Why I Don't Talk to My Neighbors

Sam Mohler

Here's a comprehensive list of neighbor interactions I've had since moving to Austin in October, 2015. Names have not been altered for privacy.

1. Nate

I was a wide-eyed, enthusiastic 20-something excited to make friends in a new town. One neighbor I met by the apartment pool seemed nice, kinda cute even. I ended up inviting him over for some hors d'oeuvres one afternoon. I mentioned I was looking for a job, and he was kind enough to whip out a DVD and give a presentation about his "business": a multi-level marketing scheme called WorldVentures. I was a lot nicer then than I am now, and I actually let him prattle on for half an hour before finally telling him he needed to leave. Yes, I kept seeing him around the complex, and yes it was incredibly awkward.

2. Marz

An energetic 4'11" Albanian woman with neon pink hair who showed up to the pool wearing fishnets and stilettos. When I asked what she does for a living, she told me she was a "professional futurist" and to this day I have no idea what that means. We were close friends for a couple weeks, regularly getting margaritas at El Mercado, taking mushrooms, and going fishing in the creek behind our building. She smoked Capris, which I picked up for a while too. She told me she had a crippling weed addiction and asked if she could, in her words, "use your apartment as a storage unit for my weed" to help moderate her consumption. I told her no, unless her weed was able to pay rent, and she did not take it well. We sort of fizzled out after that. I think we're still Facebook friends, but I have no idea what she's up to. Probably something zany.

3. Benji

An insufferable name for an insufferable dude. My roommates and I briefly befriended him and his girlfriend because they seemed cool at first. The initial red flag was when Benji brought a guitar to one of our parties and held us all hostage with his awful music. (I'm just realizing that we hosted tons of parties back then, I'm glad we stopped that nonsense.) The next red flag was when he came over once to hang out at 3am, completely uninvited and completely drunk, when were were all heading to bed. Finally, the nail in the coffin for ol Benji was when he got into a big fight with his girlfriend on New Years Eve and they broke up with each other in our apartment. I still have a crisp vision of this poor girl wearing a "2016" tiara with mascara running down her face. Later in the night after she left, Benji hired two call girls which he kept on either arm during the rest of the night. They were VERY RUDE!

4. Not Gay Tom

This one's just me being a little mean, but Tom was so obviously gay. He was Catholic though, and said he was straight. Maybe he was, but he shamelessly hit on every male every time he'd come over. Gay or not, I liked Tom. I hope he's doing well.

5. Richard

Not much to say about Richard other than he and his wife had a baby. They were a nice family. When we invited the pair to one of our parties, we did not like that they brought their sweet innocent little babe to crawl around our den of depravity. Awfully presumptuous and that was not what we meant by BYOB.

6. Diz

The day I moved into my new apartment building, Diz was next door lifting weights on his balcony. I came to find out he did this every day, shiny, shirtless, and grunting. He once came over to a party uninvited and went around hitting on every woman. He told a friend of mine she needs to shave her legs, and told another friend she was "pretty cool for a Mexican." My roommate swept in to rescue the ladies by asking Diz "Hey did you watch the game??" After a hearty sports talk he poured himself an entire cup of vodka and left.

7. Brandon and Kristina

I never tolerated dogs/dog owners very well (Dogs are haram for a reason!) I especially disliked Gus, Brandon and Kristina's noisy little dachsund. To get Gus to stop barking, they would pour him some beer. I could hear Gus barking through the wall, day in and day out. You know why? They didn't realize they were classically conditioning their dog to bark more so that he could get more beer. Genius.

8. Jesse

I could probably just say "he's a pedicabber" and leave it at that. Jesse loved to lurk. I'd be leaving for work, and I'd see him out in the grass, just staring off into the horizon, and sometimes he'd still be there when I returned home. Sometimes I thought I was alone, until I spotted Jesse off lurking in the woods. Big cryptid energy. It never felt malevolent, he was just…there. To my detriment one of his favorite places to lurk is the communal pool. I still visit that pool because it's the prettiest, most secluded, secret pool in all of Austin. To this day Jesse is still there, just lurking about. I've gotten used to it.

9. Sarah

From 2019-2024 my besties and I lived in a duplex in East Austin with a shared yard. We didn't love the concept of sharing a yard with the folks in the other unit, but we were willing to tolerate it for the pricepoint. During the pandemic, the back yard became my library, park, and bar. I was out there all the time, and so was Sarah. Since she was one of the only people in my life at the time, we became fast friends. She was a painter and designer, well-read, and interesting. As life started reaching normalcy and we could socialize again, my roommates and I started having more guests. Some of these guests were Jewish, or Black, Asian, or other types of people that I quickly learned Sarah did NOT like. One night we had friends visiting from London, and Sarah started going on about The Jews. I asked her to leave, and we never spoke again.

10. Veronica

As with most other neighbors, we started out cordial. The first time I met Veronica, she gave me her phone number and said, "If we're ever being loud or something, just text me." (LOL) Well, Veronica had four dogs she left outside 24/7, so it was loud pretty much all of the time. One of the dogs had anxiety, and when he started barking it made all of them join in. During a particularly harrowing day of Zoom meetings, I finally got up the nerve to text her a very polite message asking if she would take the dogs inside for a bit. She got hella weird, accusing me of hating animals, being insensitive to her PTSD, and trying to steal her boyfriend who I've never even spoken to. For months afterward, she would send me bizarre messages out of the blue. Stuff like this:

Apropos of nothing. We had not spoken in months.

I feel bad for her boyfriend, who I have reason to believe was getting domestically abused by this lovely lady. I've overheard fights and have seen her getting arrested in her front lawn three different times. I've moved away, yet part of me yearns to see her get arrested one last time.

11. Unknown

I've relocated to a charming little 1940s bungalow in Hyde Park and it's fantastic: Just me, my cat, my bestie, and our dog. While we do have neighbors (tons in fact, as we're bordered on either side by apartment complexes) we have never spoken to them. If anyone's going to be toxic this time, it's me. Taking a leaf out of Jesse's book, this Halloween I've taken to lurking around the neighborhood in my shadow demon suit. Last night I sent a pack of college kids screaming, and it was the best neighbor interaction I've ever had.

Matt Reviews: The Microplastics in My Blood and Organs

Matt Spradling

Note: these can also be treated as horoscopes if you graft the signs onto the 12 entries but the 2020 Jill Stein campaign made us promise to never do actual horoscopes again and kept sending personal threats to our home addresses and stuff and it was pretty weird to be honest. Anyway they're in reverse order just to further cover our tracks, I don't need that kind of heat in my life.

Bisphenol A: This one is a bit like relish - never essential but you're not getting out of Chicago without a handshake or two. I thought I knew what dishwashing was like before, but ever since this got in there, those suds really hit different and my palms feel tough like a, well, dishwasher. 6/10

Polyethylene Terephthalate: I can't remember a time without this one. I don't think that's because I always had it, I think it's because it sort of got into my memories. Not erased, just got into, like a raccoon burrowing into one of those outdoor ISP server box things that were always around when you were a kid with vaguely scary warning labels. My therapist tried to get into my proverbial childhood outdoor ISP server box but I had raccoon spray. 4/10

Polyvinyl Chloride: When this took root, I thought it was a sleeper, like, beneath notice, but it turned out to be a sleeper as in it Tyler-Durdens me. Sometimes on Monday morning I'll wake up green in a green bed in green dad New Balances and I'll be momentarily afraid of having conducted some violent and profane Dr. Seussian ritual before comprehending that I mowed every lawn within a half mile radius. The bigger ones get crop circles that are QR codes for temu products. 3/10

Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers: Ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham! Getting back to my roots. If you think you know better then you're out the door. What' shotter than the pool baby? 10/10!

Acrylic: Last week I noticed my engine was running a little loudly because I could hear it echoing off parked cars next to me as I passed despite having windows rolled up, AC cranked up to desperate, and loud music playing. I did the right thing (continued driving home, parked, went upstairs, and slept soundly next to my WIFE) and then the next morning when I came outside an entire, intact belt had fallen out of the engine onto the ground beneath and I didn't get to use power steering anymore. As Switchfoot once said, this ain't my American dream. 8/10

Polypropylene: This one lets me commune with the dead (pretending to read philosophy at Starbucks but all the words are about how everyone else in the Starbucks hates me and will medicate my frappuccino if I go to the bathroom without it but someone just came out of the bathroom who looks like what Iris Murdoch calls a Big Slammer 9,000). 2/10

Polychlorinated Biphenyls: You ever heard ultraviolet light ripping through the air at a blistering supersonic and that's how the ceilings get that popcorn texture that hurts more than you think it will? Then sister, you haven't truly housesat. 9/10

Polystyrene: I've described Polystyrene as like whatever the opposite of taking vitamins is. I don't think it's making me sweat the nutrients out or something like that; instead it's sort of accumulating them all like dust bunnies and rolling through my arteries like the Infowars tank through the bus lanes in downtown Austin. Pretty soon these rogue clusters will receive embassy status and have more rights than I do, but they DON'T have a gun, and they do like Jimmy Johns, so the uneasy peace continues. 5/10

Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances: How can your teeth feel so big and your toothbrush so small? This must have been what drove Luis Suarez mad. The Uruguayan customs officer seemed interested in this theory until his supervisor hit him. He must suffer from small fistbrushes. 2/10

Polycarbonate: This one feels pretty good, but the problem is that it makes you super arrogant and delusional. I think there's also a lot of it in the guy at the New York Times that thought it was a good time to roll out forced ads on wordle after months of their election coverage had rendered their goodwill with users about as resilient as my brain trying to think of a clever example of something unresilient. Liquid courage! Finally a good alcohol replacement. 9/10

Nylon: I thought this gave me nightvision, but it actually just made me forget that I had turned the light on. I think Plato would argue that this is essentially the same thing as simply giving you nightvision. If this principle can be harnessed on an industrial scale, think of all the time and effort we can save by offloading work onto our nylon dark passengers wait this is the plot to Severance. Did I create Severance? Why don't I have a house then? 7/10

Red, White, and Hooba Noobie

Wendy Fernandez

There is one ineffable truth you must know about me before we begin: I don't play the Sims. "Play" is not a complete enough word for what I do in the game. Or rather, what I do to the game. And as the rights of millions of Americans are challenged this election season, it's my civic responsibility to make an informed decision on the November ballot.

If you think you know where this is going, you don't.

First, we must make the candidates as accurately as possible:

Vice President Kamala Harris

Traits: Self assured, outgoing, and mean

Aspiration: Popularity

Career: Lawyer

Former President Donald Trump

Traits: Materialistic, snob, and ambitious

Aspiration: Fabulously Wealthy

Career: Business

In the respect of science and justice, the experiment requires a control. For this, I have chosen Elsa of Arendelle.

Elsa, Former Queen of Arendelle

Traits: Clean, loves the outdoors, and family oriented

Aspiration: Big Family

Career: Politics

Rules:

• We begin with a small loan of $1 million

• Each candidate has Global Superstar fame level

• They must complete three trials

• Ivana Trump is buried in the backyard

• Elsa must learn to control her powers

Trials:

1. Each candidate must host a press conference where no one dies.

2. Each candidate must host a State Dinner where everyone must eat.

3. Each candidate must try to win over as many of the seven Swing State representatives as possible. These include the Goth Family, Summer Holiday, the Pancake Family, Don Lothario, the Landgraab Family, Vladislaus Straud, and in celebration of the upcoming release of the Wicked movie, L. Faba.

Trial 1:

Immediately, both Kamala and Trump went into the Oval Office and played video games for several hours. I really thought I could be a nonpartisan observer, but I had to step in and sell their computers. Trump proceeded to "make it rain" and Kamala took a nap. Elsa did push ups on the lawn and made a friend who aged up into an Elder and left, never to return again. A great start.

When it came to the press conference, Kamala was ready. By using the mirror, she had leveled up her Charisma skill to three and was poised and proper for her appearance. Unfortunately, the entire press body was late because someone had turned on the radio outside, and by the time they found their way to the Briefing Room, no one had any questions about anything she said. Two members of the press actually passed out from excitement at seeing someone so famous, which honestly wasn't professional of them. Overall, a great conference for Harris.

After deleting the radio, it was Trump's turn. He had spent his time honing his mischief skill by using hand buzzers on random passerbys, so he wasn't as ready as Kamala. The entire press was waiting in the Briefing Room, and when he entered, it largely went unnoticed except by Baby Ariel who had a growing grudge against him for the hand buzzer thing earlier. He began speaking on football, then switched to jack-in-the-boxes, and finally ended with addressing the classic llama situation. Nearly a full day had gone by so two press members had peed themselves and were crying with embarrassment. The rest of the room was upset by this display and several members stormed out. Not so great for Trump. Kamala wins Trial 1.

Trial 2:

This was by far the hardest. Have you ever tried getting any amount of Sims to eat at the same time? The guest lists were the same: Mortimer and Bella Goth, Summer Holiday, Bob and Eliza Pancakes, Don Lothario, Geoffrey Landgraab, Vladislaus Straud, and L. Faba. This was in hopes of simultaneously completing Trial 3 - winning the favor of the Swing States.

Kamala invited everyone, cooked up a delicious Party Size Platter of Macaroni and Cheese, and ate alone in her bedroom. Half the guests never made it into the Formal Dining Room, and the other half ate the Macaroni and brought out another lawn radio to dance to. Meanwhile, Elsa practiced her powers outside and made it snow. Although, between you and me, all she really wanted to do was tend to the wild lily bush in the backyard. Which I also had to delete. Overall, many were left unfed and literally out in the cold. But they were happy? It's unclear. But what's clear is that Kamala was not present for her guests, and mingled with literally none of them.

Trump also ate alone, but it was because none of his guests showed up. Well, that's not exactly true, the Landgraabs and the Goths stood at the doorway for seven hours but never spoke or entered. Several notifications popped up about the dangers of leaving Sims out in freezing temperatures because Elsa Would Not Stop, but let it be noted that Trump ate his Garden Salad alone. Luckily for him, he had hand buzzed Don Lothario earlier, so he at least had a lead on the Swing States. It's unclear who the winner of this Trial was since it might've actually been impossible to complete, but I'll give it to Trump for at least eating his meal in the correct room.

The good news is that Elsa made friends with a fellow magic user (Darren Charm for you nerds out there), and he started mentoring her. The blizzard stopped and she was able to create cute little flurries in her hand. Their conversation even got flirtatious, but quickly became awkward when she brought up mermaids. Could this be the beginning of her controlling her powers?

It was at this point that Trump died on the lawn. I truly could not have predicted it was going to happen and I genuinely had no control over the situation. I had to use a series of complicated cheats and reboots to turn back time and re-add him to the household to finish this experiment. It was ridiculous. He was attacked, nay, assassinated (successfully) by an invisible killer rabbit that came with the Cottagecore expansion. There was some freak glitch in my game that caused that to happen despite NO RABBITS existing in the Newcrest neighborhood. Am I counting this against him? Maybe. Am I inconvenienced? Absolutely. I gave him back his computer as a resurrection gift. He played video games all night.

When I opened the game the next day, Trump was missing and Ivana Trump's grave had been removed from the backyard. I literally have no idea what happened. Either I super broke the game with my insane cheat and mod folder, or the Sims are starting to gain sentience and turn against my Stanford-esque experiments. Whichever it is, we'll never know.

As I write this alone in my bedroom with absolutely no pixelated miniature president holding a gun to my head completely alone and by myself, I've come to the conclusion that we'll never know the results of this experiment. The real Great Experiment has been America all along, and I know I'll fall asleep tonight to the sound of a million Americans clicking their voting pens to participate in the beautiful democracy that we have created. That, or that was the sound of a very small gun cocking against my back.

Oh, and Kamala died of old age after discovering her love for grilled cheese and painting, and Elsa eventually learned how to control her powers and settled down in Sulani where she's still recycling plastic and hunting for frogs in movie theaters to this very day.

Please go out and vote.

QUIZ: Which Classic Hollywood 'Monster' Are You?

Marina Martinez

1. What is your go-to genre for movie night?
a. Historical drama! People are messy and I love it.
b. Forbidden romance, or just normal romance but with complications.
c. LGBT+ anything, they can be in love or discussing politics or be venturing across Middle-Earth.
d. If they're not playing sports, I'm not watching it.
e. Any older film, who needs color or sound? Nothing post-Hays Code, please.
f. Anything actiony or sponsored by the military, I love soldiers and I'm a true Patriot.

2. What's your favorite snack?
a. Something hearty and full-bodied, maybe a black pudding?
b. I could probably eat 100 chicken nuggets right now if you dared me to.
c. Just a salad or fruit slices, anything light.
d. Beef jerky or like 10 raw eggs
e. Cheese and crackers, maybe offal. Nothing too spicy!
f. Anything with a label written in a language I can't read.

3. What's your kindred animal?
a. Something that flies at night…an owl.
b. Definitely not anything canine-adjacent. Maybe a cat.
c. Does Mr. Potato Head count?
d. An alligator, or maybe a bear. Something with teeth that can eat a lot of meat.
e. Maybe a small dog? Or maybe an exotic pet, like a chimp! I've heard that's normal in other countries.
f. The Bald Eagle, nothin' more American than that!

4. At a party, you're most likely to:
a. Survey the party-goers and latch onto whoever seems like they'd cause the most drama or has the most money.
b. Exclusively play beer pong. I don't care if it's a dinner party, get those red Solo cups out, I brought my own balls.
c. I'm here with my Tinder date and I WILL be telling everyone about it.
d. Drink a lot and eat whatever meat is available.
e. I'm hosting and I know it's a Friday but I've always wanted to try Taco Tuesday so we're doing that. Everybody go play Twister in the parlor while I microwave the taco shells.
f. f

5. You see an elderly person struggling at a crosswalk, what do you do?
a. They can manage by themselves - they survived this long on their own, and I don't think they deserve handouts just for being old.
b. If it's a little old lady, I'll definitely help to be polite! But if it's a man that would just be insulting to him so I'll leave him alone.
c. I'd ask my significant other before helping - I don't want them to think I'm making moves on anyone! I only have eyes for age and gender appropriate people.
d. I'll look for a boy scout, it's their job to help.
e. I stand there looking offended no one else is helping them and then I get on with my day.
f. I don't know if it's acceptable to help them in their culture, so I'll just keep walking.

6. Describe yourself in one word.
a. Superior
b. Human
c. Normal
d. Masculine
e. Traditional
f. American

RESULTS:

Mostly A - Vampire

You're an ancient creature that feeds off of other people and encourages them to live productive lives and fight each other to get ahead - after all, their blood will taste much sweeter if it's moving more quickly due to the exertion of having to work multiple jobs and having to stress about living paycheck to paycheck! Vampires make up a relatively small portion of the population, about 1%, if that, but they hold a disproportionate amount of the power. Be careful, vampire, or the workers will seize the means of production and your food source will overpower you! It's safer if you just move to Staten Island and take on a few roommates, probably.

Mostly B - Werewolf

As a werewolf, you have to constantly fight against your inner nature as an animal and fight to maintain your image as the only thing keeping you alive - the fact that you're a (hu)man. Society was built for men, after all, and if you acknowledge the fact that you're actually not (just) a man, your neighbors will take your rights away and treat you like an animal! Can you imagine not having rights to bodily autonomy, or having to get your spouse's permission to open a credit card or have life-saving surgery? Barbaric! It's bad enough that the cycle of the moon dictates a very inconvenient aspect of your biology, so let's hope you keep everything under wraps, or can convince your neighbors that your animalistic side is still you and should therefore be treated with dignity and respect!

Mostly C - Frankenstein's Monster

You didn't ask to be made, but for better or worse, here you are. You might feel like you were built wrong or with something missing and feel compelled to accept the spouse your parent finds for you, but listen - follow your heart. You were pieced together exactly how the universe intended, and though all those villagers with torches and pitchforks may have certain expectations of how you should behave and who you should be with, you do you, Frankie. Live your second life however makes you happy, as long as you don't toss any small children into rivers - you were (re)born this way!

Mostly D - Swamp Thing

You started off as a normal guy but have been reclaimed by nature, and due to a weird balance of chemicals, you can be a little toxic. People may look at you and see an amalgamation of anthropomorphic plant matter, and your instinct may be to overcompensate, but watch out, Thing! Don't subscribe too closely to what society expects you to be - it's okay to not be 'real man' anymore. You can still be a man while also being kind and eco-friendly and fighting climate change. I promise, the carnivore diet is not going to fix anything. It actually makes a lot more sense to try eating some plants, especially considering your whole…situation.

Mostly E - Zombie

I know you're trying to venture outside your comfort zone, but your preferences are a bit too like your grandparents'. Let's be real, here - you died, and now you're back. And also you have a hankering to devour things that don't belong to you, but you're just going to end up butchering other people. That's not fair to you, and (more importantly) it's not fair to them. I know that's what you're known for, but maybe try educating yourself and asking permission before you dig into something (or somebody) that doesn't belong to you? This second life can be scary, but you can develop your own palate without cannibalizing anyone else!

Mostly F - Alien

You seem like you're overcompensating, Alien. You might fear things that seem a bit foreign to you, but your particular brand of patriotism is concerning and, especially now, suspicious. Cozying up to the military will not protect you, and I promise that you have more in common with the people you fear than you think you do. Keep an open mind and be kind to your neighbors, or you might find yourself being taken away to a top secret facility in the desert.

What Da Hell??

I Think I'm Afraid of Getting Dumped by My Hairstylist

Andrew Piotrowski

Hey, gang. You guys doing okay? I'm having a normal one, but I do think I need to vent about how I'm incapable of forming a relationship with a hairstylist.

So, backstory. I'm sure you can tell by virtue of my writing on this Newsletter that I am, in fact, mentally ill. Blah blah blah, I moved around a lot as a kid and developed a problem forming new social relationships which persists to this day. I also tend to feel like I'm annoying people even with very little evidence supporting that conclusion. I often feel like I have to earn any goodwill that I receive from people, including strangers. Honestly, it's a lot of your bog-standard foundational interpersonal trauma which essentially sums up to: I am essentially a superhero whose power is sabotaging new connections, in particular with people providing me a service.

Up until a few years ago, I basically just floated from GreatClips to SportClips with assorted home haircuts in between as needed to maintain my sanity. When I moved in with my now-fiance a few years ago, I got a buzzcut at Walmart. Freeing. Nearly bald. The wind whistling across my stubbly, anxious scalp. Luminous with the knowledge that it would be months at least till I needed my next haircut. I didn't end up cutting my hair for almost two years, culminating in a mighty mane that I received a lot of compliments over.

I ended up hating it. Well, not HATING. I decided that not only did the luscious locks make it more obvious that I'm a grown man whose hair is thinning in a few places, but they were also too hot and unwieldy for the humid Texas weather. It was time for Samson to say goodbye to his strength and instead have sex with Delilah. I wanted to do it right, though. I finally reached out to my neighborhood Facebook group and asked for recommendations for a proper salon stylist. I've got a decent job, I'm making okay money, and I should be a responsible enough adult to form a relationship with a consistent stylist. And it worked.

For a while.

I still wasn't great at getting a haircut regularly, though I tried to tip generously to make up for the gaps in my customership. I got along well with my stylist, messaging her on Instagram with a casualness that would impress anyone who was weird enough to be watching the situation and forming their impression of me based on how casually I could message my stylist on Instagram. She kindly helped me understand that I was parting my hair against its natural part, causing some strife in my hairstyling. We talked about my engagement, her weekend plans.

I am who I am, however, and the lapses between haircuts definitely began to take their toll on our relationship. The situation came to a head a month or so ago. I'm not a driver, as I have a strong fear and disdain for cars, their operation and infrastructure, and the culture surrounding them. My fiance does not reckon with this albatross, so he kindly provides the wheels in the relationship. Unfortunately, we had some car troubles recently that caused us to be stranded at home for a month or so. At that point, I was already about a month overdue to have my hairs shortened, and the situation would only grow more dire as our household transportation languished at the Hyundai dealership.

I was talking to Matt about writing this article, and in the conversation he mentioned a disappointment that the Newsletter doesn't include as many lists as it used to, so here's a list of the things I missed while we were stuck at our apartment without a car.

1. Going to the vape store further from my apartment

2. Getting boba for no reason

It's kind of a short list, because I'm pretty accustomed to being a pedestrian and we already live in close proximity to a lot of buildings that I like. You'll additionally notice, dear reader, that "haircuts" did not make it on the list. That is because I did not think even once about being able to leave the house to go get a haircut. I didn't message my stylist once the entire time we were nonmedically quarantined. And when I did?

She's not a stylist anymore.

My world was shattered. How was that even a possibility? I finally found a solid point in the universe on which to hang my hat, and she simply thinks she's allowed to make a career change? I wished her well, thankful for the guise of Instagram DMs hiding my abundant, wet, snotty tears.

Where does one go from here? Is life just a series of finding a stylist over and over again? Just raw-dogging interactions with a line of friendly beauticians who will eventually leave and go on to live fulfilling lives in other fields, leaving me behind to tread water for as long as possible with the dimming hope that another will come along and throw a life preserver into my inbox? For you see, I tried to find another stylist right away. I asked my departing guardian if she had any recommendations she could give, and she gave me a phone number. A bare, icy phone number. Do I call? Do I text? How much information should I give about myself before confirmation that I even have the right phone number? What if she's wrong and this person is ALSO not a stylist anymore?

So I messaged a different person that I remember seeing in a Facebook recommendation. I was willing to take the leap on a new person. I'm not completely inflexible, I'm just a guy who isn't good at forging new links in this bitch of a chain we call life. She responded a few times, then stopped answering. I sit here in my chair typing out this lament, not as a cry for help, but simply a cry out to the massive, unfeeling void of the universe. What am I even hoping for? The comfort of a response, or the familiarity of the emptiness?

No, I'm fine, I'm normal. But here I am. An orphan. My hair is getting pretty long again.

Book Reports: Does It Horror

Matt Spradling

Last year, I finished reading every book that has ever been written. It was pretty exhausting, and I'm glad to be done, but sometimes I miss the thrill of cracking open a fresh one and then rapidly sinking into a bloodless depression nap after about ten minutes of trying to read the same two pages. It really lets you experience the world!

Since it's the holy season (almost the death of daylight savings), I thought I'd revisit some of the more memorable perfumed paper pillows I've napped on recently and examine them through a spooky lens.

Key: 1 gigascare is, of course, 1000 megascares. 1000 gigascares is 1 terascare, the highest safe threshold for daily consumption. Anything more than a terascare is probably not needed, and your money would be better spent upgrading to a smaller SSD (Solid Scare Drive).

The Silmarillion, Jr. Tolkien

This one might not seem immediately scary, but early on it is evocative of your first day at a new job (being transported to a strange world where nothing quite makes sense and there's like 40 names you feel like you're supposed to remember but they're really not sticking and you also can't tell how religious anyone is). This eventually fades, but this one guy named Sauron is sort of an anime character who brings in some classic horror tropes like turning into a werewolf to have a big fight, or turning into a vampire bat to run away after getting your ass kicked, and I appreciate that a lot.

Gigascares: 270

Paradise Lost, Johnny Milton

Obviously ripped off The Silmarillion. The first half was not scary at all (it is basically Untamed by Glennon Doyle), but I have to admit the second half is scary enough to make me reconsider revisiting it. Imagine being one of only two humans on the planet, trapped in this creepy forest, and your husband will not. shut. the fuck. up yapping with every entity that happens to pull through and meanwhile you just want to bang and pick some fruit but it's like you're getting ignored for the uber driver and then everyone makes a big to-do about the one time you wander off to do your own thing, and then next thing you know your man is very publicly pledging his love for you despite having damned your species forever or something and you just kind of have to stand there? Really uncomfortable, like an Ari Aster film.

Gigascares: 667

Devolution, Maxxx Brooks

This one actually made me feel a feeling which is no easy task! It's a very different style from World War Z which is pretty much what got this guy on the map (that and the father) but it works. It's about a group of bozos who go live off the grid in the middle of nowhere woods in the pacific northwest and get cut off and then get home-invaded by a family of bigfoots (I don't think the book ever uses the term bigfoot but we all know it's bigfoots. We ALL KNOW IT'S BIGFOOTS MAX.) Reading at night with the windows/heart/door open and listening to the Annihilation soundtrack which sounds like feral Appalachian mountain men want to use your femur as a soup ladle made for an immersive and engrossing experience.

Gigascares: 910

Macbeth, William Shakaspeare

Look, we've all been there. So your girlboss wife convinced you to kill your work boss. I don't see why you have to get all bent out of shape about it. We ALL have daily misgivings about the violent and corrosive nature of unchecked ambition. Has actual witches, which rules, and a bunch of people dress up like trees to be scary which is pretty much a Scooby-Doo episode. Plus theater kids aren't allowed to talk about it or something which is a definite bonus and I think way more plays should do that.

Gigascares: 420

Parable of the Sower, Octavia "The Rock" Butler

This and its sequel are legitimately horrifying while also being an engaging and philosophical story. It starts off seeming like it might be sort of young adult fiction and then by the halfway point it is basically a more plausible version of The Road, and plausibility is the last thing I want that book to have more of. For a while my grocery list notepad included "seed library" and "a gun" which is truly the hallmark of a peaceful and undisturbed mind. Politically prescient in some of the most distressing ways. This is the book in this list I least want to experience and am probably most likely to experience all things considered (sorry bigfoots).

Gigascares: 982

Stoner, John Williams (disambiguation)

This is a story and character that got deeper into my head than anything since microplastics. The events of this life are so typical and realistic (not that it's a boring read) that by the time it got to the end and (spoilers but like only to the extent that all humans die eventually) old Stoner dies in a remarkably immersive chapter that is poignant in its mundanity I felt like I experienced an actual death and that has got to be worth some spooky points. A small-time career in academia SHOULD be a scary prospect.

Gigascares: 550

Conner O'Malley Is a Real Life Genius Who Deserves Oscars and Emmys

Alex Speed

Hello, my sweet sweet Newsletter. I have spent many a fortnight out in the woods taking in content so I can crank out the most darling little articles and essays for you, our Newsletter audience. The beginning of my cosmic content journey began with Doomscrolling TikTok for nineteen hours a day every day. I learned the full expanse of human experience in thirty-second increments. One clip at a time. I have pontificated on pieces of the human soul I didn't know previously existed, I have climbed the mountain of expression, I have stared god in the face and cried because none of it meant anything until I saw Conner O'Malley ride a lawnmower and point a gun at a cop.

Conner O'Malley is a guy who is insane and I love that about him. He rose (Jesus style) to fame sometime in the medieval ages but really found his stride when Vine came around. He makes little videos that feel like secrets and inside jokes you thought you weren't allowed to make. I was introduced to him in the way I think most people are - a little stoned at my buddy's house.

Hey, have you seen the Conner O'Malley Vine compilation?

Immediately followed by a bong rip and seventeen minutes of surreal comedy that is actually performance art that is actually low-brow humor that is actually punk rock that is actually just a cool fun thing to watch with your friends. There is a moment nine minutes in where the video turns into a supercut of O'Malley screaming. Screaming into the night, into the streets of New York City, into his kitchen, into whatever expanse he is currently in. It becomes just noise, but not before it becomes silence. This is the feeling of watching anything he makes, regardless of genre, the feeling of being forced to laugh while you watch someone melt is what attaches you to him.

Conner O'Malley's YouTube page is a terrifying list of projects no one should have the time or resources to make. In December he released a 24-minute short film that defies any and all genres or definitions. The film ends with Conner maybe actually legitimately assaulting former Whose Line Is It Anyway star Colin Mochrie. Five months later he released an hour-long comedy special communicated through the voice of a startup CEO looking for investors for an AI company that is funny in so much as it is a bummer to realize the truth in. It is an actually important piece of performance art but more importantly it is funny and beautiful and haunting. Two months after that he released another short film that isn't really comedy. It reads comedically but feels heavier and weirder than anything else in his catalog. Then, THREE MONTHS AFTER THAT, he released an hour-long comedy documentary he both directs and stars in. Everything he releases is terrifying in tone and in the quickness of succession.

Rap World is another gift to the world from the mind of a clearly insane man. Oh wait shut up I forgot some important details about all of this. Conner O'Malley is married to Aidy Bryant, of SNL and Shrill fame. He was a writer for Seth Myers. He was a writer and actor in I Think You Should Leave. He was a writer for How To With John Wilson. He wrote for Joe Pera Talk With You. He has been nominated for two Emmys, he has fucking written jokes FOR the Emmys at the same time he was making Vines of himself screaming at strangers on the street for money. He is beyond time and currency.

So I guess this became less about reviewing anything and diverged into an open love letter to a comedic mind I really admire. I feel a strong sense of admiration for anyone who can create and release art in this capacity. I am currently writing and creating a ninety-minute comedy variety show with some friends for the comedy club in Bozeman, Montana - which feels like a very silly sentence anyway. It is an unfathomable amount of work, and it is just a live show we get to do in a month. We are writing sketches and short videos that are pretty straightforward and fun, nothing like watching a man try to drink water from a puddle in the city and it somehow being impossibly funny. I truly can't begin to understand how someone could make so many projects and seem to never miss or depart from the voice they created. Watching anything he makes feels like an extremely disorienting version of a childhood memory, like walking into the gas station you always went to as a kid. You know where the Dr. Pepper slushy machine is from muscle memory, you know not to ask the cashier about the hot dogs, you know where the Coors Lite is without having to look up from your phone and you don't really know why. I guess in summation: Conner O'Malley? He is pretty cool.

Matt's Weekly Lunch-Break Crisis

Matt Spradling

I've been consuming (doomscrolling) a lot lately (forever) and shockingly it tends to get me down and make me angry and scared (you win this round, weaponized-for-profit fourth estate). Like I wrote (scribbled with crayons on the wall like a madman) last time, it seems like the only way to stay sane may be to take the constant interconnectivity down a notch (several (most) notches), which – as you can see – I've done a great job of. That said, there are of course important things to still learn about when feeling up to it (like when clocking in every morning at the sitting-down factory), when things are feeling *too* normal and peaceful for a minute and need to be disrupted like a pristine morning snowfall by idiot children.

Perhaps this is inopportune timing; when this comes out, it will probably be about a week from election day and no one will be wanting to dwell on anything heavy (other than deez nutz (this is how I manage dread)), or at least anything else heavy (hey I'm not doing so well (please vote pretty please (just close your eyes and think about Ted Cruz))). But nonetheless, a plug for you in these trying times:

Plug: Blowback

Blowback is a podcast my hot smart wife introduced me to a while ago. Its first season is an in-depth history and analysis of the Iraq War, its causes, and its legacy across ten snappy episodes. It hits the sweet spot between entertaining and informative in both its subject matter and hosts. It also features H. Jon Benjamin playing Saddam Hussein in the occasional sketch, so what more could you ask for from a podcast really?

I'm not sure why I've been fascinated by the Iraq war in particular – haven't we got better things to worry about currently? But I think it is actually a remarkably complete bridge between the end of the Cold War and where America finds itself today, plus it's what I grew up with, and they say you never forget your first war. I obviously didn't understand any of this shit when I was in third grade, so it's weirdly nice to go back and fill in those vague and hazy puzzle pieces using what I know now (sort of like returning to beat the shit out of Ocarina of Time as an adult after it repeatedly made me feel incompetent as a child) and in doing so also creating a bridge between my young self's experiences and worldviews and those of my old decrepit self. Now that's what we in showbiz call a Cool Thought.

You should give it a whirl, but beyond recommending that, I'm not sure what else to actually do in this article – am I to summarize history for you? That seems like a chump's errand. At least spoilers don't matter. I guess, suffice it to say it was all much worse and more bizarre and blatant than whatever you probably remember or imagine.

Some brief points of note:

1. Starting around the 2020 election, I remember figures like W. Bush getting a sort of new lease on life in terms of public image drawn in contrast to Trump, like he's just some humble cowboy who loves painting and America, but…that ain't it. Trump is a different animal, and could certainly prove to out-Bush Bush in the future, but in terms of both manufacturing conflict and letting private firms through the door to fully plunder the public sector, anything Trump did was chump change compared to Bush's administration. We have never seen anything on the level of what happened under Bush's. It is arguably the biggest heist in human history, if that's how you want to categorize it, and it makes me deeply angry.

2. A lot of the interest lies in the events of the war itself, but one of the most illuminating aspects of all of this for me came in the second episode covering the leadup to the Gulf War. When I take a step back and look at the big picture, from WWII up through the end of the Cold War, it is obvious how military manufacturing came to be so massive, and then, once the Cold War ended and we entered a period of relative peace, it lowered back down to normal levels. Except, obviously it did not. America won the Cold War and then…just kept going. Because the Bush Sr. administration wanted it to. Because the Clinton administration wanted it to. Because their friends in the industry wanted it to. Our country was being run by people who were either so traumatized by the wars of the mid-20th century and/or, primarily, so addicted to the benefits of wartime that they were unwilling or unable to allow the country to shift back towards a peacetime paradigm and took us and the world with them. We chose to become a machine that exists solely to create more machine, one in which we put our money and lives into one end, and out the other end, half goes straight to the owners and half comes out in the form of weapons used to continue destabilizing the world to ensure the machine never gets shut off. That is our product. That is what we live to sustain. We literally just do this shit because we make money making these toys and then we have all these toys sitting around and want to use them, both to justify making more toys but also just for fun.

3. In this 1992 House speech from Bernie Sanders, the emphasis on "Iraq" always makes me laugh.

4. All this time later, there's this big collective blind spot where, when you ignore the foundations laid for it and the WMD lies etc., you sort of backtrack to 9/11 and how the 2003 invasion was ostensibly about…justice for 9/11? Right? But Iraq had absolutely fuck all to do with 9/11. Early into the war someone remembered to ask about Bin Laden and we were just like, "oh, yeah, we think he fled to Afghanistan so it's not realistic that we'll find him. Anyway WMDs."

5. This was bipartisan. The media, everyone, was all-in on it until it started going south, and even largely afterwards. There's an extremely funny section sometime midway through the pod exploring mind-numbing articles published by liberals at the time that aged incredibly poorly, e.g. along the lines of "it would just be nice if the Iraqi people expressed a more grateful attitude."

6. In lieu of anything else, I thought I'd copy down the last few minutes of the show's conclusion which feels very apt:

The last thing for me then is coming back to the name of this show: Blowback. It's the CIA's term for unintended consequences, when we solve a problem and create another problem. The history of America's involvement with Iraq is certainly an example of that. But what I think I really want to say going out is, we think of blowback and we talk about it like it's basically karma – we do something evil and, ope, it comes back to get you – but I don't think we should accept or grant this idea that it's karma, that it's unwanted. I think the real chilling thing is that the American empire, capital, elites, military, whatever you want to say, they like blowback, blowback is part of the whole deal, because when you create a new problem you create a new opportunity, and when you solve that problem by creating another problem, you keep the hamster wheel going and keep the cycle going – it's not karma, it's a feedback loop.

In the case of Iraq, we helped the Ba'ath party get into power. Ope, looks like Saddam is an egomaniacal psycho who wants to invade other countries in the region. Well, as long as we can steer him toward our enemies like Iran, no big deal! Ope now he's emboldened because we helped him out and he's going for Kuwait? No big deal, now we can bomb Iraq and put a death to the peace dividend, get our military industrial complex back on track. Oh what, now he's managed to cling onto power and the sanctions emboldened the regime while killing the people? Well great, now that we have 9/11 here, we can go into Iraq and finish the job and say that he's a terrorist we should've knocked off a long time ago. Oh no, now we've invaded Iraq and there's an insurgency and it's Vietnam all over again? No big deal, now we can get a bunch of military contractors in, now we can tighten our grip on the whole Middle-East to get this situation under control – and it goes on and on and on.

And it will continue to go on and on, and that's the really spooky thing – it could all kick up again tomorrow, with some new boogeyman who comes out of nowhere who came up through some terrible, American-sponsored prison system in his country, kills a bunch of people, kills a bunch of Americans, due to something we did a long time ago, or even not that long ago, and we're back at it saying we gotta get this guy. No one stops to think about where he came from, no one stops to think about how we created him, and the cycle goes on. So blowback, really, is not a bug, it's a feature, it's the algorithm of empire.

And the worst part of the memory hole is that many of the people who steered us towards the worst possible decisions last time, are also still near the levers of power today, and I think that that's, to me – when we think about the ways in which blowback, and the real world consequences that it has and that it's so much a function of the system, feels totally inoculated from politics as we know it, is because these people never face any consequences for it. For me that's evidence of how built into the system it is.

I know this election has been difficult for people. It sucks when your "left" party is centrist at best and your "right" party is straight up accelerationism. I do not know the specifics of how that shifts. I tend to take the most comfort from the notion that we have consistently trended towards progress, whether you are comparing the present to 20 years ago, 100, or beyond; having rights is great, having a weekend and a minimum wage is great. It hurts when it feels like that well is running dry. It is genuinely crazy-making contemplating a plausible future where we've been socially conditioned to dehumanize middle-eastern people so that we don't go crazy seeing them constantly blown up for no justifiable reason, so that we don't go crazy when innumerable people die when climate change renders parts of the world uninhabitable and starved and we let it happen rather than redistribute resources. That is the machine that we have lived in and will continue to live in. I do not know how that changes, but I think trying to learn about it is a step in the right direction. Not doing so feels like giving up, and I hope that we don't do that.

.

Office Chart

American Teenager - Ethel Cain

Deceptively poppy and a great driving song. It's a nice autumn mood. And I appreciate her recent venting about the internet's "irony epidemic" and how no one can engage in any meaningful discourse because every comment section on every platform is immediately stuffed to bursting with extremely lazy jokes and bullshit in a race to the bottom, and it is difficult to foster any sense of community because of it.  -Matt

Candle - Buck Meek

This is the song that I play every day ten times a day. It is very special to me because of the context in my life it sits in, but it kind of feels like the type of song that would feel that way to anyone who hears it for the first time. Just a classic example of someone locking in to make something beautiful.  -Alex

Bring Me To Life - Evanescence

Is this about Seasonal Affective Disorder?  -Marina

Walk It Back - The National

Another perfect album for a deep dark fall which is more a state of mind than a reality. I never remembered this track being a favorite but man it stabs home with tiptoeing lines about trying to ride out a collapse, with a creepy spoken interlude taken from an alleged Karl Rove quote circa 2007 about American empire and the reality-based community.  -Matt

Arrow Through Me - Wings

I made a playlist called Songs That I KoolAid Man Run Through Walls To because this song just gets me going so much I had to find other songs that do the same. Here you go.  -Alex

Seven Devils - Florence + The Machine

I was going to write something poignant here but Toad is trying to lay on the keyboard so just lisrtn sdglhkjkhjjjjjjh,nm

hhbhbbhn

-Marina

Eyes & Mouth - The Smile

I've been waiting for a studio version of this ever since they played it in the early pre-album days years ago. It's a little like overcaffeinated Weird Fishes. When the synths come in and recontextualize everything is the best descriptor I have for what it feels like to get a happy lil buzz. It's also always nice when a band doesn't fuck up the studio arrangement of a song you've come to love the live version of, although there are differences and the live one still kicks ass and is worth checking out.  -Matt

God Mourning America - Episode 17, Part 1 and Part 2

This is our original Austin Public production, God Mourning America.

Hank Hillscape: I have a narrow urethra

Blank Hellscape: (unintelligible noise music)

-Sam

Images

Banner artwork: Sam Mohler

Sam Mohler: Sam Mohler

Cables: reddit.com/r/techsupportgore I think

Sims: wendy send me in a e mail

Hallway: message me for address