61. Stuck in Monaco, emotionally and literally
Plus a wedding, a new house, and a friend who quit Claude for ChatGPT
Hi friends, I’m back!
It’s been nice unplugging from the internet, and also just being extremely busy, which are not the same thing but produce the same inbox.
A recap, in the order it happened to me:
Had my wisdom teeth removed and spent the following week syringing food particles out of the resulting craters.
Went to Portugal for the first time but still don’t like tinned fish.
Attended Eamonn and Alex’s wedding, where I learned that Eamonn’s father is a traditional Irish musician. It may seem obvious given his name, but in real life, Eamonn = Greek-presenting software developer.
Sweated profusely in every historic town of Provence, on the lavender fields, and in the most beautiful lake.
Visited Louise Jacobi in Monaco. Louise is Grace Kelly to me (because who lives in Monaco?) and has renewed my obsession with Fiats.
Got stuck in Monaco (flight was cancelled twice).
Used the extra, unplanned days to teach Louise how to use Claude.
Made it home.
Hosted a work dinner at Francie in Williamsburg where I had the famous salad and did not get cyclospora.
Immediately drove upstate to close on a house.
I have a house now.
Louise reported back that she didn’t understand Claude and was returning to ChatGPT, which I’m choosing to file under “growth opportunity.”
I have a lot to write about, and none of the creative bandwidth to do it justice yet. So in the spirit of starting somewhere: the listicle above.
If you missed the last dispatch, check out my unhealthy interest in SBF:
If you want the details on the wisdom teeth removal:
Rumor has it that Substack is suppressing free content. If you’d like to resist the algorithm pushing paid content only, then liking, sharing, and commenting on this newsletter will help! <3
My sister made a movie, and I need you to buy a ticket… BECAUSE IT’S SO GOOD. Katie Colosimo's first feature, Genevieve's Garden, premieres at the Greenpoint Film Festival on Friday, August 7th at 8pm. It follows a woman who gets dumped and laid off in the same week, retreats to a rising influencer's new Hudson Valley wellness retreat to distract herself, and instead becomes obsessively infatuated with a fellow guest.
The cast is so funny, the script is on point - a perfect way to support independent film. Tickets here — GFF Screen 2.
Real estate /the physical world.
A real estate investor says we should buy up Australia because “no douchebags at the beach.” Paul Stanton's argument in his recent newsletter is that Australia is primed for the same roll-up play that made fortunes in US self-storage, car washes, and vet clinics over the last 20 years: buy up fragmented mom-and-pop businesses, professionalize them, sell the portfolio to an institution.
His proof is in the numbers: Brookfield and GIC just took National Storage private for roughly A$4 billion, and Australia's mandatory pension system has built a A$4.4 trillion pool of built-in buyers waiting at the end of the trade. But the actual origin story is a solo weekend in Lorne that "embarrassed every beach town I've ever loved in the US." I’m listening. 👀
The New Museum finally opened a restaurant. Oberon sits inside OMA’s new 60,000-square-foot expansion of SANAA’s original tower, making it one of the only restaurants anywhere housed within a building shared by two Pritzker-winning architects.
The bar sits under an Ian Cheng video installation running his signature live simulations. Chefs Julia Sherman (of Salad for President) and Ali Ghriskey are cooking vegetable-forward, Hudson Valley-driven food. This is the museum’s first permanent restaurant in its nearly 50-year history.
As for the food, no pans yet: mostly "surprisingly unpretentious for a museum restaurant" as the throughline, with the architecture/hype-vs-substance question as the one recurring needle.
A tiny newsstand just took over the SE corner of 34th and 9th, and it’s not selling today’s news. Open weekdays, 9:30am to 3pm, Little Shop of Hoarders is stocked with old newspapers, zines, ceramics, drinks, and sentimental bric-a-brac.
Look out for the Brooklyn Botanical Garden in Olivia Rodrigo’s next music vid - One of my favorite newsletters, Grand Army Gazette reports.
Culture / the internet.
Hannah Berner of Giggly Squad fame went viral for her botox-induced inability to smile. It is funny to watch. Not Meghan Trainor in the comments like:
This teen is doing journalism so well he’s getting sued. Ben Mueller’s assignment: tell any news story as an Instagram slideshow. The high school senior lives in Marin, the wealthy San Francisco suburb, and spent five hours combing the Epstein files for local ties. He found a 2014 Sausalito art gala Epstein promoted, a Tiburon meetup with Woody Allen, and a 2013 email about a Mill Valley modeling agency sourcing models for him.
The resulting carousel, “Which Marin towns were mentioned in the Epstein files?”, pulled 4,000-plus likes and comments calling it better journalism than the local papers. Ten days later, the woman named in the Mill Valley email was threatening to sue the school district. The students banded together and lawyered up.
Patreon laid off 93 people (20% of the company), and CEO Jack Conte wants you to know they’re “special, beautiful humans.” The memo, posted publicly on Patreon itself, insists the core business is fine — 300,000-plus creators, billions earned annually, network-driven memberships up 5x — and that AI had nothing to do with the cuts, which he blames on “profound” market changes over the last six months. Severance runs 16 weeks of pay plus a week per year worked, healthcare through year-end, and a $1,500 laptop stipend. There is also, somehow, a new Slack channel called #gratitude-and-farewell.
It’s so hot in Japan that they had to invent a new word for it. Three cities hit 40°C (104°F) on Tuesday, triggering the first official use of “kokushobi” (”cruelly hot day”), a new tier the Japan Meteorological Agency added this year above “moshobi” (95°F+, coined in 2007). More than 260 people were hospitalized for heat stroke in Tokyo alone that day. But global warming definitely doesn’t exist!!!
This supercut of iconic female actresses has been making the rounds. Mesmerizing.
Rationality peaked in the 1980s, and it’s been vibes ever since. A PNAS study tracking language in books, the New York Times, and Google search trends back to 1850 found emotional words like “feel” and “believe” started overtaking rational ones like “data” and “analysis” in the ‘80s, a shift that accelerated sharply around 2007.
A parallel Harvard study of nearly 5,000 C-suite job postings found the same thing happening in hiring: companies now want CEOs with social skills, not budget-management chops.
Cultural strategist Jasmine Bina ’s takeaway for anyone who communicates for a living: facts still matter, they just can’t be the whole pitch anymore.
Kyle Cooke and Stassi Schroeder just reunited at the “House of Stassi” premiere, nine years after the incident. The two met in the very first crossover between Summer House and Vanderpump Rules, where Kyle compared Stassi’s swimsuit to Steve Jobs’ turtleneck. As you can imagine, she did NOT like. Her PR for the show did promise she’d be making amends, but since it’s Stassi, I’m sure she’s forgiving, but not forgetting.
Ok bye! 🍊
Thanks for reading!
Ahh thank you for including our major celeb reporting!