Content Nausea No. 110: Evil's Sway
So come and find me in this moment / And expose a passionate man for what he is
Welcome to the 110th edition of Content Nausea. You can read No. 109 right here. Please let me know what you think. Thank you for being here. Here is the welcome blog.
I’m watching the Final Four right now, and as a Maryland alum who has kept up with the Terps since graduation, I need to admit that it is a little painful to see N.C. State in both the men’s and women’s Final Fours this year. Why can’t Maryland do that? N.C. State is one of the ACC schools I’m more partial to — shout out to Raleigh — but it’s still annoying. Just one of those thoughts that pops up when you’re spending some time thinking about your alma mater.
I’m also watching Phillies-Nationals right now. I had a whole running diary thing that I started to write last week during Opening Day for yet another edition of this newsletter that is now sitting incomplete in the drafts. But the gist of it was that I was really excited for Opening Day, hope springs eternal, go Phillies, etc.
It wouldn’t be a new uniform unveil if I didn’t have thoughts on it. The Phillies released their “City Connect” uniforms — I’ve yet to see a good one — and it’s kind of a tough scene:
The hats are cool, and the hats seem like the hardest thing to mess up with these things (I really like the Orioles hat in their “City Connect” look), but there are two things here that really bother me. The first one is gradients. When are we going to learn that gradients in uniforms never work? The 2011 Maryland football team proved that in a big way. That was a long time ago.
The other big issue for me is the colors. According to all of the press materials, the blue and the yellow were taken from the Philadelphia flag. Only problem? The colors in the flag are robin’s egg blue and bright yellow. That’s not what’s on the Phillies uniform. Those are colors that you can’t grit up. You’ve got to let those colors be themselves. That’s how you get this weird kind of teal that doesn’t really go with a more neon yellow. It’s too much of an attempt to stylize something, and it makes for an inferior product.
The hype video was good, at least.
Some content I wrote this week
Penn State’s Zakee Wheatley builds buzz entering fourth season: ‘The light’s gone on for him’
‘Very poised, very mature’ Jalen Kimber adds veteran element to Penn State secondary
Penn State newcomer A.J. Harris impressing teammates in secondary: ‘He’s a stud’
Some content I listened to this week
Tigers Blood by Waxahatchee is unsurprisingly excellent. Katie Crutchfield really built nicely on Saint Cloud and expanded it. The MJ Lenderman cameos are fun, too. “Crowbar” ended up being my favorite song over my first couple of listens.
I think Spotify radio first introduced me villagerrr by playing “See” after some album or playlist that I listened to. I was enamored with it, and Tear Your Heart Out is a great album. I gave it lots of run during the rainy deluge this week, and it was appropriate. It’s a cozy one. Not quite sure exactly what it reminds me of, but it’s a good record.
I feel like such a mark for having “Prep-School Gangsters” as my favorite song on my first few listens through Vampire Weekend’s Only God Was Above Us. Like, of course there’s a Vampire Weekend song with that title, and of course I like it. Overall, Only God Was Above Us is a solid album. I liked it much better than Father of the Bride. It feels more like Modern Vampires of the City with maybe a little bit of Contra mixed in there. My only beef is that Vampire Weekend strayed from releasing albums during my “formative” ages (16, 18, 21 & 27). Is 32 formative? I guess I will find out.
Other songs I liked recently: “Letters” by Frank Turner; “All My Exes Live in Vortexes” by Rosie Tucker; “B2b” by Charli XCX; “Sadness As A Gift” by Adrianne Lenker.
Saw Slaughter Beach, Dog and Erin Rae in State College on Monday, and it was a very pleasant, intimate show.
Some content I read this week
The “content” tag in the Pocket queue is a bit of a mess…
Celebrated poet, MacArthur genius – but Hanif Abdurraqib is just glad to have survived past 25 by Katherine Rowland in The Guardian:
For a lot of people grief is only weight. The weight of grief is immeasurable and impossible. But I wonder, too, if there’s an opportunity to consider the way grief operates within us as something that is occasion for us to say, “How wonderful that I have loved and through my loving there is this visceral feeling that exists.”
A Night Out With Donald Trump’s Favorite “Alpha Male” Influencer by Ezra Marcus in Slate
The Joy of Watching Mookie Betts Play Baseball by Louisa Thomas in The New Yorker
The Key Bridge stood for 47 years — then it was gone. Now Baltimore wonders what’s next. by Justin Fenton in The Baltimore Banner
The collapse has been described as a one-in-a-million event, in which everything that could go wrong did.
And yet, within that undeniably tragic backdrop, there were stories of strength and, yes, luck. A rallying cry emerged: Maryland tough, Baltimore strong.
But the haunting images of the structure tumbling like a children’s toy have reverberated around the country and beyond. We trust such infrastructure to be permanent, unshakeable. Now we wonder.
Online Gambling Is Changing Sports for the Worse by Jay Caspian Kang in The New Yorker
Who’s Behind All the ‘Pussy in Bio’ on X? by John Herrman in New York
RollerCoaster Tycoon at 25: ‘It’s mind-blowing how it inspired me’ by Thomas Hobbs in The Guardian (This is an awesome piece because RollerCoaster Tycoon was probably the first computer/video game that I ever got obsessed with, and it was a very educational game. Good times).
The Mr. Rogers of Columbus, Ohio by Giri Nathan in Vulture
Being Caitlin Clark: Inside the world of the player who redefined the game by Wright Thompson in ESPN
An Interview with Dylan Baldi (Cloud Nothings) by Dan Ozzi in Zero Cred
How Quinta Brunson Hacked the Sitcom by Molly Fischer in The New Yorker
Almost Killed Me Turns 20 by Tom Breihan in Stereogum
"We're after a championship": The Timberwolves believe this year is different by Hanif Abdurraqib in ESPN
Real Estate's Martin Courtney and Alex Bleeker on Money, Streaming, Coming Together, and the Bygone 2010s by Larry Fitzmaurice in Last Donut of the Night
Some other content I saw or thought about this week
One of the things that I’m the most self-conscious about in adulthood is that I don’t have a go-to karaoke song. I’ve done it before, but it’s always been a little half-assed, and I’ve never fully committed to the bit. I’m also lost my ability to hit some notes since I have all but stopped singing. But I decided this week that I need to commit to a couple songs, even though I don’t know when I’ll be called into action. Two leading candidates right now are “Losing My Religion” by R.E.M. and “The World Has Turned and Left Me Here” by Weezer. I’ll start doing some practicing in the shower.
A list of the the books I’ve read so far in 2024:
They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib
O Beautiful by Jung Yun
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
Come and Get It by Kiley Reid
The Guest by Emma Cline
How to Write One Song by Jeff Tweedy
Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley
Started watching the Lil Dicky vehicle Dave on Hulu earlier this year and motored through the first season. Fell off of it a little bit with the NCAA Tournament and baseball starting up, but it’s a funny and unexpectedly thoughtful watch.
After essentially not using Substack for more than a year, this place feels foreign to me with the different features and how the CMS has changed. I’ve got some ideas to how to utilize more of it and be a more frequent poster, and I’m hoping those come to fruition over the next two months or so. We’ll see.
Thank you for reading the 110th edition of Content Nausea. It will get better. Thank you, and see you soon.
I'll run and find you in this moment
And expose a passionate woman for what she is
We'll cut loose our gold
Cause we need fire
And only kindling can buy it
Wildness is our treasure
So boldly surrender
To me and to the night
—D.G.