Thursday Stylin': tasteful as ever

In this week's desperately pathetic attempt to fill space and gain advertising revenue, The New York Times writes about teen oral sex parties, investigates the scent of Alan Cumming and Alex Kuczynski files from the Hamptons, where she brings us urban chic _ Hamptons style.

Are These Parties for Real?

What in the name of Brassica oleracea is going on? Leave it to the Stylin' section to limn all trends spurious. Based on one paperback novel and a lot of talk in those high school halls, The New York Times sees fit to inform us about something that might be happening, although no one can say. To wit: Oral sex parties at which girls wear different colored lipstick and dudes try to collect as many colors as possible on their units. Because in high school, dudes love showing each other their wangs.

Let's leave aside the issue of taste for the moment. (Although I wonder if Bill Keller didn't spit out his Mueslix when he saw this.)

This is appalling journalism. A trend story should ideally have facts to support the claims. But apparently, not even Friendster could produce the raw material for this story. Nevertheless, it must have made it over that low Stylin' bar, because here it is.

Certainly, almost any sexual practice that can be imagined stands a good chance of having been tried somewhere, sometime. But many sex researchers and adolescent-health professionals say that rainbow parties are not a big part of
teenage sexual behavior.

Here's the only part of the story that uses anything other than naked assertion to support the story's premise.

Still, an informal survey of teenagers found that most of those aged 13 to 16 knew what rainbow parties were, believe they take place and hear of them through the school gossip mill. "I think it's completely gross, but there's a girl in my class and everybody says she's been to one," said the girl, a 13-year-old from New York. "I heard two guys talk about her."

Does this count as independent verification? (Don't answer that, Judy Miller). Of course it doesn't. Any halfway competent journalist would have seen this as a non-story. The only reason to write this is to titillate and maybe to garner some coveted "most-emailed" status.

Just to clarify one thing: Unlike most of the people sputtering over this non-phenomenon, Cole Slaw Blog objects soley to the bad taste and insipid values that underlie the decision to run a story like this. It reminds me of the sort of thing that got Bob Somerby into awesomely high dudgeon during the campaign.

I just can't wait until the Stylin' section tackles the trend of A-list actors who misappropriate gerbils, as well as this season's hottest sex trend: The Nolita Steamer!

Addendum: Also, I love that the second most-emailed story according to the Times right now is Thomas Friedman's column entitled "The End of the Rainbow."

The Sweet Smell of Celebrity

If there were a Stylin' Section drinking game, this would totally prompt a granddaddy social. You've got your trendspotting, your product placement and your celebrity fawning all in one. Hope you brought the Natty, bro.

It appears that Alan Cumming has his own scent. Which puts him right up there with Britney and J-Lo. Of course, it's mostly a colossal joke. Which is actually pretty damn funny.

Honestly, more actors should have their own scents. I'd definitely buy Hot Becky in a bottle for a girlfriend.

I hope they can work this into the Entourage plot: Johnny Drama could have his own camp scent, and as is his wont, be the last one in on the joke. Or better yet, when Crimenotes and I make it big we can have Cole Slaw Blog: The Scent. It would be Cabbagey and peppery, with a definite carrot note, along with an undercurrent of creme fraiche. Also available in jicama and new red cabbage, for slaw as real as the streets.

Or would everything fall apart when Gheorghe Muresan's lawyers threatened copyright infringement?

Outfitting the Hamptons, Après Puffy.

Oh, Alex. You're back. We missed our shopping trips with you. We also missed your daft, myopic worldview and trainwreck articles.

In this week's Critical Shopper, Alex pays a visit to a Hamptons retail outlet called Blue & Cream and is immediately rendered dizzy by the irony. Because, although it's an expensive boutique aimed at crackers with high cheekbones, it's named for ... a rap song! By someone who was in Wu-Tang Clan!

And to think, it's only been 85 years or so that white people have been liking black music.

Reclamation is a recurring theme in rap: black rappers taking the ultimate uncool white man's accessory - in this case a clumsy gum-soled shoe - and transforming it into urban chic. In turn Jeff Goldstein and Kira Cohen, a former Hamptons nightclub promoter and his fashionista former girlfriend, use the nostalgic vernacular of rap to sell clothes. It's a derivative symbiosis that will have sociologists scratching their heads for decades.

Yeah, this is basically the hottest field in the social sciences. It's gettting so you can't get a grant to study anything else nowadays.

You also can't get good help these days. Alex sniffed at the level of service and drew a couple more dubious assertions before wrapping up with what has become a curiously favorite pastime of hers: Reporting via the eavesdrop.

I sat for an hour, unobserved and undisturbed, listening to the soundtrack (Spandau Ballet, Sugar Hill Gang, Flock of Seagulls) and visitors' conversations. The topics were limited: money, fashion, the Hamptons, hangovers. (To be fair, it was a weekend.)

Did you see all those Maybachs in town this week? Dope. We were at Tavern last night. Where were you? This is my friend Mitch, the one I told you about. He's a stylist. Is this totally boom or what?

For the record, the words dope and boom were uttered by white people.

You can almost see her shaking her head, wondering how such a thing came to pass. I mean, one certainly doesn't overhear such words at Bergdorf's. Oh, Alex, never change, sweets. Never change.

Are Men Ready for the 5-Step, 10-Minute Shave?

Some guys like taking more time and care when they shave. There are many products available to apply to one's skin before, during and after the act of shaving. Five helpful photos show a model applying five different products. This is the kind of innocuous advertorial content that probably shouldn't bother me, but does. Why is this in a newspaper again? Service journalism? I'm skeptical.

That said, I should also disclose: I've done this before. And you know what, it felt pretty damn good. Of course, I got my excess shaving products as gifts. On balance, I'd rather have a good sandwich.

I can't speak for my co-blogger, but it all might be a bit much for him. We're talking about someone who considers hand towels a touch rococo.

In other Stylin' news, more beards! But this time, with pretty ladies! Also, the weekly "Open for Business" feature, often written by Stephanie Rosenbloom, bears no byline. Stephanie, if that was you, we totally applaud the self-respect.

Shark bites

I don't know about you, but I can't get enough shark news. I suppose it beats hearing about missing white women or celebrity trials, but seriously. Can we just spend some time on substance, please?

The only way I'll acknowledge that all this sharky news is worthwhile is if all this encourages the makers of Shark Bites brand fruity snacks to put their fine product back on the market. Then we'll be in business.

And I'll make a batch of these for Crimenotes, who is an avid angler.

Law slaw: notes on recent Supreme Court rulings

For reasons that are a little baffling to me, a decent number of general interest blogs have been posting on recent Supreme Court opinions, and some of the left-wing political blogs I'm visiting are borderline hysterical. I love the law, I think about it even when I don't have to. It's good to see so much public interest in what the Supreme Court is doing, but a lot of these rulings are small potatoes that don't depart from well-accepted precedent. They'll change very few lives. Don't believe the hype.

With that premise in mind, I'm going to take a shot at some low-key legal punditry, and break down some of the big, recent cases. I was a little bit inspired by the ongoing discussion at Slate, which features some excellent constitutional scholars and goes into great, provocative detail. I highly recommend it.

The Ten Commandments Cases. One ruling holds that Texas can display a mock-up of the Ten Commandments in outdoor public space because it's in a historical context; the other holds that a Kentucky courthouse can't display the Ten Commandments on a stand-alone basis.

Cases about such displays are the backwater of First Amendment law, right up there with what kind of striptease is expressive and what kind of striptease appeals to prurient interests. The reason is, they're incredibly fact specific. I'm a hardcore atheist: if I saw the Ten Commandments posted next to an excerpt of the Justinian Code, the Bill of Rights, and the Magna Carta, I wouldn't give a shit. If a massive stone tablet were posted behind a judge while she made a death penalty ruling, I'd be appalled. It's context, bitches. Government can't conscript you into being a vehicle for a religious belief (which is why I think "under God" should be found unconstitutional) but the First Amendment doesn't protect you from feeling squeamish (which is why a creche or a menorah in the town square doesn't bother me).

One of the aforementioned Slate postings quotes from the blog of Wisconsin law professor Ann Althouse, which pretty much summed up my feelings:

These are inconsequential displays, which is why they'll be approved if they are approved and why it won't make much difference if they are taken down either. ... Still, they are too much for the extreme secularists and just the beginning of what extremists on the other side would like to see. The Court needs to draw a good line that fends off both extremes.

They split the difference enough for me to sleep at night.

Grokster. I haven't read this opinion, but from news reports, my understanding is that this ruling doesn't ban filesharing, it just leaves it up to juries to determine whether a given filesharing program is set up in a fashion that invites copyright infringement. For example, if you market your filesharing program by saying, "Why pay $10 for an album on iTunes when we'll give it to you for free?", you're probably encouraging copyright infringement. Or at least it would be up to a jury to decide if you are.

As stated, I haven't read the opinion so I can't say for sure. From my understanding, the worst that it does is foreclose blatant illegality on the internet.

The Connecticut Takings Clause case. The most interesting case by far. The Takings Clause is as interesting as public religious display cases are lame.

Essentially, the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause says that government can take private property so long as it pays "just compensation" and the property is taken for public use. This issue is a powderkeg for the extreme right. For the free market types, it's a much bigger deal than a lame Ten Commandments display. It is linked to a theory that's been labeled "the Constitution in exile." Right-wing lawyers believe that an absolute right to private property should be paramount, thus eviscerating environmental law, land-use law, and, essentially, any kind of zoning. They believe that the Constitution has been "exiled" since the New Deal, and conservative University of Chicago professor Richard Epstein believes that a liberal interpretation of the Takings Clause is the bugaboo behind that exile.

The facts of the recent Supreme Court ruling are sympathetic, and unless you understand the scope of what the right wants to do, you're going to be inclined to think the Supreme Court gave a greenlight to municipal corruption and big business plutocrats. A city in Connecticut condemned large tracts of a thriving residential neighborhood, tossing out the residents for a massive property handover to private corporations. This sucks. I get pissed about fancy restaurants taking over my street, and I'd be furious if the Lower East Side were razed to make way for a few Wal Marts. The Supreme Court essentially ruled that a city validly exercises power under the Takings Clause when it condemns a viable neighborhood to make way for corporate interests.

Although the specific facts of this ruling make the outcome hard to swallow, the alternative was worse. In essence, if the Court came out the other way, the implication would be that environmental laws and historical preservation efforts constituted a taking of private property and should be nullified. The idea is this: private property would be made sancrosanct over almost all other governmental interests, and a governmental entity couldn't take property or limit its development without an extremely compelling justification. If the government can't bulldoze a house to make way for Pfizer offices, they also couldn't prevent someone from bulldozing a protected wetland to build luxury condos.

What makes the Takings Clause so tricky is that the Supreme Court has devised a series of balancing tests and bright-line tests that leave these issues somewhat open-ended. The facts made this a hard case, but a lot of the left-wingers who were furious with the ruling apparently didn't understand that it was a small piece of a much larger jurisprudential struggle.

Aren't you sorry you didn't go to law school?

Mini-reviews

Much as with the last heatwave, the current weather seems to be zapping my slaw-related inspiration. This is highly embarrassing in light of Flop's flurry of activity, but I've overcome worse humiliation. Despite being groggy and hot, I'm still trying to make the most out of life. A few recent interests:

The White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan. I thought Elephant and White Blood Cells were fine, but neither one kept me up all night. Get Behind Me Satan is pretty fantastic. "My Doorbell" and "Take, Take, Take" sound like they could be on Led Zeppelin IV. Dig the steel drums on "The Nurse" and the other songs' twangy feel. I'm not sure why this album comes together so well, but it does.

Sleater-Kinney, The Woods. Hello, ladies. I love you. I'm sure that one night soon, while drunk, I will shout, "Land, ho!" in a high pitched, immaculate warble.

Matt Taibbi, Spanking the Donkey. Only halfway through this book, but already it's my favorite election book since Richard Ben Cramer's What It Takes. Taibbi is a hard-left liberal who hates the Republicans but is bitterly disappointed by the Democrats. During the 2004 election, he picked up where Hunter Thompson left off, shrooming before covering the Democratic primary debate at Pace University, fuming against John Kerry, and swooning for Dennis Kucinich. He also eviscerates the personalities and lifestyles of the major reporters who cover elections -- if you have an opinion about Jodi Wilogren and cried yourself to sleep the night that Kerry won the Iowa caucuses, this book confirms all of your worst nihilist fears.

The Andy Milonakis Show. I randomly caught this on MTV last night. It's like Tom Green's old show, minus the raunchy sensibilities and public humiliation. A chunky Manhattan adolescent runs roughshod through the streets, acting like an ass in front of old people, frightening deliverymen, rapping, and showering in mustard. It's completely adolescent and over-the-top, yet I love it.

New Pornographers. I made a 90 minute trek on Saturday from Yankee Stadium to Prospect Park to catch The New Pornographers play Celebrate Brooklyn. Like their new album, the performance by Stars made me sleepy (not in a bad way) but the Pornographers sounded pretty good, Neko Case's absence notwithstanding. I didn't get a good handle on their new stuff, except the title track for the upcoming album Twin Cinema, which rocks.

The HBO comedies. There's some kind of tragic, meta humor going on in The Comeback, where Lisa Kudrow plays an actress on a lousy show who's humiliated by her surroundings. It's sad that she willingly plays a character who gets dogshit in her hair. Entourage -- even worse. I hope this series ends with Eric as a bond trader, Johnny Drama a gym teacher, Turtle a cabdriver, and Vince with a fatal case of crabs. So much overwriting, so much bad acting, such little payoff. It plays like an inside joke, only there's nothing inside and the jokes have no punchline. Cracks about Star Jones being fat and Lara Flynn Boyle being skinny? A cameo by Paulie Shore? It's worse than a Jay Leno monologue acted out before your eyes.

Zombie slaw: a review of Land of the Dead

Some people got Revenge of the Sith. Others got a new Coldplay album. The release I've been looking forward to is Land of the Dead.

Love zombies, can't get enough of them, ever since I was nine or ten and saw the original Night of the Living Dead on UHF on a Friday night. I didn't understand the subtext at the time (the black protaganist beats back the zombies only to get killed by what essentially was a lynch mob) and wasn't very scared, but I loved it anyway.

Land of the Dead is the horror movie to see if you like zombies and listen to Air America. Dennis Hopper plays an oligarch named Kaufman, who assembles a walled-off community of elites in a luxury apartment tower. The rest of the city is comprised of serfs who talk about revolution. On the outside of the city (protected by rivers on all sides) everything is zombie.

The settings for the other George Romero zombie movies are a little non-descript. In Land of the Dead, the city reminded me of Bartertown in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, especially when the residents wager on a cage match where two zombies vie for human prey. The setting is well-imagined and vivid -- if a zombie/human showdown can be described as "credible," Land of the Dead fits the bill.

John Leguizamo plays a sort of bootlegger named Cholo. He scavanges outlying areas for booze, cigars and essentials, and brings them to Kaufman. When Kaufman (for presumably racist and class-based reasons) refuses to admit him into the swank residential community, Cholo attempts to extort him, and assembles the means to attack the building. Meanwhile, Riley, the jaded protaganist, is assigned by Kaufman to prevent Cholo from attacking the city.

The movie has a lot of contemporary political digs and does not give a favorable view of the wealthy. (One climactic moment involves dollar bills raining down next to a gas pump.) Fifty years ago, it would have garnered accusations of communist sympathy. But in the end, it's a kick-ass zombie movie that includes several dozen new, completely over-the-top ways of showing heads erupt, limbs severed, and guts splatter. Gross? Indeed. If you don't like to see the vivid mutilation of zombies and their victims, join the Zombie Preservation Society. Otherwise, I offer an enthusiatic recommendation.

Someday I hope to come back as a zombie, but please don't get scared. I won't be a flesh-eating zombie, I'll just dance like the zombies in the "Thriller" video, and (inspired by the people at Dead Guy) open a brewery with zombie-named beers. While I'm on a zombie kick, I also recommend the blog Zombie Eat Brains, which Flop kindly brought to my attention. It's a general-interest blog that uses zombies as an excuse for writing about other stuff.

Sunday Stylin': on schedule and boring as hell

In this week's desperately pathetic attempt to fill space and gain advertising revenue, The New York Times conducts a fourth-grade science experiement, chills with a real, live British Earl at an exclusive party hosted by a diamond cartel and writes about poker.

Shivering for Luxury.

With apologies to Mrs. Caylor for jacking her lab-report guidelines.

1.) Purpose.

A recent experiment in which a reporter visited various commercial corners of Manhattan with a high-grade thermometer found that almost without fail, the more ritzy the establishment is trying to be, the colder the air-conditioning is kept.

2.) Procedure.

For the experiment a pair of professional-grade Mannix HDT303K digital thermometers were used. The temperature was measured as close to the center of each establishment as possible, away from any vents, moving air or doors. When the thermometers' readings differed (never by more than 0.4 degrees), the two were averaged. The reporter did not announce his presence as one but entered each place of business as a normal customer would.

3.) Data & Observations.

Bergdorf Goodman, 68.3 degrees; Bloomingdale's, 70.8; Macy's 73.1; Club Monaco, 74.0; the Original Levi's Store, 76.8; Old Navy 80.3.

...

Lower-end stores tend to be more frugal. The 88-cent shoelaces at National Wholesale Liquidators on Broadway near Houston Street were curled up in 76.6-degree air, while half a block away, an $11.95 frosted soap pump at Crate & Barrel sat in a comparatively frosty climate of 70.9.

...

Restaurants were slight exceptions to the luxury-is-always-colder rule. In Greenwich Village, EJ's Luncheonette, at 68.7, was almost exactly the same temperature as Café Boulud, but both were much colder than a McDonald's in Chelsea (72.0).

...

For some, cold air is not about luxury but about what's natural and necessary. Thus the coldest place tested was the penguin observing room at the Central Park Zoo: 67.2

4.) Analysis.

This article was a total piece of shit. And to boot, author Allen Salkin tried to make people (and possibly himself) feel like it was more important than it was by finding a Henry Miller quote on air conditioning. My question: Is there now a searchable Bartlett's, or was this Googled? I shouldn't come down on Salkin too hard, the ability to stretch an article out to that length is harder than it looks. It's a tool every daily journalist needs, but doesn't particularly take pride in. From now on whenever I feel like I need to pump up one of my blog entries, I'm totally going to turn to penguins. Awk! Awk!

I suspect they're running short on ideas over at Stylin' Central, but hey, when air conditioning fronts your section, what's not a story idea?

Regardless, Bill Keller's going to have to change that "All the News That's Fit to Print" slogan before it becomes actionable.

Social Diary: Influencers Are Forever.

The Stylin' Section's embedded correspondent files a report from a lavish and exclusive party hosted by everyone's favorite diamond cartel, DeBeers. The company that has brought us all those charming ads best parodied in the Family Guy gag when the commcercial ends with the tagline "Diamonds: She'll Pretty Much Have To."

The article begins with that bizarre tic of The New York Times and freshman college-paper reporters, the quote lede:

"INTRIGUE: 9," Rufus Albemarle said on Tuesday evening, as he surveyed and rated a room full of elegant strangers who were suavely disporting themselves at nosebleed altitude 79 floors above New York.

Albemarle, a real, live British Earl is rating the party on its intrigue, decor and purpose. He's one of the Influencers, as the article terms them. Apparently, DeBeers wants to be a household name in 10 years. Well, thanks to all those commercials (I remember seeing them during football games as a kid), as well as people's generallly heightened awareness of conflict diamonds, I'm sure DeBeers is a reasonably household name as it is. But apparently, they're getting into retail or some shit. Huzzah for vertical monopolies!

Anyway, this article is supposedly about how important these Influencers are, but we never learn why or how that might be true, except by learning of all the details of this party. It's porn for Stylin' aficionados.

Social Diarist Guy Trebay recounts all the inside-baseball details that went into the party. Right down to the peas and carrots, as well as the brand name party planner, "who appeared as if out of nowhere three years back to hijack the plum social assignments on which the florist Robert Isabell used to have a lock."

Oh, him.

The next couple paragraphs are this kind of entre nous aside about this party planner, David Monn's background, including the time he brought some rats into the Met. (Not on purpose.)

Not that I really give a shit about the super-rich, but this is just another opportunity to provide actual insight derailed by drooling over brand names. Oh, Stylin' Section, you do not belong in an actual newspaper. Can someone spin this off into The New York Times Company's own version of Lucky magazine or something?


The Boy King Has Left the Table.

The story of poker wunderkind Stu Ungar. I don't think there's a single brand name in this story, there's no dubious trend being declared, and no one's getting a post-pilates, shower-gel handjob. So why is it in the Styles section? If I wanted to get all A-Kucz on things and make it all about Flop, I'd say they were throwing me a curve, but that's not it. My only guess is that there was nowhere else to put this story, and poker's sort of trendy. Also, as noted previously, they're kind of hurting for material this week.

Misery Loves Fried Chicken, Too.

A guy and another dude he knows bond over their heartbreak. An alternately laughable and slightly sad story, I didn't hate it. It's got some strange parts, though.

The author clearly has internalized him some Nick Hornby.

Food, work, correspondence, even the Three Stooges: all lose their luster. The big picture fades, as minor details assume gargantuan proportions. CD's will suddenly beckon to be rearranged, from alphabetical to reverse chronological order and back again. I simply have no choice.

The only real consolation is found in pop music: Leonard Cohen, Elvis Costello, the Smiths: a never ending cycle of misery and heartache providing grist for our mill of self-pity. Pop music has the amazing ability to make you feel depressed and hopeful at the same time: depressed that you identify with the sentiment and hopeful because someone feels more miserable than you.

Anyway, there's not much more to say. It's altogether a rather goofy tale, offputting at times, and just kind of strange. Basically, they see Cast Away together, and while Tom Hanks' character befriends a volleyball, the author turned his buddy into anthropomorphized sporting equipment. Just strange.

Also, when was Cast Away in theaters? It's been like years, right?

Where the Girls Are.

One last thing. Meow Mix, the excellently named lesbian bar on Houston Street which closed some time ago, has been reborn, if only in spirit. The new place is called "Cattyshack" which is an even better name. The article mentions a (vain) promoter connected with the bar which makes me think that I have no desire whatsoever to go to this place.

It's too bad, I was hoping I could walk in and see a lesbian version of Carl Spackler and Ty Webb playing Golden Tee. Or even a butchy Judge Smails, complete with brass buttons and jaunty cap. Instead, this place sounds more likely to feature a mischeivous, audioanimatronic beaver.

Extraordinary

I'm watching a truly incredible moment in sports. I set my DVR to record the Confederations Cup (think World Cup warmup) semifinal between Germany and Brazil. But the previous game on Fox Soccer Channel was the denoument of a game at the Under-20 World Championships. Nigeria and the Netherlands were tied after overtime ("extra time") and so went to penalty kicks. When a match goes to penalties, each team takes five, and whoever has more at the end wins.

Unless it's still tied. In that case, it goes to sudden death. Nigeria and the Netherlands went 12 rounds (five is the usual) of penalty kicks before Nigeria's Taye Taiwo
finally made one following a Dutch miss, giving Nigeria a 10-9 advantage on penalties. (The game was a 1-1 draw).

I mention all this as a way of noting that during anything this ridiculous, any American TV broadcaster would have been bellowing, hooting, hollering, and generally just irritating the shit out of me. Furthermore, *anyone who made a penalty kick would have been lauded as if he'd just put Grendel's head on a pike.

During this game, the announcer (I have no idea who he was) kept his wits about him and actually allowed the rather incredible events unfolding before him to speak for themselves, without feeling the need to muse on the nature of the game or relate anecdotes about one of the coaches. At one point, after a particularly staggering kick, he simply said "extraordinary!"

Indeed. I'd say that American sportscasters could shut up and take a lesson, but Vin Scully is widely hailed as the dean of play-by-play men, and yet everyone with a mike in front of them sounds as if they're trying to be the next Chris Berman instead.


*Assuming he was already "known" to be "clutch," played for a major team, or any such nonsense.

Thursday Stylin': bile backlog

In this week's desperately pathetic attempt to fill space and gain advertising revenue, The New York Times shows rare good taste, along with its usual complement of materialistic vapidity. And yes, I know it's Saturday morning already.

Fat, O.K.? And Having a Blast.

Our comrade-in-blogs, Stephanie Rosenbloom gained her reputation here for writing painfully obvious non-articles about such topics as people wanting sneakers that fit and where to purchase sorbet gel.

But this article is different. It's informative, sympathetic without being empathetic, and without that Stylin' Section cutesy that makes Cat Fancy look like Reuters. Also, there's not a trace of bemusement, snark or incredulity. Stephanie's bigfoot national writer colleagues could stand to learn a thing or two from this article, which nicely outlines the many different leisure options for seriously overweight people. In summary, there's everything from Vegas fetes and scuba lessons to bowling nights and personal training. She even includes some nice details, such as the fact that falling is a common concern among obese people.

In all honesty, I have to say ... thanks, Stephanie Rosenbloom. This is the best article I've ever read in the Stylin' Section. Of course, if Stephanie has a piece about $48 bath beads or Chanel noseplugs for swimming in the Hamptons, I'll be sorely disappointed. Not that I'm holding my breath.

Sophia? Is That You Behind the Shades?

Oy. Again with the cutesy. It's like reading really bad sportswriting, but about freaking sunglasses. Apparently, celebs like big sunglasses, so now everyone else does. And the Stylin' Section is there to cover that trend, complete with awkward, forced writing like:

The eyewear equivalent of bling, they compete for status with the fashionably oversize handbags toted by the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie and come in more styles than Baskin-Robbins has flavors.

The rest of the article proceeds apace. Trend is limned, people in the street are interviewed. But there's one more quote we have to point out. A retailer mentioned that the big-glasses trend is just getting warmed up because "they make you look hoboish in a rich way."

Awesome. I can't wait to see the Olsen twins hopping freights. Then Hobo-chic will be totally in! And then we'll read about it in the Stylin' section: Louis Vuitton will come out with a line of bindles. Clubs will add Thunderbird to their bottle service! Alex Kuczynski will write about boxcars and make it all about her!

Add That Youthful Glow, but Watch the Wattage.

Apaprently, there's ground up shiny stuff in some makeup. And if you apply too much, you look, as one person interviewed for this utterly pointless article said, "like a disco ball."

So the key then, would be not too little or too much, but just enough. All the News that's Fit to Print, indeed.

Grown-Up Boys' Wear for Bar or Barricades.

Wow, it just doesn't feel right, a Critical Shopper piece without Alex Kuczynski. But I suppose it doesn't take much to smack around a story that lauds a store called Nom de Guerre where one can purchase a $1,600 sweatshirt lined with rabbit fur.

It's got all the touches to appeal to 20-something males, right down to the unmarked, below-street-level location. And this week's critical shopper, Penelope Green, has learned well from her self-absorbed Jedi Mistress. She, too, can inject random friends and acquaintances into the story.

Such artful casualness, my friend Dan mused, seems geared to a man intent on modeling himself after a Brad Pitt type who has been styled for a visit to Starbucks. "You know, the hair is wet and tousled, so he can be 'caught' by the paparazzi," Dan said. "Or maybe it's what you wear in the front row of a Lakers game."

We'll let the reader decide. Here's some of the other things one can purchase at Nom de Guerre.

Paper-thin Rogan flip-flops nearby are even more archly casual, almost disposable, in a black-on-brown print over hemp soles, $110. Military jackets in navy and white pinstripes or a tigery black-and-gray camouflage pattern, carrying Nom de Guerre's own label, are $325. Lavender gingham button-down shirts, also by Nom de Guerre, classic and fitted, are $210 and $195.

Naturally, the Times finds the store charming and even "pleasantly subversive" due in part to its underground location. Personally, I'm just relieved there were no offhanded WMD references in this article.

I'd also like to note that the headline to the Times' article makes a reference to "barricades." I'm pretty sure that if it ever came down to it, the people who shop at this place wouldn't be doing any barricade-manning. You'd think a paper that just did a series on class distinctions would realize this.

The Twinkle of an Eyelash, With a Blink of Mink.

Eyelash bars! Where you can get fake eyelashes made out of fur. No, seriously.

I can't wait until the Wall Street Journal's version of this is up and running, and I can totally fucking lose my respect for that paper, too.

This aggression will not stand

We believe that ballplayers everywhere have the right to keep and wear cabbage.

We stand by Park Myung-Hwan and ask that the Korean Baseball Association extend to him the cabbage-based rights enjoyed by American ballplayers since New Yorkers drank Rheingold unironically.

Karl Rove's insurgency

(Cole Slaw power, activate! I hope Flop doesn't mind that I commandeer the top of his post, but if you live in NYC, you have no excuse to not contact Bloomberg and call on him to condemn this outrage in the strongest terms possible. If he won't resign from the GOP, he should at least stand up for his city. It will affect the likelihood of me voting for him, and it should for you, too. Contact info here. -CrimeNotes)

My co-blogger has covered the (quite proper) indignation and outrage to the recent remarks of Karl Rove. But I've been doing a lot of reading, and even a little thinking about his comments, which, while inflammatory, clearly had a deeper purpose.

I mean don't get me wrong, Karl Rove certainly may go fuck himself. I'm one of those liberals, and I probably don't need to tell you that my first impulse when terroists attacked my city was not to get Dr. Frasier Crane on the horn. Far from it. In fact, I'd like to note that while the president was running to Louisiana and Nebraska, I was here in New York, hoping my friends weren't dead.

But forget about that for now. This is classic Rove. I think that he's hoping that by throwing some red meat to the base he can prevent some defections on the war. Republicans are starting to come around on the Iraq issue, but if there's one thing that will keep them from peeling away, it's some more good, old-fashioned demonization of liberals. Even some perfectly reasonable (and dare I say, liberal) friends shy away from the term. To my way of thinking* Rove is basically reminding Republicans how cool kids do and do not think. It's straight out of the kickball diamond.

In a similar vein, I wonder if Rove and Bush like asking Bill Frist if he's got plans to go to the screening of Gaylord, Say No on the mall next week?

But I digress. Now that it's Rove saying this and not one of his puppets is intriguing. It reminds me of that turning-point scene in so many movies when the bad guy leaves his underground lair to do what his incompetent subordinates couldn't. This is Darth Vader cranking up his TIE-fighter or Dr. Evil capturing his own sharks and mounting laser beams on them himself.

It's also possible that he's doing it because now that Sen. Durbin has been appropriately cowed he can just reply that Democrats sure weren't outraged when Durbin said something similar. Of course, it's not like that at all. But Rove, in his genius, knows that reporters on deadline don't have the time for extensive critical thinking, and therefore will swallow the false equivalency without question. It's classic hornswoggling, and I'm sick of watching professional journalists fall for it.

* I should note, that much of my thinking on Rove's motives here is informed by my reading of this post, by Billmon at This Modern World. I'm going to go so far as to call that required reading for anyone still interested or incensed by this.