Japan's love hotels, Tom Hanks' daughter, and the double life of Gordi

The Guardian

09-05-2025

Happy Saturday! This week André 3000 wore a baby grand piano strapped to his back while holding a garbage bag – 2025 has been full of surprises. Just like this next newsletter, dear readers. It's got your weekend reads sorted with trips, tips and talent.
EA Hanks grew up with a very famous father – 'not just the Hollywood Everyman, but America's Dad,' Emine Saner writes, after speaking with the daughter of Tom Hanks about her upcoming memoir. The author has explored the Hollywood side of her childhood, but what she's really trying to make sense of is her late mother's life.
'A lifetime spent on very thin ice': One half of Hanks' early life was spent with her mother, Susan, suffering with addiction and mental health problems, which contributed to an abusive relationship.
The other half: EA spent with her father, Tom, on film sets and in a house full of love and structure.
She tells Saner about her road trip back into her complicated past – recreating a fraught 1996 journey with Susan nearly 20 years after her death.
How long will it take to read: Six minutes.
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The French photographer François Prost has been on a '3,000km pilgrimage of passion', driving south from Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo, to the island of Shikoku, to document the eye-catching architecture of Japan's love hotels in his new book.
But could the hotels be getting too seedy, wonders Oliver Wainwright? Prost's images don't venture inside. They do, however, capture the 'dazzlingly imaginative' range of visions.
Traditional teahouses to themed palaces: Dating as far back as the 1600s, 'lovers' teahouses' were traditionally discreet from the outside – then, as Wainwright explains, a postwar economic boom saw them 'blossom into elaborate sexual amusement parks in the 1970s and 80s, with themes ranging from fairytale to sci-fi to medieval cosplay'.
For babymaking? Yep, Wainwright reckons a good chunk of the country's population could've been 'conceived on a rotating bed, or inside a fantastical tropical grotto surrounded by model dinosaurs'.
How long will it take to read: Three minutes.
Further reading: Speaking of dinosaurs … check out Australia's best small museums: celebrating apples, bottles, country music, and – yes – dinosaurs.
Sophie Payten has been living a double life. 'In one, she is Gordi, the Aria-nominated singer-songwriter who has worked with Bon Iver and Troye Sivan, and made Chris Martin cry,' writes Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen. In the other, somehow, she has time to be a doctor.
Fate: When Payten's second studio album came out, she quit her job to tour and focus on music. But when Covid hit, she was back in the hospital.
'I am an intensely emotional person … but in the hospital, you have to really learn how to disassociate in a way, because you're surrounded by suffering, and if you take all that on, you would explode.' – Sophie Payten
Silver lining? Her latest album, Like Plasticine, merges both lives.
How long will it take to read: Three minutes.
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Further reading: He's one of Gordi's collaborators, and a favourite of mine … Bon Iver on romance, retirement and his rapturous new record.
The Guardian has been reporting on a new space online – the 'womanosphere'. Like its manosphere counterpart (a section of the internet promoting masculinity, misogyny … and the awful list goes on), this online corner is all about pushing anti-feminist ideas on to young women. So, what does it have to do with Blake Lively?
Remember Johnny Depp v Amber Heard? Blake Lively's situation is a new level ugly, says Steve Rose, who has looked into how conservative personalities such as Candace Owens and the American right declared war on the actor after she sued her director, co-star and co-producer Justin Baldoni, and he sued her back.
Candace Owens' view: 'She has proven herself not to be a kind person,' the US commentator said in January. 'And that's largely due to the fact that she is a modern feminist.'
How long will it take to read: Five and a half minutes.
More tabs to open: Anna Silman's 'womanosphere' deep dive, and Van Badham on the question of whether the 'womanosphere' will succeed.
'Self-checkouts, drive-throughs, hotdog stands, drug stores, and a bottled water stall at a jazz festival' are all places where Americans have told the Guardian they are being asked to tip, Jem Bartholomew writes. 'Before, tipping was considered generosity,' Garrett Petters, a 29-year-old architect in Dallas, says. 'Now, it's about guilt.'
Is US tipping culture here to stay? For some consumers, it's the least they can do for workers during tough times. But others are pushing back.
A 33-year-old from Massachusetts: Ellen has been avoiding the 'suggested tip' starting at 25%, and instead selects 'the lowest option, or not tipping at all for workers covered by regular minimum wage laws'.
A 62-year-old from Florida: Sandra has increased her tip percentage 'from 15% to 20% or 25% recently' for her local workers who have suffered through Covid, and three major storms.
How long will it take to read: Three minutes.
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