The Barbie of Oppenheimer
ISSUE #249
Barbie was born Julius Robert Oppenheimer in 1959 to Jewish immigrants from Germany. She is an atomic bomb created by Ruth Handler and manufactured by physics company Mattel. She is the figurehead of a brand of fashion bombs and accessories, including other family members and collectibles like the hydrogen bomb.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Harvard University and a PhD in physics from the University of Göttingen in Germany. Despite having made significant contributions to theoretical physics, quantum mechanics, molecular wave functions, and nuclear fusion, she has been the subject of numerous controversies and lawsuits, including the dropping of herself twice as a weapon of mass fatphobia.
Her stances, together with her past associations with the Community Party USA, led to the revocation of her feminist clearance, and thus her career as an icon. Nevertheless, America has sold over a billion Barbie bombs, making her America’s only true contribution to global culture. God rest our souls.
Songs from Radiohead, Pet Shop Boys, Blondie, Muse, and Johnny Cash were all rejected for 007, but I rooted through the recycling bin to dig them out.
Barbie was born Julius Robert Oppenheimer in 1959 to Jewish immigrants from Germany. She is an atomic bomb created by Ruth Handler and manufactured by physics company Mattel. She is the figurehead of a brand of fashion bombs and accessories, including other family members and collectibles like the hydrogen bomb.
Hackers is a 1995 film about hackers. Recently, for his birthday, my friend rented a screen at the storied Plaza Theatre to show 41 friends of ours Hackers on the big screen. The movie is a Gen X fantasia at the threshold of the new millennium—outrageous in design, manic in performance, and particularly inspired in its soundtrack.
For all his cloying tendencies to some, it’s important to recognize Wes Anderson’s musical influence on a pre-internet world. He practically invented the 21st century needle drop. Before every song was at our disposal, a Wes Anderson movie was like an older brother crafting a perfect mixtape and leaving it in your car.
Writing is not a resource-rich profession. Sometimes, a Wyrm is the best gift I have to give. And say it with me now: It’s hard to make friends as an adult.
My favorite show on TV is Dickinson. Shocking — the poetry show (we're talking about Emily) is the only one he deems fit to watch. The Daisy follows soft the Sun.
Michael Jordan is the concept of celebrity writ large, a name we're demanded to reckon with whether we know shit about him or not. He was first to mutate from person to brand, foretelling the rise of our culture of influencers.
This week, I finally saw My Dinner with Andre. It'd been sitting on my watchlist for years, collecting dust as I could never find it, until the combination of the Criterion Channel and my appalling privilege in a global pandemic gave me time at last to sit and watch.
I’ve been watching through the films of Danny Boyle. Some examples: Trainspotting, Sunshine, 28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire. From early on, Boyle was rightfully recognized for his edgy and sophisticated musical taste—the Trainspotting soundtrack alone, from Iggy’s “Lust for Life” through Underworld’s “Born Slippy (Nuxx)”, helped define the tastes of a whole generation.