In Which I'm Declared Fashionable

According to the New York Times, men with guts are suddenly in fashion. Only they're no longer "beer bellies" or a "paunch," they're called a "Ralph Kramden."

Too pronounced to be blamed on the slouchy cut of a T-shirt, too modest in size to be termed a proper beer gut, developed too young to come under the heading of a paunch, the Ralph Kramden is everywhere to be seen lately, or at least it is in the vicinity of the Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene, the McCarren Park Greenmarket and pretty much any place one is apt to encounter fans of Grizzly Bear. What the trucker cap and wallet chain were to hipsters of a moment ago, the Kramden is to what my colleague Mike Albo refers to as the “coolios” of now. Leading with a belly is a male privilege of long standing, of course, a symbol of prosperity in most cultures and of freedom from anxieties about body image that have plagued women since Eve.

The article says that "hypertrophied He-Men with grapefruit biceps and blister-pack abs" are now a sign of too much time on your hands, an obsession with physical perfection that "got so prissy it stopped being masculine." So I guess I'm hip and butch. Yeeeah, right. Do kids today have any idea who Ralph Kramden was anyway?

Adam Lambert's "Inner Maybelline Girl"

In today's New York Times, Guy Trebay talks about American Idol favorite Adam Lambert's love for eyeliner and whether a gay contestant can win the most popular show in America.

Let’s imagine, then, that among the assorted warblers and strummers and leather-lunged divas that have made up the renewable cast of hopefuls on the country’s No. 1 television show, you appear not as some talented hopeful with a shady backstory but as a theatrical creation with a message to sell beyond the usual will to prevail. You are swivel hipped and pillow lipped. You have an outsize talent and a fondness for Cher. You have blond hair dyed black and styled in an asymmetrical shag. At some long-ago moment, you gave in to your inner Maybelline girl. You are Adam Lambert, the contestant widely tipped as a favorite to be the next winner of “American Idol.” And the only thing standing between you and riches and the chance to play arenas may be a question currently burning up the Internet: Can a gay contestant win? Leave aside for a moment the answer to such a question, or even whether Mr. Lambert is gay. He may be. He may not. Fox, which owns “Idol,” is not saying; neither is the contestant himself.

It's an interesting piece with quotes from film critic (and JMG regular) David Ehrenstein, Out Magazine editor Aaron Hincklin, and the author of this here website thingy.