Lifestyle
Silent boy summer: Three months, no talking. Here’s how one L.A. resident did it
On a recent Monday in August, Kevito Clark hosted a video conference call to discuss the next installment of a game night he runs at the LINE LA, a hotel in Koreatown. But over the course of the hour-long meeting, he never said a word.
Instead Clark, who has a shaved head and a full beard with a touch of gray in it, used other communication tools. When the hotel’s brand manager expressed hesitation around passing out rubber bracelets, he nodded. When a collaborator mentioned the name of a tentative performer, he used Google Meet’s settings to send heart and thumbs up emojis. In between these interactions, he typed his thoughts — “Branded cups are cute,” “Any last questions?” — into the chat. Not once did he make his voice heard.
It was an unusual way to run a meeting, but Clark’s collaborators have grown accustomed to it. As he reminded the group before the call began, he is currently living out a three month vow of silence.
Across religions, vows of silence are used to quiet the mind, develop self-knowledge and connect more deeply with the divine. They tend to conjure images of monks meditating in the mountains or ascetics living in desert caves. Clark, who is 41 and lives in Leimert Park, has added a modern-day twist to the practice. Throughout the duration of his vow, which began on June 1, he has continued to live his everyday life, throwing parties, volunteering, attending concerts and even going on the occasional date.
His is a vow of silence that applies only to speaking, which means he’s still texting, emailing and typing into the chat on video calls. In person, he communicates by typing messages into the iMessage app on his phone or writing in one of the pocket-sized notebooks he takes with him everywhere.
“As the saying goes, ‘What you don’t change, you choose.’ This vow was for me to grow, not for views or likes.”
— Leimert Park resident and entrepreneur Kevito Clark on his three-month vow of silence
When he’s out in public he wears a red and blue button that reads: “Silent By Choice. Thanks for your understanding. I can talk via Text notes.” A similar message is written in marker on the front page of each of his notepads:
“Buenos Dias! Hi! Hello! My name is Kevito! Nice to meet you. I’m currently on a vow of silence. I can talk via text, chat, and this notepad. (Thanks for your understanding!)
Clark wears a pin that states “silent by choice,” while practicing his vow of silence. (Carlin Stiehl / For the Times)
Kevito Clark holds a notepad he uses to communicate with people that has pre-written pages explaining why he’s chosen not to speak for three months.
On the following pages he keeps pre-written answers to four questions he’s most frequently asked:
- You can talk!
- This was taken to address unchecked grief, redirect energy and center on my purpose and personal/professional goals.
- The vow ends Sept. 1, 2024.
- Environmentalist John Francis inspired this vow.
Clark, who arrived in L.A. in 2022 by way of New York and Ohio, has built his life on the power of intention. His decision to go quiet in an era where so many people spend their free time speaking to front-facing phone cameras, and in a city where the squeakiest wheels get the grease, is in service of his broader ambitions. Before his vow started, he was living out what he calls “444,” which is shorthand for his aim to consistently engage with “four acts of volunteering, four acts of self-care and four ways to show up and show out for others.” His recent vow has allowed him to commit more firmly to this goal.
“As the saying goes, ‘What you don’t change, you choose,’ ” he wrote. “This vow was for me to grow, not for views or likes.”
Still, it hasn’t always been easy to integrate silence into his day-to-day schedule. Clark often works in positions where the word “communication” is in his job title. He’s the founder and chief creative officer of Love, Peace & Spades which has a monthly residency at the LINE LA, and he currently does event services for a security company and serves as a community liaison for the non-profit Black Men Hike, all while refraining from speech.
There have been business owners and collaborators who said they wouldn’t work with him until his vow is finished. And while he had fun taking a date on a choose-your-own adventure experience through Mickalene Thomas’ All About Love exhibit at the Broad, she said she would only see him again when she could hear his voice.
Kevito Clark uses a notepad to communicate with Kimoni Oliver, a barista at ORA.
Kevito Clark walks through the streets of Leimert Park.
“I experienced how people will come to their conclusions, make assumptions (e.g., believe I have a disability),” he wrote in an email. “It takes a lot of work, patience, understanding and agreement by all parties for it to happen.”
There is no single reason that Clark took his three-month vow of silence, instead, he says a series of events catalyzed the decision. His kidneys failed in 2012 and he waited six years for a new one before a friend stepped up with a donation in 2018. Earlier this year, he mourned the back-to-back losses of two longtime friends and mentors who were like second parents to him. In the wake of their passings and the ensuing anniversaries of the deaths of other people he loved, he realized that he hadn’t made time to honor life’s transitions.
He started to ask himself, “Who are you when no one is looking?” He wondered if taking a vow of silence might provide an answer.
“It appeared like a whisper,” he wrote. “And the whisper grew into a voice.”
Online research led him to the story of John Francis, a Black environmentalist who stopped talking and riding in motorized vehicles for 17 years after witnessing two oil tankers collide and dump half a million gallons of oil into the San Francisco Bay in 1971. In a popular Ted Talk, Francis said when he decided to stop talking he found he was better able to hear others — rather than formulating a response while they were talking.
“It was a very moving experience,” Francis says in the talk. “For the first time in a long time, I began listening.”
Clark was inspired by his story. “In him I saw someone who was not only curious about himself but about how to implement positive change through discipline and facing adversity,” Clark wrote.
At the end of April, Clark began to formulate a plan to take his own, much shorter vow of silence.
He chose the time period of June 1 to Sept. 1 for his vow after reading that it takes 21 days to break habits and 30 days to begin new habits. He crafted an email explaining his decision and sent it to friends, family and collaborators describing what he was about to embark on. He could still communicate, he wrote, but only through non-speaking platforms like Google Meet, mobile text and handwritten notes.
Friends and collaborators were mostly supportive and intrigued.
“He’s a laid back, calm, cool collected dude,” said Courtney La Prince, a digital designer who met Clark while volunteering at Love, Peace & Spades. “He is really careful with his words, so when he said he was going to take a vow of silence it wasn’t hard for me to imagine.”
It has also been an adjustment for those he regularly interacts with. Conversations move at a different pace when one person is typing out their responses.
“I’ve found I need to be stationary when I talk to him,” said Kelli Boyt, who also goes by DJ Kaaos Jones. “I do a lot of my calls from the car, but I need to be in tune with whatever conversation we’re having on text messages, so I almost have to plan it out. So I’ll be in the office or sitting still in my car in the parking lot.”
Kevito Clark at ORA in Leimert Park.
Jennie Wright, regional brand manager at the LINE LA where Clark hosts Love, Peace & Spades was initially worried about the logistical implications of his vow. She and Clark grew the event together and she didn’t know how he would run it if he couldn’t talk. At the same time, she wanted to respect his decision to focus on himself.
“He took this vow of silence to center himself and find some peace within himself, so I was like, ‘Let me take my selfishness back,’ ” she said.
Over the past three months she discovered that throwing events with a silent partner isn’t as difficult as she thought.
“We’ve continued to have Love, Peace & Spades from June and they have all run successfully,” she said. “And it pushed me to step up and become more of a leader.”
As Clark approaches the end of the vow on Sept. 1, he reflected on its impact in a written interview.
“I learned to temper my thoughts, embrace gratefulness, give myself grace, pour into myself to be available for others and magnetize the positive into manifested results,” he wrote.
Still, he’s looking forward to it ending. Love, Peace & Spades is hosting its first culture and games fest on Sept. 21. He can’t wait to talk at the event. But looking back at the past three months, he said his silent vow felt more freeing than restrictive.
“I hugged deeply. I laughed heartily,” he wrote in a Zoom chat. “Those are sincere ways to communicate whether you’re speaking or not.”
Swift has attended fashion’s biggest night, the Met Gala, a handful of times over the years. Perhaps no appearance was more memorable than 2016’s event where it was not her dress, but her hair that made an impact. Swift’s bleached platinum bob at the star-studded fund-raiser that year was part of a short-lived era known as “Bleachella” to some fans.
Some fans believe the 2016 event, which both Swift and her ex-boyfriend, the actor Joe Alwyn attended, is where the couple might have first encountered one another. A moment Swifties think the songstress referenced in “Dress,” singing “flashback when you met me, your buzz cut and my hair bleached,” a line that describes how both stars looked that night.
For her first time as host on “Saturday Night Live,” a then 19-year-old Swift arrived having already written the song she would sing as the opening monologue. Seth Meyers, the show’s head writer at the time, later recalled bringing Swift into Lorne Michaels’s office, where she performed a “perfect” musical monologue and noted it was better than what the show’s writers had concocted for her to deliver. Swift has served as host and musical guest on the sketch-comedy show over the years. She’s also made repeated cameo appearances, including appearing alongside Kerry Washington and Betty White in a “Californians” sketch in 2015 for the show’s 40th anniversary.
In 2023, Swift and Travis Kelce both made cameo appearances on the show. The same day, they were also spotted by tabloids holding hands in New York City, one of the earliest public glimpses of them as a couple.
The iconic arena in Midtown Manhattan will serve as the venue for a private, two-day event around the wedding of Swift and Kelce on July 2 and 3. The first event will reportedly be a smaller gathering of 100 people for a rehearsal dinner at the Infosys Theater, a venue inside the Garden, while as many as 1,000 guests are expected to arrive at the venue the next day for a larger celebration, with possible stage appearances. Swift has some history with the Garden, performing there several times over the years, as well as sitting courtside and cheering the Knicks to a win during a game earlier this summer.
Whenever the singer is spotted coming and going from the Greenwich Village recording studio — which was founded by Jimi Hendrix and has hosted icons like the Rolling Stones and Chuck Berry over the years — fans are immediately abuzz with whispers about new music. Swift has worked there with Jack Antonoff, her longtime collaborator, on albums including “Lover” and “Folklore,” as well as re-releases of her older albums.
Swift has been spotted plenty of times at this Italian hot spot in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan, most recently in May, celebrating Lena Dunham’s 40th birthday. If you can’t get a table, try your hand at making their famed — and delicious — salad dressing.
For a period between 2016 and 2017, Swift rented a four-story townhouse in Manhattan’s West Village. The pad appears to have inspired her 2019 track “Cornelia Street” from the album “Lover.” It’s a road she’ll never walk again, at least according to her lyrics.
Fans still regularly visit the house, even though it has been nearly a decade since Swift inhabited the home, which has an indoor swimming pool. In 2023, some Swifties made pilgrimages to the location after news broke on her split with the actor Joe Alwyn, whose relationship fans believe to be the inspiration for many of the tracks on “Lover.”
Swift’s residence in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Manhattan has grown over the years. She initially bought two penthouses from the “The Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson in 2014. A fan who once visited the apartment recalled Swift’s father saying that when his daughter first viewed the place, the actor Ian McKellen, who had been living there, was sitting in the kitchen. She has since purchased several adjacent properties.
Fans have seen glimpses of the home on social media over the years and, more recently, watched Swift use a fire extinguisher to put out a small candle blaze in the kitchen in a video posted by Swift’s recent musical collaborator Gracie Abrams.
Good luck getting a table here if you are not Swift or Kelce. The upscale American restaurant in SoHo is known for comforting dishes like a French dip sandwich and an ice cream sundae, as well as its savory sour-cream-and-onion martini from the cocktail menu. Swift has visited several times — including outings with Gigi Hadid and Sabrina Carpenter.
In “Delicate,” Swift sings of an unnamed “dive bar on the East Side.” Swifties believe this dark speakeasy on East Seventh Street is that bar. Fans also believe the song was written about Swift’s ex-boyfriend, the actor Joe Alwyn. The pair broke up in 2023; later that year she met Kelce.
This exclusive, members-only club in Lower Manhattan is frequented by plenty of celebrities, including Swift. The club bans photography and videos, as well as members of the media, and patrons are barred from identifying others in the room on social media or to the press.
Still, even with the privacy rules, there have been plenty of posts and photos documenting Swift coming and going from Zero Bond. There was a visit in 2023 with the actor Miles Teller and his wife, Keleigh, as well as a recent celebratory evening with the Haim sisters in June after the group watched the Knicks win at Madison Square Garden in matching shirts. There have also been multiple visits with Kelce over the years.
Swift spent part of her 34th birthday celebration at this rustic American restaurant on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Wearing a black minidress bedazzled with a moon and stars — a nice nod to the visual themes of her “Midnights” era — she partied the night away at Freemans’ upstairs cocktail bar with guests including Jack Antonoff, Blake Lively, Zoë Kravitz, the Haim sisters, Sabrina Carpenter and her childhood best friend, Abigail Anderson Berard, who was immortalized in Swift’s song “Fifteen.” The pop star was also seen dining here with Gracie Abrams earlier that same year.
People line up for hours — yes, hours — to secure a spot at this restaurant in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn. The brick-oven pizza spot, which is B.Y.O.B. and cash only, is a favorite of pizza connoisseurs — though not those at The New York Times — and celebrities alike. (Its owner has said he does not accept reservations.) Beyoncé, Jay-Z, the Beckhams and, of course, Swift have all been seen dining here, though unclear if they had to sweat it out in the line like us mere mortals. Swift, who once sent her dad to hand out pizzas, though likely not from Lucali, to fans camping out in New York to watch her perform on “Good Morning America,” has shared meals here with famous friends including Blake Lively and Selena Gomez, as well as a date night with Kelce.
The Brooklyn neighborhood where, if Swiftie lyrical interpretations are to be trusted, Swift left a now-infamous scarf at the home of one Maggie Gyllenhaal around 2010. Swift was dating Gyllenhaal’s brother, Jake, at the time and their relationship is believed to have inspired Swift’s “All Too Well,” a 2012 heart-wrencher of a song beloved by many fans, which Rolling Stone once ranked as her best song. “You keep my old scarf from that very first week,” Swift sings. In 2017, Maggie Gyllenhaal told Andy Cohen on “Watch What Happens Live” that she was “in the dark about the scarf.”
Swift later released an updated, 10-minute version of the track in 2021. A red scarf featured prominently as a thematic motif in “All Too Well: The Short Film,” which Swift also released that same year.
Lifestyle
DLTA’s former Ace Hotel is reborn as a ‘creative hub’ — and yes, you can still sleep there
The historic 1920s tower that once housed the beloved Ace Hotel is entering a new era just in time for the summer.
Two years after opening in the iconic Spanish Gothic building on South Broadway, Stile Downtown Los Angeles has unveiled its multimillion-dollar renovation and its expansion from a limited-service hotel to a full “creative hub.” The makeover adds a 24/7 membership-based creative lab with state-of-the-art music studios, co-working lounges, an updated rooftop bar called Somewhere Special, a restored theater and a curated retail shop for the community.
“We don’t really want to call it just a hotel — it’s more of a hub,” says Jaisun Ihm, CEO of AJU Continuum, the investment company that purchased the historic space.
Throughout the space are throwback touches — for instance, hotel guests can borrow a Walkman and browse the curated cassette library with titles like Sade’s “Promise,” Paula Abdul’s “Forever Your Girl” and the Isley Brothers’ “Between the Sheets.”
Behind the massive overhaul is South Korea-based AJU Continuum, which purchased the property in 2019 but didn’t change the name until 2024. The project marks the investment company’s first U.S. expansion.
“We don’t really want to call it just a hotel — it’s more of a hub,” says Jaisun Ihm, CEO of AJU Continuum, which is best known for its culture-forward Ryse Hotel in Seoul. With Stile, Ihm says their mission was to “connect L.A. to Seoul.”
Ryse, Ihm says, encapsulates today’s eclectic lifestyle hotel: “It’s grounded in street culture. We say it’s iconoclastic. It’s youthful in nature.”
AJU Continuum teamed up with L.A. architecture and interior design studio Design, Bitches — the group behind the chic Checker Hall in Highland Park and Verve Coffee Roasters in the Arts District. Ihm didn’t care that it was Design, Bitches’ first hotel venture. After working with several firms over the years, he was tired of seeing the same aesthetic everywhere and wanted to work with a team that would bring a “bold” perspective, he says.
When the creatives at Design, Bitches got the invitation, they were all in. “I’ve always wanted to do a hotel,” says RA Rudolph, the studio’s co-founder. “I love hotels and I have opinions,” she adds laughing.
For Angelenos who frequented the Ace Hotel, a maverick venue that helped revitalize downtown L.A. for a decade beginning in 2014, walking through Stile will feel both familiar and new. While the building’s bones remain intact — a requirement of its historic-cultural monument designation — the space has an industrial-modern twist inspired by L.A.’s creative spirit.
For example, the United Theater on Broadway, which was once the 1927 flagship movie palace for the influential United Artists collective (Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith), now features fresh carpet, modernized sound and stage equipment and roughly 125 new light fixtures inspired by the lobby’s original Spanish Revival-style chandelier. As a nod to the building’s legacy, where Hollywood’s earliest icons broke away from major studios to control their own work, AJU Continuum has launched its own in-house booking team for the live entertainment venue. Also, the giant neon “Jesus Saves” sign that has sat atop the building since its days as a church is still there — and the owners have no plans to remove it.
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1. A clawfoot tub inside the Loft King Suite. 2. Lounge chairs inside the Loft King Suite. 3. Hotel guests lounge in the rooftop pool. 4. Adriana Castellanos and friends hanging out in the lobby bar. 5. Photos taken in the photo booth at the Somewhere Special rooftop bar.
Some of the most significant changes can be found in the hotel lobby, which features a curated convenience store called the Goodie Shop, which is adorned with throwback boomboxes. Located next to the front desk, which was significantly condensed, the store is filled with a selection of California-sourced snacks and beverages, lifestyle goods, Stile-branded merch and travel essentials (phone chargers, toothpaste, hair care, etc.).
On the opposite side of the lobby is SparkHouse, a private members club and creative hub for up-and-coming musicians and creatives. The two-story space features professional recording studios, podcast and video suites, co-working lounges and meeting spaces, which are slated to open by early next year once permits are approved, Ihm says. SparkHouse’s cafe and bar is open to the public and sells tea, coffee (try the honey matcha latte), wine, beer cocktails and small bites. Ihm says programming at SparkHouse will include listening sessions, live showcases and even a mentorship program for rising artists.
“I’ve always wanted to do a hotel,” says RA Rudolph, the co-founder of Design, Bitches.
The rooftop bar, which offers stunning skyline views of the city and a pool, is now called Somewhere Special. The design team removed about 90% of the plants that used to pack the area to maximize space for dancing and mingling. Also, the pool area, now painted in a playful shade called Carrot Orange, has more seating and a photo booth nearby.
All 182 guest rooms were given a fresh coat of dusty rose paint, new custom carpet, furniture and upgraded bathrooms. In each room, you’ll find Korean amenities like face masks, a custom robe by a local brand called Room Service Los Angeles and books from the former Los Angeles University Cathedral that occupied the space from 1991 to 2011. With the hotel motto being “stay by your own rules,” Rudolph says it was important for them to make the rooms adaptable to each guest’s needs and to prioritize comfort. The result is uncommon room layouts like the tri-suite king room equipped with two twin-sized beds and a king bed split by a privacy divider that doubles as a playful art installation. Rudolph, who used to travel often with her now-adult children, says that’s the type of room she always wished had existed.
Stile’s arrival comes at a precarious moment for downtown L.A. In recent years, the neighborhood’s once buzzy hospitality and nightlife scene has experienced dwindling foot traffic, slow pandemic recovery and increased vacancies. Some business owners say crime and neglect are driving away customers. Nearly 1,000 businesses left downtown in 2024. Launching a high-concept lifestyle hotel is a bold gamble.
The Goodie Shop, a new curated convenience store, is filled with a selection of California-sourced snacks and beverages, lifestyle goods and travel essentials.
But Ihm says he hopes that Stile will help rejuvenate the area and create an ecosystem that will support neighboring businesses as well. Rudolph says she’s already starting to see that change.
“It’s been nice to see that in the last year that I’ve been coming here to work on the project, it’s livened back up again,” she says. “Especially this block, it feels better.”
Inside the World Cup Cultural Exchange
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What does America look like to visitors?
We’re finding out in real time as fans and athletes from all over the world visit the United States for World Cup matches across the country. From Ranch dressing, to the wonders of all-you-can-eat buffets, tourists are getting a taste of all the USA has to offer, but how do we square the warm welcome for the World Cup with the United States’ recent stances on immigration? Brittany is joined by immigration reporter Jasmine Garsd, and NPR reporter Juliana Kim to find out.
Want more global perspectives on culture? Check out these episodes:
How often do you think about the American Empire?
Make life harder (and better): Learn another language.
Support Public Media. Join NPR Plus.
Follow Brittany on Instagram: @bmluse
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This episode was produced by Liam McBain and Corey Antonio Rose. It was edited by Neena Pathak. Our Supervising Producer is Cher Vincent. Our Executive Producer is Barton Girdwood. Our VP of Programming is Yolanda Sangweni.
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