"The women’s hair is in Utah curls, long waves with straight ends, popularized by Mormon momfluencers. Their makeup is heavy..."

"... the content creator and comedian Suzanne Lambert called it 'Republican makeup,' which she explained to me is 'matte and flat': thick eyebrows and lashes, dark eyeliner on the top and bottom lids, a bold lip, lots of bronzer. 'Inappropriate unless you’re on a pageant stage. And in that case, I would still do it differently,' she said. Their clothes, whether casual or corporate, are form-fitting and often accessorized with giant crosses. They are always thin and almost always white. To each her own. But it is also undeniable that this hyperfeminine and overtly Christian look offers a stark contrast to the often blunt and even brutal language they employ. Another glaring example of this is the horrifying video of Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, at CECOT, the tropical gulag in El Salvador where the Trump administration has sent migrants. She stood there before a group of shirtless prisoners and declared, 'If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face,' while wearing a $50,000 Rolex.'"

Writes Jessica Grose, in "MAGA Beauty Is Built to Go Viral" (NYT).

"It’s the people who aren’t artists who sacrifice. Artists somehow stumble onto the best life in the world, and I have no complaints."

Said Gena Rowlands, asked about any "regrets about having sacrificed her life to her art."

Quoted in "Gena Rowlands, Actress Who Brought Raw Drama to Her Roles, Dies at 94/Known for playing on-the-verge characters, she twice earned Oscar nominations for her work in films directed by John Cassavetes, her husband" (NYT).

She sometimes said that if she had not married Mr. Cassavetes, her career might have taken a very different turn: She could have been the blonde in romantic comedies. But, she contended, physical beauty was so common in Hollywood that it was irrelevant. When People magazine named her one of the most beautiful people in the world (she was 69) and asked for beauty tips, she suggested: “Sunglasses are the secret. Sunglasses and a little lipstick will take you to the market.”

Virginia Cathryn Rowlands was born on June 19, 1930, in Madison, Wis....

ADDED: Here's the clip from "A Woman Under the Influence" that I blogged when Peter Falk died in 2011: 

And here's something Mia Farrow wrote that I blogged about in 2009:

One workday, while we were waiting to shoot, Roman [Polanski] was discoursing about the impossibility of long-term monogamy given the brevity of a man's sexual attraction to any woman. An impassioned John Cassavetes responded that Roman knew nothing about women, or relationships, and that he, John, was more attracted than ever to his wife, Gena Rowlands. Roman stared at him and blinked a few times, and for once had no reply.

"In 1942, Vogue quoted a male soldier saying of his female counterparts, 'To look unattractive these days is downright 'morale-breaking and should be considered treason.'"

"The next year, that magazine carried an ad naming women in uniform the 'Best Dressed Women in the World Today.' The government asked Elizabeth Arden to concoct a lipstick to match the red piping on women’s Marine Corps uniforms. Women marines were issued this Montezuma Red lipstick and matching nail polish in their official military kits. (It remained mandatory for thirty more years.) A Tangee cosmetics ad from the era reasoned, 'No lipstick—ours or anyone else’s—will win the war. But it symbolizes one of the reasons we are fighting . . . the precious right of women to be feminine and lovely, under any circumstances.'"

 
Writes Patricia Marx, in "Is the Army’s New Tactical Bra Ready for Deployment? It’s fire-resistant but not bulletproof, and was developed with help from eighteen thousand female soldiers" (The New Yorker).

Here are 5 TikToks for your amusement and edification tonight. Let me know what you like.

1. Topiary japery.

2. The singer demonstrates that the washing machine alert signal is Schubert's "The Trout."

3. The father who apologizes to his teenagers explains apologizing for 3 things, including the way he put on Chapstick.

4. Quite by chance, this young woman shows the difference between the way women and men put on Chapstick.

5. Opioid crisis painting.

"Their lives were dotted with the minor luxuries of the progressive and affluent. They’re the kind of people who know..."

"... the local lady who makes her own Thai barbecue sauce; they notice when Rachel Maddow changes her shade of lip gloss; Bloom once had a second refrigerator devoted solely to condiments. One sign Brian was changing: his taste started to falter. This was funny until it wasn’t. He began to buy Bloom jewelry, she writes, 'so far from my taste that, if he were a different man, I’d think he was keeping a Seventies-boho, broke-ass mistress in Westville and gave me the enameled copper earrings and bangle he bought for her, by mistake.'"

From "‘In Love,’ a Novelist’s Powerful Memoir About a Happy Marriage and an Assisted Suicide/In her new book, Amy Bloom writes about loving her husband and helping him to end his life after a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s" by Dwight Garner, in his NYT review of "In Love/A Memoir of Love and Loss" by Amy Bloom.

Finally! The steaming pile of insect politics I've been waiting for!

I saw that the NY Post hated it — "'SNL’ somehow screwed up the VP debate fly" — but I — an intense fan of the Jeff Goldblum version of "The Fly" — think it's truly great:

 

That guy in the Post objected to the use of Jim Carrey as Joe Biden combined with Jeff Goldblum — characterized it as "this strange, aspiring 1980s East Village performance art piece." I'll just guess he doesn't know the movie "The Fly." How can you have missed "The Fly"? And I mean the Jeff Goldblum "Fly." Nothing against the Vincent Price "Fly." That's also great. But come on, if you're going to review American satire, there's a certain baseline of experience you need to have in your brain. 

Kudos to "SNL"! Every one of the actors did a fine job and the material was even politically balanced. The only thing I'd change is the color of Kate MacKinnon's lipstick. She played the moderator Susan Page in pretty bright red lipstick, but Susan Page had on a color that made me laugh:

Just a little missed opportunity. They perked Susan Page up a bit. And Kate MacKinnon is already way perked up compared to the hilariously dull Susan Page. Anyway... other than that — excellent. Thanks, "SNL"! 

ADDED: Here's the very best thing in "The Fly" — the part about "insect politics" (and by they way, Kate MacKinnon would make a great Geena Davis, if the Geena Davis part had found its way into the sketch):

 

"Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects... don't have politics. They're very... brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first... insect politician. You see, I'd like to, but... I'm afraid, uh... I'm saying... I'm saying I - I'm an insect who dreamed he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over... and the insect is awake... I'm saying... I'll hurt you if you stay."

("SNL" did not use the "insect politics" material.)

What I wanted to learn.

I wanted to take the "Master Class" from David Sedaris, but I couldn't bring myself to pay $99 for a subscription to the app until I saw that they also had a class from Billy Collins, a poet I've liked ever since I randomly picked a book off a high shelf at Paul's Books and read one poem.

Both Sedaris and Collins, I see now, begin their writing by noticing some little thing that is present in their own life. Both teach that you ought to carry a notebook with you everywhere and jot down these little things as they happen.

That's all writing. Of course, I wanted to learn about writing, but what else? Master Class has 80+ famous people teaching how they each do their thing. I've watched 2 others, neither in the writing category. I watched Bobbi Brown, who teaches about makeup — the kind of makeup that honors whatever face you happen to have. (You do not need to "contour" your nose or "overline" your lips.) And I watched Alice Waters, the restaurateur, who says you really need to start your cooking by getting in touch with your local vegetables.

Do you see the theme of these 4, which I chose without thinking of a theme? The theme occurred to me as I was doing my sunrise run this morning. I don't listen to headphoned-in music anymore when I run. I listen to the immediate environment and let thoughts rise up from within my own head, and I got where I could see how these 4 choices represented a single desire on my part. All these lessons have to do with awareness of what is right here.

When I got back to my car, the radio was on MSNBC, which I'd listened to on my little drive out to my running place. I'd put up with Joe Scarborough angsting about Republicans being less likely  to wear masks than Democrats — what is wrong with them?! — but I didn't want that infecting me on the ride home. I clicked over to music. It was Neil Young:

Come a little bit closer
Hear what I have to say
Just like children sleeping
We could dream this night away
But there's a full moon rising
Let's go dancing in the light
We know where the music's playing
Let's go out and feel the night

Neil was getting what was for him an unusual idea: To go out and experience the moon.



I got the idea a while back to get out and experience the sunrise, to go running in the light.

"Guys, we have an unspoken social contract going here: I pretend that I don't know your beauty recommendations are coming from 22-year-old rich kids and..."

"... you help me maintain my suspension of belief by not explicitly mentioning that your beauty recommendations are coming from 22-year-old rich kids. We live in a society!"

A comment on "The Best Thing I Bought This Decade Was Bobbi Brown Lipstick" by Chloe Anello (at NY Magazine).

"... real deep color. And I kinda go in here at the bottom..."

Didn't see that one coming... from r/youseeingthisshit

ADDED: The debunking.

AND: What gives it away as fake is how badly she strokes the lipstick on the lower lip before the shaking begins. You put lipstick on more carefully than that. But she knows the shaking is about to occur and she's already putting the lipstick on badly when the shaking begins. This may be in part because she can't act normal knowing the abnormality is about to hit, but I think it's more because she knows she needs to be pressing the lipstick hard against her mouth so she'll produce the comical smear across the cheek (and not have her hand shake loose and not leave a mark).

"I don’t even walk my dog without putting my lipstick on."

The geriatric possessive appears in "Vanity Is Not a Deadly Sin. It’s One of Life’s Last Vital Signs/For these senior citizens, keeping up appearances is simply part of good health" (NYT).

The NYT is talking up older women who care about fashion and makeup and looking good, but the quoted woman had that geriatric tic that we were talking about the other day — here — of saying "my" where a younger adult would not use a possessive. It's idiomatic to say "I don’t even walk the dog without putting on lipstick." What made this woman (in her 80s) say "my dog" and "my lipstick"?

And now, I'm going back to continue reading the article, and the next thing the woman says is: "I’m going to my dermatologist right after this visit... What? You think I’m going to be sitting around waiting for my liver spots to come in?”

Not "I’m going to the dermatologist right after this visit... You think I’m going to be sitting around waiting for liver spots to come in?"

And at the very end of the article, she's quoted again saying, "But now that I’ve started to age, I march to my own drummer. I wear my sneakers, I wear my tights. I don’t want to look absurd, but I do want to try different identities."

My sneakers, my tights... my drummer.

"Tonight I was in a hotel bar in Midtown when you came on TV. Very Important Men in expensive suits spoke in hushed tones..."

"... and contorted their faces into various forms of 'worried' as they watched. I freshened my red lipstick and carried on. It was glorious."

Tweets Nicole Sanchez at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who responds, but not to Nicole Sanchez, to one of those VIMs with worried faces:

If you’re a guy in a $ suit that feels some type of way when you see me on TV, maybe you’re limiting yourself to thinking working people’s gain must come at your loss.

After all, mega corps have gained at the cost of working people for so long, many can’t think of any other way.

AOC didn't take the prompt to say, Yeah, I hate those guys, and I aim my red lipstick at them and glory in their anxiety. She looks to the guys — depriving Sanchez of her sisterhood boost — and tells them they are included. Let the businessmen come to me. All are saved!

A very elaborate ad from Japan. (It hardly matters what the product is.)

I found that via Adweek.

A new political costume? A sad-faced girl with 2 bruised eyes, imploring us to vote to save her from further violence?

That's what I wondered, when I opened my email and saw this (click to enlarge and sharpen):



Maybe that's supposed to just be a pretty way to do your eyes — all purple, with glitter.

Decades ago, it was a cliché of feminist critique to say that eye shadow looked like 2 bruised black eyes so if you think it's attractive, what you are finding attractive is the violent subordination of women. Despite the mass quantities of feminist critique on line these days, I can't find anyone saying that.

So what's going on with that girl's eyes? (I'm saying girl because she looks about 12.)

Is it a deliberate effort to look as though she's been punched in the face a couple times? If so, it's not like in the old feminist critique, a misguided effort to look sexy by looking like a beaten-up victim, but a misguided effort to lend credibility to a message that — because violence against women is bad — you ought to vote (presumably for a candidate that cares about women's rights).

I expect many of you to say I'm going too far. She's just supposed to look like a cool young rock music fan.

AND: I am reminded of last week's New Yorker cover, which used lipstick to represent violence against women:



The woman with the dulled eyes has what seems to be a lipsticked mouth, but it's a hand. She's being silenced... by her own makeup. The New Yorker's art editor, Françoise Mouly, explains that the cover, by Ana Juan, is commentary on the Kavanaugh hearings.

IN THE COMMENTS: Commenter BJK says that the person I called a girl is in fact a 31-year-old woman, Lauren Mayberry and that she's the lead singer of CHVRCHES, one of the groups listed in the email I received. Here, you might enjoy her music:

"Nothing says 'I'm a WASP' like a black and yellow striped lip."

Wrote Bob Boyd in the comments to the previous post — in which I mention that in the 1970s, I saw the term "WASP makeup" to refer to the lipstick-only approach to makeup. I was riffing on a NYT op-ed which included the subtitle "Nothing says 'I’m a woman' like a red lip."

Charmed by Mr. Boyd's perfect comment, I took up the challenge to find a photograph of someone with black and yellow striped lipstick. Eureka!

32•100 #100daysofmakeup Sorry this is up so late, I've been a busy bee today! Lol 🐝

A post shared by Laura Jenkinson (@laurajenkinson) on Apr 30, 2016 at 2:55pm PDT

And wow, what a great Instagram account — Laura Jenkinson. What I've embedded above is one of the less interesting photographs. There are so many ideas here. Just to tantalize you with one that I love:

86•100 #100daysofmakeup Inspired by Valeriya Kutsan, if you guys haven't yet you need to check out her work - it's mind-blowing! 💘

A post shared by Laura Jenkinson (@laurajenkinson) on Jun 23, 2016 at 1:21pm PDT

ADDED: So let's do as advised and check out Valeriya Kutsan. Whoa! As predicted: Mind blown!

"Why wear lipstick at all? I don’t usually, but I’ve been trying to wear it more often as I get older and vie for higher-paying jobs."

"It’s a strategy, and it works. If you look at photos of successful women — whether chief executives or actresses or politicians — they’re all wearing lipstick. These women appear confident, responsible and sure of everything, a surety that starts with their gender. Nothing says 'I’m a woman' like a red lip.... I had a lot of time in the lipstick line to think about all this — the fact that the pink tax is unfair to women while also revealing us to be complicit weirdos...."

From "Feminists in Line for Free Lipstick/Nothing says 'I’m a woman' like a red lip. But a red lip costs $18.50 plus tax," by Mary Mann (in the NYT). In the comments over there, lots of people are telling her that you can buy much cheaper lipstick at the drugstore. Mann never explains why having an expensive brand matters when it comes to vying for a higher paying job. But she did wait in line for over an hour to get a free tube of lipstick (and material for a NYT "think" piece).

Here's some 99¢ red lipstick at Amazon.

Whenever I read about the importance of lipstick specifically, I remember something I read in a fashion magazine back in the 1970s (when I had a job reading magazines): The term "WASP makeup" meant just lipstick. You can apply your racial studies education to theorizing about why lipstick and only lipstick was called "WASP makeup." And then why "Nothing says 'I’m a woman' like a red lip." And what that full face of heavy makeup says.

ADDED: Here's an article from last year, "I wore red lipstick with no other makeup for a week — and it did nothing for my confidence" (The Insider). The author, Brianna Arps (who appears to be a black woman) says:

Ocasio-Cortez derangement syndrome.

Some people seem to be losing their mind over a politically beautiful face. Linked by Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit, here's Thomas Lifson at American Thinker:

Someone with deep knowledge of what expensive make-up can do to remake a human visage into something very different from the au naturel version went to work on her. In tandem with her transformation from nerd to a female Che Guevara, she morphed from capitalist to membership in a party that wants to “abolish profit.”

Ever since an iconic photograph of Che Guevara was enough to cover-up and glamorize a murderous thug who made a point of watching his opponents executed by firing squad, the puppet masters of the radical left have understood the value of a dramatic and glamorous picture in brainwashing young skulls full of mush.

I don’t know who got ahold of young Ms. Ocasio Cortez and paid for the makeover, but it was someone who understands the manipulation of the “masses” (as they describe their targeted dupes) very well.

The 2 photos do indeed create a very different impression, but you're comparing a 28-year-old face to a 22-year old face. Other than that, the difference is lipstick — who cares if it's "expensive" or not? — and pulling the hair back into a bun instead of letting it hang loose. And one picture is a frame taken from low-quality video while the other is a professionally lit still photograph (probably photoshopped for use on a campaign poster).

There is one other thing: eyebrows. Eyebrows have been a big deal these last few years, and the magazines aimed at all classes of women have stressed makeup tips for eyebrows. Here's Cosmopolitan from a couple months ago: "11 Easy Ways to Get Your Best Brows Ever/Because the simplest trick can make the biggest difference." In keeping with the current style, Ocasio-Cortez has accentuated her eyebrows.

Ocasio-Cortez is a naturally great looking woman. Her current look doesn't prove that "someone with deep knowledge" has done a "transformation" and that "someone who understands the manipulation of the 'masses'" is backing her and has "got ahold of" her.

But nice job of showing how scared of her you are.

"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez name-dropped her lipstick brand and it sold out."

Reports CBS News, breathlessly, with tweet appended...

I have been getting many inquiries about my debate lip color in the last two days.

I GOT YOU.

It’s Stila “Stay All Day” Liquid in Beso. 💄 pic.twitter.com/xhkxSXZXCO

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) June 17, 2018

... and Democratic Party upended.

"The power of appearances first became clear to him at school, in the mid-eighties, when he noticed how much attention a particular girl received because she was the only pupil who owned a bra."

"He soon found that there was money to be made selling cosmetics on the sidewalk — 'Owning a tube of lipstick was an untold luxury' — and dropped out of school after ninth grade to pursue business ventures. Cai co-founded Meitu with another entrepreneurial Quanzhou native, Wu Xinhong. The initial plan was to build a simplified Photoshop for what Cai called lao bai xing. (The phrase means, roughly, 'just plain folks,' and Cai constantly applied it to himself.) Once user data started coming in, they saw that their app was overwhelmingly used by young women for selfie enhancement. 'The demand was there even though no one knew it,' he said. He realized that the market for online beautification was his for the taking...."

From "China’s Selfie Obsession/Meitu’s apps are changing what it means to be beautiful in the most populous country on earth."

If Pepsi pulled this ad, why can I still see it?

The NYT has an excellent summary of the social media uproar — "Pepsi Pulls Ad Accused of Trivializing Black Lives Matter":

Pepsi has apologized for a controversial advertisement that borrowed imagery from the Black Lives Matter movement, after a day of intense criticism from people who said it trivialized the widespread protests against the killings of black people by the police....

The ad looks very beautiful and expensive, and it seems to be part of a recent trend in ads (for example during the Super Bowl) that associate the product with a deep-but-shallow angsty-but-feel-good political message. And it reminds me of the old I'd-like-to-buy-the-world-a-Coke prettiness:



Coke told us "It's the real thing," so maybe Pepsi's the fake thing, and in that light, I suspect Pepsi made a beautiful and intentionally flawed commercial that would stir up social media and get everyone to watch the commercial and talk about it. Pepsi would apologize, but it wouldn't really be sorry. It made you look.

And I'm saying that because if that wasn't the idea, Pepsi is just so dumb. That commercial took a lot of work and a lot of money to make. So many people were involved. They had to know some segment of social media would trash them for appropriating the seriousness and pain of others. Unless they are flat-out idiots with too much money to throw around, perhaps enough to buy the world a Coke.

But if they were indeed idiots, it gives me hope. Hope that advertisers will henceforth eschew politics in ads for commercial products. Maintain the separation of commerce and politics.

AND: Much of the social-media trashing uses images from recent protests, such as the lovely black woman in a long dress who stood elegantly in front of riot-geared police. They're aghast at the idea that a woman giving a Pepsi to a cop would solve the problems that the protests are about. But maybe the commercial was made by old fools who remember the idea of protesting the Vietnam war by sticking flowers into the barrels of the rifles of guardsmen — as seen in the famous photograph "Flower Power" (by Bernie Boston):



BUT: Only a desire for virality can explain why, when Kendall Jenner rips off her blonde wig (at 1:48), she hands it to a black woman. Here, hold my wig. I gotta protest. I mean, it's one thing to say stop being blonde if you're going to join a protest, but it's aggravating to fling that thing at the nearest black woman.

But let's talk about the gender question — why does Jenner take off her wig and, also, wipe off her lipstick? That seems to say women who fix up their hair and put on makeup are somehow unfit for the political uprising — even an uprising consisting of not much more than a search for love and a display of graceful loveliness. That rejects a lot of women.

And what about the association with that other Jenner, Caitlyn? There's quite a bit of wiggage and makeup on that one.

ADDED: Now, I'm getting interested in the question of how much makeup to wear to a protest. I found this at reddit:

I'm going to DC for the Women's March on Washington on January 21 (the day after the inauguration) and I'm thinking about how I want to do my makeup for the day. Factors I'm considering:

• for everyday makeup I just do my brows, cream blush, and whatever lipstick I'm in the mood for at the moment
• it's gonna be cold and I'll be sleep deprived and tired from travel, so I want to go with something that won't require touch-up
• do I want to go for something sharp/severe and angry, or go for something overtly feminine [i have a thing about how society praises women when we act more masculine/ aggressive, and that femininity and softness are seen as signals of weakness rather than a certain kind of strength)

ALSO: Meade sends me this video...



... and I'm all: "Is that the music? I was trying to figure out who it was. I thought it might be Sting." I see it's Skip Marley — Bob Marley's grandson — and I feel sorry for him. Such a nice song and now it's getting dragged down by this controversy. Or is it getting a boost through this virality? We're all listening to it, noticing him.

In the comments, Meade, signing on to the virality theory, writes:

The entire thing is very Trump-y. Skip Marley, Jenner, Pepsi... even Trump will win from this.

AND: Rewatching the commercial, I'm struck by the complete lack of any racial message in the protest. The signs say "Join the conversation" or "Love" or show peace signs. Why are people saying Pepsi is using Black Lives Matter rather than a completely nonspecific anodyne generic protest? Is it just that there are many black people (along with a lot of other people) in the commercial?! Isn't it racist to look at black individuals and understand them as an embodiment of their race.

I didn't fix on the lyrics to the song, other than to notice the word "generation," long associated with Pepsi. You can read the lyrics here, along this response from Skip Marley to the question whether it's about the Trump election:

It didn’t stem from [the election], but it just happened to fall around that time. The song can be used in that way. It can [be used like that] because it’s up to people and their interpretation of a song. You can say it, but it’s not really a political song. I don’t want it to be viewed as a political song because it’s not really that kind of song. But I’m happy that people take it as strength in these times. It’s for the people in the United States to reassure that there’s a feeling inside that we're lions.

PLUS: I don't know if Skip Marley is, like his grandfather, a Rastafarian, but the lion is an important symbol in that religion. And the song does warn about losing religious freedom ("Yeah, if ya took all my rights away/Yeah, if ya tellin' me how to pray/Yeah, if ya won't let us demonstrate/Yeah, you're wrong...").

IN THE COMMENTS: Sean Gleeson said...

I didn't see a protest in the ad. More of a parade. The signs were wordless peace, love, and smiley face symbols. Everyone is smiling ear to ear. Even the police, who are not bothering anyone or barking orders, just standing by, like they are on a parade route. It's got kind of a flash-mob street party vibe.

Thanks for making me see the lineage back to "I'm a Pepper"!

"How protesters plan to get under Trump’s skin wherever he goes."

A headline at The Washington Post.

By the way, wasn't that Hillary Clinton's plan for the debates — "get under Trump's skin"? Wasn't there an old idea way back then that Trump was "thin-skinned"* and could be defeated by getting under his skin? He'd self-destruct? That's how I've packaged my memories of how everybody who tried failed to keep Trump from winning.

Back to the WaPo article, which is by Perry Stein and David A. Fahrenthold:

Having sought to create unprecedented disruption in Washington, his critics will now seek to bring unprecedented disruption to his life as president — including demonstrations that follow him when he travels, and protests that will dog his businesses even when he doesn’t.

Why aren't these people afraid that Trump draws energy from this negativity?

There have been small gestures of pique: lipstick graffiti on the sign at Trump’s golf course in Los Angeles, and a plan for a mass mooning of his hotel in Chicago. There have also been more organized efforts to take time and money away from family businesses — a boycott of stores selling Ivanka Trump’s clothes and a campaign to flood Trump businesses with calls demanding that the president divest from his holdings.

For Trump’s opponents, these demonstrations are a way to change his behavior by denting the president’s own self-image, as a popular man with a successful business.

Why would what hasn't worked yet suddenly start working?