This post brought to you by Brian’s Hat.
I will tell you a true story.
I’ve been reading Tarot for friends and family for years, which actually tells you a lot about the space I occupy in our family constellation; if you need someone tall who knows how to do drywall stuff you call Clarf, if you need a scientific explanation of an article you’re reading and/or EDM recs you call Brunk, but when you need to consult the oracle it is Bageler Time™️ baybee.
My first deck (and the only one that really works for me, if we’re honest) was the Gilded Tarot with Josephine Ellershaw’s handbook, bought for me by She Who Is My Wife; there is a widely-held superstition among Tarot folk that one should only use a deck given as a gift, and while I put no stock in it I do recognize the data.
In said book is the only spread I’ve ever used or needed, the Cross of Truth, an illustration of which you can see below, snagged from an Etsy shop. (Sidenote to explore later: I am not at all sure how I feel about selling readings on Etsy/etc.; what I do know is that I think all of the ‘baby-gender-prediction’ listings you see there seem wildly unethical and disgust me.)
Once, a family member need a reading, so I did my thing. The client didn’t love the result and asked me to try again with a different deck (not usually advisble, but, vague gesture), and I did so, resulting in another Cross of Truth with one card from the previous deck (the specific card they hadn’t liked, actually) reappearing in exactly the same space, despite me having shuffled each 78-card deck three times before drawing, as is my custom.
Now, I’m no good at probabilities, but I do feel confident that if one deck of 52 normal cards is probably in an order the universe has never seen before every time you shuffle it, the odds of two 78-card decks having the same card in the same stack-position after three shuffles each are probably just a friggin’ scooch longer. No matter what, the point is that it was a fantastically unlikely thing to happen, and it either was a coincidence or it wasn’t a coincidence, and to me, both possibilities are equally cool and kinda spooky in their own way.
This has been: A True Story.
And now, I draw another metaphorical card, trusting the universe not to goozle me, or if goozle it must, at least make it funny.
(Also if you haven’t seen it already, check out The Sesamerot without delay; I am not an authority on anything, but as far as I’m concerned this guy Gets It)
#18: What is some popular piece of content/media that seems to be universally loved that you have never been able to understand?
Listen, the easy answer to this is Castle; I get why it’s beloved, and all of its constituent parts are appealing to me, but when they all come together the complete package seems like a joke-show that another show would make up for one episode, and in my defense I’ve thought this since well before Brooklyn Nine-Nine did that very thing retroactively, complete with Nathan Fillion.
But truthfully, I’m trying to Be That Guy less often; as I mentioned in my July Other Pursuits post, used to feel this exact way about Psych, which is now quickly rising through the ranks of our most-loved shows, and while I have absolutely zero intention of ever giving Castle another try, I’m sure there are people who understand what there is to like about it, and I’m happy for them and happy that the show’s creators have them.
One of the benefits of getting a little bit older–meaning “not all new content is aimed at my demographic anymore”–is that you don’t feel obligated to have an opinion on everything, and I am taking liberal advantage of that, saving my opinion points1 for things that really matter to me, like Land of the Lost (particularly the Sleestak and their crystal matrix tables), the surprisingly complex politics of our local cat population (the Sheriff disappeared some time ago, leaving a power-vacuum that Creme Brulee and Luca Brasi are both vying for), and brunch. I recommend it.2
–The Bageler
I was sick and tired of everything
When I called you last night from Glasgow