playlists and padded shorts
It’s been so long since I wrote anything, I’m guessing this will end up in your junk mail.
Excuse #1
Two weeks of planning — and then recovering from — the celebration-of-life event for my nephew. Which was a success, as much as that kind of thing can be successful. There was a lot of love in that room.
Did I write about how much Jacob loved watermelon? It was pretty much the only thing he willingly ate. So the event decorations included huge watermelon balloons, watermelon-themed platters and bowls, you name it. To create the 15-minute slideshow, I dug through ~1200 photos and videos. And realized after the fact that none of them showed him with any watermelon.
The default slideshow music in Apple Photos is tear-jerking garbage, so I overrode it with the Mango Santamaria version (YouTube) and the Quincy Jones version (YouTube) of “Watermelon Man,” a song I think Herbie Hancock wrote, as well as Toots’ It’s You (YouTube) and Ossie and the Kilowatts’ Cool Operator (YouTube), because Jacob was sly like that. I think he would have liked it.
And I learned that just like with writing, audio/visual projects are never really done. You can always tweak something to make it just a tiny bit better. Eventually you run out of time, have to declare it done enough, and hope for the best.
Unless you are Kendrick Lamar.
Excuse #2
The Great Rap Beef of 2024. If you missed it, all you need to know is that Kendrick Lamar destroyed Drake — an alleged pedophile and firehose of secondary embarrassment — lyrically, musically, and reputationally. And that was before the “disstrumental” about Drake’s BBL dropped. I cannot remember the last time I so thoroughly enjoyed a moment in pop culture. There will be entire dissertations written about this battle, across multiple academic disciplines, and I can’t wait to read them all.
But I did go outside
I finally got a bike. A friend who works at a bike shop hooked me up with this fancy carbon fiber thing that is just glorious to ride. The only problem is my ass. More specifically, those bones or muscles or ligaments in the crotch/nether-regional areas. For 4 or 5 days after a ride, it hurts like hell.
(And if it’s this hard on women, then how the hell do men ride bikes and still manage to reproduce??)
All I wanted was a bike. Not all the lifestyle crap that comes with it. It’s bad enough that I now have a pump, a basket, a lock, lights, air horn, and whatever else my friend told me I needed. So I refused the padded shorts, thinking I could build up some kind of tolerance.
I was wrong.
Any woman reading this knows how frustrating/exhausting/demoralizing it is to try on bras, jeans, or god forbid swimsuits. The padded butt shorts are the next level of dressing room hell. You look like you’re wearing a full diaper, or recovering from a botched surgery. Discount BBL Drizzy is my new band name. Plus, the shorts are short and half of them are see-through.
I gave up and ordered these (Amazon). Errors copied and pasted from the description: “the perfect amount of padding can alleviates vibration and help prevent soreness on riding!” I almost feel bad for the single remaining employee on the Google Translate team
Anyway, if you have ass padding recs, send them my way?
Links
A history of Black ballerinas painting their ballet slippers brown. (Elle)
Patagonia's new study finds fleece jackets are a serious pollutant. (Outside)
Assisted suicide was my healthy mother’s last wish. (The Cut)
The block button is the ultimate source of dopamine. Use it. (Author blog)
How to make newspaper blackout poetry. (The Kid Should See This)
Because he died suddenly recently, here’s a link to Steve Albini’s The Problem with Music. I remember reading it in 1993 or 1994, mouth wide open in awe, and I had no idea who he was. (Baffler)
If your eyes glaze over when you see headlines about AI, this opinion piece is actually fun to read — because Paul Ford wrote it. (Wired)
Kathleen Hanna’s memoir comes out this week, I think. Here’s her doing “what’s in my bag” at Amoeba Records. (Punknews)
For hot/menopausal sleepers, I hear this mattress cooler is incredible. For that price it better be. (Chilipad)
Bunjee jumping Jesus. (Etsy)
This peacock. (Instagram)
Neoliberal couple feels BLM sign really ties 11 bedroom, 6 bath house together. (Onion)