Semantic Distance

drafts 002 — living and exploring!

i’ve been keeping a running list of “ideas” in my notion for coming up on three years now. the term “idea” being from the podcast, Exploration: LIVE!, where charlie and natalie share their everyday conjectures and hypotheses with each other, with emma, their producer, riffing in the background and adding her (always) correct takes. when i first listened, i felt like running into old college friends at a mutual friend’s party yelling “OMG HIIIII” from across the crowd, b-lining towards each other trying not to knock drinks over in the process. they also had the same energy as a girl that would defend you from bullies (who were always homophobic) and ask you how your mom is in between classes. needless to say, i was obsessed.

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anyway, it feels super hyperbolic to say that these two comedians and Headgum et al. have absolutely changed my life, but it’s true! i’m observing everything around me with a keen eye and curious spirit, actively trying to shrink everyday interactions into microsomes of the human experience. i’m looking for through lines between everything i love with almost surgical-like precision.

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my worldview until further notice can be represented by a series of questions i can return to when i stay in my bed a little too long, lingering on the transience of everything: how much love can i see? recognize? really observe and put it into words? can i bring these axioms to my friends and family? will i provide them a succinct, clever collection of words that perfectly describes something they’ve been feeling, for what as felt like forever, as they erupt in laughter that it surprises even me? can i be the person the closest the distance between what someone sees and what they have to say? can i be an arbitrator of articulation—is that the just same thing as a writer?

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i don’t entirely know what i want out of this blog, but i do want to start somewhere. for the last couple of years, i’ve made several half-baked attempts to house my writing in a place that isn’t my phone, sending, what seemed like, endless iterations of prose that almost had something to say but i bit the bullet too soon and posted it on substack (no, i’m not linking it </3). i guess through all that noise, i just want my words to offer some type of ease or relief. some of them might be bad and unfunny! that’s fine! y’all can swipe up and offer opinions… i give up the floor for when i fall flat on my face. maybe that’s too much to ask of myself so soon, but i think we can eventually get there.

drafts 001 — even in the dark, we sing

i think i was the only kid in america that grew up with a scarcity mindset before i turned 5. i’m not sure if this is one of those childhood stories that had the truth bent a couple times when my parents relayed the story back to me as i’ve gotten older, but nevertheless, it developed. was it because i became anxious at the beginning of the month to see if rent will be paid on time or lived as an immigrant from a non-English speaking country? well, no! in fact, i grew up without worrying about where my next meal would come from AND i don’t speak spanish—i deeply apologize to my ancestors, i promise i’ll pick it up before i turn 30.

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anyway, i’m trying my best to not become the “licensed” therapist you see on TikTok—who, mind you, makes a living by analyzing the body language of female celebrities under the age of 25–but there’s only so many ways to approach this character flaw without airing on the side of pseudoscience.

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at 13, i was lamenting to a youth group leader (my mom’s a witch now, by the way) saying, “how can this summer retreat be any fun! i don’t know anyone, i’ve never left the state without my parents, and all these kids are gonna hate me before i’m weird!” maybe “weird” wasn’t the correct word, i think what i was looking for was “gay” (lol) since i orbited around only the girls after service ended and unabashedly wore t-shirts with lady gaga’s face plastered front and center at family weekend events.

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it still followed me through my adolescence though. I was 16 at debate practice on a random tuesday after school, borderline dry heaving in a stall next to media center because my sat score didn’t break 1400, all the while i had my coach ask me if i finished my prep doc for the tournament this weekend in ft. lauderdale. there was a constant blame i put on myself: it’s my fault that i didn’t try hard enough. you know, what’s the point of trying if everyone around me is achieving academic accolades without breaking a sweat. why even start improving if i’m going to get upstaged by white kids that live in west pines in a house with a pool?

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what if i reckoned with mary oliver’s words and let the soft animal of my body love what if loves? what if the instagram witches that appear every three reels were right? what if entering a mode of neutrality aligns you with all your greatest desires? does that extend to what i want the world to become? will infants be spared in the wake of ethnic cleansing ? will archaic belief systems that anchor the minds of right-wing politicians crumble to ground? will we go back to indigenous ways of thought about respecting the earth as the divine entity it is? what else would i truly want besides living in a world that has no obstacles in progressing forward? will i escape the fate of being a footnote in future think pieces that reference the political climate of the early 21st century?

to me, the answer is an emphatic yes. when i read the words of those that came before, whether they be academics, organizers, or regular people documenting their lives, they didn’t let the uncertainty of the world overpower the magnitude of their imagination. i want to be that person for someone, even it’s just one distracted, unassuming reader that happens to stumble upon this blog a few decades down the line while browsing the 10th page of search results from google. i hope my words as they appear on the screen outlive my time on this physical plane. to you in the future, it may be dark, but you are undoubtably the light. whatever may be happening around you, both in and out of your control, there’s hope in every corner room you enter. maybe you’re lantern of sorts, illuminating the landscaped features around you. i’m currently living in a world that’s cannibalizing itself because we are still interpreting a document crafted by group of white men who owned slaves in the 18th century to usher in the dawn of american independence as holy scripture.

is it privileged to be hopeful because someone on my phone told me to, laying in a bed my cushy job paid for? is it privileged to question the privilege, having a stomach full of food and living, breathing parents that can hold my body up when i can’t do it myself? maybe it’s supposed to be like that. i don’t question where this new worldview came from. all that matters is that i developed it in the first place. all i know is that even in the dark, i sing with all the force i can—breaking blood vessels in my eyes and straining my vocal cords until veins are visible on my neck yelling “yes! i’m here! everything is cyclical and history rhymes! the world is good because i’m in it!” yeah, that’s it. the world is good because i’m in it. and that goes for you too.

absorption 001

Who’s the Clown? — Audrey Hobert

when i first listened to “chateau” (high btw), i sent the song to two of my friends and basically told them audrey hobert is olivia rodrigo’s kid through ivf? i think at the time i didn’t say taylor swift because i didn’t want to be that annoying gay guy that thinks all white women with guitars make the same music. anyway, this album is really good! it does a great job at doing what it needs to do, and well: be a straightforward pop record with snappy lyrics, clean production, and a peek into what hobert can do as a songwriter. that’s not to say this album is basic, it actually has a lot of moments that surprised me—made me rewind to certain sections of songs more than once just to hear how each layer melded into one another (re: silver jubilee, she was rapping on that song idc).

her visuals for the tracks themselves are also pretty cohesive for someone that has only has one project out. she really impressed me with what she did on thirst trap, but the music video for bowling alley is more of a standout for me. it’s dynamic, energetic, and honestly really funny—reminding me of the types of videos that would play on disney channel at like 4 am (you thought i was gonna say something about taylor swift but i didn’t). i feel like hobert is kinda in on the joke of what she’s doing? like “yeah i’m making this for an album rollout but at least i can have some fun while i’m doing it,” but in a surprisingly authentic way that is hard to come by (which probably happened because pop stars didn’t retain their well hidden lifestyles from early 2000s, we are bombarded by how they through tiktok quotas their labels put on them… ALLEGEDLY).

closing thought: i think hobert paid a karmic debt in a past life because wdym brother is malcom todd (whole other conversation), her roommate at nyu was gracie abrams (an even longer conversation), and got signed to rca like right after those co-writing credits hit her wikipedia?

Excalibur — Good Morning

there’s a tenderness in good morning’s music that’s hard to replicate, even if you mimic their warm style of production where the guitars feel like they’re hugging your ears. their commitment to the feeling is juxtaposed by the lyrics, where when taken on face value, you’d be surprised that it’s a soft indie rock song. like look at this section of the second verse:

So you catch a fresh glimpse into Hell It's a man down, the cops broke his teeth and he was screaming for help Well, it's only here and that's how they'll tell it All that sex and violence makes it so easy to sell it

pretty visceral imagery accompanying subject matter that isn’t great either lol but i really like it! their project from 2019 “the option” is a good next step for anyone wanting to dive deeper into their music. sub is suchhhhh a good song so TAP IN!

Slate — Voda Fuji

trap music so good it can make you cry… like i really wish i was kidding. i’m starting to feel like i’m 16 again listening to young thug and travis scott on the way to debate practice (i contain multitudes btw). i’m surprised at how mature fuji sounds on these tracks given how small his discography is. also the production is SO good and i can tell he cares about the details without sacrificing too much from the track if that makes sense? when i say things like that i think about 2010s pop music that was objectively well-produced, but lacks that soul or “it” factor that makes the genre so universally liked. i’m seeing this a lot in the underground rap scenes both here and in europe where it feels like every new artist somehow took an intro ableton course and can mix/master music like they’re not new to this. anyway, voda fuji better get his flowers soon but i lowkey wanna keep him to myself.