10,000 Years Later, the Dire Wolf Returns

Plus: Chanel goes rowing and why you really shouldn't die in the next ten years

Welcome to Small Talk, an email I serve out every Monday morning exclusively to our Breakfast Club members in NYC and Charleston. The premise is simple: my top of mind topics for the week’s worth of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners ahead anytime some chatter is required. From now on, I’ll be sharing it with subscribers of The Supersonic as well. Enjoy, and crib topics as necessary.

While Wall Street braces for a bear market, tariffs will probably be the topic du jour all week long as we commiserate over coffees, meals etc. Should you want to deviate from financial doomsday prognostications, consider the stories below.

For consideration …

• Dire wolves, back from the dead
  Sure, the market might be melting down, but, in the immortal words of Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski, “life goes on, man.” Or, in this next case, returns. Yes, I mean the return of the dire wolf, that OG of underdogs. No longer a Game of Thrones fantasy, the dire wolf—which went extinct some 10,000 years ago—has been revived by the ominously named company Colossal Biosciences, who have “effectively for the first time de-extinct[ed] a line of beasts whose live gene pool long ago vanished.” Everyone, it seems, is trying to stave off extinction. According to Bank of America analysts, the wellness industry might well be recession proof given that Gen Z and millennials are spending more and more in that sector of the market, from fitness to activity-based travel to “wellness focused discretionary items.” Even older folks are getting in on it, as are a raft of wellness startups that are quickly becoming the new country clubs. Forget Soho House, the latest status symbol is getting plasma-therapy injections and hyperbaric oxygen therapy at invitation-only clubs with annual dues of $250k. Beyond social cachet, perhaps these would-be Benjamin Buttons are onto something. If futurist Peter Diamandis is to be believed, we are 10 years out from “longevity escape velocity,” at which point technologies will converge to slow, stop, or even potentially reverse aging. Our sole responsibility until then? “Avoid dying from something stupid.” Like, say, running into a genetically engineered dire wolf.
  

• Where will White Lotus shoot next?
  Speaking of back from the dead, Hollywood made a triumphant return to form this weekend with the Minecraft movie. Middle schoolers apparently came out in droves, all to the tune of $163 million domestically, giving Minecraft the biggest ever opening for a video game adapted film. This is good news given the box office bomb that is Snow White, a film whose lackluster performance (a 60 percent drop from opening weekend) has threatened the future of Disney’s next live-action remake, Tangled. Might we suggest a return to more original IP? No such problems for White Lotus. Following last night’s jaw dropper—though, perhaps, not emotionally earned—of a finale, creator Mike White has already teased the location for Season 4 of the thriller. And the Internet, as it does, is already parsing clues and sleuthing the next five-star stand-in for the show’s titular resort.

  

• Row, row, row your boat
  While luxury brands have become synonymous with sports sponsorship, especially watches, here’s one you don’t see in that arena everyday: Chanel. Even odder is the sport the 100+ year-old fashion house chose: rowing. The Boat Race, a four-mile, 374-yard upstream race that’s been held for nearly 200 years between Oxford and Cambridge universities, is now the Chanel J12 Boat Race, named for the brand’s bestselling watch. Yes, there’s the history, the elitism, the Olympic prowess, and the nautical notes of rowing, but what Chanel really saw in this partnership was the synergy between the “swing” i.e. individual rowers performing in sync, and the automatic movement of the J12’s Calibre 12.1. Less successful of a fashion collab, at least according to Casey Lewis, was Target x Kate Spade, which she says might’ve resonated ten to 15 years ago, but now not so much. The culprit? Both the collab’s girl boss aesthetic and the ongoing Gen Z/TikTok-driven boycott of Target “over its rollback of DEI initiatives.” More popular are MAGA-mocking hats, which—from Greenland to Canada—have been popping up in the Trump administration’s wake with, shall we say, less than MAGA-worhty slogans.

Quicker hits …

• The risk of workplace coffee machines.

• This concrete espresso maker is gorgeous.

• Packy with some Monday perspective.

• The Titanic is trending among five-year-olds.

Enjoy your week.

BL

Ben Leventhal
Founder + CEO
Blackbird