Alex Burns

Sip your coffee in peace

We usually pair coffee with speed-of-light emailing. But it goes better with: porches, stoops, sidewalks, parks, friends, dog walks, phone calls, books, newspapers.

To accommodate lip gloss superfans like Mason and Li, Hailey Bieber is even selling gray Rhode phone cases that customers can attach their glosses to the back of. Given that a common cellphone attachment is typically a cardholder, this innovative gadget implies that lip balm, specifically Rhode’s, is just as crucial to carry around as your driver’s... See more

At first blush, the Rodrigo-Carpenter dynamic doesn’t seem to be that different from the way culture has always pitted pop princesses against each other. Whether it’s Britney and Christina, Debbie Gibson and Tiffany, Brandy and Monica, or Katy Perry and Taylor Swift, there’s always been an inclination that every female pop star needs a rival.

This is second-order vanity. The term was coined by David Foster Wallace, in his 1987 novel The Broom of the System. “A vain person is concerned that people not perceive him as stupid, or dull, or ugly, et cetera et cetera,” his character explains—that’s first-order vain (the classic). “Now a second-order vain person is a vain person who’s also... See more

I meet a lot of people who don’t like their jobs, and when I ask them what they’d rather do instead, about 75% say something like, “Oh, I dunno, I’d really love to run a little coffee shop.” If I’m feeling mischievous that day, I ask them one question: “Where would you get the coffee beans?”

If that’s a stumper, here are some followups:

• Which kind of

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