The Goon Line 013: Short Lease in a Slick Machine

If we can believe plans and projections to be true (and we cannot) then by the end of this summer I will have lived in four “homes” over the span of 12 months. So I have been thinking a lot about space — what makes a home, how to feel “at home,” what the aspirational version of myself will use and value vs. what the real, trash me will require.

I first encountered this essay, Kate Wagner’s Short Lease in a Slick Machine, when she published it in 2021, and I have thought about it frequently since — especially over the past year. Wagner’s blog, McMansion Hell, is internet-famous for hilariously and incisively skewering shitty huge houses. I highly recommend poking around. I have learned a lot about architecture and home design from this blog in a real way, and can always appreciate my lessons coming with a healthy side of goofs. (She also recently announced a book deal.)

Anyway, this essay is takes a far more serious and personal tone than Wagner does in her regular posts. It is a beautiful meditation on what it means to occupy a living space, on balancing expectations (yours and others’ of you) with what certain showy signals of “good taste” actually end up costing, both aesthetically and emotionally. I hope I can think this thoughtfully about my next “home,” whenever and wherever I land there.

Some notes from your Goon in Chief

Several previous issues have fulfilled prophecies. On the very day I sent out the recommendation about Franchesca Ramsey’s apartment (speaking of making a home for oneself), The Washington Post featured her and her place in an article about renters who are designing the hell out of living spaces they do not own.

Cinematrix the other day had a whole line about Michael Bay movies, and I didn’t get very far. But that’s two Lines in one. They call me the tastemaker.

If the link to the Abby Lee Miller tweet didn’t work for you yesterday, I’M SORRY. Here’s a TikTok of the same content. And if you could see it yesterday, then now you get to think about this twice. Which is wonderful.

@dylangg

BUT SHE ACTUALLY WENT TO THE POLICE GOODBYEYEYE 😭