The newsletter thingy
Sybarite Newsletter: Issue Four
Post-Soviet Hotels and Fast Cars
Welcome to the fourth newsletter, which I think (hope) is finally getting its sea legs, and now simply exists to let you know about the latest stories published in Sybarite. The first and second newsletters were, while perhaps informative, also extremely chaotic, including everything from braised celery to Himalayan salt shampoo. Then I remembered that no one wants to read chaotic things and so that vibe is over.
The third newsletter was a mea culpa for the way I’ve previously described Sybarite, because it was admittedly confusing. And I’ll take this opportunity to clarify it again: I want to publish stories about real things, elemental things. It doesn’t have to be fancy things, although I do love fancy things. If you have a story about a real thing, a thing you don’t need to google to write about, please do send me a draft at adeline[dot]dimond[at]gmail[dot]com. (I have no idea why we have to type out email addresses this way, but I’ve seen it done so then decided I had to do it that way too, which says something about susceptibility and social control, but I don’t know what).
Also, if we think about Medium as a place where we can share knowledge with one another, a place we can go for information that we know is true and well-researched, Sybarite should be part of that too. I’ve therefore started a series called “Instructions for Sybarites” — how-to guides for anything, as long as the subject is anchored in reality, and not like, how to get rich. Newsflash: if you or your family are not already rich, you will not become rich. That’s how being rich works. I’m sorry that an editor of an online publication about lip gloss has to be the one to say that, but someone has to do it.
To that end, I have provided my simple, anchored-in-reality-and-experience recipe for one single piece of fish, because there is no other (good, simple) answer to this question on the Internet. There really isn’t. Google “simple fish recipe” and the interwebs cough up a lot of extraneous bullshit, the type of bullshit you do not need when you just got home from work and your bra is in your purse because you pulled it off at a red light while stuck in traffic. (Just me?). I therefore purposely made this piece tiny and short, because when it comes to cooking while exhausted, no one wants anything but instructions.
Of course, some stories should not be tiny and short, which brings me to Hotel Uzbekistan, a place built behind the Iron Curtain and suddenly thrust into the free market. Sybarite has a whopper of a story about that very place by Geo Snelling, who actually went there. He didn’t sit on his sofa and google Hotel Uzbekistan, he went to Hotel Uzbekistan, got and room and actually stayed there. His piece makes me nostalgic for a certain type of travel writing that I know existed at one point, but I can’t seem to find anymore: an author goes somewhere you could never imagine going, and writes about what actually happened to the author when they were there.
(That said, I’d love to feature more travel writing in Sybarite that is also like the fish recipe. Instead of a meditation on Rome, I just want to know your one, singular favorite hotel in Rome. So very tired of starting a trip by googling hotels and getting an algorithm-controlled list by Expedia).
And speaking of being anchored in reality, I also wrote a story about how to make out in a Camaro. You may be thinking to yourself that this story doesn’t apply to you, because you have no plans to get busy in a sports car. But I felt the same way until last Friday when I found myself in this very predicament. As my Grandma Sarah used to say, You just never know. It’s why I obsessively read stories about how to survive a rattlesnake bite. No plans on getting bitten, but again — you never know.
These are the three latest stories in Sybarite since the last newsletter. Do I want more than three? Yes. But do I want to make sure that Sybarite stays true to its mission: real writing about things that we can touch and feel and see and smell? Also yes. Happily, readers have started to provide feedback, making it clear that they too are craving this type of writing. And so it shall be.
Until next week, Sybarites. In the meantime, may I suggest figuring out whether your local supermarket carries the It’s It ice cream sandwich? They won’t make you rich, but they will change your life.
Your Sybarite-in-Chief, Adeline
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