Up and to the Right→ Resting Rich Face → Nuke Karastan

Hey Neighbor. True story. A man in his forties stands atop a wildflower-covered mountain north of Seattle talking on his phone. “It’s been two weeks,” he says. “If I give you a name, can a friend get my key at the front desk?” The answer is yes. He thanks whoever is on the line and offers an apologetic non-apology.

“I never forget to water the plants. Not sure why I just thought of it.”

➺ Thanks to “Kate B.” for the anecdote above. If you’ve overheard or, let’s be honest, said something similarly unrelatable, please share.

➺ If you haven’t read The Shah of Shahs – Kapuscinski’s masterpiece about the (attempted) founding of a “second America” in the Middle East – consider it assigned.

Upper Middle’s “Dinner Playlist” Survey is our attempt to find out what people want to listen while pretending their friends know how to cook. Results and dope recs will be shared with survey participants and, as always, with members.

TASTE ❧ Hand Woven

In the early 1980s, Persian Rugs (or Oriental, w/e) pulled themselves out from under WASPs’ Shaker ladder chairs and shimmied under Lucite cocktail tables pinned under copies of The Hotel New Hampshire and The Joy of Sex. The shift—from wall-to-wall to hand-knotted—was driven by educated refugees from Tehran: Jews, Baháʼís, and secular Muslims toting rolled-up Sarouks.

After the 1979 Revolution (“Reagan’s Falafail”), Iranians clustered in Westwood (“Tehrangeles”), Sugar Land, and Kings Point. These were surgeons and industrialists starting from close to zero. Rugs offered a shortcut: high margins and unmet demand. At the time, Ivy Leaguers who’d made the trip to smoke opium in Isfahan had the real shit, but most preppies had Karastan rugs made in North Carolina. They coveted genuine Kashans. By the mid-’80s, tea-soaked showrooms were stacked with $25K Nains. Architectural Digest told readers to “build the room around the rug.”

But After the Great Recession, the liquidation signs got real. Sanctions killed margins. Millennials settled for small-footprint apartments and minimalism – trading down for Kilims. Today, it’s a Persian rug buyer’s market on LiveAuctioneers and Invaluable. Now^[1] would be a good time to buy.

➺ Much of Lizzie Post’s office attire advice is solid, but… “If your shirt has a curved hem, tuck it in” is a bad take. ➺ People talking about their couches are always talking about themselves. ➺ Gutcheck your daydreams with the Coffee Beans Procedure. ➺ Short shopping list for the big J. Crew blowout: lightweight, lipstick red trench, pointelle sweater, pocket cardi, piped 5” shorts, double-breasted linen suit jacket (thrash it).

STATUS ❧ Figments

WBut she’s not neutral. Not really. She’s composed. “Resting Bitch Face” is for the non-generative poors^[2]—women who haven’t been trained to look wealthy just by having a direct gaze, a symmetrical mouth, and a brow flatter than a Darien garden bed. She doesn’t just look real; she looks like she shops at The RealReal. 

In The Managed Heart (the book that wrecked a thousand Millennial marriages), sociologist Arlie Hochschild argues that “publicly observable facial and bodily display” constitutes a form of emotional labor particular to woman operating in settings where composure is valued. In 2020, R. Thora Bjornsdottir tested this theory by having people guess strangers’ socio-economic status based solely on their neutral expressions. His participants did it easily. 

Psychologist Daniel Albohn called the subtle tells that made that possible “subtle affective residue.” It coats our new machines like rust.

➺ Being wrong about how much your friends drink is literally dangerous. ➺ Vegetarians care a loooot about what you think. ➺ It’s no longer possible to pretend sports are a meritocracy.^[3] ➺ Normalize going to the gym in street clothes, picking up very heavy shit for five minutes and leaving. 

Recommend Upper Middle to a friend (or pay for a subscription) to receive your free copy of The Upper Middle Guide to Real Estate, a sumptuously designed and comprehensively reported investigation into your borderline sexual attraction to three bedroom New England colonials.

MONEY ❧ Ask Mr. Market

Ask Mr. Market is authored by Andrew Feinberg, a retired hedge fund manager who has beaten the S&P 500 for the last 30 years. He is the author/co-author of four books on personal finance.

Dear Mr. Market,

The WSJ had an article last week on MAGA funds. One is matching the market, the other is getting kicked in the teeth. The whole thing left me confused. Can you help?

Puzzled in Pittsburgh

Dear Puzzled,

Two big takeaways here:

1. People should remain fully invested no matter who is president. 

2. When investors use political or social filters, things get weird.

The underperformer in question, Point Bridge America First ETF (symbol: MAGA), invests in the 150 S&P 500 companies whose political action committees and employees are most committed to Republican causes. The result: An ETF with 4.37% of its assets in technology and a massive 11.36% in energy. Small wonder that it has trailed the market by 44 points since its inception in 2018. 

This is what happens when funds prioritize signaling to their constituencies over common sense. Funds built around social responsibility or environmentalist tenets sometimes underperform as well – as do Christian funds that refuse to invest in sin stocks. The Timothy Plan Large/Mid Cap Growth A Fund, which practices biblically responsible investing, has underperformed by an ungodly 6.9% a year over the past five years. If I were running the fund, I might honestly consider a deal with the devil.

The other fund mentioned by the WSJ, the American Conservative Values ETF (ACVF), boycotts 38 companies for being too woke (or whatever). Among them is Progressive Corp., which has a history of giving to liberal causes. Unfortunately for ACVF, Progressive has been a market monster; it’s up 52-fold since mid-2000.

I own the stock, but not for political reasons. That’s probably as it should be.

Sincerely,
Mr. Market

➺ “Whatever you're working on, at the end of the day, leave some work for tomorrow.” ➺ Holding the Mona Lisa hostage is a good negotiating position. ➺ Why you should get a real estate agent to give you access to MLS. ➺ England finds the backside of the Laffer Curve.

[2] You read that correctly: The whole “Resting Bitch Face” thing is, ultimately, an accusation of classlessness or, interpreted slightly differently, a failure to do the emotional labor associated with class. I know woman for whom this not a joke. Not at all.

[3] The idea – deeply embedded in American culture – that sports are a meritocracy has always been nonsensical to anyone who has played sports at a high level. Playing fields look flat on TV, but they almost never really are.

[4] Flo don’t fuck around.