The first thought about Rachel Cooke's profile was, "man, these British journalists are harsh!" Take this description of the 50-year-old Mail masochist: "She is seemingly addicted to fake tan, so she is always a slightly unnatural shade of caramel. She has suffered from anorexia since she was a child, so her round face has always been balanced on a preternaturally thin body."

I mean, don't get me wrong, Jones dishes it out. This is the woman who's called children "germ-brewing sprogs," American women "mindbogglingly stupid" and one politician's wife's outfit as "befitting a six-year-old with attention deficit disorder" with the makeup of an "Eastern Europe refugee." Jones' persistent self-flagellation and orange-levels of overexposure have led more than one reader to question her stability. Most recently, Jones has penned a memoir, The Exmoor Files: How I Lost A Husband and Found Rural Bliss, which chronicles her brutal divorce (with which regular readers are all too familiar) and the healing effects of buying a bucolic farm and relocating there to live with a number of rescue animals, including a cat ("my fur baby"), a dog ("my new boyfriend") and the horses, one of them agoraphobic, who wear boots, require the services of masseur, chiropractic and psychic.

This, you see, is in contrast to a life in which Jones' OCD got out of control (she vacuumed her lawn) and her marriage degenerated into recrimination and desperation. (Her attempts to keep it going, says Cooke, "included oral sex on demand: 'I didn't even stop when one of my sharp back teeth caused an ulcer.'") The new life, according to the memoir, though, feels anything but idyllic. Indeed, Cooke calls it "neurotic, incontinent, contradictory." Because Jones' oversharing has not changed. (Her latest column deals with her plastic surgeries and the sadness of aging.) Says the article,

In Somerset locals have taken exception to the fact that she has written that none of the menfolk over about 40 are in possession of their own teeth, and that the food served in local pubs is heated-up rubbish. She has also described her violent crush on a man whose wife is one of the few locals to have been friendly to her.

So, what's with the urge towards masochism? As the article points out, "the kind of writing she does leaves her marooned on a sad little island of self from which there is, apparently, no way back to shore." Jones says she's lost all her friends, wants no love life (she finds sex "quite tiring and repetitive... it's such an odd thing to do") and is miserable, but she doesn't want the therapeutic intervention many a concerned reader has suggested. "I don't want to be sorted out. This is who I am...You have to have a certain amount of self-esteem to think you're worth saving. I don't care about myself enough to change." The author is highly skeptical about the combination of ego and allegedly low self-esteem that characterizes Jones' columns - a mix of self-pity, self-denigration and obvious self-obsession - but it doesn't seem weird to me. Jones is a deeply unhappy woman, with the narcissist's conviction that she's speaking for others who lack the courage to admit what she does, but she couldn't have the career she does if we didn't want it.

Sylvia Plath is often maligned for launching a thousand confessionals, but it was she who said, "One should be able to control and manipulate experiences, even the most terrifying, like madness...with an informed or intelligent mind...it should be relevant." As art, yes; as entertainment, the three-car-pileup voyeurism will do just fine, thanks. Jones is among the most extreme example of this phenomenon, and perhaps the most disturbing, but she's hardly unique. What is perhaps most distressing about her is that it's hard to know - probably for her as well as us - where the reality ends and the story begins. Surely she heightens the drama of her responses, but at what point does that effect those responses? And then too, putting it out there in such a public way, and refusing to treat obvious problems, normalizes - even legitimizes - them for readers: what, 50 years ago, would have seemed mad, is now quotidian, and it's a vicious cycle. If Jones is really unwell, her column is unethical. If she's not, it's manipulative. The truth, probably, lies somewhere between the two. We were glad to learn, though, that she likes Irene Dunne screwball comedies; no life containing The Awful Truth can be all bad.

Enough about me [Guardian]
Question Time: Liz Jones, Fashion Editor [Independent]
Rupert Everett Looks Great, But I'd Rather Grow Old Gracefully Over A Long Lunch Or Two [Daily Mail]
Sylvia Plath Interview [YouTube]

Having been shamed, pilloried, mocked, rich guys' wives are rallying. Some are cashing in. Some are confessing. And all of them are dressing for a new world.

Writing about her book tour for the upcoming Hedge Fund Wives, Tatiana Boncampagni, in this weekend's Financial Times, says, "Most of the women I know whose husbands or boyfriends work in the industry have become sudden acolytes of internet shopping and J Crew; and black blazers, white blouses, and two-toned ballet flats are proliferating. Think Michelle Obama, minus the Thakoon."

"Confesses" some TARP wife to Portfolio last month:

I haven't even looked at spring clothes; God forbid someone catches me out in something new. Keeping up with fashion seems somehow decadent in this new era, like getting Botox injections or catered dinners. Like so many others, I'm shopping in my closet. I've bought exactly two things this year-makeup and panty hose. If I buy a present for someone, I have the package sent to their home. I don't want to be spotted climbing into a taxi, laden with Bergdorf Goodman shopping bags.

The formula, it's clear, is one part social conscience, one part keeping up appearances, one part somber mourning dress, and two parts valiant remorse. And of course, there's a big dose of old-fashioned Wife in the mix. Says TARP wife (she of the "confession"): "I'm trying to buck him up and not complicate his life. The last thing he needs is unpleasant publicity, so I'm learning to fly so far below the radar that I have perpetually skinned knees." Adds a Texas doyenne, " "Mainly it starts with the husbands," who have made it known, "If you can't eat it, don't buy it."

While downgrading from exorbitant to expensive - Chanel to Tory Burch, Cafe Boulud rather than Daniel - doesn't win a lot of sympathy from us rank and file, we can imagine the shared guilt of a government bailout and involvement in a national free fall is more galling than the classic Hard Times of depression-era legend. Resentment and schadenfreude don't make giving up those opera tickets any easier. But it's also true that an essay like this one is a far cry from bootstrap-pulling, and living off the fat of the land even in lean times can only garner so much sympathy.

My family has friends who've been cleaned out, and both husband and wife, who had not had to really work before, have found work at, respectively, a non-profit and an Eileen Fisher... and feel very lucky to have done so. They are in their late 60s. This kind of thing is not uncommon either, I'm guessing - we all have a lot of friends who have taken the recent hardships on the chin - but to carry on requires regarding one's life not as bathed in pathos and drama - or, necessarily as a professional "Wife" of any description - but as a series of matter-of-fact challenges that must be mastered. And if you don't view yourself as a victim, the telling doesn't make for much melodrama. Or, sorry, the "confession." Even if getting dressed is a lot easier.

What A Hedge Fund Wife Looks Like These Days [FT]
Confessions Of A TARP Wife [Portfolio]
Former Rich Lady Gets Deal to Write Enraging Book [Gawker]

Earlier: How To Dig Gold & Infuriate People: DABAs Get A Book Deal?

At a recent dinner function, I was seated next to a stranger who told me about her divorce, abortion, gynaecological troubles, abusive childhood and teenage sexual experimentation all before the main course was served. I responded with polite interest and sympathy but cheerfully declined to reciprocate with confessions of my own. Later, I learnt that this woman had found me "uptight" and "secretive".

Maguire is not the first to talk about this phenomenon, of course, but her perspective, that of a writer who's tipped her toe in overshare, is an interesting one. She mentions a Variety piece in which the author excoriated Matt Damon for keeping his family life private, an act of unfairness that seems to Maguire emblematic of our sense of public entitlement.

But chronic oversharing is not just a celebrity disease. Producers of reality and lifestyle television shows have no trouble finding people desperate to talk about their sex lives or air their overeating issues on camera and those who can't get a television gig can simply start a blog or YouTube channel....And then there's Facebook, where relationships are announced, questioned and destroyed in tiny, instantly published snippets.

We can debate the implications of society's lack of boundaries till the cows come home and, whatever our thoughts on TMZ, maudlin personal essays or uncomfy interviews - when it's ok, when it's not, whether money figures in or it devalues personal relationships and true sharing - at the end of the day we're forced to agree that it comes down to personal choice. Maguire's point is that choice is the operative word: people can spill their guts, but it shouldn't be mandatory. More to the point, someone shouldn't be considered 'uptight' or somehow disconnected from their emotions because they don't share this openness. As Maguire puts it, "Today we all live with the expectation that we must happily spill our guts for whoever cares to slosh through them. Once considered a virtue, discretion is now viewed as either a character flaw or a sign that you're hiding one." What I think most people will agree is that we've all gotten unreasonable: we may judge people for overspilling, but we still read it, and indeed, expect it. And then feel comfy airing our own thoughts about their behaviors in public forums.

But at the same time, when we, and Maguire, talk about these issues, we're still using the moral language of previous eras, much of which is simply anachronistic. Any celeb can tell you that the face the public sees and knows bears little resemblance to their real selves. The 'selves' every high-schooler might show the world nowadays is probably not the essential soul his parent imagines (and this, is, of course, part of the worry.) Perhaps unconsciously, most people now have a kind of public face that was simply not necessary in previous times, and while this is probably no palliative to a social critic, it's also true. If we feel an entitlement to celeb lives, I wonder if part of the reason isn't that we've had to adopt some of their guises and wiles, the art of sharing and keeping, of exposing and staying yourself. And if we can do it, why shouldn't they? Too much information [Sydney Morning Herald]

All of which is a long-winded attempt at seeming even more long-winded at getting to the point that I think the thing about Peggy Noonan is that it's kind of cool that she's silly, and theatrical, and doesn't take herself that seriously, because it means she doesn't take too many other things too seriously, like opinions — hers or Ted Kennedy's:

All parties, all movements, need men and women who will come forward every decade or so to name tendencies within that are abusive or destructive, to throw off the low and grubby.

Or the the latest whatevergate:

Two things are true in the modern media environment, and they collide with each other and may tend to cancel each other out. One is that a scandal makes its way around the world and into the bloodstream right away and with full force, through the Internet and cable. The other is that a lot of scandals have made their way around the world and into the bloodstream in the past 10 years. Immediacy and broad knowledge collide with sheer glut. Everyone has heard so much about so many. At some point, don't voters start to see all of public life as one big polluted river? And if they do, don't they stop saying things like "That's a busted tire floating by" and "That's an old shoe"? If they're familiar with the principle, as Thoreau said, don't they become less attentive to its numerous applications?

Or her beloved religion:

There is a sense in Iowa now that faith has been heightened as a determining factor in how to vote, that such things as executive ability, professional history, temperament, character, political philosophy and professed stands are secondary, tertiary. But they are not, and cannot be. They are central. Things seem to be getting out of kilter, with the emphasis shifting too far.

Or the moved by something you're pretty sure she's sincere, and when she bothers to disdain something there's a certain amount of silly emotional credibility to it:

They came from comfort and stability, visited poverty as part of a college program, fashionably disliked their country, and cultivated a bitterness that was wholly unearned. They went on to become investment bankers and politicians and enjoy wealth, power or both.

And you start to think, shit, what is it about this Nicorette addled Pope adoring nonlapsed Catholic half-delusional Conservative that makes me think we'd actually get along?

And um I think it boils down to her being a woman.

I know: barf.

How Peggy Noonan Won The Democratic Primary [WWD]

I mean, lots of little girls play with dolls. In my case, the doll family was a motley crew acquired at various tag sales and thrift stores. The main players were Lime, Rainbow and Orange - triplets in striped jump suits from the stationery store - and a six-inch femme fatale named Vagina. There was also a grubby used Barbie of uncertain vintage (usually cast as the burlesque dancer) and a lone boy baby doll, Big Leon, who, when submerged in water, could pee out of a tiny penis, and was the de facto groom in all weddings.

I wasn't very maternal, but I loved playing God with my dolls' lives, which were heavily influenced by Greek mythology and Singin' in the Rain. I had several friends whom I stayed in abusive relationships with because they had such good dolls: the neighbor with the extensive Barbie wardrobe, or the classmate with three American Girl dolls that I was not allowed to touch. (The one time I persuaded her to let us take the Kirsten doll outside -I mean, she was a pioneer- we lost the wooden spoon on the doll's belt and I had to take the rap.)

As other girls outgrew dolls, though, my obsession only evolved. I took it underground. I concealed my subscription to the Doll Reader and made excuses in other cities when I slipped off to doll museums. I started experimenting with making my own, with frightening results. I was ashamed: not only was this possibly the uncoolest thing in the world - think QVC - but what was wrong with me that tiny fake people and their paraphernalia hadn't ceased to enthrall? I've tried to analyze what it is about miniature things that fascinates me and I can't tell whether it's the manageable nature of their scale (so much less overwhelming than real life) or the fact that, with old ones, they're like living witnesses to history. (Okay, that does sound kind of creepy.) Or, you know, just how cool it is that people can make things so tiny. A long time ago I started taking note of other adult women who retained a doll fetish - Tasha Tudor, Queen Mary, a weirdo named Joe Carstairs who carried this doll familiar named Lord Tod Wadley with her everywhere - and they're uniformly bizarre.

Nevertheless, I think it's time I threw off the shackles of my secret life and admit the truth: I am a doll-loving American. I read about them in lame hobby magazines, I buy them on eBay, I look at them in museums, I hang with Irving Chase at the New York Doll Hospital. Even the cheapest, crummiest doll holds a certain fascination for me. And I am no longer ashamed. I recently ran into a hipster acquaintance while I was holding a vintage doll I'd just gotten at a stoop sale - and you know what? I held my head high. Thank you for your support.

Viktor & Rolf: So Good They Did It Twice [Telegraph]

"I just have a huge amount of frustration with guys," he told the Times. "They need to know that so much hurt can come from the lack of respect for women."

Dear Moe,

Here are some explanations of the conversation that I actually had with Randall, and the understanding that he surely had, but didn't present in writing. The main problem with the article is that it presents only the fact of sexual arousal and temptation, and says nothing about the degree. I carefully explained to Randall that almost all men in our culture live at a hyper-stimulated level of sexual arousal, fed by pornography, their own fantasy, advertising, women's fashion choices, etc. Almost everyone knows that men are "horny," but what they don't realize is that it's not a natural state. When you stop pouring gasoline on the fire, as it were, it goes down to a manageable level. Living a chaste lifestyle means not drooling over every attractive woman you see, fantasizing whenever something crosses your mind, and watching pornography. The sexual input is minimal, and so it is easy to live with it from day to day, so that you're not pulled around by your nose. It's an incredibly liberating and hopeful message for men, because they feel like they have no possibility of controlling their sexuality, when in reality it's entirely possible.

About the way that he manipulated the quotations from me: describing my lust as an "untamed beast" was a comment on the nature of lust itself, not the strength of my own. It's untamed precisely because it is lust, and if given free rein it considers nothing but its own gratification. It seeks to use another person to gain personal pleasure, which is why you have to take away constant fuel for it if you want to love and respect women for who they are, and not just how they turn you on. Also, the ways in which things like a touch, a glance, or a random thought can bring arousal is simply an observation about manners in which it can happen. The actual occurence of such stimulation goes down at the same rate as the willful input of lustful stimulation, and while such things (like a thought) may occur regularly, they rarely bring any arousal at all if you learn to let go of them and ignore them—like a fly buzzing around. Basically, it's not a huge deal! I'm frustrated that Randall didn't make any of this clear, because I said all of this to him, and more. It would have been easy for him to pain a picture of me as someone who had fought a battle and emerged free, happy, and comfortable with his sexuality, but instead he makes me seem like a repressed weirdo. All this does is perpetuate the myth that men have no choice except to be horny, and if you act like I do then you'll go crazy and salivate at every little thing that crosses your path. Our culture so badly needs role models of the opposite lifestyle.

Oh, and on another note—Janie was laughing when she was asked about being attracted to me! Lol, we both found it a funny question, but he totally changed it in the article. And we weren't supposed to smile in the photos either—somebody commented on that, lol. They said that Janie and I should smile more and lighten up!

Everything above is what I wrote, so if you could write up something to append to your blog, I would be very grateful.

Peace,

Leo