The First Ten Vibes
From Kermit to Kicking and Screaming
Hii!
First off- welcome to The Vibes, a fortnightly newsletter, where, alternatingly, I will provide you with ten things I feel are a Vibe and then expand on something that is maybe one of the vibes, or something else that I’m interested in, in essay form.
This is mostly to give me something to do in my post-university, pre-“proper job” life. Maybe I will eventually try and move weekly but I haven’t written an essay in what feels like forever but is really 6 months, so we’re taking baby steps. I will try and make sure they come out every second Thursday, so keep your eye on your inboxes then! And if you’re not subscribed- please! Subscribe!
The Vibes are gonna range from song recs to actions or thoughts and are completely my opinion so if you Do Not Vibe - don’t worry! Feel free to ignore!
Here we go, then, with the inaugural Ten Vibes:
Father John Misty’s album God’s Favourite Customer. My brother recommended this to me and while I don’t usually listen to his recommendations because I am lazy, but I did know that FJM is One of Those Artists That People Like so I thought I might try listening to his most recent (a.k.a. his shortest) album. I like the album as a whole but the songs that are the true Vibes are the songs Mr Tillman and Date Night because I have a strange and bad love of false bravado coming from 30-something-year-old white men (see: any song by The National). The album also sounds like The Beatles which is saying nothing because I know nothing about music and probably the laziest thing to write is that music sounds like The Beatles.
Also, I want everyone to know that Spotify is not a Vibe and I hate it but it is the only option as a music player on Substack :((
Three chairs. I have been given three old spindle back dining chairs that were my nonna’s, and now they are sitting in my bedroom like I am living in Mike Mill’s movie Beginners. I am also concerned for when I move out and I only have three chairs that match (one of which has a missing spindle). Do I supplement with one non-matching chair or with three other chairs that match each other but not these three? The second seems both presumptive I will ever host 5 other people and that I know 5 other people but the first feels shameful and like I am trying, which, as we should all know, is bad.
if it wasn’t for ewan mcgregor and arthur idk how u would tell the difference! (first image from mike mill’s beginners [2010]) (second image from my bedroom) Kermit being revealed on The Masked Singer US! People are over this now but I am not! I will not stop describing it second-for-second to people! The silence before the little hands appear and then the scream and reaction shots when Kermit pops out! Impeccable TV.
Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler. An incredible read that I’m still thinking about. The writing fits into a certain voice that people who are bad at describing things would call cynical but I wouldn’t because there is a thread of sincerity running through it (I am also bad at describing things so this could be wrong- see above), Noah Baumbach’s films often fit into this as well (more on him later). Basically, the premise is that the book begins around Trump’s inauguration and the narrator finds her boyfriend is a secret online conspiracy theorist. She plans to break up with him but before she does, he dies! Crazy! It’s so weird to feel like a book set during Trump’s presidency is a period piece but this book is so grounded in that time which is very interesting. Mostly though, I would like to be more like the main character, who seems cool and mean and like she doesn’t try- all things I am always aspiring to channel.
Digging myself in a hole with Instagram ads. I keep getting ads for checkerboard home goods (a crucial part of the avant-basic lifestyle- a term that Emma Hope Allwood coined on Twitter) so I’ve begun screenshotting them as part of a joke to myself and adding them to an album on my phone but this just means I keep getting them because Instagram probably thinks I want to buy them and so we’re going around in a circle. I won’t lie and say I haven’t been seduced by elements of the avant-basic lifestyle (these candles!) so this makes this exercise/joke even more dangerous.
variety of the ig ads i have received, screenshot from my phone The film Kicking and Screaming by Noah Baumbach not the film Kicking and Screaming by Will Ferrell. I don’t know man, this movie keeps rising up on my list of favourite movies by Noah Baumbach (currently at number two!) every time I rewatch it. I mostly think this is because I am sort-of in the same place as the characters now. I’ve finished uni and don’t exactly know what I want to do and if I had a planner I would probably be writing “go to bed” and “wake up” as if they were two different events.
source: indiewire The Ringer Dish podcast. It always surprises people when I reveal just how much I revel in celebrity gossip and the culture surrounding celebrity. Maybe because I grew up in a family that does not value it at all really so this is my little rebellion lol. It, however, should not surprise you that I consider myself to be Extremely Online, as they say, and if you are Extremely Online without engaging with or absorbing celebrity culture I don’t know what to tell you except that you are probably on the Bad Internet, like my mum- who is either on LinkedIn or domain.com and no other website. Anyway, the Ringer Dish podcast gives you technically four different podcasts in one feed but I don’t listen to the ones about The Challenge because I don’t know what The Challenge is! Basically, though, this gives me the opportunity to indulge in hearing other people talk about things that I can then burrow into my brain to retain for either a late date or just to Know. If you want to listen - I recommend you start with the Jam Session eps which are more substantial than Tea Time which is a bit fluffier.
Making your bed! It’s lame but Vibe no. 8 is making your bed! Doesn’t have to be perfect but it makes you feel as if you’ve done something. Although, to harken back, does making and getting into bed count as different events?
My big martini shirt. This shirt came to me in the only way I ever want any other clothes to reach me- a screenshot of the Opulent Tips newsletter by Rachel Tashjian, a writer for GQ. I am not subscribed to Opulent Tips, not because I wouldn’t want to, but because it is invite-only so the rest of us have to scramble around for the scraps that the selected few share on their Instagram stories that Tashjian then reposts. In this case, it was Alex Beggs, a writer for Bon Appetit, who shared that Tashjian recommended hand-painted Martini sweatpants from a small brand called Birthday Girl. These pants were being worn with a matching, oversized shirt with another martini painted on it. I thought about it for approximately 12 hours before buying (a way of justifying that it wasn’t an impulse purchase) and now I have it! It feels like a big statement piece (for me) but I’m very into the idea of having a little story that makes really only me think there’s something special about it.
The song Arkadelphia by Waxahatchee. Almost in reverse of the Father John Misty Vibe- I am pro this whole album’s vibe but just wanted to highlight this song in particular. There is a certain magic in this almost five-minute song, because it manages to actually kind of get close to ~the meaning of life~ which is very hard to get close to in music without being corny! Really, it’s the whole song but the moment I feel like encapsulates it all but also renders this whole thing (thing being this newsletter lol) pointless is the 6th verse, “If you get real close to the ending/I hope you know I did what I could/We try to give it all meaning/Glorify the grain of the wood/Tell ourselves what’s beautiful and good”. This song is beautiful and good.
Another song that is beautiful and good is The National’s song Not in Kansas, which will be the focus of my essay in two weeks. I’ll be thinking about how exposure and over-exposure can either hinder or help your experience of listening to music.
Until next time :)
Bianca