The Valedictorian Perspective

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

I'd live in that memory. The linen, the view from the sea wall, the plates clinking. Everything either golden, white or blue.

I f you’re reading this, it's not too late.

Most of the meaningful relationships in our lives aren't built through intensity. They're built through proximity. Time spent in the same places with the same people. Returning to the same ideas. Listening to the same record every spring. Walking the same route often enough that it became yours.

I think we underestimate what repeated exposure does to us.

The conversation gets easier because you've had it before. Hosting friends becomes less intimidating because you've done it enough times to stop worrying about getting everything right. Your taste sharpens because you've spent years paying attention. Even being alone becomes different. Your own thoughts start feeling less like interruptions and more like company.

The relationships that shape us aren't limited to people.

We develop relationships with neighborhoods, restaurants, books, albums, art, films, routines, and cities. We return to them often enough that they stop feeling like places or objects and start feeling familiar. We choose the worlds we spend time in, and over time those worlds begin shaping ours.

That's what I've found myself writing about over these last six issues. Not recommendations so much as relationships with art, culture and places.

The albums that stayed with me. The films that changed the way I see people and the world. The restaurants that revealed someone's philosophy. The coffee shops that became an extension of my living room. The books that gave language to feelings and paradoxes I didn't know existed.

None of them revealed themselves all at once. They changed me because I kept coming back. Because I needed to return to them again and again before I understood what they were trying to show me.

They're the things I return to when I want to remember who I was, understand who I've become, or imagine who I might become next.

They've become the cultural artifacts of my life.

In this issue:

• Drake’s Maid of Honour, and a return to Bazooka Tooth
• A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millett
• Toner and Mid90s
• Plus The James Beard Awards, Coffee Shops and the Unplugged Walk

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

A curated mix shaping the Valedictorian mood. Layered, intentional, exploratory and fun. Built for long drives, nights out, and creative inspiration. It’s the soundtrack to the lifestyle, brand, and world we’re building.

New + Noteworthy Album: Drake's MAID OF HONOUR

Drake's Maid of Honour is the first Drake project I've really spent time with in years

There are obvious reasons why.

The Maid on Honour is full of songs that work. The hooks are strong, the production is addictive, and tracks like "Hoe Phase," "Cheetah Print," and "New Bestie" are certified bangers.

What frustrated me was how often the album asks you to wait a little longer, because again and again, Drake's worst instincts arrive just before his best ones.

"BBW" opens with the kind of singing that makes me want to skip the track entirely. Then the beat switches and the song suddenly finds its purpose. "Princess" follows a similar path. What initially feels clunky and grating flips into the song people can enjoy.

When Drake starts explaining his feelings directly, I immediately become skeptical. The bleeding-heart confessions have never felt genuine or healthy even, and there’s too much of it. The music begins to feel smaller because of it.

The stronger songs get to the feeling they’re supposed to create faster and trust the listener more.

"Outside Tweaking" is the best example. It skips the sentimental setup and gets straight to the emotional core. The song is an emotional weekend away, built on boredom, loneliness, overstimulation, and unreliable dopamine. It's the best song on the album.

Maid of Honour is populated by people and anecdotes trying and answer what happens when the fun ends, and how do we update to make stable fun.

Drake doesnt fully answer it.

Notable Singles

Nation of Language - "Weak in Your Light "
Peter Cat Recording Co. - "Memory Box"
Open Mike Eagle ft. Hemlock Ernst- "Unfinished Concrete Initials"
Total Giovanni - "Human Animal"
The Polish Ambassador ft. Mr. Lif, Nereo - "Let the Rythem Just"
Spook, Vayda- "EAT!"

Album to Return to: Aesop Rock "Bazooka Tooth" (2003)

Twenty-three years later, Bazooka Tooth still brings me back to the feeling of listening to it the summer it was released. The sense that there was an entire creative world waiting to be explored, that anything was possible. Sometimes it feels as though those memories have been imprinted on the record. Other times I wonder if the album simply creates that feeling every time I hear it.

Bazooka Tooth feels like the secret world hidden inside New York.

Public transit. Machinery. Sirens. Bright, abrasive sounds that somehow become musical. Every track feels like another neighborhood where every day becomes an adventure once you leave the house. Another late-night walk while the players change around you. "Easy," "No Jumper Cables," "Kill the Messenger," "Frijoles," and "Mars Attacks" aren't just songs. They're coordinates.

There are moments, especially on "Frijoles," where I feel like I'm wandering through fsociety's arcade. Flashing lights. Pinball. Popcorn. Big Gulps. Left of center politics.

That's what made Definitive Jux feel so exciting in the early 2000s.

The label was creating a point of view, and every artist on the roster was contributing to it. Together, they were building a world and filling it with ideas.

"We're Famous" is one of the best lectures I've heard on staying genuine as an artist while paying homage to the people who inspired you. You earn your place by making work worthy of their respect.

That idea stayed with me. So did the worldview of independence, curiosity, creative freedom, skepticism toward institutions, and the belief that making something meaningful matters more than making something popular. Better yet, make it sound incredible. That's classic Aes.

Every spring and summer I find myself putting Bazooka Tooth back on. Part of it is nostalgia. Mostly, though, I just love visiting this world in warm weather.

Artists in Heavy Rotation

Peter Cat Recording Co., Gucci Mane, snowsa, White Denim, Boldy James.

Find these and our pinned seasonal acts on the Valedictorian Playlist.

There's a sort of sense memory there. Neither of us corrected her when she said she remembered us being there.

03 / Books We’re Into Right Now

A curated shelf for clearer thinking, deeper feeling, and sharper creativity. These are the ideas shaping the lifestyle, brand, and world we’re building.

Fiction: A Children's Bible by, Lydia Millet

I've read Lydia Millet's A Children's Bible twice. It was shortlisted for the 2020 National Book Award.

A group of children and their affluent, self-absorbed parents gather for a summer vacation. Then a storm arrives. Roads wash out. The power disappears. Food becomes scarce. Outside the vacation house, society begins to unravel.

Catastrophe arrives the way it often does in real life. One inconvenience quietly becomes the next. It rains for days. The basement floods. The roof leaks. One crisis cascades naturally into another until life gradually becomes unrecognizable.

The children recognize this long before their parents.

That's the emotional center of the novel, and it reveals itself over and over again in the interactions between the children and the adults.

While the adults retreat into denial, alcohol, drugs, and sex, reassured by the learned expectation that someone else will restore order, the children begin adapting. They make plans. They care for one another. They search for safety. They accept that the world has changed and begin deciding what comes next.

Their transformation is remarkable.

Early in the novel, they invent games to avoid being identified by their parents. They're embarrassed by their "glory days" parents and want independence, distance, a world of their own. By the end, they're inventing games and routines to keep the adults engaged in the basic tasks of living. Eating. Washing. Moving. Caring for themselves.

The children don't become resilient because society falls apart. They become resilient because they've already learned not to rely on the adults around them.

It's a devastating transformation that Millet barely examines beyond the practical implications of the additional work and cognitive burden placed on the children.

When the apocalypse comes, it will be the people willing to accept that the world has already changed who survive.

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.

New + Noteworthy Film: Tuner Directed by, Daniel Roher, in theatres

Tuner is fun, and comfortable and that's a compliment. It's the kind of movie you can actually relax into.

The soundtrack is great. The city looks beautiful. Every character is enjoyable to spend time with. Even when people are making terrible decisions, they're doing it with enough charm and charisma that you don't mind following along.

At the center of it all is the charmingly tragic Nicky.

Played by Leo Woodall, Nicky is talented, mysterious, self-reliant, loyal, and perpetually one bad decision away from another complication. Things tend to work out for him. For Nicky, and people like him, his gift and his curse are essentially the same thing.

The film's most interesting question belongs to Ruthie. Not whether Nicky is a good person. That's never really in doubt. The question is whether goodness compensates for instability. Does it matter that his heart is in the right place? Are good intentions enough to build a life with someone?

The movie never forces an answer, but we get the impression Ruthie is every bit as forgiving, and impressed, as we'd hoped she'd be.

Beneath the charm and escapism sits a surprisingly adult observation. Some people bring inconvenience and disruption into your life. Sometimes they also bring loyalty, warmth, excitement, and joy.

The difficult part is deciding whether one outweighs the other.

Fortunately, Tuner is less interested in judgment than enjoyment, and so was I. For two hours, I was happy to live in its world.

Films worth returning to: mid90s Directed by, Jonah Hill (2018)

Mid90s is not a movie about skateboarding. Skateboarding gives the film its aesthetic and the mechanism to drive the story forward, but it's really about growing up.

What makes Mid90s work is how well Jonah Hill captures the adolescent search for acceptance and exactly how friendships feel when you're young. To Stevie, Ray, Fuckshit, Ruben, and Fourth Grade aren't simply friends. They're older, cooler, funnier, and more confident than he is. They possess a freedom he hasn't experienced yet, and the film rightly romanticizes them.

The way they move through the city, taking up space. The way they talk in their own language. The way they skate. They have swagger and experience. They've lived more life. For a kid whose world has felt small, they look like the answer to every question.

What Stevie gradually discovers is that the group isn't made up of heroes. It's made up of possibilities.

Ray channels his energy into skating. He takes himself seriously enough to pursue something and possesses an empathy that quietly sets him apart. Fuckshit is just as charismatic and talented, but his answer to frustration is drinking, smoking, and chasing the next distraction. Ruben shifts constantly between insecurity and confidence, generosity and cruelty, often within the same scene. He's also the first person to bring Stevie into the group, teaching him its social rules and making belonging possible.

Together, they offer Stevie something his home life never could: different ways of becoming an adult. Different ways of responding to pain. Different futures he might choose for himself.

For the first time, Stevie can see that adulthood isn't one thing. He can choose the type of person he wants to be.

The group doesn't solve Stevie's problems. His brother is still his brother. His home life remains complicated. Growing up is still painful.

What they give him is acceptance and from that acceptance comes perspective.

I could've spent all day watching the sun and sand glisten off her.

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.

James Beard Awards 2026

The James Beard Foundation announced its 2026 Restaurant and Chef Award winners this month, honoring restaurants, chefs, bakers, bars, beverage professionals, and hospitality leaders shaping American food culture.

I always enjoy reading through, and when possible, visiting the winners.

The Beard Awards help create a national map of excellence, but more importantly they offer a snapshot of the people, styles, and ideas shaping how America eats, drinks, gathers, and experiences hospitality.

This year's winners include Michael Tusk of Quince in San Francisco, who won Outstanding Chef. Kalaya in Philadelphia won Outstanding Restaurant. Lei, a Chinese American wine bar in New York, won Best New Restaurant. Wild Crumb in Bozeman won Outstanding Bakery. Loma in Providence won Best New Bar. Providence in Los Angeles won Outstanding Hospitality, while Kato earned Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program.

Restaurants are one of the few places where ideas become physical. Someone's taste becomes a room. Someone's memories become a menu. A relationship with a parent or grandparent becomes a recipe. An organization's values become hospitality.

What struck me while exploring this year's winners is that each begins with a clear idea of how the world should feel, then builds the room, the menu, and the hospitality around that idea.

Kalaya looks less like a restaurant than a portal into Nok Suntaranon's childhood in Southern Thailand. JŪN centers the primary ingredient in every dish, a simple decision that makes the menu feel immediately approachable and grounded in Houston. Lei presents itself with almost no explanation at all, carrying the confidence of a place that trusts the work to speak for itself, an unmistakably New York quality.

Not every point of view will resonate with every guest. Stages in New Hampshire is so committed to local ingredients and regional identity that the entire experience feels built around a particular interpretation of New England. Whether that vision speaks to you almost becomes secondary. The commitment itself is what makes it memorable.

The strongest restaurants know exactly who they are and everything they do stems from that understanding.

Nancy Silverton's Lifetime Achievement Award feels especially fitting in that context. Across four decades of baking, cooking, writing, and restaurant building, she's helped shape how Americans think about bread, hospitality, and craft. Her career reminds us that the most enduring restaurants don't simply serve great food. They express a point of view with remarkable consistency.

Ultimately, these awards are invitations. Every year they add a few new destinations to the map.

On Coffee Shops

I spend a lot of time in coffee shops. For the price of a coffee, you gain entry into another world.

Every coffee shop creates its own world. The music changes. The light changes. The furniture changes. The menu changes. Even the way a drink is prepared changes. Some spaces feel ambitious, built on principles and run on ethos. Others feel like they're designed simply to be a container for your ideas and creativity.

Some are built for conversation and introspection. Others are built for laptops and productivity. Each develops its own physics. How quickly people talk and move. The flow from the door to the counter to the waiting area. Its own rhythms. Its own cast of characters. I've watched baristas move from one coffee shop to another in the same neighborhood. Some leave and some eventually come back.

Spend enough time moving between them and you realize your choice is less about what you'd like to order than the world you'd like to spend time inside.

I go for the energy that proximity gives. Proximity to other people, other ideas, other lives. I go for the opportunity to observe. To imagine other people's experiences. To see what I can read in their faces. It's a reminder that the world is always larger than whatever happens to be occupying my attention.

The longer you keep showing up, the more the coffee shop begins to recognize you, even if nobody knows your name. A nod from the barista. The quiet acknowledgment that you've shared enough time together to become part of one another's routines. Showing up means the coffee shop has become part of your world. Being recognized means, in some small way, you've begun to exist in theirs.

There's something meaningful about that. You've crossed the velvet rope. You've earned your ticket.

Coffee shops are one of the few places where you're allowed to participate in public life without needing much of a reason to be there. You don't have to know anyone. You don't have to accomplish anything. There’s no invite list. No RSVP. No reservation. For the price of a coffee or matcha, you're welcomed into a world where conversations begin, businesses are started, relationships deepen, books are written, and art quietly gets made.

They're the closest thing we have to the cafés of Vienna, the salons of Paris, our coffee shops where writers, artists, musicians, and students find themselves sitting a few feet from one another. Places where culture is created.

I’m so grateful to places like these.

It's more than just romance, but yes, obsessed.

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.

The Unplugged walk

Most of the time, there's something between you and the day. Music. A podcast. A phone call. Something that fills the space and gives your attention somewhere to go before you've had the chance to decide for yourself. An unplugged walk removes that barrier.

You hear where you are. The street. The wind. Your own footsteps. Passersby. Nothing is directing your attention, so it begins settling on its own. You become more a part of your environment.

More importantly, you're left in the company of yourself. That's where self-companionship begins.

Most of us spend very little quality time alone with our own thoughts without inviting someone else or a device into the conversation. The moment there's empty space, we fill it. We reach for headphones, a playlist, an audiobook, or a podcast, inviting other people's thoughts and voices to narrate our time. We consume someone else's thoughts before we've had the chance to notice our own.

At first, your thoughts come through more clearly than you expect. Some are repetitive. Some aren't especially useful. But over time they begin sorting themselves according to their importance. The same questions return. The same emotions surface. The same desires keep asking for your attention.

Sometimes you solve something. Usually, you simply become more familiar with yourself.

The more time you spend quietly with yourself, the more you begin recognizing what genuinely occupies your attention and what was simply passing through. You stop reacting to every thought as though it deserves equal weight. Some appear only briefly. Others keep returning until you finally listen, and sometimes they don't leave until you act.

Twenty minutes is long enough to notice the difference.

The longer I keep taking unplugged walks, the more they remind me that the quality of my relationship with myself depends on how often we spend time together.

07 / Closing Thoughts

T hat's it for this issue.

I've always loved sharing things I enjoy. I started this newsletter because I wanted a place to share those things. A great album. A good movie. A sentence that hits.

Music, film, books, food and beverage, places, and experiences that felt worthy. The best cultural experiences make life feel larger, more connected, and more important. They give us perspective, excitement, comfort, and occasionally become part of who we are.

This newsletter has become a place for me to explore and share those things. Unexpectedly, it's also become a place to better understand why they matter in the first place. It's become a genuine creative practice, something I've longed for and now look forward to.

Six issues in, I'm really glad I started.

To everyone who has read an issue, replied to a newsletter, shared a recommendation, sent a text, liked a post, messaged, emailed, or mentioned it: you're so dope. Thank you.

Saúde,
Haven