Ralph Nader is running again.

Could somebody drop a Corvair on him. please?

Random Oscar Bitchery

Renee Zellweger's hair: did she have a Mia Farrow-style melt-down and chop it off and sadly Vidal Sassoon wasn't there to pick up the pieces?

John Travolta. Did he color his hair in with a sharpie?

Mylie Cyrus. Explain this to me, could you?

Harrison Ford: blasted or tired? Discuss amongst yourselves..

Plusses: Helen Mirren. She's wonderful. Cadillac should pay her a bazillion dollars to act all sexy in their convertible. Imagine her line reading of "when you turn your car on does it return the favor?"

Tilda Swinton's win. Out of left field and a great choice.

Veteran production designer Robert Boyle getting an honorary Oscar at 98 for his long career and delivering a speech full of wit and vinegar; kudos for to the academy for not interrupting him with "get-off-the-stage" music and allowing him to bring his speech to a graceful close.

Photo: Los Angeles Times

I've been tagged.. A TMI moment

And not in a good way.

My good friend in the interest of making me have a life has challenged me to get, well bissay with an actual human male before the AARP years, as she puts it kicks in.  Since this is in the, god forbid near future I am going to have to kick it into high gear.  I need 6 months of pilates, lemonade diet, exfoliation and (retail) therapy before I am ready for that.

Yes, this is blog diarrhea.  Blame that g-damn helicopter!

The failure of the information superhighway..

Right now as I type it's 9:45 pm and I really should be thinking about bed.  But there are two helicopters buzzing my house and police cars blocking both sides of the alley on my block.  Why?  I don't know.  I know that this won't make the papers in the AM.  I have to ask why?  The papers are wondering why readers are turning away from them- well for me this is the reason.  I want to know local news.  I want to know why there are helicopters and squad cars on my usually peaceful block in the "industrial triangle" area of Beverly Hills.  I want to know this even if BritLoHo isn't the cause.  I realise that all of this cannot be in the paper, would it kill you to have it online?  The papers website wants to tell me what's new and cool in my neighborhood.  I can find that out by, I don't know, going outside?  Besides, if some old chromo at The Times or the Daily News or the Beverly Hills Weekly has heard about it it's not that cool anymore.  Heck, if my flat, middle aged a$$ has heard about it it's not that cool.

Note to the media- WE WANT NEWS!!  I want to read about street closures in my neighborhood.  I want to know why it's now nearly 10 and I am going to have to watch the "Runway" reunion or hit myself over the head with a brick to achieve unconsiousness because I am apparently an extra in "Apocalypse Now".  Blogs are nice.  Sudoku is peachy.  That in-depth portrait of the arch of Nicole Kidman's eyebrows from 2000-2008?  Just ducky.  But here's a radical idea: you're a newspaper.  Tell us what the fu#k is going on!

Image from lapd

Well looky looky, it made the papers!  If it bleeds it leads, I guess..

Sometimes I reeeealllly miss New York...

Especially when my friends back there choose to torture me with little things like this..

The Chelsea Cinema has an ongoing series of classic films, this month ranging from great movies like "Rosemary's Baby" (which I would love to see on the big screen) and "What's Up Doc" (which I saw when it came out as a kid) to such howlers as "Queen of Outer Space" (Zsa-Zsa Gabor's thespian triumph!) and perhaps one of the campiest movie in the history of celluloid: "Female on the Beach". In this 50's howler diamond-hard Lynn Markham (diamond-hard Joan Crawford, in a wig that makes her look like an angry poodle) takes over her Newport Beach waterfront home when her drunken tenant Eloise Crandall falls over the balcony, literally head over heels in lust with beachcomber/sailor/hottie Drummond Hall (Jeff Chandler). Was Eloise pushed or did she fall? Who could have killed her? Who cares when there's this excess of Joan: snarling out lines like "I wouldn't have you if you were hung with diamonds- upside down!" or "You're about as friendly as a suction pump", drinking bourbon like it was water, smoking cigarettes like they were going to be declared illegal and generally playing to the rest of the cast like Clint Eastwood in "High Plains Drifter", but slightly more butch.

It should be a gay old time on so many different levels, and I wish I could be there for it...

Image: Chelsea Cinemas

We Don't take Dogs

I just saw a commercial from Pedigree dog food that mentioned that they are giving money to a dog adoption program.  It's framed something like this: "Pete and Barbara got a new apartment... one that doesn't take dogs." and then cuts to the fact that Bowser is in a cage.

Okay, I am going opening myself up to serious flames here, in that I have found that some people who are very much into pets are into them because they are unable to actually deal with human relationships.  They will forgive the fact that Mr. Biggles pees on the Aubusson but gawd forbid that the actual boyfriend behaves badly.  Unconditional love, even if it rubs its ass across your carpet is fine; other person who has their own needs, opinion and annoying tendency to leave the seat up and look better in your purple cashmere v-neck is not.

Having written that I simply cannot get behind the mind-set that considers pets disposable.  I don't have a pet because I cannot and do not wish to take the time necessary for their physical and mental upkeep; I don't want to get up early to walk a dog, I'm allergic to cats and basically I don't want to share a bed with any mammal who isn't paying half the rent and once in a while telling me I am pretty.  But, Pete and Barbara, you were the ones to bring Mr. Biggles home.  You were the ones to take on that commitment.  That commitment is for life.  If you are the sort of person who can drop off that commitment at the pound at the first sign of it being inconvenient, I can only hope that you will have the appropriate tubes tied.  I cannot think what gentle mercies you would subject your children to...

Image: Daisy Dog Rescue

My friend Bitsy got this image of the internets from the Westminster Dog Show.  It's almost the reverse of Karma, isn't it?  Supposedly we are going through our many lives moving higher up in the evolutionary queue as we develop, doing our good deeds.

Yet there are perky pooches with far better conditioned hair than mine, wearing Vuitton that I can't afford, photographing better and thinner than I could ever.  Oy.

But really, you can't bring yourself to hate on that face, can you?  Happy V-Day everyone!

One word:

YUM

Paulette Macarons have landed in Beverly Hills.  They are absolutely the Apollonian ideal of this definitive French confection: perfect crunch on the outside, slightly gooey on the inside, and completely, utterly glorious.  A little bit of Paris on Charleville Boulevard, these brilliant little confections have shot their way to the top of my favorite treat list.  At $1.50 per macaron they are an affordable indulgence..

Dressing in the Dark

Or, Perfume Mistakes: the pay-back of a perfume piggy.

I like perfume, and I send reviews into the Lovely Marina at PerfumeSmellinThings where she kindly publishes my petty squabblings. One of the things about this little hobby is that unless you have been the recent recipient of a large Lotto winning, it can be expensive to buy full bottles of stuff. (I am apparently one of the few bloggers out there not rolling in swag) This is where decanters come in. Decanters are lovely people like Lisa, Diane and Patty of the Perfumed Court or Nancy of Fishbone Fragrances or even places like LuckyScent who will for a fee send you a smidge of that hard-to-find, only available in New Guinea on alternate Thursdays, costs-more-than-cocaine scent that one just has to try to be on the bleeding edge of smelly cool. You can get a small vial with a spray attachment for a few bucks and decide whether you want to jump through the hoops necessary (usually meaning straining credit ratings and friendships) to achieve, say a bell jar of Serge Lutens Muscs Kublai Khan. I even bought some empty vials from them; you can safely take a couple of scents with you rather than having someone from the TSA decide that Flowerbomb is more than just a cute name and decide that a full-body cavity search is in your future.

Having written about these scents for well over a year I have become cyber-friends with several people and have met a few of them. One of them, Gaia, of The Non Blonde fame was kind enough to include me in on Andy Tauer's "Bottle Journey" for his as yet unreleased Hyacinth and Mechanic. Being of low morals I thought that before I sent it off to the next person that I would spray a little into one of those little vials. I told myself this was not theft mind you; I wanted to get the bottle off to the nest person posthaste and yet I wanted to savor the beauty of the scent and write a thoughtful, fully rounded account of it for the edification of the general public. In no way was this just a random act of piggishness on my part, oh no.

Not at all.

In any case, last night I was randomly looking through the vials in the bowl on my dresser, trying to cull out ones that were nearly empty or unused. I ran across a decant of the wholly wonderful Mandarine Mandarin and reminded myself that when the exchange rate is a little less horrific I might have to actually buy a bottle of this yummy incensey orange wonder. Then I put it down on the table. I picked up an identical, unmarked vial and sniffed; I remembered that I, wholly in the interest of science mind you, had stolen, er, liberated, um, ...borrowed a smidgen of Tauer's heady hyacinth delight. Then I put it down on the table.

You can see where this is going, right?

Next morning I am in my usual rush of shower, shave and split. Last thing I do before I leave is grab something from the bowl of decants, pull my shirt collar open and give a good spritz. I happily grabbed the vial and gave a goodly dose of.. ooops! Ten seconds to run to the bathroom and try to blot up some of the admittedly gorgeous but not exactly work friendly (or for that matter terribly butch) juice, cursing myself for being in a hurry and for wasting a perfume that perhaps might never see the light of even the shelves at LuckyScent.

So there you have it, Karmas subtle payback for a minor crime. I can only hope that if Andy reads this he can forgive my piggishness. I sit typing in my hyacinth cloud: gorgeous, penitent.

Image: Colorado State University

There are moments when I realise that I am evil.

This is one of them.  in 1976 PBS did a version of the F Scott Fitzgerald short story Bernice Bobs Her Hair that I was particularly taken with, never having read the story.  (SPOILERS)  The story involves the hapless Bernice, on vacation and socially inept, put in the shade by her popular cousin Marjorie.  Said cousin deigns to help and makes Bernice the new big thing, having her tell everyone that she will bob her hair, a racy thing for the time (late teens or early twenties).  Suffice it to say, cousin quickly tires of Bernice's popularity and forces her hand, or more to the point forces her into the local barbershop, where Bernice is mowed into an unfortunate bob and social limbo.  Bernice decides to do a midnight runner back to Eau Clair, but not before taking some shears to the braids of her two faced cousin.

How, you might ask, does this make me evil?  I distinctly remember thinking at the time of the broadcast how cool it was that Bernice cut off only ONE of those braids, making cousin cut off the other one herself.  32 years later I discover that my teen self had an imagination more evil than F. Scott.  I am the bad seed....

Image: arkhums.org

Yummy!

I've been on a wheat-free kick for a while; if you want a wheat-free gluten-free cracker that's good for you and really quite delicious, this might be up your alley.  Yummy as snacks, great for canapes and good for you?  Yay!  Downside?  I can easily go through a box.  Upside?  Makes that hunk of Shropshire seem like health food...

Bloggers are cheap-a$$ whores!

Gaia, The Non-Blonde mentions an article in The August New York Times that points out that there are beauty bloggers who are in it for the free stuff.

No doubt The Times will also be filing a hard-hitting expose that the Tooth Fairy is actually your mother and that the Easter Bunny doesn't really bring you candy.

Right after they point out that Allure never tells you that Blue Sugar smells like deep-fried licorice, Vogue never mentions it when eyeshadow creases up in use or that Mademoiselle doesn't mention that to some Angel smells like Chocolate Vomit. Nope, that would be those silly profit driven bloggers. Because we all know that fashion rags, whose business model is the editorial BJ are as reliable as Consumer Reports, right?

Oh, and if those editors of the August Times are reading (because I am nothing if not the king of the self-important delusion), I got that sample of Blue Sugar for free. I'll bet Sephora is simply mad with rage...

Image: MtHolyoke.edu