Substack Reads: The new vacation home aesthetic, and summer creamsicle energy
Dear readers! We’re dwelling in the long summer days across the Northern Hemisphere, with food critic Ryan Sutton’s ode to the frozen treats of New York City, and design writer David Michon moving away from Mediterranean holiday interiors to something a little cooler. James Breakwell discovers everything wrong with letting his daughters plan a trip to an amusement park, and Spencer Martin takes us through a gripping fifth stage at the Tour de France. Enjoy!
INTERIOR DESIGN
The new holiday-home aesthetic is “office lobby”
In a Substack that celebrates the supreme potential of domestic space, L.A. writer David Michon builds a case for a cold, structured decor for your weekends by the coast
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It has been rejected by décor-makers in almost all categories, shoved to the margins after a collective obsession with M*d-Century M*dern exhausted us, and a distrust of Ivory Tower Corporations made them change nothing about themselves except how they dress their offices. STRUCTURED and COLD became bad words, but they sure as hell aren’t bad in décor, if done right.
PLUS, what better balance to the rugged cliffs of the [Your Choice] Riviera and their warm, sun-drenched sands and salty-in-the-good-way diamond-clear waters than STRUCTURED and COLD?
If there is no other place for the “HIGH-POWERED CORPORATE LOBBY” aesthetic in society, why not place it in the HOLIDAY HOME, and make it a means for us to escape the Tyranny of Comfort that coddles us most days?
Heavy is the crown
A hair-storical account of hair’s relation to power, featuring Empress Elisabeth of Austria
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According to records written by Empress Sisi’s personal tutors and hairdressers, her hair required rigorous and consistent daily rituals of care. Every morning it took nearly three hours to brush and comb her hair, which was fanned out over a white lace peignoir, ultimately covering her entire body. Then her hair would be braided and pinned up into her signature style of thick corded braids woven to form a loose and cascading “crown” atop her head.
The weight of this hairstyle reportedly gave her terrible headaches.
Every two weeks, her hair would be meticulously conditioned with a mixture of cognac and fresh eggs to keep it shiny, strong and healthy. And then, my favorite part, any hairs that fell out during her rigorous daily hair care would then have to be presented to the Empress in a ceremonial silver bowl for inspection.
SPIRITUALITY
Communing with the spirit muse
Astrologer Rob Brezsny has conversed with the spirits of Emily Dickinson, Victoria Woodhull, and Mitochondrial Eve. Should these practices be dismissed as hallucinations or a way to tap into the teachings of nonrational sources of wisdom?
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Upon meeting the astronomer Galileo during one of these sessions, Hugo offered him some advice: “You know what I would do if I were in your place? I’d drink from the milk basin of the Milky Way; I’d swallow the comets; I’d lunch on dawn; I’d dine on day and sup on night; I’d invite myself, splendid table companion that I am, to the banquet of all the glories, and I’d salute God as my host! I’d work up a magnificent hunger, an enormous thirst, and I’d race through the drunken spaces between the spheres singing the fearsome drinking song of eternity.”
I’ve always loved the work of U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winner W. S. Merwin (1927–2019). So I’m pleased he wrote a poem in which he recounted counsel offered by his Pulitzer Prize-winning mentor John Berryman (1914–1972): “He suggested I pray to the Muse / get down on my knees and pray / right there in the corner and he / said he meant it literally.” Were Berryman and Merwin solipsistic New Age dilettantes? No, they were not.
HUMOR
Their first roller coaster
Comedy writer and father to four girls James Breakwell tests the waters of the amusement-park summer experience by handing the reins over to his children. But when the kids got to the first roller coaster, things totally fell apart…
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Like most girls, my daughters want only one thing: absolute power. I indulged that desire when planning our most recent trip. Earlier this year, I decided we’re going to be a family that goes places and does things—after my wife told me that we need to go places and do things. I can take a hint, as long as that hint is direct instructions. I had to schedule our outings around the kids, since they’re involved in an annoying activity called “school” that hogs the majority of their calendar. I suspect that group would have a much lower membership if it weren’t literally illegal not to join. Now that it’s summer, it’s time for the bulk of our planned events. We have one big vacation booked, as well as several one-day excursions. This weekend was a particularly memorable one: We went to our first amusement park as a family. I put the kids in charge of everything we did inside the park. Reading that now, I can see where I went wrong.
SPORTS
The breakaway
Providing daily coverage of the Tour de France, pro-cycling writer Spencer Martin runs through the beats of a moment in this week’s mountain stage that drastically altered the race
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While everyone seemed to be asking how anyone could challenge Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar at this Tour, the 27-year-old Australian was finding the answer.
Hindley leveraged the fact that the two riders were so laser-focused on each other that he was unmarked by sneaking into the massive early breakaway.
This allowed him to surf wheels and essentially gain ‘free’ time as the breakaway built up their advantage over the flatter terrain, and either matched the breakaway or even rode slightly slower on the climbs.
Hindley went up the final climb roughly two minutes slower than Vingegaard, which tells us that had he stayed in the GC group, he would have been dropped. Instead, he was able to leverage the dynamics of the race to take time on Vingegaard while actually climbing slower.
Getting the stage win, taking the overall lead, and taking massive time on your GC rivals is great, but the best part of Hindley’s move, which didn’t come without risk, is that he was forced to use more energy than the group behind due to the massive size of the breakaway, which means he should be able to recover for tomorrow’s difficult stage.
FOOD
The restaurant of the summer is wherever you can find strong creamsicle energy
Maybe, says New York food critic Ryan Sutton in his new Substack
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It’s tempting to say the Creamsicle Energy in New York, at this very moment, is quite strong, though there’s a missing piece. It’s tough to find an actual creamsicle at neighborhood delis—at least in Hell’s Kitchen!
I dropped into 10 or so local marts and bodegas yesterday and found that the freezers largely contained similar collections of Snickers ice cream bars (inferior to actual frozen Snickers), Twix bars, Oreo ice cream sandwiches (better than generic ice cream sandwiches, sorry), Nestle Dibs, Fla-Vor-Ice (yes, mate), and strawberry shortcake bars (all hail). Oh, and there were also pints of Van Leeuwen, Häagen Dazs, and Ben & Jerry’s taking up way too much space.
It wasn’t until I swung by D’Agostino that I found a box of creamsicles. Cost: $8. Allow me to suggest that we have more of these frozen snacks and fewer fancy pints? You with me?
FINANCE
The semiconductor trade war
Joseph Politano looks at what happens when world powers use economic conflict and industrial statecraft to achieve geopolitical aims
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Semiconductors are among the most complex products ever developed by humanity. They are essential components to the production of all modern manufactured goods—as Western countries learned when the chip shortage of the last few years crippled production in key industries like motor vehicles. They are necessary for the training and implementation of large-scale, cutting-edge artificial intelligences like ChatGPT, which are poised to play an increasingly large economic role in modern life. Of course, they are also critical components of the kinds of modern military craft and advanced weaponry the major democratic allies use to defend themselves and countries like Ukraine. China has long resented its technological dependence on foreign chips—which often make up a larger share of the nation’s total imports than oil—especially since so much of its foreign chip imports come from Taiwan, whose independence China does not respect. Western countries likewise fear that China will continue moving up value chains, build a threatening lead in high-end chip production, and gain even more economic leverage over the rest of the world.
COMIC
Air-breathing fish
British illustrator and comic artist Tor Freeman discovered the Cuban Gar
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Recently launched
Coming soon
Congratulations to the following writers celebrating publication:
Author and book critic
submits a completed draft and muses on the best writing advice she’s learned: marvels at her book, Ping, visiting more countries than she has:
What’s happening in Notes
speaks to about her forthcoming book:Substack writers, including
, are reading Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way in a book club and study group:
Inspired by the writers featured in Substack Reads? Writing on your own Substack is just a few clicks away:
Substack Reads is a weekly roundup of writing, ideas, art, and audio from the world of Substack. Posts are recommended by staff and readers, and curated and edited from Substack’s U.K. outpost by Hannah Ray.
Got a Substack post to recommend? Tell us about it in the comments.
Edit note: This post was amended on July 10, 2023, to correct “Western” to “Northern” Hemisphere in the opening line. The standfirst under “The semiconductor trade war” was also edited to further clarify the post.
I disagree. The foundations of Substack lie in engagement with the thoughtfully crafted posts. Notes and chats are incidental. You could hardly ask for a more eclectic selection of read suggestions than here. Of course, they won't all appeal, but I absolutely welcome the digest.
Creamsicle energy 🧡love it