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Kim Kalesti's Rules for Art

Welcome to The Hottest Literati Every month, we choose one cool artist from anywhere in the world to highlight and to support. The July 2026 Hottest Literati is... Kim Kalesti Q: What made you want to make things? A: It’s our nature to be creative. Q: A favorite you hold sacred? A: All Life visible and invisible is Sacred Q: Someone who shaped how you see your own work? A: Everyone and everything shapes my work. Q: A line, lyric, or image you still carry? A: To be an artist m

The Hottest Literati

HOT LITERATI

5 days ago

Who is Kim Kalesti

Welcome to The Hottest Literati Every month, we choose one cool artist from anywhere in the world to highlight and to support. The July 2026 Hottest Literati is... Kim Kalesti She is a... Singer, songwriter, and painter based in New York. What's coming this month This is the first edition of The Hottest Literati. Next week, we'll give you all a taste of Kim's influences, tastes, and favorite places.

The Hottest Literati

HOT LITERATI

Jul 1

My First Real Sabbath

84. Little Deaths/Delights Hello beautiful people of the Hot Literati Digital Universe. I have taken up a mind to observe the Sabbath. My perceptions of the Sabbath are related to reading Little House on the Prairie as a child and identifying with the children's restlessness in the book. Now as an adult, I sort of like the idea of a day where you aren't allowed to work, or even think about work. So yesterday, I went to church, sitting in my little pew surrounded by couples an

hailo

Mar 23

My Day in the Verve Vault

In December, I had the honor of hanging at the office of a record label called Verve Records for a couple of hours. What I did to earn the honor? I have no idea, but hanging out is a skill that I didn’t develop until I stopped being addicted to my phone. And I like to think that I was invited because now, I'm very good at hanging out. That morning, I left my apartment on the Lower East Side of Manattan, walking down the stairs in black cowgirl boots I bought in London and a s

hailo

Mar 15

86. Althea Aguel on Princeton, Music, and Technology

hailo

Feb 6

The Life of a Showgirl

Taylor Swift and the Routinization of Everything I was drinking coffee with Sara at a cafe in Brickell when she mentioned she'd bought tickets to the Eras Tour. singers on the stage, degas Sara's long brown hair was pulled back in the same style she wore in 2008, efficient rather than styled, though the effect was somehow elegant despite the functionality. Her eyes are the same penetrating grey, intelligent and severe in a way that made you want to prove you'd done the readin

Brian Nuckols

Jan 5

The Wild Wild West End Girl

Lily Allen and the danger of misbehaving by Cara Ballingall “I often wonder who I am and where is my country and where do I belong and why was I ever born at all.” Woman in a Riding Habit (L'Amazone) by Gustave Courbet from the met archives So says Antoinette Cosway in Jean Rhys’ The Wide Sargasso Sea, a novel that proposes the origin story for Bertha Mason, Mr Rochester’s madwoman wife in the attic in Jane Eyre, and, in doing so, opens up a voice against a status quo that se

Cara Ballingall

Dec 25, 2025