Glossed Over

Glossed Over Resumes May 21

Over the last two months, I haven’t read a single fashion magazine. Nonetheless, I’ve spent hours thinking and writing about them: why I started buying them, why I’ve spent so much time chasing the fantasy portrayed in the pages of Glamour and Vogue, why I became disillusioned, why I started this blog.

I have tons (like, a book’s worth) to say on all this. But for now, I just want to announce that I will resume regular posting on this site three weeks from today, on May 21. Until then, I’ll be tweaking the layout and adding some new features, so certain elements (say, the banner!) may go missing from time to time.

See you soon!

Editor's Note: Going Dark...For Now, At Least

I’ve been hesitant to say this.

After more than two and half years of posting here, I’m opting to go dark for a couple of months. The constant immersion has made me weary of the subject matter, and I fear that my waning enthusiasm is showing in my writing (and is clearly apparent in my lack thereof). So, I’m going to use this time off to read books, write about something other than magazines, and get some fresh air—not to mention a fresh perspective.

The blog and all archives will remain up. If you’d like to be automatically notified when there is new content here, you can sign up to receive posts by email under “Subscribe” in the far right-hand column. (I promise I won’t sell your email address or sign you up for Cosmo’s weekly newsletters.)

And while you’re still here reading, I want to say the most important thing of all:

Thank you.

If It's February, It Must Be Vegas •  We’re headed to Vegas Monday to cover MAGIC. We’ll meet you back here Tuesday or Wednesday, provided we don’t hock our laptop for one last hand at the poker table. Update: We were overly ambitious about finding free time and spare energy (not to mention our internet connection, which was wretchedly unreliable) in Vegas. Now, we’re back in L.A., and we’ll have something new for you later today (Tuesday, 2/19).

Cosmopolitan: Going Beyond a Bright Yellow Cover to Get Attention

Okay, we’ve spent a lot of time on Cosmopolitan recently, and we fully intend to take a few days away from the Cosmo crack (so bad! so good!) and read something slightly more substantive (you know, like Marie Claire), but we bought  the March issue last night, and we feel compelled to point out one thing about it—actually, just one measly word.

Va-jay-jay?

Following Up on February's Cosmopolitan

In our seemingly endless post about the seemingly endless February edition of Cosmopolitan, we threw some derision at an article entitled “I Suddenly Had Baby Panic” by Louise Sloan, which chronicled the author’s decision to become a single mother. We chided Cosmo for not even trying to present a well-rounded, thoughtful viewpoint on the issue. We may also have said something about sexually precocious twelve-year-olds, which, in hindsight, was a little weird.

Anyway! Our confusion about “I Suddenly Had Baby Panic” abated when Louise Sloan emailed us this evening. Here is what she had to say about the article, which we’re sharing here with her permission.

Actually, it was an adaptation of my book, Knock Yourself Up, written by the editors [of Cosmo], based on their reading of my book. Let's just say it’s a bit different from MY reading of my book! (For starters, I didn’t have “baby panic.”) I won’t go into the back story, but I’d ask people to read my book, or at least go to my book website, www.knockyourselfup.com, and form your impressions from that—not the Cosmo article!

And, if our experience reading Louise's website is any indicator, it'll be a far different impression than the one Cosmo gave. Excerpts from Knock Yourself Up can be found here and here.

Swamped •  Yeah, we know, it’s bad blogging form to go incommunicado without warning, and for that we apologize.  You know how some people can keep their fingers to the keyboard, tirelessly, for hours and days on end?  That’s not us.  Honestly, we’re a bit overwhelmed by work right now. We don’t want to complain about our workload, but we suddenly understand Lucky’s compulsion with making up words because, you know what? There really is a finite number of ways to describe overpriced crap nobody needs!  Inventing words would at least break up the monotony.  We hope to be back by the end of the week, if only because we’ve amassed a great deal of aggression in the last ten days, and we’re pretty sure Katherine Heigl is taunting us from the cover of Cosmo.

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.

Happy holidays? • We’ve been remiss in offering our holiday wishes to all of you.  That might be because Santa brought us a sinus infection and bronchitis!  (Those were definitely not on our wish list.)  So, merry whatever-you-celebrate this time of year, and best wishes for 2008.  We’re going to relax for a few more days, and we’ll see you Monday.

Get Lucky in Los Angeles •  Longing to see a Lucky staffer’s words attributed to you?  Want someone else to pick out your “favorite” clothes?  Got nothing better to do on January 4?  Now’s your chance!  The magazine is seeking L.A. locals to appear in a spring issue.  LAist has the details.  Oh!  And one other condition: predictably, only those who wear sizes 2-8 may apply.

Brad and Jen Reunited at the Newsstand

…thanks to some clever merchandising at our local mega-chain bookstore.

Related: There are nine different covers for the current issue of W, but the only ones we’ve seen at the newsstands and stores in our little corner of L.A. are Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie (and Angelina landed in our mailbox a couple of days back).  Is this a coincidence, or are the covers specific to particular regions?  Where are you, and what covers are available in your area?

Please Take Our Six-Month-Old Copies of Allure (and Lucky, and Bazaar, and...) • It was ages ago that we asked for your advice about ridding ourselves of old magazines.  Some of you mentioned you’d be willing to take them off our hands, and we’re finally ready to get rid of them! (What?  We’ve been busy!)  If you want our clutter to become your clutter, let us know (in email, not in comments).

Disclaimers: They’ll be sent by the least expensive method possible, so they might take a while to arrive. Certain issues will have pages missing.  Requests for specific magazines and/or issues may or may not be honored, depending on our mood this weekend, which depends largely on the outcome of the football game between UCLA and Arizona.  If we haven’t mentioned it before, we’re Bruin fans, and we yell at the TV when we watch football.  Sometimes we read fashion magazines during the commercials, which makes us an absolute joy to be around!

Anyway.  Send us your mailing address if you want in.  May your preferred athletic organization be victorious, or, as the rest of the world says, have a good weekend.

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.

Airfare Costs More Than Lipstick •Many years ago, a man from Amsterdam posed this question to us: “If a person who speaks three languages is trilingual, and a person who speaks two languages is bilingual, what do you call someone who speaks one language?”  He smirked and leaned toward us before giving the answer. “An American,” he said.  Ha!  Wow, that guy was a jerk—albeit pretty much on target.

We were reminded of this while flipping through our stack of French magazines. Each of them has a feature on international travel. Of the American magazines, only Vogue has a regular travel section, unless you count Lucky’s city shopping guides, which…we don’t.  Of course, American mags never come with Paris Hilton tarot cards, so we guess it’s a fair trade.

Editor's Note: Glossed Over Gets Hitched

You may have noticed we’ve been posting only sporadically these last few weeks.  That’s because—despite our best efforts—planning our wedding has insidiously taken over every free moment.  (No thanks to InStyle Weddings, either.)  Seriously, we cannot believe how much thought we’ve exerted on things like the arrangement of the ribbons on the bridal bouquet and how much time we’ve spent fielding questions about whether Capri pants are acceptable attire for the rehearsal dinner.  The giant wedding time-suck is made worse because important things like, you know, reading the new issue of Cosmo fall by the wayside.

The good news is, the planning is over.  That’s because the wedding is Sunday.

So we’re taking a break from the blog to fully enjoy the festivities and our honeymoon in Paris.   (So excited! And not just for French magazines!)  During our absence, in the probably vain hope of preventing rampant spamming, commenting will be restricted to those with a Typekey login.  We’ll be back to posting—and loosening the commenting reins—on Monday, October 15.  A bientot!

The Bridezilla image appears in several places, provenance unclear.  We found it here.

Reading on the Road • Along with billions of other fashion types, we jetted off to Vegas today to attend a whole slate of trade shows.  (Although we aren’t one of those trend-slave fashion obsessives:  we refuse to get that bangs/pageboy hybrid haircut and we have yet to buy a single pair of leggings, though we do have a hankering for navy nail polish.)  Anyway, since our flight was delayed nearly two hours and our attention was only halfway held by BlackBook (every article in the issue is only, like, one page long!), we took a look at what fashion magazines everyone else was reading.  At our gate, we spotted four Lucky readers, a lone Cosmopolitan devotee, and one collagen-lipped fedora-wearing brave soul toting the mammoth issue of Vogue.  And even that slave to fashion gave up on Ms. Wintour:  she left the issue on the plane. 

What magazine will you be taking on your late-summer travels?  Do you opt for books instead?  Or do you leave the reading material at home?  After hours of delays and lugging our tote through a lengthy taxi line, we almost wish we’d left all the paper on our desk.

Countdown • Only two hours to go until we peel back the cover of September’s Vogue and commence live blogging.  Join us at 8:00 p.m. Pacific, won’t you?  We’ll be going non-stop until we hit the back cover, except for coffee breaks and the half-hour when The Hills is on.  Team Lauren!

“You look like a Barbie” •  It’s sick, we know, but we woke up thinking about last night’s episode of The Fashionista Diaries. Four issues remain unsolved for us: Are we terrible for cackling in glee each time Stephanie and Brandon told the Jane interns their articles would appear in the September issue? When Rachel and Annemarie visited the crash site, was the slow-mo footage of the eighteen-wheeler supposed to be funny? (Because it was.) Why didn’t we get to see Rachel tutor Andrew on Jane?  And why does Bridget talk like a drunk four-year-old?

Reduce, Reread, Reorganize • We’re moving this weekend.  In the process of cleaning and packing, we’ve amassed a veritable mountain of magazines.  (Not just the fashion mags—we have a few months worth of Wired and BlackBook and Bitch and copies of our college’s alumni magazine.)  Although we have neither the need nor the space for six-month-old copies of Self, we hate the idea of throwing away these outdated issues.  Score one for irrationality and impracticality! 

So, we ask: What do you do with your magazines once you’ve read them?  We’ve tried donating them to a local hospital, but they only accept magazines occasionally.  If you hang on to all your glossies, how do you keep them organized?  We don't want to end up like these guys.

Self's "Secret": Sort of Gross, But Strangely Touching

We nearly skipped over Self’s “Sitting On a Secret,” July, once we determined it was about hemorrhoids. A few days ago, we read this, which was more than enough information on the topic.  Also, we’re squeamish.

But—surprise!—we’re glad we read Self’s story in its entirety.  Turns out, the Self piece isn’t just about veins protruding from a sensitive part of the writer’s anatomy.  (Though we were troubled by the decision to refer to said protrusions as a “bean” and a “cherry.”  Ew!)  It was also a reminder about the nature of marriage and commitment.

I suddenly realized that the only way to make my husband understand was to show him.  As I got into position, it struck me that he might never have sex with me again, but it was a risk I had to take.  “Oh.  My.  God,” he whispered through his hands.  He hugged me and said he was so sorry and officially named the cherry Chester.  He also had some bad news:  There were in fact three hemorrhoids—one big, two little.  Yep.  Chester had a posse.

And:

When I returned home [after surgery to remove the hemorrhoids]…I asked my husband for a sympathy look-see because the anesthesia was wearing off…My husband held my hand and walked me toward the bathroom.

Whoa.  Now that’s love—and a look at marriage nearly as enlightening as the articles about relationships.

We’ve learned more than enough about hemorrhoids recently, thank you very much.  But excrutiating detail and all, this story was still far less gag-inducing than the “deep” Fergie lyrics quoted in the cover story.

Editor's Note: AFK

So...we aren’t feeling too great right now.  We’ve somehow managed to fall ill in the middle of summer.  Yes, we do have an impeccable sense of timing.  (Also, we can still be sarcastic while sick!  We’re going to be just fine!)

Posting will be light (or, you know, potentially non-existent) for the next few days as we get back to our usual state.  See you soon.

Happy Blog Birthday to Us!

Happy birthday to us!  Glossed Over turns two years old today.  Okay, we’re going to be sincere for a moment—don’t worry, just for a moment.

During those not-quite-halcyon times in June 2005 after we launched the site, days would sometimes pass before a person other than us visited.  It was impossible to imagine we’d still be doing this two years later.  (Admittedly, those early posts weren’t exactly stellar, but fortunately, we’ve improved, we think.)  Two years building a serious sleep deficit to stay up and read InStyle?  Two years wherein we’ve developed a near-total inability to turn off our brain for a moment and just, you know, enjoy reading a magazine?  Why are we still doing this?

Well, partly because our friends are sick of hearing us rant about women’s magazines.  We can’t blame them—more than once, we’ve used the word “heteronormative.”  But also, of course, because of you.   Thank you.  Thank you for reading, and thank you for letting us know we’re not the only ones frustrated and amused by these magazines.  We don’t always have the opportunity to respond to everyone the way we would like, but thank you to everyone who’s written to us or commented here.  Thanks to every blogger—big or small—who’s linked to this site.  Hey, while we’re expressing gratitude, thanks to all of you Googling Bitten by Sarah Jessica Parker who choose this page to learn about the line.

To celebrate our passage into the terrible twos, we took a look at Glossed Over, Lowest Common Denominator-style.

2: Years we’ve been publishing Glossed Over

2: Magazines we’ve written about that have gone out of print since June 2005 (Vitals Woman and Shop Etc.)

409: Total number of posts

At least 12: Number of times we posted to announce we weren’t going to be posting/explain why we hadn’t posted

24: Posts mentioning Anna Wintour, our most-cited magazined editor

44: Posts about Jane, our most frequently discussed magazine

1: New category we’ve created for our favorite posts

18: Number of magazines we subscribe to

4: Average number of additional magazines we purchase in a month

14: Magazines on our kitchen table at this moment

2: Visits per week to our favorite newsstand

Nearly zero: Amount of reading other than magazines that we accomplish (sad, we know—we’re trying)

Approximately one dozen: Times we’ve referred to ourselves as “we” in real life

Tons: Amount we appreciate you reading this

Vogue, Vodianova, Vapidness? Count Us In!

Confession time!  We’ve hardly cracked open the June issue of Vogue.  Maybe it’s the heat, but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to read “Life With Andre” (normally a reliably eye-rolling experience) once we saw it involved Tom Ford.  There was the whole Keira Knightley-with-elephants thing.  And we vaguely recall reading an excerpt from a British novel so drab it literally put us to sleep. 

Yet we are bursting with anticipation over the July issue.  Take a look at this!

Natalia Vodianova, an actual model!   A respite from the glut of actresses promoting summer blockbusters!  And check out those cover lines: Tanning abstinence!  Red lips!  The “manny” phenomenon!  Oh, light and fun!

Not a single one of those items, save perhaps the red lips (which we love, but which we’re unlikely to attempt in the wilting heat of summer anyway), has the slightest shred of bearing on our life.  But when it looks this glamorous, we’ll gladly wallow in irrelevance for a few hours.  We only hope we won’t get so swept away that we feel the need to acquire a manny.

Image from DNA Models via Oh No They Didn’t

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

Shocking Allure Investigation Reveals That Stars Take Drugs

So, maybe we’re more sensitive to it living on the West Coast, but we’ve noticed a string of articles painting California as a strange land.  Continuing the neverending series of stories whose existence seems predicated on the idea  that Los Angeles is indeed very different from New York, Allure’s June issue includes “Hollywood High,” an investigation of the “star party scene.”  Wait, celebrities take drugs? We had no idea!  (And good thing they came west to look into this matter:  famous people in NYC never, ever use!)

Predictably, this barely restrained piece by writer Mary A. Fischer isn’t quite Pulitzer-worthy.  Rather, it’s downright lazy.  The article fails to break any ground whatsoever, attempting to stun us with the following facts that should be patently obvious to anyone over the age of 16 who’s ever watched one measly episode of Access Hollywood:

1. Famous people take drugs!  In nightclubs!  OMG!

2. Celebrities get their drugs gratis in exchange for passing along their dealer’s number to wealthy pals.  You know, like how they get designer clothes.

3. Clubs are catering to drug users, offering more bottled water and energy drinks to prevent the downer effect caused by mixing certain drugs with alcohol.  (Okay, so we learned something new about chemistry, but we aren’t surprised to learn that clubs cater to their clientele’s base desires.  That’s how they make money, after all.)

4. Well-known drug dealers have no trouble getting into nightclubs.

5. Other than the dealers, only invited guests, celebs, and “really hot-looking” people are granted admission to nightspots.

Apparently, they don’t want to distinguish this article too much from the serious journalism that appears in Us Weekly (or, we suppose, potentially invite litigation), so no names are mentioned. Fair enough. But with nary a thinly disguised clue, how are we supposed to discern the true identities of the following individuals mentioned?  Other than assuming these descriptions all refer to Lindsay Lohan and/or Nicole Richie, that is, because we definitely are. 

a young fashion publicist

a beautiful young starlet

a model who, before she cleaned up her act, ran in these circles

one celebrity party girl

a film editor  (We say: no one cares.)

a high-profile celebrity

a well-known celebrity and two of her friends

“Celebrity party girl”?  Come on, Allure, you’re not even trying!

Other than the identity of the people featured in this article, one particular anecdote also captured our imagination:

…on a quiet residential street three blocks from the Sunset Strip, the dealer pulled up in a nondescript car, turned off the lights, and waited.  A black SUV with four people inside parked behind him.

Two adjacent parking spots near Sunset on a Friday night? If only!  Sadly, that’s the most shocking part of this article, except maybe that we read every single word of it.

InStyle Weddings Forces Us to Talk About Ourselves

Can we share something personal for a moment?  Over the weekend, we picked up the Spring issue of InStyle Weddings—partly because we’re taking that trip down the aisle in four short months, and partly because we have a masochistic streak that cannot be ignored.  We’ve been feeling overwhelmed by the “normal” phases of planning (did you know that architectural spotlights and perfectly coordinated chair covers are absolutely vital to the success of a marriage?), and the outrageous price tags attached specifically to wedding festivities seem downright evil to us.  Don’t even talk to us about how many duckets we’re expected to drop on corsages for family members.

Seriously, don’t ask.

It’s probably evident we aren’t booking a horse-drawn carriage for the big day, but we’ve had to make a few concessions to our budget.  Fortunately, InStyle Weddings offers some guidance on this sensitive issue—by informing us on page 46 that by planning within our means, we are doing it all wrong.  No wonder we’re stressed!  Here’s the advice of floral designer Rebecca Cole from the “Contributors” page:

Q: What one piece of advice would you give a bride?

Follow your heart, not your budget.  Hire the florist you want, and if you must, have fewer flowers.  A lot of tacky flowers doesn’t make up for one bouquet by your favorite person.

Silly us, we’ve been working within the confines of our bank account!  Have fewer flowers “if you must”?    Helpful!  Also, we’ve seen more subtle pressure to spend from teenage girls whining “Daddy, pleeeease!” on My Super Sweet 16.  (Not that we’re watching that show for wedding planning tips.)  Still, Cole’s suggestion is perfectly sound if, you know, you’re the one who profits from those flowers.  Which, conveniently, Cole is.

Lowest Common Denominator: Marie Claire, June

1: Cover credit given to Neutrogena for Rebecca Romijn’s makeup

0: Number of Neutrogena products apparent in the photo of makeup artist Fran Cooper working on Romijn (“Behind the Cover Shoot,” page 20)

3: Number of Neutrogena products recommended in “Sexy Summer Skin”

7.25: Number of advertising pages purchased by Neutrogena in this issue—including one immediately preceding “Sexy Summer Skin” and two more interspersed in the same feature

$1,532: Largest “Splurge vs. Steal” price differential

$85: Smallest “Splurge vs. Steal” price differential

$9.95: price of a K-Mart floral housecoat suggested as “a cool summer dress”

1: Movie declared “antifeminist” (Knocked Up)

1: Movie called “feminist” (Gracie)

8: Women other than Rebecca Romijn Marie Claire suggests could play male-to-female transsexuals

4: Celebs cited for “prominent” noses

4: Plugs for “The Masthead with Marie Claire” podcast

2: Stories about foreign women (profile of the commander of U.N. peacekeeping forces in Liberia; the Turkish honor killings)

3: Stories about American non-celebs (a woman’s essay about her nose; a profile of fugitive Sara Jane Olson’s family; another essay about a married couple who’ve each been married twice before)

24: Pages featuring photographs of actors or musicians, not including the cover or advertisements, and not including models

119: Pages of advertisements, including foldouts and the back cover

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.

Jane's "Inspirational" Women Only Inspire Disappointment

Too much Kirsten Dunst is bad for one’s dreams.  We blame the one-two punch of taking in both Spider-Man 3 (thumbs down, by the way) and the May issue of Jane on the same evening.  Combine that with the news that the magazine will soon be the subject of a reality show, and we conjured a rather vivid dream about the Jane TV show last night.  Which would be weird enough, except that in our dream, Brandon Holley was played by Kirsten Dunst.

Despite our subconscious fixation with Kiki, it wasn’t her joint interview with Spider-Man co-star Bryce Dallas Howard—“Even Kirsten & Bryce Have Quarterlife Crises”? Excuse us for not feeling terribly sympathetic— or even the vaguely creepy collage of disembodied breasts on page 125 that stuck with us after a night’s sleep.  Rather, it was “30 Under 30,” which features

Thirty inspirational women.  (Okay, it’s really 31, but that’s not as snappy.)  We didn’t have room for all 57 million.

Aw, shamelessly flattering the readers.  Never a good sign.  (And we’re exempt, anyway—not only are we too old to awe Jane, but Brandon Holley thinks we’re  “mean.”  Sniff.)

Anyway, since our idea of an interesting woman differs so markedly from Jane’s, we wanted to take a closer look at their honorees.  And while there are some truly accomplished women on the list (did you know that someone could be a molecular biologist and a comic book artist at the same time?  What have we been doing with our life?), there are also some typically dubious choices.

For instance:

• Four actresses (Amanda Seyfried, Anna Paquin, Kristen Stewart, and Jessica Rose) and three singer/actresses (Ciara, Hilary Duff, and Lea Michele) make the list.  Hilary Duff, “inspirational”?  Only in that her music inspires us to stab a letter opener into our eardrums, but we’re pretty sure that’s not what they mean.  The piece’s intro cites a sushi chef, a student activist, and a political adviser, yet actress and singer/actress are the only two occupations represented several times over. 

Also, the demographics of the list were interesting:

•  Eight women—about a quarter of the list—live in New York.  Another six live in Los Angeles.

•  The average age of the listees is 20, thanks in part to the two 17-year-olds who made the list: actress Kristen Stewart and “Internet it girl” Cory Kennedy.  (And the fact that Cory Kennedy is deemed “inspirational” is indicative of how credible this list is.  She’s the absolute epitome of being famous for, well, being famous.)

•  Six of the women—three actresses, Ciara, Duff, and Broadway performer Michele—were dressed by the magazine for the shoot.  The others are, presumably, wearing their own clothes.  Nothing’s more inspirational than a woman dressed by a stylist!

We know it’s impossible to craft a list that will please everyone, and that no magazine would put, say, the first African-American polka dance champ (page 106) on its cover.  But Anna Paquin, who comes across as mature and level-headed, could take the cover. 

We’ll give Jane points for trying, but next time around, how about a list comprised entirely of non-famous women?  What about an in-depth exploration of their lives and issues instead of a handful of not-too-enlightening quips?  We’d love to hear the bodybuilder and the ballet dancer’s thoughts on skinny models.  Or why not let the transgender student and the carpentry foreman discuss gender roles? 

Instead, we get Stewart bemoaning how restricted she feels by being 17 (!), Ciara breathlessly awaiting her “prince,” and Duff spouting banalities about being famous allows her to be an inspiration to other women.  Give us a break, okay?  Were these the best quotes their publicists could come up with?  It’s great that Duff is learning to cook, but, somehow, the idea of a wealthy 19-year-old cooking her own dinner doesn’t exactly inspire us to lead a better life.

Lowest Common Denominator: Elle, May--The Green Issue

3: Number of plus signs on the cover

Just 1, surprisingly: Number of eyebrow-raising suggestions in Anne Slowey’s “Fashion Know-It-All” (“…Palm Springs has the cleanest sidewalks I’ve ever seen, why not be a little risqué and…sport perfectly manicured bare feet?”  Because dirt on the sidewalk is the main reason not to go barefoot, apparently.)

$2,660: Price of Louis Vuitton’s “take on the Mexican shopping bag”

2: Number of Girl Scout uniforms donned by writer Susan Cernek (Though we have questions about how a grown woman managed to fit into a skort reportedly intended for an eight-year-old.  Also why anyone thinks teal knee socks are a good thing in a uniform.)

4: Number of cars advertised in this issue

2: Number of advertised cars that are hybrids

1: Number of movie reviews titled with the name of another current film (The Waitress review is titled “In the Land of Women.”)

2: Mentions of a January day in New York where the temperature reached 72 degrees

1: Mention of Erin Brockovich in an article called “The Return of Erin Brockovich” (In fact, it’s a story about Julia Roberts.)

1: Ad for “natural” American Spirit cigarettes

8: Celebrities profiled as environmental activists of some sort (Laurie David, Sheryl Crow, Kerry Washington, Shalom Harlow, Orlando Bloom, Julia Roberts, Amber Valletta, Angela Lindvall)

25: Pages devoted to those eight

21: Total of mostly non-famous honorees in “The Green Awards”

4: Pages devoted to the awards article

Self Fesses Up to Faking It

Game’s up, Self!  We haven’t finished reading the whole issue yet, but this tidbit from “Fitness Q & A,” May, caught our eye:

Q: I exercise almost daily, but I still lose my breath whenever I walk up stairs.  What the heck is going on?

A: OK, I have a confession to make.  This question is actually from me.  I, Meaghan Buchan, fitness director of Self magazine…

Really, we gave up on the idea of readers submitting questions long ago. For starters, Self doesn’t even bother to fabricate names and cities for their Q & As, which heads off the slightest idealistic suspicion that the questions are genuinely reader-generated. 

And if we’re truly supposed to buy that the questions come from readers in desperate need of gym-bag guidance, then Self could put some effort into making these queries believable.  We flat-out refuse to accept that someone would actually write to a magazine to ask what orthotics are  (also page 114) instead of using Google or a dictionary or some other method of research that, you know, actually guarantees a response. 

Still, we appreciate the confession.  But why bother?  That a staffer wrote it doesn’t render this particular question any different from any of the other questions in this issue.   

Editor's Note: On the Road...Again

For the second time in six weeks, we’ve found ourselves in Las Vegas.  We’re pretty sure we aren’t in the throes of a nascent gambling addiction, but is it a bad sign that we spent more in one day at video poker than we do at the newsstand in a month?  Maybe?

Anyway.  We left the magazines at home, but check back in with us Wednesday evening at some point Thursday.  Losing cash makes us cranky.

Barking Up a Very, Very Wrong Tree in Self

Reading Self doesn’t normally induce squirming (save for when it delves into the gruesome particulars of injuries and infections), but we are at a near-total loss to convey the abject horror we felt upon reading a particular tidbit about Katherine McPhee in the April issue. It comes under a reasonably apropos heading:

Eleven things you probably don’t know about her

Though we would suggest this particular factoid belongs more appropriately in the category of things you absolutely, positively do not want to know about her, or anyone else, ever, on pain of death. Brace yourself. The terrible secret revealed?

She French-kisses her dog.

Let that image sink in for a minute. It’s utterly foul, sure, but don’t run away screaming just yet—there are details!

Seriously. McPhee opens her mouth and allows Nena, her 10-month-old Chihuahua, to lick inside. “We kiss. We’re tongue lovers,” McPhee says, laughing. “It grosses my dad out.” To Nena in a baby voice, McPhee says, “I wuv you, baby. People will think I’m weird, but I don’t care because I wuv you.”

Ugh.  We just turned green, and not with envy.  Maybe she doesn’t care, but we sure do. (And, we would like to add, we love dogs—just not nearly as, uh, enthusiastically or literally as the American Idol runner-up.)

Perhaps the only thing more “weird” than making out with your dog is doing so in front of a reporter. We hope this is merely an ill-conceived publicity stunt, an outlandish ploy to drum up her CD sales. And if it isn’t? Well, then we’re relieved Self didn’t publish any photos of Katherine’s canine encounter. Also, we feel sorry for her boyfriend.

Next Month's Allure To Feature Ford Vehicles, Keds, and Amazing Weight Loss Miracle Pills

Generally speaking, Linda Wells’ installments of “Letter from the Editor” in Allure don’t interest us much. That’s because they’re dull. Sure, they’re not aggressively boring like, say, Bazaar’s cover lines—does Glenda Bailey take some sort of twisted pride in repeating infinitesimal variations on the same phrases month after freaking month?—but they’re just unremarkable enough that we’re indifferent.

Until now.  In the April issue,  Wells discusses her involvement with a show called Shear Genius, wherein she is called upon to perform the apparently arduous task of evaluating tyro hairdressers. How taxing! (Oh, and we’re now eagerly awaiting the launch of competitions featuring manicurists, facialists, and waxers, as apparently no skill in the beauty industry is too insignificant to go unrecognized by a reality show.)

I went to Los Angeles last month to be a guest judge on Shear Genius, Bravo’s new reality TV series, a kind of Project Runway for hair…Luckily for me, the good hairstyles on Shear Genius soared far above the bad, and the bad were truly, obviously, dismal—failures of technique, taste, and execution.

While this concept for a TV show seems tired by now, it might be interesting to hear about from Wells’ perspective, except that she offers no insight into the program, and we already know about the show from the two-page advertising  spread just a few pages earlier in this same issue. 

But in case the dear reader still hasn’t succumbed to the gospel of Shear Genius (on Bravo!), “Beauty Reporter” chimes in with a helpful reminder.

In Bravo’s new reality series Shear Genius, 12 contestants wielding scissors and blow-dryers get the chance to be named head of the class by hairstylist Sally Hershberger. From basic cuts to over-the-top bouffants, they’re evaluated by a panel of judges (including Allure’s fashion director Michael Carl) on their technical skill, artistry—and ability to handle some very candid criticism. Tune in on April 11 at 11 P.M. and watch the bobby pins fly.

All right, Allure, you can stop with the browbeating.  We get it.  A two-page ad and two editorial mentions by page 80?  Enough.  Is Elle this relentless with its promotion of Project Runway and America’s Next Top Model?  We aren’t so naïve to believe that there’s an impenetrable barrier between editorial content and advertising, but we like to think a magazine would at least attempt to finesse that line instead of gracelessly stomping all over it. 

Daily Mini Is Mad About Mercury (Yes, the Planet)

Oh, Daily Mini, how we’ve missed you!  Especially because no other magazine combines such breathless idolatry of magazine editors with a healthy dose of what can only be described as nonsense.  Like this example from “The Fix” in the April issue:

Mercury went retrograde February 14-March 8.  Did you feel the pain?

Now, we don’t put much stock in astrology, so we were initially skeptical.  But as we read, we were nearly convinced by the Mini.  After all, what else but the planets themselves could have caused a tragedy of such massive (and obviously irreparable) proportions?

On February 18, passengers on Delta Flight 84 going from New York to Milan for Fashion Week were struck by Mercury mischief.  They sat on the chilly runway for more than 2 1⁄2 hours, then deplaned, switched gates, and waited another 90 minutes.

A runway icing over in February in the northeastern United States?  Why, that’s practically unheard of!  It couldn’t simply be normal weather conditions causing these kinds of problems.  Nope, it must be the motion of another planet entirely creating such wretched misfortune! 

Like delaying this particular flight wasn’t horrific enough, those rascally planets actually caused a model to miss some of her scheduled runway struts.  The nerve!

Rachel Alexander clutched her Chanel bag, crying because she was going to miss the next morning's shows.

Sniff!  We may need a Kleen