The One Where She Decides a Newsletter is a Good Idea

I’ll try to keep this one short but I make no promises. 

Thanks for subscribing! I can’t imagine why you would, unless, of course, you want sick movie and album recs, or links to poems and essays I like, or weird/technically average photos and slightly sub-average but occasionally interesting nonfiction pieces by yours truly. 

Or perhaps you subscribed because you’re the kind of person who stands on the sidewalk and watches as flames turn your local tattoo shop to ash, because in this hypothetical but very possible scenario, you’re certainly not dumb; you see the ten-story-tall cranes and firefighters in yellow suits sprinting to halt the rapid transmutation of matter before those burning atoms get out of hand, and despite sending your best thoughts into the ether, you know there’s nothing you can do. That building’s gonna burn, and as the cranes pummel the building with water, and onlookers say, “Oh, how awful,” you’re perhaps the person who thinks, “It was good while it lasted, but it was always supposed to go down this way.”

So I’m the tattoo shop and the flames are late-stage capitalism, coked-up consumerism, my inherited neuroses, and the nauseating landscape of today’s internet, hence the title of this newsletter: Content Nausea. By subscribing to this newsletter, you’ve signed up for the consumption of even more content—but hopefully through curation and a certain might-as-well-keep-playing-our-instruments-as-the-ship-sinks attitude, this newsletter might bring you a bi-weekly dose of inspiration and expansion in other areas of your person, be it your brain, heart, or that ineffable sinking feeling in your gut.

As with all aspects of my life, the following image sums up the best I can wish for in this pursuit:

Cheers to 2025! For Newsletter #0, I’d like to share the following pieces of media:

• This knife-in-the-heart cover of Drivin’ on 9 by Ed’s Redeeming Qualities. Really gets me, ngl.

• I went to the store for the basics on Saturday morning (before the winter storm hit): cat litter, coffee, blueberries, and probably something else I don’t remember. And then I returned home, watched as sleet layered the ground outside for hours, and thought to myself, I will not be leaving my warm cocoon until all that outside takes care of itself. Anyway, I found this video of drivers in Kansas City sliding all over the interstate. Inserting Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1 at the 1:28 minute mark and referring to that segment as “slide ballet” was just an incredible artistic move on behalf of Jonathan Petramala. Kudos.

• ENO, a documentary that’s nearly impossible to track down and is considered the first nonfiction feature film to screen in a different randomly-generated version each showing, is coming to Kansas City on January 8th (soon!) at 7 PM at Screenland Armour. Unfortunately, I have somewhere to be at exactly that time, and because I’m sad that I can’t watch the film, I ask that at least one of you reading this watch it and report back. 

• Do you have any resolutions around reading? Any specific books on your list? Tell me! Google News gently nudged me toward the article The solution for brain rot is on your bookshelf, which is an almost interesting read. The author turns briefly to the subject of pornography and refers to OnlyFans creators as prostitutes. And I know that the article’s author knows that “sex worker” is the preferred label, as defined by decent people everywhere. And to be clear, it’s not that one label lacks the same shiny veneer as the other, but that the connotation of the word “prostitute” is demeaning and he knows it.

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  We all know what people do on OnlyFans, and so to use the word “prostitute” sort of feels like what the author is actually saying is, I hate that women have bodily autonomy, or perhaps just: I hate women. But the author is a Mormon from Idaho, so sentences like “you feel pity for this brain-rotted man who, like many today… perceives prostitutes as princesses (the social acceptance of pornography and OnlyFans filth)” are remarks to be expected from a man who also wrote an article titled The ‘God-sized hole’ in the American university. Like what’s the intent, angry little man? Calling it filth isn’t going to hurt the income of these princesses, and if porn is so filthy (and sure, I would argue most of it’s pretty yuck at worst and goofy at best), a serious writer should at least explain why.

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  Not-so-subtle misogyny aside, I think Mr. Scott Raines has one solid point: we should read more and scroll less—novel advice, I know. If you’re not interested in reading the article (I don’t blame you), I’ll share some very brief facts:

  • Turns out it was Henry David Thoreau who coined the term “brain-rot” in his 1854 book, “Walden” (which I’ve been meaning to read). I also hope to have a Walden year very soon, lest my overstimulated brain finally crack and guide me to the nearest river with mal-intent.

  • Pope Francis is also concerned about the brain rot endemic. He suggests we read the “classics,” i.e. the stuff written by very, very, very, very dead white men. We gotta start with baby steps, Francis. I’m always trying to tell people this. A certain degree of quality contemporary literature first, and then, if the reader feels so inclined, they can read the stuff of Very Dead white men. No one ever thinks to themself, “Wow, I hardly ever read but I want to change that in [insert year], so I think I’ll start by reading a little bit of Titus Andronicus every day before I drop the twins off at preschool.”

  • Aside from OnlyFans filth, the article discusses Don Quixote a good deal, and apparently Fyodor Dostoevsky once wrote that Don Quixote was “the saddest book ever written” because “it is a story of disillusionment.” I have nothing to add here besides the fact that disillusionment feels a bit like the zeitgeist’s sidekick and that I’m sensing a metaphor where one probably doesn’t exist.

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  And this part has almost nothing to do with the previously mentioned article: On November 16, 1849, a Russian court sentenced Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for his allegedly anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group, but the sentence was commuted at the final moment. Some of you might know this, but I did not know that prior to his forced labor years, the man quite literally had a bag over his head and rifles pointed at him when an official perched on a horse trotted up to the front of the execution line and changed the course of history by announcing a change in punishment. Of course, Dostoevsky then spent four years in a Siberian prison camp, followed by six years of compulsory military service in exile, and I can’t help but feel sorry for the poor souls who were gunned down before the official’s arrival. Perhaps Fate knew those prisoners wouldn’t be writing any bangers in the coming decades so it didn’t feel the need to intervene.

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  The inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States takes place on—and you really can’t make this stuff up—Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Perhaps MLK will rise from his grave and *someone will finally succeed in taking the man down. Only time will tell.

  • ^{*I am not advocating for violence, except in certain instances concerning certain people. To future readers: at the time of writing this, freedom of speech is still, for the most part, a fundamental right of United States citizens (unless you’re that mom from Florida who said “Deny, Defend, Depose” to her insurance provider).}

    • ^{I think we should refer to 2024 as the Year of Martyrs. Rest in peace Luigi Mangione, Aaron Bushnell, the unnamed woman who set herself on fire, the career officials who resigned from their government positions because they don’t support murdering and maiming children in the tens of thousands, the other man who set himself ablaze (whose name I forgot), the NYC man killed by police for evading the $2.90 subway fare, and everyone else who engaged in some form of self-immolation. Your sacrifices will not be forgotten.}

If I had a 2025 vision board, it would likely be this:

Til next time :)

—Hayley