Delia Cai
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I critique the culture .... yet I enjoy the culture .... suspicious! world famous newsletter Deez Links
Articles by Delia Cai
overthinking “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days”
I thought the third season of House of the Dragon was worth paying attention to for the costume design alone, but in the aftermath of the finale, I now find myself embarking on a treat that I long figured I would save for some future (possibly depressed) version of myself: a rewatch of all of Game of Thrones.
Model’s Own: Alex Moss Got His Style (And Taste for Chrome Hearts) From His Dad
Model's Own showcases our favorite friends' favorite things. For more recs on fashion, beauty and tech, visit the Shopping tab or subscribe to our newsletter. The New York City-based jewelry designer Alex Moss is one of the very few of his generation to have broken into quite possibly the most fiercely gatekept industry. You can spot his chunky AMNY diamond creations adorning everyone from A$AP Rocky to Drake and Hailey Bieber — the same cohort he also draws inspiration from.
so far, a tepid “September issue” season
Well tragically, I had to give my friend Kevin my 10am Odyssey IMAX 70mm ticket in the end, but he reported back saying that 1) the film is a lot more enjoyable upon a second viewing, and 2) La Dinastia remains the GOATed post-Lincoln Square/Center grub spot. And he got the green sauce this time! It’s mid-August, which means most of the big fashion mags are dropping their September issues right about now. Let’s take a gander, shall we? Continue reading this post for free, courtesy of Delia Cai.
Come with me as I nitpick the internet
Woke up with a bit of a cold (not to be French but it’s all this AC!), however it’s already clearing up so in god I will trust to make it to my The Odyssey IMAX 70mm tomorrow… Speaking of which, this interview Chris Stanton did with a retired IMAX projectionist for Vulture is fantastic.
movies are all about the Occupational Epic right now
After experiencing some rather epic, cardiac-esque spikes of anxiety this week, I wound up at my doctor’s office at 9 a.m. yesterday to do a (perfectly fine) EKG read and then to ask if I should invest in a Fitbit or any of that ilk.
the AI founders’ utterly unimaginative use cases
The summer grain bowl at Stonefruit Espresso + Kitchen in Bed-Stuy consists of a hearty portion of butter beans, sugar snap peas, farro, feta, red onion, and a quite yummy vinaigrette. I add the tofu and then spend all afternoon while WFH congratulating myself on achieving Ultimate Lunch.
Did we all know this is how “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” canonically ended
I caught Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho’s new zombie movie, Colony, over the weekend (it’ll be in theatrical release in the U.S. at the end of August), and it’s a very good time with actually solid ideas, though it’s in no danger of inducing a flood of hysterical tears, Busan-style (a good thing, imo).
all the Odyssey links worth a read
it’s called the odyssey bc it’s odd he’s still at sea / Universal Pictures There is a cop-out argument to be made in that I actually wish we could stand around the fire (internet) and argue about 3,000-year-old epic poetry forever.
incredible restraint in bag acquisition
I pulled a morning shift at the Teen Vogue Fest “networking lounge” on Saturday, and it was sweet to meet so many students, especially high schoolers who’d traveled to New York to mingle with each other and learn about fashion/media.
The most charming girl in NY
I’m trying to get over my fear of the weight room this summer, so last week I finally paid a trainer to come to my Y and show me how to use a few machines (we took a lot of videos, which was key).
Well, will the “Natalie Portman novel” be any good?
Based on how quickly a bajillion people started fighting in my replies over whether the Trojan Horse canonically appears in The Iliad, The Odyssey, or Aeneid (<-the most correct answer as it turns out; my apologies to Professor Ted Tarkow your efforts at Mizzou fall 2011 were apparently for naught) I do believe the classics discourse is alive and well in this nation! The room-temp gossip in the publishing world is that the incoming Rachel Cusk novel, Life of M, is about the actor Natalie...
Chicago in the summertime is apparently utopia
I snarfeded up Belle Burden’s Strangers last weekend and had more fun discussing it with some lawyer friends (and also in the Deez Links chat, where we ponder who must have leaked those financial documents!) than the actual reading. The real juice, if you ask me, was learning how the truly wealthy talk about their lives and their wealth so euphemistically.
The media happy hour returns
On Wednesday night, we gathered more than 200 brilliant minds in magazines and media together at Public Records in Brooklyn for a full-on shop-talking, cocktail-guzzling, good old fashioned happy hour. You can check out (and post from) the whole photo gallery here from our lovely photographer Caroline Safran (@carolinesafran), with a tiny selection below.
links for the literate resistance
Having eaten a wholly uninspired amount of “summer grain bowls” at this point in July, I say: Enough with the parsley! Let me enjoy my chewy fat pearls of farro in peace, without that bitter, tongue-crawly nonsense!
probably kind of twisted how cozy it feels to read WWII fiction right
I have more or less resigned myself to the daily trials of an ever-tense jaw + neck, probably until I muster up the will to Botox all that into submission. Butthen last weekend I was dawdling at the Red Hook IKEA last weekend and picked up this ergonomic pillow. It actually….. helps??
the exchange rate of self-disclosure
Knowing that Taylor Swift is married now elicits the same satisfaction, I would argue, as being a medieval peasant who got to witness the town cathedral get finished within their actual lifetime.
Long weekend long reads
In case you are bored at the beach*! *Beach meaning, wherever you are this weekend. I thought I had built up a pretty good resistance to personal-essay-provoked-pathos, and also I thought I did not care about Jackass at all, but Yahoo’s Kelsey Weekman writing about the healing power of the franchise at a very heartbreaking time in her life proved me wrong twice: “I’m sorry if you don’t find pain funny because it’s an excellent coping mechanism” is such a good line.
Long weekend long reads
I thought I had built up a pretty good resistance to personal-essay-provoked-pathos, and also I thought I did not care about Jackass at all, but Yahoo’s Kelsey Weekman writing about the healing power of the franchise at a very heartbreaking time in her life proved me wron…
you're invited to Deez Drinks: a magazine & media happy hour
Earlier this spring, I was chatting with a class of very smart journalism students at the New School about the importance of “horizontal networking.” It’s a kind of soulless-sounding term I picked up at some point that essentially just means “meeting and befriending your industry peers,” since those are the people who usually end up helping you most in your career over time: They’re the ones who’ll give you a good reference, who’ll send freelance work your way, or who end up hiring you...
A generous reading of Zuck’s “vision” for life
So after wasting billions of dollars and (worse) our time out of pure confusion regarding why people don’t want to spend their one precious life interfacing with legless avatars whilst trapped in a brandable 2D hellscape, Meta now mounts the argument that perhaps one of the true purposes of human existence is to be able to record video content at all hours of the day, this time without the pesky constraints of needing to hold a phone with those meaty, soon-to-be-evolutionarily-redundant...
Should it surprise us that Franzen is big on “The Crucible”?
Between the rightfully famous Golden Diner pancakes cut up into fluffy wedges (the better to pluck off the plate with your fingers) at Mary H.K. Choi’s Pool House launch; the endless wagyu/caviar bites and kimbap bar at Min Jin Lee’s Public Hotel party for this fall’s incoming American Hagwon; and the gift bags to be had at Chris Gayomali’s SuperHuman podcast party (inclusive of venison sticks, a cortisol “hormometer,” an 11-oz tub of whey protein, and the uber-fashionable Brick), the...
the contradictions of mass cool
Earlier this week I filled in as the stylist assistant on a photoshoot and quickly learned A) how inept I am at steaming things under pressure (in fact, I think I actually panic-steamed some creases into the clothes); B) how physically strong one needs to be to succeed in fashion (my fingers, hands and arms were literally sore the next day from juggling hanger-fuls of various garments and constantly rearranging them on the racks); and C) the nurse-esque lady scrolling on her phone and sitting...
diary of a mostly offline summer weekend
The concept of summer solstice was first explained to me by, lol, Rocket Power, an animated Nickelodeon show that followed the hijinks of four uber-athletic kids living in a Californian beach town.
falling for journalism guys is cool again
Sorry to the literary power couple whom I blithely marched up and introduced myself to at Boom last night, thereby interrupting the fight you were having!
triumph of the collective
If you saw me handing out roman candles inside a bodega on East Broadway in a perfectly upright sober manner on Saturday night, no you didn’t. The framing of the Knicks championship win as a definitive triumph of the collective is indeed compelling — like I do get what Heidi Moore was trying to get at with her Substack essay about the win, before it unfortunately achieved escape velocity on basketball Twitter. Nevertheless, it’s an infectious framing device.
delia's Saigon travel recs
Allow me to submit my particular contribution to the international You Should Visit Saigon agenda, should you need a more specific form of goading following a certain somebody’s relentless posting of the astonishing cuisine, humid cityscapes, and delightful scooter-powered pace of life from over the last few weeks. (Note that the majority of these recs come vetted from my boyfriend Steven, a frequent traveler to Vietnam who has generously approved the un-gatekeeping of some of his favorite spots.
the travel agency cannot be killed
This edition is brought to you by the Substack must-read Embedded! The race is on to see which book will be crowned as this summer’s version of Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection. That is, whose cutting satire on a modern relationship between two Europeans will be the most on point? Judging by some recent reviews, Jem Calder’sI Want You To Be Happysounds like the obvious comp, featuring a pair of east Londoners who own the same bookshop tote bag.
a generational Wembanyama hater walks among us
I’m back in da U.S. and mega jet-lagged. But my Japan doc is updated here, and the Saigon starter pack will hit soon. God, I can’t believe I’m typing on a computer instead of eating fresh bánh xèo in a shaded alleyway……yet we press on… :( The official Deez Links contribution to the NBA championship discourse is a reupping of the iconic Hate Read that Harry Krinsky wrote for us last year about his deep disdain of the Victor Wembanyama Technocracy.
How I Wrote This Book: Mary H.K. Choi’s “Pool House”
For the latest installment of “How I Wrote This Book,” a Deez Links Q&A series on craft and creativity, we have a wildly honest conversation with the legendary Mary H.K. Choiabout her fourth novel (and adult debut) Pool House, which comes out June 9. For those of you who aren’t already familiar, Mary is one of the all-time millennial media greats: She is a screenwriter, essayist, and the bestselling author of Emergency Contact, Permanent Record, and Yolk.
The 74 most incredible lines in "Moby Dick"
Well, it took nearly four months, but we made it. Shortly before leaving for the airport last week, I turned that final dastardly page in Moby Dick and felt bliss, exhaustion, a fleeting jolt of total cultural superiority, as well as the kind of Pavlovian sleepiness that comes from having ended most nights in this calendar year with at least a couple of pages of Melville’s finest. Was it worth it?
How I Wrote This Book: Eddie Huang’s “Come Undone”
For the latest installment of How I Wrote This Book, a Deez Links Q&A series on craft and creativity, we have the inimitable Eddie Huang on to talk about his debut novel, Come Undone, which arrives June 16. The book is fun, open-hearted, and so essentially Eddie; I think I can count on one hand the number of novels I’ve ever read about a “toxic guy” falling in love that actually earns its pathos, and this is one of them.
niche media ball + conversation starters
I’m in Asia this week and the next, but I’ll be back and fully online soon! (with perhaps with a doc update?) xoxo D Adding a home phone line costs only around an extra $15/month, as Jeremy Rellosa found out inhis attempt to try to use only a landline phone for a month, which he documented for The Strategist.
Deez Interview: David Haskell & Sam Hine on NY mag’s shiny, stylish near future.
In case you haven’t heard: Amidst the change of guard at GQ, the magazine’s global fashion correspondent Sam Hine is taking on a new role at David Haskell’s New York magazine as senior men’s style editor. For certain circles of fashion, media, and like the city of New York itself, this was a development that provoked the kind of gasps I imagine regular people would use if news broke that LeBron James not only moving to a new team, but switching from basketball to like, tennis entirely.
Little Barbaros everywhere
A little chastening to admit that I’m hooked on the Hulu adaptation of The Testaments. Gilead is as batshit trad as ever, but in such a predictable way so as to approximate coziness. They don’t ask Chase Infiniti to do much except widen her eyes a lot, which eh fine, but the real scene stealer is Rowan Blanchard’s mean-girl-with-a-golden-heart Shunammmite.
Little Barbaros everywhere
A little chastening to admit that I’m hooked on the Hulu adaptation of The Testaments. Gilead is as batshit trad as ever, but in such a predictable way so as to approximate coziness. They don’t ask Chase Infiniti to do much except widen her eyes a lot, which eh fine, but the real scene stealer is Rowan Blanchard’s mean-girl-with-a-golden-heart Shunammmi…
How to peel a whale
I swear, Brighton Beach does not get enough love in the power ranking of New York beaches. It’s right off the B/Q train, one. Two, when you get snacky, you can leave your towel and umbrella alone on the (likely empty) beach, walk over to Tatiana, and eat potato dumplings on the boardwalk before toddling back to your spot on the sand. Hit a Russian grocer or caviar purveyor on the way home…can the Rockaways do that for you on a Monday?
everyone looks stupid over text
Every few years, a content platform or publisher decides that, after vomming up however many bajillion pieces of travel content into our lives, it should get a piece of the travel industry pie itself. BuzzFeed tried this, Lonely Planet and NatGeo make it work, hell there’s even an Atlantic cruise; now TikTok wants their slice. Sure! Why not! All the world’s a set now, anyway. Might as well charge your finder’s fee while it’s still here.
i’m reading Vows that have never been Vowed before
I’m having an ant problem at home (no idea why, she says while biting into breakfast over her keyboard and spraying croissant everywhere). What I’ve learned from researching ant control methods is that you have to go into it with nothing short of a full military strategy. Like you have to set the bait out and watch as the scouts swarm (despite how gross this looks to the naked eye). You have to let them do this, you cannot interfere, you cannot let the fear in your heart overcome your restraint.
How I Made This Pod: Chris Gayomali’s “SuperHuman” Investigation
For the latest (audio-centric) installment of “How I Wrote This Book,” a Deez Links Q&A series on craft and creativity, we have the indefatigable Chris Gayomali talking about his latest GQ feature, What Would the Olympics Be Like If the Athletes Could Juice? and the accompanying iHeart podcast investigation, “SuperHuman,” which airs its second episode on Tuesday.
Anna Wiener does a Susan Orlean
Good citizens of the world, I bring you tidings of an Actually Really Good Dining Spot Near Lincoln Center…
“The Devil Wears Prada 2” zeroes in on the actual “impossible job” at hand
As part of my somewhat half-hearted strength training and protein-loading journey (don’t be afraid, I still strained my back from simply sitting too long on a floor cushion over the weekend), I have landed on the morning miso soup as a nice answer to the breakfast question.
A little note from me…
I’ve been writing Deez Links for 10 years, but only in the last two of those years have I been able to make a bit of a living off the newsletter, which still feels like a stroke of dumb luck. Thank you to everyone who has supported Deez Links with a paid subscription since May 2024 — we may have aged a thousand centuries on the internet since then, but hey, we did it together.
the new genre of wedding horror
This edition of Deez Links is brought to you by Who Broke It, a twice-weekly newsletter demystifying the internet culture of politics.
one of my favorite ledes ever
This edition of Deez Links is brought to you by Who Broke It, a twice-weekly newsletter demystifying the internet culture of politics. You can read their special edition on the online fallout following the WHCD shooting here. Patrick Radden Keefe’s New Orleans car crash conspiracy investigation: Worth The Read? (<- Rebranding this because it doesn’t feel right to make any corporate comms account contend with the “longass” descriptor” ) Hard yes.
Lena Dunham and the usefulness of remembrance
Last night I went to the Brooklyn Paramount — such a beautiful venue that makes you feel like you’re a little elf living inside a magical wooden armoire — to see The Maine, a band I was obsessed with in high school and then stopped paying attention to shortly after. What a trip, to confront both the ancient songs that defined one’s coming-of-age and also the seven subsequent albums that they’ve put out in the decade since. You’ve changed! I kept revelling, with equal parts surprise and delight.
Lena Dunham Checked Out of the Hype Machine. Is She Glad to Be Back?
Lena Dunham wears a top from Simone Rocha. Order your copy of the CULT100 issue with Dunham on the cover here. “Last night at the bodega, I saw a 20-something girl who looked like she’d had the worst day imaginable,” Lena Dunham tells me on a recent afternoon in her New York apartment, teeing up the beginnings of a classically Lena Dunham tale. “Her bag was full of crap. She’d been moving from place to place all day. She went to buy a vape, and her credit card wasn’t working.
A Chloë Sevigny-directed reading, Joe Macken’s model city, Aneta Grzeszykowska's photographs, Bieberchella
The phone says I somehow logged 26,925 steps yesterday, which blows my previous record of 23,248 (from that 2024 Japan trip) straight out of the water (some fruits from the day below). Rose, one of my inspired friends and proof that nominative determinism is REAL, has been going to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden most days at 8 a.m. since they started extending hours for the season, so I thought I’d join her at a slightly more manageable 9 a.m.. The day unspooled from there.
Micro Party Report: Air Mail Sure Still Feels Luxe
It appears that the post-Graydon Air Mail will hold on to its rep and actual USP for throwing a perfect publishing/media party: Last night, I went to a dinner that Air Mail was hosting at The Odeon to celebrate Jay McInerney’s new novel and column, fully expecting the vibe to be more than a little stuffy since, I mean, I do not generally socialize on my own with Mr. Bright Lights’s set…
theory on Gen Zs complimenting their millennial co-workers’ style
I liked Justin Bieber’s YouTubey Coachella set! From YouTube he came, to YouTube he shall return, for one. And there’s something quite provocative, snide even, about frog-marching 100,000 attendees expecting to be living their best life at a music festival through his digital free associations. Very “yeah you’re here, but I bet you all kind of wish you were home on the couch scrolling on your phones huh?” But I did feel mixed emotions watching him gaze at footage of his young self.
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