Posted Without Commentary Vol. 3

We may have hit the August doldrums as the smart set jets out to the Hamptons and Biarritz and the Chevrolet set motor to the Wisconsin Dells and Branson, but our hateful readers continue to send in the hottest reads of the summer. The editorial board has been busy with a relocation, but we thought worth giving you a taste of things to come under either a Trump or Clinton presidency. Stock values may fluctuate, but your chances of vacationing nine months out of the year don't! Cheers.

1. Marisa Meltzer, Over (Organic) Dinner, These Fitness Studio Competitors Work It Out, N.Y. Times (Aug. 1, 2016)

The demographic: female fitness studio owners between ages of 29 and 32

Political controversy du jour: crystal healers

Choice quote: 

Ms. Larson-Levey recommended Kalisa Augustine, a crystal healer in the city. “I started going to her a little over a year ago,” she said. “She reads your energy. It’s a good way to connect with your body.”

This was the evening’s sole moment of contention. “I’m against them,” Ms. Bonetti Pérez said of crystals. “I wish people wouldn’t take them from where they grow.”

On the next show: is vegan ice cream ethical?

 2. Julie Satow, How Fredrik Eklund, Broker and Reality TV Star, Spends His Sundays, N.Y. Times (July 15, 2016)

Soundtrack: "Pandora global chill radio"

Some people's dream is to live on a cruise ship: 

Then I come home to Derek and dinner. We cook. I’m a really good chef. I had this vision of myself that I was going to open a restaurant. I think it is the most romantic, sexy thing to buy groceries. It is amazing to be married and to plan dinner. We cook a lot of high-protein, low-carb. We don’t eat pasta, but we are big guys — we are both 6-foot-5 — so we eat a lot. We just moved into our new apartment six weeks ago and it has 60 feet of frontage on the water, so it is like living on a cruise ship. It has the most insane sunsets. Derek and I are obsessed with sunsets.

A little poo break

3. Stuart Emmrich, Benefits in the Hamptons and Cocktails at Saks, N.Y. Times (Aug. 12, 2016)

Cause du jour: Southampton Hospital

Haul: $1.3 million (0.013265306122448979% of John Paulson's wealth)

Leading cause of death in the Hamptons: gout

Human garbage in a blazer, pre-trash fire

4. Sarah Cone, personal website (accessed Aug. 13, 2016)

Profession: Manager Partner (Social Impact Partners)

Changing lives:

I am the founder and CEO of the One Person at a Time Foundation (The Memorial Peter J. Brown AKA Dad Foundation). It was an idea my father came up with that I'm executing for him: we help one person at a time that has had a streak of misfortunes get off the street and achieve their dreams. Currently, we're helping Lester in Chicago, one of the most talented salespeople I've ever seen, get a job as a telemarketer.

On hobbies:

I have expensive hobbies: art collecting, philanthropy, fashion, and poker, and these hobbies are the only reason I care about money at all. Mostly, I just want to make the world a better place. I'm very lucky that I get to do both.

Residences: Tribeca, Buenos Aires, Jose Ignacio (Uruguay), Lake Como (Italy)

Find her on: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

The rich are unlike you and me / they dine with trees

The Emails of Natalie Portman and Jonathan Safran Foer

We interrupt our hiatus (we're working on a super-secret book-length project hate reading the work of Ann Patchett) to present breaking news from the willingly (by all appearances) disclosed correspondence between Natalie Portman and Jonathan Safran Foer. While some have defended the artists' correspondence as earnest and well-meaning, the move has been widely panned as a masturbatory, navel-gazing middle-brow exercise.

Faithful Hate Readers will note that the "profile" of Portman is accompanied by a photo shoot of her in rustic scenes swaddled in $1,000 sweaters over $375 bikinis (though inexplicably her socks have no price tag--what gives?). Others have noted her lack of pants. We were also struck by the visual imbalance. What was Safran Foer wearing? Where was half of this tableau of coquettish coyness and teenage turmoil? What was a recently separated father of two like JSF doing exactly? 

A New York Times Weekly Hate Read exclusive, a photo of the writer intended for publication as part of the series of digital epistles has come to light. In it, JSF apparently reclines in front of a fireplace with an expensive champagne and kittens. One source reported that the photo made Safran Foer seem "a little desperate."

Does this look like an artist to you?

Presented Without Commentary Vol. 2

Woah, what a snowstorm, dear hateful readers! Right, New York Times? So much to report! Thankfully, layoffs never seem to hit the puff piece sections, only the serious journalists! Choose Your Own Hate Read™ is back from a round of sinus and colon cleanses with four choice articles submitted by bilious readers. This week we bring you millionaire puppies, sober yuppies, the patriarchy, and off-season weddings (redundant?)! Enjoy!

1. Rachel Levin, Happy Hour Without the Booze, N.Y. Times (Jan 20, 2016).

Choice quote:

“It’s O.K., we have a really great water, from Australia,” said Andrea Praet, 34, a trend strategist from Greenpoint, who also runs an urban retreat series, with Ms. Tallarico, called the Uplift Project."

Prognosis: well-hydrated mass suicide cult.

Regularly give each other enemas

2. Jane Margolies, Pet Amenities for New York's Lucky Dogs, N.Y. Times, (Jan. 22, 2016).

Manhattan beat: The United Nations has determined that some Midtown buildings have higher Human Development Index scores than for pets than certain middle-income countries do for humans.

Killer amenity: bone-shaped pool on terrace.

Average one-bedroom at MiMa: $4500 a month.

These dogs just surpassed Slovenia's GDP per capita

3. Lois Smith Brady, She Went to a College for a Job, and Found a Husband, Too, N.Y. Times (Jan. 8, 2016).

Spoiler alert: Dr. Andrews found a free nurse sixteen years his junior!

Do you solemnly swear to change my diapers and protect my assets?

4. Bee Shapiro, Off-Season Weddings Can Be Quirky Good Fun, or a Disaster, N.Y. Times (Jan. 14, 2016).

The horror:

Amy Glickman, a communications consultant in Los Angeles, married her husband in New York in February 2009 at the IAC building. “It was 20 degrees out, and I had sorority sisters flying in from Scottsdale and L.A.,” she said. “They were absolutely completely grumpy about it. I got a stream of emails on ‘What do I wear? What do I do?’ It was like hysteria.”

New York in February can be such a drag