Summer is Over(rated)

This is an edition of the newsletter Pulling Weeds With Chris Black, in which the columnist weighs in on hot topics in culture. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Thursday.

It’s September, and the energy in New York is hard to miss. I attended four events downtown last night, and the streets were abuzz; the back-to-school feeling was palpable in real life. On social media, where we all spend most of our time, all I see is people lamenting the end of summer, the season that is most romanticized for its long, carefree days. But the gap between fantasy and reality when it comes to summer is just too hard to ignore. No matter how many European beach vistas you post with the caption “Take me back ❤️🌊🌞,” it’s hard to ignore that summer—and what it offers us—has changed entirely in the last decade.

When I first started working in the music business, I was stunned to find out that the entire industry screeched to a halt in August. The check-signers decamped to their houses in the Hamptons or Malibu, powered down their BlackBerries, and actually took a break. That was the promise of summer: time to read, decompress, eat fruit, and maybe do absolutely nothing else. In 2025, I don’t know a single person who takes a summer holiday without responding to work emails, checking Slack, or simply trying to keep up with the group chat. There are no breaks; we work around the clock and the calendar, and this has destroyed what summer once promised.

And, I, personally, love that. I get bored, and work fills the deep void in my black heart. I know it’s bad, but every day is the same. Weekends don’t mean anything either, except maybe slightly fewer emails and texts, unless you have a sports betting problem and love football.

Plus—I will be brave and say it—summer sucks. I proudly wear shorts, and even then, it’s way too hot. You can’t really wear cool clothes, the airport is rammed with amateurs, and don’t even try to rent a car or book a table at a hot restaurant. The summers we grew up with are long gone. No one goes to the beach for a week with a few hardbacks and a cooler. It’s the full suite of office must-haves in the carry-on: a computer, iPhone, iPad, and maybe even the dreaded Apple Watch. It’s time to come to terms with the fact that fall and spring—and, in certain places, even winter—are just better. There’s less pressure to have fun. Less pressure to post Instagram dumps with images that include mid Italian food on nice plates and hotel bathroom selfies. We must free ourselves from the tyranny of summer. If work doesn’t slow down, if temperatures are stifling, then what is the point? You’re paying a small fortune to travel during high season, sweating profusely in a faraway land while surrounded by fellow countrymen trying to get the same picture of that mortadella sandwich.

Fall, not to be dramatic, is a time of new beginnings. Nothing makes me feel better and more ready to get to work than wearing a light jacket. Hotel prices are halved, flights are cheaper, and the Delta Lounge actually has seats. I am not going to drive upstate to “see the leaves change,” but the idea that we must give our brain a break only during the hottest and busiest months of the year is archaic and just plain silly. Let’s take the pressure off summer. Let’s look at the calendar as a whole and celebrate all the seasons. If you can escape the rat race in January, that might be better than July.