The Friday Dispatch: June 6, 2025
Remember when your friend Hannah was sooo scared of 6/6/2006
Hello! It is June 6th, aka 6/6, a figure that is 2/3 of the way to SATAN! Remember late May 2006, when your friend Hannah was sooo worried that her pregnant cousin would give birth on 6/6/2006, and that the baby would be the antichrist, like in the 2006 reboot of The Omen that premiered on 6/6/06? And then the baby WASN’T born on 6/6/6 but everyone jokingly called him Damian because that’s what they called him when he was still a fetus? And now it’s 19 years later, and you don’t remember any of the people from this story, EXCEPT Hannah and Not-Damian?
I presume this is a universal experience.
Speaking of things that happened an illegally long time ago, the music video for Beyoncé’s best song, 7/11, came out 10 years + 6 months ago. ACK.
Now, listen. Hey. Have you seen the 7/11 music video? Because you do have to see it! Sorry. I know, you’re probably busy. Well…too bad! You have to watch this right now please!!! Myles hadn’t seen this music video, so I showed it to him earlier this week. It is not just a music video but a perfect film. This music video has everything:
Beyoncé dials her foot like a phone
Lady wearing a big ribbon as a bra
Beyoncé tries to do a cool jump and fails and falls on hard tiles
Beyoncé spinning with her foot up
Her foot down
Her hands up
Dangerous rolly chair behavior on a BALCONY!
Easily replicated mirror tricks
Kale sweatshirt
Seven twice
SEVEN TWICE
Easily replicated messy bedroom
It’s Christmas (?)
Beyoncé dials her foot like a phone
I have watched the 7/11 music video so many times, it’s achieved Shrek In My Head status.1 If I hear a tidbit of the song, I can tell you what’s happening in the music video at that timestamp. Also, sometimes when I’m bored, I think the song to myself and also think the video to myself, for entertainment.
Here’s what I mean when I say Shrek In My Head:
Even though I can watch 7/11 in my head, I still always laugh when it becomes Christmas. Why? Why is this a Christmas music video? Does that mean it’s also a Christmas song? Does that mean I should only listen to it between October 1st2 and December 25th?
I am seeing more entries to my personal catalogue of “music videos with a twist ending.” On that note, please find and enjoy the uncensored version of the Smack My Bitch Up3 music video, created the very same Jonas Åkerlund who brought you Telephone, Ray of Light,I Miss You and Canned Heat. Also, Bitch I'm Madonna, another video I can watch in my head (and a go-to shower-listening song!).
Dispatches from the almanac
Here are some interesting things I’ve learned lately from my daily consultation of the Old Farmer’s Almanac and subsequent tumbles down the encyclopedia and dictionary.
If you were curious, today is the 100th anniversary of the Chrysler Corporation’s founding!
I did not know who Edwin Way Teale was so I looked him up (his birthday was June 2, 1899) and found his life story charming. He was a guy from Illinois who loved nature but moved to New York City in order to write, and who became a renowned naturalist, eventually creating a rural homestead on Long Island and later a cabin in Connecticut. Also, he and his wife were partners in their writing/photography/research/publishing and embarked on a series of road trips back and forth across the country, documenting their journey in a series of books.
I find something oddly reassuring about this: That he could live in NYC and also recognize himself as a nature lover. I think it eases a baseless (and nonetheless extant!) anxiety I have around my own citification. Also, LOVE this tidbit from his wife’s Wikipedia: “Nellie was noted...for having a better understanding of birds than her husband.”Fred Astaire? Also born 1899. WHUH?
Epenthesis is the insertion of a phoneme where one does not belong in the word itself—think pronouncing “hamster” as “hamPster.”
Metathesis is the transposition of sounds; think of “comfortable” frequently being pronounced as “comf-tur-ble.” When we talk about language evolution, an example of this is the old English byrl (hole) to pryl, and nosbryl (nose hole) to nostril!
The "arabesque" movement in ballet is believed to be called this because it invokes the scrolling/gliding linear patterns that are a hallmark of Islamic art.
The “June drop” is when apple trees toss their surplus fruit. Bye!
Some Nice Stuff
This is sort of a short newsletter so I’d like to use our 0.04% of remaining brain power to show you a couple of nice things!
I just learned about this website, Give In Kind. It's a free platform for arranging help to people in your community—meal trains, childcare, fundraising etc. This seems like it could be VERY helpful for all my friends who are involved in mutual aid and faith groups, as well as in one-off circumstances (like moves or births or bereavements or what have you!)
There’s a Redditor who posts a lot of cat pictures (u/smittensky). They happen to be the photographer for a shelter in North Carolina. And they have a free online resource to help YOU get started with pet photography, if that is your dream! Here it is! I want to point out, too, that while the photographer did not name these pets, these pets have incredible names (Texas Pete, Stove, Mitsubishi Eclipse and Whopper Plopper):
In Sanrio news, June 2nd was the birthday of Pandapple. Who—I did not know this—is canonically from southern California?!
WIDNBTW
Here we go folks, What I Did Not Buy This Week:
Pringles Mingles: Myles brought these home earlier in the week4 and they are the perfect snack, because they aren’t great. They’re good. But they’re not so delicious that you eat seven of them and think “Gee, I want 85 more!” and kill a bag in one night. We’re on the sour cream and cheddar ones now, but I guess there are a BBQ-and-pizza flavor to watch out for. Cause the Pringles are MINGLING.
I did not buy anything from the Mary Tyler Moore auction, but I DID go see it, and I DID get to touch the brass letter M that hung on the wall of Mary Richards’ apartment. And I did cry!
More context: the auction of items from Mary Tyler Moore’s estate was in support of the Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative, which supports research, advocacy and assistance for people with diabetes-related vision loss. MTM herself had Type 1 diabetes and spent the later years of her life fighting the progression of the disease. She had almost total vision loss when she passed away.I did bid on a couple of items from the auction, online—I did not win! The entire catalog, here, is very cool to see. I was outbid by, uh, $1,250 on this MTM Enterprises mirror.
now).
And that is all totally fine, because I got to see the one thing I actually went to the auction house for. That’s the M, used across seven seasons of the show, signed on the back by Mary Tyler Moore herself. Mary Tyler Moore is the #1 celebrity I have ever looked up to. I owned every episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show on VHS and they’re part of my “personal canon” (a follow-up on this later but an interesting post from
The employees at the aucition house were very nice and encouraged me to ask questions, take photos, etc. I asked if I could take a photo of the M and they said “Of course!” Then I asked if I could touch the M, and they very carefully opened the glass case and let me slip my hand inside. Then I had to go hide in a corner and put my head in my shirt because I was so happy and crying so much!
This Pompompurin vanity chair, which has his BUTTHOLE in the SEAT!
Okay, I gotta go put on some concealer and brush my hair and leave my house. It’s not too late to get your Free Donut With Drink Purchase from Dunkin’ today5 (National Donut Day) (Holey, therefore NOT the Antichrist)! Godspeed and happy Friday!
If you haven’t spent enough time on Tumblr to know what I mean, well…Just keep reading.
October 1st is the official start of both Halloween AND Christmas. Christmas gets longer because it’s Real Presents and not just candy. I think this is a good compromise.
Teresa May is apparently the name of the red-headed actress in this video, not to be confused with Theresa May, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
His exact text to me was, “I got us some fucked-up snacks!”
Amy, making sure you saw this fancy Iced Coffee Charm