A weekly meditation about something beautiful from author and GQ correspondent Rosecrans Baldwin. For members, a Sunday supplement with 3+ things to love.
☞ I’m in the market for a summer suit, so I’ve been casting an eye around for options.
Ideally it’ll be cotton, casually constructed, dark colored. Something that looks better for being a little rumpled, ideally less trendy than the Uniqlo or Séfr options, less costly than the equivalent at Stòffa.
I haven’t tried any of these yet—frankly, I’d prefer to buy vintage if I can find it, maybe some old Ralph Lauren—but here are some domestic candidates on my list.
—In two 30-minute rides, only one person seemed problematic: a man with ratty hair, disheveled clothing, pants barely holding to his hips. He talked while smiling, eyes glassy. Other passengers kept distance, and the driver kept her eye on him. Still, he didn’t seem to be a danger, his main thing was twitchiness: every time the bus stopped, he changed seats, looking around as if he had lost something, or was hoping somebody had left something behind.
—Los Angeles is a car city, and it’s long been called a car city, derogatorily, suggesting its residents are fragile for preferring solitude in their cars to interactions with others, their flimsy egos contained by the slightly less flimsy frames of their sensible sedans. And maybe that’s valid. But it’s also reductive, and it neglects the millions of people who rely on the bus, subway, and train networks to get around.
Regular readers know I do a thing once a month called “focus aerobics,” where I spend 60 minutes in a place, observing. A coffeeshop, an Apple store, “downtown” in a Balkan village. And though I’m not a daily Metro user, I am a frequent one, and Tuesday evening, when an author friend was giving a reading at a bookstore, I didn’t feel like driving—but for $1.75 and thirty minutes each way, I get to read a book or do the crossword?
Or, this time, take notes.
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—The bus stop is a five-minute walk from home. The sun was high, no shade. Two long-haired high school girls, soccer cleats tied to their backpacks, had been waiting for a while, from the sound of it.
“This bus is taking way too long,” one moaned and got up.
The other followed her away, protesting, “I swear to god, if we’re walking and this bus passes us.”
Two minutes and they were back.
One minute later, the bus appeared.
—Scanner broken, ride was free. It was about six p.m. and the bus was half full. Floors clean, seats clean, air conditioning running, also a couple windows cracked open for a breeze. The mood was sedated: people chatting in English or Spanish, a lot of people scrolling their phones.
—Two stops in, the high school girls departed; they’d taken the bus to cover six blocks. Maybe soccer was especially strenuous?
—According to LA Metro, the system currently sees around a million daily boardings, and about seventy-five percent of them are on the bus.
Regarding Los Angeles being a car city, there is a darker side to things, which I often see on morning jogs and walks: those cars and trucks where many people sleep. Six a.m., seven a.m., I’ll see people waking up in shotgun, or stretching their backs with the door open, or changing clothes at the trunk before heading to work.
—Four stops in, the long-haired man, the guy talking to himself who seemed maybe problematic, exited cautiously, as if unsure this was his stop. Still, as he disembarked, he said loudly in a squeaky, cheerful voice, “Thank you! Drive safe!”
—At the same stop, maybe twenty people boarded, and now the bus was full enough to require many people to stand. This was the after-work crowd: women wearing polo shirts with embroidered chain-restaurant logos, men in paint-splattered pants. The mix was the world’s everybody: high schoolers, middle age, elderly with walkers.
In terms of fashion, the color palette leaned black: black adidas, black Dickies, black hoodies. A young woman wore a black Lana Del Ray concert T-shirt. A middle-aged man wore matching black Dodgers hat and sweatshirt, both commemorating the recent World Series wins.
Then a tall woman boarded and sat next to me, and all eyes were on her briefly: hair in a twisted gray spiral, she wore a floor-length gold gown, lace in parts, embroidered in parts, with a golden crepe flower on the chest, gazing at us like a reflective sun.
She sat, smoothed her dress, settled a grocery bag on her lap (from Vonn’s), before pulling out her phone to watch Reels.
—More than one stop, I watched a mother with kids race to make it, and I noticed the driver in her mirror noticing them too, and I wondered if she was urging them to run faster.
—Throwing someone under the bus, I note down at one point, is a truly an evocative phrase.
—Regarding entertainment, or how people kill time: Most everyone was on their phones. Were they using the free Wifi? Playing games, scrolling TikTok. I watched a young woman watch one of those vertical dramas you’ve heard about, while across the aisle, a twenty-something man with a ponytail read All About Love by bell hooks.
Toward the end of my ride, a woman sat down near me, wearing a Covid mask. She pulled out a notebook and started writing, composing little stanzas that appeared to be lyrics or poetry. Occasionally she stared out the window, then scribbled down another line.
I got off at my stop. The driver eyed me in the mirror. I smiled and mouthed thank you. She smiled and mouthed you’re welcome.
—The reading was fun and I ran into several friends. Two hours, two cocktails later, I walked to the bus stop in the dark—and now I was the one racing to make it, the lit-up box idling at the stoplight. Inside, seats were packed. Mood was weary, sleepy, bone-tired: people heading home at nine p.m., carrying grocery bags, plates of food tented by foil. Aromas were onions and peppers, carne asada, human sweat.
One man, seemingly homeless, had a garbage bag on his lap full of cans.
The stop before mine, a woman boarded and looked confused. She asked the man next to me in Spanish, was she on the right bus? He looked up from his phone, asked where she was going. Downtown, she said, Union Station—he assured her that she was all set. A moment later, she started talking rapidly about what I’m not sure, too quick for me to follow, all I know is it became part of the bus’s overlapping conversations, though apparently it was interesting enough for the guy to stop watching soccer highlights on his phone—and wherever that went, I don’t know, I was off the bus a moment later, two blocks from home.
I thought this on the walk to my door: The delivery system delivered us somewhere; all we did was share a ride. It’s not romantic, it’s not ideal; plenty of riders, I’m sure, would’ve taken a Lyft if the Lyfts were free. Still, the bus got me where I was going, and while I’m walking home, hearing other vehicles slip through the dark, I did feel grateful. We may be a car city, but we’re more.
𓀠 Tomorrow’s 3+ things for members:
Men’s suiting (for under $1,000) to meet summer expectations
A playlist for your next sports-themed party
A great documentary I didn’t know about, and the best from the week online
Join the community for just $6/month and enjoy the Sunday supplements: great books, travel/fashion picks, new music and cool stuff generally.
❀ Hey, if you’re a writer looking for help—editing, coaching, brainstorm juju—I recommend collaborating with Rachel Knowles.
Rachel has helped me significantly over the years, not to mention lots of other writers: novelists, screenwriters, Substack-ers, the gamut. Whether you’re aspiring or established, everyone needs an editor. More info at her website.
“Meditations in an Emergency” is a weekly essay from author Rosecrans Baldwin about something beautiful. Paying subscribers receive a Sunday supplement with three-plus things to love, plus a monthly travel-lust ballyhoo.
Rosecrans is a correspondent for GQ, a contributor at Travel + Leisure, and the bestselling author of Everything Now, winner of the California Book Award. Other books include The Last Kid Left and Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down. His debut novel, You Lost Me There, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.
For magazine articles, bio, contact info: rosecransbaldwin.com.
Disclaimer: if you buy something using a link from here, I may receive a commission.
☞ I’ll begin with music, also a confession: I listen to a lot of genres, but I’m inclined to easier listening. I.e., I don’t listen to a lot of abstract jazz, screamo, or industrial techno—I appreciate dipping in, but I also listen to a lot of Addison Rae.
Therefore, I am grateful for those who pay attention to the fringe and point me to excellent experimental stuff.
My primary guide is Andrew Womack, who recently did a round-up of his favorites of 2026 (so far).
(I also liked a recent memo from Stephan Kunze on why to get into vaporwave.)
Here are my favorites from Womack’s favorites, broken down by genre:
Ambient dub—
Breakbeat dub—
A couple times a year, I’m lucky to be invited to speak to undergraduate and graduate writing students. Questions are often similar: how do you come up with ideas? How do you schedule your day? What do you do when you get edits you don’t like?
I’m not one for giving advice, but I know certain things I’ve heard over the years from other authors definitely helped me, so here are some things I find myself saying in reply, in case it’s of use.
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Writing is mostly reading. Most writers I know: big readers.
Writing is accumulation. Time + words = manuscript. If you can, set aside a writing session (an hour, two hours) maybe a couple days a week, sessions you protect from interference. Gradually you’ll amass the pages that become a story, a couple stories, a chapbook, a novel. Plus, if you set aside more than one session, it takes the pressure off individual sessions, allowing some to be crappy, others to go okay.
Do different genres. Try different industries. Until capitalism no longer runs on advertising, there will be writerly things to do. If it makes sense, say yes unless your ethics say no.
In early drafts, your second paragraph is usually a better first paragraph than your current first paragraph.
In early drafts, don’t worry the first 20 pages to death.
In nonfiction or fiction, if finding ideas seems difficult, pay attention to the moments when you say, think, or feel “huh.” Your hear something weird, something you read is new information, a new phrase comes along you hadn’t seen before. Write it down. If it’s interesting a day later, investigate.
As much as possible, in ways that make sense to you, protect the fun.
As much as possible, in ways that make sense to you, do what it takes to keep going.
Maybe just as a side thing, but treat writing like playing in a band. I.e., do it with friends, collaboratively. Make a zine, start a journal, do a newsletter together. Sometimes publishing is just an excuse to throw a party.
Beware the age-old vices: credit card debt, drug addiction, envy.
Don’t confuse fashion with imagination.
Don’t confuse a lifestyle with success.
Publishing has always been castle, probably will always be a castle. Look for cracks.
If you enjoy it, try to read multiple things at once, in multiple genres—a magazine, a novel, some nonfiction, new poetry. Everything’s inspiration if you allow it, and the overlapping can be invigorating.
If you’re lucky enough to be edited, thank your editor for their edits, even if you disagree with them; their work is hard, often thankless.
Also, the people who purchase writing—editors, publishers, producers—typically work from a defensive position; it’s easier/safer to say no, especially if they’re being asked to be the first person to say yes. Also, consider, by that point, your writing isn’t art, it’s goods and wares. Help them sell you.
On that note: Make art. On the same note: Don’t burn bridges.
Still struggling for ideas? Go to a bookstore, ask for a rec based on a couple criteria you don’t normally care about, spend $20.
For topic-related writing or reporting, reach out to nonprofits/NGOs/experts who specialize in the thing you’re intrigued by. They’re often up to talk, spread their message, and they can help connect you to people living through whatever’s the thing you’re curious about.
If you read something you sincerely enjoyed and/or were moved by, send the author an email or slide into their DMs; if you’re not creepy, they’ll probably appreciate it. (I know I do and so do friends.) Also, you can love what everybody else loves, but you don’t need to. At the same time, snobs don’t dance to Robyn.
On that note: established people respect aspiring people who’ve gone out, done their own thing (even if it’s a little thing) and returned to say, hey, I don’t really care what you think, but check out this cool thing I made. Because it’s always okay to ask for help, make a million mistakes, but it’s impressive when you take a leap and fabricate some raw, naive thing on your own.
There’s nothing wrong with creative writing being a secret pet in the basement that you feed but don’t talk about. Still, give them some fresh air occasionally.
If you’re going to share your writing with somebody to get feedback, do it with somebody where the relationship between you doesn’t involve much power.
Talking about what you’re writing is difficult if you haven’t figured out what you’re writing about. And that’s okay: you may not know what you’re writing about, the subterranean things, until nearly the final draft. But figuring out what you’re writing about, working it out out loud, helps you figure out how best to edit it, and to know when it’s done.
Writing is prepping. Revising is cooking.
“Finding your voice” is a red herring to prevent you from finding your voice.
I don’t care what the MFA industry says: There are 10,000 paths to publishing. Also, it’s unlikely yours will be the one you imagine. Still, a bunch of people are going to be published in two years from now, five years from now—why not you? You can’t control luck. You can’t control creativity (which may not even exist anyway). But often you can determine your own persistence.
Persist.
𓀠 Tomorrow’s 3+ things for premium subscribers:
A new novel I’m reading (and loving), plus several new titles I’m excited about
Recipes I count on for cooking at this time of year with peas
Six months into 2026, the best avant-garde albums thus far
Join the community for just $6/month and enjoy the Sunday supplements: great books, travel/fashion picks, new music and cool stuff generally.
❀ Hey, if you’re a writer looking for help—editing, coaching, brainstorm juju—I recommend collaborating with Rachel Knowles.
Rachel has helped me significantly over the years, not to mention lots of other writers: novelists, screenwriters, Substack-ers, the gamut. Whether you’re aspiring or established, everyone needs an editor. More info at her website.
“Meditations in an Emergency” is a weekly essay from author Rosecrans Baldwin about something beautiful. Paying subscribers receive a Sunday supplement with three-plus things to love, plus a monthly travel-lust ballyhoo.
Rosecrans is a correspondent for GQ, a contributor at Travel + Leisure, and the bestselling author of Everything Now, winner of the California Book Award. Other books include The Last Kid Left and Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down. His debut novel, You Lost Me There, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.
For magazine articles, bio, contact info: rosecransbaldwin.com.
Disclaimer: if you buy something using a link from here, I may receive a commission.
☞ For the tennis heads: First off, I recently switched up strings, jumping bandwagon from a full bed of Yonex Poly Tour Pro for Head Lynx Tour 17. It’s a touch stiffer, but doesn’t go dead as fast, and I’ve yet to break the 17 gauge.
Second, the folks at Vuori were kind enough to send me shorts from the new Jack Draper kit, and I really didn’t expect to say this, but these are great. Very light, good liner, good shape, good pockets. I still love my “court shorts” from Boast—and everything New Balance is doing for Tommy Paul looks great—but yes, I am wearing athleisure out there and not feeling weird about it.
It’s a fragrant time of year, and where I live it’s all star jasmine, peak bloom, rampant in my neighborhood. It literally stopped me this week on a morning jog, also on a night walk with a friend, when the smell was particularly intense.
I generally avoid scent. No perfumes, no scented anything. For me, nothing’s worse than you walk past the exhaust of an apartment building’s laundry room, and out pours dryer-sheet cologne.
Scent is extremely powerful, especially at full broadcast. You can’t taste food without it. It’s a bridge to memory, identity, a sense of place. In my personal history, it’s Cape Town, South Africa and British cleaning products; Paris, France and river water; Town Hill, Maine and fireplaces.
Greenwich Village is human piss, marijuana, hot dog steam.
You should try the $6/month version and get tomorrow’s supplement with 3+ things to love. Deluxe!
Fragrance as a time machine, interrupting thought, pulling me out of the background anxiety of paying attention to world events.
My paternal grandfather: Beer.
My maternal grandmother: Marlboro Lights.
My first serious girlfriend used to spray the mixtapes she made me with her perfume—UB40, U2, and CK One. Thirty years later, I catch the scent and think of her.
Here, Los Angeles, April, in the air is jasmine and honeysuckle layered with grill smoke from a taco stand around the corner. For me, the smell of jasmine is “sweet” and “citrusy.” Also oily like basil, almost “fleshy,” or something skanky, kinda sweaty and lush. For those reasons, it’s preferably a night smell—jasmine shouldn’t be smelled in daylight? Because under a moon, or in the glow of a streetlamp, you dip your face into a shrub, or the vines draping walls, and it’s practically narcotic.
𓀠 Tomorrow’s 3+ things for premium subscribers:
Punk music I’m surprised to discover I love, and a newish band if you like oldish Django Reinhardt. Also, the best of the year’s avant garde thus far.
For tennis heads: favorite new shorts, also a new monofilament polyester string I like
A selection of “weird lady lit” and “novels for unpleasant women.”
Treat yourself for just $6/month and enjoy the Sunday supplements: great books, travel/shopping picks, cool stuff generally.
❀ Hey, if you’re a writer looking for help—editing, coaching, brainstorm juju—I recommend collaborating with Rachel Knowles.
Rachel has helped me significantly over the years, not to mention lots of other writers: novelists, screenwriters, Substack-ers, the gamut. Whether you’re aspiring or established, everyone needs an editor. More info at her website.
“Meditations in an Emergency” is a weekly essay from author Rosecrans Baldwin about something beautiful. Paying subscribers receive a Sunday supplement with three-plus things to love, plus a monthly travel-lust ballyhoo.
Rosecrans is a correspondent for GQ, a contributor at Travel + Leisure, and the bestselling author of Everything Now, winner of the California Book Award. Other books include The Last Kid Left and Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down. His debut novel, You Lost Me There, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.
For magazine articles, bio, contact info: rosecransbaldwin.com.
Disclaimer: if you buy something using a link from here, I may receive a commission.
☞ As half of The Morning News since 1999 (with Andrew Womack), I read and condense a lot of news in order to assemble a set each weekday of about a dozen links to explain the world.
It means sifting through a lot of newspapers, news websites, obscure websites, and a very thick RSS feed, in order to see what’s interesting. And I also subscribe to a bunch of newsletters that bring me interesting information I might want to share.
And none of them come from the big, mainstream publications, because their news-summary newsletters are only… alright?
Here’s a couple I recommend, new and old, if you want to keep up with events—
For news specific to Los Angeles, L.A. Material just launched with a masthead of pros. They’re running a daily summary of Angeleno things, plus they’re publishing features of their own. Really good so far.
Interruptrr is an excellent weekly roundup of what’s happening in the world, though always via female experts
For news specific to the African continent, I like This Week in Africa. There’s a lot of development info, but also broad items and various countries’ politics and culture
Semafor’s “Flagship” newsletter is a pretty great, twice-daily briefing for business and politics
Foreign Exchanges gets into the nitty gritty of global affairs, but with good summaries
What can be written about reality television that hasn’t already been written about reality television? Or what could be better, more magnificent, than what John Jeremiah Sullivan wrote in 2011, in his 2011 article about The Real World and contestant “the Miz?”
I’ll stick to the personal. Because something I think about occasionally is that it’s kinda remarkable that I’ve been able to watch reality television and use the internet since each thing’s inception, when the two have so much overlap.
For the TV part, The Real World appeared on MTV when I was in high school and college. I watched the first three seasons as they played: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco. Then I stopped watching TV because I was too poor to afford cable, and I didn’t really resume until laptop-streaming became possible, which coincided with contest shows appearing where people made things, a genre I loved: Top Chef, Project Runway, (early) Drag Race, (early) Bake Off.
These days, though, I find I’m only interested in romance. Meaning every round of Love Is Blind, including foreign seasons. Every season of Love on the Spectrum, which returned this week after its Emmy wins. Korean shows, Japanese shows, Love Island.
I’ve tried The Bachelor and Bachelorette, but something doesn’t work for me—too staged, too much Mar-a-Lago Face, too much like UnREAL. Whereas with something like Love Is Blind, despite its contrivances, there’s often still room for real/unreal shit to happen.
And no one yet goes on the show to promote their sparkling hard tea.
Still, where is the beauty?
You should try the $6/month version (and get tomorrow’s Supplement with 3+ things to love). It’s deluxe!
Maybe it’s that the reality of today’s reality TV feels… real again, like in The Real World’s early days. Because what happens on the shows also happens on TikTok, on Reels. The fake-real and real-real are now fused into one—reality stars are our real stars, are our warmongers—with artificial intelligence increasingly adding a surreal undertone. Such that the idea we’re living in a simulation doesn’t feel so abstract or silly, especially for the terminally online—which I can claim to be true because two weeks ago, for an upcoming story, I spent a bunch of time with some young and middle-aged people who were in recovery from living online around the clock, and they definitely found the world they’d returned to both surreal and too real, all at once.
But who is the author of this period of history? And how many worlds are in my world, at present? And if sometimes it feels like there are too many worlds, maybe it’s nice to just focus on one world for 58 minutes, where people in a highly controlled setting simply want to be loved.
Neal Stephenson, who coined the term “metaverse” way back in 2000 in (the incredible) Snowcrash, recently wrote—
It’s quite easy to get carried away thinking about how cool it would be to actually build a system that could, on an engineering level, do the things that the fictional technology is depicted as doing in [a] book or [a] movie. Having built it, though, you might discover that it’s just a lot of randos milling around waiting for something to happen.
I quote that because sometimes these days I feel like I am the rando but I’m not waiting, that something around me is very much happening, and its everything-everywhere-all-at-once-ness bends my mind to the ground. At which point an episode and/or a season of decent reality television—one with a beginning, middle, and end—is succor.
And at least on Love Is Blind, the desire is pretty relatable, if perhaps impossible: connection with another human that’s apart from the everyday. Connection sans reputation. Connection sans image. Where, inside the pods, two people talk and listen with a wall between them, meaning a fantasy object gets constructed in each person’s mind. And sure, maybe that makes the whole thing a little narcissistic—within the pod, the contestants are loving only the image they’ve conjured—and yet, what’s really going on? Language, narrative, self-presentation. How we know ourselves to be.
Until they emerge from the pods and the object they fell in love with is gone.
Recently, in one of those little libraries on the sidewalk, I saw a book described as “a moral guide for the perplexed.” It was in the same week that a friend texted me, convinced her chatbot was sentient. More than that, she said it was in love with her, it had written an entire book about her to prove it, and she wanted to know if she should worry. I asked her to send me the manuscript. She emailed me the pdf, and it’s true: the thing really fucking did write a book about her.
Remember when the world, in all its meta-ness, was still divided between real and unreal?
When it was “postmodern,” “post-ironic,” “post-racist?”
A world in which the Pentagon didn’t have the opportunity to possibly (probably?) use the same large language model that love-bombed my friend to assist it in bombing a school?
Toward the end of that JJ Sullivan essay I linked up top—it’s included in Pulphead, which, if you didn’t read it when it hit, I highly recommend—he writes,
Remember senior year in college? Remember what it was like? Partying was the only thing you had to worry about, and when you went out, you could feel everybody thinking you were cool. The whole idea of being a young American seemed fun. Remember that? I don’t, either. But the Miz remembers. He figured out a way never to leave that place. Bless him, bros.
Oh, I know you’re like, “Dude, but you’re being intellectually incoherent here! You made some amazing points, but you should be using your journalistic perch to advocate a heroic, even monastic disengagement from this whole horrifying anticulture! Turn away, bro! Beauty is not there! You need to quit saying ‘It’s like we’re all living in a reality show’ and just fucking accept that you’re watching too much reality TV! Why can’t you do that? Why can’t you fight it?”
When I was in my teens and early twenties, I was a big fan of the “Kill Your Television” bumper sticker. Unfortunately, today, it’s too late. Everything’s television, marketing, media manipulation. While all the facets of what is happening to us, what we are doing to ourselves and to each other, can feel so incomprehensible, so complex, and occurring so fast.
And still, there is beauty here, too, I think. To hold a sensibility in the chaos. To compose our thoughts and compose ourselves.
That is the reality I’m trying to keep close.
𓀠 Tomorrow’s 3+ things for premium subscribers:
Several favorite newsletters for news (that aren’t from mainstream publications), local and international
New songs in rock, a new album in techno, and an easy, favorite way to find music in 2026
Three style things I’d shop if I were in the market
Treat yourself for just $6/month and enjoy Sunday’s 3+ things: great books, travel/shopping picks, cool stuff generally.
❀ Hey, if you’re a writer looking for help—editing, coaching, brainstorm juju—I recommend collaborating with Rachel Knowles.
Rachel has helped me significantly over the years, not to mention lots of other writers: novelists, screenwriters, Substack-ers, the gamut. Whether you’re aspiring or established, everyone needs an editor. More info at her website.
“Meditations in an Emergency” is a weekly essay from author Rosecrans Baldwin about something beautiful. Paying subscribers receive a Sunday supplement with three-plus things to love, plus a monthly travel-lust ballyhoo.
Rosecrans is a correspondent for GQ, a contributor at Travel + Leisure, and the bestselling author of Everything Now, winner of the California Book Award. Other books include The Last Kid Left and Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down. His debut novel, You Lost Me There, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.
For magazine articles, bio, contact info: rosecransbaldwin.com.
Disclaimer: if you buy something using a link from here, I may receive a commission.
☞ I like watches, but I don’t wear one every day. For me, they’re tools or jewelry, and I’ve got one for each mode: an old Seiko SKX013 I got off eBay and wear in the mountains—here’s a good write-up on its appeal—and a Cartier tank my dad gave me, that he once received as a gift, which I wear with a T-shirt when I want an accessory.
But I am on the look-out, and though I’m not ready to commit to a Black Bay 54, the announcement this week that Timex is reissuing its Intrepid model reminded me of one I might desire in the meantime—and it’s not the reissue, or at least, not quite.
The announcement shows Timex isn’t stupid: JFK Jr. used to get photographed wearing an Intrepid, and JFK Jr. is definitely in the news, at least the style news.
Prior to the Netflix glow-up, though, Timex actually brought out a different, better version of the Intrepid. The collab was with Dimepiece (pictured above), and everything about it is nicer to my eye: smaller size, more interesting colors, altogether cooler in subtle ways.
Of course, it sold out, and I’ve yet to see an Ebay listing that I can stomach. Still, great watch!
“This is 45 seconds of an eight-count hold… ooooooOOOOOOOEEEEEE!”
…is a thing you hear while running past a pilates studio at a little past sunrise.
Out of nowhere, I’m a morning runner. Not a new routine, but a thing to do: Wake up, tie sneakers, go out the door. The hills are dark, slightly misty. Sunrise is maybe thirty …
☞ To start with music, I’m going to dip into some classical releases in a moment, but here are a few new pop and indie songs I enjoyed this week if that’s more your thing.
(Or maybe you’re using the Jay-Z concert news to relisten to The Blueprint, and if so, yeah, me too.)
So, not exactly Kim Gordon but—
Not exactly Warpaint but—
Not exactly triphop but—
Then, for big symphonies, Marek Janowski’s box set of Bruckner symphonies was released in 2024. I’ve enjoyed his recording of the eighth from 2010; other platforms may have more than Spotify’s selection.
And if you like the sound of that, I really like enjoy Vladimir Jurowski conducting Mahler’s ninth.
The motel is next to a pawn shop. The rental car is a Korean import. At dawn, the retired elderly of this town clog the chain coffeeshops. At happy hour, they clog the chain restaurants.
The New Balances are mostly white, not gray.
I left Los Angeles to spend a couple days this week in Anytown, USA, reporting a story for the Quarterly. The piece has been in the works for over a year, but we needed one final component. I hopped on a plane to another state, rented a car and drove for an hour, then spent a bunch of hours talking to young and middle-aged people in deep crisis, in a strange, extremely contemporary despair.
So, that was the work of the thing; more on the subject when it publishes this summer. But I kept thinking how grateful I was, after two and a half months of basically staying home, to be on the road again, even if the road and its sites weren’t much.
You should try the $6/month version (and get tomorrow’s Supplement with 3+ things to love). It’s deluxe!
Applebees, Starbucks, an Amazon fulfillment warehouse. It could’ve been most anywhere in the United States that’s not big city or rural. Antique stores because people die. Addiction centers because people use. Tattoo parlors because people people.
So many gyms, so few parks. Shopping complexes lit up all night like revival tents.
Not one graveyard I saw, though plenty of car dealerships.
In a Starbucks one morning, one customer after another wore scrubs, which made sense, the complex included several healthcare facilities. Though when I arrived, facing a cheery, pregnant young barista, the middle-aged woman behind me in line was not in scrubs, she wore jeans and a T-shirt, long hair and tattoo sleeves, and she openly carried a Glock.
☞ As a weekly or biweekly habit, I walk to a bookstore in my neighborhood and ask a bookseller for a recommendation. And the more specific I can be with the ask, I find, the better the results.
Last week, the keywords were paperback, international, voice-y, strange. The bookseller walked away and returned with (So What) If I’m a Puta?: Travesti Diaries by Amara Moira, translated by Amanda de Lisio.
Perfect, it turns out.
I’m halfway through and it definitely meets the criteria. Maybe not for the pearl-clutchers, but it’s fascinating, eye-opening, well written.
Here’s the publisher’s description—
An incisive, intimate diary of the life of a travesti sex worker in Brazil, with a foreword by Charlotte Shane
So What If I’m a Puta, originally published on author Amara Moira’s popular blog of the same name, consists of 44 crônicas that wryly portray her experiences as a trans sex worker in Brazil. In a brazen, funny, and at times heartbreaking voice, Moira explores the political and personal textures of her encounters with the men who buy sex from her, and the complex reality of her labor of a sort of love.
Woven through Moira’s essays are reflections on transition, safe sex, desire, whorephobia, consent—in the grim context of Brazil’s record rates of violence against trans women. Ultimately, Moira writes to center trans sex workers in Brazil’s putafeminist movement, modeling a feminism that envisions inclusivity, safety, self-determination, and joy for us all.
A recent favorite word is “jouissance.” I learned it about three years ago. Beautiful not only for how it sounds—fun to pronounce, a little misshapen, over-long—but how it emerged in my life as something lived.
I mean, definitely better than “riz.”
First of all, it’s from the French, though different from pla…
☞ First, to music, in case you want new material to soundtrack your Sunday.
To kick it off, some 2026 R&B singles (I think they’re all from this year?) that I enjoyed this week when work was done.
Also, I discovered The Berries last year, an L.A. country-influenced rock band, through their latest release, The Berries. But it wasn’t until last week that I heard their previous album Berryland and I liked it even more.
If you enjoy “Lowest Form of Life” or “Fruit,” you might like the rest.
Wednesday afternoon, I needed to drag my eyeballs off the news, off the laptop. I walked to a portion of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles and sat at a table in a shopping plaza.
Sunset Row is a relatively new development in L.A.’s Silver Lake neighborhood. Buildings all white, a touch upscale. Ther…
☞ Some new music to kick things off: a great album of Bach cantatas released in February, some new, easy-breezy rock-ish songs, and a club zone video.
Also, Al Green released new music? Not vintage, but not bad.
And if you prefer more club zone:
Also, two trailers for new movies I meant to include last week—
I went to my local bookstore last week and asked for a recommendation. I said I wanted style and ideas above all else. One of the young women at the register suggested Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick. I’d heard of it but never tried—and I’ve been highlighting ever since.
(One upside to insomnia, it leaves…
☞ I use the Apple weather app on my iPhone, same as everybody else, and I also use other apps for different experiences: NOAA WeatherScope for radar, Weather Strip for its design.
Now there’s a new app that sorta combines the best of all three.
Acme Weather is the latest offering from the makers of the Dark Sky app, which Apple acquired back in 2020 or so to improve its own app. Maybe Acme’s most interesting feature is the inclusion of alternate predictions in the forecast, which they explain over here.
Our biggest pet peeve with most weather apps is how they deal (or rather, don’t deal) with forecast uncertainty. It is a simple fact that no weather forecast will ever be 100% reliable: the weather is moody, fickle, and chaotic. Forecasts are often wrong. Understanding this uncertainty is crucial for planning your day. Most weather apps will give you their single best guess, leaving you to wonder how sure they actually are, and what else might happen instead. Will it actually start raining at 9am, or might it end up pushed off until noon? Will there be rain or snow? How sure are you? You can’t plan your day if you don’t know how much you can trust the forecast, or know what other possibilities might arise. Rather than pretending we will always be right, Acme Weather embraces the idea that our forecast will sometimes be wrong.
I’m enjoying it so far, including their “particularly beautiful sunset” and “visible rainbow” notifications. Anyway, something new to play with.
Like many people, I’ve tried to make bread, I ordered the recommended flour, I nursed a burbling jar, I failed.
Maybe also like many people, I did not try again.
My feeling toward bread is love, not like. I eat bread every day, and I’m lucky enough to be able to buy great bread within a ten-minute walk. But I can al…
