MUST LIST, VOLUME XXX.

1. The new blueberry flavor from Dum Dums. If you, like me, are ever able to steal handfuls of these from your local bank, don't hesitate. Mass-produced candy often tastes like its color more than its purported "flavor," but these little sapphires-on-a-stick taste exactly like blueberries. Although they may not be quite as much of a superfood, they're still goddamned delicious.



2. Drinking In America by Eric Bogosian. Let's face it, we're all here partially because we're obsessed with Patti Smith and Lou Reed's New York. Sure, it may be long gone, but it continues to thrive in this collection of monologues, originally published in 1986. It's a quick read, but the canny portraits of diverse men living and, yes, drinking in our fair city stuck with me for far longer than the two hours it took to read it. Although the material got weaker and very repetitive after the first, eponymous collection of monologues, it's still absolutely worth your while if you like to "reminisce" about the city you missed by a few decades.

3. Split pea soup-colored nail polish. "Green With Envy," by Sally Hansen, is my current favorite. I hate split pea soup, but the mossy pastel color is unbeatable. I like when polishing my nails, which is a decidedly fussy and feminine thing to do, is made less glamourous by inventive colors like this one. This is for the kind of folk who like to paint their nails as much to hide the grit beneath them as to doll themselves up.





4. Duran Duran's lyrics. Having been smitten for years by the hooks and wild synths alone, I always overlooked what Simon LeBon was actually, you know, singing about. The portraits of privilege, partying, and paranoia are poetic (okay, so a little ham-fisted-ly poetic, but whatever). Don't make fun of me (or my alliteration) before checking out this excerpt from "Last Chance On the Stairway:"

I don't remember quite how I met you wasn't long ago
Just get a picture of the sun
in your eyes. The waves in your hair
Maybe it's something said in a movie
or you could've said last night.

Or this, from the perfect song "The Chauffeur:"

The aphids swarm up in the drifting haze
Swim seagull in the empty sky on towards that western isle.
My envied lady holds you fast in her gaze

It's perfectly weird, disjointed, and fatalistic. Viva Le Bon!

5. Menomena's new album, Mines. Although the lyrics are cliche-infested throughout the whole thing (sample: "I made myself an open book/I made myself a sitting duck" on "Queen Black Acid"), the music is inviting enough to make up for it. My favorite song is the single, "Killemall." It's an active song, full of pulse-pounding traffic sounds and forward-motion vocals. Here's Menomena performing it and pulling one of my favorite, simple percussive moves ever (maracas as drumsticks) on late night:



6. Gary Shytengart's Super Sad True Love Story. Read this fucking book or else. Consider that a threat. This is the perfect novel to describe the death of the novel, and I know you love meta shit like that. The characters are earnest and full and the world (and love) that they inhabit is painstakingly imagined. Get to it!