Today, nutritional beverages, confessional comics, and a dark confession of my own about a certain horrible-but-cute tech mogul.
LIBATIONS
The Gospel of the Bloody Mary
In defense of the cocktail of champions.
The year 2023 was one of the most beautiful of my life. I had gotten a new kind of United credit card that allowed me unlimited access to its airport lounges, and every time I scanned my boarding pass, it felt like I was being welcomed into the gates of heaven. One of the benefits of life in the United hereafter is unlimited food and drink (with limits), and what is both food and drink more than a Bloody Mary. I ordered one every time I entered the United Lounge that year, and then another as my flight got delayed and delayed again, getting progressively anesthetized by the savory tang of tomato juice and vodka. Today, my colleague Matthew Schneier makes the case for what I have always known to be true: A 9 p.m. Bloody is okay!
Every August, like clockwork, the tomatogyrics begin, and since the BLT has been amply advocated for, let me offer this modest bit of evangelism instead: The Bloody Mary is a perfect and appetizing evening drink. It makes no sense at brunch, where it has been marooned.
He preaches from the altar of Zig Zag Oyster Bar in Prospect Heights, which indeed has a great Bloody, notable for its thin texture. Don’t get me wrong, I love a thick, Campbell’s soup–y Bloody, but that’s a harder sell in the evening when you’ve already eaten dinner. The Zig Zag Bloody Mary is delicately layered. As Matthew puts it, “Join the movement.” Also, if you have an airport lounge pass, give it to me, because my access was restricted to twice a year in 2025 for some reason.
THEATER
Cat Cohen Can Do No Wrong
Go see her one-woman show now.
It’s hard to disagree with Jason P. Frank’s description of Cat Cohen as “objectively fabulous.” The comedian and actress is at the Lucille Lortel with her third one-woman show, Broad Strokes, in which she describes discovering a previously undiagnosed stroke caused by a hole in her heart. I saw the first workshop at Union Hall, and I am astonished by how much the production has grown without sacrificing the original’s humor. Jason asked Cat about that evolution:
Is there a tension between the worlds of theater and comedy?
The priority with the show is to make it as funny as possible, but this is the first time I’m getting to work with a director who’s helping me think through the arc of the story. The best part is having an amazing set and jokes with lighting. I’ve been doing this for ten years, so to have the support of a whole crew of people is night and day.
Their back-and-forth is like one of those really good sequences in Challengers without, you know, the sexual tension.
TECHNOLOGY
The Social Reckoning’s Rollout is Already Exhausting
The movie is not out for months, and Meta’s playing defense early.
Did Mark Zuckerberg publish his new AI manifesto, “The Future Is for Everyone,” early to beat the release of The Social Reckoning? Probably. It’s just that his blog post makes him sound even less human than usual. “Zuckerberg’s mechanically optimistic scenario is a sort of argument for the virtues of AI-accelerated capitalism: more entrepreneurialism, more individual capability, and more freedom, resulting — eventually, in theory — in greater affluence and higher standards of living,” writes John Herrmann. That would be nice. Except Zuck clearly can’t see how this posture might come across as insanely tone-deaf from someone already worth hundreds of billions.
Having personal assistants, as someone like Zuckerberg is accustomed to at this point, is hugely useful. But it’s also a comparative advantage. A time traveler with a functioning iPhone connected to an internet wormhole would be a god in the past. Today, he’s just another guy with a Reels addiction, complicated feelings about his kids’ screen time, and an always-on relationship to his office job.
A Reels addiction, you say. Not to sound like Jake Schroeder or anything, but I must confess I have always thought of Zuckerberg as hot. He’s obviously pure evil but I like the curly hair and the chains. I think the picture of him caked up with sunscreen was genuinely appealing in an NJB kind of way. It’s too bad he’s, well, Mark Zuckerberg. If only he’d give away all his money and unplug Meta’s AI machines.
Click Your Way Out
These athletes will warm your heart.
This self-proclaimed “unmedicated homosexual in a cat sweatshirt” lawyer is going to be on the first civilian U.S. Traitors.
Is Wes Moore fizzling out already?
Arian Moayed’s daughter may need her own NYQ.
Does anyone know where the Mamdanis are vacationing upstate? Inquiring minds want to know.
Every new business in the East Village is uglier than the last.
I will be back tomorrow, but before then, I encourage you to feast your eyes on these photos from Francesca Hong’s election-results party. The highlight is obviously the pink-haired individual holding up a sign that reads “My Entire Polycule Voted for Fran Hong!!” Bushwick is a state of mind <3
 | A guest post by
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Really love that there’s an article featuring disabled athletes, but as a disabled woman, I’d like to gently encourage a reconsideration of framing the story as something that will “warm your heart.” So often in media, disabled people are depicted through a lens of warm-fuzzy feelings, and it comes across as patronizing. I wonder: would you use such framing for the exact same story if it featured nondisabled athletes? My guess is likely not—you’d probably focus on the achievements of badass athletes. The people featured are clearly top-notch athletes, and should be celebrated as such!