[SIC] 321: Amniotic Antibiotic

Vol. 7 No. 11. Convalescent Meanderings.

Nov 14, 2024

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I got the top of my femur chopped off on Monday. Again.

Longtime [SIC] subscribers (the 50% or so of you who’ve been around since before May 2023) may remember my alluding to my left total hip replacement. This time it was the right one.

Consequently I’m convalescing. And, feeling piquant (or, just medicated) I’m gonna return to the original [SIC] template of organizing stories by exquisite corpse / pure association.

Feels to me like [SIC] V. 7 needs a kick in the ass. It’s my fault; I have let Talks and 5 Questions scheduling slacken, and while a few more people are subscribing (+14% since launch of V.7), paid subs have only increased ~7.7%, which makes me wonder else I should be doing to get you to pay for the [SIC] Day + [SIC] Sundays microdigests. Let me know in the comments.

Or, What about a sale on subs? Here you go:

Take 25% off a [SIC] yearly subscription

Maybe it’s all just too much? I certainly feel that way about the endless shoegazing about the election (warning, plenty of it herein this week). To quote Paul Skallas (AKA Lindy Man) You Don’t have to Look Back.

Turns out reflection is a relatively new phenomenon; the absurdity of the modern condition. Better to look forward, warm as the nostalgic waters of a post like Nouveau York’s P.S.1998, coinciding with my first summer in NYC, may be.

But at a moment when, Teens learn a new conspiracy theory every week on social media, yet most schools aren’t teaching media literacy and the main cope seems to be trolling (See: The Onion acquiring Infowars out of bankruptcy, or more portentously the Notorious D.O.G.E), we gotta do something different. To wit:

Meet the ‘doom-spending’ Gen Zs using retail therapy to cope with the Trump Win telegraph
And welcome to Vibe Shift America / BOOM BOOM beat DOOM / 8Ball
In which the Pendulum Swung Back Hard. MAHA, gluten matters, holistic himbos / Snaxshot
Corollary to that: Costco had to recall 80,000 pounds of butter because the labels failed to mention that it includes milk. That gets a resounding zero booms from the Costco Guys / NYPost
Red wave crashes down on ballot measures. Setbacks on abortion, drug legalization, minimum wage and election-process questions from coast to coast / Politico
Is the red heart emoji MAGA? ❤️ Liberal TikTok users are abandoning the emoji over fear of its political implications. It's not the first time emojis have become political.
Which may or may not be Self-Sabotaging Innovation: The Art of Doing Dumb Shit. Breaking free of passivity, apathy, and corporate FOMO / Zine
Hence: It’s time for legacy media to build a new social media playbook / Milk Karten
And to consider How the Ivy League Broke America. David Brooks says “the meritocracy isn’t working. We need something new.” / The Atlantic
To that end I appreciate my friends at Public Announcement Global LLC for offering free membership to legitimate teens that yearn for media literacy. Teens can contact operator@ for a join code. I’ve forwarded to my kids with recommendation to sign up.
And barring that there’s always …. Drinking With the Kids. Years after bath time and travel soccer, we’re mixing cocktails in the kitchen / NYT

[SIC] 321: Amniotic Antibiotic

MAGA media mapped. The media power brokers in the new Trump administration are different and in some ways more powerful than those during the first Trump presidency / Axios
Meantime: Memes Take a Dark Turn Post-Trump Election / Hyperallergic
Ergo: Trump, the manosphere and the marketer’s creator dilemma / Digiday
So… Many American women have been encouraging each other to take up the South Korean feminist “4b movement,” which calls for women to reject marriage, children, sex and relationships with men / Rolling Stone
Apropos: Gen Z’s Changing Political Ideology. Some fascinating data points on young people and politics: As of October 2024, the share of liberal-identifying Gen Z adults dropped from 41% to 27%, and the share of self-described conservatives grew from 16% to 23% / Morning Consul
Left-leaning UK paper The Guardian quits X citing racism and conspiracy theories / Reuters
while Scientists at federal health agencies are faced with a choice of whether to “stay and fight” or leave as a second Trump administration looms / Axios
Apropos of 8Ball’s Sean Monahan (Doom v. Boom, above) - worth noting he is going to be revisiting and expanding on some of the ideas from his “live players” trend report last winter. Live Players Pt. 1 and Live Players Pt. 2 / 8Ball
Corollary: Sonic Fictions and Alternative Histories: Kode9 In times of diminished horizons, Steve Goodman, aka Kode9, has often turned to history and to the speculative art of science fiction to explore a future that accounts for the ghosts of the past while empathizing with the problems of the present/ 032C
Speaking of present problems: The Captagon Edition. On a sanctioned Syria, amphetamine margins, and geopolitical leverage / WITI
More on that: Syria, heavily sanctioned and economically devastated, has found its lifeline in Captagon, a powerful amphetamine that has swept across the Middle East / The New Yorker
How Tech Created a ‘Recipe for Loneliness’ / NYT
(and related: How The New York Times beat the algorithm and became Facebook’s top publisher / Sherwood)
It’s not just tech: Ugly buildings “make people lonely and miserable” too / The Times of London
Ergo? 21,000 laborers have died working on Saudi Vision 2030/ The Architect’s Newspaper

From Iolanda Carvalho:

Hey! Hope your surgery went well, and also that you have a quick recovery 🙂. I'm sending a lot this time, but maybe you're low on links this week 'cos of surgery, so...

“This one is a classic…”[The State of Fashion 2025] / McKinsey
“Food is always a good theme” [ The Best New Restaurants in America] / Eater
How to build blockbuster branded entertainment - “key word here is block 🙂”/ Shots
“The generation issue” [Targeting by age is lazy and ineffective, it’s big ideas that count] / Marketing Week
“And this - expect the unexpected ahahah” [Mattel mistakenly lists porn site on “Wicked” toy packaging] / Variety
“Full circle or back to basics 😉 - a couple of links" [ Netflix Tries Live TV] / Bloomberg
[and conversely]: Sports fans drive global growth in streaming services / WARC

These are the top apps Gen Z young adults downloaded this year. The most downloaded app was Temu / Techcrunch
Hence: Amazon Launches Temu Competitor called Haul / The Information
While YouTube is testing a TikTok-like interface / The Verge
And Instagram may give users the ability to generate profile pictures with AI / The Verge
Meantime, Particle is a new app using AI to organize and summarize the news / The Verge
And OpenAI is reportedly preparing to launch an AI agent codenamed 'Operator' that will be able to use a computer to take actions on users' behalf / Slashdot
Taken together, AI, search and the media shape a future of invisible older people / The Drum
Corollary: NYT profiles Alexander Reben — OpenAI’s first artist-in-residence / NYT
B/C?! The next artistic frontier: non-AI art about AI art / NYTimes
Elsewhere: A London exhibition shows how three great artists, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael, circled one another as rivals and role models / NYT
Related: Leonardo documentarian Ken Burns on How Long Gone / Spotify
Less reverent: Erwin Wurm’s Slapstick Social Critique / Hyperallergic
While Alex Chinneck creates distorted street furniture to bring "surrealism into the public realm" / Dezeen

Per Ana Andjelic: Conversation with the Right Hype “Gavon Broomfield and I talk about world-building” / The Sociology of Business

We need a Wirecutter for groceries. Local news outlets cannot change grocery prices. But they can help their readers deal with them / Nieman Lab
Instead we get: Sweetgreen investing heavily in the merch game, including an $120 Kale Camo hoodie / IG
Which [formerly Chinatown] @Market claims they stole the idea for… / Hypebeast
And Mario Carbone launched a clothing line with La Ligne, “inspired by the sartorial flair of New York City in the 1980s.” / Our Lady of Rocco
More questionable calls: Coca-Cola remade its iconic Christmas ad with AI / Creative Bloq

From Eric Martucci: 
“Hey Ben — I know you’re probably at press, but let me know if this can make it to SIC. Including how many cases of booze it would take 🙂” [Empirical Opens a Bushwick Bar With Noma Roots. The company that invented Doritos booze is mixing cocktails with tofu and cold brew.] / Eater

How The Thomas Crown Affair became one of the great fashion movies. (Two words: Michael Kors.) / Town & Country
Corollary: He Dressed America. Now He Wants to Dress You. Aaron Levine has designed for Abercrombie & Fitch, Club Monaco and Madewell. Now he’s introducing a brand of his own / NYT
Levine-approved: my favorite brand BEAMS is coming to the US with a flagship store in LA / Highsnob
While less favored activewear brand Vuori raised $825 million in a funding round led by General Atlantic and Stripes, giving it a $5.5 billion valuation / BoF
Related: Can Lululemon win men over? It’s betting on its one-stop-shop approach to versatile, athleisure menswear / FT
Alternately: Crowdfunding and private chats: menswear label Percival’s unusual loyalty tactics. The British clothing brand has a unique way of engaging customers / FT
While Many retailers offer ‘returnless refunds.’ Just don’t expect them to say for which products / AP

Apropos: Against "Cost Per Wear”. A pro-joy Spyplane Holy Decree / Blackbird Spyplane
On disposables: Brand Analysis: C is for Coterie / Nemesis
032C made Temporary Tattoos / 032C
Similarly unyatted: Emma Chamberlain Poses Nude for Stylist Jared Ellner’s Coquettish Brand Debut / WWD
How NYC jewelry company FoundRae became a luxe obsession / NYPost
Unemployed TV writer Emily Winter found an easy way to make money while there are no jobs: Win on The Price Is Right / NYT

From Stella Belt: 
“Natasha Boyd reports on the new LunA-10 project, which aims to bring mining to the Moon by 2035. Nations are barred from sovereignty over the lunar landscape, but private entities are not.” The race is on to exploit our moon’s resources and bring them back to earth. What could go wrong? / Broadcast

Prime Video trailered its upcoming docuseries “It’s In The Game: Madden NFL,” which will come out at Thanksgiving / TikTok
Part 2 of Netflix’s docuseries “Sprint” comes out this week / Awful Announcing
The Streaming Wars Didn’t Kill the Little Guys. In Fact, They’re Thriving./ NYT
Corollary: Seven Nation Army' Is The One Jock Jam To Rule Them All / NPR
The 50 greatest war movies of all time / Vulture
“War Movies” by The Bug Club / Spotify
The Blair Witch Project is being rereleased with 90 minutes of deleted footage / Gizmodo
As long as they keep the cheddar bay biscuits coming… Red Lobster is bringing back Hush Puppies to replace its disastrous Endless Shrimp / Quartz
Apple and A24 have reportedly hired Lena Dunham to write the script for a Sam Bankman-Fried movie based on “Going Infinite,” Michael Lewis’s best seller / Variety
And UCLA hired a CRO / Sports Business Journal
Corollary: Fireball Whisky announced plans to collect defeated football fans' tears to create a new limited-edition "Crierball" whisky blend that will "capture the true spirit of game day" / Cleveland 19
In contrast, from Geoff Renaud: This is fun: Radio.Garden / Radio Garden
Elsewhere: Why Sonos is Struggling / Sherwood
But the “most active summer concert season ever” propelled a 39 percent jump in third-quarter profits at Live Nation Entertainment, the events giant / Variety

Fake Banksy haul seized by Italian police / The Art Newspaper
One of the oldest mysteries on the internet has been solved. After almost two decades a moody song recorded off the radio in Germany, dubbed “The Most Mysterious Song On the Internet” has finally been discovered/ 404 Media
The song is Fex—Subways of Your Mind / YT
Where we started: Oral History Of The Pyramid Club / Paper Mag
Where we’re at now: Death of nightclubs to Le Creuset pipeline / IG
Collins Dictionary has picked “brat” as its word of the year / BBC
What in the world is pink cocaine? It’s not cocaine, but it can be just about anything else / Vox
Science confirms it: dogs and owners really do look alike / Nat Geo

Per Kareem:
My band is playing its biggest show ever at WEBSTER HALL next Tuesday, 11/19. We’re opening for one of my favorite NYC bands, The Telescreens

My feature film OR SOMETHING is having two screenings [in London]. One is on November 20th, and the other is on the 24th.

Just Frame It: How Nike Turned Sports Stars into Superheros, has all of the popular posters from 30 years ago on display in New York City / PosterHouse
Nike’s Reputation Falls Just When It Needs A Strong Brand Reputation Most - “Of the seven drivers of Nike’s corporate reputation index, workplace was the one that dropped the most.” / Forbes
Meantime, adidas-affiliated Pharrell Williams Is GQ’s Designer of the Year / GQ
While LV compatriot Takashi Murakami launched his first footwear brand, Ohana Hatake / Highsnob
Corollary: The Intensely Colorful Work of a Painter Obsessed with Anime. In a London warehouse pumping with dance music and movie soundtracks, Jadé Fadojutimi paints exuberant canvases all night long / The New Yorker
Elsewhere in London: Thomas Heatherwick gives Bombay Sapphire bottle a cinched waist / Dezeen
Waves of Interest - “Waves of Interest is a collaboration between Google Trends and Truth & Beauty, exploring the hidden patterns in Google search data. This project illuminates the interests and concerns of Americans in recent election years.” It’s fascinating / Waves of Interest
2025’s hottest trend? Living longer / Vogue Business
Hence? Bob Dylan is on his best form for years / The New Statesman

Selected from links picked by Neal Ungerleider of Context Collapse

AI art is only a threat if we let "prompt-jockeys" take control / Creative Bloq
Rethinking SEO in the age of AI with Eli Schwartz / Lenny’s Newsletter
MSCHF Founder Gabe Whaley & The Art Of Going Viral / YouTube
A quarter of indie artists now put their music straight on TikTok--no label required / Tubefilter
The TikTok electorate / Read Max

Anti-hair loss helmet for chemo patients wins 2024 James Dyson Award / Dezeen
Welcome to Crokinole, the greatest game you’ve never heard of / The Pudding
Why is Spain growing so fast? / ISPI Online
The Ancient Grain That Climate Change Brought Back. These hardy, nutritious, drought-resistant grains disappeared from Indian fields in the 1960s. Now, their value is suddenly on the rise again / Reasons to Be Cheerful
But, like, Are trendy members’ clubs worth it? A break from the traditional, clubs for under-40s are springing up / FT

From Syd Allen-Ash:  
Eddie Huang’s ‘VICE is Broke’ is out this week.

From Celeste Blewitt:

Jancis Robinson On How To Start Collecting Wine / FT Life & Arts Pod. A true palate cleanser on the art of wine collection, who knew there were wine collection data programs. Wonderful to listen to the skill and technique involved in wine collection, the skill and intrigue in wondering if the wine will age well.
Countdown At 50: The Powerful, Messy And Sexy Show That Changed Australia / The Guardian. Countdown was the show that everyone sat down to watch here in Australia and the host, Molly Meldrum, was an icon of the times. It drew in international touring artists, which at the time, travelling to Australia would have been an even longer way to travel than it is now. It was iconic and an excellent time capsule.
Literary Assassin / Vulture. Looking forward to reading the latest Babitz and Didion installment by Lili Anolik, so it was no surprise that this essay piece in Vulture drew on insight from previous podcasts and attempting to tell the real story of a person in podcast or literary form. Great read with a coffee and a croissant while poring over history and culture of times past.
[Apropos: Lili Anolik’s Love/Hate List/ Dream Baby - ed.]
The Death Of Search / The Atlantic. Reading of AI powered searching, the ever-present thoughts on the loss of this skill and the ability to sift through ideas and information is slowly disappearing with the fast paced growth of AI. I love nothing more than a search, a rabbit hole moment that brings together a wide range of topics, reference points and reading/ watching materials. It always sparks an intriguing conversation. Continue the search far and wide.
How The Prada Buckle Bag Cracked The It Code / Vogue UK. With faint stylings of BIrkins, Prada is in the limelight, with the buckle and understated Prada aesthetic drawing in the luxury crowd. Reference points on how Prada stays as a cult classic It Brand, referencing the zeitgeist, RAf and Miuccia, and the current landscape of economies and luxury.
Death In Vienna - The City Promotes Its Special Relationship With Mortality / FT What an excellent tourism campaign and a healthy discussion on life and death, but add in history, art and architecture and many wouldn't even realise the concepts and conversations being had while on a tourist wander in Vienna. Intriguing to read of Vienna's relationship and comfort with death, mortality and viewing it as a cultural heritage.

[SIC] 321: Amniotic Antibiotic

Corollary Sources This Week: Sunday Bunch / Line Sheet / The Future Party / Marginal Revolution / Dealbook / Ritzholtz / What I’m Hearing / Offball / Semafor / WITI / Dirt / Public Announcement / Roca News / Feed Me / Nieman Lab / User Mag / Beats and Bytes / Catchdini / After School / Politico / Brendan’s Communication Miscellany / Many Such Cases / Morning Brew

[SIC] 321: Amniotic Antibiotic

Vol. 7 No. 11. Convalescent Meanderings.

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