I’m loving all the content on self-taught YouTube kings Kane Parsons, 20, and Curry Barker, 26. I plan on seeing both Obsession and Backrooms in theaters as sort of a double header. Parsons has said he was “allured by like the tutorials by filmmaker Ian Hubert, and he sort of sold me on like, this looks fast and easy and awesome.” Hubert is known for his “lazy tutorials.” (Hubert has not been profiled by any major news outlet that I can find!) Barker technically went to film school, but dropped out during the pandemic, not wanting to take Zoom classes. He instead worked at Starbucks and uploaded things to YouTube. (All of this was reported in the New Yorker, which also announced that he is remaking Texas Chainsaw Massacre for A24.)

I didn’t watch any tennis, but I sure did see a lot of Instagram content about athletes getting too hot. Bags of ice sagging on heads, tennis rackets in freezers, a man requesting to leave the court so he could use the toilet, etc. Aryna Sabalenka’s cool-down method caught my eye: The Shark ChillPill. It’s a $150 personal fan. The real innovation here seems to be the “cryo plate for contact-based relief that drops skin temperature up to 16°F.” Sabalenka has ties to the company, and is clearly pushing the product on TikTok and doing tutorials. (I myself have included a 3% affiliate link, since it’s on Amazon.) Everyone’s angles aside, she did seem to be effectively cooling herself down. I want one!

The New York Times makes a compelling case that Jack Schlossberg is incompetent and lazy. Apparently from the get-go. “Just hours into his Day 1 launch, the candidate abruptly announced a change of plans, according to three people familiar with the events. Forget dialing for dollars — Mr. Schlossberg said he needed a nap. He then effectively disappeared for the day, leaving his team reeling.” I was amused to read that “one of his longest work engagements appears to have been a few months as a political correspondent for Vogue covering the 2024 campaign.” As the reporter points out, he managed to write six articles. (H/t to Vogue for the idea though, they certainly got a lot of traffic from the announcement of his appointment. Peter Fisher should get more credit for the photos!)

Tucked into a recent report from the Hamptons by Rory Satran, this tidbit caught my eye: one man caught the ferry in New London, CT to go golfing in Southampton. (“He lost his license after a DUI.”) As a Connecticut person, I hadn’t realized that the fastest way to get to the Hamptons would be driving to the CT coast. (Normally what I do is spend one night in the city, and get the jitney.) An itinerary springs to mind here: Rent a car and spend a few days in Connecticut before you head East. (I’d make The Old Inn on the Green, just over the border, my base; and make sure to snag a reservation at R.S.V.P.)

I’ve noticed a rash of fear-mongering articles targeting those vacationing on East Coast islands and peninsulas this summer. First, CNN put out a story about the rampant Alpha Gal allergies on Martha’s Vineyard. Alpha Gal is a side effect you can get from a tick bite that makes you allergic to red meat, and apparently gluten as well. CNN found a (rational-seeming) store owner claiming 1/3 of her customers have the disease. It’s a compelling narrative. Then Vanity Fair dropped this headline: “Fear and Algae in the Hamptons: How Flesh-Eating Bacteria Is Invading the East Coast’s Swankiest Waterways.” I’m going to keep this in mind when ordering at the Grand Central Oyster bar. Woof!

I have read every piece of media about the Park Slope Food Co-op since I moved to New York. 17,000 New Yorkers volunteer their time to keep the co-op running. “It says it is the largest and oldest member-owned and -operated grocery store in the world, founded in 1973.” They have been fighting about whether to sell, more or less, tahini. Last week, they put it to a vote. The Times has a brief dry explainer. (The result: they voted affirmatively to adhere to BDS guidelines.) Marella Gayla, a New Yorker editor and Co-op member, wrote a very funny summation of the meeting for the website. “It had a quality that you can only find on a nearly seven-thousand-person Zoom call, which is to say that it was baroquely inefficient, searingly passive-aggressive, riven with procedural manipulations, and occasionally inspiring. We’d gathered to vote on…a proposal to stop selling Israeli products, including peanut-butter puffs and a certain variety of bell pepper.” NY1 interviewed members in a short segment. New York City news at its finest!