Glossed Over

Self: A Gay Man Deceives His Wife, Redoes Household Decor

Sure, we expect bitterness from a woman whose husband married her in a desperate attempt to quash his gayness. But we were bewildered by Self’s “I Married a Gay Man” (February). Near the end of the essay, the anonymous author describes the situation now that she and her ex, Chris, have both settled into new relationships.

My relationship with Chris is as good as it can possibly be, given the circumstances. We do birthday parties and some holidays together, and he and his male partner live in—and have redecorated—our former house… [bolding ours]

Redecorated? Really? He redecorated? Did he give her a makeover, too?

For an article that is at least ostensibly about forgiveness and acceptance, we found that to be a strange detail to throw in. But then, we’ve never been married to a gay man, so what do we know? Apparently, we’ve dodged a bullet. Check out this statistic quoted in the article which, conveniently, the author managed to twist to illustrate that, OMG, gay men marrying straight women is an imminent plague upon our society.

...research done by University of Chicago sociologist Edward Laumann, Ph.D., estimated that between 1.5 million and 2.9 million American women who have ever been married had a husband who had had sex with another man. That means there are a large number of women who have no idea what their husband does in secret.

Seriously, we’re finding the presentation of this statistic a bit dicey. Women who have ever been married? A husband who had had sex with another man? That doesn’t necessarily equate to a husband who’s sneaking around on his wife with other men; it applies equally to a married man who, say, had an experimental phase at some point, or a divorced woman whose ex was bisexual, or any number of permutations.

And anyway, there probably aren’t any statistics to back this up, but what husbands do in secret is more likely to involve online poker and reading their wives’ back issues of Cosmo than illicit gay sex. (Hi, honey!) Though, to be sure, Anonymous includes a damning admission of that, too, after she confronts him with her newly diagnosed case of chlamydia:

He had been having anonymous sex with men. “I don’t know how this could have happened,” he stammered. “It’s nobody that I knew...it was mostly oral sex...it just happened.... At gay bars, there are back rooms with holes in the walls....”

And when he did have relations with his unsuspecting wife, it was just like that scene in Brokeback Mountain between Ennis and Alma. It made her “very emotional,” watching that movie.

So what’s a girl to do? Is there any way our plucky heroine could have seen this coming? Or is being married to a gay man a fate that could befall most any woman?

Well:

Early in our relationship, Chris told me he’d had homosexual experiences as a teenager but assured me it was youthful curiosity.

And...

Two unusual things happened on our first date. After we watched the movie Romancing the Stone, Chris said, “I think I could marry you”...Then, after he kissed me good-night, he shocked me again, saying, “No matter what you hear, I’m not gay.” In fact, I had heard other students say that everyone in his fraternity was gay.

That answers that, at least. If this article is to be believed, foresight is more rare than a man who’ll redecorate the house.

We Read It So You Don't Have To: The Entire February Issue of Cosmopolitan

Okay, we’ve been away from the blog for a while. Now that we’re back, we feel a little penance is necessary—after all, you’re still here, aren’t you? So we read the ENTIRE ISSUE of Cosmopolitan this evening. Here are the highs, the lows, the points where we just couldn’t resist a smartass remark. Enjoy while we take a lengthy shower to decontaminate.

•    First, the cover, on which Katherine Heigl is wearing a truly appalling dusty pink Herve Leger bandage dress. Does anyone actually need horizontal lines encasing their entire body? Does this look good on anyone who doesn't weigh 110 pounds? Hell, it barely looks good on Heigl.  Anyway, our favorite cover lines:

10 Subliminal Tricks That Make People Adore You

Guess what? Reading Cosmo in public isn’t one of them!

John Mayer Shares Why All Guys Aren’t A**holes

Well, there’s an unlikely source for that story.

•    Best letter to the editor ever.

I want to give you a high five for featuring Beyonce on the cover of your December issue. Thank you so much for showing more diversity in your magazine and featuring our country as a whole!

Because, you know, Beyonce is really representative of “our country as a whole.”

•    Oh! What an honor! Katherine Heigl is Cosmo’s “Fun Fearless Female of the Year.” Apparently, she earned the title by going head-to-head with former costar Isaiah Washington:

Last year, after costar Isaiah Washington allegedly used an offensive word (faggot) to refer to T.R. Knight…Katherine spoke up against Isaiah at the Golden Globes. “You can’t give me too much credit for being brave,” she says now. “I was just a girl who had had a couple of drinks and was angry and got mouthy.”

But then she says this…

“As I was opening my mouth, I kept thinking, Shut up. But it’s an issue that I felt really passionately about.”

Well, which is it? Was she loose-lipped after drinking,l or did she feel strongly about defending Knight? Also, we LOVE how Cosmo put the f-word in italics, like it’s a foreign language or something.

Two other reasons Katherine’s so fun and fearless: She last cried watching an episode of Grey’s spin-off Private Practice, and she has her own line of hospital scrubs. Is that what passes for awesome at Cosmo HQ?

•    We’re skipping the confessions, because they make us feel old. Also because they’re completely fabricated. In any case, we can’t exactly relate to tales of women accidentally exposing themselves during a dormitory fire drill or puking in the boss’ potted plants, possibly because we’re at the advanced age of 31, or because the last time we were senselessly drunk, we cried about college football in the diner at the Palms hotel in Vegas at 4 in the morning. Hey, Cosmo, we’d be happy to write that up and submit it for an upcoming issue!

•    In “Man Manual,” Cosmo calls out mensfitness.com for proffering dumb advice that a woman wearing flats to a bar “certainly isn’t there to lure a mate.” And Cosmo certainly has the moral high ground here, since all of its advice is spot-on!

•    Here’s some ludicrous Hollywood trivia that’s supposed to be surprising insider information, from “Informer”:

In the movie Catch Me If You Can, Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo plays the hot stewardess who hooks up with Leo DiCaprio’s character. Jennifer Garner also appears in the flick as—get this—a high-class hooker!

Get this! It’s called acting! Also, her IMDB entry!

•    We are deeply amused by the anatomical euphemisms used in the lingerie feature “Pour Some Sugar on Me.” Resolved: to start referring to our breasts as our “powerful pair,” just like Cosmo does.

•    John Mayer’s letter to us readers on page 101 gave us the creeps.

A guy who has to say he’s nothing like those other guys is usually exactly like those other guys. Also, “passion-filled endeavors”? Signing the note “I love you”? Think we’ll pass on that drink, John.

Here are Cosmo’s other “Fun Fearless Male” honorees:

Chris Brown, who has eight tattoos! Fun!

Dave Annable, who has “always been scared of sharks in a little-girl way.” Fearless!

Dane Cook, who tells a scintillating tale of eating bad shellfish on a date. “I went to the bathroom and knew it was going to be an all-night situation, so I told her we had to drive home…and that I’d have to stop a couple times on the way.” Suave!

James McAvoy, who…well…we have nothing bad to say about him.

Tony Romo, who says football is “not as glamorous as everyone thinks.” Revealing!

John Krasinski, who should have combed his hair and worn something other than an undershirt for the photo, but we lurve him anyway.

Dave Salmoni, who is apparently some kind of wild-animal daredevil. Uh, reckless?

Common, who enjoyed playing a police officer in the upcoming movie The Night Watchman because he “got to learn about the ghetto part of Los Angeles.” Seriously.

Peter Krause, who likes to speak in clichés! “There’s something very romantic about doing things that make you feel incredibly alive.” Original!

Tom Anderson, who we deleted from our Myspace friends.

And Zac Efron, who…God. Do we really have to explain why no grown woman should be interested in him?

•    Wait. Why are there twelve fun fearless males, but only one female?

•    “9 Big Secrets of Male Arousal”: One of those secrets is that a man’s nose is an erogenous zone. Well, they get credit for trotting out a sex tip we are absolutely certain we’ve never seen before.

•    “Get Him to Go There”: You know how Cosmo won’t use the word “hair” twice in the same article, instead subbing “tresses,” “locks,” “strands,” and “sun-catching silk”? Well, they do the same with female genitalia! In the one-page story “Get Him to Go There,” writer Elise Nersesian uses the following terms:

Ahem, bush

Down below

Between your legs

Privates

Southern regions

Below the belt

Your goods

•    Aah! There’s more! In “The Most Satisfying Sex Position,” Bethany Heitman uses the expression “hot button.” TWICE.

•    There may be only one fun fearless female, but there are stories of five women who were “Young and Murdered.” Ah, so that’s the other way young women can get media coverage!

•    Then there’s “I Suddenly Had Baby Panic,” which sums up the decision to be a single mother like this:

I’m a romantic. I wanted the partner, then the baby…before long, I was considering single motherhood. A baby was my priority, so I decided to make it happen despite the obstacles.

Single motherhood isn’t exactly a fresh topic for a women’s magazine, but they could have printed something slightly more thoughtful than this. Writer Louise Sloan talks about searching for a sperm donor and “shopping for eye color the way you select pumps in red or navy.” Oh, excellent comparison. We never would have understood otherwise. Either Cosmo thinks its readers are sexually precocious twelve-year-olds, or they think we’re stupid. We can’t decide which is a worse editorial philosophy.

•    “It’s A Wild, Wild Life,” a fashion spread with way too much khaki, uses the following caption:

She always wanted to use that line “I am woman, hear me roar.”

Using a feminist anthem to sell clothes? And we thought we were cynical.

•     “The Secrets of Being an ‘It Girl’”: Apparently it has something to do with being named Jessica, as both Alba and Biel are pictured in the opening spread. No need to read this one!

•    Oh no! Another way we could die! “Beware of This Scary Infection” tells us all about MRSA, which is one more disease whose transmission can be prevented by thorough hand-washing, but which we’re going to fret about anyway!

•    This is why we don’t normally spend any time on the “Red-Hot Read.”

He really does want to make me his own personal ice-cream sundae, she thought and gasped as the ice cream dripped from the spoon onto her belly, her hips, her thighs…

This “erotic” story really does want to trot out every tired cliché, she thought, and rolled her eyes as she realized it was possible to write graphically about sex and still be totally dull...

•    Ooh, our horoscope! “Uninhibited booty awaits!”

•    Finally, the last page of this issue, the “Cosmo Quiz.” Turns out we’re “flirt averse,” but we think that just translates to Cosmo-averse. Good night!

Bazaar’s concept of “best” •  Oh, to live in such a world!  The “best buy of the day” on Bazaar’s site is a Marni necklace that retails for $1,296.  The upside?  Yesterday’s $295 cardigan from Tory Burch seems almost reasonable in comparison.

Allure Explores The Important Topic of Celeb Tattoos

You know how Star magazine prints paparazzi photos of actors and then brands their activities “normal” or “not normal”?  We often have a similar reaction to the famous faces we see in magazines, mentally labeling them as reasonable or, more often, adjectives that aren’t nearly as positive.  A quote from Jenna Jameson in Allure’s “Private Eye,” January, provoked the latter type of reaction.  Take a gander at her response to Jeffrey Slonim’s query, “Any tattoos you’re glad you didn’t get?”

Well, it’s not like there’s anything else about her the grandkids would question! 

See the full feature after the jump.

Cosmopolitan Proves Its Expertise with Bad Advice

From “Men This Minute” in the December issue of Cosmopolitan:

Dumb Advice He’s Getting

From the pages of GQ: “A ‘happy ending’ is considered outright cheating only if the guy plans on it.  ‘If you’re getting a massage, it could just end up happening…If she starts on you, you’re going to need a hell of a lot of willpower to turn that away.’”

Really?  What a charming lack of self-awareness Cosmo displays, calling out another magazine for dispensing terrible counsel!  (For the record,though, we do agree that GQ’s perspective on this issue is woefully skewed.)  Will GQ retaliate by printing, oh, 85% percent of Cosmo’s content in its next issue?   We humbly suggest they start with “The 22 Best Relationship Tips Ever,” an article which offers some real gems.  For instance:

Don't be BFFs. Being pals with your man is great in theory.  But that kind of connection actually can kill your sex life.

And:

If you want to maintain closeness with your man, get out of your head and into bed.  Guys feel more comfortable connecting with women on a physical level, not engaging in deep discussions.

Well, at least we learned something about men from this whole debacle.  A man on the massage table may require a preternatural amount of restraint, but  apparently, it would take a similar amount of temperance for Cosmo to avoid printing utter pap in every issue.  Good to know!

Plum Sykes on the picket line • The WGA writer’s strike isn’t just a tough on writers and crew members whose projects have been discontinued.  No, it’s a definite hardship for fashion’s elite, too.  Witness the dilemma Plum Sykes (who’s adapting her novel into a screenplay and is therefore on strike) faces as she prepares to protest on the streets of New York:  “...what on earth does a Voguette wear to picket?”  Yes, she’s serious. 

In this piece for New York magazine, Sykes then proceeds to seek advice from an unnamed “society hostess” and fellow Vogue writer William Norwich, who are probably two of the least helpful people on Earth when it comes to unions, picket lines, and most any other topic.  Her ruminations on the subject are the most self-absorbed take on the writer’s strike yet—and, quite possibly, ever.  If only screenwriting weren’t the sole kind of work she’s forbidden right now.  [via Fashionista]

Allure's Interpretation of Dressing Cheaply Varies from Ours

Know what’s even better than arbitrary fashion rules? Appending heavy-handed assumptions about sexuality to the clothing in question!  Why just scrutinize an outfit when you can cast aspersion on someone’s character, too?  Allure’s “Life of the Party,” December, covers all those bases in the guise of helping us discern what, exactly, we’re supposed to wear to holiday parties with nebulous dress codes.  (Festive casual?  What the hell?) 

Here’s some priceless guidance from stylist Kate Young:

And I love dresses by Kate Moss for TopShop.  They’re really fancy but still fun and slutty—in a good way.

Oh.  Whew.  Well, as long as they’re slutty in a good way… We really, really wish Allure had pestered Young to expound on this point.  The word “slut” has such negative connotations, but Young is saying to be “slutty in a good way.”  Is she telling us to eschew society’s standards?  Is she urging us to embrace our sexuality?  Does she want to jettison such labels altogether?

Who knows?  There’s no evidence Young herself has any clue, as she elucidates her slutty-in-a-good-way aesthetic:

Deep, plunging necklines are OK, as long as the amount of cleavage you’re showing is tasteful.

So a plunge neck is fine if it doesn’t show too much décolletage...which is kind of the point of a low-cut top. And where does the “slutty” part come in again?   We couldn’t tell you, but we could point you to part where it becomes clear that using the term “slutty” was just for shock value.

I don’t like backless for cocktail parties, though.  There’s something too risque about it...

And the appalling part:

...—in a way that low-cut in the front isn’t.  It shows you’re definitely not wearing a bra, and it invites men to walk up and touch you.

Right, because not covering our bodies from head to toe is a direct invitation for men to approach us and touch us!  It’s totally our fault for dressing that way if a man we don’t know feels ENTITLED to paw at us!

Here’s the unspeakably ludicrous part:

You know how a woman in lingerie is sexier than a naked woman?  It's the same sort of thing with this.  A backless dress just means business.

Business, eh?  We’re guessing she doesn’t mean the kind that takes place in boardrooms.  How lovely to imply that women with bare backs sell their bodies for cash!

You know, there’s a lot of talk about reclaiming negative words and repurposing them as emblems of strength.  If Kate Young was trying to do that with the term in question, we’d applaud her efforts.  But throwing out the word “slutty,” stripping it of meaning with the “in a good way” disclaimer, and then using it to propagate outrageously judgmental, outmoded, and flat-out incorrect standards doesn’t do anyone any favors. 

Least of all us—we have a holiday party coming up, and we still have no idea what to wear.

At Least One Person is Pleased by Elle's Redesign

Do magazines fabricate the letters to the editor?  We don’t know, but the staff at Elle might want to be more judicious if they want to eradicate any suspicion.  The November issue includes this outlandishly enthusiastic missive.

I can’t tell you how much I loved the redesign!  I couldn’t believe my eyes!  The fashion spreads look so up to date, and as usual the intelligent articles kept me entertained for hours.  I am glad you upgraded without losing your core.  Looking forward to what is to come, and I praise you on a job well done.

Tiffany, via e-mail

“Via e-mail”?  How convenient!  No last name or location!  No way to Google to see if the letter writer actually exists! 

So if “Tiffany” is this excited about a few graphic design alterations, how worked up does she get about changes that, you know, actually have an effect on her life?  We can’t imagine, but maybe that’s because we’re distracted by Elle’s new page numbers—they look exactly like the numerals that once adorned the pages of Jane.  Or because any time we say we “can’t believe our eyes,” we mean it in the worst possible sense.

Cosmopolitan's Advice Fails the Test of Time

We figured out long ago that the love advice in Cosmopolitan sucks.  Seems the staffers at Cosmo finally figured that out, too.  In “7 Love Rules You Need to Break,” November, they single out four spectacularly misguided bits of counsel they doled out between 1966 and 1968. (“Tell your mom we’re sorry.”)  For instance:

Always be sure to invite some beautiful girls whom [your guy] will find amusing.  Don’t make the fatal mistake of including too many homosexuals.

Fatal?

We snickered at the outdated guidance, but much of the current advice isn’t too far removed from those suckers of yore—especially since much of it is contradicted by tips elsewhere in the same issue.    What advice will Cosmo be apologizing for in 2047?  Here are our nominees for the worst of the November issue.

1.  From “7 Love Rules You Need to Break”:

Let Him Be Your Superman

“Men are certainly attracted to independent women, but if you’re completely self-sufficient, they feel kind of useless,” says [psychologist Joseph] Rock…But give him the ego boost of letting him do the things he’s particularly good at, whether it’s making his killer mushroom risotto, lugging your groceries upstairs with that much-vaunted upper-body strength, or just driving in the snow.

Yep, wouldn’t want to be so good at, you know, living your own life that you make him feel marginalized!

2.  From “I Catch Cheaters for a Living”:

Participate in your guy’s personal passions (if he invites you to), and show him what makes you tick.  No real connection can exist if it’s a one-way street.

So a woman feigning interest in a man’s hobbies isn’t a one-way street?  They must have different traffic laws in Cosmo land!  Also, this is the polar opposite of the advice given in “7 Love Rules You Need to Break,” where women are advised to maintain their own hobbies and spend some time engaging in those hobbies solo.

3.  From “Cosmo Weekend”:

At a crowded party, grab a cute guy, tell him you can’t find your friend (no need to have one there with you), and ask if he has seen her.  When he says no, start chatting him up while you “wait” for her.

Always good to launch a relationship with a little deception!  Again, these Cosmo girls aren’t reading their own magazine.  In “100 Things You Need to Know About Guys,” we learn this:

Their favorite way for you to hit on them: just say hi or ask them a question about themselves.

Things really do move more quickly these days, don’t they?  Instead of forty years, Cosmo figured out it was peddling nonsense in the space of a few pages!

France's Cosmopolitan: Inexplicably Tackling the Unexplained

So!  We’re back!  It’s been a life-changing and thoroughly wonderful couple of weeks.  We got married.  We went to Paris for ten days.  And we learned some very important lessons:  always have safety pins on hand when wearing a strapless dress; real butter is pretty much the best thing ever; and never, ever take it for granted that your suitcases will arrive at the airport when you do!

Also?  We picked up a huge stack of French magazines and learned that—surprise!—in many ways, they’re as mindless as their stateside counterparts.  Reading the November issue of French Cosmopolitan was a struggle.  Sure, we haven’t had a French class in a decade, but the U.S. edition is written at about a ninth-grade level (both in language and maturity), so we hoped we’d manage despite our years of forgotten verb tenses.  (Not like we ever mastered le subjonctif anyway.)  Nope!  Worse, what we did understand still didn’t make any sense.

For instance:  the supplement bundled with the November issue.  Titled “La magie est en moi,” (“The Magic Is In Me”), we figured it would be some sort of boosterish self-confidence tract.  You know, believe in yourself!  Embrace your curves!  You don’t need that scoundrel of a man!  Etc.

Mais non!  Instead, there were articles that were...well...actually about magic.  It was a little beyond for us, frankly.  There was a piece about contacting guardian angels, because, the article claims, we all have one!  They even managed to photograph one in the wild!  Good thing they identified her as an angel, too, or we’d have just thought she was a teenager in a see-through dress who got lost on her way to a rave.  The article also features a chart of what angels govern which days and what color to wear to please them.  We guess that qualifies as a fashion suggestion?

Elsewhere in the supplement, there are confessions of “magical” rites conducted by Cosmo readers (almost as compelling as the sex confessions in the American edition, which is to say, not at all); and a profile of several young Wiccans, accompanied by a photo of young women with smoky eye makeup dressed in gauzy black dresses.  See, it ’s not just American magazines that illustrate their stories with unimaginative photos!

Most mind-boggingly, the supplement contains a perforated set of tarot cards featuring such, uh, non-traditional icons as “Madonna, La Superstar” and “Bjork, La Visionnaire.”  Apparently, Paris Hilton and Victoria Beckham can predict our future, which is pretty much the most appalling idea we’ve ever read in Cosmo.  Scarlett Johansson and Bill Gates augur positive events!  Better hope you don’t turn over the Jennifer Aniston card, though.  (See the complete set behind the jump.)

The whole thing closes with Cosmo’s list of recommended psychics, complete with phone numbers.  But we didn’t call.  After reading this supplement, it was patently clear what our next step should be.

Scoping Out September Issues (Still): W

We know, we know.   This issue came out weeks ago, and we’re just now getting to it?   In our defense, it only showed up in the mail on Thursday.  This issue took ages to arrive, but at least our J. Crew catalogs arrive three times a week.  Sheesh.

All right…we might as well open the magazine.   After all, the October issue is probably going to show up any minute!

The issue weighs: 4.2 pounds

Issue thickness:  just over an inch

Who’s on the cover: Gwyneth Paltrow, looking how we imagine Donatella Versace looked thirty years ago—too much brow, too much blonde, too much bronzer.  Did Gwyn even look in the mirror before she stepped in front of the camera?

Who bought the back cover: Giorgio Armani.  The model’s wearing a shirt of paillettes and strange sleeves reminiscent of chain mail that aren’t even attached to the top.  We’ll cave to leggings long before we drop cash on woven metal sleeves.

Number of ad pages between the cover and the table of contents: The table of contents starts on page 112 and continues on 205—like the rest of the September issues, this tome is absurdly ad-heavy.

Total number of pages: 640!  It’s W’s biggest issue ever! Why, according to the cover, it’s

A Fall Fashion Bonanza

A bonanza of advertising, that is!  See below. 

How many of those pages are ads: 477, about 75 percent (source: MIN Online)

Subscription cards: Three bound.   We can deal.

Cosmetic samples: Daisy by Marc Jacobs.  Eh.  The ubiquitous Fendi Palazzo, about which we still aren’t convinced.  Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb, which, yeah, lives up to its name.   That’s not a compliment.

Is it portable? We’ll just say that it felt more than a tad weird using our canvas Target tote to schlep a magazine that features a $22,650 crocodile bag.

Number of articles concerning the obscenely wealthy:  Oh, virtually all of them.   Our favorite (of the ones we bothered to read, because why torture ourselves?) was “Just Like Mom,” wherein young, super-rich women borrow clothes from their young-looking, super-rich moms.   Oh, fun!  It’s, like, recycling!

For one bash, Samantha pulled out a black and gold minidress that Jamee had donned for a New Year’s fete in Lyford Cay some thirty years ago.

Yep, totally quotidian.  Ready for the quote?

“Everyone was asking me, ‘Is that Prada?  Miu Miu?’  And it’s like, a $275 dress from Alexander’s, but it was just so incredibly chic.”

See, it’s nothing!   It’s just a dress that was crazy expensive when it was new a whole generation ago!  And that is why we eventually stopped reading the articles in this issue.

Not as annoying as we expected:  Gwyneth Paltrow’s interview.  That’s because it is actually, totally, definitively impossible to be more annoyed by her personality than we were by the photo of her feeding a rat with a sippy cup.  What the hell?

Exactly as annoying as expected: “Wild Roses,” shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.  Because, you know, we don’t expect much from photo editorials that involve live poultry.

More annoying than we expected:  It’s a tie between the aforementioned crocodile bag and the $3,300 crocodile gloves.  For the woman who wants to spend exactly the same amount of her gloves as she did on her most recent lunchtime mini-lift.

Best pseudonym ever: Jinx Titanic, who suggested a Posh-Becks-Brad-Angelina foursome in a letter to the editor (page 304). Jinx may well be the most awesome person alive.  Update: Kate at Fishbowl LA writes that Jinx Titanic is a punk legend.  Which, yes, makes the letter even better.

More Vogue: Grooming Habits of the Grossly Overprivileged

No, no, we’re not liveblogging the rest of Vogue.  (Sure, we’re masochistic for even trying, but we aren’t gluttonous enough to go at it again.) Anyway, the September issue is practically bursting with content from Plum Sykes, whom we love to loathe—three whole articles!  We’d only read her personal essay about her life-changing endeavor to wear brooches.  (Which we bemoaned at length in our live blog, mostly due to, well, its length.)

But there are two more pieces penned by Ms. Sykes in this issue!  First up, there’s a breathless account of a Manhattan hair atelier, “At the Parlor.”  The premise: stylist Ashley Javier caters to the wealthy and famous by cutting their hair in his penthouse apartment…on an invitation-only basis.   Oh, what a tempting glimpse at the services available to those with lots of money and nothing to spend it on but their tresses!  Still, those joining the exclusive ranks of Javier’s clientele may find his services rather challenging.  See, his clients must first wind their way through—gasp!—an unfashionable part of Manhattan!

There is a scruffy gray commercial building on the corner of Twenty-eighth Street and Fifth Avenue.  Devoid of glamour, it is situated on the kind of grim Manhattan intersection that can provoke clinical depression in even the cheeriest girl.

Well, we’re depressed by the prospect of a hair salon to which clients must be invited, but we don’t think that’s what Plum’s talking about.  And speaking of a downer:

Cuddling the Yorkie, [Javier] says the dog was “a gift from Jemma Kidd and Arthur Mornington.  He’s called Tennessee, but his middle name is Morningkidd.”

Seriously?  People give their dogs middle names?  Also, exclusive hairstylists apparently speak their own language:

When he arrived on Twenty-eighth Street, “This place was harrogatha!  Harrogatha!”

We do not know this word.  Anyone?

For good measure, one of our favorite quotes from the article!

He started decorating in earnest, and “my taste fell together.  If you want to get close to yourself, forget therapy.  Decorate.”

Even better is this gem from Chloe Sevigny:

“I need a snip.  I’m going out for dinner with Bill Paxton.”  Ashley explains that he only “dusts” Chloe’s hair.  “I don’t trust L.A. hairdressers,” she adds…

Must be difficult, not being able to find one single person to cut your hair in a metropolitan area of thirteen million people.  Who knew the Los Angeles area faced such a dire shortage of appropriately trained stylists?  Someone launch a charity event, quickly!

Finally, as Plum wraps up her stay at the penthouse/salon:

Ashley, still bubbling with infectious energy, exclaims, “Adios, Sugarpuss!’…

If only we could bid farewell to Sugarpuss Sykes!  Alas, we’ll be flipping to her third contribution to the September issue, “Village People,” to discover which part of the lives of the over-privileged she’ll illuminate for us next.  We have so much to learn!

Allure's Inadvertent Image Rehab for Britney Spears

A shocker!  Allure breaks from its tradition of super-extra-close-up cover shots—finally—for September’s photo of a bewigged Britney Spears.  Despite the arresting cover photo, the issue contains no actual Britney interview.   Since the tabloid fixture failed to appear for scheduled chats with writer Judith Newman, we didn’t have to brace ourselves for any of Brit’s confessions about her life. Not that we were expecting much in the vein of disarming announcements, anyway:  even the photos here are obviously fake.  Let’s be honest:  the photos in Allure are either the result of significant artifice (her wig) or the result of using photos from 1998 (her waistline).  Seriously, we haven’t seen Brit that slender since…well…earlier this week, when we saw the campaign for her new fragrance.

Anyway, we were truly eager to read Newman’s ruminations on the nature of celebrity, which unfortunately also contained this tidbit that unmasks her secret desires.  Honestly, we think her fantasy life suffers from a serious shortage of imagination if this the best she can do.  She says:

What would I do if I were 25, world famous, unimaginably wealthy, and no one could say no to me?

What?  Do tell!

Well, first, I’d sleep with Dick Cheney.  (It’s my world.  Welcome to it.)

Okay, not everyone drools over Brad Pitt or Matt Damon or whoever the kids are into these days (Zac Efron? meh).  But the Vice President? Even disregarding his politics, we cannot quite visualize the planet Newman apparently inhabits where Dick Cheney even remotely resembles a dreamboat. At least she goes on to justify her crush on the V.P.

I don’t know what it is: the commanding voice, the crooked smile, the possibility that at any moment he might have a heart attack and I would save the lives of thousands…

Wait, she’s turned on by the guy’s heart problems?  Turns out the article helped us gain some perspective about Ms. Spears after all:  before reading this piece, we thought Britney had lousy taste in men. 

We Read It So You Don't Have To: Elle Pairs a Pop Star With a Primate

Okay, we say that we read it so you don’t have to, but really, no one should have to read “Wild Thing,” in Elle’s July issue.  It’s only four paragraphs, but it just doesn’t make sense.

Normally, we’d be pretty jazzed about Fergie.  Not because we like her music (because we don’t, though we’re strangely fascinated by “Fergalicious”), but because it gives us yet another opportunity to trot out our stories of how we grew up in the same town and we were a thrilling one degree removed from her in elementary school and junior high.  Our friends were friends with someone on Kids Incorporated!  What can we say?  That was super-exciting when we were ten.

Anyway.  Other than the pics where she poses with an orangutan for no apparent reason—and the orangutan that, in the opening photo, cuddles an Armani bag, here’s why the mercifully brief article still made us want to jam a letter opener into our eyes:

Though fans speculate about the anatomical reference in the title of her hit single “London Bridge,” let it be known she hasn’t exposed hers Britney-style.

Oh, come on.  Not flashing the paparazzi is now a mark of distinction?  To be sure, keeping your bits covered is a good thing; but there’s such a thing as setting the bar too low, you know?

…[songs] delivered, if you have the good luck to see her live,...

Which makes it sound that being in Fergie’s audience is as difficult as getting an audience with the Queen.  Hey, writer Michael Sonnenschein:  anyone can have “good luck”!  She sells tickets!

[Wearing] bright red heels, earth-tone jeans, suspenders, and a porkpie hat—an outfit inspired, she says, by the boy in Madonna’s “Open Your Heart” video…

WTF?  Strangely, this part of the article appears to be completely serious.  As does the conclusion:

Let’s hope that as she ascends, Fergie stays Fergie.  The divasphere needs a real girl.

And nothing says “real” like simultaneously wearing Gucci and cuddling a primate!

Fergie images from Popsugar

Marie Claire Goes for Nepotism, Nothing Special

Edit, 6:54 PM: As we learned from Rena herself, her appearance in Marie Claire came about after meeting editor-in-chief Joanna Coles at a party.  Her brother did not have anything to do with it.  Unfortunately, though we did not (and never do) intend to knowingly post any kind of falsehood, our article gave the wrong impression, and we apologize to Rena.

However, we stand by our opinion on cashews.

There’s a cute if unoriginal idea lurking in the pages preceding the Angelina Jolie interview in the July issue of Marie Claire.  In “I Can’t Get Through July Without My…,” 21-year-old political speechwriter Rena Silverman rattles off her must-haves for the month.  We hope the statements Rena crafts for Hillary Clinton are more interesting than her picks, which include cashews, Hanky Panky thongs, and a $168 Marc by Marc Jacobs tote bag.  Boooring.

Still, we were a bit intrigued, especially because at 21 we were interning for a state official who never learned our name (despite the fact there were only a few other staffers in the office) and whose interaction with us consisted solely of the time each day when we delivered her daily infusion of Flaming Hot Cheetos.  We certainly weren’t getting face time with a senator at that age.  Since Marie Claire failed to address the question a lot more fascinating than Rena’s love for The Big Lebowski, we wondered:  How the hell did she get such an influential job at such a young age?  Family connections?

Er...maybe?

Google revealed little, her Wikipedia page is quite vague and poorly punctuated, and even her own site proffers next to nothing that could be considered concrete detail (though it does offer loads of tortured grammar!).  While we couldn’t quite figure out how Rena became Hillary’s speechwriter, we do have a hunch as to how she snagged an appearance in Marie Claire.

Her brother, TV producer/recently anointed co-chair of NBC Ben Silverman, is a contributing editor to Marie Claire.  According to The Daily, his duties include “submitting story ideas and working on special projects.”

Or, perhaps, suggesting his sister appear in an issue.  Oh, brotherly love!  How convenient that a contributor had a family member who could appear in the July edition.  It’s, like, the most amazing coincidence ever!

And despite her completely pedestrian suggestions, we’re guessing this won’t be Rena’s only appearance in the pages of Marie Claire.  Check out this mash note thank you posted on her website:

I was very excited to work with Marie Claire, especially the editors with whom I was working, Lauren Iannotti and Joanna Coles. They are so smart and had such miraculous suggestions I'd have never thought of on my own. They are also, in addition to Hillary, amongst the leading women of today…

“Miraculous suggestions”?  We’d hate to see the draft of  “I Can’t Get Through July Without My…” without the editors’ input if recommending a leather-bound diary from Barnes and Noble was the best they could muster.  Also, seriously, Marie Claire editors are “the leading women of today”?  Young Rena certainly has a speechwriter’s gift for hyperbole.  She also has a powerful family member, who we suspect may prove far more vital to her success than a handful of cashews.

Photo via Just Jared, obviously

Elle Editor Goes on the Offensive, Gets "Real"

Fight! Elle’s Roberta Meyers kicks off June’s “Editor’s Letter” by picking a bone with the women of The View.

…the girls got going about the tabloids’ recent photos depicting an “overweight” Tyra Banks, a conversation that somehow led Joy Behar to refer to the editors of Elle and other women’s magazines as “war criminals” who wage a “war against women.”  The implication was that we’ve all punished Tyra by refusing to use her as a model once she was no longer a waif; that we’re downright hostile to showing the curves of so-called real women.

We all know where this is going, right?  Cue the “magazines have nothing to do with eating disorders”  disclaimers, please.

Clearly Ms. Behar doesn’t read fashion magazines…

Actually, we suspect she does.   But don’t worry, Joy:  apparently, mags can’t transmit eating disorders!

([Anorexia] is largely heritable and negligibly influenced by media, according to all the good research)

Ah, the obligatory “it’s not our fault” justification.  Bring on a parade of protruding sternums, in that case!

And, in March, Elle ran a lengthy interview with a longtime sufferer of anorexia about the devastating effects of the disease.

So citing one article about the deleterious effects of anorexia completely counteracts the gazillion pictures of women so thin they probably don’t menstruate.

The truth is, of course, that the much bigger crisis facing young women these days is obesity…

By her own logic, then, Elle could feature size-12 models without encouraging obesity and maybe, somehow, propagate a teensy bit of body acceptance. Sounds like a win-win situation to us.  What do you think, Roberta?

And as for Elle’s complicity in trying to starve poor Tyra off the runway, I give you exhibit A: the last shoot we did with Ms. Banks, in which her banging curves are on full, enviable display.

As if Banks’ shoot had absolutely nothing to do with the magazine’s (now expired) partnership with America’s Next Top Model.  Also, did she really use the word “banging”?

Our unwaiflike cover star Jessica Biel…

We’ll give her this one.  Sure, Biel’s physique may be unattainable by us mortals, but at least she has discernible muscle tone (even if they did cover her sculpted thighs with those abominable shorts).

…as I write this from the competitive-bikini-wearing capital of the U.S., Los Angeles…

…and we will once again take it upon ourselves to ensure the rest of the country that we do actually wear clothes here in L.A.  In fact, sometimes we even wear closed-toe shoes!

Meyers wraps up by saying

…yes, there’s something for everyone to love, even us real women.

Riiiight, because Meyers is just like you and me!  Yes, there’s something for everyone to learn, namely that Meyers’ definition of a “real woman” must be completely different from ours.

Fashion Mini: New Name, Same Subpar Content

When we bought the Fashion Mini (previously the Daily Mini) at our favorite newsstand yesterday, we were rather disappointed in its lack of heft.  88 pages?  The average issue of InStyle has more than 88 pages in perfume ads alone! But once we sat down to read it, we were relieved that the magazine is so short.  This thing is like MySpace (tons of candids, super self-conscious, wretched design) without video clips.  The Fashion Mini is flat out annoying, and not only because they use the word “chiceratti”—though that certainly is a factor.  

Normally, when we read a magazine, we make a list of things that stand out to us, so we can write about them later.  Sometimes these lists have just one or two items.  And sometimes…well, here’s our list from a cursory read of the May issue (and we’re not even going to talk about the aggressively hideous cover in an attempt to block it from our memory):

1.  The magazine frequently uses a design element that is supposed to replicate the effect of a torn page.  (See the left side of the cover.)  Which would make total sense if, you know, we ever deliberately ripped the corners and the middles of every other page of an issue.

2.  The magazine is liberally sprinkled with the outdated suffix “-ette,” as in “chicette” and “Voguette.”  Is this 1986?

3. Ten pages—more than a tenth of the total magazine—is devoted to a feature on the Hamptons.  Sadly, this may have been the least troublesome part of the issue, if only because a good chunk of it is comprised of actual facts. 

4.  The magazine is woefully addicted to extraneous capitalization and punctuation, as in this example from page 31. 

Are YOU ready for Summer?

The Hamptons!

The Diet!

The Jet-Setting!

The Aggravation of Reading About People With Summer Homes!

5. The spread pushing some garment called the Skimi, which doesn’t even appear to cover the model’s buttocks, and yet can allegedly be worn WITHOUT PANTS TO GO DANCING.  Oh, and the model?  Not a model at all.  She’s the “first-ever Miss Mini,” Olivia Palermo, recently of the Socialite Rank scandal.

6.  Miss Mini.

7. Or what about this quote from Tom Ford?

I can’t be in a store during opening hours anymore because people want me to sign things and take pictures with them with their cell phones.

You’d think that he’d have the grace to not complain about that, considering that the people who’d want to take a picture with him are probably the ones reading this magazine.

8. And what about the quiz about the magazine’s contents on the final page, introduced with this phrase:

Because testing you is loving you.

This magazine is testing us, all right.  But we are definitely not feeling the love.

It's Not Out Yet, But You've Already Read Elle's June Issue

Advance warning:  Elle’s June edition—the Body Issue—hits newsstands on the 15th.  Does it feature effortlessly skinny women who don’t exercise, just like Vogue’s Body Issue did?  Oh joy!

In case they manage to skip that onerous bit of business, they’ve got all the other usual bases covered:  what men think of women’s outfits, instructions on loving your body (despite the fact that this very magazine may be responsible for promoting the unrealistic images that can lead to poor self-image), the bikini diet whose very existence is contrary to all the “love yourself” advice, and, since it’s June, the sixth-billionth ranking of self-tanners ever published.   We might be eager to pick up this issue if only we hadn’t read these exact same stories every year in every other magazine.

On the plus side, Jessica Biel’s hair looks incredible.

Cosmopolitan's Creepy Guy Commentary

Continuing its unrelenting parade of sleaze, May’s issue of Cosmopolitan takes us on a rather disturbing journey:

Inside a Guy’s Naughty Mind

Of course, we really could have lived without such an uncensored record of the inner workings of Patrick, Cosmo Radio’s “hot evening host.”  (That’s his mug, below.)  We’re all for fostering better communication between the sexes, and it is train-wreck fascinating to read how even the most ordinary encounter can be stretched into something sex-related.  Still, Patrick’s “erotic musings” are, ultimately, nothing but a turn-off.  For instance:

10:05 A.M.

…I wonder if she’s looking to hook up again?...She was a freak and knew when to take control in bed.

So despite the fact that Cosmo promotes sexual confidence on, like, every other page of the magazine, men still reduce a forward woman to a “freak.”  Good to know!

11:40 A.M.

There’s this girl at the gym who always wears booty shorts and does an exercise where she works her legs while her butt is straight up in the air.  She’s in perfect doggie-style position, and in my dream world, I could totally hit that…

Oh, you sure know the way to a woman’s heart, Patrick.  Women love nothing more than to be objectified while going about their everyday activities!

1:17 P.M.

Okay, and now there’s some random dude in spandex blocking my view.  I think I’m going to be sick.

Sharp thinking, Patrick—by totally overreacting to the unavoidable situation of happening to glance at another man, you’ve sure sold us on the fact that you are 100% straight. This is a completely unsubstantiated guess on our part, but we’re guessing Patrick also loves football and red meat, and is just waiting for the right moment to tell you about the day he was elected social chair at Sig Ep.

5:10 P.M.

I love the elevator.  Me and my boys at work always stand in the back and check out the asses of the women getting on and off.  There’s a nice one!

The imminent sexual-harassment lawsuits ought to put a stop to this behavior rather quickly.

7:15 P.M.

On the show, we’re discussing whether you should have sex on a first date, and a girl just called in and said she’s done it and “loved it!”…Maybe she’s a dog in real life, but in my mind, she’s a hottie.

Oh, he’s sensitive, see, because he’s looking past the caller’s appearance...all the way to her propensity for removing her panties.  Deep.

11:50 P.M.

…But then I spot a girl coming out of the bar who’s a size 6, trying to squeeze into a size 2.  Nasty—that killed the mood.

Yeah, how dare that random woman wear ill-fitting clothes and therefore hamper his sex drive?  And she’s a size 6, too—the nerve!

11:55 P.M.

…What makes it even sexier is that I haven’t hooked up with her yet…

Yet?  Presumptuous much?

We haven’t heard Patrick’s radio show (despite the offer of a free trial), but we’re guessing it, too, is chock-full of off-base insights like the ones in this article.  But then, it just wouldn’t be true to the Cosmo spirit if it didn’t portray women as sex objects, would it?  The whole article sounds more like the journal of an eleventh-grader than the musings of a grown man.  Maybe he isn’t quite as lecherous in person as seems in print, but why run the risk?  If we worked with Patrick, we’d be taking the stairs from now on.

W: Doing Its Part to Incite Class Warfare

At what point is it considered obnoxious to bemoan your station in life?  Because we think that point was reached with W’s “The Babysitters Club,” April, wherein a roundtable of four accomplished, wealthy women complain about their nannies.  Who knew that hiring live-in help was fraught with the potential for so much heartbreak?

We’ve heard our own stories, however, about high-maintenance nannies among this particularly fast set:...

These women have full-time, live-in help, and the nannies are the high-maintenance ones?

There’s the one who asked if the family would be ordering Mr. Chow’s for dinner and the baby nurse who, on a charter jet to go skiing with a family, announced she’s “never been on a private plane this small.”

Oh, we get it now.  There’s nothing worse than when the help doesn’t know its place.

Really, we have to applaud W for broadening our horizons with this child-care provider summit.  We had no clue how incredibly taxing it is to find someone who’ll be a devoted caretaker and scrub the shower.

“That’s a struggle we’re having—most nannies aren’t housekeepers.”

Gasp!  A real struggle indeed!  Have they considered an awareness-raising ribbon campaign?  Or perhaps a telethon?

Worse—if you can even believe this—there are nannies who would rather not dedicate their entire lives to these privileged Park Avenue spawn.  Such gall these sitters display, having their own dreams and ambitions that don’t involve raising someone else’s children!

“I had this great young Brazilian nanny and I was really excited…But she aspired to be something else.  Not a babysitter.  That was such a bummer.”

Sure, Cristina Greeven Cuomo didn’t choose to stay home with her own children, but when the nanny wants a different career, it's unacceptable!  Nannies are...different!  Somehow!  In a way no one quoted in this article can explain!

Sarcasm aside, at least all this blubbering was confined to a mere two pages (albeit two oversized pages).  And we should clarify that, especially after reading this article, we aren’t suggesting that these women give up  their careers and stay home with the kids.  In fact, quite the contrary—we’re thinking that the less influence these women have on their children, the better.

A Jane-Inspired Rant on the Nature of Talent...and Uggs

From Jane’s fashion editorial “Great White,” March:

It’s almost eerie how these eight emerging talents with amazing personal style are all obsessing over the ethereal white dress right now.

Eerie, indeed, if you consider a stylist dressing eight women in white dresses to be a strange coincidence.

And who might these “emerging talents” be?  While we have no argument with featuring the likes of designer Erin Fetherston or Kate Sennert (editor-in-chief of Tokion), we have to question the inclusion of Molly Hanrahan, age 24.  Her claim to greatness?

What she does: Casting agent for MTV reality shows

Oh, right, because it takes tremendous skill and vision to find promiscuous alcoholics to appear on The Real World.

The “emerging talent” featured on page 121 is even more ludicrous.  Guess who?  It’s Jane’s own Stephanie Trong!  How very self-congratulatory of Jane! How fortuitous that the magazine employs someone qualified to appear in its very own photo shoot!

Here are Stephanie’s intriguing thoughts on fashion:

“Stylistically, I love hippie girls—like the ragtag ones who will throw on anything,” Stephanie says.  “The dress I’m wearing here is really special, because I’m posing with the designer, Catherine.  I was accosting her throughout the shoot, ‘cause I need to buy it.  It’s so innocent.  I can’t wait to wear it in the summer with moccasin booties.”

So the dress is only special because the designer is right next to her?  Somehow, we don’t think that’s what she meant to say. 

Note to Jane: posing your models flat on their backs in tall grass doesn’t exactly show off the clothes to their best advantage.  Note to Stephanie: Moccasin booties?  That’s a joke, right?  We hate moccasin booties as much as we hate Uggs, and we loathe Uggs because we live in L.A. where every time the temperature dips below 65, the entire population of under-21s switches out flip-flops for Uggs instead of just, you know, putting on some jeans, and you can’t leave the house without encountering a phalanx of college students in their ridiculous uniforms of denim minis, tanks, Uggs, and scarves.  Scarves!  With tank tops!  Has everyone gone mad?

Anyway.  We know not to expect much from Jane.  We can’t possibly agree with them on the merits of every single woman they feature in the magazine, but we don’t hate Drew Barrymore.  So, feeling optimistic (and generous, might we add), we headed to the magazine’s website, supposing perhaps Jane might redeem itself with the April issue.  Wishful thinking, we realized, when we learned that Avril Lavigne is on the cover.  We can only hope they selected her for the cover solely because her name means “April” in French.

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