The Flip Flop Girl

Flip Flop Girl recommends Gawker

Depending on your taste and your blog activity, you may or may not already know about Gakwer so, if this is new to you, go check it out. I figure that if you like my stuff, you'll get into this. I happen to love New York and books and gossip and Gawker rolls all three into something fun. And it is constantly being updated by its team of literary star-stuck brats that you will love to hate or love to love. I will also mention that Skip, one of the writers, has me interested in this new literary magazine, n+1 which you can find out about right here and which I should have looked at before asking him how to subscribe.

Labels: blogs, fun, Gawker, gossip, hype, journalism, literary, New York, press, tabloids, Writing

Guilty Feet

I've become hooked on American Idol this season after watching the hilarious tryout sessions. What do you think of it?
As someone sensitive to feet, it will come as no surprise to you that I'm commenting on Paul Kim. If you've been keeping up with the show, you'll know that he insists on always performing barefoot. He says his feet are lucky or something like that. It doesn't seem to bother Randy or Paula but Simon finally asked him to start wearing some shoes! I think that Paul Kim has got to stop obsessing over his feet. This man has a foot fetish that is out of control and is going to wreck his chances, if he really has any, of advancing in the competition. He could at least wear flip flops--he might actually enjoy that. Still, the whole thing has become a distraction and not in a good way. Please, how could he sing "Careless Whisper" last night just so he could say "guilty feet." He was pointing at them when he sang the words! This does not go unnoticed by true foot freaks like ourselves or anyone else for that matter. Too much. No guy's feet are that cute--so he's not earning points if he thinks he is. And a girl can get away with it but even a girl's pretty feet are not going to compensate for lackluster singing. During the little recap session, Ryan Seacrest came out barefoot himself to show support for Paul's tootsies. That was funny. I have to admit that. Stay tuned--it will be interesting to see what Paul does next.

Labels: American Idol, barefeet, barefoot, flip flops, foot fetish, media, Paul Kim, pop culture, press, singing

Flip Flop Girl Warming up to Anna Nicole Smith

I hope everyone is enjoying my current Anna Nicole jag. She really does fit right in with my musings on how we consume sex. I find myself warming up to her too. I can't say that there's any spin doctor who can possibly turn Anna Nicole into Marilyn Monroe, who she identified with, but I do believe now that, under the right circumstances, Anna Nicole comes off looking like a star as in her exquisite cover photo in the above Playboy. She cant' be elevated to the status of Marilyn Monroe for a number of reasons which should be obvious. But, at the same time, I do see her as an undisputed sex symbol. She was a "supermodel" in her own right replacing Claudia Schiffer as the model for Guess Jeans. And she was Playmate of the Year, 1993. These are not meager accomplishments.

No doubt, the spotlight became extremely harsh for poor Anna Nicole.

If Anna Nicole had fallen in with the right people, perhaps she could have attained more. I think of Dorothy Stratten, a very beautiful girl, another Playboy Playmate of the Year (1980), who became the lover of famed director Peter Bogdanovich and appears in his film, They All Laughed, 1981. Nothing more was asked of Dorothy but that she just be herself in all her radiant beauty. She gets to charm the camera with her presence. And when she is the victim of a tragic death, it is Bogdanovich who tells her story. There was no Peter Bogdanovich in Anna Nicole's life.

Labels: Anna Nicole Smith, blogs, buzz, celebrity, fame, Marilyn Monroe, Playboy, press, sex, Writing

Flip Flop Girl Delivers

Hello there everyone, this is your Flip Flop Girl reporting again. Well, I can't quite let go of the Anna Nicole story because I spotted something in today's New York Times that really made me scrunch up my toes and pay attention. As I said, I keep thinking there might be a worthwhile story yet to be told about Anna Nicole and I kept wondering how that might come about: what author would step up to the challenge of spinning gold from mere thread? So, we'll still have to wait but it turns out there already is one book out and its little known and little regarded publisher has hit pay dirt. The book is Great Big Beautiful Doll, first published in 1996, as a hardcover and priced at $16.95. Barricade Press, puts out a paltry 20 titles a year but its publisher, Carole Stuart, had already decided before Anna Nicole's death that it was time to reprint the book as a trade paperback.

As biographies go, it appears that Great Big Beautiful Doll is a glowing, and likely trite, tribute to Anna Nicole as told by a couple of her former managers when she was still struggling in Texas. But that's enough for French and Japanese publishers to want to buy the rights in their languages. And apparently that's enough to create a desire to buy the film rights. Meanwhile, there is also a mean-spirited, and probably more interesting version, coming out by Anna Nicole's half-sister, Donna Hogan, entitled, Train Wreck: Anna Nicole Unauthorized. That too, unfortunately, will likely be only mildly stimulating. I'm not trying to be a snob. I'm asking for quality. And I think Anna Nicole deserves it.

As my toes released their clench mode from reading about the Anna Nicole books and relaxed as I pored over the rest of the paper, I spotted this little item: Among the "Newly Released" Books, is Because She Can by Bridie Clark. I think this type of book is all too typical of what you find in the book publishing world: more fluff; but maybe fun fluff all the same. Instead of a tell-all in the form of The Devil Wears Prada where we are treated to a behind-the-scenes look at the fashion world, this time around we are treated to a behind-the-scenes look at the book publishing world, specifically the low-end trashy book publishing world reminiscent of the recent O.J. Simpson book that Regan Books attempted to foist upon us. Anyway, it sounds like a fun take-to-the beach sort of book but, based on chats I've had with friends, the act of reading alone is often mistaken as worthwhile. I mean, someone could read that book and actually feel they've engaged in a literary activity when, in fact, what they've done is something akin to watching the E! Channel.

So, all I'm saying is to be mindful of what you're ingesting, be it nutritious or junk. And I do like my junk too.

Labels: Anna Nicole Smith, Because She Can, books, Bridie Clark, buzz, flip flops, Great Big Beautiful Doll, marketing, media, news, pop culture, press, publishing, words, writng