22. The art of overbooking your weekend
Art shows, #1 bars, and why SNL is apparently a terrible place to work.
Today’s letter includes: A chaotic weekend that started with judging Google employees on a plane and led to impulse-buying a Dalí lithograph. Plus Sabrina Carpenter's chart dominance, how Nepal banned Instagram to Gen-Z outrage, the secret Charli XCX party coming to Elsewhere, and why Anna Delvey has competition.
Hi friends. Last week I had to go to San Francisco for work and got back Friday night. As a Virgo Libra cusp, I overbooked my weekend long before the trip to SF was even a consideration. Don't mistake this entry for a "look at how cool and fun my life is" thing. More often than not I'm at home staring at my sourdough starter sitting on the table in a ray of sunshine, willing it back to life.
September 5
4PM I board my flight from SFO to JFK. The woman in the aisle seat next to mine is blocking my entry, rigorously wiping her entire seat with a Clorox wipe, which they used to hand out on flights but have since stopped, leading me to believe she has brought her own.
The entire Comfort + section is full of Google employees who are all on a work trip and keep greeting each other as they walk down the aisle to their seats in false, chipper voices. It feels like they are in the sales or CS function as they are not giving technical PM vibes.
The woman next to me is part of this cohort, greeting people and making awkward coworker small talk if the line stops while someone puts their bag into the overhead bin. "How far do you live from the airport?" "Um, probably 40 minutes, yeah 40 minutes to get to Manhattan." She seems nice and is pleasant when we interact. However, the flight attendant is constantly asking her to follow the rules. "Please put your bag under the seat in front of you." "Please put your seat back up for take off." "I didn't touch the seat!" She rebuked. "It was like this when I got here."
5PM I decide to watch Ballerina, that new movie from the John Wick universe starring Ana de Armis, despite having never seen any other John Wick films. Therefore, to me, it's not a movie from the John Wick universe, it's just a movie. I wonder what Google sales girls must think of me rolling up to this flight in an ankle length Issey Miyake Windcoat, following all of the plane rules, and then selecting this basic af action movie to pass the time.
I decide the movie is pretty good. Too much fighting (which I think is a tenant of the John Wick universe) but overall interesting and enjoyable for a plane ride. The acting is more than acceptable with performances by Norman Reedus, Anjelica Huston, and a mysterious and striking African woman with a thick accent who actually is a British actress named Sharon Duncan-Brewster.
Like in Bond movies, the filming locations are insane. I am intrigued by the universe's Continental Hotels - a chain of hotels specifically designed to be a safe haven for assassins. de Armis travels to the Continental in Prague and the giant, circular revolving door is striking. Also I think I really like Keanu Reeves. He's doing so much and so little at the same time. Who wants to see him in Waiting for Godot with me?
September 6
11AM Ben and I leave for brunch with his brother, Abby, and Abby's Dad before heading to the Art on Paper show. I ordered a Ham and Cheese Croissant with an egg, but no ham. They correctly did not put ham but also put no cheese.
1PM We arrive at Art on Paper. I buy a Salvatore Dali Lithograph with the help of Abby's family friend who knew all the right questions to ask, lulling me into a false sense of security that I was making a prudent purchase. "I had to think about this long and hard because I don't have much wall space!" I joked with the gallery staff as I checked out. "Well, what you can do is rotate your art by season!" I wish.
4PM I have been standing for many hours and require rest. I head to Jordan's LES apartment near the cursed 24 hour McDonalds. She graciously lets me stay at the apartment to rest my eyes while she gets in line to secure us a spot at Double Chicken Please around the corner.
6PM Double Chicken Please earned the #1 spot in North America’s 50 Best Bars 2023 and sits at 14th in the world in the 2025 rankings. All of the cocktails are liquid interpretations of food, with the menu broken into Appetizers, Mains, and Desserts. I had Cold Pizza and French Toast, while Jordan went for the Melon Prosciutto and Custard Bun. She also loves the Japanese Cold Noodle, Mango Sticky Rice, and Thai Curry.
I'm not sure I'll be able to work up the courage to have the Waldorf Salad. The idea of a salad as a drink just makes me shudder. The actual food menu recently expanded and we decide to try the Mochi Donut chicken sandwich in which the donut is the sandwich bun and the donut glaze is habanero strawberry. 10/10 recommend.
8PM I head home in the rain trying to protect my newly acquired art work. Ben texts me that our friends are coming over for Indian takeout including Lizzie and Arturo who are in town from LA. Perhaps because everyone has been drinking all day, or perhaps because we are old, no one really wants a proper drink. We all have low ABV spritz with this incredible Mexican aperitif Ben picked up at Astor Wines on a whim, or some people have beer. As everyone is leaving, I mention my newfound love of Keanu Reeves and maybe even John Wick. "Cancel your plans and read his Wikipedia," Arturo tells me as he walks out the door. "His life is insane."
September 7
12PM I meet up with Pita, who is ironically visiting from San Francisco, a place from which I just came. We meet at Caffè De Martini on Vanderbilt and it's cute as hell. It's operated by real Italians, so you can get that dopamine hit one gets when you overhear two people greet each other in Italian. Pita and I benignly gossip, talk about how much we love Chihuahuas, and contemplate work, life, and motherhood.
5PM Ben and I head back to the city again. Who am I even? We see Color Theories by Julio Torres. Before the show begins, we realize that we know someone in the show, who informs me via Instagram DMs that he is the puppeteer and therefore we will not actually see him on stage. "What is cooler than having 'puppeteer' on your resume?" I asked. "Nothing," he agrees. The show is very good. If you liked Torres' My Favorite Shapes, you'll probably love his color theories.
7PM We head to B&H Dairy, a small lunch counter establishment from 1938. It says that it is "Kosher Vegetarian Cuisine" but practically every fish is on the menu (whitefish, lox, salmon croquettes, tuna melt). I have delicious blintzes, Ben the pierogis. We both opt for the matzo ball soup.
An overbooked weekend well spent.
Sabrina Carpenter did it again. Her new album "Man's Best Friend" came out August 29th. I've listened to it in its entirety a few times and it's good. The world agrees: it debuted at No. 1, marking the biggest female debut of the year. Not as many standout singles as albums past IMO.
Capitalism is so out. Capitalism's approval rating in the US just hit a new low. According to Gallup, only 54% of Americans view the system positively, the weakest showing since polling began in 2010. That's down from 60% in 2021.
SNL cleaned house. Deadline reported that the cast shake-up is finally complete. The cast now consists of 18 people with Heidi Gardner being the biggest name to depart after having been on the show for eight seasons. She was joined out the door by Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker and Emil Wakim. Apparently Deuxmoi gets asked about SNL all the time and the only thing she knows is that "it's a shitty place to work." She also received an anonymous email which begins: "if you thought the cast cuts coming out of the woodwork were the worst of it, oh boy it's gonna get messy." It correctly predicted that PDD was getting split up involuntarily.
Happy New York Fashion Week! First, I want everyone to know that my phone autocorrected “NYFW” to “Mugwort”. Second, Rachel Comey had the first runway show of the season three days before the calendar officially starts. Magasin reported on the show saying: "I appreciated all the pink throughout, like a return to the OG Comey era pre-Glossier when pink could still feel complexly, darkly feminine. It ended with snacks."
Two clashing visions of America's future. Jerusalem Demsas wrote a great piece in The Argument reporting live from last week’s National Conservatism and Abundance gatherings in Washington. Worth a read.
"The strange thing was that, while virtually every moment of the conference was calibrated to trigger my lib sensibilities, I was largely bored out of my mind. Nor was I the only one. When panelists attempted to get wonky and technical about issues like American Asylum Law, I could see eyes in the crowd glaze over."
Party with people who party with Charli XCX. DJs Alex Chapman and Zoe Glitter recently threw a secret Gag party at Jean’s and now they are bringing it back for the general public at Elsewhere on October 2nd. They were in Charli XCX’s Party Girl set.
The definitive guide to user retention. Good old Andy Chen of shitty clickthroughs fame and a16z has revived the phrase but this time with a great article summing up general truths about retention. If you work in B2B or are a founder, it's worth your time.
The great international shipping drought is upon us. Remember when you could order a phone case from China for $2 and somehow it would magically appear at your door three weeks later? Well, those days are officially over. International mail to the U.S. dropped 81% after the government ended the duty-free de minimis exemption. To help mitigate continued disruptions, UPU is releasing a tool to help postal operators determine and collect shipping costs.
Have you heard of Matthew Christopher Pietras? He's the next Anna Delvey except right as his deception was uncovered, he was found dead in his apartment. Yesterday his death was ruled a suicide. Pietras' $10M gift to the Metropolitan Opera, which didn't go through, is the reason you may have seen the news that they will now be performing in Saudi Arabia for 3 weeks each winter.
"Since the coronavirus pandemic, the Met has withdrawn more than a third of the money in its endowment fund to help it cover operating costs — about $120 million overall. The Met announced last week that it had reached a lucrative agreement with Saudi Arabia to perform in the kingdom for three weeks each winter, which the company hopes will shore up its finances."
Kris Jenner launched a new production company and left out the Kardashian name. Looks like she's going to try to produce tv outside of the family.
Other stuff: Apple CEO Tim Cook teased the "biggest leap ever for iPhone" with iPhone a7 Air; the gap in pay between men and women grew larger in 2024; Lorde has never seen The Lord of the Rings; JPMorgan processed more than $1 billion of transactions for Epstein; the MTV VMAs drew a six-year viewership high; Nepal banned Facebook, Instagram, and other social platforms to the outrage of Gen-Zs.
Rumor has it that Substack is suppressing free content. If you’d like to resist the algorithm pushing paid content only, then liking, sharing, quoting and restacking this newsletter will help! <3
"When I was young I was playing with the invisible beings of shadows."
- Marina Abramovic on if she'd rather have dinner with Greta Gerwig or Kim Kardashian
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