Category Archives: celebrity gossip

"science", celebrity gossip, children, comedy, femininity, mr. ben, the jews

A Humble Suggestion

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Get a harmonica!

While reading Tina Fey’s second hilarious New Yorker piece, I had a realization: This woman needs to reproduce. Since she has valid concerns about what that would mean for the 200 people whose livelihoods depend on her, I’m willing to take one for the team. So, I wrote a memo, in my head.

TO: TINA FEY

FROM: ME. (Hi!)

RE: Reproduction

Tina,

I’ll have your babies! Let’s mash our eggs together (science, you know, whatever) and I’ll take care of the resulting children. You can see them whenever you want!

This may sound forward of me. After all, you don’t know who I am; in fact, I could be the kind of 5’7″ blond, sweet, well-adjusted lady who would scar a kid for life, if that kid were like you. But I’m not! I’m short and wry, and I read too much Dorothy Parker when I was 12 to ever have a normal outlook on life.

I’m Jewish, which is like being Greek, I imagine, since most of what I know about being Greek comes from reading David and Amy Sedaris, and they are Brothers Of Another Mother to us Jews.

Look at that punim!

I live in Brooklyn Heights, one of only a few select city neighborhoods ruled entirely by baby carriages. It is a perfect environment to raise children: there’s a kids’ gym and a kids’ spa and a toy store and a fancy cupcake place and a farmer’s market and right across the river there’s Manhattan, where the beautiful people live.

As you can tell, I’m wordy, like you, and over-educated, but I am made almost entirely of cleavage, so I was also designed to be maternal. My husband’s nice too! He’s a big fan. If he could have sex with you once, even with lights off and most clothes on, that would make him really happy.

The bottom line is, the world needs more of you, Tina. I know you’re doing all you can — the show, the movies, the upcoming book — but you’re only one person, after all. You have limitations. Maybe if I expose our babies to radiation they’ll have no limitations, like superheros!

Take your time. I’ll be fertile for a while yet (I think).

Sincerely,
Ester

PS — I love you.

celebrity gossip, life in new york

True story

7 Comments


So, the other day, I was like, “Hi, Cynthia Nixon! This adorable person next to you, over whom I am leaning, must be your wife.”

And Cynthia Nixon was like, “We’re engaged but we haven’t gotten married yet. Hi, though!”

(Note: this is all true, except the parts that aren’t.)

Me: I remember us working together at the Very Important Talent Agency.

CN: That place must have been terrible for a sensitive, intelligent young woman like yourself.

Me: Thank you for feeling my pain, Cynthia. That means a lot. So what are you doing here at this random activist-y Jewish theater event at the Manhattan JCC, of all places?

CN: I like to do things outside my character profile.

Me: Me too! For example, I now run three miles three times a week. Isn’t that crazy? I refuse to invest in running gear, because I don’t want anyone to think I’m some kind of poser, but it still feels kind of amazing.

CN: While I starred in one of the most influential TV shows in the world as a straight, fashion-and-shoe-obsessed Manhattan lady, I left my boyfriend of fifteen years and the father of my children to move to Park Slope and become a lesbian.

Me: Okay, okay, you win. As a token of my appreciation, may I offer you this totebag? My best friend Charrow made it and she would be thrilled if I could tell her I gave it to you.

CN: Why, of course! Thank you. Oh my god, it’s adorable.

Me: So are you. You were my favorite part of Sex and the City, and the screenwriters for the film were totally punishing you for being the most normal and most happy.

CN: At least they didn’t make me shit myself.

Me: True, true. Well, let’s watch this play! Which will, incidentally, send the message that caring too much about handbags is deranged. I hope you won’t be offended.

CN: I will laugh as hard as anyone. I promise. For years, I’ve been laughing all the way to the bank.

Me: Oh my god, Cynthia. I heart you so much. And I’m so glad we (sort of) had this talk.

celebrity gossip, health, rantage

The new Gray Album!

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It really is too bad. Once upon a time, I liked Christian Bale. Newsies, anyone? (“Santa Fe? Are you there? Do you swear you won’t forget me? If I found you would you let me come and stay … I ain’t getting any younger and before my dying day, I want space! Not just air! Let ’em laugh in my face, I don’t care! Save a place … I’ll be there … in Santa Fe.” This is from memory, folks.)

He’s the cutest singing street-urchin this side of Aladdin but he wins out in a head-to-head because Aladdin chooses a chick with a waist the size of my wrist, whereas Jack “Cowboy” Kelly marries into a nice Jewish family.

Not to mention the brilliant American Psycho where he almost kills Reese Witherspoon.


Look at that picture and tell me you’re not cheering him on.

I hope he bounces back from this, in short. Russell Crowe and Jude Law, both once-loved, pretty decent actors currently in the doghouse, don’t seem to have redeemed themselves yet for their public sins (throwing a phone and bonking the nanny, respectively, in case your memory needs jogging). Are we more forgiving of idiot women? Britney Spears does stupid shit all the time and still goes platinum, and let’s not even get started on Lilo.

Follow up / unrelated question: If medicine is expired, do you take more because it’s weaker or less because it’s poison?

celebrity gossip, faux gender theory, movies

"only Gay screen call"

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Best news item not picked up by the press: before Anna Nicole Smith was Anna Nicole Smith, she had a lady lover! A serious one too. Observe:

Powledge recalls their first year together as one filled with happiness. The two exchanged vows of commitment on the diving board at Smith’s home in Spring, and Smith gave Powledge a diamond ring. Smith avoided wearing a ring herself because of the questions it might raise, Powledge said.

They shared some wild times, frequently going out on drinking binges and not knowing how to get home. Smith once stopped her car and asked a passing jogger to drive them home after a particularly lively spell of inebriation.

The pair also got tattoos to declare their love for one another. Smith paid for a tattoo of her face and name to be inked across Powledge’s shoulder blade, strategically placed to cover another woman’s name there. Smith later received a tattoo of Powledge’s initials below her bikini line, unable to display such art anywhere else on her body because of her career as a model.

Powledge blushes, giggles and covers her face with her hands when asked if Smith reciprocated her affections in the bedroom.

“She was very considerate. Very sweet. Very,” she said bashfully.

Yikes! And: awesome!

Of course, the article’s spin on ANS’s lesbian liason is pretty dippy. It has to go out of its way to call Powledge “the plainer looking and less feminine of the pair” — because God forbid we wander off the Butch Meets Femme page. And “affections in the bedroom”? Is there a less kinky way of refering to sex? Can you think of one? I’m really asking.

I’m impressed Powledge toughed out the relationship as long as she did, what with ANS making her wear “wigs and dresses to give herself a softer look in New York” once they moved to the Big Apple, not to mention ANS’s “Real World”-type behavior: cheating, drinking, drugs. Eventually of course the women split and the article notes, wistfully, “No matter what the cause of Smith’s death is ultimately determined to be, Powledge shares others’ assessment that she likely died of a broken heart.”

One of the things I find most fascinating about this story is that it adds complexity to ANS’s performance of hetero desirability. In the same way that in M Butterfly, Song, the male lover disguised as the ideal woman, explains, “A man knows best how a woman is supposed to act,” it makes sense that a queer woman would know how best to play the epitome of a straight woman.

But is this story threatening to her image somehow? Embarrassing? Overkill? Why hasn’t it been picked up more broadly?