Killer Gag Reflexes! Transitioning While Abroad! Sex and Middle Age!
Dear Pulplettxs,
Yesterday I took my two year old nephew on a walk around the neighborhood so he could yell out WATER METER every few minutes. His parents, who live above me in West Oakland, are, like many of us, stuck inside due to Shelter in Place, and we’ve all found like brief intervals of fresh air skyrocket our mental health 100000000%.
Walking around the block with a two year old is an exercise in boundless joy. He reminded us, through his sheer excitement at everything, what a glorious thing it is to be waved at by the bus driver (driving an entirely empty bus), to recognize jasmine (happy first day of Spring), to be able to recognize things by name (cone! trumpet flower! lemon! broken television!).
We always love you, but we love you extra hard during this time of isolation and quarantine. How easy it was, before the time of COVID-19, to take our simple joys for granted. And while much of the world is shut down, we here are PULP are dedicated to bringing you as much joy and visibility as we can.
Keep reading. Keep writing. Keep waving at bus drivers.
xoxo,
July (+ Katie)
Pulp It Like It’s Hot: The Day My Gag Reflex Died, by Natalie Ponte
“I have this peculiar ability to deep-throat a banana. I discovered it sometime in middle school and it kind of became my thing. Someone would present me with a banana, and I’d perform the party trick: peel the skin off, open my mouth, and slide the shaft of the banana down my throat until my eyes watered and my lips could just about close around the end of it. Voila!
I was old enough to know exactly what this ability suggested, and young enough to think that putting an actual penis in my mouth was repulsive.”
Diagnosis: The Middle-Aged Body, by Gretchen Kalwinski
“It was small things at first: I’d wake multiple times during the night and my anxiety spiked. My stomach began to hurt constantly and my moods turned erratic. At first, I ignored the symptoms. I was busy with work, husband, dog, and the move. Plus, since my health is deeply linked to my emotions, I wasn’t sure if my symptoms were somatic or physiological. All I knew was that I felt robotic, as if I was going through the motions of daily life.”
Transitioning In Taiwan, by Bennett Cunningham
A graphic novella on gender dysphoria.
Meet The Artist Behind Cakeland LA: ‘The Beauty War’, by Dustin Clendenen
“Over the past few years, pop ups like The Museum of Ice Cream, Happy Place, and Candytopia have taken the world by storm. Not focused on telling any specific narrative, highlighting social issues, or illuminating the human condition, these vibrantly colorful spaces instead center around an aesthetic theme and use them to immerse attendees in multi-sensory experiences.
For all intents and purposes, they’re considered part of the art world. But where the crisp white walls that define traditional art galleries help highlight the artworks they’re trying to sell, the visual overload of art pop-ups are designed to steep attendees in the kind of artificial beauty our society has trained us to value. And of course, there’s the appeal in how being seen in this space might make you more desirable — consumable — in the public sphere as well. Instagram’s entire business model is predicated on this alchemy.”
The Pulpit Presents: Stay Calm And Hunker Down, by July Westhale
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4rMhH77KgfeCWrsssEXLvr?si=VTHQIANhQhK9Qyws0E8heg
