on the joys of being a pathetic clown

Behold! I have had a thought.

Hello!

Hi! Thanks to everyone who took advantage of the sale and bought a subscription last week! That was nice of you. I enjoyed it. It also means I can definitely keep doing [vaguely gesturing towards the computer] this for a while longer, and isn't that a win-win.

Anyway! Last week I promised you some links of interesting things to read, and I am a woman of my word, so here are things I've enjoyed recently. I think there probably is something for everyone there:

# 'It was chaos': The history of San Francisco's most unforgettable TV ad

Do you remember that mid-2000's ad where they yeeted thousands of bouncing balls into San Francisco? This is the behind the scenes of that. It's mad and fun, but mostly mad.

# How the shattering of empires after WWI turned one tiny Lithuanian village into a ‘republic’

Does what it says on the tin and I mean: who doesn't love a bit of quirky history?

# A King of Infinite Space — On Madness, Pain, and Beauty

A very, very beautiful and beautifully written essay on mental illness, and being alive.

# History’s Largest & Most Famous Disability Access Ramp

Did you know many of the Medici were pretty physically disabled? I did not. I also didn't know that it ended up basically shaping the architecture of Florence. Huh.

# Hollywood’s obsession with AI-enabled ‘perfection’ is making movies less human
Another pretty straightforward one, but it does need to be said, and it's said well.

A column

I developed my first crush at the age of seven. He was called Jean-Baptiste and his skin was pale as milk, or as a ghost, and his face was covered in freckles and his hair was dark brown and glossy and his eyes glistened in the light. I remember him so well that, when my mum found an old school picture of mine a few years ago, I looked at him and he still looked entirely familiar. I remember relatively little from being seven years old, but I do remember Jean-Baptiste.

I pined for him from afar and it consumed me whole. One day, I wrote our initials on a wall, using my finger and some saliva, as I felt that my love for him was too overwhelming to remain hidden, but it couldn't be seen by anyone else either. I had no idea how to get his attention, seeing as it was my first ever crush, but I would often look at his pale and bony hands, and notice that his knuckles were covered in scraps and bruises. I thought that could be my way in.

Because gendered expectations hadn't quite made their way to me yet, I decided that I, too, would start living a more careless life, and would let my hands get covered in endless scraps and bruises, so we would have something in common. It didn't work. Jean-Baptiste never noticed me. We went to different schools a few years later anyway. I looked him up not too long ago, and found out that he joined the army after his baccalaureat, and his only real online presence dated from the time he campaigned against same-sex marriage. We probably wouldn't have worked out - or I would have fixed him. I guess we'll never know. I don't think about him all that often.

Well, I never used to, but now I do. More specifically: I think about my seven-year-old knuckles, so purposely red and blue. I think about the fact that they were the first time I did something pathetic and humiliating out of hope and desire, and I see it as a good thing, and the beginning of a long story, which is still going to this day. Only last year, I bought a novel I knew I wouldn't enjoy then read it quite swiftly purely to impress someone I had a crush on. That was pathetic and humiliating as well. I'm glad I did it. It made me feel stupid and it made me feel alive, in equal measures.