Celebrity Pictures Xtra

[Malibu, July 2. Image via x17]

Anna: Trust you’re having a merry Fourth. Please don’t let what I’m about to say put too much of a damper on it. Listen, you’ve been impeccable these past 20 years. You’re British, everyone fears you, there was that movie, etc. etc. And let’s face it: in your absence, everyone who works here will probably start eating again and that’s bad for health insurance premiums. But when in the course of human events you have to cut off the clothing allowance of an old paramour, well…you give them the good news first! It’s not Carine. No, I’m actually giving your job to Priya Tanna, the editor of Vogue India. Have you ever looked at Vogue India? I hadn’t either, really, but the other day I was in Bombay or Mumbai or whatever they’re calling it these days for a business meeting and it occurred to me that the whole reason we have ceded so much of the old “service economy” to them is that they know English there, and if they know English I might be able to read their magazines, not that stylish prose was the first thing on my mind when I walked into the newsstand and found myself face to face with the most fucking wildly gorgeous specimen of femininity I have ever seen. It not being some overspackled underfreckled overexposed celebublonde, it took me awhile to process that it was Vogue I was looking at.

See, all this time I’d been assuming the developing countries would always imitate the useless consumption fads and phony neuroses that comprise the sorry substitute for purpose we call “lifestyle” around here. Otherwise, what is the West even good for? Well, funny you should ask, because I have an answer for that: nothing. We are good for nothing. Because I opened the fucking magazine, Anna. I couldn’t not open it. And in a few flips of the page I almost regained my belief in something I should know better than anyone is a cynical con designed to sell shit to insecure women and perpetuate a lucrative unending cycle of the creation of new wants, which is to say: beauty. Beauty, of all things! Seriously, I was surprised as you. But check her out.

Who is this stunning broad? Well, look here, they actually give you her name. How gauche — and yet, useful! Don’t strain your eyes; it’s Lakshmi Menon.

And look, I Googled her! Would you believe she’s the new face of Hermes? Not Hermes in India, Hermes in Everywheria!

Of course I fucking would. Look at her.

This girl could start the next Peloponnesian War and I would be like, “And?”

But let’s face it, maybe the photographer deserves some credit. Who is this guy?

Do you think the only reason I don’t open my magazines anymore is just fatigue with the anemic staged Leibovitz-Testino-Meisel-guy ripping off that guy who got AIDS sameness of Vogue and all the magazines that hire photographers on the sole basis that you launched their careers in Vogue??

Nah, probably not. She’s just motherfucking stunning. Look, she doesn’t even have a pedicure. Hot.

So anyway, don’t blame yourself. The world is flat as the saying goes. So are magazines. Now, once upon a time it seemed like magazines were there to inspire you to get outside, walk around, learn a language, buy a fucking swimsuit, look at the pretty colors, educate yourself on the internal politics of whatever country’s populist leader the CIA is trying to depose, and whatever else you’re supposed to do. The flatness could almost convey the roundness, if you will. Yeah, I totally thought those days were over too. Maybe not! Oh, and don’t bother coming in to get your stuff. Like Samantha says, we have people who can take care of that for us here. People whose children will one day put Bee out of a job, too!

Bestest,

Si

Earlier: Vogue India Debuts With Australian Blonde On Front, Bleeding Heart Inside?

Related: Wintour’s Alleged Tryst With Conde Nast Boss [Gawker]

[Los Angeles, July 2. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

Guess what? Women’s Wimbeldon scheduling sucks. The chief of the Women’s Tennis Association, Larry Scott, says he is “disappointed and concerned” with the scheduling of women’s matches and plans to discuss it with organizers. Serena Williams, Jelena Jankovic and defending champion Venus Williams were all pushed off the two main show courts for their fourth-round matches. Jankovic had to play in Court 18, which she described as “almost in the parking lot.” Roger Federer , Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray have played all of their matches on the main courts. Serena, who played on Court 2, says, “Initially I thought, OK, is this the right schedule? I thought maybe there was a mistake.” She is an eight-time grand slam winner, after all. According to ESPN, “the last time Federer was off the two main show courts at Wimbledon was the 2003 quarterfinals against Dutchman Sjeng Schalken — and that was before Federer had won his first title.” By the by: Both Venus and Serena won in the semifinals, so they’ll face each other in a sister showcase showdown for the Wimbeldon crown! [ESPN, ESPN, Guardian]

Baby Borrowers is only in its second episode, and one of the girls — Kelsey, the one who was the most gung ho about wanting to have kids immediately — has already learned her lesson. As seen last night, Kelsey began freaking out and crying about being left alone with the baby, so her boyfriend had to stay home with her so he could care for the child. The show’s producers asked the baby’s real mother to give Kelsey a talk, and she convinced the teen to keep on trying, in large part because she too was once a teen mother. (Um, isn’t that negating the entire point of this experiment?) Clip above.

A recent study at UC Irvine has found that women over the age of 90 are more likely to have dementia than their male counterparts. Of the study participants, 45 percent of the women had dementia while only 28 percent of the men had it. The best-known form of dementia, of course, is Alzheimer’s, and it can result in memory loss and gradual restriction of daily activities. According to the U.S. Census, people over 90 are the fastest growing age-group of the population, and two-thirds of those are female. [Eureka Alert]

[LAX, July 2. Image via INFDaily]

Sometimes you can’t even get to the heart of the editorial content of a magazine because there are so many ads. And while a few ads are innocuous, pretty or straightforward, many are just bad. Hence, Badvertising! After the jump, some of the worst advertisements from recent issues of Elle, Allure and Glamour.

Why hello there, dear. The words that come to mind immediately are “exquisite corpse.” Yeah, it means something else, but damn. She is dead in the eyes. The lip gloss is purty, though! And positioning her mouth thusly doesn’t make me think of swollen labia, no, not at all!!

Okay, so the copy claims that this product is “the end of overprocessed blonde,” but over there on the right, Ms. Johansson’s hair looks sorta overprocessed. To me. I know it’s in the light, but is it supposed to look like cotton candy? Or is she imagining better tresses, hence the title “Dream Blonde”? Also, L’Oreal, You Have Taken The Title Case Thing Too Far, Methinks.

Look, I have no idea what the hell goes on under the hood of a car, but I do know that you don’t need sunglasses to check out an engine. It’s like they’re trying to be pro-woman with a bad-ass chick mechanic, but from the way she’s holding that wrench to the faux grease on her arms, it’s clear she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s doing. “Genuine since 1937.” Really? Also, this whole image is very Herb Ritts circa 1990, when Carre Otis was hot. Show me something new.

Guess what? If my birth control method fails I am not going to “Be Calm.” I am going to freak the fuck out. Then I’m gonna read that thing Moe wrote about Plan B and throw up.

You know what else makes me freak out? When someone suggests that “we girls” should freak out less. We make less money than men, are expected to be thin and hairless and we have the crampy bleeds every 26 days. A body wash solves nothing. Fuck off.

Correct me if I am wrong, but waxing is not an orgasmic, kick up your heels, throw-your-head-back-in-ecstasy experience as illustrated here, is it?

The copy reads, “Unleash the enchantment of Brazil,” and there’s some sort of kudzu emerging from her crotch.

As a rule, if you have to put the word “SEXY” in electric lights behind you, then you are not sexy. And this is no exception. These ladies, none of whom are wearing pants, want me to believe that “big hair is sexy,” and they appear to be in possession of yards and yards of extensions. And the bedraggled, voluminous crazytown hair, frankly, looks like crap. Try to count the number of times the word “sexy” appears, then ask yourself: Why is there so much going on in an ad for hairspray?

Oh, sure, I always wear a cropped white jacket and wedges to the beach. They match my enormous leather bag. Oh, wait: Is that actually Ms. Kimora Lee Simmons herself? Never mind, then. This is accurate. Move along, nothing to see here.

Pinocchio’s sister dreams that someday, Diet Coke will turn her into a real girl. And cure migraines.

Haha, wow, OMG you guys, not having cellulite looks like SO MUCH FUN!

Aww, nostalgia! These happy white people have been in this same Newport ad since I was a kid. There’s another one with happy black people. The greatest thing about Newport ads is how white everyone’s teeth are. Smoking other cigarettes may discolor and rot your gums and give you oral cancer, but Newports are basically Crest White Strips!

[London, July 3. Image via Flynet]

The Weekly Standard is not exactly the place we’d normally expect to find a lesson on the historical and ideological unity of the movements to end institutionalized racism and sexism, but times are weird and last week’s issue of the conservative journal looked at the lives of both abolitionist Frederick Douglass and the anti-Islam feminist activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali. From the biracial background to the teetotaling to the claims that he got “elitist” in his old age, the life of Douglass could probably more easily be said to parallel Barack Obama’s, but then it wouldn’t be the Weekly Standard, it would be some 8th grade term paper. The point is, both crusaders get some pretty rad sentences in. Click the cover for inspiring quotes! [Weekly Standard]

That November, she attended a public debate on the subject “The West or Islam: Who Needs a Voltaire?” The first three speakers called for a new Voltaire in the West, a rational reformer to counter Western arrogance and neocolonialism and consumerist decadence. Only the last speaker, a refugee from Iran who taught law at Amsterdam University, spoke up for the “critical renewal” of Islam.

During the question and answer period, comment was heavily supportive of the first view. Finally Hirsi Ali raised her hand. Here is what she said as she recalled it in her 2007 memoir, Infidel: Look at how many Voltaires the West has. Don’t deny us the right to have our Voltaire, too. Look at our women, and look at our countries. Look at how we are all fleeing and asking for refuge here, and how people are now flying planes into buildings in their madness. Allow us a Voltaire, because we are truly living in the Dark Ages.

And speaking of said Dark Ages: In a gesture that Hirsi Ali will appreciate—she considers the date of her escape to freedom her “real birthday”—Frederick Douglass marked the tenth anniversary of his escape in a special way. He published in the North Star an open letter to his former owner, Thomas Auld, one of the slaveholders whose religious profession he deemed a travesty. It is a most unusual and highly charged communication, and this is how it ends:

I will now bring this letter to a close; you shall hear from me again unless you let me hear from you. I intend to make use of you as a weapon with which to assail the system of slavery—as a means of concentrating public attention on the system, and deepening the horror of trafficking in the souls and bodies of men. I shall make use of you as a means of exposing the character of the American church and clergy—and as a means of bringing this guilty nation, with yourself, to repentance. In doing this, I entertain no malice toward you personally. There is no roof under which you would be more safe than mine, and there is nothing in my house which you might need for your comfort, which I would not readily grant. Indeed, I should esteem it a privilege to set you an example as to how mankind ought to treat each other.

I am your fellow-man, but not your slave.