Sontag, Pop Punk Hair, and things I am Watching on my Television and Even my Computer

It is Sunday so if I don’t write my newsletter today then I will have not written one this week. Sunday is the last day of the week. We as humans know this to be true. We know it in our bones. And yet the calendar industry, they try to act like Sunday is the first day of the week. Why do they do that? They would have you believe Monday is the SECOND day of the week. Is there anything more antithetical to our collective lived experience than the concept of Monday not being the first day of the week?

If calendar makers were to be believed, I would have missed a week of my newsletter. But they are not the arbiters of truth. They simply aren’t! Anyways I don’t want to talk about this anymore. 

I just read the Susan Sontag essay “The Aesthetics of Silence” which I only somewhat understood, and at one point she says:

“The art of our time is noisy with appeals for silence. A coquettish, even cheerful nihilism. One recognizes the imperative of silence, but goes on speaking anyway. Discovering that one has nothing to say, on seeks a way to say that.”

And I was like oooooK this bitch is absolutely dragging my newsletter.

I decided to read Sontag because I have recently been obsessed with her early 90’s feud with Camille Paglia. I think I am on Sontag’s side but I can’t really be sure so I am going to read them both. Camille Paglia says “OK” too much in one interview that I watched. And for that reason, I’m out.

Completely unrelated, I was just thinking about all the pop punk bands in the aughts, and about how asymmetrical and angular the lead singers’ haircuts where. They were like chemically straightened with so many ostentatious shelves of blunt bangs. I wonder if those people still have those haircuts. Or I wonder if they have regular ones now. And if they do (have normal haircuts now), I wonder how they feel about it. I wonder what the moment was when they sat down in a barber’s chair and said: I actually will have a regular haircut this time. I think it probably was a satisfying moment. Very full circle. Like: “Hey, I’ve been to hell and back. I had pop punk hair and fuck if I didn’t make it as far as you can make it with a pop punk haircut. I had a pop punk haircut, and it lead me down the best path possible. I was in Fallout boy or whatever. But now? It’s time for a new journey. It’s time to start over. And that feels really good.”

Speaking of blunt bangs I am watching a netflix show called Click Bait right now and yes, it features Adrien Grenier (sp?). Did you know I never was attracted to him? I always thought the guy who played Kirsten Dunst’s love interest in Bring It On should have had a bigger career. I thought he should have been Adrien Grenier. But I am not God, and I do not choose who is Adrien Grenier and who is not, and the more readily I accept that the more serene I will be.

Clickbait The Netflix show is about a man who is Adrien Grenier and then gets kidnapped. His sister’s name is Pia, and she has a Sia haircut, which is an interesting choice. She has a (dangerously?) severe blond bob and is fully dancing-girl-in-the-chandelier-video from the neck up. Which is absolutely FINE! BUT! To name her Pia, and then give her a Sia haircut, it’s like: What are you trying to say? Is this piece trying to SAY something about Sia haircuts? I don’t understand. What do you mean by naming this girl with a Sia haircut “Pia”?

But also in that Sontag essay she says that art doesn't have to have meaning and assuming art is tasked with some sort of expression of the ineffable is problematic and uninteresting so I am just watching the show and taking Pia’s haircut at face value.

Clickbait the Netflix show is bad but the kind of bad where I watch it for 3 hours and 50 minutes anyways and then get incredibly sad because it is 4:16pm and everything is ruined? It is the kind of show where the writing is such that you keep thinking “No human would ever say that sentence,” and it makes you unreasonably angry but also morbidly compels you to keep watching. You want to hear the girl with the Sia haircut say more sentences that a human would never say and get sort of angry again. It’s like when you scratch a mosquito bite and it’s satisfying but also makes it itch even more and you want to scream. And then it is suddenly 4:16pm and you are on a sofa under a blanket and it was only just 12:26pm and you wonder if everything is ruined and you feel extremely tired but also have an uncomfortable amount of energy and you feel like you have a million things that you should be doing but you can’t think of any of them and you wish so badly that you never ever watched this show aboutAdrien Grenier being kidnapped for 3 hours and 50 minutes on a Sunday because, after all, no one talks like humans in it.

I will continue watching this show and when I have finished it there will be a small void inside of me and I will not know what to do with myself or my time. I will have an hour free and mindlessly go to cue it up before realizing that I have watched the last episode, and I will feel a discomforted and trapped inside of myself. It is impossible to enjoy yourself when you are watching Clickbait the Netflix show but it is also impossible to enjoy yourself when you are NOT watching Clickbait the Netflix show and that is what is very frustrating to me about the human condition. I went through the exact same thing with Manifest. Watching it will not make you happy but not watching it also won’t make you happy.

I am also watching these reality shows: Real Housewives of Potomac, Real Housewives of New York, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Bachelor in Paradise, Big Brother and the Challenge.

I wonder if I will talk about them now. When I started this newsletter I did say I would talk about reality TV but I also worry that no one cares and also I have nothing new or interesting to say about. Here are some random thoughts about housewives, I guess:

POTOMAC:

-Karen is being a lil too much this year and I need her to calm down just a bit. She is acting like Gizelle cast the Avada Kedavra death curse on Ray when she was actually just like: I think I will still be hot for a long time.

-My relationship with Candiace is that I am never on her side no matter what. I DON’T need her singing career where she’s in a recording studio wearing a baggy sweater and wool beanie and big headphones, singing the most generic line of the most generic song imaginable, while her husband watches and some random guy is like “That’s sick, I think we got it,” OR he says “Let’s get that line one more time but really feel it, give me attitude,” and then she does it slightly more breathy and he says “That’s sick, I think we got it.”

-I need Gizelle to also do a lil bit less!!! She CAN be funny but also a lot of times I’m like: Stop, ur embarrassing me!!!!

-I continue to adore Robyn and do feel she does not care about the show even at all which I’m obsessed with. I want her hat line to be HUGE!!! I agree with her that it is hard to get out of bed.

-I’ve been on such a journey with Ashley for the past 5 years. I am actually in an amazing place with her right now but she is annoying me on this trip. Michael is, ultimately, a demon methy daddy who lives in hells kitchen and you randomly match with him on grindr and you go there and start hooking up but then you feel weird and leave and feel really really guilty.

-Everyone is being SO annoying to Wendy who is just engaging with the most basic urge of the human experience which is a desire to be and feel hot.

-I love Askale for no reason!!! My fav moment of the season so far was when Mia was like “Askale? How many businesses do you own?” And Askale was immediately like “Several.” It is so funny to me to not give a number of the amount of businesses you own and instead say “several.”

-I do not “get” Mia at this time.

NEW YORK:

-I do not like Leah!!! She feels sooo pander-y and when she had Eboni take her into another room via facetime I was like: you can’t make someone do that! Also when she yelled at Heather to stop being a Karen it was like: I don’t know that you truly know what that means.

-I like Eboni K. Williams but I don’t care about her storyline where she tries to find her bio family while wearing chunky turtleneck sweaters. Something about the turtleneck sweater REALLY takes me out of it. It makes it feel like a movie from 2004. I think, as a general rule, housewives should try to reconnect with their estranged biological family members on their own time. They always think we want to follow the journey but, to be honest, I don’t! I want them to go to EVENTS instead!!! I did like when she called her biological dad and was like “Hi this is Eboni K. Williams.”

-NO ONE is talking about the fact that the matchmaker that Eboni brought Sonja to was Devon from the Real World: Brooklyn and she was a one time finalist on The Challenge during the second Battle of the Seasons.

-This season is incredibly difficult to watch Re: Sonja, Ramona, Luann et al. All for different reasons which is so fun. Whatever happened to Ramona’s business from season 1 where she bought overstock and resold it? She should do that business again I think it is good for her to have to get up and go somewhere every day.

-I like Bershan!!!! Tbt to Eboni saying Bershan could not come to Black Shabbat because of Covid + because Bershan had never physically been to Israel with her.

-What was Archie’s deal?

BEVERLY HILLS:

-Crystal is my favorite new housewife in a very long time!!! She “gets it” and if I ever see her in person I will say to her “Sorry to be crazy but I srsly love you!!!!”

-Dorit does need to go. Have said before will say again. I do not connect with this girl!

-I still like Kyle. Sue me!

-Kathy obviously is God and does not fully understand that a TV show is being made of all of this, and if you sat it down and explained it to her she wouldn’t care. 

-I really didn’t like Erika Jayne for her first 4 seasons or so. Something felt off about her and I didn’t feel like she understood the assignment which was to be REAL. I didn’t feel like we were seeing an actual person and she was too preoccupied with seeming cool and becoming a gay icon. Last season something changed and I started liking her finally. And then when *everything happened* I at first was on her side but THEN I watched the doc. Watching a doc on a streaming service is one of the premier ways to actually learn something and better yourself for once. Ultimately Erika actually is not legally allowed to be mad at any of the women who are like “So wait what is the deal with you??? Since everything you’ve ever said to us was a lie etc, just checking in re: what is your literal deal actually???” She cannot be mad!!! Even at Sutton!!!!

Ummm OK none of that was good or interesting but it is ultimately what I typed and that is something I will simply have to come to terms with. I hope you have an amazing week which starts tomorrow on MONDAY no matter what the calendar industry tries to tell you.