Deez Links

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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 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.

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.