Is Ugly The New Beautiful?


"When a woman once told Winston Churchill he was drunk, he is said to have replied: “And you, madam, are ugly. But I shall be sober tomorrow, whereas you will still be ugly.”

There’s a lot of hopeful media lately about how ugly is now the new beautiful.

The hit television series “Ugly Betty” is frequently cited as proof that it’s now okay for girls to be ugly in America.

But as an article in the New York Times points out, “…the show’s star, America Ferrara, is universally considered attractive. She makes a Cinderella transformation from a frizzy-haired character with braces and too-tight clothing into a conventional Hollywood beauty whenever she appears on a red carpet or magazine cover.”

“Shrek” is coming to Broadway and no doubt will be hugely successful; ads for the Broadway production are being marketed behind a “Be Ugly” theme.

But, “some critics have labeled the “Be Ugly” campaign as a marketing ploy, and they argue that the show [Ugly Betty] has done little to increase acceptance of the homely."

"On the contrary, American society continues to move aggressively in the opposite direction, critics say, placing an ever-higher importance on beauty.”

Red Sex Blue Sex

The “sexual début” of an evangelical girl typically occurs just after she turns sixteen. Photograph by Mary Ellen Mark.

"Social liberals in the country’s “blue states” tend to support sex education and are not particularly troubled by the idea that many teen-agers have sex before marriage, but would regard a teen-age daughter’s pregnancy as devastating news. And the social conservatives in “red states” generally advocate abstinence-only education and denounce sex before marriage, but are relatively unruffled if a teen-ager becomes pregnant, as long as she doesn’t choose to have an abortion."

The quote is from a recent New Yorker article looking in greater detail at the reaction of many delegates at the Republican Convention to the news that Bristol Palin was pregnant.

Sun Studio


I'm really glad that Graceland was last on my list of things to see during my recent visit to Memphis, because after visiting Sun Studio there was no reason for me to go.

I mean no disrespect to hard-core Elvis Presley fans, several of whom I spoke with during my recent visit to Bluff City. I understand that you have to go to Graceland if you want to immerse yourself in all the costumes and the country opulence (and decadence) that most people think of when they think of Elvis.

When I think of Elvis, I think of the three years or so after he arrived in Memphis from Tupelo, went to work as a truck driver for Crown Electric, and began churning out a raw blend of country and soul that sounded like nothing anyone had heard before. He recorded it at Sun Studio for Sam Phillips at the same time Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash were doing the same.

At Sun Studio, you stand in the same recording studio they all used, right next to the original speakers and recording equipment; for hardcore rock and roll fans, it is overwhelming.

When I was fourteen , the adult world hated Elvis for exposing us white kids to black music, but after Sam Phillips sold Elvis’s contract to RCA for $35,000 and Colonel Parker got hold of him and made him into a Hollywood star so that he would be acceptable to mainstream America, I lost interest in him and in his music.

Morgan Freeman recently opened a restaurant and blues club just off Beale Street in Memphis called "Ground Zero." I didn't get a chance to check out the music or the food, but it sure looks a cool place, and the name is perfect for its location at the epicenter of the blues in America. The music had better be good because that's a lot to live up to, especially with BB King's club just around the corner.

But for me, Sun Studio is the real Ground Zero in Memphis.

It's where Rock and Roll was born.

I was pleased to see that it has been designated a National Historic Landmark, but it’s really too bad that Memphis couldn’t have beaten out Cleveland as the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, because that's where it really belongs.

Lorraine Motel

I didn't expect to be so moved by our recent visit to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis TN.

The walk through the Museum itself reminded me of several things I had forgotten about the history of the civil rights struggle in America, and the exhibits inside the Museum were outstanding

But it was the exhibits outside the Museum that really got to me.

You get off the trolley on South Main Street, walk down some steps through a little park, and when you realize you’re standing right in front of the Lorraine Motel -- exactly as it was in 1968 -- you’re hit by the full impact of Martin Luther King's assassination , and it takes your breath away.

Then you walk across the street, through a tunnel and into the actual rooming house from which James Earl Ray fired the shot. The room that Ray occupied, and the open second-floor bathroom window from which the shot was fired, are also exactly as they were in 1968.

It was truly chilling to stand in the bathroom of that rooming house, looking out the window that gave Ray a clear shot across the street, to the balcony just outside room 306.

The exhibits that document Ray’s journey after the assassination and prior to his capture reinforce the theory that he was well financed, and could not have acted alone.

It is a blessing that the motel and rooming house were saved from demolition so that they can provide a living history component to the Museum.

If you’re ever in Memphis, be sure to make this your first stop, ahead of Graceland .

Cooperstown

I took a trip through the countryside of upstate New York and back in time to Cooperstown for a visit to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

It had been almost twenty years since my last visit to the Hall. I was prepared for making the ninety minute drive from Albany almost entirely on local roads, but I wasn’t prepared to find that nothing had changed along State Route 20. And in the case of State Route 20, that’s not a good thing.

Sad little roadside yard sales, boring houses, baled hay everywhere, endless satellite dishes, dozens of McCain signs – it was a lot like traveling the back roads of West Virginia. The only major employer in the area appeared to be a huge Wal-Mart distribution center, set down in the middle of nowhere.

In fact it was like traveling the back roads of most of the United States, and that was not comforting during the run-up to the Presidential election in November.

The Village of Cooperstown, however, is another thing altogether, an oasis in the midst of all this desolation. With a steady flow of tourists from around the world, and its quaint homes and old-fashioned charm, it is a lovely place to visit, even for non-baseball fans.

Unlike State Route 20, The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum has grown and developed quite nicely over the past twenty years.

The “Pride and Passion: The African-American Baseball Experience” and “Diamond Dreams: Women in Baseball” exhibits were new to me, inspirational and humbling at the same time.

But while the new exhibits and audio/video presentations were excellent, I spent most of my time (as I had last time) in the Hall of Fame Plaque Gallery, reading the bronze plaques and immersing myself in the history of the game. Then I spent too much time (and money) in the Museum store, trying to talk myself out of buying almost everything I saw.

I will leave you with two pieces of advice if you’re making your first visit: double the time you think you’ll need to fully enjoy the Museum; and if your companion isn’t a baseball fan be sure to plan an alternate activity outside the Museum for him or her – there’s nothing worse than having travelled all that way and having someone who’s bored asking “Are you done yet?” when you haven’t really begun.




Remember $400 Haircuts?

If you've been worried about a major for your college-age kid, maybe he or she should seriously consider becoming a makeup artist or hair stylist -- so long as after graduation, they can network into the world of Cindy McCain and the senior advisers to her husband's presidential campaign.

Today's New York Times highlights (sorry) the $22,800 paid to Sarah Palin's makeup artist (who was recommended to her by Mrs McCain) for two week's worth of services. There was a separate payment of $10,000 to another person for two weeks of hair styling services.

It seems like it wasn't so long ago that John Edwards was severely criticized for the cost of his haircut.

I guess the cost of everything has just gone way up.

"Such A Shy, Sweet Girl"

“I kind of worried about how she would do up there on stage,” Ms. Osborne said. “You have to have a certain go-get-’em to get up there and stand up for yourself, and she came across as such a shy, sweet girl.”

Even if she and John McCain lose the election on November 4, I don't see Sarah Palin disappearing from the public eye anytime soon unless she chooses to.

I've been in Memphis Tennessee for the past few days, and I have noticed that whenever a McCain ad shows up on television, it's Sarah Palin doing the talking and getting the face time. John McCain has been reduced to a quick-cut in his own campaign ads.

Her performance last week on Saturday Night Live was very impressive, to the point where some television executives must have been thinking that she could have her own show if and when she wanted it. She's one of those people who understands how to use the medium to connect with people, even those who don't like her

I Dig Bill Evans

I have hundreds of songs on my iPod, but I often return to those involving the jazz pianist Bill Evans as composer, soloist or sideman. If you're not familiar with him, click on the title

Bill Evans is one of the most important American artists of the twentieth century. His work with Miles Davis, John Coltrane and others, and especially with his own trios, is as fresh and lyrical today as it was five decades ago.


Listen to the interplay between Bill, bassist Scott LaFaro, and drummer Paul Motian on the Bill Evans Trio's late 1950s and early 1960s recordings like "Moon Beams," and the live 1961 Village Vanguard sessions. Even though I've listened to his music for a long time, I still discover gorgeous facets to his solos that I'd somehow missed.

Francona To Manage McCain Campaign?

A report out of New York claims that the McCain Campaign has hired Boston Red Sox Manager Terry Francona to manage its final push toward the White House.

Based on the Sox Skipper's sterling track record of leading an organization back from the dead in several high-stakes situations (if only for a short time) Francona is an inspired -- if risky -- choice.

But time is running out for the McCain campaign, and drastic measures are in order.

Ghost Whisperer

One of the benefits that accrues to a top-rated network television show is the freedom to stretch out from time to time, and having the budget to do it properly.

For the past few months, "Ghost Whisperer" has been a diverting weekly entertainment that Gail and I enjoy watching together.

"Ghost in the Machine," this week's show, takes on an important subject -- on-line predators -- and puts some serious resources behind the production of a powerful and scary episode that will hit very close to home for a lot of parents.

This behind-the-scenes feature will give you a taste of the exceptional special effects; try to see the full episode if you possibly can:

Edie Adams

I've been posting too many obituaries lately, but the passing of Edie Adams can't go without notice.

She was "an actress, comedian and singer who both embodied and winked at the stereotypes of fetching chanteuse and sexpot blonde, especially in a long-running series of TV commercials for Muriel cigars, in which she poutily encouraged men to 'pick one up and smoke it sometime'...clad in the highest heels and the slinkiest dresses, [she] danced with giant cigars, caressed them and extolled their virtues, often with a come-hither...wink, and the whispered slogan adapted from Mae West’s famous invitation to come up and see her.”

Don Draper and the boys from "Mad Men" would have loved her, and they might have made a commercial just like this one:

Too Pretty To Do Math?


“The United States is failing to develop the math skills of both girls and boys, especially among those who could excel at the highest levels, a new study asserts, and girls who do succeed in the field are almost all immigrants or the daughters of immigrants from countries where mathematics is more highly valued.”

"The idea that the U.S. won’t even properly develop the skills of young people who could perform at the highest intellectual levels is breathtaking — breathtakingly stupid, that is.

The authors of the study, published in Notices of the American Mathematical Society, concluded that American culture does not value talent in math very highly. I suppose we’re busy with other things, like text-messaging while jay-walking. The math thing is seen as something for Asians and nerds."

As Bob Herbert, Bill Gates, and others have been saying for some time now, we had damn well better reverse this trend of ignoring practical education in math and the sciences, because while Americans have been focused on being pretty, the rest of the world has been eating our lunch (and dinner).

Not From Around Here - 2

“He’s neither-nor,” said Ricky Thompson, a pipe fitter who works at a factory north of Mobile, [about Barack Obama] while standing in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store just north of here. “He’s other. It’s in the Bible. Come as one. Don’t create other breeds.”

Separate New York Times articles today look at attitudes about race on campus and in the South, and recall for me some observations by David Brooks, posted on the Freeway earlier in the campaign.

I think that in order to affirm how far we may have come in our attitudes about race in America, we have to be totally honest about the distance yet to go.