Shit Sandwich

The Hagelslag, and Substack

Readers, sword-wielders, and sandwich-eaters,

Today’s post is meant to be about a Dutch sandwich called the hagelslag, which is buttered bread with some chocolate sprinkles on it. As to how the Dutch got so into chocolate: it’s the long, vicious and exploitative centuries of colonialism that made this tiny water-logged nation such a global power, and all the stuff they extracted from this empire of enslavement. They turned it into a weird sandwich. I mean. You’re going to subjugate the entire population of Indonesia and all you have to show for it are some windmills and a chocolate-sprinkle sandwich? Pathetic. Also, Dutch sounds like honking to me—it is the goofiest language I’ve ever heard. Too many vowels. The hagelslag (hailstorm)? More like a shitstorm!

Sorry to any Netherlander readers, I've had a signally bad week and I'm taking it out on you. I'm sure your hand-painted clogs are lovely.

Speaking of bad sandwiches and bad weeks:

After Substack’s declaration yesterday that they’re super A-OK giving money to Nazis (and giving some bullshit about hating censorship when they actively censor porn, because they think Nazis are better than porn), we’re figuring out where we’re at in terms of continuing to work here. I really value the community we’ve built (over 15,000 subscribers! Hundreds of posts!) and frankly am not willing to give up writing professionally (or going back to chasing down paltry payments from freelance pieces that trickle in weeks or months after publication).

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In order to not share money with open Nazis, I’m considering a migration to Buttondown, which would hopefully not entail any perturbation or re-subscription on your parts, or income loss on ours. There are other services (Ghost, Beehiiv) that we’ll be looking into as well. In the meantime, we’ll be taking a pause for two weeks to figure this out—you’ll be forewarned!—and will return to you in the New Year, hopefully in a glorious burst of sunshine instead of shit-on-toast.

Yours truly and with a lot of love,
Talia and David