metrognomicon

Today is October 6th, and you know what that means? It's decorative gourd season, motherfuckers!

I got really into origami during my recent grippy sock vacation—I taught myself how to make the ubiquitous origami crane, as well as a lily and a box with a lid… and then reproduced them in the hundreds out of sheer boredom—and am considering making Halloween origami this month because it's super cute and also cheap to make. Origami Club has tutorials both for traditional Halloween icons like vampires and pumpkins, but also traditional Japanese yokai (monsters) like a hitotsume-kozō, rokurorobi, or my personal favorite, the umbrella ghost. A wreath of just yokai would be kinda cool?

i see myself in this & i don't like it!

Though to be fair to myself, I did spend most of my twenties and early thirties living on or below Houston, going out at least twice a week and having people over. Even now, knowing you can walk to cool things within fifteen minutes means you can enjoy staying in with the knowledge that you can go out if you really want to, and sometimes just walking the dog turns into going out because you've run into people.

re: that white girl who is actually a 35yo woman

Youngmi Mayer (@ymmayer) on Threads

white privilege is real but also there is nonwhite privilege which is not having to listen to taylor swift

Threads

I've long maintained that Taylor Swift's music is for the corny people who never got over whatever level of popularity they had or didn't have in high school, so it's been hilarious watching all the basic white women—and it's always a white woman—my age or younger losing their shit because her new album is trash. Here are the only two things you need to consume about her and it:

1) Yesha on the comfort of white noise: "There’s no greater case study in America’s love affair with white mediocrity than Taylor Swift. For nearly two decades, she’s been sold to the public as a poet, a visionary, a cultural touchstone — when in reality, she’s the human embodiment of a Target fitting-room playlist. Her entire career has been an exercise in the industry’s favorite magic trick: taking something ordinary, draping it in marketing gloss, and convincing the masses it’s extraordinary."

2) sotfogsotfog on how the problem is that Taylor Swift is aging out of being a white girl. Let her cook and watch the entire video, because she has important things to say about women's roles, growing up, and knowing who you are and what your brand is:

a few other things

David Cohen and Elizabeth Spiers on how CBS hiring Bari Weiss (of all the fucking people!) is 1) yet another indicator of fascism, and 2) the US desperately needs media outlets that won't let themselves be intimidated. (So basically, "the land of the free" needs a Maria Ressa.)

Jake Adelstein of Tokyo Vice fame has a Substack and just wrote an excellent post explaining how Japan's probable new female prime minister Takaichi Sanae is not actually a win for a country that is decades behind on empowering women: "She’s channeling Abe’s authoritarian playbook with fresh xenophobia—Japan’s first female PM via fascist cosplay." Every country has their Serena Joys.

35 years after its release, Cassondra Feltus revisits that masterpiece of mayhem, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". (Currently streaming on, ugh, Disney+, or you can rent it for $3.99 from Amazon, YouTube, or Apple.)

song of the day

If you really need to be listening to a white woman from Nashville, why not Hayley Williams of Paramore fame? Far from being quiet, she's vocally anti-racist and has geo-blocked both her and Paramore's music from being played in Israel. Her latest album Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party (Apple Music, Spotify) dropped in August, but my favorite song of hers is still Simmer, the first song off her debut solo album Petals for Armor (Apple Music, Spotify). Put your headphones on: