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
no one was doing it like “Spy”
Unfortunately it was the very last day of Martina Cox’s show, “Heart Eyes” at Jarvis & Werner when I got to see her sumptuous colored pencil and watercolor depictions of bodices. (I so love any kind of masterful rendering of fabric; even better when there’s a real silk ribbon threaded through the piece). You’ll have to keep up with her drawings, sculptures, and textile arts on IG for now, but when she inevitably pops up on the radar again, let’s agree we’re not missing out again.
Parisian Shirt-Maker Marie Marot Shares Her Style Inspiration, Go-To Airport Look, and Loyalty to Chrome Hearts Jewelry
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 French designer Marie Marotdoesn’t come from a fashion family and didn’t go to fashion school. But she did grow up in a home where there was a real appreciation for beautiful fabrics and quality clothes. “My mother was already wearing Repetto when she was young, and she used to make a lot of her own clothes,” Marot says.
breaking: tech interests figure out how tech media works, sort of
We talked a couple of weeks ago about the tech industry’s pivotal foray onto fashion’s turf; this week, it’s impossible to ignore tech’s latest campaign of influence on the media industry. There’s the obvious data point of Vanity Fair putting Sam Altman on the cover of its “New Establishments” issue today (or rather, Altman’s backside, in a rather boring “The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog” reference).
When the reading isn’t new but the rabbithole is all yours
You may have noticed that almost every book that I’ve read for my own fun this year (which hasn’t been very much at all, tragically) is an “old” book — Wuthering Heights (1847), Moby Dick (1851), The Quiet American (1955), The Odyssey (600 BCE?), and now The Transit of Venus (1980), which I finally finished last night.
good news, we can now pay machine to tell us how to use machine better.
Counting down the hours until I can go home and binge Season 6, which I have been saving as a kind of personal marshmallow test and you know what, it’s just about time to go marshie mode.
“Are there happy photographers?”
I’ve reached the final 50 pages of The Transit of Venus and it really does take a turn in a rather uh, Lion King way.
a really good play you should try to see tonight in east wburg
Last night I was part of a long line waiting on a cascade of stairs inside a building in East Williamsburg who were all hoping for an extra ticket to Jordan Coley’s sold-out play, Downpressors. Wound up getting a spot on the floor and spent the next 55 minutes completely engrossed. It’s 1000% user error on my part that most of the indie theatre I’ve seen in the last few years have always turned out to be preoccupied with pretty mundane romantic angst (or open marriages that, gasp, lead to mess).
one day very soon gigi hadid is going to have to learn about claude code
Single/literally thirsty people of the central Commie Corridor, rejoice! Dynaco reopened this week, and from what I saw Tuesday night, it’s the same as it always was :) There isn’t a better metaphor for the state of culture than robots walking the runway and beckoning for applause at Vogue World in Milan this week, though I suppose in fashion it’s simply good manners to refrain from interrupting anything, even if it’s an industry executive cosplaying thug on a protestor.
do moral consciences get to have privacy?
If you’re in Chicago this Sunday night and are in the mood to nerd out about longform journalism, come hang out at the Ladies Who Lit magazine club! Tickets here, see ya soon! Man, the new NYT Magazine essay from Nikole Hannah-Jonesabout her decision to send her daughter to a low-income Black school in accordance with the family’s progressive politics is a doozy considering how inhospitable our cultural climate is for anyone trying to live according to a moral compass and getting mixed results.
I love this book even though I have no idea what’s going on
I caught an early screening of Primetime at the MoMA on Wednesday night, sitting across the aisle from a sulky-looking Dominic Sessa and behind Adam Friedland, whose ability to sit completely sprawled out in a theater chair, limbs akimbo, head slid halfway down the back of the seat, really impressed me on the basis of physical comedy. The movie is…fine! Most of the best (and first scenes) are what you’ve already seen in the trailer.
oops
ughhh I cut this item out for a sec because I was moving the newsletter around for length purposes but now that headline makes no sense because this item got left out before I hit send! Now you have it. Bonus send.
literary gone jargon
Never stop never stopping, Franzy. I read Jeremy Stern’s Colossus profile of Mark Zuckerberg, which was mostly interesting to me as a site for study on the contemporary “profile” form.
they’re clipping 9/11 now
I’m curious what your guys’ experience of the 9/11 25th anniversary was over the weekend, as an internet event. I had these grand ambitions to do a big 9/11 reading list, which would have of course included the expected Junod, DFW, & James B. Stewart etc.
Inside Emily Dawn Long & Highsnobiety's NYFW Arcade Game Night
How do you get the best-coiffed, best-behaved set at New York Fashion Week to actually let their hair down on a Saturday night? Set the party at the most uncontestable site of delight: the arcade.
duopoly on dudely clout: ENDED!
Saw Tony over the weekend and thought it was a bold choice to make young “Anthony” so devoid of charisma as a character. It’s a biopic that leans entirely on your extra-theatrical affinity for the real man. But I was touched by the weirdly specific world-building otherwise — Leo Woodall’s wood chips (really, Woodall stole every scene), the homemade ketchup, the convincingly briny feel of 1975 Provincetown.
quick catch-up on the past 2 weeks of internet
Perhaps you’ve been reclining somewhere sandy! Perhaps you’ve (also) had that nasty “summer cold” and have been enjoying all the interesting sounds your chest cavity can make when totally inflamed! Perhaps you’ve simply chosen with your own free will to stay offline and mind your own business. All valid reasons.
Model's Own: The Sandy Liang Stylist Who's Obsessed With Gym Shorts
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. You may not know so just yet, but Dean DiCriscio is the brain behind some of your favorite apparel purchases of late.
fall classifieds sale
I just got back to New York last night, and after like 2.5 weeks of being sick and then 1.5 weeks traveling in Europe and overall such a muggy/sleepy summer in general, I’m thrumming with excitement to get back.to.it. Give me that crammed inbox, that overflowing gcal, that glorious onslaught of so much to-do, especially in the fashion/art/books/not to mention NEWSLETTER worlds.
How I Wrote This Book: Marlon James’ “The Disappearers”
For the latest installment of “How I Wrote This Book,” a Deez Links Q&A series on craft and creativity, we have a truly delightful conversation with the one and only Marlon James about his latest novel — already long-listed for the Booker Prize — The Disappearers, which comes out September 1.
Marina Abramović’s clairvoyance
I’m so jetlagged that reading anything — an email, a text, words on a sign — requires truly fantastic effort. I keep looking at each word individually, pausing to consider if I actually know its meaning, blinking for a few seconds I wait for an answer from the brain, then proceeding to the next one. Arduous. Signification goes crazy, man.
matchmaker discourse, a theory on The Urgency
Watched half of The Invite last night before a coughing fit forced me to bed, but it was enough to realize oh, this is not casually but fullyan Esther Perel vehicle. Down to Penelope Cruz’s blunt bob, no?
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.
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