What Happened: Lorde, "SNL," The Shutdown, A Facebook Status, This Charming Backpack

by Alan Hanson

Sharon Curts’ Facebook status claiming she has “OCD: Obsessive Christmas Disorder”

Sure it’s barely October and sure thirty thousand fake-friends of mine would designate this passing acquaintance as “basic” and fifteen north of Sac might even say “hella basic bruh” but in between the IDGAF and the “post as anonymous” and the blue-white silent screams of “this over that” I can’t help but mirth the fuck up and cinnamon my bristle to calm the cuss in my mouth and say Sharon if you love Christmas that much that you’re getting hard three months out then praise be to your heart and your love wherever it may fall and fall it hard for infinity twelve-twenty-fifths to come, you jingle belle.

Score: 5 out of 5 earnest fucks given for once, god damn it.

Lorde, “Pure Heroine”

I’m kind of over getting told to throw my hands up in the air. Every glistening, thunder-chested, boast-with-no-roast headline screaming at me jayhawk-squawk-style shouts new, better, best, outrageous, complex, top ten, gotta see, gotta click, hyperbolic pageview cult crops, gone tomorrow, forgotten today. Save for “Pure Heroine.” Save for cloud-descending white teeth teen Lorde and her sandman sanctioned dream escort record. Call it crushing, call it avalanche-fresh snow you won’t want to shake off. Call it memory-phone back into bludgeoned innocence and aim for the fences, past a coma tree line to Sleepy Berg Umpteen and meet on tennis courts to get dust-doused by a skateboarding wizard in a three-quarter-sleeve tee and dog-mangled Chuck Taylors, who crowned you appropriate, who deemed you present and powerful, who tantrum shouted your nubile growing existence more substantial than world-wonders and paraded a riot in your pretend-to-play-by-the-rules day-mask as you hummed dark, hopeful, fuzzy melodies down memorized sidewalk tributaries. Blood boil levitations and make unbreakable fists. Didn’t you want to fall apart with all your heart? And then you could.

Score: 10 out of 10 slowed-down “yeah”s

Burton Kettle Pack

I purchased a Burton Kettle Pack. The Burton Kettle Pack is a backpack manufactured by Burton Snowboards. It includes a “secure laptop pocket” in the main storage compartment and zero compartments for kettles and will most likely never carry a single kettle in its lifetime, a lifetime backed by a guarantee. It comes with two straps with ample padding that hug the shoulders well. The straps pull from every point of contact rather than just the valleys of the shoulder. The straps hug. They hug from behind. They hug vertically through the chest and lower abdomen. They embrace firmly with an emotional comfort that eliminates a particular ever-present lack of physical affection. Hug me with pointed pressure, Burton Kettle Pack. Hug me as I transport my belongings from her apartment. Hug me during my morning commute that I somnambulantly complete with tired eyes and drugged, sluggish synapses each dreadful morning. Hug me to the funeral and back.

The Burton Kettle Pack comes in many styles; none of which match the inexpressible colors you’ve created in your mind.

Score: 4 Defining Childhood Hugs out of 5 Defining Childhood Hugs

“Saturday Night Live,” S39E01, Tina Fey/Arcade Fire

That is a reference I get. I do not get this reference. I understand this reference but am displeased they are making it. Ah, this reference is an intersection of two pop-culture trends I enjoy though I do not enjoy the marriage of the two. This is the feeling of losing touch. This is not a reference to anything and I am pleased about this. That was a parody. That was a fake talk show. And that. That one too. One more. This is a band I once cared for yet now question their validity and importance in the current fabric of rock, entertainment, and art. This is a joke. That was an observation. That was a famous person “surprising” us. This is hype. Oh, I like him. And her. Her not so much. This is a joke. I laughed at that sketch. I did not laugh at that beaten horse. This is a Hulu ad. This is the end.

Score: 1 year left to join the 27 club

The shutdown of the US Government

A hopeless, depressing, tasteless wisp of American-grey punctuated by a BJ Novak tweet and a dry-heave.

Score: 6 groin-gags out of 9 “no fat chicks” t-shirts

Actually, everything that happened in D.C. this week:

You’re having that godawful dream again, the one that makes you sweat regardless of the temperature. It’s that dream where Halloween is taking place on the 4th of July and everyone but you and your girlfriend is in a wheelchair or missing a nose. Your stepfather forced you to wear a Jar Jar Binks costume and your girlfriend is wearing a store bought Miley Cyrus costume. The weird, awful, soul-sucking thing, though, is that everyone thinks this is perfectly normal. Perfectly American.

Score: An eternal sigh.

Alan Hanson is a Californian writer living in Harlem.