[SIC] 305: Erewhon Algonquin

Volume Six, Number Forty Five

This time: [SIC] Talks with Kareem Rahma, plus weekly digest of pertinent developments, compiled and published free on Thursdays to 6127 subscribers who’ve opted in. [SIC] is an operation that grows exclusively by via word-of-mouth. Do us a solid and send to people you like:

You can pay, too. Paying subscribers get an additional [SIC] Day microdigest of 10 links every Mon, Tues, Weds, Fri, and the [SIC] Sundays dispatch. And founding supporters get invited to dinner parties at my home in NYC, with special guests. Many paying supporters expense their subscriptions as research for their work in marketing, advertising, entertainment and tech.

Also if you’re a breakfast person, Breakfast Clubbing is a [SIC] sister newsletter tracking the free, open-to-everyone breakfast events I started, now happening around the world. Everyone’s invited, especially you.

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Corollary Sources this week:

Marginal Revolution / Champion Weekly / Public Announcement / Nieman Lab / Trapital / Garbage Day / Politico / The Future Party / What I’m Hearing / The Micromobility Report / The Unskippables / Feed Me / Ben-Evans / Morning Brew / The New Statesman / After School / Medium Rare

Contributions this week from Piers Fawkes, Hugh Dietz, Matt @TheTechnorati, Adam Shore, Syd Allen Ash, Isaac Dietz, Kate Lee, Liz Mantel and Josh Gardiner. Contributions are invited from everyone. Send ‘em if you got ‘em.

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Hi all,

Some surprising discoveries this week. ~130ish links in total; in the run-up to Volume Seven launching in August I’m going to play with length and link distribution; super intern Elsa will be keeping tabs on the performance. Any thoughts, let us know in the comments too. Helps.

[SIC] Talks this week is with the comedian / creator / director Kareem Rahma, a long-ago colleague who debuted his new show The Last Stop today, with Jerry Saltz, author Brenda Cullerton and comedians Ian Fidance and Neel Ghosh joining the show’s debut. Kareem promised me he was giving me the first interview around the show, which was flattering until The next stop for Subway Takes dropped on Embedded. Turns out maybe I got the first video interview? Dewy Dudes, got the first pod.

I kid, of course. I’ve admired Kareem’s commitment to output and his anti-passive attitude, which we dug into. It’s a good convo. Have a look.

Speaking of former colleagues - the guys at Bullish Studio hooked me up with access to their new Videonest platform - and so [SIC] Talks has a website now.

John Darnielle (somewhat surprisingly) goes deep on DJ music with Michaelangelo Matos. Key Quote: ““Let the Music Play” by Shannon. You ever heard that on an amazing system? Make it a life goal.” Also: “Oh—Rabid Acid Badger. Do you follow that guy?”

Darnielle’s description brought to mind the first time I heard Give it Up by the GoodMen at ‘rave night’ at the Zodiac Club in Syracuse in 1993. It was like a freight train running through the place.

Apropos: PS1’s Warm Up 2024 playlist previews the summer’s programming. Related - from Adam: “The second show in my Counterpoint series at Barclays Center Plaza is a free, all-day event with the Brooklyn Raga Massive. Equal parts Indian classical music tradition and innovation, the BRM is presenting five different ensembles throughout the day, including a show for kids, and culminating with 20 musicians performing "In D”, their Terry Riley-inspired masterwork, July 21.

The week before From Isaac: Girls Run NYC presents: - which includes the Brooklyn screening of the Trail Running Film Festival featuring the mini documentary "Girls Run Ultras" on Tuesday July 16th at 7pm.

More contributions;
from Stella:  “I’m reaching out from Broadcast—the virtual, editorial arm of Pioneer Works. The whole team loves [SIC] Weekly so we’ve been meaning to introduce ourselves for a bit. We’d love to send you a copy of our inaugural print issue if you’re up for it. It’s a précis of what we’ve been up to online, and a statement of where Broadcast is heading—as a digital magazine that will also land in your hands, from time to time, as a tangible one.” 

And from Kate: “I'm sending two pieces by Evan Armstrong this week your way for potential inclusion in [SIC]. The first is his take on the Paramount deal, which he believes is ultimately about distribution.The second is about relying on instinct when building a startup, using Clay as a case study.”

Last one before the links: From Liz. [Apropos of the post below]: “Genuinely think there needs to be an article or discussion around the amount of information you can get from the comments section”

velvetcoke

A post shared by @velvetcoke

Now - the rest of the week

Ben

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[SIC] 305: Erewhon Algonquin

The Macro Narrative

• From Piers: The Whataburger App Is Essentially Tracking Houston’s Ongoing Power Outage / Eater

• Meantime, Gambling Is Everywhere. Habits once labeled vices are creeping into all areas of life—thanks to our phones / The Atlantic

• And vending machines for ammunition have hit grocery stores across the south / Quartz

• Hence?! Magic mushrooms are overwhelmingly the most-used psychedelic drug in the US / Doubleblind

• And? Why everyone is talking about polyamory / FT

• To that end tho - does sharing relationships correspond to The New Age of Endless Parenting? / The Atlantic

• Elsewhere: The New York Times election podcast. “The Run-Up”, takes the more interesting approach of talking to ordinary people / Irish Times

• Good because … "'Ideadiversity' may be at an all-time low" / Dezeen

• Apropos: White-Collar Work Is Just Meetings Now. Communications has eclipsed creativity as the central skill of modern work / The Atlantic

• Mixed Realty headsets have hit factory floors / Axios

• and Gig work is becoming the “new normal” in China as companies downsize and economic growth slows / Semafor

• From Matt: The American Elevator Explains Why Housing Costs Have Skyrocketed / NYT

• Going to a more selective college causally reduces obesity / Online Library

• Corollary: American adults are cycling than at any point since 2000 / Bicycle Retailer

• The best (and worst) US cities for new college grads /CBS News

• 2024 ranking of the best and worst airports / AirHelp

• Corollary: The Boeing Starliner crew might be stuck in space for the rest of the summer / Quartz

  

Generationations

• Older adults experience milder psychedelic effects compared to younger adults / Doubleblind

• For Older People Who Are Lonely, Is the Solution a Robot Friend?/ NYT

• Do AI companions reduce loneliness?  / HBR

• Meanwhile, Gen X Had Children and Became Republican / American Enterprise Institute

• While Gen Z are Swapping Nightclubs for Country Music / The Times

• Gen Z’s Biggest Dating Hurdle? They Don’t know how to flirt / NBC News

• From Celeste: How Gen Z Fell For The Preppy Appeal Of The Longchamp Bag / Vogue UK

  

Platformations

• Ultra-fast Fashion Rot Spreads to Amazon. Amazon wants to one-up Temu and Shein / Back Row

• Hence - The new rules of Facebook Marketplace / Embedded

• And Fizz the Anonymous Gen Z social app, adds a marketplace for college students/ TechCrunch

• Elsewhere: Post Worthy: A Look at Trends in Text-Based Sharing / Meta

• But, where are all the Threads creators?/ WaPo

• Etsy released new standards for its sellers yesterday that it hopes will increase transparency about how items are produced / CNBC

• Spotify is adding comment sections to its podcast episode pages / TechCrunch

• Everyone is trying to make this TikTok go viral - and It never will / Wired

Stylistics

• From Syd: “For SIC - [Gen Z using the Notes app as an outfit generator] Anyone in my generation might recognize the striking similarity to the Dollz of our youth / Vogue Business, Dollzmania

• Has tenniscore hit its peak? Wimbledon suggests it’s just getting started / Vogue Business

• Related: SIC] Talks alum Caitlin Thompson talks Racquet on the Monocle Pod / Monocle

• A complex digital ecosystem manages an army of factories for fast-fashion giant Shein / SCMP

• Brat green is expected to pop up across the catwalks this September. Does the trend have legs? / Vogue Business

• Burberry should rethink its strategy and become a ‘British Coach,’ / BoF

• It’s the Year of the Fox: the work of cotton breeder Sally Fox/ Blackbird Spyplane

• Ladyfag is the Queen Mother of NYC nightlife / BK Magazine

• This Threads account is here to give you the intel on the sickest pieces on the Bear / Threads

• Hence? Making a case for custom-made clothing / Vogue Business

• New York is Matt Weinberger’s world and we’re all just living in it. He’s putting on a show of his prolific work capturing NY over the years at The Sitting Room Gallery / IG

Culturations

• Chasing Rainbows with Ed Ruscha / Apology

• Corollary: The art lover’s summer reading list / The Art Newspaper

• More word art: Where is all the sad boy literature ?/ Esquire

• Ruins revived: when do overlooked buildings become valued again? / The Art Newspaper

• Why Do We Obsess Over Unpopulated Architecture? Minoru Nomata’s paintings of fictional structures lament the buildings that embodied political movements striving for greater equality/Frieze

• Elsewhere: The 15 Songs that have hit #1 [in the US] this year. I had heard 10 of these prior to this week / Spotify

• Only 2x of those make the Times’s 40 ‘best’ songs of the year so far in contrast. I’d heard 8 of these prior / NYT

• Which begs the question: who wins when there’s more music than ever? / Trapital Podcast

• We’’ve got to rethink music festivals / Music Business Worldwide

• Lost Turns 20: The Real Reason a Tropical Island Melted Everyone’s Brain / Vanity Fair

• Also brain-melting: Nicolas Cage Is Still Evolving / The New Yorker

• While Swizz Beatz has made a name for himself in Saudi Arabia’s camel-racing scene / NYT

• Continuing the trend of skipping DSPs to drop entire-ass albums, SAULT released ACTS OF FAITH on WeTransfer and YouTube/Wetransfer

• Hasan Minhaj is launching a new interview series on YouTube and has set Senator Elizabeth Warren as his first guest / Tubefilter

• And Rob McElhenney officially launches creative-collaboration platform Adim / The Future Party

• Useful? Since Most NY Artists Are Financially Unstable / Hyperallergic

• Seven Art Shows to See in NYC Right Now / Hyperallergic

• Magazzino is the new Storm King / One Thing

• Lo-fi horror video games are turning happy 1990s memories into nightmares / FT

• More gaming: Why Fortnite and Roblox still rely on social to drive discovery and engagement of branded experiences / Digiday

• Also a world: Inside Brooklyn’s Very Own Immersive “Clown Cult” / Hyperallergic

• From Celeste: “to have come from a joke on the Simpsons, to now a reality, loved reading this.”[Cypress Hill Make 28-Year-Old Joke Come True] / BBC

• It’s Time for Chryssa’s Neon Art to Shine. Chryssa, it turns out, did everything that the famous Pop and New Media artists did, simultaneously or, in some instances, first / Hyperallergic

• Reimagining design museums. What is the role of design museums today? / Monocle

• From Celeste: ‘I’m Your Venus: 8 Times Botticelli Has Influenced Popular Culture' / Sothebys

Technopolis

• From Hugh: The Story of Jensen Huang and Nvidia / Quartr Insights

• From Matt: Goldman’s “Gen AI: Too Much Spend, Too Little Benefit?” signals a catching up to the more-making machinery / Goldman Sachs

• Apropos: In vogue: Going smaller with AI model sizes / WSJ

• And The robot war is already happening behind the scenes of your internet browser / Axios

• Related: What Counts as a Customer? How tech companies decide what gets included in their customer metrics / Mostly Metrics

Media-tions

• The eternal binge-or-no-binge debate, seen through the prism of the high “decay rates” on The Bear / Wired

• Bon Appétit is getting into sports, relationships and subscription boxes / Digiday

• Substack founder Hamish MacKenzie has Thoughts on building a better media ecosystem. He says traditional media and Substack can grow together / Substack

• USA Today transformed the media world. What’s its legacy now? / WaPo

• Mad Magazine Is Forever / The Melt

• Corollary: The New York Times is suing OpenAI — and experimenting with it for writing headlines and copy editing / The Intercept

• And so in response:: OpenAI is asking for proof that The New York Times’ journalism is original / Entrepreneur

• Electronic Arts' ad tech hiring plans signal the publisher's streamlined advertising dreams / Digiday

• While Footballco wants to be the top source for soccer news in the U.S. / Press Gazette

• The Economist's global rip off / Hal Crawford

• [SIC] Talks alum Tricia Romano’s Monday Media Diet / WITI

Market / Influence

• The best travel ad is, of course, not an ad. It's a ~vibe~  / X

• Cannes Lions may be the new VidCon/The Information

• Apropos: Medialink’s summary of Cannes Lions / Medialink

• [SIC] Homie Rei Inamoto enumerates the Brand New Rules of Advertising / Fast Company

• The running list of major retail bankruptcies / Retail Dive

• Media agencies are developing finance-based marketing and business intelligence expertise / Digiday

Eats, Drinks and Ephemera

• Singapore approved 16 insects for human consumption with immediate effect. The bugs, which include grasshoppers, locusts, and silkworms, can be imported, farmed, or processed into food for humans or used to feed animals intended for human consumption / SCMP

• Hence: In Defense of Wine. Sales are down, and health concerns are up / NYT

• Corollary: Earth’s iconic cocktail bars /Punchdrink

• From Celeste: Women And Younger Drinkers Drive Guinness Revival / FT

• And Grocery stores are now tourist hotspots / The Future Party

The Natural (?!) World

• Los Angeles is making you sick. Southern California’s air is filled with pollution, and it is –– unsurprisingly –– resulting in consequences / The Atlantic

• From [SIC] Talks Alum Aaron Rose LA SLIMES. She’s  9 years old and makes them completely by hand She’s completely obsessed with all things gooey / LAslimes

• Four materials made from banana plants / Dezeen

• And finally: The Quiet Revenge of Animals / The Lindy Newsletter

[SIC] 305: Erewhon Algonquin