Earlier this week, I found myself playing style consultant to one of the sandwich guys at a bodega I go to. He’s a newer guy who arrived a little earlier this year, and from what the other sandwich guy told me, the new guy has never lived somewhere where there’s an actual winter. He explained that to me in English, as the other guy (who is Sandwich Guy 2 from here on out, O.G. is Sandwich Guy 1) looked on. Sandwich Guy 1 then laughed and said something to Sandwich Guy 2, who shook his head and mumbled a curse in Spanish that I recognized, then Sandwich Guy 1 explained to me that Sandwich Guy 2 has been blowing all his money buying expensive stuff to prepare for the colder months ahead, and told me that Sandwich Guy 2 bought “a very big jacket.” I asked how big, and Sandwich Guy 1 said, “Fucking big, man.” Sandwich Guy 2 also purchased a pair of snow boots and Sandwich Guy 1 caught him looking at generators on his phone because apparently, his colleague thinks New York City turns into a snowy apocalypse in the winter. Sandwich Guy 1, who I’d say is about 50, has been in New York for 16 years, and he told me he’s explained to Sandwich Guy 2 that it gets colder than he might be used to, but it isn’t that bad, but the new guy just won’t listen, so he asked me to verify that his new home doesn’t actually get too bad, save for maybe a month or two of really bad cold that sometimes drags on too far into March.
I was about to reassure the guy, but then I started thinking about…everything. I honestly can’t reassure anybody that anything is going to be like it was, not because we’ve been living through all the stuff I don’t need to remind you of, but because the last few years of all that stuff I don’t need to remind you of has actually served as a reminder that we really never have any idea what’s going to happen. There could very well be a crazy blizzard this winter and then I’d feel like a schmuck because I told Sandwich Guy 2 not to worry. So I took the easy way out, typed better safe than sorry into Google Translate (my Spanish is embarrassingly bad even though I grew up in a house where it was spoken), and said “Más vale prevenir que lamentar.” Sandwich Guy 2 looked satisfied, said something to Sandwich Guy 1, then walked away. Then Sandwich Guy 1 asked me if I wanted to see the jacket his friend spent too much money on and pulled up a photo he had taken of Sandwich Guy 2 in a fur-lined denim jacket, then explained the guy who sold it to him said it was rabbit or something, but Sandwich Guy 1 thought otherwise. “It’s rat, man,” he said.
I laughed and said, “Like Costanza’s hat!” Sandwich Guy 1 looked at me confused but then realized who I was talking about since he’d seen a few episodes of Seinfeld on the TV that’s always on at the bodega. I don’t know if he’d seen the specific season 8 episode I was talking about, but Sandwich Guy 1 found it so hilarious that when Sandwich Guy 2 walked back to the counter carrying a box of lettuce, Sandwich Guy 1 looked at me, shook his head, and said, “Fucking Costanza.”
Melt Reads
Speaking of bootleg stuff, there’s an interesting thing I read this week about Free People and fake-but-not-totally-fake Rolexes they’re selling. You can go on the faux hippie chic brand’s site and drop $7,000 on a “vintage timepiece” with the famous crown on it, but it’s not all that it seems.
Read: “Yes, Free People Is Selling Rolexes but It Aint’ What You Think” by Jake Silbert at High Snobiety
I’m not a person who has anything to do with BookTok. I’ve never once in my life watched a video on the app and thought, “Gee, I should read that,” so the argument of the piece really has zero impact on my life. But I read it anyway and came away a little more disillusioned since I’m of the mind that people just don’t like books to begin with. I saw it when Twitter was taking off, the #GalleyBrag culture that I’ll admit I took part in on a few occasions, and I’ve seen it on Instagram, where books are often used as prop pieces by people who want to let you know they’re really into books. On TikTok, the whole thing these days is competitiveness. One person on there said if you only read a book a month “gets you labeled as ‘not a real reader,’” that the whole thing is how many books you read and not what you get out of the books. Dumb? Yeah, sure. Very. But then there’s the little voice in my head that goes, “At least people are reading books? At least I think they’re reading all those books.” Hopefully, sooner or later all of these people will just realize what I figured out a long time ago: Some of the most obsessive readers I’ve ever met, the ones that “devour books,” often don’t get anything from reading so much. Some truly do, but I’ve found that a lot of people who love to talk (or post about) are basically the bookish version of the guy who gets the big car to overshadow the fact that he’s just really insecure.
Read: “Is BookTok sucking the joy out of reading?” by Jess Bacon at Dazed
Meet Spencer Sheehan. He’s a lawyer. He sues big companies that lie to you about what is in the food they sell you. Spencer is proof that not all lawyers are bad.
Read: “The Lies in Your Grocery Store by Sarah Larson” at The New Yorker
Melt Stuff
Snoopy and French pop from the 1960s are two things I love. That’s why I let out a little squeal of joy when I saw TSPTR had done a good deed and reproduced the “Happiness is Having a Friend” sweatshirt that Jacques Dutronc wore in one of the more iconic looks captured during the era. It’s available on the site.
I swear that the Diamond Autum Guide is coming out this week! I just didn’t count on the week before Rosh Hashanah being so hectic, which is totally my own stupidity. But one thing I think you’ll see in it is the return of the pub jacket. And Todd Snyder has a really nice one that I like.
Finally, if you’re in New York City between now and early October, Luke Edward Hall has his first-ever show in the city at Daniel Cooney and he’s a favorite of mine.