Yet Another Hollywood Sequel
🦞🥞 Vol. 2, No. 12
It was a week.
Maybe Tuesday night smashed into your emotions like a Cybertruck running a red light on its way home to catch the Tyson/Paul livestream. Or perhaps you’re one those who waited decades to ride this double overhead red wave to the shores of small government Valhalla1, now faced with the prospect of making it a reality. You may also find yourself somewhere on a spectrum of political numbness, perhaps welcoming a temporary reprieve in between an election that started back in 2020 and just never ended, and whatever sequence of fingers mashing on the commander-in-chief keypad comes next.
I wasn’t going to tell you how to feel going into the election and now standing in the day-old guacamole aftermath of it–the underlying result still fairly fresh and worth exploring underneath a surface congealing with a muddy, oxidized layer of emotion and lukewarm takes–I am definitely not going to tell you to be mad, happy, sad, scared, ashamed, irritable, sober, restrained, excited, angry, or whatever else might be going on in your head and heart right now.
Short of hurting yourself or hurting others, there are no wrong responses in this moment. You might think twice about what you post, as the likelihood you say anything2 that ages well coming out of a moment like this is minimal. But even then, you are in the middle of one of the biggest grace periods in recent history. Do what you gotta do.
I have spent a lot of time talking with friends this week: some counting themselves winners after Tuesday’s results became apparent3, others nursing their wounds and packing up their camo hats following the Democratic L. None of us know what comes next. I’m not even sure that #47 knows what the next few weeks look like, let alone the next four years.
The last year has given us a detailed inventory of all the ways that future will be horrific in uniquely unimaginable ways depending on who ended up in power. We spent a lot of time looking back at the successes and failures of an outmoded political duopoly, with the future mostly discussed in terms of the worst possible outcomes of making the wrong choice.
It’s one thing to catalogue the potential things that could happen with a candidate in power, and those hopes or fears especially real given that our next president was our last president. But a lot of time has been spent trying to game theory out the inner workings of the once-and-future President (and father to crypto genius Barron) over this last decade, and no one has outperformed a blind man throwing darts.
The election was just the beginning, now the real job begins. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about how much work there is to be done–whether it’s by the party coming into power or the one in disarray who just lost it–time to put the big kid pants on and go do the thing.
There’s no more time for blanketing a thin layer of attention across too many trivial matters, wallowing in nostalgia (often to avoid the now of it all), and assuming that algorithmic activism–interspersed with memes and influencer #sponcon–could build a better future. Whichever side you’re on–whether you’re excited or fearful of where Don swings the presidential sledgehammer first–the status quo is gone.
We are all going to have to carry the torch towards the future we want to see, we’re going to have to continue to fight for the things that matter most, and find ways to let go of those that do not, as we travel together into uncharted territory en route to America’s 250th birthday.
When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us.
Alexander Graham Bell
Watch elephants use a hose to shower themselves – and prank others4
Five Takeaways From Calm's Election Night Ad
How Cheerleading Became So Acrobatic, Dangerous and Popular
Why 'Seven Nation Army' Is The One Jock Jam To Rule Them All
I still expect a lot of corniness when I finally set foot in the Intuit Dome, but the giant scoreboard equipped with t-shirt cannons is pretty sweet:
Photographer Alastair Philip Wiper’s Inside Nike photo archive gives us a rare look inside R&D at the Swoosh
Cowboys-Bengals on Dec. 9 to feature 'Simpsons' stream
The 21st century's complicated world of sport
🔑 New subscribers → points for you → free merch. Share the gift of Sunday Bunch and win big.Overnight lines, mall fights and instant sellouts: Labubu toy mania comes to America
How the Criterion Closet Became Internet Famous
Can an Arthouse Cinema Succeed in Cattle Country?
Why Streaming Subscription Prices Will Continue to Rise
Taco Bell’s ‘Decades Menu’ is a fast-food version of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour
The '#1 restaurant in Austin' doesn't exist
What’s driving sales of luxury cars at auction houses?
Recommended
🎧 LISTEN
How Long Gone
Decent chance you already know about or, like me, consume at least one of How Long Gone’s three weekly episodes. Chris Black and Jason Stewart (aka DJ Them Jeans) are as cool as two 40+ year-old white dudes are allowed to be in 2024. They started a podcast during peak pandemic times, it blew up, and now it inhabits a sort of edgy and exclusive but accessible intellectual space that TK did in a previous media age.
Give it a listen. I’d say either just dive in wherever feels right, or just start with either a recent Chris & Jason show or one where they’re talking to someone you know (I might recommend Paul Scheer from How Did This Get Made? and once upon a time, The League). Perfect blend of lowbrow and highbrow, the subtlest of bro vibes but balanced with deep cuts from fashion, movies, music, and art.
Not that I am saying you’re part of The Bro Vote or anything.
This post included.
Hat tip to the surprising restraint I’ve seen from a lot of my conservative friends. I won’t lie, I did not imagine you had it in you.
Post-election, this can be viewed either as a salve for the soul or a metaphor.