Notes from Amy Spalding

Notes from Amy Spalding

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Notes from Amy Spalding
Notes from Amy Spalding
I love doomed documentaries

I love doomed documentaries

I mean I can't get enough of them!!!

Jun 19, 2025
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Notes from Amy Spalding
Notes from Amy Spalding
I love doomed documentaries
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I have always said we should stay out of the ocean.

Dear Readers,

Somehow this year keeps chugging along. I wasn’t able to make it to a protest this past weekend but was thrilled to see all the photos and videos in my social media feeds.

I am knee-deep in a new (non-writing) project and pretty excited about it. More to share with you soon-ish. And definitely more to share with you soon to soon-ish re: Out in Hollywood Book 4, which I think I told you last week, and the week before. I’ll just say there are circumstances way out of my control here!! If it were up to me you’d already know it all! I am SO excited about this book and so eager to share with you but this does not increase the speed at which media and publishing work.

Within a few days, I watched both the Netflix and the HBO Max/Discovery documentaries on the Titan submersible. Basically, I watched the Netflix one as soon as it went up, and a couple days later I watched the HBO one the moment I found out it existed. I CANNOT GET ENOUGH OF THIS TRAGEDY. But it is not just tragedies I cannot get enough of (look, my therapist and I have enough to deal with, you know what I mean), it is actually DOOMED ENTERPRISES BY ARROGANT FOLKS. Fyre Fest, Theranos, WeWork, LuLaRoe, Lisa Frank,* I fucking can’t get enough.

I used to be a bit of a true crime person but I found it frustrating to try to separate the ethical content from what I felt was reckless, irresponsible, glorifying, journalistically unethical, etc. I know that there can be a similar situation at play with all the doomed enterprises I laid out above too but this is where the sweet spot of my content heart hits; I can’t even tell you how much I have listened to/watched/read about Elizabeth Holmes, for example, and I’d consume more tomorrow if it became available!!!!

The thing that all these documentaries have in common is that when watching them it is impossible not to feel like the failings were PLAIN AS DAY. There is no way I would have gotten into that janky ass tube and even FLOATED on the water much less gone down over two miles!!! That said I am deeply afraid of the ocean and everything in it. (To be clear I once found out a friend never invited me along to sushi because I said this and I am NOT AFRAID TO EAT WHAT IS IN THE OCEAN. This is proving to the ocean that I WON. JUST DO NOT BRING ME A FULL-ON FISH; I WILL NOT EAT FROM ITS CORPSE. PREPARE IT!*)

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