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THE PLAYLIST DIARIES

it's been a wild few weeks.

we hope you're taking care of yourself before all else. personally, we've been sharing a treasure trove of animal crossing tik toks in our group chat. it's helped.

whether you're self-quarantining at home or taking the necessary precautions to continue essential work activities, we hope we can offer you a set of tunes to make you smile. BACKSLIDE by MIYA SINGER is a regression playlist of mp3s unearthed from your 2009 iPod.

think teen vogue binder collages and the first time you shared an earbud with your crush to show them the new song you heard on the radio (okay, the apple commercial with all the dancing silhouettes). thankfully, it's a move that still translates in a time of limited irl activity—all ya gotta do is share that playlist link.

we know it can feel lonely and overwhelming right now, but we're taking comfort in our community and the resources we're fortunate enough to have to stay connected. we hope you are too.

& we'll be there when you need us. find us online @flashthrive.

GUEST CURATOR

miya singer is a publishing assistant, co-host of the podcast theme park trash, and paddington evangelist. she likes richard e. grant, church ceilings, the sprinkles cupcake ATM, and when there's only one bed. she would love to hear about any ghost sightings, and the best place to reach her is in the comments section of her letterboxd review for james cameron's avatarher three desert island albums are: 

  • ABBA gold: greatest hits ABBA
  • contra vampire weekend
  • tommy the who

ENTRY #38

BACKSLIDE

5:11 pm
my bad couch, which is different from the terrible chair (where i work now) 


Regression in six scenes 

1.
I spend too much money on puzzles and a sketchbook and dish towels. My sister is collaging again and I think to myself that I should be too and why didn’t I keep all of my old Teen Vogues, never mind that I’d carved them all clean and papered my old bedroom wall with carefully cut pictures of Agyness Deyn in House of Holland shirts and whatever smallish images I could scrounge up of my spindly British miniseries-regular crushes. Also my mom always yelled at me for being a hoarder of papers and she isn’t wrong. There are ticket stubs so faded I can’t make out the movie titles anymore in all of my pants pockets. 

2.
Right before we were all sent home, I was on a reading kick but I lost my mojo when I lost my commute. I should read one of the library books I can’t return since the libraries closed but instead I read just the love confession scene from Emma while eating lunch. Nearly all my childhood books fall open at the spine to the climactic moment of angst and confession because I like when boys are tormented by their adoration. Emma doesn’t fall open though, because it’s a hardcover. 


3.
I’m on Archive of Our Own looking for Pirates of the Caribbean fanfiction and not in a private browser like I usually do, even though it’s my own damn laptop (only one time I was about to plug my laptop into our TV so we could watch a movie, and nearly put Reylo fanfiction up on the screen, and so it seemed safer to have a separate tab). It feels like a transgression even though it means nothing. We’re all openly horny now. Imagine all the people... with their clothes off.


4.
I’m obsessed with Phantom of the Opera. I want to say again, but frankly it’s worse than when I was younger. My first solid cry of quarantine was to a video of Andrew Lloyd Weber playing “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” on his piano (this was before my Phantom madness)––I was watching it casually as I rolled out of bed and it caught me by surprise, the way I had to crouch for a bit on my floor sobbing lightly while putting some socks on. My social distance walk is to a cemetery, a really beautiful one, where I stroll around feeling dramatic and a little like singing (I’d never). Could I pull off a cape? 


5.
My roommate and I watched the new Emma., the stylish and sexy one that has a butt in it, and now we’re casually making our way through other Austen adaptations. Sometimes in the middle of the movie I’m struck with the thought that I’m back to where I started, going all akdjaksfjdkasjf when Darcy looks longingly at Elizabeth (we were watching Bride & Prejudice though, so Lalita), waiting for life to happen to me. 

6.
This is a playlist about going back
not to dim-sum brunch and parties and browsing linen button-ups at Uniqlobut to the last time we were stuck and impatient and daydreaming.

We just have to fill the time. Might as well put our records on.


miya singer

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