It's The Full Moon - Snow Moon 2020
Dear Seekers After Truth,
Last month, the Japanese fashion tycoon and eccentric billionaire Yusaka Maezawa inaugurated a worldwide competition to find a romantic partner who would accompany him on a trip around the moon.
Yusaka, who has booked the first private passenger flight on Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket for an undisclosed amount, explained that he didn’t want to make the journey alone.
“As feelings of loneliness and emptiness slowly begin to surge upon me, there’s one thing that I think about: Continuing to love one woman,” he wrote. “I want to find a ‘life partner.’ With that future partner of mine, I want to shout our love and world peace from outer space.”
Applicants were required to be over 20 years old, female, and in possession of a “bright and positive” personality.
27,722 women applied.
Yusaka planned to announce his final decision by the end of March, and the pair would begin their life together by preparing for liftoff on Elon Musk’s Big Falcon Rocket in 2023.
But then something unexpected happened.
After spending less than two weeks reviewing candidates, Yusaka called off the competition.
He gave no explanation beyond citing “personal reasons” and “mixed feelings.”
“To think that 27,722 women, with earnest intentions and courage, had used their precious time to apply makes me feel extremely remorseful to conclude and inform everyone with this selfish decision of mine,” he tweeted.
The world is left wondering, what made Yusaka change his mind?
I have three theories.
1. He met someone.
2. As a capricious billionaire, he's decided to acquire a girlfriend in a more conventional manner (such as having one built in a subterranean lab).
3. The competition was conducted, but not one of the nearly 28,000 applicants met his expectations. If Yusaka had dedicated 16 hours a day to reviewing applicants, swiping from profile to profile on a 10-foot iPad, he could have lingered for approximately 24.93 seconds on each smiling face, asking himself the same two questions we all ask ourselves when evaluating a potential spouse:
Is this my soulmate?
And
Is this someone with whom I would carpool to the moon?
In the end, I sincerely hope Yusaka Maezawa finds the love he’s looking for.
There’s something endearing about a billionaire spending his wealth on romance.
Especially when you consider that November’s Presidential election may well come down to two American billionaires who are no longer content to buy influence over the White House, but who need to live in it, too.
Yusaka Maezawa doesn’t want to be president.
He just wants to make out behind the moon.
Maybe that’s why his Twitter name is @yousuck2020.
Anyways, here we go.
HOROSCOPES
Aries
This month, you will awaken one morning into a parallel universe in which you are the only person on the planet who can remember Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal, and, as the years wear on, you become increasingly isolated, tormented by the burden of the secret knowledge that you alone carry.
Taurus
This month, you will be personally ridiculed by the President on Twitter. He’ll eventually get to everyone; now is just your time.
Gemini
This month, you will be mauled by a black cat with rabies, which makes you think that something bad might very well happen to you soon.
Cancer
This month, you get your third flu shot of the season, just to be safe.
Leo
This month, you will have a bad Valentine’s Day date at a sushi restaurant, which is sort of perfect because mid-conversation you will simply throw yourself on the rotating conveyer belt and ride it to the exit.
Virgo
This month, your fledgling political career will be killed in the cradle when you use some unfortunate infant mortality language.
Libra
This month, while idling at a red light, you will reply dismissively to a fundraising text from a presidential campaign and subsequently be pulled over, arrested for violating Massachusetts’s new hands-free driving bill, and stripped of your voting rights, making the whole thing a kind of wash.
Scorpio
This month, you will finally learn what the hell Keno is.
Sagittarius
This month, like the Oscar-nominated World War I film 1917, your life will be presented in real-time in one continuous shot. It will be highly immersive.
Capricorn
This month, as you drive home from work on Valentine’s Day, a flying cherub will splatter across your windshield, and as your juddering wiper blades beat messily back and forth, you will ponder the perplexing elusiveness of true love.
Aquarius
This month, with a gun to your head, you will milk a cat.
Pisces
This month, you will be unsettled to learn that Showtime is airing a new season of the Homeland despite the fact that you swear you can recall at least two or three previous seasons being billed as the final season. Anyway, you tune in and are rapt.
MALADIES
I honestly can’t even begin.
Q&A
I recently discovered an “Ask The Author” feature on Goodreads.com. There were a few standard questions already waiting for me. You can read my answers here.
It reminded me that I’ve always wanted to write an existential advice column. Unfortunately, I never had the forum or credentials—beyond my continued existence.
If you do happen to have any questions for me about the reading life, the writing life, or life life, please submit them on my Goodreads Author page. Or email me at willdowdwriter@gmail.com.
In the event of an emailed plea, I will be making my answer public on this newsletter, so feel free to choose a pseudonym.
As with the horoscopes, my existential advice will be penetrating, accurate, potentially lifesaving, and you legally agree that I shall not be made responsible or liable for any loss or damage of any sort caused by or in connection with said advice.
—W
Song of the Month:
Denzel Curry covering “Bulls on Parade,” Rage Against the Machine. To be played full blast as you pull up to your local polling station.