By emily

GRADE: A

Grandmothers, beauty mags and smart-consumer guides often tout the fact that drugstore makeup is just as good as the expensive kind. This is SO NOT TRUE. I realized this the other day after I got my first paycheck from my new yuppie job and promptly blew 16% of it at Sephora, the retail experience ne plus ultra. Here are just a few of the things that make Sephora and the products it sells so, so excellent:

1. Drag-queen looking girls will find you the exact right shade of foundation from a billion different brands and not even really pressure you to buy it.
2. Ease of shoplifting, for fans of the sport. Personally I am so unsubtle and graceless that I get followed around in stores just for looking shifty (or maybe it’s some kind of trashy-girl profiling) so I never shoplift. But my friend Alice is constantly whipping out new stolen lipgloss testers. Mmmm.
3. Testers. By the way, who is really so prissy that they try on lipstick on the back of their hand? I touch the subway seat right before sticking my finger in my nose/mouth all the time. Why would I put lipstick on my hand? My hand doesn’t wear lipstick. It doesn’t even wear nail polish. It is a hippie.
4. The lighting is good, so that you’re like “I deserve all this makeup because I am so beautiful.”
Besides, once you haul all your new beauty products home they don’t immediately lose their appeal the way new clothes and shoes do. This is because you use them all the time. Every time I apply my ‘BAD GAL’ by benefit eyeliner I am convinced that it makes me a more expensive, more alluring person than my old $2 wet’n’wild eyeliner did, even though they are basically indistinguishable except that one has a cute name. No matter. Good makeup is making me a classier individual.

by B

GRADE: A

Okay, this is just a little capsule review, because everything I have to say on the subject of the VH1 Classic channel is very straightforward. I am watching it right now and it is the best. Not only have they played some of my favorite old standbys (Love is a Battlefield, Summer of 69), but also even better stuff I've never seen on TV before... Jesus and Mary Chain, Camper Von Beethoven, etc. Now they are playing MY BLUE THUNDER by Galaxie 500, which made my jaw drop. I can't believe it. Wait, now it's over and they are playing Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I am going to watch this channel all the time. Sorry this review is not more interesting. But in Service Journalism, one must balance entertainment with utility. It's not always about the sparkle.

By B

GRADE: A- for the album, America's Sweetheart, A+ for the lady.

The bad thing about the new Courtney Love is that she looks more like Amanda Lepore than like, you know, Courtney Love. The good thing about the new Courtney Love is that maybe she will save us all. Or maybe she will just die. Of course, Ms. Love herself seems to believe that she will do both, much like the Son of God. Except maybe she thinks she is Mary Magdalene too… it’s hard to tell. Either way, you have to love a good-time gal with a fabulous Messiah/Whore Complex, especially when it is all mixed up with an out-of-control dose of Valley of the Dolls pathos. Let the lady have her Dolls, I say: red, green, et cetera. She has been on the cross for awhile now, at least if we are to believe Passion of the C. Bring her some Dolls, for fuck’s sake! With all she has been through, are a few Dolls too much to ask for?!

I haven’t heard much about Courtney’s new album, and I’m sure part of the reason is that all the fake true believers have already dismissed it as so gay. After all, it was cowritten by the Pink Svengali formerly known as 4 Non Blondes and also by Bernie Taupin, who is, of course, Elton John’s Special Friend. Duh, the haters are thinking, Kurt would not approve because he is such a dead genius and all, not to mention the fact that the bitch killed him. Whatever. People with this kind of attitude are only trying to cover up for the fact that they cried harder than anyone when Mr. John sang GOODBYE ENGLISH ROSE in honor of Princess Diana. Because I have been listening to America’s Sweetheart on the treadmill, and it’s pretty fucking amazing. It’s also good when you are walking home from the subway.

The point of the album is that Courtney is not okay and she’s not afraid to let anyone know. You might even call the record a retardedly articulate cry for help. The best song is Sunset Strip, an insane, sparkly, Jackie Susann Meets Stevie Nicks Spazz Out Extravaganza. Sure it starts out pretty normal—like Courtney Love has been through the Matrix and come out with a few of Stevie’s magical tambourine tricks. But before you know it, it is building to an unintelligible crescendo of total insanity. And guess what? Courtney has completely lost her ability to sing! In fact, it sounds like she can barely talk! As far as I can tell, it’s for real and not a put on, and it makes the song out-of-control good. “I GOT PILLS WHEN I’M BAD! I GOT PILLS WHEN I’M OLD! PILLS WHEN I’M BLONDE, PILLS WHEN I’M DEAD! PILLS THAT MAKE ME FORGET WHAT I SAID!” By the end of the song, her demands for pills are the only words you can really discern; the rest of it is just screaming with a few stray scraps of English here and there. Yes, this is bad news for Frances Bean, but good news for us, because listening to Courtney have a complete breakdown is totally entrancing. I have it on a loop right now, in fact. The only sad thing is that a lot of the lyrics from the liner notes did not seem to make their way onto the final album. Most notable, of course, is that they cut out the bit about “PILLS FOR MY COOCHIE CUZ BABY I’M SORE!” Obviously, my disappointment at discovering the absence of this gem was somewhat profound.

Anyway, I heard Courtney totally embarrassed herself and the American Public when she was on David Letterman’s program the other night. I heard that during the commercial, he told her that he didn’t like her! Also I heard that she killed her husband and that she doesn’t write any of her own songs. But she is a rock star and I am glad for that because we need it. After all, Madonna has totally thrown in the towel, going from pure fantasie ladye to withered old yogafatty. Say what you will about Courtney Love, but unlike Madonna, you can be sure she will never make a guest appearance on Will and Grace.

You may think that Courtney is a bad person. Who cares? The point of Courtney Love is not whether she is a good person or a bad person, because she is obviously at least borderline odious. Sometimes, especially between albums, I hate her as much as everyone else does. That doesn’t matter though, because, ultimately she is a rejuvenating force in the universe, and America’s Sweetheart only proves it. I’m not trying to sound like the vapid Wiccan with the ridiculous jewelry in my freshman year GENDER IN INDIAN RITUAL class, but Courtney Love is not about good and bad. She is about simultaneous creation and destruction and out-of-whack balance. The New York Times thinks she is going to die soon. And when she does, we will all be cleansed. In the meantime, let the poor woman have her Dolls.

By Emily

Grade: A+

Sometimes, when it’s about love, prose just won’t suffice. Neither will traditional poetic conventions such as meter. Hence, this ode to my favorite fictional person.

You smoke Newports in bed
You wear a full face of stripper makeup, even at the gym
When you pronounce your fiance’s name ‘Christofuhhh’
My head starts to swim

You came into my life
Like a teal snakeskin jumpsuited comet
Shooting heroin like you’re popping an Advil
Spraying federal agents with chunky taupe vomit

Life’s been rough for you lately
Those feds aren’t through with you yet
You can’t have a baby cause of a botched abortion
And Christopher sat on and killed your dog Cosette

I’ll never possess you
Unless I somehow switch bodies with a guido, get cast on the Sopranos, and get made
Still, you’ll forever be
In my heart, my darling Ade.

By emily

GRADE: B minus

Hey guess what: I have never seen a single Bertolucci movie. Except this one, obviously. I mean, I wouldn’t review a movie I hadn’t seen. I might say something vaguely disparaging about a movie I hadn’t seen, something that would semi-inadvertently give the impression that I had seen it, but I wouldn’t go so far as to actually write a review. Anyway, I am not a ‘cinephile’ and I did not go to film school and I’ve never seen Last Tango in Paris, even though everyone says it’s like porn.

The Dreamers is like porn too: really boring porn with hardly any fucking. It features Michael Pitt, who is famous for showing his (petite, fyi) penis in some Larry Clark movies and also for playing the Kurt Cobain-y character in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. You know, the one who looks sort of like a headshot of Leonardo Dicaprio that’s been stretched and squished until the face is a lot pudgier. Other than that the movie is unpopulated except for these two French teenagers who play a set of twins. They’re hot, I guess, except the girl has huuuuuuge areolas. It’s 1969 and Paris is torn by some sort of political unrest, which the movie doesn’t really bother to explain much about (probably because old and well-educated people already know. Well, good for them). As whatever it is rages outside, the twins and Michael Pitt wander around a cavernous apartment, trading sexual favors and bits of film trivia, often simultaneously. The results are predictably unerotic. The most memorable scene involves devirginization and subsequent fingerpainting with vag blood. Really the best thing about this movie is the apartment: the peeling gilt wallpaper, crumbling mouldings, furniture that looks like it’s been there for centuries, and so forth. It made me want to move to France, or at least to a nicer apartment.

By B

GRADE: B+

Sometimes nothing is more delightful than walking a dog that does not belong to you. There is something about it that makes you feel briefly like a totally new person, a person with a different life. It depends on the dog of course. But more than that, it depends on the dog’s real owner. And also the weather.

For instance, maybe it is 11:00 on a Sunday morning in February. You find yourself walking a huge golden lab of considerable nobility through the West Village. This dog does not belong to you, and you, unfortunately, do not live in this neighborhood. But it is a beautiful day out, and extra-beautiful because it is February, and with the dog on your leash, the bricks in the sidewalk feel like they are yours. You can pretend that your jacket does not come from the Gap. You pass by Marc Jacobs, on the corner. Maybe it is from there! And when you turn another corner, past Magnolia Bakery, the dog stops to lick powdered sugar off the sidewalk. Really.

If you happen to be smoking, you might take a deeply satisfying drag from your cigarette and hope to see Lili Taylor with her dog. Maybe you will and maybe you won’t. But if you do you will nod and smile as you pass her, giving her the secret, hello dogowner smile, even though it will be dishonest because you yourself are not a real dogowner.

You don’t need to be in an especially great neighborhood to appreciate someone else’s dog. It works perfectly well in Columbia Heights, in DC, where there is a man who sits on a stoop across the street screaming “That’s right! Get in your white car, Whitey!” as a lady climbs into a decidedly un-ebony Ford Focus. You have a big Weimaraner-among-other-things trotting at your side, and again, it is an unseasonably gorgeous day. The weeds along the sidewalk are as tall as your ankles and they are kind of fantastic even if they are weeds. This dog is named Bella, and she adores you, and you think, “What if this were my dog and my neighborhood and that was my white car and my crazy man on the stoop?” It is a nice thought. Bella is pooping happily.

Poop is the one bad thing, but it’s not really that bad. One time when I was walking Bella, she pooped in a man’s patch of yard just as he was getting out of his car. Suddenly, I realized I had nothing to scoop it with. Because Bella is not my dog and I don’t even own a dog, and you forget these things if you are just a daytripper. I had to sheepishly ask the man if he could fetch me a bag from his house, which was a ragged but elaborate Victorian townhouse on the corner of Park Road. The worst part is that when he brought me the bag I couldn’t even find the poop anymore. So I scooped a big clump of dirt and pretended it was poop and ran away very quickly. It was sort of embarassing, but also kind of magical. Which is the thing about walking other people’s dogs. It is not unlike an out-of-body-experience. And someday maybe you will have your own dog and it’s hard to say if that is better or worse than having someone else’s for the length of one cigarette.

By Emily
Grade C

She’s walking a few feet ahead of you on the street, inexplicably outpacing you even though her four-inch stilettos seem dangerously close to snapping under their voluptuous load. It’s impossible not to notice the way her Seven jeans crease under each glute in time with her clippetty-cloppetty steps. Her hair is straight, shoulder-length, and highlighted so precisely that no two strands are the exact same shade of blonde. Perhaps she’s gabbing animatedly on her cell phone, leaning drunkenly on the shoulder of a near-identical buddy, or taking quick, businesslike puffs on either a Parliament or Marlboro light.

There’s no mistaking it: you’re witnessing a Diet Coke Girl in action.

Diet Coke Girls (see: Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, Jenny Aniston, Communications majors and PR firm ladies) tend to down at least three to six of the silver devils every day in order to maintain their chipper demeanors and their quasi-anorexic eating habits simultaneously. Until recently, I’d never been tempted to join the ranks of the DCGs- in fact, I’d never had more than a sip of the stuff. For one thing, Diet Coke tastes like Windex, and for another thing, everyone knows it’s unhealthy to drink a half-dozen cans of caffeine and caramel coloring, no matter how ‘diet’ it is. But eventually fate intervened, in the form of an ultra-unglamorous temp placement during Fashion Week. While the elite preened in Bryant Park, I sat in a windowless highrise two blocks west, receptionisting at a showroom where a team of aging DCGs sold trampy preteen clothes to Midwestern department store buyers.

This job was heinous for many reasons besides the obvious ones. For starters, it was one of those situations where looooong stretches of boredom are interspersed with moments of frantic busyness. During the busy moments, the DCGs yelled at me for stupid reasons and got my name wrong (‘Melanie’?) so many times that I stopped bothering to correct them. Also I had to show up every morning at 8:30, even though twice I had to sit in the benchless hallway for half an hour until someone arrived to let me in. And although I was working there for the entire week, no one thought it was appropriate for me to know the key-code to unlock the front door, and the bathroom was in the hallway. This meant that every time I got back from peeing, I had to ring the doorbell and wait for someone to let me in- which felt sort of like announcing “I peed!” over an intercom. Actually, that would have been way more fun and less degrading. Also, because it was busy busy Fashion Week, I was not allowed to escape the building for any reason, not even to smoke or eat or get a coffee, and there was no coffee machine in the office.

No coffee machine- but there was a fridge. Three guesses as to what kind of soda the shelves were stocked with.

By about halfway through the second four billion year long workday, I was totally burnt out and ready to snap, in addition to being dangerously close to falling asleep at my desk. The boss, who was super portly and addicted to Weight Watchers Just 2 Points! bars, had just told me to clean up the takeout containers from the nasty cheap Italian lunch she’d ordered. As she walked away, she added, “And you can feel free to take some of the food home with you, if you’d like.” Was she trying to be nice? Who cares! The idea that I would salvage and reheat her soggy half-eaten rigatoni was so incredibly insulting. “I’m not that hard up,” I called after her, in a ‘maybe I’m joking, so you can’t fire me’ tone of voice. She turned and gave me an icy squint. “Everybody does it,” she said. “Not me!” I replied in my brightest, cheeriest customer- service way, and started towards the kitchen.

Obviously, I gave in to the diet siren’s lure. Caffeine is important when you’re dealing with total idiots on a scant ration of sleep. The Diet Coke provided me with enough of a bump to get through the rest of the day, and to treadmill out some of my rage at the gym afterwards in classic yuppie style. The taste, while sickly sweet and cloying, wasn’t as bad as I’d expected- you can even sort of imagine that it’s real Coke if you drink it fast enough. I would advise against letting it get warm, however- warm Diet Coke is a hundred times worse than warm regular Coke, which everyone knows is like drinking your own sweetened carbonated urine. I spent the rest of that week liberally raiding the fridge. I think that maybe seeing the cans on my desk convinced the DCGs in the office that I was doing a more professional job than I really was. A receptionist just isn’t a receptionist without certain accoutrements, I guess. Maybe if I’d worn a nauseatingly strong variety of Victoria’s Secret body spray, they would have given me a raise or something.

Lately I’ve caught myself actually purchasing Diet Coke. It sucks, but I’m starting to be a little bit hooked, although I’m certainly nowhere near sixpack level. Maybe next time I’ll get a Diet Dr. Pepper instead. After all, even if one is forced to live a crap yuppie lifestyle, one can still maintain a shred of individuality. Dr. Pepper is all about that.