a little games, mostly Billie | Beyoncé | Olivia | Lorde
📌 Note: (The italicized parenthetical remarks are from my most recent self on July 2.)
Hi. Enough time has passed that I can call this my Q2 edition. 🥲 (And, in fact, now a mid-Q3 letter, too.)
I stopped writing in my journal in April. I know I wrote here about this last time, how a consecutive series of not-doing something leads, eventually, to the realization one day that you stopped doing it altogether. Writing every day was a bit joyful and a bit tedious, but not writing every day wasn’t a matter of living in the present moment, I just didn’t want to; and the next day I didn’t want to either, and the day after that. But I feel like my memory gets worse and my head is filled with translucent, kaleidoscopic bubbles that fade unless I can leave behind artifacts for my future self. I don’t think I’ve written before about the indelible image in The Neverending Story 2 (not to be confused with the fantastical book by Michael Ende which is IMO well worth reading and leagues beyond the films), but there is a plot line where Bastian, our boy hero, unknowingly trades memories for wishes; his memories are glass orbs, tumbling down, slipping through, emptied out.
(Also, I can only find one clip of this, and I’d completely forgotten the weird bird creature.)
We got a digital piano for our little studio near the end of April. The keys are weighted and it’s probably the nicest piece of gear we have. I feel like the honeymoon period is over, and I’m not sneaking upstairs after breakfast and lunch to play it anymore, but I love it. My ukulele is dusty.
🎮 Games
I’ve gone back to Slay the Spire, a deck-building roguelike (meaning: a game where you die many, many times, springing back to the start, the infinite loop) which is the perfect blend of satisfying and unsatisfying. It’s a pure game: there’s no monetizing any boons or tools for +$3.99, no cost for daily pulls or draws or pretty summons. Previously, recently (less recently, now), I was playing Panel de Pon, this extremely kawaii Super Nintendo (well, Super Famicom, the original Japanese SNES) game now available on Nintendo Switch Online. It’s like proto-Bejeweled x Tetris where you rotate a cluster of bright blocks (star, circle, heart, triangle) and try to clear your screen. It’s sad that it was never officially translated, because the world and the fairies are super cute. You can find translations online, though. 🍓
I really want to play New Pokémon Snap, but I’m not sure why I haven’t bought it yet (still haven’t). Maybe because it seems like a casual game rather than something to sink your teeth into (Ikenfell), or because it plays like you’re on a track of an amusement park ride when I’d prefer to explore at my own pace. I like the idea of seeing Pokémon in nature, happily going about their day, leaving you alone as long as you leave them, too.
The other day, I dusted our PS4 game cases and remembered how I’ve yet to go back to Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla or how I never really played the Miles Morales Spidey. I don’t know if this summer will be the right time, but maybe.
Waypoint did a bonus episode with Gita Jackson and Emily Lipstein on The Sims 4 (search for: Bonus: The Sims 4 - Dream Home Decorator) that was very fun as a dive into Sims fandom and makers and builders.
🎶 Music
I am Very Excited for Billie Eilish’s second album (and the release date is on Finneas’s birthday, which I find hilarious as a fellow Leo), and have listened to “Lost Cause” many times now. The video for “Lost Cause” (that had just come out) is slumber party / girls night / middle finger to the ex, flirty and sexual and bare in a way that her videos haven’t been before (which isn’t difficult; ink isn’t bleeding from her eyes, people aren’t stubbing out cigarettes on her face), a different facet of Billie’s multitudes. It feels like summer. The women are fresh-faced, laughing as a collective. It feels unmistakably inspired by Beyoncé’s “7/11” but not as genius or iconic: Justin pointed out 7/11 has a low-res home video quality and feels way less produced. You get the feeling that Beyoncé made this with her iPhone and a fish lens, that this is the scene as-is, no makeup, hairdryers and toiletries strewn around a hotel room, chasing whims or on-the-fly ideas like her foot phone, while Billie’s makeup is impeccable, everyone’s loungewear perfectly calibrated to a Glossier Skywash blue or on-trend neutrals while they undulate with a bag of Lays, or a super soaker. Lost Cause could be a SKIMS ad, or a Missoma campaign, and this is exactly why it’s so alluring to me — I like those things! I own Missoma necklaces! I follow Anna Newton! And I appreciate the fun in both these videos, the playful irreverence and feelin’ ourselves. I do really like this video, this new era of pinup Billie with platinum-blonde hair. But as Beyoncé says at the end: “mad ’cause I’m so fresh / Fresher than you.”
The song (“Lost Cause”) is good, too, though it’s not a summer bop so much as a bit of a lament, a goodbye with a thick bass line. The women mouth the words — shout them, even — and jump up and down in the video, but the song’s not “good 4 u” by any stretch (another fuck-off song, but louder and full of rage). It’s slower, low-key, a drip of words. My biggest gripe, though, is the line “you got no job.” I get the nod to “No Scrubs,” but PLENTY OF PEOPLE ARE UNEMPLOYED AND AREN’T LOST CAUSES, BILLIE!!! (By now, Justin informs me that this is a common criticism. Thank fuck.) That said, I’ve listened to this song the most while writing or working — the sonic quality is closer to those lo-fi playlists on Spotify, a steady soundscape of velvet bass.
Speaking of “good 4 u,” I wasn’t as thrilled-gobsmacked-head-over-heels with SOUR as I thought I’d be, although! The album is definitely very good (and I loved SOUR Prom) I’ve heard at least three takes on Olivia Rodrigo now on various podcasts, and they commented on how Olivia drops f-bombs on her songs in a way that no Disney star in the past has done before; how much autonomy she has compared to, say, the Mickey Mouse Club alumni, or Taylor Swift (who finally started dropping “fuck”s into her songs in her thirties!!!). How Olivia collaborated so closely with Dan Nigro, her producer. How Olivia is still in the cast of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (LOL). How the album is less than 35 minutes long, tailor-made for the TikTok generation. She’s eighteen. She demonstrates a musical range on her first album that’s unlike other famous teen singer-songwriters. All of this I find very fascinating, especially with Olivia as diehard Swiftie and Lorde lover. I am a fan. I think she needed even more pop-punk bangers on the album, but what’s there is so good. DID I MENTION SHE IS EIGHTEEN.
Going back to Beyoncé though, how fucked up is it that she’s never won a Grammy for Album of the Year? Nora and Nathan on the Ringer Dish said it would be amazing to have Taylor collaborate with Beyoncé, but even though TS probably takes up the bulk of my earspace and I’m more emotionally invested in her music, I feel like Beyoncé exists on a different plane; she takes more intense risks, creates art from a more complex and elevated perspective. Taylor feels and sounds younger (forever and always?): Becky with the good hair. Beyoncé’s self-titled visual album, for example — “Jealous” dripping with jewels, lace, and shattered glass in a way that “Blank Space” can only parody; or the whole arc of that album next to the videos for “Cardigan” and “Willow,” which Taylor directed at around the same age that Beyoncé was when she released Beyoncé. The levels of creative direction and performance are just not comparable, especially since Taylor still hasn’t featured another female artist in her verses (but they are welcome on her choruses or backing vocals!!), so it seems highly unlikely she’d be willing to share that space, much less the likelihood of a universe where Beyoncé wants to share it with her. But Taylor has won Album of the Year three times now, has confessed that she was devastated during years she didn’t win, and every time I think about it, I think about systemic racism and the utter bullshit of a world — our world — where Beyoncé-the-goddess-and-muse-and-artist seeps into the cultural strata and consciousnesses and inspires so many white artists, but only wins awards for the Black-coded categories herself. I mean, the Grammys are problematic for various reasons and blah blah blah, but at this point, Beyoncé should get several honorary Grammy doctorates.
As I wrote this, Lorde’s “Solar Power” dropped. I lost count of how many times J and I said to each other, especially over the past couple years of radio silence: What is Lorde DOING?!?! I’d started to build a picture of her losing interest in studio work, of her mythologized disappearance, but instead I (A) somehow missed out on everyone losing their minds over the leak (I guess my corner of Twitter doesn’t have Lorde fans?!?!) (B) stared, jaw dropped, as we watched the video. It felt like I’d been plunked into an alternate universe where Lorde had resurfaced as a sincere beach bunny with a Lana Del Rey shimmy and a line of Goop products, but also I got strong Midsommar vibes — the synchronized swaying, the flowy dresses — I fully expected the platform she gets on top of to be a huge door revealing a corpse or some other dark thing. It’s bizarre when she’s dancing and laughing and the people behind her, especially when they’re lined up in that last shot, are completely dead-faced. Or when they’re carrying her on a chair up on their shoulders: am I supposed to feel like it’s fun, or that it’s a little ominous? (And now, of course, I’m not alone in seeing the parallels: Exhibit A.)
Reading clips of interviews, it seems like it’s all authentically her expression of how much she loves the beach. It’s almost disappointing. I wonder if the album will drop this summer, because it seems odd to wait longer — it seems best served now, sunny side-up. (On August 20. Also, forgot that it’s winter in the southern hemisphere!)