The Yeah Yeah Yeahs haven’t released new music in a decade, but if anyone recalls, they would have these live shows where Karen O would drain a beer and then spray it out of her mouth onto the audience. In 2022, the band is still spitting, only this time with the help of Perfume Genius, who pours his own brand of rawness onto a piece that’s already dripping with feeling. Spacious synths and power chords drum this into the summer dirtbag anthem you’ll need around dusk on Saturday when you’re exhausted from rolling aimlessly from thing to thing. ‘Tis the season, listen real soon.
In case anyone has managed to avoid the story on caviar bumps this week, the Styles section has informed those of us outside Dimes Square that several restaurants will now offer you a little shot of roe to lick directly off your hand (do not snort) — an act that is incontrovertibly sexy but I think actually impossible to execute as such. Here’s what I mean: If you eat caviar off your hand at home, that’s troll behavior. So you have to do it out — the whole thing is people seeing you lap currency off your own body. So the only reasonable place to do that is in a restaurant, which in putting it on the menu has already codified this as “a thing” with prescribed theatrics, relegating the heretofore sexy caviar bump to the territory of tableside flambé and the sizzling fajita platter — an embarrassing stunt for all involved. Hotness: foiled again by effort.
Elsewhere on the hotness / effort spectrum is (don’t stop reading) an NFT dating show on YouTube called Proof of Love, where contestants compete to be the best couple, whatever that means, and viewers can buy in to get a vote on casting choices — or pay enough for a particular episode to get a producer credit. The whole thing is fake, from the contestants (real people, not dating) to the paparazzi (planted) and the crypto of it all (what is “value”) — which is maybe the point? Like I’m not sure if the show’s creators intended for the farce to function as commentary on the premise of NFTs, but the whole thing kind of does underscore how much you can accomplish with hot air.
Before we go, I think I’ve identified the inverse of the caviar bump in Heinz’ Dip & Crunch, “a product that offers consumers the ability to dip their burgers into a sauce and then chips.” Another product meeting this description might be “a plate,” but that’s thinking small. Visionaries among us can now purchase a two-in-one package with, for example, “a container of tomato-based burger sauce” (ketchup?) “and another tub containing crisp potato crunchers,” also known as… chips. The article where I learned about this this concludes that “companies such as Kraft Heinz are looking for new and creative ways to meet consumer needs and provide a fresh experience,” a two-part brief that is in zero ways satisfied by packaging a regular barbecue activity in plastic. I only hope their agency folks are licking chip-dipped sauce directly off their hands.
