pinkbuttondown

[pinkbuttondown]

ESOTERIC DUMPSTER VOL. 1, ISSUE #1: "CALM BEFORE THE STORM"

***POSTING LATE IT IS OFFICIALLY 2025 NOW but everything I said still stands. It is Monday, October 7th, and I've been consuming copious amounts of archived ROOKIE magazine posts because with the dying leaves, (and, cough cough, HURRICANE MILTON) an overwhelming nostalgia has really kicked in, as well as anticipation for my last trick-or-treat-able Halloween. This may only be on my mind because my little brother is turning 16 in a few days, but I feel like everybody makes a big deal about turning 16 and 18 without considering how damn weird it feels to be 17. Seventeen is like a placeholder for a future you can't have yet. Seventeen is antsy to be an adult and also scared shitless that it won't be a kid for much longer. Seventeen takes blurry, desperate pictures on ancient digital cameras to stretch single moments into fascinations. Seventeen takes its time. It doesn't want to be over this soon. Seventeen is a liminal space we are happy to dwell in for as long as we can before we realize the cotton candy, knit sweater POVs that "Perks" sold us, while beautifully iterated, are not true. We are not infinite in these bodies. Some of us don't have friends magically appear on the first day of freshman year, like Charlie. The Rocky Horror Picture Show might as well be lost media at this point, and good cinema like it might as well be replaced by artificially scripted, acted, and animated movies. Here I am wondering why we're so nostalgic and lost-feeling at seventeen, but the answer actually seems obvious. There is nothing organically good on the horizon for us- AI movies might be the headcanon for the younger generation of suckers who didn't ask to be born. World War Three might not make anyone bat an eyelash. We cling to the past because it was creative and real, and there's something missing from our lives now that we seek to fill with empty content. I'm rambling, I realize that. It's a beautiful night tonight, the sunset was spectacular. The air is cooling, the clouds are dark but removed. This is the "calm before the storm". So, here's few photos of me and my friends yesterday night as we swam at the beach and hung around a lifeguard chair in a subtle, unconscious attempt to make ourselves infinite while we still have the chance, before a storm both literal and figurative. SONGS: "At Seventeen", by the master of gay yearning folk music, Janis Ian, and........................ "Sleep Apnea", by the masters of youthful yearning mid-tempo indie jams, Beach Fossils.