Content Nausea No. 24: Captive of the Sun
Skull shaking cadence of the J train rolls / The rhythm of defeat, repeating like a pulse
Welcome to the 24th edition of Content Nausea. You can read No. 23 right here. I tried to do something a little different for it, and there will probably be more like that in the coming weeks. Please let me know what you think. This is a long one. Thank you for being here. Here is the welcome blog.
First, some personal news:
It could be Much Worse, but it is still Not Good. I will be fine, or whatever.
Second, I was kicking myself for not Logging Off last night — I did a great job of staying Logged Off last weekend — but by staying Logged On, I was able to see one of the more insane takes I have seen in a long time:
I don’t think I have ever read anything David Brooks has ever written for The New York Times (or in general), and the only thing I know about him, really, is that he has a very young wife. I assume he supported the Iraq War, too, or something. Anyway, I think that’s all I need to know, but I retweeted him and got some likes and it made my brain feel all right.
(I’m definitely going to listen to Through Being Cool and Full Collapse today as my emo regression continues apace).
I don’t have anything to add to the list of things I have watched in self-isolation. Eventually, I’ll finish “Succession” Season 2.
Some content I wrote this week
On having two refrigerators in my kitchen, but not in a Nancy Pelosi-type way.
A draft analyst refers to a future millionaire as a “diminutive dynamo.”
Talking about speed (the trait).
Writing about the new Cleveland Browns uniforms, which look like the old ones.
I’ll miss doing mock drafts once the NFL draft happens this week.
Some content I read this week
Dan Ozzi’s investigation into Jerry Saltz’s coffee-drinking habits is the only thing in the past month that has broken my brain the right way. This is insane! Absolutely bonkers!
His dishwasher, which he uses for storage purposes, houses what appears to be two pour-over coffee makers, a still-in-the-box Bialetti espresso maker, and several bags of coffee beans/grounds. Clearly the people in his life are trying to help him but he is so goddamn obstinate that he would prefer to drive to the convenience store every day and saunter out, balancing 10,000 individual cups of coffee like some sort of Benny Hill routine.
A reflection on a trip to the Little League World Series that didn’t end well.
David Roth on the moment and the president (again):
One strange and seemingly contradictory feature of this abstracted moment is that it has also brought greater explicitness, if not exactly clarity, to the conduct of our deranged public life. The fundamental conflicts between capitalism and humanity are no longer the stuff of patiently assembled subtext or elaborate flourishes of social theory. They’re brandished as agitprop fodder in presidential press conferences, and echoed by Fox hosts and congressmen blithely demanding human sacrifices. Likewise, the failures of government look less like expressions of incapacity or incompetence and more like flagrant frontal assaults; the relentless corruption and ambient grift that have defined the Trump moment from the start can no longer plausibly be pawned off even to a national political press corps well practiced in chugging whatever it’s handed as works of administrative trickery or artful conning.
They now stand exposed for what they always were: raw smash-and-grab looting and button-mashing repetition. And as a corollary of this new explicitness, the idiotic gratuitousness of war is no longer a cause for protest or complaint; now, it’s a casus belli in its own right, a savage tautology holding that war is a thing that kills people, and the only way to win is to keep doing it. Trump, by that definition, has always been a wartime president—always willing to sacrifice people he doesn’t know to things he only sort of cares about, because the prospect of doing anything else seems too challenging. A good number of leaders and citizens will, out of citizenly deference or sincere death-urge, proclaim this newest, dumbest domestic war of choice to be the best of all possible wars, for the best of all possible causes. When in doubt, cheering will do.
One of my favorite newsletters wonders if music streaming can survive the coronavirus pandemic.
Looking at Las Vegas during the coronavirus pandemic:
In a particularly grim twist, many establishments have been using the hashtag #VegasStronger in their signage, since #VegasStrong was already used, in the aftermath of the 2017 shooting. The giant resort hotels behind the casinos are walls of black, every hotel room dark.
As the rest of the U.S. comes to terms with the same restless impermanence, it must abandon the question When do we go back to normal? That outlook ignores the immense disparities in what different Americans experience as normal. It wastes the rare opportunity to reimagine what a fairer and less vulnerable society might look like. It glosses over the ongoing nature of the coronavirus threat. There is no going back. The only way out is through—past a turbulent spring, across an unusual summer, and into an unsettled year beyond.
Will read David Roth on anything, including a movie I have not seen and probably will not see.
Patrick Hruby’s conversation with an epidemiologist about the return of sports during the coronavirus pandemic is probably one of the more clear-eyed things I’ve read about things. (I did not find Fauci’s comments this week about sports returning without fans this summer reassuring at all).
Rebecca Solnit on the coronavirus pandemic.
“Treat Yourself” by Apoorva Tadepalli (I liked the coronavirus piece last week) in The Point:
February 2017: my first winter in New York; the furthest I have ever lived from the equator. Getting out of bed is my finest accomplishment every day that I manage it. The stagnant air bleeds through the doorframe to the backyard and hovers in my room, staring at me in utter distaste. Later, I will recall these months as the first in my memory of having been forgotten by God.
We are all the adult in the room right now.
Some content I listened to this week
Everybody Works by Jay Som is a quality cloudy morning album. There’s a good mix of ambient, instrumental-type tracks and some other fuzzy pop songs that can cut through the malaise.
A writer I follow on Instagram posted this song on her story this week, and it’s good.
Ran back some Beach Fossils because this week was a nine-year anny of seeing them at DC9 with Emily and Lizzi. I saw a woman aggressively grinding on a man to “Golden Age” that night, and I have not been able to get the image out of my mind.
Other quick hits: Re-visited Rare by Selena Gomez and it’s still good; still listening to too much Joyce Manor; the Dogleg album is good; actually did listen to Full Collapse earlier this week.
Some other content I thought about this week
I held off on falling into the bracket black hole until last week when I got tagged in a 2010s indie music one and then I saw a Lonesome Crowded West one. Later, I did one for Pavement songs.
I stand by my decision-making in the 2010s Indie bracket (there are no winners in a Bon Iver vs. Foxygen matchup), but I listened to Lonesome Crowded West in the aftermath and every single one of my decisions could be wrong. Also have some real Pavement regret, though I stand by the final four.
Another writer I follow on Instagram posted a bracket of 32 songs by The Wonder Years, and as a pop punk poseur, I am trying to figure out how it would shake out for me. I even made a playlist of all the songs in the order they are on the bracket. I will probably not re-visit it.
Everybody's finally home
For the first time this year, I feel whole
Because I've been so afraid of being alone
So now I'm heading up 309
Cause I miss this life, and I'll set shit right
We're gonna cause some problems here tonight
Cause Spiro lied about his major and said fuck the whole thing
So he's home to make some bad decisions with me
I do not like the Pizza Groundhog’s energy:
Just look at him … he doesn’t belong in this realm.
Thank you for reading the 24th edition of Content Nausea. Click the little heart at the top or bottom of this page if you made it this far. Thank you.
Where nothing comes after
I'm a passtime streamer
Hanging from the rafters
I don't get out
I don't have fun
Living like a captive of the sun
—D.G.