On My Mind: Breaking Up With My Baggu
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So I broke up with myBaggu crescent bag. She had been a loyal near-daily companion for five years, but over time we’d grown apart. Also, I had a wandering eye for the many other nylon accessories out there.
With summer travels on the horizon (a few days in Basque country with friends, followed by a solo trekking stint in the European Alps), I wanted to replace her with a lightweight and practical cross-body bag that didn’t look too boring or dorky or basic (the real issue with crescent bags at this point — they’re useful but also simplyeverywhere). I also decided that the new bag in my life would have a large enough internal volume to fit a laptop inside.
After considering options from brands like Topologie (too bulky) and Peak Design (too camera dad) and Klattermussen (too small), I settled on Montbell’s silky little Ultralight Mono Shoulder Bag. You can wear her cross-body or as a handbag; the strap is highly adjustable and the fabric slouches without ever looking weirdly baggy or crinkly. When not in use, she packs away into a tiny pocket. She is large enough for my MacBook and several other small items.
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Montbell has a surprisingly small U.S. presence compared to other trendy Japanese sports and outdoor brands. You can only order its products from its website, although they occasionally pop into stock at independent outdoor retailers. My bag arrived within a couple of days with very reasonable shipping fees. We’re already very happy together.
Here’s everything else I’ve seen recently …
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Three friends and I went camping upstate over the Juneteenth long weekend, piling into an overpriced yet tiny rental car with Maryland license plates that we picked up in downtown Manhattan. Trunk space was limited, and getting to Avis from Brooklyn is annoying with coolers and sleeping bags in tow, so everybody packed light. I took the opportunity to test out this inflatable Therm-a-Rest mattress that’s intended for backpacking, and I was by far the most comfortable person in the tent (some fellow campers opted for yoga mats and lived to regret it). Plush and generously sized, it would make a nice guest mattress while taking up barely any precious apartment storage space. As for hiking, it isn’t as lightweight as other backpacking pads I own, but the extra comfort might be worth the extra grams.
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On Sunday, we drove down from our campsite to catch Black Country New Road and Horse Girl play among the hills and sculptures of Storm King, just as the sun set and the fireflies came out to sparkle. It was a special show at a unique venue that allowed us to chill in our Helinox chairs and admire our surroundings between acts. These chairs are just sosmall and light yet surprisingly comfortable; we were able to fit all of ours into one tote bag. I know they are expensive, but I do believe them to be worth the money.Alps Mountaineering makes a solid dupe.
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Melbourne brand Crumpler has this 2000s aesthetic that’s very dear to me as a former resident of the city. It makes lots of useful pouches and bags; I recently purchased one of these tiny, long-discontinued neoprene ones for$12 secondhand on eBay. It’s the absolute perfect size for my Ricoh GR III digital camera, protecting it from splashes and bumps as it travels around with me all summer.
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I got my nails painted orange (left hand) and blue (right hand) a couple of hours before the first round of the NBA Finals. The Knicks went on to win the championship for the first time since 1973. Coincidence? I doubt it. These were the exact lucky Essie shades that the technician (not a basketball fan, confused by my choice) used, if anyone’s wondering. They started to chip a bit around game three, but it wasliterallya nail-biter, so maybe that’s not Essie’s fault. The deep swimming-pool blue is surprisingly striking — I might keep wearing it all summer.
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Speaking of the wide world of sports, you may have heard that North America is currently hosting the FIFA World Cup. Which means that I’m continuing to have the time of my life in bars across the city even post-basketball. I made friends with about 20 kilted Scots at Jimmy’s Corner the other night. Also, after spotting some by the counter atCasa Magazines, I’m thinking of getting into paninis, which are collectible trading card stickers for soccer (footballas they say in Europe, where the cards originate). They’re a blind buy, so you never know which players you might get.
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Our managing editor, Kelsie Schrader, alerted me (and our readers) to these jeans, which are marked down to just $20. That’s a discount of almost 70 percent for 100 percent cotton jeans that are technically designed by JW Anderson! I took a chance and was shocked by how good they look: baggy but not at all sloppy. A woman hailed me down on the street in Cobble Hill to ask where they were from, so I’ll continue to spread the word here. The darker blue shade is certainly the one to get. Size down and spend the extra $5 for a custom inseam length if you need.
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