020. Pink Reliquary
Hello friends,
I knew I was in for a long quest when I decided to start working on this newsletter. I don’t really care for the color pink (no hate, and I love a good Trix yogurt-colored sunset just as much as the next gal). I don’t own any pink clothing, I don’t have any pink things decorating the walls in my room, even my taste in makeup tends to lean more towards rosy reds, yellows, and peachy orange tones.
After I began the usual bits and bobs, I experienced something of a Baader-Meinhof phenomenon everywhere I went—being handed pink fliers on the street, noticing a pink scarf get twisted up in the branches of a tree, finding pink sticky notes in the back of my junk drawer, going to a basement gallery show and literally being surrounded by Pepto-Bismol pink walls on all sides, sunburns capping my shoulders, calamine lotion rubbed into mosquito bites and eczema, explosions of roses poking out through fences, children at Coney Island swinging their cotton candy like knights fending off their treasure from wailing gulls (according to Wikipedia there’s even a shade called New York pink), the nuclear glow of salmon poking out of a subway rider’s morning bagel. A whole season of genderless pinks, irritatingly gendered pinks, pinks that fall somewhere in between, that are not tethered to bodies.
Enjoy.
TOUCH
After almost a year of sitting in my to-read pile, I finally finished Tommy Pico's IRL. This book-long, semi-continuous poem tackles issues of Indigenous and queer identity, how relationships and desires play out across private and public, physical and digital spaces. Littered with moments of poignancy, heartbreak, and lots of boys, Pico's manic energy makes this book perfect for the sweat of summer. You can read an excerpt here.
Lately, I’ve found that cream products—especially in this unholy hot weather—blend easier into my skin, wear better throughout the day, and fade out nicely while my usual arsenal of powder products clump up into islands across my face while I sweat). After finally rubbing my Glossier Haloscope highlighter down to the nub, I decided to pick up Make Beauty’s Dew Pot. This is more of a wet-looking, glossy highlight (sheer enough for every day and you’re not stuck with glitter on your cheeks at the end of the night). This also smells divine , and it’s a wonderful cocktail of different oils (such as jojoba and avocado) that won’t break you out or clog your pores. Looks pale pink in the jar but goes on clear—definitely a universally flattering product for all skin tones.
I picked up The Easy Body in McNally Jackson because the cover, with its pink array of printed objects, caught my eye. I hadn’t heard of Tatiana, I hadn’t heard of the publishing company (Timeless, Infinite Light). I just skimmed a couple of the poems and added it to my summer to-read pile of books. This poetry collection reads like one beautiful, lip gloss-colored punch to the gut. That’s the best way I can put it. This is Tatiana’s debut collection and I found myself awestruck by the strength of their voice, their adept wielding of language to reckon with issues of colonialism, the suffering of the body and mind, generational trauma, and this feminine strength to press on into the future. They confront the different faces of violence with a cutting honesty, foraging resistance through graceful articulations. The 4th page of this book reads like a prophecy: “this fire / which is detached from the land / just like me just like my illness; / the words in this book / are offered words on a wing in a godless month”.
When Lucie Brock-Broido died at the beginning of the year, I’ll confess I wasn’t super familiar with her work. Yet, as people kept posting tributes to her, sharing her poems online to honor her memory, I knew that these sporadic smatterings of poetry were not going to be enough. Fast-forward to a few months later when I, purely by chance, got my hands on her collection, Trouble in Mind, at the Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Boston. I began reading this on the train and I literally had to set the book down after getting past the first poem. The beauty, the emotional charge, her voice radiating and clear and haunting. It’s like reading the sound and sensation of sprinklers going off during a humid summer night. One of my favorite lines (although there are so many others) from the poem “The Deerhunting”: “In the chat room / of your fluorescent orange imagination, you will / find me lying in / the saddle between two saw- / toothed mountains like a swamp deer / out of bedding, in the rain.”
After years (okay maybe not years, per se, but certainly a long ass time) of seeing Elif Batuman’s The Idiot on blogs, my Goodreads feed, reviewed in magazines, and discussed on the handful of literary podcasts I subscribe to, I finally got my hands on a copy. This is one of those books that has gotten such a mixed response (for instance, months of bountiful hype and praise from critics while only ranking a 3.6 on Goodreads) from everywhere I looked, the people I knew who read it, that I had truly no idea what to expect. This book was a surprisingly funny read, something that I think gets lost among all the reviews. Whenever I hear that a book has some comedic element to it, I’m always a little nervous because comedy in literature can easily miss the mark. I found myself giggling out loud from time to time her images and dialogue (“I had a slab of German chocolate cake the size of a child’s tombstone”). As we follow Elif’s protagonist, Selin, through her freshman year at college, painfully awkward interactions with classmates, her introduction to e-mail (this is set in the 90’s), Batuman approaches much of her plot and characters with a dry humor that verges on satire, and sometimes you find yourself stumbling upon such beautiful musings that you’re in a perpetual state of caught-off-guard. This is a book set at Harvard University where a good chunk of the plot is dominated by Russian literature and semiotics and digital communication (“and each message contained the one that had come before, so your own words came back to you—all the words you threw out, they came back…the story of the intersection of your life with other lives, was constantly being recorded and updated, and you could check it at any time”). Of course, it’s going to be pretentious and ridiculously intellectual. And the book certainly doesn’t try to pretend that it isn’t. While I felt that certain parts of the book dragged out longer than necessary, I found Selin’s character to be compelling and painfully relatable at times. Not everything in this story felt like it could be plausible or realistic, but, frankly, fiction that tries to be too realistic can get boring after a while. Sometimes all of the books, theorists, and intellectual jargon she throws at you might go over your head, but at least you can now impress all of your friends who regularly read The New Yorker.
(It goes without saying but Batuman is brilliantly smart. I would recommend listening to her interview with the Longform podcast. It left me in awe of her.)
It would not be a pink-themed without mentioning Glossier, the makeup line whose shot of pink has been heard (or rather seen) across the digital world. The first makeup MVP has got to be the Cloud Paint Blush in the shade Puff. There’s a lot to love here from the creamy formula and its highly blendable nature to, of course, the delightfully adorable paint tube packaging. I usually shy away from cool-toned, pinker shades like Puff, but I love how a couple of dots sheered across my cheeks give the appearance of a natural-looking flush from the summer heat. The second product, Glossier’s Lash Slick mascara, has also been another gamechanger for me. After trying numerous drugstore and high-end mascaras without success, I became convinced that I’d never find the right formula for my long, yet sparse, sensitive eyelashes. Besides the sleek pink packaging, I love how natural this mascara looks. Meant to imitate lash extensions, I can pack on as much as I want to define each little lash without having to worry about it clumping up or transferring onto my eyelid. For $16, it's definitely worth breaking the bank.
Lastly, the art piece I saw that confirmed my Baader-Meinhof suspicions: Pink Slime Caesar Shift (2018) by Jen Liu as part of bitform gallery’s show, “Outside The Palace of Heavenly Purity”. This video piece is a peculiar compost heap of bubblegum-saturated live action and animation. While at first appearing like something out of a Pixar hellscape (at one point there’s just a rippling wall of 3D-rendered brain matter), we quickly learn that mass-produced, in-vitro hamburgers are getting their DNA tampered with in order to send out messages of rebellion from a group of Special Economic Zone factory workers in China. The video, too, becomes a greater message about the invisible suffering of workers in the global supply chain, echoing the words of the laborers as they turn the synthetic meat into a kind of activist megaphone. At one point, a voiceover shares the story of a 21-year-old factory worker who developed leukemia after being exposed to chemicals as women in hazmat suits strap sickly sweet, Millenial pink masks across her face. As rosy graphics glitch out across the screen, another calm, yet sinister voice affirms, “If workers lose the competition, they deserve to lose.” You can check out more of Liu’s work (including her “Pink Detachment” series”) here.
LOOK
When thinking of visual artists who engage with pink in deliciously fascinating ways, I immediately thought of the paintings of Lisa Wright, like the one above titled After the Masked Visitor (2015). The use of 19th-century attire and textile patterns remind you of the pomp of the French Rococo style albeit stripped down, the figures less aristocratic and more like ghosts in their hollowed out, half-filled forms. Wright has described this fleeting frill in her paintings: “Childhood adornments of bonbons, ribbons and laces may have altered considerably but what they represent has not: the inevitable and irresistible desire to escape prepubescence with the trying on of the adult persona.” While that might be interpreted as pink representing immaturity, I would argue that Wright employs pink as a tool of alchemy, a way of marking out the bodies of her (primarily female) figures in the midst of transformation. There is a sense that this awareness, from the pink flush of skin to the overlay of fabric, is subject to instability and vacancy. There are so many pink-tinged paintings I wouldn’t know where to start, but you can check out more of her work here.
I recently stumbled across the work of Mexican fashion designer Enid Almanza on Instagram and I fell in love with his “Lost Stars” editorial. House of Enid’s sculptural headpieces and garments are truly something out of this world. These bold arrays of pastel pink and blue skirt the gorgeous line between the alien and the divine. Definitely an underrecognized designer and I would love to see more of his work across my feeds in the future. You can see the rest of House of Enid’s editorial photos here.
You’ve probably seen Portia Munson’s work before if you’ve passed by her laminated flower kaleidoscope panels in the Bryant Park and the Fort Hamilton Parkway subway stations or you’ve scrolled past her “Pink Project” installations, a hellish mass-produced landscape of throwaway kitsch and everyday objects. I’m not going to touch on either of those works today. Instead, I’m going to share a little-talked-about work from her 1996 “Garden” series: a sculptural textile piece called Bunny Rug. This particular quilt, like the fabric mayhem of the main installation, was constructed out of stuffed animals Munson found in New England. “‘The Garden’”, Munson writes, “centers on the idea of artificial beauty, consumerism, and cultural ideas around the feminine aspects of nature.” There is something quite horrifying about these stuffed animals one might recognize from childhood appearing now as “flattened carcass, toy-bunny pelts” on the ground. You can check out more of her work here.
I realized I don’t talk about sculpture that often, so I thought I would include Kathy Butterly’s delightfully strange ceramics. I love the pink, fleshy quality of her pieces, the way she twists and molds the clay forms into squeezes of skin (like the one pictured above titled Slip, 2003) . Butterly’s pieces, which still maintain a few marks of more traditional ornamental vase design, look like the antique remnants of nuclear fallout, something so delightfully alien. You can check out more of her pieces here.
Lastly, I want to mention interior designer India Mahdavi. Specifically, her wonderful work inside The Gallery at Sketch, a restaurant in London (which won her numerous restaurant design awards in 2015). Her plush pink chairs are gorgeous, complemented by accents of gold and the minimal cartoon drawings on the wall. One Reddit user has described this place as "getting drunk inside a vagina". I'm not sure how much I agree with that, but this is the kind of place that will tempt you into having another glass of rosé . You can learn more about Mahdavi's colorful projects here and check out a profile of her in The New Yorker here.
LISTEN
I've been sitting on this podcast for so long, waiting for the right time to mention it: Food 4 Thot. Hosts Tommy Pico, Fran Tirado, Dennis Norris II, and Joe Osmundson (and guest hots from time to time) take us through different "courses" of pop culture, relationship advice, conversations about race and queer identity, and some of the funniest sex stories you'll ever here. It's a podcast that has made me accidentally laugh out loud in the middle of a crowded subway on more than one occasion and it's sure to brighten up your day. Listen to it on Apple Podcasts or here.
Lately, I’ve been turning to Nilufer Yanya’s EP Plant Feed for little pick-me-ups throughout the sticky heat of the day. it’s so easy to fall in love with her rich vocals and the stripped-down energy of her tunes. Her gorgeous lyrics of gold and blooming flower gardens and love in suburbia linger in my head with a comforting gentle warmth. At just 3 tracks long, she leaves you wanting more. Give her a listen here.
Then there's the song "Follow Me" by The Shacks. This is such a dreamy tune. I love lead singer Shannon Wise's breathy vocals, the way the rhythm sizzles and pops. Their album cover, a pink stripped down version of old-fashioned records, adds a nostalgic flair to this summertime love song. Listen to it here.
Let's pick up the pace with Valentine's cover of American Boy (with help from Sophie Meiers and Rob Araujo). I love how they spice up Estelle's disco-like tune with an 8-bit bounce. If you're looking for something to listen to while you're at a roller rink, this is it.
In the same vein of wavy folk-pop is French band Palatine’s album Grand Paon de Nuit. Half the time, I have no idea what they’re saying since their songs are both in English and French, but I have a feeling it's something beautiful. Perfect for blasting out loud when there’s no one home or when you’re walking around after a long day and looking to decompress (one of my personal favorites is "Ecchymose"). Listen to it here.
I thought I would include at least one instrumental piece in this list: Angelo Badalamenti's noirish track "The Pink Room". Originally made for the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me soundtrack, this song emulates the energy the original TV show with a more ominous cadence (fitting for the film itself which follows Laura Palmer's last days). Listen to this (and try not to enter the Black Lodge) here.
If you’re in the mood for some country music or about to embark on a road trip across America, I’d highly recommend Kacey Musgraves’s 2015 album Pageant Material. I’m not a country fan at all, but even I can get behind her wholesome, funny lyrics and catchy tunes. For instance, I love how her song “This Town” opens with a woman telling an outlandish story about a nurse getting bit by a patient to her friends before Kacey comes in singing about tight-knit, small-town communities in the South. It’s sure to bring a smile to your face. Listen to it here.
And it would not be a pink-themed newsletter without mentioning Adult Mom’s 2017 album Soft Spots. (I’ve been going through a tender guitar phase right now). I’ll confess: I had not listened to this entire album from start to finish up until a week ago. I’ve listened to a few tracks here and there (and their Twitter presence always makes me so happy), but I finally took the plunge and oh my god, it was so so worth it. I love their sweet, genuinely honest lyrics (the way they remind me of croony ballads without that cookie-cutter, overly-commercial quality) like in the song "Full Screen": "No, we don't get to choose / And I wasted the warmer months / Feeling sad about you / But nature doesn't get to choose." There's a gentle warmth of emotion that seems to radiate from each song. This album is the sonic embodiment of a warm blanket or a summer road trip. Seriously. Listen to it here.
Anajah Hamilton recently released her EP Light and Air and I love the dreamy, ephemeral kind of femininity that exudes from her work. Her vocals are so angelic and, since she produces and records most of her songs on her own, there’s such a sweet, no-frills quality to each of these short tracks. From modeling, working with Art Hoe Collective, and working on campaigns with Nike and Mac to dancing in Solange’s performance at the Guggenheim last year, she’s already on her way to doing great things. You can check out the EP here and see the visuals for some of her tracks on her Instagram here.
How could I forget Kero Kero Bonito’s classic tune “Flamingo”. I remember hearing this song for the first time the summer after graduating high school and seen Kero Kero Bonito perform a few times now. Every time this song resurfaces, it feels like summer no matter what time of year it may be and I’m always ready to dance around my room when it comes on. Words of wisdom: “How many shrimps do you have to eat / Before you make your skin turn pink / Eat too much and you’ll get sick / Shrimps are pretty rich”. Listen to it here.
LICK
Now if you want something really, really (I mean really) pink, the 1964 dark comedy, What a Way to Go! will satiate that craving like nothing else. With an all-star cast of Shirley MacLaine, Gene Kelly, Paul Newman, and Dick Van Dyke, the musical romance follows Louisa, a widow who tries to donate $200 million dollars to the IRS after a string of wealthy husbands who died mysteriously leads her to believe that she’s been cursed. After watching Louisa’s almost surreal flashbacks to her childhood and her deadly marriages, I can say with great certainty that it’s one of the most absurd, over-the-top films I’ve seen in a while. If you’re in the mood for something light-hearted and ridiculous (and a visual feast), give it a watch.
There were a number of pink buildings and architectural designs I could’ve included in this letter, but, considering the flushed laze of summertime, I thought Nathalie Harb’s “Silent Room” was a good fit. As part of Beirut Design Week, Harb built this pavilion for residents and travelers to escape the chaotic flurry of highway sounds. In a time where noise pollution is having a serious impact on environmental and human health, Harb’s project feels well-timed. The Silent Room is meant to be accessed by the public, not just the wealthy few, and each person can spend up to 30 minutes inside this sanctuary. You can learn more about Harb’s work here.
I recently came across the music video for Tsar B's track "Rattlesnake". I absolutely adore her slicked back pink hair, the clean white of her suit. Her music is ferocious, sinister (very much in the same vein as FKA Twigs and Sevdeliza). If you're looking for some terrifying mythological imagery to sink your teeth into, watch it here.
One of my favorite makeup artists to follow on Instagram is Bea Sweet. She's worked on celebrities, different fashion and cosmetic companies (including Kali Uchis's album cover). She plays with color in such creative ways and while I'm not the biggest fan of pink makeup, her abstract looks (like the wings pictured above), are a source of inspiration for makeup artists and lovers of all skill levels.
I recall mentioning GIRLI in one of my earliest newsletters and I had to bring her back after watching the music video for her most recent single "Day, Month, Second". She injects so much punk boldness into her pop tunes, turning the throes of heartbreak into a cathartic dance anthem. I can't get enough of her fluorescent fuschia locks. Watch it here.
Then there’s the Anrealage Spring 2018 Ready-To-Wear collection. No, not all of the looks in this collection are pink but the rosy ones really stood out to me. Designer Kunihiko Morinaga described this collection as “an attempt to visualize power.” These swaths of shiny fabric are cinched and molded by straps—a balance between restrictive control and softened looseness that feels neither masculine nor feminine. Something out of a post-apocalyptic Shakespearean dream, you can learn more about Anrealage here and watch the complete show with all of the looks here.
There’s not nearly as much pink as you would think in Mark Robson’s 1967 film Valley of the Dolls, but I chose this film because, when brainstorming things for this newsletter, my copy of the original book sitting back on my bookshelf in Florida immediately sprang to mind. The film follows three women: Anne, Neely, and Jennifer who each attempt to pursue fame in their respective creative industries. Over time, the women fall prey to drugs and god-awful men as they try to navigate all kinds of misogyny and stereotypical social expectations. It oozes 60’s style, which is why it’s so easy to see how this has become a cult film since its release. At times, it’s frustrating to watch the characters and their messy ambitions play out on the screen in our third/fourth wave feminist world. When pink does seep into the film’s campy visuals, it feels more sickening than sweet.
And of course, there's Janelle Monae's music video for her song "PYNK". There's so much packed into this performance, from the dancing to the visuals to the costumes, that scream female empowerment (for both trans and cis women alike). I love how joyous this pop track sounds, something super necessary at a time like this. Janelle's music has been slept on for far too long and you need to check it out.
I'm not sure why I've become obsessed with Benjamin Constantine's creepy cute, hellishly pink illustrations, but lately, I've been spending far too much time scrolling through his Instagram. I love how these cartoons toy with horror and stereotypes of girliness, the way Constantine brings these demonic creatures (maybe more monster than human) to life. You should follow him on Instagram here to see his newest pieces and videos of his meticulous drawing process.
Lastly, there's Dolly Parton's performance of "Jolene" in 1973 on the Porter Wagoner Show. From the host's sequined pink suit to Dolly's coral-y lace dress and sculptural hair, this moment is absolutely iconic. Watch it here.
CLICK
If you’re just as clueless about pink as I am, check out this article from Artsy about the history of pink in art-making. You’ll probably discover some fascinating works and artists. Trust me, it’ll be like dipping your toes in a rosy, art history-flavored bath. Want to learn more? Scientists recently found the oldest organic color—a shade of pink which survived in 1.1 billion-year-old rocks. If you're wondering how pink became associated with female gender in the first place, Vox has a great video you can check out (spoiler alert: that color association is only fairly recent).
Although Pride month has already passed, for the sake of relevance I'm going to include this article about "pinkwashing". Every year, Pride gets progressively more corporate and monetized as brands and companies want to cash in on the holiday. This article talks about the history of pinkwashing and why, while appearing to be progressive and inclusive, has a harmful impact on LGBTQ+ activism. For more of a theoretical approach to the subject, I recommend Robert McRuer's essay "Pink" in Prismatic Ecology (message me if you can't access the PDF).
Then there's this short story by Karen Green in BOMB that washes the experience of hospitals and death and bodies with a sinister pink hue. (Heads up, you might want to skip this if hospitals make you squeamish).
While we're on the subject of the flush of bodies, Dana Levin's poem "School of Flesh" feels quite appropriate now. This surprisingly violent poem oozes and foams up with a violent pinking of the body like a scar or a rash. (Keep in mind that the poem alludes to sexual violence).
When we think of pink, oftentimes images of romantic dates or valentines can come to mind. I came across this really interesting article about crushes and romantic friendships at Barnard at the start of the 20th century. Author Rona Wilk does a great, thorough job of unpacking this "epidemic peculiar to college girls" through a non-heteronormative lens, reminding us that the idea of a strait-laced ( and super straight) of the early 1900's era is bullshit.
Lastly, who can forget Barbie? I'm sure many of you recall passing bright pink displays of Barbie toys when shopping but no. I'm talking about Barbie Chang, poet Victoria Chang's equally artificial alter ego. Her poem "Barbie Chang Loves Evites" feels like the silly stereotypes of a 50's housewife gone terribly wrong. Between each line, there is a darkness seeping through the cracks in Barbie's facade: "always ready to put / on her costume to / drink mimosas her heart growls more / each day she trims it."
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So there you have it. A pink-flavored confection for every one of your senses. Some other honorable mentions to this list include: the color of canyon rocks at dawn, that kind of cheap soap you always find in hotel bathrooms which should smell like roses but doesn't, the shock of a dog's tongue glossing up the side of your cheeks, rose quartz laid out across your friend's windowsill.
Until next time.
Love,
Ellie