PicoBlog

Hello my dear friends, It can be equally exciting and melancholy to look back over one’s life and ask the question “How did I get here?”. I often do. Though I’m not one typically who spends too much time looking backwards, I do appreciate the building blocks of life, experiences, and situations that forged me into a particular version of "Shaye”. Perhaps I’ve never told you this, but it was an old boyfriend that introduced me to my first cow.

Ole Smoky Distillery in Gatlinburg recently launched a new line of moonshine and bourbon whiskey that honors the legendary moonshiner Popcorn Sutton. Facing a prison sentence, he committed suicide in 2009 from carbon monoxide poisoning. He is best known as an outlaw, bootlegger, and storyteller, descended from a long line of moonshiners. It was ultimately his penchant for obtaining celebrity status that proved to be his undoing in the end, but his legend remains.

Aristocracy and democracy have this in common: they are both expressions of human power. Oligarchy (which I take here in the sense of “rule by the wealthy”) is the reign of the abstract, of money, of exchange. The oligarch, being of an abstract essence, must simulate the humanity of some other class. In antiquity it was the aristocracy that he simulated, putting on the airs of kings and lords (which are military, and hence aristocratic functions).

It’s no secret that I absolutely love olive oil, and we all know by now that Spain has the best olive oils in the world. Many people might think of olive oil as being used mostly for savory dishes, but I’m here to tell you today that it can add depth, richness, and a little magic to other meals of the day…that’s right, I’m talking about breakfast, people. I’ve been making these light, fluffy olive oil pancakes—tortitas de aceite—for decades, ever since my daughters were young, and they’re a wonderful way to show off one of Spain’s most amazing products (don’t forget, if you need to stock up on olive oil and want to buy from Little Spain, annual subscribers have a discount…code below!

On September 7, I had the privilege of participating in the 300th Anniversary Speaker Series for the town of South Kingstown, Rhode Island. I was asked to speak about Oliver Hazard Perry, who was born in South Kingstown in 1785 and went on to become one of the great heroes of the War of 1812. He led American forces to victory on Lake Erie in September 1813 while flying a famous flag:

Just a quick note to say that, for this week, you’ll find my work over at FLOOD Magazine, where I wrote about the phenomenal new record from Olivia Rodrigo. GUTS is a step-up from the already top-tier SOUR— sharper, funnier, meaner, deeper, wiser, more assured, more absorbing from start to finish. As I note in my review, she writes about emotional complexity and internal contradiction with the kind of acuity that’s more often ascribed to guys like Jason Isbell and Zach Bryan (or, dare I say it, Taylor Swift).

Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS Era reads like an experiment. Every move she’s made since the release of her second studio album works toward shedding all of the expectations she’s had to carry thus far. Rodrigo’s core fans are a group of children, tweens and teens that have idolized her every move since she graced their TV screens as a child actor on the Disney Channel show Bizaardvark. The feral, obsessive energy of these young fans is as frenetic as it is puritanical: though they go to war for her, they also place the heavy burden of the Disney brand’s squeaky-clean reputation on her.

Let me save you some time and say that what you are about to read is me being a major killjoy and I make zero apologies. But consider this a heads-up. Because this newsletter concerns itself with stuff that is actually not our concern: mine or yours. But I’m addressing it because it’s driving me potty. I’m talking about the spitting, spinning rumour-mill concerning the only person it actually does concern, Don’t Worry Darling director Olivia Wilde.

Diatribe No. 160Editor’s note: This is our first guest Diatribe. I’m thrilled to have music journalist Valerie Lee join me here.There is perhaps no better place for a lively debate about all things Coachella, lineup, and (often subjective) opinions than with a group of friends piled into a Suburban on the way into the festival, stuck in traffic on Avenue 49. (If you know, you know.) A friend of mine, a seasoned music industry veteran with years of experience touring on the road with artists that range from Warped Tour bands to Top 40 pop stars, sat a row ahead of me in our car and wondered out loud, “Does Blackpink deserve to be a headliner?