iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

These things are all TERRIBLE: mattgrossistrying.com/p/these-thin...

Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

It's been a long while since I spent some time actively, joyously hating on things in Trying!, so today's is all about the unbearable awfulness of the Avatar movies, cryptocurrency, and Travel + Leisure — and about how loathing, truly and deeply expressed, is not much different from love.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

People hear what they want to hear, not what you say, so it's time to adapt to that reality: mattgrossistrying.com/p/and-anothe...

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

And so we should therefore stop using them completely, and try to keep our language specific and concrete, so we can actually discuss the things that matter.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

Zionism? Anti-Zionism? From the river to the sea? These phrases get reinterpreted by anyone and everyone to mean anything and everything — they are now meaningless and useless.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

Maybe the children would like a cheese sandwich? mattgrossistrying.com/p/a-cheese-s...

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

Children are truly terrible, but if you're only opposed to what Israel is doing in Gaza because kids are starving, well, have I got an essay for you!

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

In other words: How do you catastrophize? mattgrossistrying.com/p/how-do-you...

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

Yes, the world is ending. But no, I'm not going to rant and rave about it anymore. Instead, I'm going to live my life, enjoy the collapse of human civilization as much as anyone can, and be psychologically prepared to flee when the end is truly nigh. What are you going to do?

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

"If I had a gun": mattgrossistrying.com/p/if-i-had-a...

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Is it appropriate to put such things out there after public tragedies? Is it a bad idea? I don't know. Read it and get angry or don't get angry and tell me or don't tell me.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

After the shooting in NYC yesterday, I wasn't sure I wanted to publish this essay about guns, which I'd mostly written before that news broke. It's called "If I had a gun," and it's a bit of a weird meditation on my own relationship to firearms.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

From "Bred Any Good Rooks Lately?" to "Seen One Taj, Seen Mahal": mattgrossistrying.com/p/seen-one-t...

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

I'm not a polyglot—not even really bilingual—but I live a multilingual life, one that shades from English into Chinese, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Vietnamese and more. And it all began with a truly terrible book of puns.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

Expect cheese: mattgrossistrying.com/p/memories-o...

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

There's a lot of Condé Nast nostalgia in the air, so I figured I'd indulge with a memoir of my time at @bonappetit.bsky.social, back in 2012–2014. What was it really like there?

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

Why I wear women's clothing: mattgrossistrying.com/p/why-i-wear...

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

What's the difference between AI slop and AI sludge? And which one will make your life worse? mattgrossistrying.com/p/ai-sludge-...

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

An argument in favor of the most uncomfortable feeling: mattgrossistrying.com/p/down-with-...

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

I've always had an issue with the concept of pride—not only does it court the wrath of the gods, it's too showy, too one-note, too boring. Me, I prefer shame, the most delicious and interesting of emotions, the one that makes us truly human.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

Today, I'm taking a look at Tom Colicchio's Craft: mattgrossistrying.com/p/craft-the-...

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

Twenty-five years ago I went to a restaurant that totally changed—or maybe clarified—my culinary philosophy, changing how I cook and eat.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

I know why the blue jay screams: mattgrossistrying.com/p/i-know-why...

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

A few months ago, my dad asked me to write a Trying! essay in the mode of a naturalist, so this is what I came up with: a piece that talks about birds, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and what it means to pay attention to the world around us.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

For you, they say, it’s off the table. But it’s not. Violence is always an option: mattgrossistrying.com/p/violence-i...

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

In other words, they take everything—your status, money, networks, voice, citizenship, your moral standing, your high-minded ideals—leaving you with nothing but your own capacity for action: for violence, the one tool the authorities have convinced everyone is theirs alone.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

The authorities push the myth of nonviolence as the only legitimate form of resistance, even as they use violence to punish the nonviolent.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Give me 5–10 minutes alone with the guy, and I can persuade him to drop out of the race. Don't believe me? I did it to Bill de Blasio back in 2022, and I can do it again today. Who among you can make the introduction?

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Look, we all know there's no reason Andrew Cuomo should be running for NYC mayor—nor that he should be doing as well as he has been. And while it may seem like there's nothing we can do to stop him, I have actually found a solution: The solution is me.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

When I hit 20 years, I wrote a story about what I’d learned, and now, six years later, I feel like it’s worth adding to. So here goes: mattgrossistrying.com/p/running-fo...

mattgrossistrying.com

I've been running for 26 years now

Here's what I wish I knew... let's say... 6 years ago? Sure, 6 years ago.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

In that time, I’ve been reflecting on my running life: I was never destined to become a runner, I got to the sport too late in some ways, and recent years have only heightened my sense of both how long I’ve been doing this and how it barely feels like any time at all.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Last November, I tripped during a long run with Old Man Run Club and landed hard on my shoulder. While I shook it off and kept going, it took me _months_ to fully recover. I'm 50, after all—I don't heal overnight anymore.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

In the mid-1990s, Phuong Anh made Q Bar the most important bar in Vietnam—and possibly the world: mattgrossistrying.com/p/q-was-the-...

mattgrossistrying.com

Q was the question she asked

In the mid-1990s, Phuong Anh Nguyen made Q Bar the most important bar in Vietnam—and possibly the world.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

When I learned that its co-founder, Phuong Anh Nguyen, died earlier this month, I felt compelled to pay tribute to her, to the bar, and to that era. So:

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

Back in the mid-1990s, I spent a lot of time at Q Bar in Saigon. I was a bit out of place, was never an insider, but I loved it for what it was, and for the future it imagined for Vietnam.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Celebrity travel shows are bad: mattgrossistrying.com/p/i-just-can...

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

I have loved Stanley Tucci ever since the 1996 movie The Daytrippers, but I just will not—I cannot—watch him go to Italy and eat wonderful things.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

I've been absolutely loving Andor, and when it turned out the final three episodes were written by my old friend Tom Bissell, I called him up to talk about narrative structure, quick deaths, and getting T-boned by Star Wars history. mattgrossistrying.com/p/andor-tom-...

mattgrossistrying.com

We all have a place on the Wheel of Fate

A Q&A with 'Andor' writer Tom Bissell on narrative structure, quick deaths, and getting T-boned by Star Wars history.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Are you Team Horizontal Stripes or Team Vertical Stripes?

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

I like striped shirts and I cannot lie: mattgrossistrying.com/p/i-like-str...

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

This is a 1906 self-portrait of Henri Matisse wearing THE STRIPED T-SHIRT OF MY DREAMS. I'm obsessed with striped tees of ... all stripes, and for today's newsletter I'm digging in to the history of stripes and to their cultural and psychological appeal, from Coco Chanel to Pablo Picasso to Run-DMC.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

This is a 1906 self-portrait of Henri Matisse wearing THE STRIPED T-SHIRT OF MY DREAMS.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Read them ALL in their full, one-paragraph splendor right here: mattgrossistrying.com/p/you-don-t-...

mattgrossistrying.com

You don’t need heirloom tomatoes

A Tuesday special: Five mini-essays in one newsletter!

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Writing isn’t therapy—except when it is: Ignore the elephants, and focus on the zoo; the elephants will take care of themselves.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

The three-celebrity theory: I used to be Martin Short, now I'm Jude Law. Who will I be when I'm old? Who will you be?

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

The opposite of storytelling: The current AI vogue shows all thought leadership is crap.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Dear Afrikaner refugees: Welcome to America, we assume you're all Nazis.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

You don’t need heirloom tomatoes: Beefsteaks are better, be happy with Seiko.

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Matt Gross @worldmatt.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

A special this week: Five mini Trying! essays for the price of one! They are:

“[Family Portrait']” (ca. 1855), W.L. Germon

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