Conspiracies, Rita Ora’s Writing, Venus Retrograde 🍄
Just 2 dumb bitches looking at each other 👀
G’day schmatey,
There seems to be a lot of new age-tinged issues on my mind. Perhaps it’s just a phase, or perhaps I am moving through something, but it’s definitely left an imprint on this edition of the SWEETIE Weekly. Oh well. Too late now!
Let’s not wait around any longer.
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A new age deep dive
I went to a new age store yesterday. I’m not sure what I wanted to find. As the only customer in the cramped space, it was hard not to eavesdrop on the conversation between the two women that worked there. They were talking about manifestation and Aleister Crowley, the famed occultist, which immediately made my ears perk up. As I pretended to browse their selection of 60 pound crystals, aura sprays and books on anti-racism, I heard a fundamentally concerning exchange take place.
“Have you done any Crowley work?” one asked. “I have” the other replied, “But it gave me a lot of suicidal ideation. My brain kept telling me to walk into traffic. I thought, ‘That’s not me’, so I stopped.” The other nodded her head sagely, as though she hadn’t just been told a tale of what sounds a lot like mystical psychosis. I left the store.
I enjoy spiritual pursuits, and I always have, even though I am completely bewildered as to how any of my half-beliefs could possibly fit together in a sensical mosaic. I do not believe in God, but in the morning I kiss the guardian angel prayer card I bought from a cathedral in Madrid. I believe in the principles of science but I blame almost every personal shortcoming on my birth chart. I don’t strictly believe in fate, yet I read tarot for myself.
I suppose I am looking for a comfort I have not yet named. Many of us are. But with the internet, those who are lost are finding it much too easy to follow spiritual teachings to a nefarious place. The new-age-to-alt-right pipeline is very real, and very terrifying. That’s why I really enjoyed this piece by James Ball in The Guardian, which touches on those who have been affected by conspirituality as they join a steady march to fascism.
The shift from crunchy to Qanon is fascinating, albeit only from a distance. Heaven only knows where it will lead us.
Rita Ora’s wedding coverage
Who? Weekly patron saint and famed Kate Bush cover-er Rita Ora married Taika Waititi last year, and now Vogue is making it our problem.
Though it does not seem to be standard with Vogue’s wedding profiles, from what I can tell, Rita has written captions for each of the wedding pictures in the slide show. You’d assume a normal celebrity's writing would be boring, bland, PR-sanitised fluff. Not Rita’s. You can absolutely tell she wrote these, with no edits.
I am mesmerised by her writing style, a mix between millennial meme-speak and meaningless idioms. I mean this with all the love and respect in the world — these captions are deeply brainless. Take a scroll with me.
For my dress, I was looking for something that was going to feel unique and a bit unexpected, which is why I went for the one shoulder and the lace. I saw this Tom Ford dress years ago and found it just before the wedding in my exact size. It can’t get much more meant to be than that.
It can’t get much more meant to be than that. Say that fast five times, I dare ya.
I think the cake says it all.
Well… yeah!
It’s giving Hollywood glamour.
Sort of, but also no. Your nipple is showing, mi amor.
Ta-daaaa!
Okay, this one slaps. She definitely cobbled this one together after three poolside mimosas. Perfect amount of a’s.
I truly felt like I was in my very own love story.
You were! It’s YOUR wedding day.
That feeling when you just got married.
Perfect. No notes.
I don’t mean to be mean, I really don’t. Rita Ora quite genuinely seems like she might be the most fun person on the planet. I wish we could play Pictionary together.
JAW is back at it
Jeremy you silly goose! SAG-AFTRA strike be damned, this man is working his way across the paparazzi picket line. Not content to just be captured swole and sweaty, or embracing his recent ex-wife to show they’re on VERY.GOOD.TERMS, he is now in his ~public smooching with a new boo~ era. They grow up so fast.
Next we’ll be seeing pictures of him having an argument in a car, or on a run to Starbucks, or perhaps even having lunch with a famous pal at Carbone. The world is his oyster, and life is beautiful.
One key question, though — why has the paparazzo angled these pics like they’re Juergen Teller?
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Venus Retrograde
Kicking off on July 22, Venus Retrograde will be humming along until September 3. Expect trials, tribulations, upsets and hiccups. Don’t do anything dramatic with your appearance, or make rash decisions, or think you can outrun the wiley ways of the planets above us.
I don’t care if you don’t care about astrology — you cannot deny the effects of Venus Retrograde! Everybody and their mother are getting dumped and duped left, right and centre. There have been about five million celebrity marriage bust ups, and situationship splits as far as the eye can see.
We as a society simply can’t have this many people walking around brokenhearted at the same time. The vibes are atrocious. I can’t fathom how many people are downloading Hinge right now, selecting film pictures of themselves from 2019 and answering the “I’m competitive about” prompt with “Everything.”
Divorce, babes
No easier way to get me riled up then by showing me this clip from Jimmy Kimmel that seems to recirculate every six months. I am not exaggerating — this video is heartbreaking to me. It has me foaming at the mouth, consumed by a white hot rage. It has me speed-reading The Will to Change by bell hooks. It is exquisitely sad.
The OC turns 20
I generally bemoan the whole this pop culture thing turns blah blah age ooh spooky anniversary we are so old haha Buzzfeed things, but full disclosure, The OC turning 20 is really fucking me up.
20 years ago I turned on the TV and felt an envy towards Mischa Barton’s physicality that I can only describe as all-encompassing. It has been 20 years since Seth Cohen almost single-handedly defined and destroyed my taste in men. I feel like the crypt keeper.
Besitos x