From left to right we’ve got whoever the fuck these people are, Daria Werbowy, Natalia Vodianova, Gisele Bundchen, Isabeli Fontana, Karolina Kurkova, Liya Kebede, Hana Soukupova, Gemma Ward, and Karen Elson. (AP Photo/Courtesy Vogue, Steven Meisel)
September approacheth! The all-important ninth month of the year, the introduction to the fall fashion season, when Vogue annually releases their most important issue ever, with all its concomitant power to make or break fashionistas everywhere. And now, here it is: the cover image for their much-anticipated September 2004 issue, and, hold on a minute and put away your excitement stick, because there are fucking models on the cover. Quelle surprise! I, personally, was at least hoping for a shake-up of sorts, maybe some Vanity Fair-esque “celebrities”, but, alas, photographer Steven Meisel is notoriously stronger behind the camera when dealing with your everyday stellar-looking pretty faces than those who are famous for being famous.
Thankfully, we can bear verbal witness to Master Meisel in action due to the release of these exclusive, in-no-way-fictionalized on-set transcripts from the magazine’s cover shoot. All 25 inches thereof.
“Daria, darling, move left more…more…more. Don’t you worry about being obscured by the barcode. I hardly know who you are anyway, but you’re lucky to be on the cover in any form, and we absolutely need to fit more of Gisele in the shot here. Yes, of course. Ms. Bundchen is our star! Yes, my angel. This is the September issue…a triple-gatefold, honies, and there are nine of you, and as I’m sure you’re well aware, you calculus-laden vixens, you, we need an evenly divisible increment of nine, or three ladies per panel. Believe me, if I could chop one of you in half and do a two-paneled 4.5er, I would. But it’s Lancome’s mathematics, ladies! And, if anything, I’m quite nearly positive that Lancome is the guy who discovered the constant ratio of a circle’s radius to its circumference. How many times does pi go into a triple gatefold September cover, I wonder?
And stylists! Stylists! Snap to attention. I need more pink! Rich, vibrant pink! Reds, reds, pinks, whites. Layer gorgeously, ladies, layer it. Shades of pink abound. Bathe in its glorious glow. Wrap yourselves, honies, wrap yourselves. Let these gowns absorb you, cherish you, encapsulate you…And stay on the tape line. Focus, ladies, focus. Gisele, put your mobile away. You can call that little man of yours when you are not on my clock. On, I say, as opposed to over, which is what he is.
Who is that colored woman? Liya? Get her out of the first panel. This is Vogue, not National Geographic. OK, I’m sorry, you’re right. Sorry. Ha ha, I joke! But I am serious nonetheless. This is September, after all, when I am most prone to racist humor. But you ladies knew that already. Now, move her. No, Karolina, you’re in the second panel. No, no, scoot over. Your agency and I agreed to this. I don’t care what she told you. No, I DO NOT CARE about Sports Illustrated. I swear, honey, you need to look more passionate as you clutch Isabeli’s arm. It’s passion, that’s all. Keywords: Desire. Sensuality. Fabric. Threadbare. Discomfit. Petulant. Oblique. Garage. I would hope that each of you can simply clutch a goddamned arm for a few minutes, and continue to look gloriously still and inanimate in the process. I’m a modern-day Vermeer.
Good gracious, where is Karen? Number nine? Anyone? Todd, go check her dressing room. Right now. Go, go, go. Gogogogogogo! Oh, she’s still at Bing’s pad, huh…Goddamn that rascal, I’ve had more of my shoots befouled by that man, directly or indirectly, than Gregory Crewdson’s got issues with his F-stop! Ha, ha, ha! A little joke. September is also the month when I feel free to “dis” my photographic peers, because, yes, I am shooting Vogue magazine. All right, then, we’ll put her in afterwards. How I abhor working digitally, but it’s got to be done.
My, how you lot infuriate me. I’m Steven fucking Meisel, and I’m almost of the mind to subject you to a delicious Meisel-brand ass-raping, but alas, I’ve got another E! network taping to attend at 3 o’clock this afternoon. Bon-bon!”
Month: August 2004
Though, admittedly, it is easier to hug yourself when you pull in 58 percent of the vote after facing a presidential recall initiative.
In today’s Washington Post, Dana Milbank reflects on the re-emergence of that old staple of Campaign 2000, the “Bushism”. And included in his anecdotal sampling (not to be confused with Jacob Weisberg’s voluminous take on this phenomenon over at Slate) was the following rather strikingly non-humorous bit of insensitivity from a campaign event in Florida last week.
From Remarks by the President at “Ask President Bush” Event, Okaloosa-Walton College, Niceville, Florida, August 10, 2004:
But we’ve got some strong allies, staring with the Prime Minister of Iraq, Prime Minister Allawi. They tell me the story of him. He was in London, England. He was in exile from his country because Saddam hated him. He wakes up one night and an ax-wielding group of men tried to hatchet him to death, or ax him to death. I guess, you don’t hatchet somebody with an ax. (Laughter.) And you don’t ax them with a hatchet. (Laughter.) He wakes up, the glint of the blade coming at him, and he gets cut badly, escapes. The guy hit his wife who never recovered, really.
Reading the transcript, it’s unclear whether he kept the crowd of rancorous Republicans “laughing” with some horribly asinine quip about an “axe wound that never healed.” But one can imagine. And we do.
Today, every unemployed New York freelancer’s favorite website, Mediabistro (okay, second favorite after this), interviews renaissance man Neil Strauss about his latest as-told-to book, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale, by New York Magazine zeitgeist girl Jenna Jameson.
Since the interview is sort of boring, I thought I’d help spice it up by selecting the hottest bits and excerpting them for you. So, herewith are the choice cuts sure to excite even the most passive reader:
Tongues wagging… hard time… deviant… comes… oral… atop… mouth… came… came together… comes… Judith Regan asked me if I wanted to do it… hanging out… How did you get her to open up… we were both totally shaken… She couldn’t even sleep that night… very intense… stripper… pimps… get in touch with the female… told Jenna to tweak anything she wanted… David Laskin, took me… mature… Britney Spears… I got started so young… opened… climbing into bed with Jewel… tangled… I’m stuck… restrictive… fucking as an art…
Since we consider ourselves humanitarians at heart, we’re thoughtfully putting forth this helpful list of activities in which you may want to consider engaging, in lieu of seeing the recently-released hokum that is Open Water. Seriously. Any of these options serve as good, worthwhile alternatives. Hell, exhaust the list if you have to.
1. Bask outside near a neighbor’s pool, or a city pool, or whatever. It hardly matters. Study the people flailing about in the water and try and pick out who you think might be the worst actors if you were to go into a career producing community theater workshops and needed to hire these people. While engaging in this impromptu casting session, it could be fucking raining or hailing and you’d still be better off.
2. Oh, and before you go to the pool, or beach, or whatever, take at least twenty to thirty minutes too long to get there, until you’ve bored your mates to death with some asinine and wholly irrelevant setup about how “you need your vacation time to escape this crazy job.” Even if you’re not on vacation, because remember, the only possible goal for this entire exercise is to annoy your audience, unless maybe you’re merely padding the trip’s length, in which case, it’s still not OK, and you, my friend, are an asshole. And when you eventually arrive at the pool, sit around for a good while longer doing nothing more than engaging in some worthless exposition about how nice it is to not be working.
3. Stare at the pool longingly, and mull over the fact that maybe, just maybe, the water is well-heated, and if you were to slit your wrists and just lay there awhile, you might be put out of your misery.
4. Eh, fuck the pool. Throw a dinner/discussion party, and set the evening’s topic to “Examples of Films Being Produced on DV Because They Don’t Deserve a Real Film’s Budget”. If anyone brings up Anniversary Party as an example, come to its defense, and explain how you’d rather watch that film ten consecutive times than have to endure Open Water.
5. As dinner approaches, keep devising stalling tactics to fill up time. For instance, exclaim loudly that you think your leg is getting cramped. Oh, wait, look at that, that cleared up! Phew! Now, however, you’re falling prey to motion sickness, even though you’re seated at a table. Oh, that, too, passed. Wait! Hey, look, I think I saw a car drive by outside this window over here, oh, wait, it turned the corner and is gone now. Shit, I’m getting a cramp again. If your dinner guests start beating you about the face mercilessly, it’s entirely forgivable because they clearly have some understanding of a bad narrative structure.
6. Think about that episode of Magnum, P.I. that was comprised solely of Tom Selleck being stranded in the ocean, having to tread water for hours on end while he endured a torrent of waves and other oceanic dangers for the duration of the entire episode. Make note that this particular episode of what would otherwise be bad network television comes off like fucking Antonioni or Kieslowski compared to Open Water.
7. Check out Maria Full of Grace or Code 46 and marvel at the injustice of studios’ marketing initiatives.
From Chavez Appears to Survive Referendum, the Washington Post, August 16, 2004:
The opposition also had to outpoll the millions of Chavez supporters who flocked to the polls Sunday, eager to retain a president who has used the country’s soaring oil revenue to provide health, education and food programs for the nation’s poor majority.
William Sutherland, 40, a university student, was among those who rose before dawn and stood in line for hours under a punishing sun to back Chavez.
From Ignorance Is No Longer Bliss, Smartmoney.com, August 11, 2004:
Young voters have stayed away in droves in the past, despite high-profile attempts by the likes of Rock the Vote, founded in 1990, and others to drum up electoral interest. In 2000, just 36.1% of eligible voters ages 18 to 24 even bothered to cast ballots.
A Fox News ad at Rockefeller Center, located roughly one block from the network’s studio and headquarters. Hume, Hannity, Van Susteren, and the other guys? Their visages were left unmarked. Maybe these acts of defacement just mean that O’Reilly is a bad boss?
No, scratch that. Witness poor Bill, seen here in detail from a number of ads from stations all over Manhattan. And yes, in case you’re wondering, those rectangular shapes used to be swastikas on the guy’s forehead.
San Francisco Giants manager Felipe Alou, after yesterday’s win over the Philadelphia Phillies kept his team in playoff contention, whips out his copy of Edith Hamilton and waxes rhapsodic on classic Greek mythology:
“The wild card is the purgatory of the lost,” Alou said. “It’s a place souls go and wait millions of years until redemption. We have had a tough time, but there was always the possibility of the wild card. There are so many teams in this purgatory.”
A mock/mook President Bush surrounded by his mock/mook cabinet, after being excused from class at their East 86th Street prep school
Brought to you by RNC Not Welcome and Counter Convention.