5. Some benign celebrity gossip
The celebs are just like us; they fly Delta Airlines!
Hello cozy people. I’m just coming off of a week of quality family time but I’ve still got fun gossip to share.
For starters, Emma Roberts and her fiancee, Cody John, sat in the row behind me on my flight from Tampa to NYC. Never in my life did I think TPA to LGA would be the flight route I see a very famous person on. When I first saw her, I had to confirm my suspicion by Googling: “Emma Roberts current hair color” because I don’t think of her as a red head. My sister and I’s futile attempts to figure out why she was in Tampa resulted only in seeing that she went to Disney World, which wasn’t a satisfactory explanation because the Orlando Airport would have made more sense.
After confirming that it was indeed her, my first thought was that I needed to ask her about the pillow she had recommended on The Strategist. It is seared into my psyche because I am still on the hunt for the perfect pillow and I thought long and hard about buying it. It’s pricey at $195 but Emma says “Now I use it as a regular pillow and can’t sleep without it. It’s the most comfortable pillow.” And she has not 1, but 3 of them: “One at my house, one for my mom’s house, and one for travel.”
“Does she have the pillow with her right now?” I wondered. Maybe I could try it! In the end I said absolutely nothing to her. Bothering celebrities trying to live their lives normally is not a cool thing to do unfortunately.
One friend asked me: “On a scale of 1-10 how b*tchy are her vibes?” Most likely because of her amazing performance in Scream Queens where she plays the meanest girl in the sorority.
Another friend replied that they had just seen her in Los Angeles last Wednesday. From my previous “research” I saw she had been at Coachella. “You know, she is a woman of international mystery with good skin and a great laugh,” my friend responded. “So true.” I replied.
And now for my Bravo girlies! A friend of mine worked on the CB2 photoshoot with Jessel Taank from Real Housewives of NY. After asking if our mutual friend Laura (huge Bravo fan) was freaking out that she met Jessel, said friend confirmed that Laura was indeed freaking out. She also said that Jessel was so nice. Jessel’s husband was there too and our friend characterized him as “very chatty.” I wish she had asked him about his 30 hour trip to Vietnam - still one of the funniest storylines in reality TV history.
Today’s letter includes: 7 things to talk about at parties including coverage of Trump’s 100 days in office, Costco gold bars, and a very cool resource for graphic design inspo. Plus the things I bought from the Gap vacation edit, a retrospective on songs about being suss, and what its like to be the person that wears their phone like a purse.
Daybreaker is back but different. Remember Daybreaker? The sober morning-time rave that started 10 whole years ago? Well they’re back in a big way, except it doesn’t seem like it’s always during the day and the venue selection now expands well beyond clubs. Their presale went live this morning.
“This is our year: 100 cities. 7 continents. 1 massive exhale.” the website extolls. The idea of dancing in a Spa doesn’t sound good to me (all the NYC ones seem to be like this) so I shan’t be joining. However, I do think Daybreaker was ahead of its time. Today, alcohol is declining in popularity, everyone is lonely, and dance clubs aren’t what they used to be. It very well could be their year.
Trump has been in office for 100 days. And what an insane 100 days it has been. Every news outlet is opining on how the 100 days have gone - The Guardian provided Trump 100 days: tariffs, egg prices, Ice arrests and approval rating – in charts while Newsweek looked at How Elon Musk's Net Worth Has Changed in Donald Trump's 100 Days (Spoiler alert: it’s fallen by 25%). To mark the occasion, Trump gave a speech in Michigan which NPR reported sounded exactly like a campaign rally, touched on a third term, and went on for almost an hour and a half.
A RISD student made a library of Vietnamese graphic design. It’s called VIET GD and was created by Lucy Pham as an index and celebration of Vietnamese graphic design. You can filter by medium (advertising, music, posters, stamps etc.) or decade (starting with the 1900s all the way to the 2020s). Need inspiration? Look no further.
It’s party time in NYC. Collabs and parties are in full swing now that the sun is out. This weekend Marché Rue Dix in Crown Heights is hosting Obida — a contemporary fashion label from Lagos that reimagines West African design. There’s an after party on Saturday at Cafe Rue Dix next door at 9PM. Also on Saturday, Hot Honey Sundays is having a rave in a Post Office. ILIS is doing a one night only dinner with Chef Chris Bleidorn of San Francisco’s Michelin-starred Birdsong on Wednesday, May 7th but it costs $362.25 pp. At the time of publication, tickets are still available.
People are buying gold bars at Costco. People are so worried about a recession that they’re going back to basics. And by basics I mean gold. One month ago, Humphrey Yang shared a Youtube video where he sells his gold bar from Costco one year after purchase. In it, he claims he paid $2,000 per ounce and now it’s worth $3,000 per ounce. Only Costco members can purchase these 1 oz gold bars.
Sketch is honoring Jane Austen. Sketch, one of my favorite stops in London, is an 18th century townhouse with a Michelin-starred restaurant, a previously famous Millennial pink tea room (it’s yellow now), and London's most photographed toilets (Egg-loos as they are colloquially known). They’ve just announced that they will transform their spaces in an homage to Austen.
“Some of the most sought-after floral designers dive into the world and mind of this treasured writer, who brought us such unforgettable stories as Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma and Mansfield Park,” sketch shared. Lucy Vail Floristry will do the the Reception & Entrance Hall as well as the Glade; Robert Van Helden is creating a central wisteria tree in The Lecture Room & Library; and In the Eastbar & Pods, Ricky Paul will make a wild English garden. You can see it May 1st to June 1st, 2025.
Would you buy a self-driving Toyota? Alphabet-owned Waymo is entering into a "preliminary partnership" with Toyota to develop a new autonomous vehicle platform. Why? It’s the first step to exploring self-driving tech in consumer cars. The TechCrunch article has a cute headline: Waymo and Toyota are dating — if they get serious, a new autonomous vehicle could be created.
In the name of homemade Korean excellence I was not a staunch vegetarian while visiting my grandma. Especially because her Gomtang (Oxtail Soup) is one of my favorite things in the world. After 5 days of eating out in New Orleans my body was craving a cleanse. Korean food always feels like eating clean for me. I was especially enjoying the radish.
Since I’ve been traveling, I haven’t been cooking much for myself. But I did make some cheap purchases that have been bringing me joy!
An ice tray that makes seashell-shaped ice (not an exact match but similar here), and a yellow gingham tablecloth. I love the yellow with my green chairs, very Hotel Peter and Paul.
They have the tablecloth in basically every color - a cheap way to add a pop of color to your table scape!
Listening
I have a real soft spot for well-written and executed pop music. So mostly that.
Why are songs about being suss always so catchy?
ON THE LOW by Rico Nasty got me thinking about it. There's Perfect for you by Peach PRC: "I'm not a good friend, but she doesn't know that. She's gonna hate me, but I want you so bad." Woof! Not a friend I want but unfortunately a very catchy song!
And then there's one of my all time fave Maude Latour songs Twin Flame in which she does not inspire confidence in her ability to be monogamous: "I know I haven't always been an angel, but you can trust me cuz I'm gonna be faithful." But like, are you though?
You could even trace it back to the 1968 bop Slippin' Around by Clarence Carter in which he proclaims that "it's so romantic slippin' around ... And if your boyfriend knew it, he'd jump in the river and drown" MORBID! And lest we forget one of the all time greatest suss-based bops Scotty Doesn't Know. A forever summer-time banger.
No matter the decade, musicians are out here making being bad sound fun.
Wearing
Here lies my OOTW (outfits of the week).
Gap released a vacation edit and I did buy some of it. You can feel that the 80’s are back baby. My mom kept saying that I reminded her of her college boyfriend because he had a shirt just like it.
I thought long and hard about getting these pants, but honestly I don’t need anymore jeans and thus resisted the temptation. I almost exclusively wear comfy pants.
The downside? They never have sturdy pockets, which means if you put your phone in your pocket your pants kinda sag down. And so I finally became one of those women who wears their phone like a purse. So far I love it, not gonna lie. It’s great for taking Coco on a walk and traveling. You can remove the strap when you just want to be a normal girl. Here’s the one I got.
The way he laughs!!!!
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Gomtang the ultimate comfort food and to think this was originally a means for a delicious cheap meal which has become more of a delicacy as the price of oxtail meat has risen to new heights.