068: Maple Suggests Chateau Orlando, etc.
Port's logo redesign and more
~I'm Maple, I’m currently in Las Vegas 🫶 and this is a monthly deal where my friends and I suggest all kinds of things you should try~
Writing this at the Encore in Las Vegas. This month I’ve taken two spontaneous trips, one to Nashville and one out here to the desert, because I was invited and why not? And in a few days, I’ll be in Florida celebrating Christmas with my sweet family and trying to surf (trying…).
I want to say THANK YOU to y’all, my precious subscribers to this newsletter. Y’all have been with me as I figure out what the helllll I even want this thing to be. It was weekly, now it’s monthly. It’s been random. It’s been personal. But I have to admit, the business lady/Leo in me wants to make it more.
I have an idea for that and will flesh it out in 2024. Thanks as always for riding my rollercoaster :)
For now, here’s this month’s list:
1. Chateau Orlando. I love everything about their creative direction. Their branding is a beautiful case study in world-building (Vacation is getting all the credit in that space these days). I’d highly suggest poking around their Instagram and checking out their gift guides. I particularly love this apron/ bread bag set and these shorts and this pillow cover that looks like it popped out of the pages of Eloise.
2. Wallpaper. Now I have an accent wall and could not adore it more. I got my paper from this lady in Poland.
3. Shit I Bought and Liked. A shopping newsletter that’s fun and funny, great ROI (it’s free).
4. Keeping stamps in your wallet. This month I sent off three restaurant postcards that came along with the bill. Handwritten mail will always be special, even if you’re only scribbling about the profiteroles you just ate (especially then).
5. The Johnny Cash museum and his memoir. I know this is 2-in-1, but on my trip to Nashville, I stopped in the Cash museum and was simply overwhelmed by his life. I bought his memoir while I was there to keep learning. The way he writes reminds me of home in the South, of course; it’s riddled with all kinds of language and isms I remember from growing up. I reeeaally like to take in content celebrating artists who have accomplished a lot. It’s a reminder to just keep making things, and especially as I get older and life gets harder, I need inspiration like this (this was never truer than when I visited the Picasso museum in Barcelona).
6. Noko. In Nashville. I ate this fish and nearly cried.
7. TESO LIFE. Longtime readers know about my affinity for the impeccable flavors of British chips, so imagine my joy when I visited this Japanese grocery that’s been on my list forever and I found Asian Lays in fun flavors :D!! Everyone but me probably knew about these already but, just give me this! I walked in for some ramen packets and left with so many chips lol. Roasted garlic oyster flavor! Spicy crayfish! Golden fried crab!! Great.
8. Eating alone in the back of a delivery-mostly sushi spot. In my case, it was here, also in midtown on a recent Wednesday. It’s a tale-as-old-as-time major metropolitan thing to do, dine alone in the back of a hole-in-the-wall, just you, the guys folding sushi rolls, low music, the clink of your chopsticks against the plate and the plip-plop of your sashimi into a little pool of soy sauce, people-watching as the customers rush in and out to pick up orders, leaving the cool air from the open door in their wake.
9. Port magazine’s logo redesign. Handwriting, as I mentioned above, will always be cool.
10. The Pinball Hall of Fame. I have a new obsession!! The Pinball Hall of Fame is in Vegas; it’s a warehouse of hundreds of vintage and new pinball machines and a few other arcade games (air hockey, skeeball, etc.) and it is so damn FUN!@#$%
I’d actually been to the space before for Maxon’s Pinball party during NAB years ago, but going with just one person (with a pinball past) and playing games for three hours was a way different vibe; I learned so much and no joke broke a sweat because it got so intense.
Okay, I love you. Please have a fun and safe and sweet holiday <3
Until next time,
xo Mapes