It’s no secret that I watch too much TV - witness the slightly embarrassing but totally sincere Degrassi Rant of last week.

So when one of my best friends from home dared me to come up with a list of the hottest Jewish guys on TV, I was like, are you serious?  That’s so easy.  And so appropriate for PopSerious, I think, though I can’t really reason why.

Here we go…

1.  Scott Wolf.  If only they’d start rerunning Party of Five on TBS, instead of Dawson’s  Creek.  Do you need to see more of Katie Holmes?  Didn’t think so.

2.  Adam Brody.  There is really nothing to say about this one.

3.  Andy Samberg.  “Hello, I would like to order your d*** in a box for eight crazy nights.  Thank you.”  I would never, ever talk like that, because I am a prude, but surely you understand.

4.  Scott Weinger.  Forget his silly turn as DJ’s boyfriend on Full House and focus on this:  He was the voice of Aladdin!  Automatic cool points for that, plus, he’s gorgeous… and now he’s on Scrubs. With that guy from Clueless.

5.   Fred Savage.  Admit it, you had a crush on Fred Savage when you were little.  You did, you did, you did.

And now, back to my life of non kosher food.  xo F.

When I was fifteen, I watched Sex and the City. So did all of my other friends. It didn’t matter that we were in 10th grade, and the show was a satire on adult, urbane women. We absorbed it, we adored it, we even felt that it was meaningful for us and our fifteen years on Earth.

Now, the reverse is true. I am twenty six, and I watch Degrassi, a show about fifteen year old kids. Like SATC before it, the show has a following of age-inappropriate fans: 20something city covens who follow with knowing blinks and smug smiles as a posse of just-cute-enough ’90s babies attempts to act out every “issue” we may or may not have dealt with ourselves - cutting! anorexia! STDs! spirit squad!

The show adopted the tag line “It Goes There” because of its trauma-driven drama.

It’s usually awesome, but lately, Degrassi has taken some wrong turns - especially wrong if you’re female, and concerned about the girls and women who come after you.

Here’s my problem:

Read the rest of this entry »

Ellen asked me tonight about the last “Faran’s Five Steps.”

Specifically, she asked if the girl I’d drawn was one of our friends, and if every week, the image was of someone we knew.

Actually no - though I did try to draw Shruti once with some really bad results (she’s just too pretty! and all my illustrations are just too arch! it was a bad fit…)

Anyway, I usually take my inspirations from fashion magazines.

Last week’s Five Steps babe was Vika from Supreme Model Management, modeling for Tokion Magazine. The dress I drew was a weird combo of a Marc Jacobs collection gown and a TopShop party frock.

You can check out the original photo at left.

xo Faran.

Something girls know:

For us, formative experiences can usually be cleaved into when I read about it and when I did it.  Kissing, flirting, sex, backtalking, backstabbing, cheating, drinking, smoking, surrendering, getting over it - all of these things were processed with literature between ages 10 - 14, then acted out (with various degrees of success) from ages 14 - … well - now.

Here’s an example:  I remember reading an essay in Erin Cressida Wilson’s book, The Erotica Project, where she has sex in the Gap dressing rooms.  Inexplicably, I thought that was amazingly cool, and convinced myself, somehow, that my sexual growth was incomplete until I banged some guy under a pair of bootcut, dark wash, size 26s.

I still haven’t done it (”it” = the dressing room thing, not sex in general).  But as I’ve grown, and realized the limitations of my spontaneity, I’ve also realized this:

The Gap would be a really wretched, uncomfortable, and omg-I-look-a-little-fat place to try and sneak sex.

Instead, for those actually interested in pursuing this, I would suggest the following places:

Gucci.  Great soft lighting, long black wooden benches, and mirrors absolutely everywhere.  At least in this facet, Tom Ford’s influence still lingers like hot breath on a martini glass.

Agent Provocateur.  Well, if you’re trying on $800 corsets anyway, you might as well get some perks.

Barney’s Contemporary (not young) Designer Floor.  A good amount of space, doors that go all the way down to the floor, and the chance to fornicate in front of Mary Kate and Ashley’s overpriced cocktail dresses for The Row.  I mean, really.

Marc Jacobs.  Because with a Spring collection based entirely on lingerie exploding from someone’s dress, you know the dirty genius would approve (and probably take snapshots to show as a video installation at his next show).

The Adidas Superstore in Soho or Niketown.  For a quickie.

My dad was drafted to Vietnam in the ’60s.

He didn’t want to go, but he was poor and had no way out of it.

It was when the Army was still (quietly) segregated, and since he came from the Bronx ghetto, he was put in a unit with a bunch of boys from a depressed rural area of the Deep South.  They had never seen a bagel before and never met a Jew, but they became his brothers.

Over the next two years, my dad secretly took photos of every aspect of his Vietnam “adventure” - the combat, the cities, the friendships, the dead.  I don’t think he saw any Napalm, but there were bombs and guns and also some cute spider monkeys that lived in his tent.

We don’t speak too much about my dad’s experiences, but I have no doubt they were formative for him, and slightly confusing.  He’s turned them into an art show in Massachusetts - if you’re in the Boston area, you should absolutely go.  My dad is goofy and silly and weird, but he’s also a really great photographer.  Here’s his first piece of press for the show!  I am so proud!

PS - Here’s photos of my dad, with our favorite war protester Jordan Silver, in NYC last year.

There’s a Picasso in the West Village.

It’s owners try to hide it, but they can’t fool me - just stalk down 9th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenue, and peer through the windows until you find the prize - a painting the color of rotted antipasto that costs more than the townhouse it’s in.  And given the West Village, that’s saying something.

It’s not that it bothers me.  A few years ago when I was nine, I decided I’d rather not be Madonna.  This choice has made me infinitely happy, but it’s also narrowed my real estate choices.  Meaning:  I can’t buy a brownstone.  Meaning:  I can’t have a Picasso.  At least not until my movie rights sell, but that’s another story.

For now there’s a little consolation called The Voyeur Museum:

Set out on foot at twilight, with your eyes open.  Head down 9th street to peek that Picasso, then head onto Washington Square Park, where one of the houses has an impressive Homer (Winslow, not the guy who wrote the Odyssey, which would actually be more impressive…).  Head down Perry Street, where there’s a Miro, a Jasper Johns, and a Nan Goldin.  On the corner of Spring and Greenwich where MisShapes used to be, there’s a giant condo building with three Basquiats and a Samantha Keely Smith.  Someone on Greene Street has a John Currin hanging next to some saucepans (naughty! naughty!) and on Christie Street there’s a giant Frank Stella canvas, unhung and unframed.  I fear for that painting, since the people inside seem to be crackheads.  And of course in the Meatpacking district there are at least three Warhols, but those get boring in this city

And what can you see in my apartment?

Well, two pretty cool works of art, if you’re lucky.  One is my Proenza Schouler corset from their 2004 runway collection.  The other is a handmade lace bra from Le Marais, but unfortunately, the only person ever to see that in all it’s glory didn’t appreciate it for what it was worth -

It was quickly ripped in half and now resides in the back of my bureau.

But now we’re moving into voyeurism of another kind…

I watch a lot of TV.

I keep it a secret, but it’s true. When I write, when I clean, when I cook, when I fight with the fiftieth boy of the week, the TV is on. I can’t sleep without Cable.

Because of this, I notice things. Weird, bizarre, totally useless things.

Things like how on the first season of The Cosby Show, Cliff sets Sandra up on a date with this really cute doctor, but she doesn’t like him. And six seasons later, the “doctor” comes back, but this time, he’s been cast as Martin, Denise’s super hot husband.

Things like how for the first ten episodes of Dawson’s Creek, Michelle Williams only wears clothes by Betsey Johnson.

And things like this:

Whenever someone on TV checks their answering machine, the automated “voice” is actually one of the characters. It’s probably so the network doesn’t have to pay another Voice Over artist for a day’s work, but it’s totally and truly creepy.

My favorite example (don’t laugh) is the second-to-last episode ever of Sex and the City. The forlorn Mr. Big has left six messages to Carrie on her answering machine. One by one, she gets rid of them. “Deleted!” cries the answering machine. “Deleted! Deleted!” Only it’s not really the answering machine. It’s Sarah Jessica Parker’s voice. It’s Dead-On.

This also happens in various episodes of Frasier. When Kelsey Grammar is told, “You have three messages,” it’s the voice of David Hyde Pierce, who plays his brother Niles, telling him so. It’s so obvious, it’s distracting… but maybe only to me.

Did you ever notice how people who watch too much TV have bizarrely good audio-visual memory? And they say it’s bad for kids…

It’s no secret among the PopSerious crew that I am a giant snob. And by giant, I mean, like, Gwyneth talking to Kathy Griffin.

I don’t think Family Guy is funny. I quote Keats to small children. I saw Borat because Sarah and Gurj lied and told me it was a French Film Noir. I enjoy having sticks up my ass, but only if they’re certified organic and somehow designed by Alexander McQueen. All of my underwear is branded with the name of my Ivy League preschool. Also, I don’t really like cupcakes.

In general, I’m pretty insufferable, and if it weren’t for my coveted magic brownie recipe and all my Rolling Stones bootleg albums, I’m not sure anyone would be friends with me at all.

So imagine my amazement when I totally dug The Other Boleyn Girl, which was basically like Valley of the Dolls with corsets and fleas.

Written by the historical fantasist Phillipa Gregory, the book is 900 pages of sex, wine, and really mean girls. It centers around Mary Boleyn, the younger sister of notorious Anne, who allows herself to be used as a sexual pawn at the court of King Henry to win her family’s favor. The circumstances are extreme, but it’s a decent parallel for the envy, wrath, and greed that all adolescents feel when confronted with a sibling.

Mary’s coping mechanisms are many: She learns to ride horses and takes long canters in the countryside. She keeps a secret loyalty with the Queen of England, even as her sister is seducing her husband, the King. She also dispenses love advice with her flaming gay brother, George, but you can imagine how that goes:

A few weeks after Mary teaches Anne how to give a blow job, the whole court explodes with rumors of incest, witchcraft, treason. Which makes the remaining chapters way more fun.

The book suffers from what you’d think it would: There’s a lot of forced exposition, a la Clue the Movie (”My sister, who was two years older than me, was beautiful but dark…” etc). And if you’re looking for historical facts, this isn’t the place to go - Mary was actually Anne’s older sister; there’s absolutely no evidence that Anne had sex with her brother, as she does in the book (spoiler, sorry!).

But if you’re looking for a really good adventure in between your normal bouts of Capote and Murakami (okay, my normal bouts of Capote and Murakami…), this is totally recommended reading. Even from a totally stuck up snob like me.

Get it here - oh, and if anyone wants to see the movie with me, I don’t love Natalie Portman, but I’d pay $10 to see her beheaded as Scarlett Johansson stands by and laughs. In fact, that might be as satisfying as a French Film Noir…

Okay, almost.

xo Faran