skating over the rubble
ephemeral archive #4 featuring: the Gaza Skate Team, a puppy girl novel, why you need to be making micro video essays & plushie clocks (!!!!)
hihi! welcome to the Ephemeral Archive, a monthly digital zine of everything I’m loving, coveting, obsessing over, thinking about, writing about, and more.
I’m not sure if it’s the brain rot or the wars or the algorithms and everyone losing their shit over AI, but I’ve been feeling a little creatively burnt out and I feel like it’s really important to be honest about that. My brain is already tired of trying to figure out if a new movie was scripted by AI or not (I suspect more of them are than we realize), and I’m like tired on an existential level.
It’s not that I’m entirely against AI itself. I think there are some genuinely interesting uses for AI, but exactly zero of those uses include having it write a novel or a college essay or make a painting. And I usually end most days worrying more about the ethical problems with AI, the way that it’s completely unregulated, and its impacts on the environment to really feel anything but unsettled about where this is all heading.
Anyways, my solution to all this has been to start digging through our collection of VHS tapes and laserdiscs, watching old movies about robots to try and figure out everything. Ghost in the Shell, Robocop, the Terminator movies — these are quickly becoming my comfort films.
If I figure anything out, I’ll let you know.
some good things happening in our internet bedroom that have nothing to do with robots:
in case ya missed it, the issue earlier this month features a collab with
of in which we talk about the artifacts from our teenage bedroom. go read now!I also got exactly one episode of Internet Bedroom TV out this month. the publishing schedule got a little weird but I think I have everything figured out now so that I’m not dropping Internet Bedroom TV episodes the same week as newsletters. The most recent episode is about growing on Substack as a creative and what I learned from writing on the platform for over a year now!
Alright, enough yapping from me…let’s get into this month’s issue of The Ephemeral Archive.
cherishing: @gaza_skate_team
There is a genocide happening in Gaza. People are starving, and all I can do is watch it through my phone screen and send money, hoping that the money I send is enough to counteract the tax dollars my country sends to fuel all this senseless killing.
It is easy to feel overwhelmed by all of this. It’s easy to feel hopeless or simply look away for some comfort. I understand. The mind cannot comprehend the scale of Gaza’s suffering while our lives also unfold with all their problems and fears and joys and anxieties a world away.
One thing I have learned about suffering, however, is that the one who wants you to suffer wants you to do it in such a way that you lose your humanity. And that’s why it’s so important that we continue to find ways to connect with the humanity of Palestinians, not just the suffering intended to dehumanize them.
Last month, my friend Rammi sent me an insta account run by a group of skateboarders who teach kids in Gaza how to skate and get them access to skategear, and I have been enjoying their videos and sharing them with my friends. There’s something about watching these kids skating over the rubble, learning how to kick flip, reclaiming their land and having a few minutes where they can let go and feel like they’re flying — and I think it’s really important for you to see.
I particularly appreciate how the Gaza Skate Team includes girls and teenage girls in their crew, making the sport accessible to everyone. Gaza’s children deserve so much better than the world has given them, but I keep coming back to these images of kids skating over the rubble as proof that the better world they deserve is possible. Palestine must be free.
I’ll be donating all the money from this post to @gaza_skate_team so they can continue to provide this space for the kids in Gaza. If you’d like to donate directly, you can do so here.
reading: Shy Girl, Mia Ballard
Hot girls should be writing unhinged, completely debased horror novels. And if you aren’t going to read Shy Girl by Mia Ballard this summer, you are missing out.
There are a number of shocking things about Shy Girl…