"Thank God for La Mer and Retin-A and Pilates — and, yes, hot sex..."

"... which is good fun and may be no more than a Maginot Line against the inevitable, but that’s not nothing. And my hair, honey-highlighted for years now, has the swank length of mermaid youth—which is how I plan to keep it no matter what proper pageboy is age-appropriate. No question, there are physical facts about my age that are undeniably delightful. I am much sexier now than I used to be—I suddenly have this voluptuous body where I used to just be skinny and lithe. Really oddly, a couple of years ago I got serious breasts, to the point where people think I’ve had them surgically enhanced, which I certainly have not. Still, I think, the honest truth is that I’m just not as pretty as I used to be. Something has abandoned me. I don’t know what that thing is—they’ve been trying to jar it and bottle it for centuries—but it’s left, another merciless lover. My hips are thicker, my skin is thinner, my eyes shine less brightly—will I ever again glow as if all the stars are out at night just to greet me? What finally falls away, after enough things don’t go as planned, is that look of expectancy—which, when worn down to pentimento, is revealed to be exhaustion."

Elizabeth Wurtzel is doing that complaining/bragging thing again. This time, the problem is she's getting old, but she's still way prettier than you, she hopes you know. She's 41, by the way, which seems young to me, but perhaps — do I remember it properly? — that's a time when the fear of aging and death spikes.

Via Jezebel, who says:

As she explains with characteristic candor, she was always a beautiful child, a "hot number," a woman who traded on her looks. And she misses it. While she sees the danger and futility of valuing beauty overmuch, she can't help it: panic trumps insight and she doesn't seem eager to stop it. And it's scary to see a smart and accomplished woman so openly in the thrall of others' opinions.

"I used to feel that I spent too much of my time in my pajamas doing nothing..."

"... and I’d think 'in the time that I don't spend writing, I could raise a family of five.' In a lot of ways, being a writer is lonely and alienating. You hear about the work ethic of people like Joyce Carol Oates and John Updike and you think 'well, God bless them, but I don’t know how they do it.' Most of the rest of us just wind up watching Oprah. I was roaming the neighborhood every day, lingering at the dog run with my dog. It was really bad. I just wasn’t doing enough, and I feel like law school sort of gave me my voice back. When you have a lot to do, you get a lot done. At least that’s how it’s been for me."

That's Elizabeth Wurtzel trying to give a believable answer to the question why she went from the life of a writer into the big law firm lawyer's life. So you think, with all my free time I could be raising 5 kids, so.... I'll go to law school and work in a big law firm?

Actually, I understand the logic. When you are purely a writer, you are hanging around the house a lot. You can feel very odd and at loose ends. If the house is empty, you may think, I could be raising kids what with all the time I spend loafing and moping, but that doesn't mean you want to raise kids (who you must know will be demanding during your creative spurts as well as your down time). It just means, it's a weird way to live, on your own at home. Maybe what you need is not other human beings in the house, but to get out of the house, to have a life that has more to do with interacting with adults and affecting the network of adult activities. Law is the perfect entree.

And a writer needs something to write about. You may venture out into that complex world of adult enterprises and eventually bring it all back home, where you can write again. We were just talking about the way Bill Ayers signed up as a merchant seaman, thinking he'd gather the material he to write a great novel. Was Ayers thinking about Herman Melville? Joseph Conrad? Was Wurtzel thinking about Scott Turow?

Flea at USC.

He's a freshman, studying music:

The Chili Peppers [created tension] in our song structures but all based on emotion and intuition as opposed to knowing the math and academics of it. Knowing the structure is really fun.

He's also working on a solo album:

I’ve been making a record at home and it’s nearly done. It’s mostly instrumental stuff but I have Patti Smith singing on it and the choir from the school but mostly it’s an instrumental record. I’m not sure how to describe it but a lot of people have described it as cinematic, like soundtrack music. It’s not really a commercial enterprise, it’s not going to be on rock radio or anything. The record is based on the character Helen Burns from "Jane Eyre." I love Charlotte Bronte and all of the Bronte sisters.

That "Jane Eyre" stuff sound really nerdy, but if you've ever seen the Orson Welles movie version, you know that Helen Burns is the most stunning beautiful child ever seen in a film:



But no, Flea (Michael Balzary) says he's mad about the Brontes, and he's going to college, so I'll assume it's about the books, not how insanely beautiful Elizabeth Taylor is in that movie.

Here's Flea playing the bass:



He's studying trumpet (and music theory and composition) at USC.

AND: No, a men in shorts tag is not called for!

Palpatinian tranche.

I've been reading and listening to people talk for over a half century, so it's really weird to have to look up 2 words in 2 hours.

First, MadisonMan, he of the bird's-eye view of the Michelle Obama rally-ette, said:

I agree that McCain's post-hit grin is a little too Palpatinian.

Okay, now you know I haven't been following the "Star Wars" saga. I'm not ashamed of that. In fact, I'm one of those people who blame "Star Wars" for ruining film.

And then I had to go and read the Gawker item with the revolting title: "Why We Are Better For Knowing Elizabeth Wurtzel Screwed David Foster Wallace."

That Elizabeth Wurtzel had some thing with David Foster Wallace in the nineties is the type of news flash I'd like to have failed detecting this week. Namely because to blog about Elizabeth Wurtzel is to tempt oneself to unwind the various tranches of disquietude summoned when someone like me conducts a Wurtzel Google Image Search. There's the first tranche of familiarity; I've conducted this search before; the second: I remember quickly that I will invariably, though tempted by the grainy topless shots from Bitch, will like Radar before me quickly settle on the hottest color photo available, the one she used for the cover of her 2001 addiction memoir More, Now, Again, even though Wurtzel has graciously offered us photographic evidence that she has, in the intervening (ohgod) seven and a half years, aged. For this is not a new asset, this story; the underlying episode dates back to the nineties, when Wurtzel was still dressing up her faculties and skills with too much blue eyeliner and too many mood-altering substances in lieu of the appropriate degree of risk management and/or clothes.

I admit it. I don't study finance. That's why I unfortunately cannot help you with the burning question of the day, whether the big bailout is the desperately needed cure or a horrible, evil boondoggle. I'm sorry. Really.

So let's examine that tranche for a second: here we have Wurtzel, drawn to David and his big, serious, ambitious, meaty, unfrivolous gold standard of a book; David, drawn to Wurtzel by her fucking leotard and perhaps her nebulous promise to impart upon his serious asset some sort of value-unlocking sense of "buzz"; the confusing, fuzzy subprime relationship they signed onto; all fuzzy fundamentals and wild histrionics and bombastic promises dependent on "trajectories" neither knows how — neither is socialized to know how — to prepare for a soft landing; yeah, you've done that sort of fucking.

Is Gawker trying to write like David Foster Wallace? David's dead, baby.



David's dead, but there were some good movies after "Star Wars."

"Let's talk about the fact that with a 160 on the LSATs, Wurtzel was much better suited for Northeastern than Northwestern, let alone YLS...."

"... which raises serious questions as to their admissions standards." Adam Bonin seems kind of irked at all the attention Elizabeth Wurtzel has gotten and continues to get. I mean, really, the LSAT is not the only factor. Yale gets all the high LSATs. High LSATs should mean nothing to them. Get some interesting people. Why should Yale care if they'll fit in law firms or have problems passing character requirements for the bar? The key is to get something interesting going in the classroom. Yale had every reason to think Wurtzel would spice up the mix.

Sophia and her older man.

Sophia Loren's husband Carlo Ponti just died -- at the age of 94.

Ponti was married to his first wife, Giuliana, when he met Loren, who was almost 25 years younger than he, in about 1950.

They tried to keep their relationship a secret in spite of huge media interest, while Ponti's lawyers went to Mexico to obtain a divorce.

Ponti and Loren were married by proxy in Mexico in 1957 -- two male attorneys took their place. The couple only found out about their marriage when the news was broken by a society columnist.

Well, this is an interesting story problem for math class, but I'm just going to look up Sophia Loren's birth date. It's September 20, 1934. She was 16 when they met in 1950. He was 38. She was 23 when she married the 45-year-old Ponti. Now, he is dead, and she is 72.

Remember this cover of Life Magazine?



That was from 1966. It was about a year before Twiggy entered our brains and made Sophia look fat. Click on the image to see a page of all the Life Magazine photos from that year. I remember them so well. Everyone read Life then. On the covers: Bobby Kennedy, Ian Fleming, Melina Mercouri, Jean-Paul Belmondo, "LSD Art," a White House wedding, "young black militants," Claudia Cardinale, "Mod male fashions," Julie Christie, Elizabeth Taylor, TV's Batman, Jackie Kennedy, Louis Armstrong, Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam. So long ago. So vivid....

Condolences to the beautiful Sophia.

And I love the image of two male lawyers getting married in 1957!

Those 100 AFI quotes.

Okay, I'm game. I'll TiVo-blog, numbering each entry. Watch for continuous updates. Ah, it's good to be simulblogging again!

1. “Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.” That's the first one that made me want to type it out. That's # 91. Hmmm… I’m seeing a theme. Life affirmingness. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” “Carpe diem.” “I’m the King of the World.” It’s all so damned positive… so far.

2. I singled out a few quotes in my post on the original 400 nominees, and coming it at #84 is one of my favorites: "Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast."

3. File under: movies no one feels any compunction about spoiling. "Soylent Green is people." (#77) Ray Romano: "Not a day went by when someone didn't yell that out in the school cafeteria."

4. "What a dump." (#62) The line everyone knows without seeing the movie. The movie is "Beyond the Forest," which I'm not going to recommend to you because I don't want to hear your bellyaching when you discover it's not a good movie. But I love this movie! I love when Bette Davis finally gets out of her damn little town and makes it to Chicago -- Chicago! of all places -- and she goes to a bar and, because she's a woman alone, she's perceived as a prostitute, and they kick her out. And then there's the part where she's pregnant, but she doesn't want the baby, so she just hurls herself down a hill. And all those great scenes where she stands by the window and looks at the smoking factory right outside and just burns with unexploded sexual passion. That is a movie! Oh, they scarcely tell us anything about this film, they just segue quickly to "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," with Elizabeth Taylor saying the same line. The line doesn't get counted a second time. The point seems to be it was such a line that it got quoted in the movies, quoted by a big, big movie star. But "Beyond the Forest," that's on my personal list.

5. We're getting into doubles for the same movie. A second quote from "Streetcar Named Desire." ("Stella" beat "kindness of strangers.") A second quote from "Casablanca." ("We'll always have Paris" beat "Of all the gin joints..." I'm predicting at least one more from "Casablanca.") A second quote from "The Graduate." ("Plastics" beat "You're trying to seduce me.")

6. Okay, enough baseball already! We're at the fourth or fifth baseball quote, including the mushy-headed "If you build it, he will come." (#39) "Luckiest man on the face of the earth" follows at #38.

7. Yes, another "Casablanca" quote: "Round up the usual suspects." (That must get extra credit for providing the title for another film.) Ah, now they tell us the total for "Casablanca" is going to be six. So three more to go. "Here's looking at you, kid" -- I assume. And "Play it, Sam." And, maybe the "hill of beans" quote. Or the final "this is the beginning" quote? Not sure what the third one left is.

8. "That movie is about so much. I think that it is so much about God...." So says Jennifer Grey about -- what else? -- "The Wizard of Oz." The quote at #23 is the dopey "There's no place like home." Aren't there 23 better lines in that film alone?

9. Another "Casablanca" at #20. Oh, it's "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

10. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." Now, that's a catchphrase. Remember when Peter Finch went on "The Tonight Show" to promote that movie -- "Network" -- and for some reason got to talking about how some of the people watching the show that night would be dead next week, and then he proceeded to die within the next week? Am I getting that right?

11. "Love means never having to say you're sorry." That's #13. Ugh! Pure crapola!

12. "Napalm in the morning" ... "Failure to communicate" ... "You talkin' to me?" ... "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night."

13. "May the force be with you." George Lucas tells us he meant that to sum up and represent all religions and save us from the difficulty of scrutinizing the details that make them different.

14. "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my closeup." #7. I approve!

15. The final "Casablanca" quote is "Here's looking at you kid." #5. (Doesn't Ingrid Bergman have the most beautiful lips?)

16. At #4: "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." Only line on the list addressed to a dog.

17. Three left, and we're told one actor said two of them. Clearly, it's Marlon Brando, and as we see the first one is "I coulda been a contender," we know that "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse" is either number 1 or number 2.

18. Second place goes to Brando, for "offer ... refuse." Why am I not thinking of the top quote? It should be obvious, right?

19. Oh, it's "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Somehow, I had the feeling we'd already hit that one. So, sure. I would have put that first... in the world of American movie catchphrases.

20. Okay, that was three hours of slogging through the quotes. Three hours well spent? Who knows!

21. During the show, they pointed us to the AFI website to read a quote from "Mrs. Miniver" that wasn't on the list, but that, we were told, FDR had printed up and dropped from planes on Nazi-occupied Europe.

This is the people's war! It is our war! We are the fighters! Fight it, then! Fight it with all that is in us, and may God defend the right.

Of course, the war quote that made the list was the cynicism-promoting "I love the smell of napalm in the morning."

22. In the first entry to this post, I noted that the quotes seem to have been selected for their life-affirmingness. But toward the top of the list, things got darker. The top quotes are all pretty sad or cynical or nutty or negative. They stowed all that sunny stuff at the bottom of the list.

23. Adam at Throwing Things has some observations including the count of lines spoken by nonwhite actors: 3. All by men, I note. Two of the three make the speaker look bad ("Show me the money" and "stinking badges"), Adam notes. I note that the other one -- "They call me Mr. Tibbs" -- is too pretty. Why not one of Samuel Jackson's lines from "Pulp Fiction"? Adam asks. Which reminds me: how about Quentin Tarantino? Not a single line from him. Well, most of the lines they had drew attention to the actors that delivered them, not the person who happened to write them. This was not a celebration of screenwriters.

24. Here's the whole list. I took the trouble to figure out the percentage of quotes spoken by women: 25%.