If the Author of a Book Wears False Eyelashes, Most Likely Someone Else Wrote It

The new season of The Hills reminded me of my serendipitous attendance at two bookstore readings by Hills-related authors, Lauren Conrad and Heidi Montag (who appeared with her coauthor and husband, Spencer Pratt).

Last November I found myself killing time at the Borders inside the upscale mall at Columbus Circle in New York, and discovered that Heidi and Spencer were there to promote their just-published book, How to Be Famous.

I did not want to be seen by anyone who might know me at a Heidi and Spencer reading, but I thought my Hills-watching niece might want some inside dirt into what the real Heidi was like. (This was before the ten plastic surgeries.) So I headed toward the area where readings are held and soon heard Heidi's high-pitched squealing, and a woman walking next to me moaned, "God, I hate her voice."

Instead of the usual chairs set up for book lovers, about a hundred photographers with popping flashbulbs stood in front of Heidi and Spencer, and two enormous security men were positioned behind them. This wouldn't be a reading, I learned, just a book-signing. Those who wanted a signed copy were told to enter a crowd-controlling roped-off maze, as if Queen Elizabeth herself were making an appearance.

I did not want a book, signed or unsigned, but I did gawk for a while. Heidi's waist-long platinum hair looked like nothing found in nature, resembling the cheap hair you'd find on a Barbie doll knockoff. Her makeup was caked on and her eyelashes were thick and long. No real author wears false eyelashes, but Heidi isn't a real author, of course. A ghostwriter, no doubt someone far less glamorous, must have done the actual work.

There weren't enough buyers to keep these "authors" signing, so Heidi and Spencer spent the time bantering with the photographers. Then something happened that made me realize that publishing as I once knew it is dead. As a man entered the security maze, Heidi yelled, "Hey, it's Mel Berger!" A literary agent at the William Morris Agency, Berger is a no-nonsense old-style publishing veteran I had dealt with many times in my career. What could he possibly want with Heidi and Spencer?

He posed for a photo with Heidi and Spencer, chatted a few seconds, then took off. I can only assume he is their agent; but even so, why would someone of his stature want a photo taken with them? I hope he also has a young niece who finds Heidi intriguing.

After that night, I never saw Heidi and Spencer's literary venture in any store or a review in any publication. It disappeared without a trace.

Three months later, I arrived in Tribeca an hour too early for a dinner, so wandered over to the nearby Barnes & Noble. Lo and behold, I found another Hills author, Lauren Conrad, about to sign some books. As with her Hills costars, Lauren would not be reading from her work, no chairs were set up for the event, and a hundred photographers waited. But there were differences too. Lauren drew a huge audience--hundreds of teenage girls were lined up in the roped-off security maze--and the photographers were allowed only a few minutes with Lauren, then asked to leave by the woman running the signing, so that Lauren could "spend time with you all." At this, the girls, many of whom had been lined up since early that morning, began to scream. Unlike Heidi and Spencer, Lauren sold some books.

Lauren's fame seems accidental. She appeared on a reality show and because she possesses that intangible quality that makes young America embrace her, she became a celebrity. MTV tried to duplicate her success, but hasn't found anyone else with her appeal. Someone like her would never fall for someone like Spencer. She seemed polite and well-raised, but cannily knew how to keep the overzealous fans at bay. I watched as a homeless man approached for her signature, and she treated him as gracefully as she did the others.

But Lauren's false eyelashes also cast a shadow on her face. I suppose she also didn't write the two books carrying her byline that were available to be signed that day.

Can I say with certainty that Real Authors Don't Wear False Eyelashes? Probably not. I bet Muriel Spark flirted with them back in the sixties, when they were high style. Maybe Edna O'Brien too. But it's hard to think of anyone else. I doubt even a writer like Ayn Rand would have resorted to such artifice.

P.S. In my book, Ann Coulter, whose giant false eyelashes were parodied as butterflies by Wanda Sykes, is not a real author.

Who Invented Cubism?

Pablo Picasso receives credit for originating the cubist style of painting with his 1907 masterpiece Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. But a passage in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass--published in 1871!--makes us think that maybe it wasn't actually Picasso who conceived of cubism. In this excerpt from Through the Looking-Glass, Carroll's egg-like character, Humpty Dumpty, tells the young girl Alice how hard it will be to recognize her if they meet again, because human beings look so much alike:

"I shouldn't know you again if we did meet," Humpty Dumpty replied in a discontented tone, giving her one of his fingers to shake; "you're so exactly like other people."

"The face is what one goes by, generally," Alice remarked in a thoughtful tone.

"That's just what I complain of," said Humpty Dumpty. "Your face is the same as everybody has--the two eyes, so--" (marking their places in the air with his thumb) "nose in the middle, mouth under. It's always the same. Now if you had the two eyes on the same side of the nose, for instance--or the mouth at the top--that would be some help."

"It wouldn't look nice," Alice objected. But Humpty Dumpty only shut his eyes and said "Wait till you've tried."

It is said that the early cubists--Picasso, George Braque, Jean Metzinger, Juan Gris--were influenced by mathematical theories. Cubists painted fragmented forms, sometimes literally as cubes, sometimes showing different aspects of the same figures over and over, and sometimes distorting features. Carroll--as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, his real name--was a brilliant mathematician who taught this subject for many years at Oxford. So perhaps he invented cubism?

The Gods Don't Like Hubris

Two weeks ago I finally caught up with Happens Every Day, the memoir by Isabel Gillies about the breakup of her marriage. It so profoundly annoyed me that I can't get it out of my mind. I'd hate to go so far as to say that Gillies may have deserved what happened to her, but the constant gloating about the superiority of her "perfect" family life surely played some part. It's not wise to offend the gods.

Of course, her poor choice in men didn't help matters. For those who don't know the background, Gillies is an actress whose handsome husband, an Oberlin poetry professor, left her for a colleague. But "Josiah" had done the same thing to his first wife, while she was pregnant with his child. Red flag, Isabel, red flag.

The weirdest part is that Gillies had also cultivated her rival, "Sylvia"—alternately described as a dead ringer for Audrey Hepburn, Winona Ryder, Natalie Portman, and Irene Jacob—and repeatedly attempts to explain her incredibly creepy reasons for doing so:

"I felt sorry for her because her husband was in New York and she didn't have children, a fabulous house, and a marvelous man, like I had. I wanted to make her feel good about herself."

"To me, she was seeing an example of what you can achieve if you put hard work into a marriage and keep your eye on the ball of your shared goals. We were showing her how it was done."

"What I was doing was trying to lead by example. I wanted her to stay in the town with me and get her husband to come and live there. He was an actor in New York whom I had never heard of [unlike her own well-known self?]. . . . We could make our own cool city, where we could teach what we wanted, be progressive politically, eat organically from our friend's [sic] restaurants, live in cheap, beautiful houses and have many dinner parties in them, raise our babies together, all of whom would learn violin by the age of six with the Suzuki method that was taught at the conservatory."

The gods don't like hubris very much. Happens Every Day is a hubris-fest.

Have I mentioned that Gillies once appeared on the cover of Seventeen and twice dated Mick Jagger? Let's let her tell us, in her own brand of non sequitur–like prose: "Because I was on the cover of Seventeen magazine when I was fourteen and I am an actress, I depend on the fact that, objectively, I am good-looking. Tall, blond hair, odd looks but undeniably attractive. "

Because she made the cover of Seventeen, it follows that she is attractive? And all actresses are good-looking? What is she talking about?

In the sloppily written Happens Every Day, Gillies overuses her parentheses (that is, she digresses much too often), and contradicts herself over and over. Witness how she slips in her history with Jagger: "I didn't even tell [Josiah] I went on two dates with Mick Jagger in L.A. because I didn't want to ruin the Rolling Stones for him." But next she tells us that her husband has never been particularly jealous.

Gillies, who taught a theatre class at Oberlin, then offers her warped theory of education:

"You always want your students to think you look great and to be intimidated by you. It's tricky, the student/teacher relationship. You must be close enough so they feel they can open themselves to you and learn, but not so close that they think you are their friend and can ask you where you got your clothes. You are older than they are, cooler, have much more under your belt."

I'm sure Gillies is a decent-enough person who truly suffered when her husband left her, but did this story really need to be told?

"The Recession Is Over. It's As If It Never Happened."

This was overheard in a Chelsea art gallery today. One gallery receptionist greeted an employee from another gallery with this good news. She went on to explain that her gallery has sold many pieces from the current show, and she hears that other galleries are experiencing the same. Her friend reported that her gallery has also bounced back. Phew, what a relief. Jobs must be on the way.

Seriously, the most worthwhile experience in Chelsea today was getting to see John Lurie's paintings at Fredericks and Freiser on Twenty-fourth Street. I remember a perfectly pleasant show at a different gallery a few years back, with drawings and paintings more crude than those I saw today, but Lurie's new work is really something—delightful and surprising.

On the other hand, the most popular show in Chelsea today seemed to be "Oil," the Edward Burtynsky photographs at Hasted Hunt Kraeutler. Also much recommended.

"Excuse Me, Do You Have Any Books About Jeffrey Dahmer?"

Now there's a question bookstore clerks probably don't like to answer. Tonight I overheard a homeless man ask this of a very kind Barnes & Noble employee. He was directed to the nearby True Crime section.

Many creepy characters frequent this massive five-story B&N branch near Lincoln Center, which is open until midnight every day. The store has a homeless population that may reach the three digits. I once observed a disturbed man coming down the escalator singsongingly shouting over and over to no one in particular: "I'm shocked to see you. I thought you died long ago." Nightmare inducing, I'll tell you.

Bruno Dumont Is the Only Film Director I Have a Crush On

Although there's nothing I like more than attending a film screening followed by a Q&A with the director, it was not until earlier tonight that I realized I have never before developed a crush on one of these filmmakers. That is, until I saw Bruno Dumont tonight at Lincoln Center's New York Film Festival screening of Hadewijch.

There's just something about this guy, who I've run into many times over the years. Now fifty-one years old, he's aging quite nicely. He's just handsome enough (looks like Jack Kerouac), and his clothes are the best: they fit perfectly, he favors muted color combinations that you wouldn't attempt yourself but look amazing on him, and there's definitely a sense that he's not even trying. Oh, the French.

Also, he's smart as hell, and you can tell he'd be a major badboy if you were lucky enough to be involved with him.

And the film? See it.

The Charms of Natasha Richardson

I twice encountered Natasha Richardson in New York City, and she surprised and enchanted me on both occasions. It is common to see celebrities on the street or at various events, but these sightings rarely leave much of an impression. Not so with Ms. Richardson.

I first saw her in the ladies' room at a black-tie event, probably about eight years ago. I was washing my hands when I glanced up and saw Ms. Richardson exiting a bathroom stall. She came and stood beside me, flashed me an incandescent smile, and began to fiddle with her strapless gown. Of course I knew who she was, but New Yorkers quickly learn not to let on that celebrities have been recognized. With an utter lack of self-consciousness she continued to pull at her dress, using her smile and sparkling eyes--yes, her eyes did sparkle--to include me in this battle with her garment. Finally she spoke: "There are bones everywhere in this dress, except where you need them."

At this point, I excused myself. Socially awkward even with close friends, I knew I would not be able to dazzle her with any pithy quips about wardrobe malfunctions. But this seemingly trivial encounter left me with a frothy feeling, a tiny entree into the life of an actress I admired. She may have realized I recognized her, but more likely it never entered her mind; she was just one woman speaking to another in a ladies' room. Ms. Richardson seemed so comfortable in her own skin--if not her evening dress--that she didn't think twice about engaging with a stranger.

I saw her again a few years later, this time with her husband, Liam Neeson, outside a summer black-tie party that was being held in a tent at Lincoln Center in New York. Neeson seemed to be some sort of host at the event and kept leaving the tent to be interviewed for TV cameras. Although she was mostly being ignored, Ms. Richardson sat on a large planter, seemingly patient and content, once in a while looking at her husband with what appeared to be amusement and affection. At one point, in a charming and girlish manner, she took out a compact to touch up her makeup. Somehow she was able to pull this off without appearing to be self-absorbed or narcissistic, as so many women do.

Witnessing this touching scene from a marriage, which went on for an hour or so before some European tourists recognized Neeson and began to make a fuss, gave this New Yorker hope that some relationships are truly happy. Six months later, Ms. Richardson had her accident.