Tag: Capitalism

Categories
Travel

Day 1875 and Between Heaven and Hell

I had a stupid day. Maybe things have been simmering for a bit and a blow up was to be expected. I hit a limit for humiliation and simply didn’t want to keep paying for that kind of treatment. I did not consent.

I’m doing some business in California and am paying an exorbitant fee for the privilege. And I will eat a lot of shit to do the work I love, but I will not pay to be insulted at a premium price point. A Best Western is good enough for me.

This is going to be a ramble as I am so irritated by it as it felt like every single aspect of the hotel did not function. Their bumbling ineptitude would make a Motel 6 blush, let alone a supposedly upper market hotel.

Alas, somewhere between a maid barging in on me naked and the fourth or filth time a staff member knocked on the door confused about the status of my reservation I snapped. I wanted out of my reservation which is spent hours trying to sort.

If they didn’t want to do their jobs, offer me privacy or take my money, well then I didn’t need to be there. I wanted to be literally anywhere else.

I had a late checkout and half an hour before it hit so I went full Karen. I huffed and puffed and demanded a refund. I packed up, dazed and underfed from a busy morning and went to another less glamorous hotel. And it reads like a comedy of errors.

The hotel was charging prices equivalent to five star luxury hotels in other parts of the world and couldn’t deliver on so much as taking out the trash or keeping the changes in the reservation straight. The Keystone cops were better coordinated.

A kerfuffle had developed around extending the stay yesterday. At issue was that I didn’t have the authority to extend the reservation as it has been booked under my husband’s account and not mine.

Alright fine, but plans change and sometimes (often times) my husband and I have to change on short notice. It wasn’t even as if there were amenities on offer that he was entitled to on his account versus mine. I want being sneaky.

There was no breakfast to abuse. No special amenities for the status guests. Hell there wasn’t even a pair of slippers. But somehow it became a thing. Multiple calls to the manager, confirmation details being emailed around and trips to the front desk did not fix the problem.

The front desk manager acted like she was doing me a favor by letting me pay $300 bucks to extend the stay as “she’s really not supposed to do this!” You see I didn’t book the reservation myself.

This bizarre “account owner” issue is now a regular issue for both Marriot and Hyatt owned hotels. And if they didn’t want to take my money I didn’t feel at all bad about losing my cool and walking out.

The chains simply cannot seem to provide hospitality if it is outside of their parameters and their staff is not enabled to do much of anything beyond try to calm you down while never delivering on what you paid. If you happen to have a change of plans then being the wrong spouse counts against you in their dance of protocal.

I was annoyed but alright I’ll let inconvenience him and have Alex change it and move on. I won’t try to shock them by saying m that married couples commingle many things like airline status, Costco accounts and hotel loyalty programs. You’d be shocked at what other stuff we share. It’s almost like being married means sharing your life.

Today was meant to be the first day of the “new” reservation but despite being charged for it, not a single member of the hotel staff could figure it out. I went down multiple times to change keycards and put down deposits and all kinds of rigamoral.

Because I’d been so jet lagged yesterday I didn’t get any housekeeping service nor had I done much beyond work at the desk. So once I thought the extended reservation was sorted I went to visit a sort of luxury concept mall of the likes that combines Dior and Cartier with a billion other amenities from movie theaters and fine dining with staples like a Sephora. I told the hotel I’d give them time to clean as I was going to pick up a few things.

I return three hours later to the room not being cleaned. I am irked but find I call and ask if they can send housekeeping. “Oh we thought you were checking out?!” My response was “well a cleaning woman came in around 10am without knocking while I was naked.” I was wrong to presume that she would come back despite my AI assisted explainer translating my English to her Spanish. I thought she’d understood I was leaving and she could clean. How wrong I was.

“Oh no we have you listed as checking out at 2pm which is why we didn’t clean! Ok but then why did a maid come in earlier without so much as a knock? No explanation was offered.

This goes on for another half an hour as various people come to the room, none of whom communicated with anyone else on the staff.

A gentleman came knocking to ask when I’m checking out (I am not see this is the reservation). Another came to see when I wanted them to clean (two hours ago but now is fine) and then finally on the fourth person to try to sort it out if I had a reservation (look at the barcode I beg you!) I got angry enough that they let me cancel the reservation. They seemed totally flummoxed by my upset.

Somewhere around “just send up a vacuum I’ll clean myself” and “it’s against union policies to let the guests use the cleaning equipment” we’d clearly reached an impasse on what I needed and what they would do (nothing) and they wanted me gone as much as I wanted to be gone.

I know all of this is stupid and very petty, but we’ve reached a point in many industries where everyone is paying out their noses for services meant to be delivered in an expected manner and almost never are. And the prices only ever go up. if I had ever behaved in the manner that they did when I was managing a marketing agency for a luxury hotel in New York I would’ve promptly been fired.

I didn’t need to be insulted about not being my husband. I didn’t need to work my schedule around their cleaning staff or their front desk scheduling snafus or their various corporate policies on who is allowed to book what and when. 

I want to pay a fair price to stay somewhere I can get my work done and have the basics. Hospitality is about being hospitable. And somewhere between the armed guard at the mall and the baffled maid it just hit me that this heaven and hell interplay is all we can expect from here on out. You either pay a fortune or are lucky for what you can get.

It’s not even premium mediocre now. It’s just shitty. And only Karens stand between us and the total devolution of standards for fair exchanges of goods and services. And unfortunately that means I must don the armor of the Karen and hold my line. I refuse to cut my hair and get highlights though. I’ve had enough humiliation for one day.

Categories
Startups

Day 1873 and Flying A Micro-Reactor on a C-17

I spent most of yesterday on an airplane. I flew nearly 12 hours along the polar routes to go from Heathrow to America’s west coast. I flew British Airways and was disinclined to spend the many pounds for internet access.

Alas this meant I missed the rollout of the joyful flight of one of my favorite investments. Valar Atomics began its journey from California to Utah just as I too was flying. Me and the reactor I angel invested in were both up in the air like bluebirds and sunshine.

HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah, Feb 15 – The U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense on Sunday for the first time transported a small nuclear reactor on a cargo plane from California to Utah to demonstrate the potential to quickly deploy nuclear power for military and civilian use.

The agencies partnered with California-based Valar Atomics to fly one of the company’s Ward microreactors on a C-17 aircraft — without nuclear fuel — to Hill Air Force Base in Utah. Via Reuters

I tear up just thinking of the incredible accomplishments of millions of people coordinating together across centuries that these technologies represent.

It’s easy to think of ourselves as being small in the vastness of time and space. I almost cannot believe I was handed such gifts in this life, but I can claim a small but early part in Valar’s story.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey on board a C-17 cargo plane that transported Valar Atomics’ Ward nuclear microreactor from March Air Force Base in California to Hill Air Force Base in Utah, at the Hill Air Force Base in Utah, U.S., February 15, 2026. On the right, with the American flag and the Valar logo on his jacket is our CEO Isaiah Taylor

Just a little over three years ago I sent Isaiah a message on Twitter. We had a lot in common and I felt a kinship with this young entrepreneur. It was before he had even begun the incorporation work on Valar. He was working on something else, but I trusted his quiet intelligence and admired his humble inquisitiveness. We kept in touch as he mapped out his path.

His lack of ego instantly marked him as special, as it meant he could hear even the hardest criticisms. His fortitude was clear. He could incorporate what was necessary into his mission, a skill usually developed much later in life.

It’s rare to build trust so early on, and yet we both did. I told him I’d back anything he did so long as he was the CEO. Little did I know just how lucky I would end up as his very first backer.

You might think you will have doubts in high risk early stage investing. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t believe in him from day one. I knew he was on a mission bigger than any of us. I knew it and he knew it. For God and country as they say.

That faith was required, as it was tested in rapid succession again and again over the next three years. Chewing glass is part of every startup. Even when you go as rapidly as Valar has gone, there are harsh conditions, brushes with death, and moments of utter joy in between.

Not only did we write a first check in the angel round, but in tight spots before the seed closed we wired follow on within minutes when a concern about a cash flow question arose. We put together special purpose vehicles. Nothing could jeopardize this mission. I’d invest more if I could.

We weren’t always the ideal investors as we struggled to showcase to bigger and better firms our conviction. Not too long ago it was all about being asset light and software as a service. Thankfully the execution always outshone the skeptics and we were ahead of the times. And while the skepticism was fierce, Isaiah never wavered. Neither did I.

Today is day 1873 in my daily writing log. I first wrote about Isaiah on Day 1145 which means somewhere around day 780 or so is likely when we first met. I wrote on day 1510 almost a year ago about their seed round and the first successful thermal testing. On day 1721 they broke ground in Utah.

And you can better believe that I am looking forward to July 4th this year. We promised the president we’d be turning on the reactor, so there is much to be done between now and then.

Even the Department of Defense (War?) is writing swan songs about Valar from the Pentagon Twitter account

At March Air Reserve Base, California, yesterday, a next-generation nuclear reactor was loaded aboard a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft for transport to Hill Air Force Base, Utah. The reactor will eventually head to the Utah San Rafael Energy Lab for testing and evaluation.

The Ward 250 is a 5 megawatt nuclear reactor that fits into the back of a C-17 aircraft could theoretically power about 5,000 homes.

For military use, such a reactor could provide energy security on a military base ensuring the mission there need not depend on the civilian power grid, and in military operations overseas, such reactors would mean U.S. forces could operate without concern that an enemy might cut fuel supplies.

A reactor such as the Ward 250 also means greater energy security for the entire United States. It is firmly in line with President Donald J. Trump’s executive orders to reshape and modernize America’s nuclear energy landscape.

The president signed four executive orders designed to advance America’s nuclear energy posture, May 23, 2025. Those include “

Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base,

” “

Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the Department of Energy

,” “

Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

,” and “

Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies for National Security

.”

Michael P. Duffey, the undersecretary of war for acquisition and sustainment, said the partnership between the War and Energy Departments is critical to advancing the president’s nuclear energy initiatives.

“It’s clear to me that advancing President Trump’s priority on nuclear energy depends on close coordination between the Department of Energy and the Department of War,” Duffey said. “This partnership ensures advanced nuclear technologies are developed, evaluated and deployed in ways that strengthen energy resilience and national security.”

The future of warfare is energy-intensive, he said, and includes AI data centers, directed-energy weapons, and space and cyber infrastructure. The civilian power grid was not built for that, and so the War Department will need to build its own energy infrastructure.

“Powering next generation warfare will require us to move faster than our adversaries, to build a system that doesn’t just equip our warfighters to fight, but equips them to win at extraordinary speed,” Duffey said. “Today is a monumental step toward building that system. By supporting the industrial base and its capacity to innovate, we accelerate the delivery of resilient power to where it’s needed.”

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said that with small reactors like those transferred from March Air Reserve Base to Hill Air Force Base, the United States is aiming for a nuclear energy renaissance.

“The American nuclear renaissance is to get that ball moving again, fast, carefully, but with private capital, American innovation and determination,” Wright said. “President Trump signed multiple executive orders that have unleashed tremendous reform of all the things that stopped the American nuclear industry from moving.”

Part of that effort, he said, will mean that by July 4, three small reactors will be critical — or running smoothly.

“That’s speed, that’s innovation, that’s the start of a nuclear renaissance,” Wright said. By

C. Todd Lopez

, Pentagon News

Categories
Aesthetics Culture Travel

Day 1872 and ‘bout to take my lady to Selfridges

Ahhh how I missed London. I miss it in the same way I miss Hong Kong and even Frankfurt. So many cities are no longer places for Americans. I need nowhere else to go mind you, my edge of the American empire will be flooded soon enough, it’s just that I miss being welcomed.

It’s just I’d gotten used to the freedom of our constitutional rights seemingly applying everywhere. Team America was an ok joke by true sons of the mountain west libertarian in South Park’s Matt and Trey. Now it seems like a drop out attitude of Gen X. I am still on Team America.

The end of the liberal world order, much ballyhooed by the WEF set, has me getting prepared to be seen as the enemy. It is even time to get used to being called fascists. I’m sure Nazi won’t be far off as the Germans must always take everything too far. Ironic no?

I fear if I don’t prepare to be truly sovereign, I may face a day as a refuge in the future if Americans can’t pull off its renaissance. Though I work hard toward that end.

I’ve done what I can to invest in the young entrepreneurs of the new era, and in the great state of Montana in particular, but victory is more article of faith than assured outcome.

The Munich Security Conference is, as it ever was, a flurry of events but now Marco Rubio is singing a love song to our birth continent. As if papering over the past year of slights and jabs is enough but it is the best a neoconservative in disguise can manage.

And so I had a layover in Heathrow and I saw the flavors of what is to come. And somehow that Prada song was on repeat everywhere I went.

London is still for the globalists, even if you are not a member of what William Gibson called the klept. As in kleptocracy. The Jackpot is here.

Reindustrialize they say, but look what happened to British Empire. The sun never sets? The sun barely rises on it now, and we’ve lost them to the unforeseen consequences of the generational contractual breach.

Add in the inflows of the commonwealth deciding the island will always be a destination for the 1% and London is a pricy place.

And so I think should I go to Selfridges as the song says? The Duty Free shops that makes up Heathrow hasn’t made a deal with them but I’ve got all the luxury options and high streeet choices at my disposal.

I was once deep in the world of travel retail and I bet you can guess who owns the biggest player in Heathrow. No not Arnault. It is, as you might expect, a competing regional power who certainly wishes non-doms weren’t facing wealth taxes in London. They are good to do business with incidentally.

And so I hear, over and over again, past seasons hits and remixes and think London might be the virtual world of Malthusian post Jackpot imaginings of the Cyperpunk progenitor. And we shall compete for clout and status in the same ways as always.

[Young Adz:]

Bout to take my lady Selfridges
New drip on the way, uh-huh
Rap nigga still sellin’ bricks
Half a cake on the way, uh-huh
Take a flight, she wanna take a Lyft
Phone the molly man, he’s on the way, uh-huh
I might take her The Shard, I might take her The Ritz
It don’t matter, baby, I’m straight, uh-huh

[RAYE:]
I feel like I’m in Prince’s house
Purple paint all on the walls, uh-huh
Sittin’ down on this fancy couch
And I can’t see straight, I’m a state, uh-huh
Twenty-two, I’m in Paris, baby
Got strippers tits in my face, uh-huh
Pull up in a Bentley, I want Christian, I want Fendi

I want Prada, ah-ah, ah-ah
Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh
I already make that paper, I don’t need to chase no clout, wow
I don’t usually pipe up, but I don’t like how you runnin’ your mouth, wow
I already make that paper, I don’t need to chase no clout, wow

I already made that paper and I don’t need to chase no clout so now what?

I’m like George Clooney stuck in the liminal window of Heathrow for a brief moment. I am not of the country (I spent $22 to register myself with their visa mobile app as I sat in a purple corridor trying to input my biometric) so it feels all wrong.

I’m not exactly out of their control until I leave their airspace. But how much longer do any of these Anglophone countries have left?

I’m a dark Swede of dubious stock and many generations of me and mine adjusted to the Weberian Protestant work ethic. I don’t want Prada but I did enjoy working for them as a client.

Categories
Politics

Day 1867 and Rage Against What Exactly

I feel a struggle to continue this writing experiment. I feel a struggle to continue on at all in a public fashion online as the world is refolded and restructured around us.

I am just so tired and I fear an early death as the life and treasure of my generation is squandered on the perpetuation of systems that no longer work. I was texting with my mother about her husband’s third knee surgery (ain’t Medicare great) as enormous protest raged outside my window. I am in the capital of a European nation where this is quite common.

This is the third large demonstration in the space of three weeks for an opposition party that is mostly made up of technocratic stooges trying to hide the sins of wars no one remembers except those who deployed in them. I happen to know people who did deploy in them or I certainly wouldn’t know that the opposition is made up of the siblings, children and social circle of a former dictator.

Every time they protest the roads are blocked and then it gets out of hand. Water canons are set on the fires the protestors set and then tear gas is thrown out and no one can get through the city center. I assume this is some flavor of controlled opposition as America and the EU both support the existing government.

This time there were drones above the entire affair and much of the rally seemed to be music that was a mix of Catholic liturgy and electronic dance music. A famous priest DJ performed in the city over the weekend so maybe it was him. Who knows.

Nothing is weirder than hearing O Fortuna played over riot dispersal water cannons. We don’t have that kind of cinematic drama in American protests. Honestly everyone here seems sick of it. Most of all the hotel staff and the diplomats that live in it.

I watched it unfold from a vestibule with a Ukrainian woman who said she hoped I’d stay safe. I told her I wasn’t worried as I’ve seen this before.

She was understandably more concerned than I was being a refuge in a country that no one would have thought would be more stable than Ukraine a generation ago. Socialists holding off nationalists is not a terribly equilibrium if you can afford it. America can’t but it seems plenty of Europe still can.

Categories
Aesthetics Startups

Day 1866 and Never Escaping Veblen Goods

I love a good signaling and status competition. There are so many ways to to signal that at the far reaches of taste you will never fear to tread. Just don’t worry about how other people live.

I’ve worked in luxury fashion and venture capital and they run on the same rules. And it’s all snobbery up and down and it is a mixed bag when it comes to what works in reality.

I’ve known sneakerheads who seamlessly transitioned to private equity because they know in some fundamental way that rising price increases demand in strange markets. But the little signals can give away your whole game and you can’t always assume you are speaking their language.

Many an investor and fashionista has made good use of this basic understanding of a Veblen good. The more expensive it gets, the more it stokes demand. Everyone thinks they can become Hermes or Facebook but if you could well you would have.

This can fuck with actual performance as the thing being performed isn’t necessarily the thing that is getting done in reality. You can show your own displeasure with the pricing scheme by not participating. You can short a thing with a little creative and signaling of your own.

Many decided will continue to play along despite not needing to participate in status games. Outsourcing taste is actually something you can pay for and sometimes you should just get a realistic budget.

Often you really can’t afford to play the game and it’s better to cultivate your own taste and satisfactions in life so you are comfortable taking on the risk load of stepping out of unnecessary competition. You play your own game and win on your own terms.

Categories
Aesthetics Travel

Day 1861 and Mispricing The Market

I’m sure most of the world will be fixated on various financial corrections in global markets but I spent a chunk of my day dealing with currency changes (that will be 7% of your withdrawal thank you) that reflect nonsense from monetary arbitrages, regulatory graft and foreign exchange transactions so I’m in absolutely no mood.

Then I went to what counts as the diplomat and foreign money mall and got Pizza Hut, frozen yogurt and Korean skincare. I don’t even like Pizza Hut but I was so sick of managing dislocations and figured I’d rather send it back to America. My patriotic consumption for the day.

I don’t know if it’s an urban legend that our military can deploy food franchises in twenty four hours in a conflict zone but we sure seem to figured out emerging markets.

It’s a shame we won’t let some markets emerge and be shaped by pressures. The vape kiosk was doing a brisk business and I was frustrated to see the owner of the favored electric vape was based in Shenzen. What an opportunity lost for American brands.

I’d say half the parking lot was Mercedes and the other half was BYD if that counts for anything. I haven’t seen an abundance of American cars and I think we all know why.

But then my savior was found in a brightly colored kiosk with no customers at all. A swath of Korean skincare brands that proved to be authentic. Blessedly many global K beauty brands have adopted QR codes to manage the misuse.

I am adapt at spotting packaging dupes and frauds thanks to the de minimus years importers of fakes flooded Amazon, eBay and other retailers with third party resellers.

Everything was half off as at their full retail price they were still not moving. I scooped up $30 bucks of masks from brands like Mishha and Some By Mi. My skin was fully irritated by smog, stress, and wider disappointment. The globalization era is in full swing in plenty of markets but everyone gets their cut. If a brand doesn’t command a local market then an enterprising consumer can enjoy a temporary mispricing. Sometimes this mispricing last for far too long.

Incumbents have strange advantages they are loathe to give up. I came out angrier at banks than usual, as angry at central banks as ever, and very pleased that the local consumer base wasn’t yet wise to the benefits of a product that commands a premium elsewhere. I might go get more.

Categories
Finance Startups

Day 1858 and Parked Outside the Flow

The crazier the informational world gets, the more inclined I am to tune it all out. The flows of information are fun sure but it’s only useful to financiers, degenerates and the global management class. I really only rate into very bottom of one. No, not the degenerate class.

As 2026 has become the year of repositioning for “whatever is coming,” I am unsure of much I wish to return from the hinterlands into the flow. Being inside the flow looks enticing but it’s Thor the only way to do business.

The thing is that I began my own career by participating (in a small way) in what Will Manidis calls The Flow. Being inside has its perks and I saw a lot which enabled me to make some very good investments.

What is the flow? It’s a metaphor for a 24/7 club of information, a formal and informal circuit of social and business obligations, and series of social & professional inputs that sometimes generate spectacular output.

It’s no wonder people think investing looks like gambling when you put it that way. It takes a lot of shrewd social manners and access to resources to be inside the flow and those are distinct barriers for anyone outside the global ten percent.

So where to go if you are an American? Well, stay put somewhere you can be stable and secure. Sure the middle powers will tell you that they can save the liberal order but in reality it’s all state capitalism by strong man and technocrats. And I’m not either and I’d wager most truly new things that will matter won’t be easily secured by old mechanism of power.

What Manidis rightly points out in his Flow essay, is that you can build businesses and make good money for investors and limited partners outside of the flow. You can focus on your unique insights and build something great.

I hope I offer some proof of that myself. I flash the codes for my odd little node and traffic occasionally routes through me. I found crypto winners and the future of atomics outside the flow. And I think I’d rather like to spend my Sundays seeing what’s happening outside the nightclub of financial flows.

If you want to be outside you can be. I just might be already. You can find me in the proverbial parking lot of the Flow (the open internet) yapping, chilling, lighting and fighting with the cool kids. You will always know where to find me. I’ll be one DM away.

Categories
Finance Politics

Day 1857 and We’ve Got to Talk About Kevin

My husband was joking with me that he’d been arguing, in the way that men do, about what the state is or is not obliged (or allowed) to do about the movement of the capital class and where they keep their resources.

Capital flight and asset diversification are not just individual decisions but increasingly society ones as well. And it’s not just the wealthy who are worried.

This discourse emerged in the middle of the intense upswings in gold & silver prices subsequent profit taking and draw downs.

• Gold ran to roughly 5,600 USD/oz before sliding 7–10% in a day, still leaving it massively higher on the month.
• Silver briefly traded above 120 USD/oz, then fell 15–20% and is now back under the 100–110 area, which technically puts it in a short‑term bear move after a parabolic rise

These actions were stirred up by debate on Federal Reserve independence (ameliorated somewhat by the new chair Kevin Warsh over Kevin Hassett), China’s buying patterns (both official & wealthy retail) in precious metals and what these two interconnected news items might mean geopolitically for regular people. See this on buying in Australia and on China’s flows for more context.

From remittances to capital controls, the debate is particularly spicy as the dollar has been made to trade deliberately lower for the export agenda, rising remittance dollars (and debate on what’s missing in tracking them) has upset many Americans, and the money printing of the Biden years has raised awareness of inflation and national debt.

Obviously it has been a combustible mix. And thus we see renewed interest in decentralized assets and hard commodities. And then, of course, there has been the trial balloon floating in California of a wealth tax. What should we do about our most moneyed citizens and what do they owe. We tax income not wealth and that change is likely to have huge repercussions.

It seems perfectly sensible that anyone who has dollar denominated assets might be concerned about where that currency is headed, who is benefiting from the changes, and what on earth the Chinese are up to both as a people but also as a nation with unclear monetary goals and tensions between its leader and its military.

Ultimately though this is an incident about the dollar, its long term value, who will oversee it (and which Kevin was meant to have the gig) and where wealth can and cannot go to deploy itself in an era where the rules based order and Bretton Woods are no longer a given.

Categories
Media Reading

Day 1855 and Reading The Certain Uncertainty

My daily routine starts perceptually early when I am in Europe and perceptually late when I am in Montana. The world is currently rotating on the narratives of American Eastern Standard Time and that means I try to rotate with it too.

Alas part of me has always oriented my circadian rhythm around the full noon day sun as I’m I am not an early bird nor a night owl. So European hours work better for me than Mountain West Hours for some types of work.

Most notably the watching of flows of information, particularly from legacy media and its keepers in Washington DC and New York City.

I don’t know where I got the habit, probably from my mother or father, but I always start my day scanning the major newspapers.

There is functionally no local paper to read any longer in most markets but I will take Bloomberg, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, along with NPR before I do anything else. If I’m feeling spicy I might even look through the New York Post.

It’s a habit I was encouraged into as my family was a household that always had a newspaper delivered. Whoever began their day together would share or sections, like a Norman Rockwell painting. I generally remember it being my mother but my father was a great reader as well.

What began with a local Colorado paper turned into many subscriptions. We subscribed to all sorts of magazines and periodicals when times were good and what we could not justify in the household budget, I was encouraged to pick up at the library after school.

Maybe this is why I am such an avid writer, as I am an avid reader. Although I don’t know if either of those habits will have much utility in the future as we transit into visual and oral communication methods. I am still reticent to scroll video platforms.

Now I begin the day not just with a newspaper scan but with every sources of information I can scan from commodity indexes to podcasts and social media.

I like to know where the discourse is being guided as early as I can. Obviously in my professional capacity sometimes I’m months ahead or even years, but I like to be ahead, at least, of the day’s news as well.

Increasingly it is hard to be sure that you are able to paint yourself a picture of what may really be happening as opposed to a picture of what somebody else would like you to think is happening. This was always true but now we are in the fog of war.

Hence my interest in being on European time zones. I can usually get a good grip on what may percolate up being ahead of the London broadsheets. Being just ahead enough of the largest media market (American media is mostly based in Manhattan) can give you a real sense of freedom in these very certain, uncertain times.

Categories
Aesthetics Culture

Day 1854 and Will The Real Fake Fendi Please Stand Up?

I don’t know if I should be flattered or irritated but I learned funniest thing this week. Netflix “stole” my Real Fake Fendi story for their hit show Emily in Paris. Let me explain.

Emily in Paris wrote a plot-line into the current 5th season which appears to be riffing on one of my old blogposts “The Real Fake Fendi.” It is a true story & anyone who has known me awhile has heard me tell it.

I wrote about it in ‘21 on this blog five years long before this season premiered. I am on day 1853 day of writing a daily blog and published the story on Day 89 of my writing experiment though the actual experience took place sometime in the late aughts or early teens where I believe I first wrote about it on an old blog I took down.

Emily pitches a campaign to Fendi for a “real fake Fendi” on Emily in Paris

I suspect I would find earlier variants of this tale from my very first (somewhat popular) fashion blog as well. I suppose where fashion is headed is always where fashion has been. Or as they say on the show “it’s super meta and self referential”

The story goes like this. I was once was asked by a tourist for directions to find “a real fake Fendi” when I lived in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

I was honestly stumped by this inquiry. I didn’t answer immediately as my mind raced through the implications of their request. Imagine my mind retrieving.

Was there a fake that had inherent realness that other knockoffs did not possess? Was there a vendor who sold the most authentic mimicry of Fendi which the tourist wished to find? I had no clue how to answer.

Did they mean the realness one sees on the catwalks overseen by RuPaul? But which kind of realness? The creation that evokes the spirit of its inspiration? A realness so over the top and yet absolutely true to its essence?

Or perhaps the blunt direct feedback from being “read” by a drag artist that no construct, no matter how convincing, is the original artifact. Is is serving realness? I honestly didn’t know. I had Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction swirling in my head and still has no answer.

Apparently tourists looking for Canal Street want to buy the most authentic real fake Fendi

I just told the tourist that Canal was one block north and walked away. I don’t know if they ever found what they were looking for and I may have even given them the wrong directions I was so flummoxed.

Now can I really complain about someone taking one of my coinages and injecting it into a Darren Starr show about spunky brunette girl from heartland American who becomes a luxury fashion marketer by being good at social media. You see where I am going with this. That girl is me.

Perhaps my friend and fashion scholar Susan Scafidi of Fordham Law School’s Fashion Law Institute & author of “Who Owns Culture” would know who owns this cultural artifact. I bet I’ve told her this story too.

This life story archetype has been aspirational long before me. Murphy Brown anyone? It has been done in many different formats including Darren Starr’s best known work Sex and The City.

But it is my story too. So is Emily in Paris the real story of Julie in Manhattan? Is Julie in Manhattan the real Emily in Paris? Am I a retro causal multiverse prequel version of Emily?

Who is the real Emily? Am I the real Emily? Who buys a fake version of the real thing? Either way, I think Netflix owes me at a walk on spot. It would be very self referential. Or me-referential