Remember when my Dad fucked up? 😵

➕ Iran hands out more death sentences, Brittney Griner goes to a Russian penal colony, & it's Friday, so you get horoscopes 🔮

Happy Friday angels!! Before we get into it - if you love this newsy and all the work that goes into it, please consider becoming a ✨SYSCA Supporter?✨ It means I can keep doing this for you all forever, and makes sure that you’re getting quality & well-funded work!

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TGIF from your fave chipmunk/ handsome Squidward!!! This weekend I’m planning on devouring my book because I’m still not ready to go out in public - I’m currently reading My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrant and can’t figure out if I’m into it just yet! I’m also going to be living on Facebook marketplace as my house is in need of a LOT of furniture still. During my wisdom teeth recovery, I’ve also started watching the latest season of The White Lotus and let me tell you - it’s already better than the first. The cinematography? Beautiful. The dynamic between the two couples? Iconic. Aubrey Plaza in general? My crush. There are only three eps out at the moment and I highly rec you get on that bandwagon with me.

Ooooh I also need to recommend that you read Liv’s newsletter on ‘queerbaiting’ tomorrow. Every week I have the pleasure of editing the Culture Vulture newsy before it goes out to all our gorg ✨SYSCA supporters✨ and this week I was blown away. For a topic that is so nuanced (as you can hear in our conversation about it) Liv has done an incredible job articulating it all for you, so if you want to read it, please become a monthly or annual ✨SYSCA supporter✨ and it will land in your inbox every Saturday!

Shit Chat 💬

This space is quickly becoming one of my fave places to hang out (I’m sorry android users - it’s coming soon I believe!) For those that missed it, Substack offers a subscriber ‘chat’ area, and a bunch of us have been hanging out and getting to know each other (it’s really wholesome and cute.) Yesterday I dropped a lil thread in there for you to give me your mundane poll suggestions (you all give me SO many but they get lost in my emails) so if you’ve ever got an idea, head into our chat to drop it in the thread!!

PS THIS EMAIL IS SO LONG IT’S DEF GONNA CLIP, SO CLICK ‘VIEW IN BROWSER’ XXXX

• My Dad fucked up 2.0

• Iran hands out more death sentences to anti-government protesters

• Brittney Griner is in a Russian penal colony

• 🏀Slam Dunc: An Uber cute experience 🏀

• New ep of The Shit Show

• It’s Friday so you get horoscopes!

My Dad fucked up 2.0

Ok so I know most of you will remember the most iconic story I’ve ever told in this newsy - about my Dad fucking up and going to his golf trip a week early. For those who are new around here, let me refresh you….

This was what I wrote back in March:

So my Dad, Normy (who one may compare to Gerry Gergich from Parks and Rec) flew to Queenstown (down the other end of the country) yesterday for a week of golfing and banter with his mates (and was sending us all pics of his flight, rubbing his holiday in our faces.) But when he landed we got these texts:

Dad told me, under no circumstances am I to put this in the newsletter, but I’ll sacrifice everything for my art.

Now fast-forward to yesterday:

Dad had just gone on the ‘lads’ summer golf trip, and when he landed he set me and my brothers a photo to the group chat. Turns out the lads had NEVER gotten over this story, and had made shirts to commemorate it. Here are the shirts:

the eagle has landed… a week early

Ah, lads will be lads eh. ily Normy!

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Iran hands out more death sentences to anti-government protesters

You know I’ve been working hard to bring you both current & factual updates on Iran, and devastatingly, today, four more people have been sentenced to death on the charge of "enmity against God" in connection with the recent anti-government protests in Iran.

According to the BBC:

Revolutionary Courts in Tehran said one of the unnamed "rioters" hit and killed a policeman with his car, the judiciary's Mizan news agency said. The second possessed a knife and a gun, and the third blocked traffic and caused "terror", it alleged. The fourth was convicted of a knife attack, Mizan reported late on Tuesday.

Human rights activists say that these sentences are unjust, as the "protesters don't have access to lawyers in the interrogation phase, they are subjected to physical and mental torture to give false confessions, and sentenced based on the confessions."

As always, I’ll continue to update you on the situation.

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Brittney Griner is in a Russian penal colony

The latest in the Brittney Griner story is that the basketballer has been moved to a penal colony in a remote region south-east of Moscow to serve her nine-year sentence for drug possession. No one knows how much of this sentence she will serve, as the US are still trying to organise a prisoner swap to get her out of there, but for now, she will be living there with all the other inmates. I’ll keep you in the loop with any new updates.

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New episode of The Shit Show!

This week you just have a very numb Luce on the mic talking about the latest in Iran, the latest in Twitter, the latest in Trump, and the latest in the global population! It’s actually a pretty good ep, despite my mouth not able to open very wide!

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🏀Slam Dunc: An Uber cute experience 🏀

This section is written by Dunc: my bestie, my mentor, a huge basketball fan (and DJ on the odd occasion.) Dunc has pretty hot takes on most things, and he’s also the founder of The Spinoff & host of The Fold, so when you’ve finished reading this, there’s plenty more of him out there for you xxx

Hi! It’s been many minutes.

Last time I was here I was nursing this solo theory that Midnights would be a guitar album?! That’s how long it’s been. Since then I went to the Gold Coast, got a tan, started wearing a too-heavy Cuban link that I “jokingly” referred to as part of my mid-life crisis, disliked Midnights then came back around on it via 3am, had a crisis of confidence and now I am ready-ish to be in the newsie again.

I want to tell you about a beautiful thing that happened to me less than an hour ago. I had a spritz (a beer) with a lil group of my beloved colleagues from Daylight, incl your chiming bestie Bel, who had this idea I died for. It was lush, we vibed – then I realised I was late and called an Uber because the train would not run me on time.

I have been very lucky with Ubers – one gave me this story, one of my fave yarns I’ve ever had the privilege of telling. I got lucky again tonight, Jaspreet Singh was my driver, and seconds after I got in he pointed to his stereo and was like “do you like this? It’s my son”. The screen said Yung Taj, and it was this eerie, forlorn kinda post-Future bop. Jaspreet told me his story – he’s an insurance broker here in Auckland who drives from his home in Henderson Valley to work in St Heliers (an hour in traffic), and picks up for Uber along the way. His son is studying biomedical science at the University of Auckland, but also writes, produces, records and mixes music. The next song came on and it had this skittering Pink Pantheress-ish breakbeat and I was hooked. Honestly, listen – this dude has got something.

I spend a lot of time being glum about technology, but this whole scene forced me to confront the other end, the serendipitous connection and creative opportunity it brings. Jaspreet is a proud papa, who helps save emissions by picking people up on the way to and from work. He listens to his son the whole way there and back, because he loves his boy and his beats and is doing word-of-mouth marketing one ride at a time. Yung Taj is training to be a doctor – the most important thing a human can do. But he also makes legit music which is among the 100k songs uploaded to Spotify every day. When I first heard that number I felt overwhelm, but this situation – happening upon it , only because these two sharing economy platforms happened to collide… It just got me. I hope it gets you too.

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It’s Friday so you get horoscopes!

I forgot these last week! Sorry!! Here are this weeks!

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• Trump, Twitter, & Iran (The Shit Show Podcast)

• Queerbaiting: what is it and what ISN’T it? (Culture Vulture Podcast)

• Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself (Vox)

• Neighbours: Amazon to revive TV soap, four months after finale (BBC)

• Four University of Idaho Students Were Found Dead (The Cut)

• MH17: Three guilty as court finds Russia-controlled group downed airliner (BBC)

• SYSCA playlists (✨Supporters only✨)

• Our HUGE SYSCA reading list! (✨Supporters only✨)