Jezebel
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Jane
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love letters
exile in guyville
In The Music Industry, Female "Geniuses" Are Hard To Find
Jane Czyzselska thinks that women in music are rarely referred to as geniuses. The Times of London writer claims that Rufus Wainwright gets plied with the "genius" accolade frequently, while similarly blessed female musicians like Kate Bush, Bjork and Goldfrapp are not given the genius label. Um, Jane? Goldfrapp? You're really arguing that Goldfrapp is a "genius?" Maybe the term genius is being tossed around entirely too frequently, regardless of gender. That made me doubt Czyzselska's original thesis, so I decided to google Jezebel fave "Liz Phair" and "genius" and found this incredible review of Phair's third album whitechocolatespaceegg by Laura Sinagra. I checked out the Billboard Hot 100, and as five of the top ten albums are by women, maybe we need to lament the lack of "genius" females in music writing, not music making. More »
Calling all Jane Austen enthusiasts! The Governor's House in Hyde Park, Vermont, has scheduled a series of four Jane Austen-themed weekends during which her novel Persuasion will be discussed along with afternoon tea and carriage rides. Suzanne Boden, owner of the Governor's House, says of the weekends, "I'm hoping each weekend will be a mix of young people who might know only the movies and are ready to discover the original prose and readers who consider Jane an old friend and can't wait to argue the merits of the new interpretations over breakfast." This year: Persuasion. Next year: Pride and Prejudice. Knickers are a-twist in breathless anticipation! [UPI]
Sticky Icky Icky
As Whoopi Goldberg mentioned this morning on The View, marijuana is a lot stronger these days than it used to be. According to analysis from the University of Mississippi's Potency Monitoring Project, "the average amount of THC reached 9.6 percent in 2007, compared with 8.75 percent the previous year." The stiffs in D.C. say that this means that pot is so much more dangerous than previously thought. However, they didn't give any data to back up that assertion. Maybe they were high. [ABC News]
girl crush
Daria Takes Aim At Jane Magazine
It sucks big time that Daria isn't available on DVD (only the two made-for-TV movies are). Apparently, it has something to do with music licensing problems. But there are some bootleg torrents available online, and we recently watched some episodes from the third season. One that totally escaped us at the time (we don't know how) is the episode based on Jane magazine, fictionalized as Val. Editor-in-chief Val visits Lawndale and goes undercover as a student to follow Daria around for the day for an expose she was working on about "cool, smart" teens. Jane Pratt must've rubbed some people at MTV the wrong way at some point because the thinly veiled portrayal—with constant references to Val's friend Drew—is kinda vicious. Clip above.
So much nineties today! The latest Page Six Magazine profiles Jane Pratt, a legendary magazine editor whose "unique personality" it describes in a phrase demonstrative of why Page Six Magazine is the only good thing about Sundays, as "a mix of Peter Pan, Carrie Bradshaw and Simone de Beauvoir." She's still not really doing much/oh yeah except that Sirius radio show no one listens to/trying to blame Brandon Holley for ruining Jane even though, hello. But she's gotten less obnoxious, except for in a quote I'm putting after the tag because I refuse to fucking get drawn into this Lori Gottlieb crap on the home page one more time.
web of lies
Online Dating Expert Reveals Not-So-Secret "Secrets"
Jane Coloccia, now 45, spent eight years online dating. That's about 200 dates. Now she is an "expert" at online dating, which means she has a book, of course: Confessions of an Online Dating Addict: A True Account of Dating and Relating in the Internet Age. Coloccia says, "I would go on three or four dates a week. One Sunday I had three dates — brunch, lunch and dinner." It would be safe to say that she loved the attention. "It does get very seductive as it is nice to open up an email and someone to say you are beautiful and they want to meet you," she explains. Anyway, Coloccia says: "My impression before I did this was that the people online were weirdos, but that is just not the case." Wow, really? People online are like, normal? What a revelation! Plus — you're not going to believe this — sometimes married men will post profiles online! More »
expensive shit
Kira Plastinia: The Last Pointless 15-Year-Old Rich Person I Ever Want To Read About
“I think teenagers are all the same everywhere,” says Kira Plastinia, a 15-year-old Russian, and "wrinkles her nose." Kira is apparently the Miley Cyrus meets Mary Kate Olsen of the former Soviet Republics; her dad, an orange juice mogul, bought her a a clothing line, and a signature shade of pink, and Paris Hilton's number, and a horse named Baloven — meaning "someone who is spoiled and treated too well" — and now a store in Manhattan, which has inspired a profile in New York Magazine. Wait, am I really burdening you with this information? Do we really have such a dearth of the great global wealth concentration's photogenic beneficiaries over here? Over the weekend I was dutifully forcing myself to read the NY Times' review of a book called Bringing Home The Birkin, which chronicles the quest of an eBay Power Seller to land one of the coveted Hermes bags. "What is a Birkin bag and why on earth should I care?" demands editor Sam Tanenhaus of the book's critic, T: The New York Times Style Magazine editor Christine Muhlke, on the Review's weekly podcast. More »
crime and punishment
'Jane Doe' Rape Kits Allow Evidence To Be Collected Anonymously
A new federal requirement that states fund 'Jane Doe' rape kits is now officially on the books. Statistics collected by the Justice Department in 2006 estimated that only 41% of sexual assaults are reported in the United States and the 'Jane Doe' kits, hospital-administered kits that are sealed and identified with a number, not a name, are meant to lessen the stigma many women feel about reporting sexual assaults to police. According to Carey Goryl, the executive director of the International Association of Forensic Nurses, "Sometimes the issue of actually having to make a report to police can be a barrier to victims, and this will allow that barrier to cease, to allow the victim to think about it before deciding whether to talk to police." More »
scary sadshaws
Toby Young: Sex and the City Depicts An "Essentially Pre-Feminist Society"
One of the things that stuck in my craw about the Sarah Jessica Parker profile in New York Mag was when SJP claimed that Carrie didn't care about Big's money. "I really don't think that money was a criteria," Parker told writer Emily Nussbaum. "It never would have occurred to her to take money from a man." British writer and Candace Bushnell buddy argues that Carrie does indeed care about money. In fact, she and the other SatC heroines care so much about money that, Young writes, "once you remove the pixie dust of female camaraderie, contemporary New York emerges as an essentially pre-feminist society in which the courtship rituals are strikingly similar to those depicted in the novels of Jane Austen." More »
hookers, victims & doormats
Ellen Page To Star As One Of English Literature's Saddest Sacks
Another day, another round of casting announcements chock full of stereotypes. While older actresses like Susan Sarandon have their pick of saucy-yet-loving-powerful-woman roles, the younger actresses who have yet to convince everyone they're talented sometimes pick up a few victim roles along their march to Serious Actress territory. Maybe it's because they are still pretty "fresh faces", but these talented actresses still succumb to playing victimized lovers, even in supposedly intellectual and interesting films. In this edition of Hookers, Victims, and Doormats, Ellen Page pretends she is "plain" in Jane Eyre and Eva Mendes continues to mimic Angelina Jolie's action film career. All that and more after the jump! More »
rag trade
Stella McCartney Is Eager To Dress ScarJo In Virginal White
- Stella McCartney calls dibs on bride-to-be Scarlett Johansson: "I'm definitely doing her wedding dress. She doesn't know it yet." Awkward. [People]
- Says Marc Jacobs on the bride-to-be, "I'm really happy for her. She's a great girl. I just think Scarlett is great and I hope she is very, very happy. She's super funny. I love a smart, ballsy, New Yorker and that's what she is. I wish her the best." And by "the best" he clearly means, "Do why didn't that bitch ask me to design her wedding dress?" [Vogue UK]
- Chris "Mr. Big" Noth has some strong feelings about Victoria's Secret, "I'm not into Victoria's Secret so much. I find it over the top. I like subtlety and I like elegance. I think their things are gaudy and they are really trying too hard. If I could make a fashion statement, I think that Victoria's Secret looks to me like somebody who is putting on too much make-up. It's too gaudy, man. I mean, come on take it easy, you don't have to have a fuckin' bouquet of flowers on your underwear. Sorry Victoria's Secret; I hope they're not one of our sponsors!" [Oh No They Didn't]
- "You can get diamonds cheap," says Heidi Klum, which is why she's going to start sewing them into the pockets of her Jordache jeans line. Clearly, she has not seen Blood Diamond. [WWD, 9th item]
crappy hour
Barack Obama Doesn't Look Too Psyched About That Beer
Fifty thousand people are dead or close to it in Burma, and Barack Obama can state unequivocally that he does not drink designer beer. Seventy five percent of American adults will at some point be impoverished. The average American car owner really must save $30 this summer. Chris Hitchens believes Barack Obama may be pussy-whipped. Ellen Page believes Burmese dictator Than Shwe is a modern Hitler. And when tomorrow comes, Terry McAuliffe believes everyone will be saying that Hillary Clinton did better than they thought she was going to do in both the North Carolina and Indiana primaries tonight. Now there's a statement Glamocracy Megan and I can get behind! After the jump, an unusually hip-hop laden edition of Crappy Hour. More »
annals of anorexia
Again, Eating Disorders Are Not Just For Teens
This is Rosemary Pope. She died last month at the age of 49 because her anorexia caused her heart to shrink "to the size of a child's." Pope is not alone: as has been previously and recently reported, anorexia in women over 40 is on the rise. There are a number of theories as to why the number of grown up anorexics is going up. First off, many of these women suffered from anorexia as teens and twenty-somethings and never really recovered. Another possible reason is a growing awareness of the disease which causes more women to self-diagnose their eating disorder. Yet another reason, posits the Guardian, is "the increased pressure on older women to stay young. Surrounded by images of women such as Madonna, Teri Hatcher and Jane Fonda (who has admitted to suffering an eating disorder herself), women are exposed to increasingly unrealistic images of how they should look as they age and are working harder than ever to counter the effects of getting old." More »
A bunch of Jane Austen enthusiasts are going to get the vapors when they watch the forthcoming British drama about Jane's life, Miss Austen Regrets. You see, in Miss Austen, Jane is not portrayed as the chaste maiden auntie she's thought by many to have been. According to Reuters, the new drama "depicts [Austen] flirting, suffering from hangovers and reneging on the acceptance of a marriage proposal." Well I never! Fingers crossed that the scandalous show hits BBC America soon! [Reuters, Image via The Republic of Pemberley]
