Adele and Jamie Lee Curtis Go Head to Head in a Mama Trauma Smackdown
Adele returns with her sleepiest single yet, Jamie Lee Curtis drags Ben Affleck, Bree Runway manifests, Timothée Chalamet threatens band geeks, a pooch passes, and more rated Top Shelf to Low Brow!
Hello and welcome back! After two weeks away and a glorious eight days in my homeland of the Midwest, the Tuesday Letter has returned. I hope you’ve all been well. Small apologies in advance if this isn’t the longest one, still recovering from a slight cold I caught on vacation. The god I don’t believe in always tries to prove to me that even when everything feels perfect, I can never truly have it all!
Just a note before we get into it, be on the lookout for the Friday letter—it’s the biggest, most exciting edition of this newsletter so far. It has been in the works for a while, and I’m truly amped to share it with you this week just in time for Halloween. That said, onward we forge through the last two weeks.
Top Shelf, Low Brow: October 5th—18th
Adele has returned…to her chair
Last week, Adele made her long-awaited, highly anticipated comeback with the lead single for her new album 30, “Easy on Me.”
I wish I could exalt in celebration like all the hardcore Adellies out there, but there are a few layers missing in this one for me. Now that it has been nearly a week since its release, perhaps this is a safe space for me to speak freely. “Easy on Me” feels decidedly toothless, and—perhaps even worse—tedious. Its production and lyrics are Adele at her most phoned-in: delivering the typically gorgeous vocals that she could snore out in her deepest sleep without any real gumption or risk burning beneath them. In the video, when she peers at the lens and plays to the camera, her acting belies the sentiments she’s trying to convincingly relay. She’s conveying a stronger feeling than the song is willing to let us in on. Gone are the vocal flourishes, grit, and bite of songs like “Rumor Has It” and “My Same.” Even “Hello,” the lead single from an album that turned out to be the singer’s most middling work yet, felt like an irresistible emotional wallop to the gut.
Maybe Adele doesn’t want to burn it all down anymore, and that’s understandable! When there’s a child involved who will one day grow up to listen to the songs their mom (or, mum, innit) wrote about their dad, there’s got to be a lot more care involved when choosing exactly what to say in a song, specifically one that’s essentially your first statement to the world since the entire dissolution of your marriage happened. And, also to her credit, we haven’t heard the whole album yet. I just think that there has got to be something more, something that is still bubbling under the surface that’s waiting to be unleashed if she would just let herself pull back a little from the smoothed-over perfection of all of her music that has been released since she became arguably the world’s most popular singer. I’ve always been afraid that this was how it was going to be: the massive, unavoidable success of “Someone Like You” convinced Adele to lean more toward love and all of its evergreen lyrical cliches and truisms as opposed to the more fiery, potent feelings of anger, heartbreak, resentment, and distrust—not just in romantic partners, but in so many other elements that she could be writing about. “Easy on Me” still feels like Adele in her impenetrable bubble of songwriting safety, and I can only hope that she lets it be popped on the rest of the record.
I will say one nice thing, though: I do love how she can never resist a chair. Adele called Xavier Dolan and said, “Oi, listen mate. Me fookin’ chair better be on that set soon as I wolk in or I’ll be fookin’ fumin’.” Adele said it is cozy time…..now. She went easy on herself! Perennially comfy queen.
Adele walking onto a music video set is like that one time when Kim Cattrall posted a picture of herself in an episode from her very short-lived shitshow Filthy Rich that was captioned with her character’s line from the scene, “Norah… get me my stool.”
That’s Adele walking onto set. Xavier…get me my chair.
(Rating: Low Brow)
Michael Myers ain’t the only one with fatalities...
Jamie Lee Curtis posting this headline in celebration of Halloween Kills having a great box office weekend and not having someone white out the part about The Last Duel was truly making me howl last night.
“Be gentle all,” she says after posting the most savage headline she could find. The way this is worded just makes me lose my mind. Something about, “they also worked for months AIMING for a strong result, the elusive moment in the cinema success sun.” Like, “You tried it! Thank you so much. You aimed for it, but your little Ben Affleck medieval movie was no match for the six hundredth installment of the Halloween franchise. The J.Lo/Ben Affleck nostalgia bait is cute, but Movies About “Trowma” always win.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
I don’t know the woman whatsoever.
I don’t know the woman whatsoever.
(Rating: I don’t know the woman whatsoever.)
Our long international nightmare has just begun all over again
This photo of Timothée Chalamet as a young Willy Wonka gives me the same vibe of a sign I saw on my vacation in Minnesota that, when I glanced at it from below, had the -le cut off from my sight.
I can’t think of anything more cruel and distressing than Timothée Chalamet dressed in a red velvet jacket running around with his spindly arms flailing out singing about how he always loved candy just a little more than the other kids growing up. And I say that as a known proponent of both Timothée Chalamet and twinks. Generation Z doesn’t need this. Our society had only just barely been released from the relentless gorilla grip that the 2005 J*hnny D*pp remake had on scene kids and band geeks for the last fifteen years. Now those of us who don’t fall prey to silly songs and magical weirdos have to run for cover again! It’s just not fair. And after all I’ve done for Timothée, this is how I’m repaid! It’s not the first time I’ve been betrayed by a 100-pound cutie with floppy hair, and it certainly shan’t be the last.
(Rating: Low Brow)
Runaway Runway Materializations
Equally obsessed and inspired by the manifestation saga catalogued by one Bree Runway last week in her desperation to find the Balenciaga Fluffy Cat Eye Sunglasses. On a hunt to find the $1150 shades, the woman whose pen was so sharp it managed to push out the greatest opening lyric of all time, “Last night I was shaking my ass in the Marriott,” would stop at nothing to find the accessory that pairs perfectly with the bombastic fashionista aesthetic she’s been honing for the last few years. And thanks to a series of viral tweets, compiled below by me, she managed to get her hands on a pair.
Truly an inspiration! Sure it may help to have fans around the world to work their magic on your behest and hook you up with the last pair in the country, but we can all use the power of positive thinking and hope for get what we want! For example, I’m going to manifest that I’m going to finish the newsletter before I have to leave for work today. And I’m also going to manifest that you read/love the Friday Letter this week and that you stream Bree Runway’s “DAMN DANIEL,” one of Top Shelf, Low Brow’s songs of 2020.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
Rest in Peace-nut Butter to “Coco” Singer
On October 4th, 2021, heaven gained another angel.
Coco Singer, dog to Real Housewife of New York City and general all-around abhorrent woman Ramona Singer, left this world a couple of weeks ago, and to say my heart has been aching to write about it would be an understatement! Do I have much to say about Coco, the woman? No. But I do have one of the only conspiracy theories I believe in to re-up here.
Is all of this a little crass in the wake of a death? Maybe! But the action’s of Coco’s mother over the span of her “one life” don’t necessarily deter me from thinking that Ramona would have her dog replaced if Coco were to have an untimely passing and just simply not tell anyone about it. Lest we forget that this is the woman who screamed at Bethenny Frankel that she doesn’t support other woman over the phone while Coco stood petrified in the street of New York City.
There are no parts of the street that are safe in this city! A biker could’ve taken Coco out in one second flat and been halfway to Queens before Ramona ever even noticed. Let’s just say, her flippancy in that scene doesn’t exactly help my theory. If you get one Coco replaced…you can just get another. But someone finally let Ramona in on the secret that dogs simply just do not live to be nearly 18 years old! THEY JUST DON’T!!!! Especially ones who—how do I put this delicately?—did not necessarily seem like they were in great shape! Coco Singer finally left this world after hanging on by a Beggin’ Strip for years. Maybe her and Ramona really did have an unbreakable, special bond. We’ll never know. Any subscribers how to conduct a dog seance? I’d love to interview either Coco 1 or 2.
(Rating: Top Shelf…rest in peace Coco.)
Polish Kielbasa is on sale! And baby? I’m stocking up
I know any hype for Queer Eye came and went, and deservedly so, but this has and always will be a pro-horny newsletter, and I always keep up with my men. Once you’ve got a place in one of my 10 spank bank folders, you’ve got a place in my heart! So I must say it was sweet vindication when I saw this photo of Antoni Porowski posted by his boyfriend last week:
Being perennially and consistently horny is an absolute gift. Embracing that past 25 and never letting it hide in the shadows? It only brings good things!
(Rating: Top Shelf)
A Wendy Beat Critical Update
Our beloved Wendy Williams continues to be under doctor inspection and unable to fulfill the hosting duties of her talk show. Obviously, we (me) here at Top Shelf, Low Brow are (is) devastated.
But in every dark cloud there is a silver lining. Or should I say…a silver streak? Wendy is bringing in guest hosts, and hopefully producers will realize that in the interim between now and when Ms. Williams can make her triumphant return, we would like a constant, daily stream of best friends Leah Remini and Michelle Visage hosting the show together, as they did this morning:
If there’s one dynamic duo that can replace Wendy’s two bulbous breastacles, it’s Leah and Michelle. All that’s left to do is pray.
Top Shelf Trailers
A quick and critical trailer breakdown for everyone who may have missed them over the last few weeks:
The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson as the titular bat, Zoë Kravitz as his opposite cat, and Colin “Fat, Swingin’ Hog” Farrell as The Penguin, got its long-awaited first trailer. This is the only superhero franchise I’ve ever cared about, and I will be there with an open heart and an open mouth. For, uhh, popcorn!
A first look at And Just Like That, the new chapter of Sex and the City debuted, and it quelled every fear I ever had. Something about seeing these ladies just simply…walking around makes me feel warm. And the December premiere date? Come on. Christmas present! We’ll be celebrating the one-year anniversary of this newsletter and taking a look at the premiere together.
The first trailer for the fifth installment of the Scream franchise dropped last week. This is truly maybe my favorite horror franchise of all time, and yes, I still hope they don’t kill Sidney! But who knows? I’ll take what I can get and hope that the January horror curse doesn’t befall this film as well.
That’s all for this week! I leave you with this video, which I found on my Instagram explore page and never, ever want an explanation for.
I love you all so much! This is the part where I once again beg you to read the Friday letter this week. You’re going to love it so much, I promise. Until then 💖