Your body, your choice (to get listeria)

Hm...

This week, in a bid to get ahead of the conservative supermajority Supreme Court’s rapid march toward theocracy, Congress reintroduced a modified version of the “Respect for Marriage Act” — a years-old bill that would repeal the 1996 “Defense of Marriage Act” and establish protections for both same-sex and interracial marriage at the federal level.

The bill was introduced with some bipartisan support, but was largely expected to fail without more Republican votes. On Wednesday, however, the bill passed the House with 47 Republicans on board. Sen. Chuck Schumer later committed to bringing it to the floor where it may very well pass. Four GOP senators have already come out in favor; even former gym teacher Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who deflected about the vote itself, recently said he has no qualms with gay marriage, sort of: “Yeah, if that's what you want to do, fine.”

Still, most Republicans do not support the measure; some 75 percent of the House GOP voted against the bill. Among them was Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, the House member from Pennsylvania’s 15th congressional district. As you can see here, Rep. Thompson voted “NAY:” Continue reading

Our most charismatic star

Very few young celebrities these days really possess much beyond being everywhere constantly. None of them are both extremely talented and also have that innate “it” quality. Sure, the stars of Euphoria are beautiful and fashionable and mostly talented, but none are truly special. There is no nepotism kid who has that je ne sais quoi of their forefathers. Natural charisma is harder than ever to come by, and true star power is even more rare. That’s why watching Keke Palmer do anything is like a refreshing gulp of ice-cold water after a long drought. She is the only good celebrity right now.

Luckily for us, Palmer has been promoting both Lightyear and Nope all summer — two of her biggest roles to date — meaning we get to see her appear on every late night show and in every magazine. I have not seen Lightyear because I don’t care about “space,” but Palmer’s turn in Nope is nothing short of a star-making performance. Every scene she’s in belongs to her.

On top of that, Keke Palmer is a walking meme, and not in that forced way, like Dakota Johnson on Ellen — though years ago she once did call out Wendy Williams in a way that nobody else has really done since: Continue reading

A little bit of homemade dragonfruit mayonnaise sent via USPS never killed anyone, allegedly

You know what sounds like it would pair well with Wendy’s chicken nuggets amid worldwide record-breaking summer temps? A home-bottled mayonnaise and frozen dragonfruit-based dip, the consistency of which seems to range between diarrhea and saliva, that I learned about on TikTok and paid $20 for ($13-$30 USPS ground shipping not included).

And I’m not the only one who thinks this sounds good. Slather me and the girlies in Chef Pii’s viral (and deeply unregulated) Pink Sauce and leave us out in the blazing sun, because tonight, baby, we’re all eating.

And then, we’re all joining the inevitable class action lawsuit when we get sick from eating sauce bottled in a residential garage in Miami.

What’s Pink Sauce?

Pink Sauce is the invention of Chef Pii, a private chef and mixologist from Florida. On June 11 of this year, Chef Pii pivoted from lifestyle content on TikTok to almost exclusively highlighting her new product, Pink Sauce. Continue reading

The Frenchie community will never be the same

We have officially entered the dog days of summer, by which I mean the star Sirius is making its annuals rounds above the eastern horizon, bringing with it a sun so hot that back in the old times, if we trust John Brady’s Clavis Calendaria (1813), “the Sea Boiled, the Wine turned sour, Dogs grew mad, and all other creatures became languid, causing to man, among other diseases, burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies.” Climate change has made that all worse, and now, there is an unfolding drama among purebred dog owners on the Upper East Side.

The dog fight broke out after NBC News reporter Kalhan Rosenblatt wrote a viral Twitter thread on Tuesday. Rosenblatt owns a French bulldog named Nacho, who she takes to a weekly meetup for French bulldogs at Carl Schurz Park on the Upper East Side. It is run by another local “Frenchie” owner who keeps followers updated on an Instagram page called @frenchiesofues. Owners from across the city trek uptown for this Sunday morning meetup.

The Frenchie cabal has irked other dog owners in the area enough that a rival Instagram popped up lobbying for the other to be dismantled. That one is called @stop_the_meetups. Here’s a sample of their complaints:

Every week, the small dog run in Carl schurz park is subjected to 30+ frenchies (plus owners) during high traffic times. Continue reading

How Apple influenced a vacant fashion generation

There is a popular portrait of Steve Jobs, still young, sitting at his desk in a pair of light-washed jeans and beat-up gray New Balances. The screen of Jobs’s Macintosh Classic II, the plastic-laden personal computer Apple debuted in 1991, glows softly in the background. To this day, the image surfaces from time to time, in mood boards and style paeans.

The Jobs image has become a beacon for brands searching for a new definition of luxury — one that is more honest but no less self-assured, a rebuke to the baroque maximalism of Gucci or exasperatingly dour nihilism of Balenciaga. This muted luxury lives in the overlap between the early, apocryphal days of Apple and the concrete grayness of New Balance — and now that aesthetic has been resuscitated to sell upmarket streetwear. Continue reading