Phoebe Maltz Bovy

Had ZERO time to plan this trip apart from (I can only hope correctly) booking train and hotel. Have become irrationally singularly fixated on locating bagel-shop merch I now see can just be shipped to Toronto.

Keep reminding myself re: trip to Montreal: no airplane, same currency. Forgive me but I rarely leave west Toronto.

There is this whole entire thing in the very same city where rich white people maintain their status, with a handful of not-rich not-white rule-proving exceptions, but it's mostly pay-to-play, but the discourse suggests Stuyvesant is preppy white kids. There is like one such person and I was it.

Does it matter? In the grand scheme of things not really, I'm not convinced these schools *help* the people who go to them, given (among other things) that colleges would put caps on admits from them. But there's something unsettling and misleading in how this *regularly* gets discussed!

Given the racial makeup of *the US* anyone reading this headline plus subhed who does not happen to know about this topic from for example having gone to that high school in recent decades would assume this was implying it's a nearly-all-white high school. Very not so!

Elite New York High School Admits 8 Black Students in a Class of 781

A headline with one noteworthy piece of information but skipping over some other rather important context aka school's the overall makeup. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/n...

Bagels in Space | Fairmount Bagel

Obsessed with this: fairmountbagel.com/bagels-in-sp...

I am cynical enough to think the 'genes/jeans' thing was probably intentionally done to drum up is-it-or-isn't-it controversy. That is maybe interesting to talk about, but why someone in an industry takes jobs, this is not.

The Inescapable Sydney Sweeney

This article confuses me. Why is a woman who earns a living by being a beautiful actress also doing modeling campaigns? How is this a question? www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/s...

Yes. I see a lot of authors saying that their book income doesn’t cover minimum wage. Obviously it would be lovely if it did. But I’ve always thought that’s not the point of books unless you’re spectacularly lucky.

(Unrelated note: pre-orders are open for my debut 😎)

The question of how to find out about books is one I give a LOT of thought to as a reviewer! I too often learn about them later than I'd like for reviewing purposes.

The sideshow becomes the show. Much as As Time Goes By has staying power but My Life in Kenya does not.

The things you do 'to sell a book' may not help sales, but also, most people are not asked on shows to say what they think, and part of the point might be getting to be someone asked to do that thing. If it appeals! Which it has to because it does not pay.

From a publisher's perspective, the point of book-writing is absolutely book-selling. And authors want to be read, and to be able to write more books. But the point of book-writing can wind up relating more to what it does for your career/standing.

Is selling books the point of writing them? There is to my knowledge one existentially accurate representation of the author’s life in sitcom, and that is Lionel Hardcastle, on As Time Goes By.

Some thoughts about ~author life~ inspired by a recent @helenlewis.bsky.social newsletter.
phoebemaltzbovy.substack.com/p/is-selling...

Nope! Not someone I'd ever interacted with.

Idyflic | Linen World Stay cool and update your look with Idyflic100% CottonMachine WashableSet- includes quilt and 2 standard shamsTwin set contains 1 standard sham

ONE MORE old-age sentiment: I went to a local-ish linens store and am intrigued: www.linenworld.ca/product-page...

May I interest them in bookshop.org/p/books/bad-...

I think I did my first Bluesky mute, if it was you I muted and there is a Mutesky website my sincerest apologies.

Bad selfie good shirt Laura Ashley, Ralph Lauren, and preppy multiculturalism

Some unpaywalled thoughts on preppiness, that deeply un-Canadian style. phoebemaltzbovy.substack.com/p/bad-selfie...

In further ancientness: why does the NYT have videos playing when you go to the homepage, I did not ask for this!

Enjoy your Ganni, your Staud, or for that matter your Shein, I don't know what any of this is, and I never will!

I have a thing like the old-person-and-pop-music thing but for fashion, where if a brand didn't exist when I was younger, it's not that I wouldn't wear it, but I can't imagine how people are coveting it.

Came here to say this, as are the pads her arms are on, I am so confused how you could de-plastic yourself amidst plastic.

Right I mean things like hyperfocus on language and manners over material, or an emphasis on concerns that do not match up with those of most members of the marginalized group in question.

As I see it, "excesses" isn't quite it. Because it's not about activism pushing for above-and-beyond what most are comfortable with. It's about things sort of posing as social justice that are not that.

Yes - this is why I say it's not monocausal!

Right - I'm saying I think the belief that punching at wokeness was a punch up was/is driving a lot of it. And yes, so is old-school bigotry. Not sure we disagree?

As for who was seen as driving it, it's complicated! Given the attacks on universities and the souring on women-with-office-jobs, it seems like "subaltern" isn't quite it.

I'm not arguing for a monocausal 'privilege-checking is why Trump.' But I'm also unpersuaded that it didn't push things further in that direction. I'm unpersuaded by the idea that it is some sort of protection against Trumpism.