[SIC] 144: Time = Time

[SIC] 144: Time = Time 

Hi all. In compiling these notes each week, the challenge of timeliness is foremost in my mind; is a story that came out last Friday too ‘old’, even if it’s pertinent in context? Is a story from this AM valid here, even if my audience will see it everyplace else?  Casey Lewis of the outstanding After School newsletter (and future [SIC] Talks guest, hopefully 🤞) and I exchanged notes about it this week. The question is: what’s more useful to you - the most timely info? Or the way I group and relate things to one another?  LMK by response or in the context. Would be useful for me to know. 

Speaking of [SIC] Talks, we’re back today with Avery Booker, the Co-Founder of Jing Daily, one of my key sources of information and perspective on developments in China (and with Chinese companies generally).  Avery’s based in Madrid so it’ll be 10pm his time - right around dinner, haha.  We’ve never met so it’ll be fun to get to know him. Tune in at 4p ET / 1p PT / 10p CET over @dietznutz - or find it in my grid thereafter. 

Finally, thanks as always to my readers and contributors this week. Jeff, David, John, Iolanda, and Isaac; really appreciate your shouts. Everybody else reading - I’d love yours too. Hit me up. 

And as always - would be stoked if you like this missive enough to share it with friends or colleagues. Here’s a button. 

x Ben

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The Zeitgeist: 

• From Jeff Carvalho: “This is an amazing YouTubechannel. 2 farmers in Azerbijan” (Country Life Vlog) 

• The Dirt covers the same, and calls it Chorecore. 

• Via Public Announcement: Personal Branding Ruins People's Lives (Wheresyouredat)

• 8Ball finally returns (with a banger) and a couple other ones since. Good to have you back, Sean. (Substack)

• From John Martin: “Great thread that roasts all the strategy types” (Twitter) 

• Farewell, Millenial Lifestyle Subsidy (NYT) 

• The Tinder-ization of the internet. It’s a “revenge of the scenes” moment.  High school, y’know? (8Ball/Dazed) 

• Tiktok trends in a nutshell - a foot fetish meme turns mandrake. (Garbage Day)

• As covered in [SIC] 101: Cluttercore is here to stay. (BBC)

Plastic Fantastic:

• To that end, cop yourself a Lego Lambo (Creative Bloq)

• Elsewhere, Barbie Goes Green With New Recycled Doll (Ad Age)

The Perils of Content:

• Sex Scenes in the Time of COVID-19  (Vanity Fair)

• Via Nieman Lab: Vox Media plans to extend Cafe Studios into documentary television, live shows, and more podcasts(Digiday)

• While rival Buzzfeed plans to conquer multi-format business with a tree-climbing Octopus. No, actually. (The Drum) 

Art Travails: 

• Where Do Paintings Go After Their Owners Abandon Them? (Hyperallergic) 

• How Clothes Shape the Artist. In What Artists Wear Charlie Porter reflects on the importance of clothing to artistic practice and identity (Frieze)

• Via the FACE: Black Artist Database launched last year as a crowd-sourced database of Black artists and Black-owned labels, mix series and calls for equitable workplaces in the music industry (Black Artist Database)

• [SIC] homie and fave artist Peter Sutherland’s new show in Milan looks great (Instagram)

• What’s Fueling The New Art Market? Asia, Of Course, Says Phillips  (Jing Culture & Commerce)

• Via Jing Daily: Want to Smell Like Van Gogh’s Sunflowers? The Van Gogh Museum’s got Custom Perfumes (Artnet) 

• The Pompidou is coming to Jersey (Dezeen) 

• Corollary: Jersey City’s finest. In depth and interesting KAWS interview  (Brooklyn Rail) 

• Elsewhere: your Concise Los Angeles Art Guide for June 2021 (Hyperallergic) 

S’letter Better: 

• Pick your spots: Yolo’s got a newsletter (Yolo Journal) 

• While via Simon Owens: Ben Thompson announced the launch of a new product called Passport. (Stratechery)

Retail / Resale:

• Rent the Runway announced that all of its inventory is now available for resale. (Axios)

• While, via Future Party: If you want, you can now dress exactly like Olivia Rodrigo. (She’s selling some of her garms on Depop) (Input) 

• Via Quartz: post pandemic 25% of customers, says Levi’s CEO, are sizing up or down. What no tailor near you? Support your local.

• Related: the Life and Death of Your Jeans: A new book enters that category known as “fashion horror stories.” Something to consider before you shop. (NYT)

Wares / Wears:

• Same / same :/ … “Diplo’s Crocs propelled me into an existential crisis.” (Highsnobiety)

• And Balenciaga’s kept me there.  (Instagram)

• Until I read High Heels Are Ready to Stomp Out Crocs and Birks (NYT)

• And realized we’re all prolly part of Balenciaga’s deep fake fashion show (Instagram)  

• 2PM’s Ad Rem highlights nine go-to products curated by the Stanford Women's Soccer team, including shots fired at team sponsor Nike.

Gamer/Skate: 

• Excel is an esport. Microsoft is sponsoring the Financial Modeling World Cup, and it's a chance to watch the top financial modelers throw down in a tournament setting, complete with merch. (Twitter)

• From David Bloom: “Entertaining piece in Wired about a serious culture hack/jiu jitsu by female gamers, turning upside down the notorious sexism of the sector with a subgenre of content that asserts an almost ludicrously “female” sensibility in gaming videos and other outlets.“ Welcome to Planet Egirl (Wired) 

• From Iolanda Carvalho: "From playing cards to public showcase" Nintendo is turning a factory into a gallery  (The Verge)

• Elsewhere: Lander skateboards, for people who remember what Moss was (or Marc Newsom fans more broadly).

• There’s “Go Skateboarding Day” and then there’s *adult* go skateboarding day. (Instagram)

• Related: [SIC] buddies Friends from New York started an interview series, first up Zoo York founder and filmmaker Eli Gesner. Bonus: mixtapes, too. 

• Skate / art heads, there are some great finds for auction to benefit the Montauk Skatepark this weekend, including [SIC} homie Erik Foss, Eric HAZE, Chris DAZE Ellis and Ivory Serra among many others. (Montaukskateparkfundraiser)

Heavy Speculation: 

• Very questionable: Virtual reality is, finally, the new reality (The Drum)

• But, but: Via 1440: Meet Lu, The Non-human Influencer with 25 Million Followers (Observer)

• Also via 1440: The English *would* say this; why “Quirky” People are Attractive, According to Science (BBC) 

• And I guess manga characters are the smartest then? Because apparently pupil size is an indicator of intelligence. (Scientific American)

• I first read about this in Details in 1999 or thereabouts. So… via Marginal Revolution: Is the sperm count crisis for real? (NYT) 

• Be my 151st bestie tho? Lefty opinion factory The Atlantic now has a detailed breakdown of both the number and the types of friendships we can reasonably hope to maintain.  It’s 150. 

• While for the philosopher of “hyperobjects”—vast, unknowable things that are bigger than ourselves—the coronavirus is further proof that we live in a dark ecology. (New Yorker) 

• Via 1440: The Case for Parking Reform. How an under-the-radar policy issue has a big impact on the availability and cost of housing. (Slow Boring) 

• Unrelated: LA has too many peacocks (NYT)

• Speaking of Peacocks, tho .. via Lean Luxe: Fuck it. Folks are now quitting,  instead of giving up their work from home flexibility. (Bloomberg)

It’s June, So: 

• In defense of half-assed pride campaigns by corporate giants (Early Majority)

• But which Studio Ghibli Films Are The Most Queer? (Salty)

• Related to Ghibli, unrelated to June: More details of the Studio Ghibli theme park revealed, including an area inspired by My Neighbor Totoro (It’s Nice That) 

• Oh also, get yourself a Porco Rosso hat. (Hypebeast)

• And then there’s June 21st. Asks The Streets: “Who’s got the bag?” (YouTube) 

We’re Raving, We’re Raving:

• Via Music Redef: The history of the Bay Area's most notorious '90s rave warehouse (SF Gate) 

• While Bay Area-born Levi’s goes Madchester with these wild wallees (Hypebeast)

• Corollary via Music Redef: The community-owned rave: event organisers as DAOs at the intersection of underground rave culture and Web 3 concepts like decentralized autonomous organisations. (Music x Tech x Future)

Bigger Figures: 

• Inside Discovery CEO's 'Eye-Popping' Pay - Is David Zaslav Worth More Than Bob Iger? (The Wrap) 

• Bob Iger: “Hold my beer.” Disney Chairman Bob Iger Sells Almost $100 Million in Shares (Bloomberg) 

• Back on Earth, [SIC] reader and homie Sophie Bambuck of Everlane on the CMO Podcast (Apple)

Sports / Politicking: 

• Elsewhere: Iconic moments from the Euros celebrated on beer mats by David Shrigley, Pentagram and more (Dezeen)

• Highsnobiety editors debate the Euro’s jerseys.

• While via The New Statesman: Gareth Southgate on what playing for England means (Players' Tribune)

• Kevin Durant story in the NYT Mag is great. 

Music / Business:

• Via Backseat Freestyle: Reservoir Media’s big purchase of the Tommy Boy Records catalog should mean De La Soul’s music will finally land on DSPs. 

• Related: it’s a simple question, Bill. Via Music Redef: Now That You've Bought a Multi-Million-Dollar Music Catalog, What Are You Going to Do With It?  (Variety) 

• Via Blackbird Spyplane: Tirzah’s very ill super-trippy 2014 mixtape whats time (YouTube)

Designs On Deck: 

• A roundup of recent growth and pivots in the home category. Read More (Wunderman Thompson) 

• Stefan Sagmeister has designed a pair of sunglasses inspired by Frida Kahlo’s eyebrows (It’s Nice That)

Reading, Materially: 

• The Printed Matter Zine Fair is next Saturday in the East Village. Mark your calendar. 

• Via Gossamer: This limited edition book by the crew behind Rose Los Angeles is an actual and entirely unedited text conversation between two weed traffickers in Northern California working on deals during a harvest season.

Foods?: 

• You heard it here first: the new diet of tastemakers is built around seafood salads. To that end, via Gossamer: “this purveyor of fine canned fish before, but I’m back to say they’ve added a whole new assortment of hard-to-find brands to their wares.

• Elsewhere in meat-free-ness, from Iolanda Carvalho: “Next level plant-based:” Hermès Shows Off ‘Plant-Based’ Birkin Bags Crafted From Actual Vegetables  (Design Taxi)

• Meanwhile, sweet AND salty: Snaxshot is really getting the signature visual thing down with the newest issue. 

• From Isaac Dietz:  An interesting development - a famous bay area BBQ 'reopening' inside a ghost kitchen,  facing pushback from the hood (Berkeley Side)

• Via Lean Luxe: The Economist asserts the world’s sexiest sandwich. 

• Corollary: I can tell you for sure that Coral trout and Syracuse potatoes is not a dish known to the ‘Cuse, but it looks phenomenal. (Instagram) 

APAC Stack: 

• Why Shenzhen – Not Hong Kong – Is Luxury’s New Golden Ticket (Jing Daily) 

• While Tokyo’s coming for Hong Kong’s art crown: (the art newspaper)

Influenza: 

• The influencer trip is back (sort of) (Glossy) 

• Everyone's an Influencer. Now What? (Adweek) 

• All about the IG algo and how it works (Instagram)

• Via Morning Brew: Pixar’s guide to storytelling (Twitter)

• Creative 100: TV and Streaming Innovators (Adweek)

Natures / Healing: 

• BBSP talked to Suzanne Simard about finding the Mother Tree (Blackbird Spyplane)

• While, via Future Perfect: Wired UK is on the hunt for the master cow that will feed the world (Wired)

• And finally, The Dodo’s got A "Wirecutter for pets” (Axios)

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