Issue #34: My Year of Dicks and Physical 100
Oh hey...
Ok…
There are literally only two ways to go about addressing the fact that I haven’t published this newsletter in almost two years. We can either just ignore it and slip right into our familiar rhythms without addressing the cavernous time gap at all OR…
…actually, that sounds pretty good to me. If it’s cool with you guys, I don’t care to explore other options. Because I feel like with these other options, I’d have to “take responsibility” or “confront my persistent issues with time management” or something else deeply unglamorous. And you wouldn't want that for me, would you? Of course not. You’re subscribed to one of the most glamorous newsletters in the history of email. You simply are not the sort!
Listen, I’ve written and rewritten this preamble so many times now. I’ve psyched myself out thinking “I need to update the girls on my life,” “the girls don’t care about your life,” “DON’T talk about my HB/LB girls like that—they are some of the most genuine, most kind hearted people I have ever sent an email to in my ENTIRE LIFE.” You know how conversations with yourself can be.
So what have I been up to for the last two years? I’ll just run through the highlights: I entered my 30s (not taking it well), I got engaged (taking it well), my a$$ got phatter (my God is an awesome God), and most importantly, I’ve been hard at work hosting a weekly history podcast on Spotify. It’s called Not Past It. It’s quite good, if you ask me. I know I’ve already plugged it here before. And guess what, I’ll do it again too. You can’t stop me! But more on that l8r. We’re in HIGHBROW/LOWBROW country now.
And for this return to form (that we’re not really calling a return because a return requires a departure which never happened…) we’re going with two HB/LB classics: a teen girl’s sexually-charged coming-of-age story AND a high-concept Korean reality TV competition show.
TIME TO RAGE, BABES!
HIGHBROW
My first rec for you is the animated short MY YEAR OF DICKS. But don’t be distracted by this perfect title. It’s not so much “slutty Eat Pray Love”—which is what I was expecting—but rather, a classic high school story that asks the same timeless question as American Pie, Superbad, and the other great adolescent texts: “will I have penetrative sex?”
You may scoff at such a question, but it’s an important one. Sex is a threshold between not knowing and knowing. One day, you’re wondering what it must feel like to do this thing that everyone seems to freak out over, and the next, you’re like, “Oh… so this what it feels like to have someone’s entire sex organ inside my body.” And then you’re just, like, walking around the world, knowing what that feels like. You’re ordering your same cup of coffee from the same barista, but now with a newfound gravitas that suggests, “yeah, I’ve come in contact with another person’s genitals.” The world has lost a little bit of mystery, but a brand new channel has opened up. You’ve unlocked a new level in the game of human experience. You’ve successfully withstood a dick. You are unstoppable.
Obvi, adjust the specifics to reflect your own sexual perspective. But that knowing piece? That’s universal. You either know what it’s like to fuck or you don’t. And the not knowing can be a maddening place to be. So it makes sense that every high school movie that’s ever been made is about seeking out that knowledge, and joining the cabal of the knowing. I mean, isn’t that what growing into adulthood is all about?
MY YEAR OF DICKS follows 15-year-old Pam as she desperately tries to have sex for the first time. Seriously, she’s like, obsessed (we stan a goal-oriented teen). She tries her luck with a bunch of different guys. And, as adolescent sexual experiences tend to go (so I hear—I was a woefully sexually underdeveloped teen, everyone feel sad for me), it’s mostly not good. She spends a lot of energy building fantasies around these boys—reading into their every move, building meaning around every glance, every hand hold. Basically all of my biggest hobbies before I started going to therapy.
The short is adapted from writer and filmmaker Pamela Ribon’s memoir Notes to Boys (And Other Things I Shouldn't Share In Public). And she splits the film into five chapters—one for each boy Pam tries to make whoopee with. Pam imagines each boy through the lens of a different genre: David the skater boy is a Dark Vampire Romance, Wally the movie theater usher is a Sexy Foreign Film, Robert the PDA lover is a Cute Anime Dream. The animation style oscillates too. It’s over-stimulating, messy, uncomfortable and grotesque at times—you know, just like being a teen girl in lust. The form matches the content.
MY YEAR OF DICKS received an Academy Award nomination this year for Best Animated Short. It did not win. But if you listen to the Spotify Original Series Not Past It hosted by THEE sex symbol of the history podcast space, you know that the Oscars are fake* anyways, so who gives a FLYING FRICK.
You can watch MY YEAR OF DICKS for free on Vimeo!!!!!
(Also, side note, Pamela Ribon has one of the most incredible resumes. You’re telling me the same brain that wrote Pixar’s Moana also wrote for the tragically short-lived ABC Sitcom Samantha, Who? starring Christina Applegate as a 30-year-old real estate VP with amnesia? There truly is magic in this world!)
LOWBROW
Girlfriend, I’m sorry to break it to you but we are in an age of reality TV fatigue. Producers are truly scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel with these concepts. It’s a cooking show, but you can only use leftovers. It’s a design show, but for making piñatas. It’s an obstacle course show, but you have to hold a knife the whole time. And don’t even get me started on the whole “island dating show” subgenre. Oh, you’re hooking up on an island with someone you just met? Oh, you’re hooking up on an island with someone you just met but you’re British? Oh, you’re hooking up on an island but with someone you just met who’s also your fiancé? Oh, you’re hooking up on an island but your mom’s also there, also hooking up on the same island? It’s too much! And yet, it gives so little.
Making a concept more complicated or more obscure doesn't necessarily make it more good. That’s why, I was so pleasantly surprised when I started watching this one show, whose concept is so simple and yet SO powerful: 100 contestants from different athletic backgrounds compete in various physically demanding challenges until only one is left standing. I’m talking about PHYSICAL 100.
This isn’t the first time I’m writing about a Korean reality competition show with a cast of 100 contestants. And even still, there’s something so unique about PHYSICAL 100. First of all, it is epic in its scale and its design. The show begins with contestants walking into a giant room filled with 100 plaster torsos, each cast from a mold of a player’s real body. They have to weave through this maze of rippling abs and hulking shoulders to find their own torso, sizing up the competition in the process. They’re challenged to do seemingly impossible things, like pushing a 2 ton ship up an incline, or holding up a 50kg boulder longer than any other competitor. Each episode, I found myself going, “huh… I didn’t know it was possible for the human body to do that” as I hit send on my DoorDash order. It takes all types, folks.
Secondly, the tone of the show is unlike any other reality show I’ve seen. The contestants are competitive and confident, but they’re also very reverential toward one another. They are hawkeyed about each other’s bodies and comment openly on everyone’s physiques, but it’s complimentary at best, analytical at worst. Seldom—if ever—judgemental. There are no budding romances, no flirtatious side plots (despite the unGODly number of hotties in the building). Everyone is being very Corbin Bleu about the whole thing and keeping their head in the game. It’s refreshing!
And lastly, it’s just really cool to see the human body in action. The bodybuilders look different from the martial artists, the ice climbers look different from the CrossFitters, the wrestlers look different from the cheerleaders, and yet they all have their own unique strengths. It’s interesting to see how each sport, each training regimen, and each physique translates into athletic prowess. ‘Cuz let me tell ya something about these books and their covers… they don’t always match. And it makes for some pretty exciting television.
Plus, whenever a luge athlete comes on screen, it’s really fun to go, “Hey, check out this freakin’ luger!”
Oh yeah, good times…
PHYSICAL 100 is available wherever you get your Netflix.
Alright, folks. That’s another one for the books. Thank you for reading, for subscribing, and for being exactly who you are! It feels good to be back, baby!
Wishing you and yours an abundant Short King Spring. Until next time!
xoxo,
Simone
*the NPI episode is a little more nuanced than that but HB/LB is not about nuance, it’s about raw, unfiltered thoughts straight from the id.
She back! Yay! And congrats on your engagement 🎉