MARSEILLE DISPATCH 07
it's only fitting that we end on lucky no 7
This is late because I wasn’t ready to write my final Marseille Dispatch. I can’t believe it’s over, can you? I’ll be in Paris until mid-month when I’m back stateside.
WHAT I’M INTO
Press Play: “Mansard Roof” by Vampire Weekend
To wrap up my time in the South of France, I drove from Marseille to Biarritz! A surf town peppered with mansard roofs and a burgeoning art scene. I love this song, it’s catchy, light, salty. Nostalgia with a dose of French architecture and afro beats. In grad school, I saw the very same mansard roof they immortalized on my main campus stroll to study in their more ornate libraries (the Medical Campus was sleek but less beautiful). In Biarritz, this song helped me feel at home and ease. Listen if you want to imagine you’re on a boat on the East Coast, wherever you are.
Borrow from ur local public library: The Sun Also Rises by Earnest Hemingway
Hemingway is a forthcoming and minimalist writer. He’s also responsible for introducing surfing to Europe. History credits the crew filming The Sun Also Rises movie for introducing surfing to Biarritz. Now it’s known as a surf town.
In The Sun Also Rises, he writes about disenchanted ex-pats by borrowing from his own life. His friends must’ve been pissed. The story is set in 1920s Paris and the Basque Country. Through vivid descriptions, heavy alcoholism, and terse dialogue, Hemingway captures the aimlessness and existential despair of the "Lost Generation." It’s a good read for when you’re feeling lost, drunk in the Basque, or both lost and drunk in the Basque.
Anti-Algorithm News: “The Unbranding of Abercrombie” by Chantal Fernandez (The Cut)
You likely know someone who once worked in a Hollister or Abercrombie store if you were a tween/teen in the height of the aughts. I can think of three people off the top of my head. Abercrombie’s scent story still lives in my memory—musk, cardamom, lemon, fir.
Thanks to KIU, who’s got great taste and a finger of the pulse, I was tipped to jump on the Abercrombie revival early. Like GAP, Abercrombie has become an affordable natural fiber basics staple (or synthetic fibers, if you’re into that) in a post-logo, post-sex world.
Fernandez’ deep dive into Abercrombie’s evolution makes great journalism. It’s a comprehensive piece that doesn’t glide over Abercrombie’s colored past.
WHAT I’M GRATEFUL FOR