There are a lot of good album covers in the world, but this one wins today. Ethan Gruska’s En Garde sounds just like the suburban life you see in this photo, as told by an adult who’s now seen a few other places. That sound is accomplished in part through a partnership with Phoebe Bridgers, one-time queen of indie college radio, turned Fader cover star. Together, their sleepy, aughts-tastic singing-songwriting leads a cringey genre into a more self-aware future. To feel real high school, start your listen with “On the Outside,” on which Gruska addresses a friend who’s been icing him out. “You think you always have to act like the man,” he asserts, before reminding his buddy that he’s probably still the same guy who used to be Ethan’s friend under all the bravado. When will he break through?

I would love to tell you that economic equality is taking root and there’s hope for us all. Instead, the news I have is this: private restaurants for the ultra-wealthy are becoming a thing. In New York, there are new dining clubs that welcome members by application with $30,000 initiation fees (in addition to annual dues); other venues are available only to owners of multi-million-dollar condos in the restaurant’s building. “Think Soho House, but 10 years older, so 10 years richer and more exclusive,” says the guy who runs the dining club at the Equinox Hotel in Hudson Yards, where you have to own a minimum-$5 million condo to belong. What he’s not telling you is that these restaurants are lures to fill the city’s vast excess of luxury residential space— New York has way overbuilt high-end condos and people need over-the-top amenities like in-house celebrity chefs to move in. And now we know how decision-making works for people whose greatest daily concern is getting a reservation.

Cheers to the hopeful few trying to “fix it.” J.D. Vance, author of the Appalachia-porn memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” is starting a venture fund for companies founded outside of the usual candidates for startupville (that is, California, New York, and Massachusetts). After his book did the work of making coastals feel righteous (and its subjects objectified), this next career move has potential to actually impact places between the coasts with capital, industry, and talent retention. Sharing the wealth, you might say.