VL-IV 1 "It!', "What?" pg 14

Robin Landseadel robinlandseadel at comcast.net
Mon Dec 8 12:06:36 CST 2008


What ever “It” is, Clara Bow had it:
		The It Girl

		In 1927, Bow reached the heights of her popularity with

		the film It; the film was based on a story written by Elinor Glyn,

		and upon the film's release, Bow became known as "The It Girl".

		In Glynn's story, It, a character explains what "It" really is:

		"It...that strange magnetism which attracts both sexes...entirely

		unself-conscious...full of self-confidence...indifferent to the

		effect...she is producing and uninfluenced by others." More

		commonly, "It" was taken to mean sex appeal. "It, hell,"

		quipped Dorothy Parker, "She had those."

		http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Bow

		http://www.clarabow.net/

Pia Zadora was more like the “What?” girl:
		When her film career failed to take off, she became a singer of

		popular standards and made several successful albums backed

		by a symphonic orchestra. Few performers have been more

		ridiculed than Pia Zadora,[4] due to the perception that her career

		was the result of marriage to billionaire Meshulam Riklis, whom

		she met when she was 17 and he 49, and her poor choice of films

		(she earned consecutive Razzie Awards for her first two, Butterfly

		and The Lonely Lady). Zadora, however, demonstrated resilience,

		quality and self-parody (playing herself in Feel the Motion, Troop

		Beverly Hills, and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult) that endeared

		her to many, including Frank Sinatra, who toured with her in 1990,

		and as a singer she earned the respect of critics who wrote her off.

		http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pia_Zadora

Of course, after all the “Queer” shenanigans we just breezed through  
at the Log Jam—nascent outpost of the “Bear” scene up there in the  
tall pines—it only figures that Zoyd tears off his nellie shaman gear  
in front of his rad 14 year old daughter—revealing he’s wearing  
ancient surfer baggies underneath, and a dilapidated Hussong's T- 
shirt, badges of an old surfer. Zoyd gets all warmed up on account of  
anticipating seeing his bad self on his good old buddy the Tube. He's  
re-crossing his dress while an ultra-campy turn on Divas and Starlets  
passes before him on the screen. Zoyd pretty much is an animated  
cartoon at this juncture. Po-Mo sit-com back and forth commences, Lisa  
v. Homer round one:

  	"Crazy about this, Dad. Fresh, rilly. Can I have it when you're  
done? Use it to cover my futon."

	"Hey, do you ever date logger types, fallers, choker setters, that  
sort of fellow?"

	"Zoy-oyd .... "

	"Don't get offended, is it's only that a couple of these guys slipped  
me their phone number, see? along with bills in different  
denominations? "

	"What for?"

He did a take, squinted closely at his daughter. Was this a trick  
question here?

	"Let's see, 1984, that'd make you ... fourteen?"

	"Nice going, like to try for the car?"

Of course in this version Homer probably still has hair, is ‘baked’  
all the time, is closer to Peter Griffin and maybe Prairie Wheeler is  
a bit closer to Haley Smith than to Lisa Simpson but as you can  
plainly see this demonstrates Tubaholism in its late stages* for both  
of these characters. I love how the dialog eventually turns back to  
game show banter with an echo of the dance of Vanna White’s hands and  
another jaunty twirl at the wheel of fortune.

	“ . . . a chairhigh bag of Chee-tos and a sixpack of grapefruit soda  
from the health-food store. . .”

. . . is a bit of “you had to be there” local detail—period detail  
like my Mother’s midnight journeys in her rusting copper-toned Falcon  
arriving somewhere in the bowels of Hollywood at an all-night  
supermarket for Chocolate dipped Pogens and Screaming Yellow Zonkers.  
As I recall, we would pass “Norm’s” on the way to and from. In any  
case, whoever wrote this passage witnessed firsthand the nascent  
evolution of the modern couch potato, stoner edition. A Jumbo bag of  
Cheetos and a sixpack of Hansen's [then graduating to guacamole and  
Dos Equis] sounds like it's 5:00pm in Redway to me.

*Seems to be the beginning of the kind of humor found on the Simpsons  
and their offspring.



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