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Dearest Haley,

I can’t express how much I enjoy your newsletter each week. You’ve introduced me to so many cool articles, re-ignited my love for reading, increased my vocabulary, brightened my day, and have contributed positively to my life as a result. I’m not expressing this nearly as eloquently as I would’ve liked, but hopefully you understand what your newsletter means to me (a 28yo undergrad at UC Berkeley studying Integrative Biology) and the impact it has had on my life thus far. Thank you.

Warmly,

Aaqilah B.

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This is truly the sweetest comment. Thank you so much for reading Aaqilah! Going to come back to this comment next time I doubt myself (so like in 5 mins!!)

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This is entirely unrelated to anything, but I feel like you'd enjoy this article/it vaguely reminds me of your own writing (I thought of you when I got to the part about the history of scratch-and-sniff, thinking I was maybe halfway through, and then it abruptly ended. I'm not sure what else I wanted from it, maybe more of an exploration of how companies are capitalizing on nostalgia, maybe more on the absurdity of luxury goods, heck I would've gladly read more about the history of scents, but...anyway I'm still going to share it): https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/02/style/scratch-and-sniff-Tshirt-lanvin.html

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This is such a strange coincidence because I talked about Caity Weaver’s writing in my podcast that went out today!! Specifically in the context of delightful writing that doesn’t necessarily have a point. You and I are on some kind of wavelength right now

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Also What's Opera Doc is a Bugs Bunny masterpiece, if you haven't seen it. And there's that wolf and sheepdog one where they do the standard, fucking each other up for six minutes, but they're basically colleagues who show up with their lunch pails and clock in at the start of the cartoon and clock off at the end, implying that it's just their jobs.

Big fan of Foghorn Leghorn as well.

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When it seemed like Trump was winning I felt trapped. But when it was “officially” declared that Biden won I felt a mix of nothing, relief, and then a different kind of bad. I felt bad when I saw the pictures, slogans, and memes that were being posted like “decency won” or “love won” or “being a good person matters,” as if the low bar of Trump ethics could automatically imply that Biden/Harris are good. Stuff like “blue <3” as if states can’t switch back to red in 2-4 years, or as if red is merely the other sports team. I felt bad about the (subconscious?) focus on finding photos to imply how cute and hot (and they're smart too!!! #Queen #Goals) Harris and Biden looked when they were younger (I have a similar problem with Mother's Day posts that focus on how young and beautiful mom looked) or purely focusing on Harris’s melanin. These ideológical words have rarely done anything for us concretely. It’s not that decency rhetoric will not be effective, but the fact that we have seen that it alone *has* not been, that makes me the most ughhhhh. It's as if all these adults are willfully buying into a fairytale because even though you’'ve already realized the nuts and bolts that make the machines, you still want to believe in the magical romance of Disney World or the Olympics Ceremony.

Not to mention that Biden/Harris' track records indicate that the presence/percentage of a moral motivation is unclear.

The feeling is as if "everyone" (not everyone) pregamed without me and got drunk without me (suppose it’s fitting that I ultimately found out in my mid-twenties that I don’t like/ can’t drink alcohol )

It does personally make me feel a little twitchy that anyone old enough to remember 2008 and the similar rhetoric would exclaim “this is the time for change” or “this is the time we go forward” without acknowledging the bigger arc of US elections. How you really only have to go back 4-12 years to see the depressing merry-go-round.

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Hi Haley, thank you for your writing week after week. I thought you might be interested in the Shouts and Murmurs from this week’s New Yorker :) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/09/wile-e-coyote-republican-strategist

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Omg!

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one of my main memories of introduction to Looney Tunes is watching Wile. E Coyote and Roadrunner on TV when I was about 2 or 3. In retrospect it's mildly interesting to me because I remember no other kids being around when this was on. My parents generally had news on TV, if I watched anything kid-ish alone it was probably Sesame Street (i.e. something "educational"). And that Looney Tunes was probably part of my parents' childhood too. I remember already feeling like I knew the characters, that the colors were pleasing. That even when I probably didn't understand language well, I understood the humor and what was going on with a coyote forever chasing a roadrunner.

In any case, you make me want to rewatch it as an adult.

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it's also tied to the memory feeling of wandering around the house and not being tended to (in a good way) as a child, that it was just playing on TV and I wandered into the family room rather than being sat on the couch in an attempt to occupy me

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This is just to say this weeks letter brought me a perfect combo of joy/nostalgia/longing. I want to eat cereal on the couch and watch cartoons now.

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I understand your saying that you have been cynical about Biden from the start...I felt a bit similar at the start of the primary campaign, but quickly concluded that anyone who could possibly beat Trump would have my 100% support.

You are correct in saying there is much more wrong with this country than this race could address, but that is a fact that no one candidate could ever hope to handle. You also said before the election was called “ watching Trump supporters decry fascism in the wake of voting fraud accusations has served as an unexpected and welcome reminder that there remains a thread of commonality between us, however laughably remote.”. I don’t recall Trump supporters decrying fascism...that is the main issue, and the reason why this win is important. There are SO many things wrong today, but many of them were made worse or created by Trump. It is of the utmost importance that Biden won, and that he and his cabinet (and hopefully Congress) can begin (only begin) to undo the damage and address the other issues that need fixing.

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I meant that Trump supporters were (and are) accusing Democrats of being fascists for stealing the election. It was a strange moment where it felt like everyone was pointing at each other and yelling fascist. A rare symmetry.

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That I understand...similar to Trumpers yelling “Stop the Count” and “Count every vote” at the same time.

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Well said. There is a lot fixing needed and it will take more than 4 years... it’s a start for humanity, empathy, truth and respect back in the WH.

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