OTās regular roundup of cultural consumption, from Kyle (KC) and Nate (NG), including French novels, protein waffles, and upstate communes. A lot of fashion stuff this time!
Fun only: A TikTok of Charli XCXās ā360ā recreated in Mario Paint, a lo-fi Nintendo sound palette. Honestly it might be even better than the original. PS: hereās a deconstruction of why Charliās album āBratā has succeeded so well as a meme. Itās authoritative but paywalled. āĀ KC
Everything is content: Over at her Washington Post job, Rachel Tashjian wrote a provocative essay on how fashion has become more about universe-building than making clothes. The narrative surpasses the object, not only in conception but in consumption:Ā
More and more, what fashion brands create are not products or ideas that tell consumers what to wear or buy. Instead, fashion has transformed into a system that prizes narrative and content over clothing, at best, and, at worst, a spectacle meant to provoke, distract or even shield us from reality.
The artisanal backlash in response to this state of affairs means gravitating away from narrative and back toward the material reality of a piece of clothing. Hence vintage, revived manufacturing techniques, legacy factories. But fashion isnāt alone in this. So much of culture now is about soliciting attention by any means necessary, and the attention is the goal and the measure of success. The thing itself is secondary. āĀ KCĀ
Overhauling 2000s fashion: Abercrombie and Fitch continues to stick in the consumerist zeitgeist. This piece from The Cut does a much deeper dive than our brief jaunt into the history of how we got to where we are today with this particular recurrence of aughts fashion. āUn-brandingā and rebranding is a curious process which requires a lot more than time and influence, as writer Chantal Fernandez shows. (Her piece on the Ozempic graphic tee from Berlin fashion week was very interesting, as well). āĀ NG
Buy this with your group chat: A 6-bedroom compound in Ghent, New York, set in beautiful nature for less than $1.2 million. Itās not not a cult headquarters but there is room for everyone and their young families. āĀ KC
āViking wafflesā: This is perhaps the most excessive grocery purchase Iāve ever made, albeit only once, but I am fairly certain these Nordic inspired, keto-friendly protein waffles, baked in and shipped from Brooklyn, are the best protein-added food stuff Iāve ever tried. Protein packed processed food is a notoriously utilitarian and foul tasting sector of the niche food marketplace, but these are pretty solid, despite being a bit absurd. Bonus: I first heard about them from Kumail Nanjiani, who, ironically, mentioned them on the fast-food podcast Doughboys as part of his comedian-getting-ripped-for-their-Hollywood-glow-up routine, without even being sponsored by them. āĀ NG
The global food vernacular: Vittles tries to figure out why everything in restaurants is a pile of little finicky bits sourced from various cultures. What should we call the genre: āModern global? Condiment cuisine? Haute leftovers?ā Hyperlocal signifiers, mashed together. The full piece is paywalled but the intro alone is worth reading. ā KC
Annals of pants: The trendy $40 puffy pants that Brooklyn theater people are wearing, according to The Cut. āĀ KC
The classics are good, actually: I picked up Coletteās ānovelā The Pure and the Impure after pal Gregory Gentert was reading it during our Fire Island vacay. It was written in 1932 but feels like a contemporary book that out-Cusks Rachel Cusk. If you thought the āplotless series of conversations and character sketchesā was a new form, Colette is here to prove you wrong. I knew barely anything about the author going into it, besides the vague feminist French modernist bisexual sensualist vibes. The Pure and the Impure is an utterly unsparing, nonfictional look at sex, love, gender, and all the ambiguities within and between them through a series of intimate portraits of underground French society. This is what all the ex-Tumblr girlies should actually be reading and screenshotting. But that demeans the literary achievement. Have a hot Colette summer contemplating the impossibility of satisfaction. āĀ KC
Ā The vibe across the pond: āHot centrist dad summerā is happening!!! Elect a not-insane politician, crack a Peroni, and enjoy some football (soccer). The UK and France are doing it right, reports this fun piece in British GQ. āĀ KC
Japanese film in NYC: While we spent Tuesdayās post highlighting non-NYC cultural programming, if you are currently or find yourself in NYC for the next week or two, donāt miss the Japan Cuts film festival at the Japan Society. For a modest ticket price and a sweaty schlep to Turtle Bay, you can see some exciting first North American runs of contemporary Japanese cinema. Some shows are sold out, but of the ones still with tickets, one of the few manga properties Iāve enjoyed, Blue Period, an artsy art school drama looks interesting; as does Whale Bones, an intimate looking drama from Oscar-winning Drive My Car co-writer Takamasa Oe. āĀ NG
Xtreme artisanal: If you were somehow one of the five other people besides me who were wondering what was going on with Old Stone Trade, an austerely cozy fashion line from a former fashion editor, NYT has your answer. Basically itās hand-sourced hyperartisanal made-to-order items manufactured by people like āa nun with a cashmere goat farmā and bought by everyone with too much money in Brooklyn Heights. āĀ KC
Trauma criticism: Even after its editor was given the New Yorker profile treatment, itās a bit hard to tell where Duke University Pressās long influential theory/cultural studies lists stand beyond the ivory tower, where itās remained an stable tentpole of new voices and radical (by academiaās standards) interventions across a variety of disciplines. Contrary to other university presses, which are now, in droves, pushing trade imprints for survival, I have been excited to see something novel at Duke: deeply informed, critical, and experimental non-fiction, appearing alongside the standard five to six-chapter, theory-heavy dissertation rewrite. Kattherine McKittrickās Dear Science and Other Stories is perhaps the best example, but I am currently reading The Trauma Mantras, an experimental memoir in prose poetry from the medical anthropologist Adrie Kusserow, who spent her life working with refugees across Asia, Africa, and North America. I would recommend this to anyone who is tired of the proliferation into meaningless oblivion of the term ātrauma,ā and might appreciate the work that erudition, compassion, and deft sense of poetic intervention might do to recontextualize what is left of this complex term. āĀ NG
This is such a fantastic compendium!
Read that Colette last summer and was utterly transported