(1) New song:
It’s Mitski! Of course it’s Mitski. She’s the truth and the future. The title of her forthcoming record, Puberty 2, is Lil Wayne meets sheer being-that-jerk-lovely-asshole-who-can’t-help-being-brashly-perfect-and-gross-and-gorgeous, in that Jenny Zhangish way. And when the guitar hailstorm precipitates all over this song a minute and a half in, or something, I believe it even more.
(2) Brand of lip plumper:
Too Faced Lip Injection. It makes every cigarette a menthol, too.
(3) Token of affection to bring to a party (especially if you don’t know the host):
Eleven donuts, minus the one that you ate prior and replaced with a fifth of tequila nestled in its sheer paper. Donut array should be: (2) jelly, powdered and sugar, (2) frosted with sprinkles, any variety, even though these suck; it’s just that they read “donut” so insistently (2) glazed cake—acceptable flavors include blueberry, sour cream, and strawberry, but one should be chocolate (2) glazed normal-ass, (1) toasted coconut, (1) maple, (1) cruller, and (1) whatever you want, as replaced by tequila. Congratulations: You are now the closest friend in the world to every person at that party who got to eat at least a half of the exact donut they wanted, plus, you get to figure out whom you like based on their choices (sour cream, we will more than likely make out later). This is especially true if you arrive at 11:30 or after, when people have already been doing whatever they’re doing that would cause them to extra-bug over a donut.
(4) Token of affection to bring to an at-home hang:
A dozen bagels—each with a fresh deli flower (pref. alstroemeria) stuck through the holeif you’re insane/doggedly sentimental about New York (same thing; I am)—and flavored cream cheese. SAVORY cream cheese, you monsters. Cinnamon sugar is for French toast, or at least a french toast donut. And if you tell me you fuck with, like, a “french toast” bagel, I exhort you to please back away from me, apologizing as you do it. I will never replant a flower outta its plastic wrap in the likes of that abomination.
(5) Bygone late-20th-century magazines:
The Beastie Boys had a magazine, did you know? Lingua Franca was an academia-focused tabloid where all the elder statespeople who make magazines worth reading now got their starts, did you know? Did you know there was a magazine that ran in 1973, and 1973 alone, for teenage groupies hellbent on boinking Marc Bolan? There was! It was called Star, and each feature gleamed with the promise of Puberty 2 running totally amok and slicked with plumping lip gloss.
Yours in floral donuts and fucking T. Rex,
ARS
ARS 