The One Thing You Must Read This Summer If You Want To Be Sexy, Hot, Relevant, And Cool
From Swans to Substack, The Hamptons, The Catskills, weed and poppers and laughing gas and more! On this glorious, godly Summer Friday, we're playing nothing but the hits.
Today is Friday, August 9th, 2024.
It’s the 12th Summer Friday of the year, three to go until Labor Day.
Argent’s “Hold Your Head Up” is on the radio.
New in theaters this weekend is video game adaptation (and spiritual Tár sequel) Borderlands, along with the horror/thriller Cuckoo starring Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens, and the slightly-scandal-plagued soapy Blake Lively vehicle It Ends With Us. Premiering on television Sunday night, the third season of HBO’s Industry.
At the 2024 Olympics, the womens volleyball finals will see the United States fight Italy for the gold on Sunday, and tomorrow, both the womens basketball semifinals featuring the U.S. facing Australia, and the mens basketball finals featuring the U.S. playing France for the gold.
Finally, around the world today, the weather: New York City: 81/73, showers • Malibu: 91/69, partly cloudy • Martha’s Vineyard: 79/74, cloudy • Reykjavik: 57/45, cloudy • Formentera: 86/79, sun—
—oh shit, look here: An issue of Summer Fridays, landing in your inbox on a Summer Friday, Shakespeare as it’s meant to be seen. In the immortal words of the Bard himself: Villain, I have done thy mother. Jokes.1 But no, the line we’re actually looking for is Summer's lease hath all too short a date,2 by which he meant: Time flies when you’re getting turnt, burnt, laid, and paid (exactly what the beautiful, sun-kissed, moneyed, oversexed readers of this august August publication — the greatest 19,376 humans to have Substack accounts — all are). He also said if music be the food of love, play on.3
To that end? Let’s kick out the jams: Another summer restaurant fight (featuring Keith McNally and Pete Wells, among others), a fight over a private club ends, learn How To Substack, more news from The Hamptons, and then some. Shall we?
And Now, A Brief Update on the Drugs of the Summer
Ozempic: Since we last checked in on the Summer of ‘Zempies, people are reportedly taking more than twenty times the correct dose (and overdosing), projectile vomiting it in the club, buying bootleg ‘Zempies, possibly experiencing ‘Zempies-related complications in surgeries, and are more likely than not contributing to the problem of patients at economic disadvantages who need it to manage their diabetes, a datapoint you may absolutely choose to deploy for moral superiority over the people you know who are taking Ozempic and don’t have diabetes, a disease that especially cuts hard across racial and economic lines in America (but also, to paraphrase Proustian scholar Kate Moss, nothing ethics as good as skinny feels, babe).
Poppers: On a recent Last Week Tonight segment, John Oliver — in discussing RFK Jr.’s conspiratorial bent, which includes promoting ideas about poppers causing karposi sarcoma — brought out a bottle of Rush, explaining that there’s a reason you can get one at any bodega in New York, and it’s not because they cause karposi sarcoma. Meanwhile, Louisiana just banned the sale of all nitrous inhalant-related products, including poppers.4
Alison Roman’s Eggplant Pasta Recipe: Not technically a narcotic, but someone recently cooked it for a Sunday dinner I was at, and it absolutely slaps. To wit: It was no match for the 47 shots of Mounjaro I jammed into my neck over the weekend, given that I went for seconds, and even thirds. If that’s not the sign of good cooking, nothing is, and we, as a society, are broken. Related…
Weed: …as one of my best friends recently stopped into Roman’s store in the Catskills, after blazing and getting so high he could barely form consonants, suffering from what he characterized as the worst cottonmouth of his life. She happened to be there at that moment. Walking in, marveling at the walls of food — but especially, for some reason, the dried pasta (?) — he purchased exactly one (1) bottle of water from her, after she repeatedly asked, somewhat bewildered, if there was anything else he wanted to buy, finally just offering him some free zucchini bread. Unable to process this information, he declined, and basically ran out with his bottle of water.
How comically blunted do you have to be to turn down free zucchini bread from Alison Roman in the middle of Fuckall, Catskills? Apparently: Quite5. Especially fun is the fact that they’ve met before, though, to be fair, not when said friend was traveling through the Interstellar tesseract in the middle of Alison’s shoppy shop. Lol. Further post-mortem investigation determined that this may have been because of the specifically Sith-grade weed he unknowingly smoked, but also, because he’s now smoking significantly less marijuana than he was during the pandemic’s halcyon days (and that the only solution is, of course, to get his tolerance up, by smoking more weed). The lesson here? Go when Alison Roman’s shop is closing and you might get offered some free leftover zucchini bread, but only if you’re so high you’re spirit bonding with a box of bucatini. Also, much like cardio, weed tolerance requires tending to.Laughing Gas: So, uh, Kanye West is allegedly addicted to it via his “personal dentist.” The most fascinating thing with this one isn’t that it’s Kanye West’s new (alleged) drug of choice, but rather, that he could just…buy some canisters, whippers, and balloons on Amazon, and just, like, go to town, no “personal dentist” required. This would probably save him a lot of money, and he could do balloons in peace, and (apologies to my dentist friends) without a nearby dentist. Also, I probably should’ve made those links up there affiliate links, but much like our friends at Blackbird Spyplane, the FOSTERTALK market differentiator is that I’m not “grody” and “artificial” and don’t use affiliate links but rather “elegantly & enlightenedly”6 just want you to know that you don’t need a “personal dentist” to score hippie crack. Anyway, isn’t it fascinating how the rich really don’t know how to spend money?
PREVIOUSLY, IN POPPERS: The Greatest Zoom Meeting Ever.
PREVIOUSLY, IN ‘ZEMPIES: The Ozempocolypse Is Coming.
On The Apparently Delicate Matter of Pete Wells’s Complaint
Best-to-ever-do-it retiring New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells’s watch is over, but before he begins his year-long spirit quest of a colonic, he did what any decent person should do upon leaving a job, and set a few things on fire walking out the door, in a piece headlined “I Reviewed Restaurants for 12 Years. They’ve Changed, and Not for the Better.” The issues plaguing restaurants include:
The coldness of digital reservation culture (Resy, OpenTable, et al) and QR-code menus (“Restaurants are turning into vending machines with chairs”).
Delivery apps and ghost kitchens
The interchangeability of high-end tasting menu restaurants, which are compared unfavorably to both hook-up culture (in that you’re meant to go once, but never again) and the Cheesecake Factory (a restaurant that at least wants you to return to it). And
The TikTokification of restaurants (“People who consume a steady diet of bucket lists and viral videos rush from one restaurant to another so they post about it, to prove they were there”) and the deleterious effects that has on restaurant culture writ-large.
And then some. What Wells is rightfully arguing for is a return to the human touch of restaurant, and an appreciation for it. But he opens the piece with his ire for Blackbird, the new crypto-pilled restaurant loyalty app startup from Ben Leventhal:
Customers check in on the app on arrival, pick a payment source and tip percentage, and then eat. Ben Leventhal, one of the app’s founders, explained what he called the “best part” in an Instagram video shot at the Italian cafe Lodi. “When you’re done, you just get up and go,” he said. Then he demonstrated how it’s done, high-fiving Lodi’s host on his way to the door without breaking stride.
Ben’s influence on the world of restaurants can’t be overstated, both as the co-founder of Resy (which changed reservation culture), and before that, Eater, (which changed both food media and arguably the landscape of restaurants as we know it today — one incredible example here). This is a guy who had his wedding at Balthazar long before anybody else did, which is just one of the several reasons it’s funny to see Balthazar owner Keith McNally — who referred to Pete Wells’s article as a “MASTERPIECE OF OBSERVATION” — take Ben to task:
Lol. Another reason it’s funny is that Balthazar was, for the longest time, one of the true keepers of the flame that was the phone-banked reservation system, VIP tiers and all. And now they use Resy, but we’ll get back to that.
Meanwhile, Will Guidera, the former co-owner of Eleven Madison Park and The NoMad — and now a producer on The Bear, who runs a hospitality training group — took to Instagram to air out his issues (!) with the article, which I’ve helpfully transcribed for you here:
"The underlying thesis of it, I believe in very strongly. He believes that people go to restaurants to feel a sense of connection, that when you leave without having experienced, like, extraordinary hospitality and service from the people in the dining room you're left feeling empty. I agree with all of that. But it made me think about one thing, and I wanted to share it: I've been in New York restaurants for my entire career and I've read a lot of New York Times reviews and in that time I can probably count on one hand how many times I've read anything about the service and the hospitality let alone praise for it. And so, listen, there's a lesson here: I don’t think the word is hypocrisy, but when people don’t celebrate something, when they don’t take time in a revi—"
And hoss, I’m gonna stop you right there, because we all know where this goes — restauranteur (or former restauranteur) kvetching about a restaurant critic without getting their facts straight. On just a few random reviews I clicked on, the service is remarked upon in reviews for Le Bern, Torrisi, and Hav & Meyer, which were simply the first few restaurant reviews I thought to Google. The idea that Pete Wells was unconcerned with how much service matters is a joke quickly unproven by actually reading his reviews.
Also: If Wells were to consistently assess the service of a restaurant, he’d have to constantly assess the good, the bad, and the ugly, and we all know how notoriously benevolent restaurant owners are when servers have even a single bad day on the job. Finally, the best service in the world is usually some combination of “warm” and something you don’t really have to think about. Anyway, Guidera has a hospitality training group to promote, but kudos to him for getting good at the internet and trying to leverage fake news into attention! :)
As it’s so often the case: Back to Balthazar (and their use of Resy). Last year, I wrote a feature for Interview about the gatekeepers of New York City restaurants. Kevin King, a longtime and beloved maître d' of places like Balthazar and Le Rock, had this to say:
KING: What is being lost is the art. A lot of the people in your story, we come from a time before there were screens, before there was Resy. That made us so much better at the job. It was about interacting with people, not just reading something off of a screen.
It’s true. At Chez Georges in Paris, they’ve got this reservation book sitting on the counter when you walk in, it’s gotta be about a foot thick, at least 2 feet in length. I’m pretty sure it’s the same one they used since they opened in 1926. They knew nearly every person that walked in.
KING: I knew a couple, working at one restaurant, they had their first date on table 24. So, guess what? Every time they came into that restaurant, I made sure that table 24 was theirs.
There’s a magic to that.
KING: There’s a magic to that.
And there is. Restaurants are wonderful places, third spaces, filled with people creating an incredible nightly mise en scene that, at its very best, is one of the great routine human manifestations of ineffable and ephemeral beauty. Live your life of restaurant-going with that appreciation in mind, and your life (and the world) will be all the better for it.
I have approximately 106 things to say on this morning’s Emily Sundberg hot fire polemic about the replication machine that Substack is becoming — including but not limited to (9.) Never think about Substack on a Greek island and (12.) Why are you thinking about Substack on your Greek island vacation?! and (76.) I get that there’s only so much to do on a Greek island but have you considered drinking enough masticha to go blind instead of thinking about Substack on a Greek island?
But maybe her vacation-loss is our gain, because it is excellent. But it also made me unearth an item I almost discarded this week:
In Which Kelly Oxford Teaches You How to Substack
Somehow I ended up subscribed to the Substack of Kelly Oxford, a writer who came to prominence in the salad days of Twitter. Oxford is a funny writer and accomplished person, so I didn’t unsubscribe, figured I would one day, and occasionally cracked open the emails, which come with some pretty compelling subject lines, most of which you need to pay to subscribe to see out in full. While I still won’t pay to subscribe, I now open every single email of hers, just to keep watching her master the art of the curiosity gap on Substack. For example, in a post about sending men nudes:
In a post about figuring out what her kink is:
In a post titled “Save Yourself A Bad Fuck with One Tip”
Or even, just today, as I was writing this: “A Few Easy Ways To Make Sex Better.” This is Cosmo Cover Lines 101-level excellence! There are some people teaching in business or journalism schools right now who have absolutely zero business teaching in business or journalism schools — let alone people running businesses, or journalism businesses! — and then, there’s this. To that end, finally, enjoy this, which needs absolutely zero wind-up:
Still not gonna pay for it on principle, but, come on: Masterful! Elsewhere?
How to Decide What Newsletters to Pay For
Another thing I might offer to anyone sick of all the samey-same Substacks out in the world is to unsubscribe from them! My standard for whether or not I pay for a Substack is:
Do I enjoy it?
Does it give me something I can’t get anywhere else?
Does it add value to my life, or am I just reading it because I have FOMO or FOMOOD7?
Is the thing I’m paying for better than the things I don’t pay for (like FOSTERTALK)?
Most of them don’t pass that bar. And that’s okay! Most Substacks don’t have to. But if they can’t pass all four of those questions with flying colors, thus falls The Sword of Fostercles on their subscription tier. At some point, I’m going to do what I do with my coffee mug collection and start crowdsourcing which subscriptions end up getting voted off the island (note to Hamish McKenzie, make this a feature), but for now, a small rundown of those I pay for go like this: a newsletter, Blackbird Spyplane and FOUND,8 the great Michael Easter, and of course, Feed Me (though less for the links than whenever Emily goes off like she did! Original insight matters! I get my links from Ben Dietz).9
A few more you maybe don’t know on here, worth subscribing to:
Schmatta, by Leonora Epstein, whose recent post on The Emotional Architecture of Bluey is deeply, insanely good. She also wrote this post about what couches smart design people like, which — if you’re like me, and have illness-grade decision paralysis over what couch to buy — is very useful. I just realized I don’t pay for it. I’m about to start!
Throwing Fits is the Only Podcast That Matters, and is also responsible for legions of its imitators, to a degree that the Hague might find worth taking issue with. Anyway, they’re now on Substack, and co-host James Harris wrote this recent post about what it’s like to shop at the IRL Ssense store, and it’s fantastic.
[PREVIOUSLY, IN OLD-SCHOOL FOSTERTALK AND SSENSE: The “soi disant marxist personal essay literati.”]Reality Test, the only Substack About Therapy You Need, which this week features the definitive take on THERAPY SPEAK. Also, you know you want to know what the chaser is to the sentence “MAGA twitter has taken a liking to ‘gaslighting.’ I’m obsessed with this.”
The Hamptons!
PRIVATE CLUBBED // Remember when we documented Zero Bond imperator Scott Sartiano’s attempt to bring Leonardo DiCaprio and Eric Adams’s (!) Private Club Of Choice to…the Hamptons?!
ZERO BOND, ZERO CHANCE. The One Place Private Clubs Won’t Happen is apparently the East Hampton Town Square. […] The University of Miami: North is slowly watching the fates of East Hampton yeet the club back on the train to Manhattan…
Well, guess how that turned out? Per the New York Post:
Zero Bond owner Scott Sartiano has thrown in the towel in his fight to bring the exclusive Soho members-only club to the Hamptons this summer — choosing instead to open a branch of his celebrity-magnet restaurant Sartiano’s, Side Dish has learned.
And guess how that’s gone, via the Post, late July:
Sartiano’s, the swishy Soho restaurant, has been operating an outpost in East Hampton for less than a month — yet it has been raided by health inspectors or targeted by the town’s notorious noise police nearly every day it has been open, The Post has learned. Last Saturday, three police cars were sent and cops entered the restaurant at the historic Hedges Inn “like a SWAT team,” an eyewitness said.
Loathe as I am to give a certain set of Hamptonites credit for anything, you gotta admire a comic, extremist adherence in committing to the bit. And speaking of cops!
FROM THE GREATEST POLICE BLOTTER IN AMERICA // Shall we check in again with America’s greatest rap sheet, the East Hampton Star’s police blotter? We shall! It’s crime time, baby!
5.3: Madison Street was the site of an apparent car theft on the afternoon of July 30 when a man reported his Toyota Camry missing. He’d left it for about 90 minutes, he told police, who drove him around until they found it on Main Street, where he had forgotten he’d parked.
7.4: Dive Bar Pizza was the site of a fight early on the morning of July 28. Police found two men, one of whom was “on a bench in front of the bar bleeding from his mouth.” Security had asked them to leave for being “difficult” and “arguing” with staff, they told police, and a brawl followed, in which both of them were knocked to the ground. The remainder of the report was redacted.
8.6: A man who was reported to be lying in the grass last Thursday evening near the Beacon restaurant at the yacht club told police he’d only had a few drinks and was “taking a breather in the grass” before continuing his walk home. The officer let him rest.
And finally:
SWAN REPORT, REDUX! Last week, there was this:
7.6: For the second week in a row, village police were called out on July 24 to conduct a swan hunt, after a woman reported an aggressive swan, which she believed to be injured, on Long Island Avenue. Officers determined that the bird was fine, and was acting like a "normal swan."
Several complaints about this item came in over the FOSTERTALK Batline, literally all of which taking issue with what was perceived as too low of a score. We regret the error. That said, this week, SWANWATCH 2024 returns:
A swan, possibly the same one that was reported injured near Georgica Pond the week before last but was found by police to be okay, was called in for a wellness check on Saturday morning, this time near Stephen Hand’s Path. A wildlife rescuer was in the area and helped the “injured” swan.
I don’t know what to make of those scare-quotes, either.
That’ll do it for this week. Meanwhile, everyone who’s emailed, suggested stories, said hi, left a comment, smashed that like button, truly: Thank you. Your encouragement and your kindness and even giving any of this the time of day, it means the world. Your attention and time is the most valuable commodity there is. That you’d spend any of it on my bullshit is humbling, flattering, and leaves me beside myself.
On that, we’ll finish where we started, in the immortal words of The Bard: All’s well that ends well, as another Summer Fridays is in the books. Next time this week, the FOSTERTALK Presents: Summer Fridays Summer Music Spectacular. Until then, unsubscribe your those Substacks, fire your personal dentist, fire up some eggplant pasta, unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs, get that tolerance up, get those poppers stocked, and of course: Hold your head up. There’s more summer fun left yet. There always is somewhere.
See ya, - f.
But really: Titus Andronicus, Act 4, Scene 2.
Sonnet 18, entirely bars.
The very first words spoken in Twelfth Night. And if you’re excited for me to follow up these three Shakespeare references with something as potentially useful and quotable for you throughout the rest of your lifetime, just wait until the part about scoring laughing gas on Amazon.
To the thousands of FOSTERTALK Presents: Summer Fridays readers in Louisiana who heeded my advice and stocked up, you’re welcome, Who Dat, etc.
On initial publication of this story, the bread in question was referred to as "banana bread.” Given Alison’s re-telling, we’re now convinced it was in fact a zucchini bread. We regret the error. But also like come on the point stands if not moreso — again, just imagine how zooted you’d have to be to confuse a banana with a zucchini? Historically.
Speaking of ethically superior correct stances: You should read the (immediate Best of 2024-tier post that is) BBSP’s take on affiliate links and why they don’t use them, versus what you should immediately think whenever you see an affiliate link on any site, let alone a link on any site, affiliate or not, that doesn’t offer the elite editorial quality of a BBSP/FP:SF.
Fear Of Missing Out On Discourse, a mental illness that would be in the DSM if it didn’t keep so many people in business.
Which I lend The Foster Editorial Touch to every single issue of and thus don’t actually pay for with anything but my beautiful thoughts and why am I even disclosing this to you this is Substack nobody has ethics here their souls are gone and there are no rules WELCOME TO THE THUNDERDOME so subscribe to FOUND. Also, find my most recent restaurant review for them — penned with the other co-founder of Eater! — over here.
I didn’t even get to Philip Sherburne — the best music writer on Substack — or Colin Nagy and Why Is This Interesting, Casey Lewis and After School, Nick Catucci’s Embedded, etc, etc. Again, I should probably make this a POWER LIST and assign arbitrary rankings to them — classic media format, designed to make people insane and attract attention — but it’s always Friday here, so maybe next era.
Made it into the footnote 💪
Thanks pimp