After 55 years, the vibrator continues to inspire devotion, as well as a new podcast: ‘It takes on larger-than-life symbolism’

In a Goop-ified world where one can purchase sleek, luxury vibrators for up to three figures, how has one sex toy that’s existed for 55 years garnered such devotion? It’s a question the sex writer Kate Sloan explores in Making Magic, a new podcast about the clunky, white-and-blue, straight-from-a-70s-porn-set Magic Wand Original Massager.

Sloan first became interested in the Magic Wand when she was a 19-year-old spending her gap year writing a sex toy review blog called Girly Juice. Later, while working at a sex store, Sloan noticed how customers would come back to buy the Magic Wand over and over again, eager to replace their old ones with the same model.

A Hamilton-esque performance extolling the virtues of design software was exactly the wrong kind of corny

The next time you’re sitting through a company-wide meeting, half-listening to a leader drone on about updates or product launches (and hoping they don’t announce layoffs or budget cuts), remember this: at least they’re not rapping.

That’s what happened at Canva Create, a summit held in Los Angeles last week, in honor of Canva, a graphic design company known for helping non-designers produce good-enough flyers to advertise a yard sale or middle school talent show. In LA, Melanie Perkins, co-founder of the $40bn Australian brand, spoke to attendees about “brand-building, maintaining a strong company culture and scaling operations”, per Variety. (Something she knows a lot about: Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, who also spoke at the summit, is an investor and board member of the platform.)

Americans are spending less on weekday lunches, opting instead to save for weekends. Is a once-cherished meal in its death throes?

“The lunch rush is dead,” an NBC News headline announced this week. Blame it on working from home, tighter budgets, inflation or all of the above: transaction data pulled by the digital-payments app Square found that midday food spending was down 3.3% nationwide last year compared with 2019. The decrease was steeper in some cities, including Boston, Atlanta and Dallas.

While a full obit for the humble lunch break might be premature, a recent report from the University of Toronto backed up the hypothesis that Americans want to spend more on weekend luxuries than a lunch bill. The study found that foot traffic in major US cities remains low on workdays, but higher during the weekend.

The actor’s red carpet gown looked a lot like the Palestinian flag, but with a subtle difference

For some, the message Cate Blanchett brought to the Cannes red carpet on Monday rang loud and clear. At first, her form-fitting, off-the-shoulder Jean Paul Gaultier gown – designed by the Colombian-born French designer Haider Ackermann – looked like a simple black dress. But when Blanchett moved, cameras captured the back of the dress, which appeared white. When she lifted her hem, they captured its green inner lining, too. Against the red carpet, Blanchett appeared to be a walking tribute to the Palestinian flag.

It wouldn’t be out of character for the Australian actor. Last November, amid a flurry of silencing of Hollywood figures who spoke out against the atrocities of Israel’s war on Gaza, Blanchett called for a ceasefire and support of refugees at the European parliament.