The Valedictorian Perspective

A semi-regular dispatch on culture, music, design, nature, and the world we’re building.

Daedalus was Icarus’ father.

I f you’re reading this, everything else can wait.

Winter has a way of clarifying things. What holds up. What doesn’t. What can’t be rushed. Pausing long enough to look back on the year—and the last few months—has made me grateful: for your reading, your support, your purchases, and your encouragement.

I spent the holidays at home in Vermont, with family up for Christmas and days that asked very little of me. We cooked and ate well. I finished a book that had been waiting on the nightstand. There were long stretches of quiet—time in the hot tub as the air cooled, walks with the dog while the light thinned early, afternoons that didn’t insist on being filled. I saw friends, snowboarded when the weather cooperated, and stayed in when it didn’t. There was comfort in not leaving, in choosing familiarity over movement, in letting the season do what it does best: slow everything down.

Staying put sharpens my sense of what good actually feels like. Warmth without excess. Care without spectacle. Comfort without indulgence. The details you notice when nothing is competing for your attention. The way a place holds you when you finally settle into it.

Thank you for being here at the top of the year.

In this issue:

– A film that wasn’t what it promised, but was better for it
– New music, old favorites, and what’s been on repeat
– Books about money, espionage, displacement, and consequence
– Rituals that make the everyday feel considered
– Make your own damn matcha

01 / Valedictorian Updates

W e've been refining silhouettes, testing weights, and reconsidering finishes—making decisions about what belongs now, and just as importantly, what doesn’t belong yet. The focus has been on details most people won’t notice.

The next collection is taking shape quietly. Just a few pieces. Core expression and balance. Small adjustments that change how something feels once it’s lived in. Nothing flashy. Just a continued commitment to doing things the right way rather than the fast way.

Currently at the printer:

Three shirts
Two Sweatshirts
Three totes

We’ve also been working with a photographer whose eye and taste aligns with the world we’re building. I can’t wait to share the work.

We’re building quietly. Carefully. With intention.

Or visit The Valedictorian Store to see what’s live now.

We found it on the third shelf, tucked behind a copy of Kafka's...

02 / New Music and What We’re Playing On Repeat

E very great experience deserves a soundtrack. This month, we reorganized Valedictorian’s Spotify into a master playlist and three pinned seasonal acts:

Act I: Arrival
Act II: Presence
Act III: After Hours

Give them a shot. They’re meant to be lived with—not shuffled past.

New + Notable Album: Tame Impala — Deadbeat

Deadbeat was released in October 2025, which slightly stretches the definition of “new,” but some records don’t share the same arrival and impact dates.

I’ve been a fan of Tame Impala since Currents, and Kevin Parker continues to be one of the most emotionally open and vulnerable artists working today. What he does so well—consistently—is translate his interior life into sound: introspection, relationship tension and doubt, disappointment, anxiety, growth, even the half-formed conversations we rehearse with friends. His writing is so clearly rooted in lived experience that listening feels like companionship. The production has evolved alongside it—leaning into heavier, dub-influenced beats and rave-adjacent vibes—never chasing novelty, always sharpening clarity, becoming its own emotional outlet.

Deadbeat is an exceptionally listenable record. It’s cathartic without droning on, comfortable without becoming directionless or stuck, supportive while still expecting something of you. The production carries a looseness and spontaneity that mirrors shifting moods, before settling into a quiet sense of contentment. It’s okay that everything isn’t perfect. That, in itself, feels like emotional progress.

I love this record for the same reason I’ve loved every Tame Impala release: each one examines doubt and uncertainty in the human experience. Deadbeat does exactly that—and it’s reassuring to check in and find someone else learning to articulate the very thing you’ve been working through.

Notable Singles

Fela Kuti — No Water No Enemy
Sonnyjim — 24 Karat
Slick Rick — Angelic
Ragz Originale ft. BAMBII — Ice
FKA twigs ft. Pa Salieu - Honda

Album to Revisit: Beck - Midnite Vultures

Beck made an incredibly prescient, funky, hedonistic—and crucially—human album. Now more than twenty-five years old, Midnite Vultures was released pre-9/11, before the U.S. reached its military apex and before our national catharsis fully fused with late-stage capitalism. That is to say, it arrived during my generation’s innocence.

What’s remarkable is Beck’s ability to inhabit the materialist dystopian future we were already drifting toward and render it playful, indulgent, and still oddly elegant. Drugs, prescription drugs, loneliness, romance, lust, relationships, and capitalism move through the record not as warnings, but as guides and textures—strange, excessive, and familiar. The absurdity is intentional. So is the joy. You can feel what you want. You can do what you want. The album is a guidepost, not a guardrail: here’s what might be fun—do what you like. At the very least, try something.

Listening to it now, Midnite Vultures is more than pop—always was—and far more than nostalgia. It’s a record about possibility: choosing to believe that something vital still exists, even inside excess and contradiction. The album works like a pair of blue-blockers over great beats, refracting the present just enough to let it align, even briefly, with our own slightly askew interpretation of it—while singing along on the walk to work.

Artists in Heavy Rotation

RUBII, Fred again, A$AP Rocky, The Alchemist, Conductor Williams.

Find these and more on the Valedictorian Playlist.

She reminded me of every woman Gabo had ever written about.

03 / Books We’re Into Right Now

A curated shelf for clearer thinking, deeper feeling, and sharper creativity.

Jonas Salk: A Life — Catherine Arnold

Jonas Salk unquestionably improved public health in the United States and around the world. From polio to influenza, and later in his life merging the sciences with the humanities. Salk believed progress required innovation, meaning, impact, and responsibility—and that it could ultimately be beautiful. His institution became home to both this vision to restore the human spirit, and to the cost of staying the course. Catherine Arnold does an excellent job helping the reader learn who Jonas Salk was, but deepening our understanding of what it means to remain utterly committed to a life’s mission—and the costs, discipline, and clarity that commitment demands.

The Damascus Station — David McCloskey

Spy novels let you explore a world most of us never see, offering plausible explanations for why societies—and the people inside them—are the way they are. The Damascus Station is about good spying: disciplined tradecraft, clear objectives, and a moral landscape where, for the most part, good actors and bad ones are identifiable. But it’s also about the necessity of that clarity.

McCloskey understands that espionage may be systematized, operationalized, and justified through ideology, but it is always carried out by people—people who live with the understanding that they only get one life. The novel captures that tension beautifully: the pull of duty, country, belief, and ambition set against individual identity. When ideology collides with identity, the work becomes less noble and altogether more consequential.

The consequences here are both geopolitical and personal (aren’t they always), and that is where the book earns its weight. Momentum becomes the tide that overrides judgment, eroding choice until decisions feel inevitable.

The Psychology of Money — Morgan Housel

What would happen if you thought about money without emotion? If you had an honest conversation with yourself about why it matters to you—not markets or jobs or mortgages, but your actual relationship to it. Do you like it? Would you change it? What would you want it to become? The Psychology of Money isn’t about numbers; it’s about behavior, patience, and perspective. Once you understand your motivations, the mechanics become clearer. The book doesn’t tell you what to want—it helps you figure out why you want it, and how to act accordingly.

04 / Film: The movies we've watched and returned to

T he films we’re watching and rewatching, the ones that shape our taste, match our mood, and make us feel something real.

Marty Supreme (2025)

It wasn’t the film I expected, and it definitely wasn’t the film the marketing promised.

It was entertaining, and at times genuinely fun to watch—especially every scene Tyler is in. The acting is brilliant. Timothée should win an Oscar. I think I might love Odessa. Gwyneth is amazing. Kevin O’Leary is entitled and horrible—the perfect villain. Josh Safdie is a great director. (Good Time.)

What nags at me is how closely Timothée’s character mirrors the film’s own IRL moment: a figure propelled by charisma, belief, and momentum, whose confidence begins to outpace clarity and discipline. Watching the movie during the awards run-up—amid the campaigning, the certainty that this must be great—made it difficult to separate the work from the narrative surrounding it.

At its core, Marty Supreme isn’t about triumph. It’s not a zany, hype-driven rise story. It’s about endurance and erosion—about what happens when belief in one’s own worthiness overwhelms the relationships that sustain it. Ambition curdles not because it wants too much, but because it begins to exclude everything else.

Materialists (2025)

Materialists was good.

I watched it at home, streaming over two nights, after both my kid’s bedtime and mine. I’d heard just enough about it to be interested. I like Pedro Pascal (who doesn’t), I was Dakota Johnson–curious, and hopeful for Chris Evans in a different kind of suit. It was enough to make me curious about the trigonometry of that love triangle.

What it turned out to be was an emotionally mature, fun, and relatable film about connection—about managing desire while staying true to yourself. Pedro Pascal’s character isn’t what you expect from a wealthy, maybe-nepo-baby bon vivant. He’s open, self-aware, and emotionally fluent—surprisingly generous, too. Dakota Johnson brings a strong sense of self and clarity about what she wants, while still allowing for uncertainty and protecting her own decision-making. Chris Evans’ character, meanwhile, is rewarded for learning, adjusting, and growing without losing his sincerity or idealism. We should all be so lucky.

Each character is looking for connection, and each is honest about what they want and what they’re realistically able to offer. Relational conflict is handled the way it should be: with words, in real conversation. It’s almost… dare I say, a model.

And not for nothing, New York looks good. It’s a very pleasant place to spend time, especially in the company of characters this thoughtful—and attractive.

The moonlight lit the snow like street lamps.

05 / Food & Drink — Taste, Texture, Atmosphere

T hese are the flavors and rituals shaping our mood this season, the ones that uplift us, ground us, and influence how the Valedictorian experience will feel.

Make Your Own Damn Matcha

Most of December was—and January has turned out to be—a matcha month.

This has become non-negotiable for me. I gave up coffee. In its place: matcha. Nature abhors a vacuum. An ancient green-tea elixir. Gentler on my stomach and my nerves. Awakening, but attuned. Like me.

Warm bowl. Fine powder. Warm milk alternative in a pot. Water just off the boil. Whisked until the texture lands somewhere between silk and foam. Vegetal, slightly sweet, grounding. It offers color, aroma, flavor, caffeine without the jitters—companionship, ritual—and demands nothing in return.

Small choices shape atmosphere. Food and drink aren’t fuel—they’re signals to your nervous system.

Well… then call it Saag Tofu.

I’ve been making a version of J. Kenji López-Alt’s creamy vegan saag—warm, pretty, comforting, nutrient-dense, and incredibly simple. All the reasons for my daughter to like it, and yet… It’s restorative in part because it’s so easy: greens cooked down until wilted and warm, spices blooming gently in oil, tofu standing in for paneer. And here we are. I know. Tofu, standing in for paneer.

I swap the milk alternatives for coconut milk, borrowing from Priya Krishna, whose coconut-forward approach brings a soft richness and glowing sweetness to the dish. The result is lush but light, grounding without being heavy. Fragrant, earthy, and quietly satisfying—the kind of food that slows you down while you’re eating it.

This is everyday cooking at its best. Nourishing, repeatable, riffable. I’ve made it successfully with ground spices instead of seeds, and with more than a few variations on greens.

I keep coming back to it for the same reason I return to certain records: I like them—and eventually, my daughter might too.

06 / Wellness — Mind, Body, Spirit

W ellness is shifting from aesthetics to regulation: nervous system care, breathwork, and rituals that slow you down and bring you back to yourself.

Upgrade Your Gray Matter, 'Cause One Day it May Matter

Meditation each morning. Short, steady yoga most days. Walking the dog twice daily, regardless of weather. Meals kept simple. Journaling often enough that the habit matters more than what’s written. A schedule that stays largely the same, even when it could bend.

What’s surprised me about routine is how the mind reacts as the nervous system settles. The gray matter, updates. Calm can feel unfamiliar at first—not because something is wrong, but because urgency has been the default for so long. Over time, ritual does its work. Focus sharpens. Creativity feels less forced. Energy becomes steadier.

This is what structure offers when it’s done with care: not control, but permission. Permission to slow down, to pay attention, and to build without burning.

Palo Santo

Palo Santo has become a staple of my daily routine.

Just like showering or brushing my teeth, it signals that a new part of the day has started. I light it in the morning before work, or in the afternoon when I need to reset. The burn is rich and sweet, grounding without being heavy. The smoke rises slowly, hangs for a moment, then disappears.

Like matcha, Palo Santo has become a companion—present during my most focused, productive, and creative hours. Watching the smoke move and taking it in creates a settling calm. It shifts the mood from performance to being. From urgency to attention.

It’s a small ritual, but it does something important: it marks time. It creates a threshold. It reminds the nervous system that this moment is different from the last one.

So, go get some Palo Santo. Just make sure it’s responsibly sourced.

07 / Closing Thoughts

This season is about perspective. About attuning to what matters.

That’s why ritual has become essential for me. It creates stability. A place steady enough to take risks elsewhere. Ritual becomes a lighthouse when you’re willing to leave parts of your history behind, in service of a future you’re still learning how to inhabit.

It’s what you return to when you’re becoming someone new.

That’s what winter is for.

Thank you for reading, for paying attention, and for being part of this early chapter.

Your perspective shapes ours. If something resonated, surprised you, or opened a door you didn't expect, I'd love to hear about it. Reply to this email and tell me what stood out or what you would like to see more of.

Saúde,
Haven

Copyright (C) *2026* *The Valedictorian*. All rights reserved.

info@thevaledictorianhotel.com  |  www.thevaledictorianhotel.com