“I Mean…What?!?” – Abe Gurko

You gotta love Clint Eastwood for calling it as he sees it in the December issue of  GQ, “We’re becoming more juvenile as a nation...now, we have a bunch of teenage twits.” Oh no you didn’t, Dirty Harry. To Clint’s point: You don’t have to be 79 years old to see that our childish fascination with pedestrian nobodies is why perhaps his new movie Invictus, Nelson Mandela‘s true story with the South African rugby team that helped usher the country out of apartheid, might have a challenge finding an audience. So, what better tactic than to call us all a bunch of pansies…or Manzies, as I call ‘em. Let’s face it, a good sound bit goes a long way.

Speaking of soundbites, I was watching snippets of The 13th annual WWD Retail/Apparel CEO Summit (sans Obama) and heard a few kernels of brilliance as well. Marc Jacobs said it best, “Fashion is fashion”. When you dissect that phrase, you’ll see, he’s 100% correct. Taking it all too seriously is what got us into this mess in the first place. Another take away comment came from Marc Gobe from Emotional Branding who said, “Women want to be listened to”. He must have done all his research living in my house when I was growing up. Look, I think it’s fantastic that the fashion industry is coming down to Earth and opening up a critical dialogue. Let’s hope the listening goes both ways and that fashion always stays fashion.

In regards to her breasts, the lovely Nicole Kidman was recently quoted as saying, “They’re not very big, my boobs, they just became normal size.” OK, I am willing to buy that. But can you please put your normal size boobs in a dress with a normal size cup to hold your normal size boobs in? Come on, like she doesn’t have enough dresses thrown at her for a red carpet appearance that this was the best option? If there’s a stylist in them there hills, they should be toast.

“Working as a prostitute was so much more enjoyable than my earlier job as a computer programmer.” Amen to that. So says Brooke Magnanti, a cancer specialist who unmasked herself as the woman behind the British phenom Belle Du Jour that went onto become that sweet little Showtime series with Billie Piper. Magnanti chose to turned trick as a means to pay for her medical studies, which funny enough is the story line currently on my new guilty pleasure, Melrose Place.

Endquote: Hannah Booth, writer for the Guardian, London had a few lovely things to say about yours truly. “New Yorker Abe Gurko has turned razor sharp social observation to an art form.” I am usually more comfortable behind the scenes, but the piece she wrote on her blog Lives Less Ordinary really made my day and I wanted to share it with you.