Guest Lecture: Olivia Nuzzi
New York Magazine's Olivia Nuzzi on political reporting.
Good morning everyone. Writing this intro from my slow, air-conditioned subway ride to my Upper East Side therapist’s office. Today’s Guest Lecture with Olivia Nuzzi is one of my favorites yet. She answered your questions about Andrew Cuomo’s supposed nipple ring, White House pool reporter drama, and how she actually thinks Trump is doing. She answered these last night, so they’re pretty up to speed with everything… going on.
Enjoy!
NEWS:
Sant Ambroeus is opening their first Miami location in 2025. If you ever wanted that Brookfield Place feel in south Florida, now you can have it. I actually love the Chicken Paillard…
Equinox is opening a hotel in NEOM. Rooted in Equinox Hotel’s core value of “pay us a lot of money”, the cutting-edge programming offers expensive experiences designed to ignite even the richest Saudi Prince’s wallet.
You can now buy a sushi restaurant in the sky above Los Angeles for $100mm. Yamashiro, a Hollywood sushi restaurant in a century-old replica of a Japanese palace, appeared in movies including Memoirs of a Geisha, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Gone in 60 Seconds. Looking at the property, you can understand why there are whispers of it becoming a boutique hotel or resort situation. “It’s not a commodity type of real estate,” broker Peter Sherman said in an interview. “Who this property appeals to are probably folks that aren’t necessarily slaves to interest rates.”
I have a specific sensation around stories about secret gardens and hidden pathways. I loved reading about the herb gardens at the Met Cloisters, and now I’m curious about the other gardens in the city and the people who take care of them.
52% of US men now use facial skincare products – a 68% increase from 2022. The beauty and wellness boom doesn’t discriminate, you either get on board with chemical exfoliants or get left behind. The thing with skincare is that once you dabble and see results (emotional or physical), it’s hard to abandon those routines and products. Men are also becoming hyper-aware of their fertility and virility. “PFAs, microplastics, etc are being found everywhere including in male testes … natural fibre [sic] boxers, ‘cleaner’ skincare products, proper fragrances, bedding, etc will be more of a concern to men moving forward,” fitness expert Joe Holder posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, referencing the study. He added that he has been trying to convey this message for over five years “without sounding like a psycho.” That first story linked here has a specific callout about men leaning towards natural ingredients in skincare, which makes me think there’s a subreddit somewhere saying that chemicals in X, Y, and Z products are turning you into a Soy Boy.
From Feed Me’s anonymous transit reporter/resident gen-z man. B.J. Novak-backed Chainfest is coming to New York. The festival will feature cheffy versions of dishes from KFC, Red Robin, and Red Lobster.
did a great deep-dive on Chain and the people behind it earlier this year.My future baby and I will have matching Audemars Piguets. When the Brynn Wallner byline drops on Highsnobiety, I pull it up as its own tab so I can lock in. In June, Audemars Piguet revived the Royal Oak Mini, a frosted gold 23mm iteration of its even tinier 1997 predecessor, and Wallner argues that they are ahead of the curve. “The appetite for smaller watches is clearly on the up. For AP to have gotten this into production whenever they needed to was a smart move,” says Mike Tran, Design Director at Supreme and co-founder of Very Special. Tran, like many of us watching, notices “when legacy brands like AP show they aren’t asleep at the wheel,” plucking design cues from the zeitgeist. Speaking of watches, did you read the Hodinkee news? The watch publisher is winding down its commerce business and returning its focus to editorial. A few weeks ago, GQ’s design director Keir Novesky posted about the redesigned GQ Watches logo. Seems like there’s an overall shift in watch shopping and tastes (post crypto boom, post COVID), and now publishers are shifting how to cover the industry.
Pumpkin Spice season came realllllly early this year. A few weeks ago, the Chobani team told me that over the last year, Chobani’s Dairy Creamer did approximately $175mm in sales and Chobani currently holds 4.5% market share of the entire Coffee Creamer category. In the past year, Chobani’s Dairy Creamer saw exponential growth, growing over 80% YOY, far outpacing the entire category in terms of sales.
Bloomberg just launched a limited series called The Nurse Will See You Now. The series is documenting how the increasing reliance on ill-trained nurse practitioners is imperiling US patients. Reading about the medical system makes me feel uneasy, probably because I’m avoiding them. I grew up with really great insurance because my dad was a teacher, and then I always had solid insurance at my jobs, but now that I buy my own insurance, the whole system has gotten confusing to me so I just… try to avoid optimizing the situation and I assume where I’m at insurance-wise is “good enough.” Anyway, did you know nurse practitioner is the fastest-growing profession in the country, and the ranks are expected to climb 45% by 2032? And did you know that poorly trained NPs can pose serious dangers? In the worst cases, patients die. Dozens of nursing students and professors who talked to Bloomberg Businessweek say the problems result from the surging number of programs, which graduate thousands of NPs a year without adequately preparing some of them to care for patients. The former director of the largest NP program in the country says she can’t recall denying acceptance to a single student.
GUEST LECTURE: Olivia Nuzzi
This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I’ll introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to submit questions to them.
Olivia is the Washington correspondent for New York Magazine (where we met) and is best known for drinking Diet Coke with Donald Trump, drinking Bloody Marys with Rudy Giuliani, and her never-brassy platinum blonde hair. PLUS, she has a new show on Bloomberg called “Working Capital,” so this one feels timely in many ways. Her tweet about her most recent viral story for New York Magazine about Biden’s health has over 10mm view on X.