the post-Condé career playbook just got more interesting
and 7 books absolutely worth your time this year
Well well well, how about that Will Welch news? With the departure of the editor of GQ hot on the heels of the changing of the guard at Vogue and Vanity Fair, it sure seems like much is afoot at Condé. I’m surprised it’s taken this long for a big Condé EIC to leave for a plummy role on the fashion/celeb side, considering how much of the job is cosplaying the high life. Inevitably one thirsts for the real thing!
Yet it’s not the usual way out: Note that Radhika Jones literally announced her post-VF plans, a day after Welch’s news, about writing her upcoming memoir; meanwhile, Welch’s predecessor, Jim Nelson, has yet to be heard from this side of the Pacific. Graydon and Tina, of course, in the most diehard moves of all, both went full bore digital media after their tenures; which turned out to be much less relatively glamorous. Obtaining the in-house luxury-adjacent bag is not usually in the cards!
The main question I have re: Welch’s departure relates to Pitchfork — what will become of the beleaguered music blog that became absorbed under GQ in 2024 now that Welch, who came up as a music journalist himself and one assumes had a soft spot for keeping the title on life support — is off in Paris with Mr. Lumpenproletariat-but-make-it-Louis-Vuitton? Seems like not one at two eras are ending over at One World Trade…
Here at Deez Links Media HQ, the desire to fix one’s life typically seizes us by the throat on a weekly basis, making the flurry of New Year coverage along those lines rather entertaining, to observe The Anxieties as experienced collectively. More than ever, matters relating to digital hygiene seems to take up the most headspace: Kathryn Jezer-Morton wrote about her 2026 resolution to commit to friction-maxxing especially as a parent; Chris Gayomali wrote about cyberethnographer Ruby Justice Thelot’s annually imposed “consumption rules” that include limiting oneself to only 12 movies, max, per year; and of course, Lila Shapiro profiled that UPenn professor’s “monk class” that, yes makes college kids actually read books but also, as a concept, skates on the razor-thin edge of Please Don’t Let Me Find Out Some Sexual Misconduct Stuff Might Be Involved With This Guy. Charismatic yet domineering professors with cult followings seem to not be so skilled at that, but I would love to be proved wrong.
Of those three links, I find Ruby’s consumption rules particularly fascinating: The idea of simply opting out of an entire medium, for example — rule no. 5 states simply, “No TV shows” — certainly has a decisive clang about it. I respect anyone who comes to terms with a medium that is simply not for them; it’s sacrilegious to admit, but I sort of feel that way about music, in that I have pretty much surrendered to the fact that I don’t very many critical thoughts about it as an art form beyond The Cranberries Make Heart Feel Good, and as a result have given myself permission to just…not really keep up with it.
Still, I don’t think I would ever bar myself from the entire medium, or the right to find out what an Olivia Dean is, should the urge arise, because I would never want to miss out (coward’s interpretation) or be too marooned from the milieu of references and pleasures that even a vague awareness offers. It is an interesting question to ask oneself what do I really want to consume, and with it the sub-text: which topics do I feel required to care about in order to exist in relation to others?
To the point of my weird thing about listening to music, I actually still love reading about music, to be clear, and especially when it’s anything written by James Parker at The Atlantic: There’s a line in his 2017 piece on prog-rock that I literally think about all the time, where he describes a tune as the “infinitely precious sound of the universe rhyming with one’s own brain.” Truly a classic line to me. Recently, Parker did a very classic Atlanticky treatment per the headline formula The [Extollatory adjective] [Noun] of [Low brow topic] that I liked: The Savage Empathy of the Mosh Pit. Peep this gorgeous imagery; how indelible is that mental image of the “wild skinnies”?
As to who’s in the pit, who’s making the pit happen, let’s take a look. There are big boys throwing their weight around, and there are wild skinnies with flying arms and spinning back-kicks, chopping out their emergency version of personal space. There are cheerful barging amateurs, happy to be bounced about, and there are prowling malevolences, waiting for the moment to blindside someone or chuck an elbow in their face. There is the occasional fearless woman. Like America, the pit is just barely a democracy. But you need youth, and you need strength: It’s no country for old men.
One overlooked but no less unfortunate consequence of liberals moving abroad in the wake of Trump 2.0 — and overwhelmingly roosting in the Netherlands, apparently, per The New Yorker, is that they seem unable to escape giving off a strong whiff of cringe in doing so. For example, turning around and naming their relocation service to help others as “G.T.F.O. Tours.” You will probably read this with a less cynical grimace than me; I just couldn’t get past how much of a Certain Type popped up as the typical American “immigrant” in this piece. Certainly a few of the sources have dire reasons to be out of the country, but for the rest, I couldn’t help but feel that it’s perhaps the most American individualistic choice of all to simply pull stakes and try out a whole new culture that you assume can be mastered in no time.
The best books I read last year that I think you should definitely read this year. I’m going to try to crack open Moby Dick for the first time in a few days, so you’re invited to co-read that with me too of course…
The First Bad Man - Miranda July’s debut novel, which is MUCH weirder and erotic than All Fours
Alphabetical Diaries - Sheila Heti, in a form that I thought was so gimmicky but actually made me think a lot about the cyclical nature of one’s concerns, moods, and thoughts
Motherhood - Sheila Heti, if you love ruminating over ambivalence, except I thought the end was kind of a cheap trick. You’re telling me we can’t just intellectualize ourselves into contentment?
How to Change Your Mind - Michael Pollan, who makes psychedelics sound both not that scary and also not that appealing though I probably wouldn’t say no if a guided trip opportunity presented itself now??
Invitation to a Banquet - Fuschia Dunlop, just the best food writing and historicizing ever
Freedom - Jonathan Franzen. I still think about the central marriage and have decided this novel might be his best?
Stag Dance - Torrey Peters. Read it for the horny, crazy lumberjack short!!
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So happy to see the callout for The Last Bad Man! Truly one of the best books of the past couple decades. . . rare to find such a stimulating but also literal LOL novel. . .