[SIC] 209: Fonts Du Lac

Volume 5, Number 1.

Sep 08, 2022

Meantime, enjoy. Feel free to share, too. Here’s a button:

Read this on the web instead.

Oh, lord.

It turns out Labor Day week / the first day of school is not ideal for launching a bunch of new features and elements that you’ve promised an audience. Mea culpa, then — there’s stuff I’d planned to have today and forever more (the return of [SIC] Talks, for one) — so that’ll have to wait for [SIC] 210: Don’t Worry Darling. Apologies, all.

That being said, there are a bunch of new facets this week for the launch of [SIC] Volume 5, made firstly to mark four full years of scraping plaque off my brain by way of this weekly digest, and secondly because hopefully the tweaks make what follows more useful and interesting to you.

There are new section titles, different fonts, tighter curation and simpler attribution to sources, for a start. Those aren’t baked yet, so don’t fall in love. Killed ‘Book of the Week’ for lack of response. Made a new header image, rephotographed by me from a scene in Blood Simple (playing now on The Criterion Channel) that pretty much captures my vibe at the moment. Recumbent, washed, indigo. Oh, and the 🔏 icon means a site might be paywalled for most readers.

Let me know if those make a positive difference. Or a useful one, at least. Likewise, features you’d like to see going forward.

Meantime - a shout out to all the new readers this week, including big groups from Austria and Italy; idk how you got here, but I’m happy to have you.

Likewise, thanks as always to my stalwart contributors Piers, Iolanda and Celeste - each of whom has many more important things to do than send me links, but wants you to see what they’re seeing, too. Which is to say, contributions are not just welcome, but invited - from everyone. I appreciate it and I mean it.

Final thing: barring an edit contribution or paid subscription, it really does help tremendously if you share the newsletter with friends, colleagues, family or even foes. It’s free, after all.

OK, enough palaver. Welcome to Volume 5.

Ben

Note the Bigfoot-Shaped Depression, as spotted by Kevin Tachman. #thetruthisoutthere.

Zeitgest / Gestalt

Money Can’t Buy Class. Or Can It? In his book Status and Culture, fave author W. David Marx sets out to unravel the grand mysteries of identity / NYT
On the subject of class: What the #@$%! Happened to Our Manners at Work? / WSJ 🔏
Related, from ‘Celeste Blewitt: [ Business Dudes Need To Stop Talking Like This' ] “Great piece by Charlie Warzel, the conversation around 'business dude lorem ipsum' and the words which are used to creatively add flourishes on terms and concepts” / The Atlantic
Humanity Is Doing Its Best Impression of a Black Hole /Wired
Oh and the dinner party is over /Grub Street
Also over: 'gossipy, very toxic environment.' Why The Wing failed/ NYP
“Nobody has ever looked as miserable as Jerry Seinfeld modeling for KITH, and I love it.”/ The Melt
From Piers Fawkes: “…. oof. this is harsh” [How Esprit could have hit a home run selling to #GenZ but failed by playing to #millennials ] / Inside Retail
Young people are increasingly at ease consuming culture via digital avatars or made with artificial intelligence. Should the same moral guidelines and laws apply to those works? A 'Virtual Rapper' Was Fired. Questions About Art and Tech Remain / NYT
From Iolanda Carvalho: The Most Searched Consumer Brands in 2022 / Visual Capitalist
Hence? Why Brands Are Tapping Unconventional Partners for Big Collaborations /BoF 🔏
Case in point? French singer and actress Jane Birkin designed a collection with A.P.C. / Harper’s Bazaar
Nearly a decade after states began legalizing marijuana, weed companies are still losing money/ Politico
While this is TikToker is getting people to talk about their salaries / Bullish Studio
Consumers want gender-neutral clothing. Some retailers are listening / Retail Dive
Inside the plant-based wardrobe / FT 🔏
Hence: Kim K and a former Carlyle Group guy are launching a new private-equity firm building consumer + media businesses / WSJ 🔏
But Is Resale Fueling Overconsumption? /BoF 🔏
Skateboarders continue to infiltrate architecture / Dezeen
“Wifelorette” parties are all the rage post-pandemic / Fast Company

World Order

How the world may divvy up the Moon / Future Party
While on Earth, a $5 Billion “Moon” is Landing in Dubai / Hypebeast
Big to little: in India, the EV revolution is arriving in the form of two- and three-wheeled electric vehicles / NYT
Because? The age of “the car is king” is over / The Guardian
Barbiecore Is Bringing Hot Pink Back With A Bang, But Reception In China Is Mixed / Jing Daily
Beavers are “weapons of climate resilience”/ NYT
Scientists are on the hunt for 2,100 lost species. A lot of animals aren’t extinct or endangered, but are simply missing / Vox
Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, or ARPA-E, has built a reputation among climate tech founders for game-changing funding / Protocol
Case in point: Bill Gates and Samsung develop toilet that combusts waste "into ashes" / Reasons to Be Cheerful
While UVA researchers have invented a method of 3D printing with seed-impregnated soil, which could be used to create walls and roofs teeming with plant life / Reasons to Be Cheerful
And Ecobrick is a simple technology that fills used plastic bottles with other microplastics and use the ‘bricks’ to build things like benches or garden walls / Wikipedia

The Speculative Future

The Ethereum Merge Is Almost Here. What Could Go Wrong? / Decrypt
The metaverse is evolving from fiction into fact. Neal Stephenson, the novelist who coined the term, rejects the idea of a dystopian future for tech-dependent humanity / FT 🔏
[SIC] Talks alum Joy Howard’s Gen X Guide to Web3 / Dirt
How NFTs are used by brands to collect customer data / Ad Age
Rethinking Community Design to Build Better Communities / Forefront
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is rolling out a new copyright framework designed specifically for NFTs / Future Party
Charlie Warzel interviewed Andy Baio and Simon Willison about their new project which looks at what images are being scraped and analyzed by art A.I.’s like DALL-E and Midjourney / The Atlantic
Related: Will DALL-E the AI Artist Take My Job? / NY Mag
From Iolanda Carvalho: FIFA To Launch Their Own NFT Football Platform / NFT Evening
The U.S. states of Washington and Pennsylvania recently became the first to make NFTs taxable / Mossadams

Pop Cultures

How to make dope friends and talk to dope people about dope things. (Plus the CURSED pitfalls of "brand activations”) / Blackbird Spyplane
How to retrain your TikTok algorithm /FT 🔏
Chris Blackwell on the Lefsetz Pod / Spotify
Are artists and entrepreneurs really all that different? / FT 🔏
'It's The Way The Industry Is Going: How YouTube Is Transforming Podcasting' / The Guardian
How the YouTube platform paved the way for today's social media / Fast Company
The Cartoon Mystery That Stumped the Internet / Do you recognize this elf-like man? No, he’s not from “The Littles.” / The New Yorker
Merriam-Webster added 370 new words to the dictionary, including “meatspace,” “sponcon,” “virtue signaling,” and “yeet” / Merriam Webster
The Electrifying, Emotional Return of Yeah Yeah Yeahs / NYT
Olivia Wilde Talks to the Talks / The-Talks
While NYC’s Spring Break Art Show returns with a bevy of bawdy and bodily projects / The Art Newspaper
Related: Raw meat and vagina scrolls: Carolee Schneemann’s body politics laid bare in first UK survey / The Art Newspaper

Media Happenings

Instagram Scaling Back Shopping Features Amid Commerce Retreat / The Information 🔏
Media companies downsize office spaces in NYC / Digiday
Per Ryan Broderick: Techdirt’s Mike Masnick wrote a good, long piece on Cloudflare’s decision over the weekend to block Kiwi Farms, which Ryan calls “the best piece I’ve seen about this whole debacle” / Techdirt
Semafor aims to be the source for “intelligent news consumers” who are “unhappy” and “screaming from the rooftops” / Nieman Lab
Vox Media will host 100+ events in 2023 as it bolsters its experiential portfolio / TechSumo

Market-ations

Vernacular Branding Scores Big by Aiming Low / Bloomberg 🔏
Corollary: how Lil Baby Found Artist-Market Fit and Took Off / Trapital
Beyoncé and Tiffany & Co. Want You to Love Yourself / Adweek
Apple Car is whipping other brands before it even exists / Creative Bloq
Why Duolingo is making Zulu free to Vodacom’s 45 million subscribers / Quartz
Why Bloomberg lives on and on and on and on and on and on / FT 🔏
Links for the Strategy beginner / LinkedIn
How YouTube altered PewDiePie (then got back together)/The Verge
The “Top Creators” of 2022 / Forbes
Willy Wonka of Williamsburg: Inside KidSuper’s 10,000-square-foot creative factory / Vogue Business
From ‘Celeste Blewitt: Why Balenciaga Hired The Man Behind Its Viral Support Account' / Vogue UK
Starburst sends TikToks into space to reconnect with Gen Z / Ad Age
Lil Yachty Launches Frozen Pizza Line / Hypebeast
Diesel Mounts Giant Inflatable Sculptures In Shanghai /Jing Daily
Diddy invests in REC Philly, a resource hub for creators / PR Newswire
Bose CMO and [SIC] homie Jim Mollica on products, content and new ways to advertise audio / Digiday
How G Fuel's toxic working environment made the energy drink brand's influencer marketers jump ship / Digiday
Selfridges is leaning into resale, repair, rental and refills / The Guardian

Superficial Interest

The complete guide to remembering what you read / ARE.NA
No reading: how Twitter’s podcast bet could pay off / Simon Owens
How One Modernist Building and Alfred Hitchcock Changed Cinema Forever / Vanity Fair
Photographer David LaChapelle on fame, fantasy & #FreeBritney/ FT🔏
Are the Days of Lavish Gallery Receptions Over? / Hyperallergic
Maybe, since Sotheby’s launches primary market channel selling works directly from artists’ studios / The Art Newspaper
Related question: how do you place a price tag on art in an age of perpetual crisis? / The Art Newspaper
The Best Apps and Sites to Sell Your Clothes Online / Teen Vogue

Eats / Drinks

From Iolanda Carvalho: Pubs, Pints & Predictions: An extensive white paper on what hospitality will look like in 10 years / Me And U
B/c she’s magic?! From Piers Fawkes: Why Kate Moss Can Sell Diet Coke and Wellness / BoF 🔏
Less magic: Why Coca-Cola doesn't want to tell you what's in those weird flavors / CNN
Corollary: How sustainable are fake meats? / Ars Technica

Friends Section

Homie and Sex Magazine co-founder Zach Sokol’s edition of Perfectly Imperfect is much more interesting than average / Substack
An interview with Harmony Korine in 2008 shot by homie David Shadi Perez / IG
Homie Angelo Baque outfits the workers: Awake x UPS / IG

Useful Diversions:

Read: Sex Magazine #13 is officially out and shipping worldwide / Big Cartel

Listen: An excellent CTI Records playlist per Sascha Frere Jones / Spotify

Do:

Friday night: Friends from New York x BAPE x APC at SOB’s with Maseo from De La Soul, Stretch Armstrong and Quiana Parks / IG
And the next night (Saturday) Maseo is back for “a rollerskating jam named Saturdays” FR at Rockefeller Center / IG
Also this weekend: Nike at the Shed “beyond the court” / IG
I can cosign personally: Last of the summer sun on the Costa Brava. With a medieval centre and surrounded by unspoilt coast, the hilltop town of Begur is ideal for a late escape /FT 🔏
New Yorkers, spring is sooner than you realize. Reserve your flower bulbs, or volunteer to help distribute them on Sunday, October 23, at Grand Army Plaza / Bklyner

This edition compiled while streaming this Jamie XX x Avalanches NTS mix / Mixcloud

Corollary story sources this week include, in no particular order:

Garbage Day / Nieman Lab / Morning Consult / Dealbook / Web3 Newsletter / Thingtesting / The Future Party / Public Announcement / Jing Collabs / Lean Luxe / Micromobility Newsletter/ Carbon Almanac/ Retail Dive / Strat Scraps / Trapital

All are highly recommended for your subscription support.

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