Is food getting funky again? I went to dinner the other night at FOOD, the artist Lucien Smith’s revival of the late artist Gordon Matta-Clark’s SoHo restaurant of the ‘70s. Had been expecting the usual hedonistic NY happy meal fare but instead had to pick from a tiny menu of what I (granted, a fairly uneducated eater) would describe as…variations on mash.

There was this avocado and crab mash thing, and a stewed onions mash thing (piperade) and a pretty watercress soup that was unfortunately so salty that I couldn’t tell if perhaps that was the flavor, just SALT. My friend Gabi and I had to beg off an extra chunk of bread to fill out the meal and cope with its overall viscosity.

I suppose the revival concept is cool, but the actual food of FOOD was…also perhaps better as a concept. It did surprise me, though—perhaps we’re finally leaving behind the gratuitous tartare/oysters/brasserie-vibed post-pandemic era in favor of Ozempic-minded eating, where things can get weird because no one’s swallowing much, anyway.

Consider the reader survey…

For mainstream media, this fall’s equivalent of dropping a flashy print issue cover star (or two, three, or seven) is—also rather surprisingly—publishing some quantitative research! GQ’s overall genius State of Masculinity issue includes a poll drawing from nearly 2,000 American men on their thoughts about social movements, relationships, self-image, pop culture etc. (“Do you like Joe Rogan?” 58% Yes)

Meanwhile, for The Cut’s fall fashion issue, E.J. Dickson surveyed 100 single men over 20 about dating; I haven’t gotten the issue itself but hope there are some nice graphics to pull out some of these stats, but the quotes alone are simply amazing, too.

The Texas man told me he has something called “the Bicycle Test,” in which he goes biking with a date and if she doesn’t look back at him at least once to make sure everything’s okay, he knows it’s not going to work out. When I asked Bicycle Test guy why he couldn’t just tell women what he was looking for, instead of judging them based on secret criteria, he demurred. “I think that would ruin my market value, if I’m being honest,” he said. He doesn’t want to risk being rejected for caring too much. “I’d rather be rejected because of my looks or where I went to school or my job.”

There was that NBC Decision Desk Poll released last week about the Gen Z gender divide from last week; you probably saw screenshots of the ranked results to the question “Which of the following is important to your personal definition of success?”; if not, click in and look at where “being married” and “having emotional stability” rank for young females vs. young males, lol.

And then there’s also Cosmopolitan, which also released the data last week from a 450-person survey conducted about sex scenes in film and TV (“74 percent of Gen Z respondents in our survey said nudity isn’t a prerequisite, while 90 percent said emotional sex scenes are key.”).

Interesting! It’s funny, of course, that all of these surveys/polls essentially have to do with gender and sex; one supposes the heterofatalism discourse could always use grist for the mill! But also, this is a cool way for media publications to actually flex their cultural authority—without relying too heavily on talent bookers and celebrity whims. One might say it’s almost downright populist!

Didn’t know David Haskell lived in Chatham Towers, but I did assume his apartment would look this cool: “I recently counted 49 lamps in our apartment, and when we have friends over, we turn on all of them.” Of course he’s anti-Big Light.

Between my publishing doc and Teddy Brown’s extremely detailed advice for writers on finding day jobs, it’s quite the season of self-disclosure over here! Teddy’s freelance career is the envy of everyone I know, and it’s very generous of him to show everyone how to finesse LinkedIn / the wide world of content writing in order to make those NYT bylines happen. Thank youuu Teddy!

Why haven’t you read Stoner yet? Let Minh Tran’s recent analysis of what is possibly a perfect novel, viewed from the lens of the modern masculinity crisis, compel you.

Finally, speaking of fall print issues, the new edition of Highsnobiety magazine that I worked on is out on stands this week, but you can read the cover stories (three of them total, very restrained if you ask me) on Turnstile, Odessa A’zion, and Kader online. I really enjoyed helping out at Highsnob over the summer; it turns out that assigning and editing stories for other writers is extremely satisfying, and I got to learn a lot from Claire Landsbaum, who I last worked with on the Mizzou school newspaper staff approx 10 years ago :)

Burned out by unapproachable wellness advice that makes you feel like sh*t? New publisher, Prism, is flipping the script. No perfection. No expensive products. Just human perspectives on physical, mental, and social health — like questioning queerness and conceiving via a not anonymous sperm donor. Subscribe for free — and if you’ve got a taboo or less traveled wellness take of your own, send a pitch!

Asian Not Asian Podcast Farewell Kick-off October 15! The best Asian comedy podcast recorded in a Subaru is ending. Celebrate the only podcast that covered both the SATs and fleshlights with hosts Mic Nguyen and Jenny Arimoto and a bevy of ridiculous guests. Littlefield, October 15th at 7p.m.