Doesn't Deneuve look divine?

Wherever Gloria Vanderbilt is going, I want to follow.

In 1969, Karl Lagerfeld was already doing that strange pursed-puffy lips thing.

Producer Robert Evans clearly believes there is no such thing as too much velvet.

It's decided. Kenneth Jay Lane has the best caftan, ever.

And then Christian Dior designer Marc Bohan has the best staircase. Or at least he did in 1973.

I want to know what's making Jeanne Moreau look so sad.

Like Nancy Reagan, I often pause to laugh haughtily to myself when reading the newspaper. Don't you?

The promised, inexplicable, picture of William F. Buckley and his wife, Pat.

Maxime de la Falaise, with her sketching and her silk pajamas, clearly has life all figured out.

The late, great Yves Saint Laurent, pictured at his home in 1983.

Home Sweet Home: Designers' And Socialites' Abodes [WWD]

• New lows in celebrity sartorial publicity: Dior would like everyone to know that Madonna was wearing its sunglasses when she visited the victims of her stage collapse in Marseille, which killed two workers and left eight injured. [WWD]

• A Tracey Emin etching of Kate Moss is among artworks for sale via raffle - tickets are just £1 - to benefit Mothers4Children. [Telegraph]
• For some reason, Levi's decided to give its Fall '09 lookbook a jailbird theme. Since, at least before orange jumpsuits, denim was the fabric of life in the big house, the lookbook features models styled for mug shots, and photographed through bars. (The bars appear to actually be...a fire escape.) File under Annals of Idiocy, subsection Stupid High-Concept Lookbooks. [HighSnobiety]
• Levi's has also just acquired its own footwear and accessories licensee for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, DC Co. The company wants to strengthen its presence in those markets. [WWD]
• An American Apparel store in Silver Spring, Maryland had its window broken, allegedly because the window display featured the company's "Legalize Gay" gay rights t-shirts. A threatening telephone call was also received by another area store after the attack. The company took down its window displays - "We just don't want a broken window," explained the Silver Spring store manager, Kassandra Powell - but released a statement affirming its support of gay rights, and its intention to continue running "Legalize Gay" ads in Washington, D.C., area media and providing its t-shirts to local activist groups. [The Sexist]
• Angie Everhart is eight days away from giving birth as a single parent. Her worst pregnancy cravings were for egg salad. [People]
• Jerry Hall's advice for modeling (and life?): "Be nice to everyone, even if you don't want to. Just be nice and gracious. And don't show your bum." [WWD]
• That's one way to multi-task: Alexandra Richards had a hotel minion perform a pedicure while she deejayed. "Stuff that you can't do while getting a pedicure" seems like as good a definition of "actual professional labor" as any; this anecdote therefore proves beyond all doubt that deejaying ain't a real job. (But doing pedicures sure is.) [P6]
• Bar Refaeli's new campaign for Rampage is predictably hot. [People]
• Gloria Vanderbilt told model Kiera Chaplin, Charlie and Oona Chaplin's granddaughter, that she was the spitting image of her gran. "Oona and I were often mistaken for being sisters," explained the newly minted erotic novelist. [P6]
• Top model Du Juan is being sued by the Chinese agency New Silk Road for allegedly violating her contract with them when she signed with international powerhouse agency IMG in 2005. New Silk Road wants a portion of Du's IMG earnings, and an approximately $439,000 fine. [China Daily]
• Erin Wasson is joining Swiss skateboard company Doodah's line of naked supermodel boards. Isabeli Fontana, Lara Stone, Toni Garrn, and Edita Vilkeviciute are already featured on individual skateboards, wearing shoes they could not actually skateboard in. [The Cut]
• Naomi Campbell is featured in a similar state of undress for a new D&G perfume campaign. Which motivated the Sun to write the pun, "breast assets." [Sun]
• French fashion house Cacharel is re-launching itself at Paris Fashion Week this September. [WWD]
• Scott Schuman's book, The Sartorialist, is rolling off the presses now, even though the official release date is not until August 12. The cover features stylist Julie Ragolia. [The Sartorialist]
• American Eagle's "Artist" jean, which was a best-seller until it was discontinued last year, has been brought back after a redesign. The new cut is intended to be more flattering to a lady's rear. The jeans will retail at $39.50; the two kinds that have "destroyed details" cost $10 more. [WWD]
• American Vogue's Sarah Mower writes that fashion this fall is going to be a grown-up affair - that clothes will no longer worship at the feet of youth. The girl in the photo illustrating this story looks to be about 14. [Telegraph]
• Steve Madden, which produces watches through a licensee, allegedly found fakes for sale on eBay. Imagine! But when they asked the site to remove the items, eBay didn't comply, so the company is suing. [Reuters]
• Stylist Patricia Field designed an Ugly Betty-inspired Diet Coke bottle. It's pink. Will people seriously buy anything? [Fashionista]
• Charlotte Russe announced a 4.9% drop in third-quarter profits, to $6.3 million. [WWD]
• Avon has announced it will be laying off 1,200 people, or 2.8% of its workforce, over the next four years. [AP]
• Escada's bond exchange, which needed an 80% acceptance rate from bondholders in order to save the company from bankruptcy, has only met with approval from 37% of the company's creditors. So it has extended the exchange period until August 5, and implemented an exchange of stock to raise additional cash. [WWD]
• 1.4 million pairs of children's shoes are being recalled. The shoes, shaped like racecars, have wheels which can detach and pose a choking risk. Buster Brown & Co.'s eight different styles of shoes were sold at retailers including JC Penney, Famous Footwear, Meijer, Sears, Target, and Wal-Mart, and can be returned for a full refund. [WWD]

• According to this report, Mischa Barton was taken from her home last week because she was so high on coke friends were afraid she was going to kill herself. [NY Post]

• A source says of Mischa Barton: "She is a mess. She is a suicidal, uninsurable mess." [The Sun]
• Madonna has visited the family of a worker killed in a stage collapse in France and will meet with three other people hurt in the accident. [UPI]
• Someone stole three boxes of clothing from L.A. stylist Jennifer Rade Thursday night. Who was Rade's client? Who was she collecting dresses for? Angelina Jolie. [Page Six]
• "Single Jessica Simpson Keeps A Low Profile." You mean she's not running around in circles chirping "I'm single! I'm single!"? Huh. [People]
• Nick Lachey says there is no truth to the rumor that he and Jessica Simpson might reunite: "I haven't talked to her in probably two years," Nick says. "I wish her happiness. That's where it pretty much ends." [People]
• Prince was spotted on a first class flight from Minneapolis to La Guardia. He was reading Elle magazine, carrying a gold- and diamond-encrusted walking stick and wearing flip-flops with sparkly silver socks. Whoever spotted him has pretty much had the best day of his or her life and it's all downhill from here. [Page Six]
• Gwyneth Paltrow: "Furious" that Scarlett Johansson is upstaging her. See, ScarJo is on the new Iron Man 2 cover of Entertainment Weekly, and in the new publicity shots; Gwynnie is not. [The Sun]
• David Beckham played his first home game with the L.A. Galaxy this year — and was booed by haters. One fan jumped over some seats to confront Beckham and ended up getting arrested. [AP]
• When we saw this Jean-Charles de Castelbajac ensemble, we were like, who the hell would wear that? Well, the answer, of course, is: Lady Gaga. [BuzzFeed]
• Kate Gosselin and the kids were in New York on Saturday to do a photo shoot for TLC; there was some kind of kerfluffle between security guards outside of the photo studio and paparazzi — the guards used umbrellas, styrofoam boards and folding tables to keep the snappers back; the kids had to be hustled into the studio. "It must have been very upsetting for the kids," says one observer. [People]
• Jon Gosselin's girlfriend Hailey Glassman went to fat camp before college, but would cheat by going to Panda Express. Apparently this was before her alleged "coke diet." [Perez]
• Jon and Kate Gosselin have been split up and living separately since last year, and Jon didn't start dating until after the divorce. [People]
• Wait, what? Jon Gosselin is dating a Star magazine reporter named Kate Major? [Gatecrasher]
• Concert promoter AEG is auctioning off the rights to the rehearsal footage of Michael Jackson's "This Is It" tour, and no Jackson family members are involved in the sale. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Looks like Sony Pictures is close to closing a deal to make a feature film out of the Michael Jackson rehearsal footage. [Variety]
• La Toya Jackson penned a "tribute single" after her brother's death and it will be available on iTunes on July 28. [Mirror]
• TMZ reported that Jermaine, Tito and Jackie Jackson would be performing at the Jamaican Reggae Summerfest. But Jermaine says: "TMZ needs to get their facts straight. We're not going to Jamaica." [E!]
• Tito Jackson seems to blame Dr. Conrad Murray for Michael Jackson's death, saying: "My opinion is that he panicked when my brother didn't wake up… He did have a pulse but he couldn't bring him back. I don't know what the time lapse was between the doctor finding him and when he called paramedics. But I believe if he had immediately called for help we might still have my brother here today, he would definitely still be alive." [Mirror]
• An anonymous senior law enforcement official says there will not be a murder charge in the Michael Jackson case. [UPI]
• Is Katherine Jackson trying to object to the executors named in Michael Jackson's will? And if so, why? There's a "no contest" clause in the will, meaning anyone who files objections to the will automatically gets no money. Is she being manipulated… by Joe? [TMZ]
• This report claims that Janet Jackson has offered to raise Michael's children, and loves them like they are her own. [The Sun]
• Russell Crowe is a hero! No, really: He helped out "a real-life damsel in distress" on the set of his new Robin Hood film. A crew member's car went up in flames when she was on her way to work. She told her colleagues about her scary experience, and Russell made a joke about it — but then ended up giving her enough cash to buy a new car. [Mirror, NY Daily News]
• Paula Abdul does not have a new contract to appear on American Idol for another season, which is probably more of a publicity stunt than an actual possibility that she won't return to the show. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Nevertheless, there's a #keeppaula Twitter trend. [LA Times]
• One reason Paula Abdul might not have a contract: She's holding out for more money. Apparently she makes around $2.5 mil a year, compared to the $15 a year Ryan Seacrest gets. [TMZ]
• Gossip Girls Michelle Trachtenberg and Jessica Szohr, as well as Rumer Willis, Ali Lohan and Stephanie Pratt attended a Charlotte Russe event in NYC last week, where a model playing air guitar almost hit a waiter in the head. [WWD]
• 50 Cent has been trying to sell his is giant mansion in Connecticut — the one that used to belong to Mike Tyson — which has 19 bedrooms, 37 bathrooms and a club with stripper poles. He's knocked about $4 million off the price, so if you have $10.9 million, it's all yours. [The Sun, Hartford Courant]
• Emma Thompson is looking frumpy and old-fashioned: She's filming Nanny McPhee 2! [Daily Mail]
• Jon Stewart has sent Daily Show DVDs to a 32-year-old man with leukemia and has offered to give the guy a tour of the set. [UPI]
• When Kylie Minogue and Spanish beau Andres Velencoso were arguing in a NYC club last week, he pulled out a camera and photographed her while she was upset. A source says: "He's making a collage of Kylie and has already got three albums full of photos of her, which he hopes to publish some day." [Daily Express]
• A source says of John Mayer: "Several years ago when he was dating Jessica Simpson, he couldn't go to her birthday party because he was on tour. So the night of her birthday she had dinner with [hairdresser] Ken Paves and a few friends. Everyone thought John would forget her birthday, but then a gift arrived from him — it was a DVD of him in concert. Jessica spent the rest of the night watching the DVD on a loop, 'being with him.' It was so sad." [Page Six]
• Zzzz: Peaches Geldof fell asleep during a TV interview with Fearne Cotton. [The Sun]
• "Kim Cattrall and toy boy split because he 'refused to be a kept man'" [Daily Mail]
• Jay-Z sips white wine as he is interviewed about The Blueprint 3, his 11th studio album, due in September — eight years to the day after the debut of the original Blueprint. "I wanted to bring it full circle," he says. "The first Blueprint was based on soul samples and more of a place where I came from and the records I listened to growing up with my mom and pop. This Blueprint, I liken it to a new classic, simply because we — Usher, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, myself — are becoming the people that we looked up to musically growing up, like Marvin Gaye and Frank Sinatra." [Reuters]
• "Sienna Miller: 'I nearly burnt my breasts making GI Joe.'" [Daily Mail]
• Morgan Freeman is in talks to star with Bruce Willis in Red, based on the WildStorm/DC Comic. [Variety]
• Singer Christina Milian and producer/singer The Dream: Engaged. [NY Daily News]
• Click the link if you'd like to see video of Willem Dafoe talking about Lars von Trier's controversial thriller Antichrist. You know, the one where Charlotte Gainsbourg takes a blunt object to Dafoe's [ genitalia? [Guardian]
• Dazed Digital: There's a lot of nudity in the film so, I have to ask, is that actually your…
  Willem Dafoe: … Penis? No, it's not mine. Lars used a porn actor for those scenes. It was a good decision because, if it was me, then that's all that people would talk about. Obviously Lars wants the characters to have genitals but it would become a distraction: ‘Oh, they really had sex!' If he had asked me to do it, I don't know what I would have said. [Dazed Digital]
• Once, David Byrne almost hit Paris Hilton with his bike. [Page Six]
• RIP Frank McCourt. [NY Daily News]
• Blind item! "Which troubled starlet got her first big break on TV by sending the producer a tape of herself having sex with another girl? The producer thought the ploy was so original, he cast her instead of dozens of other ingénues." [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which perennial bachelor princeling should be more careful? While His Serene Highness was cavorting on a yacht in the Mediterranean with a hunky guy, he thought the servants on board would keep their mouths shut. He was wrong." [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which creepy dude and his posse of pals take photos of their overnight lady guests while the women are sleeping and tack them up on a 'Wall of Shame' afterward?" [Gatecrasher]
• "He put my son to shame! I provided my son with the best martial artists in the world, and he could not be persuaded to try it. In just two months, Jaden had learned so much. He is truly a talented boy." — Jackie Chan says Will Smith's son, who will star in Kung Fu Kid, is better at martial arts than his own son. [NY Daily News]
• "Anderson was just amazing. He said that the seven most horrifying words you can hear from a mother are, 'I'm going to write an erotic novel.' But he's fine with it, and of course I gave it to him before I even sent it off." — Gloria Vanderbilt, on her new book. The 85-year-old also says: "I think it's a work of art. The age of the artist is not what we're talking about. I mean, it's as if you looked at a painting and said, How old was the person that painted this? You really don't think in those terms." [Time]
• "When I started out, I'm not sure I was actually in it for the right reasons. I wanted very much to be famous. I did expect to succeed and I did have faith that I would. In reality, though, it has turned out to be something very different to what I wanted. It's the work and not the adulation that has proved to be the most fulfilling." — Gerard Butler. [Telegraph]
• "I have a boyfriend now, but I've been linked to so many guys I sound like a wanton woman. People say to me, 'Oh, it must be so easy for you, dating and boys.' It's really not easy. I suppose guys are either intimidated by me and have their defenses up, or they take the piss out of me. And I'm surrounded by cute older guys on set. That's my problem. It's a minefield, to be honest. It's stressful." — Emma Watson. [Mirror]
• "I'm sure I would have liked to have seen my parents more, and at that time, we did come second. But I like to think of them in Paris, having fun, not thinking too much ... And it was a different time." — Charlotte Gainsbourg, on being the daughter of free spirits French singer Serge Gainsbourg and the English actress Jane Birkin. [Independent]
• "He was the most important voice in our lives for thirty years. And that voice made people reach for the stars. I hate the world without Walter Cronkite." — George Clooney. [Yahoo News via E!]

• Lindsay Lohan channels Marilyn Monroe on the August cover of Spanish Vogue. [ONTD]
• Fornarina also decided to go another round with the actress — but in these fall ads, they Photoshopped the Lohan to look like Heather Graham. [Sun]

• Lara Stone, who looks like nobody so much as herself, says she wasn't interested in fashion before she started modeling. "I thought modeling was a big joke because I was just a funny-looking teenager." Also, she has no hobbies: "What qualifies as a hobby, anyway? I don't collect stamps." [W]
• Pixie Geldof, Alice Dellal, and Daisy Lowe all left their London agency, Select — possibly because Select closed its celebrity division, possibly because their booker, Sarah Leon, left the company. The trio were snapped up by Next. [Grazia]
• It's fairly obvious why Madonna would begin filming her new music video, "Celebrate," in Milan with her friends Domenico Dolce, Stefano Gabbana, and Jesus Luz. Less clear is why WWD would put in scare quotes what they drank on the set, "limoncello." Don't they know that's a real thing? Danny DeVito advertises it! [WWD]
• Danica Patrick is to be the next face of the watch brand Tissot. The race car driver was photographed in the rooftop swimming pool of the Soho House, and the campaign will hit men's magazines, like Details and GQ in September. Patrick's Twitter page is also sponsored by Tissot, an arrangement she says is "a great way to show my personality, unfiltered and on my terms." Presumably terms that involve lots and lots of money. [WWD]
• André Leon Talley wears monogrammed shirts and alligator loafers without socks — and his new obsession is gardening. "I don't plant. I go to auctions at Doyle and buy gardening ornaments or furniture. That's my idea of planting, it's arranging!" The occasion for this revelation was the book release party for Gloria Vanderbilt's Obsession, an erotic novel which Diane von Furstenberg compared to The Story of O. Fellow guest Salman Rushdie expressed his amazement that the 85-year-old Vanderbilt could even stomach writing an entire novel of sex scenes, which he called "very difficult" and said he used to avoid in his novels. Rushdie also hopes that "when I get around to being 85 that I'm A, able to write anything and B, that I'm still interested in sex." [NYObs]
• If you've ever wondered why there couldn't be a "natural" product for treating pimples — something with willow bark extract, say, instead of the lab-synthesized form of salicylic acid — then the new Burt's Bees acne skincare line is for you. If you grumble more at the idea of "natural" being used as if it had some kind of absolute, timeless, positive meaning than you do at the thought of spots, carry on. [WWD]
• Kylie Minogue is launching her first fragrance for men, and it's called "Inverse." [WWD]
• Pictures of Urban Outfitters' collaborations with milliner Eugenia Kim and jeweler Annie Costello Brown are out — the collections themselves will hit stores this fall. [Blackbook]
• Rumor has it that makeup artist Tom Pechaux, who frequently works his magic for the top magazines and brands, is launching his own namesake makeup line with a cosmetics company partner. [Fashionista]
• There is a picture of Catherine McNeil in a cone bra at the end of this link. Also: Bunny ears are happening. Prepare. (Link potentially NSFW) [Models.com]
• Jon Gosselin and Christian Audigier are in the throes of a full-on international bromance. (Hailey Glassman is now the former's "stylist.") [LATimes]
• Tweets from Forever 21 indicate that a magazine for the brand is in the works. [Racked]
• L'Oreal has added actress Kate del Castillo to its roster of pretty makeup-selling ladies. [UPI]
• The possible bankruptcy of lender CIT Group, which provides financing to many apparel vendors to cover their accounts receivable during the period between when they ship orders to retailers, and when the retailers pay for the goods, has many in the fashion industry alarmed. Nearly 60% of U.S. apparel and footwear makers use CIT, and squeezing out that liquidity will almost certainly drive some of them out of business. CIT owes over $1 billion and has another $10 billion coming due; a bail-out is apparently not an option. [Crain's]
• Nanette Lepore is one of those upset. "They are the only bank that still lends money to small businesses. There is no one else to take CIT's place." [HuffPo]
• Steve Madden's Australian division has gone into voluntary bankruptcy administration. [News.com.au]
• Bankrupt Eddie Bauer was bought by Golden Gate Capital for $286 million. [NYTimes]
• Joshua Walter, a 20-year-old model from Queens who walked for Hugo Boss, was arrested for his role in an alleged robbery ring. The armed five-man gang would target delis and gas stations, rob the register, and then rob all the patrons. Walter allegedly pistol-whipped one patron during a robbery at a Dunkin' Donuts. [NYP]

• Shia LaBeouf on his mommy comments: "It was Mother's Day coming up and I don't have any problems appearing crazy to make my mother smile, but she is the most beautiful woman on this planet and I love her. [Extra]

• "She's fly as hell. I stand by that. My mom's awesome….I think the sickness is also on the other end to be able to twist the words and make it as ridiculous as that. Clearly, I'm not having sex with my mother. It's ridiculous." [Extra]
• Sadness! Bradley Whitford and Jane Kaczmarek are divorcing after 16 years of marriage. The couple has three children. [People]
• Robert Pattinson's sparkly vampire abs are reportedly painted on: "Rob had a team of makeup artists working on his stomach to make it appear as if he had a six-pack," says a source, "They used all their tricks - including liquid body paint, shading and airbrushing - to make his torso look toned. Whenever they stopped filming, Rob would duck back inside to get touched up by the makeup team." [ShowbizSpy]
• "In my opinion this tape will not destroy her career," says Kevin Blatt the man currently shopping a Leighton Meester sex tape, "She looks around 18 years-old and is seen involved in an act with her boyfriend in a house. It's very playful actually." Ugh. [Radar]
• Simon Cowell admits that he could have handled the Susan Boyle a bit better: "Sometimes I go too far, I admit it. And sometimes you just can't predict how events will unfold," he says, "Which brings us to Susan Boyle. Looking back on it all, it has become clear to me that we didn't handle the situation with Susan as well as we could have. Yet to be honest, when I analyse exactly what happened, I don't know that I could have done it any differently." [DailyMail]
• "I usually just explain to my kids that there are other families in the world that aren't as fortunate as ours and other kids. So I tell them that it's important for all of us to do what we can and then go to these places and understand what's happening. Hopefully I'll take them to as many countries as I can and raise them with an education of the world."- Angelina Jolie [DailyMail]
• Is Kanye West back with his former girlfriend, Amber Rose?[TheSun]
• Gloria Vanderbilt is quite proud of her own son, Anderson Cooper, but says she "can't bear to look at Paris Hilton." [PageSix]
• Madonna's boyfriend, Jesus Luz reportedly has a bit of an ego problem, according to models who worked with him on a recent Dolce & Gabbana shoot. [TheCut]
• Here's a clip of Bjork performing "Sonnets/Unrealities XI" from her Volta tour, live in Reykjavik. [RollingStone]
• Rihanna will face Chris Brown in court on Monday, and her lawyer says "She's fine. She's fully expecting she'll be required to testify. She will answer all questions asked of her truthfully." [E!]
• Tallulah Willis' stint at Baazar is more of an observational exercise than an actual internship: "It's not really an internship," she says, "I'm just there for two weeks to see how it works. I'm listening to the editors, seeing what the fashion department does, what marketing does, what the photo department does. It's all over the place." [TheCut]
• Nicole Kidman says her father helped her get through her divorce: "Dad's not only a good man, but a wise man. He's a psychiatrist, and when I was younger he was always trying to give me advice that I wouldn't listen to. Now that I'm older, I really value his insight." Anyone else read that "a wise man/psychiatrist" line as a big FU to Tom Cruise? [DailyMail]
• When asked which young person she thought would make the "best daffy old person," Cloris Leachman replied: "George Clooney. He was very young on Facts of Life with me. I think he'll probably have a big career and get kind of daffy. Maybe Jack Black. He was an excellent kisser. Much better than he needed to be for our scene [on The Office]. It was a wonderful kiss. I think kissing is the most wonderful, intimate, sexy thing in the world. Much more than … what's it called … fornicating!" [NYMag]
• Here's the trailer for Jennifer Aniston's latest film, titled (sigh) Love Mishap. [E!]
• Lionel Richie will play himself on an upcoming episode of One Life To Live. [DailyExpress]
• Blind Item:"Which fun-loving film star may play the part of the carefree chick on the surface, but is hiding a debilitating case of OCD behind closed doors? One of her high-profile relationships recently went caput because her man could no longer hack her obsessive ways."[BlindGossip]
• "Today I walked out of a Judd Apatow movie crying. It was the scene where the obese homosexual is fortune-telling by looking at the bowels of a sheep that has been sodomized by a person. The movie was "Year One." I tried to be open-minded as I watched the first 20 minutes of masturbation, fornication, circumcision jokes, continual penis references, bestiality, violence, and Biblical blasphemy. I told myself this was a PG-13 movie and the writers were "lost" so they didn't know how vulgar they were being. I looked at the ten-year-old and his father sitting next to me. I must be old-fashioned or something. But, then I noticed no one was laughing. No one was walking out either. I was hoping that the crude jokes were flying over the heads of the poor children who were sitting there wide-eyed and innocent. My daughter is 15 and she loves Jack Black and the guy from "Juno," so I thought we could have a Mom/teenager date. I asked myself, "Vicki, is this movie making you feel good?" Myself replied, "This movie is making me angry, very sad, hopeless, and dirty-feeling." As the onscreen obese gay man poked at the bloody intestines and told the fifth anal sex joke, I looked at my daughter, and we got up and walked out. I started crying in the parking lot as we walked to our car. I am not from this world. I am an alien. No wonder me and Apatow never hit it off."- Victoria Jackson on "Year One" [ONTD]

Trouble is the story of two women in their forties who take a trip to Mexico to escape their lives. One of them, Josie, embarks on a sort of sexual renaissance. Christensen tells Salon,

She experiences sex in her 40s as being about her own desire for a man rather than the thrill of her power over him, his desire for her — which defined sex in her 20s. She knows what she wants now, isn't afraid to want, and can allow herself the pleasure of desiring a man. Part of this comes from comfort in her own skin, and part of it comes from the fact that this affair isn't about power or marriage-and-babies, it's mutual lust without expectations or pressure.

This travel-to-a-warm-climate-for-mutual-lust trope sounds a little familiar, but Christensen resists the popular idea that hot sex is a path towards self-actualization, a way to reinvent oneself and become a better person. As Josie enjoys her adventures in Mexico, Christensen says, she suffers from "selective myopia. She sees what she needs to see and what she wants to see, but she is increasingly self-involved as she gets happier and happier. When you're unhappy, you're more compassionate on some level." And while her friend Raquel "becomes more and more self-aware as the novel goes on, [...] Josie becomes more and more clueless."

Vanderbilt's view of sex [that's her above] is a lot sillier than Christensen's. Obsession includes a carrot and an expensive hairbrush used as sex toys, a brothel where the whores go commando under their Fortuny tea gowns and elaborate feathered masks, "scenes involving dildos, whips, silken cords and golden nipple clamps," and a unicorn. The book also offers this beauty ritual: scrub your breasts with sea salt, douse them in gardenia oil, and then "let loose shaking onto the breasts a goodly amount of chocolate sprinkles, which will adhere prettily." Yum?

Vanderbilt's son Anderson Cooper is supportive, saying, "at 85, whatever she wants to write is fine with me." But he has to be a little disturbed by her assertion that "I do think all art is autobiographical." Whether or not Vanderbilt's still-vibrant sex life ("I'm always in love," she says, "that's one of my secrets.") includes carrots or unicorns, she may be speaking more metaphorically than literally. She says the character of Bee, a "highly sensual" orphan, is based on her experiences growing up without parents. "If you've never had a mother or a father," she elaborates, "you grow up seeking something you're never going to find, ever. You seek it in love and in people and in beauty."

It's not necessarily a prescription for a psychologically healthy life, but constant, insatiable seeking does sound like a pretty good premise for an erotic novel. Both Vanderbilt and Christensen seem to understand that what is sexy is not necessarily what is good for us. This is especially true in fiction and fantasy, but it has some application in real life too. In her 20s, Josie saw sex as a means to an end, and this mindset — whether the end is "marriage and babies," self-esteem, psychological or even physical health — is pretty common in American culture today. Try, for instance, to get through a whole women's magazine without finding something about how boning is good for your weight, sleep, or skin. Maybe what some women learn in their 40s and beyond is that sex is best enjoyed as an end in itself, without ulterior motives.

Sex and the (fortysomething) single girl [Salon]
At 85, a Brahmin in Blue Jeans Writes of Sex, Masks and Veggies [New York Times]

Writes the New York Times,

Here is a reproduction - faithful in spirit, if not in every detail - of her living quarters in an aunt's house near Washington Square Park in the 1940s...The room, which she created with the decorator Matthew Patrick Smyth, is lined with silver leaf wallpaper and furnished with an ornate bed, a painted chest of drawers and a baroquely curvy Swedish grandfather clock, circa 1857. There are period-appropriate moldings and wainscoting, and painted on boards behind the windows, a trompe l'oeil scene of snow falling on Washington Mews.

The books, obviously, are the same ones she remembers from childhood.

Explains Ms. Vanderbilt, somewhat ridiculously,

"You know, my aunt, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, decorated it for me because I had gone to live with her. She had moved there from Fifth Avenue. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. She started the Whitney Museum, which in those days was just around the corner from our house at 60 Washington Mews."

Her decorator, who's an admirer from way back ("She was doing glue guns before glue guns") is so behind this regression fantasy. Quoth he of their motivation, "She's 16. It's debutante ball season. There's anticipation, the anticipation of getting ready for a date."

Narcissists, it seems, feel a compulsion to recreate pieces of their own history, as if to reaffirm its importance. (This is not to make a judgment on the much-memoir'd Ms. Vandy one way or the other, not having met her.) The Rich and Famous, as we know, have frequent penchants for self-portraits and, as any episode of Cribs will tell you, various iterations on the modern trophy room. My father tells the story of meeting the actor Peter Fonda; the two discovered they'd been born in the same progressive New York hospital. "I have the hospital doors in my house," said Peter Fonda. While it's human nature to surround oneself with memories of things you've loved or experienced, usually that's not so intimately connected with...yourself.

Most of us (who, granted, don't have major art world figures decorating for us) probably wouldn't really want to live in the spaces we favored at 16. That would be, I believe, my Petra Van Kant phase, complete with mangy white rug and red light bulb? And Pavement posters really only age so well. It's a transitional time, and aesthetic phases rarely last the year, let alone in perpetuity. Then too, it's emotionally rocky - who wants to be reminded every morning of the drama of unrequited crushes, the Order of Operations and the period when dresses could only be worn with a pair of bell-bottoms poking out from beneath? It's like the question Eleanor of Aquitane asks in A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver:if you could be any age forever (apparently in heaven, in that book, you do just this) what would it be? I'll be pretty bummed, for one, if I die and find that 10th Grade was the high water mark. It's Ms. Vanderbilt's prerogative, naturally, to do whatever she wishes in her own home, and in turn to invite reporters and photographers in to admire it. The dramas and sadnesses of her life are well known, and who can fault anyone for wanting to return to a time of happiness? (Also, the room looks nice; who doesn't like fan-pattern quilts?) We hope her very literal tribute to this time in her life brings her a measure of satisfaction, or at least a welcome trip down memory lane — the rest of us have got old report cards for that.

Little Gloria Was Happy Here [NY Times]

• Nadya Suleman was on Dr. Phil's show yesterday via telephone, talking about why she fired her baby nurses:

"Myself and my nannies felt extremely uncomfortable. I personally felt like a stranger in my own home. I felt as though every time I tried to hold the babies, feed the babies, they would be observing and they were waiting for me to make a mistake." Hmm. Probably true. [E!]

• Rihanna and Chris Brown are indeed "taking a break." "Jay-Z told Rihanna she needs to cut things out with Chris, at least in public," says an unnamed source. Yes! Good idea! [MSNBC Scoop via Us Weekly]
• Chris Brown was supposed to have a "private court meeting" Monday, but it was canceled. [E!]
• Kate Moss went to an East London tattoo parlor and got a bunch of piercings in her ear; she now has six holes in one lobe. Newsy! [Daily Mail]
• Jennifer Aniston's hoodie is out-of-control, but an effective way to keep your face out of the paper. [Daily Mail]
• What do we think about Julianne Moore playing Hillary Clinton in a new flick? She doesn't really look like HRC, but JM can pull off anything. [NY Daily News]
• Sparkly vampire down! Robert Pattinson was smacked in the head by a sign on the set of New Moon. [Socialite Life]
• This story about Bruce Willis hand-picking his new wife at a casting call ignores the fact that the woman has emotions and thoughts of her own. She didn't have to go out with him. [Page Six]
• Coco Arquette, 4, daughter of David Arquette and Courteney Cox, is considereing modeling. [Mirror]
• Jennifer Hudson is scheduled to tape her American Idol performance today; the appearance will air on an upcoming ep. [Yahoo News via AP]
• Prince Harry went to some kind of "rave for posh people" wearing pink nail polish and a black wig. While there, he chatted up his ex, Chelsy Davy. Reunited and it fees so good? [Daily Mail]
• Here's a picture of Sarah Jessica Parker's stunt double, and that stunt double's underwear. [Daily Mail]
• Cops say that three-car-crash involvng T.R. Knight was caused by T.R. Knight. [E!]
• Juicy and delicious: The feud between Antony Bourdain and Rachael Ray has been taken down to a simmer, now that Bourdain found out RR likes the New York Dolls. We writes: "I don't know whether to go out and shoot a puppy, or send Rachael a fruit basket." [Gatecrasher]
• Gloria Vanderbilt, aka Anderson Cooper's mother, has an erotic novel called Obsession. Awesome or awful? [EW]
• Freida Pinto's been cast in a Julian Schnabel film; she's also shooting a Woody Allen flick in the summer. [Page Six]
• Cameron Diaz has been cast in Swingles, a romcom with "a 21st century When Harry Met Sally vibe." Here's a guess: She'll be goofy and giggly, and dance. [Hollywood Reporter]
• U2's massive new stage setup is something called "The Claw." It looks like an alien invasion, but it's supposed to bring the band closer to the crowd. [Rolling Stone]
• Flight Of The Conchords: The Movie? Maybe! [Mirror]
• Veronica Mars movie? Nope. [NY Mag]
• Josh Schwartz, the dude behind Gossip Girl, Chuck and The OC, has a new web series called Rockville CA: Two hipsters spend their nights at an LA rock club; each ep features performances by up and coming bands. [USA Today]
• Denise Richards got the boot on Dancing With The Stars. [Yahoo News via AP]
• Josh Groban's rep wants you to know that Josh and Katy Perry are friends but not, repeat, NOT a couple. [People]
• Star Jones has a new blog, in case you're dying to know about the scar on her chest or her thyroid. [E!]
• The rumor about Parks and Recreation being meh could be circulating because gossip columnist Nikki Finke hates NBC's Ben Silverman. [NY Mag]
• Michael Jackson would like to enter his London concerts riding an elephant, thank you very much. [Mirror]
• "Jade Goody and Princess Diana had so much in common." Pardon? [Daily Mail]
• Finish your Kirk chairs: Sunday's episode of Family Guy reunites the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. [e!]
• Fred Astaire: Secretly racist? Sigh. [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which hot actor is clueless about his GF's cocaine addiction? His lady waits until he's off promoting a film before throwing wild drug bashes at their home." [Gaetcrasher]
• "He is hilarious to me. I just got it. Every time I drove to record his voice, I was excited about coming up with this funny stuff to say. I felt like I accomplished something, making a movie kids like that is as hilarious as anything that is out there. [But] I did a meet-and-greet with kids after the premiere in Australia. I realized kids just don't like Seth Rogen. I scare the (bleep) out of them. Maybe it's my laugh or that I'm a big, hairy guy. They just don't like me." — Seth Rogen, on playing B.O.B. in Monsters Vs. Aliens. [USA Today]
• "He stinks. I mean, it's awful. He never showers, and it drives people on the set crazy." — an insider on New Moon actor Robert Pattinson. [Perez]