Why AI salons won't save us, F1, bicoastal neighborhood news, and Lena Dunham's early works

Compiling the insides of my scattered brain

Miley in Patricia’s Green in Hayes Valley, May 2021.

On my mind this week:

My old neighborhood in SF is spawning AI-themed members clubs

If you thought private members clubs in New York and LA were passé, just be glad you don’t have to spend time around people who buy into the SF equivalent: “AI salons.”

Cydney Hayes

wrote an article for the SF Gazetteer ostensibly about The Commons, a private members’ club in Hayes Valley. I appreciate the way she addressed the loneliness problem she observed amongst some of the city’s newest 20-something tech transplants, who are trying to fill a post-college social and intellectual void by “creating a discourse” about AI and the future of humanity in sober, basement rooms only open to a select few:

“The Hayes Valley scene attracts a certain socioeconomic class: Young, itinerant people who can afford to pay high membership dues and spend a lot of time in aimless philosophical discussions about the latest technologies. Degrees from schools like Stanford, Brown, and Berkeley are common here, as is a rosy nostalgia for such selective institutions; several Commons members told me they consider college the last time intellectual and social stimulation was easily accessible. 

But when the dogged pursuit of productivity and self-optimization hangs over every interaction, there’s very little room for the things that really bond people together: conflict, purposelessness, and good drunken messiness.

So instead, they have grafted their existential urges onto the frameworks they know: Self-improvement. A fetishization of the elite university. Exclusive startups that seek to address humanity’s great undoing by AI with more AI. The pursuit of frictionlessness is baked so deeply into Silicon Valley that its answer to loneliness is not to join the chaotic social world outside — the actual commons, you might say — but to block it out, City Campus-style, network state-style, and build a perfect third place: the fourth place.

But the snake feeds itself: Isolation begets isolation. They privatized hanging out and lost the plot.”

I lived in Hayes Valley at the tail end of Covid and look back on my time there fondly, despite nothing being open past 9 pm besides Salt and Straw. As someone who grew up in the Bay, I am a fierce SF defender, and it makes me sad to read about people my age searching for meaningful connection in all the wrong places, in one of the most diverse, beautiful cities in the world. Despite what many believe, San Francisco is not comprised of only soulless, aloof techies, and there are plentiful fun, fulfilling interactions to be had in Hayes Valley and other neighborhood “scenes” like the Mission, the Richmond, hell even the Marina, not to mention Oakland and the rest of the East Bay. You just have to go to a dog park, or a bar.

My morning routine in Hayes Valley consisted of grabbing coffee and sitting in Patricia's Green while Miley played with the same friends every day. We lived next door to a German Shepherd, whose owner gifted us homemade dog treats.

The way I would kill to live 2 doors down from a tennis court again, and down the hill from Alamo Square Park.

The second Las Vegas Grand Prix is this weekend

And Yuki Tsunoda of RB was almost refused entry into the US. He was traveling with just his physiotherapist, and was detained for 2-3 hours with no phone calls allowed. In true Yuki fashion, he was wearing pajamas for the ordeal. As if America needs more reason for embarrassment in front of the F1 world. Let’s hope no storm covers get dislodged during practice this year.

More trivially, Lewis, Charles and Carlos STUNNED at the Gladiator II premiere.

If you told me their faces were AI generated to perform optimally on IG and Tiktok for the Ferrari brand, I would believe you.

Fish Cheeks and Popup bagels are coming to Williamsburg

And they’ll be next door neighbors, at Metropolitan and Driggs. I’m a skeptic and still haven’t tried Popup Bagels, but I’m excited to have Fish Cheeks nearby again. And Solidcore Williamsburg is reopening today after being closed for a week of renovations.

My high school’s journalism building is turning 10

I feel old. Palo Alto High School’s Media Arts Center (a.k.a. MAC), a building I spent many hours in as a teen, is having its 10-year anniversary celebration in February.

I read Lena Dunham’s Wikipedia page

I went down a rabbit hole and stumbled across her 2009 web series Delusional Downtown Divas, a satire of the art world.

I also learned that Lena was my age (26) when Season 1 of Girls premiered on HBO. I’m in awe of her talent.

Lena on the set of Industry, which she consulted for

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xx,

Esmé