3 recent faves from The NYer + the most NSFW q&a ever (not from The NYer)
You get dinner AND dessert.
A nice hot plate of Deez Links, the original online fixation report, is here. This edition is brought to you by the inaugural Patrons of Deez Arts, including: Ruth Ann, Kyle Chayka, Nick Quah, Rusty Foster, Rose McManus, Amanda Hess, Elise Shae, Cara Lonergan, Mia Radić, Christopher Harriagan, Erica Cerulo, Scott Lamb, Lisa Crain, Margarita Noriega, Aleks Chan, and my brother Connor (B.O.D.A.!). Subscribe here to ascend to official P.O.D.A. status. You’ll be in very elegant company.
xoxo delia
Homework Time
Every week I wage a private battle against time and retinal capacity in order to jam at least a little bit of every New Yorker issue in through the teeth, usually before bed. These are the three articles I simply insist that everyone actually read:
The Hottest Restaurant in France is an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet by Lauren Collins
Dream assignment alert! Collins travels to Narbonne to visit France’s highest-grossing restaurant: Les Grands Buffet, where one can dine on “the largest cheese collection in the world” (according to the website), nine kinds of foie gras, a “crystal-curtained lobster tower,” and just about every kind of French dish ever invented. It’s great, decadent food/tourism writing that gets you to consider both the economics and psychologies at work with the luxe all-you-can-eat concept. I also just like the idea that there’s apparently so much muchness at this buffet that you literally have to go in with a strategy…something about that just feels so…mortality-coded to me.Right after this article came out, the earliest reservation I could find for a table of 4 was for November, but now it looks like you can go much earlier (September). The Les Grands Buffets site says you can make rezzies up to a year in advance, so I was originally thinking of making a trip for Thanksgiving 2025. But why not sooner??
How Perfectly Can Reality Be Simulated? by Anna Wiener
I knew nothing about video game engines before I read Gabrielle Zevin’s novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (which came out in 2022 but was the book of 2023 per every friend group in Brooklyn). I wasn’t too crazy about the book, but the intricacies of video game design and world-building were definitely amazing, and so the latest Wiener joint is perfect companion reading for understanding how these game engines are increasingly being relied upon for real-world purposes. Rendering reality is big business!
It’s so uncanny to read about how deeply invested video game companies are in taking essentially high-def scans of every physical object and settings in the real world to replicate for, iunno, GTA background textures? There’s a teensy environmentalist bent to it, as if “saving” a coral reef as a digital asset is probably the best we can do conservation-wise lol, but I also wonder if I have a wordsmith’s snootiness about the pointlessness of using technology to replicate real-world experiences. Is that mmm not what writing/reading a book is? (Well…)The Battle for Attention, by Nathan Heller
A secret society lurks in the wild—and in our museum corridors—with the express purpose of joining together and, more or less, staring at works of art. How can you not love it? (If you are a Bird in New York…invite me!)
THE Gangbang q&a
However, no offense to Remnick + okay maybe a little offense to my ex-employer Condé, but my favorite piece of journalism I’ve read all spring came from the Good Hang newsletter, run by Randa Sakallah (of the Hot Singles newsletter fame!) and Harry Krinsky. I met Randa years ago during her HS days, and I’m obsessed with her and Harry’s joint project of examining and theorizing modern social dynamics of a certain New York/youngish bent.
The newsletter is both wholesome and NSFW, as evidenced by their recent MMF May series, but the number one link I’ve been sending to people is their perfectly titled interview from March: What’s It Like Being at a Gangbang? I don’t need to tell you more; just know you’ll never think about waiting in line for Santa the same way again. Go on, open that link on your phone, off the company wifi. It’s time for an education.
TikTok Corner Palate Rinse
I think the next Wall Street crash is absolutely on the way
“Hopecore” :)
What’s Kyle MacLachlan doing lately? Not much it would appear…or perhaps exactly enough??
Shakespeare indeed sounds better in a southern accent
If you watch SNL, you have to watch this entire thing. I’ve never been madder for no reason…
**Plus**: Classified ads will go here soon for $200 apiece. Get in touch if you want in with the first listings!