My Reflections on Pageants after 6 years

+ Philosophical Salon and some Hot Literati announcements

Part of writer me is stuck in the way I used a giant computer in my childhood bedroom and that is why it just sort of hit me today that many of you read Hot Literati in your inbox which is wonderful. I love email. I love early (to me) social internet. Email, skype, Runescape.

I was briefly on Tiktok today and heard a clip of this guy saying that writing is like walking down the street naked. Good writing. Joyce Carol Oates also has this masterclass ad where she says writing is taboo. It’s telling the truth even when you don’t want to. I think a lot of writers now fall into the trap of being taboo for taboo's sake and not in the name of honesty and emotional baring. I recently put down this one book midway (my first in three years!!) because it felt like that.

Writing your honest thoughts is scary. Spontaneous expression is scary, especially in an era where we’re all doing it in very face forward ways. I’ve had this idea for the longest time to do a column called Art Whore where I talk to different artists about their processes and how society currently exploits artists for their IP, but then I realized that maybe I was just projecting. Maybe I felt exploited every time I wrote and felt like I’d gotten nothing in return but more mental depth to wallow in.

On our YouTube, I committed to finishing my manuscript by the end of the year. I’m going to document my own creative process as I do and share it in a column called Art Whore (both here and on Youtube). I’m trying out some other creatives’ processes (documenting on our YouTube. started with Martha Graham. hint, she loved Schopenhauer. Dark.), but I’m also aware that mine involves a whole lot of running around and then writing in the moments where I do sit still, so I’m going to try to do a healthy amount of both.

I hope you all enjoyed Playgirl Spring. We’ll announce a summer philosophy soon, but we’ll have one more playgirl spring piece by

Bella Ve

.

+ I’m going to start having really tiny ephemeral philosophical salons for paid subs in NYC. The invite will be at the bottom of this post.

And now I want to talk a little more about bodies, EDs, and pageants, and in the name of narrative expression? exploitation? I’m going to paywall it. I’m feeling a little bit sensitive after a major television network called me, offering a “safe space” to discuss “my experience” and then pulled the story when it (probably) wasn’t what they wanted to hear. I spent the entire evening after a call with them sobbing over the memories that I dug up in that conversation. Art. Whore.

Here is how I feel about pageants 6 years later: