and all this time I've been calling it Playboy bunny hair

You know when you've left the hot rollers in just a LITTLE too long? Apparently that's the goal ... cutting down my prep time significantly ... if that's the look you're going for.

"{...} now the gym hair, bedheads, hasty ponytails and trompe l'oeil chignons of New York, Paris and Milan have entered the realm of high fashion. Those who find straight, glossy hair an impossible waste of time, have hope: half-hearted coifs aren't just for 8 a.m. meetings anymore. The runway has finally collided with reality. {...}
'You have to admit, that hair has certain connotations,'' he said."

What might those be?
Finally you're safe in the streets with JBF hair.

Feel the heat? Get melon.

A little something for my watermelon-loving cohorts in celebration of the last day of the month. Politics, fashion, cocktails, what more could you ask for?

THE JAMES BOND MELON BALL
Adapted from Trummer Home, Greenport, N.Y.
1 large watermelon
7 ounces vodka
2 ounces Grand Marnier
2 ounces freshly squeezed lime juice
Splash of Champagne or sparkling wine.
1. Cut watermelon in two. Carve out the entire watermelon, and chop contents into small pieces. Fill one half of watermelon shell with the cubed watermelon pieces and ice.
2. Pour in the vodka, Grand Marnier and lime juice. Stir the contents gently. Top off the drink with a splash of Champagne, and place four straws in melon. (You may also mix ingredients in a pitcher and serve in glasses.)
Yield: 4 servings.

And if you're pregnant, or not imbibing for other reasons, you can enjoy your cocktails in the shower.
Thanks to the NYT Fashion & Style section. Go to www.watermelon.org for more melon-related recipes.

Know Anna Deavere Smith?

aka National Security Advisor Nancy McNally on The West Wing, but so much more, including director of the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue at New York University, has an excellent opinion piece in today's NYT on recent speechifyin':

"When Bill Clinton spoke, and dropped the first "Send me" in reference to John Kerry's decision to go to Vietnam, I was less interested in the comparison between Mr. Kerry and President Bush than in Mr. Clinton's laying of the groundwork to set the audience on fire with those words. And he did. Yet as I left the FleetCenter {...} my mind was twirling with the words, "How did he do that?"
Jack O'Brien, artistic director of the Old Globe Theater in San Diego, gave me a clue when I asked if there was any classical actor in America who could have done what Mr. Clinton did that night. "No," he said. "He is Shavian.
"There is a line from Bill Clinton that extends back through the work of Stoppard and then Shaw and then Shakespeare. One of the things we don't do is 'ideate,' which is how Shakespeare's characters speak. They don't go from moment to moment on a rosary, bead to bead. They get the entire idea and then they exhale it." Got it.
We 20th and 21st century American actors are smitten with the natural, invested in intimacy. We are not trained to grab the hearts and minds of our audience, just the hearts. And speaking of grabbing hearts and minds, we found a new model in Barack Obama. "You think to yourself, 'Oh, we will all be measured from here on by this. Obama is Brando in 'Streetcar,' '' Mr. O'Brien said to me with finality. Mr. Brando did change acting forever with his performance of Stanley, because he was mind, body and heart in a way we hadn't seen before.
Will Mr. Obama change black political oratory? His speech did not, for example, elicit the traditional call and response we associate with powerful black speech. The speech instead evoked speechlessness. "That guy's amazing," said the blond model sitting next to me in the hall. Mr. Obama comes out of a mixed tradition, and I'm not talking about his racial mix. He is mixing traditions of communication. As he himself explained to me: "I tap into the tradition that a lot of African-Americans tap into and that's the church. It's the church blended with a smattering of Hawaii and Indonesia and maybe Kansas, and I've learned a lot of the most important things in life from literature. I've been a professor of law. I'm accustomed to making an argument. When I am effective, it's coming from my gut."

So that's why they're so damn good.  I'd exerpt more, but you should REALLY read it it its entirety.

From the French, to pout, to sulk

You have to wonder, did the fabulous guy know what he was doing when he named this site?

One suspects he did.

Coincidence? I think not.

The guys at Nip/Tuck have done it again. As the latest product to engorge your lips gets its 15 minutes of (in) f(l)ame, Nip/Tuck features a woman whose lips burnt off in a stove accident, and the docs replace the with her ... other ... lips.

Another candidate for the Queer Eye Guys: Allan Lichtman.  WHAT a toupee.

Solids win the day at DNC Convention

I wonder whether Laura and Lynne will appear in paisleys and Liberty prints to demonstrate that they're not the same as Democratic women.

I have to say, the fabulous girl is loving the celeb sightings at the convention. Ellen Burstyn - if you haven't seen Requiem for a Dream, rent it, rent it now. And don't eat beforehand or during. Also for Jennifer Conolly's amazing performance. Flashback: "You have no power over me."
OOO! (squeal) John Cusack! Who doesn't love John Cusack? All that and a Dem to boot.

I have to say it - Americans have that patriotism thing down cold. Nice speech, JFK.

Plus, Cate totally upped her babelicious quotient tonight. What a difference the smoky eye and a shiny red wrap top make! And I laughed so hard I cried at the drowning hamster story  from Alexandra (also in red).

Remind you of anyone you know?

Because everyone needs a little Onion ...
"Marla? Get in here. Where the f*** is Diane with my coffee? I sent her out 15 minutes ago for a large cup of fair-trade Ethiopian Dark Roast from the La Paz coffee shop. How hard could it be? You walk your a** to the corner, hand them my Utne Reader travel mug, plunk down the money, and pick up the coffee. Add a little soy milk and two natural-cane sugar packets, and you make sure the lid is tight. That's so simple, even Diane should be able to do it without f***ing up."
http://www.theonion.com/opinion/index.php?issue=4030

Moment of Personal Revelation For Purposes of Irony: The drink described above is my drink.

Note #1 for the style-bewildered

While wardrobe diversity, within reason, is advocated by the fabulous girl, this is definitely an option, for those of you who KNOW you don't want to diversify your wardrobe. (Or if you're desperate to out of the poncho/rounded toe shoes/coral jewelry/monogram handbag hamster-ball of "fashion").

"In the late 1950's, several years before American women adopted Jacqueline Kennedy's style en masse, the New York socialite Anne Slater hit upon the look she still has today. It was based on two remarkably simple details: a brushed-back hairstyle she could manage at home and a pair of cobalt-blue tinted eyeglasses she could wear day or night, and in lieu of dangling earrings. Thus the blue cat's-eye glasses became her signature ornament. She bought 36 pairs from a Philadelphia optician {...}
But perhaps the most advantageous aspect of Mrs. Slater's look is that you can't determine her age by it. She does not look much different today than she did in a photograph taken in 1965 on a New York dance floor ... when told that five decades is a long time to hold onto one look, Mrs. Slater replied with a laugh, "I know it is, darling."
Why do the current crop of young socialites and actresses feel the need to change their look so often when most icons have been worshiped for their constancy? Referring to Paloma Picasso, Linda Wells, the editor of Allure, said, "It takes a lot more work to have such a look, but also more willingness, and that's unusual today." {...} Not surprisingly, many women with an individual look find it liberating. "It's never being in fashion or out of fashion," said Ms. Collins, {...} Rita Konig, a London-based writer, observed, "If you're not naturally beautiful, then you have to be more clever."

Does that mean Janeane Garafalo's going to be blonde forever?

I (too) have something to say

Oh ... Mi ... God (In the key of Janice ...)
(amazing it took me this long to get in a Friends reference. Not that I was their biggest fan, just that I've retained a phrase or two)
All I have to say is that Cate Edwards looked like a bridesmaid tonight. Why a bridesmaid, you ask? Why, because I wore the SAME top with a long skirt in lake raw silk at a wedding in 2002. Maybe she needs some sit-down time with Vanessa Kerry. Who doesn't need to see another Pretty Woman shopping scene?

OOH! Excitement!
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/29/politics/campaign/29daughters.html
"...these ambitious young women ...bristle at the "babe battle'' shaping up between the Kerry children and the Bush twins, who were featured in strapless couture in Vogue this month."

Wait for it ...

"Alexandra and Vanessa Kerry will appear in the September issue."
A Vogue-off, a Vogue-off! I don't think I've EVER been so full of anticipation .. well, that's an exaggeration, but you get the idea! Anna Wintour and Andre Leon Talley must be salivating as they rub their exquisitely moisturized hands together. (Creme de la Mer eye cream, anyone?)
Oops: "Now, they are often frustrated by false rumors about whom they are dating and excess attention to what they wear, struggling to maintain a modicum of privacy while simultaneously trying to gain maximum attention for the cause."
Damn. I bet posing for Vogue will help with that excess attention.
"With a pen stuck in her blond ponytail and gold hoop earrings the size of bracelets, Ms. Kerry said one hard lesson had been that her dry sarcastic sense of humor did not translate well in print. That joke about wanting her Secret Service nickname to be "the hot one" did nothing to dispel discussion about her appearance."
Have to wonder if the reporters would comment on the size of Chris Heinz's cuff links.
And as for the Bush twins, "(The twins wear Italian and American labels but no French.)"
I'm glad we all know they're avoiding the WOMB of couture. I'd love to hear Teresa on that issue, not that it's one she should spend ANY time/energy on. That's why I'm here.

Even NYT writers can recognize a faux-pas when they see one

"POLITICAL POINTS:  Not Quite Ready for His Close-Up
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and JOHN TIERNEY
If there was anything Senator John Kerry's strategists were hoping to avoid this week, it was the image of a Massachusetts liberal in funny headgear. This is Boston, after all, the home of Michael Dukakis, whose presidential aspirations ended not long after he was photographed in a tank wearing a helmet that made him look like Rocky - as in Rocky and Bullwinkle.
So what went wrong in Cape Canaveral?
Mr. Kerry's aides say privately that they had no idea anyone would be photographing him when he visited NASA in Florida on Monday and donned a special suit to tour the space shuttle Discovery. But someone was, and the resulting photo made him look like the sperm played by Woody Allen in "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask."
By Tuesday morning, the hooded would-be president was on the front page of some newspapers, and Republicans were outside the convention hall in Boston passing out flyers showing Mr. Kerry's new photos along with the 1988 classic of Mr. Dukakis. About the best that could be said for Mr. Kerry is that unlike Mr. Dukakis's helmet, his headgear was not emblazoned with his name."
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/politics/trail/index.html

As Ren & Stimpy  would say : "EEEEEEEDIOTS!!!"

Fashion Crime Du Jour: Episode 1

This man needs a handler. Not volunteering, you understand, but COME ON! Outerwear like this has NEVER been in season. NEVER. Not ANYWHERE.
OK, now that we've had our fashion kvetch, let's re-group.
It's not that I don't think he should wear the clean suit. OF COURSE he has to WEAR the suit inside the shuttle. People who visit dangerous places need protection.
BUT
Do there have to be photographers there as he climbs out? Let's not make stupid little mistakes like this during convention week that just make us look like amateurs, shall we? Kind of belies that "Washington insider" profile the GOP are trying to give him though, doesn't it. Clearly his fashion-conscious daughters are busy in Boston and not avail. for wardrobe jujjing.
Oh, and a daughter moment for the Snarker: Cate Edwards, giving the Kerry girls a run for their $$. What is it with the trend towards photogenic presidential children? At least these girls are legal - another current "media" obsession we could all do without.

Exciting and new ...

so welcome to the jungle, y'all.  thanks to the Snarker for forcing me into this ... I think.
Today's wisdom: surround yourself with those who push you to explore and expand your potential.  (Since you're all thinking it, this isn't a call to be all you can be , unless that's your thang.)
Future posts will certainly be lighter, and fab-friendly.  Warning ( the first of many, I'm sure): fabulous girl is a serious shopper, addicted to Daily Candy and all its links.

The definition of "is"...

 
From http://www.bopnews.com/:

I'm watching Bill O'Reilly interview Michael Moore (?!) on Fox right now at the convention. The issue is whether President Bush "lied" to the American people when he claimed that Iraq had WMD, or whether he was merely "misinformed."

We won't get into all the reasons why this is such a gross over simplification of a very complex, multi-faceted issue -- instead, I will just cut right to the chase, and quote O'Reilly. He actually says to Moore:

"Its not a lie if you believe it."