[SIC] 116: DMT Vape Pen FTW

November 26, 2020

Happy Thanksgiving all (or those in the US, anyway).

Apropos of the long weekend, lots of deep stuff to chew on this week. I’ve returned to my original free-association ordering of stories, so hopefully it’ll give you time to digest. I’m thankful as always for my contributors – John, Ben and Jeff came through with some gems – and for all the amazing thinkers I’m able to call on and learn from, showcased below. Pieces on glitchcore, night science and “gonzo culture” were particularly inspiring; they’re up towards the top. And of course, I’m thankful for all of you for scanning, reading and sharing [SIC] - I appreciate the attention and the feedback.

There’s no [SIC] Talks this week, but I’ll return to IG Live (@dietznutz) with the entrepreneur, designer, social star podcaster and longtime buddy Pia Baroncini, next Thursday (12/3) at 4p ET. Come hang. Meantime, here’s hoping you and yours have a great T-day, from me and mine.

Ben

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• Fave forecaster, Nemesis’s Emily Segal’s got a debut novel “Mercury Retrograde” out now. (Deluge Books) And it’s already got an ice cream. (Instagram) 

• Another K-hole alum, Sean Monahan’s 8Ball Substack has been my favorite recent source and his “Gonzo Culture” report is definitely more interesting than the Lions game. (Substack) 

• Corollary: The Dork Web’s smol internet post is everything Substack is great for. Get ready to gopher broke (har).  Seriously though, fascinating. (Substack) 

• Also very nerdy, but this essay on “Night science” is super helpful in helping me think about how I think. (Biomed Central)

• Typically great interactive feature from the NYT, who built an A.I. system to create fake faces like ones used to fool people on Facebook, Amazon and Tinder. 

• S/o thispersondoesnotexist.com where you can buy fake faces. 

• But wait, AI is sexist?! (Wired)

• The FT on GPT-3. Get ready for robot vapor journalists that *might* hurt your feelings. Or, robot vapor journalists that might channel your feelings into a surrealistic column about modern love (NYT) 

• Another never-ending computer tale via Future Party: “Infinite Bad Guy” — a non-stop collection of thousands of “Bad Guy” covers that the platform’s AI blends together into “the world’s first infinite music video” (Youtube)

• Related: Glitchcore is a wild, wild mood that pulls from / throws to everything from acid rave to 8bit in a true GenZentennial stew. Key Quote: “what if embedding jet packs in your feet was as easy as getting lip filler?” (Pitchfork)

  

• Capturing a little of that energy:  Glitch Gum’s cover of “Kyoto” (Youtube) 

• Also in the realm of insane energy: DJ Private Ryan’s Soca Starter 2020 kicks off carnival season. Put it on and do some housework. (Soundcloud)  

• More housework: Jamal Dixon on Beats in Space (Instagram)

• Corollary, via Music Redef: Inside the UK’s illegal rave scene, flourishing in lockdown (Dazed) 

• Widely debated but very on point, to my eyes: Learnings for the media from 2020, according to Axios CEO Jim VandeHei. 

• Case in point, via Nieman Lab: How The Seattle Times sold 71,000 digital subs through “bridges and tunnels” (Press Gazette) 

• And Why BBC believes listening to articles is the future of consuming content(The Drum) 

• Also: grow talent, since they can’t acquire it. Why publishers will have to 'moneyball' to beat The New York Times. (Twitter) 

• So, via The Rebooting: Rolling Stone is rolling out an invite-only membership program called the Culture Council that lets people publish on RollingStone.com, virtual events, networking and access to executive coaching. 

• Similarly super pertinent: Cameo CEO Steven Galanis on the Trapital podcast  talks developing their talent network by graphing vectors of “willingness” and “fame.” (Spotify) 

• Present company excepted: why everyone looks good online and the rise of influencer-style perfectionism infecting the home office. (The Atlantic) 

• Palette cleanser, from John Martin:  “Jason Stewarts piss take Grub Street Diet is a Patrick Bateman level murder of food world pretension” 

• Also from JM: “The new AC/DC album is way better than it needs to be. It's creation is both a story of triumph over difficulty and a testament to the longevity of their brand power and vision (not articulated in this NPR piece but would make a good 'how to keep your brand relevant when you lose the original DNA' marketing story).” (NPR)

• Elsewhere in super-strong music brands, via Public Announcement: $5 gigs, not $10m deals: the story of US punk label Dischord Records (The Guardian)

• And via Music Redef: Almost anarchy: The Style Council and the smooth sounds of sophisti-pop (WaPo)

• More music x style: Travis Scott’s giving out fashion scholarships (Highsnobiety) 

• Tiiina The Store’s got an interview with Faye and Erica Toogood from the eponymous label & design company.

• Depop Shop alert: British Airways is selling off excess merchandise to raise cash. 

• Finally, a Slow Fashion King at the White House (Garage) 

• Via Lean Luxe: why 2021 will look like 1981 (Input)

• Gift ideas in homage to Lean Luxe’s link trademark roundup:  Run the Jewels have a beer.  The New Yorker gots a store. There are Dunkin’ coffee smell candles and fancy Stove Top scarves. Time’s best inventions of 2020. Welcome to the Boobiverse.  And TikTok mansions Are Publicly Traded Now, if you’re feeling flush.  

• Apropos of the Boobiverse: The Kama Sutra is a gif-ed up font now (Dezeen) 

  

• The Twilight of the Ethical Consumer (Atmos.Earth) 

• Contrary to that: H&M Group has developed a recycling tool that separates polyester and cotton-blend fabrics, which are ubiquitous in fashion, for reuse. The “Green Machine” tech will be free for other companies to use (Vogue Business) 

• While, via Future Party: A new study from thredUP found that the secondhand clothing market is giving fast fashion a run for its money.

• And Berlin’s Second-Hand Craze Is Turning It into a ‘Zero-Waste City’ (Reasons to be Cheerful) 

• On the zero-waste tip, WITI on The Earth Room, Walter de Maria’s artwork made entirely of soil, hidden in plain sight in NYC. (Whyisthisinteresting)

• More earthworks: There’s a mysterious metal structure in the Utah wilderness. A helicopter pilot discovered the 10-foot monolith while counting bighorn sheep. 

• And some TikTok’ers already found it. (TikTok)

• Since we’re tok’ing; meet Spotlight, Snapchat's take on TikTok (Axios) 

• Related: TikTok-ology: lessons from the 15-second philosophers (1843)

• On that note: Snapchat is TikTok is Instagram is Facebook is Snapchat. What do we do now? (Protocol) 

• More streaming: YouTube's plan to win the music-streaming wars (Protocol)

• And Via Future Party: Spotify to sell looping album artwork designers using the platform’s Canvas feature. Really interesting nascent platform for artist x music collaboration/ innovation.

• Via Protocol: Here's a simple primer on WebRTC, an open-source project that enables real-time communication, such as video, in web browsers and mobile apps via some APIs, from Houseparty.

• Also unpacked: Laleh Khalili explains global shipping to 032c. 

• Post-election, Gen Z wants brands to step up (Vogue Business) 

• How Gen Z And Millennial Needs Have Radically Changed Post-COVID-19 in China (Jing Daily) 

• While the pandemic has cemented some Gen Z comsumption habits (Retail Dive)

• Related: The phenomenon of young, committed Princess Diana fans and why Gen-Z has embraced her as a feminist style icon (The New Statesman)  

• Though, Gen asserts stan culture as the latest in K-shaped developments… (Medium)

• Via Axios, Google launched Black-owned Fridays to encourage shoppers to support Black-owned businesses this holiday season.

• But will 2020 mark the end of Black Friday? (Quartz)

• From Ben Pruess: Ralph Lauren creates virtual replicas of its physical stores

• Also from Ben: Everybody’s getting in on the home-wears trend (The Drum) 

• You can now explore 100 Thieves’ sprawling LA headquarters inside of Fortnite (The Verge)

• Building related, via Elevator: Architectural Digest goes inside the most iconic nightclubs in history. 

• More building Porn alert: Dezeen’s winners of its Architecture Awards are here. 

• While The FT named its books of the year. Here’s the NYTimes’s best books list, while we’re at it.

• Oi Polloi spotlights the photography of Michael Jang

• Artist / director Alex Prager made 15 hyperreal human sculptures for a Miller Lite ad to memorialize the office Christmas party, and gave them to LACMA (It’s Nice That) 

• While artist, photog and [SIC] buddy Peter Sutherland posted his cult classic first doc ‘Pedal’ in its entirety on IG. Watch on your computer. (Instagram)

• Another buddy: KAWS on the Zwirner pod. (Instagram)

• And another: Monster Children on  Devon ‘OJAS’ Turnbull’s van life

• Via Music Redef: old friend Piotr Orlov’s new  Dada Strain newsletter covers FRIENSGIVING MIXTAPE,  an LA-centric Bandcamp comp raising money to support people experiencing food insecurity (Substack) 

• From Jeff Carvalho: Thisisnotallowed.com is photos rejected / removed from social platforms, from Sunroom, a new company dedicated to unlocking women’s ‘erotic capital’ (in a financial sense). 

• Jing Culture and Commerce released its first report on livestreaming by cultural institutions including the British Museum, Palace of Versailles, UCCA Beijing, and the National Museum of China. 

• Corollary via 1440: convincing consumers to make a purchase is a half-a-trillion-dollar industry—but a sweeping new study questions just how effective advertising is. (Freakonomics) 

• A possible culprit: 'Thumb-Stopping.' 'Humaning.' 'B4H.' The Strange Language of Modern Marketing. (NYT)

• Also in that zone: What Everyone Got Wrong About ‘the Long Tail’(Medium)

• Finally: Disquieting Spellsphere Music Video.  “This video was made during a weekly collaborative art livestream called Meme Machine. This video took 6 hours 17 minutes and 32 seconds to make. You can watch future Meme Machines at 7:30pm GMT at www.twitch.tv/seanmorl” (Youtube)

  =====[SIC] 116: DMT Vape Pens FTW=====