Table of Contents
Remodel………………….Why changing our apartment matters
Sunday Stories…………………OJ, Israel & Iran, Leverkusen
Sunday Songs……………………..A weekend of rap beef
Sunday Poll………………….Getting petty and picking a side
Last Thoughts …………………………Gen Z and WWIII
P.S ……………………………………….Founded in July 1904 by workers at the Bayer AG pharmaceutical company based in Leverkusen, the team spent its early years in the lower leagues before reaching the second tier shortly before the Bundesliga's formation in 1963.
Remodel
We can always make a change in our lives. We always have the choice to buy something different at the grocery store. To wake up earlier and go for a walk. To remodel our apartment after a year of no effort and no interior design. Remodeling by definition means change. So when I finally chose to remodel my apartment, after a year with minimal decorations, and a spareness that can only be defined by the memes of “boy apartment,” it felt long long overdue.
As with most remodels, the idea behind the change was largely pushed by someone else. Ideally, in a good way. We don’t remodel strictly for ourselves. Not even if we’re the ones who have to live in the space alone most of the time. No, we want a new open kitchen for family get-togethers, to put a firepit in the backyard to hang out with our friends and decide it’s time to buy a couch, or at least a futon, because you started to date someone, and it’d be nice if they had more sitting options than hardwood floor or your bed.
The remodel doesn’t need to be drastic. It doesn’t need to be a paint job with $10,000 new floors and a disco ball installed in the ceiling. Most of us can’t afford that anyway save the disco ball. So instead, change some furniture around. Move your desk by a window. Hang the beaded curtains you ordered off Amazon three months ago, and don’t be afraid to take down the paintings or pictures you have hung, and hang them somewhere else. Life is always changing, era to era, season to season, and the place we live should reflect those ideas. Because once you do decide to take a Saturday and change it all around, all of sudden it’ll feel “right.” Like a more accurate, up-to-date, and reflective version of who you are today.
Other times it’s not that deep. It’s just nice to get new energy and ideas from how we change, add to, and subtract items from our space. And so now my desk faces out the window. There’s hardly a view. A wall. Some steps. The tops of some apartment buildings. But I can see the sky. The clouds. I get sunlight and feel the city breeze.
That alone has felt worth it.
Sunday Stories
Israel-Palestine Human Rights Watch
Iran and Israel have a history of enmity. What key recent events led to Iran’s assault on Israel?
Bayer Leverkusen wins first Bundesliga title, ending Bayern Munich’s 11-year reign
Sunday Songs
Rap!!!
What’s so beautiful about hip-hop is that it is competitive, there is conflict, there are beefs, rivalries, and artists in their feelings! 2024 is shaping up to be “one of those years” on par with 2016, where everything from politics to culture, to music, feels one notch above our usual yearly emotional and social baseline.
This week, Future and Metro dropped their follow-up album, We Still Don’t Trust You, an album that I like a lot. Even if it isn’t filled with as many disses or shots as I was maybe hoping for with the first listen. Regardless, these two have dropped a lot of great music in the past month and as a fan of the genre, I’m thankful for it.
Amazing (Interlude), Out of My Hands, and Streets Made Me a King, are my favorite songs.
Then, on Saturday night, Drake’s (leaked) response dropped, and as a fan I felt like a high schooler again waiting to listen to it. It was a good record. Drake took shots at Metro, Kendrick, and Rick Ross. Only for Rick Ross to respond with another diss track a few hours later. Does anyone have eyes on Chris Brown and Quavo???
We’re only at the start of the beef. More records are coming. Buckle up hip hop.
And for a closing thought, something to take away from this as an artist is that no matter how long you’ve been at the top with your art, your personality, your real-life persona, can affect the perception of the art, and the perception of the artist. Typically when this happens, it’s for the worse. I’m so interested in what J Cole dialogue and perception look like one year from now. He officially deleted his diss and stayed out of cross records shots, at what seems to be, the sacrifice of his artistic persona.
Sunday Poll
Sunday Poll. Here’s the question of the week.
Voting is free and anonymous. All it takes is a subscription. (That’s free too).
You have one week to vote.
Results will be reviewed and discussed in next week’s edition.
Last Thoughts
Meanwhile, as I remodel my studio apartment after a full year of living in it, the war and genocide in the Middle East continue to escalate. This paradox defines what it means to be Gen Z. We’re young to mid-twenties, and all we want to do is pay less on our student loans, have some financial stability, and not worry about our country getting dragged into WWIII and pre-empting nuclear fallout. But life can never really be that easy, can it?
For the series of “stay-woke” jokes, memes, and messaging, that took place between 2016-2020, it does feel as if our collective consciousness emerged from the Trump presidency and pandemic more media and government literate to the extent that, the story of the Gaza extinction can’t truly be defended in good conscious.
Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and they’re backed by the United States. This weekend, a news story broke that in retaliation for Israel attacking an Iran embassy, Iran launched drones and missiles at Israel, most of which were shot down.
I am not a geopolitical expert, few are, but unless Israel stops their destruction of Gaza, and or the United States makes them stop, whatever that looks like, the reality where this continues to escalate to total war, feels very possible. It begs the question, why is this being allowed to happen? And how will it end?
PS
It’s the end of Pen Sunday, edition #76. If you reached the end, thank you for reading. It means a lot.
Pen Sunday is a newsletter about a writer, a dream, and a studio. With headlines from around the world, music, and maybe a poem. Every Sunday and Sunday only.
Until Sunday,
Solomon Lovejoy