Maybe It's A Secret

I'm at the gym on the treadmill, moving as slowly as I can and still be considered moving, and I'm flipping through an In Style magazine (it was either that or Men's Fitness and while I adore men, I do not care about their fitness in any way, shape, or form unless they are strolling down the streets of metro Detroit, not wearing a shirt and I won't name names, but I call these men violators because they are offending the laws of good taste -- take my word on this one -- nobody walks down the street shirtless who you'd like to see walk down the street shirtless). In Style, like most fashion magazines, is composed almost exclusively of ads of things you can't afford and makes you covet looking ways that you will never look -- to note, some women have pieces of their bones removed to fit into expensive designer shoes (this is not urban myth, but an actual surgery where toes are shrunk through extracting the bone -- delight upon delight, yes? Cinderalla's ugly sisters anyone?) So I'm "reading" and puffing and huffing and see a three page ad for Tiffany rings. Unlike a lot of women I know, Tiffany and their blue little boxes don't do anything for me. I love jewelry, but Tiffany has always struck me as a bit generic. So I'm looking at the captions. One picture shows an attractive couple in an embrace (Maybe it's an anniversary!), next page -- beautiful baby, unnaturally thin beautiful teenager as mother, gorgeous father (Maybe it's a new baby! -- as opposed to all those old dreary babies), and the next page showed a woman lying on a bed alone (Maybe it's a secret!).

All righty! The woman looked as if she were living the life someone else was financing. So the line is Maybe your mistress is pissed as all hell and you'd better get her something nice for all those holidays she spends alone. Maybe you're a full-blown whackadoodle with an imaginary girlfriend that you buy real jewelry for. Maybe your family hates her, maybe she's married. The scenarios for this fun little ad campaign are endless. In Bird, the woman who plays Charlie Parker's soon-to-be wife tells Charlie Parker (played by the brilliant Forest Whitaker) that there are a lot of women claiming to be Mrs. Charlie Parker. "Rings are cheap," he says, by way of explanation. Now there's an ad campaign I could get behind. But alas, in the world of jewelry as with everything else, we sometimes need it gift-wrapped in a little blue box that tells you exactly what you're getting even if it really doesn't.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"For the world is the world . . . And it writes no histories that end in love." Stephen Spender

Cocktail Hour

Drinking movie suggestion: Bird

Benedictions and Maledictions

Happy Sunday! Enjoy The Sopranos tonight!