PicoBlog

Hi all. Last week was certainly all over the map. It seems that bad news always quickly follows good news, and it’s hard to keep any shred of hope, even in a time when the pandemic sort of has an end in sight. In the wake of the Atlanta spa shootings, I didn’t have a ton of bandwidth for pop culture moments. But this newsletter is my current source of income, so there is still a letter this week.

But although there is a letter today, I’d encourage you to read about, amplify, and donate (if you can) to organizations that are advocating for Asian Americans, whose safety, businesses, and livelihoods have been even more under siege in the United States over the past year. Red Canary Song is advocating and organizing for Asian sex workers, and here is a thread they composed for survivors’ and families’ direct funding requests. I have been seeking out organizations that specifically do not call for increased policing/carceral system-based solutions towards the problem. Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Atlanta is on the ground in Georgia advancing policies that ensure protection for Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, Native Hawaiians, and Asian immigrants and encouraging civic engagement. AAPI Women Lead has an entire division dedicated to COVID-19 protections, resources, and strategies.

I also highly encourage you to read this story about Xiaojie Tan, who was tragically killed last week, the day before her 50th birthday. It’s a beautiful and heartbreaking piece about her remarkable life, her story, and her family. Please, please read it and share with friends and family. We should be giving energy to these stories.

Take care of yourselves. I know this letter feels gauche, but I hope it brings you a sliver of joy today.

Couldn’t get into Chemtrails Over the Country Club? Maybe Rock Candy Sweet will be more your thing. Or is it Rock Candy [Lollipop Emoji] Sweet, stylized like your ARTPOPs and your folklores?

Yes, just one day after the release of her sixth studio album, the prolific pepsi-cola-loving performer announced that her seventh would immediately follow it up on June 1. Not like Del Rey ever really keeps to her initial album date announcements (remember when Chemtrails was due last September?), but I wouldn’t mind if she could stick to it just this one time. June 1st is my birthday, can you believe I’m turning 12? Yes, being a young, talented prodigy is difficult, but someone’s gotta do it.

(Rating: Top Shelf, for both the new album and the announcement of an immediate followup. I’ve always admired Lana’s restlessness.)

It’s true. The second coming has arrived. After an unannounced hiatus from her YouTube channel in late December, much-beloved reaction video artist AjayII has returned to us. And in top form! Looking radiant and refreshed, Ajay made her return with a Grammy winner reaction video where she simply perused the list of award winners and reacted to them (“Best Pop Vocal Album……WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?”) and followed it up with a reaction to the new record from Lana Del Rey, whom she has famously deemed “Queen Mother.” Longtime Ajay fans know that her Lana Del Rey reactions are a real treat — the YouTuber allows herself to sink into the music, feeling every melody and lyric with a deep vulnerability, often resulting in her Halloween witch hat falling crooked and her mascara running down her cheeks.

This time was no different, and although Ajay begins the video by saying she doesn’t think this album can surpass the polished genius of Norman Fucking Rockwell! (she’s right), she’s looking forward to seeing what Del Rey has in store for her fans. Immediately, Ajay can’t help but fall prey to Del Rey’s impressive artistry, throwing her hands in the air to the vibey cadence of the “downattheMeninMusicBUSInessCONferENCE” lyric in “White Dress.”

By the end of Chemtrails’ fifth track, “Wild at Heart,” the tears are pouring again. Finishing out by singing along, Ajay displays the vast array of emotions that she often bounces between while listening to albums, part of what makes her subscribers love her so much: “PERIOOOODDDD! Hold on lemme put a goddamn mark [Ajay’s system of rating],” she says as a tear cinematically falls down her face. “Ah! Hahahahahaha HOLD ON!” The next song has started to play before she’s ready. “Goddammit let me talk about goddamn ‘Wild at Heart,” she says, choking back more tears. Ajay’s unfeigned sincerity mixed with her effervescent, contagious energy is part of what makes her one of the great creators on YouTube. She’s such a welcome warmth to a place that can be dark as night (the internet/the world). I’m ecstatic that she’s back but welcome any other breaks she may have to take in the future. Better a bright, buoyant star than one burnt out.

(Rating: Top Shelf, thank you Ajay for returning when we needed you most.)

What’s going on with Rebel Wilson and why won’t anyone explain it to me! Over the past year-plus, she somehow became a Daily Mail favorite, with the British rag mag telling me incessantly how much weight she’s lost or what she’s up to in quarantine. “Rebel Wilson Shows off Baffling Three Stone Weight Loss in Sexy Hot Tub Snaps” or “Rebel Wilson Flaunts Her Thin Pins in Skin-Tight Workout Gear as She Hikes Mount Kilamanjaro.” Those are both just sample headlines that I made up while writing this, but I’m not far off from the truth. Wilson has become a British tabloid fixture and I just cannot seem to figure out why. It’s not like she’s a particularly gossip-worthy figure. Her film roles aren’t, like, captivating (sorry, not even Anne Hathaway or Dorinda Medley could convince me to see The Hustle). I don’t. get. it.

Part of the Rebel Wilson quarantine game plan has also been to constantly pester me while I’m trying to do the one thing that keeps me sane: watch my shows! There were a couple of months where I couldn’t get through an old episode of Real Housewives of New York without seeing Rebel Wilson hurling unfunny joke after unfunny joke at me in Match dot com ads. And then she tried to ruin my Christmas spirit with ads for Facebook Portal, which no one is ever going to fucking buy! I don’t blame Rebel Wilson for these ads or even the shitty copy she has to read in them, we all need a check, but there’s a larger game at play here through forces unseen that are absolutely trying to convince me that Rebel Wilson is somehow Earth Royalty that I need to be paying attention to at all times. It’s weird. I don’t like it! Leave me alone!

Anyway, here’s the latest Rebel Wilson for Earth Overlord psyop that was planted on my feed this week. Why is she riding a bike around a hotel ballroom? I don’t know but the fact that I’m even asking that question probably means her and her agent’s plan is working. Like my good friend Andy Ward said, “Meanwhile, on Planet Rebel Wilson”…

Like…what the fuck. If you play this video three times in a row, Rebel Wilson crashes through your bedroom wall while you’re sleeping and rides a bicycle around your bed while maniacally laughing until you buy a premium subscription to Match dot com.

(Rating: Low Brow)

Well! Tinsley Mortimer and Scott Kluth have ended their engagement. Who among us could’ve seen that coming? Unfortunately, if you’re familiar with either of those people, you probably could. Socialite and RHONY alum Mortimer has been in an on-again-off-again relationship with Kluth — most famous for somehow amassing millions from creating Coupon Cabin, a coupon code aggregator nobody uses (RetailMeNot or bust) — since 2016, and after years of stringing her along, Kluth proposed over Thanksgiving weekend in November 2019. It seemed as though Ms. Mortimer would finally get the fairytale she had spent her time on Housewives pining after, with her going as far as leaving the show in the middle of last season to move to Chicago to be with Kluth. But alas, it was not to be. The couple confirmed this week that their engagement had ended months ago and they had been living separately ever since, calling into question the weeks of posts Tins had been making alluding that they were still together. The night of the announcement, she went on a well-deserved repost rampage on Instagram, throwing up stories from just about anyone who was tagging her, including ones with all sorts of disses to her ex-fiance. Whatever Tinsley needs to do to heal, she should be allowed! Hoping and praying that Andy Cohen is doing all he can to get the scorned Princess of New York (and her iconic mother, Dale) back on the show. Blowing a kiss to Chicago!

(Rating: Low Brow)

I’m not watching four hours of a superhero film, even one with Henry Cavill’s tiddies bustin’ out.

Can we petition instead to get a Snyder cut of Sucker Punch? I would happily watch four hours of Emily Browning slicing and slashing CGI enemies as a convoluted metaphor for her own mental illness. In fact, I posit it could end the pandemic even earlier.

(Rating: Low Brow)

Literally cannot stop thinking about this and cracking the fuck up.

This was the most coherent and correct thing she has ever said. I miss my iPod Nano, which reminds me that we have got to start a campaign to get the Missy Elliott remix of Nelly Furtado’s “Do It” on streaming services.

(Rating: I can’t believe I’m saying this about anything related to Meghan McCain but Top Shelf, god.)

If this fool ruins the movie of the year with his presence I swear to god he will not know peace. Like, I won’t be able to do anything, but Little Monsters will never let him live it down.

(Rating: Low Brow)

Hello! Here’s your weekly update of pictures from the set of House of Gucci! Spoiler alert I guess? But spoiler alert, homeboy Gucci dies. That’s literally the logline.

Okay, fine, if she’s going to be doing anything besides getting my signed Chromatica CD (which, again, I ordered ten months ago now), I’m glad it’s kissing Humungous Man Adam Driver on a boat in Italy. It’s exactly what she deserves.

Nevermind, I lied, I’m jealous!!!!!!

I love these photos in this particular sequence because not only does she look gorgeous but it’s also giving “when you think you’re about to die from a wine hangover but then you resign yourself to death and contemplate all you’ve done that lead you to this point while waiting for your Uber to work because you woke up too late to take the train and you know you’ll probably have to run to the bathroom at some point before noon to meet last night’s shiraz once more.”

(Rating: DUH Top Shelf)

Last night, as I was getting ready for my sixteen hours of beauty sleep, I was checking in on Bella Hadid, as I am wont to do. It was late and I had to get to bed, so I was just doing a quick tap through of her Instagram stories but slowed my thumb when I realized she was posting a variety of luxury gifts she had been sent — exactly the kind of thing I love to get a peek of. It’s fun to let the masochism of being poor and unknown wash over me, it keeps me humble. Before she started in on the gifts, she posted the following:

FINALLY GOT THE CHANCE TO SIT AND OPEN ALL THESE BOXES. FEELING GRATEFUL, thank you to everyone big or small that sends things to me….. I know it’s been a rough year and even getting PR packages out is a lot !!!!

This made me scream. Just the image of whoever handles PR for luxury companies being kept up at night, wondering how they’re possibly going to get their gifts out to influencers. Like, Bella, I’d imagine they all use specialist courier services to deliver these expensive goods to their recipients. I don’t think it would’ve been that difficult?! It’s just so funny, like I don’t know that any company or brand that has enough revenue to be able to send out PR packages is necessarily suffering. Sure, we’re all being plagued by the neverending reality of existential dread, but I just think maybe the people doing PR for Burberry and Proenza Schouler aren’t quite necessarily feeling the same amount of occupational hazard as, say, frontline workers. It’s just such a funny way to say thank you for your beautiful, priceless gifts, “thank you, I know it takes a lot to get these gorgeous, expensive trinkets out to my family farm in Pennsylvania!”

But the thing about Bella Hadid is that she’s clearly genuinely appreciative and grateful. Even the slightly myopic wording can’t deter me from loving her. I hope she enjoys her Cacti spiked agave seltzer, Ralph Lauren Polo Bar cocktail sausages, and Prada brand chocolates — just don’t get them on your new adidas x IVY PARK padded scarf!

(Rating: Top Shelf)

• Ted Lasso is so fucking good. Shows that radiate positivity 100% of the time make my brain go brrrrrrrrrrrrr. In a good way. Also, Jason Sudeikis hot. Jason Sudeikis with a mustache and wearing athletic joggers? Very hot.

• The new Cruella trailer is so, so fun and I continue to absolutely resent anyone who doesn’t think this is going to be one of the most fun movie watching (hate not saying “moviegoing”) experiences of the year.

Alright, that’s it for this week! Thanks so much for being here. Please, please, if you can try to amplify organizations advocating for Asian Americans and Asian sex workers. I am donating some of my stimulus check and hopefully will have an even more steady paycheck soon to be able to have a rotating set of orgs to continue supporting.

I love you so much. Have a good week and I’ll see you on Friday. 💖

[Top Shelf, Low Brow is a newsletter dedicated to dissecting the whole spectrum of pop culture, from Arthouse to Housewives. If you enjoyed this article, the best way to support my work is by sharing it. New editions of Top Shelf, Low Brow arrive every Monday and Friday. You can subscribe for free to receive it directly to your inbox.]

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