This Afternoon In Drama

The Widening Gap Between Top Model and Supermodel

Here is where America's Next Top Model has gone wrong-- and yes, it has gone wrong:

CoverGirl.

America's Next Top Model has gradually mutated into America's Next CoverGirl, to the degree that Tyra's main reason for demanding the closure of Danielle's tooth gap was: you never see a CoverGirl ad with a model giving a big, gappy-toothed smile.  Ever since CoverGirl became the cosmetics sponsor of the show (and because contractually, the company must feature the winner in a magazine campaign), the CoverGirl aesthetic-- not "easy, breezy beautiful," but, let's face it, "bubbleheaded, giddy, and cutesy"-- has begun to dominate the course of the competition.  I had my suspicions about CoverGirl's interference last season with Nicole's win, and somehow, I think that first-season favorite Adrienne wouldn't have had a chance if she needed to go ga-ga over some cupcake-flavored lip gloss for the title.

I loved Danielle's gap and would have been extremely pissed off had the dentist fully closed it (thankfully, he left a tiny sliver of its glory), but I wonder if, after listening to Tyra's spiel, Danielle stopped to think to herself, "But wait-- who gives a fuck about CoverGirl?"  To tailor one's teeth, and, more importantly, one's adorably individual "signature" look, to fit the image of one of America's most commercial and least innovative make-up companies is dangerous career move.  When did becoming a "top model" start to mean mean looking right for selling drugstore products instead of looking like human art?  Plus, when was the last time you saw models in high fashion ads (or on the runway) smiling?  Have you seen how dour those Prada girls are?  Just because Danielle's smile didn't meet CoverGirl's generic standard of beauty (yes, I'm calling Queen Latifah's beauty generic), this doesn't meet that smile wouldn't be a quirky asset, even inspiration-- I can see Marc Jacobs eating that shit up! -- to designers and cosmetic companies looking for a definitive face.

(By the way, I was in favor of Joanie's snaggle tooth as well, although it definitely seemed like Joanie didn't "identify" with it.  Whereas Danielle had grown to love her gap and regard it as an extension of her personality.)

Let's not forget real "top models" have nothing to do with this bullshitty squeaky clean CoverGirling, and their employers (as well as the public) have no problem with this.  I would even go so far as to argue that we prefer our top models a little bit unruly, so we can actually take them seriously when they show up in Versace ads wearing gold net bikinis and standing atop naked and greased man servants.  Most recently, Naomi Campell's maiming assistants because they can't find her favorite jeans fast enough, Kate Moss is doing rails like they're going out of style, May Anderson's attacking flight attendants, Carolyn Murphy's sex tape is starting to make the rounds, and the list doesn't stop there.  Tyra would argue that supermodels can flaunt wild personas because they've "made it," but I would argue for a pre-existing fieriness, which provides the intangible "inner flame" so passionately sought by Mr. Jay during photo shoots.  I would have held higher hopes for Danielle's authentic top modeldom had she looked Tyra square in the eye, said, "Trust me. The gap is key," then struck out on her own.  Now if she wins, we'll see her in a lone People ad flaunting "Continuous Color" nail polish in Fabulous Fuschia, and then she'll have the rough edges buffed off of her until she's giving painful, automaton-like performances during the weekly "My Life As A CoverGirl" segments.  And then, after that, she'll be mentioned in Page Six once a year when Russell Simmons happens to flirt with her at a party (Naima, anyone?), and in two years she'll be like, "Ohhhhhh yeah. Nursing school."

While we're on the topic of Top Model, I need to address something really quick:

"dear tyra banks my name is keithea and i am 12 years old an i am just wondering if you could do an kids america next top model ages 11,12,13.Because it,s not fair for older women to get to follow there dreams .SO if you say yes it will be an dream come true so please please please say tes love keithea martin your biggest fan.

Posted by: keithea | April 04, 2006 at 04:42 PM"

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"I Just wanted to show appreciation to my husband on your show. He is the most wonderful person in the whole wide world to me. He makes me smile when I am oh so feeling down it likes he takes me up to the heavely skies above. It's like when he walks in the room he is just gliding upon the air his feet are not even touching the ground below. I want to take him somewhere special for a whole weekend during the summertime for his birthday. Just the two of us gazing into each others eyes while laying or sitting upon the night shinig oh so brightly. Tyra if you would help me show appreciation to my husband. I show him but I don't feel that I show him enough sometime. He is my world and I don't know what I would do if I ever lost him apaprt of my soul would just vanish and die. Thank you so much.
MRS. Shelley Wilson

Posted by: Shelley Lynette Wilson | April 12, 2006 at 08:07 AM"
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Ladies, for the last time, I am NOT Tyra Banks. Judging by comments received over the past two years, I know a lot of you think that maybe I secretly am, but I swear, this is not the case.  Look at the picture in the upper right corner.  Maybe you're confused because on Tyra's daytime show, she keeps having her make-up artists disguise her as fat girls and strippers, and so perhaps you think that this is just another one of her ruses-- that this week, she's masquerading as a Jewish white girl-- but I cross my heart, hope to die, than I am not Ms. Banks and have never been.  Do me a favor and accept this.

Working 9-5, Napping, And Then 7-3

When I used to have jobs built up of finite tasks, I didn't understand how anyone could ever get overwhelmingly busy.  In sixth grade I read a teen magazine profile on Ian Ziering, a.k.a Beverly Hills 90210's Steve Sanders, in which he proclaimed to personally respond to all fan mail.  Not a huge Ian fan, but figuring that it might be useful to have a handwritten document from him at some point in the future (even through the haze of double-layered socks and metallic scrunchies, my little mind foresaw the rise of Ebay), I wrote a letter to Ian commending him on his spectacularly cocky performances on the show.  I believe I also said something pleasant about the sheen of his hair.  After I did not hear from Ian for a year, I wished him a life of mediocre basic cable movies and gentile wives who would manipulatively retain his last name even after divorce-- who could have imagined how powerful my private thoughts would be?-- and wondered to myself, "What is possibly keeping this dude so fucking busy?"  By my estimation, he spent a few hours on the 90210 set, then spent the rest of his time tanning and throwing back brewskies with Jason Priestley and Luke Perry's pig. It seemed ridiculous that he couldn't squeeze an extra two minutes out of his day to toss a signed 8x10 in an SASE envelope and pop it in his gold-leaf mailbox.

But I owe an apology to Ian (who just might have the time now to read this, since I'm not really sure what else he's up to) because I now understand this notion of unyielding busyness.  I am fucking swamped, currently arm in arm nightly with 3 a.m., and then I have to force myself to get into bed, where I lie awake, heart pounding at all the things that still hang over my head like the world's least soothing mobile.  This kind of Ian-like busyness, or so I'm assuming (about the Ian-likeness, not the busyness), results from being involved in jobs and projects and endeavors that you seriously care about, i.e. not sticking bar-codes on ABC Family promos in the tape vault, and so you are constantly, endlessly crazed because there is always something you could be making great.  Now I can't prove that Ian had this sort of perfectionist attitude toward his jaunty portrayal of Steve Sanders, but with hindsight I have a strong suspicion that perhaps his "free" afternoons were spent searching for clever props to illuminate Steve's buried emotional layers, refining subversive yet resonant behavioral ticks, and memorizing scripts until the dialogue seemed not to come from the show's writers, but from Steve's very consciousness.

(Before I move off of 90210, I want to quickly mention that after watching Tori Spelling's new show, I find myself wanting nothing but the best for her, and am genuinely happy for her that her fiance devotedly tattooed her and her breasts on his bicep.)

Recently, I noticed a strange side effect of this all-consuming busyness, which is that when I look back on my week, I remember it in sounds and not sights.  This can only be because I am so lost in my head that I've become somewhat blinded (fantastic when it comes to driving) to the visual aspects of my going-ons.  So the most immediate memory that lingers from my friend Kate's reading at Duttons this past Friday is not the books or the store or the writers, but this bullshit sigh that escaped from a woman in the front row after the first reader finished her story about the Balkan Wars.  It was the type of sigh that people release not when faced with beauty, but when they want the room to know that they're processing on a very deep level.  I've learned that at readings these sighs appear whenever there's a lengthy passage about 1. nature or 2. poetic children in mortal danger.

In the car my trips are remembered as collages of songs, and after hearing Billy Idol's Mony, Mony twice within twenty-four hours and realizing that I place this song in my top three "most hated songs of all time" list, if not at number one, I made the switch over to Sirius's reggae channel, where I've remained diligently ever since. It plagues me that I love reggae so much, the same way it plagues me that I like Clinique's fragrance, "Happy," so much, but when I'm listening to the pounding bass and island rhythms, my stress has the hardest time sneaking in between thoughts like, "I should start wearing a bikini triangle top instead of a bra. I like the vacationy way those strings feel around the back of my neck."  By the time I reach home I don't remember what turns I've made, what people I've seen, and how many red lights I've waited at, almost like I was just a pair of ears, nothing more, lying in the front seat of the Acura.

At night my memories form around the sounds of the police, who, into the wee-est hours, pull over speeders and drunkards onto Sunset Boulevard.  About once every twenty minutes I hear the irregular bleep-bleep of a tentative siren, and then the officer comes on the PA system, commanding a driver to take the nearest exit.  Except "commanding" implies that there is much more authoritative control behind these announcements than there is, so I take that word back.  Because while I lie awake, badly wanting to sleep and failing, the panicky voice in my head is not nearly so panicky as the voices of the police, who you'd think would be immune to this stuff by now.  But this is not the case, as all of the officers, whether male or female, come on the bullhorn with voices cracking like thirteen-year-old boys.  They squeak, "Pull--" (They often accidentally release the button and have to start over.)  "Pull over!  Pulloverpullover!  Whieeeeete Civic!  Hey!!!!  You need to exit!  Please make your wayeee!  Way to Sunset!  Sunset!  Slow down!  Exit!"  They all sound like they have guns to their heads, are making final pleas.  Late into early morning, I listen to these officers, who normally walk around with such a been-there, done-that yawniness, get so discombobulated that their hearts leap froggily out through their throats.  I'm right there with them, thinking about all the shit I have yet to do, my heart just about blowing a hole through my comforter.

A Happy Easter And Bloodless Passover To You!

I'm taking a week's vacation for the blog, but wanted to leave you with a spring surprise:

Sayyyyyy, what's that cracking sound?

Ta-dahhhhhh!!!!!!

We found this guy at Benihana's last night, and onion volcano withstanding, I couldn't take my eyes off him.  He had no idea the effect his hair was having on the room.  He was acting like he was a guy with a buzz cut.

Studying These Two Tires (Ho. Ho. Ho.) Me Out

I am perplexed by many thing many times a day.  For instance, just within the span of yesterday's Saturday Night Live, I became distractingly perplexed by 1. how it can be that my stomach has gotten worse than Mary J. Blige's, yet better than Janet Jackson's and 2. how identical Antonio Banderas's bone structure is to that of Italian textile heir Cody Franchetti, so much so that I have to believe they're related somewhere down the bloodline.  But what has been perplexing me most by far is the new series of Bridgestone tires ads.  Someone tell me what's going on here?

I saw the first one for the "Potenza" tire, which stopped me from proceeding through the rest of my Entertainment Weekly for a good five minutes.  It's the models.  Who are they?  Why are they there?  And what are they doing?  The woman, a blond who looks straight out of southern Orange County, is certainly an arguably attractive girl, a not-horrifying girl, but she is not really model material.  The proportions in the lower half of her face are slightly off, her mid-section slightly too wide, and her teeth slightly too wonky.  And, perhaps most importantly, her dress, which I have a weird, weird feeling she chose, is slightly too "Forever 21."  She gives off the air of a normal woman chosen to model for the tires, and so I began to urgently scan the page, looking for some mention of a Bridgestone contest.  "Write in the most romantic experience you had while driving on Bridgestones and be featured in a major national campaign!"  But there is no such mention of a contest or even of a explanatory identity-- i.e. that she is Tracy Bridgestone, great-granddaughter to the founder of the family's sprawling tire empire-- and so she stands, shoulders slumped and hair wilting from sub-par styling, perplexing me to no end.

But she's not alone!  Next to her stands a male, more traditionally modelly than she is (he's the type you find inside a card that says, "Who needs cake when you can have Chip for your birthday!?!?!?") , but still somehow off.  His hair, which is almost very nearly cut in "The Rachel," is a little too highlighted and styled.  His leather jacket suggests that the intended vibe is "race car driver," except why is he jauntily dressed for the track when clearly, his girlfriend (?) (wife? sister? mistress? fifth cousin?) is dressed for a night of dinner and dancing?  He projects a particularly vacant pleasantness, a metrosexual harmlessness, and I wonder if this is the character that Bridgestone's man-buyers are supposed to be looking at and fantasizing themselves as. This man with a middle-class blond and a zippy, anti-tough-guy jacket, and what I think is a home with very sterile slanted windows?  Really?

But what perplexes me to the point of my head popping off is the way that these models are not selling tires in this ad.  And I'm not talking about a literal selling of tires, as in holding up tires and stroking their fine ridges, but about how the models are simply standing there, arms down, in a confusingly abstract environment, not even near a car, and worst of all, breaking the fourth wall by staring at the reader and smiling.  Is the car to the left their car? If so, why are they not in it?  Why are they not, at the very least, kissing in front of it, as if to communicate that the Bridgestone tire is able to keep the passion alive in any relationship, filling them with so much excitement and lust that they can do nothing but engage in tongue fighting to quell the steaming pistons within?  Why do these models not only look as if they aren't that crazy about each other, but also, more to the point, like they don't even know each other?  If not making out in front of a sweating, polished tire, why are these models, at the bare minimum, not projecting some kind of coherent lifestyle image, even if that image is just them going out to the mailbox to see what kind of discounts the Loehmann's mailer is announcing for the weekend?  The problem is that this picture says absolutely nothing except, "We put a pair of presentable people under a viable light source and dressed them in red to match the graphic layout."  What are we supposed to be taking away from these two?  This is so ripping me apart, if you only knew how much.

I'd barely finished processing (as much as one can process) the "Potenza" ad when I opened this week's People and came across the "Turanza" ad.  My advertisement nemeses at it again!  I scrutinized the background of the image, trying to figure out what these two bewildering scamps were up to now.  Identifying an apparently synthetic reflecting pool and what I believe to be the arch of an opera or performance house, I maybe-deduced that the couple was out for a night on the town, although by the looks of the female model's metallic pleather halter, I fear that she will not meet the dress code.  Is the story encrypted in this picture this-- that the woman is about to be kicked out of Les Miserables for not being appropriately garmented, but her man, the male model, in a display of rugged masculinity and headstrong chivalry, pulls her by the arm, growling, "You don't need this; you're beautiful the way you are," leads her back to their Lexus, equipped with it's Turanza tires, and then speeds her off in indignation to the nearest upscale Mexican restaurant?  Is this picture simply the calm before the storm?  There are so many tormenting questions, and so little clues to provide the answers.

The negligible good news is that in the blue ad the models appear to have incrementally warmed up to each other, as the woman now feels comfortable enough to place her French-manicured hand on the man's shoulder, and his hand, while hidden by her body, appears to be hovering somewhere around the lower back.  Moreover, the woman is smiling more convincingly this time, as if she's finally begun enjoying herself and perhaps her Bridgestone tires.  The unfortunate side effect of this relaxed attitude is that her widened smile makes the wonkiness of her teeth ten times more apparent, and that "Hey, turns out you're okay" hip tilt, while communicating something about increased intimacy, sadly puts her belly pooch on glaring display.  The male model looks pretty much perfectly transplanted from the red to the blue ad, as not much has changed beyond his wardrobe.  I will, however, make quick mention of the barely-there chin lift and raise of the eyebrows, which seem to make him look a tiny bit optimistic this time round and leave me with the impression that he prefers wool to animal hide.

Sometimes I write on a topic and get a surprise email from a person actively involved in the brainstorming, production, or distribution of that topic.  Here is my open call to any blog readers possibly embedded within the Bridgestone enterprise.  What's the deal with these two crazy kids, and may I be so bold as to suggest that if you continue the series, can the purple ad please forward the story and make some narrative sense by showing the two cradling and cooing over a tiny, tiny tire baby?

B? B-?

So there I was in the middle of my imaginary Spring Break, and the first review for To Feel Stuff just had to pop up.  I'd been getting to know the toilet intimately after doing seventy Petron Silver shots.  It told me that it was originally from Italy, and that it terribly missed its "Papa."  "Oh, back in Florence," it would say late in the night/ early in the morning, "The way the rising sun filled Papa's bowl, as if the sun was rising from inside of him and not the sky!"  I'd been to the tattoo parlor to get three designs: a dolphin petting a rose, a rose petting a dolphin, a dolphin petting itself, and a symbol in Chinese that the artist told me means, "Genuine lover of both sea mammals and flora."  And because flashing guys in clubs had become so exhausting (the lifting of the shirt, the dropping of the shirt; the lifting of the shirt, the dropping of the shirt, etc. etc. etc.), I'd figured out a shortcut by geniusly tucking the bottom of my shirt into the neckband and running all my errands sans bra, all in all a total time and energy saver.

But then in the middle of all this springy debauchery I saw that Publishers Weekly had released their review of my advanced reading copy, and that was kind of a downer.  The review isn't horrible.  And it isn't great.  It's a boo...yay...boo...yay...boo...yay kind of thing.  What most nagged at me-- i.e. kept me from entering the wet t-shirt contest being thrown by these AWESOME Gamma Neu guys up in their hotel room-- was how ambiguous I found statements contained within the review.  So being collegiately trained in the art of critical reading, I took a break from my coke-and-ecstasy-fueled break to critically read the critical reading of my book with some hope of further understanding.

"Seigel's sophomore effort..."

Analysis: "This is Seigel's second book."

"...is a scattershot case study in illness, love and the unexplained..."

Analysis: First let me admit that I had to go look up "scattershot" on the internet to see if it was as negatively connotated as I thought it was, and a Princeton University dictionary said, "covering a wide range in a haphazard way," so I guess the connotation depends on what you think of haphazardness.  Me, pro.  Fully in favor of filming a Jessica Simpson-heavy sequel called, Duchesses of Haphazards in which she and I run willy nilly all over the South, trying on jean shorts, debating the value of melancholy, and chasing hurricanes.  But for those perhaps more linearly inclined, maybe not so much.  Still, I believe having a wide range is better than having a wide ass, and nowhere in the review does it suggest I have the latter.

"...Elodie Harrington is an undergraduate at Brown University who lives in the college infirmary, suffering from a series of unrelated illnesses "piggybacked one upon another"..."

Analysis: "Seigel's book is about an undergraduate at Brown University who lives in the college infirmary, suffering from a series of unrelated illnesses."  But those quotes around the piggybacking perplex me.  This is a weird part to quote-- so random, so easily paraphrased.  So is the critic using literal quotes around the piggybacking as if they're bitchy air quotes, making fun of said piggybacking?  And, if this is the case, what kind of cruel monster would take issue with piggybacking?

"...so that she never fully recovers. Her story is told from three points of view—Dr. Mark Kirschling's account of her confounding symptoms in the Journal of Parapsychology and letters between Elodie and Chester Hunter III, a fellow undergrad she meets in the infirmary."

Analysis: Okay, this is all true.

"...Though the structure is a bit contrived (the letters and journal article are filled with dialogue), each section picks up with little repetition..."

Analysis: I'm pretty sure this means, "Oh Seigel, you and your second-person letters, you silly, silly naif!"  Also: "This is like Rashomon, except minus the thievery and the raping and plus Baltimora's "Tarzan Boy," two scenes of rubbery glovery, and many appearances by bowls of macaroni and cheese."

"...As Chester mends and Elodie get sicker, it becomes clear that their blossoming love is threatened by the specter of health."

Analysis: "I am telling you what happens in the last 130 pages of the book, just in case you are the type of person who does not like to finish things." (Also, punny!  I love puns.  Really!  Specter.  Get it?  Although what I really would have loved is for my prose to have been described as "haunting."  That would have had me dancing on air for a week.)

"...It doesn't all hold up to close scrutiny..."

Analysis: Ghosts are not real, and so a lot of things that happen in the book couldn't really happen.

(Says you, Publisher's Weekly reviewer. Says you.)

"...but Seigel has crafted believable characters to anchor the fantastical circumstances.."

Analysis: Seigel is FANTASTIC.

Oh.

Seigel is fantastically believable?

Yes.

"...and it's a testament to her ability to captivate that the book ends at what feels like just the beginning. (Aug.)"

Analysis: "Once you finish the book, you should go out, buy another copy (at full price from a non-resale bookseller), and read it again.  You will not feel jipped."

Now that I've got that all sorted out, I feel ten thousand times better.  Off to the Gamma Neu suite!!!!  C U All L8R!!!!!