[SIC] 327: Future Primitive

Vol 7. No. 17: [SIC] Talks with Alyssa Vingan. (Other people's) ruminations on '24 and '25. Things I read and watched other than links. And that I read and watched as links, too. Open in a browser.

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Hi all.

Happy New Year. Here’s hoping the holidays have treated you and yours well. Me and mine, just fine, thanks for asking. Though there was no free [SIC] Weekly last Thursday (Boxing Day is a holiday around here, Marcella being English) I spent the week frittering away stories for a special Thursday edition of [SIC] Day #257, including contributions from stalwarts Piers Fawkes and Celeste Blewitt, and a rare photo of me and the family - which prompted a really nice shout out from Jim Bodine, too. Just unlocked it, in case you want a sense of what [SIC] Day is like. Thanks to Piers, Celeste and Stella Belt for stories this week, BTW.

Speaking of shouts out (and stalwart contribs) - Iolanda Carvalho sent me this, saying “You probably get this one from Sean, but just in case... 😉”:

• "At the local level, we see … breakfast clubs replacing LinkedIn."

It’s a [slightly edited] line from the 2025 Predictions edition of 8Ball, the excellent and prescient (if slightly sporadic) newsletter by Sean Monahan, referring to Breakfast Clubbing, my other endeavor on Substack, which charts the weekly breakfast series I started that now happens all over the world. You should come hang sometime; it’s free to attend, requires no RSVP and is open to everybody.

Anyway, Sean has proven to be quite smart and prescient and it was a honor to be included in his forecast, as well as to get shouted out in Gone in 60 Seconds: the last Blood & Champagne post (and a renaming) by OG [SIC] homie The Real Murphy, and also in Herb Sundays - MMXXIV, a global survey of Herb faves of 2024 + the year in Ghostly by [SIC] Talks alum Sam Valenti.

Those three and Aaron Stern’s Another Newsletter are sources I take a lot of inspiration from, so I’m flattered to find myself in their virtual pages. Thanks, guys.

Speaking of Aaron, if you’re anywhere near LA from next Thursday, put the West Coast appearance the photo show Hard Copy that he curated. It made a run at WSA last year with work by faves of mine like John Divola and Jerry Hsu, friends like Daniel Arnold and Jim Mangan and next-gen names like Gray Sorrenti, all rendered as large-scale photocopies. It is very much worth your time.

I digress. Sean’s predictions inspired a new category in the links below, collecting the most interesting and salient ruminations on 2024 and 2025 that I encountered, among the year-end deluge. As I figure out how to re-work the categorization of developments in [SIC], this kind of collection of think-piece-y posts in one second might be a move. Let me know what you think.

On think pieces: My New Year’s resolution: make reading fun again in The FT is probably paywalled for most, but echoes my own feeling about books. I talked to Alyssa Vingan in today’s wide ranging [SIC] Talks episode about that - last year was a tough books year for both of us. And our respective consumption of think pieces decreased, too haha. Anyway, have a listen (more on our convo below too).

Last thing before the links (and another thing Alyssa and I talked about): my son was home from college for the holidays, and since he’s concentrating on Cinema and TV we watched a bunch of movies, the last of which was Conor O’Malley’s Rap World, which is definitely not for everybody, but IS free on YouTube and perfectly captures a certain kind of Americana that hit for me as a throwback but also hit for him as a personification of the now (despite being set in 2009). Anyway, we really liked it. Marcella too, against all odds. Family bond, achieved.

Ok, now the main event:

[SIC] 327: Future Primitive

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The Wider Narrative

“Raw water”: These untreated water enthusiasts swear by natural springs, despite the risks. Which brings us to The great American alcohol debate in a low-booze era in the US. Related: How climate change is redrawing Europe’s wine map. Speaking of: What Grapes Are Actually Used to Make Champagne? Anyways: weather conditions known as a Dunkelflaute — when winds calm and clouds linger — are taking a toll on Europe’s wind and solar power. Meantime: goats are replacing cows in southern Africa. A drought-hit province provides glimpses of the planet’s next phase. Ergo? Trump wants to control Greenland and the Panama Canal. Climate change is making both places more important. Related to that: Peter Zeihan on how a single ship inspection could unravel the global shipping system.

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Ruminations on 2024/25

• The year according to Culture Work / The Weekly Work

• While per Bobby Hundreds, Hindsight is 2020. The Future is 2025. / Monologue

• If you trust (and I do) image-curator David Mueller-Sturm’s Mood Mail for December: the focus is unclear / Mood Mail

• But maybe that’s ok since …. Society needs messy people. Messiness ought to be celebrated. Instead, it’s a problem to solve, a bad habit to rectify, something to apologize for profusely when a visitor walks in / NYT

• Corollary: Dezeen’s Year in Review is (basically) a top 10 of top 10 lists across design and architecture / Dezeen

• Related: What did [advertising] design look like in 2024? / The Drum

• And from Iolanda: Best marketing moments with some sense of humour... 😉 [Ritson’s top marketing moments of 2024: Part 1] And Part 2 / Marketing Week

• 9 Predictions to Chew On. Food forecasters see a year of offbeat choices: savory coffees, great convenience-store cuisine and sauces on everything / NYT

• Art World Dos and Don’ts for 2025 Hyperallergic editors round up the trends and habits we hope will be left behind in 2024 — and those [they] want to embrace more fully in the new year / Hyperallergic

• On the skill of enjoyment: How to Like Everything More / Sasha’s Newsletter

• IE: Be like the wetlands. Swag visions of 2025 / Blackbird Spyplane

Now: Listen to the Spyplane-adjacent Nick Weidenfeld & Amatha Walden’s 20/24 playlist while you skim the rest. Or The Fox Is Black’s new OIR mixtape on Soundcloud. After [SIC} Talks, ofc

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[SIC] Talks #91: Alyssa Vingan [The New Garde]

Great ad-hoc New Year’s Day chat with the writer / Editor in Chief / podcaster / digital director (ex of Nylon / Fashionista / Stylecaster / Marie Claire / Paper) and now major domo at The New Garde. Along with digging into a bunch of cultural artifacts of the holiday season (The Substance, Anora, Nosferatu), we talked Alyssa’s solo End of the Year Hotline pod episode and several of her recent “Blogmas” posts including The Year the Brands Got Freaky. We touched on the 8Ball post I opened with, and these too:

• The Year Creators Took Over. The attention economy has dominated the Internet for more than a decade now, but never before have its protagonists felt so central to American life—or had such direct access to the levers of power / The New Yorker

• A new New York law is extending a lot of protections to models, especially when it comes to exploitation by AI / BoF

• Pantene Conspiracies and Project Pan. After School’s NYE edition / After School

• The Self Reflection Edition Some key questions on your past, present, and future / Why Is This Interesting

- along with lost more. Check it out.

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Other Conversations.

• Y2K: Essays on the future that never was. [SIC] Talks alum Daisy Alioto in conversation with Colette Shade / Dirt

• OFFERINGS: GINO IANNUCCI. This is gonna matter a lot to skaters of a certain age / Slam City

• While for skaters of a different certain age there’s the Ben Kadow: American Original ep of Epicly Laterd / YT

• Less wild, more deliberate: The Talks talks to Spencer Bailey of The Slowdown / The Talks

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Advertarketing

• Why consolidation means a potential payday for non-holdco agencies that target the 'forgotten middle’. Holding company consolidation leaves a whole world of smaller and mid-sized marketers left on the sidelines, looking for agencies that will bring them their A teams and innovative solutions / Digiday

• The definitive Digiday guide to what’s in and out for advertising in 2025 / Digiday

• In for sure: Marketers look to unconventional sports to move the needle for their brands. In 2025, brand marketers are set to seek audiences via niche sports opportunities / Digiday

• Ergo? Texas is soccer country now, and the Dallas-Forth Worth area is the overlooked hotbed developing European talent with a fan base to support a local league / Beyond the 90

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Screen Times

• From Stella: We also just published a piece we think you might be into: AI Afterlives punctuates the third installment of Three-Way Mirror, a conversation series led by writer and musician Claire Evans. She talks to Akil Kumarasamy, whose forthcoming novel invites background players like trees and fungi to become protagonists. The two talk chatbot dialogues, plant consciousness, and how to write from a subjectivity you can’t understand / Broadcast

• Variety has a detailed report on the state of celebrity deepfakes that’s packed with data / Variety

• With Tubi, Fox has become an under-the-radar victor in the Streaming Wars / The Daily Upside

• Teen creators jumpstart careers by selling clothes online and getting brand sponsorships / Digiday

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Style Counsel

• The False Promise of Seasonal-Color Analysis. Why can’t we stop searching for easy beauty hacks? / The Atlantic

• Emily Sundberg is ready to invest in your beauty newsletter. Give [her] secret potions, hidden doors, and reviews of going under the knife / Feed Me

• In contrast? The ALD Aesthetic. Aimé Leon Dore changed how menswear markets, but a backlash is growing / Mensweird

• Elsewhere? Bob Dylan Might Be the Original Hipster. Dylan “did workwear before Springsteen, Ray-Bans before Jack Nicholson, and maybe even popularized boot-cut jeans?” / NYT

• From Celeste: Great conversation on IP, the new Bob Dylan biopic and… producers passing on a streaming release for a theatrical release to ensure a cultural moment, a la Barbie. [Turning Music Rights Into A Bob Dylan Biopic] / The Town

• Corollary to that: The Unfortunate Authority on Fighting Authority. The soft, gooey center of “classic rock" programming / Creem

• And: SHIT AND BONES. Peter Jesperson on managing the unmanageable: the Replacements / Creem

• Also meta-morphosizing: How Christian Marclay created the ultimate digital mosaic / The New Yorker

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Selling Stuff

• The global fashion industry will be defined by major geopolitical shifts in 2025, a new report warned. Some 80% of respondents to a recent survey by Business of Fashion and McKinsey said they expected conditions to worsen or stay the same this year / BoF

• Ergo? Luxury’s China problem explained / JIng Daily

• And also New York now bans the use of “forever chemicals” on clothes / Fast Company

• Corollary to the BoF story: Kevin Plank can’t let go of Under Armour. Is that hampering a turnaround? / Retail Dive

• Nvidia wants to power all the robot armies with a new compact computer / TechCrunch

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Art Class

• The Art Newspaper’s pick of the shows to see in the world's great art cities in 2025 / The Art Newspaper

• Related: From Piers: i remember everyone going to see this - even tho we didn’t have social media to share the pics on. [NYC to celebrate 20th anniversary of christo & jeanne-claude’s ‘the gates’ at the shed]/ Design Boom

• More major decor: Theaster Gates’s House Museum Gone Wild. When Clouds Roll Away is an immersive viewing experience dedicated to the Johnson Publishing Company that prioritizes imaginative reuse over context / Hyperallergic

• Which has a corollary in: Beatriz Santiago Muñoz: ‘Destroy the Order Around You’. In a conversation with Andreas Petrossiants from our forthcoming issue, the artist shares her revolutionary influences and how she depicts scenes from public lives / Frieze

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Media Intrigue

• Indelible Lefsetz take on Justin Baldoni Suing The New York Times / Lefsetz

• Baldoni claiming that he had been defamed in an article in which Blake Lively alleged that she was the victim of a smear campaign / NYT

• Elsewhere in news news: Reuters, Gannett to sell bundled subscriptions. The partnership opens up a new content syndication revenue stream for Gannett and expands Reuters' reach into local news / Axios

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Odds and Ends

• L.A.’s Twin Crises Finally Seem Fixable. The city is gradually revamping America’s most infamous sprawl / The Atlantic

• Los Angeles wants to drop its car-crazy reputation and become cycle-friendly ahead of the 2028 Olympics / Semafor

• Also crazy: How to spot ‘dark empaths’, the dangerous psychopaths and narcissists who feel empathy / BBC Science Focus

• Corollary(?!) from Celeste: “What an episode. Well worth a listen, for insight into Chateau Marmont, The Standard and the idea of luxury hospitality. Perfect for a drive.” Table For Two - Andre Balazs / Airmail - Table For Two Podcast

• Then one From Piers: reading this from the over-food-touristed Mexico City makes me long for the exotic flavors of home; [Food Tourism Is Dead. But Something More Interesting Is Emerging] / NYT

• Finally, two more from Celeste: Intriguing to see how this will work in reality, reservations are the new concert ticket/ scammer moments for hospitality. Bots taking over reservations, re-sellers and scammers, will these anti-piracy acts work? [Can Restaurant Reservation Anti-Piracy Act Finally Fix Reservations?] / Grub Street

• And: “90's and 00's diet features in magazines were all the diet chic the starvation diets, the egg white omelettes and so much more. And the final thought on what happens next if the medication isn't approved/ not covered?” [A Diet Writer's Regrets] / The Atlantic

Some Christmas presents. Thanks, Boo. 

[SIC] 327: Future Primitive

Corollary Sources this week: The Future Party / Marginal Revolution / The Daily Upside / Offball / Blazer / Semafor / Dealbook / Public Announcement