Several times a week I will produce a grand theory and sit in front of my computer ready to share said groundbreaking finding with the world. Then I type, type, type away and read my words back and realize I make no sense and that I am twenty-one years old and don’t know anything about anything and should probably cut all my hair off and move to a remote island off the coast of Greece. And then after twenty years immersed in holy texts and scriptures, emerge as an ascetic genius, and then, only then, will I be qualified to write on my substack blog!
I’ve been keeping this blog for three years now—I started it right before freshman year of college. I’ll often find myself writing something with so much conviction and passion, only to read it back a month later and completely disagree with whatever I thought I knew so well. This back and forth of knowing and not knowing, writing and deleting is a never-ending game of tug of war: the most challenging and rewarding process I could ever put myself through.
I’ve accepted that no matter how good I get at writing, the process will never get easier. I need to keep writing because the friction of rope getting perpetually tugged back and forth is what gives me energy to do everything else. Without that friction, I’d be hurtling too fast towards nowhere and crash and burn somewhere far out of my depth.
So with that, here is my monthly update!
I Learned A New Word
I learned a new word that I’ve been obsessed with ever since reading Susan Sontag’s Against Interpretation. It’s now in my top five favorite insults.
A philistine is a person who is incapable of appreciating art—a terrible thing to be.
“This philistinism of interpretation is more rife in literature than in any other art. For decades now, literary critics have understood it to be their task to translate the elements of the poem or play or novel or story into something else. Sometimes a writer will be so uneasy before the naked power of his art that he will install within the work itself - albeit with a little shyness, a touch of the good taste of irony - the clear and explicit interpretation of it.”
- Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation
Borrowed Taste
I started a new project last month where I make people write about a piece of media—book, movie, music, anything—and explain why they love it. Borrowed Taste is the anti-thesis of philistinism, which is unfortunately rampant in our world of full of algorithmically optimized art.
Every great piece of media I have ever loved came from recommendations by people cooler than me. I owe nearly everything about who I am to the art they’ve shown me. It has been so much fun reading people’s recommendations and stories behind why they love what they love. I even had the pleasure of filming a podcast-style episode with my dear friend Kate, where we totally stayed on topic the entire time and definitely didn’t talk about boys at all.
Subscribe and write for Borrowed Taste!
YUNGBLUD Changes from Back To The Beginning
This is the best Ozzy Osbourne tribute I’ve ever seen. I’ve watched it too many times, and it still makes me want to cry. Changes is one of those songs that’s universally felt. Back when I was a little baby high schooler, I used to scream this song in my car after the worst days ever. It’s pure catharsis: things are-a-changing and there’s nothing to do than wail and surrender to the chaos of not knowing what’s going to happen next. Now Ozzy’s gone, and I’m not a kid anymore, but I still feel the song all the same.
Heres a bit from an essay I wrote about Black Sabbath a couple months ago that I had a lot of fun writing.
“Paranoid’s importance extends far beyond the album or its specific moment in history. The themes that Paranoid tackled are just as relevant now as they were in 1970’s: war, addiction, political turmoil, the looming threat of nuclear disaster. Like any kind of art, musicians aren’t politicians or authorities we should look to for solutions to these existential threats (Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a live bat, for God’s sake!) But the music matters because it is a reflection of the fundamental horror of living in a unpredictable, repressive society.
Metal not a comforting stroke on the cheek telling you “everything will be okay.” It’s affirming in a different way — maybe everything is as bad as it feels, and the only thing that can temporarily drown it out is a guy with long hair and too-tight leather pants screaming about it over a sick guitar riff.”
The music will never die as long as there are people left to love it. God Bless Black Sabbath. God Bless Ozzy Osbourne.
Writing Prose!
One of my goals is to publish a book by the time I’m twenty-six. I always believed I was incapable of making stuff up and the only story I could ever tell was my own. I thought if I ever wrote a book it would be a memoir—I no longer have that desire.
I’ve been reading a lot of fiction and trying my hand at prose. I’m far from book level, but I’ll get there. Last week I posted my first real attempt at prose: a story loosely about how when I was sixteen I decided to to stop being sad. Telling a story is much harder than writing an essay. My impulse when writing has always been to over-explain, but too much context kills a good story.
But mostly it’s comforting to know that if I try hard enough, I can do anything I want. I always thought writing stories required this God-given gift to see things that didn’t exist yet and put them on paper. I don’t have that gift; thankfully, I won’t need it.
In five years, get excited to read the next great American novel. But until then, read Heavy Metals.
Some pictures that I took last month between Houston and Southern California. Featuring Winnie, gorgeous sunsets, a goth cowgirl store, moonbeam icecream, A Complete Unknown, nosebleeds, and Townes Van Zandt.
Also I wrote a piece about Townes Van Zandt for The Riff on Medium. Read!
New Music!
For the first time in forever, I’m genuinely excited about new music. I’ve always been insufferable about this: walking down Sunset Boulevard wishing I was born 40 years earlier so I could’ve seen classic rock in its prime. I’d even take the ‘80s for some Guns N' Roses, Mötley Crüe glam metal action over whatever we have now. But I was not “born in the wrong generation,” I just want what I can’t have.
Right now what we have is awesome. 2025 has been a great year for music. Too much music since the days of TikTok sounds like it was made for toddlers—predictable and over-explained. But there’s also been a great new wave of artists rejecting the algorithmic impulse to make baby music for babies.
My two favorite bands right now are Wednesday and Geese. Both bands, while entirely different in sound, make incredibly unique music, telling great stories through lyricism and production, and both have upcoming album releases this fall that I’m incredibly excited for.
Their entire discographies are great, but I love these songs.
Senior Year
My senior year of high school, I wanted nothing more than to leave as fast as possible. There wasn’t anything at the time I could have possibly thought of savoring when I was there; I was counting down the days until it would all be over, and all I cared about was working and leaving. In hindsight, I regret working so much and skipping every football game and homecoming dance that last year because I was too eager for the next thing. While I didn’t get to pick it, the place I grew up is quite beautiful in all its messed-up glory, and I miss it so much when I look back from my rose-tinted rearview mirror.
USC and Los Angeles will always be special because it was the first place I chose to be. I’m here completely by choice, not circumstance, something I often have to remind myself of while drowning in all my obligations. Everything I do here is by choice, from my classes to my friends—the greatest gift I have ever gotten.
And while I’m ready for the world beyond my college, I’ve never been so excited to return to school one last time. The choice I intend to make every day this year is to make sure I leave this city in May, knowing nothing else is left for me here.
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Friction part is genius
Lovely recap
I'm working on my Borrowed Taste essay rn