Business as usual: Kacey Musgraves does fashion, no one wants to work, many will try (and fail) to take on Zyn...
Another mini dispatch from Portugal.
Bom dia! I am still in Portugal, believe it or not. I am excited to write about it when I’m back. For now, I’ll say that I feel like I needed this as much as food or water, and it’s quietly healing me, filling up my cup, deepening my relationship, all the things we yearn for almost all of the time when we’re stuck in the mud of our mundane daily lives.
I am… finally, finally… starting to feel ready to come “home”— wherever that is these days. (If coming home didn’t include going to work, that is.) At the very least, I am itching to try the passion fruit pie at the new and improved (?) Kellogg’s Diner.
(Don’t be fooled by the stunning hotel views, I am not living in a five star resort for a month— there has been plenty of time spent with my boyfriend’s family in “real” Portugal, away from the tourist hullabaloo and American English, though sadly quite close to the wildfires. Fingers crossed for rain!)
Today’s newsletter is free, zippy, bullet point-y. (It’s also a little long, so you may need to read in your browser.) 🤍
This Chris Black quote from a
AMA the other week was SPOT ON for me— Chris on consulting, remote work culture, and what the people want:
”When I started doing this, by accident, for Vice in the mid-aughts, most people wanted a full-time job; now, it is the complete opposite. No one wants to work; everyone wants to be on vacation with a laptop and a blurred Zoom background. “
I think no one wants to hear this but it’s true! No one wants to work. But for those who have done exactly what Chris describes, worked “remote” from Mexico City or faffed about the beach at 3pm on a Wednesday (certainly guilty as charged myself these last few years)— does that feel good to you?
There’s an essay in here somewhere, or maybe I already wrote it about the work remote vs. in office revolution here, or even about pushing yourself to live a life with teeth here, but there is nothing too satisfying about coasting. Spending your day on a laptop doing something that can be half assed? That certainly doesn’t make one feel good, like they’ve earned their dinner. There’s not a ton of integrity there.
Sure, there are seasons of life where you need to coast, many of them— but if you’re not in one, I can’t imagine it actually feels too good deep down, to have what it is Chris suggests many of us say we want. Or perhaps, better put, what we want is not always what’s good for us.Landing, which was sort of like a Canva Gen Z moodboard startup, has announced its closure. They’re pivoting to a new business concept, Zeen. I’m not sure I see how different this idea is from the first, but I am a known hater of curation or product discovery platforms, simply because I don’t think there is a real business there! That’s what media is for, as I alluded to this week.
This update about Adam Neumann’s climate themed crypto startup is, uh, word soup to me, frankly.
There are 2 new Zyn competitors: Alp (by Tucker Carlson……….) and Lucy, which is not new at all but basically just launched their same existing product in new packaging that promises to help you “maximize shareholder value” and is named Excel (no, I’m serious). I’ll eat my shoe if either of these match Zyn, owned by Philip Morris, in distribution and thus meaningful sales.
Thank you,
, for—yet again!— breaking down the behind-the-scenes of how smart, consistent, kind creators make money on the internet, and in this case, Substack. I’m really grateful for folks like Grace and who share the details re: what the unit economics of writing and blogging online are like for them. It gives me something to aspire towards or some rough sense that I am maybe not just shouting into the void. I wrote about this theme and mini-media a bit earlier this week, ICYMI.I really liked this discussion of the “Buy Now Pay Later” (Affirm, Klarna, etc) expansion into the elective medical procedure category. It makes sense that these businesses operate on thin margins and need to upsell the hell out of you or lock you into packages. Honestly, not much different than a European Wax Center. I do quite like Nurse Julie at the Everbody in Williamsburg. :)
SIDIA launched a new body and hand wash and cream— I’ve been dying to try this brand, they feel like the exact kind of treat that I’d want to find in a gorgeous hotel or spa. They kill it on packaging and visuals. I say this well aware that the world does not necessarily need another soap or lotion, but also that that thought does not stop people from launching more soaps and lotions.
On that note, I’d be remiss to not mention that Flamingo Estate did the same— launching a Manuka Rich Cream I’d certainly like to try.
Found and loved via
’s letter on Beautiful Versions of Boring Things: these adorable fishy clips to keep chip bags closed, and this Ginger Jar pill organizer box.Kacey Musgraves x Reformation… what do you guys think of this collab? I have mixed feelings. I’d really like to hear yours in the comments if you’ll indulge me.
- ’s essay Devotion is a Choice struck a chord in me that I haven’t felt or experienced on Substack in far too long. I love an essay I can sink my teeth into, that I think about here and there for days afterwards.
I once thought that devotion meant weakness. Early in my career, I remember reading a post about what a shame it would be to have “devoted wife” or “devoted mother” as the inscription on your tombstone. It would be a horror, the post claimed, if your whole life could be summed up by being in relation to other people and not what you did on your own.
To my twenty-year old, newly Girlbossing brain, the argument made sense. It was 2018, I had just graduated college and started a full-time job on the trading floor at Goldman Sachs. I honestly couldn’t imagine being devoted to anything other than my job. And to add to that, I definitely hadn’t dated anyone I would have wanted to devote my life to. Devotion to me then meant weakness. Dependence was to be avoided at all costs.
Now looking back, I can’t believe how wrong I was. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve seen that my life’s wealth is in the richness of its relationships. If my parents could say I was a devoted daughter, if my future family could say I was a devoted mother, if my husband could say I was a devoted wife, I would be so proud of the life I led.
That’s it for today, and more soon! I really do want to hear from you more, so remember, comments are WIDE OPEN and my inbox is open to hear from folks in this space.
xx
Zoe
The piece that you shared from @sarahwoodgonzalez is so good. I think it speaks to wisdom and out growing some of the toxicity of our culture. The individual is overrated IMO especially when we look to our natural state of being, which is in relationship to others (that includes our world down to the bacteria we cultivate). It makes us sick when we operate as an island. When we ignore the whole we create big problems. I think history has shown us this, but we keep pushing this idea to our detriment.
Thank you so much for sharing my essay—I’m so touched to know that it resonated with you. ❤️