Yes, the show is as addictive as a string of pearl necklaces by Chanel. It's the television equivalent of creme brulee - toothsome, delicious, and very, very expensive. But most people would agree that the one character we all love to hate is the eponymous Gossip Girl - the silky-voiced narrator who deals the devastating dish on these Upper East Side hotties (as she would no doubt put it).
Now, when it's the beautiful people who are the target of her ire, we don't care so much. But real-life Gossip Girls who don't use the Internet? Admit it, we all know at least one of them, and let's face it, we ALWAYS avoid her (ubiquitously a 'her') calls, texts, and plans to do Sunday brunch at Pastis. Real live Gossip Girls are just mean people. In a nutshell. And no-one likes mean people. Because, as fun as it may be to hear the latest on what P. wore to X Club and whether she really made out with S. in the corner, it always begins to pall after a little while. And I'm not talking about funny little tidbits, I'm talking full-on, mean-spirited, vicious rumor-mongering. Think Mean Girls, but five years later. Aren't we just a little too old for all this? Not to mention, you'd always be wondering (even as you laugh with her over A.'s latest fashion faux pas), what she was saying about YOU. You see, no-one, and I mean no-one, escapes the sights of our dear GG. Yes, even as you walk away from her, she IS texting someone the ugly details of exactly how fat your bum looks in that new high-waisted skirt you bought.
My solution? Cut her off at the source. Giggle and gossip all you want about how R. broke up with D. over B. But the moment that GG calls you and begins to bitch about how D. so totally deserved what she got? Let that be the moment you press IGNORE CALL and strike an anonymous blow for D. And for yourself.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Beautiful Stranger
Picture this.
You're on holiday in say, Corfu. Sipping the local ouzo, eating grapes, when a Javier Bardem-esque type strolls up to your table and says hello in his breezy local accent. Do you...
a) Brush him off with a curt "Beat it."
b) Swoon and spend the rest of your vacation drinking morning-after cappucinos in his charmingly rustic hut?
I suspect that for most women, (even the most jaded of corporate types) the answer is B. I've asked this question before, and I strongly suspect I'll be asking it again: in what exactly does the appeal of foreign men consist of? Of course, not all Greek men look like Apollo. The English are not all David Beckhams. The Scotch do not export Gerard Butlers. Nor the French Olivier Martinezes. The ugly truth is - a man doesn't have to be sex on a stick to have his wild and wicked way with you. All he has to possess is a sufficiently exotic accent. Admit it, there's something about the "Grazies", the "S'il vous plait", the "Senorita"- something about the way it trips, lusciously, off the tongue, more velvet than we expect or deserve. The liquid syllables, the strange sounds upon the ear seduce us into a very frenzy of desire.
Here, kiddies, is my profound thought for today: The man himself is secondary to the sound. Our love affair with the cabana boys and Mexican waiters and Italian crooners is only a thinly-disguised affair with a foreign language. With foreign words. Nabokov's Lolita is an account of a man's love not for nymphets, but for the English language. What are we to make of this?
I say, next time you go to Barcelona, skip the obligatory Spanish artist in the corner window, and instead buy a guidebook. No, better yet, an audio tape. Lie back in your 500 sq. feet hotel room, switch it on, and be caressed by the accents of pure seduction.
You're on holiday in say, Corfu. Sipping the local ouzo, eating grapes, when a Javier Bardem-esque type strolls up to your table and says hello in his breezy local accent. Do you...
a) Brush him off with a curt "Beat it."
b) Swoon and spend the rest of your vacation drinking morning-after cappucinos in his charmingly rustic hut?
I suspect that for most women, (even the most jaded of corporate types) the answer is B. I've asked this question before, and I strongly suspect I'll be asking it again: in what exactly does the appeal of foreign men consist of? Of course, not all Greek men look like Apollo. The English are not all David Beckhams. The Scotch do not export Gerard Butlers. Nor the French Olivier Martinezes. The ugly truth is - a man doesn't have to be sex on a stick to have his wild and wicked way with you. All he has to possess is a sufficiently exotic accent. Admit it, there's something about the "Grazies", the "S'il vous plait", the "Senorita"- something about the way it trips, lusciously, off the tongue, more velvet than we expect or deserve. The liquid syllables, the strange sounds upon the ear seduce us into a very frenzy of desire.
Here, kiddies, is my profound thought for today: The man himself is secondary to the sound. Our love affair with the cabana boys and Mexican waiters and Italian crooners is only a thinly-disguised affair with a foreign language. With foreign words. Nabokov's Lolita is an account of a man's love not for nymphets, but for the English language. What are we to make of this?
I say, next time you go to Barcelona, skip the obligatory Spanish artist in the corner window, and instead buy a guidebook. No, better yet, an audio tape. Lie back in your 500 sq. feet hotel room, switch it on, and be caressed by the accents of pure seduction.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
One is the Loneliest Number
My motto? Even Carrie Bradshaw had to start somewhere.
Ugly Truth No. 23, 4451: Do not leave lipstick on the Cosmo glass (something I strongly suspect the aforementioned Carrie of doing from time to time), for it is not sexy. The truth is, it cannot be avoided, mainly because cocktails go well with everything. Cocktails are the new black. At some point in the evening, you will order a Cosmo, being a woman. Since you are of the fairer sex, you will likely also be wearing lipstick (hopefully not that hideous taupe your mother told you went well with everything).
Lipstick+glass= unsexy. Math even I can do.
What, you may well ask, is so sexy about a frosted pink mark on a sheet of pristine glass? Your date will not look at it and think, Lovely, a woman who leaves enough DNA for the NYPD. (If it comes off on your cocktail glass, it will likely also leave a commemorative stain on his shirt collars.) The waiter will not pick it up and give it a place of honor among the crushed tissues and cigarette butts. Lipstick marks are the female equivalent of skidmarks.
How do you avoid them, seeing as you keep popping to the Ladies for touchups? Simple, wear glass-proof lipstick, the 24-hour kind. Either that or toss the entire contents of the drink glass down your throat. The added benefits of the second plan are that you will end up much drunker than if you had sipped delicately every half an hour. Salud!
Ugly Truth No. 23, 4451: Do not leave lipstick on the Cosmo glass (something I strongly suspect the aforementioned Carrie of doing from time to time), for it is not sexy. The truth is, it cannot be avoided, mainly because cocktails go well with everything. Cocktails are the new black. At some point in the evening, you will order a Cosmo, being a woman. Since you are of the fairer sex, you will likely also be wearing lipstick (hopefully not that hideous taupe your mother told you went well with everything).
Lipstick+glass= unsexy. Math even I can do.
What, you may well ask, is so sexy about a frosted pink mark on a sheet of pristine glass? Your date will not look at it and think, Lovely, a woman who leaves enough DNA for the NYPD. (If it comes off on your cocktail glass, it will likely also leave a commemorative stain on his shirt collars.) The waiter will not pick it up and give it a place of honor among the crushed tissues and cigarette butts. Lipstick marks are the female equivalent of skidmarks.
How do you avoid them, seeing as you keep popping to the Ladies for touchups? Simple, wear glass-proof lipstick, the 24-hour kind. Either that or toss the entire contents of the drink glass down your throat. The added benefits of the second plan are that you will end up much drunker than if you had sipped delicately every half an hour. Salud!
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