August Love Note
Lost in the (macaroni) sauce
There are few things that could pull me out of my low grade depression (ty for normalizing, Mama Michelle) to get my shit together and write another love note - but a trashnado of culture news from the past month has been swirling around in my head for weeks. Did I write down most of the notes that are prompting this letter in my phone while going to bed stoned? For legal reasons, no (yes). This letter is similar to my mental state for the last few months - mostly junk with some deep pockets of overthinking (but mostly junk). Let’s dive in.
The obvious cultural moment of the summer came when Cardi B. and Megan Thee Stallion’s collab threatened fragile white men so much that they told on themselves about how terrible they are in bed. The video itself is a masterpiece (within hours of its release there was already a version on Twitter that had cut the K*lie J*nner portion out, giving the people what they want), but even more incredible are the many deep insecurities of white men surfaced by the song.
Before we can talk about the song though, we have to talk about Meg getting shot. The month before WAP came out, a confusing news story was emerging about Meg and Tory Lanez that ultimately revealed she had been shot by him. The response by the media and general Twitter was…. very fucked up. The fuckery continued after Megan released a video explaining what happened (that Tory shot her) and how when the police came she was so scared for herself and him that she chose to not say anything to protect him. This entire situation is steeped in misogynoir:
It’s often said that Black women are fighting two wars based on the intersections of race and gender. Misogyny is institutional oppression against women at large, but misogynoir is the dehumanization of Black women perpetuated through individual, societal, and cultural violence toward Black women.
This interaction also paints a stark picture of the intersection of race and class in America. Megan Thee Stallion is arguably one of the most successful women in rap right now, yet still feared for her life when the police showed up. There’s ample evidence to further illuminate this dynamic - in August alone we saw the bodycam footage from the rent-a-cop who shoved Raptors President Masai Ujiri (whose approximate net worth is $20 million) and were reminded of when Bucks player Sterling Brown (approximate net worth is $10 million) was tased and attacked by a group of Milwaukee cops for parking improperly.
Great, now that we’ve established that capitalism is just white supremacy monetized we can talk about the lyrical and visual gift that is WAP. This song has all the elements: the chaos, the combination of medical information and teaching men about kegels while simultaneously calling the uvula the “that lil' dangly thing that swing in the back of my throat.” Here for it. I’m so supportive of a song that includes the line “Macaroni in a pot, that's some wet-ass pussy” - because who doesn’t love macaroni? And also because this line, combined with the raging inferiority complex of men like Ben Shapiro, produces memes like this one:
To understand this juxtaposition you have to understand a few things. The first is that WAP is a song about women owning their sexuality and pleasure, and the second is that men like Ben Shapiro do not believe women should derive any pleasure from sex. If you ever want to go from WAP to DAP (you get it), boy do I have a video for you:
Ben even tried to quote his “wife doctor” (frankly I’m suspicious at the veracity of either of those titles) who most definitely was trying to cover up how terrible he is in bed by claiming that WAP was a ….. bad thing. There are so many reasons to laugh at fragile white men, but my favorite one is how their total discomfort with all things sex related is due to complete ineptitude (sorry to all three of the white men reading this, love you and I’m sure you’re at least average in bed).
While I was in the initial planning stages of this newsletter, I knew what topics I wanted to talk about but wasn’t sure exactly how to tie them together. Some of the transitions felt a little clunky - but it turned out there is a natural segue from Ben Shaprio to the next thing I wanted to talk about - Bruce who lives in an attic:
Thank you AliseNavidad for that perfect tee-up - let’s get to Bruce. A few weeks ago I got this text from a nameless friend:
After asking a lot of questions (my first question to her was “where does he pee” which seems to miss the mark of what’s really going on here) and trying not to stare into Bruce’s eyes for too long, our other friend sent this Reddit thread, telling a similar story with a different name attached to the photo. The wild part about all of this to me is that my friend who told us this story had been told by a family member of hers who really believed it - she still claims that the photo was taken by a friend of hers. It feels like this is the 2020 equivalent of chain mail - some sort of digital file that makes the rounds and has unclear origins. A few summers ago I was with my friend Kelsey when she received a photo on a group text announcing a friend’s engagement, with a NSFW surprise on the Live Photo replay. After moving to Chicago, I mentioned this photo to a friend (the one who showed me “Bruce”! Full circle. Wow.) and she said that she had already seen it and her friend knew the photo-taker, too! But like…. there’s such a slim chance that we both are truly two degrees from that photo. Both Bruce and the engagement ring photo feel like they could be classified as “viral-lite.” They might not trend on Twitter, but there is a substantial subset of people online who are familiar with the story. My favorite version of “viral-lite” (still workshopping that moniker) from recent years is the story of Zola. In 2015 #thestory was trending on Twitter, and it was thanks to Zola, who many credit with popularizing the “thread” storytelling format. In 148 tweets, Zola tells a wild tale of going to Florida to strip with a woman she had met while working at Hooters. The story has all the elements: suspense, drama, guns (we knew this was coming when I said Florida). I think Zola’s story falls into the “viral-lite” category - thanks to Zola we have the phrase “lost in the sauce” (though some light google searching points to Gucci Mane as the origins… I’ll let the historians weigh in but my take is Zola popularized it), but a lot of people haven’t read the actual story. I highly recommend spending 30 minutes reading the thread, but if reading isn’t your thing you have the new A24 movie adaptation to look forward to (at some point when theaters are a thing again…).
A niche culture shoutout aside: the film version of Zola was co-written by Jeremy O’Harris, who rose to fame with the controversial Slave Play, which gained notoriety not only for the content but for “Black Out” shows where every seat was reserved for Black viewers, who normally less than 3% of Broadway audiences. Jeremy also recently went on Ziwe’s Instagram Live, resulting in moments like this:
Ziwe: I feel that. You're on your James Baldwin shit. Now, I have, I've just, I read Slave Play this morning, and this is a very, very important play in like modern discourse. I would say one of the most important plays of the 21st century. So my first question to you is, Jeremy O. Harris, why do you hate black women?
Jeremy O. Harris: I don't hate black women.
Jeremy O. Harris and Ziwe look at each other in silence.
The rest of the equally cringeworthy transcript is on Ziwe’s website, as are the videos from the interviews.
The other two major cultural moments of August for me was season 3 of Selling Sunset and the entire season, but especially the finale, of I May Destroy You (yes these shows are on entirely opposite ends of the TV spectrum. Like Walt Whitman said, a bitch is complex). There’s a lot to unpack from both of these shows (I’m excited to see if I can find a way to tie them together), and it warrants its own love note (plus my attention span has become comically short and this already monstrous letter is stressing me out). If you haven’t watched either/both of those shows yet you should get going so you can be prepared for that next note (who am I kidding, that will be another three months from now. You got time).
While you wait with baited breath for my next letter, these pieces are worth a read:
Jesymn Ward writes about her husband passing right as the pandemic begins, and rips all of our collective hearts out in doing so. (This piece was part of the Vanity Fair issue “The Great Fire” edited by Ta-Nehisi Coates)
I cried in wonder each time I saw protest around the world because I recognized the people. I recognized the way they zip their hoodies, the way they raised their fists, the way they walked, the way they shouted. I recognized their action for what it was: witness. Even now, each day, they witness.
They witness injustice.
They witness this America, this country that gaslit us for 400 fucking years.
NPR’s Rachel Martin talks about the moment her son went over a waterfall and the ways in which “social distancing” has taken away so much human connection. (Yikes this is a depressing summary - her son is okay and it ends on a positive note!)
I miss strangers. I long for connections with people I do not know. We are so separate now. We have so few opportunities for brief interactions: a random shared joke with someone in an elevator. A quip that turns into a conversation with a store clerk. Even the banter with a chatty restaurant server.
Big Freedia talks pronouns and the fluidity of gender. If there was any (and I know we’re reaching here) upside to the wildfires in the West, it might be universal bashing of gender reveal parties (I will never forget when a coworker told me about her “Guns or Glitter”-themed gender reveal. Louisiana, y’all.)
Because of the scope of Trump’s malignant war on America, there is an awakening in this country; nobody’s safe. Even the pickiest things can be used to criminalize and eliminate our right to be citizens, equal to everyone else. Instead, who we fuck, how we dance, who we watch the weather with is used to corral us—categorize us, demonize—and ultimately, delete us.
The Financial Times gives us the in-depth reporting we were looking for to explain the comically on-brand sinking of 15 boats during a Trump boat parade in Texas. Truly didn’t know an analysis of a boat parade could be so suspenseful:
It wasn’t just the number of boats on Lake Travis that generated all those distress calls. It was the type of boat, the speed at which they moved, and the way they planned their route.
VICE wrote about what it’s like to be single during the pandemic, with Cuffing Season right around the corner, and yours truly gave some philosophical quotes to the article:
"[The approach of winter] feels like impending doom," said Nora, a 30-year-old queer grad student in Chicago who asked that VICE withhold her last name for privacy reasons. "I'm like, Oh my god, October—fuck. It's about to be dark and cold, and I'm not going to be meeting new people. I need to have somebody lined up."
That’s it for this 30-year old queer grad student in Chicago, for now. You’ll hear from me again whenever this low-grade depression wears off or in three months, whichever comes first! Let us be guided by the words of Meg Thee Stallion as we take on September:
“A bitch is alive and well. Strong as fuck. I’m ready to get back to regular programming with my hot girl shit….I can’t keep putting my energy in a bunch of you motherfuckers.”
xoxoxo,
nora