fools rush in

plus bright future, deksy the cat, etc. 🐟

re: cadence

Hiiiiii sorry no post last week! Been toying with the idea of going bi-weekly (the definition that means every two weeks, not twice a week, though both are apparently correct definitions??) so I could have time to work on my other projects and not just Newsy all weekend every weekend, which, I mean, I wish that I could, but other stuff is not getting done. Would you miss me too much? Or would absence make the heart grow fonder? Reach out with your opinion if you have one!

it’s me, i’m the april fool :(

“Water signs are so gullible,” I say, all the time, as a water sign. A few months ago, I posted to my story saying my roommate’s cat Tortilla grew five times her size and we were taking her to the vet because we were scared we were gonna have to move apartments if she didn’t stop growing. The two people who swiped up giving advice and sympathies for her dangerous health condition? A Scorpio and a fellow Cancer. Which, love you guys, I get it. I issued a revision clarifying that it was just a joke.

happy poisson d’avril !

This morning, my 21-year-old Gemini mastermind little sister, who’s on spring break in the DR with her girls, texted me that last night she hooked up with the guy from our middle school who I had my first kiss with. She described the drunken encounter at a club in Punta Cana the same way she typically texts me—what really sold it was her saying “effed” instead of “fucked” a la Jojo Siwa, which she always does for some reason. I was scandalized. “What does he even look like now???” I asked, trying to piece together how this could be possible. “Idk what he looks like but you look like AN APRIL FOOL” was her reply.

She then turned around and immediately convinced my parents in our family group chat that she and her friends were Bridesmaidsing all over their Airbnb because of some bad ice, after being “SO GOOD about using bottled water for everything.”

For the record, this is the second year in a row she’s absolutely made a fool out of me—last year she told me she tested positive on a pregnancy test. In the (wise?) words of Club Chalamet, Be warned. ✌️

“timothée’s name might be used for wicked fabrications”…. the gag is, today a twitter post circulated claiming club chalamet herself was arrested outside timothée’s apartment

into da matrix

Last week, Ivan and I saw the 25th anniversary rerelease of The Matrix in Dolby and it was all I could talk about for days. We were third row on the right side, so close we had to physically move our heads to see anything screen left, but it was soooo epic and delicious and earsplittingly loud with 4D sound or whatever.

was reminiscing recently about advice animals, from a more innocent chapter of internet history, on coincidentally the day after I had rewatched the matrix

I love thinking about Year-You-Were-Born Cinema. It’s like film astrology. The Matrix is definitely one of the most important movies that came out in my birth year of 1999, and I think it’s really cool that it directly engaged with 1999 as a subject matter. It doesn’t quite take place then—it’s more like 2199—but the machines chose to have the Matrix simulate 1999 because at that level of technology, people thought they controlled the world. The embarrassing reality that the Wachowskis could not have predicted is that lowkey things did fall off right at the turn of the millennium. There was a world Before smartphones when we were more separate from our machines. Now, all you have to do is take stock of the average activity on a crowded train car to see the cyborgification of humanity, the After, The Matrix. Watching it now, the 1999 world of the movie is at times less relatable than imagining all of us in goo pods with tentacled robots siphoning off our life force. Go watch The Social Dilemma. Ouch.

Also! I’ve been listening to The Matrix’s soundtrack a lot lately and it makes me feel like I could suddenly run really really really fast if I wanted to. So. There’s that.

Mini Enrichment Activity: Make a list of your fav Year-You-Were-Born Cinema. Here’s mine for 1999.

Further Reading: How the Matrix Got Made by Keith Phipps

whale this is embarrassing!

went to a bday party last week in a building where the peepholes/knockers (jesus is this actually what they’re called lol) looked EXACTLY like servos from sims 2, like tell me this is not the exact same thing

me and my $9 bowl of grand street mama pho

learned what teleplasm was this week… basically it is living jizz…

• Bright Future by Adrianne Lenker

  Shocking myself by recommending an album two newsletters in a row but I’m actually bleeding out of my eyes mouth and ears obsessed with Bright Future. Adrianne Lenker has done it again! The vibes! The storytelling! It’s everything!

  I saw someone on Twitter trying to make fun of her for the song “Real House,” the 6-minute-long talk-singing spoken word poem about putting down her childhood dog that she inexplicably opens with, and can I just say, did you actually listen this album and come to the conclusion that its sole purpose is to be “enjoyable”?? Obviously not. It is about feelings this Pitchfork guy would never understand.

  

  at least spell her name right???

  This song has the line “Where stars shine like tears on the night's face” and it was more beautiful than any piece of music criticism ever written! I want that, I’m the audience! Do I listen to it every single time I restart the album? No. But that’s a choice and sometimes I am or am not in the mood to listen to Adrianne Lenker describe being in the hospital as a child for the forty millionth time, okay?

  

  She gives us hit after fucking hit on this album. “Sadness as a Gift”?? “No Machine”? “Free Treasure”??? And then this alternate variation of “Vampire Empire,” which would’ve been my #1 song of 2023 if Spotify didn’t fudge the numbers and stop keeping track after October, somehow even better than the Big Thief version. Especially after (FINALLY!) finishing ‘Salem’s Lot.

• Deksy the Cat

  As with all things happening on TikTok, I may be extremely late to this, but in any case I present to you now: Deksy the Cat. His thing is that he falls as if from the sky at the beginning of every video and then “barks” like he’s in conversation with his owner, who asks him all kinds of questions such as how he is able to afford a sports car, etc. This is him btw:

  

  Mini Enrichment Activity: tag yourself. I’m second row, center. It’s truly wondrous how every picture is basically the same but also conveys such a vast range of subtle emotional shades.

Last two weeks:

Watching: RuPaul’s Drag Race s16e12 and e13, Dune (2021) 🔁, The Matrix (1999) 🔁, Wonka (2023), Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) 🔁

Reading: ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King, Green Frog by Gina Chung

On this April Fools’, I’m planning for next year. I want to do a prank that does not involve lying because I’m not good at lying. I challenge you to plot your next move for an April Fools’ 2025 that no one will ever forget. And as always! Be warned. ✌️