal folk resurgence. In the meantime SNL is funny again, and it’s a great time to be alive.
When Haley Dahl screeched……
“Do you wanna get married? Do you wanna play secretary? Do you wanna have my babies?”
….I really felt that.