CxD #134 Life has Fun things in it!
Whoa! The art of Appreciation!, Colors! Jenga-dogs! Mango forest poetry! 52! cards
1. TikTok the platform might be a thing you understand or might have never heard of. This week, the Trump Virus wants to ban it for reasons I wasn’t interested enough to research. But this TikTok profile spoke to my CxD heart! Don’t you just want to pinch his cheeks?
“Some of the most illuminating, purely pleasurable videos on TikTok this month have been Larry Scott’s awed observations of cooking, where the teen from Florida looks on as a meal is lovingly prepared al fresco: hand-rolled pasta dough, spices arranged by color, a knife assuredly having its way with a pepper or onion. The recipe videos have quick cuts, and with each new move, Scott’s eyes widen. His brow furrows just a bit while he tries to suss out what’s being made. He eases into a million-dollar smile when something catches his fancy. “Oh,” he says, with a sparkle of realization. “Nice.”
That’s it. That’s the thing.
TikTok is a decentralized medium, but Scott’s gentle, perspective-slowing reaction videos have a way of imposing just a touch of reason to it, and untold joy. Using the duet — the TikTok function that allows a user to watch someone else’s video and record a response in real time — as his métier, Scott is an equal opportunity reactor. Dance videos, romantic montages, a call to arrest the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor, weirdo nonsense quasi-art clips, an a cappella group singing Alicia Keys, a rack of doughnuts getting slathered in glaze: Scott has nice’d them all.
Under the TikTok handle @larryakumpo, Scott posts several videos per week. They are maybe the most calming thing on the internet and, on some days, maybe the only calming thing on the internet. He radiates pure equanimity. No matter how eye-popping the video is, he’s never judgmental — curious, shocked, secondhand embarrassed, maybe a little worried, but he basically never deviates from the sweetness of wonder.
And then there’s the “nice” itself, which he rolls out with the slithering embrace of a purr. It’s not wry or ironically detached — it’s the sort of utterance that slips out almost imperceptibly when you’re overcome by what you’re seeing. Sometimes he adds an “oh” or a “yeah” — it’s like psychological A.S.M.R.
This earnest observational device is a pushback to TikTok’s infinite scroll. Scott is a watcher, trapped in the box just like the rest of us. If we weren’t already obsessed with our phones, the last few months of isolation have made absorbing endless content the default national mode. We are passive in our liminal misery — waiting to be distracted, entertained, vaccinated, liberated.
Unlike television, which requires a metacommentary that’s pithy and interruptive — think “Beavis and Butt-Head” or “Mystery Science Theater 3000” — TikTok is already pithy and interruptive, which is why the most effective sort of metacommentary slows down its rhythm, encouraging reflection.
And Scott’s clips are, without fail, beatifically tranquil. Sometimes his hair is tied up, sometimes it falls in front of his face in a loose tangle. Often he’s reclined in bed or on a couch. His face fills up the majority of the screen, so there’s no ambiguity about how he’s feeling. When he lets out a “whoa,” his eyes get big, and he leans back, as if a gust of wind has caught him off guard, nudging him gently. When his face broadens into a smile, it has a way of almost obliterating the video he’s reacting to with its guilelessness. When he’s frazzled, which is very, very rarely, one single worry line creases his forehead. Even though the rhythm of his clips is familiar, Scott meets them with full presence. In an interview with Buzzfeed last week, he said he doesn’t pre-watch the videos he duets with, so as to preserve the integrity of his reaction.
In an ecosystem as ruthless as TikTok, with creators jockeying for likes, followers, clout and whatever monetary privileges follow those things, Scott’s videos are solely about encouragement, a dollop of pure love.”
2. My QueerEye fellow country man and foodie extraordinary, Antoni, posted this happy act de resistance in response to Poland’s recent election face-palm:
3. Is the new skill you’re trying to learn too hard for you? Have you considered patience and dedication and hope? Or maybe just transmogrify into a dog.
Can your brain process a really big number? What happens when it tries?
You might not get excited when you hear that Buddhist nuns from 2,600 years ago wrote poetry. But go ahead and read this poem and see what happens.
All the hairs on my body
used to buzz like black bees
whenever I was touched.
Now they’re like the hairs on dead bark.
This is the story
of how one thing
changes into another.
I used to wear flowers in my hair.
Hours after I walked by,
you could take a deep breath
and know I had passed that way.
These days I still leave some scent behind.
but most would rather I didn’t.
My hair used to flow down like a black silk river.
My body was a port for all travelers.
But those waters have long since dried up,
and ships plan their routes around other stops.
Things change.
They just do.
My eyes were once deep dark pools.
Men got lost in them.
That’s how I remember it now, anyway.
It’s hard to know what’s true
and what to believe in,
when true beauty
so quickly turns
into this.
How did such a perfect nose
turn into this funny little potato?
And what’s the point of earlobes?
Are they just there to hang trinkets from?
You out there. Do you have teeth?
Are they white or yellow?
Straight or crooked?
Sooner or later, they’re all coming out.
That’s just how it is.
These hands once danced and played
like two sisters on a stage.
Now they sit around all day
like peppers drying and cracking in the sun.
How could we have let it matter so much—
knowing that someday it would all come to this?
You were beautiful once.
Or maybe you’re still beautiful.
Tell me.
Where will you go when it all falls apart?
But maybe you’re not ready just yet
to take to the open road all alone.
For now,
just see the body
as a house you’re renting
for a short time.
Make the heart your home.
Please.Stop telling yourself
you have all the time in the world
to change your life.~Ambapali, Guardian of the Mango Forest
Because you Care, you
You like flexing your generosity muscle, so you
With something to say, you
Because you really like clicking mystery buttons, you click the fuck out the