#62 - Shit I Like

Smoke Show Vol. 1

It’s never too late to start something new. I turned 30 last week and took the time off from writing essays to eat some great food, spend time with my favorite people, and remind myself of several of the reasons I absolutely adore living in New York City.

Now, did I also have an absolute meltdown when I couldn’t find my keys for five minutes? Yeah! I think a lot of my ~centeredness as of late has also been the result of the incredible amount of control that I have over my life. I live alone. I am beholden to no one. I work for a company of which I am one of the two people, we’re uh, able to be flexible when things come up. (Our cramps policy is incredible.) I think I have developed really great reflexes in the last year, I’m learning who I am without all the…stuff. Baggage? Unresolved trauma? It can be a scary thing to get to know yourself, it means that you actually have to change behaviors that no longer serve you, and spend a lot of time doing and undoing, but in the great sweater of life, isn’t it worth the time to find colors and patterns you actually like, and invest in knitting a good one?

Handwork is wild. I love having tangible results. I’ve been helping a friend with production all week and have just been blown away by the steady tenacity she’s demonstrated in fulfilling this massive order. I think that crafts are so innately human, I love that we have an urge to weave baskets and braid things. I can only imagine that we dismiss so much of the valuable art that surrounds our lives because textiles are historically the work of women. (And we (you know the drill, say it with me now!) hate women.) I learned this week that looms operate on punchcards and I could stare at that gif of the showing how a sewing machine works over and over again.

Computers and binary are based entirely on the punchcards used in textile manufacturing. Women coded us to the moon. Computers are based on sewing machines and that makes so much sense, looms and spinning wheels and cotton gins have always been the major technological advances that forced humans along. (The printing press was big too. Thanks, Gutenberg!)

What I Consumed

I think that in capitalism, we are what we consume because it’s what we spend our precious capital on. And we have two major types to spend—monetary capital obvs, but most importantly our time.

“Content” that fun nebulous means-nothing word often requires both. It’s the most definitive measure because it indicates not only the values we are entertained by, but also defines the value we seek in the entertainment. (And society now demands we atone for the sins of the actors, directors, and messages within that content—and that last one’s a real weird snag because the point of plot is conflict and growth and therefore most narratives require some sort of shitty behavior from the protagonaist in order to depict an arc of change.) (Remember when Gone Girl came out and everyone clutched their pearls and wondered if it was too much too far to depict a fictional woman doing bad things? And then a year later The Jinx debuted on HBO and they revealed on that show that they had a murder confession from the murderer and they—meaning the entire production team—had not reported the real murderer confessing the murders because they needed a surprise ending for their docu-series on HBO?? It just feels like…I don’t know, maybe that’s when we all lost our fucking minds around the morality we demand from the media.) (Also how weird to have worked on The Jinx and know that this murderer is just walkin’ around still but you’re sworn to secrecy for months so that the FINAL EPISODE can really land with a punch.)

I’ve decided recently that capitalism makes it impossible to be ironic. You can’t consume things ironically. They’re now in your brain, AdSense counted your click, hate watching just means you hate what you’re watching but it’s like trying to poison the other person but only putting the arsenic in your own cup. Except worse because you also paid them for the arsenic.

(Sidenote, they found arsenic and polio in the Brooklyn water supply this week. Fun!)

So, who we are is defined by what we consume apprently, so what matters instead is how we consume it. I’m trying to be more conscious of what I’m doing. And I mean literally what. In terms of where I sit and how much we I attention to the thing vs. how much the thing is background noise. (And honestly, a big help with learning how to focus on one thing at a time was watching so much BTS content because you have to read subtitles the entire time so you’re really paying attention and I am someone who looooves to think I can multitask so, that was helpful because I, in fact, do not know Korean.) (I bet uh, books, would also be helpful but you know, the brain is borahaified these days. Still! Longest running special interest of all time!)

So here are some things that I recommend consuming (and because this is Smoke Show, why not get a ‘lil high first?):

Tour Rajiv Surendra’s NYC Apartment Filled With Handmade Decor...and Chalk Art! | Handmade Home Tour

This home tour is…so cool. I’m obsessed with this dudes energy and philosophy and he’s got other videos on the channel I would recommend checking out but I really felt like this was so reflective of all of the things I’ve wanted for myself recently in terms of mindfulness and understanding and curation. (Also he played Kevin G in Mean Girls and I am just fascinated by the trajectory!)

Jenny Nicholson - There’s something wrong with Hallmark’s YouTube channel

Is this video like two years old? Yes. Have I watched it…dozens of times? Also yes! And you know what, I watched it again this week, and once again nearly cried with laughter so you know what 10/10 always recommend, what a delightful little slice of a video, this is all the reasons I love Jenny’s brand of humor and commentary.

(And I will forever continue saying “No Nicole, not wine bottles!!” so, here’s where that comes from!)

Sheng Wang: Sweet & Juicy

It’s rare that I laugh throughout an entire comedy special, but this one was so good and unexpected and the cadence is perfect and stumbling on it on Netflix was a true delight, the teaser totally got me, I will be thinking about office printers for the next month, if you’re looking to be delighted I cannot recommend this comedy special enough!

(Also I’m seeing him at Butterboy on Monday because living in New York means that I have access to my favorite things and it’s truly why I love living in this city and am so so grateful to have a best friend who also enjoys standup comedy shows enough to traverse all the way with Gowanus to me several times in the next month!!)

Eating For Free - Kourtney Kardashian x BooHoo Greenwashing Collab

The Eating For Free podcast often has some of the most insightful breakdowns of current pop culture, and their part 1 and part 2 episodes about the fast fashion brand BooHoo collaborating on an “sustainable” collection in which only two of the pieces were slightly maybe more “sustainable” (but don’t worry, she’s collabing to raise awareness that we…need more sustainable options) are chef’s kiss perfection when it comes to breaking down how the Kardashians are masters of the outrage newscycle. This collab is bullshit, REEL Cotton is even bigger bullshit, and BooHoo’s website is a fucking nightmare of borrowed terms that mean nothing in light of the exploitation of their workers and the incredible wastefulness of their entire brand!!

What I Made

I made some choices!

I'm only kind of kidding.

I decided to get an iPad so I've mostly spent time playing with GoodNotes and ProCreate and watching a ton of tutorials on YouTube that are almost exclusively made by med students who are mostly advising that to make your notes “pretty” you should really just make your handwriting better. Which like, honestly hilarious advice because that’s…not an easy task. But! I read that cursive is basically going obsolete and it only took one generation to make it that way. And look, I know a lot of people fucking hated learning (and writing) in cursive, but I actually think that writing in cursive is the key to my journaling and creativity and happiness because I can write quickly enough to keep up with my own thoughts AND it’s not nearly as hard to make look nice. (And as someone who always wanted their print to be bubbly cool girl handwriting but deeply struggled with proper and consistent spacing, I have a big soft spot for cursive!)

But also, it only took one generation for us to lose the art of shoemaking. Basically, before assembly lines, shoes were made entirely by one person. Then we learned how to make human factories more efficient, so everyone started learning just one element of making the shoe and they’d do that little bit and pass it down the line. And just like that, no one knew how to make an entire shoe anymore. And sure, cursive is rarely required to be written these days, but it is the historical form of writing. Imagine kids flipping over their grandparent’s photographs and being completely illiterate when it comes to what’s written on the back. Reading primary documents is a massive part of any research-based role, and history is written in cursive. We can’t just lose cursive because everyone hated making those weird uppercase G’s as a kid!!

I also made (well, put together) a shoe rack that totally changed my room and allowed me more space to actually store my shoes (and weirdly…hair dryers) and it once again just made me appreciate living alone, making my own choices when it comes to what I fill that home with, and also just how much my shoe collection has grown and how much better I am about taking time to break shoes in so that I’m no longer in constant pain when I leave my home. (You’d think at some point the backs of my heels would just form callouses or something but oh no, it is the worlds most delicate skin back there apparently!)

And I made a podcast but uh, for the first time in my ~podcasting career~ I fucked up so bad on the audio that I couldn’t release it, and when I went to rerecord I just couldn’t make the magic happen. At first I was incredibly disappointed because I tried a new format and really liked how the episode had turned out (which is exceedingly rare) and then I realized that I should actually change my standards when it comes to what I’m creating and putting out because I’ve been doing this whole arbitrary deadline thing for almost a year and I’ve developed the muscle and reflex to just hit send every Friday on the newsletter, because that’s the deadline and the promise I made to myself and those are the promises and I am determined to keep. And like, I’m glad I did, I’m so glad I have a catalogue of essays from this year to read and reflect on, but now that I have that strength I want to move onto the conditioning part of it—which is to take more care in giving myself the time to create something that I’m really proud to hit send on. (And, I’ll be honest, I hate the implication that I’ve been sending out first careless drafts because that’s not the case, but I also have a tendency to reinforce my own notion that the best form of my writing is the less practiced right off the dome voice that comes out. The essays and creative writing pieces that have invited the most positive feedback throughout my entire life are always the ones that I feel were dashed off with little-to-no editing. It’s weird to be told that my best form is my most careless and it hasn’t prompted me to develop a real knack for editing and improving upon my own work. So, I’m trying to do that now! Wheeee!) But! I almost stopped doing the podcast altogether because of my own perception of outside judgment and then I realized I’m not living my life by the imagined standards I project onto other people anymore so it will be back next week with the slightly new format I’m trying out!

And, I made some memories. My birthday was incredible, my best friend went all out and we had like the most perfect day in the city and ended it with one of the most hilarious dessert outings possible and then I got to see my sister for the first time in two years and show her my home and places I go and why I love living here. It’s funny to me that we are so happy in our spaces, and those spaces could not be more different from each other. People are wildly different even when raised in the same circumstances! Isn’t that so neat?? Personalities are real and beyond external influence! What a joy!!

What I Want

I want to remember that things change and grow and evolve and that’s good. Don’t hold Charmander back from becoming Charmeleon, we must see what squirt does flying solo, etc.

I want to remember and cherish the feeling of not having a runny nose as we head into the winter months.

And I want to continue discovering new things about myself, investing time into the hobbies I find fulfilling, and get over my fears of meeting new people. I also should probably work on the whole control thing, gotta get a little messy more often.

And I want you, dearest reader, to have a wonderful autumn full of clutching warm ceramic mugs betwixt your hands (while thinking about how wild it is that the vessel was once just some wet dirt someone dug up and stuck in a really hot box)! For bonus points, stare at nature while you sip and maybe even rest it on a weathered wooden railing. (Triple word score if you have a wool blanket or shawl on!!)