<p>Houston is currently charting this week on Billboard's tallies as a featured player on the soundtrack to her final film, Sparkle. The album debuts at No. 26 on the Billboard 200, selling 12,000 copies in its first week. It includes two cuts by Houston: "Celebrate" (a duet with her co-star Jordin Sparks) and a cover of "His Eye Is On the Sparrow."</p>?<p><br>If you are not a baker, finding a gift for one can be a bit of a challenge. How can you know which rolling pin is the most practical, or which spices are the most sought after? Well, have no fear, we took all the questioning out of the gift giving for you this year and put together a collection of gifts perfect for anyone who enjoys baking, sweet or savory. </p><p>We have gifts for both the professional or amateur baker; from master tip piping sets for serious cake decorations to retro kitchen timers to help ensure that burning delectable treats never happens again. Any baker will be pleased with these. So, rest assured and look no further, your holiday gift giving has just gotten that much simpler. Just click through the slideshow and you will see.</p><p></p><p></p> <br>?<p>So it looks like "Call Me Maybe" is the song of the summer, which means it's also the parody, spoof, cover, lip dub du jour. It doesn't matter where you go these days, it seems like there's someone singing it right at your ear holes.</p><p>While some of these homages to the Carly Rae Jepsen hit are pretty great, plenty more are downright scary. And there's most certainly more to come.</p><p>With that in mind, we've attempted to do a public service by coming up with a list of 25 people who absolutely should not, under any circumstances cover "Call Me Maybe." Take heed, you 25... the future of planet earth may just depend on you.</p><p></p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p>?These are my poutine recommendations next time you guys are in Montreal. <br><br>La Banquise (Rue Rachel, a block east of Parc Lafontaine) 24H, really busy after 3 a.m.<br>Chien-chaud Victoria (Rue de la Gauchetiere and Cote Beaver-Hall) Business dristrict<br>Le resto du Village (Rue Wolf and Ste Catherine East in the gay village) 24H<br>Patati Patata (Rachel and St Laurent) Small portions and FRESH ingredients<br>Rapido (St Dennis and Mont-Royal) <br>Frites Alors (Several locations)<br><br>Over the top<br><br>Foie gras Poutine at Au pied du cochon (Duluth and St Hubert)?<p>The on Canadian soil was long overdue. It is the right thing to do and justice has finally been served. This saga has put our values and principles to the test.<br> <br>Many people have cried out loud to ban him from the country altogether. They were willing to abandon our judicial system and throw our values in the garbage bin. Their personal views and prejudice has blinded them from treating the case with a sense of balance, objectivity, fairness and justice.<br> <br>His faith and the ethnic community he belongs to did not help him either to win sympathy in the wider society or even from his own government. To be a Muslim these days is double jeopardy. It is a crime itself in the public arena where you are convicted beyond reasonable doubt and you are guilty until proven otherwise.<br> <br>If the exact scenario surrounding this young man was applicable to another child who belonged to a different culture, the perception might have been quite different. If he for instance was the son of the Prime Minister or the cousin of the Governor General, we would have witnessed a different movie altogether.<br> <br>The same people who are advocating for closing the doors on him would have changed the tone altogether. They would have protested day and night to make sure justice is served. They would have portrayed him as a young child who deserves sympathy from everyone. A child is a child, they would have argued.<br> <br>These people who are upset to see the government's move to bring him back to Canada should learn to accept the reality of our system. The system should be applied the same to everyone whether the person in question is someone we like or not.<br> <br>If they still find it difficult to accept the reality of having the government fulfilling its obligation towards one of its citizens, then they can try to get help from therapists to overcome the difficulty they are going through.<br> <br>They can train their minds into believing that the young man is not Omar Khadr. He is rather Joseph Smith and is their relative who is caught in difficulty abroad. Once they train their minds to have a different perception of him, their psychological trauma will settle down. They will be able to reconcile the difficulty they are having and they will treat him like everyone else.<br> <br>What this young man has gone through leads me to question whether I am still considered a real Canadian. If I, or someone like myself, go through an ordeal overseas, would I be looked at differently by my fellow Canadians and treated like someone who doesn't really belong here?<br> <br>Learning from the Omar Khadr saga, I am fearful and uneasy. In spite of been granted citizenship, I feel that I am somehow judged as someone else -- perhaps a second class citizen.<br> <br>The only reason why this young man got the treatment he got from the government and also the general public is due to being different. In spite of his citizenship and being born here did not help him get a fair share of the system. <br> <br>I wish we wouldn't lie to each other anymore. We should not keep each other in the dark. We should develop a more transparent system to reflect the reality of who we are and where we stand when it comes to our sense of belonging.<br> <br>Perhaps there should be first class, second class and even third class Canadian citizenship. At least we would know who we really are and each person would know what to expect. I am neither a supporter of this young man nor a fan of the extreme ideology of al-Qaeda. As a matter of fact, al-Qaeda has murdered more Muslims than anyone else. They don't even consider me as a true Muslim.<br> <br>I am pro justice and fairness. That is why I crossed miles and oceans to come to Canada because of its system that is based on justice and freedom. But I am greatly disappointed the way this lad has been treated all along. I feel that there is a lot that need to be done to overcome prejudice and to be able to live up to our own principles which have built this country and made it envy to the entire world.<br> <br>People come here not because of what Tim Horton's has to offer; not to watch hockey or listen to Celine Dion. They have made Canada their own home due to the judicial system that we have. This Khadr saga has shown our hypocrisy which we should all be ashamed of. While we sing the slogans of equality, such words did not show any significant meaning towards this man who deserved fairness irrespective of who he is or the faith he belongs to.</p>?The estranged father of singing superstar Adele has begged forgiveness from his pregnant daughter.Adele recently announced she and charity...?<p>For many of us, the British Chancellor's annual budget announcement is a familiar ritual. We watch out for the extra couple of pence on a pint of beer or a glass of wine. We wince at the inevitable hike at the petrol pumps and wait hopefully for a few pounds back in tax credit or personal allowance. </p><p>But the UK budget doesn't just matter to 60 million Brits. Admittedly, not many of the world's poorest people will be gathered around the television watching George Osborne at the despatch box on Wednesday - but for some of them, his words are a matter of life and death. ONE decided to get to the bottom of the figures and find out just how important they are.</p><p>Our report, , reveals, for the first time, the true impact of UK aid around the world. This new audit of British aid spending plans shows that UK aid will put 15.9 million children in school, protect 5.8 million mothers during childbirth, provide safe drinking water to 17 million people and help over 9 million people overcome malnutrition in the next four years. </p><p>But all this will only be achieved if the Chancellor confirms in this week's budget that the UK government will reach its target of investing 0.7% of national income in international aid next year. This new research makes it clear: now would be the worst possible time for Britain to walk away from its promise to the world's poorest. Not just because lives and futures depend on it, but also because in tough times, smart aid is not just good for the poorest countries. It's good for Britain too. Aid helps countries grow, and as they grow they become potential markets and trading partners for UK plc. </p><p>This isn't about creating a never ending cycle of aid. demonstrates how UK aid will help bring forward the day when aid is no longer needed. In the next four years UK aid will help 77.6 million people access formal financial services, such as bank accounts or credit - the basics needed to start a business. And it will help create employment opportunities for 19.3 million people by investing in infrastructure, supporting entrepreneurs, developing markets to sell goods, encouraging trade and investment, and increasing agricultural productivity. </p><p>During David Cameron's recent visit to the United States he and Barack Obama said that "As two of the world's wealthiest nations, we embrace our responsibility as leaders in the development that enables people to live in dignity, health and prosperity." Cameron is right to recognise our responsibilities as a wealthy nation - and he also knows Britain's aid promise is affordable. Even at 0.7% of national income, UK aid will account for just 1.6 pence in every pound of government spending. </p><p>In tough economic times, keeping our aid promise is more important than ever. No other budget achieves so much for so little. The government's bilateral and multilateral aid reviews demonstrated its commitment to fund the most cost-effective projects available and just last week the Department for International Development (DfID) to ensure that any allegations of misuse of funds are properly investigated. Nobody claims aid is perfect, but British aid is good and getting better.</p><p>Each of these statistics on their own is remarkable but together they add up to one of the wisest and most far-sighted investments our government can make. No one wants aid to continue forever but if done properly this is an investment that will save and transform lives, boost economic prospects and help to bring forward the day when extreme poverty - and aid itself - is a thing of the past. </p> <br><p>Follow Adrian Lovett on Twitter:</p>?<p>I'm exhausted from Wal-Mart's 50th birthday bash held in Fayetteville, Arkansas last Friday for shareholders like me. described it as an "upbeat event," but aside from the Nashville/Hollywood glitz on the stage -- the event was more of a corporate mea culpa. </p><p>I didn't even go -- but I'm exhausted from reading the reports about how Wal-Mart has found a new determination to "act the right way," to quote Sam Walton's son, Chairman of the Board, Robson Walton. In light of the Mexi-gate bribery scandal, it's reassuring to know that after half a century, Wal-Mart has discovered "there is no grey area between right and wrong," according to CEO Mike Duke. ""It's either the right thing to do or we shouldn't do it."</p><p>For community activists like me, it wasn't Justin Timberlake or Celine Dion who livened up the Wal-Mart party. Instead, it was Wal-Mart's slow-growth pattern from its financial statements that heartened us. Say what you will about Wal-Mart's stock peformance -- the good news is that Wal-Mart is building far fewer superstores than in the past. And what they are building is getting smaller. </p><p>Twenty years ago, Wal-Mart was adding a new store every 2.3 days. The company added 158 stores in 1993. From 1992 to 1995, Wal-Mart boosted its U.S. store count by an average of 127 stores per year. But since 2009, the retailer has increased domestic stores by an average of 70 stores per year, a 45% slow-down in growth. In 2011 the rose by only 49 units, and in 2012 by only 64 stores. </p><p>This translates into fewer stores to fight, fewer neighborhoods on the defensive, and fewer headlines about Wal-Mart confrontations. </p><p>It also means Wal-Mart Realty has had a chance to focus on filling the "dead stores" the company has accumulated during its major growth years. In 2005, I reported on that Wal-Mart was carrying 356 dead stores, with nearly 27 million square feet of empty space on the market. Today, has 143 buildings either for sale or lease. More than 60% of these buildings are larger than 100,000 square feet, so it takes a lot of real estate agents to fill up buildings that large. </p><p>Typical of what happens to these cast-off buildings is that they sit idle for several years, and then some less productive resuse is made of them. For example, there is a store for lease in that was 115,348 square feet when Wal-Mart abandoned it. Today a church is leasing 27,843 square feet, and the other 87,508 square feet are empty. </p><p>In , Wal-Mart shut down its discount store, and is building a supersize me directly across the road. Their 120,000 square foot discount store sits empty on 15 acres of land, waiting for someone to lay out $4.65 million to buy it. </p><p>On the same day that the Walton family was parading across the stage in Bud Walton Arena, the company they grew unspeakably rich from was quietly settling a federal religious discrimination against it by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The suit charged that Wal-Mart had threatened to fire a Morman employee who refused to work on the Sabbath---a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As part of its settlement, Wal-Mart agreed to pay $70,000 and train its HR people on how to accommodate the religious practices of its workers. </p><p>So perhaps Rob Walton was on the level when he "Acting with integrity is not negotiable. You have my word. We will act the right way."</p><p>I wonder if the company will translate that into Spanish?</p><p>Finally, as I read the long list of celebrities who performed on stage, I kept wondering how many Wal-Mart workers in the audience could have been decently paid from the retainers charged by Taylor Swift, Lionel Richie, Justin Timberlake, and Celine Dion. </p><p>Wal-Mart continues to exploit its workers, and instead of doing the right thing, the company spends its money to buy workers an afternoon with Justin Timberlake in grass hula skirt. </p><p>Al Norman is the founder of . His book was released this month. </p>?It's embarrassing to admit, as a 42 year old man, that I have enjoyed watching idol with my wife for 3 or 4 years now...if Urban and Minaj (makes me shutter to even type those two names) become judges, I will be forced to stop watching altogether. While Keith is a nice enough guy, he is part of the ONLY musical genre I just simply can't find a singe ounce of respect for...Pop Country. There isn't a musical genre that is more product over art than that. Plus, it seeks to reinforce over-romatic, low info conservative "gut feel" ideolgies. I just saw Rascal Flats on TV, getting a new promo car getting built by West Coast Customs...they wanted a Red Camaro for their song "Red Camaro"...they couldn't even identify the Camaro as a Camaro on the guy's lot...lots of inner experience going into those lyrics...And Minaj? She must be one of the most corporate-produced market research bots of all time.?<p>LOS ANGELES -- Mariah Carey, Celine Dion and Mary J. Blige are among the heady names being tossed around as potential judges for "American Idol" after Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez skipped out on next season.</p><p>Star power, after all, is what judges add to TV talent shows that otherwise feature unknowns whose performances can range from surprisingly good to stunningly awful.</p><p>But Fox's "American Idol," trying to right itself after shedding viewers in its 11th season, may also need to play a numbers game – as in the age of the judges brought in to revitalize a show whose audience is getting smaller and older, neither a plus for advertisers.</p><p>"They need judges who will resonate with young people," said media analyst Brad Adgate.</p><p>Carey, Dion and Blige, undeniably winning stars, all are in their early 40s.</p><p>The median age for the "American Idol" audience rose above 50 last season, the first time ever, and Adgate suggests it take a page from "The X Factor" playbook, as devised by its creator and producer, Simon Cowell.</p><p>"Cowell beat them to the punch" by hiring Britney Spears and Demi Lovato after "X Factor," the Fox version of Cowell's British hit, stumbled in its debut last season. Spears, 30, and Lovato, 19, replaced Paula Abdul, 50, and Nicole Scherzinger, 34.</p><p>(Worth noting: The male judges, Cowell, 52, and producer Antonio "L.A." Reid, 56, are staying put for season two.)</p><p>Lopez announced her departure on Friday, a day after Tyler (an unlikely senior statesman at 64) said he was leaving "American Idol" to concentrate on his role as Aerosmith's frontman. Both appeared for two seasons.</p><p>"I honestly feel like the time has come that I have to get back to doing the other things that I do that I've put kind of on hold because I love `Idol' so much," the 42-year-old actress-singer-dancer told "Idol" host Ryan Seacrest on his radio show.</p><p>Fox may be scouting for an entirely new panel, with some reports suggesting that original "Idol" judge Randy Jackson, 56, could shift to another role while Carey, whom he manages, becomes a judge. Jackson's and Carey's publicists did not respond to requests for comment.</p><p>The makeover comes at a critical time. In May, "American Idol" posted its lowest-rated finale ever after a season that marked its poorest showing yet among young adult viewers age 18 to 49. A pattern of overall declining viewership continued for the show, which fell from the No. 1 spot for the first time since the 2005-06 season, placing second to NBC's "Sunday Night Football."</p><p>"Idol" needs to stem its audience losses and level out, Adgate said, which would be enough to keep it a Top 10 program and a "force to be reckoned with."</p><p>Among the younger possibilities who might help, 19-year-old Miley Cyrus fits the Lovato mold. Speculation also has focused on former "Idol" winner Carrie Underwood, 29, and finalists Jennifer Hudson and Adam Lambert, both 30.</p><p>Lambert addressed the possibility this week in an interview in London, where he appeared in concert with Queen.</p><p>"Well, nothing's been confirmed yet. If I were to be asked, I'd love the job. I think that would be great. That's `if,' because nothing's been asked yet," he said, adding that he'd enjoy being a panelist who could "help other artists reach their dreams."</p><p>Nigel Lythgoe, an "Idol" executive producer who recently joked about hiring Jerry Lewis and Charlie Sheen as judges, was circumspect about Lambert.</p><p>"The minute `American Idol' is discussed and judges are discussed there's gonna be a lot of names flying around, and this is an interesting one," he said. "I happen to like Adam Lambert a great deal but I'm not sure where this has come from probably from Adam Lambert's fan club. We'll wait and see."</p><p>Youth isn't all, of course. Other factors at play involve the fan base that judges bring or develop, their skill on live TV and their chemistry with fellow panelists.</p><p>Casting a talent show judge, while less daunting than making a Supreme Court pick, can be tricky. The right person has enough celebrity cachet and success to be desirable, but not so much to be unattainable. It's unlikely that Rihanna, at least for now, sees a judgeship as a career ambition.</p><p>Predicting who will flourish in a reality TV setting is another hurdle. Who would have guessed, for instance, that the hard-living Tyler would display such impish charm?</p><p>Conversely, popular daytime host Ellen DeGeneres was a short-lived "Idol" judge, appearing ill-at-ease and timid in her contestant critiques. Songwriter Kara DioGuardi had serious music credentials but wasn't ready for prime-time.</p><p>Whether panelists will mesh, or for how long, also is hard to predict. The love-hate banter between Cowell and Abdul delighted viewers on "Idol" but had worn thin when they reunited on "X Factor." On NBC's "The Voice," country star Blake Shelton and rocker Adam Levine have proved a fun and feisty duo.</p><p>"Idol" producers have so far been circumspect while fans toss around names like Carey, Dion and Blige. While millions of dollars are at stake for networks, celebrities weighing a career move to "Idol" know a hefty paycheck may be just the start of their windfall.</p><p>When Lopez signed a reported $12 million, two-year deal with "Idol," she hadn't triggered real excitement in the record world for years and her box-office value had taken a hit with flops including "The Back-Up Plan."</p><p>But on "Idol," the glamorous, warmly appealing Lopez restored her popularity and converted it into new opportunities, including a TV show about global Latin talent. Tyler's image adjustment did the same for him.</p><p>"Who would have thought Tyler would be doing Burger King commercials and Lopez would be hosting `Saturday Night Live?'" analyst Adgate said. "They got back into the mindset of pop culture followers."</p><p>___</p><p>Associated Press Writer Alicia Rancilio in New York contributed to this report.</p><p>___</p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p>?<p>It's been quite a week in "" news, and a few other big changes may be headed to the Fox singing competition show. </p><p>, Mariah Carey is in talks to join the judges panel, while Randy Jackson may be stepping down. "They are in serious talks with Mariah and it's very close to being a done deal," a source told Us. "And they will move Randy into a more mentoring role."</p><p>On Thursday,</p><p>“After some long ... hard ... thoughts … I've decided it's time for me to let go of my mistress 'American Idol' before she boils my rabbit," the Aerosmith singer said in a statement. "I strayed from my first love, Aerosmith, and I'm back -- but instead of begging on my hands and knees, I've got two fists in the air and I'm kicking the door open with my band."</p><p>. "I've enjoyed it so much, but I am thinking it's maybe time for me to go and do other things I really love to do like films ... and performing," Lopez said on "Today." "I know everybody wants that definite ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ and ... all I can let you in on is my own thought process with it, because that’s where I truly am." </p><p>Do you think Mariah Carey would make a good "American Idol" judge? Sound off in the comments. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><br></p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p>?<p>If the magazine industry was a pyramid, would be on top -- all by itself. After 120 years of production, Vogue has made itself into a fashion bible and it helps define what we will be buying and seeing for seasons to come. </p><p>For this year's September issue -- which weighs roughly the same as a newborn baby -- Vogue has found 120 of the most influential musicians, models, designers and actresses all under 45 who are shaping fashion as we know it. And we predict they will still be influencing us in five, 10 or 20 years time. </p><p>Here are 10 of the beautiful photographs -- shot by -- that you'll find on .</p><p></p>?<p>Designer digs for a fraction of the price. Yes please. Check out these outlets that offer heavily discounted luxury items from just a seasons or two past. </p><p>Bicester Village - England<br><br><br></p><p>FoxTown Outlets, Mendrisio - Switzerland<br><br><br></p><p>Gotemba Premium Outlets - Japan<br><br><br><br></p><p>Jeremy's - San Francisco<br><br><br><br></p><p>Joyce Outlet - Hong Kong<br><br><br></p><p>La Vallee Village - France<br><br><br></p><p>The Mall Outlet - Italy<br><br><br></p><p>The "Space" Prada Outlet - Italy<br><br><br></p><p>Yeoju Premium Outlet - Korea<br><br><br></p><p>Woodbury Commons - New York<br><br><br></p><p>Amy Chan is the Director of Marketing for , the world's largest luxury hotel reviewer. To read more of her articles, visit <br></p><p>Follow Amy Chan on Twitter:</p>?<p>Two years ago, Amy Voelker was enjoying a getaway with her extended family at a rental house in Redington Beach, Florida -- and a second meeting with her four-month-old grandson. "I had only seen the baby once," Voelker said, "and was looking forward to spending more time with him -- with everyone, all together." </p><p>The party included her husband of 20 years, Elroy "Roy" McConnell II; their son Kelly, 19, and his girlfriend; Amy's stepsons, Roy III, 28, and Nathan, 24, and their wives; Nate's two-year-old; and Roy III's new baby. Photos of the weekend capture a happy afternoon on the beach, the younger men in swim trunks playing football on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. </p><p>And then the nightmare began. Voelker's husband and three sons had gone to see a late-night movie while the women watched a DVD and went to bed. At around 4 a.m., one of Voelker's daughters-in-law awoke to discover the men hadn't returned. Over the next two-and-a-half hours, the frantic women called the men's cell phones, the police, hospital emergency rooms, anything they could think of. They found an online news report about a bad accident but couldn't determine the make of the cars involved from the photo.</p><p>Voelker was on the phone for the fourth time with local police when the officer on the line asked her to open the front door for the victim support team, which confirmed the worst: All four men were dead, killed by a drunk driver who ran a red light and crashed into their Ford Fusion.</p><p>"We knew it; we just knew it," Voelker said.</p><p>What followed was a blur. Charges were filed against the 20-year-old driver of the other car. Those days in court were among the hardest, Voelker said. She and her husband's former wife -- the biological mother of the two older boys -- sat shoulder-to-shoulder, supporting one another. The driver eventually changed his plea to guilty and was sentenced to 44 years in jail. </p><p>The ensuing days ran together, the only common thread her constant grief, said Voelker. It was hard to get out of bed some days, and at times even the love and support she was getting felt overwhelming. Voelker said her church family and her employer -- the University of Central Florida -- were "just terrific," understanding both her need to take time off and to get back into the groove of normalcy. On some days she would go to work, but just not be able to get through the day. One daughter-in-law and her youngest son's girlfriend stayed around for a month or so. The three women "medicated with food," Voelker said, and eventually joined Weight Watchers together.</p><p>Voelker knew that exercise helps heal both body and mind -- her husband had participated in races and triathlons, and was a regular gym rat. In fact, he had persuaded her to join him there in the months before he died, and she began getting into shape. But after the accident, she couldn't bring herself to go back. </p><p>"It was just too hard," she said.</p><p>Then one day, Voelker was mindlessly thumbing through the AARP magazine -- she had just turned 50 and received her first issue -- when she noticed an ad for a "Take Charge of Your Future" contest the organization was running. It seemed to "speak" to her, she said, and on something of a lark, she penned a 300-word essay and sent it in. The prize: a personal trainer to help her meet her fitness and life goals.<br> <br>Voelker won. "I never won anything," she said, and her shock was enough of a jolt to motivate her. She decided to begin training for the Roy McConnell Mango Sprint Triathlon -- a race that was renamed for her husband, who had completed it several times. </p><p>In her contest entry, Voelker wrote that she not only wanted a fitness makeover, she wanted to use that newfound fitness to pursue her goal of helping others understand the consequences of drunk driving. She joined Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), and expects to do more public appearances once she is in better physical shape. With just six weeks of training under her belt, Voelker said she already feeling stronger, lost some weight and feels better emotionally.</p><p>Through exercise and training and the support of friends and family, Voelker has found a new vision of herself, she said. "I'm able to look forward." As for the man responsible for killing her family, she feels it's important for her to forgive him.</p><p>"I'm not 100 percent there yet, but I know it's important for me to forgive him," she said. "If I didn't, I would be allowing someone to have control over me."</p>?Photo: WireImageSee more looks from the show below and see more New York Fashion Week coverage here. var src_url="http://pshared.5min.com/Scripts/PlayerSeed.js?sid=577&width=548&height=398&colorPallet=%239FC5E8&companionPos=bottom&hasCompanion=true&relatedMode=2&relatedBottomHeight=60&videoControlDisplayColor=%23006699&autoStart=false&playList=517158630&aol_level=Living:StyleList...?<p>"Shooting babies isn't all sh*ts and giggles... It's mostly sh*t. All over the floor."</p><p>Much like how we discovered that Lisa Frank was actually , a new comedy sketch from shows us that the world's most famous baby photographer actually f#@&ing hates babies.</p><p>Sure, Anne Geddes used to be a famous fashion photographer in the 80s, but that was before she found the perfect subject, one that's always under 90 lbs and never has a cocaine problem. Spending time with these drooling, crying half-people was her only choice.</p><p>Plus, if it weren't for photographing babies in cabbage, old boots or garbage cans, she would have never became best friends with Celine Dion. </p><p>Sacrifices, people. Sacrifices.</p><p>Also on HuffPost:</p>?<p>She has his name tattooed in a heart on her right arm but Antonio Banderas's wife, Melanie Griffith, may want to consider getting it removed after hearing the latest rumors.</p><p>The couple has been together for 15 years, but after at a Cancun nightclub on top of several other incidents, the Spanish hunk has struggled to woo his wife back, reports RadarOnline.</p><p>While Banderas partied in Cancun, his wife was at home in LA caring for their daughter, Stella, .</p><p>As photos of Banderas and the unknown woman began to spread, Melanie's initial response to the alleged infidelity, , was a quote posted online: "BoyfriEND, girlfriEND, friEND, everything has an end, except for family."</p><p>It seems she began considering an "end" to Banderas last week when photographers discovered her out on the town -- without her wedding ring. </p><p>"Melanie’s a mess. Not only is she in jeopardy of losing the love of her life, but her career is in the toilet while Antonio’s star is continuing to rise," . "I think Melanie’s self esteem hit an all time low and she believed Antonio was torturing her. For years, it's as if she’s been consumed with jealousy over his flirting and outspoken love for beautiful women."</p><p>Banderas has been attempting to quell the rumors and is "desperately trying to win Melanie's trust back," . He's also been quick to point out the wedding ring is still on his finger.</p><p>While all the drama shakes out, Melanie has headed to the family house in Aspen. “The last thing Banderas wants is a nasty high-profile divorce,” . “Despite their problems he still loves her and will do anything to keep her from leaving him.”</p><p>Indeed, the Hollywood jet-setters have endured many prior strains to their relationship, most notably . </p><p>During that time, Banderas said of their relationship, "We love each other, and above all we love our family. We've figured out how to get past obstacles … and if you get past those, you only get stronger."</p><p>Banderas and Griffith recently made our list of "Odd Celebrity Couples." See the whole list below:</p>?<p> and are joining forces.</p><p>No, it's not a masterplan to destroy hipster minds everywhere. Rather, the pair will be part of a good cause -- a benefit concert to support the family of Denis Blanchette, a lighting technician who was at a victory party earlier this month when the separatist Parti Quebecois won the .</p><p>Blanchette was shot when Richard Henry Bain opened fire during Quebec's premier-designate Pauline Marois' speech. Bain has been charged with murder.</p><p>Where the artists come in is the Denis Blanchette Benefit Concert, being held October 1 at Metropolis in Montreal, Quebec. The funds raised will go towards providing for Blanchette's young daughter as well as co-worker Dave Courage, who was also shot, but survived.</p><p>Arcade Fire and Celine Dion have already committed to performing, but a number of other high profile Quebec musicians are also playing as well, including Patrick Watson, Coeur De Pirate, Ian Kelly and Vincent Vallieres. Organizers are also suggesting there may be other surprise guests.</p><p>Tickets will go for between $80 and $175 and can be purchased through Ticketmaster.</p><p></p>?<p>The Three Weissmanns of Westport<br>by Cathleen Shine<br>Farrar Straus and Giroux <br>292 pp $25.00<br><br>Normance<br>By Louis-Ferdinand Celine<br>translation and introduction<br>by Marlon Jones<br>Dalkey Archives<br>371 pp $14.95<br> <br>Bagatelles pour un massacre<br>By Louis-Ferdinand Celine<br>Paris: Denoel 379 pp 1938</p><p><br>There are days, Helen Mirren's lady detective efforts notwithstanding, that we seem stuck in a self perpetuating gender warp; the gents, still influenced by Humphrey Bogart and "The Big Sleep" go through one door, while Mma Ramotswe (played by Jill Scott) and her hilarious detective agency in Botswana, another. My question for Cathleen Schine's marvelous The Three Weissmanns of Westport is - does the publicity for it, insisting on its "homage to Jane Austin's Sense and Sensibility " create unnecessary static ? Is there too much signaling of 'chick lit?' Of Channel 13's Jane reruns? (I will get to Celine further along.) </p><p> I bring this up because potential readers may be inadvertently robbed of the amazing originality of Schine's current novel, and its homage to the new rather than the old. Yes, of course, the inimitable Jane is inimitable, and many male novelists, including Harold Brodkey have drawn inspiration from her, but novels should give us new news of the external and internal world. Has the author put us on to a fresh foot path? I remember as a student coming home from Paris, bringing with me a Dyna Panhard, a tiny sea blue French car, buying a copy of Catcher in the Rye, and sitting in my parked Dyna (in the 1950s Madison Avenue was relatively empty) - I've often written about that day - and not getting out of the car until I'd finished Catcher. The literary skies suddenly opened up. I didn't need to be burdened with Simone de Beauvoir's chic smarts, war novels, southern eccentrics, Faulkner's Temple Drake, Tolstoy's Anna dead beneath the Russian railroad tracks, Blanche DuBois or even Mary McCarthy. Salinger gave my generation a permission to write about our lives, our very ordinary adolescent times. He gave us our voice, our right to be serious in our own postwar, perhaps over-privileged, tones. </p><p>The Three Weissmanns of Westport has gotten superlative reviews. Still a contemporary artist wouldn't want his/her work too tightly nailed to say, Matisse or Picasso, and this over insistence on Jane ignores the book's originality. Schine has a wide range -- her New York Times' book review last year of Alexsandar Hemon's The Lazarus Project is a complex account of the way Eastern Europe is now. And her Westport isn't the place of 20 years ago, and certainly not the Westport with memories of F.Scott Fitzgerald and theatre folk, nor the arty crowd, nor the later advertising bunch, and it certainly isn't the anti-Semitic Connecticut of Gentleman's Agreement. Her Westport has become a provincial town, prosperous and dreary, somewhat like Emma Bovary's Tostes, near Rouen. </p><p>Betty Weissmann, in her mid '70s, isn't dreaming of lovers: her romantic "love" is Manhattan from where she has been temporarily banished. She and her two grown daughters, Miranda and Annie, have joined economic forces in order to combat her husband's divorce lawyers, who are attempting to filch the family assets, namely her beloved Central Park West apartment. The Holocaust is a distant drum beat, it might as well be taps played in the last century, its only relevance is that rich Uncle Lou spreads his generosity to all the inhabitants of the novel - Jews and Christians alike - as a result of having been welcomed into America as a child escaping the Holocaust. Lou provides the three women with his beachfront extra cottage, so that they have the means to wait out the divorce lawyers.</p><p>Betty wanders disconsolate through Westport: "There was nothing to do, no one to do it with, and she wouldn't drive at night, so on top of everything else there was no way to get there. She daydreamed about the buses in New York with their interesting bits of poetry or quotes from George Eliot, their ads for Con Ed or the Bronx Zoo. How civilized and communal New York seemed from the vantage point of this lonely land of cars and crows and Lanes and Drives and Crescents....'Very cosmopolitan little town,' Betty had answered her friend in her most chipper voice. But Westport struck her as neither cosmopolitan nor little. In fact, it did not even strike her as a town. It was large and spread out and bustling and provincial." Its geographic advantage has disintegrated into its nearness to COSTCO gallon vodka bargains; even its weather seems a bleak knockoff of Manhattan skies.</p><p>Jews and WASPS co-mingle, references to Hanukkah and Christmas have become mere after thoughts. In fact, the only WASP to make an issue -or celebration - of his WASP heritage turns out to be a phony: a third rate actor from the West Coast into movieland pretend who has invented his WASP background. Miranda falls in love with Leanne, a Westport doctor into good works in Africa - again, their lesbian marriage causes no melodrama. Betty, still dreaming of her return to her great Central Park West apartment with its grand faux fireplace, barely takes note of this change of mores. Alas, her legal win has a wistful tragic note. She dies of a staph infection before she can repossess her home, but, due to her foresight, the inheritance will pass on to her daughters. In her astonishing novel, Schine grounds her witty dialogue and sharp new way of seeing the familiar with bursts of authentic feeling between the unmoored mother and her protective daughters. <br> <br> Meanwhile, in a totally different take on the effect of influences, Wyatt Mason's much needed reappraisal in The New York Review of Books of Louis-Ferdinand Destouches (Celine), on the occasion of Dalkey Archives' publication of Normance is excellent. He correctly points to a lack of balance and a lack of knowledge of the author's total works (the murderously anti-Semitic Bagatelle pour un massacre still is banned in France) in the admiration of his American writer fans. Voyage au bout de la nuit with its furious, hot, first person voice had particular appeal to the Beats, who saw in Celine's anti-bourgeois stance one of their own, but we shouldn't ignore that Celine's true buddies, the Nazis, were also anti-bourgeois democracies. </p><p> Mason quotes from the English translation of Philip Roth's remarks (Roth is also a fan) on Celine originally published in 1984 in La Quinzaine Litteraire: "To tell you the truth, in France, my Proust is Celine! There's a very great writer. Even if his anti-Semitism made him an abject, intolerable person. To read him, I have to suspend my Jewish conscience, but I do it, because anti-Semitism isn't at the heart of his books, even Castle to Castle. Celine is a great liberator. I feel called by his voice." Well, "liberator" - though we know Roth means to admire Celine's voice, is hardly le mot juste for a writer who called for the death of all Jews. And what does Roth think Castle to Castle is about, if not Celine's successful attempt to escape from a French trial for his war crimes? Can we so neatly chop into separate compartments voice, morality, stylish style, and intent?</p><p> This sort of muffled debate - a debate that never seems to quite see the light of day -- was further mangled by John Updike, who imagined Celine as being mainly a "sweet country doctor." In my 1991 interview (reprinted after his death in The Daily Beast), Updike said: "I think what I was trying to say [in one of his essays] is that there aren't any anti-Semitic portraits in Celine as deadly as Bloch in Proust. I may be wrong. But Celine's views didn't seem to carry over into his art. He didn't bother to give us caricatures of Jewish people." Really? </p><p> Proust, in his insistence on the fluid nature of his characters, was one of the first novelists to liberate Jews from fictional stereotypes, while Celine turned them into dangerous anti-Semitic caricatures. In a letter to his mother, Proust describes the anti-Semitic ravings of a friend's father, besotted by the anti-Semitic radical right rag Libre Parole, later so useful to the Nazis, whom in La Recherche he transforms into Baron de Charlus's ravings against Bloch. In a letter to Violet Schiff (usually ignored is that many of Proust's most profound friendships were with people who were Jewish or part Jewish) he points out that Swann who starts out effete, in another volume becomes okay: "He becomes a Dreyfusard." While granting Celine's talent, particularly in Journey to the End of the Night, isn't his American fan club a bit too nonchalant? Or, one wonders - might it be that Proust, the chronicler of the Dreyfus Affair, simply accomplished too much for Roth and Updike? Or were they simply playing Peck's bad boy? </p><p> Saul Bellow had no use for Celine, and managed a hot, intime voice quite on his own. Now, about Norman Mailer. Both his biographer Michael Lennon and I feel that the back jacket of Frederic Vitoux's biography Celine needs a tad correcting. George Steiner claims that (among others) Norman Mailer's novels would never have been written without Celine's precedent. In my interviews with Norman I never heard him mention Celine, and Celine was certainly not on his mind when I first met him in Paris. According to Lennon, Mailer told him that the French writers in order of importance to him were: "Stendahl, Proust, Malraux, then Flaubert, Zola, Gide, Huysmans, Baudelaire's journals, Sartre, Simenon, and Jean Malaquais - the largest single influence on my intellectual life." Lennon says he never heard Mailer mention Celine, and he believes that Celine's works were not in Mailer's extensive library. </p><p> So why are American writers so casually inclined to give Celine, including his ideas and actions, a pass? I think it is hard for us to grasp (we see World War II in terms of military battles) that words -- the Nazi propaganda machine - were a potent instrument of war. We cannot imagine a society in which every bit of media, and every publishing house, is controlled and manipulated by the enemy. French writer collaborationists helped destabilize the French government in advance of the "phony war", thus facilitating the German control of the French government and population, and the sending of Jews to the death camps. Celine, who called for all Jews to be killed and the French and British governments destroyed, went on an "intellectual" junket to Germany, and, more significantly, was on Dannecker's and Ambassador Otto Abetz's list of candidates to head the Vichy established "central Jewish office", which put in motion the final solution. Dannecker, a chief architect of the final solution, committed suicide in 1945. Abetz, whom Celine, along with Petain and Laval, joined in Sigmaringen Castle in their attempted flight from France (Celine's flight is the subject of Castle to Castle), was convicted by the French of war crimes and the deportation and murder of Jews. A long way off from the experiences of the Beat Generation, Philip Roth and John Updike.</p>?<p>The past few days have proven debilitating for disco fans, as two of the genre's biggest legends have lost their respective battles with cancer. Donna Summer , and Bee Gee . </p><p>The Bee Gees were one of disco's greatest groups, changing pop music forever with hits like "Stayin' Alive" while also releasing deeply emotive tracks like "To Love Somebody" and "How Deep Is Your Love." Of Robin, Maurice and Barry Gibb, the brothers who formed the band, only Barry remains alive. </p><p>Here at HuffPost Entertainment, we've collected a number of their songs for your enjoyment in the gallery below. Give the songs a listen and share your memories of the iconic band in the comments below. For more on Gibb's passing, .</p><p><br></p><p>Also on HuffPost:</p>?<p>Here in Quebec, we have an original approach to youth crime that works. In 2010, the severity of youth crime in Quebec was the lowest in Canada, proof that we are not "soft" on crime but rather that we are smart and "tough" on its root causes. But now the Harper government wants to ignore the evidence and change that approach.</p>?<p>The fall 2011 men's shows have just finished in Milan. The fashion road show is moving to Paris next where Louis Vuitton, Lanvin and Dior Homme show their collections. But while there have been exciting trends to come out of the Milan shows (such as the snappy colors at Jil Sander and the 70s tailoring at Prada) and more to come surely from the City of Lights, I still feel that men are sometimes left out of the fashion game.</p><p>I say this because I really want to wear something from Phoebe Philo. But sadly, the designer of Celine who changed the way women dressed in a single season does not make men's clothes. True, there are menswear designers who create clean minimalist clothes like Raf Simons, Simon Spurr and Italo Zucchelli at Calvin Klein, but fashion is all about the Philo mania right now and I would like to join in on the craze as do the many guys who have snapped up the Celine totes just so they can say that they own a piece of the designer's genius. The very stylish Ines de la Fressange has been quoted saying that "it's better to spend your money on Celine than on Botox." I would like to be able to say something to that effect too.</p><p>I think that some of Philo's designs for Celine will translate well to menswear like the color blocked leather t-shirts and the sleeveless coats with no lapels. I personally would wear the white trousers with green and blue stripes on the sides from her spring collection if she cut them for men. If she does create menswear, I can see her filling the void left by Helmut Lang. Modern urban warriors in very streamlined clothing. I doubt she will cross over though. But a man who loves fashion can dream.</p><p>I'd also like to see Tory Burch create a men's line. No, I am not looking to wear tunics or her famous Reva ballerinas. I'd like to see how she'll apply her love for vibrant colors and patterns to men's clothes. I like to think that Tory Burch Man -- should there ever be one -- will be filled with luxe boho pieces inspired by J.P. Getty and Paul Bowles. Robes in paisley prints, shorts with geometric patterns, shirts in degrade colors and maybe an embroidered trouser or two for glamorous Moroccan themed parties. I can also see her making a trench coat in crushed linen with a wild exuberant lining. And think about the accessories -- an orange canvas beach tote perhaps or Kelly green moccasins or braided leather bracelets or Panama hats in shades inspired by a gelato stand. Oh, St. Barth's here I come.</p><p>If Victoria Beckham extended herself to men's fashion what would her clothes be like? Would she pilfer from her husband's Dolce & Gabbana and Giorgio Armani filled closet or would she surprised us in much the same way she baffled her naysayers when she launched her eponymous collection? That a former Spice Girls with an affinity to gold lame and chain mail can produce such strong, sophisticated and polished women's wear is nothing short of amazing. Her men's collection I imagine would have architectural blazers that are nipped in at the waist by unexpected darts, sharp and skinny trousers paired with draped multi-layered belted cardigans and tuxedos in rich jewel tone colors.</p><p>And while on the topic of women's wear designers doing men's clothes, it would be great if Jason Wu, Proenza Schouler and Thakoon lent their creative vision to men's fashion as well. Their contemporaries Phillip Lim, Alexander Wang and Richard Chai are already doing it. Men's fashion would be a lot more fun if they were in the mix.<br> <br></p> <p>Follow Blue Carreon on Twitter:</p>?<p> is officially the hardest working comedienne in the business. </p><p>Her weekly primetime Bravo talk show, "Kathy," has been renewed for a second season. This comes just a week after she picked up another Emmy nomination (she has two wins for "") for her stand-up special "" -- her third nomination in the Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Special category -- and the same day her new one-hour comedy special, "Kathy Griffin: Seaman 1st Class," premieres (Thurs., July 26, 10 p.m. ET).</p><p>"I'm coming back in January! The Bravo folks have been really great about letting me figure out what the hell the show is," Griffin said when we reached out to congratulate her. "We started with 12 episodes, and it's my favorite job I've ever had. I'm having the time of my life. I love it ... As far as I know, we're going to stay on Thursdays at 10, and I've been told we're going to start the first week in January."</p><p>“Bravo's relationship with Kathy Griffin has outlasted Katie and Tom's, Ashton and Demi's, and while we won't be couch jumping, we continue to be in awe of her quick wit, rude humor and spot-on analysis of pop culture and celebrity happenings,” Frances Berwick, President of Bravo Media, said in a statement.</p><p>As for her schedule until January, Griffin is still touring regularly, and she's got a packed schedule of comedy specials for her home network. "I would like to ask you overtly to make the point that no comedian has ever done four specials in one year, much less a female comedian. We are still fighting the good fight of females in comedy, and I am not gonna have it from these gals that are saying that sexism in comedy doesn't still exist because it does," Griffin said. "So I was like, 'Fine. I won't do one special a year. I won't do two. I will be doing four in one year. Chris Rock was like, 'You're doing a special a year for four years?' And I said, 'No, no, no -- I'm doing four in one year.' Then Jon Stewart was like, 'Why do you wanna do a special a year?' And I was like, 'No ... I'm doing four.' </p><p>Watch a sneak peek of "Seaman 1st Class" here, then keep reading for more on finally allowing celebrity guests on "Kathy," wanting guests to sit on her face and getting into Tumblr with her pal Cher.</p><br><p>The first season of "Kathy" had several "did that just happen?" moments, but I'm entertained any time you whore your assistant Tiffany out to random firemen ... <br>There are so many moments that stick out from the first few episodes, but people are fascinated by Tiffany. They fell in love with her on "The D-List" and now she's lost all this weight. I get all these tweets about her -- she's our Carrie Bradshaw. She represents that single girl in the city, and I love that she totally wears clothing from the Kardashian Kollection at Sears. She is now juggling some bitches -- I think she was texting with one of the firemen, then that didn't work out, so she was texting with the guy she met on our fake dating game, and they really went out on a date, and tomorrow night she's having girls night at something called Tequila Tuesdays. She's living the dream. </p><p>I love it. You know, when , you were pretty adamant about not having celebrity guests, but that quickly changed. Is there a certain kind of celebrity you want to have on now?<br>I kept saying, "No celebrities, no celebrities -- or, if they come, they have to come to play and they have to know what they're getting into." It's not going to be a typical talk show, and it certainly hasn't been, if you saw the Jane Fonda episode. It certainly wasn't Jane promoting "The Newsroom" and talking about her latest book. What's great is that every single celebrity came to me, including Jane. Jane said, "I heard you have a show, and I'd love to come on." We were emailing back and forth, and you'd think I was trying to talk her out of it because I was like, "I don't think you know how loose this show is -- it's a very loosey-goosey, kind of a European-style show, where all three people are on the couch at once, and you can't just promote stuff." She's like, "I won't promote anything. Sounds great." And then, of course, when she came on, clearly she had never seen the show, but she was great. She just immediately took to my mother, which I knew she would, and wanted to get my mom's anti-aging secrets. Little does she know it's wine and cheese from a bottle. But that show is one I'm so proud of -- that's really what I hoped would happen, with civilians or celebrities, that kind of conversation. </p><p>Lisa Ling was so perfect because she's so smart, and she's able to make fun of herself. And that's what I loved about Anderson Cooper. It all started with Chelsea Handler -- Whitney Cummings said, "Oh Kathy's going to do a show!" and Chelsea said, "I want to come on." And I said, "Oh no, no, no ... people have to really let it rip, and I just don't trust celebrities." She said, "Do you have a first guest?" And I said, "Yeah, it's my dog walker and a couple of friends." And she was like, "You're insane." Having her and Whitney on with my dog walker was really perfect. He's a very real person, and he is someone that I classify as my favorite guest, just unintentionally funny. I'm still going to continue to mix it up with whatever celebrities come to me, come to play and kind of know what they're getting into. </p><p>Well you have all these famous friends who want to support you ... <br>Yesterday, Cher called me and she was on speaker and Ryan the dog walker came to pick up the dogs, and he's like, "Oh my god -- Cher can yell at me anytime." And I said, "Well, who knows, Ryan? It could be in your future."</p><p>I love your life.<br>It's crazy! It's just taken years of brow-beating Hollywood down until they finally realized it was a joke. I went to see the Celine Dion show a few weeks ago in Vegas, and I've met her a few times, but I don't know her well, and I certainly don't know her to be somebody who's necessarily thrilled with the way I've portrayed her in my act. But then I get a call from her assistant, and she wants to see me afterward and hang out, and I'm like, "Really?" And she was lovely, and we took a couple funny pictures. She gave me the highest compliment -- she said [in her Celine Dion accent], "And remember: Keep me in your act. I want to still feel like I am hot!" It's really been fun. Celebrities are finally getting, after all these years, that it's a joke. I'm having less celebrity rage. Fewer celebrities leave the room when I enter -- though there's still a few. And now they come on the show to have fun. </p><p>I'm going to f--- with them, but I'm not in the business of ruining careers. I'm going to make a joke at your expense, and I'm certainly going to make 10 more at my expense, but nobody's going to leave in tears. Ironically, Anderson was on my show a week before he came out. And yet, I certainly in a million years wasn't going to out him for ratings. </p><p>Never! But you probably had a moment of like, "Couldn't you have just done it a week earlier maybe? I didn't want to do it, but couldn't you have done it on my show?"<br>[Laughs.] Well, I think when he was saying things like, "Bitch, what are you doing?" And, "Girl, it's not gonna happen" ... that's the kind of conversation that I live for on the "Kathy" show. I guess if I want to refer to the couch as "my face" and ask the guests to "sit on my face," that may not work with Anderson, but I think it would be unique to have a talk show where I can invite guests to sit on my face. But you know what? I don't win every battle with Bravo. That may not be my new logo ... I may not be able to convince Bravo to go from "Watch What Happens" to "Sit On My Face."</p><p>You do always pick great names. I loved "Tired Hooker," so congrats on the Emmy nomination.<br>I was very, very excited that "Tired Hooker" got nominated. I truly wasn't counting on it; it was a genuine surprise. Once again, I'm out to crush the Kennedy Center Honors because they win that category every single year. But I'm just happy to, once again, give the Academy a title that they should at least consider would be funny to hear: "And the Emmy goes to 'Tired Hooker.'" America just wants to hear it! Even if it's a mistake or there's a tie, or oh my gosh I made a mistake -- I just want somebody who has been in a lot of episodes of "Law & Order" or someone from "The Newsroom" to have to stand there and say, "And the Emmy goes to 'Tired Hooker.'" I have dreams. </p><p>And this new special has "Seaman" in the title. <br>It does, though it's spelled in the nautical fashion. Once again, Bravo didn't want to name it that, but I was doing it in Long Beach ... and I wasn't on the Queen Mary, but there were plenty of queens onstage and in the audience, and I stood in front of a gigantic poster of the Queen Mary. [Laughs.] So I thought "Seaman: 1st Class" was completely appropriate.</p><p>Who are your biggest targets in this one?<br>The Baptist church, I have a new and improved prison fan letter and I talk about Grammys -- there's a lot of backstage dirt from the Grammys. And there's a new and updated Cher story. </p><p>Everybody loves Cher. <br>I did a Tumblr with her, and you should check it out because it just went live: . The gays are abuzz with excitement because I went to Cher's last week and I made her do my make-up and then we did an impromptu iPhone photoshoot. They're not exactly the level of photography status that she's used to ... but it's a lot of glitter.</p><p>"Seaman: 1st Class" premieres Thurs., July 26, 10 p.m. ET; "Kathy" returns to Bravo Thursday nights in January.</p><p>Tell us: Are you excited for more Kathy and more "Kathy" on TV?<br></p><p>Also on HuffPost:</p>?<p></p><p>TORONTO - Only a small percentage of Canadian women appear to opt for breast reconstruction following mastectomy, despite the safety of the procedure and its positive effects on a patient's self-esteem, researchers say.</p><p>In a review article in this week's Canadian Medical Association Journal, Toronto researchers say there is a dearth of data on how many women in the country are currently having reconstructive surgery after mastectomy for breast cancer.</p><p>But rates in Canada have been historically low, said principal author Dr. Toni Zhong, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at Princess Margaret Hospital.</p><p>An Ontario study in 1994-95 found a breast reconstruction rate of 7.7 per cent, while a 1991 analysis for Nova Scotia showed 3.8 per cent of women in that province had the procedure.</p><p>In contrast, rates were higher in Australia (almost 10 per cent in 1982), Denmark (14 per cent, 1999) and England (16.5 per cent, 2006). In the United States, breast reconstruction rates rose from as low as 3.4 per cent in 1985 to a high of 42 per cent in 1997 at specialized cancer centres.</p><p>Use of immediate reconstruction at the same time as mastectomy has also increased in the U.S., in part due to a recommendation by the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons in 2001 to incorporate the practice in the treatment of early-stage breast cancer.</p><p>"All I can say from this review is that this isn't a topic that has been visited," said Zhong. "At least in Ontario, this topic hasn't been visited since the mid-1990s."</p><p>National statistics on breast reconstruction aren't kept, but Zhong and her colleagues are now trying to gather that information province by province.</p><p>"A lot of us have a hunch that maybe Canada is lagging behind what ... (other) high-income countries are doing. But we don't know."</p><p>Research has shown that breast reconstruction performed at the same time as mastectomy for women with early-stage cancer is a "completely safe practice to do from a cancer perspective and it's actually a good thing to do for patients because they get benefit from it," she said.</p><p>Zhong said women tell her that having a breast surgically restored enhances their feeling of being whole and feminine.<br>"And I think when you look down and you don't have the mastectomy scar and instead you have a fairly normal-looking breast mound, it's less of a reminder that you went through this cancer treatment.<br>"It's a sense that you've put this battle behind you."</p><p>At cancer centres like Princess Margaret Hospital, Zhong said there is a concerted effort to identify mastectomy patients who are good candidates for immediate breast reconstruction and offer them the surgery.</p><p>"But that's on an institution basis and we want to see that this uptake is going to be uniform across the country, whether you live in Nova Scotia or Saskatchewan or Ontario, whether you live in a rural place versus an urban place, that shouldn't matter," she said.</p><p>Zhong said there is a misconception that for older women, it's not safe to do breast restoration. But she said that's not true.</p><p>"It has to do with their physiological age or how healthy they are. One really healthy, fit 60-year-old is not the same as a 40-year-old who's diabetic, a smoker, obese. So there are other factors that play into this and make someone a good candidate or not a good candidate."</p><p>Factors that would preclude immediate reconstruction include whether a women will need followup radiation and the stage of cancer at diagnosis. If called for, radiation should be started within three months of mastectomy, but that critical treatment could be delayed if reconstruction healing isn't complete.</p><p>And for women with later-stage breast cancer prescribed radiation and chemotherapy ? because of concerns about recurrence ? reconstruction will usually be postponed for at least two years, she said.</p><p>Zhong said once researchers have a better sense of current breast reconstruction rates across the country, the next step would be for medical experts to develop national guidelines outlining which patients are good candidates for the surgery and would benefit most.</p><p>"Once we decide that, then all women, whether you live in Thunder Bay or live in downtown Toronto should know about these guidelines. And I think that's the best way to make this uniform across the board."</p>WATCH: <br>?<p></p><p>TORONTO ? Women who lose a breast to cancer report improvements in their state of mind and well-being three weeks after breast reconstruction surgery, a new survey indicates.</p><p>However, 20 per cent of the women experienced minor or major complications related to the reconstruction surgery, and many of the women were grappling with significant deterioration in the strength of their abdomen -- the donor site for tissue to reconstruct the breast.</p><p>But study co-author Dr. Toni Zhong said that even when complications, lack of strength at the donor site, scarring and time off work were factored in, the positives outweighed the negatives.</p><p>"The overwhelming answer was these patients did not regret it and were highly satisfied," said Zhong of the University Health Network Breast Restoration Program at the University of Toronto.</p><p>The women were questioned three weeks after their surgery, when they were still recovering and probably still in pain, and again three months after the surgery.</p><p>"As early as three weeks, these patients were reporting really quite significant improvement in all sorts of quality-of-life issues, like psychosocial well-being, sexual well-being, body image and things like that," said Zhong.</p><p>She and her colleagues collaborated on the research with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.</p><p>The study is published Monday in the early online edition of Cancer, a journal of the American Cancer Society.</p><p>The 51 women who were surveyed didn't have implants, but rather surgeries utilizing tissue from the abdomen: free muscle-sparing transverse rectus abdominis myocutaneous (TRAM) flap reconstruction or a deep inferior epigastric artery (DIEP) flap reconstruction.</p><p>Zhong said muscle-sparing surgery was first described in the literature about a decade ago, and has become more popular in the last five years.</p><p>She said only four surgeons in Toronto, and a total of about 10 plastic surgeons in Canada, do these breast reconstructions which require specialized fellowship training, equipment and nursing staff, and competence using a microscope during surgery to hook up blood vessels.</p><p>Many of the complications reported in the study were minor, Zhong said, such as a stitch coming through the skin or scabbing that required dressing changes.</p><p>Major complications were defined as having to return to the operating room for unexpected reasons, and this was the case for about 10 per cent of the patients surveyed, she said. Eventually these patients healed fine too.</p><p>"Despite having even a major complication, though, these patients reported that they felt overall the reconstruction achieved the purpose that they wanted," she said.</p><p>Zhong was surprised by the findings on abdominal outcomes, as patients are normally counselled that the donor site should be back to normal at eight weeks.</p><p>Complaints about abdominal weakness could include difficulty lifting groceries, for example, or getting out of bed -- instead of just sitting up, the woman might have to roll onto her side first.</p><p>"Maybe there are things we can do before surgery to optimize these patients' conditions. For example, maybe it's a good idea for us to have a devoted physiotherapist who can focus on doing abdominal strength training before surgery," she said.</p><p>The research will help doctors counsel patients about the pros and cons of surgery so they know what to expect, she indicated.</p><p>Dr. Melinda Musgrave, a plastic surgeon at St. Michael's Hospital who was not involved in the research, said the study looks at what she calls the "Cadillac of breast reconstruction" that uses abdominal tissue and tries to save muscle.</p><p>"She's shown a pretty consistent outcome, that patients in the long run are pretty happy about reconstructive surgery, and that as early as three weeks after having it, they're pretty happy with their breast," Musgrave noted.</p><p>"But what she's found that I think is really interesting is that they're not so happy with their tummies."</p><p>Maybe these operations aren't as good as originally thought for women who need to pick up laundry baskets, for instance, or a two-year-old child, she said.</p><p>She noted that some women choose implants rather than abdominal tissue for their breast reconstruction because they don't want a long period off work to heal, even though 30 per cent of implant patients will need to come back for an adjustment of some kind within five years.</p><p>"It's a matter of the patient choosing the reconstruction that fits into her life," Musgrave said.</p><p>She said the rate of women having breast reconstruction surgery after mastectomy ranges from seven to 20 per cent worldwide.</p><p>"I think it's important that we all promote reconstructive (surgery) for the patient ... we love how the patients feel about themselves afterwards, and we get a lot of positive feedback."</p><p>Plastic surgeons would ideally like to see breast cancer patients soon after diagnosis to help them make decisions that impact them throughout their cancer journey, said Musgrave.</p><p>"I just want people to come and have a consult ... I don't want them to lose the opportunity. I've had lots of women come to me delayed five years after, 10 years after, saying 'I wish I had known 10 years ago about this, I would've had it done.'</p><p>"I think knowledge is power."</p><p>WATCH:<br><br></p> <br>?<p>What do you do after you've composed an anthem for Celine Dion, scored a mythical 3D world for James Cameron, gone where no man has gone before, worked with Ron Howard and won two Oscars? If you're , you combine your talents for writing emotional music with your love of flying, and you team up with , the world's only P-51 Mustang aerobatic team.</p><p>The mission of The Horsemen is to, "Bring greater interest to the world of historic aviation and to remind future generations of how these powerful machines helped the Allies change the outcome of WWII." This is clearly on display in this , which is uplifting even if you are sick of "My Heart Will Go On."</p><p>Check it out: </p><p> <p> <p> <p> <p> <p> <p> </p><p><br></p> <p>Follow Brian Clark Howard on Twitter:</p>?<p>It seems like only yesterday that Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time. Now, nine weeks later, the infectious summer hit is still at No. 1, meaning Carly Rae has held the top position for longer than even Gotye. The Belgian-Australian singer who spent eight weeks at the top with "Somebody That I Used To Know." </p><p>As a result, than any other song in 2012, reports Billboard. Congratulations on a job well done, America! </p><p>All jokes aside, the is pretty impressive. The phenomenon began in February, when Justin Bieber and his girlfriend Selena Gomez (along with a few of their famous friends), to Jepsen's song. Thanks to Bieber -- and his -- "Call Me Maybe" became an overnight internet sensation. </p><p>Unfortunately for Bieber, Jepsen's single is currently No. 1, while his is holding steady at No. 15. </p><p>In other Jepsen news, the 26-year-old (yes, she's 26 years old) recently announced that she will . “The record is pop,” Jepsen said in a statement, adding: ”It’s inspired by Robyn, the Cars, Madonna, and believe it or not, James Taylor.” Let's not forget about that , Carly. </p><p>How did Jepsen get to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 summit? Take at look through our timeline below to see how Jepsen went from a Canadian folk artist to a worldwide pop phenomenon in less than a year.</p><p></p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p>?<p>From "Uncovering Celine"<br>Wyatt Mason<br>The New York Review of Books</p><p>Bagatelles pour un massacre [Trifles for a Massacre]<br>by Louis-Ferdinand Celine<br>Paris: Denoel, 379 pp. (1937)</p><p>L'Ecole des cadavres [The School of Corpses]<br>by Louis-Ferdinand Celine<br>Paris: Denoel, 272 pp. (1938)</p><p>Les Beaux Draps [A Fine Mess]<br>by Louis-Ferdinand Celine<br>Paris: Les Nouvelles Editions Francaises, 158 pp. (1941)</p><p>Normance<br>by Louis-Ferdinand Celine, translated from the French and with an introduction by Marlon Jones<br>Dalkey Archive, 371 pp., $14.95 (paper)</p><p>1.</p><p>Louis-Ferdinand Destouches met Cillie Pam in Paris, at the Cafe de la Paix, in September 1932. Destouches was a physician who worked at a public clinic in Clichy treating poor and working-class patients; Pam was a twenty-seven-year-old Viennese gymnastics instructor eleven years his junior on a visit to the city. Destouches suggested a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne, took Pam to dinner later that night, and afterward took her home. Two weeks together began, after which Pam returned to her work and life in Vienna. Over the next seven years, they saw each other infrequently but corresponded regularly. Pam, who was Jewish, married and had a son. Destouches, who wrote in his free time, became famous shortly after their brief affair, his first novel, Voyage au bout de la nuit, published at the end of 1932 under the pseudonym "Celine" (his maternal grandmother's first name), proving an enormous success. In February 1939, Destouches received word that Pam had lost her husband: he had been seized, sent to Dachau, and killed. On February 21, Destouches wrote to Pam, who had fled abroad:</p>Dear Cillie,<p>What awful news! At least you're far away, on the other side of the world. Were you able to take a little money with you? Obviously, you're going to start a new life over there. How will you work? Where will Europe be by the time you receive this letter? We're living over a volcano.</p><p>On my side, my little dramas are nothing compared to yours (for the moment), but tragedy looms nonetheless....</p><p>Because of my anti-Semitic stance I've lost all my jobs (Clichy, etc.) and I'm going to court on March 8. You see, Jews can persecute too.</p><p>How a reader responds to this letter is, I suspect, a fair predictor of how capable he or she might be of tolerating the extreme disjunctions that predominate in the life and art of its author. One of Celine's biographers, for example, describes the letter as possessing "a curious blend of concern and sheer tactless selfishness," a response that itself seems to exhibit its own curious blend of sheer shortsightedness and apologism. Another biographer calls it, reasonably if inadequately, "astonishing," but does offer the useful detail that Pam, upon receipt of the letter, "never saw [Destouches] again and stopped writing."</p><p>My own sense is that such a letter would astonish most readers--words of condolence over anti-Semitic violence do not often contain anti-Semitic sympathies--except those who have read not only Celine's novels but also what have been inaccurately termed, for generations, his "anti-Semitic pamphlets." Alas, no English-speaking reader who does not know French could make so comprehensive a survey. Though all eight of Celine's novels are now available in dependable English translations, the so-called anti-Semitic pamphlets have never been officially published in English. Having recently read them in French in bootleg editions readily available online,[1] I should report that the letter above, taken in that larger, less available context, isn't astonishing in the least. Rather, it's exactly the sort of letter one would expect from an anti-Semite of Celine's tireless and impenitent ardor, a writer who, from 1937 to 1944, spent all his flagrant literary energy and aptitude calling--shouting--for the death of every Jew in France (for a start).</p><p><br>Read the rest of this article at the website.<br></p><p><br><br><p>Get HuffPost Books On and </p></p> <br>?<p>A Canada earthquake shook Toronto and Ottawa at approximately 1:45 p.m. Eastern Time today, June 23, 2010. The USGS the quake had a magnitude of 5.0.</p><p>Numerous reports flooded Twitter, including from the National Post in Toronto, which about heavy shaking to its building about 30 seconds after similar reports from Ottawa.</p><p>We're mapping reader reports of where the quake was felt as we receive them. Check out our map . And let us know if you felt it in your area at ! Thanks to all the readers that have already written in. </p><p>Scroll down for video of the quake. <br><br></p><p>The Globe and Mail is reporting on that there are numerous reports of "unusual ground shaking in various parts of Ontario," as well as Buffalo, N.Y.</p><p>The quake was also as far away as Boston, Cleveland and .</p><p>A reader Andrew Whitaker emailed in from Michigan, "I'm working at university of michigan hospital currently in ann arbor michigan and we experienced two 10 second intervals of light shaking that is being reported as part of the earthquake in canada."</p><p>Another reader Sharon Shaw said she felt the quake from Huntington, West Virginia, near the Ohio and Kentucky border, while reader Crystal Buckley said she felt tremors at approximately 2:05 p.m. in Bath, N.Y.</p><p>Reader Jamie Malone wrote in to say "felt it in pittsburgh! 4th floor office building."</p><p>And here's a reader report from Canada, courtesy of Kahlya Ohlhoff: "I am in Hamilton ON and felt the quake. It lasted almost a minute, being on the third floor, we evacuated the building. It was pretty intense, the flowers and computer monitors were shaking enough to make our hands mimic the movement."</p><p>We've also received reports from readers that the quake was felt in Cincinnati; Kalamazoo, Michigan; Milwaukee; East Hartford, CT; Staten Island; Mt. Laurel, NJ; and Pittsburgh. </p><p>Here's some great video, courtesy of Fox 40 Sacramento via CBC, of a TV studio shaking as the quake hits.</p> <br><p><br>More news about how the earthquake affected the New York area .</p><p>Did you experience the quake? Let us know at !</p> <br>?<p>LONDON - John Herdman hasn't had to bolster his players with any special messages of motivation, or implement any team-building strategies since they touched down in England.</p><p>Ten months after he took on the task of mending the battered psyche of Canada's women's soccer team, and a day before his squad opens its London Olympic campaign, the coach said his players are all-business, and more than ready to play on sport's biggest stage.</p><p>"That's the brilliance of this group, there's a maturity there," Herdman said following his team's final practice in Coventry before its opener. "They're managing internally everything they need to to be ready for the games. So my message has been really simple: keep doing what you're doing.</p><p>"I think the key is connectivity through this tournament, starting with the game (Wednesday), and that connectivity is doing everything we need to do to get on the podium, on and off the field."</p><p>The Canadians open the Olympics versus World Cup champion Japan in Coventry on Wednesday, two days before the opening ceremonies in London. Canada is seeking redemption after a horrible showing at the World Cup last summer in Germany ? a last-place finish that left the team's confidence in tatters, and led to the departure of head coach Carolina Morace and the hiring of Herdman.</p><p>"I would like another three years with them (to prepare for London), that would have been nice to be in the same position as the Japanese coach," Herdman said, laughing. "But the benefit is things are still fresh at the minute, the girls are enjoying working with us and we're savouring every moment with this tournament."</p><p>The Canadians face what should be the toughest test of the tournament right out of the gate, playing a Japanese squad that knocked off the perennial power United States in a penalty shootout to win the World Cup in Germany.</p><p>Canadian midfielder Sophie Schmidt calls Japan a "Barcelona-type team."</p><p>"Japan is a special team, just in the way they pass the ball," Schmidt said. "We've had discussions. We know we won't have the ball for most of the game, so we just have to take advantage when we do, make most of our chances when we do get them."</p><p>The seventh-ranked Canadians and No. 3 Japan have played each other to three wins, three losses and three draws. But the Japanese have been on the rise since their fourth-place finish in Beijing.</p><p>"They're a pleasure to watch and have taken the women's game to another level in terms of technical ability," Herdman said. "Tactically they are very well organized and over the years they've been able to mask their weakness, which is their physical presence on the pitch, with real tactical discipline.</p><p>"It will be a tough game for us, a very tough game. But a great opportunity as well, playing the world champion."</p><p>Since arriving in England last week, the Canadians made a brief stop in London to tour the athletes village and receive their Canadian gear before travelling the 150 kilometres northwest to Coventry where they're being housed in a hotel with the three other teams in their group and men's teams from Belarus and New Zealand.</p><p>They were able to walk the pitch of Coventry Stadium, normally home to Coventry City, on Monday. The team held a light training session Tuesday at its practice facility.</p><p>"Mainly just chilled out," Herdman said. "Getting in the right frame of mind for the game."</p><p>Frame of mind was perhaps the biggest challenge Herdman faced when he took over the team last fall. He hired Ceri Evans as the team's "mental trainer," a New Zealander who worked with the All Blacks leading into their victorious rugby World Cup campaign.</p><p>Herdman said the team hasn't felt the need for team-building sessions in between their practices and physiotherapy sessions in Coventry.</p><p>"They're such a cool group, they get on really well, they entertain themselves well, and to be honest, football is their job, and they work a pretty solid shift in the daytime between practices, et cetera. They're just enjoying being footballers."</p><p>On entertaining themselves, the coach wasn't lying. The players and staff recently shot a video in the locker-room of themselves singing Celine Dion's "The Power of Love" that was posted on Dion's website along with a good luck message:</p><p>"We hope to hear them sing their victory anthem, Celine's "The Power of Love," many more times. Good luck ladies!"</p><p>Canada was eighth four years ago in Beijing, its only other Olympic appearance.</p><p>Since earning its Olympic berth at the CONCACAF qualifying tournament in Vancouver in January, the Canadians have won seven games and lost four, including a 3-1 loss to fourth-ranked Sweden in March.</p><p>In a tune-up tournament in Switzerland last week, the Canadians downed Colombia 1-0 and New Zealand 2-0 before losing 2-1 to Brazil, the team they beat in a shootout to win the Pan American Games last fall.</p><p>Canada meets 61st-ranked South Africa on Saturday, and then battles Sweden in Newcastle ? Herdman's hometown ? next Tuesday, a crucial game that could well determine their Olympic fate.</p><p>Japan recently suffered a 4-1 thrashing by the Americans, but Herdman isn't putting much stock in that result, saying coach Norio Sasaki was likely using the game to tinker with his lineup or formation.</p><p>Homare Sawa, Japan's 33-year-old team captain, will be the player Canada will be most concerned with ? Japan's version of Canadian captain and star striker Christine Sinclair.</p><p>Sawa made her international debut when she was 15, scoring four goals in her first match. She scored a hat trick against Mexico at last summer's World Cup and went on to earn the Golden Boot as top scorer (five goals) and Golden Ball as tournament MVP.</p><p>She was also named FIFA's women's player of the year.</p>?<p>, 09/27/12</p> <p>Keyboardist, The Dears</p> <p>Pondering the genesis of hipsterdom, I often trace it back to Vice, and the importance they laid on the concept of "cool." I mean, Vice didn't invent it, they just presented a pre-existing sub-culture in a consumable format. And yeah: back then, I understood what Vice was because I was living it. But it's not 1997. After having a kid, I was admittedly nervous about having a full-colour, glossy magazine showing stylized images of syringes, used condoms and blood-soaked models lying around the house.</p>?In the New York - Metropolitan Art Mosh Pit, it’s hard being green and also a vegetarian, animal-rights activist, buyer-planner, conservationist, artist. Vicky Allen Hanks even has to work for a living since she was not a trust-fund baby. (A Titanium white oil stick averages $25 a stick, Belgian linen is $180 a roll). We visit with her in her new home-based studio in Montclair, one which is a third the size of her former loft space in Newark. Her art often depicts, in a cartoonish mannerism, struggles with the accoutrements of femininity in a male-dominant universe. But her current series of new paintings are infused with animal imagery.<br>The “WALLENDA” series of plano-convex sculptural paintings are comprised of compact, multi-dimensional, colorful commentaries on the encroachment upon the natural habitat of all living species. These works extend and elaborate upon past work that reflects concern for relationships between line and pictorial space. Structurally, these works effect a sense of drawing with space, giving emphasis to the humorous and buoyant treatment of line. The serio-comic imagery, thickening and thinning of shapes, elastic demeanor, feel spontaneous, alive. Designed to be wall-mounted, ceiling-suspended, or anchored in free open environments, WALLENDAS possess the compositional integrity of collage while maintaining the painterly quality of abstraction. Like some ancient wall paintings, WALLENDAS echo a unique type of cautionary iconography while remaining fluidly decorative and insightfully explorative?<p>I don't know where I've been, but I only just recently watched 1995's "Before Sunrise" and thanks to Netflix's speedy delivery, eagerly saw the 2004 sequel "Before Sunset" for the first time. My mind has been in a reverie ever since. There are so few nice surprises in life, that it's thrilling to discover a new movie or song, even if it's old to others and these movies delivered on both. </p><p>I didn't want the movies to end, and hoped it would be like Michael Apted's "Up" series (which is every seven years), or Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn in "Same Time Next Year" (wished they made a sequel), that follow people and relationships over a span of time. News broke this month that director Richard Linklater confirmed they wrapped shooting a third movie in Greece "Before Midnight" (expected to be out 2013) and released a photo from that shoot. While nine years between these "Before" movies is a long time, I'm sure many of us are happy just to see more of these characters.</p><p>I'd seen "Before Sunrise" once in the '90s, and could only remember the premise. Two characters, played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, meeting and spending the day in Vienna. You feel like you're on the journey with them, a journey you don't want to end.</p><p>"Before Sunrise" was a magical surprise this time around, yet it felt realistic and in "Before Sunset," I just wanted Hawke's character Jesse to go to her apartment and make dinner together and hang out. All of us can relate to these rare magical moments, where you don't want the conversation, or the night, to end. We can also relate to being in our optimistic 20s when you feel there's a whole world and life ahead to explore, when chances and opportunities seem abundant.</p><p>I got bummed thinking "Before Sunrise" might not work now because the characters would Skype, iChat, text and instead of taking a mental picture of each other, they'd snap cell phone photos. But the heart of it is really the profound connection between two people that seems to happen so randomly, that it's destiny. No photo or video could ever capture the feeling and presence of that moment of two intersecting souls, a moment witnessed only by those two.</p><p>That intense, inexplicable connection is so absorbing, you feel like the only two people in the world and your time together, sometimes in a different place like these characters were, feels like you're in a dream you don't want to wake up from. It feels "other worldly," as referenced in the movie before Delpy's character Celine says, "But then morning comes and we turn into pumpkins, right?"</p><p>In "Before Sunrise" Jesse says, "Everything is so finite. But don't you think that's what makes our time at specific moments so important?" Nine years later in "Before Sunset" he says, "I remember that night better than I do entire years." When he asked her why didn't they exchange phone numbers nine years earlier, Celine replies with a truism, "When you're young, you just believe there'll be many people with whom you'll connect with. Later in life you realize it only happens a few times."</p><p>These movies make the viewer reflect on their own magical, soulful encounters with a special someone. What immediately came to mind was a night exploring Milan on motorcycle with a new friend who lived there, both in our 20s, with this seemingly empty city at that time of night, like our own movie set. Unlike "Before Sunrise" it wasn't romantic, but a nice memorable night of openly sharing thoughts about life, problems and issues we faced in our countries, and realizing we all shared similar hopes and dreams.</p><p>But the memories that are the truly blissful, intense connections are rare and etched into memory. And the magical places where those few times occurred a la "Before Sunrise," all happened for me right here in our own beautiful country, proving it didn't need an exotic locale for it to happen. While it wasn't the place that made our souls connect so profoundly, they were vivid backdrops where the magic happened.</p><p>While two of these occurred in my 20s, two other indelible moments happened later, affirming that inexplicable magic with another soul can occur at any moment in life.</p><p>There was the day exploring on cable cars, sharing a sundae at Ghirardelli's by , laughing about how unbelievably sweet it was, a visit to to pick up supplies to make homemade mackerel sushi and green tea and eating dinner on the floor picnic-style in an old apartment.</p><p>There was the time hanging out on a bench along the Charles River right outside MIT taking in the breathtaking skyline at night, having ice cream at an old-fashioned New England ice creamery and then lingering at a nearby pond. The night ended on a blanket on the grass, talking about lyrics from one of the sexiest songs ever written -- Dire Straits' "Romeo and Juliet," both thinking Mark Knopfler sang the word "Orion" as we ourselves gazed up at the constellations and asked one another if we believed in soul mates.</p><p>One night was supposed to be a simple dinner, meeting for the first time after speaking on the phone, at the old restaurant in . But it didn't matter where we were, and despite the crowd, it felt like we were the only people there, sitting in front of the fireplace, absorbed in the banter. The conversation flowed, we put out every flaw, insecurity and thought on that table, there was never pause. We closed the place down. We were in such a daze by this unexpected discovery of the other person, one of us forgot to take the leftovers and the other forgot to tip the valet. I didn't want that conversation to end and as Jesse in the movie says, I've compared whole years to that night. We had our own sequel -- another too short night, but life took separate paths and I'm left with the cherished memory of a great connection of two minds.</p><p>"Before Sunrise" also made me contemplate another unexpected connection, a spiritual experience, at the at the base of Camelback Mountain in , Arizona. Also called The Casa, this serene piece of heaven welcomes all and it'll always hold a sacred place for me because of that memory. We explored the grounds despite the 100-plus degree heat, taking simple pleasure in seeing an empty bird's nest, the beautiful mountain views beyond and a family of quail. We enjoyed the Healing Garden with its many fruit trees, an oasis in the desert, made a donation, lit a candle and prayerfully walked the labyrinth.</p><p>The labyrinth was a first for me, and it was the centerpiece of that cherished memory, slowly walking around the labyrinth. Anyone who visiting who is looking for an inner spiritual experience, must not miss the simple stone labyrinth, a sacred ancient meditational tool for reflection. Not wanting the magical time in this place to end, the goodbye hug ranked one of the best in memory, just before turning into pumpkins. Perhaps it was because this beautiful spiritual desert backdrop enhanced the connection between us, but the magic was unexpected and otherworldly and it was hard to sleep, back in "in real time" (as Jesse says in "Before Sunrise," before they parted) still one foot in the dream world.</p><p>"Before Sunrise" had the most touching scene in a movie where not a word was spoken. It made me at once get verklempt as well as laugh, as the two stood in an old school record store listening booth, listening to New England singer-songwriter 's "Come Here." The two stole furtive glances and at times locked eyes as they shyly looked away, emoting so much without uttering a word.</p><p>Kath is our and she calls "Come Here" travel song, referring to the title. She shares a little bit about her own journey and this song featured in "Before Sunrise," which was recorded in a studio in Woodstock, New York. You can hear it on her and purchase it on iTunes.</p><p></p> <br><p>Follow CarsTravelFood on Twitter:</p>?<p>LAS VEGAS — The singer-songwriter behind the Grammy-winning 2010 single "Forget You" and the 2006 hit "Crazy" is settling down – at least for a few months – in a Las Vegas residency.</p><p>Cee Lo Green says his semi-permanent show, "Loberace," will launch Aug. 29 at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip, and run at least through the end of the year.</p><p>"The production will combine Cee Lo's flamboyant sense of style and over-the-top creativity," producers said in a statement, adding that the show "will be as inspired and visually alive as Cee Lo Green."</p><p>Organizers say the show will include a musical journey through time, with tributes to Price and the Rolling Stones. "Mind-twisting magic and sexified showgirls" are also on tap.</p><p>The 37-year-old Green, known for his soulful voice and extravagant costumes, is a coach on the NBC show "The Voice." His break came in the mid-1990s in the southern rap scene, but has evolved to include Gnarls Barkley, a collaboration between him and DJ-producer Danger Mouse, and his 2010 solo album "The Lady Killer."</p><p>The 28 shows through the end of December are scheduled for late nights, and some follow Planet Hollywood's "Peepshow" production in the 1,400-seat theater.</p><p>Green told the Las Vegas Review-Journal he sees himself continuing Sin City entertainment tradition.</p><p>"I love the city. I can't wait to be a part of it. I can't wait to be officially there," Green said in an interview. "From this generation I would just like to be able to carry on, and pick up the torch and continue to make Vegas a place to be."</p> <br>?<p> has found a home for his Las Vegas residency - he will launch his own concert show at Planet Hollywood this summer.</p><p>The Forget You hitmaker's production, which is billed to contain "mind-twisting magic and sexified showgirls", will be decked out in the singer's unique flamboyant style and feature a slew of pyrotechnics.</p><p>Cee Lo Green Presents Loberace will kick off on 29 August and run until the end of December.</p><p>The star has made no secret of his dream to join Celine Dion as a regular on the Sin City stage, recently revealing he'd love to cut down on travelling.</p><p>He also showed his love for Vegas by filming a new 'What happens here, stays here' commercial for tourism bosses.</p> <br>?<p>NEW YORK, N.Y. - To witness the odd power of celebrities at the fragrance counter, look no further than two of today's top women's perfume stars: One is a teenage boy. The other, deceased.</p><p>Justin Bieber's women's perfume Someday is one of the top sellers in department and specialty stores, and White Diamonds, the scent launched 20 years ago by the late Elizabeth Taylor, tops in big box stores.</p><p>But for every Bieber, there seems like there's an A-lister who fails to garner buzz when it comes to fragrance. Jennifer Aniston, anyone?</p><p>The most successful celebrities to splash their name across a fragrance bottle speak typically to a niche audience, often one that's an older or younger consumer.</p><p>"The ones that do well have a strong following with a strong core audience," explains Karen Grant, beauty industry analyst at market research firm The NPD Group. "Liz Taylor has almost a cult following, and Bieber is the same thing. He's all about tweens and the moms getting it for the tweens."</p><p>Celebrity fragrances also are particularly "giftable" items, Grant notes, because if the receiver is a fan, you're going to get the "ooh," at least when he or she opens the box.</p><p>Bieber was a bona fide hit and briefly bumped perennial favourite fragrances Chanel No. 5 and Coco Mademoiselle out of the top sales spots last year. Later this month he'll be honoured with the Elizabeth Taylor Fragrance Celebrity award from the Fragrance Foundation. With Taylor Swift and her perfume Wonderstruck, the two young stars revitalized the celebrity fragrance business, up 57 per cent in sales in 2011.</p><p>From looney to lucrative, here are some top Hollywood-created scents.<br><br><p>One of the big new launches this spring is Madonna's Truth or Dare, and Rihanna's Reb'l Fleur has been a strong performer, too.</p><p>The successes, say experts, combine celebrity involvement, personal appeal, lively fans and a good "juice," industry lingo for the actual smell.</p><p>Madonna, at an event to celebrate Truth or Dare at Macy's last month, said she thought long and hard about what her signature scent would be, ending with a floral formula that includes a note of tuberose, which is also prominent in the perfume Fracas by Robert Piguet ? a favourite of the pop star's. "I wear Fracas myself and I've been wearing it for years and years and years, and I try other perfumes all the time, and I always come back to it. And I know the reason I always comes back to it is because it reminds me of my mom."</p><p>She wears perfume all the time, Madonna added. "I spray perfume on me, myself like a crazy person. Nonstop. Never want to smell bad."</p><p>Rafael Villoldo, Vice-President of Perfumania, which has deals with Rihanna, 50 Cent and Kim Kardashian, says the celebrity has to buy into the product wholeheartedly. "You have to look at what they stand for. I won't do a fragrance with someone who has said they hate fragrance or doesn't look like someone who'd wear fragrance."</p><p>Next, he thinks about potential customers and distribution, and he'll check out how active the celebrity is on social media because, he explains, no one can get shoppers excited about a product like its namesake.</p><p>"Look at the Kardashians. They don't sing, dance or act, other that the reality show, but you look at Kim, and she has 15 million Twitter followers," Villoldo says. "If I put on a hat that we think looks funny, it's a funny looking hat, but she'll have 15 million people considering wearing that hat ? that's power."</p><p>Still, he says, that only gets you so far with a fragrance. There has to be quality to get consumers to buy into a brand for repeat purchases. The Paris Hilton line has had unexpected longevity, says Villoldo, who typically hopes for a five-year run with a celebrity, but Hilton has proven a tireless promoter.</p><p>NPD's Grant is curious how Madonna will fare. "She's a mature woman so the younger generation might feel like she's a little over the hill, but Madonna is Madonna and she has A LOT of fans. When you talk about the most loyal fragrance consumer, she's over 50, and you'll have to rip out of her hands whatever her favourite one is, so once you've got her, you have a better chance of keeping her. "</p><p>Buzz doesn't necessarily drive an older woman, Grant adds, noting that Celine Dion has had many years of consistent, strong sales without too much splash.</p><p>A star with a story to tell through fragrance has a better shot, says Betsy Olum, general manager of beauty and merchandising strategy at HSN. Does the bottle design reflect the celebrity's look? Is there a scent note that has a special meaning? Consumers want to know, and they'll be able to pick out ? or sniff out ? the bottles that just slapped a boldfaced name on the front, she says.</p><p>On TV, Mary J. Blige, Jennifer Lopez and Eva Longoria all connected with home shoppers on TV in a way that a glitzy ad can't convey, Olum says.</p><p>"When Jennifer Lopez's mom came on with her, and then her sister texted in, even I wanted to buy the fragrance ? and I did," Olum says.</p><p>She was equally impressed with Eva Longoria. "At the time we were talking about her second fragrance, and it already seemed near the end of 'Desperate Housewives,' and we had a discussion here, 'Would people still be engaged?'" Olum says. "But she came on, and she's one of the most beautiful women on the planet, and she said, 'Don't worry, I'm going to get on and be great.' ... And I was really impressed by how she came on and really told her life story. People really connected to her."</p><p>Men take a slightly different approach in their celebrity fragrances than women, however, says Grant, since they buy more into image, using Sean "Diddy" Combs' Unforgivable and Usher's namesake cologne as examples of scents with the "sexy, bad-boy vibe." Men are more aware of choosing a fragrance that will appeal to their romantic partners.</p><p>Current celebrity bestsellers, according to NPD:</p><p>Mass market (big box and drugstores), first quarter 2012:</p><p>?Women's: White Diamonds by Elizabeth Taylor, Reveal by Halle Berry, Fantasy by Britney Spears</p><p>?Men's: Unforgivable by Sean "Diddy" Combs, He by Usher, Soul 2 Soul by Tim McGraw</p><p>Prestige market (department and specialty stores), year-end 2011, most recent available:</p><p>?Women's: Justin Bieber Someday; Wonderstruck by Taylor Swift, Reb'l Fleur by Rihanna</p><p>?Men's: Unforgivable, I Am King by Comb's Sean John brand, Usher VIP</p></p> <br>?<p>Whether they be sexy or scary, you can never go wrong with channeling your inner celebrity at least one night out of the year. From a transgender Lady Gaga and a pantless, hot mess Christina Aguilera to a Geisha-esque Katy Perry and a hoedown happy Rihanna, the bold and beautiful few certainly provide quite a bit of inspiration when the ghoulish holiday rolls around. </p><p>So who will you be this year? Will you channel a sexy or scary (intentionally or not) celeb? Check out our pics for the best celebrity costume ideas this year. </p><p></p><p></p> <br>?These are not our mother's and father's age differences. Today with hormonal therapies for women and mens Viagra for men, with cosmetic enhancements and surgeries for both have eliminated a lot of the age differences. Naturally, money and fame allows men to have greater appeal for much younger women and lets not forget the cougars out there in this sphere. <br>I am 73 and live in a part of CA that is quite affluent. A lot of career men don't come here because it is not a major city area with a lot of major jobs that pay well. Yes, there are a lot of men that do well with their own smaller businesses and services like wealth managers, etc. I am often startled myself as a man who lived and played (married at 42 and divorced at 47) in the major boy meets girl "play" areas of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Manhattan for 20 years, am surprised at the come on's I still receive by 45 to 50 year old women. I am well educated, business career, well traveled, and am only 10# over my college weight, and have my own hair which is now salt & pepper. I keep active and trim and active with my tennis group. <br>At my age I prefer however attractive women in the late fifties to mid to late sixties as they, for me, fit my relationships better are more free to enjoy than those women still in the work force.?My pictures wont load but that doesnt matter. Whoever that headline picture was.. shes naturally beautiful anyway.. as are many others. WHY dont these people realise.. showbiz seems to demand everyone wears make up..hair do`s .. yes, when in front of cameras and lights.. but normally.. I know of many women who seem to think they NEED makeup when really, they dont? Its the pressure of media.. making them think that way.?<p>Independent UK:</p><p>Early this year, armed with a high dose of inspiration and entrepreneurial spirit, the design graduate opened a boutique in Lyon offering a full range of doggie outfits - sailor-sweaters, leather jackets, denim and lace dresses.</p><p>The move won her a special fashion award, handed her by high-end lingerie queen Chantal Thomass, which will be enough to cover the rent for the boutique for a year.</p><p></p> <br>?<p>It must be eco-school day. This morning, we wrote about a contest for , and now we come across Celine Cousteau -- that's Jacques Cousteau's granddaughter -- saying kids ought to be taught environmentalism at a young age.</p><p>It's part of a longer interview in which she discusses what she's up to. , or check out the salient parts below:</p>What would you advise parents who want to educate their children about environmental issues during their travels?<p><br>First of all, I don't understand why environmentalism isn't part of every curriculum in schools. You teach biology, so why not make that connection for the kids? In terms of travel planning, I would really pay attention to where you choose to go and teach the kids why you decided to bring them to a particular place: because they compost, because they have solar panels, because they have educational eco programs, etc. The consumer demand has to be the driving force for places to go green.</p><p>What are some eco-focused kid's programs you would recommend?</p><p>Not just to plug my father's non-profit, but I really do think the Jean-Michel Cousteau "Ambassadors of the Environment" (www.aote.org) programs are really great for kids. And they've been really successful in promoting awareness and educating. At the Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman, for instance, they launched the kid's program but soon the parents started coming along, so they had to expand the program. Another place I have heard about is a program called Green Chimneys (www.greenchimneys.org), based in Brewster, NY, where city-kids learn about nature and the environment. Clean up the World (www.cleanuptheworld.com) is another program I am involved in as ambassador; they have tangible programs with partners around the world and anyone can get involved.</p> <br>?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpSzBNJOBqEzcV2f6zvgZ4FLzuHlXFqCtvHEMfu8cnurHGtdTrlO6FQ6fVx4NbTyV%2B7Ql2tAH0vCj4kIuB5Ua5hfpX3jCUjpesA7EFvdsOSuTBc8OfyGzw3GYqrfjYvGOR8QAEXbdlMhN?Click here to leave a comment.HuffPost High School welcomes a lively, thoughtful debate in the comment section. Keep in mind that the articles here are penned by young authors, so please keep criticism respectful, and help us to keep this a safe and supportive place for writers of all ages to contribute.?I'm so drained, I can't get up off the floor -- and her voice is killing me. She has got to stop acting as if everything she does, including fa h r t in our faces on a daily basis with news of this "pregnancy, " (personally, I just think it's old age bloat :) should make the world stop and listen up.<br>Earth to Celine: disappear! Great voice, but wayyyyyyy too immersed in her universe.?<p>AP -- Singer Celine Dion has cancelled several upcoming concerts in Las Vegas because of a virus.</p><p>Caesars Palace officials say her doctor advised her to rest for a week to recover from the virus, which caused an inflammation of her vocal cords. Shows scheduled for Friday, Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday were cancelled at the resort's Colosseum.</p><p>Her next scheduled concert there is March 3.</p><p>Dion, in a statement, said she doesn't "like to let people down," and she feels terrible about not being able to perform at the shows. Refunds will be given to people who bought tickets.</p><p>Caesars spent $95 million to build the Colosseum for Dion in 2003, complete with a humidifier to protect her voice</p> <br>?<p>Celine Dion is just like us. When times get tough, she turns to for comfort too.</p><p>Over the weekend, the covered Adele during her concert in Las Vegas. "I love Adele so much. She's amazing," Dion said, before launching into the British singer's No. 1 hit, </p><p>Of course it's hard not to love Adele, but after , she probably has a newfound kinship with the 24-year-old. late last year to repair a hemorrhaged vocal chord.</p><p>The show marked Dion's first stage appearance since recovering from her vocal cord virus. The 36-performance run continuing through August 19.</p><p>Check out photos of Adele:<br></p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p>?Her husband just mentioned the names of their twins during a Quebec TV special. <br><br>Nelson, in honor of Nelson Mandela who they met a few years ago and Eddy, for Eddy Marnay, a French songwriter born in Alger with who Celine made 5 albums at the start of her career in the 80s, and who died a few years ago.?I knew about the 12 & 18 thingy. <br>She has explained it all in interiews, right down to the details. <br>I really think it really started @ 16.<br>She even talked about how her mom was against this ill-pairing, in the beginning.<br><br>So, memory does serve me - - HE WAS MARRIED when he started chopping down an 18 yr. old impressionable kid; from the sticks, no less. <br><br>Tommy Matolla was also married when he pick up the fair maiden, Mariah.<br>And the maiden Mariah was also a child-bride.<br>Unlike Celine, Mariah had that NY moxy & flew the coup.<br><br>These older dudes love their teen girls. <br>These girls are always looking for love from DADDY.<br><br>Well, I like Celine, she's funny 'cause she has that ego. <br>I love her Larry King interviews. <br>The ego thingy works for her, simply because she is NOT the "10" in the room - so, it's OK.<br><br>So..... "My heart will go on."<br>Health & happiness to your little bundles, Ce-ce.?<p>Celine Dion showed up at Sunday night's Oscars looking totally stylish on the red carpet. The songstress donned a long-sleeved Armani Prive gown paired with a chunky necklace.</p><p>Check out her look and tell us if you agree.</p><p>**Check out our and lists.**</p><p></p><p></p> <br>?<p></p><p>THE CANADIAN PRESS -- TORONTO - A website developer says he's shutting down a blog he runs called Ridiculous Pictures of Celine Dion after getting a cease-and-desist notice from the Montreal chanteuse's lawyers.</p><p>Nick Angiolillo, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., says he immediately took down the content from his blog after receiving the notice July 14.</p><p>The only post that remains on the site is a notice to readers that he had to shut it down.</p><p>"The cease-and-desist notice I received from Celine's lawyers was likely not initiated by Celine herself," Angiolillo, 26, wrote in an email to The Canadian Press.</p><p>"I don't really blame Celine -- I doubt she even knows any of this is happening."</p><p>The blog had images and videos of Dion that Angiolillo found online through Google searching. The images spanned several decades of her career and highlighted everything from her fashion choices to her costumes and funny facial expressions.</p><p>Angiolillo also provided commentary or edited the images for comedic effect.</p><p>He said he started the blog several months ago because he loves Dion.</p><p>"I am a legitimate fan of her music and her persona and I think she's honestly a very good and caring person," he said. "The blog was embraced by the Celine Dion fan community early on, and they even contributed to it.</p><p>"There were some sour people who thought it was made to mock her, but I and most of the fans never saw it that way. If you've seen Celine's documentary 'Celine: Through the Eyes of the World' you would know she has a great sense of humor and is always the first one to laugh at herself.</p><p>"The blog never once slandered or implied anything negative about Celine."</p><p>Angiolillo said he complied with the cease-and-desist notice because he simply doesn't have the time or energy to get in a back-and-forth legal discussion.</p><p>A representative for Dion did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.<br>___<br>Online:<br>http://ridiculouspicturesofcelinedion.tumblr.com/</p> <br>?<p>LAS VEGAS -- Singer Celine Dion has canceled more shows at Las Vegas' Caesars Palace, citing a virus causing an inflammation of her vocal cords.</p><p>Christi Nelson, an official with show producer AEG Live, said Tuesday that the French-Canadian pop superstar has been ordered to rest her voice for six to eight weeks and will resume performances June 9.</p><p>"I tried to sing at my sound check last week, and I had no control of my voice whatsoever," Dion said in a statement. "We thought that after a few days' rest I would improve, but it wasn't getting any better."</p><p>Officials announced last weekend that Dion was canceling shows through March 3. On Monday, she was diagnosed with a viral illness and weakness in her right vocal cord by Dr. Gerald Burke, an authority in laryngeal physiology at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.</p><p>The singer of romantic odes including "My Heart Will Go On" and "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" returned to Caesars Palace a year ago for a three-year engagement.</p><p>The Las Vegas Strip casino spent $95 million building the Colosseum for Dion in 2003, complete with a humidifier to protect her voice. After a five-year run at the casino, she embarked on a world tour and took time off for her family, giving birth to twin boys in 2010.</p><p>Tickets to the new show in Las Vegas sell for up to $250 apiece.</p><p>Dion said the doctor assured her she'll be "back to 100 percent" after resting her voice, but she said she's disappointed by the cancellations.</p><p>"Obviously this is the worst thing for a singer ... not being able to do your shows," she said. "I feel worse knowing that I'm disappointing my fans. I'm so sorry ... I hope they forgive me."</p><p>Also on HuffPost:</p> <br>?<p>LAS VEGAS — Singer Celine Dion has canceled several upcoming concerts in Las Vegas because of a virus.</p><p>Caesars Palace officials say her doctor advised her to rest for a week to recover from the virus, which caused an inflammation of her vocal cords. Shows scheduled for Friday, Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday were canceled at the resort's Colosseum.</p><p>Her next scheduled concert there is March 3.</p><p>Dion, in a statement, said she doesn't "like to let people down," and she feels terrible about not being able to perform at the shows. Refunds will be given to people who bought tickets.</p><p>Caesars spent $95 million to build the Colosseum for Dion in 2003, complete with a humidifier to protect her voice</p>?<p>Celine Dion has made her mark on the pop world, to be sure - with some of the world's best-selling hits to her name. </p><p>But is she really wise to pit herself against the all-conquering Adele, offering up her own version of Rolling in the Deep for inevitable comparison with the London star? </p><p>Well, for whatever reason - whether it's to remind her fans that she can still cut it for crowds beyond Las Vegas, or just to keep herself interested after nearly two decades at the top - Ms Dion has put it out there. </p><p>See what you think - Celine's version is up top, while the original is here below, in case you needed reminding... is there a better version, or 'just different'? Let us have your thoughts... </p>?<p>NEW YORK — Celine Dion has given birth to twin boys, finally realizing her dream of being a mother again after a long struggle to become pregnant.</p><p>A statement released by St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., said that the 42-year-old superstar singer delivered the boys Saturday afternoon. One boy weighed 5 pounds, 10 ounces, while the other weighed 5 pounds, 4 ounces. No names have been announced.</p><p>Dion and her husband-manager, Rene Angelil, are already the parents of one son, 9-year-old Rene Charles. But Dion had long wanted to have more children, and, like with her first child, she had difficulty becoming pregnant. She has spoken openly about her struggles, undergoing several rounds of in-vitro fertilization.</p><p>Last year, after information leaked that she was pregnant, she confirmed the news, only to learn that the in vitro procedure was not successful. She had to issue a reversal weeks later.</p><p>In an interview earlier this year, Dion said she hoped that by publicly sharing her struggle, she could help others.</p><p>"If I help people through my voice, through my interviews, through what I go through, I do not want to change that at all," she said. "I think it's making a difference."</p><p>The boys came a month early. Dion was due to deliver next month, but earlier this week, it was announced that she was hospitalized as a precaution to make sure she was near her doctors as she prepared to give birth.</p><p>Dion, a five-time Grammy winner who has sold tens of millions of albums, announced earlier this year that she would be returning to Las Vegas for a three-year run at Caesar's Palace. She had a hugely successful five-year run in Las Vegas that ended in 2007.</p><p>___</p><p>Online:</p><p> </p> <br>?Click here to leave a comment.HuffPost High School welcomes a lively, thoughtful debate in the comment section. Keep in mind that the articles here are penned by young authors, so please keep criticism respectful, and help us to keep this a safe and supportive place for writers of all ages to contribute.?I'm glad the pregnancy is going well for Celine. She is having the children of the man she loves and regardless of her husband's age, she is happy and I hope everything works out for this family and the new additions to their family bring so much joy that it become contagious to all their friends and family.?<p>**UPDATE**</p><p>Celine will keep trying to get pregnant, husband Rene Angelil told the Canadian paper Journal de Montreal (via ). Their fertility doctor believed that the IVF procedure in August had been successful, but they found out a few days later it was not. Another attempt in October also failed to take. But they're trying again this weekend, Rene said: </p>"I admire all the women who go through such a tough process. Since April, she has undergone numerous examinations, multiple hormone injections and blood tests," Angelil told the paper, revealing the couple will go to New York this weekend for a third try. "Celine and I didn't get discouraged ... we put our faith in life and in the stars."__<p>Sad news for Celine Dion, who in August to be pregnant with . Dion, 41, had embryos frozen for in-vitro fertilization while trying to conceive her first child, Rene-Charles, now 8.</p><p>Celine is no longer expecting, reports: </p>In unfortunate news for Celine Dion and her husband Rene Angelil, the singer is no longer pregnant, a source close to the family tells In Touch. "While she and Rene are actively trying for a baby, she is not currently expecting," the friend says. In August, a rep for the "My Heart Will Go On" star confirmed her pregnancy, while reports surfaced that she used fertility treatments to expand her family. Celine and Rene have an 8-year-old son, Rene-Charles.<p><br><p>Get HuffPost Entertainment On and </p></p> <br>?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpSzBNJOBqEzcV2f6zvgZ4FLzuHlXFqCtvHEMfu8cnurHGtdTrlO6FQ6fVx4NbTyV%2B7Ql2tAH0vCj4kIuB5Ua5hfpX3jCUjpesA7EFvdsOSuTBc8OfyGzw3GYqrfjYvGOR8QAEXbdlMhN?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpSzBNJOBqEzcV2f6zvgZ4FLzuHlXFqCtvHEMfu8cnurHGtdTrlO6FQ6fVx4NbTyV%2B7Ql2tAH0vCj4kIuB5Ua5hfpX3jCUjpesA7EFvdsOSuTBc8OfyGzw3GYqrfjYvGOR8QAEXbdlMhN?I think Celine is absolutely right and very relevant in what she's saying. This issue certainly needs to be addressed. The problem is when you have so much to give and people can make money on you, then some don't give a damn about the person behind the artist, they'll do almost anything to keep the "machine" going. Some just wants and wants and wants... and then they want a little more. Just take a look at what some of the socalled fans said after having been to one of Whitney's concerts on the "Nothing but love" tour. Some said that she couldn't entertain a dead rat, others wanted their money back. Whatever happened to actually give credit to Whitney that she emerged from her troubles though scared. But what people did the most was nothing but complain about her weakened voice and even much worse things. Let's just be thankful for what Whitney actually gave all of us and give credit to the woman for actually going on the stage to perform. What a huge amount of courage that showed. Celine Dion did not disrespect Whitney in any way. On the contrary. She just pinpointed some really serious costs showbiz has for you if you're aren't strong enough.?<p>This is Celine Dion like you've never seen her before. </p><p>In all posing topless and bottomless, in leather and in feathers, in bunny ears and knee-high boots. This is surely a sexier side than the normally-demure singer typically shows. </p><p>SCROLL FOR PHOTOS</p><p>"I’m like this in my real life," . "I was scared a little bit because this was so different for me, but I’m glad I did it. Usually there’s always a reason when I do a photo shoot, there’s not the opportunity to go crazy. With this it was two in the morning and I was still jumping on the trampoline. In the house, in my normal life, we are always playing. It doesn’t seem this way on stage, but I’m playing a lot.”</p><p>This pictorial marks in six years. She opened the doors to her Florida home and shed some clothes, revealing her true self to the world for what may be the very first time. </p><p>Despite all the fame and success, Dion's most beloved role is being a mom. but now has three children. Her first son with husband Rene Angelil, Rene-Charles, was born in January 2001. In October 2010, she gave birth to fraternal twins, Eddy and Nelson. </p><p>“I thought I had a life before, but until I was a mom, I had no idea," she told the magazine. "Why would I want a hit? Why would I want to win awards? There is nothing I can hope and wish for my career: I can just hope to be blessed as a mother for the rest of my life the way I am now. That’s the only nomination I want.”</p><p>V Magazine's September issue features another hot mom on its cover: Nicole Kidman. </p><p>Kidman, opposite Zach Efron raised eyebrows, and shows off her bare bum.</p><p>The 45-year-old actress also said that people don't get to see the "outlandish" side to her.</p><p>"I don’t really make decisions, I go with the flow," she told V Magazine. "If I were a strategically minded person, I think I would have a far different career. But I would be more outlandish if I could. A lot of times you just don’t get the chance."</p><p></p><p></p><p>Also on HuffPost:</p>?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpSzBNJOBqEzcV2f6zvgZ4FLzuHlXFqCtvHEMfu8cnurHGtdTrlO6FQ6fVx4NbTyV%2B7Ql2tAH0vCj4kIuB5Ua5hfpX3jCUjpesA7EFvdsOSuTBc8OfyGzw3GYqrfjYvGOR8QAEXbdlMhN?First of all, I am entitled to my OPINION.<br><br>Second of all; she didn't conceive 'naturally'... used fertility clinic and frozen embryos. Husband is probably WAY too old to have many decent viable sperm left anyhow- he's pushing 70, for godssakes. <br><br>Third of all, why did she wait until she was 41 yrs old? There will be 8 years or more between her children. Why didn't she do this when she was 35? Didn't want to interfere with her astounding career? Please..... Adoption would have been more sensible and more helpful for the children already here without families and love they deserve. Again, IMO.?I think it was good planning on her part. Smart gal. There are lots of women who are delaying motherhood, and frankly doing a great job of it, being financially stable, emotionally mature, more life experience, to bring to the role. Of course, the drawback is that unlike males, who make "new" sperm all the time, women are born with their eggs, and they age. Go for it if you can, and want to. I bet lots more women will chose this route in the coming years.?<p>LOS ANGELES ? Celine Dion's struggle to have one more baby has more than paid off. She's pregnant with two.</p><p>Publicist Kim Jakwerth told The Associated Press in an e-mail Sunday that the 42-year-old Canadian songstress is 14 weeks pregnant with twins, and she plans to find out the sex of the babies next month.</p><p>Dion and her husband and manager Rene Angelil have one son, 9-year-old Rene Charles.</p><p>She had undergone several rounds of in-vitro fertilization in an attempt to get pregnant again.</p><p>The pregnancy was first reported by People Magazine.</p><p>Dion is working on new albums in English and French, and returns next year to Las Vegas for a three-year residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace.</p><p>THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.</p><p>LOS ANGELES (AP) – Celine Dion's struggle to have one more baby has more than paid off. She's pregnant with two.</p><p>Publicist Kim Jakwerth told the Associated Press in an e-mail Sunday that the 42-year-old Canadian songstress is 14 weeks pregnant with twins, and she plans to find out the sex of the babies next month.</p><p>Dion and her husband and manager Rene Angelil have one son, 9-year-old Rene Charles.</p><p>She had undergone several rounds of in-vitro fertilization in an attempt to get pregnant again.</p><p>The pregnancy was first reported by People Magazine.</p><p>Dion is working on new albums in English and French, and returns next year to Las Vegas for a three-year residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace.</p> <br>?<p>If Kate Winslet is sick of hearing "," then how does Celine Dion feel? If there's one person who has the right to be tired of the epic love ballad, then it's the "" songstress herself. </p><p>"'My Heart Will Go On' gave me the opportunity to be associated with a classic that will live forever. If I just count how many times I've sung it, maybe it'll get me sick," said , sympathizing with the "Titanic" actress. "If she feels tired just hearing it, and, like, throwing up, I'm glad she was not the one singing it."</p><p>Don't expect Winslet to make "My Heart Will Go On" her go-to karaoke song anytime soon. In March, the "Titanic" starlet told MTV that the </p><p>"I do feel like throwing up. I wish I could say 'Oh listen, everybody! It's the Celine Dion song!' But I don't. I just have to sit there, you know, kind of straight-faced with a massive internal eye roll."</p><p>Winslet continued: "Every time I go into a bar in a hotel where there's a live pianist, or into a restaurant where they're changing their music according to who walks into the door, it's thrilling for people to 'surprise me' with that song."</p><p>"" is one of the best-selling singles of all time, winning the Academy Award for Best Song in 1998 and selling more than 15 million copies worldwide. At the time of its release in 1998, .</p><p>PHOTOS: More celebrity feuds</p><p></p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p>?Just my personal opinion as a woman over 40 who had difficult pregnancies..I would not do this to my body again at this age. I understand wanting a baby but I had to accept that I would not have any more children after my second pregnancy which I was very lucky to get through. I hate to see her putting her body and spirit through this because if she doesn't get pregnant or should get pregnant and lose it shes' going to have the hardest time recovering. I personally thought I would have three children, that's what I always wanted but I came to see how lucky I was to have the two I had. Losing a child in between those two really made me see I was lucky and maybe I shouldn't push it considering the difficult pregnancy (high risk) I had and delivery where my baby stopped breathing. I'd hate to see her go through that.?Wow, this is what moved you to take the time to post? <br><br>Their first child, Rene Charles, looked like a boy with long hair -- long hair indicative of his father's Syrian heritage. He loved it as he grew up, and chose to keep it long and down by choice. It's since been cut, and he's still the same cute little guy. Please try to climb out of your cultural and gender biases. Or maybe just tone down the nasty a bit. <br><br>I don't make a habit of applauding anyone for having lots of kids (with the planet already stressed for resources and all), but putting that aside, Celine and Rene' do seem like nice people who actually have a wonderful relationship with the community that is their extended family. I've spoken to some folks who've worked for them, and they speak very highly of their kindness and caring nature.?<p>MONTREAL - Celine Dion saluted the victims of Quebec's election-night shooting by opening a benefit concert Monday night in their honour.</p><p>Dion, Arcade Fire and Ben Harper headlined a show at the Metropolis in Montreal ? the same venue where Denis Blanchette was fatally shot on Sept. 4.</p><p>"I want to offer my sincere condolences to Denis' whole family," an emotional Dion told the crowd before singing the first song of the show.</p><p>Funds raised from the concert supported a trust fund for Blanchette's young daughter.</p><p>The 48-year-old lighting technician was killed when he was struck by a single bullet at the Parti Quebecois victory rally.</p><p>Donations were also collected for Dave Courage, the other man hit by the same bullet.</p><p>After her song, Dion touched her heart and waved to loved ones of the shooting victims, who watched from balconies above the stage.</p><p>About half a dozen other Quebec musical acts performed after Dion.</p><p>Premier Pauline Marois also attended the concert.</p><p>Marois was giving her victory speech on the Metropolis stage when Blanchette and Courage were shot outside the venue ? just metres away from her.</p><p>A man arrested in connection with the shooting is to reappear in court on Oct. 11.</p><p>Richard Henry Bain faces 16 charges, including first-degree murder, three counts of attempted murder and arson.</p>?<p></p><p>MONTREAL - So, it seems Celine Dion is a bit of a deli diva.</p><p>Maybe that would surprise some considering one of her biggest hits is "My Heart Will Go On," but the pop megastar has a history with smoked meat that extends way beyond her new investment in Schwartz's, Montreal's most famous purveyor of the fatty delicacy.</p><p>In the old days her hankerings for smoked meat would occasionally take her to the spot across the street from Schwartz's ? The Main deli which is now, ironically, her competition.</p><p>That hop-scotching from one smoked-meat joint to the next places Dion in a rich culinary tradition, as Montreal residents have spent countless hours comparing and debating the merits of their city's old-style delis.</p><p>Which is the most famous? Schwartz's, surely. Which has the longest lineups? Again, Schwartz's. But which serves the best smoked meat? Well, that's a question that has made mouths salivate and had fists pounding a few vinyl tabletops in animated diner conversations.</p><p>"Montreal is one of the greatest deli cities in the world," says David Sax, author of 2009's "Save the Deli," which looked at the phenomenon of delicatessens around the world.</p><p>"There's nowhere that has an abiding sort of passion for Jewish delicatessen in a way that Montreal does. It's certainly on a par with New York, if not in some respects bigger and more deeply ingrained into the culture."</p><p>Like New York, Montreal was a focal point for early 20th century Jewish immigration and various histories indicate the creators of smoked meat came from Eastern Europe, particularly Romania.</p><p>The details are vague but some credit Ben Kravitz, who founded Ben's De Luxe Delicatessen in 1910, as the inventor, curing the briskets with methods he remembered from Lithuanian farmers. Others include butcher Aaron Sanft, who made the meat Romanian-style.</p><p>Until Dion came around, the closest that the dingy Schwartz's got to the glitz of showbiz was a musical based on it, a couple of movies, and the stream of heavyweight entertainers who have sidled up to its timeless counter.</p><p>Frank Silva, the the eatery's manager since 1999, thinks Dion and Schwartz's go together like, well, smoked meat and rye.</p><p>"Why not?" says Silva with a smile. "She's a Quebec icon and we're a landmark. I think we make a good team."</p><p>Debates on who serves the best smoked meat can be as passionate as any ever heard in the House of Commons ? at least to smoked meat lovers.</p><p>It's Schwartz's, it's Dunn's, it's Lester's, it's The Main, they argue.</p><p>Norman Spector, a former chief of staff to Brian Mulroney when he was prime minister, weighed in after he questioned on Twitter whether Schwartz's was the best. Schwartz's was good, he agreed, and the now-defunct Ben's was a favourite of students.</p><p>"But the secret known to only a few mavens is that the Snowdon Deli on Decarie has the best smoked meat sandwich in town (one must ask for the old-fashioned and by no means lean) and the lineups are a lot shorter," he wrote in an email.</p><p>Francis Morin, an Ottawa resident who has been coming to Schwartz's for the last 30 years, is a fan not only of the thickly stacked sandwiches but also the timeless atmosphere.</p><p>It's a place that seems untouched by the passing decades, where customers are practically jammed cheek to jowl in tables along the wall, amid furnishings accumulated over generations.</p><p>"The atmosphere, it's unique," said Morin, who always orders the medium-fat sandwich. "It's a fantastic place. I've always said if I have time in Montreal to do just one thing, this is what I do."</p><p>One man, who declined to be interviewed but said he'd been a judge at numerous local competitions to declare the best smoked meat, gave his nod to Smoke Meat Pete: "You can't beat Pete's meat," he said, invoking the restaurant slogan.</p><p>Word of Dion's new venture hasn't hurt the competition across the street at her old stomping grounds, says Pete Varvaro, owner of The Main.</p><p>That's partly because Schwartz's international renown ? it's currently listed at No. 9 on the Lonely Planet website's list of 660 things to do in Montreal ? often tends to cause world-class lineups.</p><p>That can have spillover benefits for the less-famous spot across the street. The last few months, which are usually quiet periods, have been busier than usual, Varvaro said.</p><p>"When they wait in line, they don't want to wait," he said. "So they come and try ours and they like it and they come back."</p><p>It's been happening for a long time, he adds.</p><p>Just ask Dion and her husband.</p><p>Varvaro, whose son owns the Smoke Meat Pete deli, remembers well how a 16-year-old Dion and Rene Angelil would slide into a booth at his place.</p><p>"They used to come in to eat the smoked meat, they liked the baby back ribs," said Varvaro.</p><p>"There was a place that the two of them sat, it was right in the corner," he said. "Very nice person."</p><p>He noted that Dion drifted off as her fame grew and she got involved in yet another smoked meat-serving venture, the Nickels chain. He said that even though Dion wasn't a regular anymore, she often sent regards through manager Ben Kaye, who has since died.</p><p>The mystical meat platters of St-Laurent Boulevard have had other prominent admirers.</p><p>The late author Mordecai Richler humourously described Schwartz's cut in his novel "Barney's Version" as a "maddening aphrodisiac" that should be sold as the "Nectar of Judea."</p><p>Artistic jack-of-all-trades Leonard Cohen is one of the celebrities who stops by The Main when he's in Montreal and Silva rattles off a list of names that sounds like a Hollywood phone book when he cites some of Schwartz's customers, including Halle Berry ? "one of my favourites" ? Angelina Jolie and funnyman Tim Allen.</p><p>And that's not counting the list of Canadian politicians that have chowed down on smoked meat there and other delis.</p><p>Paul Martin, when he was prime minister, was a paricularly avid consumer, choosing to mainstreet in Ben's delicatessan during one campaign and bringing bags of Schwartz's sandwiches to passengers on the Liberal plane during another.</p><p>Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited the deli when he was Opposition leader. It was also a campaign stop for the NDP's Jack Layton. Pierre Trudeau was a more regular deli customer, known to wander down from his law office to the now-defunct Ben's.</p><p>So, about that nagging question: Which one's the best?</p><p>A sampling of some of Montreal's fabled smoked meat doesn't yield dramatic differences in taste. Spices give some a slightly sweeter flavour, marinating and smoking may give others a peppery tang.</p><p>"It's the brisket," says Silva, of Schwartz's. "We marinate it with home spices ? a secret blend, of course ? for 10 days. And we smoke in-house for approximately eight hours. Then we steam it three hours and we hand slice it. Against the grain, very thin and very fast, of course."</p><p>Diane Bass, co-owner of The Main, says the cutting is key and notes the brisket comes in three parts ? lean, medium and fat.</p><p>"The grain of the brisket goes different ways. If you have a good smoked meat cutter that knows how to turn his brisket every time he's cutting, it won't get stringy."</p><p>But Ian Morantz, owner of the Snowdon Deli, has a theory on why Montreal smoked meat is so unique and has never been completely replicated anywhere else: Montreal's water.</p><p>"Water is a big factor in most recipes," he says, explaining that water composes the major part of the pickling brine before the meat is smoked. "Every region has different minerals in its water. It's still clear, pure water but it's not the same water."</p><p>Baguettes made in Paris taste different than those made in Montreal using the same recipe, he said citing one example. So do Montreal-style bagels made in Toronto.</p><p>"Everything else is the same except that the water they're using is local water and it creates a little different texture, a little different taste."</p> <br>?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpdovcLTcUs93wly%2B34i7kkrPjtQPvHYzsjWYhFzb12pgbYBKVLP34TXLzbpAy2RCoJtFFAngK4QBT43WaolBTcPfpLmNk7nCjRWSB2%2FymekHy%2BlaPW27BvcQEfIX%2F%2BT7jigXKA6%2FuiHk?<p><br>A healthy Celine Dion showed off her growing baby bump on the new cover of Canada's 7 Jours magazine. </p><p>She is expecting twin boys in November after a long struggle to get pregnant again.</p><p>Dion, husband Rene Angelil, their son, Rene-Charles, 9, and the family dog grin in the cover photo, released days after the singer rumors that she has had complications. She said she is 'healthy and she feels fantastic.'</p><p></p> <br>?<p>The only thing worse than a wardrobe malfunction is a wardrobe malfunction... down there. </p><p>Celine Dion surprised audience members at a concert on Friday when she took to the stage in at the Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival in a teeny gold Balmain minidress. The long-sleeve bodice of the dress stayed on, but the short hemline gave show goers sitting below a bit more than they bargained for, . </p><p>Dion told that "normally when people are level the length [of the dress] is fine. But people were like this (looks up)... So it was like I didn't think of the people downstairs and me there." </p><p>Whoops. Luckily Celine's confidence wasn't shaken, as the 43-year-old mother of twins is used to braving the stage in barely-there dresses (). She did, however, spend the rest of the Jamaican festival in longer frocks. </p><p>See </p><p>Also on HuffPost:</p> <br>?<p>AP:</p><p> Celine Dion called it a wrap at Caesars Palace, acknowledging in her final show that pregnancy and poor early reviews almost sank her titanic five-year engagement.</p><p>As adoring fans cheered, stood and clapped through Saturday night's performance, Dion interspersed her usual numbers with emotion-filled monologues.</p><p>"At one point, it was like feeling like the Titanic was about to sink again," she said. "But we believed and we went on with it. Even though the vibe was not that positive for us."</p><p>While the show was still in development in 2000, Dion, 39, became pregnant and told husband-manager Rene Angelil she did not want to continue.</p><p></p> <br>?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpSzBNJOBqEzcV2f6zvgZ4FLzuHlXFqCtvHEMfu8cnurHGtdTrlO6FQ6fVx4NbTyV%2B7Ql2tAH0vCj4kIuB5Ua5hfpX3jCUjpesA7EFvdsOSuTBc8OfyGzw3GYqrfjYvGOR8QAEXbdlMhN?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpSzBNJOBqEzcV2f6zvgZ4FLzuHlXFqCtvHEMfu8cnurHGtdTrlO6FQ6fVx4NbTyV%2B7Ql2tAH0vCj4kIuB5Ua5hfpX3jCUjpesA7EFvdsOSuTBc8OfyGzw3GYqrfjYvGOR8QAEXbdlMhN?<p>Celine Dion has unveiled her new fraternal twin boys, Eddy and Nelson, in a .</p><p>The twins, , had Dion gushing. "They're so cute, it's incredible," she said. "When we look at them we can't believe it, and to have them here at home - it's all we could wish for." </p><p>"They're feeding every two hours now," she continued. "It's going well. I don't get a lot of sleep, yes, for sure I'm tired, but that's what I want."</p><p>Dion, who with husband Rene Angelil has a nine-year old son named named Rene-Charles, spent years trying to get pregnant again, going through IVF treatments and suffering a miscarriage. So the couple wanted to give the twins meaningful names.</p><p>"We met with Nelson Mandela and spent some time with him at his house when we started Celine's world tour," Rene said. "Eddy is an homage to Eddy Marnay," he added, referring to the songwriter that wrote Dion's first five albums and died a few years ago.</p><p>For more from this interview, including Dion's comments on what was supposed to be triplets, .</p><p>PHOTO:<br></p> <br>?<p>Get ready to see Celine Dion as you've never seen her before -- topless, in a bunny mask and wearing a pair of over-sized trousers entirely covered in stuffed animals. No, not all at once, that's just crazy! But Celine did strike various, um, interesting poses for a series of photos in the forthcoming fall issue of V Magazine, on stands Aug. 30</p><p></p>?<p>LAS VEGAS -- Singer Celine Dion says she is recovering from a virus that caused an inflammation of her vocal cords and is planning to return to the stage in Las Vegas soon.</p><p>Dion said in a statement Monday that she received good news last week during a follow-up examination with her doctor in Los Angeles.</p><p>She says she should be fully recovered by mid-April. That's when she hopes to start recording songs for her new English and French albums.</p><p>Dion announced last month that she was cancelling her shows at Las Vegas' Caesars Palace until June 9 because of her illness.</p><p>The singer of romantic odes including "My Heart Will Go On" and "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" returned to Caesars Palace a year ago for a three-year engagement.</p> <br>?Your theory is not true in all in vitro cases..my daughter went through the process at age 32 and only one fertilized egg was implanted. Miss Dion already had one child so her dr prob knew her uterus could hold 3 babies, but not so with 1st timers. Also many times, the decision to 'reduce' the amount of babies has to be made and many women choose to have only one egg implanted so they don't have to make that decision. The dr who implanted 6 eggs into octomom should be charged with a crime. The uterus can rupture resulting in the babies' and/or mother's death. Sadly, my daughter's little embryo didn't make it and the pregnancy ended at 6 weeks; the odds of success are 50/50 and I believe I read Celine underwent the procedure 4 or 5 times to have these babies, at a cost of approx $100,000. Most couple simply can not afford it. My daughter and son-in-law can try it one more time. I've learned a couple has to be strong emotionally to go through the process because it's an emotional roller coaster like nothing I've experienced before. Congratulations to Celine and her husband. I'm so happy it worked for them.?<p>MONTREAL - Celine Dion and Arcade Fire will headline a benefit concert in support of the young daughter of a man killed during Quebec's election-night shooting.</p><p>The show will take place this coming Monday at the Metropolis ? the club where Denis Blanchette was fatally shot on Sept. 4.</p><p>The 48-year-old lighting technician was killed instantly when he was struck by a single bullet at the Parti Quebecois' election-night rally. Another worker was wounded by the same bullet.</p><p>A man arrested in connection with the incident is to reappear in court on Oct. 11.</p><p>Richard Henry Bain faces 16 charges, including first-degree murder, three counts of attempted murder and arson.</p><p>Tickets for the concert range from $80 to $175, with the money going to a trust fund for Blanchette's daughter.</p><p>Organizers say funds will also be collected for Dave Courage, the other man hit by the bullet.</p>?<p></p><p>MONTREAL - Singer Celine Dion is part of a consortium that has purchased a landmark Montreal restaurant, famous partly for its food and partly for its generations-old decor.</p><p>The Quebec diva and her husband, Rene Angelil, have teamed up with other investors to buy Schwartz's, a downtown deli.</p><p>The establishment is famous amongst Montrealers, and tourists, to a certain extent because of its smoked-meat sandwiches but also because of its appeal as a larger-than-average time capsule.</p><p>Founded in 1928, the St. Lawrence Boulevard shop regularly draws long lineups of tourists eager to grab a seat in a place that looks untouched by the passing decades.</p><p>In a news release Monday announcing the transaction, Angelil shared his memory of first going to Schwartz's as a young musician in 1961 with his friend and manager, Ben Kaye.</p><p>"I have so many great memories of being there with the guys, and with Celine and our families throughout the years. It's the most unique restaurant in the world and we're thrilled to be a part of it," Angelil said.</p><p>This won't be the first smoked-meat venture for Dion and Angelil. They have also been partners in Nickels, a chain of retro 1950s diners that sells mostly fast foods including the famous Montreal sandwiches.</p><p>Without referring to his previous chain venture, Angelil sought to assuage the concerns of any purists that he'll create a similar business model out of Schwartz's, a place immortalized in the literature of Mordecai Richler.</p><p>Angelil promised not to allow franchises, and to keep the authenticity of the establishment.</p><p>"Of course, we'll make a few improvements as necessary, but we're not interested in diluting the brand by franchising, or making the deli something that it isn't," he said.</p><p>"It's truly one-of-a-kind, and we intend to keep it this way."</p><p>The group of partners includes Angelil's nephews and the Nakis family, longtime Montreal restauranteurs</p><p>The sale price was not disclosed.</p> <br>?<p>NEW YORK — Celine Dion, Jennifer Hudson and Usher will pay tribute to the late Whitney Houston in a one-hour TV special.</p><p>"We Will Always Love You: A Grammy Salute to Whitney Houston" will tape Oct. 11 at the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live and will feature performances by Dion, Hudson and Usher. It will air Nov. 16 on CBS.</p><p>The Recording Academy announced Thursday that the special will also include Houston's "most memorable performances" and interviews with various artists. More performers will be announced.</p><p>Tickets for the event go on sale Thursday.</p><p>Houston died at age 48 in February. Authorities called her death an accidental drowning, complicated by heart disease and cocaine use.</p><p>The compilation album, "I Will Always Love You - The Best of Whitney Houston," will be released on Nov. 13.</p>?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpSzBNJOBqEzcV2f6zvgZ4FLzuHlXFqCtvHEMfu8cnurHGtdTrlO6FQ6fVx4NbTyV%2B7Ql2tAH0vCj4kIuB5Ua5hfpX3jCUjpesA7EFvdsOSuTBc8OfyGzw3GYqrfjYvGOR8QAEXbdlMhN?Yes, there is that too...and I'm sure it plays a huge part--with those savvy enough to use it, particularly those whose careers depend on their looks to a certain degree (because she does have THOSE vocal chords) . <br><br>But, never forget, there are those with all that, who are tempted to cut corners too. Celine's never been one to take anything in her life for granted. She gives 110%, and that's laudable. <br><br>Anyway, the point I was going to make originally, (as much as I agree with yours) is that breast-feeding does a lot to help regain your figure--and even make the breasts fuller if you take care of yourself. I breastfed my daughter for two years. Took the advice of an elderly woman on how to care for them, and now they're better than they were before I had her! The miracle of womanhood...?<p>If you want to know how it feels to live like Celine Dion, it'll cost you a bit of money ? $29,655,500 to be exact.</p><p>The Canadian songstress is that she and her husband Rene Angelil had custom-built in 2001. The price is steep, but the 24,000 square-foot home is situated on a private island and comes with a bounty of antique furniture.</p><p>The abode has six bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a stone wine cellar with tasting area, an elevator, an in-ground pool (with a pool house, naturally), a grand staircase and games room. And if that's not enough to feast your eyes on, there's also water views and 830,000 square feet of gated, secure private island for the kids to play on.</p><p>Dion is , Ross McCredie, president and CEO of Sotheby’s International Canada, told the National Post.</p><p>“It took them a long time to make this decision,” he told the National Post. “It was a passionate thing for them to make. And in the end, they just haven’t been using it enough … They plan to purchase another home in Montreal that’s much smaller.”</p><p>According to a press release, representatives for Dion and Angelil said, ", and as such, she will maintain a residence here."</p><p>For now, the family have shacked up in their that's decked out with a backyard waterpark.</p><p>Odds are you don't have $30 million sitting around, but you can check photos of the "once-in-a-lifetime offering" here:</p> <br>?<p>Her heart may still go on, but her face must cease and desist.</p><p>The very popular blog, , was forced to shut itself down this week, after the blog's administrators posted the following message:</p>hey y’allceline dion found our blog, and she didn’t like it. we just got a letter from celine’s lawyers that the blog has to be shut down.though this blog is well within the realm of ‘fair use’, i don’t have the money or time to get a lawyer to respond. the dream is over. thanks for following and being a celine superfan? i’ll always remember u?i’ll never let go <p>Turns out, Ms. Dion is not a fan of her own face, which is something we never would have guessed.</p><p>But have no fear, internet! You can still find ridiculous pictures of Celine Dion online, and a few of them are even animated. </p><p>Check out this from Tabloid Prodigy, or simply Google the phrase, "" or check out featuring she and her husband and their children in a giant bed together.</p> <br>?people have highlighted this! Huzzah! This text has been highlighted. <p>Highlights is a new way to discover the most interesting text on Huffington Post!</p>?<p>PARIS - True style doesn't try too hard.</p><p>In spring-summer 2013, designer Phoebe Philo continued the spirit of her alarmingly simple trademark statement.</p><p>Three years after the lauded Briton's Celine debut, she delivered a collection of subtle, bourgeois elegance evoked in softly architectural silhouettes.</p><p>Spring is about gentle contradictions, not colour, she seemed to say: Shown through a muted palette of black, white, navy and grey.</p><p>The real point of the show was the gentle play on contrasting lines, then textures, then form.</p><p>Loosely hanging silhouettes ? often with attention to neck details in high necks, bands and twists ? came in column or boxy shapes, with a couple of black A-line tuxedo-dresses for good measure.</p><p>The gloss of sheeny silks whispered a contrast against matte fabric.</p><p>Philo has often been noted for her chic "utilitarian tailoring," which she delivers with uncanny ease.</p><p>Here we saw it used artistically in hemline frays which turned into tassels, and twisted fabric that wrapped round the back sewn crudely together in a lump.</p><p>It's a style that wouldn't look out of place on Juliette Binoche, for example, who accepted a best-actress award at Cannes in 2010 in custom Celine.</p><p>The house is right in fancying themselves as Paris calendar's arty side.</p><p>When fashion insiders asked to see the mandatory program notes, there were wry smiles as they were handed a text-free book of collage pictures.</p><p>___</p><p>Thomas Adamson can be followed at http:/ /Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP</p>?<p>For the past month, the Senate National Finance Committee and the Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce poured over the Conservative government's 425 page omnibus budget Bill C-38. These committees interviewed dozens of witnesses ranging from government ministers, NGO's, consumer rights groups, think tanks, professors, etc.</p><p>After hours of committee hearings we were both left with more questions than answers. Above all we saw how the Conservative government was abusing its majority by shoving more than 70 different laws down the throats of Canadians.</p><p>The Conservatives decided to reserve the same treatment for the provinces. They chose not to consult them and to encroach on their jurisdiction. For example, Bill C-38 adds an enacting clause that will give the federal government more powers in the banking sector and eliminate provincial laws relating to consumer protection.</p><p>C-38 will also wreak havoc on provincial budgets through measures that will shift costs onto provincial social programs, such as changes the to employment insurance and old age security benefits, and measures that will reduce provincial tax revenues, such as the increase in cross border duty-free shopping limits.</p><p>The conservatives' abusive majority has made it clear to Canadians that their reformist agenda has no place for social justice. For example, they decided to remove the obligation for federal contractors to respect the Employment Equity Act. By removing employment equity from the Federal Contractors Program's requirements, the Harper government is abandoning women, Aboriginals, disabled persons and visible minorities and destroying decades of social progress.</p><p>As most Canadians have come to realize, the Conservative government has a problem with opinions that are different from their own. Case in point, Bill C-38 will allow the minister of national revenue to withhold emitting tax receipts of charities deemed to be spending too much on political advocacy and suspend their charitable status if they make errors on their reports to the Canada Revenue Agency. More importantly, the passing of Bill C-38 will allow the Conservatives to use legislation to bully their opponents, reduce their numbers and weaken the quality of democratic debate.</p><p>Canadians have long stood up against abuses of power around the world; let us not let Stephen Harper do it here. Canadians need to speak out against this government's regressive and archaic laws, and their anti-democratic actions.</p>?<p>I am concerned about sustainable economic development. In Canada, the seal hunt is tightly regulated and sustainable: the Harp seal's population roughly increased from 2 million animals to 10 million in the space of 40 years. As of today, the natural balance of the Atlantic Coast's ecosystem is at risk because of the reduction in hunting, the threat of abolition and the recent overpopulation of the Harp seal.<br> <br>In 2009, experts have come together to propose a that guarantees sustainable seal hunt. As such, I invite you to consult the Universal Declaration on the Ethical Harvest of Seals. A document that is endorsed by the Governments of Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador and the Northwest Territories. <br> <br>Regarding the control of animal species, the United States is currently considering repealing the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act to establish a new law called the Controlled Seal Population Plan (CSPP). This law would allow hunters to partake in a seal hunt to control the West Coast's booming sea lion population. In Canada, seal hunters value utilizing this resource to its full potential demonstrating their communities' full commitment to respecting nature.<br> <br>Regarding the market for seal products, demand still exists for such products. Such is the case of chefs who serve seal meat in their restaurants in Quebec. Furthermore, the French Press Agency on February 28th 2012 that Russia was considering allowing the sale ofin an attempt to control the seal population while providing food to its citizens.<br> <br>Finally, I urge you to speak out against the looming extinction of the Mediterranean Monk Seal (total population 150-200 animals). This species has never been publicly defended by animal rights organization opposed to the sustainable Canadian seal hunt. Just like the European Union, the United States, Mexico and Russia.</p>?<p>We remember when a Canadian prime minister spoke of building "a just society." There is no such talk from the federal government today. Instead, we have a government obsessed with punishment, retribution, and prison time. But we will not reduce crime in the long run by putting more people in jail and giving them even longer sentences.</p><p>The crime rate in Canada is at its lowest level since 1973. Our justice system has been working. Our sentencing system has found a balance between punishment, deterrence, and the rehabilitation of offenders -- and the evidence is clear: it has worked to reduce crime.<br> <br>But evidence such as statistics, expert opinions, and hard facts about what has been working and what hasn't in the past decades have been pushed aside by the Conservatives. Driven by ideology over facts, they are pressing forward with Bill C-10, "," which will increase the number of mandatory minimum sentences and make the Youth Criminal Justice Act even more repressive.<br> <br>Let us be clear: Bill C-10 won't prevent crime, and in fact may lead to more crime and less public safety.</p><p>The overwhelming majority of studies show that prison does not lower recidivism rates among criminals -- in fact, the longer one spends in prison, the higher the likelihood of re-offending. We know that prison can serve as a school of crime -- where young people find protection in gangs when they never were a gang member before, and where first-time offenders can turn into hardened criminals. </p><p>Studies conclude we should reserve incarceration for the sole purpose of punishing and selectively incapacitating those who pose the greatest risk to society. Indeed, rehabilitation programs are more effective in reducing repeat offenders.</p><p>Here in Quebec, we have an original approach to youth crime that works. In 2010, the severity of youth crime in Quebec was the lowest in Canada, proof that we are not "soft" on crime but rather that we are smart and "tough" on its root causes. But now the Harper government wants to ignore the evidence and change our approach.</p><p>The government's obsessive desire to impose adult sentences on young offenders goes against the expert opinion of Canada's legal and medical communities. They are clear that it is crucial to consider a young offender's personal situation when they are facing criminal charges. </p><p>Moreover, this will be costly for taxpayers. The Harper government has refused to provide a full costing of its so-called "tough on crime" agenda. The estimates we have seen from other sources put the cost in the billions of dollars -- the Institut de Recherche et d'Informations Socio-economiques (IRIS) recently estimated the cost at some $19 billion. Conservatives are hypocritically asking Canadians to tighten their belts while at the same time they are going on a spending spree with taxpayer's money. </p><p>Liberal Senators will be proposing amendments to this Bill, but given the Conservatives' majority in the Senate, there is little chance that they will be adopted.</p><p>This is regrettable because as Justice Minister Fournier has said, Bill C-10 is not tough on crime, but rather tough on democracy. With this legislation, the Harper government is showing once again that its attachment to democratic principles is not very strong.<br><br>This post was co-authored by the following senators: Hon. Romeo Dallaire, Hon. Dennis Dawson, Hon. Pierre De Bane, P.C., Hon. Celine Hervieux-Payette, P.C., Hon. Serge Joyal, P.C., Hon. Paul Massicotte， and Hon. Charlie Watt.</p>?<p>For this year's World Press Freedom Day, I spoke in the chamber to assure the Canadian public that the fundamental principles of journalism are being respected.</p><p>Allow me to refer to the code of conduct of the Federation professionnelle des journalistes du Quebec to outline the fundamental values of journalism in Canada.</p><p>We know that journalists' work must be based on the critical thinking that pushes them to question everything, the impartiality that pushes them to do their research, and report on the various aspects of a situation, the independence that keeps them at arm's length from power and lobby groups, the honesty that makes them stick to the facts, and a number of other principles.</p><p>In the collective agreement between CBC/Radio-Canada and the Syndicat des communications de Radio-Canada, which expires on September 30, 2012, it is agreed that in order to fulfill the mandate given to the corporation by Parliament through the Broadcasting Act, CBC/Radio-Canada staff members will report factually, and without intent to deceive the public. The parties recognize that the primary professional obligations of the corporation, and of its employees are toward the public, which is entitled to news, and information that is impartial, complete, factual, and balanced -- that is from section 47.2 of the agreement.</p><p>On December 21, 2011, the Conservative government imposed a type of "pledge of allegiance" on all federal institutions through a so-called values and ethics code. The code describes the values and behaviours expected of public officials in all activities related to the performance of their professional duties. This so-called code was established by the Treasury Board, in accordance with section 5 of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act.</p><p>In this regard, it must be stated that under the Broadcasting Act, CBC/Radio-Canada staff are not subject to the so-called values and ethics code. Although the corporation is a federal institution, section 44(3) of the Broadcasting Act states that staff members are not officers, or servants of Her Majesty.</p><p>In fact, under section 46(5), the corporation shall, in pursuit of its objects, enjoy freedom of expression, and journalistic, creative, and programming independence. Therefore, CBC staff enjoy an exception and are not subject to the values and ethics code.</p><p>Finally, CBC/Radio-Canada adopted a new code of ethics on April 2, 2012, to introduce guidelines for standards of integrity, and professional conduct for its staff. This new code is a serious threat to the independence of the public broadcaster and its workers. Section 1.2 of the code states that CBC/Radio-Canada staff must loyally carry out the decisions of their leaders, and support ministers in their accountability to Parliament and Canadians. And there is obviously no exception for the opposition.</p><p>The Conservative government, and the new CBC/Radio-Canada code of ethics violate the principles of independence, and impartiality that are so closely associated with the profession of journalism, and are a serious threat to the preservation of Canadian democracy, where freedom of the press is a fundamental value enshrined in our Constitution.</p>?<p>Here in Quebec, we have an original approach to youth crime that works. In 2010, the severity of youth crime in Quebec was the lowest in Canada, proof that we are not "soft" on crime but rather that we are smart and "tough" on its root causes. But now the Harper government wants to ignore the evidence and change that approach.</p>?<p>COUTANCES, France ? A 38-year-old woman acknowledged Monday killing six of her newborns, whose corpses were found in plastic bags in her basement, at the opening of a chilling trial in northwest France.</p><p>Celine Lesage faces life in prison if convicted by the jury in the courthouse in Valognes, near the Atlantic coast, on charges of aggravated homicide.</p><p>Lesage bowed her head and avoided the gaze of those present in the courtroom while the charges were read. Afterward, she said in a soft voice, "I acknowledge the facts."</p><p>Chief Judge Herve Locu pressed her to find out whether the babies had been stillborn or born alive.</p><p>After repeated questioning, Lesage responded: "They were alive."</p><p>She was arrested in 2007 after her partner at the time discovered the corpses in plastic garbage bags in the basement of their apartment building in Valognes.</p><p>Her lawyer Veronique Carre said Lesage "does not contest the facts ... but isn't explaining them either." Several medical and psychological experts are expected to testify in the four-day trial.</p><p>"We are here to try to understand you before judging you," the judge told Lesage at the trial Monday.</p><p>During questioning by investigators, Lesage acknowledged strangling two of the newborns and suffocating four others, according to judicial documents. The babies were born between 2000 and 2007.</p><p>She told investigators that the father of five of the newborns was ex-boyfriend Pascal Catherine, who was detained for questioning after Lesage was arrested in 2007. She said the father of the sixth newborn was the partner who discovered the corpses, Luc Margueritte, a plaintiff in this week's trial.</p><p>At the time of her arrest, prosecutor Michel Garrandaux said she described giving birth to the first five alone in the apartment she shared with Catherine, her boyfriend at the time. Garrandaux said the boyfriend "was far from unaware" of her pregnancies. However, the investigation against him was dropped. He will testify as a witness Tuesday.</p><p>The prosecutor contends that when Lesage and boyfriend Catherine split up in 2006, Lesage moved in with her new boyfriend, and brought the plastic bags from her old basement to her new one.</p><p>Lesage has a 14-year-old son.</p><p>Her trial comes after a more highly-publicized case involving a Frenchwoman convicted last year of murdering three of her newborn children. Veronique Courjault's husband discovered two of the corpses in a freezer while the two were living in South Korea. During the trial psychiatrists testified that she suffered from a psychological condition known as "pregnancy denial."</p><p>Germany also has seen a string of similar cases. In one, a woman was convicted of manslaughter in 2006 and sentenced to the maximum 15 years in prison for killing eight of her newborn babies and burying them in flower pots and a fish tank in the garden of her parents' home near the German-Polish border.</p> <br>?Yon__Ye: ray ban ã?µã?³ã?°ã?©ã?¹ã?®æ?°ä½?ã?¯æ¯?æ??ã?«ã??ç?ºè¡¨ã??ã??ã?¦ã??ã?¾ã??ã??ç?¹ã?«ã?«ã??ã?³ã??ã??ã?¬ã?¤ã??ã?³ RB2132ã?¯ä»?大人æ°?ã?ã??ã??ã?§ã??ã??ã??ã?¬ã?¼ã?ã?¯æ?°ã??ã?ªã??ã?¶ã?¤ã?³ã?«ä»?ä¸?ã??ã?¦ã??ã?¾ã??ã??ã??ã?¬ã?¼ã?ã?®ã?©ã?¤ã?³ã?¯ç´°ã??ã?ªã?£ã?¦ã??ã?ªã?·ã?£ã?¬ã?«è¦?ã??ã?¾ã??ã??ã?»ã??ã?®ã?¬ã?¤ã??ã?³ ã?¢ã??ã?«ã??ã??ã?£ã?¨ç´æ?µã?§ã??ã??ã??ã???<p>Ever since became the creative director at in 2008, the French fashion house has become one of the most highly-regarded brands. Known for minimalist clothing and accessories, Celine's leather bags and shoes have appeared on everyone from to . </p><p>But the has us scratching our heads, especially when it came . Unlike the wood platforms and nude-colored loafers of previous seasons, Celine's latest collection featured blue, red, lilac and yellow furry stilettos, shoes with trompe-l'oeil toes and sandals that remind us of those Adidas slip-ons that are a mainstay by pools everywhere. <br> <br>Check out the craziest shoes from in the slideshow below, and keep clicking through for more outrageous footwear from fashion week so far:</p><p></p><p>Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on , , and .</p>?<p>Scroll down for pictures.</p><p>Proenza Schouler's Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez reprised their roles as designing-community's darlings at Monday night's Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Awards, receiving the prize for Womenswear Designer of the Year. </p><p>The duo adds this season's statue to their 2003 CFDA Swarovski Award for new talent, their 2007 CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year award and their 2009 CFDA Accessory Designer of the Year Award. Still, McCollough told The Huffington Post that their newest accolade came as "a surprise. It was so nerve-wracking, the whole build-up to it. It just gets more and more terrifying as each year passes. You think you'd kind of get a little more comfortable with it, but it's quite the opposite." </p><p>McCollough added: "It's just nice to be recognized by your peers and your industry. It's such a small little world and to get the admiration from the people you work with every day and see and the people you admire, there's nothing better than that, really."</p><p>Muses Chloe Sevigny and Liv Tyler were on hand to sing the pair's praises. When asked what set the two designers apart from the other nominees, Sevigny pinpointed "their attitude towards the whole thing, their youth and vitality, their love of women and their sophisticated style and taste." Tyler, who hitched a ride with McCollough and Hernandez to the evening's festivities, remarked, "When we see each other, we always bond and have a lot of fun together. And I think they're very talented and very nice people." </p><p>Take a look at pictures from the 2011 CFDA Awards and scroll down to keep reading.</p><p></p><p>McCollough and Hernandez's simultaneous enthusiasm and loss for words was perhaps overshadowed by a turquoise wig- and spike thong-clad Lady Gaga, who swung by to demonstrate her own fashion-icon status. She told the crowd that when Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour texted her with the good news that she'd won the CFDA Fashion Icon Award, Gaga mistook her for another Anna in her phone book, "so my reply was, 'Yes, b*tch, we did it!'"</p><p>"I got a reply that said, 'How lovely,'" Gaga quipped.</p><p>The songstress' speech also strayed toward the sentimental. "I just wanted to tell you how much this award means to young American people," she said. "My fans, some of them don't know who they are and they have so much trouble. They come to the Monster Ball to find who they are and they wake up in the morning and it's that leather jacket that makes them feel like they can be anyone. Or it's that YSL blazer that they saw in the window that makes them feel like they could be president one day. Fashion means so much to them. It's really hard to talk about ... I always felt like I had made it before I had made it because of all of you, because it was all of you that made me feel like I was a star."</p><p>Also swapping beats for talk of handbags was one Kanye West, who presented Celine Creative Director Phoebe Philo with the International Award. West confessed, "I happen to be the biggest fan of everyone in this room. Those times I go to Style.com and I click, and those times I don't get into the shows, there's no show that I would like to click more than the Celine show." Philo, for her part, kept things short, simply thanking the crowd, cooing, "It's a real honor to be receiving this here tonight. It means a huge amount to me."</p><p>And Marc Jacobs accepted the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award, re-dubbed the "Half-Lifetime Achievement Award," from Sofia Coppola. The designer thanked his entire team, saying, "While it is wonderful to be recognized and receive this acknowledgment of our past triumphs, I believe we all know and feel that the greatest reward is the process itself, the doing, the giving, the growing and the sharing it all with others. This statue may serve as a great reminder of where we've been, but it is here in my heart that I look forward to where we have still to go and what we will get to achieve together."</p><p>Michael Kors told HuffPost Style, "I'm thrilled for Marc. We've known each other our whole lives and no one has more talent, has worked harder, seen it all and, you know, last year it was me, this year it's him. I feel like we're all coming of age. I think it's amazing. It's only the beginning." </p><p>Alexander Wang, who bagged Accessory Designer of the Year, said, "It's such an honor ... to even just have my name alongside names such as Marc's is enough of an acknowledgment for me. He was my first internship, one of the main reasons I even wanted to work in fashion, so I pinched myself when [I realized I'd] even come here and be a part of this."</p><p>Rounding out the major honors was the Media Award in honor of journalist Eugenia Sheppard, received by the fashion director of the Telegraph, Hilary Alexander, who is set to retire this year. "Firstly, I'm hugely honored," she gushed. "Secondly, I feel that I'm getting it not just for myself but for the entire British fashion industry and British fashion journalism. And I hope that it reflects the huge passion that I have for fashion and I know that is something that we all share."</p><p>Paper magazine Editorial Director Mickey Boardman told HuffPost, "Hilary has such personality, she has such personal style and when someone has been involved in fashion as long as she has and they have such a point of view, it's hard to lose somebody like that. It takes a lifetime to build up that kind of knowledge and that kind of point of view. Plus, she's just fun, although I wish she would quit smoking because it's just bad for her ... You know, she's a real writer, she's not someone who's like, 'Oh, I love fashion, oh, I want to get into the Alexander Wang sample sale.' She goes to all of the shows. She writes about designers who aren't necessarily 'the hot designer,' but she writes about what she thinks should be written about. So she's a real journalist. She's not just a fashion journalist, she's a journalist."</p><p>Other award recipients included: Michael Bastian, Menswear Designer of the Year; Prabal Gurung, Swarovski Award for Womenswear; Robert Geller, Swarovski Award for Menswear; Eddie Borgo, Swarovski Award for Accessory Design; Hal Rubenstein, The Founders Award; Arthur Elgort, Board of Directors' Special Tribute. Nadja Swarovski also received a statue to fete the tenth anniversary of Swarovski's support of the event.</p> <br>?<p>Chaka Khan's got her groove back. The sultry singer and is in the studio working on some new hits to add to her already large repertoire. And even before she revealed her newly slim figure, she says, .</p><p>Now fans can aspire to be half as sexy as Chaka with the singer's new fragrance line, Khana Sutra. </p><p>We know what you're thinking; the last thing we need is another celebrity touting a perfume. But this is Chaka we're talking about, and there "ain't nobody" like this soulful crooner. </p><p>If her fragrance line is anything like the steamy Indian lovemaking tome its named after, we are definitely on board. The line includes perfume, candles and "Chakalates" for her sweet toothed fans. </p><p>Will Chaka's fragrance make every woman smell like a diva, even through the fire? We certainly hope so. </p><p>Here's a look at other celebs with signature scents:</p>?<p>Now that Celine Dion has ended her wildly successful run of nearly five years in Las Vegas, put out a new album and laid plans for a new world tour, it seems an appropriate time to pose the following question. What should an objective observer say about this megastar, who is as loathed by music critics as she is adored by her fans?</p><p> First, a personal disclosure: besides being a professional writer and former Time magazine senior editor, I am a fan of Celine. I was the first major American journalist to write about her, back in 1994. In 1996, I put her on the cover of Time International, and in a sign that I was getting too close to the rising star, she sent me a Christmas card that year. If a music writer denies ever becoming a fan of some artists, then he or she is lying.</p><p> Anyway, my professional dalliance with Celine ended abruptly in 1998, when I wrote an article in Time Canada that criticized her album, "Let's Talk About Love." Her collaborations with such older performers as Barbra Streisand and the Bee Gees were, I wrote, strange "duets with dinosaurs." That was the last time I was invited to interview Celine.</p><p> Of course, I was not the only one to turn on Celine. Critics dismissed her as soon as they noticed her. When a performer becomes extremely popular -- and particularly popular with "low brows" (middle-class schlubs) - the intelligentsia really sharpen their knives. Celine became the definition of unhip and a running joke on Saturday Night Live. My friend and former Time music critic, Christopher John Farley, was especially insulting and oblivious of Celine's popular appeal. If you read Chris's writing and nothing else, you would have to conclude that Hootie and the Blowfish became bigger stars than Celine.</p><p> I never made it to Celine's Vegas show. Now I'm sorry I didn't because I just saw a video of the show, which was screened in movie theaters around the U.S. this week. Even as a long-time Celine watcher, I was amazed by what I saw. I now see why the Vegas extravaganza was such a huge success.</p><p> Which leads me to two sure-to-be-scoffed-at assertions:</p><p>1. Celine Dion is the hardest working performer in show business history. (I'm sorry, Mr. Brown, in rock 'n' roll heaven above.)</p><p>2. No other star has ever put on as big a show for her fans as Celine.</p><p>Notice that I didn't say the "best" show. That's a matter of taste. Over-the-top spectacle is not for everyone. For a Springsteen fan, listening to Bruce and the E Street Band just sing and play for a couple of hours must be the closest thing to heaven on earth. But some people want more for their hundreds of dollars per seat. They are delighted to have a show as well as a concert.</p><p>For her show, Celine hired the Cirque du Soleil folks to create a hybrid between a pop concert and circus phantasm. Her nerve and ambition -- some would say ego and self-importance -- boggled the mind. She mastered 90 minutes of intricate choreography with dozens of dancers and musicians while the costumes and sets were constantly changing. How good it was is a matter of opinion, but the crowd always roared and no one left Caesar's Palace feeling gypped. Celine tried harder than anyone ever has to please her fans. It was Madonna times five. I get exhausted just thinking about what Celine has done for the last five years. Sinatra never sold out the same theater for years running. Maybe Bruce could, but he would never try. To do it, you have to consider putting on a show to be the most important thing in your life.</p><p>I wonder if the critics will ever properly acknowledge Celine's place in show business history. This week's New York Times article, while not written by a critic, is a start. But there is much more to be said.</p><p>I'm not arguing that Celine is the greatest singer. She's not even my personal favorite. And she's not necessarily the greatest recording artist just because she has sold hundreds of millions of records worldwide, more than almost anyone else.</p><p>What is undeniable, though, is that she is the Barnum and Bailey of pop music. And she will retain that title at least until someone dares to try to stop her. In the realm of putting on shows, she became bigger than Sinatra. Bigger than Streisand. Bigger than the Stones. Bigger than Springsteen. That's not fan talk. That's simply a fact.</p>?<p>A Kent man who made his neighbours' lives a misery by repeatedly blasting out power ballads - by the likes of Celine Dion (pictured), Chris de Burgh a...</p>?<p>Ooooh goodness. </p><p>Christina Aguilera had us on the edge of our seats during waving her arm and turning side to side in a dress so low cut we thought we were in for an on-air nip slip, . </p><p>Although honestly, this near-slip was more reminiscent of . Like Lopez that night, Aguilera wore a plunging gown whose deep V-neckline cut right across her chest. </p><p>When Lopez presented her award at the Oscars, . with Chris Mann on last night, viewers also came close to seeing something they shouldn't have. </p><p>While on-screen presence of before, we were unsure why the initial conversation began -- girl's got boobs, people. Get over it. </p><p>But last night she came close to giving people . Watch the video above, making sure to hold your breath every time Christina raises her arm up (at least that's what we did). </p><p>PHOTOS:</p><p></p><p></p><p>See more celebrity wardrobe malfunctions:<br></p> <br>?<p>It's been a tough last year for Christina Aguilera. But then, it's not like she hasn't dealt with worse.</p><p>The 30-year old singer takes , opening up about a series of unfortunate events she's suffered over the last year, the childhood pain she still carries, and how she keeps her head up through it all. Not surprisingly, the coping starts with a song.</p><p>“I felt caged by my childhood. And unsafe: Bad things happened in my home; there was violence," she confessed to the magazine. "'The Sound of Music' looked like a form of release. I would open my bedroom window to sing out like Maria. In my own way, I’d be in those hills.”</p><p>It was her Grammy-winning voice that brought her trouble on the biggest stage of the world last February, when she at the Super Bowl.</p><p>“Everything on the field at the Super Bowl was vividly bright, and I was having a moment,” Aguilera said about that embarrassing mistake. “I got lost in the emotion of being there and I messed up the lyrics to the song.”</p><p>She took it well, though; while she knew that it'd get major play in the media, she tried to laugh it off.</p><p>“I went to dinner after the Super Bowl with Matt and I laughed about how I’d made myself into a Trivial -Pursuit question: ‘In 2011 what female singer flubbed the lyrics to the national anthem?’" she remembered.</p><p>The Matt, of course, is Matthew Rutler, her new boyfriend. She met him on the set of and soon after, announced , Jordan Brattman. To hear her tell the story, the split was mutual -- and mutually sinful.</p><p>“At one time or another,” -Aguilera she said, alluding to affairs, "we were both not angels. It got to a point where our life at home was reminding me of my own childhood. I will not have my son grow up in a tension--filled home. I knew there would be a negative reaction in the press to my divorce, but I am not -going to live my life because of something someone might say. That goes against everything I sing on my records. I have to be myself.”</p><p>And speaking of "Burlesque," in which she, for the first time, wasn't playing herself, she doesn't regret making the movie, even if it failed. Because she didn't.</p><p>“I was sad, but I’m still glad that I did the movie,” she said about the film. “During production, I was going through a lot of self-discovery. As a quote-unquote pop star, you have your entourage with you at all times. When you enter and leave a place, backstage, even at home?you always have your team. On the movie set, I didn’t have anyone around me. And it felt good. When I first met my husband, I needed that -helping hand to take the reins and look after me. After the movie, I grew out of being that little girl: I became more of an adult.”</p><p>Now one of four judges on "The Voice," Aguilera is experiencing success once again. Good thing she spent all that time singing to "The Sound of Music" -- it not only trained that award winning voice, but helped her learn to fight through the tough times.</p><p>In fact, she just That being said, the real life nasty times may be over. At least for now.</p><p>Additionally, Aguilera launched a new perfume on Wednesday, the .</p><p>For more, .</p> <br>?<p>It was the height of irony as the Costa Concordia started going down.</p><p>A passenger has revealed that the Celine Dion song "My Heart Will Go On," made famous by the 1997 film "Titanic," was playing in one of the ill-fated cruise ship's restaurants at the very moment the ship's hull was ripped open.</p><p>Swissman Yannick Sgaga that he and his brother were dining when the Concordia , starting an evacuation that Sgaga called "a demonstration of incompetence, recklessness and irresponsibility."</p><p>"The images from the film 'Titanic' are more realistic than you'd think," Sgaga told the Tribune. "I couldn't get them out of my head."</p><p>It's unclear in which of the Concordia's restaurants Sgaga and his brother were dining or if any other passengers heard the sickeningly ironic soundtrack. But many other passengers have said the evacuation was bungled at best, with and .</p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p> <br>?<p>Soooo ... on Mother's Day I'm supposed to wake up to lumpy pancakes, handmade cards, and a general, overall worshipful sense in the household that without me everyone would be river orphans. If this doesn't happen, I pretend not be offended, and stoically -- indeed dismissively, in the most good-humoured way -- say that Mother's Day is of no consequence, and it is entirely made up by the Hallmark people to sell cards and other guilt-induced impulse merchandise.</p><p>Then, people die.</p><p>Father's Day is different, right? As my husband each year asserts, not only is it a holiday entirely made up by the Hallmark people to sell cards and other guilt-induced impulse merchandise -- it's gender-equality gone wild.</p><p>Fathers, he will say (and this is his argument, not mine), could care less about Father's Day. And in its own way, he will insist, it's an insult to Mother's Day: For all the cheesy Hallmark-ism of both holidays, mothers are genuinely deserving of shout-out recognition from their children, whereas fathers are merely looking for a way to score a guiltless golf-day or bar-round with their buddies.</p><p>This is, I will counter, an old-fashioned, sexist view. Modern fathers change diapers. (Some) modern fathers stay home with their children. There are many, many single fathers keeping it all together. And what about gay couples who can't celebrate Mother's Day? </p><p>Fine -- if you want to celebrate it, celebrate it, my husband will concede. He's not going to turn down a free brunch. But the general idea of Mother's Day is for the family to give mothers a rest from their ceaseless domestic duties: However modernized the parenting roles have become, mothers remain the creatures who ensure that their children don't wander into a snowstorm without their mittens; it is still the female sex who -- even while they hold down jobs -- keep the domestic wheels turning smoothly. </p><p>So what then should we do to celebrate this day? How can we show our appreciation for our father's contributions to the family? How do we bust through the contrived nature -- the Hallmark-iness -- of the day to recognize our particular father's uniqueness?</p><p>This year, our youngest daughter, aged 10, will craft a card -- as she always does. Her older sister, now 20, might decide it's gift enough that she is no longer whitening her father's hair -- and simply say thank you to him for enduring her adolescence. Our middle child, an 18-year-old son -- who turns out to have a talent for cooking -- will plan, shop for and make a special family dinner. </p><p>I know my husband will go along with it because, secretly, he doesn't mind the fuss.</p><p>And then, as tends to happen on these forced holidays, a kind of sentimental alchemy will take place: The very fact that everyone must takes a moment to appreciate what dad -- this dad -- means to him or her will result in real appreciation. And those few seconds of real appreciation will suffice. Here is our father before us: He may be a super modern dad who underscores at every turn how special and loved we are; or maybe he is less demonstrative, but his silent constancy is what keeps us aloft like an air current. He may have just come back from a tour of duty; he may have just come back from the office. He may have taught us, profoundly, how to show respect for women in the way he treats our mother, or less profoundly, how to ride a two-wheel bike. Maybe he is not the father we would have wished for, or we were not the son or daughter he would have wished for. Maybe he just showed up for us. Didn't, in the end, embarrass us. But he is dad. Our dad. And without him, we would not have the gift of existence. </p><p>Happy Father's Day.</p>***<p>Last week was a big political week, kicking off with the announcement by Papa Rae that he would not in fact seek the leadership of the Liberal party. Before Justin Trudeau could even tweet the news, our HuffPost contributors were offering reaction -- notably Daniel Veniez, a former Liberal candidate, who just days before the announcement. Veniez was disappointed in Rae's decision:</p>We were alone, and he was in a very reflective mood. I left with the sense that he had made up his mind not to seek the permanent leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. His family were united in urging him not to. But the health and well being of the party was dominating his reflection and our conversation. <p>While I have great respect for his decision, I am disappointed that Bob won't run. With Bob Rae as an active participant in a conversation about the future of Canada and the Liberal Party's place in it, you won't get mindless platitudes or speeches written by someone else. You won't get canned talking points written by someone else. What you get is the sum total of the cumulative wisdom and insight -- with scars and all -- of one of the most substantial political figures of his generation.</p><p>More insight and reaction came quickly from Keith Beardsley --"(" -- and young Zach Paikin -- "" -- the latter whom we all expect to see running for the leadership himself one day. Our Politics team swarmed the story as well, with Michael Bolen's quick news story , Twitter reaction and Althia Raj's exclusive 1-on-1 interview with Rae . </p><p>And towards the end of the week, while the Tories drove their massive Omnibus Bill C-38 through Parliament, two dissenting MPs -- the NDP's and Independent -- blogged for us about what they were doing to throw it off-course. </p><p>Here at HuffPost central, Community Editor Ron Nurwisah has launched our #LoveCanada project, with . Watch for more #LoveCanada leading up to Canada Day on July 1.</p><p>Also watch our own rocking Ottawa Bureau Chief, Althia Raj, on CBC's season-ending "At Issue Panel," which . </p><p>On the release of the Canadian labour force survey, award-winning Huffpost reporter Rachel Mendleson took -- exploring youth unemployment, which is still as bad as it was at the depths of the recession. </p><p>And thanks to Lauren Strapagiel, HuffPost was the first to report on the sky-high cost of food in Canada's north and a fledgling protest there. Her story, with an amazing gallery that showcased outrageous prices for basic food stuffs, can be found . </p><p>But back to Father's Day. If you haven't had enough of Dad yet, check out our <br>Living and Style teams ramped-up Father's Day coverage with lots of clickable goodies, including fatherhood , , and .</p><p>Now if you don't mind, I'm going to go give my own father some #LoveDad.</p> <br><p>Follow Danielle Crittenden on Twitter:</p>?<p>The Department of Homeland Security said it is expanding its "If You See Something, Say Something" public awareness campaign to Charlotte, N.C., just as that city prepares for the global spotlight that the Democratic National Convention will bring in September.</p><p>The program, announced by Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx and other local officials Monday at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, will post billboards in the transit system, in public buildings and on the city's website urging citizens to report suspicious activity to police. DHS will also run 30-second public service announcements on local government access TV.</p><p>The roll-out comes as in Chicago announced they would head to Charlotte to make their voices heard. They will join hordes of protesters who plan to camp out during the convention and air their grievances to gathering Democrats.</p><p>The public safety campaign originated in New York, where in 2010 tipped off police to a suspicious vehicle and helped foil a plot to bomb Times Square.</p><p>Monday's announcement made no mention of the Democratic National Convention, which starts Sept. 3, but it wouldn't be the first high-profile event to feature the publicity campaign. Safety messages were televised and included in game programs and fan guides for this year's in Indianapolis.</p>?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpdovcLTcUs93wly%2B34i7kkrPjtQPvHYzsjWYhFzb12pgbYBKVLP34TXLzbpAy2RCoJtFFAngK4QBT43WaolBTcPfpLmNk7nCjRWSB2%2FymekHy%2BlaPW27BvcQEfIX%2F%2BT7jigXKA6%2FuiHk?<p>A 22-year-old Manhattan man was sentenced on Tuesday to 17 years to life in prison after his high-speed drive through Harlem caused a horrific wreck that resulted in the killing of an 84-year-old nun and the injury of four people.</p><p>In June 2010, Dyson Williams was in a blue Chrysler Pacifica in Harlem that was pulled over by police who were investigating a robbery. Williams took the wheel and led police on a 20-block chase, culminating with the Pacifica's striking of another car. That car in turn plowed into and killed Sister Mary Celine Graham, 84, of the Franciscan Handmaids of Mary, a Harlem religious order. </p><p>Last month Williams pleaded guilty to robbery, murder and assault.</p><p>Assistant District Attorney Peter Casolaro said Graham had become a nun at an early age and worked with young people as a teacher for many years. </p><p>"All that good work has come to an end because she is gone,” Casolaro said, adding that Williams had “brushed off” the incident.<br> <br>“He certainly doesn’t express the empathy that a normal person would in causing so much anguish,” Casolaro said.</p><p>Williams' defense attorney disputed that, saying his client told him that the crash was "horrible" and a "mistake."</p><p>The crash injured four others, none of whom chose to speak at the sentencing. In court the prosecution highlighted their ongoing troubles.</p><p>Former nurse's aide Patricia Cruz, who was hit during the crash, is still recovering from her injuries and in “constant pain,” Casolaro said. </p><p>Another person, whose legs were severely injured as a result of the accident, can no longer walk, Casolaro said. The woman whose car was struck by Williams still has difficulty getting behind the wheel and has psychological scars, he added.</p><p>Williams' chase began after police pulled over the Chrysler Pacifica with him and William Robbins, 20, in connection with a string of armed robberies. After Robbins exited the driver’s seat, Williams took the wheel and the car sped off. Last month Robbins pleaded guilty to robbery and agreed to 15 years in prison in exchange for prosecutors' dropping murder and other charges.</p><p>Before the sentencing, members of Williams’ family gathered in the audience. Holding her head in her hands, one woman burst into tears and had to leave the courtroom.</p><p>Shackled and wearing a bright orange jumpsuit, Williams shouted to family members as he exited the courtroom. “Don’t worry about it,” he said.</p>?<p>people.com:</p><p>It took several days, but Celine Dion and her husband Rene Angelil have finally named their twin sons.</p><p>The name "Eddy" comes from Eddy Marnay, who produced the singer's first five records. "He was like a father to her," says Dion's rep. "Eddy is a major influence in both Celine and Rene's lives." </p><p></p> <br>?<p>~The Cricket Bat and the Porcupine~</p><p>A Story in Three Parts</p><p>...which began life as a short blog on my book tour to South Africa in Spring 2012 and became a kind of blogelogue of a homecoming...</p><p> <br>Part One.</p><p>Day 1. Sunday Morning. Land in Johannesburg.<br> <br>And I see the light. The density of it, luscious, I bask a moment. My light. And the dry air, waiting, as it did all the winters of my childhood to crack my lips and knees and elbows. High world air. My air. A choking nostalgia reminds me that my natural habitat is 6000 feet higher than the stately roll of the Thames beside which I now live. </p><p>My straight-talking, seriously good publicist who I will call J drives me from the airport along Jan Smuts Avenue unaware of my already somewhat skinless state and before I can stop myself I call out, 'Sarah! ' And it is indeed my teenage friend Sarah's house that we pass - the place we learnt to be almost-sexual, completely-political beings, and where we gathered to mourn her premature death. I count the number of my contemporaries who died in the span of those late teenage years - 5 including Lulu. Surely that is a high number? </p><p>J settles me in my hotel with a view of the "biggest man made forest in the world" the canopy covering the suburbs of Jo'burg. She takes me to the shopping mall attached to my hotel where I buy a pair of running shoes, (my battered favourites forgotten in the chaos of my leave taking). I know the place well from my youth but since I last saw it, the supermarkets and fish shops and chemists have been replaced by Burberry and Celine, by shops dedicated to fine watches and horse riding attire, it is finer by far than Bond Street and I don't yet understand who sustains it. I suspect, though, that the spoils that provide this sleek comfort for the rich must surely come, at least in part, from government coffers meant to create a public safety net for all. </p><p>That net is certainly not there for the stick-thin young woman who walks across the street in front of our car asking for nothing. Her dress raised up in her hands like a ship's sail, revealing her entirely naked body underneath. She is thin as a stick, beyond the sexual. I wonder if she is in the final stages of HIV/AIDS and its ravages? There is grace in her fine neck, antelope legs and her face, when she turns to look at us, has already emptied out. I weep, no surprises there. The soft, skinless person I have become in the cold north prepares me badly for my old city. As I weep, I wonder if I should apologise to J - she saves me the task by discretely averting her eyes.</p><p>My first interview is with radio SAFM (the journalist runs a culture and book program from 1-4 on Sundays). She's a beautiful woman with a mission to celebrate books and encourage a culture of reading. She gives her listeners, off the cuff, the best synopsis of my book I've ever heard. The questions that follow are half-blood-half-brain, intellectually challenging but full of feeling. It strikes me then, that RHUMBA, although set in the Congo and London, feels owned by her, a South African. By the end of the interview, she is finishing my sentences and I hers. I am home and she's my companero.</p><p>There is a question one always dreads if one is white and well-heeled (though clearly not with Burberry and Celine and certainly not atop a horse) which basically goes something along the lines what gives you the right, white person, to take on the telling of a story about a place and people who are not your people? </p><p>I look to Willie Loman, fresh in my mind after seeing Phillip Seymour Hoffman's transcendent performance in Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman'. Willie is a fantasist, alternately vicious and sentimental. When his two sons threaten to reject him their mother upbraids them thus...I don't say he's a great man. Willie Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person. I realize as I say it, that although Willie Loman may have been closer to Miller than my Flambeau is to me, telling this story about a Congolese immigrant boy in London is not a presumption on my part, but an obligation.</p><p>We finish the interview and the eye-grit from a sleepless night beside the largest man to ever fold himself into a British Airways seat fills my nose and eyes and mouth. Must sleep. </p><p>From my hotel room window I look down on the swifts and the hadedah ibis's flying above the canopy. They shriek as if to say if there is anything you haven't done yet that matters to you, you'd better get on to it before the curtain closes on the day and the nocturnal hunters, human and animal, come out to play. </p><p></p><p><br>Day 2/3.</p><p>I wake up to that same screech. I swear if those birds had been around in Shakespeare's day he would not have needed the ravens to herald the dark arrival of Duncan under Macbeth's murderous battlements. After the polite twitter of the robins and jays outside my English window, this raucous sound rips me from my sheets, as yet unready for the day. </p><p>For the first time in years, I spend the day meeting my contemporary countrymen in a professional context. The journalist from Sarie magazine (with its childhood associations of old tannies (aunties) baking rusks and giving cleaning tips) is astute. The Sunday Times journalist is too - good conversations all. The photographer who comes with her is a hunter. You know the ones, who look and look and find a way of saying what's going on inside something. They were a good team. The young black TV presenter has, unusually for a busy TV guy, read the book carefully. His producer, still just a girl, cracks the most irreverent of whips to keep him to the six minutes the piece allows. </p><p>There is one among the many women journalists I speak to who is authorial in the way a president would be. I have a brief and demented thought that she should go into politics to sort out the corruption that abounds. She is electrifyingly intelligent. But it is clearly more important for her to be the protector of South Africa's writers (make that the writer's of the world) particularly as the Protection of Information Act refuses to go way. More about that later.</p><p>By the evening of day 3 as I sit again above the circling hadedah's at my window it seems clear that - although the nation is still ravaged by the rasping shadow of brutalized criminals who spoil what they can - in the peaceful corners of the land, the once half-formed evolutionary fish of our new country, has flapped its way on the bank and is crawling towards a new self. An efficient, equitable, self-actualized, disciplined, self. </p><p>And then, just to complicate my certainties, as life is want to do, we arrive for the official Jo'burg launch of RHUMBA at Exclusive books in Hyde Park. I have been looking forward to this for weeks. A great African academic is going to interview me about my small book and I know I am going to emerge enriched in my understanding. Sorbonne trained, Oxford University educated, a spell of teaching at the university of Pennsylvania. He is simply brilliant and I am amazed he has agreed to this small collaboration. </p><p>As J and I wait for him to arrive I greet old friends and relatives and we sip our water or wine and I sign books, all very pleasant - but where is our academic?</p><p>I see J-the-unflappable begin to panic. Maybe he fell asleep? Maybe he was visited by an old friend and forgot the time? Maybe one of his children has a cold? Maybe he simply didn't care? Or it could be that a wild force of nature, quite beyond his control, swept him away? Even then, surely he would call, just to relieve us of our imaginings? Surely he himself had a first book once and knows the terrors that attend its emergence. Surely?</p><p>I feel my small lifeboat begin to fill with water and the longing for my children becomes an ache, as it does whenever hardship strikes. A kind young woman from exclusive books steps in to read out the questions I dig out of my bag from a prior Q&A with an audience in London. And, as we converse, question by question, we scoop the water out of the leaking boat. Finally, we are floating as a boat should, on the surface of the water, even without our brilliant academic to show us the way. </p><p>Elaine Proctor<br>Spring 2012</p><p>Part 2 to follow next week...</p>?<p>I prefer the idea of 'style' to 'fashion'. My wardrobe contains mainly black and navy, rather more tonal than rainbow. Yesterday someone described my outfit as 'ombre'; thank goodness my hair isn't dip dyed.</p><p>I favour a simple kind of dressing, the trench coat and heels kind. The kind where style rules over trends, the kind that isn't deemed outrageous enough to be a target for Somerset House street style photographers. That's okay though, I don't dress to impress at fashion week, I know my style and I'm comfortable with it. After all, aren't we all too busy thinking about ourselves to care about anyone else?</p><p>Seated at a menswear show last week, I couldn't help but consider the fashion vs style dilemma. In the midst of candy coloured mops of hair, enormous stacked brothel creepers, bright blingy jackets and some otherwise chronic get ups, I felt a little undressed by comparison in my Chloe-esque navy peter pan collar coat and tonal skirt and blouse ensemble. I was comfy, and politely, pardon the phrase, 'on trend'. I'll be the first to admit that Meadham Kirchhoff is an incredible work of art, but I'll never own any of their pieces. I prefer Stella McCartney, Chloe, Celine and Burberry; even Vivienne Westwood is too exciting for me. I'm a fashion minimalist.</p><p>At the aforementioned show, I noticed something similar happening on the catwalk; my favourite looks were those ultra wearable pieces that I could imagine my male friends actually wearing. Admittedly many of them work in media; perhaps the rugby types are exempt from this. Agi and Sam presented gorgeous paneled shirts that any self-respecting young man would be proud to wear both to work, and for post-office drinks. Agi and Sam kept it simple, simple enough for their collection to be more than 'show pieces'. Keep it simple stupid.</p><p>As for costume fashion, may it live on. Somerset House wouldn't be the same without hoards of journos, stylists and associated media types swarming around its grounds hoping to be snapped and obscurely posted online. I just know I won't be joining them anytime soon. Save me a seat at Chloe, for that is where my heart lies.</p> <br><p>Follow Eleanor Doughty on Twitter:</p>?<p>There are moments in fashion when you recognise something that will change the landscape of our fair industry. It happened at Jil Sander in September 2010 when Raf Simons transformed neon colours into a palatable concept with that skirt. But now, the new 'it' item has arrived, storming catwalks and constructed by the real who's who in fashion. If you are looking for the defining autumn addition then this is it. Seriously. Introducing, the trouser suit.</p><p>It sidelined for years before being exalted once more, hidden in a midday shadow by asymmetric skirts and outdated preconceptions of what a trouser suit should look like. Upon the entrance of Vanessa Axente, walking in Prada's AW12 show, the revolution re-began. A black trouser suit adorned with jewels at the ankle and lapel broke us in gently to the print extravaganza that followed. </p> <p>Muiccia Prada's collection read like the spoof school uniform rulebook, a guide of how not to dress. Breaking all the rules your mother ever taught you about getting dressed (unless your name's Allegra Versace), it defiantly stepped out in the midst of our braver, pattern clad bodies. Described by some as genius, others as so-bad-it's-good, there is no doubt that, as standard, Prada delivered a show stopping collection. Thank goodness the show didn't stop, the two-tone wedges weren't slowing down.</p> <p>This autumn, the trouser suit isn't just about coordinating prints. It's a lesson from Italy about how and why to wear trousers; the collections are instructive and precise. In a distinctly less 1999 Ally McBeal mode, trousers are now eye-catching, powerful yet feminine. And really, what more could you want from your new sartorial best friend?</p><p>Like many fashionable themes, this trend would not have emerged without a great pinnacle of style. All hail Yves Saint Laurent. Changing womenswear from the moment his 1966 summer show opened, the tragic genius revolved the perspective of women in trousers. Yves' changed the world; the masculine black tie uniform was transformed into a palatable piece of high fashion. Yves produced the sexiest form of masculin/feminin; it will never be seen again. Original hipster Francoise Hardy had a set ordered specifically, a testament to the chicness of 'Le Smoking'. Only Saint Laurent himself might have known just how much impact that suit would have. </p><p>Blame the recession, if you will, for 'useful' fashion's renaissance. Queen Phoebe [Philo, of Celine] designs for real women in mind, making clothes that present solutions, not make us wonder 'where can I actually wear that?' The trouser suit ticks that box, the ultimate sexy-in-your-boyfriend's-clothes glamour combined with an oh-so practical edge, practically tipping the cap to high fashion. And it was everywhere. <br> <br><br>Celine pulled out jumbo oversized coats that juxtaposed tapered trousers, all characteristically architectural, ranging across the colour spectrum. In contrast, standing proud amongst an array of well-established houses is a K-Mid favourite in Emilia Wickstead. Not edgy like Acne, or the cool, streamlined Celine solution, the New Zealander's endlessly chic display was effortlessly all there, light and breezy but sensible. Sensible is truly the word. Her simple yet effective, soon-to-be classic additions to the every day woman's closet don't pull the power card out of the pack, but just subtly lie there. An understated collection, like the designer herself perhaps, but the one and only pair of trousers in there showed what pastels for autumn are all about.</p><p>Stella McCartney intertwined a casual rock baroque mode with everyday clothes of the working woman. Introducing the pantsuit as an accessible addition, Stella's are much less 90s grey pinstripe and so, so much more elegant yet undeniably cool. But do we expect any less from the Queen of British luxury? I think not. Trousers have regained dignity as something to be desired and cherished. Merci, Mrs Prada.</p> <p><br>Some trends do not lend themselves to maximum appeal, but like almost no other, you can rely on the trouser suit to work for you. Yes, you. From wide legs that do flatter, to uber-chic ankle-grazers, there's plenty happening. If you're in any doubt, ask yourself what would Yves want. He'd want you to go for it. So do. It suits you.</p><p>Images courtesy of Jil Sander, Prada, Miu Miu, Celine, Emilia Wickstead, Stella McCartney.</p> <br><p>Follow Eleanor Doughty on Twitter:</p>?<p>I am not interviewing Phoebe Philo today. Let's pretend I am. The college friend and one-time creative twin of Stella McCartney, now mother of two and celebrated curator of responsible fashion design, Phoebe Philo has earned her place in the history books. She famously justified time with her children over her peaking career, sweeping out of Chloe and into a world of nanny bags and tracksuit bottoms. Hard to imagine perhaps, but such is the elusive magic and humanity of the British designer who has recaptured Celine in all its glory.</p><p>Like Givenchy's Riccardo Tisci and Somerset sweetheart Alice Temperley, Philo attended London's renowned Central St Martin's, graduating in 1996. During her time there, fashion ventured through a periodical rebellion of garish prints, conspicuous status logos (a la Lacoste), and more neon than is ever acceptable outside the bounds of a silent disco. One glance at this season's Celine collection will tell you what kind of impact this had. Inspired by mid-1990s minimalists Jil Sander and Helmut Lang, Philo's twenty-first century work could not be further from the brash fashion of her university years. We'll never know whether her graduate collection reflected this as it is now lost, in the depths of history. Unsurprising perhaps, given Philo's quiet disposition.</p><p>Phoebe Philo is a fashion pioneer. Reigning for five years at Chloe, the French fashion house where Karl Lagerfeld cut his teeth, she established it as the go-to label for girlish cool, a fundamental stylish guideline. Introducing chunky heels to replace skeletal spikes, light flares and high waists instead of the 'trendy' hipster, new shapes were created that we needed, before we realised we did. </p><p><br>The well cut, easy to wear clothes that came out of Chloe in those landscape sculpting years transferred, along with Philo's talent for creating timeless garments, to Celine. The renovated fashion house is pared-back, and composed. Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey, the French parent company holding Celine's purse strings, moved its studio at Philo's request from Paris to London in respect of her maternal duties. Aww. Shortly after the first new collection, Celine became the divine yet financially stressful sartorial understatement that is oh-so-coveted around the world. It is inclusive, with a real woman appeal. The Celine woman is looking for clothes that provide solutions to every day problems, clothes without fuss or as Phoebe might describe as being 'unnecessary'. That is so Celine. And you can spot it a mile off.</p><p>It is the modern woman's fashionable Holy Grail, the perfection that many aspire towards. The purist, humble aesthetic is reflected beyond the garments and their maker, reaching all corners of the business. The brand's collaborations with photographer Juergen Teller are home to product-centric, stark, honest campaigns. There is no pretension, no outer face. The clothes Philo creates are not found on the cover of HELLO! or on the red carpet, they're on the streets of London and Paris on the bodies of real women.</p><p><br>Philo is responsible for turning the trend tide, stripping back the limbs of the embellished sartorial landscape, and leaving a purer, refined quality behind. Celine is the calm eye of the fashion storm, a serene place where stylish boats can float and fish with no fear of maximalist predators.</p><p>The garments show an intricate design process, founded on a core structure where nothing is wasted or taken for granted. Any Celine piece outperforms closet companions; they are the quiet ones, rarely raising their voices yet scoring full marks in every spelling test. They're the ones you love to hate because there is never a hair out of place. But you can't hate Phoebe, and you can't hate Celine. It's impossible.</p><p>In a world preoccupied with rapid results and the immediacy of the Internet, one cannot help but applaud Philo for her chosen anonymity. With live show streaming online, a myriad of bloggers gasping to get first snaps of the new collections, Celine is a breath of fresh air. Philo bans any kind of backstage photography and would prefer independent judgements are made, void of questioning the creator. In light of the commercial circus that the industry has become, Philo's stance is refreshing. Like her clothes, she leaves a lot to the imagination.</p><p>All hail Queen Phoebe, although I'm sure she would be embarrassed to hear it.</p> <br><p>Follow Eleanor Doughty on Twitter:</p>?<p>Dressing 'casually' can be a problem. Like many things, the more thought you put into it, the room there is for error. Highlights of my recent fashion discoveries include the sad realisation that my Rive Gauche blazer is the only thing to pull off big shoulders, complex layering assumes the look of one going hiking, and the effortless colour blocking tactics are only possible with precision training, and an unlimited tonal wardrobe. To the latter sentiment, one (and by this I mean me) may resemble one's seven-year-old self's paint palette. And that's not something I'd like to remember.</p><p>Thinking about what to wear in the morning is often just a little too complicated. Stick to what you know usually works best, often sufficing as the solution to my frequent ensemble dilemmas. This season, I sense a real solution. Introducing minimal maximisation... or rather, the rise of the oversize. </p><p>I realise that excessively large sized clothes may not be immediately appealing. Like layering they are fraught with difficulties largely associated with 'does my bum look (too) big in this?' Despite this, that very exclusive nod to fashion is all there in the act of the oversized. Be not fooled, this is no excuse to gorge on Godiva's delectable chocolate-covered strawberries, or to stop that excellent running habit you've adopted. Whether I'm referring to the one in Louboutins to the bus stop, or the 5k I'll leave to you.</p><p>Husbands beware, the 'Bridget, that's not your coat' trend can be actually be put into practice, making extensive appearances on the catwalk and reducing models to their even more skeletal selves. Roksanda Ilincic literally pulled out all the stops with almost inflatable looking coats, going Olympic-style sumo against the oversized trend. Championing more of a bedtime than Olympic Park vibe, Chloe matched the covetable Parisian sensibilities with a British sporting edge in creating a very comfy collection of coats, while Celine fell back on elegant yet minimalist functionality, as is their timeless mission. </p> <p>Pair an oversized boyfriend blazer with a slick pair of trousers for the perfect complement to the new season a la the queen of casual chic and those wedged trainers, Isabel Marant. The Parisian worked an almost impossibly chic boyfriend blazer with simple skinny trousers and stilettos for her take on oversized. Now who said fashion was tricky?</p><p>Not everyone chose macho man for their autumn theme song; Raf Simons' last collection for Jil Sander generated a well-deserved standing ovation from the Milan crowd, exhibiting perfect large scale minimalism. The absolutely divine pastel coat, seemingly more at home in your grandmother's dressing up box than the catwalk, sealed Raf's place in fashion history.</p> <p>Coats were not alone in this trend's domination. Prada showed the ultimate high fashion geek chic brogue, super high, and super clumpy yet ultimately powerful. Almost so bad they're fabulous, Prada's shoes literally lift you into the fashion limelight. A broad selection of large than life tote bags more suited to a weekend in the Cotswolds than a trip to Waitrose with the kids emerged. We've all done it, bought a huge handbag and proceeded to fill it with as much as possible. This is regrettable yet inevitable position to be in, and made all that easier by Valentino's Mary Poppins effect hold all.</p> <p>In a strange sartorial hybrid, the rise of the oversize signals minimalism within a much larger idea. While shapes might be overbearing, concepts are minimal, forming the perfect combination of micro macro. Minimalism, the chic Parisian's favourite, favours a simple way of living and dressing that can be easily incorporated into AW12's biggest and boldest trend. </p><p>In a season that celebrates the waist, we are treated to a splendid array of cuddle-me coats. Thomas Tait's wide collar pea green number was almost as inviting as MaxMara's maximum lengths in coordinating colours while Commes des Garcons struck a floral chord with a cape-like piece, enough fabric to wrap up half the finale girls. During all of this, the clean architectural lines we have come to expect have not been forgotten in construction. Big, bold and beautiful does not signal the end of tailoring, it has simply streamlined to perfect the utterly sensationally casual in oversized looks.</p> <p>So if Michelin men don't take your fancy and Chloe's dressing gown look is just a tiny bit too appealing, invite Raf Simons into your life and champion oversized simplicity. With that coat, you barely need a dress. Cough, did I really suggest that? Financially viable though, let's be honest.</p><p>Images courtesy of Roksanda Ilincic at Starworks, Chloe, Celine, Isabel Marant, Jil Sander, Prada, Valentino at Karla Otto, Comme des Garcons, Thomas Tait.</p> <br><p>Follow Eleanor Doughty on Twitter:</p>?<p>Comedian Carrot Top will be joining the likes of Barry Manilow and Celine Dion with his own show on the Vegas Strip, but no one is more excited about it than Elton John<br> <br>"It's huge because growing up and wanting to be a comic, you never think that you will get to Vegas. But it's not like the old days where you are Wayne Newton and you just go there to die. But I hope I die there because I don't want to go back on the road," explained Scott Thompson, who goes by the stage name "Carrot Top." </p><p>"I invited Elton John and he said, 'Oh, yeah, we would love to come to your show.' He hasn't. And he gave me a big, wet kiss. Haven't washed my face since. And then he shook my girlfriend's hand. And she said, 'What was that about?' and I said, 'It's Elton John!' It was a little weird, though. But I went in for it. There was tongue, a little bit. It was like 'Rocket Man.'"</p><p>Although his comedy may be blunt, Carrot Top refuses to dish about which comics he thinks deserve crickets -- he knows all too well what it's like having others say mean things about him.<br> <br>"I've been trashed so much so I don't want to do that to people. Like Pauly Shore calling me bad, come on. He ripped me one time. I was like, 'You are Pauly Shore! You can't rip me! You are Pauly Shore,'" Carrot Top laughed. <br> <br>To see my entire interview with Carrot Top tune into HDNet's "Naughty But Nice With Rob" Thursdays at 8:00 p.m.</p><p></p> <br>?<p>NEW YORK — Elvis is back in the building – the hologram version, that is.</p><p>Like the much-hyped Tupac Shakur hologram that debuted at the Coachella music festival, Elvis Presley will get the virtual treatment by the same company that made the late rapper's lifelike hologram.</p><p>Digital Domain Media Group announced Wednesday it is creating a Presley hologram for shows, film, TV and other projects worldwide, including appearances. They've gotten the OK from Elvis Presley Enterprises.</p><p>The King of Rock 'n' Roll remains one of the most popular figures in music despite his death in 1977.</p><p>No word on when hologram Elvis will make its official debut. Digital Domain is linking with Core Media Group, which handles various brands, personalities and properties.</p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p>?<p>Spring may just be blooming, but celebs are already slipping into Fall 2012 runway clothes. Take Emily Blunt, for example, who caught our eye at . </p><p>Held in London, the event saw Emily and her co-star Ewan McGregor posing for pictures and signing autographs to scores of fans.</p><p>It also saw Emily wear a rather strange outfit from Carolina Herrera's Fall 2012 collection: a dress with a matching jacket that closed in the back, rather than the front. </p><p>Unlike Amanda Seyfried, who got creative on the red carpet and , Emily's Carolina Herrera creation was meant to be worn that way (see the original model on the runway below). But does work?</p><p>Check out the glowing star below and tell us: are you a fan of the reverse jacket?<br><br>PHOTOS: </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>See celebs trying the backwards look:</p> <br>?<p>According to a new report on modern motherhood, women who have difficulty conceiving a child are not the only ones to suffer the effects of infertility.</p><p>A report on modern motherhood suggests 'emotional infertility' can be just as damaging.</p><p>Over half of women polled agreed the pain of not having children due to not finding the right partner equalled that of dealing with medical infertility problems</p><p>The study conducted by Red magazine, which gathered data from over 3,000 British women aged 28-45, also revealed that nearly three quarters (71%) of women think those who have medical infertility get more sympathy than those with 'emotional infertility’.<br> <br>Did you know these famous ladies used IVF?<br></p><p>Brigid Moss, health director of Red said: "We have identified what we call “emotional infertility”, that is being childless not by choice, due to not having a partner or a partner not wanting to have children.</p><p>"It's interesting that most women think that medical infertility gets most sympathy, and that more than half of women think that emotional infertility is as painful as medical infertility’."</p><p>The same reported noted that just 17% of women worry about being too old to conceive, and one in five women would consider having a baby on their own.</p><p>Sam Baker, editor-in-chief, said: "It seems that women now feel more confident to make their own decisions to prioritise what they want in life, including how and when they want to start family."</p>?<p>By </p><p>While your friends are excited you’re engaged, the thought of being forced to use the “right fork” while watching a photomontage set to a Celine Dion track is enough to make them homicidal. Celebrity Event Planner (and Staggered Event Expert, Peter Otero) shows you how to throw an engagement party that won’t bore them to tears.</p><p>Engagement parties are regarded as the traditional formal announcement of a wedding more frequently celebrated at a fancy restaurant or dinner party at home. While tradition can be a safe and predictable foundation for a party, we all know the most outstanding ones are remembered because of the unexpected fun had by all. For guys, the minute we hear about an engagement party, we either curl our lips or ...yawn!</p><p>Get Involved.</p><p>So with all due respect to Cyndi Lauper’s girl anthem, “girls just wanna have fun”, they aren’t the only ones. Guys want to have a blast too! There are a wide variety of themes and styles to decide on that can ensure a fantastic time. Get involved in the planning process and voice your opinion. The male perspective can usually offer a unique twist to a "lovey dovey" feminine approach. Your buddies will appreciate you for thinking of them. I am not a big fan of themed parties, though I am constantly asked to design them. But when I do, I like to pay very close attention to every detail. That is what makes a party unique and personal. So be as creative as you want and don’t be afraid to think outside the box.</p><p>Remember, It Doesn’t Have to Be Stuffy.</p><p>If you’re going for a more casual approach, think of fun and unexpected venues as opposed to the more traditional ballroom, banquet hall or restaurant. A local pub, bar or favorite watering hole can be a fun alternative. Prior arrangements can be made so that you have a sectioned off, semi-private area for your guests that may include your own bartender. If the place does not serve food you can arrange to have food delivered or have it catered. This allows everyone to have a good time in a very relaxed atmosphere. You may also want to be proactive and think of designating drivers or offer a car or taxi service for those guests who really make it a point to toast all night long celebrating the union of love. There’s always at least one or two in the group...maybe more!</p><p>There’s also a big trend now in upscale bowling alleys that are equipped for private parties. This makes for a fun filled night of laughter, luck AND some losers...with possible back aches too. Some places have great food, drinks and music with a “clubby” feeling. If not, a regular old school alley can be just as fun. Anything can be arranged to fit your tastes and budget. Everyone has a fun time; participants and spectators alike.</p><p>There’s nothing better than pairing good pizza with cold beer (or good wine). Whether at a local pizza parlor, restaurant or private home, it can be a delicious way of saying “we’re tying the knot”. Look into buying out the local pizza spot or hiring a chef to make “pies on demand”. Make it instructional and interactive. Guests participate if it’s entertaining and well thought out. Create new recipes or follow traditional ones. Offer a variety of beer to go with different pizzas. Make sure to keep it casual and family style. If it’s anything like my house, the best times are shared in the kitchen?around food!</p><p>Make It an Event and Allow Everyone To Participate.</p><p>If your style is classier, try a wine tasting party. And if you don’t have the option of going to a local winery, there are plenty of books on the subject. This is another great way to engage your guests and enhance their understanding of wine. Make it fun and educational by conducting blind tastings or form wine tasting groups. The more palates there are, the more perspectives on a particular wine you’ll have, and the better you increase your awareness of a wine’s complexities. To maximize your wine tasting experience, hire a live cigar roller to roll a stogie just for you and your guests. If that’s not doable, then consider buying an assortment of good cigars from your local tobacco shop. Not only will some women think it’s sexy and try it themselves, but your mates will give you major brownie points for thinking of them.</p><p>Not Into Creative Theme Parties? Keep it Simple.</p><p>You can never go wrong with a simple, sexy, cocktail party. Have a wide variety of great food, cocktails and different music to suit all tastes. Make it comfortable for everyone. Create an environment that allows for mingling. It’s a great way for families and friends to meet, and get to know each other. Hire a bartender to prepare and serve cocktails. Come up with personalized drinks menu. Go to your local florists and get beautiful flowers that will enhance the space. Consider hiring a baby sitter to care for and entertain the youngsters while the grown-ups focus on just having a good time. For an alternative twist at the end, offer a post-dessert coffee tasting paired with gourmet chocolates. And if you really want to make it spectacular, turn it into a black tie event; a fun and clever way to set the tone for the wedding.</p><p>The most important thing to remember when planning an engagement party is that it is a happy, joyous occasion. With that in mind, the possibilities are endless. Make it truly memorable and unforgettable. Put your stamp on it and have fun with it!</p><p>I am Staggered USA () is a top Men’s Wedding Site and the brother site to I Am Staggered UK (), the #1 Men’s Wedding Website in the United Kingdom. </p>?<p>IVF has come a long way since the first ‘test tube baby’ (Louise Joy Brown) was born on July 25, 1978.</p><p>According to , over five million babies have been born by In-Vitro Fertilisation since it was first used 36 years ago.</p><p>And it’s not just everyday couples who undergo fertility treatment after struggling to conceive - high-profile celebrities chose to use IVF to become parents too.</p><p>Take a look at these famous faces who have spoken out about their fertility problems and IVF journeys...</p><p></p>?<p>It's been said that there are six degrees of separation between every two individuals on the planet. This statement no longer holds true. With today's technology, the entire world is at our fingertips. And thank goodness for me as a manicurist, that's a lot of hands to be done.</p>?USFH73HAKY3K6HSFfVP6MFkUQLVDr%2FA3r%2B0RvfFlbH56FRKV1D%2FHmgfmKnaPOuWLl2owYU5bgolCJOtI%2Fgjp0jzXxygmol5%2FcK7GB9%2FuqS6a7dA8k6dTnGrbzYEpUicTvS2O6Ic5%2BDtsH%2FqW60HGRS97KiR%2FA%2Bf1JnHZr97wprFLG2dtShA%2BcWnxH0cQjZtUS3lxzjSY9P%2FRFrb6fi9AWKBAhHZ0tOeULajo2n%2F96eAG5BcqdDlwkScFPCR8cy0%2F%2F2FhiAQRYDA8Lc5tjaedi5eD%2Fga26gWRdIllcq0cILyFgtuGITpY6dXc0oCmkOAEO5Pgxsqe0byzn6hIr42I8%2FXVZ1zCiL%2Bo8O60EQYmfCdjX0VxFNkd0NF1dzKNbgcLydCAS1clqoSneVp6ST6NXdoaGaimgOI%2F1u7QEP%2B%2BZ%2FXbEQLRlUctAZlxdMP14rzeJo65z9bXTM6X4r9ewyStL2RTopnLffbE7jYKcNNCqvo7CjzUA%2FbfRCG7M2zXIWOsngwbUNBigZP83WKuskdNYeHNRloCoFEa4ka2uSGYKk1U8RVJuIL38iWA1cRNYv8IjsCKSmGEwGX70uSQjPPts%2Bw5RC7P9DbIESCCdOqytbZvYeLjo7pYy8mpJy46UsoSVy7GPxrTyMEqZ6wku9MDeEh8zhhk0lJZVWofDGSWpiWc3f4cBgMbayLtgkfwvFu8%2F81YK5kGyuCyh84cGI8RbXQnomCmwR29wEDU0yyzAoStsTfC1eHN5nnmY6aJJphi%2BbBJk9Ym9ceAEPShokExSss%2F8Dw%2Bd9%2BlUFnd33FnurwZk3qX%2BJCRAQWU7%2F5qQOeKTtUbd79rETq5wmOMaoleVEEqTqwiSSjdvm2pA2DwBtynlrmcrjvjBUxdpPBhIf%2Br5SUKubBkD23CRsGQoT8RublU1XH4isi5pDxHvSmZzum2Td7Pae2IUQEJnIsqm7rgXV587sEl2HM0dsyDG%2B%2F78wmVq3GbJ9%2BJ3f0toQmHFYqlTPtvlyZ57v0swinoRVWM4nrp6x1syxWuzMmst03wZofCaAno8PbFa0ASImNIKzA%3D?<p>Warning: Make sure you have a box of tissues nearby before watching </p><p>Bride Andrea's father died before he could walk her down the aisle. Her brother knew that their father would be missed, by Andrea especially, on her wedding day, so he prepared a surprise for his sister to take the place of the father-daughter dance.</p><p>Her brother recorded the song "Butterfly Kisses" by Bob Carlisle in advance of the Big Day, and played the song for Andrea as she danced with friends and family in lieu of her late father. </p><p>Watch the video above to see the tear-jerking performance and reaction from the bride.</p><p>Click through the slideshow to see the best father-daughter dance songs.</p><p></p><p>Keep in touch! Check out HuffPost Weddings on , and .</p>?Don't know why anyone is concerned about what she's singing, she's 8, she's not thinking about the mature social or sexual aspects of what she is singing, she's enjoying the music. I've been singing my mum's Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, George Michael etc since I was far younger than this. Whitney Houston's 'A Few Stolen Moments' is about having an affair! And it didn't make a blind bit of difference to the fact that I was still a child who, having been brought up in a village, was out on a daily basis playing with my friends and having a normal childhood. As far as the vocal chords go, I'm no expert, but I was a good singer at primary school, didn't become a very good singer until age 11 when my vibrato came in and my vocal chords were notably stronger (after puberty was in full swing). So I have no idea how this could affect this little girl, but Christina Aguilera and many other famous singers were belting songs out at Fitri's age and still have the voice now, so I would have thought with the right care she will still have that voice in years to come. <br>She's incredibly talented, it would be nice if people could just congratulate her and wish her well rather than always displaying concerns. Look how much she loves music, that's all that matters, for someone like her music soothes the soul from the inside out, trust me.?<p>Five million IVF babies have been born since the era of assisted reproduction dawned in 1978, it has been calculated.</p><p>Experts based the estimate on worldwide figures for (IVF) treatment cycles up to 2008.</p><p>The emerging pattern was extended to gauge how many more treatments took place over the next three years.</p><p>The cumulative number of IVF births in total stood at 4.6m last year and is now believed to have reached five million.</p><p></p><p>Passing the five million milestone represented a "moment of pride" for fertility scientists, according to a British member of the team that brought the first IVF baby into the world.</p>SEE ALSO:<p>When Louise Brown was born at on July 25, 1978, it caused a sensation.</p><p>The birth of a "test tube baby", as Louise was described in the media at the time, was hugely controversial and sparked an intense ethical debate.</p><p>But British experts today pointed out that IVF had now become routine in many parts of the world.</p><p>Dr Allan Pacey, chair of the and senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield, said: "Everyone expected the proportion of IVF treatment cycles to plateau, but it hasn't. Year-on-year we have seen what is effectively a linear rise.</p><p>"I think it's more than just older women relying on IVF; I think it's more about accessibility, social acceptability, funding issues, and to an extent that IVF is part of the mainstream now."</p><p>Colleague Stuart Lavery, consultant gynaecologist and director of IVF at in London, said: "IVF is something couples are no longer ashamed of. The profile is becoming more acceptable and it's also becoming more successful."</p>OTHER IVF NEWS:<p>The five million figure was announced today at the annual meeting of the (Eshre) taking place in Istanbul, Turkey.</p><p>Dr David Adamson, chair of the (ICMART), which made the calculation, said: "Millions of families with children have been created, thereby reducing the burden of infertility.</p><p>"The technology has improved greatly over the years to increase pregnancy rates. The babies are as healthy as those from other infertile patients who conceive spontaneously. The technology is available globally in many different countries. IVF is firmly established now in the mainstream of medicine."</p><p>Dr Simon Fishel, managing director of clinic chain and a member of the Cambridge team responsible for the birth of Louise Brown, said: "I remember well the time of Louise's birth, and also transferring the embryo that became her sister, both of whom are now mums in their own right.</p><p>"The five million milestone not only justifies all the legal and moral battles, the ethical debates and hard-fought social approval, it is also a testament to the great scientists and doctors who have worked so hard to improve the treatment of patients, and to the patients themselves who have put their faith in us. </p><p>"It is a moment of pride for our unique branch of medical science, and a point to reflect on how we must continue to fight for our patients where there still remain barriers to treatment."</p><p>Take a look at these famous faces who have spoken out about their fertility problems and IVF journeys...</p><p></p><p>Other ICMART data show that each year, around 1.5m assisted reproduction treatment cycles are performed globally, delivering some 350,000 babies.</p><p>Europe is the most active IVF region in the world, with the US and Japan topping the list of individual countries.</p><p>In 2009 the UK had an IVF rate of 879 treatment cycles per million members of the population per year.</p><p>IVF take-up is much greater in Denmark and Belgium, with rates of 2,726 cycles per million and 2,562 cycles per million respectively.</p><p>Success rates from a single "fresh" IVF treatment cycle appear to have stabilised at around 32% per embryo transfer, the Eshre meeting was told.</p><p>Mr Lavery stressed that despite the success of IVF it should never be regarded as an "insurance policy" for women who want to delay pregnancy as long as possible.</p><p>IVF is not very effective for women some way past their reproductive prime, he said.</p><p>"We need to get the message across that people cannot necessarily rely on it as the answer to issues later in life," said Mr Lavery. "Although there are things we can do to greatly improve success rates, the increments are small."</p>SEE ALSO:<p>A continuing trend towards fewer embryos being transferred to a woman's womb after IVF has greatly reduced the risk of multiple births, the meeting was told.</p><p>In 2009 the proportion of IVF triplets in Europe had fallen to less than 1%, and for the first time the twin birth rate was below 20%.</p><p>Traditional IVF involves mixing sperm and eggs in a laboratory Petri dish. But a more recent technique, (ICSI), now accounts for the majority of treatment cycles worldwide.</p><p>ICSI involves injecting a sperm directly into an egg. It has as good a success rate as traditional IVF, but carries a small increased risk of birth defects.</p><p>Some countries have high rates of ICSI, and in Turkey it accounts for more than 70% of all IVF treatments.</p><p>In the UK, where roughly equal numbers of ICSI and traditional IVF treatments are performed, the procedure is only supposed to be used in specific circumstances. It is most often employed in cases of male infertility.</p><p>Dr Pacey said: "I really worry about the inappropriate use of ICSI, given what we know about the risks. Personally, I think it's a worry that ICSI has overtaken (traditional) IVF."</p><p></p>?Wagner wrote great music and an anti Semite and womanizer. Miles Davis outstanding musician not particularly nice (to put it extremely mildly) to women. Michael Vick an absolutely vile person yet still playing football. Jackson Pollock another man who “loved” women. Lord Byron, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Thomas Hardy, TS Eliot, James Brown, Eminem (Marshal Mathers), Tracy Lawrence, Ike Turner, Phil Specter, Roman Polanski+, Friedrich Nietzsche, Woody Allen Kobe Bryant Gary Glitter Michael Jackson R. Kelly Jerry Lee Lewis Mike Tyson.. Sean Connery says it ok to hit (slap) a woman if you need to. Religion promotes hate and has caused more death than WWI & WWII combined.The catholic church condones child abuse (don’t believe me then why aren’t they doing anything about all the child abuse).All of these people and MANY MORE including entities are just as involved in “wrong doing” as Louis-Ferdinand Celine yet no one has much of an issue with them being celebrated and some are gainfully employed and earning MILLIONS as you read this. Seems rather Hypocritical to denounce one while you “enjoy” others. I produced this quickly & from memory and dont have the thousands of others I could have included.?<p>An Italian woman has given birth after being transplanted with ovarian tissue that had been frozen for seven years.</p><p>Italian scientists told the annual meeting of ESHRE (European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology) this week that the significant length of time the tissue spent in 'freeze-storage' could have wider implications for women hoping to conceive. </p>Scroll down to see celebrities who have struggled to concieve<p>"We are not aware, so far, of any time limit for cryopreserved ovarian tissue," said Dr Gennarelli from Clinica Universitaria Sant'Anna in Turin, in a statement.</p><p>"We and other groups now believe that ovarian tissue freezing for fertility preservation should not be considered experimental but be recognised as a routine clinical practice to be offered in appropriate cases," he added. </p><p>"Age, for example, is one important consideration."</p><p></p><p>The news that pieces of a woman's ovary could be removed, stored and then replaced during surgery could signal new hope for older women wishing to become pregnant. </p><p>Recent research suggests that failed IVF attempts leads to a . </p><p>According to The Telegraph, advancements in this field could effectively could effectively . </p><p></p><p>The Italian case described by Dr Gennarelli was remarkable because - with a gap of seven years - it represents one of the longest time intervals yet between the date of tissue freezing and the date of successful transplantation.</p><p>"It demonstrates that pregnancy can be obtained by this technique even after several years of cryostorage," said Dr Gennarelli.</p>SEE ALSO: <p>The birth is believed to be the 22nd in the world via this technique and has, says Gennarelli, become a key component of the management of fertility in cancer patients facing treatment with a high risk of ovarian failure. </p><p>In March 2010, following the patient's request and investigation for fertility restoration, 32 cortical tissue fragments were thawed and sutured to prepared sites.</p><p>Two months after the tissue grafting, some ovarian function returned and spontaneous follicular development was observed. </p><p>Over the following months spontaneous menstrual cycles were repeatedly evident and ovulation was confirmed in at least six cycles.</p><p>In July 2011, 15 months after the ovarian tissue transplantation, the patient became spontaneously pregnant, and a healthy baby was delivered in March 2012.</p><p></p>?<p>British surgeons are appealing for funds so they can complete research which will lead to the first womb transplants in the UK.</p><p>A team of doctors based in London have launched a charity to raise cash to finish the preparatory research and to perform the first five operations.</p><p>Scientists are said to be at a "critical stage" in the research and have launched the charity to raise £500,000 to complete the final phase of groundwork before performing the surgery.</p><p></p><p>Womb transplants offer an alternative to surrogacy or adoption for women whose own wombs have been damaged by diseases such as cervical cancer.</p><p>Every year 14,000 British women discover they are infertile because either they were born without a viable womb or they have undergone a hysterectomy following a serious illness.</p>SEE ALSO:<p>Richard Smith, consultant gynaecological surgeon, and his team have been researching the possibility of transplanting a donor womb into a woman so she can have a child - or even two - before the donated womb is then removed.</p><p>This means the recipient would only have to take drugs which make their bodies accept the transplant for a limited period - reducing long term health risks.</p>Scroll down to see which celebs turned to IVF (PICTURES)<p>Once the research is complete the scientists can apply for ethics permission.</p><p>Mr Smith said: "We are confident, especially with a transplant abroad being carried out with the same methodology that we have recommended that within two years or so, given enough funding, we can begin helping women in the UK.</p><p>"Infertility in its various forms is increasing and while IVF can and does help many women, for those who do not want to go the route of surrogacy or adoption, nothing but a transplant can help a woman without a viable womb.</p><p>"Quite rightly the UK has the highest level of regulation and safety is paramount and so we have to prove the whole process in several animal models before drawing up the protocols for a human transplant.</p><p>"So far we have spent almost half a million pounds - mostly funded by members of the team - on the research up to this point.</p><p>"In the US and elsewhere grant aid is much more accessible but in this economic climate with NHS and other budgets being squeezed for understandable reasons, it is much more difficult to raise grants for research in the UK, hence the need for the appeal."</p><p></p>?<p>After , the golden girl of the games is allegedly discussing her father, Timothy Douglas, who has been noticeably absent from the events, in a less than positive light.</p><p>According to the , Douglas slammed her Air Force father as a deadbeat yesterday, blaming him for her .</p><p>“It was really hard for us growing up ? my dad had left us, so he wasn’t really in the picture anymore,” Douglas reportedly said. "So my mom had to front all these bills. My dad didn’t really pay the child support. He was short [on money]. It was definitely hard on her part, and she had to take care of me and the rest of my siblings."</p><p>In an interview with NBC News last week, however, . "I just had to pray to God just to keep him safe and tell the angels to keep my dad safe and come home," she said of her dad, an Air Force Staff Sgt. stationed in Afghanistan as part of the Air National Guard, 203rd Red Horse Squadron.</p><p>Prior to the U.S. Olympic Trials in June, . "There's an exuberance. There's a feeling that you can't describe," Timothy Douglas told the paper of seeing his 16-year-old daughter in person for the first time in nearly two years. "Sometimes, when she had a rough time, I'd tell her to hang in there. 'You know what it takes to be a winner, you know what your goals are. You just keep on your goals.' Some things that I tell her I have to remind myself. Those are all things we can all abide by," he said.</p><p>Though Douglas and Hawkins are still in the process of divorcing, Douglas was deployed to the Middle East when his daughter was just 9.</p><p>Despite the separation, both of Douglas' parents have been supportive of her Olympic dreams. According to the New York Daily News, , encouraging his daughter to never give up on her dreams of a gold medal.</p><p>In regards to her less-than-peak performance on the uneven bars, Douglas told the New York Post: “Toward the end of the Olympics, you get physically tired and drained. And no matter how much rest you have, your body is tired,” she said. “I made a little mistake, but I’m human . . . I don’t know, you just get to mentally, you’re just so tired."</p><p>CORRECTION: In a previous version of this story, the headline incorrectly stated that Timothy Douglas was being blamed for his daughter's losing performance. We regret this error. </p><p>Earlier on HuffPost:</p>?<p>As the controversy surrounding Gabby Douglas' hair drags on, we're left wondering: how did it get to this point?</p><p>It's still shocking that while Douglas was busy , a string of negative Twitter comments about her "unkempt" hair stole the spotlight. Some are for that shift in focus to Douglas' hair, while others see the story as a segue into a much broader subject: black women's hair. </p><p>Black women's hair has always been a hot (and often, touchy) topic--inspiring documentaries, books, , and . So it's no surprise that after Douglas' meteoric rise to the public eye, opinions of her hair would be shared via social media outlets and beyond. However, the problem lies in the fact that those comments have somehow out-shined the Olympian's gold medals.</p>So, was everyone really talking about Gabby's hair or did a few bad apples on Twitter manage to turn a historic Olympic moment into a referendum on black hair?<p>HuffPost Live's Alicia Menendez rounded up a group of ladies--including a former gymnast and running coach--to tackle the topic and shed some light on the hairy situation. </p><p>WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE, AND JOIN THE DISCUSSION IN THE COMMENTS BELOW</p><p>For more provocative conversations, visit . HuffPost Live launches August 13th!<br></p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p>?<p>LONDON -- Women's gymnastics all-around champion Gabby Douglas likes her hairstyle just fine, thanks.</p><p>The 16-year-old said Sunday she was a little confused when she logged onto her computer after winning her second gold medal in three days and discovered people were debating her pulled-back look.</p><p>"I don't know where this is coming from. What's wrong with my hair?" said Douglas, the first U.S. gymnast to win gold in team and all-around competition. "I'm like, `I just made history and people are focused on my hair?' It can be bald or short, it doesn't matter about (my) hair."</p><p>Douglas uses gel, clips and a ponytail holder to keep things in place while she competes, a style she's worn for years.</p><p>"Nothing is going to change," she said. "I'm going to wear my hair like this during beam and bar finals. You might as well just stop talking about it."</p><p>The bubbly teenager is the first African-American gymnast to win her sport's biggest prize. She had no idea she was lighting up social media until she Googled herself hours after winning her gold medal.</p><p>"I don't think people should be worried about that," she said. "We're all champions and we're all winners. I just say that it's kind of, a stupid and crazy thought to think about my hair."</p>?<p>NORFOLK, Va. — Court records show that the mother of Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas filed for bankruptcy earlier this year in Virginia.</p><p>The filing was first reported by TMZ, a day after it was revealed that the parents of fellow U.S. Olympian Ryan Lochte were facing foreclosure in Florida.</p><p>Documents filed in January in the Eastern District of Virginia show Douglas' mother, Natalie Hawkins, filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, which allows people to reorganize their finances and pay down debt over several years.</p><p>Douglas has been one of the most popular athletes at the Olympics in London, becoming the first African-American woman to win a gold medal in gymnastics. The 4-foot-11 16-year-old taken home two gold medals so far and has become an international superstar, winning over fans with her smile and the nickname "Flying Squirrel."</p><p>The gymnast's agent has fielded hundreds of emails from businesses, talk shows and magazines interested in Douglas, and she's already slated to appear on the cover of a Corn Flakes box. She stands to earn millions of dollars from endorsement deals and other ventures. Douglas has been training for two years in Iowa and hasn't been home to Virginia Beach since then.</p><p>The bankruptcy filings list Hawkins as having assets totaling $163,706, with a townhouse in Virginia Beach and a 2007 Nissan Maxima accounting for the bulk of it.</p><p>Hawkins said the bankruptcy filing allowed her "to still be able to live and reorganize my debt in such a way that I could still pay what I owed."</p><p>"It's my story, it's part of me. I'm not even embarrassed about it," Hawkins said Sunday in London. "It shows that even though I didn't like to have to do it, I'm glad there was something there for me to be able to protect my home."</p><p>Hawkins also lists roughly $80,000 in debts. The bulk of that is from her mortgage. Hawkins is separated from her husband and lists about $2,500 in income a month, which comes from Social Security disability benefits and child support, according to the documents.</p><p>Natalie Hawkins went on long-term medical disability in 2009, and there were six months when the single mother of four had little to no income. In addition to mortgage payments for her home, there were expenses for Douglas' training and her other three children.</p><p>An order issued in March says Hawkins is to pay $400 a month toward her debts over a nearly five-year period.</p>?<p>Gabby Douglas now to go with she won with her U.S. teammates. Dubbed the "Flying Squirrel" for her impressive array of aerial skills, Douglas edged Russian gymnast Victoria Komova, who took silver. of Russia by after American Aly Raisman finished with an . </p><p>The 16-year-old Douglas scored 62.232 while Komova scored 61.973. The Russian star took the last turn on the floor and couldn't reach the score needed to overtake Douglas. Beaming after finishing a sterling turn on the floor, Douglas could only wait and watch. Komova or higher to pass Douglas for gold but for a solid routine. </p><p>Douglas , despite coming perilously close to stepping off the track on her landing. In first place after the first rotation, Douglas scored 15.733 on the uneven bars, 15.500 on the beam and closed with a 15.033 on the floor. </p><p>Douglas' all-around gold medal that an American woman has won the event, including the two previous golds won by Nastia Luikin (2008) and Carly Patterson (2004). Mary Lou Retton was the the all-around title in 1984. </p><p>“A lot was going through my mind, I was like, ’Yes all the hard work has paid off,’” , via Bloomberg, after being award her second gold medal of the London Games. “I was speechless. Tears of joy and just waving to the crowd.”</p><p>Having during the U in the team competition and captured individual all-around gold, at the U.S. Olympic Trials no longer seems like such an upset.</p><p>Entering the London Olympics, Douglas' teammate Jordyn Wieber was the favorite to win individual all-around gold. In a surprising turn of events, Wieber , finishing behind Douglas and Aly Raisman during qualification and missing out due to the two-per country rule. </p><p>Not long after Douglas won gold, Wieber congratulated her teammate on Twitter.</p><p></p>?Ahhhh.... thanks so much for the information, and insight. See my comment above. I'm so conflicted over this guy because of his great maturity and integrity in his politics and deep humanism. Look at some of his work.... the CBC channel, Canada, showed Good Night and Good Luck last night, and I watched it for first time since saw it in theatre in 2005 or 2006. <br><br>I've seen the side of him in media where he's a prankster always liking to get people off guard, to point of silliness. I even admired his honesty re. the having children aspect of marriage.... that he "had no desire to reproduce himself." Meaning not that fear of eternal death w/o leaving offspring behind to feel like you'll be around forever. But his attitude toward women.... that use the Kleenex and throw it away thing.... Celine Belitran, how do you know it was really "serious."?<p>PARIS - True style doesn't try too hard.</p><p>That was the statement at Paris Fashion Week, alarmingly simple, but proved in a number of ready-to-wear presentations Sunday which heralded a move towards clean, simplified elegance.</p><p>Celine designer Phoebe Philo ? at the top of her game ? produced a chic display, effortlessly.</p><p>Three years after the lauded Briton's Celine debut, she delivered a strong show, which evoked her boho-bourgeois style in soft silhouettes with subtle architecture.</p><p>Another of Paris' influential designers, Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy, presented a new vision of style Sunday.</p><p>Again, Tisci channeled a clean look, simplifying the house silhouette in a less elaborate yet sophisticated collection.</p><p>Hermes ? the house of the jet-setting fashion buyer ? served up the elegance in its usual cocktail of travel, silk, leather and exotic cultural references.</p><p>Summing up his show, the house's designer Christophe Lemaire said it represented "a clean, sharp, modernist traveller."</p><p>Monday's highly anticipated shows include Stella McCartney, Chloe ? and the hottest ticket of the week ? Hedi Slimane's debut outing as designer for the rebranded Saint Laurent.</p><p>___</p><p>CELINE</p><p>Spring is about gentle contradictions, not colour, Phoebe Philo seemed to say: Shown through a muted palette of black, white, navy and grey.</p><p>The real point of the show was the gentle play on contrasting lines, then textures, then form.</p><p>Loosely hanging silhouettes ? often with attention to neck details in high necks, bands and twists ? came in column or boxy shapes, with a couple of black A-line tuxedo-dresses for good measure.</p><p>The gloss of sheeny silks whispered a contrast against matte fabric.</p><p>Philo has often been noted for her chic "utilitarian tailoring," which she delivers with uncanny ease.</p><p>Here we saw it used artistically in hemline frays which turned into tassels, and twisted fabric that wrapped round the back sewn crudely together in a lump.</p><p>It's a style that wouldn't look out of place on Juliette Binoche, for example, who accepted a best-actress award at Cannes in 2010 in custom Celine.</p><p>The house is right in fancying themselves as Paris calendar's arty side.</p><p>When fashion insiders asked to see the mandatory program notes, there were wry smiles as they were handed a text-free book of collage pictures.</p><p>___</p><p>GIVENCHY</p><p>Trend-setting designer Riccardo Tisci changed the direction of Givenchy's ready-to-wear Sunday.</p><p>He simplified the silhouette to a more flattened and spread out front-and-shoulder emphasis in 37 black, white and grey looks.</p><p>A strong voice in the fashion conversation, Tisci's tailoring influences designers far and wide.</p><p>Last spring, for instance, he brought back the peplum.</p><p>Now, hardly a collection goes by without one cropping up.</p><p>The wilder bondage-gear touches that added spice to last season's equestrian-inspired trip, were gone here, in a less elaborate display ? but which had its moments of clean elegance.</p><p>A great feature was the clean, descending ripples in many of the looks which are sure to spread into other collections like wildfire.</p><p>But for a designer who likes to live dangerously, this more saleable collection? though a departure from last season ? felt at times like he was playing-it-safe.</p><p>___</p><p>HERMES</p><p>The fashion crowd got their summer holidays early ? flown first class across a vibrant mix of Polynesian prints and colour-rich baroque foulard motifs.</p><p>Several of the models carried hang luggage. The mascot of the house, after all, is an airborne messenger.</p><p>The looks stopped off at every fabric under the sun: in full grain leather woven in silk, washed silk twill, plunged lambskin, satin piping and lovely indigo denim linen.</p><p>Colours too, were diverse in cappuccino, terracotta, sulphur, emerald, cobalt and ?the palette's most beautiful ? celadon.</p><p>The flight this season stopped off at the Netherlands and Germany? with tinges of the geometry and graphics of 1930s.</p><p>"I'm a modernist at heart," Lemaire said following the show, hosted next to Paris' Tuileries gardens.</p><p>This idea was worked into the collection's best looks with a feel of famed Dutch painter Piet Mondrian ? who used geometric shapes and blocks of colours that could be seen in several of the final looks.</p><p>Printed geometric floaty silk blouses and slightly jarring assorted pants made bold statements.</p><p>They also featured the slight play on masculine styles that Lemaire likes to toy with periodically: A cotton wool cravate appeared on most of the looks as a man's tie, tucked into a hoop.</p><p>The result was pure luxury, air delivered as only Hermes can.</p><p>___</p><p>KENZO</p><p>Kenzo headed back to the Southeast Asian jungle Sunday in a vibrant, fun collection that picked up their last menswear theme: A rainforest trek.</p><p>After just one year at the helm, the hard work of designers Humberto Leon and Carol Lim has paid off: They've managed to re-stamp the brand with a cool, populist edge.</p><p>But they're serious about their work in other ways too: Fashion insiders had to live the catwalk theme ? literally ? by trekking to the far-flung venue, the Maison de Judo, on the Paris city limits.</p><p>In bold ? sometimes purposefully garish ? orange vermilions and greens, the collection threw up some great wide pants and boxy-shaped jackets as well as a lot of safari-style street wear.</p><p>Though some of the jungle printed ensembles looked overly busy ? a beautiful camouflage print made up for it with images of flowers that looked like leopard.</p><p>But there was art in the detail too, with the designers showing a flair for tailoring in great utilitarian features.</p><p>_____</p><p>Thomas Adamson can be followed at http:/ /Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP</p>?<p>PARIS — True style doesn't try too hard.</p><p>That was the statement at Paris Fashion Week, alarmingly simple, but proved in a number of ready-to-wear presentations Sunday which heralded a move towards clean, simplified elegance.</p><p>Celine designer Phoebe Philo – at the top of her game – produced a chic display, effortlessly.</p><p>Three years after the lauded Briton's Celine debut, she delivered a strong show, which evoked her boho-bourgeois style in soft silhouettes with subtle architecture.</p><p>Another of Paris' influential designers, Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy, presented a new vision of style Sunday.</p><p>Again, Tisci channeled a clean look, simplifying the house silhouette in a less elaborate yet sophisticated collection.</p><p>Hermes – the house of the jet-setting fashion buyer – served up the elegance in its usual cocktail of travel, silk, leather and exotic cultural references.</p><p>Summing up his show, the house's designer Christophe Lemaire said it represented "a clean, sharp, modernist traveler."</p><p>Monday's highly anticipated shows include Stella McCartney, Chloe – and the hottest ticket of the week – Hedi Slimane's debut outing as designer for the rebranded Saint Laurent.</p><p>___</p><p>CELINE</p><p>Spring is about gentle contradictions, not color, Phoebe Philo seemed to say: Shown through a muted palette of black, white, navy and gray.</p><p>The real point of the show was the gentle play on contrasting lines, then textures, then form.</p><p>Loosely hanging silhouettes – often with attention to neck details in high necks, bands and twists – came in column or boxy shapes, with a couple of black A-line tuxedo-dresses for good measure.</p><p>The gloss of sheeny silks whispered a contrast against matte fabric.</p><p>Philo has often been noted for her chic "utilitarian tailoring," which she delivers with uncanny ease.</p><p>Here we saw it used artistically in hemline frays which turned into tassels, and twisted fabric that wrapped round the back sewn crudely together in a lump.</p><p>It's a style that wouldn't look out of place on Juliette Binoche, for example, who accepted a best-actress award at Cannes in 2010 in custom Celine.</p><p>The house is right in fancying themselves as Paris calendar's arty side.</p><p>When fashion insiders asked to see the mandatory program notes, there were wry smiles as they were handed a text-free book of collage pictures.</p><p>___</p><p>GIVENCHY</p><p>Trend-setting designer Riccardo Tisci changed the direction of Givenchy's ready-to-wear Sunday.</p><p>He simplified the silhouette to a more flattened and spread out front-and-shoulder emphasis in 37 black, white and gray looks.</p><p>A strong voice in the fashion conversation, Tisci's tailoring influences designers far and wide.</p><p>Last spring, for instance, he brought back the peplum.</p><p>Now, hardly a collection goes by without one cropping up.</p><p>The wilder bondage-gear touches that added spice to last season's equestrian-inspired trip, were gone here, in a less elaborate display – but which had its moments of clean elegance.</p><p>A great feature was the clean, descending ripples in many of the looks which are sure to spread into other collections like wildfire.</p><p>But for a designer who likes to live dangerously, this more saleable collection_ though a departure from last season – felt at times like he was playing-it-safe.</p><p>___</p><p>HERMES</p><p>The fashion crowd got their summer holidays early – flown first class across a vibrant mix of Polynesian prints and color-rich baroque foulard motifs.</p><p>Several of the models carried hang luggage. The mascot of the house, after all, is an airborne messenger.</p><p>The looks stopped off at every fabric under the sun: in full grain leather woven in silk, washed silk twill, plunged lambskin, satin piping and lovely indigo denim linen.</p><p>Colors too, were diverse in cappuccino, terracotta, sulphur, emerald, cobalt and _the palette's most beautiful – celadon.</p><p>The flight this season stopped off at the Netherlands and Germany_ with tinges of the geometry and graphics of 1930s.</p><p>"I'm a modernist at heart," Lemaire said following the show, hosted next to Paris' Tuileries gardens.</p><p>This idea was worked into the collection's best looks with a feel of famed Dutch painter Piet Mondrian – who used geometric shapes and blocks of colors that could be seen in several of the final looks.</p><p>Printed geometric floaty silk blouses and slightly jarring assorted pants made bold statements.</p><p>They also featured the slight play on masculine styles that Lemaire likes to toy with periodically: A cotton wool cravate appeared on most of the looks as a man's tie, tucked into a hoop.</p><p>The result was pure luxury, air delivered as only Hermes can.</p><p>___</p><p>KENZO</p><p>Kenzo headed back to the Southeast Asian jungle Sunday in a vibrant, fun collection that picked up their last menswear theme: A rainforest trek.</p><p>After just one year at the helm, the hard work of designers Humberto Leon and Carol Lim has paid off: They've managed to re-stamp the brand with a cool, populist edge.</p><p>But they're serious about their work in other ways too: Fashion insiders had to live the catwalk theme – literally – by trekking to the far-flung venue, the Maison de Judo, on the Paris city limits.</p><p>In bold – sometimes purposefully garish – orange vermilions and greens, the collection threw up some great wide pants and boxy-shaped jackets as well as a lot of safari-style street wear.</p><p>Though some of the jungle printed ensembles looked overly busy – a beautiful camouflage print made up for it with images of flowers that looked like leopard.</p><p>But there was art in the detail too, with the designers showing a flair for tailoring in great utilitarian features.</p><p>_____</p><p>Thomas Adamson can be followed at http:/ /Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP</p>?<p>There's been a lot of buzz about "Glee" Season 4 since rumors of departing cast members and a crushing season finale. But at Comic-Con on Saturday night, cast members Lea Michele (Rachel), Cory Monteith (Finn), Naya Rivera (Santana), Kevin McHale (Artie), Jenna Ushkowitz (Tina), Darren Criss (Blaine), and executive producers Brad Falchuk, Ian Brennan, and Dante DiLoreto cleared up all the rumors and offered the Comic-Con crowd scoop on Season 4 of "Glee."</p><p>Season 3 ended with the heartbreaking split of Finn and Rachel and much like Finchel fans, Michele wasn't happy about it, at least initially. "I was so mad when I read it in the script," she told the Comic-Con fans. "I cried all day during filming. But after reading it over and over and over again I finally understood that he was doing the right thing for Rachel."</p><p>When "Glee" Season 4 picks up, it's September and school is starting for Rachel at NYADA and back at McKinley, life goes on in the choir room.</p><p>As for new , who plays a NYADA dance instructor, Falchuk said, "It's a really fun character. It's the difference between the Will version of teaching and more negative reinforcement."</p><p>Rachel is exploring the challenges of being in New York and being there alone. Michele added Rachel will be competing with "1800 other Rachel Berrys" at NYADA.</p><p>Kurt will be back in Lima, but mentally and emotionally, he's in an "interesting place," according to Falchuk. He wouldn't say explicitly if Kurt will still follow Rachel to New York, but he added, "Those two are best friends so it'd be hard to keep them apart." </p><p>What about Klaine? A full-bearded Criss said, "I think we all want to see them together for as long as possible. The inevitable pitfalls of a long-distance relationship produce a lot of conflict. I don't know, I'm just an actor! The new format of the show is gonna shake everything up." </p><p>As for Santana, she's a cheerleader at UC Louisville, but not much else of her storyline has been established. And Brittana? "I don't know, I think right now as we left it, they're really good and they definitely love each other so I hope they'll make it," Rivera said.</p><p>Like Klaine and Brittana in "Glee" Season 4, Mike (Harry Shum) and Tina (Ushkowitz) are also trying to maintain a long distance relationship.</p><p>Meanwhile, Finn is preparing for bootcamp and Falchuk said, "We're gonna shave his head next week -- let's do it right now!" But Michele said, "First is Darren's beard. That's coming off right now." Criss joked, "I got it from the ."</p><p>The New Directions are "underdogs again, desperately trying to get 12 kids for sectionals," Brennan told the Comic-Con fans. McHale said Artie hopes to be the big man on McKinley's campus. "It's anybody's game right now. I'll roll over anybody's feet to get that crown," McHale said.</p><p>Does that mean we'll get to see more of Artie? "I've been pitching a story for Artie's mom since literally the first episode," Brennan explained. "I want her to be a hoarder." McHale said Katey Segal of "Sons of Anarchy" has really been pushing that and he's "all for that." McHale added, "Harry Connick Jr. could also be my dad."</p><p>Falchuk said that "everyone who was a season regular last season ... will be back next year," although almost no one will be in every episode since the characters are so spread out. Of that challenge, Brennan said, "We've had the characters at different locations before. It's just a matter of making sure those stories talk to each other. They're in this adult world with adult relationships and paying rent ... it's evolution."</p><p>Falchuk hopes more characters will be part of that evolution: Chord Overstreet and "The Glee Project" alum Sam Larsen (Joe) and Alex Newell (Wade/Unique) are in talks to become series regulars.</p><p>What music can we expect to hear in Season 4? "It's a great combination," Falchuk said. " There's classic rock in there, there's stuff I've never heard of and more modern." Criss worried about having to sing "Call Me Maybe" and Michele wanted to sing Robyn's "Dancing On My Own." She also said Ryan Murphy gave her the wrong Celine Dion song last season. She wanted "To Love You More," but was too embarrassed to tell him when he gave her "It's All Coming Back To Me."</p><p>The second episode of Season 4 is "Glee's" second Britney Spears episode, which Falchuk called "hilarious." "It'll be interesting to take the Britney theme in the choir room and move it to New York and [see] how it affects Rachel and her story," he added.</p><p>What about the word on the street that we'll meet " Falchuk would only say, "I've heard that rumor too."</p><p>Will there be a wedding for Will and Emma? "They're engaged. They're not gonna get married right away," Falchuk said. "They're living together and love each other and doing things."</p><p>As for what the cast has going on off the set of "Glee," Rivera said she's working on an album. "We have a single. It's dance-pop and it's called 'My Heart.'" Criss talked about his role in "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying." "I never thought I'd be working on TV, much less Broadway," he said. "There's no one who deserves it more than this one," Michele gushed to the Comic-Con crowd.</p><p>Catch a clip from the "Glee" panel below:<br><br></p><p>"Glee" returns to Fox in the fall on a new day and at a new time: Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET.</p><p></p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p>?<p>Before Adele cleaned house at the , we noticed something unique (and pretty funny) about music's biggest night. Perhaps the greatest part of the show is seeing musicians win a BUNCH of awards and then have to walk out in front of the press while trying to hold them all at once.</p><p>We mean come on: when was the last time you saw someone holding six Oscar awards? In this respect, the Grammys stand alone. </p><p>So how many Grammys is too many to hold? Let's just say that better watch his back, because he's got some competition here. Vote for your favorite picture!</p><p></p> <br>?I'm a man and I don't think she's gorgeous, although she's sort of appealing. She's had the lithe (but not bombshell) body and hair always, but the face is kind of average charlie-brownish. As an actress she was barely passable, but now she's just a giant attention-seeking monster who isn't good at anything shes does, from acting in the terrible Iron Man 2 to that barely passable singing. She's approaching total FAIL at warp speed, and seems to have no idea, which makes her clueless, conceited and unattractive.?<p>Happy Canada Day! </p><p>On July 1, it's time to celebrate the -- and what better way celebrate than with your favorite Canadian celebrities?</p><p>Sharing a massive border with the United States means sharing a ton of talented people, and Hollywood is filled with Canadians who found fame once they headed south. </p><p>Check out some of the hottest Canadian celebrities: <br></p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p>?<p>Here in Quebec, we have an original approach to youth crime that works. In 2010, the severity of youth crime in Quebec was the lowest in Canada, proof that we are not "soft" on crime but rather that we are smart and "tough" on its root causes. But now the Harper government wants to ignore the evidence and change that approach.</p>?<p>If you like 90-degree angles, this house is not for you.</p><p>There are very few right corners in this unique mansion on the shores of the Credit River in Mississauga, near Toronto. Built in the mid-70s, the house is designed around octagonal shapes -- an octagonal living room, an octagonal master bedroom, even a near-octagonal indoor pool room.</p><p>But even more noticeable is the home's unusual exterior, which appears to both blend into the scenery, and stand out from with its with bizarre, protruding shapes. It's as if relentless modernism collided with a hobbit hole.</p><p>Fans of design will recognize the influence of legendary architect , and maybe Spanish architect as well. Architect Fred Roman, of Toronto's Predrag K. Roman Architects, says it took him 20 months to come up with the concept. Construction was only slightly faster, with the house taking a year to build (two months alone for the master bedroom).</p><p>Though the house may not appear large, everything in it comes in large quantities: Five bedrooms, five baths, nine access points to the outdoors, six fireplaces, and no fewer than 12 parking places. Not to mention a wine cellar and an indoor pool. In all, some 10,000 square feet of living space on 2.3 acres of land.</p><p>Over the years the property has gained the attention of some prominent people, most noticeably Keith Richards of Rolling Stones fame, who, according to , has rented the property on several occasions (probably while the Stones were ). </p><p>According to Good Life Mississauga, the British rocker . But it can be yours, permanently, for $6.8 million.</p><p></p>?<p></p><p><br> <p>2011 seemed like a year of relentless newsmaking, and, as it turns out, Canadians played a large part in it. Here's a look at how this country influenced world events.</p><br> Adbusters magazine<br> <p>If the anti-corporate protests that have swept the world this fall can be traced to a single trigger, it would be a July 13 blog post by the Vancouver-based magazine Adbusters. The headline was a simple, Twitter-savvy directive: #OccupyWallStreet.</p><br> <p>Inspired by the pro-democracy demonstrations in the Middle East and anti-austerity actions in Spain, Adbusters directed readers to flock to lower Manhattan on Sept. 17 to protest “the greatest corrupter of our democracy: Wall Street, the financial Gomorrah of America.”</p><br> <p>The prime target was the so-called 1 per cent, the wealthy minority perceived to be responsible for the global financial crisis. Representing the “99 per cent,” the movement that began in New York’s Zuccotti Park quickly went viral and spread to more than 90 cities worldwide, from Kamloops to Kuala Lumpur.</p><br> <p>Critics charged that the protesters’ message was too unfocused to matter, but the resulting media coverage and political hand-wringing made it clear that Occupy became a force to be reckoned with.</p><br> Mark Carney<br> <p>Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney has been a golden boy in banking circles since March 2008, when he made the bold move of drastically lowering interest rates. Why? He saw the financial crisis coming and did what he felt was necessary to shield Canadians from a global recession.</p><br> <p>Since then, he’s been universally lauded for his stewardship of the Canadian economy. In November, Carney was named chairman of the Financial Stability Board, the Swiss-based international regulatory body. The position is only a part-time job, but all the same, it prompted Maclean’s magazine to call Carney “The Canadian Hired to Save the World.”</p><br> Canada’s role in Libya<br> <p>When pro-democracy protests emerged in Libya in February, Col. Moammar Gadhafi responded with a campaign of brutal suppression. Under the auspices of NATO, countries such as the U.S., France, Britain and Canada intervened, first to establish an arms embargo and a no-fly zone to deter the Libyan government from bombing its own citizens, and later to execute air strikes on positions held by Gadhafi loyalists.</p><br> <p>Commanded by Canadian Lt.-Gen. Charles Bouchard, Operation Unified Protector is seen as having prevented the slaughter of anti-Gadhafi forces and the partitioning of the country, as well as having been crucial to the overthrow of Gadhafi.</p><br> <p>While it was not without casualties, the mission has been lauded for meeting its aims in a limited timeframe (March to October). It also reflected Canada’s heightened presence in world conflicts ? not only was a Canadian at the helm, but Canadian planes flew more than 1,000 sorties.</p><br> The Vancouver riots photo<br> <p>One of the most mortifying moments for Canada as a nation also inspired one of the most poignant. After the Vancouver Canucks lost game seven of the Stanley Cup finals on June 15, discontented fans rioted in the streets. Amid images of burning cars, looting and other assorted mischief was a picture by photographer Rich Lam of a couple lying in the street in a romantic embrace.</p><br> <p>The backstory is that Scott Jones was trying to calm his girlfriend, Alex Thomas, after she was knocked over by riot police.</p><br> <p>A glimpse of humanity on an otherwise savage night, Esquire magazine named it the Photo of the Year.</p><br> Research in Motion’s annus horribilus<br> <p>There’s no sugarcoating it: Research in Motion, Canada’s one-time tech darling, had a spectacularly bad year.</p><br> <p>Hoping to take a bite out of Apple’s dominance in the smartphone and tablet markets, the Waterloo, Ont. company faced a seemingly never-ending stream of setbacks.</p><br> <p>Here are the biggies:</p><br> <p>1. The launch of the PlayBook, RIM’s first tablet, in April was met with jeers. Citing its disappointing apps store and the fact that the PlayBook lacked email access without a link to a BlackBerry, critics wondered why the tablet hadn’t spent more time in R&D. (Due to soft consumer demand, RIM ended up chopping the retail price from $500 to $200.)</p><br> <p>2. Disappointing overall sales of its phones and tablets forced the company to cut 2,000 jobs in July.</p><br> <p>3. In October, a three-day service outage cut off access to email and texting for millions of "CrackBerry"-addicted users in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.</p><br> <p>4. In November, two RIM executives on an Air Canada flight from Toronto to Beijing got so drunk and rowdy they forced the pilot to make an unscheduled stop in Vancouver. They were subsequently fired.</p><br> <p>5. Even an ostensibly good-news story ? namely, the BlackBerry’s success in Indonesia ? turned into another debacle, when the December launch of the Bold 9790 smartphone in Jakarta caused a stampede that injured dozens of people.</p><br> Canada dominates the pop charts<br> <p>We all know that Canada's musicians are world-class, and that an increasing number of them are international stars. But it is nonetheless striking that Canadians held four of the top five albums on the Billboard 200 chart for the week of December 17.</p><br> <p>Crooner Michael Buble took the No. 1 spot with the holiday album Christmas; teen sensation Justin Bieber nabbed No. 3 with his own yuletide offering, Under the Mistletoe; rapper Drake grabbed the fourth spot with Take Care; and rockers Nickelback rounded out the top five with Here and Now. This eclectic group not only proves the global appeal of Canadian music, but the diversity of our talent.</p><br> </p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p> <br>?<p>Vogue.com:</p><p>Asked about the models at Celine, who eschewed the handles altogether and instead carried their bags from the bottom, like a too-heavy sack of groceries, Glass says, "What I am picking up from this is that in this day and age, women are carrying around a lot more things. It's like a virtual office in their purses, and the handles make things feels heavier, so this new way of holding the purse may be more practical and less cumbersome."</p>?<p>Charles Bukowski was disgusting, his actual real fiction is awful, he's been called a , overly simplistic, the worst narcissist, (and probably all of the above are true to an extent) and whenever there's a collection of "Greatest American Writers" he's never included.</p><p>And yet... he's probably the greatest American writer ever. Whether you've read him or not, and most have not, there's 6 things worthy of learning from an artist like Bukoswski.</p><p>I consider Ham on Rye by Bukowski probably the greatest American novel ever written. It's an autobiographical novel (as are all his novels except Pulp, which is so awful it's unreadable) about his childhood, being beaten by his parents, avoiding war, and beginning his life of destitution, hardship, alcoholism, and the beginnings of his education as a writer.</p><p>I'm almost embarrassed to admit he's an influence. Many people hate him and I'm much more afraid of being judged than he ever was.</p><p>1) Honesty. His first four novels are extremely autobiographical. He details the suffering he had as a child (putting his parents in a very bad light but he didn't care), he details his experiences with prostitutes, his lack of interest in holding down a job, his horrible experiences and lack of real respect for the women he was in relationships with, and on and on. His fiction and poetry document thoroughly the people he hates, the authors he despises, the establishment he could care less about (and he hated the anti-establishment just as much. One quote about a potential plan the hippie movement was going to do: "Run a pig for president? What the fuck is that? It excited them. It bored me.").</p><p>Most fiction writers do what fiction writers do: they make stuff up. They tell stories that come from their imagination. Bukowski wasn't really able to do that. Whenever he attempted fiction (his last novel being a great example) it fell flat. Even his poetry is non-fiction.</p><p>There's one story he wrote (I forget the name) where he's sitting in a bar and he wants to be alone and some random guy starts talking to him: "its horrible about all those girls who were burned" and Bukowski says (I'm getting the words a little off. Doing this from memory), "I don't know." And the guy and everyone else in the bar starts yelling, "This guy doesn't care that all those little girls burned to death". But Bukowski was honest, "It was a newspaper headline. If it happened in front of me I'd probably feel different about it." And he refused to back down and stayed in the bar until closing time.</p><p>He had very few boundaries as to how far his honesty could go. He never wrote about his daughter after she reached a certain age. That's about the only boundary I can find. Every other writer has so many things they can't write about: family, spouses, exes, children, jobs, bosses, colleagues, friends. That's why they make stuff up. Bukowski didn't let himself get hampered by that so we see real raw honest, a real anthropological survey of being down and out for 60+ years without anything being held back. No other writer before or since has done that. For a particular example, see his novel, Women which detailed every sexual nuance of every woman who dared to sleep with him after he achieved some success. Most of these women were horrified after the book came out.</p><p>I try as hard as possible to remove all boundaries. </p><p>2) Persistence. Bukowski got two stories published when he was young (24 and 26 years old) but almost all of his stories were rejected by publishers. So he quit writing for ten years. Then, in the mid 1950s he started up again. He submitted tons of poems and stories everywhere he could. It took him years to get published. It took him even more years to get really noticed. And it finally took him about 15 years of writing every day and writing thousands of poems and stories before he finally started making a living as a writer. He wrote his first novel at the age of 49 and it was financially successful. After 25 years of plugging away at it he was finally a successful writer.</p><p>25 years!</p><p>Most people give up much earlier, much younger. Both my grandfather and father wanted to be musicians, for instance. Both gave up in their 20s and 30s and took what they thought was the safer route. (The safer route being, in my opinion, what ultimately killed both of them).</p><p>And this persistence was while he was going through three marriages, dozens of jobs, and non-stop alcoholism. Some of this is documented (poorly) in the move Barfly but I think a better movie about Bukowski is the indie that Matt Dillon did about his novel, Factotum which details the 10 years he was going from job to job, woman to woman, just trying to survive as an alcoholic in a world that kept beating him down.</p><p>He wrote his first novel in 19 days. Michael Hemmingson, whom I write about below, wrote me and said Bukowski had to finish that novel so fast because he was desperately afraid he was going to be a failure at being a successful writer and didn't want to disappoint John Martin, who had essentially given him an advance for the novel.</p><p>3) Survival. When I think "constant alcoholic," I usually equate that with being a homeless bum. Bukowski, at some deep level, realized that he needed to survive. He couldn't just be a homeless bum and kill himself, no matter how many disappointments he had. He worked countless factory jobs (the basis of the non-fiction novel, Factotun) but even that wasn't stable enough for him. Finally, he took a job working for the US government (you can't get more stable) working in the post office for 11 years. He didn't miss child support payments (although he constantly wrote about how ugly the mother of his child was), and as far as I know he was never homeless or totally down and out from his early 30s 'til the time he started having success as a writer.</p><p>And despite writing about the overwhelming poverty he had, he did have a small inheritance from his father, a savings account he built up, and a steady paycheck. The post office job is documented, in full, in his first "novel" called, appropriately, Post Office. Many people think that's his best novel but I put it third or fourth behind Ham on Rye and Factotum and possibly Women. He also wrote a novel, Hollywood, about the blow-by-blow experience of doing the movie Barfly. All the names are changed (hence its claim to be fiction) but once you figure out who everyone is, its totally non-fiction. Like all of his other novels (not counting Pulp, which was the worst American novel ever written and published).</p><p>[See, -- many tips I got from reading his books.]</p><p>4) Discipline. Imagine working a brutal 10-hour shift at the Post Office, coming home and arguing with your wife or girlfriend, or half-girlfriend, half-prostitute that was living with you, finishing off three or four six-packs of beer and then... writing. He did it every day. Most people want to write that novel, or finish that painting, or start that business, but have zero discipline to actually sit down and do it. If there was any talent that Bukowski had that I can't actually figure out how he got it, its that discipline.</p><p>When he was younger (early 20s, late teens) he spent almost every day in the library, falling in love with all the great writers. The love must have been so great it superseded almost everything else in his life. He had to write like them or he really felt like he would die. He had to "put down a good line" as he would say. And every day he would try. And good, bad, or ugly, he probably ultimately ended up publishing (many posthumously) everything he ever wrote. I try to match that discipline. Even when I don't post a blog post I write seven days a week, every morning. At least 1000 words and a completed post. I used to do this in my 20s when I was trying to write fiction. My minimum then was 3000 words. I did that for five years.</p><p>It adds up. The average book is 60,000 words. If you can write 1000 words a day then you'll have 6 books by the end of the year. Because poetry books are much smaller, Bukowski probably had around 80 or so books published by the time he was dead and I bet there are more coming.</p><p>5) His "literary map". He was inspired by several writers and he inspired many more. Some of my favorite writers come from both categories. He was probably most inspired by three writers: Celine, Knut Hamsun, and John Fante. I highly recommend Celine's Journey to the End of the Night. Celine is almost a more raw version of Bukowski. He was constantly angry and trying to survive and do whatever it took to survive. The thing about Bukowski, as opposed to many other writers, is he didn't concern himself with flowery images or beautiful sunsets. He totally wrote as if he were speaking to you and Celine does that to an extreme but he's so raw and smart that the way he "speaks" is like an insane person trying to spew out as much venom as possible. 600 pages later his first book is a masterpiece and I often use it in my pre-writing hour every morning when I read stuff to inspire myself to write.</p><p>John Fante wrote the underappreciated Ask the Dust which was completely forgotten until Bukowski's publisher republished it and all of Fante's books. (I also recommend the movie with Colin Farrell and a naked Salma Hayek).</p><p>Bukowski was almost afraid to admit how much Fante directly influenced him. He wrote in one "short story", "I realized that admitting John Bante had been such a great influence on my writing might detract from my own work, as if part of me was a carbon copy, but I didn't give a damn. It's when you hide things that you choke on them."</p><p>Note he spelled "Fante" as "Bante". That's the extent of Bukowski's fiction. Another interesting thing is the last line. Nothing flowery, nothing descriptively beautiful, yet a line like that is what made Bukowski unique and one of the best writers ever, getting at the hidden truth of what was really happening in his head, rather than telling yet another boring story filled with flowery descriptions like most books and stories are.</p><p>Then there's the authors Bukowski influenced. Michael Hemmingson wrote an excellent review of Bukowski in the book The Dirty Realism Duo: Bukowski and Carver, which I highly recommend. Raymond Carver comes from the same genre of down-and-out, oppressive relationships that were beyond his ability to cope with them, and realist, simple writing that was mostly autobiographical (although that's a little less clear in Carver's case). I'd also throw Denis Johnson's book of short stories (Jesus' Son) in that category (Johnson studied with Carver) and more recently, books like the above-mentioned Michael Hemmingson's Crack Hotel, The Comfort of Women, My Date(Rape) with Kathy Acker and other stories. I'm dying to find other writers in this category.</p><p>I how Denis Johnson needed $10,000 to pay the IRS. So he threw together some vignettes he had forgotten about, called the collection Jesus' Son and sent it off to Jonathan Galassi and said, "here, you can have these if you pay the IRS". So I Facebook-friended Galassi and asked him if he could tell me one author in Denis Johnson's league but I'm still waiting for a response.</p><p>I wish I could find more writers like these. Perhaps William Vollmann who wrote Butterfly Stories but his bigger fiction is too difficult for me to read (anecdote: he wrote the afterward to the recently re-published Celine's Journey of the Night so all of these writers tend to recognize their common lineage.)</p><p>6) Poetry. I really hate poetry. When I open up the New Yorker (blecch!) and read the latest poems in there I can't understand them, they all seem like gibberish to me, they all seem too intellectual. And yet, out of all the poets I've read, the only ones I really like are: Bukowski, Raymond Carver, and Denis Johnson. Poetry allowed them to master making each word in a sentence effective and powerful. It was this training that allowed them to destroy the competition when they sat down to write their longer pieces. It makes me want to try my hand at poetry but even the word "poetry" sounds so pseudo-intellectual I just have no interest in doing it.</p><p>Bukowski: , postal worker, misogynist (there's a you can easily find on Youtube where he must be almost 60 and he literally kicks his wife in anger while he's being interviewed), anti-war, anti-peace, anti-everything, hated everyone, probably insecure, extremely honest, and he had to write every day or it would kill him.</p><p>In his own words, words which I hope to live by: "What a joy it must be to be a truly great writer, even if it means a shotgun at the finish".</p><p>------------------------</p><p>Suggested Reading:</p><p>Biographical:</p><p>- Michael Hemmingson: The Dirty Realism Due: Charles Bukowski and Raymond Carver</p><p>- Howard Sounes: ""</p><p>Bukowski's Writings (that I recommend):<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>Other fiction in the "Dirty Realism"category: <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>Poem:</p><p>by Raymond Carver.</p><p>Article: </p><p>Movies:</p><p>"Factotum"</p><p>If anyone can think of anybody else in this specific "dirty realism" category, please put it in the comments. I'd also like to read women in this category but I think it's a particularly male category. Jack Kerouac falls somewhere in there but he's more "beat" which I think is different. And Chad Kultgen's recent books ("The Average American Male", for instance) are also somewhat in the realism category but not quite "dirty" enough.</p> <p>Follow James Altucher on Twitter:</p>?She never claimed to be a singer. She was reluctant to do this after being asked (but declining) points for her courage to do it anyways. As some have said here, considering it was impromptu, it was pretty good. Come on, she's an actress that will play a singer. She will likely have voice coaching in prepartion for the movie as most actors do.<br><br>Context here. A quote from the director Michael Sucsy <br>"These women learned to harmonize and they learned to play instruments," he explains. "They weren't these amazing, accomplished singers who banded together. "It's not just like, 'Hey, you can play the guitar, I can play the piano, I can play the harmonica. Let's put a band together.' It's like, 'We have to get out of jail, and if we have to put a band together to do that, then that's what we're going to do.' "?Click here to leave a comment.HuffPost High School welcomes a lively, thoughtful debate in the comment section. Keep in mind that the articles here are penned by young authors, so please keep criticism respectful, and help us to keep this a safe and supportive place for writers of all ages to contribute.?<p>Oooh we do love a diva demand here at HuffPost Celeb. Heck, even we threw a full-scale diva strop this morning when our tea wasn't the right colour (sorry workie) but that's nothing compared to 's latest request.</p><p>The singer has reportedly banned staff working on her new home from talking to or making eye contact with her. </p><p>Ooooh, get 'er etc, etc.</p><p></p><p>Yep, according to the Daily Star, J.Lo doesn't want to be getting into any conflabs about guttering or roofing with the hired help involved in building her huge new mansion in San Fernando, California.</p><p>A source told the paper: </p><p>Blimey. </p><p><br>J.Lo and Casper Smart in New York last night</p><p>Meanwhile, Jen's got away from all that noise and dust back home with a trip to New York. .</p><p> </p><p>> IN PICS: CELEB DIVAS<br></p><p>Also on HuffPost:</p>?<p>I was six feet away from her backstage. The entourage of security guards were distracted with other business. Now was my only chance to appease my obsession and jump into her arms. So why didn't I take it?</p><p>A month ago I got the call: </p><p>"Will you do a gig for free next month?" <br>"Which gig?" <br>"Emceeing Oprah's Lifeclass Tour stop in Toronto." <br>Thud (that's me hitting the floor). <br>"Eeeeey-y-yesssssughhhh" (that's me ugly-crying while I accept the job). <br>"See you on the 16th." </p><p>I was humbled, amazed, and incredibly grateful. Oprah's on my vision board. I quote Iyanla Vanzant regularly. Tony Robbins' tapes are the motivator that got me pumped to give comedy a try 12 years ago. I have most of Deepak Choprah's books. Hosting this event would mean meeting all of them. Highlight of my professional life, right? Yes. But for reasons I wasn't expecting. </p><p>If you've seen my website recently, you'll see that I'm making the shift from comedian to motivational speaker and comedian. The change being that I now want to make people laugh AND give them a few helpful take-aways. It stems from the learning I've done since recovering from postpartum depression and creative dry-spells. Over the last seven years, I have soaked up every piece of constructive insight in the fields of positive psychology -- going so far as to become trained as a life and group coach last summer. Every bit of work and training and practicing my skills as an entertainer culminated in the experience of hosting on April 16, 2012. </p><p>I arrived backstage at 7:30 a.m. at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, bypassing the lines of thousands with my coveted backstage pass. "When will you meet Oprah?!?!" friends and fans texted. I was excited, but the Zen of performance prep distracted me, and I focused on my job. Make the audience laugh between speakers. I do that all the time -- just never for an audience of 9,000. The numbers weren't intimidating though, because Oprah's fans are my kind of crowd: eager, excited, and thrilled to be there. </p><p>I warmed up the audience with some comedy, then introduced Deepak Chopra. Then Iyanla Vanzant. Then Bishop T.D. Jakes. Then Tony Robbins. All of them are my idea of motivational royalty. I was so grateful. "Iyanla Vanzant is the Beatles of self-help," I tweeted. After each introduction I dashed offstage to sit by the monitors, soaking up their energizing messages: be grateful, forgive, push forward, make better decisions, seize your moment! The greatest minds and speakers of the self-help industry were on one stage, and in my opinion, they were flawless. Watching their craft of filling up the audience with possibility was awe-inspiring. They have "it." I think my mouth was agape for at least half of their talks. </p><p>Then there she was, red dress, perfect hair, smiling without worries, heading up to the stage to do what she does best. The Toronto crowd went just as crazy as you'd expect: we love ourselves some Oprah! After two hours solving people's problems in her validating way, Miss O graciously thanked the crowd and came backstage, wearing a glorious smile and satisfied aura. Which brings me to MY moment. I was standing six feet away, feeling pressure to get the bragging rights of having met one of the greatest icons of womankind. I stared for about a minute, mulling it over. Should I jump her? Meekly present myself? Ask someone backstage to snap a photo? I had an "aha moment." She had already given me her greatest gift: the impact of her message. And that far outweighs any chance to shake her hand. I turned and walked away, smiling.</p><p>I'll describe it this way: meeting the Beatles would have been cool, but it wouldn't surpass the experience of hearing their music. I was getting an up close encounter with my idols -- and watching them work and seeing their craft was the greatest element I will take away from the experience. "Thanks Oprah" I thought. "Thank you for all you've taught me. For your inspiration. And for bringing this incredible lineup to Toronto. No introduction necessary. You had me at hello." </p><p>Oprah's gift to her fans is delivered from stage; not in person. And it goes both ways. As Oprah said on the final broadcast of her show: "My greatest joy has been sharing this journey with you."</p><p>Follow Jessica Holmes on Twitter:</p>?<p>Jessica Sanchez has and last night's finale was no exception. </p><p>The fearless 16-year-old singer sang the songs of not one (but two!) music legends: Celine Dion and Whitney Houston, and in typical Jessica fashion, she knocked both performances out of the park.</p><p></p><p>Sanchez and fellow finalist Phillip Phillips were asked to sing three songs each on last night's finale: Round one was Idol creator Simon Fuller's choice, round two was the contestants' choice and round three was their official "winner's song," (the first single they'll release following the competition). </p><p>In round one, Sanchez sang Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing," and her vocals have never been more powerful. The half-Mexican, half-Filipina singer followed up that sensational performance with Celine Dion's "The Prayer" in round two, a song that not only showcased her ability to hit the high notes, but also showed off her impressive range and falsetto. For round three, Jessica was given the original song "Change Nothing," and even though the song was a terrible choice for Sanchez (It might be the worst "winner's song" in Idol history), Jessica did what she could with it. </p><p>Overall, Jessica seemed to have a better night than Phillip. But what say you? Do you think Jessica will become the first Latina to win "American Idol?" Dish in the comments!</p><p>JESSICA SANCHEZ ON STAGE:<br></p>?<p>Banner headlines and breathy stories beamed the news that Celine Dion was pregnant at 41 with another child. Immediately, news outlets paraded a list of other age-defying, fabulous-looking celebrities who had babies post-40, as though this is as easy to do as baking a cherry pie. But the truth is there are many pits buried in the sweetness of this story.</p><p>The Daily Beast presented a slideshow of celebrities pictured with their dimpled-cheeked children and shared the age at which their bundle of joys were conceived and delivered. Halle Barry did it at 41. Salma Hayek at 40, Brooke Shields at 41, with the help of IVF. Susan Sarandon, who was told she couldn't have kids, had Eva at 39, Jack at 42 and Henry at 45. And Iman, we were told, was able to conceive at 44 after following an African fertility custom of holding someone else's baby for a day -- in her case, Christie Brinkley's, who natch had a baby post-40. </p><p>Okay, now guess how many women believe that having a baby after 40 is not difficult? </p><p>"Ninety percent of young women are convinced that they can wait until they're 45 to have a baby," says Sylvia Hewlett, the author of "Creating A Life." "That is a recipe for disaster. And this misinformation seriously distorts the thinking of young women. I think this is a great shame. Women need to know the truth and plan accordingly."</p><p>Here are some sobering facts. According to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, almost one in five women seeking infertility treatments are over 40 and two-thirds will not be able to get pregnant on their own. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that a 40 year old woman going through IVF has a 23 percent chance of getting pregnant using her own eggs, and if conception happens, only a 16 percent chance of carrying the pregnancy through birth. </p><p>Sure, high-tech fertility treatments up the odds. Twice as many women have children after 40 than 20 years ago. One success story is my sister-in-law who became pregnant naturally at 42. But those odds are still small. I know plenty of other friends who didn't and still live with emotional scars. </p><p>By the age of 44, there's less than a one percent chance that a woman's eggs can produce a child. Years ago, I asked Manhattan specialist Dr. Jonathan Scher how come so many celebrities were having babies way past 40 and simultaneously claiming that these kids came from their eggs. </p><p>"Not everyone is telling the truth," Dr. Scher told me. "Many use donor eggs and want to keep it private." (Donor eggs up the ante to a 51 percent success rate.)</p><p>By the age of 37, fertility drops as quickly as the Dow circa October 2008. It is an indisputable fact just like it still takes nine/ten months to have a baby. </p><p>I was in my mid-30's when I started going through my IVF treatments. I even went to Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, the same specialist who worked magic for Celine Dion. At first, he asked why I hadn't started earlier than 34. "Had to find the right husband which is not easy to do," I quipped. After six failed IVF treatments, Dr. Rosenwaks suggested I consider donor eggs or adoption. </p><p>Despondent -- and seriously depleted of my savings because of the $15,000 IVF price tag that CNN, my employer, did not cover -- I went away with my husband to just chillax. Sure enough, I got pregnant naturally and was blessed enough to have my son.</p><p>Upon my pregnancy test, I marched into Dr. Zev Rosenwaks office, elated and confused. How could this have happened when you said my odds were virtually impossible? "Sometimes, the sun, the moon and stars line up inexplicably and it works," he replied. "But this is still very rare."</p><p>Yes, I was one of the lucky ones, but never one of the smug ones. I couldn't have another baby despite my valiant efforts and more IVFs and operations. And it made me more convinced of what a disservice all these stories about successful pregnancies create for the many women who are visiting those fertility clinics day after day, shooting themselves with stiletto-sized needles and subjecting themselves to the painful daily blood tests in order to get pregnant. </p><p>It is not their fault that the results are not positive despite their heroic efforts. We need some more stories about the women who don't get pregnant and how they open up the chamber of their hearts for adopted children, stepchildren or become devoted aunts and teachers. </p><p>So what do I tell my stepdaughter, now in her 20s, who is building a career and independence so essential to a woman's well being? Settle with a guy before 34 or wait until the right one comes even if it's at 40? I know I'll tell her not to believe the news reports that seem to convey that having a baby at any age is possible. As with most contracts, you have to read the fine print for the disclaimers.</p><p>Complicating matters, I have an expertise in divorce and see every day what happens when couples marry for the wrong reasons.</p><p>The truth is I am a much better parent because I waited and because I married the right guy who shared the same devotion to family as I do. A previous pregnancy was aborted because I knew it was neither the right time nor the right guy. Deep in my soul, I still believe that 20 years later and have never regretted that decision. </p><p>Even knowing what I know, I still would tell my stepdaughter not to settle. But instead be informed of all her options. </p><p>And as for Celine Dion, the second child she is now carrying was from a fertilized egg created eight years ago. Once again, some media scrambled the story because technically the egg is not from a 41 year old woman. </p><p>Follow Jill Brooke on Twitter:</p>?"God is love. This means that eventhe greatest source of negativity is love. <br>Ultimately, you must come face-to-face with that and recognize that whatever negativity presents itself is still of the true nature of God,which is love."<br>-- John Morton<p>As the previous articles in this Laws of Spirit series attest, this sequence of spiritual wisdom steps can be enormously useful in extricating ourselves from the challenges we face each and every day. It is practical spirituality at its best. In order to get to the loving, we have to first work our way through our "issues." This means doing what is necessary to achieve , , and about whatever person, situation, or circumstance we are grappling with. Then, we are simply left with the loving that joins us together as one. </p><p>Spiritual love is characterized by deep peace, freedom, and an absence of resistance or "againstness." When we love in this way, we unite and embrace the other. When love is unconditional, there is no withholding of our self in any way, nor is there any judgment of our self or others. There is no hidden agenda of how we want the situation or person to change. We may not like the person or situation involved very much, but we recognize that there is more going on in life than our personal preferences.</p><p>This love that joins us together as one is different from romantic love. It is not about feeling all warm and fuzzy and affectionate about something or someone. It is not characterized by intense desire and attraction. Rather, it is a sense of connection to an underlying unity of all that exists. It is a choice to be kind and compassionate based on an awareness that on a non-physical level we are so unified that whatever I do will affect you. It is transcendence over a personal agenda to a desire for the highest good of all concerned. Spiritual love says, "I might be distressed by you or your behavior on a personality level, but I know that spiritually, we are all one and I wish us no harm." </p> "You are in this world to learn to use the energy of creation wisely in order to bring about completion. An important key to remember is that the energy of Spirit follows the thoughts you hold. Wherever you direct this spiritual energy in the material world, things are manifested.<br>There's an old saying: "What you fear comes upon you." It means you become a magnet for what you fear, and you create for yourself the very thing you're afraid of. Is there a real source of fear? No. Is there real fear? Yes. It is inside of you, and you are the creator of it. You give birth to your own fear. <br>Under the energy of fear is the energy of pure Spirit, which allows you to create whatever you want. This is the unconditional loving of Spirit, allowing you to do whatever you will with your body, emotions, and mind.<br>-- John-Roger<p>Loving is love in action. It is about what we create, promote, and allow -- our contribution. We don't need to live our lives engaging in big and little battles each day with other people trying to further our personal agenda while they seek to advance their own. Alternatively, we can know ourselves as powerful creators and meet the situations in our lives from an awareness of oneness and caring about the highest good of all concerned. What would this look like? Consider the last time you and your spouse or a friend had a serious disagreement about something. Did you become curious about how and why they arrived at their point of view or were you too busy trying to get them to see things from your perspective? Regardless of what they were doing, the question is what were you doing in the discord? Were you seeking to restore harmony between you through mutual understanding or were you building a case for how wrong and unacceptable they and/or their behavior were? No matter what the other person did or did not do, when practicing spiritual loving we hold ourselves accountable for how we respond to the situation. We hold the intention of not doing any harm to ourselves or others. We do not fuel the fire of discord, but seek to remain connected at a deeper level in spite of our respective flaws. </p><p>I can't help but wonder what would happen to our divorce rate if spouses were held accountable for their vows to love, honor, and cherish each other in good times and bad. The laws of spirit provide excellent guidance in how to do so. The missing ingredient is practice, practice, practice. The true value of working with the laws of spirit is that you feel better about life and about yourself and you are far more likely to be kind and compassionate to others.</p><p>Please feel free to leave a comment below or to email me at . Also, if you know anyone who might get value from this article please email or retweet it or share it on Facebook. </p><p>To learn more about me, visit my website, For information on my future blogs, click "Fan" at the top of this page.</p><p>For more by Judith Johnson, .</p><p>For more on spiritual development, .</p>?<p>Kanye West has been a fan of women's clothes for some time, even wearing some women's tops like .</p><p>But it wasn't until he hit his latest concert tour that he went fully female with (drum roll please)... a skirt.</p><p>Now we have nothing against men in skirts -- there's nothing like and every now and then. But we were surprised to see Yeezy assume his macho position as World's Biggest Hip Hop Star at Madison Square Garden last night in the unexpected look.</p><p>Joining Kanye on stage was Jay-Z, the other World's Biggest Hip Hop Star, who was unsurprisingly skirt-less. He did have on a passable pair of cargo pants, however. </p><p>Check out Kanye's sartorial statement below -- what do you think of the skirt-over-leggings look? <br><br></p><p></p><p></p><p><br></p> <br>?<p></p><p>I'm really hoping it doesn't rain on 15 June. Why? Because it's National Flip Flop Day, and to mark the occasion, iconic summer footwear brand, Havaianas are launching a limited-edition flip flop as part of their 50th Anniversary (see image below). Inspired by the mythical ´flip over´ which took place in the 90s when fans of the footwear brand swapped their old styles for the new style single colour version - only 50,000 of the exclusive edition will be available worldwide, and 100% of net sales will be donated to UNICEF in support of a worthy project in Brazil.<br>Havaianas (which stands for "Always Summer"), was born back in 1962 as the original 100% rubber flip flop, created as an homage to the laid-back and pleasure-filled Hawaiian approach to life. In 1963 over one thousand pairs of sandals were sold per day.<br>Fast forward to 2010, and the brand's e-shop was launched with all styles available online for the first time, and later came an expansion to the range with the addition of shoes and rain boots.<br>The brand have also been involved in high-profile collaborations with other well known fashion brands and designers, including Celine, Paul & Joe, Pinel & Pinel and my personal favourite - Missoni.</p><p></p><p>Here are some amazing fashion facts about Havaianas!</p><p>・ The main factory in based in Campina Grande, North East Brazil and manufactures over 206 million pairs per year.</p><p>・ 190 million pairs of flip-flops were sold in 2011.</p><p>・ 520,547 pairs are sold per day!</p><p>・ 21,689 pairs are sold per hour!</p><p>・ 6 pairs are sold in a second!</p><p>・ If a consumer wants to buy all Havaianas flip-flop models available in the market, print and colour combinations, he/she would buy 454 pairs per year.</p><p>・ Since its birth, over 4 billion pairs of Havaianas have already been sold. If lined up all together, they would go around the Earth about 40 times.</p><p>・ Each Portuguese person owns 4 pairs of Havaianas on average.</p><p>・ Each Aussie owns 5 pairs of Havaianas on average.</p><p>・ Each Brazilian owns 25 pairs of Havaianas on average.</p><p>Phew! That's a lot of Havaianas - and with the brand now retailing in 85 countries, with over 454 different styles available, there's no excuse not to get your flip flops on!</p><p>Images c Yellow-Door, 2012</p> <br><p>Follow Kate Lawson on Twitter:</p>?["entry_id":"1938744","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.co.uk¥/2012¥/10¥/04¥/celeb-pics-of-the-day_n_1938744.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/254727¥/slide_254727_1600429_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/254727¥/slide_254727_1600429_small.jpg","title":"Celeb Pics Of The Day","slideshow_id":"254727","vertical":"uk-celebrity","entry_id":"1946053","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.co.uk¥/2012¥/10¥/07¥/kristin-stewart-banned-google-twitter-boyfriend-robert-pattinson_n_1946053.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/228265¥/slide_228265_1011985_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/228265¥/slide_228265_1011985_small.jpg","title":"'Breaking Dawn, Part 1' 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tour","slideshow_id":"254690","vertical":"uk-celebrity","entry_id":"1941621","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.co.uk¥/2012¥/10¥/05¥/nicole-scherzinger-death-threats_n_1941621.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/254408¥/slide_254408_1594600_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/254408¥/slide_254408_1594600_small.jpg","title":"Rylan Clark","slideshow_id":"254408","vertical":"uk-celebrity","entry_id":"1941782","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.co.uk¥/2012¥/10¥/05¥/georgia-salpa-kim-kardashian_n_1941782.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/229463¥/slide_229463_1035415_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/229463¥/slide_229463_1035415_small.jpg","title":"Kim Kardashian","slideshow_id":"229463","vertical":"uk-celebrity","entry_id":"1946065","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.co.uk¥/2012¥/10¥/07¥/madonnas-daughter-lourdes-making-plans-attend-university-new-york_n_1946065.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/229920¥/slide_229920_1044641_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/229920¥/slide_229920_1044641_small.jpg","title":"Madonna's 'MDNA' Tour","slideshow_id":"229920","vertical":"uk-celebrity","entry_id":"1944655","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.co.uk¥/2012¥/10¥/06¥/cheryl-cole-ashley-cole-affair_n_1944655.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/199773¥/slide_199773_517727_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/199773¥/slide_199773_517727_small.jpg","title":"Celeb Sex Scandals","slideshow_id":"199773","vertical":"uk-celebrity"]?<p>LONDON -- Kate Winslet has been honored by Queen Elizabeth II for her titanic contribution to the arts.</p><p>The actress, who won a best actress Academy Award in 2009 for "The Reader" and made her breakthrough as the feisty Rose in 1997 blockbuster "Titanic," has been named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE, in the queen's Birthday Honors List, published Saturday.</p><p>Winslet said the honor made her "very proud to be a Brit."</p><p>"I am both surprised and honored to stand alongside so many men and woman who have achieved great things for our country," the 36-year-old star said.</p><p>Actor and director Kenneth Branagh was made a knight and will be known as Sir Kenneth. A respected Shakespearean actor whose films as a director range from "Henry V" and "Hamlet" to the comic-book fantasy "Thor," Branagh said he felt "humble, elated, and incredibly lucky" to get the honor. It puts him in a pantheon of theatrical knights alongside the late Sir Laurence Olivier, whom Branagh played in "My Life With Marilyn."</p><p>"When I was a kid, I dreamed of pulling on a shirt for the Northern Ireland football team," said the Belfast-born, 51-year-old actor. "I could only imagine how proud you might feel. Today it feels like they just gave me the shirt, and my heart's fit to burst."</p><p>The honors are bestowed by twice yearly by the queen – at New Year's and on her official birthday in June – but recipients are selected by civil servants from nominations made by the government and the public.</p><p>Most go to people who are not in the limelight, for services to their community or industry, but they also reward a sprinkling of famous faces.</p><p>Songwriter and philanthropist Richard Stilgoe, who wrote lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Cats," `'Starlight Express" and "The Phantom Of The Opera," was awarded a knighthood, while golfer Luke Donald was recognized for spending almost a year at the top of golf's world rankings.</p><p>The Englishman, who has spent 48 weeks as No. 1 since May last year, was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).</p><p>"I am truly honored to be awarded an MBE by Her Majesty, particularly in her Jubilee year," Donald said Friday from the U.S. Open in San Francisco.</p><p>Those becoming dames – the female equivalent of a knight – include Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid, who designed the Aquatic Center for the 2012 London Olympics, and Labour Party politician Tessa Jowell, who was Olympics minister until 2010.</p><p>Musician Gary Barlow, who organized a Diamond Jubilee concert for the queen this month featuring Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder and Elton John, was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, or OBE, for his services to entertainment and to charity.</p><p>Sarah Burton, who designed Kate Middleton's dress for her royal wedding to Prince William last year, received an OBE for services to fashion.</p><p>In descending order, the honors are knighthoods, CBE, OBE and MBE. Knights are addressed as "sir" or "dame." Recipients of the other honors have no title but can put the letters after their names.</p><p>Choirmaster Gareth Malone, who inspired thousands to sing with TV shows such as "The Choir" and assembled the best-selling Military Wives singing group, was awarded an OBE, as was actress and 1970s heartthrob Jenny Agutter.</p><p>Actress and campaigner April Ashley, one of the first Britons to undergo sex-change surgery, was awarded an OBE "for services to transgender equality."</p><p>Also receiving an OBE was Jimmy Carlson, a former soldier who spent 23 years sleeping on the streets before becoming an advocate for the homeless. The same honor went to Armando Iannucci, the writer and producer behind expletive-laden British political satire "The Thick of It" and White House comedy "Veep."</p><p>"I just hope it's not an attempt by the government to stop me, because that's not going to happen," he said.</p><p>Among the hundreds of others honored was Margaret Jackson, who received an MBE "for services to netball" and Kerry Michael and Michelle Michael, awarded the same honor "for services to the restoration of Weston Super Mare's pier."</p><p>Also on HuffPost:</p>?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpSzBNJOBqEzcV2f6zvgZ4FLzuHlXFqCtvHEMfu8cnurHGtdTrlO6FQ6fVx4NbTyV%2B7Ql2tAH0vCj4kIuB5Ua5hfpX3jCUjpesA7EFvdsOSuTBc8OfyGzw3GYqrfjYvGOR8QAEXbdlMhN?["entry_id":"1942196","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.com¥/2012¥/10¥/05¥/pattie-mallette-chris-harrison_n_1942196.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/192426¥/slide_192426_388427_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/192426¥/slide_192426_388427_small.jpg","title":"Justin Bieber's Many Looks Through The Years","slideshow_id":"192426","vertical":"celebrity","entry_id":"1945238","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.com¥/2012¥/10¥/06¥/halle-berry-olivier-martinez-engagement-ring_n_1945238.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/207757¥/slide_207757_1212960_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/207757¥/slide_207757_1212960_small.jpg","title":"Celebrity 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The second-highest grossing movie of all-time arrives on Blu-ray this week, putting Winslet's breakout role back at front and center once again. For the Oscar-winning actress, that might not be the best thing.</p><p>"I'm sure I wasn't really a very good actress," when "Titanic" was released in 3D earlier this year. "Seriously, we are talking about something that happened 15 years ago. It is a very long time ago. I've learned so much, and I've changed as a person so much since then. It is really quite weird. Can you imagine anything stranger? It's going to be like, famous all over again, 'Titanic' all over again!"</p><p>As part of the Blu-ray release, Paramount has unveiled which pairs her with "Law & Order" actor Jeremy Sisto in the part of Jack Dawson. (Leonardo DiCaprio famously landed the role and became an international superstar.)</p><p>Winslet was far from the only actress in line for the role. Per the web site , director James Cameron was interested in a number of leading actresses, .</p><p>Watch Winslet's screen test above and decided for yourself if Cameron made the right call.</p><p>[via ]</p><p></p><p>Also on HuffPost:</p>?["entry_id":"1942869","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.com¥/2012¥/10¥/05¥/arrested-development-jfk-jr-tony-hale_n_1942869.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/243709¥/slide_243709_1351838_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/243709¥/slide_243709_1351838_small.jpg","title":"Arrested Development Set Photos","slideshow_id":"243709","vertical":"tv","entry_id":"1943945","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.com¥/2012¥/10¥/05¥/nicki-minaj-mariah-carey-american-idol-feud-fake_n_1943945.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/214224¥/slide_214224_781591_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/214224¥/slide_214224_781591_small.jpg","title":"Celebrity 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Cast","slideshow_id":"241358","vertical":"tv","entry_id":"1945217","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.com¥/katherine-patke¥/30-rock-final-season-premiere-recap_b_1945217.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/223025¥/slide_223025_1576901_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/223025¥/slide_223025_1576901_small.jpg","title":"30 Rock","slideshow_id":"223025","vertical":"tv","entry_id":"1943059","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.com¥/2012¥/10¥/05¥/the-price-is-right-first-male-model-rob-wilson_n_1943059.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/235502¥/slide_235502_1154783_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/235502¥/slide_235502_1154783_small.jpg","title":"CBS Shows","slideshow_id":"235502","vertical":"tv","entry_id":"1945061","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.com¥/2012¥/10¥/06¥/chace-crawford-gossip-girl_n_1945061.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/252911¥/slide_252911_1569845_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/252911¥/slide_252911_1569845_small.jpg","title":"'Gossip Girl' Season 6","slideshow_id":"252911","vertical":"tv","entry_id":"1943768","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.com¥/2012¥/10¥/05¥/the-good-wife-maura-tierney-and-the-law-won-preview_n_1943768.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/243947¥/slide_243947_1534342_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/243947¥/slide_243947_1534342_small.jpg","title":"The Good Wife Season 4","slideshow_id":"243947","vertical":"tv","entry_id":"1943506","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.com¥/2012¥/10¥/05¥/american-horror-story-asylum-plot_n_1943506.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/248638¥/slide_248638_1474521_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/248638¥/slide_248638_1474521_small.jpg","title":"American Horror Story: Asylum Photos","slideshow_id":"248638","vertical":"tv","entry_id":"1945278","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.com¥/nick-antonelli¥/americas-next-top-model-recap_b_1945278.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/241994¥/slide_241994_1307647_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/241994¥/slide_241994_1307647_small.jpg","title":"America's Next Top Model","slideshow_id":"241994","vertical":"tv","entry_id":"1943737","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.com¥/2012¥/10¥/05¥/rachael-taylor-666-park-avenue_n_1943737.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/226524¥/slide_226524_977878_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/226524¥/slide_226524_977878_small.jpg","title":"New ABC Series","slideshow_id":"226524","vertical":"tv","entry_id":"1942980","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.com¥/2012¥/10¥/05¥/game-of-thrones-season-3-trailer-japanese-animation_n_1942980.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/208655¥/slide_208655_809660_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/208655¥/slide_208655_809660_small.jpg","title":""Game of Thrones" Season 2 Images","slideshow_id":"208655","vertical":"tv","entry_id":"1943888","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.com¥/2012¥/10¥/05¥/smash-producers-new-musical-drama_n_1943888.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/210883¥/slide_210883_719756_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/210883¥/slide_210883_719756_small.jpg","title":"2012 Renewal Index: Canceled, Safe and on the Bubble Shows","slideshow_id":"210883","vertical":"tv","entry_id":"1942314","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.com¥/2012¥/10¥/05¥/jersey-shore-mike-the-situation-rehab_n_1942314.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/191890¥/slide_191890_377338_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/191890¥/slide_191890_377338_small.jpg","title":"Snooki's Looks Over The Years","slideshow_id":"191890","vertical":"tv","entry_id":"1942288","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.com¥/2012¥/10¥/05¥/wonder-woman-adrianne-palicki-nbc-pilot_n_1942288.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/246482¥/slide_246482_1420753_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/246482¥/slide_246482_1420753_small.jpg","title":"Where We Left Off And What's Ahead For Your Favorite Shows","slideshow_id":"246482","vertical":"tv","entry_id":"1943140","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.com¥/2012¥/10¥/05¥/mariah-carey-nicki-minaj-what-tv-taught-us_n_1943140.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/255009¥/slide_255009_1606460_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/255009¥/slide_255009_1606460_small.jpg","title":"What TV Taught Us","slideshow_id":"255009","vertical":"tv"]?<p>. But Kim Kardashian seems to be doing her damnedest to work her way into the upper echelons of high fashion, first with her own style and now a trip to Paris' elite Couture Week.</p><p>Kim walked hand-in-hand with to Stephane Rolland's runway show this week, followed by a jaunt to the Celine store. After a quick costume change, the pair reemerged in the front row at Givenchy, . All the while, she was clad in chic black and white (first a flowery mullet gown and then a elegant trouser-crop top ensemble) with her hair slicked back and relatively little makeup on her face.</p><p>Every day her new style has become clearer and clearer: and . The change, we imagine, has something to do with Kanye's aspiring fashion cred (this is the man, after all, who raps about Anja Rubik and wears -- oh, and designs his own line). </p><p>To match Kanye's style savvy, Kim's had to up her game too. One of their first public appearances together, let's remember, was at . "What's Kim doing at a Chanel dinner?" we wondered back then. Little did we know she's be sitting front row at the best couture shows in Paris.</p><p>So with severe hair, black trousers and a good ticket in the front row, can Kim really be "high fashion"? Will she finally gain acceptance from Wintour and her coterie of fashion elite? </p><p>Check out the pictures below and tell us what you think.</p><p>PHOTOS:</p><p></p><p></p><p>Check out Kim's style evolution!<br></p><p>Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on , , and .</p>?<p>When celebrity romances get super serious, sometimes the parties involved will wear matching outfits () or more bravely, .</p><p>But Kim Kardashian picked a novel fashion technique to show off The reality star landed at LAX on Sunday wearing a Rachel Roy coat, a Celine necklace and leather pants paired with a black Birkin. </p><p>But Kim's other accessory trumped even that expensive Hermes bag -- she was sporting gold stud earrings with the initials "K" and "W." (Her , however, had vanished.)</p><p>The rumored couple , grabbing ice cream in Soho and then dining in the Meatpacking district later on.</p><p>We suspect Kim knew exactly what she was doing in feeding grist to the rumor mill, given her ponytail. Girl isn't stupid.</p><p>See photos of Kim's "KW" earrings below:</p><p></p><p><br><br>Check out Kim's style evolution!<br><br></p><p>Also on HuffPost:</p> <br>?My concern is that Kim ALWAYS seems to conform to whatever her man wants, likes, does, instead of staying true to who she is as an actual INIVIDUAL..and she can b too much of a "people pleaser" when t comes to her man at the time almost as if she is so eager to please who she is with so that she can finally have a viable, thriving relationship which in my opinion is semi-pathetic cuz he is a gorgeous, successful woman who needs & can find an equally handsome, successful, GOOD man that TRULY loves her for her & treats her right. And yes I do find it mildly controlling that Kanye felt he shld take it upon self to change her wardrobe as if she didn't know how to dress before. She and all of her sisters for that matter always looked fashionable in my opinion ergo they created a FASHION line...btw when does "blanding" dwn your wardrobe to all black, white, & nude/blush make u more fashionable or individual for that matter? And that's comin from someone who always where's black & white & is always criticized for not havn n e color n my closet which btw I'm still working on! Lol?<p>As you can probably tell (or most likely have seen or read for yourself, depending on how closely you involve yourself with the show milieu), the street style thing of late has transcended to a whole new dimension of CRAY. So much so that this season I even witnessed a former Sidewalk Queen declining would-be paps (but then again maybe that was because we'd ALL seen that Christopher Kane embroidered bomber before...). Even Anna Dello Russo seems to have calmed down, changing only three thrice daily instead of five times and even lowering the altitude of her headgear. That being said, in the last season or two, I've noticed a shift in the ubiquity of "trend" from being designer and runway led to street style championed. These days, there seems to be more diversity amongst catwalk creations than there are individuals loose on the sidewalks -something of a fashion industry irony. As show orbiters pin down the rules of street style attraction to a fine science, the result is a gamut of items and trends, from "edgy" and hipster to the power luxury and editor, that have been overexposed. So below I've collated 10 trends which I sincerely hope, come next season, are relegated to the archives in every sense of the word.</p><p>1) The Neon Cambridge Satchel<br>They've been around for at least three seasons now, probably reaching their apex in appropriateness in September or even during the menswear shows in the summer. At first they were punchy, then they were personalizeable and now they're pariahs. Not that I don't love a good Cambridge Satchel, but the neons/stars/polkadots--it's all too much. Just give me classic brown, put some books in it and basta. </p><p></p><p> 2) The Glitter Booty-Miu Miu or Otherwise<br>I'll be the first to admit I was head over glitter heels for these booties when they first shimmered onto the circuit about a year ago. In September, I swear there were more glitter boots on the loose than street style photographers, leaving a trail of sparkling sidewalk like Lucky Charms wherever they went. This season, I have to say (and I HATE this phrase but here goes) they just looked so last season. I am a firm believer in the myth of the trend, that is to say, I believe you should just wear whatever you want when you want, it's all a question of how your style it. But sometimes, pieces with such strong personality negate excessive styling and so what you end up with is an army of similarly simply clad girls all boasting the same statement bootie. Thus the time for all tinkerbell inspired footwear to go back in the box has come.</p><p></p><p>3. Versace for H&M<br>By the time fashionistas were queuing round the world during all hours of the night to get their hands on the stuff, I was already sick of Versace for H&M, having had more press releases about the incremental implementation of the collaboration than had Kate Middleton stepped out in public hand and hand with the Queen having forgotten her flesh-tone tights. Yes, really. Hence why yours truly was slumbering peacefully in her bed while a good portion of the fash pack battled it out all over the globe, their brave early morning tales clogging up Twitter whence I woke. And where, pray tell, did all this sold out Versace for H&M go? It went straight to fashion week. Be it the printed tops and skirts or, even more prevalent, the studded mosaic biker jacket, Donatella's foray into fast fashion was the uniform of the season. Just remember they call it "fast" for a reason. </p><p></p><p> 4) Bright Dip-Dye<br>I will concede, about this time last spring I was practically in tears when my hair stylist refused to sear bleach into the tips of my hair to then dunk it in auburn to create what I was convinced would be the most ah-mah-zing ambre dip dye ever, refusing to "destroy" my natural color and texture. Fast forward six months later, and I revoke the title I bestowed upon him of London's grinchiest hair stylist who doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. The dip dye thing was so visually exciting when it first trickled like spilled Kool-Aid across the tresses of the so-called "hipster sect" of the fash pack, making for great photos against derelict brick walls, all the more so as cool kids were quick to match their tangerine locks to their tangerine trousers, their green tips to their green tops, and so on and so forth. But since we tipped the new year, it's felt a bit dipped out to me, with only the subtler dip dye jobs--such as varying shades of honey blonde--still registering chic in my book. Time to whack off those ends and start again, ladies. </p><p></p><p> 4) Blue Hair for Him & Her<br>On the subject of hair, I'd like to say: blue is not the hue. This season, on the crops of both men and shortly shorn ladies, blue hair dye was seen on way too many individuals. Tavi went for the grey/blue granny-meets-cookie-monster look what feels now like years ago and was not lauded for it then. Come on boys, back to the salon you go. </p><p></p><p>5) Prada Creepers<br>They're EVERYWHERE, on men and women alike, Prada's raffia woven brogue flatforms are now a scourge on our sidewalks. Personally, I've never really warmed to the flatform, preferring to either wear (call me old fashioned) flats or platforms. Even the miniature of Marc Jacobs at his own exhibition with Louis Vuitton features the designer sporting a pair. I feel a flatform intervention coming on...creep away, creep away (and take your little blue stripe with you please). </p><p></p><p>6) Side Plait<br>As much as it pains me to say it, its time to untwist your side plaits. While I still personally love a good braid, especially when one does not have time to wash one's hair between fashion partying straight into one's 9AM show, we're now coming up on year two of the trend and I find myself drawn to sleeker pony tails than braids these days. </p><p></p><p> 7) Celine Luggage Totes<br>Some of you may try to hack my site for this one, but I do think the Celine luggage tote could benefit from a short bow out. Celine is like crack for street stylers and over the seasons, editors, bloggers, buyers and models off duty have discovered that a Luggage Tote in any size, shape or color will land you on someone "Best of Fashion Week X" list. So what began as a sort of 21st century edition of a Birkin-status bag, that is to say, heirloomable bags so expensive and so exclusive they can only be obtained by long waiting list, now feels over saturated. I'm not saying the loose the Luggage indefinitely, just check them into the baggage hold for a season or two. </p><p></p><p> 8) Valentino's Studded Patent T-bar Pumps<br>Somewhere on the road, I overheard someone say that you can tell who's having a moment by the footwear most spotted during fashion month, a useful line of reasoning which I filed away til now. Following this logic, the designer of this season would have to be Valentino, because his studded t-bar pumps were spotted on some of the most stylish feet from New York to Paris, so much so that I'd say they're on the cusp of overexposure. That is to really say, fine for February, stash away for September. </p><p></p><p>9) Le Petit 2.55<br>I still kind of want one, but I will hold back as long as I can. These pocket-sized Chanel 2.55's have been cropping up on all sorts of arms this season, and I can totally see why. They're cute, collectable and CHANEL (not to mention their quaint jersey quilt costs the same as a pocket of a regular leather sized 2.55). On some refined editors, the little 2.55 was a new variant on a classic accessory of which you know they have the better part of an army stashed away at home. On others, it screamed: "I Chanel because I can." And that's not a covetable label for anyone. </p><p></p><p>10) Novelty Cameras<br>Thanks to folk like Lomography and retailers like Urban Outfitters, novelty cameras and things to put on your camera have become the kitsch must have of bloggers worldwide. However, having tried very unsuccessfully to wrangle one myself, I can confirm that they are not the handiest of things for having with you at shows, and you wind up posing more with it than you do behind it. My fashion week camera philosophy is thus: if it doesn't improve your image quality, do you really need it? The same goes for "cute" camera cases and things resembling necklaces supplementing for camera straps.</p> <p>Follow Kristin Knox on Twitter:</p>?<p>Warning: 's new fragrance commercial (er, "trailer") may not be safe for young'uns.</p><p>, a black eau de parfum called Fame, , filled with ebony liquid, crazy hats, nearly-naked men, some S&M touches and little people crawling all over Gaga's nude body (. While it's pretty terrifying as far as perfume commercials go, the whole thing is signature Gaga -- there's nothing here we haven't seen before. </p><p>Except that , which categorized it as "age-restricted based on our Community Guidelines." When clicking to watch the clip, you'll be met by a warning that reads:</p><p>"This content may contain material flagged by YouTube's user community that may be inappropriate for some users."</p><p>Only by clicking "I understand and wish to proceed" may you surrender yourself to Gaga's wacky, liquified, latex-coated world for 34 disconcerting seconds. We can't identify what in particular has tipped off YouTube's censors -- see if you can tell from the video, above.</p><p>In other Lady Gaga news, the singer drew some ire for . To add to the effect, she was also carrying a furry puppy. , firing off a letter deeming Gaga "a target just like the mindless Kim Kardashian" for wearing the animal coat. </p><p>At least they'll be pleased to see Gaga in her new video, where she wears latex and, well, not much else. </p><p>Check out the clip -- do you find it super creepy or cool?</p><p>Check out more celebs with (much less scary) fragrances:<br></p><p>Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on , , and .</p>?<p>Chicago-area monsters, rejoice: Lady Gaga's first signature fragrance, , a week before its nationwide release Aug. 22, according to Red Eye Chicago.</p><p>The fragrance, developed by Paris-based Haus Laboratories, is described as a spicy floral, with , according to the Macy's website, a noted improvement to A 3.4 oz bottle will set you back $79.</p><p>The singer has been touting the fragrance as the "First Ever Black Eau de Parfum," and .</p><p>Photo by STEVEN KLEIN. The First Ever Black Eau de Parfum. Model: Lady Gaga. </p>? Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) <p></p><p>Gaga has been showing a lot of love to Chicago lately, likely due to her beau Taylor Kinney's stint in town filming NBC's "Chicago Fire."</p><p>Check out more stars with fragrances!<br></p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p>?<p>Hillary Clinton is a woman of stupendous intellect. She's a political leviathan. But is she a woman of taste? </p><p>For her "campaign song," a tune that presumably defines the tone and intent of the campaign, This is the song that's supposed to make me want to rally the troops in support of our first female president? Are you kidding me? I have so many problems with this song I don't even know where to start. But here are a few of my gripes: </p><p>1. Hillary has struggled to prove to America that she's authentic and relatable. She decided to choose a campaign song that would help her seem more authentic, more in touch with the populace, more cool. And so she selected a song by Celine Dion, one of the most inauthentic, least cool musicians on the market. Celine is soppy and emotional. She's all about Las Vegas, and crocodile tears, and forced glamour, and cheesiness. She's despised by young (and young-ish) people everywhere. Personally, I cannot listen to even three seconds of any Celine Dion song without wanting to bash my head against the wall. I know that Celine has many ardent fans. But are any of them under the age of 30? To the MTV generation (and let's face it, Hillary needs those votes), Celine is as unacceptable as they come. Hillary's "cool" factor just hit rock bottom. </p><p>2. Hillary Clinton is running for president of the United States. Celine is Canadian. A great number of my favorite musicians are Canadian. But I don't think it's a stretch to imagine that a presidential candidate might choose a patriotic song written by an American to represent her campaign. I mean, come on, the song was originally written as a jingle for Air Canada. </p><p>3. In his campaign, Bill Clinton used "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac, a song about change and optimism. "You and I" is a love song: "Brighter than the sun and darker than the night I can see your love shining like a light." , you might just retch. If I were Hillary, which, clearly, I am not, I would have tried to choose a song that proved I could hang with the boys -- maybe something by Bruce Springsteen, U2, or the Rolling Stones. If Hillary really wanted to use a song by a woman, she could've chosen an edgier artist like Sheryl Crow, KT Tunstall, or the Dixie Chicks. Celine Dion will hardly make Hillary look tough. Or cool. Or in touch with the populace. Or fun. Or authentic. </p><p>Call me crazy, but I expect my president to be a person of intellect, compassion, strength, AND taste. And when I say "taste," I'm not talking about having fabulous clothes and a slick car. I'm talking about presenting oneself in a manner that shows sophistication. Perhaps in some circles Celine Dion is considered sophisticated; but the under-40 generation does not travel in those circles. </p>?<p>Le celebre restaurant de viandes fumees, Schwartz's, situe au centre-ville de Montreal sur le boulevard Saint-Laurent, aurait ete vendu au debut du mois de janvier pour la coquette somme de 10 millions de dollars. Un des futurs proprietaires serait nul autre que Rene Angelil, le gerant et mari de la chanteuse Celine Dion.<br> <br>Selon les informations obtenues par Le Huffington Post, la transaction aurait ete effectuee autour du 7 janvier, date a laquelle l’ancien proprietaire, Hy Diamond, aurait achemine une demande de dissolution de son entreprise aupres du Registre des entreprises du Quebec. La vente du restaurant aurait ete motivee par un desir de passer le flambeau, selon plusieurs sources.<br> <br>Il semble que plusieurs investisseurs auraient montre de l’interet pour acquerir le populaire restaurant de smoked meat. Or, tres peu de gens se sont montres prets a debourser une somme aussi importante, mentionne une source fiable.<br> <br>Selon d’autres sources, le restaurant serait desormais propriete d’un groupe d’investisseurs. Dans le groupe, deux noms circulent dont celui de Rene Angelil et de Paul Sara (cousin de Rene Angelil). Le tandem Rene Angelil et Paul Sara a deja tente l’aventure de la restauration sous la banniere Nickels dans les annees 1990.<br> <br>Des employes fideles<br> <br>Les employes du celebre restaurant se sont montres muets au sujet du changement d’administration. lls ont dit avoir eu l’ordre d’eviter de repondre aux questions. ≪ On sait qu’il y a eu vente, mais on nous a demande de ne pas commenter la question≫, a indique le gerant de jour, visiblement inconfortable.<br> <br>D’autres serveurs se sont montre indifferents a l'egard des nouveaux proprietaires de chez Schwartz's. ≪Nos clients sont notre seule priorite, bien avant de savoir qui est le proprietaire≫, a lance l’un d’eux, sourire en coin.<br> <br>M. Diamond etait absent du restaurant lors de notre passage pour repondre aux questions entourant la vente de son restaurant.</p>En photos : <br>?<p>US Weekly fans are familiar with the weekly "What's in My Bag?" style and beauty feature, in which readers gain an insider's peek at celeb's purses. One week we might learn that carries a Miu Miu wallet, an apple, blush and a Blow Pop. has apparently mastered the Walk of Shame with her Hanky Panky Low-Rise Thong, toothbrush and sunglasses in her $3400 Celine Classic Box Bag. </p><p>Um, you know what's in my purse? An overstuffed wallet that would put George Costanza to shame, Burt's Bees cuticle cream that has never once actually worked, and an assortment of random M&Ms, Sour Patch Kids and shards of gum floating around like the world's least sanitary candy store.</p><p>I thought it would be interesting to peer inside the bag of someone more relatable than a wealthy actress, but more interesting (and sanitary) than me. Enter Amanda Beard: Olympic medalist, swimming phenom, new mom. What does she lug around in her gym bag? She gave me the scoop:<br> <br>The bag: backpack (in black and blue). "It's stylish with loads of pockets and hidden spaces for my most important things." </p><p>The flipflops: in pink and blue. </p><p>The 'poo: Bumble and Bumble shampoo and conditioner (moisturizing creme de coco to help combat the drying chlorine).</p><p>The snacks: Beard replenishes with a banana, a bag of fresh berries, and Horizon organic chocolate milk.</p><p>The makeup: "With my sport, I am outside and in the water, which can be really drying and damaging to the skin, so I try to be vigilant about taking good care of it. I protect my skin with sunscreen and am religious about keeping my face moisturized and properly protected all day, so I also use a face lotion with SPF 30." , which she actually helped design; Maybelline waterproof mascara; her favorite fragrance, body spray by Calypso; Mission Sunscreen SPF 70 and SPF 30 face lotion; Bath & Body Works hand lotion with sanitizer. <br> <br>The protection: This surprised me -- Amanda forgoes tampons and uses menstrual cups. "I can wear them longer than tampons (up to 12 hours), and they provide great protection, even while doing rigorous activities such as swimming. Softcups work by collecting rather than absorbing the fluid, so I don't even know I'm wearing it. I want to stay focused on the task at hand." </p><p>The motivation: A photo of her son, , on her iPhone, which she also uses to listen to her favorite tunes.</p><p>How does your bag compare to Beard's?</p> <p>Follow Leslie Goldman on Twitter:</p>?<p>Lin Yu Chun, the Taiwanese man , has been voted off of the talent show that made him famous.</p><p>The 24-year-old had attempted to woo the judges with a song in Mandarin after choosing Western songs such as 'I Will Always Love You' by Whitney Houston. </p><p>However, his plan backfired.</p><p>"You rarely hit a wrong note. But you did today. What's wrong with you?" one</p><p>Mr Lin's agent, Stella Teng, said that Lin is keeping a positive outlook, with reports that he is in <br>"He feels that success cannot possibly come without failure."</p> <br>?<p>Well, she's definitely had enough practice getting dressed for court.</p><p>After some real style missteps like that and , it seems Lindsay Lohan's finally hit her stride when it comes to courtroom style. The been on an upward tick lately, with that earlier this month and the back in October.</p><p>But today's hearing might have been the occasion for Lilo's best courtroom look yet. Clad in an ivory Celine cardigan, matching Prada trousers, sunglasses and neutral pumps by Versace, Lindsay sped her way past photographers in Los Angeles this morning and into her hearing. Her punchy accessory? A Dior leopard print handbag, which added just the right zing.</p><p>And Linds' sartorial smash must have earned her some good karma in the courtroom: the judge praised her for completing her community service (at the morgue!) and for attending her required therapy sessions, </p><p>Linds is due back in court next month; here's hoping she keeps up the good work (and style).</p><p>Check out photos below.</p><p><br></p> <br>?<p>Text By JENNY BARCHFIELD, Associated Press </p><p>PARIS - After redefining the way women dress, Phoebe Philo -- Celine designer and purveyor of the new minimalism that has taken catwalks and Main Street by storm -- is aiming to redefine the values of the luxury industry.</p><p>Many of the supple silks and cotton fabrics that made up her clean-lined spring-summer 2011 ready-to-wear collection Sunday were sourced from small mills in Japan and elsewhere that craft material by hand the old way. She acknowledged that working with such small providers can prove more complicated than going through the large-scale European mills that luxury labels like Celine would normally use, but said "if you want it, anything is possible."</p><p></p><p>"It's slower because of the distance, but I just thought it was really important we stepped out of the European industrialized universe ... (to get) back to basics," Philo told The Associated Press in a backstage interview.</p><p>Her third collection for Celine since returning to fashion after a yearslong hiatus continued in the minimalist vein that has become her trademark, but softened it with some ethnic touches.<br>And as if Celine didn't have enough to offer the working women of the world, Akris gave professional ladies even more to choose from with a collection of boardroom-ready looks that were just chic enough.</p><p>Givenchy delved into the dark side with a dramatic, S&M-soaked collection, while John Galliano continued to churn out the magpie looks that are unmistakably his. Galliano's show was staged in a gilded Paris theater, and being in the audience there was like watching a lush and elaborate pantomime with the world' biggest costume budget.</p><p>Emerging young French talent Alexis Mabille sent out a collection of pretty tan and gray sundresses with full skirted shapes that seemed to be surfing on the "Mad Men" craze. Mabille's signature touch, pretty bows, lent the dresses and extra dose of polished sixties-era femininity.</p><p>Still, perhaps because it stuck so close to the white and neutral palette favored by Paris designers this season, the collection blended with dozens of others that fashion insiders have sat through over the past five days. A solid, if perhaps a tad unremarkable, effort from Mabille.</p><p>After long day's worth of shows, much of the fashion crowd hit Italian label Fendi's party, where legedary eighties band Duran Duran was scheduled to play a set.</p><p>On Monday, the City of Light's nine-day-long ready-to-wear marathon moves into day seven with one of the week's big question marks, British designer Giles Deacon's debut collection storied-but-floundering house Emanuel Ungaro. Deacon is the latest in a long series of designers to try to reverse Ungaro's fortunes, and his arrival came on the heels of the house's disastrous collaboration with Lindsay Lohan -- all of which has, of couse, piqued the fashion world's interest.</p><p>CELINE</p><p>Celine designer Philo won a cult following during her time at the label's crosstown rival, Chloe, and her return to fashion touched off the new minimalist movement that's swept catwalks worldwide and spawned countless imitations. With Sunday's collection, the British-born designer continued to refine her pared-down aesthetic, sending out square-shaped blouses in leather and low-slung, wide-legged trousers.</p><p>A kaftan that appeared to have been made from a starched white menswear shirt and a nubby, pointy-hooded robe-dress had a rugged Berber feel, while a quilted vest seemed to look to the Mongolian highlands for inspiration.</p><p>Philo said the collection was her way of stepping back from the industrialized, urban fray.<br>"There was an idea of travel, nothing specific about a country or a place, but a feeling of getting away from urban and getting back to a kind of artisan's way of working," she told The Associated Press in a backstage interview, adding that many of the fabrics were sourced from small producers in Japan and elsewhere.</p><p>While white -- the shade of choice across Paris' catwalks -- and other neutrals dominated Philo's palette, there were also touches of bold color, like a sapphire blouse paired with a leather wrap skirt in rich Bordeaux or shirts in fluttering silk that Philo said drew its inspiration from scarves.</p><p>It was another strong collection from a designer who has established herself as a fashion force to be reckoned with. No doubt we'll be seeing more variations on the theme on other catwalks and on the high street.</p><p>GIVENCHY</p><p>Riccardo Tisci is back in touch with his Id.</p><p>After taking a foray into exoticism -- with collections influenced by the traditional garb of the Arab world -- the king of S&M has reconnected with his darker side, sending out a leather-strap-bound collection for next summer.</p><p>Backless vests in leopard-embossed jacquard fastened around the neck and across the back with stud-encrusted straps in black leather. The vests, and boxy shaped sleeveless jackets with tails, were paired with abbreviated skirts layered under long, featherlight skirts in translucent silk. Zippers with sharp metal teeth often replaced seems, adorning the hem and sleeve-lines or forming shiny crosses across the backs of the jackets.</p><p>"It was like spiritual desolation with a chance of redemption," said David Mignon, a Paris-based photographer and painter. "Just a sliver of a chance of redemption."</p><p>That seemed an accurate assessment: Tisci, an Italian whose Catholic roots run deep, has often acknowledged the role religion plays in his work, and there was something about the contrast between the looks' hardcore leather and the gauzy cocoon of silk that suggested a soul in spiritual torment.</p><p>Tisci's dark but beautiful aesthetic has won him a cult following not only among the legions of hip young women who covet his collections, but also among his peers. Designers Alexander Wang and Pucci's Peter Dundas were on hand for Sunday's show -- as was rocker Courtney Love.</p><p>Asked whether the collection's S&M vibe appealed to her, Love said "I didn't see it like that at all. To me it was just really beautiful. Maybe I've been in rock 'n' roll too long."</p><p>JOHN GALLIANO</p><p>The inspiration behind the collection might have been a complicated one -- according to the notes, it was something about a real-life con artist from the 1920s who scammed scores of legendary painters -- but the clothes looked more or less the same as usual. Which, when your name is John Galliano, is not a bad thing.</p><p>The British designer sent out fetching variations on his hallmark baroque, layered silhouette: Cropped trench coats cinched tight at the waist were worn over billowy harem pants in Japanese prints or multitiered chiffon skirts.</p><p>The models were all styled differently -- in an apparent nod to the chameleonic appearance of the show's inspiration, con artist Maria Lani, who, again according to the collection notes, "convinced over 50 leading artists of the day (including Matisse, Chagall and de Chirico) to paint her portrait" before fleeing Europe with the paintings. Some wore bird's nest wigs in what looked like cotton candy, while others had tight pigtails or slick gold-glitter dusted up 'dos.</p><p>Held in Paris' gilded Opera Comique, the show had even more theatrical flair than usual, with models striking exaggerated poses as they slowly meandered the mirrored catwalk.<br>Like other Paris shows that have cast novelty models to walk with the with the usual pack of size zero teens, Galliano had one older woman, a blond with a beautiful, finely lined face.</p><p>AKRIS</p><p>Reliable as a fine Swiss watch, the St. Gallen, Switzerland-based house can always be counted on to deliver the kind of workaday staples professional women crave, and Sunday's clean-lined collection was no exception.</p><p>Between the no-frills shirtdresses in starched white poplin and the sharp pantsuits that were just fashion forward enough, there was plenty for the corporate woman to choose from. The A-line dresses and billowing skirts with jagged, asymmetrical hemlines in a greenhouse of saturated flower prints added a touch of drama to the otherwise serene collection.</p><p>The only flaw was the shoes, towering wedges with a footbed that curved downward, like a black diamond ski slope. Both bizarre and torturous-looking, they stand little chance of making it into the corporate boardrooms that are the natural habitat of the rest of the collection.</p> <br>?<p>WASHINGTON -- The Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, deftly using humor and Bill Clinton, produced to mark the unveiling of -- "You and I" by Celine Dion.</p><p>The video starts with Hillary Clinton sitting alone in a booth in a diner. The campaign told me it's a place in Westchester.</p><p>She's looking at the Seeburg juke selections when Bill Clinton walks in. "I ordered for the table," she said as they make chit chat. Bill Clinton looks dismayed when an order of -- sliced carrots is delivered. The answer to "where's Chelsea?" is a scene of a car being parked -- a teaser of the day when the so-far under wraps daughter plunges into the campaign.</p><p>As Bill Clinton asks how the campaign is going, a man walks by and gives them a look. That's Vince Curatola, who played New York mob boss Johnny "Sack" Sacramoni in the HBO series. And then the video goes to dark -- just like the show.</p><p>To continue, go .</p>?<p>The Super Bowl is still a few days away, but speculation among fans over just about every aspect of Madonna's highly-anticipated halftime performance -- from she'll perform to the onstage to the exact shade of lip gloss she'll wear -- is at fever pitch. </p><p>Of course, not everyone is thrilled about the choice of the Material Girl. Fellow icon Elton John just his long-standing feud with Madge (offering his sniffy advice to "lip-sync good") and a quick search on Twitter will uncover any number of horrifically sexist and ageist remarks. </p><p>Still, she seems to have found favor among fellow female stars -- Britney Spears, Kim Kardashian and Celine Dion are among those who've voiced their support, on Twitter or elsewhere. </p><p>Take a look below: </p><p></p> <br>?<p></p><p>MONTREAL - A 36-year-old man has been charged after he allegedly broke into Celine Dion's home near Montreal, raided the fridge and even took the time to pour himself a bath.</p><p>He was nabbed by Laval police on Monday afternoon after the alarm system went off.</p><p>The international superstar and her husband, Rene Angelil, were not at home at the time. Dion and Angelil usually live in Florida but use the Laval residence when they come home to Quebec.</p><p>Laval police spokesman Franco Di Genova says the suspect was getting ready to take a nice hot bath when police arrived with the K-9 unit.</p><p>"He opened the water faucets, was pouring a nice warmish bath (and) he even managed to eat some pastry that was in the fridge," Di Genova said.</p><p>It was first reported that the man helped himself to some cakes.</p><p>Di Genova says Laval police worked their way through the house, starting with the basement and finally confronted the man on the main floor.</p><p>"The suspect was coming down the big staircase and was asking: Hey, guys what are you doing here?'," Di Genova said.</p><p>"So the officers replied: 'What are you doing here?' and they proceeded to put him under arrest."</p><p>Di Genova says the man had initially jumped a fence and tried to get into the home by opening a door, but that didn't work.</p><p>"Then he saw one of Rene's vehicles that was there and unfortunately the doors were not locked, the keys were in the ignition and there was also a garage door opener," he said.</p><p>Di Genova says the intruder then used the garage door opener to gain access to the luxury residence.</p><p>Daniel Bedard, a Laval resident, was arraigned Tuesday on charges including break and enter, auto theft and causing property damage. He will return Nov. 21.</p><p>Police say they found various stickers around the house. They had times and the names of people on them but the notes were not threatening.</p><p>Di Genova says there was a similar break-in at the mansion in 2009.</p><p>In that incident, a man also jumped the fence and was able to make his way to the front door.</p><p>But the suspect was stopped by the security firm that was keeping an eye on the property.</p><p>He was not the same person who was arrested by police on Monday.</p> <br>?<p>A Kent man who made his neighbours' lives a misery by repeatedly blasting out power ballads - by the likes of (pictured), and - has had his stereo confiscated by council officials.</p><p>Mark Sigston, 31, appeared in court yesterday, following a string of complaints from neighbours, the .</p><p>Despite repeated visits from Environmental Protection officers earlier in the year, Sigston had failed to keep the noise down and continued to crank up tunes such as , and .</p><p>He initially had his stereo equipment confiscated in May, but council officials were obliged to return it by July. However, having continued to ignore the noise abatement order, Sigston has now had his CD players, mixers, amplifier and speakers taken away for good. He also received a conditional discharge for 12 months. </p><p>Now, as much as the next run-of-the-mill music fan - but there are limits. </p><p>So will he shut up and stop holding noisy parties now? It's hard to be sure. Sometimes he feels so insecure. And love so distant and obscure remains the cure... </p><p>Right, let's move on and have a look at some amusing mugshots, shall we?</p>?<p>MyDaily:</p><p>Following initial rumours that Marc Jacobs is set to replace John Galliano as the creative director of Christian Dior, it's now reported that Celine's Phoebe Philo is set to replace Jacobs as creative director of Louis Vuitton. </p><p></p> <br>?<p>Sure, . But it also had contestants as unlikely as Alexander Wang, Christian Lacriox and Keren Craig of Marchesa thrown into the mix, not to mention the much more likely Riccardo Tisci.</p><p>Now, , it's time to take the Marc Jacobs speculation seriously.</p><p>"According to sources," writes the ever-reliable fashion newspaper, , currently designer for two eponymous lines as well as Louis Vuitton, about filling the top spot at Christian Dior. </p><p>The Dior creative director position has sat empty since , who was shamed by a series of .</p><p>The question of who will take the top job at Dior has remained since Galliano's ousting. But WWD writes that from LVMH, the luxury conglomerate that owns the Christian Dior label as well as Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs and a host of other top brands, and Jacobs' legal representatives are set to take place this week in Paris.</p><p>Should Jacobs head to Dior, WWD added, with designer Phoebe Philo potentially filling the vacancy. Philo is currently creative director of Celine, also a LVMH-owned name. </p><p>According to the newspaper, neither Christian Dior nor Marc Jacobs could be reached for comments -- so this is by no means a confirmed report. But news originating from WWD is seen as highly trustworthy within the fashion industry, as opposed to other news sources around the blogosphere.</p><p>In July, rumors that Arnault and Jacobs were in talks over the Dior job , which quoted an unnamed source as saying, "The two have met often in recent weeks to discuss the matter." </p><p>The bomb spread slowly but steadily throughout the blogosphere in July and August. On August 6, blogger , "what are all these tweets about marc jacobs for dior? did i miss anything?" </p><p>On August 11, a site called Catwalk Queen picked up the rumor, causing sources such as and to speculate as well. </p><p>Now WWD gives the gossip some veracity by writing Monday morning, "One source cautioned that a deal with Jacobs is not assured, but that the American designer and Dior management are so far 'excited' about the prospect."</p><p>Stay tuned for confirmations from Jacobs or Arnault themselves, without which the rumors will likely remain just that -- rumors. </p><p>.</p> <br>?<p>By guest blogger Mark A. Moyad, MD, MPH</p><p>"We cannot be content to see men hungry, to see men victimized with starvation and ill health when we have the means to help them... All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent." --Excerpt from the December 11, 1964, Nobel Prize acceptance speech of then 35-year-old Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.</p><p>A good physician-surgeon friend of mine, Henri P. Lanctin, MD, is the vice president of , and he travels to Haiti every three months to perform surgery on children and adults at no charge, as well as to teach Haitian healthcare professionals the latest lifesaving medical techniques. Project Haiti has been around since 1982 and its administrative costs are less than 1 percent because its workers volunteer their time and pay out of their own pockets to help others. Their selflessness blows me away.</p><p>Recently, Dr. Lanctin was in Pignon, Haiti, and on his last day there he came upon a small boy, only 12 years old, who had just been brought into the hospital. The boy's name is Celine, and while he was cooking for his siblings using kerosene--as most Haitians do not have any electricity--an accident resulted in third-degree burns covering his entire upper body and his face.</p><p>There is an effort under way to get Celine to a hospital in the U.S. for care, and it appears that he may end up at the in Boston some time in the next six weeks (it takes that long to get a sick child out of the country for help). Many people have donated money to help get him and his mother to and from Haiti, and give them some financial assistance while they are in Boston. In the meantime, he needs constant medical attention, which he's getting in Haiti. He also needs supplemental protein, vitamins, and minerals to keep up his strength.</p><p>When Dr. Lanctin told us this story, my wife and I were so inspired by all of the random acts of kindness to help Celine and his family that we wanted to do our part. So I called some acquaintances in the supplements industry, and they did not hesitate when I asked for an unlimited supply of vitamins for Celine. Another amazing act of kindness.</p><p>I'm telling you this story because through this terrible tale of suffering and kindness, I have come to a realization that I want to share: Being a doctor, I travel around talking about how people can stay healthy, and which health screenings people should and should not receive based their age or their illness; however, there is one area of health screening that often gets missed or completely overlooked, and that is spiritual health. I know, you're thinking, that's what religion and church are for. But sometimes, even the most faithful of us, forget that it is our responsibility to act for others, without wanting recognition or reciprocity for our good deeds.</p><p>So, I believe we need to establish a Spiritual Health Screening Test. What is a spiritual health screening test? It's simple. You ask yourself: Am I doing things for others on a regular basis to help make the world a better place? This could mean giving blood, signing up for organ donation, volunteering your time, reading to someone, donating clothing or money, anything you can do regularly to help those in need. If you can honestly answer yes, then you are in good shape. Clinical research has now clearly shown that when we volunteer our time to help others, we can profoundly improve our own mental and physical health. In other words, selfless acts of kindness have actually been found to improve the health of the giver as well as the receiver. (OK, so maybe there's a little reciprocity after all.) If, however, when you ask yourself the screening question, the answer is no, then take two minutes to help someone in need, and call me in the morning. But seriously, find a small way to contribute to those in need. Drop some change in the Salvation Army bucket, wrap some presents and drop them off at a children's hospital or orphanage, write a letter to an active military member who is overseas, or simply call someone you know who might be lonely this time of year.</p><p>Since talking with Dr. Lanctin about his work in Haiti, my wife (who is an amazing social worker) and I have decided to accompany him and his team in 2012 to work at the local hospital and orphanage. And it's amazing to me that every time I am challenged by others (Thank you, Dr. Lanctin!) to think about how often I use my time to help those in need, it helps me become a better version of myself. And the ripple effect of that is that I can help change someone else's life for the better. So, I'd like to challenge you all to give yourself a Spiritual Health Screening, and see how many lives you can change.</p><p>If you would like to donate to help Celine and his family, or others like them in Haiti, go to or . And to find other top-rated charities go to .</p><p><br><br>Dr. Moyad lives in Ann Arbor, MI, with his wife, Mia, and their dog, Chauncey.</p><p><br><br><br>For more from Maria Rodale, go to </p> <p>Follow Maria Rodale on Twitter:</p>?<p>Mariah Carey has reportedly called in the help of extra bodyguards after Nicki Minaj apparently made threats to her on American Idol.</p><p>Things started to get out of control when the pair was arguing over a contestant, with third judge Keith Urban left stuck sitting literally in the middle of the pair as he tried to calm the situation down.</p><p>It was claimed that Nicki made comments to production staff stating that if she had a gun she would shoot Mariah.</p><p>The situation got fired up further when Mariah's pal Barbara Walters said on TV that Mariah was trying to protect her twins and felt that the Starships singer's behaviour was "unpredictable".</p><p>However, Nicki was quick to hit back at Mariah on her Twitter, stating that despite the number of cameras and microphones on the pair at the time, there was no evidence that she made the comment.</p><p>She added: "I guess it hurts to have the producers tell you to your face that Nicki is the best judge we've had since Simon."</p><p>Ouch - hopefully the pair can get over their spat and get back to the task at hand of picking finalists for the latest series of the talent show.</p>?<p>Mariah Carey will join American Idol as a judge next season, Fox announced, bringing her star power to the show that remains a ratings leader but has seen its viewership and pop culture status diminish.</p><p>"I am so excited to be joining Idol," said Mariah, addressing the Television Critics Association via Fox entertainment chief Kevin Reilly's mobile phone, which he put on speaker-phone for the hotel ballroom meeting.</p><p>She could not be on hand with the group because "this kind of all just happened really quickly", Mariah said in her brief remarks. "I can't wait to get started in the fall (autumn) ... and I will see you in January."</p><p>The show, which saw judges Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez exit at the end of last season, will be back on the air for season 12 in January.</p><p><br>Mariah with her husband, Nick Cannon, host of his America's Got Talent on NBC.</p><p>Reilly called Mariah "the biggest recording artist that any of these (talent) shows has ever had", adding that she was the "artist that many of these contestants have tried to emulate, have tried some of the songs, have tried to hit the notes".</p><p>Playing the drama up, Reilly placed a call to Mariah and put her on speaker. "Hi Mariah. How are you? It's Kevin," he said. "We do have the deal, don't we?" Mariah replied: "Yes!"</p><p>Reilly said he was "thrilled" to confirm reports that the singer was being courted by Fox and said the deal was freshly signed within the last few hours. The Grammy-winning pop star is receiving just shy of 18 million dollars (£11.6 million) a year for a one-year contract with a renewal option, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.</p><p>The exit of Tyler and J-Lo left original judge Randy Jackson and started a guessing game about potential replacements, with Mariah at the top of the list.</p><p>As one of music's best-selling singers, she could provide the clout American Idol needs to compete in an increasingly crowded talent show field. Besides Fox sibling The X Factor, which recently added Britney Spears and Demi Lovato as judges, there's NBC's The Voice, which boasts Christina Aguilera among its big names.</p><p>Simon Cowell, the former American Idol judge who adapted his UK hit The X Factor for Fox, was asked about Mariah's new gig at a critics' session. "I'm happy for her, actually. I like Mariah. I think she's going to find it difficult to say no. You've got to say no to people and she's sweet," he said, then quickly backtracked, adding, "No, I think she'll be great." Simon had reason to be diplomatic: Mariah's husband, Nick Cannon, is host of his America's Got Talent on NBC.</p><p></p>?<p>There's a massive billboard in the Bank underground of that kid who played Gilbert Grape lovingly looking into the eyes of the naughty nun from The Extras. Which can only mean one thing; Celine Dion is looking good for some royalties.</p><p>As the Queen drops 20 quid into a card marking the Titanic's 100 years, James Cameron's epic is flooding back into theatres for a whole new generation of enjoy.</p><p>Ah. But here be a problem. (Why has no one done a pirate parody of Titanic?)</p><p>Today's youth, with their penchant for sodomising the English language into single syllables, acronyms and initialisms, doesn't want to spend three hours waiting for the boat to sink (even if Kate Winslet's necklace is in 3D).</p><p>So it got me thinking; what would the story have been like on Twitter?<br><br>Jack Dawson @Growing_Pains<br>Pfft Queens. Full house FTW! #comingtoamerica</p><p>Tommy Ryan @I_heart_Spaghetti<br>My meatballs are tingling! #comingtoamerica</p><p>Eddie Murphy @delirious<br>Those were the days #comingtoamerica</p><p>Jack Dawson @Growing_Pains<br>Haha. What happened to you, man? LOL RT: @delirious Those were the days #comingtoamerica </p><p><br>Rose DeWitt Bukater @DoubleD_Witt<br>Hmmm, I don't think the Titanic has enough lifeboats if it randomly hits something in the ocean and begins to sink</p><p>Cal Hockley @The¬_Phantom<br>@DoubleD_Witt This is why women aren't allowed to learn long division #menwhodrinkbrandyareawesome</p><p>Bruce Ismay @Heres_to_the_men<br>@The_Phantom Here Here! Moustache! Fiduciary! Testicles! #menwhodrinkbrandyareawesome </p><p>Thomas Andrews @Just_shippin<br>@DoubleD_Witt Whatevs. I have blueprints. If you were a man, you'd know nothing goes wrong when you have blueprints<br> <br>Rose DeWitt Bukater @DoubleD_Witt<br>@Just_shippin But what about a head on collision?</p><p>Thomas Andrews @Just_shippin<br>LMFAO RT: @Just_shippin But what about a head on collision?</p><p>Cal Hockley @The¬_Phantom<br>@Just_shippin I here ya barking big dog #menwhodrinkbrandyareawesome</p><p>Bruce Ismay @Heres_to_the_men<br>@Just_shippin @The_Phantom Our chromosomes will protect us! #menwhodrinkbrandyareawesome</p><p>Rose DeWitt Bukater @DoubleD_Witt <br>@Just_shippin What about from the side?</p><p>Thomas Andrews @Just_shippin<br>@ DoubleD_Witt Hahahahahaha Whatevs.</p><p></p><p>Jack Dawson @Growing_Pains<br>I'm the king of the world! #onaboatlikeleo</p><p>Rose DeWitt Bukater @DoubleD_Witt <br>This boat is shit. </p><p>Thomas Andrews @Just_shippin<br>@DoubleD_Witt YOU ARE! #LegaliseMarriageToAquaticMachinery</p><p>Jack Dawson @Growing_Pains<br>Just saved a hottie from going over board. Thinking I might take her below deck. If you know what I mean.</p><p>Tommy Ryan @I_heart_Spaghetti<br>@Growing_Pains Immigrant 'so you think you can dance'? Is that what you mean?</p><p>Jack Dawson @Growing_Pains<br>@I_heart_Spaghetti LOL yeah, sure #nothingcouldtearusapart</p><p><br>Rose DeWitt Bukater @DoubleD_Witt<br>@Growing_Pains Draw me like I'm French</p><p>James Cameron @3D3D3D3D3D3D<br>@DoubleD_Witt Jesus CUT! It's 'DRAW ME LIKE ONE OF YOUR FRENCH GIRLS'<br>Rose getting her lines right #unobtanium</p><p>Jack Dawson @Growing_Pains<br>@3D3D3D3D3D3D unobtanium? Now your just making stuff up.</p><p>Rose DeWitt Bukater @DoubleD_Witt<br>@Growing_Pains Pencil me like France</p><p>James Cameron @3D3D3D3D3D3D<br>@DoubleD_Witt Are you kidding me? #shoudhavegotsigourney</p><p>Jack Dawson @Growing_Pains<br>@DoubleD_Witt I'm thinking mixed-media impressionist potato stamping</p><p>Rose DeWitt Bukater @DoubleD_Witt<br>@Growing_Pains Draw me like one of your French girls #dontfearthebush</p><p>James Cameron @3D3D3D3D3D3D <br>@DoubleD_Witt Farking Finally!<br> <br>Jack Dawson @Growing_Pains<br>Oh snap. I see London, I see France! Those are niiiiiiiiccce. http://tinyurl.com/7nzefe5</p><p>Cal Hockley @The¬_Phantom<br>@DoubleD_Witt WTF? http://tinyurl.com/7nzefe5</p><p>Rose DeWitt Bukater @DoubleD_Witt<br>@The_Phantom Ummm, I've met someone soz</p><p>Cal Hockley @The¬_Phantom<br>@DoubleD_Witt if this has anything to do with the stain in my car, I'm not going to be happy</p><p>Jack Dawson @Growing_Pains <br>@The_Phantom haha sorry bro. </p><p><br>Federick Fleet @on_the_lookout<br>@ParisHilton Your video keeps me warm in the crows nest</p><p>Federick Fleet @on_the_lookout <br>The fuck is that?</p><p>First Officer William Murdoch @alwaysthebridesmaid<br>@on_the_lookout Cripes Fred, keep it wrapped would you?</p><p>Federick Fleet @on_the_lookout <br>@alwaysthebridesmaid Left! Turn left!</p><p>Derek Zoolander @orangemochafrappecino<br>@on_the_lookout If only...</p><p>Ice Berg @TheBigChill<br>Chillin like a villain</p><p>Titanic @UnsinkableMOFO <br>Ouch! WTF was that?</p><p>Ice Berg @TheBigChill<br>@UnsinkableMOFO Soz bro. You got heaps of lifeboats though, right?</p><p>Titanic @UnsinkableMOFO<br>@TheBigChill I knew that was gonna come up</p><p><br>Captain Edward John Smith @Down_with_the_ship<br>Scotch scotch scotch scotch scotch</p><p>Titanic @UnsinkableMOFO<br>I think I just threw my back out #snappedlikeatwig</p><p>James Cameron @3D3D3D3D3D3D<br>@UnsinkableMOFO Money shot! #bluealiens</p><p>Jack Dawson @Growing_Pains <br>@DoubleD_Witt Are you cold?</p><p>Rose DeWitt Bukater @DoubleD_Witt<br>@Growing_Pains Nah, not reals</p><p>Jack Dawson @Growing_Pains<br>@DoubleD_Witt Reckon I can get a spot on whatever you're floating on?<br> <br>Rose DeWitt Bukater @DoubleD_Witt<br>@Growing_Pains Don't forget me Rose</p><p>Jack Dawson @Growing_Pains<br>@DoubleD_Witt That's my line</p><p>Rose DeWitt Bukater @DoubleD_Witt<br>@Growing_Pains Jack, teach me how to swallow like a man</p><p>Jack Dawson @Growing_Pains<br>@DoubleD_Witt (inaudible drowning) #bitchesbecrazy</p><p><br>Celine Dion @lalalalalalala<br>My heart will gon ananananand oonnnnnnnnnn!</p><p>Terrence&Philip @ BarkBarkPurrPurr<br>@lalalalalalala STFU! You ruined Canada, uncle f*cker!</p><p>Pretty sure that's how it went. Could be different in 3D though.<br></p><p>Follow Matt Gray on Twitter:</p>?<p>Mia Michaels from "So You Think You Can Dance" has worked with everyone from Celine Dion to Madonna, and now the choreographer is teaching Tom Cruise some moves for the upcoming film "Rock of Ages."<br> <br>"It was crazy working with Catherine Zeta Jones and Tom Cruise on the film," Mia told me on the set of "New York Live." "Working with all of [the cast] -- especially Tom and Catherine Zeta -- changed my life. Tom really did, because he comes and he's not a dancer at all. But what affected me more than anything is the way he approaches his craft. And being in Hollywood, it's a hit or miss about seeing people that are really about the art. With him, he is relentless and you have to be right there with him." <br> <br>Mia says that Tom wasn't just interested in getting the moves right. She says he wants to master everything he chooses to do.<br> <br>"I love him," Mia gushed. "Tom would be with me for about four hours working, and then he would go to his vocal lessons and then guitar lessons. I mean, when he decided to take on Stacee Jaxx [his character in the film], he took him on."<br> <br>So I had to ask, can Tom dance now? "Yes, yes," said Mia. "He transformed himself, his body, his everything. He's a dancer, he's a singer, he's not only an amazing actor, but I will go so far as saying I believe he could be Oscar-winning for this role."</p><p></p><p>Check out other Celebrity Photos of the Week:<br><br></p>?<p>As the Miami Dolphins have sunk further and further into mediocrity, the franchise' fans have only gotten more creative (read: desperate). From to to , the collective need of the aqua and orange has never been more palpable, more earnest, more...like Leonardo DiCaprio freezing solid and sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic.</p><p>Yep. Three Dolphins fans hoping the Fins nab free agent quarterback Peyton Manning have both sincerely and hilariously yearning for Manning's career to go on in Miami. </p><p>[Watch the 110 percent effort above.]</p><p>"Every night in my dreams I see you, I feel you, hoping that the Dolphins you'll run," sings of Dolphins-flavored humor trio "" before launching into a tremulous reference to Manning's recent neck surgery:</p>Nerves! arm! however you are!<br>I believe that your career must go on<br>Matt Moore, we'll show him the door<br>And you'll heal and your career, your career will go on<br><p>Audibles at the line<br>A perfect pass to Harline<br>A draw to Regie Bush from shotgun<br>Luck was why they left you<br>Why Irsay he cut you<br>Circumstances so he moved on</p><p>Nerves! arm! however you are<br>We believe that your career should go on<br>No snow, your beachfront condo<br>You'll be here and your career, your career will go on and on</p><p>Finishing up with a motion to rename the Florida Turnpike to Peyton Way and a creepily whispered, "we love you," the absurd video aims to accomplish what fans don't trust the Miami front office to do: nab one of greatest quarterbacks of all time, papier-mache neck and all. </p><p>"I don't believe in them at all, and if they do pull it off it'll go horribly wrong," said Mayer, who took lyrics written by fellow fan and recorded them in his closet. Buddy added visuals, and the dreams of three young men took flight across the Internet. </p><p>"A decade plus of looking for the next Dan Marino more than fueled the lyrics," said Rizzmiggizz. "Peyton is exactly what we need... The Dolphins passed on Drew Brees due to health concerns; we can't take the same risk. In this NFL if you wanna be great, sometimes you must be bold."</p><p>Other times, of course, you've gotta be Celine Dion. Think , Manning? Doubtful. Just doubtful. </p> <br>?<p>My camera fell in the river just before this shoot at SXSW (yet still worked!), and someone tried to spit on us from the bridge above, but the folks with badges smiled and did not ticket us, and even the birds were quiet when gypsy-woman Kali Mutsa sang her songs to the stones and the water.</p><p>A self-invented daughter of sorts to the great Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo, aka Imma Sumack, Kali Mutsa is the alter-ego of Chilean soap-opera star Celine Reymond. </p><p><br></p><p>Orphaned at a young age, Kali wandering the world as a belly-dancer, until she was adopted by royalty. As a woman, she gave birth to several children -- one of whom, born with wings, and kidnapped by the circus, she sings an ode to on-cam. </p><p>Kali Mutsa is playing in NYC tonight as part of a particularly dynamite line-up, alongside , who are keeping a great music alive. The Grammy Awards' recent category kill-off shows how fully clued-out the NARAS, RIAA, et, al., are. <br><br>You can get information about tonight's show . I'll see you on the dancefloor, expect to get sweaty. </p><p>Thanks, as always, to the hard-working publicists, managers and artists (for this shoot, Monica Diaz, Ryan Dawes and Celine) who made my Under The Iron Bridge sessions at Austin so much damn fun. See you next year, if some marketing manager, or tool-of-a-producer for an advertainment monopoly doesn't steal my spot.</p><p><br></p>?<p></p><p>A Conversation with Richard Marx</p><p>Mike Ragogna: Richard, last year, you released a Christmas EP, but what else have you been up to recently?</p><p>Richard Marx: The Christmas EP obviously came out around Christmas time, so I was working on that for a few months prior. All in all it was pretty painless. It was just an EP, so it was only five songs, but we're going to do a whole album for Christmas 2012, which I'm going to be recording in about 10 days time around April. But this one was pretty painless, it was fun. I got to sing live with me in a booth in one room and the band and strings in their booths - very old school. I had a lot of fun.</p><p>MR: Recording everything live, old school.</p><p>RM: Right. Or as opposed to all of the vocals being sung by Justin Beiber, I sang these myself.</p><p>MR: (laughs) Can you tell us what inspires you as an artist?</p><p>RM: Well, my process has been the same for a long time. Unless I'm collaborating with someone and have set a specific time to write a song with someone, I write alone and there is no set time or organization about it. I write something every day, but I don't usually sit down to write a song. Luckily, something forces itself on me every day. It may be a melody that hits me while I'm in my car or a lyric that hits me in the shower. I just make a point to collect these ideas. Some of them just demand to be worked on or finished immediately, some I just tuck away and I may not get to them for months. I don't use an instrument to write when I'm writing by myself. I've found that that's limiting, you know? No matter how good a player you are - and I'm not a good player - you still have to be able to play an instrument. But if that instrument is your imagination, then I'm not limited to anything, and I find that my songwriting is much more interesting. That's one part of my process. </p><p>The music almost always comes first and sort of tells me what the lyrics should be. Beyond that, I don't really try to write, I sort of just let it happen. Luckily , for decades now, it just keeps happening. I've found that some of the musicians that I admire so much are so proficient at their instrument or multiple instruments if they're lucky, but they have no freedom. I have had amazing artists tell me that they just know too much about their instrument and the music to use their imagination to its full musical potential. They're limited by their wealth of knowledge if that's possible. There are no limitations in your head to what you can come up with. I wouldn't have come up with a lot of the themes or musical landscapes that accompany my songs if I was sitting with an acoustic guitar or piano. It just wouldn't happen.</p><p>MR: That's a great insight. I usually wait with this question until the end of the interview, but let me ask you now. Do you have any advice that you might want to share with new artists?</p><p>RM: You know, I think it's a really bad time to start asking people for advice because it's pretty grim out there right now. The music business has gotten smaller since you and I started talking. (laughs) It's shrinking a little bit more every day. I don't have a crystal ball, nor have I ever been good at forecasting things like that. I only know that I'm super-grateful that I came into the business when I did. I feel really bad for young singer-songwriters now because the opportunities that existed for me in the early '80s before I was singed to learn about the business don't exist anymore. And they have been replaced with anything equally great. If I were starting out now, I would feel robbed - and I'm sure there are a lot of young artists out there who feel a little ripped off. The opportunities to really make it a lucrative career have diminished a lot, not that that should ever be anyone's motivation. Before, there was always that hope of writing a hit song and making tons of money. It's a shame because that opportunity and the fantasy of that have been demolished over the last few years, and I don't see that toothpaste going back into the tube. So, in my long-winded answer, I would say if you want to write songs and play in bands and perform because it feeds something in you and you're following your bliss, do it. If you feel like you need it to sustain yourself or to make a living, you're probably going to have to do something else in addition. And that's too bad.</p><p>MR: True. Though, I would argue that because of the Internet and social networking and other technologies, I would say that people have more of an opportunity to promote and proliferate their material more freely, more so than I've ever seen in the industry.</p><p>RM: Yeah, "getting your music out there" doesn't necessarily mean anything - everyone's music is out there. It doesn't mean it's connecting with anybody. If you've got 17 Facebook friends who all really like your music, that's awesome. And if that's enough to keep you writing songs, that's great. That doesn't mean that your music is "out there." It's great that we no longer have to rely on large record labels - they don't do anybody any good. Most major labels won't even sign someone who hasn't already done most of their social networking promotion ahead of time. It's almost a chicken or the egg situation because they may not sign someone who doesn't have 150,000 Facebook friends. But if they have 150,000 Facebook friends, what do they need a record company for, you know? The one glimmer of hope for the industry is that young people don't need a big corporate machine behind them to get their music heard. But in order to get it started enough to be able to sustain a career? Facebook ain't gonna do it. </p><p>It's much more complicated than people think, and I see super-talented people week after week that just aren't going to get by without having that one major hit unless they get by selling records on the DL, playing gigs, and can keep that train going. But if they want to live in a mansion in Beverly Hills, this is not for them. It's way more complicated than even I can understand. We could sit and have a round table discussion about it for hours and we still probably wouldn't come up with any answers. It's a tricky time for the music business. I think the saddest part is that we're at a time in our society where the competition for public attention is greater than ever, music is losing. People are still buying and downloading music, but I don't think the passion for music is what it was even five years ago. People are really taking music for granted now. Do you know why? Because it's tiny, you can't even see it now. It's all measured in megabites. When something gets that physically small, I think there's a brain correlation that says it's also not that important.</p><p>MR: Right, and the perceived value has dropped considerably because of pirating and such, wouldn't you say?</p><p>RM: Right. And frankly, maybe the next thing to be hit in this way will be sports and professional athletes, only because I feel like the general public has seen the rockstar excess and this legion of people that didn't look like they appreciated it. People don't want to support people like that. I feel it'll be the same with pro athletes. If we see them with everything and still bitching and moaning about it, the average man isn't gonna continue to support these people anymore. At the end of the day, for every negative part of the conversation, there's a positive. For instance, The Civil Wars have been carving out a name for themselves the old fashioned way - from the ground up. They're brilliant talents who are just now starting to get recognized for who great they are.</p><p>MR: Richard, before we get into talking about your records and many hit singles, can you tell us how your career started?</p><p>RM: Sure. I was about 17 and I'd written about five or six songs, but I had an amazing leg up in the fact that I was born into a musical family. My mom was and still is a great singer, and my dad was a jingle composer and producer. By the time I came along, his business was already growing and thriving, so he built an office in Chicago. Years later, when I had these songs that I'd written, I had this amazing place to go and have them demoed. It wasn't like I was home recording on a tape recorder. I could make really decent demos. I had to save up the money to pay the musicians - my dad didn't front the money. He told me that if I wanted to do this, I'd have to pay for all of it. I put together four or five really good sounding demos and sent them out to every record company, and every record company threw them in the trash. But some friends of mine would play demos like they were records and just listen to them all the time. So, a really good friend of mine was away at college playing the demo in his room and his roommate heard it and really liked it and said he knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy who worked with The Commodores. Somehow, my tape with my number on the back wound up in Lionel Richie's hands and he called me up. I was about 3 or 4 months away from graduating from High School. He talked to me for about half an hour on the phone and was so encouraging and gave me some great sage advice. He didn't make me any sort of job offers or anything at the time. But he did tell me that he knew I probably planned on going to college or something but if I decided to come to LA and get my career going, look him up.</p><p>That completely rebooted my whole thought process. To have arguably one of the most talented guys in the music business at the time tell me I was talented changed things. So, I bailed on college and went out to LA. One day, I went to his studio to meet him - we'd only talked on the phone before and he put me up in the studio to sing background vocals on his song called "You Are." He was working on his first solo record at the time. For the next couple of years, anytime he was in the studio, he would invite me to be there. Sometimes, I would sing background vocals on things, but the rest of the time, he would just let me be in the room and watch and learn. I can't say enough about what a gracious and generous guy he is, even to this day. I owe a tremendous amount of my career to him.</p><p>MR: It seems as though you were in the protege role, right?</p><p>RM: Yeah. I mean, I had that with a couple of different people, but he was the first one who was making records that let me sort of be a fly on the wall. It was actually Lionel who recommended me to Kenny Rogers who was also at the top of the charts at the time. That's how I started getting songs placed because the first couple of songs I had placed were with Kenny Rogers. I met Kenny during those recording sessions, and I wouldn't have gotten onto those sessions if it weren't for Lionel.</p><p>MR: Right. Some of the hits you had with Kenny were "Crazy" and "What About Me?"</p><p>RM: That's right, and those were both from the same album. There was another song on that album as well, but it wasn't a hit. I had three songs on that album and I was only 19, so it was crazy that I was in that situation. But it was all because of Lionel. </p><p>MR: Nice. And "What About Me?" was technically your first #1 hit.</p><p>RM: Yeah. And "Crazy" followed as the #1 country song. The first song I ever placed was a #1 AC song, though I think it hit #15 on the pop charts. But I definitely thought to myself that it was never going to happen again, I wasn't the kind of guy that thought it was just that easy. I really thought that it was great that it happened and that it would never happen again, but I was ready to do the work to get back to that again.</p><p>MR: You went on from there to work a little with the group Chicago.</p><p>RM: Well, I sang background vocals on a song on Chicago's 17 record. Robert Lamm, who I was a huge fan of, wrote all of my favorite songs and he and I just hit it off. He was another person that was a huge mentor to me. He asked me to write a song with him but it didn't make the 17 record because it wasn't really good enough. It ended up being on the We Are The World album by Chicago, so I can technically say that I have a Chicago cut. (laughs) It wasn't a spectacular song. I was still such a kid when I wrote that song. But it was so great to work with Robert and we're still friends to this day.</p><p>MR: Very cool. Then came Bruce Lundvall of EMI Manhattan who then gave you your break with your first album. Can you tell us about that?</p><p>RM: Bruce and I were introduced by a mutual friend, and he basically just heard the exact same songs that everyone else had rejected. Songs like "Endless Summer Nights," "Don't Mean Nothing" and "Should Have Known Better," and he loved them. I couldn't believe it. Not only did he give me a record deal finally, but he told me I should produce my own record, which was just unheard of. That guy just changed my life and is, again, someone I keep in touch with to this very day. I owe my career as an artist to Bruce Lundvall because he singed me when no one else wanted to and gave me tremendous artistic freedom from the get-go. He didn't micromanage. He's the kind of guy that has such an illustrious career, and his philosophy is that if he likes what you do, there is no reason for him to get in the way of it. He's just such a great cheerleader and a really sweet man. Again, for me to be able to make my first record under him was just a huge blessing because that guy is a prince.</p><p>MR: Then the Grammy nominations started rolling in, like for Best Rock Vocal Performance for "Don't Mean Nothing."</p><p>RM: Yeah. But I was only up against a bunch of no names like Tina Turner and Bruce Springsteen. (laughs) There was no prayer I was going to win, but I was just really honored to be nominated.</p><p>MR: Which brings us to your second huge album, Repeat Offender. Can you tell us a little story behind at least one of the songs from that time period?</p><p>RM: Well, every song has a story but, "Children Of The Night" was unlike any song I had written up to that point because it wasn't personal. It wasn't about me and it wasn't a relationship song. I just happened upon a 60 Minutes profile of a woman by the name of Lois Lee who founded the charity by the same name. It's an organization in Los Angeles that houses runaway youths. Most kids who run away from home and stay away end up in jail or prosecuted for drugs or something else. It's horrendous. So, I reached out to them and talked to some of the kids in the program so that I could really understand their story. I wrote the song and decided to put it on the Repeat Offender album and donated all the royalties to them for that song. It ultimately built a new home for them in the Los Angeles area so they could house more kids. As nice as that is for them, what I got out of it was being able to meet some of the most extraordinary and courageous young people I've ever met. That's a really special song. I actually got a message on Facebook from one of the kids in the video and she's now married with kids and thriving. When I met her, and during the video shoot, she had just broken free of being a teenaged prostitute. There's a success story for you. I just love that song, and it features an amazing horn arrangement done by my late father, Dick Marx.</p><p>MR: Beautiful. Let's jump forward to your album Rush Street because it featured some pretty popular artists including Luther Vandross and Billy Joel. It also features my favorite recording you've done, "Hazard." Tell us about that song.</p><p>RM: Well, that song was musically inspired by Danny Lanois who is a brilliant arranger, producer, and musician himself. I was on tour and traveling all over at the time. He's made some of the most beautiful solo albums I've heard - they're very haunting and ethereal. I was sort of in this headspace from listening to a lot of Danny's music, so "Hazard" came out of that. It didn't particularly sound like any of his music, but it sounds like it could have been right at home on one of his records. It was just a piece of music and I didn't want to write lyrics like any other that I'd ever written. I had always wanted to write a story song, but it scared me. It's hard to tell a story in four minutes, you know? But I got an idea and I went after it. I thought it was the dumbest song that I ever tried to write, and my wife heard me playing around with it and kind of flipped out over it. She convinced me to record it and it became one of my biggest hits to this very day. Talk about a shock. I mean, I've never written a song that I thought was a hit but I was sure that nobody would care about that song. I still get people yelling it out at concerts all the time and I don't ever play a concert without doing it. </p><p>MR: Part of that, I'm sure, had to do with the spooky video that went with that song.</p><p>RM: That was a really great video. It was directed by a guy named Michael Hausman, who is a really great filmmaker. That was the closest thing to a movie that we've ever done for a video. It was a great cast as well - Jennifer O'Neill and Robert Conrad who plays the Sheriff. It's just a really great video and I can say that because I didn't do anything but appear in it. </p><p>MR: You've also worked with the late Luther Vandross.</p><p>RM: Luther and I started working together when he did background vocals on a song of mine called, "Keeping Coming Back." That experience just cemented our friendship. About a year or two later, he asked me to write a song with him for his Christmas album and we wrote a couple of other songs together after that. In fact, the last song he ever wrote called, "Dance With My Father," was a song that we wrote together, but that was much later.</p><p>MR: But that wasn't the first success you had outside your own recordings.</p><p>RM: I think the first thing I ever did after I'd had any success as an artist was working with an all-female heavy metal group called Vixen. I was on tour with them and they had finished their album, but everyone felt that they still needed their first hit single. So, I got together with a buddy of mine and we wrote a song called, "Edge Of A Broken Heart." I ended up producing that on the record for them and it was a big hit. I think that that was the first outside project that I ever took once I started touring and performing.<br> <br>MR: So let's go back to "Dance With My Father," which was a huge hit and also won a Grammy, didn't it?</p><p>RM: It did - Best Song of the Year. It came about just like any other song - Luther called me up one day and said that he had an idea for a song called, "Dance With My Father." I told him that I loved the title, and we talked about the lyrics and the ideas he had for the song. The back story for that song is that my dad died in 1997, and it was very sudden and very painful because my dad and I were very, very close. The loss was so profound and it kind of sent me reeling for quite some time. One of the only people during that time who knew how to provide any sort of comfort was Luther. He would call me every couple of weeks and we would end up talking for hours. I can't even begin to tell you how much he helped me through that horrible period. Luther also came from a similar but very different situation because his father died when he was only 12. He didn't really get to know his father that well. The most vivid memory that he had of his father was seeing him come home and dance around the kitchen with Luther's mom and all the kids. It's such a sweet visual image. Luther said that he wanted to write a piece of music to remember his father, and asked if I would work on the music and we'd go from there. </p><p>I wrote a piece of music that night or the next day, and he took it and changed some stuff around and made it what he wanted, then added these amazing lyrics to it. The thing that's most beautiful about that song is everything that Luther brought to it because it was his story. I remember him saying that he thought that that song was the most important song of his career - he said that that was his "Piano Man." I was just excited that he was so excited about it. Ten days later, he had a massive stroke. He had just finished and recorded the song and then the stroke happened. It was about another year or so before he passed away, but the legacy of that song and what it means to me is so huge. I tried singing the song and I can't, I tried to sing it because I get asked to sing it a lot. It really has meant a lot to a lot of different people. People have adopted it into their lives like they have with several other songs that I've written, which I think is just incredible. But I can't sing that song because it just makes me too sad. Musical relationship notwithstanding, Luther and I were really close friends. I cherish my memories of him. But when I sing that song, it just bums me out too much, but I can and will say that I am extraordinarily proud to have been his collaborator on that song.</p><p>MR: You performed that song with Celine Dion on the night of the Grammys the year it won.</p><p>RM: Yeah, and Celine's father had passed away not too long before that. It was really hard for her to get through that. Luther was still alive at that point, though he was pretty incapacitated in the hospital. Celine is flawless though, so I went to Vegas to run through the song with her before the show. That particular year at the Grammys, there were a lot of big production numbers featuring Outkast, Earth, Wind & Fire, and 40 different people on stage at the same time. (laughs) Then we came out, very simply, I played the piano and Celine sang. It was really powerful. She really felt the song in her own way because, as I said, her dad had just passed. Simply the fact that I got to play the piano for Celine Dion is a big high point for me.</p><p>MR: You've also sung background vocals for Madonna.</p><p>RM: Yeah. That was actually one of the many sessions I did before I had a record deal. </p><p>MR: And you worked with Richard Carpenter as well, right?</p><p>RM: Yeah, I wrote a song with Richard. That was a great experience. </p><p>MR: What are some of your favorite Richard Marx hits from over the years.</p><p>RM: That's a nearly impossible question for any artist to answer. I've never heard any artist answer that question properly because there's no way to answer that question without denigrating some of the other songs. There's also no song that I've written that I've seen as a part of one of my live set lists and thought, "Oh, God, I can't wait until this song is over," you know? I'm sure that there are songs of mine that random people hate, but I don't have any. There are none that I'm embarrassed by or that represent a low point or anything. Believe me, I've written a ton of really crappy songs but you've never heard them. I'm not going to let anyone listen to anything that I don't think is the best I can do at any given time. </p><p>MR: Well, is there a song that you've written that has a particularly special place in your heart or story behind it?</p><p>RM: Again, for every song I've written, there are tracks on albums that are just as important or were just as powerful writing processes to me. When I came back from China, a crowd sang every word of "Right Here Waiting" with me; that was really special. Everywhere I go around the world, people know that song. It was very special and personal to me when it was written. Every song has its own story and life, and there isn't one song of mine that I would consider just a song. They all have a point and an origin, you know? They all have their own lives and entities and it's nearly impossible to just pick one out of the bunch. </p><p>MR: Do you have anything lined up for the near future besides beginning to work on that full length Christmas album?</p><p>RM: Well, I started touring and playing solo and acoustic last year after decades of playing with a band. I did it mainly because it frightened the hell out of me, but I have since found that it's some of the most exciting and rewarding performing that I've ever done. I'm so in love with it. It's almost like finding a new hobby or activity that you really love. Like all those guys who take up golf and then become obsessed with golf, I'm obsessed with my acoustic show. I'm just really enjoying putting all of my energy into all of those shows. I'm doing a bunch more of those shows this year all around the world. In addition to doing the new Christmas album, I'm also doing a new studio album over the summer, and I'm always writing with different people. I just worked with Keith Urban a few months ago, and I'm hoping to work with him again in the future. Beyond that, I don't make huge plans. I just sort of wait and see what happens. I'm actually working on a project later this year with my friend Fee Waybill who is one of the greatest rock performers ever and a brilliant songwriter on some new solo rock songs for him to be able to put out a record. I can't wait to finish that.</p><p>MR: Fee Waybill from The Tubes. You'll have to come back and talk with us about that. Well, Richard thanks so much for taking time out of your schedule to chat with us. </p><p>RM: Thanks so much for having me, Mike. </p><p>Transcribed by Evan Martin</p> <p>Follow Mike Ragogna on Twitter:</p>?First, let me begin by saying how happy and proud I feel for these reunited family's.<br>As a child I experienced many such reunions with my father, a U.S. Army Ranger Captain, each time we hugged and kissed and thanked god for my fathers safe return.<br>The men and women of our country's armed forces are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to insure our freedom, proving once again that freedom isn't free, its one of the most costly things we do. Your all being manipulated, dont you see what the main stream media is doing?<br>My Father was a Viet Nam era soldier, and they spat on him at the air port when he came home.<br>The Veterans administration is trying to cheat our veterans out of the medical benefits due them.<br>The "homeless Vet" situation is just as prevalent now as it was back in the 70s and 80s, our government did nothing about it then and now its even worse.<br>Your being distracted from the real issues.<br>Open your eyes-<br>Wipe away the tears of joy-<br>Ask the uncomfortable questions-<br>Be ready to fight for those who fought for us.<br>Veterans benefit reform NOW!<br>They waste millions and millions of dollars on weapons systems, but feel the need to cheat the very people that are intended to use them.<br>Thank you for reading this.<br>God bless and keep our returning veterans.<br>God bless the America we can be.<br>Katrina<br>NYC?<p>Nation, what has become of us? Politicians generating facebook messages from magnetic poetry, game shows reducing their prize money to fit Obama's tax plan, town hall protesters protesting heavyset women, Weddings catered by Funyuns...Funyuns!!! Well, that's all according to our friends in late night television, of course. And if you're a birther, a deather, or if you've ever participated in a civil war reenactment, you'll probably believe all of the following. Enjoy.<br><br><br>WATCH:</p><br><p>Get HuffPost Comedy On and </p> <br>?<p>Sunday marks Mother's Day, the time when kids and fathers should ban together to show mom how much they care: breakfast in bed, flowers, the whole nine yards. It should be special every year, but it's never more memorable than a new mom's first Mother's Day.</p><p>It's been a busy year for celebrity babies, and all should get some nice R&R today. But let's hope these new moms get a little something extra special -- even if their little ones can't buy a card yet.</p><p>PHOTOS:<br></p> <br>?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpSzBNJOBqEzcV2f6zvgZ4FLzuHlXFqCtvHEMfu8cnurHGtdTrlO6FQ6fVx4NbTyV%2B7Ql2tAH0vCj4kIuB5Ua5hfpX3jCUjpesA7EFvdsOSuTBc8OfyGzw3GYqrfjYvGOR8QAEXbdlMhN?<p>MyDaily:</p><p>Celine, Hermes, Givenchy... It was a day of big hitters and debuts on Sunday at Paris Fashion Week. Plus Kanye goes groupie on Phoebe Philo's ass, and Gisele hits the runway for the first time in, well, ages.</p><p></p> <br>?<p>It may be over 30 degrees outside, but my mind has already turned to fall fashion. It's one of my favourite fashion seasons -- and because this summer's pastels and neons especially challenged my all-black wardrobe, I'm looking forward to a new selection of luxurious options in shades of, well, black, black... and okay, maybe a little something new, dare I say it, burgundy!</p><p>Truth be told, I've already started making purchases. The early bird catches the worm after all! I'd love to know what you're most looking forward to! Are there trends you're excited to try out? I recently took a foray into the world of and if you like this look, you'll be happy to know it's sticking around for another season. Here's what else is on my radar (and wish list!!)</p><p>1. Burgundy<br>I know I said black... but I do SOMETIMES permit colour in my closet too, it's just usually reserved for accessories. This year's summer vacation splurge was a vintage burgundy Birkin bag in Rome. This is a classic and I'll treasure it for years. But burgundy also happens to be completely on-trend for this season. If, like me, you're colour shy... think of a shoe or purse, even a pair of gloves! (Speaking of gloves, I love the studded Valentino ones I spotted at Net-a-Porter!)</p>1. 2. 3. <p>2. Leather accents<br>Leather is a mainstay in my closet. One of my favourite designers, Rick Owens, is known for his leather, either used as an accent or the main material. This season, leather accents add edge to ladylike dresses, create dramatic contrast in textured knitwear. I can't get enough of this this look -- it's edgy, but also polished and I'll be stockpiling all winter long! I just recently purchased a leather shirt from Hakaan. I justified this purchase as it will help me transition from Summer to Fall -- I will wear it open with a t-shirt and jeans...or as a shirt jacket into the fall. Dual purpose, what's is not to love!?</p>1. 2. 3. <p>3. A-Line<br>The A-line skirt shape is back. For so many women (myself included!) this is the most flattering shape of skirt to wear because it skims over the hips and falls gently outward, without billowing. The whole effect narrows the waist and minimizes the hip and derriere. Most A-line cuts hit at or just above the knee -- again showing the most flattering part of the leg. So, we all have reason to celebrate!! When something I love is on trend, I usually indulge in it. Sure, it's nice to follow the silhouette of the season, but really it's not as important as wearing that shape that's flattering on you! My A-line selections this year will come from one of my favourite designers, Greta Constantine.</p><p>4. Booties<br>In fall you can have real fun with shoes. The bootie is making a strong statement this season and can be paired with skirts or pants. There are options for every heel height, but my preference is always for the sky-high. I pounced on these Chanel ones while in NYC, and let my fingers do the talking...walking...and then buying of these YSL purple booties. </p>1. 2. 3. <p>5. Animal print<br>It's official -- animal print is the new staple. Definitely for accenting rather than wearing head-to-toe, the animal print has undergone an evolution in the past few seasons, becoming a little more abstract and less literal. Perhaps, this indicates increasing market appetite for faux rather than real? Or maybe it's just that we want a glancing reference to these classic prints. A purchase here will last seasons to come! I adore my Celine animal print tote bag, but I've also been eyeing up animal print lace from Australian brand Lover, which brings us to...</p><p>6. Lace<br>For evening, lace is always a favourite. But, this season, it offers an opulent option for day or night. Lace is readily associated with all things romantic, but we're seeing a new directive -- black lace taking on more gothic connotations. Think high necks and long sleeves, as well as panels of lace alongside leather. Leather and Lace... my uniform this season!</p>1. 2. 3. <p>Deciding which trends to follow is a personal choice and deciding how to wear those trends is where you can put your own stamp on the season. I'm a big advocate of really investing in a few pieces that are going to last -- the perfect pair of shoes, a great handbag, an excellent winter coat -- these are all sound investments in my mind. Take inspiration and ideas from the runways and then pick and mix your purchases. Don't overlook what you've already got... maybe there's a lace blouse at the back of your closet dying for a second life! But above all, make this season your very own!</p><p>xo Natasha</p> <br><p>Follow Natasha Koifman on Twitter:</p>?THAT PISSES ME OFF. THIS MEANS WHEN I MET PETER CETERA AT A CHICAGO CONCERT (BASSIEST) I WAS 15 , FARRAH HAIR, PRETTY. I I MET PETER AT THE CONCERT, WE WERE FLIRTING, PETER WAS AT THE TIME 32 YRS OLD.<br><br>HE SEEMED INTERESTED, YOU KNOW THOSE MUSICIANS, HERE TODAY GONE TOMORROW, MY DIARY WOULD HAVE TOLD A GREAT STORY! I AM FRIENDS TO THIS DAY WITH TWO OF THE BAND MEMBER WIVES AND HAVE HAD THE PLEASURE OF SEEING THE BEHIND THE SCENE PICS OF THE BAND AND PETER THAT WILL NEVER BE POSTED ANYWHERE. MR. CETERA'S DEPARTURE WAS IN 1985.<br><br>I MET PETER CETERA 5 YRS AGO RECENTLY. WHEN I WAS WAITING IN LINE TO SEE HIM, ALONG WITH OTHER WOMEN, FIRST WORDS OUT OF HIS MOUTH WERE, "THERE IS SOMETHING FAMILIAR ABOUT YOU", HAVE MET BEFORE? I SAID TO HIM YES , 30 YRS AGO I EXPLAINED AND TOLD HIM.<br><br>HE QUICKLY SAID I NEVER FORGET A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN, IN REPLY EVEN IF I WAS 15 YRS OLD? WE BOTH LAUGHED! WE TALKED ABOUT THAT CONCERT. I SHOWED HIM A PICTURE FROM BACK THEM. WE BOTH ENJOYED A SHORT BUT WITTY CONVERSATION AT THAT MOMENT. <br><br>AFTER OUR FIRST MEET IN THE 1970S, PETER CAME OUT WITH A SONG ON CHICAGO 10 ALBUM CALLED "LIL MISS LOVIN" "OOHHWEE PRETTY MOMMAA LOOKING GOOD TO ME, YESEREE LIL MISS LOVIN" ETC. A MOMENT TO STAY IN MY HEART FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!?<p>The biggest stars of the red carpet on Sunday night were not the stars themselves, but their dates. See: Matthew McConaughey's girlfriend Camila Alves, Mark Wahlberg's wife Rhea Durham, Mark Ruffalo's wife Sunrise Coigney, and the women flanking Giorgos Lanthimos (the director of ""--we had to Google that).</p><p>We also applaud the red carpet risk-takers. Helena Bonham Carter can never be accused of being dull, and tonight she did not disappoint. Mainly for the fact that she doesn't seem to give a damn, we have included her in this list. She is truly fearless.</p><p>Tonight was also a night of firsts: it marks Celine Dion's debut on any best-dressed list we've ever done.</p><p>Tell us who wins the top honor, and then let us know if you agree with our highly subjective choices in the comments below. We know you're not shy, and that's very Helena Bonham Carter of you.</p><p>**And be sure to check out our picks for .**</p><p><br>Photos by Getty and AP.</p> <br>?<p>Paris Fashion Week has come to an end. And, as always, its catwalks featured beautiful outfits, beautiful models - and totally bonkers creations that no human being would ever be caught dead wearing.</p><p>We've rounded up our favourite monstrosities below. As you'll see, 'headwear which renders you unable to see anything' is going to be such a hot look for Spring/Summer 2012. As are: flowers. </p><p><br></p> <br>?<p>Why form a new country when you could probably just buy one?</p><p>That's the question that may enter your head after you see the photos of the castle Quebec's separatist premier-designate Pauline Marois used to live in.</p><p>Known as on Ile Bizard near Montreal was for $6,980,000.</p><p></p><p>The house is so grand that , according to La Presse.</p><p>That sale, however, wasn't the first time Marois' digs made headlines. </p><p>Back in 2007, the . The Gazette also reported that .</p><p>, asking for $2 million in damages. The in March of 2011, according to Cites Nouvelles.</p><p> first by selling gas stations, then in a series of jobs managing money for Quebec's government and then finally in real estate development, according to the Gazette.</p><p>The couple built their mansion in 1994. in January of this year. The home had been on the market for more than two years.</p><p>Marois has presented the PQ under her leadership as a party of the people. In the early days of the she would often wear the red square that is emblematic of the movement sparked by a hike in tuition fees. . On Wednesday, the . </p><p>The during the recent campaign, arguing the question of sovereignty is less important than worker's rights.</p><p>While Marois may support working families, from the looks of her former abode money certainly isn't what's driving her own labours.</p><p><br></p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p>?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpSzBNJOBqEzcV2f6zvgZ4FLzuHlXFqCtvHEMfu8cnurHGtdTrlO6FQ6fVx4NbTyV%2B7Ql2tAH0vCj4kIuB5Ua5hfpX3jCUjpesA7EFvdsOSuTBc8OfyGzw3GYqrfjYvGOR8QAEXbdlMhN?<p>JERUSALEM — Acclaimed tenor Placido Domingo has been named a winner of Israel's prestigious Wolf Prize, along with seven other American, British and Israeli recipients.</p><p>The Wolf Foundation said Tuesday that Domingo is the first vocal artist to ever win its prize. From 1962 to 1965, at the beginning of his career, he sang with the Israeli opera company.</p><p>Each year the Wolf Foundation awards $100,000 prizes in five fields. About three dozen winners have gone on to receive Nobel Prizes.</p><p>Domingo shared the award with English conductor Sir Simon Rattle. Israeli physicist Jacob D. Bekenstein won the physics prize. The others went to U.S.-based scientists, including chemists A. Paul Alivisatos and Charles M. Lieber, mathematicians Michael Aschbacher and Luis Caffarelli, and in medicine, Ronald M. Evans.</p> <br>?<p>By Associated Press</p><p>MONTREAL ? A 36-year-old man has been charged after he allegedly broke into singer Celine Dion's home near Montreal, raided the fridge and even took the time to pour himself a bath, police said Tuesday.</p><p>He was nabbed by police in the Montreal suburb of Laval on Monday afternoon after the alarm system went off.</p><p>The international pop superstar and her husband, Rene Angelil, were not at home at the time. Dion and Angelil usually live in Florida but use the Laval residence when they come home to Quebec.</p><p>Laval police spokesman Franco Di Genova said the suspect was getting ready to take a nice hot bath when police arrived with a canine unit.</p><p>"He opened the water faucets, was pouring a nice warmish bath (and) he even managed to eat some pastry that was in the fridge," Di Genova said.</p><p>Di Genova said police worked their way through the house, starting with the basement and finally confronted the man on the main floor.</p><p>"The suspect was coming down the big staircase and was asking: `Hey, guys what are you doing here?'" Di Genova said.</p><p>"So the officers replied: `What are you doing here?' and they proceeded to put him under arrest."</p><p>Di Genova said the man had jumped a fence to get on the property and used a garage door opener that he found in an unlocked vehicle to gain access to the luxury residence.</p><p>Daniel Bedard, a Laval resident, was arraigned Tuesday on charges including breaking and entering, auto theft and causing property damage.</p><p>Di Genova said there was another incident at Dion's mansion in 2009 when another man jumped the fence, but was stopped by the security firm that was keeping an eye on the property before he could enter the home.</p><p></p> <br>?Yeah--truly bad--but Hill said so herself. She was handed the song to cover before she had ever heard Joplin. Interestingly, Hill re-covered the song later, just to make partial amends. Something of an improvement, but still should have been left alone the first time. <br><br>I couldn't narrow down my nominations to a single Time-Life collection, but just a couple of honorable mentions: Tina Turner putting "Whole Lotta Love" completely to sleep and Van Halen making junior high school talent shows proud by phoning in "Pretty Woman."<br><br>Each to his own: I remember someone complaining that Jimi Hendrix must turn over in his grave every time he hears Bob Dylan cover "All Along the Watchtower"--but then he thought Elton John drummer Nigel Olsen was "a hot chick."?<p>NEW YORK — Celine Dion has been admitted to a Florida hospital to prevent the early delivery of her twins.</p><p>The superstar singer is at St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Fla. The hospital said in a statement the admission was recommended to make sure she's near her doctors leading up to the babies' birth. Her rep said she is due to deliver the twins early next month.</p><p>Dion announced earlier this year that she's pregnant with two boys. She had tried for years to have more children. She and her husband, Rene Angelil, are the parents of a 9-year-old son, Rene Charles.</p><p>___</p><p>Online:</p><p> </p> <br>?Hasn’t YouTube taught us anything? After a about Popeye's Chicken went crazy viral a couple years ago for all the wrong reasons, reporters (should have) learned an important lesson: selectively interviewing one group of people for a news story can draw unfair conclusions about that group. But that’s exactly what one Fox Sports reporter did last week when he interviewed exclusively USC students ? many of whom weren’t native English speakers or didn’t follow football ? for a segment about the Pac 12 conference. Real classy, guys.?<p>Candidates are being identified, campaign offices rented and buses prepped as Quebec heads toward an election, expected to be called Wednesday. </p><p>The life of Jean Charest's nine-year-old government is at stake, but all the parties in the province's crowded political field have big hopes for the coming vote.</p><p>The latest polls show the incumbent government neck-and-neck with the Parti Quebecois, so Charest's Liberals have the inside track. The premier is already using the opportunity provided by the to pound his chest a little, laying out Quebec's conditions for participation in a national energy strategy and criticizing the federal government for its unilateral changes to health care transfers.</p><p>The lines of the Liberal campaign are already being laid out, as Charest juxtaposes what he calls his government's respect for democracy, the economy and individual rights with the PQ's lack of respect for those rights and leader Pauline Marois' determination to hold a referendum on independence. </p><p>Marois worked to remove a set schedule from the PQ's platform, and was heavily criticized from within the party for it, but has never ruled out holding of another referendum if "winning conditions" present themselves.</p><p>But a spate of announcements of star candidates for the Parti Quebecois indicates many believe the party has winning conditions. The candidacies of Pierre Duchesne, former political bureau chief for Radio-Canada in Quebec City, and Bernard Genereux, president of Quebec's federation of municipalities, have already been announced, and Jean-Francois Lisee, political commentator and former advisor to Premier Jacques Parizeau, is expected to be presented as the party's newest candidate in the coming days.</p><p> in a Laval riding captured the most attention this week. Bureau-Blouin was one of the more moderate voices in the protests and should help the PQ with the youth vote, but he nevertheless give credence to the Liberals' narrative that the PQ is in bed with the controversial strike. </p><p>However, the strength suggested by the PQ's ability to recruit a strong field of candidates contrasts sharply with the difficulties the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) has been having. They have few high-profile names, some of the better known being former ADQ MNAs who were elected for short stints in 2007. Mario Dumont's unexpected breakthrough that year revealed the party was not ready for primetime, and adds to the impression the CAQ is also lacking a team that is ready to govern.</p><p>On the other side of the political spectrum, Quebec Solidaire (QS) will be focusing on getting co-leader Francoise David elected alongside Amir Khadir, their only sitting MNA. They do have a (very) outside shot in a few other Montreal ridings, but the party may play a bigger role in getting Jean-Martin Aussant, leader of the adamantly sovereigntist Option Nationale (ON), returned to the National Assembly. They have concluded an agreement with ON not to run a candidate in Aussant's riding, in return for ON not putting up a name against David. Option Nationale was unlikely to pull more than one or two per cent in David's riding, but the lack of a QS candidate puts anywhere from five to 10 per cent of the vote on the table for Aussant.</p><p>Add to that the provincial Greens, who have nominated leader Claude Sabourin as their candidate in Notre-Dame-de-Grace, their best riding in 2008, and the nascent Conservatives, who have two former Tory MPs on the ballot in Quebec City, and the upcoming election in Quebec is setting up to be one interesting campaign. </p><p>On your marks...</p><p>Eric Grenier taps of federal and regional politics for Huffington Post Canada readers on most Tuesdays and Fridays. Grenier is the author of , covering Canadian politics, polls and electoral projections.</p><p>Also on HuffPost:</p>?<p>There's no escaping the overwhelming association with luxury in Cannes. Star-studded hotels sit next to boutiques from every designer name you can imagine: Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Gucci, Prada. Balenciaga too, Celine coming soon.</p><p>But head inside the Palais des Festivals in June for the world's most famous advertising festival, Cannes Lions, and there's barely a whisper of the fashion industry at all. In a celebration of the best in campaigns from around the globe, some of the most creative brands existing, are distinctly absent. </p><p>The obvious answer is budget. Traditionally, fashion not only doesn't do big scale advertising (TV), but doesn't, of course, work with ad agencies. Who needs a creative director from Madison Avenue, when you have one in Karl Lagerfeld, Marc Jacobs or Christopher Bailey in-house? </p><p>Print has always been their home. Seasonal campaigns that tie in with seasonal collections. Bold concepts whittled down to a beautiful aesthetic portrayed through a couple of models and an exotic set. Glossy magazines as premium placement, the odd outdoor billboard and the glittering flagship store. </p><p>But advertising has changed. Consumers have changed. </p><p>Cannes Lions rebranded for 2011 from the prosaic International Advertising Festival to the International Festival of Creativity, to reflect that. Advertising, once clear-cut in definition, can now encompass anything from an experience to new technology, from the use of social media to an event. More often than not, it's all those things together. </p><p>Proof lies in this year's winners. Yes, Nike's epic Write the Future spot took the film grand prix, but it was the likes of Decode Jay-Z with Bing, which had no TV attached to it, that cleaned up. </p><p>Taking Jay-Z's new autobiography and leaking it page by page - printing it in inventive spaces such as the bottom of a swimming pool and a vintage Cadillac Seville car - it then released a series of clues online for a month as to each page's whereabouts, a ruse which saw fans scrabbling to find them in a Bing-enabled scavenger hunt. </p><p>It's in this integrated realm fashion could do well. On a smaller scale, early adopters are already proving such; taking their glossy seasonal campaigns and using them to spark conversation around the brand both on and offline. </p><p>"Content" is the new buzzword, with behind-the-scenes footage, viral teasers and fully fledged online films becoming popular formats. </p><p>Prada's spring/summer 2011 effort for instance, won the top spot on The Business of Fashion's list of fashion films for the season for its "infectious charm and masterfully executed quick edits". It also worked wonderfully in the interactive banner space, and translated equally well to print. </p><p>Meanwhile, for autumn/winter 2011/12, Mulberry brought its campaign stills by Tim Walker to life in a film created retrospectively through the use of numerous CGI techniques. </p><p>And Chanel, one of the masters of the teaser spot, even launched a full 30-minute piece around its cruise collection in May called The Tale of a Fairy. </p><p>Then there are the more creative integrations - the cunning of a previous Calvin Klein Jeans billboard inviting us to unlock its censored ads through a QR code; or Burberry's experiential videos allowing viewers to rotate, pause and change perspective through the use of motion-responsive technology. </p><p>But, regardless of such clever executions, the basis for each is still (in the main) that print imagery. Fashion communications remain about print ads selling product over campaigns selling ideas. And that is what needs to change. </p><p>Sir John Hegarty, worldwide creative director at advertising agency BBH, told a brimming auditorium at Cannes Lions the future is about doing something different. In a telling demonstration he ran a series of beauty industry ads. With their taglines removed, it was almost impossible to tell which was which. </p><p>The same could be said for fashion. By the time you've seen the collection, heard about the designer's inspirations and remembered which photographer they'll use, you can almost even predict the look of the ads before they're released. </p><p>Hegarty referred to this homogenisation as "windtunnel marketing", and called for a change in approach. </p><p>Denim labels, in that case, offers a lot to be learnt from. Ditching the idea of seasonal ads, Diesel launched its Be Stupid campaign in 2010. Based on taking risk, being spontaneous and saying yes, it's a philosophy spawned from president and founder Renzo Rosso's experiences in first launching the brand. It won the outdoor grand prix in Cannes last year.</p><p>The tagline has remained since, but the ads - often somewhat risque themselves - are frequently updated: new models, new product, new multimedia executions. </p><p>The same can be seen with Go Forth, the long-term campaign from Levi's, and the brand's first global creative platform in its 138-year history. Based on a rally cry for positive change in the world, the latest instalment includes a 60-second film called Levi's Legacy that was unveiled last week (though has been postponed in the UK following riots across the country). </p><p>This kind of big thinking for an apparel brand not only makes a campaign more relevant to different hemispheres when launched internationally, but ties in well with the fact collections are becoming increasingly transseasonal. </p><p>Accordingly, while the Cannes Lions rebranding might have taken the focus off traditional formats, it doesn't rid us of the fact that overarching ideas are what advertising remains about, especially in the new digital age, where execution can overshadow concept. </p><p>Fashion therefore - an industry with creativity at its very core - needs to shake off its seasonal collection focus and start thinking instead about campaigns built around big ideas. </p><p>A good starting point for inspiration, you could say, is Cannes Lions. <br></p><p>Follow Rachel Arthur on Twitter:</p>?<p>A few months after showed that black federal prisoners were much less likely to receive presidential pardons, the federal government is launching a study to look into the pardons process.</p><p>The Justice Department for data collection and reporting for the study. "The purpose of this program is to examine how petitions for pardon are adjudicated by the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney," according to an outline of the study.</p><p>A full pardon reverts the convicted person's legal status back to before the crime. The federal office of the pardon attorney looks into pardon applications and makes recommendations to the president. </p><p>The purpose of the study, the outline said, is to "test the primary hypothesis that all other things being equal African Americans and other minorities are less likely to progress in the pardon adjudication process than applicants of other races." It will look at the pardon applications submitted between October 1, 2001 and April 30, 2012. The study will not focus on those cases in which a convict's sentence was merely reduced. </p><p>The Washington Post and ProPublica series, called "Shades of Mercy," found that of their crimes than minority applicants. It also found that married applicants and those with backing from members of Congress fared especially well in having their pardons granted.</p><p>WATCH THE PBS NEWSHOUR SEGMENT ON BIAS IN PRESIDENTIAL CLEMENCY<br> <p> <p> <p> <p> <p><p>Watch on PBS. See more from </p></p><p><br></p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p>?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpdovcLTcUs93wly%2B34i7kkrPjtQPvHYzsjWYhFzb12pgbYBKVLP34TXLzbpAy2RCoJtFFAngK4QBT43WaolBTcPfpLmNk7nCjRWSB2%2FymekHy%2BlaPW27BvcQEfIX%2F%2BT7jigXKA6%2FuiHk?<p>LOS ANGELES — A San Fernando Valley woman was sentenced to life in prison Thursday for dousing a bikini dancer with gasoline and setting her on fire at a club called "Babes & Beer."</p><p>Rianne Theriault-Odom, 28, was sentenced in Van Nuys Superior Court for the Feb. 5, 2009 attack on Roberta Busby. The Simi Valley woman received burns over 40 percent of her body and has had more than two dozen skin grafts.</p><p>The badly-scarred victim tearfully asked the judge to issue the maximum sentence for an act of "drunken rage."</p><p>"Now you're going to feel the same heartache that I felt when I couldn't hug, kiss or play with my kids or even talk to my kids," the 28-year-old mother of two told her attacker, reading from a letter in court.</p><p>"I guess I'll never know what was going through your mind that night, but one day you'll have to answer to God, and that's more justice than any prison can do to you," Busby said.</p><p>Odom, who has four children, requested a psychiatrist and said she was mentally unprepared for the sentence. Superior Court Judge turned down a request to postpone the sentencing.</p><p>Prosecutors say the two women had been feuding when Theriault-Odom doused Busby with gasoline from a soda bottle and set her ablaze at the Tarzana club.</p><p>Busby ran inside, and employees and patrons used curtains to douse the flames.</p><p>Theriault-Odom, who'd been refused a job as a dancer at the club, claimed someone else set the woman on fire.</p><p>Last month, a jury convicted her of torture and aggravated mayhem but acquitted her of attempted murder.</p> <br>?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpdovcLTcUs93wly%2B34i7kkrPjtQPvHYzsjWYhFzb12pgbYBKVLP34TXLzbpAy2RCoJtFFAngK4QBT43WaolBTcPfpLmNk7nCjRWSB2%2FymekHy%2BlaPW27BvcQEfIX%2F%2BT7jigXKA6%2FuiHk?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpdovcLTcUs93wly%2B34i7kkrPjtQPvHYzsjWYhFzb12pgbYBKVLP34TXLzbpAy2RCoJtFFAngK4QBT43WaolBTcPfpLmNk7nCjRWSB2%2FymekHy%2BlaPW27BvcQEfIX%2F%2BT7jigXKA6%2FuiHk?Sarah Leon is the style blog editor at The Huffington Post. The Vassar alumna, who majored in Media Studies and earned a correlate in Art History, wrote her thesis about the relationship between British cultural theory in the late 20th century and The Face magazine. In addition, Sarah spent several years as a contributing writer to The New York Times Style Magazine and blog. Sarah has also written for The New York Times Sunday Styles Section, Interview Magazine and Fashionista.com.?<p>Born in Iran, educated in New York, based in London - you can see why travel might influence Negarin Sadr, founder and designer of hot womenswear label .</p><p>The interesting geometrics of her Spring/Summer 2012 collection first turned my head, but on looking into the collection further, I found Negarin's range gave a host of incredibly wearable, versatile options to the working woman. Even better, they help solve the perennial style conundrum that is summer office attire.</p><p>Though her aesthetic reflects the Leonardo da Vinci quote heralded on her website, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication", to say that Negarin's designs are simple is, to my mind, incorrect. Like a good play, her creations appear uncomplicated and effortless but there's a lot going on behind the scenes to create this precisely constructed illusion, often informed by Sadr's interests in architecture, sculpture and fine art.</p><p><br>Above (clockwise from top left): Simone jacket £499 worn with Zoey top £199 and Marianne shorts £249; Josette dress £399; Sophia top £399 worn with Celine trousers £249; Magdalene dress, £749, all from Negarin's SS12 collection. </p><p>Everything is beautifully put together, lined and, for the most part, machine washable. Sadr - who started off working in finance before pursuing her dreams of becoming a fashion designer - clearly has an eye for function as well as fashion. Practicality certainly isn't one of the first things you think on seeing her designs but it's a welcome, understated bonus and a key element in her thinking when creating each piece. Sadr states was born out of a desire "to cater to the realities of the lifestyle of a busy, culturally aware, modern woman who wants beautiful, innovative clothes that are practical and affordable". She tells me her vision is to create pieces for "urban and active women who have a strong sense of style and the confidence to offset classic pieces with bold prints and statement tailoring." </p><p>My favourite pieces from the collection are the crisp, all-white with their unusual ankle split detail and flash of coloured lining and the architechtural , which both bring a modern edge with eastern-inspired elegance. The impeccably crafted cape, with it's flash of violet, brings to mind Gwynneth Paltrow's show stopping Tom Ford at this year's Oscars, albeit a more everyday version.</p><p><br>Above (clockwise from top left): Naomi cape £499 worn with Catherine dress £399; Isabelle tunic dress £499; Belle jumpsuit £699; Celine trousers, all from Negarin's SS12 collection. </p><p>Clothing comes in sizes 6-14 and prices are pretty high, wavering around the same ballpark as those other women's workwear wonders Stella McCartney and J. Crew, but Negarin's styles are less widespread and totally timeless. With the trend for more investment dressing and less throwaway fashion, this is definitely a label for high flying, fashion conscious businesswomen looking for a twist on the usual to add to their roster, not least for the ease with which these outfits translate from day to evening wear. That said, isn't just for the office or after work engagements - celebrities including Jade Parfitt and Tolula Adeyemi have also been spotted working it on the red carpet.</p><p>With a strong Autumn Winter 2012 collection already in the bag, Sadr - whose ultimate goal is to create a lifestyle brand - is busy plotting Negarin's expansion. "If market conditions are right, I plan to open a boutique in London early next year. Along the way, I will experiment with sustainable, non-crease fabrics, while broadening the product range to include accessories." </p><p>Although she may no longer work in finance, fashion is still a numbers game and I hope continues to do well as, although they say you should dress for the job you want, not the job you have, the current price range is only really affordable to those who have already achieved a certain level of success so I would really love to see a fabulous diffusion line from her, providing less pricey options for those ambitious, stylish ladies further down the career ladder. </p><p>Shop the Spring Summer 2012 collection or catch a preview of the Autumn Winter looks over on </p><p></p><p>Above: A select preview from Negarin's Autumn / Winter 2012-13 collection.</p><p>Follow Sarah McGiven on Twitter:</p>?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpdovcLTcUs93wly%2B34i7kkrPjtQPvHYzsjWYhFzb12pgbYBKVLP34TXLzbpAy2RCoJtFFAngK4QBT43WaolBTcPfpLmNk7nCjRWSB2%2FymekHy%2BlaPW27BvcQEfIX%2F%2BT7jigXKA6%2FuiHk?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpdovcLTcUs93wly%2B34i7kkrPjtQPvHYzsjWYhFzb12pgbYBKVLP34TXLzbpAy2RCoJtFFAngK4QBT43WaolBTcPfpLmNk7nCjRWSB2%2FymekHy%2BlaPW27BvcQEfIX%2F%2BT7jigXKA6%2FuiHk?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpdovcLTcUs93wly%2B34i7kkrPjtQPvHYzsjWYhFzb12pgbYBKVLP34TXLzbpAy2RCoJtFFAngK4QBT43WaolBTcPfpLmNk7nCjRWSB2%2FymekHy%2BlaPW27BvcQEfIX%2F%2BT7jigXKA6%2FuiHk?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpdovcLTcUs93wly%2B34i7kkrPjtQPvHYzsjWYhFzb12pgbYBKVLP34TXLzbpAy2RCoJtFFAngK4QBT43WaolBTcPfpLmNk7nCjRWSB2%2FymekHy%2BlaPW27BvcQEfIX%2F%2BT7jigXKA6%2FuiHk?<p>, the legendary Montreal restaurant famous for its smoked meat, was sold at the beginning of January for around $10 million to a group of investors that may include none other than Rene Angelil, husband and manager of superstar Celine Dion, according to sources close to the deal.</p><p>Le Huffington Post Quebec has learned that the transaction took place around Jan. 7, after which the now-former owner, businessman Hy Diamond, filed a request for dissolution of his business with the Registre des entreprises du Quebec - the province's business registry. The sale of the uber-popular deli was motivated by a desire simply to move on, sources told HuffPost Quebec. </p><p>Several investors have shown interest in acquiring Schwartz's, but few were prepared to fork over the hefty sum, according to another source who spoke to HuffPost Quebec. Other sources say the restaurant is now the property of a group of investors, with two prominent names apparently in the mix: Angelil and Paul Sara (Angelil's cousin). The two previously ventured into the restaurant business in the 1990s with the Nickels franchise. </p><p>Loyal Employees</p><p>Montreal media has been abuzz with rumours of the potential sale, which started earlier this week when English paper The Gazette . early Sunday morning by Le Journal de Montreal. </p><p>But the deli's employees aren't saying much on the record about the business' change-of-hands, and were advised not to speak about the sale. "We know there has been a sale, but have been asked not to comment on the matter," Schwartz's day manager told HuffPost Quebec, visibly uncomfortable with the question. </p><p>Other servers seemed indifferent about the names of the future owners. "Our customers are our only priority, much more so than knowing who the owner is," one said with a smile. </p><p>Schwartz's has enjoyed phenomenal success since it was opened in 1928 by Reuben Schwartz. Locals, tourists and celebrities alike -- Angelil is a well-known fan, and his and Dion's picture is on the deli's wall of fame -- flock daily to the Montreal institution on St. Laurent Boulevard for the famous smoked meats, fries, pickles and more. The long lineups are almost as legendary as the sandwiches at the sole location. </p><p>As such, it wouldn't be surprising if the new owners were interested in expanding the Schwartz's brand beyond the Main according to Journal de Montreal's food writer, Thierry Daraize, who said in the report that . </p><p>"The brand has huge potential for expansion," he said. "As long as they can preserve their famous recipe." </p><p>Schwartz's popularity has thus far spawned a line of merchandise and spices, a book, documentary film, and even a musical.</p><p>If an expansion is on the horizon, Angelil could likely foot the bill if he is indeed a co-owner; His wife and sole talent protege Dion had a reported and , according to Forbes.</p><p>With files from Lisa Yeung</p>WHAT'S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT? CHECK OUT OUR PHOTOS AND VIDEO<br> <br>?Yon__Ye: ã?¬ã?¤ã??ã?³ ã?µã?³ã?°ã?©ã?¹ã?«ã??ã??ã??ã??ã?®ã?¢ã??ã?«ã?¯ã?©ã?¡ã??ã??ã?ªã?ªã?¸ã??ã?«ã?®ã??ã?¬ã?¤ã??ã?³ ã?¦ã?§ã?¤ã??ã?¡ã?¼ã?©ã?¼ã??ã??ã??ã?¼ã?¹ã?«ã??80年代ã?®ã??ã??ã??ã?«ã?«ã??ã?£ã?¼ã??ã??ã?¤ã?³ã?¹ã??ã?¤ã?¢ã??ã??ã??ã?«ã?©ã??ã?«ã?»ã??ã?¿ã?¼ã?³ã??æ?½ã??ã??ã?¦ã??ã?¾ã??ã??ã??ã?®ã?¦ã??ã?¼ã?¯ã?§ã??ã??ã??ã?ªã?©ã?¤ã?³ã?¨ç?¹å¾´ç??ã?ªã?«ã?©ã?¼ã?»ã?³ã?³ã??ã??ã?¼ã?·ã?§ã?³ã?¯ã??ã?¢ã?¤ã?¦ã?§ã?¢-ã??ã?©ã?³ã??ã?®ã??ã?¤ã?ªã??ã?¢ã?¨ã??ã?¦å??è?¨ã??ç¶?ã??ã??ã?¬ã?¤ã??ã?³ RB2140ã?ªã??ã?§ã?¯ã?®ã?©ã?¤ã?³ã??ã??ã??ã?¨è¨?ã??ã??ã?§ã??ã??ã??ã???<p>If you could travel with any celebrity, who would you choose?</p><p> announced the results of its first ever Travel Companion Survey, revealing that 62 per cent of people polled would prefer to travel with Canadian celebrities over some of Hollywood’s biggest names. And the name topping the travel charts is Canada’s own Shania Twain.</p><p>To find out how people voted, click on the gallery below.</p><p></p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p>?<p>It was only a matter of time before the phenomenon that’s been taking YouTube by storm got a Canadian version: . </p><p>Some bon mots from the new edtion:</p><p>“Have you seen my toque?” </p><p>"I got snowed in last week real bad.”</p><p>The video, uploaded on Jan. 24, features a young man living up to all the good Canadian stereotypes (see him scream at a TV during a hockey game; watch him pour maple syrup on virtually everything). </p><p>, nabbing 3,000 'likes' and tons of comments. </p><p>“Canadians. The only people who get made fun of for being polite and caring,” one viewer wrote.</p><p>“As a Canadian, I find this hilarious,” another user commented. </p><p>But some have been quick to point out corrections. One viewer wrote: “Not Canadian at all. Canadians would know that Timbits don't come in dozens.”</p><p>Other Canadian videos have become popular with viewers this month, and (poking fun at the Canadian universities). Similarly, was uploaded last week and got a lot of . </p><p>, which was uploaded on Monday. It's already racked up more than 3.3 million views. </p><p>Canada isn't the only target of "Sh*t People Say" videos. Just a few days ago, making fun of our neighbours south of the border. </p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p>HuffPost and AOL Canada editors share what they love about Canada <br>?<p></p><p><br>"Video Still, "Joie de Vivre" by Ruth Hogben for Gareth Pugh, Courtesy of Ruth Hogben, 2010"</p><p><br>At the opening of Paris' Fall fashion week Gareth Pugh opted out of the usual runway display and showcased his designs instead with an eleven minute video done in collaboration with filmmaker Ruth Hogben. Hogben came to my attention through her earlier work for Celine and Pugh with her original use of lighting and texture, which emphasized the sensuality of both the fabric and the wearer.</p><p>Hogben had worked with Nick Knight on Alexander McQueen's last show, and also on videos for Lady Gaga's recent stage performances. I asked the young filmmaker about her inspirations and aspirations for carving out a new medium for herself.</p><p>KL: How did you first start assisting Nick Knight?<br>RH: I studied photography first; I wanted to be a photographer since I was twelve. I was very persistent and we went to the same secondary school and it was probably my winning letter that I wrote. I always wanted to learn from him. I had two or three years of assisting others and learning from my mistakes. And then I finally applied and worked for Nick - worked very, very hard for a few years. I was the motorized magazine rack - give me three seconds to reload the film ...</p><p>When Nick went to digital, I had to take a step back - you didn't need four people to change the lens on a Hasselblad and so I had to reinvent myself. [Later], I was at a Visionaire shoot, and kept looking through the view-finder and Lily (Cole) was playing with motion and light, and I said to Nick that I thought there was some really nice footage there, and could I edit it? I then spent half a day in the studio learning Final Cut. Nick and Charlotte (his partner) were very supportive and let me use the footage and the soundtrack; they gave me a lot of freedom - then, it was two years of editing, of trying and playing, and working hard.</p><p><p><p><p> </p><p> from on .</p><p>KL: Are you inspired by the architectural forms in Gareth Pugh's designs?<br>RH: The third film (Joie de Vivre) was influenced by art deco architecture. That was how I approached the film, making her into a building, making her very tall. But then she moved so well - and gave me so many varying poses, it meant I could go wild when I had an amazing soundtrack. The audio is by Lukid. I talked with him about the film I wanted to make and he went away for a couple of weeks and came back with something that fit so perfectly that we decided to go with it instead of starting from scratch.</p><p>KL: What's the difference between this work and making a music video?<br>RH: Fashion drives my inspiration. I'd be quite scared to be led by music; it's not how I really work. I work with the beat but as a way of accentuating the work.</p><p><br>"Video still from Director Ruth Hogben's film for Celine"</p><p>KL: Do you choreograph the movement?<br>RH: For Celine () I was led by the lines of how the coat moved. But with the leather jacket, when she rolled her shoulders, the leather just moved in this sexual way...The movement is a fine line between the freedom of expression in the way the model feels as a woman inside the clothes, to how I think the movement should be communicated.</p><p>KL: The movement when it is slowed down is very erotic. You get to really see how the human body moves. <br>RH: I never really thought about how I slow things down. But sometimes I just feel the viewer needs to appreciate what I am showing them, and in real-time you don't get to appreciate a crease or a movement; it gets the audience time to breathe it in. But it does push it away from reality, which is sometimes right for certain films - or sometimes isn't. I also repeat, I accentuate... I am not a trained editor and don't follow conventions of the film genre.<br><br>KL: Maybe you are creating a new genre - it's more like a performance. <br>RH: Whatever edit rule I use, I just feel it. It's a visual language that pleases me. I just follow my instinct.</p><p>I am building on something already incredible, and I make it more graphic or sumptuous with backgrounds, makeup, movement and wind. I am communicating through a performance, a film. I adore working with Gareth; his work is so strong. In the initial stages he spends a long time speaking about how he feels about his work, then he lets me react to it...With Gaga it was more fashion oriented...there were art pieces embedded in the concerts - but she also gave me a lot of freedom.</p><p><p><p><p> </p><p> from on .</p><p>KL: Do you think the artist in you takes over - or are you just showing the clothes to the best advantage?<br>RH: That's a bit tricky. I try to improve on my past work. I've been working with a great DOP, Simon Chaudoir and learning a lot, playing with lenses, feeling more confident...</p><p>But the communication between Gareth and I hasn't changed. I refine the communication, and with film it is a lot more direct than with a still photograph. I fine-tune the communication with the pace of the edit and movement. I don't think as an artist I overtake his work, but knowing the medium more, helps improve what and how I communicate his vision.</p><p>I spent 4 months working with Gaga, and when I finished I needed to do a film that was purely just for me. It was self-funded. It will go to some festivals, and I love how it is presented and shown at ; I love working with the team there, and I get a lot of control of how the film looks.</p><p>[In my videos] I try to show what type of a woman she is in a thick heavy wool coat; or a flowy see-through dress. It all means something and I try to understand what that means and communicate it on a whole new level.</p><p><br>"Martin Margiela's "Wig-Coat," in Make Up Your Mind, directed by Nick Knight and Ruth Hogben"</p><p></p>KL: You communicate that without clothes too, through the movement of flesh. Showing women's bodies in a different way is challenging because it's one of the most exploited subjects in art.RH: Those two burlesque dancers were so much fun to work with (See Buttocks above). I love fashion and I love women. I study skin moving - making it look like milk and being inspired by Man Ray's daylight nudes. I am lucky to live in this time with this new medium - this touchable way of using digital formats. [And also] having all these exquisite artists to be pulling on like Man Ray, Helmut Newton and Allen Jones - but putting my own spin on them. It's important that we question ourselves as women, about equality - I think a lot about whether a stripper is an object or is she something to be desired, and whether that's powerful enough. I'd like to do a lot more work in exploring women and their bodies, and whether they are just pieces of meat or whether they are something to enjoy in splendour and celebrate. There is a fine line between exploitation and celebration. I am lucky to be working in this time where fashion film has a platform.<p><p><p><p><p>Ruth Hogben video for Phillipe Starck <p>KL: Is your work just part of the fashion world - or do you consider yourself an artist.<br>RH: I don't know how to answer. I did a film for Phillipe Starck - a still-life of a chair- shot and lit in different ways with calligraphy writing; it abstracted the shapes...brought out the form of the chair and then faded away...I don't quite know what that is, or what I should call myself - I love it and feel it and put my heart and soul it.</p><p><p><p><p></p><p>.</p><p>For more information on credits view Ruth Hogben/Gareth Pugh's at Showstudio.<br>Text: </p><p>Follow Spread ArtCulture on Twitter:</p>?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpSzBNJOBqEzcV2f6zvgZ4FLzuHlXFqCtvHEMfu8cnurHGtdTrlO6FQ6fVx4NbTyV%2B7Ql2tAH0vCj4kIuB5Ua5hfpX3jCUjpesA7EFvdsOSuTBc8OfyGzw3GYqrfjYvGOR8QAEXbdlMhN?<p>LOS ANGELES — The Kodak Theatre was rocking as Gwyneth Paltrow, Mandy Moore, Celine Dion and other musicians ran through the numbers they'll perform on Sunday's Academy Awards.</p><p>Moore dueted with Zachary Levi on "I See the Light," the nominated song from Disney's "Tangled," as composer and eight-time Oscar winner Alan Menken backed them on piano. Paltrow continued to show her musical side, singing "Coming Home" from her recent film "Country Strong." Oscar-winning composer A.R. Rahman and indie rocker Florence Welch of Florence + The Machine performed a haunting rendition of "If I Rise" from "127 Hours." Dion sang "Smile" as the In Memoriam packaged played on a big screen above her.</p><p>But an energetic group of 10-year-olds stole the show from all those stars.</p><p>The 64 fifth graders who make up the chorus at New York's Public School 22 in Staten Island arrived at the Kodak Theatre Friday to rehearse their performance of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." They'd flown in earlier that morning, many of them on their first-ever airplane trip. Wearing green or blue T-shirts that declared them to be an alto or soprano, they filled the theater with elementary-school enthusiasm.</p><p>"Justin Timberlake, oh my God!" one girl said when she saw the star's seat-saving placard. "When I'm up there, my eyes will be right here."</p><p>Then they tromped onto the Oscar stage and sang with such conviction and heart that they choked up an audience of Hollywood veterans.</p><p>Guided by stage managers and their teacher, Gregg Breinberg, the students practiced getting on and off stage and memorized their spots for the night. They marveled at the names they recognized in the audience. Sandra Bullock! Nicole Kidman! They looked around the big theater and had to be reminded to pay attention. But when they sang, it was clear they knew exactly what they were doing. They swayed and moved to the beat. They closed their eyes and gestured with their hands. They felt it.</p><p>"You're in this song. You're inside of it," Breinberg told them. "You're going to blow everybody away."</p><p>Moments later, the kids were the ones blown away when show hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco surprised them on stage. The actors hugged and high-fived them, then posed for a photo.</p><p>"Way to go," Hathaway told the group. "I love your dance moves."</p><p>Next up for PS 22? They're going to Disneyland Saturday, where they're set to perform in front of the famous Magic Castle.</p><p>"We didn't think we could beat the Oscars, but Disneyland is coming damn close," Oscar producer Bruce Cohen said.</p><p>Then on Sunday, the fifth-grade singers will walk the red carpet before making their Academy Awards debut.</p> <br>?<p>A Kent man who made his neighbours' lives a misery by repeatedly blasting out power ballads - by the likes of Celine Dion (pictured), Chris de Burgh a...</p>?Last week, Huffington Post Women's Senior Lifestyle Editor Lori Fradkin appealed to our expertise in their new feature "Help Wanted". Lori wrote in to ask us how we'd style her new bib-style necklace. Here, Fashion Editor Christina Anderson weighs in on how to wear this statement piece in everyday life.?Claudia Schiffer, the German-born, Brigitte Bardot look-a-like, was discovered in a nightclub in 1987. She immediately flew to Paris to pursue modeling, and you know...?<p>Ana Gasteyer spent many years on late-night TV thanks to her stint on "Saturday Night Live," but these days you can find her during primetime on ABC's comedy "Suburgatory" as Sheila Shay, the seemingly perfect neighbor. </p><p>Gasteyer, who brought her pitch-perfect impersonations of Martha Stewart and Celine Dion to "SNL" for six seasons, has had an interesting post-sketch comedy career. Aside from her various movie and TV roles, she has appeared in many Broadway shows, including a turn as Elphaba in "Wicked."</p><p>The 44-year-old mother of two talked to The Huffington Post about "Suburgatory," her famous friends and, of course, those legendary "Schweddy Balls."</p><p>Tell me about Sheila Shay, your character on "Suburgatory."<br>I’m the perfect mother by all cultural standards; I make the best sandwiches but I’m completely overtly biased between my love -- my passion -- for my son and disdain for my daughter, and our relationship is incredibly complicated and fraught, which is so much fun to play. It’s actually super dimensional. When I read the pilot I thought, "Oh it’s a Martha Stewart knock-off," but it really isn’t. She’s incredibly complicated and controlling, and it’s really fun. </p><p>I watch it with my big one (daughter Frances), which is slightly inappropriate. She’s 9-and-a-half. Once they hit 8, they suddenly stay up really late. They’re, like, your age, practically, and it’s kind of fun because you can do things like watch "Housewives" with them.</p><p>You must have met those "perfect parents." You live in New York, right?<br>I live in Brooklyn.</p><p>That's ground zero for alpha parenting. Have you seen it?<br>It’s funny, there are so many women who are former executives and have taken all that stress and anxiety and transferred it onto their kids. Half the time I’m on my game and half the time we’re, like, the crazy family with the three meals from Starbucks.</p><p>Have you felt judged?<br>Yes, definitely. I remember when I first had my daughter I went to some nutritional seminar and I showed up with a giant New York City street pretzel. I’m pretty earthy; I nursed forever because I liked it and my kids liked it, but at the same time I’m very laissez-faire about stuff like bedtimes and food.</p><p>What’s the definition of "nursed forever"?<br>I nursed one for two years and two months and the other for two years and 10 months. Because I come and go so much, I think it was a nice way to stay connected with them and I was too lazy to wean them.</p><p>Do you really watch "Real Housewives" with your daughter?<br>Actually, I don’t. I do watch "Interior Therapy With Jeff Lewis" and she says things like, "I wish Jeff Lewis could come and fix our house." I do love the "Housewives" but it is an incredibly, sort of, hideous picture of women and I don’t really want to get into that with her just yet. I’m still pretending women are fantastic to each other.</p><p>Switching gears to "SNL," did you ever think the "Schweddy Balls" skit would become a classic?<br>No idea. It was a hit character, but it’s definitely had its own career and afterlife. I haven’t been on the show in 10 years. The Scheweddy Balls ice cream came out this year.</p><p>You were in "Mean Girls." Does the whole Lindsay Lohan saga make you sad?<br>You know, I’m not really friends with her. I played her mom, but yes, it makes me very sad. I think she’s enormously talented. I don’t know...child stardom. We always act surprised. I think it’s always been that way, it’s just the media covers it more [now]. It’s about one in every 10 that seems to be a survivor of it.</p><p>You must get recognized for "Mean Girls" all the time. It’s on TV nearly every week.<br>I do. Actually, in the last couple of weeks I’ve been recognized for "Suburgatory." I tweeted a picture of someone watching it on their iPad on the subway.</p><p>Are you still friends with the girls from "SNL"? Do you get together for fondue?<br>That’s so funny you say fondue because that’s exactly what Maya Rudolph and I would go out for. It’s definitely like being in some weird sorority. I’m friends with a lot of actresses, but my "SNL" friends are my closest. The experience of working there is something of a battleground, a great one, but complicated. I think there’s a deep connection for having survived that workplace.</p><p>Who’s your most famous friend?<br>I’m not much of a famous-person friend. I’ve hung out with Brooke Shields and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that kind of pure face recognition, but I keep a low profile. I guess Will Ferrell -- you can’t go out with him anywhere. You can’t meet him in a bar, you have to have him over.</p><p>So you're not BFFs with Angelina.<br>No, I’m not at the Clooney/Pitt level. What people don’t realize is to get to that level, they aren’t really in a place to maintain connections. They’re always traveling, always on the road. John Leguizamo once said to me, "We’re not gypsies; we’re carnies, traveling around in our creepy containers."</p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p> <br>?<p>Tabitha Celine Austin, owner of , opened her first upscale consignment shop in Aurora in early 2005 followed with a Parker location in January of 2011.</p><p>However, in between the two she dealt with more than the normal trials of a small business owner: In December of 2009 she was diagnosed with stage I breast cancer. We caught up with Tabitha to talk about the road to recovery and the impact it’s had on Celine’s.</p><p>How was your cancer discovered?<br>I found the lump myself, which was on the right breast, the size of a grape. I immediately went in for my first mammogram right after the discovery at the age of 42. It was followed by an ultrasound that day and the doctor scheduled a biopsy about a week later … it was cancer. I was in utter shock and very scared. Cancer did not run in my family and I had just had a baby a year prior.</p><p>How did you find balance between work and treatment?<br>I had an amazing staff and husband who contributed to balancing out the work load of both home and business.</p><p>And maintaining the store?<br>While I was out three months [my employees] took care of everything. I couldn't have been more blessed knowing that they were taking care of my business. My mom, sister, mother-in-law and friends from out-of-state came to assist with caring for me and helping with my family and newborn baby. I was so thankful for the outpour of their generosity.</p><p>When did you finish treatments?<br>My breast cancer was classified as stage I ductal cancer in the right breast. I took the radical route and decided to have a double mastectomy … three months following the diagnosis. Since I had caught the cancer early enough, I was fortunate not to have to endure chemotherapy or radiation treatments following the surgery. I [opted to have] breast reconstructive surgery immediately following the mastectomy.</p><p>When did you begin plans for your second location?<br>It wasn't until after a clean bill of health (March, 2010) that I was able to get back to work and focus on my business again. I opened the second location [in Parker] eight months later.</p><p>How has your experience as a cancer survivor affected you as a business owner?<br>It has opened doors to a huge network of other cancer survivors through my business by sharing and supporting those people who have or have had breast cancer. I share my experience with so many people when I am working and by doing so I have developed new friendships -- a sisterhood, if you will -- as a cancer survivor. I'm amazed every day and so grateful to share or support my customers who have or are going through breast cancer.</p><p>Celine’s Designer Resale Boutique, 15254 E. Hampden Ave., Aurora; 303-680-5544<br>Celine Repeats, 17914 Cottonwood Drive, Parker; 303-766-7467</p> <br>?<p>A recent found that more than half of young teachers plan to make teaching a lifelong career, and many more plan to stay for a long time. Yet half of new teachers leave urban classrooms within three years, just as they are beginning to have the strongest impact on student learning. That is a terrible loss for low-income students, whose classrooms experience the greatest churn. I founded to improve the achievement of urban children by ensuring that a greater proportion of students have access to excellent, experienced teachers. </p><p>So what is driving great early-career teachers away? For a large proportion, it is a lack of leadership opportunities. As ambitious teachers master their craft, they discover that all growth paths lead out of the classroom. That is why Teach Plus engages thousands of solutions-oriented teachers in leadership opportunities that help transform the profession for a new generation. We are giving teachers a reason to stay. </p><p>The time for this transformation is now. After decades in which Baby Boomers made up most of the teaching force, more than half of teachers in the U.S. today have . They are the New Majority. These early-career teachers' views are markedly different than those of the Baby Boomers, who will retire by the millions in the coming years. </p><p>By and large, the media has ignored this sea change in the teaching profession. In the media's portrayal, teachers hate tests and find accountability to be unfair. Yet among the New Majority, it is much more common to find teachers who want to know their impact on student learning and have their success recognized. They want to see data about the progress their students are making on the curriculum they teach. They want good information that leads to opportunities to improve their practice. In polling Teach Plus has done in three cities, of teachers agree with the statement, "I believe that clear, measurable standards of effectiveness are critical for teaching to be recognized as a true profession." </p><p>The New Majority is ready to be heard. The teachers associated with Teach Plus are already stepping up to tell policymakers what they think, and succeeding in changing minds and changing policy -- all while doing what they love most: teach. They know from experience what it will take to ensure that all students get the high-quality education that they deserve. This blog will be a place for their stories -- stories that are happening in real classrooms right now. We would all be wise to listen. Young people's futures depend on it.</p><p>By Celine Coggins, founder and CEO, Teach Plus</p><p>Follow Teach Plus on Twitter:</p>?<p>"Teacher voice is needed in order for real reform to take place," U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told the inaugural cohort of last week, when he joined more than 200 teachers and policymakers to celebrate the launch of Teach Plus D.C. It was a message the Fellows took to heart.</p><p><br>A diverse group of 25 district and charter teachers, the first D.C. cohort of Policy Fellows includes recent education school graduates, Teach for America and D.C. Teaching Fellowship alumni, and career-changers from fields as wide-ranging as business, mental healthcare and the military. Together, they'll spend the next eighteen months working toward positive change in their profession. Last Tuesday, they got started. </p><p>Three of those new Fellows reflected on their evening with Secretary Duncan:</p><p>Alyson Roberts, Reading Intervention, C.W. Harris Elementary School:</p><p>As I Metro-ed across the city to the event with Secretary Duncan, my mind wandered to what I always seem to think about when I have some reflecting time: my students. My brilliant, hilarious, wonderful students. I thought about their smiling faces as we completed our reading lesson that day, of their excitement over our prediction chart for Groundhog Day. But these positive reflections were followed, as they often are, by a more sobering reality: how long will that excitement -- that hunger to learn -- last? Are my students still smiling now, outside of school? What can I do as an educator to ensure that my students never lose their thirst for knowledge, to ensure that they go on in life to reach the great potential I know they have?</p><p>With my students in mind, I entered the room to meet Secretary Duncan, and it was with a renewed sense of urgency that I left that room. Secretary Duncan's down to earth, practical, no-nonsense nature truly resonated with me. He was right when he said this work was personal -- indeed, I was called to teaching because it is personal to me. My dedication to my students is all-consuming and unconditional. It is also true, as Secretary Duncan stated, that teachers are often too polite, too nice. The need is urgent for truly passionate and dedicated teachers to speak out and let the country -- even the world -- hear our views on what is best for our students. After all, we are on the front lines, fighting this daily battle. </p><p>As Secretary Duncan challenged us to, I will be making a seat for myself at the table of education reform. If there isn't one available, I will be demanding a seat, even creating a new table if necessary. My students deserve to have their voices heard, and I am more than willing to be their advocate. That is, until they get around to changing the world themselves. </p><p>Caryn Davidson, Kindergarten, Truesdell Education Campus:</p><p>The excitement was palpable in the room where the D.C. Teaching Policy Fellows met for the first time. The same conversations were taking place all over the room, everyone trying to get a sense of who the others were. <br> <br>"Where do you teach?"<br> <br>"And where is that exactly?"<br> <br>"What issues are you interested in?"<br> <br>In that room, everyone's hopes were high for what we can accomplish over the next two school years, given our proximity to top policymakers and the track record of previous Teach Plus cohorts in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis and Memphis. The launch event with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was an inspiring way to start.<br> <br>Having grown up frequenting his mother's after-school center on Chicago's South Side, Secretary Duncan understands the challenges facing urban schools. I was impressed by his down to earth yet intense nature. When I had the opportunity to ask a question about how to support teachers who do so much for our students above and beyond our classroom roles, I appreciated his answer: first and foremost, provide more community resources to students and families, using the school as a natural organizing feature to take some of the extra burden off teachers. Secondly, better utilize the $2.5 billion of federal funding spent each year on for professional development. "That money keeps me up at night," said Secretary Duncan. He suggested that teachers need to investigate how the Title II funding intended for this purpose is spent in our schools and make recommendations about what trainings we need.<br> <br>Secretary Duncan was very clear: teachers need a voice at the table, and if a seat isn't made for us, we need to invite ourselves. If there is no table, we must create one. </p><p>If one thing is true about the inaugural group of Teach Plus D.C. Teaching Policy Fellows, it's that we have some very strong voices among us. I'm willing to bet that if we need one, there's a carpenter or two as well. </p><p>David Gesualdi, 1st Grade & Physical Education, KIPP D.C.: Heights Academy:</p><p>62 percent of new teachers feel unprepared to do their job. Wow. The federal Department of Education spends over $2.5 billion on professional development to aide our flailing education system. Wow. Hearing these statistics roll off Secretary Arne Duncan's tongue, I was struck not only by the numbers themselves, but also by the fact that he addressed our problems so candidly and responded with ways to proactively seek solutions. </p><p>From the moment he entered the Angle Room, where the Teaching Policy Fellows were getting to know each other, Secretary Duncan addressed us as his colleagues. Rolling up his sleeves and grinning, he asked, "So, why are you guys doing this?" He showed a deep interest in our purpose, and made clear that he saw us -- real, on-the-ground, current teachers -- as a positive force to improve our profession. </p><p>Throughout the presentation, from Teach Plus C.E.O. Celine Coggins' inspiring journey towards the creation of Teach Plus, to Massachusetts Teacher of the Year Adam Gray's real-life example of his struggle to master this craft, to the words of the Secretary himself, I got a strong sense of who is leading the movement to revamp public education, and how, as teachers, we must have a voice in that movement. As a new Teaching Policy Fellow, I am excited and honored for the opportunity to be a part of the change.</p><p>Alyson Roberts, Caryn Davidson, and David Gesualdi are . The Teaching Policy Fellowship is a highly selective program for current teachers interested in having a voice in decisions that affect their profession.<br></p><p>Follow Teach Plus on Twitter:</p>?<p>By Celine Coggins</p><p>Last week, I joined four at the International Summit on the Teaching Profession. These teachers came to the table with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, the national heads of the AFT and NEA, and education leaders from around the world to contribute to an urgent conversation about what needs to happen in American public education to make us competitive on an international scale.</p><p>This meeting took place at a moment when morale in the teaching profession has hit an all-time low. MetLife recently released the results from its annual , and the numbers were stunning:</p><p><br>This is the strongest evidence yet that the budget cuts, perpetual layoffs, and media bashing that have defined the past few years are having dire consequences on the teaching force, and by extension, students in American classrooms.</p><p>To me, this data reinforces my commitment to our mission. There has never been a time when we've needed the voice of teachers in education policy more. There has never been a time when we've needed more innovative ways to give our strongest teachers new reasons to keep working with students.</p><p>While the MetLife survey got major media attention from coast to coast, an article by Brian Denitzio, a teacher at Orchard Gardens K-8 Pilot School in Boston, should have been a required companion piece. It's called "" and it describes how his experience as a teacher leader with the T3 Initiative was a game-changer in helping him to continue working with students while also growing professionally.</p><p>It is possible to stem the tide of attrition and teacher dissatisfaction. Teachers like Brian inspire us to continue to offer an expanding number of leadership opportunities that encourage teachers to stay in the classroom, rather than moving to administrative roles or out of the field altogether. Teachers like Brian remind us of the urgent need to keep great teachers teaching, so kids continue to benefit from their talents.</p><p>This spring, we'll be selecting almost 150 teacher leaders for our programs. Both Memphis and Chicago will welcome new cohorts of Teaching Policy Fellows. And in Boston, Fall River, MA and Memphis, we're recruiting exceptional educators into our T3 Initiative. . We invite teachers to apply and education leaders to nominate strong candidates. With more opportunities like these, we hope to keep great teachers in the classrooms that need them most -- and keep them professionally invigorated at the same time.</p><p>Celine Coggins is the founder and CEO of . Check back later this week for teacher reflections on the International Summit on the Teaching Profession.</p><p>Follow Teach Plus on Twitter:</p>?<p>Kanye West isn't the only guy with an affinity for Phoebe Philo. We all remember when he showed off his gender bending sartorial style at last year in an SS11 blouse from Celine. Other guys have taken cue from Yeezy and are hitting the streets in Celine ready to wear. But perhaps what's the trend is guys storming in Celine totes and bags. Over the past month, I've been in New York, London, Paris, Amsterdam, and LA amongst a few other less fashion forward cities, but mainly everywhere I've gone I've seen guys toting Celine. </p><p>I don't think masculinity comes in to question with the luggage tote. Sure it's meant to be a women's bag but its large, structured, and classic. The oversize bag which retails on an average just over $2,000 was once lusted after due to limited retailers that carry the French line is clearly now more widely available. Guys have gotten there hands on them too. </p><p></p><p>"What's so great about Celine is that it's inspired by menswear and minimalism, so its perfect for guys who want something a bit more luxurious" said Remy DuMont (pictured above). I have to agree with him, what do you think? </p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Terrence Phearse on Twitter:</p>?Terrence Phearse is a freelancer at KCD Worldwide, contributor at ESSENCE.com and The Blay Report. In the past he has worked at Giorgio Armani US Corp, with celebrity stylist June Ambrose, and is a former intern of InStyle Magazine, HarpersBazaar.com, Melissa Rubini Studio, Louis Vuitton North America, Vibe Magazine, Teen Vogue, LuckyMag.com, Seventeen and Paper Magazine. Terrence holds a B.S. from the Fashion Institute of Technology and lives in New York City.?<p><br><br><br>If you've ever watched a music video and wondered what the hell it had to do with the song, this post is for you. It holds the best literal versions of music videos the Web has to offer. We would've included all the ones Aerosmith did in which Alicia Silverstone acted out every lyric of the song, but those were meant in earnest and were therefore disqualified.</p><p>1) "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" by Bonnie Tyler. "Here's where I pretend to be Eva Peron...Look at me I'm lifting my arms/ There's nothing else to shoot...so zoom camera under this arch." Amazing.<br><br><br>WATCH:</p><p><p><p><p><br>2) "Separate Ways" by Journey. Journey is deeply under-appreciated in this society, but not in the world of literal videos. Their visual interpretation for "Separate Ways" perfectly lends itself to literal treatment as everything the band is awesomely ridiculous.<br><br><br>WATCH:</p><p><p><p><p><br>3) "Under The Bridge" by Red Hot Chili Peppers. (aka Dustin McLean) is credited as the founding father of this genre, and this is Dusto at his best: Completely inane.<br><br><br>WATCH:</p><p><p><p><p><br>4) "Take On Me" by Aha. This video was a huge hit on the Internets, introducing many people to a world in which lyrics and images were one and the same. Considering it's a drawing inside a video inside the 80s, everything lines up perfectly.<br><br><br>WATCH:</p><p><p><p><p><p><br>5) "Head Over Heels" by Tears for Fears. "I'm acting really bashful while I'm singing to you/ Oh, I won't go away, no I just won't go away." Any video with a monkey in a library needs to be mocked.<br><br><br>WATCH:</p><p><p><p><p><br>6) "Just A Friend" by Biz Markie. Our friend 's fabulous take on Biz Markie's one and only hit. <br><br><br>WATCH:</p><p><p><p><p><br>7) "With Arms Wide Open" by Creed. This one seems too easy in that Creed's music videos are often literal interpretations the first time around. Still, they are completely silly and the "Lion King" approach is an interesting twist.<br><br><br>WATCH:</p><p><p><p><br><p>Get HuffPost Comedy On and </p> <br>?<p>You know what might be even better than yesterday's bacon video that instructed people to "?" , set to the tune of Celine Dion's ballad The Power Of Love. In the food world, if any single item was to deserve such a tribute song, it's only fitting that it's bacon.</p><p>This shot-for-shot spoof, performed by , is quite well-executed. Turn up the volume and belt it out -- you know you want to.</p><p>WATCH:</p>?<p><br>By Walter Armstrong</p><p>"Killed by Prescription Drugs" was the soundbite that headlined much of the instant media coverage of Whitney Houston's sudden death on Saturday. Some reports even named Xanax, a benzodiazepine, as the culprit; others repeated rumors of a Xanax/Ativan/Valium triple-benzo cocktail. If by Monday, after 24 hours of nonstop Whitney news -- or non-news -- the benzos were set to become the new Rx drug we love to hate, today it appears that medical reality has been, to some extent, restored, with the media reporting that a combination of benzos and booze took her life. But a sourced to a law-enforcement officer reported that Houston had what in the context of celebrity culture passes for a genuinely modest set of prescriptions: Xanax, Ibuprofin for pain, Midol for menstrual cramps and the antibiotic amoxicillin for an upper respiratory infection. (A toxicology report will not be available for a month or more.)</p><p>More from The Fix:<br><br><br></p><p>The fact is that Xanax taken on its own is . Benzos in general are simply not very toxic, except when taken in huge amounts -- as in a suicide attempt. The problem with the Death-by-Xanax headlines, then, is that not only are they misleading, but that they also confuse the public, simultaneously obscuring the benefits of this class of sedatives and their more serious dangers: their addictiveness. When prescribed to a chronic addict like Whitney Houston, Xanax and the other benzos are likely to become habit forming -- and downright harrowing to kick.</p><p>In certain morning-after eulogies, Houston, who blazed trails as the first African-American R&B singer to take pop music by storm, was likened, talentwise, to Judy Garland, widely regarded by her peers as the world's greatest-ever entertainer. Oddly, it appears the two women's deaths share several distressing details -- both perished at 48, from heart and lung failure due to a combination of alcohol and sedatives, in a bathroom, alone. </p><p>The toxicology report on Judy Garland, who died in 1969, revealed that her blood contained the equivalent of 10 capsules of the barbiturate Seconal.</p><p>Ironically, when the first benzodiazepines hit the market -- Librium in 1960 and Valium ten years later -- they were hailed as a great advance over barbiturates for the very reason that benzos appeared to be far less toxic and therefore harder to OD on. But just as Seconal, Nembutal and other "dolls" bagged some of Hollywood's biggest hides, including Marilyn Monroe, Jimi Hendrix and Tennessee Williams, so Xanax can claim a star-studded (and growing) roster of RIPs, including, Michael Jackson and Heath Ledger. These and the vast majority of other fatal overdoses involve Xanax taken, not alone, but with a cocktail of other psychoactive drugs and/or alcohol. Anna Nicole Smith OD'd on nine such drugs, including four different benzos.</p><p>Xanax, approved in 1980 for the then-brand-new diagnosis of "panic attack," is America's most (over)prescribed psychiatric drug, outpacing even the antidepressants that made us "The Prozac Nation." Every year, doctors write more than 50 million benzo scrips -- more than one per second -- and 11 percent to 15 percent of all adult Americans have a bottle in their medicine cabinet, (APA). While only 1 percent are daily benzo users -- denoting abuse or addiction -- the prevalence of benzos is, somewhat paradoxically, exceptionally high in psychiatric and addiction treatment centers. These very addictive molecules are commonly given to alcoholics and opiate addicts to quell the existential fear and trembling that accompanies withdrawal during detox.</p><p>The popularity of benzos can be measured by their blockbuster sales: Xanax is ranked number nine on the list of the nation's top-earning drugs; Klonopin, no. 32, Ativan no. 33 and Valium (still, after 40 years!) no. 51. These rankings are even more remarkable when you consider that all four drugs are available as generics, costing pennies per pill. Are we really, as a nation, that panicked?</p><p>Whitney Houston's benzo abuse appears to have resembled that of millions of other Americans -- 80 percent of such abuse involves combining the drug with another substance, most often alcohol, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Similarly, anywhere from 3 percent to 41 percent of alcoholics have reported abusing the sedatives. In fact, benzos have become a mainstay of many styles of drugging -- just what the doctor ordered when coming down off a crystal high, say, or to boost the euphoric effect of smack or Oxy. The addicted mind is ingenious in its rationalizations, and Houston may have thought, as alcoholics do, that a few benzos will get her drunk faster, so she would end up drinking less.</p><p>Hand-wringing over America's epidemic of prescription drug abuse has become a familiar gesture, and Houston's death offers a most apt occasion to do so: This so-called epidemic is constituted, almost entirely, by two classes of drugs: opioid-based painkillers, such as Vicodin, OxyContin, percocet and the like and benzodiazepines. Together, they accounted for about 68 percent of the total emergency room visits for pharmaceutical overdoses (1.08 million) in 2009, with opioids first (39 percent, or 416,500) but benzos not far behind (29 percent, or 313,000). Since 2004 alone, benzo emergencies were up by 118 percent, opiates by 140 percent; by stark (if underappreciated) contrast, ER visits related to heroin, cocaine, marijuana and other illegal drugs remained stable or actually decreased. Hospital and treatment center admissions for benzo addiction garnered headlines when the CDC's Drug Abuse Warning Network () announced the news last fall because it marked a 300 percent jump in just 10 years. </p><p>If the benzos' main selling point was their comparative safety, little attention was paid, early on, to their addictiveness. Yet this serious drawback quickly earned Valium the ironic encomium "mother's little helper." While only a conspiracy theorist would accuse drugmakers of intentionally designing to promote addictiveness, a business model with higher margins than addiction is hard to imagine.</p><p>Given how widely benzos are prescribed by doctors and how frequently patients (ab)use them, it is tempting to say that they turn people into addicts. But that charge is off the mark. What benzos do is almost unerringly find their way into the hands of addicts, typically on top of one or some already-established addictions, hastening the disease progression while increasing the risks.</p><p>Why is it so easy to become addicted to these sedatives? Partly because they work like a charm, melting that deer-in-the-headlights paralysis that accompanies stage fright or social anxiety, settling nerves, smoothing edginess, delivering the same sensation of "unwinding" as that first drink at happy hour. (I speak from experience.) </p><p>As Valium's addictive properties became a black eye, drugmakers aiming to come up with competitors faced a quandary. Because addictiveness is so poorly understood, they could not engineer an addiction-proof benzodiazepine molecule in the same way that, say, they could reformulate a pill to be abuse-proof by making it impossible to crush. What they managed instead was to "improve" the sedative with the usual pharmacological tweaks, making it stronger, faster acting and/or longer lasting. Ironically, these are the very qualities that make mood-altering chemicals more, rather than less, addictive.</p><p>The Food and Drug Administration, alert to the drug's habit-forming tendency, approved the sedative only for short-term use. The Drug Enforcement Agency further attempted to put the brakes on runaway abuse by making it a Schedule IV drug. Yet federal regulations can only intrude so far into the pharma-physician-patient triangle. Because the symptoms benzos treat, such as anxiety and insomnia, tend to be sporadic and/or intermittent, most prescriptions are "as needed," which is, for an addict, a minefield of an instruction. "As needed" can morph all too easily into "as wanted." At the same time, the drug's class strength -- its relative safety -- became, in practice, a liability, freeing doctors as it did from the restraints of ethical and especially legal fears.</p><p>Like all addictive substances, benzos foster tolerance, which in turn requires you to take more drug for the same effect; upping the dose accelerates dependence, and that way addiction lies.</p><p>Yet, in the final analysis, there is one sense in which Xanax did kill Whitney Houston. The active ingredient -- the benzodiazepine molecule -- works its sedative effect by increasing the release of GABA, the most common "inhibitory" chemical in the central nervous system (CNS): the more GABA, the less brain activity -- a desirable end when in the throes of a panic attack, but a hindrance when, say, taking the SATs. At the neuronal level, benzos dial up the sensitivity of the billions of CNS receptors to which GABA binds, intensifying its inhibitory effect.</p><p>But when taken with other GABA-inducing drugs (opiates, hypnotics, barbiturates, other benzos and, of course, alcohol), however, the risk of overdose rises exponentially because they all act on the receptor in similar ways and to similar ends. As your CNS is flooded all at once with billions of messages to slow down, the signals necessary to spark activity in the rest of your body fade out. The beating of your heart slows down. Your breathing stops.</p><p>Whether this scenario played out in the last minutes of Whitney Houston's life remains to be learned. It would be no surprise if her toxicology report, much like Judy Garland's, showed that her blood contained 10 times the prescribed amount of Xanax. She may have been popping these pills in like fashion for months or even years. She may have done so while consuming large amounts of alcohol. She may have believed that Xanax-and-booze were a healthier substitute addiction for her infamous cocaine addiction, which cost her so dearly in reputation and respect. She may have been right.</p><p>The search for a single bullet might be better served by heeding the sage Celine Dion, who told Good Morning America yesterday that she blamed the "bad people and bad influences" of celebrity culture for Houston's death. "What happens when you have everything?" she asked. Whitney Houston might provide a cautionary answer.</p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p> <br>?<p>Right from the off, we were told this was a “crucial stage of the competition” ? presumably, referring to The Voice’s chances of sucking the oxygen back from Britain’s Got Talent for Saturday night viewing (they can relax, from next week, they’ve got it back to themselves, but until then…)</p><p>But Voice bosses haven’t been resting on their laurels, coming up with ways to keep The Voice dramatic in a post-spinning-chair era. Their answer: doubling up the eviction rate ? two each from teams Tom and Will this week ? and getting these two judges to perform with their acts. </p><p>Which did the job. After all the contestants had done their bit, with Ruth Brown and Jaz Ellington firmly out in front on the leaders’ board, Silver Bear Sir Tom showed how it was done with an effortless rendition of Hit The Road Jack, before Will hit it out of the park with his “band of five” singing Black Eyed Peas’ own song Just Can’t Get Enough, with a show-stealing rap from the nation’s favourite tweeter. </p>More From The Voice:<p>But which FOUR are going out tomorrow? Here’s a round-up of everyone in action tonight, before the results show tomorrow… </p><p>Team Tom</p><p>Leanne Mitchell sang I Got A Spell on You. It emerged during emotional rehearsals with Tom, that she used to sing this song with her then boyfriend, before their temporary split. He’s now her husband, which made this song extra special for the performer. It was a spikey, spirited rendition of the classic with some soaring notes that got Tom smiling ? it rose to a beat ‘em belter that got the audience, and every judge, on their feet, and Will and others applauding “those riffs, those runs”.</p><p>Matt and Sueleen have been enjoying recognition in their hometown for more than being “the man who looks like Gandalf” in recent weeks. Tom didn’t look too chuffed as his folksy duo tried gamely to hit every harmonising note of Miss You (by Everything But The Girl), but it didn’t always come off, perhaps because they were seated facing away from each other. The judges applauded them for “taking chances” ? never a good sign… </p><p>Ruth Brown had a dream come true just in rehearsals when one of her singing idols Emeli Sande popped in to see how she was getting on with her rendition of Next to Me. Ruth did her proud with an anthemic, breast-beating performance that hit the back wall. “When I hear Ruth sing, I get choked up,” said Tom. </p><p>Adam Isaac, already a favourite with the ladies ? a few marriage proposals since the beginning of the series - stuck out once again this week with his rocky version of Radiohead’s High and Dry. Danny didn’t think it was Adam’s best yet, but Will thought it was “dope” and he added, “that’s not a word I use lightly.”</p><p>Team Will</p><p>Frances Wood ? teamed a saucy tutu with dark boots for a disco-tastic You Gotta Show Me Love (originally by Robin S). Will said he was “proud, with every note”, although Jessie expressed reservations that it was “very comfortable, you could have taken more risk”.</p><p>Joelle Moses found herself in the bottom two last week, and threw everything into this week’s efforts to avoid that happening again, even taking her coach’s advice not to sing a Celine Dion song. Instead, she went for Stronger, and gave an impressively assured performance. Jessie and Danny thought she finished better than she started, but Will was having none of it.</p><p>Tyler James admitted to nerves in rehearsal, but managed to keep it together for Terence Trent D’Arby’s Sign My Name, with a particular piercing falsetto “as strong as your normal voice”. Jessie was so impressed with him, she suggested she and Tyler went out for dinner. </p><p>Jaz Ellington has had a busy week, discovering the gender of his baby. He also found time to prepare a mash-up of Just The Way You Are, by Billy Joel and Bruno Mars respectively, which he sang to rabble-rousing effect, re-sealing his “favourite” status, temporarily whipped away from him by Ruth in the last couple of weeks.</p><p></p> <br>?What has always made Robin Williams interesting is that because he's talking quickly and extemporaneously, it seems "improvised". However, having admired Robin from afar for 25 years of my life and having never passed up a chance to see him perform or on a show, RARELY is anything he says actually off the top of his head, but rather recycled material filtered through his rapid response brain. For instance, he used a joke in Aladdin I heard him "riff" way back on an episode of Mork & Mindy ("also makes Julian fries"). Almost every joke he used in the Actor's Studio interview was old hat, I'd heard him do before, just not in that order or context. At one point he seemingly "improvised" a scene using a scarf from the audience using the pun "So Sari", which I've heard him do on at least 5 separate occasions over the years. <br><br>He also has such a super-absorbent brain, fellow comedians in the late 70's and 80's refused to do new material if he was at the comedy club because "elements" of their bits would "magically" show up in his riffs. At the Comedy Store, they actually used the lights that marked stagetime for comedians to warn those performing that Robin had stepped into the room. Not to take anything away from him- what's made him brilliant is because he has such an amazingly expansive repertoire of humor at the edge of his brain and is able to connect to it so quickly, he's been able to "fool" people into thinking it's all off the top of his head. It's never as fun when you pull back the curtain on the wizard, but even knowing all this, I still love watching him!?<p>Ever get the feeling that a terrible Celine Dion song is stalking you via the radio? Every time you scan the dial there it is taunting your heart to "... forever."</p><p>You're not being paranoid. </p><p>Commercial radio stations everywhere have been swallowed up by a handful of giant corporations, playlists have shrunk, and local and independent acts have been drowned out, as Big Radio soaks listeners in a mind-numbing concoction of saccharine and aspartame.</p><p>The good news is that your rescue is at hand. On Tuesday, Reps. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and Lee Terry (R-Neb.) introduced a bipartisan bill that would pry open our radio airwaves for thousands of new stations, bringing independent acts like , and -- or your favorite local band -- to the audiences they deserve. </p><p>Unleashing Radio's Potential </p><p>The Local Community Radio Act would unleash the potential of new music for millions of listeners across the country. The bill tasks Washington with licensing thousands of Low Power FM radio stations (known in radio geekdom as LPFM). </p><p>There are already on the air. They're run out of college campuses, garages, , and local churches, and aimed specifically at listeners in their surrounding neighborhood. </p><p>And they're not just airing independent music. Some are providing local news and information that in has kept people alive.</p><p>Hoarding Air </p>Why local radio mattersWe made a run at getting up to 3,000 more LPFM station on the air in the last Congress; more than 100 members supported a similar bill in 2008. <p>But it ran afoul of Big Media's lobbying arm, the National Association of Broadcasters, which makes its living off hoarding the public airwaves for a small corporate clientele - including many of the broadcasters that put Celine Dion on your tail.</p><p>The prospects for the new bipartisan bill are better. Groups like , and the are ready to fight off the lobbyists and their efforts to quash new radio. Already 1,300 people have joined a Facebook group dedicated to "." </p><p>And a new Twitter (#lpfm) is now generating updates as the Local Community Radio Act moves through Congress.</p><p>A Megaphone for the Many </p><p>That's something, but it may not be enough to give radio listeners real choices and new voices at every turn of the dial. </p><p>We need to support this bill - yes, unanimous support when it goes to a vote. It could be Congress's first real display of bipartisanship. </p><p>What better way to ring in a new era of participatory media than by injecting new blood into a radio system that's been a megaphone for the few, for far too long.<br></p>?["entry_id":"1942549","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.com¥/2012¥/10¥/05¥/john-legend-tour-canceled_n_1942549.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/251212¥/slide_251212_1534672_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/251212¥/slide_251212_1534672_small.jpg","title":"Cruel Summer Lineup","slideshow_id":"251212","vertical":"entertainment","entry_id":"1946334","entry_url":"http:¥/¥/www.huffingtonpost.com¥/2012¥/10¥/07¥/beyonce-jay-z-at-barclays_n_1946334.html","content_type":"image","image_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/203941¥/slide_203941_598900_small.jpg","thumbnail_url":"gadgets¥/slideshows¥/203941¥/slide_203941_598900_small.jpg","title":"Beyonce and 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(Seriously -- we get it.)</p><p>To mark the occasion, James Cameron's 1997 Oscar-winning Best Picture "Titanic" got re-released in 3D; there were new forensics investigations conducted on “Titanic: The Final Word" on NatGeo, the channel that's also hosting a nine-hour Titanic-themed marathon of specials and documentaries on the anniversary, Sun., Apr. 15; and now we have "Titanic," a four-part miniseries (pictured, airs Sat., Apr. 14, 8 p.m. ET and Sun., Apr. 15, 9 p.m. ET on ABC) from "Downton Abbey" creator Julian Fellowes. And that's just the tip of the iceberg ... pun very much intended.</p><p>But the anniversary and influx of creative Titanic coverage only made us more obsessed with the ship at the center of it all. So we're raising our sails and saluting our favorite TV boats, cruise ships, submarines and other vessels (plus, their famous passengers, like Ryan Gosling).</p><p>Just sit right back (and click into our gallery) and you'll hear a tale, a tale of quite a few other famous TV boats. Ahoy!</p><p></p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p> <br>?<p>Much like it's predecessor, the RMS Titanic who sunk on April 15, 1912 after hitting an iceberg on it's maiden voyage from, the Titanic II is no longer with us. The punchy 16-foot boat suffered a leak and sunk off the coast of Dorset, England. Don't worry, the crew, consisting only of captain Mark Wilkinson, made it safely to land thanks to the quick work of the harbor police. </p><p>. </p> <br>?the_north_face: ã??Miumiu 財å¸?ã??ã?¯ç??ã??ã??å?¯æ??ã??å??ç´ã??ã??ã?¨ã?«ã??ã?¦ä½?ã??å?ºã??ã??ã?¤ã?¿ã?ªã?¢ã??ã?©ã?³ã??å??ã?§ã??ã??ã??ã??ã?«ã??女æ?§ã?«ã?¨ã?£ã?¦ã??ç??ã??ã??ã?­ã?¥ã?¼ã??ã?¯ã?¤å®?ç?¨æ?§ã??å??ã??ã??財å¸?ã?¯ã?ªã??ã?¦ã?¯ã??ã??ã?ªã??ã??ã?®ã?§ã??ã??ã??財å¸? Miumiuã??ã?¯ã??ã??ã??ã?®è¦?ç´ã??çµ?ã?³ã?¤ã??ã?¦ä»?ä¸?ç´?大人æ°?ã?ªã??ã?©ã?³ã??å??財å¸?ã?«ã?ªã??ã?¾ã??ã??ã??ã?¶ã?¤ã?³ã?®ä¸?ã?§ã??æ§?ã??å?¯æ??ã??ã??ã??ã??ã??ã??ã??å½¢ã??æ?¡ç?¨ã??ã?¦ã??è¶?人æ°?ã?ªç??ã??財å¸?ã??ä½?ã??å?ºã??ã?¾ã??ã??ä»?ã??å?¯æ??ã??ã?®ã??ã??ã?ªå¥³æ?§ã??å¤?å??ã??Miu miu 財å¸?ã??ã?«ç?®ã??ã??ã??ã?¾ã??ã??ï¼??<p>LONDON — The names change, not the results. Just call the U.S. women's basketball team Olympic champion – again.</p><p>The Americans won their fifth straight gold medal Saturday, routing France 86-50 and putting more distance between themselves and the rest of the world heading into the 2016 Rio Games.</p><p>"It just shows the depth and talent in our country. Women's basketball, it's our sport – it's our sport," said Diana Taurasi, who has been a part of the last three gold medals. "We grew up playing since we were little and give it every single little bit of energy we have."</p><p>Candace Parker scored 21 points, including eight straight during the game-changing run in the second quarter as the U.S. won its 41st straight Olympic game.</p><p>This one was special.</p><p>Taurasi, who said she doesn't get emotional, cried receiving her gold medal and then paraded around draped in an American flag.</p><p>"A little trip down memory lane," Taurasi said. "The track record was going through my head. My parents, Coach was there. It was just a lot of things hit me at once and that's what happened."</p><p>The winning streak started in the bronze medal game in 1992. In that stretch, the Americans have won by nearly 30 points a game. Only one team has stayed within single digits of them, and they've lost just once in major international competitions, to Russia in the semifinals of the 2006 world championship.</p><p>Coach Geno Auriemma didn't want to get drawn into the debate of where this team ranks among the five that have won the gold.</p><p>"The United States has had great teams since 1996 and we are just another one on the list," he said. "We accomplished the same thing they did and I don't know if that separates us. I think it just makes us equal."</p><p>Teresa Edwards, Dawn Staley, Sheryl Swoopes and Lisa Leslie got the amazing run started, and Taurasi, Sue Bird and Tamika Catchings have continued it.</p><p>With young stars Parker, Maya Moore and Tina Charles a big part of the success in London it doesn't look like the run will end anytime soon.</p><p>"The players give back. You have players coming back for a third Olympics to show the younger players what it takes to win a gold medal," said Parker, a two-time Olympian. "I learned a lot from Tina Thompson, Lisa Leslie, Katie Smith and now Dee, Tamika, Sue. It's just the passing down of what it takes to win. That commitment to USA Basketball."</p><p>Catchings said the Americans "just wanted to keep that legacy going."</p><p>Edwards, a five-time Olympian, said no worry there.</p><p>"The legacy is real," said Edwards, who had a front-row seat Saturday night. "What these kids have been doing is amazing. Without much time to practice. In the middle of the WNBA season. And they look good. It's like the whole world knows who we are. I'm really proud of them.</p><p>"They're definitely among some of the best" U.S. teams.</p><p>The U.S. faced its only challenge of the London Games when Australia took a four-point halftime lead. It was the first time in 12 years that the Americans had been trailing at the half. There was no panic or worry. They just stepped up their defense and vanquished the Australians, winning by 13 points.</p><p>"It's not easy to just be put together and be expected to win a gold medal," Taurasi said. "It's a special feeling."</p><p>France, which came into the gold medal game unbeaten, stayed with the U.S. for the first 12 minutes before Parker took over. She scored eight straight points during a 13-2 run that gave the U.S. a 37-23 advantage. Twice the 6-foot-4 Parker grabbed the rebound on the defensive end and dribbled up through the defense scoring on the other.</p><p>While Parker – who also had 11 rebounds – was providing the offense, the Americans turned up their defense, holding France to just one basket over the final 7:25 of the half.</p><p>"We always felt like as long as we played our best ... we'd be all right," Bird said.</p><p>The U.S. led by 12 at the half and poured it on in the third quarter. France got within 41-31 but the U.S. scored 13 of the next 14 points any thoughts of a monumental upset were forgotten.</p><p>On one sequence, Catchings got a steal and passed to Bird, who hit Moore in perfect stride for a finger-roll lay-in down the lane. It only got worse from there for France, which was making its Olympic debut.</p><p>The Americans bottled up France's flashy point guard Celine Dumerc, who made only field goal in the first half and finished with eight points.</p><p>"I'm just happy to have this medal around my neck," Dumerc said of her silver. "We lost to a very good team and we made history for women's basketball in our country."</p><p>___</p><p>Follow Doug Feinberg on Twitter at </p>?<p>Two people have been charged with extortion after being arrested by detectives for allegedly trying to sell embarrassing information about singer Stev...</p>?"The Huffington Post UK" is provided by AOL (UK) Limited. ©2012 AOL (UK) Limited its affiliates and licensors.<br>Part of HuffPost News . HPMG News?eGHZmFyID44mYu00M5dZQhYaAu%2FAmgJCGfYy66NCsZ2EUUrkxATVpSzBNJOBqEzcV2f6zvgZ4FLzuHlXFqCtvHEMfu8cnurHGtdTrlO6FQ6fVx4NbTyV%2B7Ql2tAH0vCj4kIuB5Ua5hfpX3jCUjpesA7EFvdsOSuTBc8OfyGzw3GYqrfjYvGOR8QAEXbdlMhN?<p><br><p><p><p><br><br></p><p>This is definitely our favorite YouTube cover of the weekend: Adele's hit single 'Rolling In The Deep' performed by siblings Angie (10, vocals), Abelardo (15, guitar/bass/piano), and Gustavo Vazquez (13, drums) from Mexico -- '.'</p><p>What do you think: Could the Vazquez kids be the next Jonas Brothers? Do they do Adele's song justice? Any other teen YouTube stars we should know about? Tell us in the comments or tweet us !</p><p>(Found via )</p><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>Check out this slideshow of other amazing teens on our radar right now: <br>?<p>It was a night bustling with big hair and bold clothes as "divas" took over the stage at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York for last night's annual VH1 Divas concert.</p><p>Stars in attendance included Mary J. Blige, Kelly Clarkson, Florence + The Machine, Jennifer Hudson, Jessie J., Jill Scott, Chaka Khan, Erykah Badu, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Boyz II Men, Estelle, Marsha Ambrosius and Travis McCoy. An unexpected guest? Rapper 50 Cent, who went as Chaka Khan's date.</p><p>Sartorially, the night was packed with sequins and spangles (what, you think "divas" would try to blend into a crowd?). Kelly Clarkson and Jennifer Hudson both had two costume changes (the latter opting for a sexy orange minidress and later, a sequined evening gown). Our new favorite style icon, Florence Welch, wore two of her trademark pre-Raphaelite gowns, one silver and low-cut and the other lacy and black.</p><p>Baffling Look of the Night goes unquestionably to Jessie J, whose pink and orange-fringed bodysuit made her look like she had just skipped in from doing backflips at the circus.</p><p>The annual event where soul music has thrived, like Philadelphia, Detroit, Memphis, Chicago and London. Welch, Wanda Jackson and Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings also paid tribute to the late Amy Winehouse.</p><p>The special airs tonight on VH1, but why wait? Check out our slideshow of all the star power and sparkling couture below.</p><p></p> <br>?<p>FAYETTEVILLE, ARK. (AP) ? While Wal-Mart's U.S. business is roaring back, the world's largest retailer will face scrutiny from shareholders at its annual meeting Friday in the wake of allegations that top executives neglected their responsibility in a bribery scandal in Mexico.</p> <p>Shareholder groups, including the nation's two largest public pension funds, and key proxy adviser firms have called for the removal of several board members, including CEO Mike Duke and former CEO Lee Scott. Investors have filed lawsuits against top executives.</p> <p>The descendants of founder Sam Walton own about 50 percent of Wal-Mart's shares, so activist shareholders have little chance of voting out the board members. But any lack of support for the leaders is a blow to the retailer, which has worked hard to rebuild its reputation. Such criticism could dampen the festivities of the celebrity-laden event, which will celebrate the company's 50th anniversary.</p> <p>The New York Times reported in April that Wal-Mart allegedly failed to notify law enforcement after finding evidence that officials authorized millions of dollars in bribes in Mexico to get speedier building permits and other favors.</p> <p>Mexico is Wal-Mart's largest international operation. Duke was the head of the international division and Scott was CEO when Wal-Mart was conducting the probe in 2005.</p> <p>Federal authorities in the U.S. and Mexico are said to be investigating Wal-Mart for potential violations of the 1977 law that forbids U.S. companies from bribing foreign officials.</p> <p>Wal-Mart has said it is overhauling its compliance program and has launched an internal investigation. It disclosed last month that it is widening the investigation to other countries.</p> <p>Executives are not expected to discuss details of the case during presentations to thousands of people expected at the annual meeting at the basketball arena at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.</p> <p>In a pep rally with international workers Wednesday, executives including Duke and international CEO Doug McMillon, urged employees to embrace integrity and follow the rules of business established by its founder.</p> <p>During a media conference Thursday, McMillon said Wal-Mart plans to use the accusations to strengthen its protocols not only relating to foreign bribery but also other issues like food safety.</p> <p>"A moment like this causes us to be on our toes," McMillon said. "We're trying to use this as an opportunity to be an even stronger company."</p> <p>Still, Wal-Mart's strong financial performance offers reasons for investors to cheer. The company's shares fell more than 7 percent to $57 per share right after the allegations of bribery were reported. But since reporting a better-than-expected first-quarter profit that showed an improving U.S. namesake business, shares have more than recovered. The stock is now trading at around $65.</p> <p>Wal-Mart's U.S. namesake unit, which accounts for 60 percent of net sales, turned in its best performance in three years in revenue at stores open at least a year. That metric rose 2.6 percent in the division for the first quarter. That marked the third consecutive quarterly gain for the division after nine straight quarters of declines.</p> <p>The figure is considered a key measurement of retail performance because it excludes stores that open or close during the year.</p> <p>Total revenue for the U.S. Wal-Mart division rose 5.9 percent. Customer traffic rose for the second quarter in the row. And its clothing business posted its first sales gain in six years after going back to basics like underwear and jeans.</p> <p>The business had been struggling because its core low-income customers had been hard hit by joblessness and other challenges in the weak economy. The unit also had erred in veering away from its "everyday low prices" strategy and getting rid of popular merchandise. But Wal-Mart last year began adding back 10,000 products and refocused on keeping prices low.</p>?<p>FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- What do Taylor Swift and Bill Clinton have in common? </p><p>It's not the folksy accents, though, perhaps those helped them score the gig. On Friday at Walmart's annual shareholders meeting, the singer and the politician both gushed with praise for the company. In front of a crowd of 14,000 workers and investors in the University of Arkansas' Bud Walton Arena, Swift performed songs on a glittery silver guitar and talked about shopping for candy at her local Walmart in Nashville, Tenn.</p><p>In a prerecorded video that played on a screen on the stage, Clinton praised Walmart's sustainability efforts, which he said would have made company founder Sam Walton proud. Lionel Richie, Juanes, the Zac Brown Band and Celine Dion also performed in person.</p><p>Friday's four-hour meeting -- which began at 7 a.m. -- culminated a week-long party thrown by Walmart for its workers or "associates." Each year, Walmart flies in an associate from each of its stores -- about 5,000 people in total -- to the area surrounding its Bentonville, Ark., headquarters. All the Walmart associates who attended are also shareholders owning stock, mostly through the company's 401(k) plan.</p><p>Since this year is Walmart's 50th anniversary, the . But the annual gathering was also sullied by a scandal that erupted in late April after The New York Times published in order to fuel its rapid growth in that country. </p><p>A few critics of Walmart also showed up at Friday's meeting, which was the last opportunity for shareholders to vote on a slate of candidates for the company's board of directors as well as three shareholder and two company proposals.</p><p>Jackie Goebel, 60 of Kenosha, Wis., a Walmart associate for 24 years, who helped draft a shareholder proposal that would have required the company to issue a report on executive incentive compensation plans, criticized Walmart's treatment of workers during her speech. "Our stores are understaffed," said Goebel, who is also a member of labor organization OUR Walmart. "We can't provide the type of service that Sam Walton built the company on." </p><p>Though Goebel's proposal received applause, hers and two other proposals by shareholders were voted down as Walmart observers had expected. With the Walton family owning almost half of the company's stock, any other outcome would have been highly unlikely. Shareholders elected all 16 board members recommended by Walmart.</p><p>While Walmart's financial performance has been strong -- as of Friday afternoon, its share price was roughly 5 percent higher than before the scandal hit -- some investors are concerned about ethics. Three of the largest pension funds in the United States voted against reappointing members of Walmart's board, including CEO Mike Duke, former CEO Lee Scott and Chairman Rob Walton. The funds, CalPERS, CalSTRS and the , claim that these board members played a role in suppressing Walmart's internal investigation of the bribery in Mexico.</p><p>"CalSTRS does not have confidence that the current board has the independence and leadership needed to address these difficult issues," according to from the fund. A few days earlier, in a May 19 report, ISS, one of the largest proxy advisory firms in the United States, also criticized Walmart executives Duke and Scott for "a staggering lack of judgment" in their decisions to have Walmart's internal investigation of the alleged bribery run by officials implicated.</p><p>At the shareholders meeting, Duke and other executives responded to critics. "Walmart is committed to compliance and integrity everywhere we operate," Duke said. "I want to personally assure you that we're doing everything we can to get to the bottom of this matter."</p><p>"If you work for Walmart, there is no gray area between right and wrong," he said. "It's either the right thing to do or it shouldn't be done at all. This is my standard. It was Sam Walton's standard."</p><p>Sam Walton was the name mentioned most often during the meeting, by both Walmart insiders and critics. Since his death in 1992, Walmart's founder, "Mr. Sam," has become a kind of deity at the company's annual meetings. At the start of Friday's event, the Walmart chairman, Rob Walton, and his siblings, Alice and Jim, told stories about their father and what it was like to clean floors and dust china in his first store in Bentonville. </p><p>Black-and-white photos of and newspaper clippings about Walton flanked the stage. Between musical acts, a central screen displayed a collage of Walton's face composed of tiny individual photos of Walmart workers.</p><p>Justin Timberlake, the host of the event, also referenced Walton: The actor-singer first walked on stage wearing a Hawaiian grass skirt, something Walton once did when visiting Wall Street. "I finally understand the Walmart way," Timberlake said at the meeting's close. "It's not just associates. You are a family." </p><p>But the feud among members of the "family" is far from over. At a shareholders Q&A following the meeting, members of labor group OUR Walmart presented executives with a petition calling for the resignation of Duke and Walton. Some 17,000 people had signed the petition, the group said. </p><p>While her proposal didn't pass, Goebel considered the shareholders meeting a success. "After the meeting I went outside and it was amazing. Walmart associates approached me and said, 'You're the person that spoke.' They said, 'You spoke for us.'"</p><p>When asked about the petition at a Q&A with analysts later Friday afternoon, Walmart U.S. CEO Bill Simon said the associates sympathetic to OUR Walmart and other labor groups represented "a relatively small number of people." </p><p>Susan Chambers, a Walmart executive vice president, added that Walmart ranks "between high and best in class" for the retail sector in the opinion surveys the company conducts with its associates. </p><p>Check out the celebrities and executives at the meeting:</p>?Usually a celebrity wardrobe malfunction consists of a generous dose of sideboob, a visible tush or, most classically, the accidental flash...?<p>Traciana Graves, founder of , enjoyed a successful career as a vocal artist, singing back-up vocals for sensations like Celine Dion. Eventually she started to feel like she wasn't doing enough with the 22 hours of her day when she wasn't performing on stage. Her childhood and young adult years had been plagued by bullying, and when the issue of bullying was brought to her attention again she felt that she needed to do something about it. Since January 2011 she has reached over 7,000 people with Project Bully Free Zone's workshops, which cater to schools and corporations who feel a need for bullying education and prevention.</p><p>Have you ever thought about starting your own business? Have you taken steps towards your business dream? Tell me about it in the comment section below.</p><p></p>My Weekly Newsletter<br>Sign up to receive my email newsletter each week - It will keep you up-to-date on upcoming articles, Mondays with Marlo guests, videos, and more!<br><br> <br>?<p>Stylist got his boyfriend, "" writer/producer , a little worried when the pair agreed to play "Plead the Fifth" on "" (Weeknights, 11 p.m. EST on Bravo).</p><p>Host asked, "Tell us one unflattering thing about Gary we would be surprised to hear." To which Brad replied, "He loves getting blowouts." A worried-looking Gary obviously thought Brad was going to say something else exhaled in relief when he heard the word "blowout."</p><p>Then, Cohen asked Brad to name a celebrity he would refuse to style. Diplomatically, Brad replied, "My door's always open."</p><p>When Gary was in the hot seat, Cohen asked him to choose between "Will or Grace?" The answer: Will, natch. But Gary showed he could be just as diplomatic as Brad when Cohen asked what was the worst project he'd ever written for. He wisely plead the fifth on that.</p><p>Watch Andy and his guests in the Bravo clubhouse on "Watch What Happens Live," Weeknights at 11 p.m. EST on Bravo.<br> <br>TV Replay scours the vast television landscape to find the most interesting, amusing, and, on a good day, amazing moments, and delivers them right to your browser.</p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p> <br>?<p>Palm Beach Post:</p><p>UPDATE: may have been the result of a broken water main, the Palm Beach Post reports.</p><p>***</p><p>Imagine filling a 50-gallon bathtub five times a day for a year.</p><p>Even then, you wouldn't come close to what some Treasure Coast water customers use in just one month.While most residents use fewer than 10,000 gallons a month, utility records show that some of the Treasure Coast's most water-hungry residents use more than 15 times that amount.The biggest users live along Martin County's coastline, including wealthy Jupiter Island, where homeowners use up to 1.6 million gallons a month - more than 250 times the average amount used by residential customers served by Martin County utilities.</p><p>For the 12 months that ended in March, the title of top water-guzzler went to Renlec Management, the Montreal-based company of Canadian singer Celine Dion, who owns 5.7 acres in the island town. In a year, the property used about 6.5 million gallons of water, or enough to fill a 50-gallon bathtub about every four minutes.<br></p><p></p> <br>?You are entitled to your opinion, but I don't share it. I think Celine Dion is a marvelous talent/performer, but her voice has an excessive vibrato and tremlo, some of Celine Dion's songs are magnificent....and other's totally get on my nerves from that vibrato. Whitney Houston's voice in it's excellence" was pure perfecton, any song she sang, "because of that voice", and her musical phrasing was a master piece". I am an opera singer.....I know voices and technique, Whitney Houston''s voice was one of those god given voices of perfection, "she is the original from which all others copied and found their wings" Hers was a "truly glorious instrument", unmatched hands down". Whitney Houston came before Celine Dion....so she too benefited from Whitney Houston's body of work, I remember Celine when she was introduced via a Disney duet with Peabo Bryson. Whitney exploded when her voice was first heard, I lived it, she is my era and my generation, she was unmatched. She struggled with pushing her middle voice, which caused her a lot of vocal issues, add to that smoking, drug addiction, she opened the door to allow others to access her reigning crown. If Celine Dion shared that title, it was after Whitney went into decline, prior to that in her hey day....she wouldn't have been able to touch her. "True Dat". That clip the Grammy Awards played last night was not her at her best either. "Rest in Peace Whitney...."True fan".?<p>In honor of Whitney Houston, who died Saturday at the very young age of 48, members of the HuffPost Lifestyle staff have started compiling our memories of the incredibly talented singer and actress. Here are some of our thoughts -- we hope you'll add your own memories in the comments. <br><br><br>From Lisa Belkin, HuffPost Senior Columnist on Life/Work/Family:</p><p>"If my life had an anthem, it would be "," which Whitney sang at the opening of the Olympic games in 1988. I know that now, because I just looked it up. But the first time I heard it I was newly wed, in a new job, living in a new place and all I knew was that this song captured the simultaneous dread and exhilaration that comes with everything new. Whitney's best known songs are love songs, but this one is an exclamation point about life, work,creativity and craft. You have to work for it, you have to earn it, she says, but when you do, you deserve it: </p><p>I want one moment in time</p><p>When I'm more than I thought I could be</p><p>When all of my dreams are a heartbeat away</p><p>And the answers are all up to me</p><p>What I've always loved most is the declaration that the best part, the best moment, is the "just before" -- the anticipation and the crescendo. It's subtly sexual in its imagery, and the metaphor is apt. But today it holds new meaning, because clearly Whitney couldn't find this kind of happiness in the "ever after", in a life after the moment had passed.</p><p>And oh, that voice."<br><br><br>From Lori Fradkin, HuffPost Senior Lifestyle Editor:</p><p>"Until last night, I was certain that the boy Whitney Houston knew and sang about in her hit took her to the carnival. The lyrics to Whitney's song actually state that the boy she dreamed of and was too shy to phone took her "to the clouds above." But until last night, when I heard of the singer's death and looked up the words (and watched the ), I had a different picture of her experience.</p><p>I suppose when you’re a kindergartner making up a dance with your best friend, the idea of a girl wandering around the fairgrounds with a boy, perhaps stopping for cotton candy or a ride on the Ferris wheel, is far more appealing. My friend Kelli and I chose this song for our talent show, playing it in our school auditorium using the Fisher-Price ? that late-80s toy that also introduced us to Madonna, Belinda Carlisle and Tiffany. Whitney would go through some serious struggles in the years that followed, but when I hear her name, it is this memory ? one of my own innocence and what I perceived to be hers ? that immediately comes to mind."<br><br><br>From Margaret Wheeler Johnson, Women's Editor:</p><p>"When I heard that Whitney Houston had died Saturday at the age of 48, I was just leaving dinner with a friend in New York City. The streets of lower Manhattan suddenly filled with expressions of disbelief as the news got passed along. I heard more than one (tipsy?) sidewalk rendition of "I Will Always Love You."</p><p>Here was the amazing thing: There wasn't a trace of irony in all of their eulogies and ululations. And if you've lived in New York, you know that you don't go out on a Saturday night without your irony.</p><p>This was also amazing for me personally because, I am now emboldenedto confess: I like that song -- at least the way Houston sang it. Even as a child, I think I understood New Orleans' station, which my mother always had on in the car, to be the radio equivalent of Lifetime: Television for Women. But when Whitney Houston's rendition of "I Will Always Love You" hit the airwaves, no matter what you thought of the lyrics, the performance was mesmerizing. I'd never heard anything like that voice. I remember sitting in the bucket seat of the minivan, looking up from the homework I was doing in my lap, and thinking, "Who is this and how does she do that?" Whether she meant to or not, Houston managed to sing the song so that it delivered authentically some of the emotion that the Hallmark-y lyrics (sorry, Dolly) couldn't. Ever since, I've felt a little mad when people mock it and compare it to some of . Why dis Whitney to prove what a critical thinker you are? Why not just enjoy it? And last night, people did."</p><p><br>What's your best memory of Whitney Houston and/or her songs and performances? We'd love to hear them in the comments below</p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p> <br>?<p>"Who Wore It Better" often features celebrities of similar styles and tastes -- and it almost always features celebs of the same gender.</p><p>But this Celine caftan-style silk top, from Phoebe Philo's Spring/Summer 2011 collection, seems to be quite the popular choice for an unlikely trio of celebs: Kanye West, Jessica Simpson and filmaker Sam Taylor-Wood.</p><p>West was the first to don the look from the top while performing at Coachella this past summer. We did know the rapper loved high fashion, but we were all a bit suprised to see him grab a womenswear look (at least he wasn't ).</p><p>Next, Jessica Simpson stepped out in the breezy blouse, perhaps intending to hush .</p><p>Finally, the filmaker Taylor-Wood was seen wearing the same look while out with her fiance, the quite young Aaron Johnson (23 years her junior). Taylor-Wood, for one, is actually pregnant and covered her bump with Celine at .</p><p>With a shirt this well-traveled and clearly much beloved, we must ask: who wore it better?<br><br><br></p> <br>?<p>Last night on "The Late Show" David Letterman welcomed Will Ferrell to talk about his new movie "Megamind." As he does best, Ferrell didn't stick to the topic at hand and surprised everyone with a surprise performance of Celine Dion's "The Power Of Love," after claiming that he is taking over her show in Las Vegas while she takes care of her new twins. Maybe it's just us, but there's just something so right about Ferrell hanging from a stage ladder and screaming "I'm your lady" at the top of his lungs.</p><p>WATCH:<br><br><p><p><p><p><br></p> <br>?<p>PARIS — It was the moment the fashion world has been waiting for, the return of wildly popular designer Phoebe Philo, whose calm and collected debut spring-summer 2010 collection for Celine proved that after her several-year-long hiatus she still has the magic touch.</p><p>Philo's clean-lined basics, like A-line skirts and sheath dresses, garnered thunderous applause from the show's audience of fashion insiders for whom jaded is the normal etat d'esprit.</p><p>It was a good day for women looking for fashion-forward workaday chic, between Philo's razor-cut business staples and Stefano Pilati's chic minimalist suits and skits for Yves Saint Laurent. Pilati, another critical darling, continued to prove his prowess as a master tailor with a dark, subversive streak.</p><p>What Celine and YSL did for business clothes, Stella McCartney did for the summer wardrobe, sending out an easy, wearable collection of vacation basics.</p><p>Leonard continued to churn out the adorable flower print jersey dresses, skirts and jumpers that have been the Paris-based label's signature since the late 1960s.</p><p>Italy's Giambattista Valli provided the day's dose of drama – mild, by Paris standards – with a neo-romantic collection of cocktail numbers and swingy coats covered with enough feathers to make even the ugliest of ducklings into a swan.</p><p>Tuesday – day six of Paris' marathon nine-day-long ready-to-wear displays – includes shows by heavy hitters Chanel and Valentino, as well as French eccentric Jean-Charles de Castelbajac and British bad boy Alexander McQueen.</p><p>CELINE</p><p>Expectations couldn't have been higher. Monday's was Philo's first proper runway show since she left the fashion world in 2006 to spend more time with her family. There was a palpable sense of nervousness in the air, a feeling that the audience of hundreds of fashion editors and buyers from top stores around the world were waiting with collectively bated breath.</p><p>And then came the clothes: clean-lined sheath dresses and A-line skirts in mossy and tan leather, simple poplin shirts, creamy, romantic blouses and perfectly tailored wide-leg trousers in featherweight caramel wool. The clothes had little adornment beyond discreet leather finishings – and indeed they needed no sequins, beading, baubles or gimmicks to shine.</p><p>Speaking to reporters in a subterranean vault – the show was held in a former bank on the swanky Place Vendome jewelry hub – Philo said she had eased her way into the spring-summer 2010 collection.</p><p>"It's just the beginning. It felt like, just take it easy, just start easy," the affable British designer said.</p><p>"It's nice to have the bubble of expectations burst. That feels good," Philo told reporters as she received congratulatory hugs and kisses. "Sometimes what people get into their head is unachievable."</p><p>Not so say her fans, from fellow designers to top fashion editors.</p><p>"Everybody is so excited. She has such a unique take on what women really want to wear," gushed Harper's Bazaar editor-in-chief Glenda Bailey in a backstage interview. "When she was at Chloe, it was all very ... soft and very girly. And I have to say that Phoebe and her customer have grown up. It was really womanly dressing, like we like to see."</p><p>Philo replaced Croatian designer Ivana Omazic, who spent three years at the helm at Celine. Founded after World War II, the brand forged a reputation for excellence in leather goods but has since fallen on hard times, with management struggling to modernize its image.</p><p>If anything can manage that, it's Philo's trousers.</p><p>"Those pants, she cuts like no other, they're really perfect," said Bazaar's Bailey. Everyone knows there's nothing like a perfect pair of pants to forge an eternally loyal customer base.</p><p>YVES SAINT LAURENT</p><p>Pilati built on previous collections of clean-lined, mainly black-and-white pieces, delivering a collection dominated by puffed-sleeved poplin blouses, neat A-line skirts, cropped jackets with leather touches.</p><p>But, as always, Pilati went beyond the sort of workaday basics that can be seen on other runways, embellishing the garments with kicky touches – like a horizontal slit on the hemline of a pair of razor-cut shorts or little bows on the back of a vampy bustier dress – that set his collections apart.</p><p>The collection notes mentioned the value of work, and there was a vaguely Puritanical feeling to the show. Perhaps it was the apron dresses, the high collars, the full sleeves or all that starched poplin.</p><p>One look – an oversized Puritan collared shirt paired, oddly, with a pair of leather short shorts – was 17th century Plymouth Colony on top and 1950s-era Vegas showgirl on the bottom. But that and an ankle-length white skirt dotted with oversized strawberry appliques that evoked Strawberry Shortcake were the sole eyebrow-raisers in the very strong show.</p><p>STELLA MCCARTNEY</p><p>It was drizzling outside, but the catwalk radiated sunshine as models strutted their stuff in casual chic silk shantung suits, short denim skirts and off-the shoulder dresses in primary color prints that were begging to mambo.</p><p>"For summer, it's not about aggression or power, it's about being positive and being a real woman," McCartney told reporters in a backstage interview. "For me, those were real women coming down the runway."</p><p>The real women in the packed audience appeared to agree and gave McCartney a whoop of approval as she took a bow.</p><p>Her father, former Beatle Paul McCartney – who shared his front row perch with companion Nancy Shevell and actress Gwyneth Paltrow – called the show "parfait," or perfect in French, and gave it a thumbs up.</p><p>"I loved everything she does. She's my baby," he told reporters, shouting over his own voice singing the 1967 hit "She's Leaving Home."</p><p>LEONARD</p><p>Leonard gave a shout-out to its Japanese customer base with a collection inspired by Imari, 17th-century ceramics from Kyoto.</p><p>Ankle-length dresses in featherweight chiffon were printed with koi fish, flowers and artful curlicues in navy, peacock and sky blues – frequent motifs in Imari porcelain – with artful metallic finishings at the neckline.</p><p>Imari "is the most luxury porcelain in the world, all hand-painted, and usually it's only found in museums ... (though) I eat off of my own collection," said CEO Daniel Tribouillard, who has long played a role in the label's design. "I wanted to take these calm, peaceful designs off of plates and give them to our clients."</p><p>The rest of the collection was classic Leonard, flowing jersey with oversized flowers in pastels and Art Deco styles. Some of the knee-skimming sundresses were cinched at the waist with red skinny belts, while others had wide Japanese obi belts slung low around the models' hips.</p><p>The house also served up jumpers, among the hottest looks on Paris runways this season. The generously cut coveralls, in strapless and tank cuts, were the perfect summer getaway wear, easy to slip into and even easier to pack.</p><p>GIAMBATTISTA VALLI</p><p>There were feathers everywhere. The plumage, dainty ostrich feathers in scarlet, emerald, white and black, covered the skirts of cocktail dresses with transparent bodices and quivered daintily across the shoulders of wide-cut day coats.</p><p>Even many of the featherless looks had tiers of finely shredded chiffon that looked like it dreamed of one day becoming feathers.</p><p>But Valli – who last season sent out dramatic, peacock feather-covered gowns and coats – also delivered less fluffy looks this time around, sending out bold dresses and 1950s style coats in a graphic black-and-white print. There was also a sizable contingent of oversized ocelot prints, like on a swingy coat hung all around with a row of long black fringe.</p><p>Italian party girl Margherita Missoni was one of several celebrity guests, including Mary-Kate Olsen, to gush about Monday's collection and give Valli air kisses backstage after the show.</p><p>"I loved it. It was one of my favorite collections by Giambattista in the past years," said Missoni, whose grandfather founded the mythic Missoni knitwear house.</p><p>Asked what particular pieces she had her eye on, she responded "many, many, many."</p> <br>?<p>The UK's Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne hailed the deal, finally struck in the early hours after talks had overrun by a day and ahalf, as a "significant step forward" which would deliver a global, overarching legal agreement to cut emissions.</p><p>And he said it sent a strong signal to businesses and investors about moving to a low carbon economy.</p><p>But environmental groups said negotiators had failed to show the ambition necessary to cutemissions by levels that would limit global temperature rises to no more than 2C and avoid "dangerous" climate change.</p><p>The EU had come to the talks in Durban,South Africa, calling for a mandate to negotiate a new legally binding treaty on global warming by 2015, covering all major emitters, in returnfor the bloc signing up to a second period of emissions cuts under the existing Kyoto climate deal.</p><p>But in a surprise move yesterday evening, options for the new legal deal had been watered down to add a "legal outcome" to the existing possibilities of a "protocol or another legal instrument" - thelanguage which was used in the mandate for negotiating the Kyoto Protocol.</p><p>European ministers warned they could not accept the weakened deal, but India led the countries pushing for it, claiming they could not sign up to negotiate a legally-binding deal without knowing what would be in it or if it would be fair to poorer countries.</p><p>The deal was reached after the South African president of the talks urged the EU and India to go "into a huddle" in the middle of the conference hall in the early hours of this morning, in a bid to work outlanguage both sides were happy with.</p><p>A compromise, suggested by the Brazilian delegation, saw the EU and Indians agree to a road map which commits countries to negotiating aprotocol, another legal instrument or an "agreed outcome with legal force".</p><p>The treaty will be negotiated by 2015 and coming into force from 2020.</p><p>The deal also paves the way for action to address the "emissions gap" between the voluntary emissions cuts countries have already pledgedand the reductions experts say are needed to effectively tackle climatechange.</p><p>Mr Huhne insisted the agreement on the legal language was not "a fudge" and said that while the EU had not secured everything it wanted from thetalks, it was a great diplomatic success for the bloc.</p><p>He said: "What we have got is a very significant step forward because we've got a road map leading to a global overarching legal agreement, which is exactly what we wanted, we've got a timeline on it.</p><p>"And we've got a very clear process for dealing with the emissions gap in the interim."</p><p>He added: "We've managed to put this on the map and bring all themajor emitters like the US, India and China into a road map which will secure an overarching global deal."</p><p>While European leaders have been in turmoil over the Eurozone crisis in Brussels this week, Mr Huhne said that, in Durban, EU countries had all been "singing from the same hymn sheet" and when the bloc was united it was "quite formidable".</p><p>He paid tribute to countries such as China for the work they were doing to cut emissions on the ground.</p><p>And he said: "This is coming together in an overall internationalframework that gives business greater assurance about the future and investors greater assurance about the rate of returns they're going to get, and stop us locking in a whole generation of high carbon technologythat might other happen."</p><p>Michael Jacobs, who was former prime minister Gordon Brown's climate adviser and now visiting professor at the Grantham Research Institute of Climate Change and the Environmentat LSE, said business was looking for signals that governments were serious about low carbon policy - and that policies would be sustained.</p><p>"By acknowledging that current emissions targets are inadequate and must be raised, and by re-establishing the goal of a legal treaty, this agreement should help build such confidence," he said.</p><p>But environmental groups criticised the deal, finally agreed as the sun rose on the third night of all-night talks among negotiators and ministers, for a lack of ambition in cutting the greenhouse gas emissions which drive global warming.</p><p>Keith Allott, Head of Climate Change at WWF-UK, said: "Governments have salvaged a path forward for negotiations, but we must be under no illusion - the outcome of Durban leaves us with the prospect of being legally bound to a world of 4C warming.</p><p>"This would be catastrophic for people and the natural world. Governments have spent crucial days focused on a handful of specific words in the negotiating text, but have paid little heed to repeated warnings from the scientific community that much stronger, urgent actionis needed to cut emissions."</p><p>He welcomed the EU's role in a "high ambition coalition" of countries including the small island states and some of the poorest nations in the world, but urged Europe to show leadership by increasing its promise to cut emissions by 20% by 2020 to 30%.</p><p>Greenpeace International's executive director Kumi Naidoo said: "Right now the global climate regime amounts to nothing more than a voluntary deal that's put off for a decade.</p><p>"This could take us over the two degree threshold where we pass from danger to potential catastrophe."</p><p>Also agreed at the Durban talks was the establishment of a green climate fund to channel billions of pounds to poor countries to help them cope with impacts of global warming such as floods and drought - but no sources of money were found.</p><p>Rich countries have pledged 100 billion dollars (£64 billion) a year by 2020 for developing countries to deal with climate change and developwithout polluting.</p><p>Campaigners say the funding to help some of the world's most vulnerable people is particularly important if emissions reductions in the next decade and action after 2020 are not sufficient to keep long term temperature rises to no more than 2C.</p><p>Celine Charveriat, director of campaigns and advocacy for Oxfam said: "We cannot allow the Green Climate Fund to wither on the vine.</p><p>"Governments must identify significant and predictable sources ofmoney for the Fund without delay, such as a tiny tax on financial transactions and a fee on emissions from international shipping."</p><p>Mohamed Adow of Christian Aid said: "Action against climate change in 2020 will come a decade too late for poor people on the front line - they urgently need it now.</p><p>"Their lives are already ravaged by floods, droughts, failed rains, deadly storms, hunger and disease and we know that these disasters will get worse and more frequent as climate change bites."</p><p>Friends of the Earth's executive director Andy Atkins said: "The UN climate change process is still alive - but this empty shell of a plan leaves the planet hurtling towards catastrophic climate change.</p><p>"If Durban is to be a historic stepping stone towards success the world must urgently agree ambitious targets to slash emissions.</p><p>"Millions of the poorest people around the globe are already facing the impacts of climate change - countries like the US who have done most to create this crisis must now take the lead in tackling it.</p><p>"Decisive action to tackle climate change would slash fuel bills,create much-needed jobs and help people in poorer countries gain accessto clean energy."</p><p>The World Development Movement said the outcome of the talks was a "spectacular failure".</p><p>Murray Worthy, the organisation's policy officer, said: "Developed countries have behaved shamefully, blocking meaningful progress on tackling climate change.</p><p>"They have refused to acknowledge their historical responsibilityfor the crisis, either by agreeing to reduce their emissions or by providing finance to help developing countries deal with climate change.</p><p>"These talks have been held hostage by the EU. It seems EU countries came to Durban to impose a deal, not negotiate one.</p><p>"The spectacular failure to achieve an outcome on the most urgentissues puts the world on course for devastating climate change, condemning those least responsible to greater hunger, poverty and ultimately, death."</p><p>PA</p>?<p>Travel essentials</p><p>Why go now?</p><p>Paris earns its City of Light epithet not just for the Age of Enlightenment and early implementation of gas lamps: it was here that Auguste and Louis Lumiere patented the cinematographe in 1895, and held the first film screening soon after. Ever since, Paris has been an inspiration to filmmakers; each year more than 650 films are shot around the city, utilising its evocative streetscapes and grand landmarks. Woody Allen's soon-to-be released Midnight in Paris is one of the latest examples ? a thinly disguised love letter to the French capital.</p><p>The Paris Cinema International Film Festival runs until 13 July with 250 screenings around the city ( ).</p><p>Touch down</p><p>Take the Eurostar (0870 518 6186; ) from London St Pancras, Ashford and Ebbsfleet to Paris Gare du Nord (1), which has featured in films such as Patrice Leconte's Monsieur Hire and The Bourne Identity. The majority of flights from the UK arrive at Charles de Gaulle airport, 25km north-east of the city, which provided the inspiration for The Terminal. Six RER trains (ratp.fr) per hour provide links to Gare du Nord (1), as well as Chatelet-Les Halles (2) and St-Michel (3) in the centre (?9.10).</p><p>A taxi to central Paris costs about ?50.</p><p>The city's second airport is Orly, from where you can take the Orlybus (?6.60) to Denfert-Rochereau station.</p><p>Get your bearings</p><p>Central Paris is scattered with landmarks immortalised on the silver screen. In the animated film Ratatouille, the protagonist, Remy the rat, knows he has realised his dream of reaching the French capital when he catches his first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower (4).</p><p>Paris' 20 arrondissements, or districts, curl out like a roll of film clockwise from the centre near the Louvre (5). The River Seine splits the city in two; its Left Bank or Rive Gauche is best appreciated through the lens of Jean-Luc Godard in his 1959 classic A Bout de Souffle (Breathless). To the north is bohemian Montmartre with the gleaming white Sacre-Coeur church (6) presiding over the quarter's atmospheric streets that provided the backdrop for Amelie, starring Audrey Tautou; Jules Dassin's cult classic Du Rififi chez les hommes; the Edith Piaf biopic La Vie en Rose; and the inspiration for Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge.</p><p>The tourist office (7) is at 25 rue des Pyramides ( ). Open daily 10am-7pm, Sunday 11am-7pm. For more information on cinema in Paris, see .</p><p>Check in</p><p>Woody Allen chose Le Meurice (8) at 228 rue de Rivoli (00 33 1 44 58 10 10; ) for scenes in Midnight in Paris such as the fabulous Belle Etoile Suite complete with jaw-dropping 360-degree views of the city. Doubles start at ?720, room only.</p><p>The 10-room Hotel Les Rives de Notre Dame (9) at 15 quai St-Michel (00 33 1 43 54 81 16; ) has two claims to fame ? it featured in A Bout de Souffle and was also home to John Steinbeck. Doubles start at ?179, room only.</p><p>In Stanley Donen's 1963 film Charade, Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn check into the Hotel Saint Jacques (10), 35 rue des Ecoles (00 33 1 44 07 4545; ) in the Latin Quarter. Doubles start at ?152, room only.</p><p>Day one</p><p>Take a view</p><p>Almost every film that has been shot in the French capital features the Eiffel Tower (4) ( ). It has been the subject of its own film, the 1949 The Man on the Eiffel Tower, with further appearances in hundreds of movies including Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows and Paris When it Sizzles starring Audrey Hepburn and William Holden. It affords magnificent views of the city from its top floor viewing platform. Until 28 August it opens daily from 9.30am-midnight. Admission ?13.40.</p><p>Take a hike Woody Allen and Goldie Hawn danced along its banks in Everyone Says I Love You and in Ratatouille Remy jumps across several of the Seine's 37 bridges. Start on the Left Bank at the Quai de la Tournelle (11) ? below you is where Jason Bourne wakes up to his first day in Paris in The Bourne Identity, and Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) board a Bateau Mouche in Before Sunset. Continue downstream to the oldest and most famous bridge of all, the Pont-Neuf (12), built in 1607 and the setting for Les Amants du Pont-Neuf; one of the most expensive French films ever made tells the story of a love affair between two young vagrants played by Juliette Binoche and Denis Lavant.</p><p>Continue along the Left Bank passing the green booths of the bouquinistes (booksellers), which line the river as far as the Quai Voltaire. The Pont des Arts (13) is where Anne Hathaway's Andy rushes across the bridge on the phone to Meryl Streep's Miranda in The Devil Wears Prada.</p><p>Scenes from Midnight in Paris were shot on the elaborate Pont Alexandre III (14), which was built in 1900 for the Exposition Universelle. It won't unfold spectacularly as it did in Christopher Nolan's Inception, but finish your riverside ramble at the double-decker Pont de Bir-Hakeim (15), which also graced the screens in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris; Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colours: Blue; and Louis Malle's Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud.</p><p>Lunch on the run</p><p>Amelie's heroine worked as a waitress in the charmingly retro Cafe des 2 Moulins (16) at 15 rue Lepic (00 33 1 42 54 90 50). Even 10 years on it's still a must-see for the film's admirers, but it's also an ideal spot for a bite. Nab a pavement table, order a croque monsieur (?8.20) and observe the hustle and bustle of Montmartre ? just make sure you finish off with the obligatory creme brulee (?5.80).</p><p>Window shopping</p><p>One of the classic cinematic images of Paris is Jean Seberg sauntering past the boutiques of the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, wearing a "Herald Tribune" T-shirt. Later, she can also be seen gazing wistfully through the window of Christian Dior (17) at 30 avenue Montaigne ? the go-to street for the city's acclaimed haute couture. More affordable purchases can be found at filmmakers' favourite, bookshop Shakespeare & Company (18) at 37 rue de la Bucherie (00 33 1 43 25 40 93; ), which has had cameos in a number of films including Before Sunset and Midnight in Paris.</p><p>An aperitif</p><p>The bar of the fashionable Hotel du Nord (19), Canal St-Martin, 102 quai de Jemmapes (00 33 1 40 40 78 78; ) is fittingly decorated in an homage to the Paris of the 1930s when the location was immortalised in Marcel Carne's 1938 classic of the same name. Order a Lillet and soak up the scene.</p><p>Dining with the locals</p><p>Featured in the final scenes of Something's Gotta Give, starring Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, Le Grand Colbert (20) (00 33 1 42 86 87 88; ) is a set-worthy archetype of the fantasy Parisian brasserie. Tucked down a narrow street close to the Bourse, on 2 rue Vivienne, it has tiled floors, leather banquettes and a buzzing atmosphere. Keaton's character raves about the roast chicken, which is a house speciality (?24).</p><p>Day two</p><p>Sunday morning: go to church</p><p>Paris' leading place of worship is the sprawling Cathedrale Notre Dame de Paris (21) (00 33 1 42 34 56 10; ). Built in the 12th century, this is one of the high points of Gothic architecture and also the location for Victor Hugo's novel about Quasimodo and Esmeralda. The book spawned several film versions starring the likes of Gina Lollobrigida and Anthony Quinn. International mass takes place at 11.30am on Sundays. It opens daily from 8am to 6.45pm, until 7.15pm at weekends.</p><p>Take a ride</p><p>Some unforgettable cinematic moments have taken place in the Paris Metro ( ). There was Luc Besson's 1985 Subway starring Isabelle Adjani and Christophe Lambert; Alain Delon's cool-as-a-cucumber assassin in the 1967 Le Samourai; and Jean-Paul Belmondo's daring stunt on top of a Metro carriage in Henri Verneuil's Peur sur la ville. Catch Line 4 in the direction of Port d'Orleans and get off at St-Germain-des-Pres.</p><p>Out to brunch</p><p>Sitting in the sun at a pavement cafe with a coffee and croissant is a tradition. In A Bout de Souffle, Michal and Patricia make a beeline for Le Select (22), 99 Boulevard du Montparnasse (00 33 1 45 48 38 24). Tourists have largely replaced the intelligentsia, such as Henry Miller and Luis Bunuel, who used to gather here, but it's still a Left Bank classic.</p><p>Cultural afternoon</p><p>As well as its appearance in The Da Vinci Code the halls of the Louvre (5), at rue de Rivoli (00 33 1 40 20 84 58; ), are no stranger to film crews. Part of Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence was filmed here, as was the scene from Funny Face where Audrey Hepburn comes running down the staircase in front of the Winged Victory. Open Monday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday 9am-6pm and Wednesday and Friday until 10pm; closed Tuesdays. Admission ?10.</p><p>In Midnight in Paris, Owen Wilson's character, Gil, and Inez, played by Rachel McAdams, get a cultural fix among Claude Monet's stunning Nympheas, in the Musee de l'Orangerie (23), Jardins du Tuileries (00 33 1 44 77 80 07; ; open daily except Tuesday, 9am-6pm; admission ?7.50 but free on the first Sunday of the month).</p><p>A walk in the park</p><p>The 2006 Paris, Je T'Aime is a collaboration of the work of 20 filmmakers who were each given five minutes to tell the story of an amorous encounter in the capital of romance. In Alfonso Cuaron's vignette, Nick Nolte and Ludivine Sagnier walk and talk around the Parc Monceau (24), which straddles the smart 8th and 17th arrondissements. Dotted with follies, rare plants and a dazzling display of flowers, this verdant expanse was created by the Duke of Chartres in the late 18th century. In summer it opens 7am-10pm.</p><p>Icing on the cake</p><p>From 19 July to 21 August, the Parc de Villette (00 33 1 40 03 76 92; ) plays host to a programme of open-air film screenings from a range of home-grown and international talent (free; Tuesday to Saturday at 8pm).</p>?<p>FOR: Rhiannon Harries</p><p>Despite the appealing insouciance of the expression, there are few stylish items of clothing that one can honestly claim to have "thrown on". Not so the cape, however. In fact, the act of slinging a cape around one's shoulders pretty much sums up the appeal of what will, if designers have their way, be the outerwear of the season ? relaxed, artless, yet undeniably theatrical and dynamic. You could hardly say the same of struggling with the toggles on last winter's hipster choice ? the duffle coat ? could you? For all its simplicity, the cape is one of the hardest working garments in fashion this season, popping up in multiple forms across the catwalks ? often within the same collection ? and lending itself to all manner of contrasting aesthetics.</p><p>Some of the references are familiar. Hussein Chalayan accessorised a voluminous camel version with binoculars for an old-school explorer vibe, at Missoni the rough-hewn patchwork knit had a nomadic, tribal feel, and it was all hunting and fishing with quilting and houndstooth at Daks. Elsewhere, the cape proved it could rise to more unexpected challenges.</p><p>Alexander Wang's smart, mannish offering eschewed soft volume for sharp shoulders and straight lines. Erdem and Jaeger used hand embroidery and cut-out details, respectively, to emphasise that its practicality could be matched by prettiness. And at Yves Saint Laurent, Stefano Pilati brought out the cape's subversive side, offsetting the primness of waist-length versions by rendering them in transparent PVC (bravo, Signor Pilati ? more designer clothes should be wipe-clean I feel).</p><p>My favourite cape, however, though was the show-stopper at Celine. Knee-length white sheepskin, it looked like all your Christmases rolled into one gloriously cosy, glamorous garment. And that, in a nutshell, is the beauty of the cape; comfort and style in generous and equal measure. Cape refuseniks will tell you that they are impractical and seriously restrict your arms, but unless you have a day of semaphore practice planned, the inconvenience is slight. I speak from experience, having spent most of last winter in a cape (such is the central heating in my house that I wore mine to bed on a couple of occasions).</p><p>Make no mistake, I may have been an early convert but I'm by no means an adventurous dresser. Ordinarily, I am too lazy to buy into high fashion looks involving towering heels or complicated necklines and too self-conscious for serious, statement pieces. So I was delighted to find that wrapping myself in what was essentially a nice, warm blanket with a couple of gold buttons (vintage St Michael by Marks & Spencer courtesy of my great aunt) garnered more approval from stylish peers than anything else I've owned. In fact, it was such a roaring success, it meant I could wear even more boring clothes than usual underneath and all was forgiven.</p><p>While interviewing the American singer Rufus Wainwright, he barely seemed aware of my presence in the room until I stood up to go and put on my cape. "That is soooo cute!" he drawled, suddenly full of a new-found respect. I should never have taken the darn thing off. And if the superficial and fleeting warmth of a pop star isn't enough to convince you, remember that in a British winter you will spend so much time in your coat that you will come to be partly defined by it. So if you are aiming for Grace Kelly on Oscars night then you'll take my advice and invest in Halston Heritage's divine black cashmere cape. If, however, you'd rather be Kenny from South Park, then, by all means, buy a parka.</p><p>AGAINST: Carola Long</p><p>Way back last winter, when capes appeared on the catwalk as a major trend, I was quite excited about them. Here was a piece we hadn't seen for a while; a rather novel and dramatic addition to the outerwear themes that tend to come and go on rotation; military detailing, leather jackets or boyfriend coats. As autumn closes in, however, and the time to buy a cape is nigh, guess what? I've lost interest. The cape is one of those items I happily flirted with from a safe distance, but when it comes to making the relationship permanent I've got cold feet (and potentially cold arms and a cold stomach). It's just not a serious coat, a keeper like a peacoat or a cosy blanket wrap style.</p><p>I don't loathe capes; they don't make me shudder in the way that clip-in hair extensions or the words "unexpected item in bagging area" do. I'll admit they have a certain dramatic, and sometimes sweetly eccentric charm, but perhaps some of that originality is cancelled out when it's a trend with a capital T. And in a season focusing on so-called real clothes ? on understated, pure and practical pieces ? the cape seems a bit of an attention-seeking anomaly. Like very small bags that denote that the wearer is a streamlined fashion goddess who doesn't need to carry around such pedestrian stuff as tissues and umbrellas, the cape is for people who don't worry about trailing garments getting stuck in Tube doors in a horrible rush-hour version of Isadora Duncan in her Bugatti or other prosaic matters such as getting pneumonia from cold draughts.</p><p>Capes also limit what you wear, because they work best with trousers, preferably peg, straight or skinny ones. Pair one with a maxi skirt and you could look like the grim reaper. With an A-line skirt? Too triangular. Wide trousers, too, need a slimmer line on top to balance out the proportions. Capes are a classic good-on-the-hanger or catwalk piece; the white furry Celine version looks like quite the most sophisticated cosy piece you could wish to own, but in everyday life isn't there a danger of resembling an overgrown child playing a sheep in the school nativity play?</p><p>And there's the thing; for every free spirited style icon who makes the cape look achingly cool there's a risk of resembling Dracula, Little Red Riding Hood, Batgirl and numerous other superheroes. Edna Mode the wardrobe mistress character in The Incredibles who evokes Anna Wintour and Hollywood costume designer Edith Head, certainly wouldn't approve of this particular trend. When designing outfits for Mr and Mrs Incredible she recounts the superheroes whose flowing robes have caused their demise before decreeing, "no capes." Even the new Sherlock Holmes has traded in his cape for a much more dashing greatcoat.</p>?<p>They say that reality TV holds up a mirror to the nation. Well, if that's true, then one must conclude that in 2011 the British rather run our collective talent pool dry. But then, of course, we have. When Hughie Green suggested that "opportunity knocks" four decades ago, he meant for a precious few only. These days, it's viewed practically as everybody's birthright.</p><p>Perhaps, then, this is the reason the latest series of BGT has struggled. Not because of the absence of Piers Morgan, gone, like The Beatles and Right Said Fred before him, to America. But, rather, because we are all so well versed in the script and the players by now: the court jesters; the tremulous who croon in memory of the recently dead; and the funny dancers who, this time around, aren't quite as funny as the funny dancers of the last time around.</p><p>Nevertheless, a great many of them continued to pluck away at our heartstrings, making open mockery of our vulnerability as they did so. But even heartstrings harden, and there is only so much affection we can muster for quite so many unlikely looking vessels (the portly, the plain, the past-it) out of whom such mellifluous loveliness unceasingly pours.</p><p>But never underestimate a panto for whipping up a climatic storm of kitsch and glitter, and BGT certainly did that last night. Simon Cowell, back in his seat since the semi-finals, had returned purportedly to rescue the show ? and the ratings ? by bringing with him not only his teeth and unbuttoned shirt, but a lot of fluff and nonsense over whether or not he actually created one of the finalists himself in a secret laboratory on Dr No's island.</p><p>Though Cowell protested his innocence ? amid scurrilous suggestions from shameful cynics that it was he that planted the story ? it is easy to see why little Ronan Parke could be thought a spawn of this particular devil. With Justin Bieber's hair, Bambi's eyes and an Osmond's likeability, he was born for TV talent shows, to say nothing of the fact that he possesses the same Voice of an Angel as previously owned by Charlotte Church, Paul Potts and Susan Boyle.</p><p>The controversy helped sustain a nice frisson throughout ? so much weight on such slender shoulders, and so on ? and over two punishing hours of performances, an endlessly excitable studio audience, surely high on E numbers, and Amanda Holden's indefatigable hair, we gathered, in edge-of-seat fashion, in fear of a last-minute upset, the favourite Parke pipped at the post by, perhaps, one or two who might just have deserved it more, the piano prodigy, for one, or those adorable little boys that will grow up to become JLS by this time next week.</p><p>And then ? oh, the drama ? he was! Pipped at the post! And not by an obvious frontrunner either, but Jai McDowall, an oddly-bearded Scot with a voice as deep as oceans are wide, and whose fellow countryfolk did what Scots always do in such circumstances: phone in en masse, and upset the applecart, Cowell's applecart.</p><p>Little Ronan Parke, bless him, was gracious in defeat, with a composure beyond his years. Perhaps he's still young enough to remember the story of the tortoise and the hare.</p>?<p>"This is a song to all these people from fashion who I adore and who helped me to realise my dream," he said. And then this diminutive figure, normally backwards in coming forwards and far from famed for posturing either on the catwalk or off it, sang.</p><p>"When I was just a little boy, I asked my mother, what will I be...? Que sera, sera..." he crooned, and if the sound of it was unlikely ("I'm a terrible singer," Elbaz admitted) it seemed all the more incongruous given his not entirely down-with-the-kids uniform of thick-lensed, black-framed glasses, black trouser suit with studiously just-a-little-too-short trousers and just-a-little-off-centre bow tie.</p><p>There are not many surprises left in fashion ? you name it, someone, somewhere has done it ? which perhaps accounts for the ovation that followed being more heartfelt than most. Let's face it, this is a world that boasts its fair share of these too. But then M Elbaz is a highly individual designer and easier to love than many for that. Over the past decade he has not only turned around the fortunes of Lanvin, which was languishing in obscurity when he took the helm in 2002, but has also come to represent a respect for craft, technique and talent over and above the usual obsession with marketing, merchandising and styling. This has earnt him many followers, both within the industry and outside it. Add to this the fact that Elbaz is open almost to the point of foolhardiness, warm to the point of brotherly, and, at the same time, clearly as strong as an ox, and the effect is as refreshing as it is potent. Make no mistake, behind this infinitely approachable exterior lurks a will of iron.</p><p>"There have been a lot of changes in fashion," he says when we meet in a quiet corner of the bar of the Hotel Crillon in Paris ? Elbaz appears to feel very much at home amid the understated but unmistakeably grand, old-school ambience there. "And the question is how do you fit into it? Should you fit into it? ["Que Sera, Que Sera"] was a song, I thought, for the whole industry. You know how it is. One day people love you, you're in, the next day, you're out. One day you're fired, and one day you're hired. So it was a song for my colleagues. The future is not ours to see. What will be, will be. We are always trying to think who's going where, what will he do? Who is going to take over? What, when, why?"</p><p>Elbaz refuses to name names. He doesn't need to. Rumours abound on who will ? and won't ? be presiding over some of fashion's most prestigious houses. The question of who is "in" or "out", as Elbaz puts it, has never seemed so pertinent. Before John Galliano had even cleared his desk at Dior last spring, every one of his contemporaries worth mentioning had been named as a possible successor. At Yves Saint Laurent, it can't have been easy for Stefano Pilati to complete his last two collections all while speculation regarding his imminent departure and the appointment of Hedi Slimane to that label was rife. Only days before the Lanvin show in question took place, meanwhile, while he too was working on what turned out to be his swansong collection for Jil Sander, Raf Simons was unceremoniously let go. The designer was visibly shaken when he stepped out to take his final bows. It wasn't until last month that his appointment as artistic director of Dior was announced.</p><p>"I've been there," says Elbaz. And indeed he has. "All of a sudden, this divorce is being published everywhere and everybody knows who said what and how difficult it is." It is, by now, the stuff of fashion history that, in 1998, Elbaz was hand-picked by Yves Saint Laurent to design his women's ready-to-wear. Elbaz was designing Guy Laroche at the time. "I was fascinated by the idea of working for a man [Saint Laurent] who was more of a legend, and more the name of a company, than a real person," he told me when we first met not long after. "But then I talked to him, he was so human and so down-to-earth that you kind of forgot that you are sitting with... With Marilyn Monroe!"</p><p>Despite the fact that the critics applauded Elbaz's two-season tenure at Yves Saint Laurent, in 1999, the Gucci Group bought the name and self-proclaimed control freak and creative director, Tom Ford, was unable to resist the challenge of taking over himself. Elbaz was duly dismissed.</p><p>"It was hard," Elbaz has since said of that split. "Of course it was hard. There were times that I wondered whether I would ever be able to work in this business again. I was embarrassed to go out to fashion places, embarrassed to call people because I thought they would never call back."</p><p>He promptly disappeared, leaving Paris to travel around the world. Thankfully for fashion, 12 months later, he returned and accepted the position at Lanvin, a French couture house founded, in 1909, by Jeanne Lanvin and bought by the Chinese-born entrepeneur, Shaw-Lan Wang in 2001. His first show for the label ? a gentle mix of subtly-deconstructed tweeds shot through with barely-visible threads of gold and all worn with paper-thin ballerina pumps long before they were ubiquitous ? immediately identified him as having something new, something lovely and something refreshingly woman-friendly to offer the world.</p><p>That was then. Ten years later, we are looking at a hefty book published this month ? a celebration of the achievement of Elbaz and his team at this still comparatively small but influential house. "I didn't want to do a very, very big book," Elbaz says, over a plate of magret de canard. "The book is small and fat. It's me." Also him, is the contrast between "the rich and the poor"; the plain cloth cover stamped unobtrusively with the Lanvin signature offset against gleaming gilded edges and the copious white space that belies the personal, even intimate, nature of the imagery shot by photographer But-Sou Lai, who has been working behind the scenes for some time.</p><p>If it is the intention with most fashion books to blind readers with glamour and gloss, here we see instead the workings of the fashion process exposed. There are close-ups of pin cushions and loose threads, of floral-print fabrics and notoriously hard-to-handle gazars. Elbaz's cute drawings, often accompanied by words ("Nice dress," says one coquettish Parisienne to another) are seen alongside flat patterns, Stockman dummies and lasts. Models are photographed on the catwalk but more often in fittings, so too are seamstresses, secretaries and PRs at work. There are pictures of show running orders, seating plans, great dustbins full of Nespresso capsules, half-eaten food. This is about Lanvin as a team, and Elbaz is often present but, significantly, rarely centre stage.</p><p>"I thought that at a time like now, when the whole industry is about the six minutes of the show and a review that is being written in a taxi because then there is the next one, I thought, I'm going to show everyone how much effort goes into making a single dress," he says. "I wanted to show how many threads you have to put together to make one rose; how much thought goes into a button. I wanted to show a shoe in the factory in Italy being held like a baby by an old man and then attached to a machine as if it was going to the dentist. I wanted to show the jewellery. And I wanted to show the people. All the people. We had 3,000 pictures in total and we picked the ones we liked, of course, and then we went back to make sure that every single person involved is in the book, that nobody had been missed out. They are all part of it."</p><p>The book opens with 100 white pages. "I was worried that people would think that was gimmick-y," Elbaz says. "But it's not about being cool. I hate the word cool. It gives me a rash. If you take something out of the freezer it's cold, but what happens when it melts? It's a cool party, a cool person, a cool collection. What does that mean? I'm more interested in things that are uncool, things that have a certain individuality, a certain soul, a certain longevity, emotion, fragility..."</p><p>True to his word, each leaf is printed with decidedly uncool one-line Elbaz-isms: "If it's not edible, it's not food. If it's not wearable, it's not fashion." "In the winter we sell bathing suits, in the summer, coats. Go figure". "Day after day, season after season, we start with a dream."</p><p>Alber Elbaz was born in Casablanca on 12 June, 1961 and grew up in the suburbs of Tel Aviv. His father was a hairdresser who died when he was 15, at which point his mother went to work as a waitress to support her four children: two sons, two daughters. Elbaz studied fashion at Shenkar College in that city. His teacher was Shelly Verthine, who co-edited the new book and remains Elbaz's close friend and creative collaborator. "Shelly was my teacher and is still my teacher," he says of a woman who remains integral to his work and is often seen by his side. "The mythological teacher who brings things out of you." Despite the fact that Elbaz oversees a Lanvin menswear collection too, his team is predominantly female.</p><p>Following graduation, aged 24, Elbaz moved to New York and designed "mother-of-the-bride dresses for $150 ? and that was expensive" before moving to Geoffrey Beene. It wasn't long before he was that elusive and revered designer's right-hand man. He remained there from 1989 to 1996, a lifetime in terms of fashion.</p><p>"It was an amazing place to work, the best school. I stayed there because I was happy working a little bit outside the circuit, because he had his vision about fashion, because he had the best style." The brilliant forefather of today's more minimally-minded designers, Beene was also entirely focused on design as opposed to the brouhaha that, to a greater or lesser extent, appears to spring up around it. He was also, Elbaz has said ? and he is one of few who might claim truly to have known him ? "a wonderful man". Elbaz then moved to Paris.</p><p>"Stay big in your work and small in your life," Alber Elbaz's mother always told him. "Be modest," is how he explains the words now. "I'm not a religious person in the regular sense but in the Bible you're not allowed to steal, you're not allowed to lie and you're not allowed to feel you're above other people."</p><p>The designer's quieter way is surely an inspiration for a new generation less likely to rely on the notion of the superstar designer, as spearheaded by Tom Ford, ironically enough, and to concentrate on the clothes themselves. It is a position he continues to uphold without compromise to the point of being evangelical.</p><p>"I never met Sarah Burton in the past, for example," Elbaz says of the Alexander McQueen designer, "but when I saw a picture of her at the [royal] wedding and, while everybody was there with their pretty hats seated, she was the only one who didn't have a hat on and she was on the floor fixing the dress; I thought it was so beautiful I wrote her a note. And to see Phoebe [Philo, of Celine] who is doing such an amazing job and because she's having a baby she decides to do a smaller show and to care for that baby... I mean that is amazing. And, you know what, it will do her business no harm whatsoever. Quite the opposite. These are the moments that are important to me." It goes without saying that such kind words directed towards other designers ? those who might be seen as competitors in an over-crowded market to boot ? is unprecedented.</p><p>Of the nature of fame, he says: "You ask people what they want to do and they say, 'I want to be famous' but I always say that fame is something that works perfectly if you want to get a good table at a restaurant in a hurry or you need a doctor and his secretary is into fashion. I want to go back to the real thing though, to actresses who act, painters who paint and designers who design. I was in Russia recently and I went to a department store. You know, you see the fashion, one rack here, one rack there, but then you go to the bag department and it's the size of Monaco, you go to the shoe department and it's like Arizona. It's enormous. And I'm thinking, maybe we should make women wear bags. But I was trained to do textiles, to do fabrics, and to dress women."</p><p>And dress them he does, in traditional couture silks and satins alongside more technologically advanced materials and always, for the sake of modernity, with a vaguely industrial edge ? a visible metal zip here, a neckline edged with brass there. For the forthcoming season, Elbaz thought nothing of designing jewellery so oversized that the only way to make it a practical reality was to use plastic in place of real stones.</p><p>"The sapphires, the emeralds the rubies, they're all plastic," he says happily of the great baubles and beads that will no doubt sell out within hours of arriving in store. He's equally pleased with a sequence of dresses made in the type of foam that is normally the preserve of underwear and, specifically, bras. "There's no fabric that is more intimate. It just holds you," Elbaz muses. It is testimony to the very personal nature of his work that Elbaz has, both for the forthcoming season and in the past, also adorned it with his own sketches: a rounded, bespectacled caricature of his own face has been known to appear. A light-hearted quality in no way detracts from his status as a serious technician, however. Elbaz's understanding of volume, drape and proportion and his respect for workmanship is second to none. In 2005, Elbaz won the Council of Fashion Designers (CFDA) International Award. In 2007 he was named Chevalier of the French Legion d'Honneur for his work.</p><p>At the end of the soon-to-be published book, Elbaz writes: "Love and respect to Madame Wang, who asked me to wake up the Sleeping Beauty and allowed me to fly".</p><p>"They are very good to me at Lanvin," he explains. "They give me my liberty. If we were part of a group it might be easier for me in some ways. We live on what we sell. We don't have anyone who says: 'Don't worry, we'll inject another 100 million and do a big publicity campaign'. So I always say that we're like a small yacht, not the Titanic, and that means we make our own decisions. Sometimes, when you work for big organisations, there are so many committees that you have to go through..."</p><p>To say that Elbaz adopts a hands-on approach would be an understatement.</p><p>"That's how I spend my life," he says. "I start with drawings but I don't give the sketches to the atelier and then say, 'OK, I'll see you, I'll be in the Caribbean on the 17th and on the 18th I leave for Santa Fe'. No, I'm always in fittings, I'm always perfecting things. I'm always there. In the end, I don't think our industry is particularly scary. It's as scary as any mess and it seems to me that every industry is a mess. If you put 10 people together and they have power and they have strength, it's kind of dangerous.</p><p>"But I'm not afraid of the system. I'm part of it. Sometimes the system helps you. Sometimes it chokes you. You know, if you send me on vacation, I'm clueless, I can't even climb from a dinghy to a yacht. Can you imagine me on the beach? Maybe if I was a skinny, handsome man my career would have been different. Maybe then I would have been more, like, 'Hellooo, look at my dresses'." Instead, Alber Elbaz works tirelessly making others more beautiful. "I'm hiding in my studio somehow," he says. "And in my studio I feel loved and I love."</p><p>'Alber Elbaz ? Lanvin' is published by Steidl/Dangin, £250, and is available from Lanvin, 183 Mount Street, London W1, and via </p>?<p>Accordingly, Andrea Bocelli opens this show with "La Donna E Mobile", effectively an affirmation of his assumption of the mantle of the great crossover tenor of his era, and closes it with his own breakthrough signature tune, "Con Te Partiro", and that most populist aria, "Nessun Dorma". In between, though, things go slightly awry when he diverts into pop territory in duets with Tony Bennett and Celine Dion, and simpering MOR arrangements of "More" and "Volare".</p><p>DOWNLOAD THIS Con Te Partiro; Nessun Dorma; La Donna E Mobile; O Soave Fanciulla</p>?<p>Michelle Williams and Octavia Spencer both turned to monochrome outfits ? Spencer in a chiffon embellished black skirt and crisp white shirt and Williams in a custom made H&M strapless gown with a white bodice. White on its own was worn by Tilda Swinton ? who looked statuesque in full-length Celine ? and Kristen Wiig in a column gown from Alberta Ferretti.</p><p>Gillian Anderson was just one of the stars who turned to Wiliam Blanks-Blaney of William Vintage for her vintage gown. "He knows dresses, he knows couture and how a woman should look," said Anderson.</p><p>Metallics were popular. Jessica Chastain shone in a pale gold lame Oscar de la Renta gown, while Christina Ricci wore a gold Givenchy gown split to the thigh. Perhaps hoping to encourage the on set of spring were Viola Davis, who opted for coral Valentino and Naomie Harris who wore a yellow chiffon gown with a bandage detail bodice.</p>?<p>ANTIQUITY: Flat sandals and draped silk toga dresses spirited Lanvin to antique Rome, Issey Miyake also had knitted toga dresses and Alexander McQueen a majestic, simple dress in pleated white with a gold belt under the chest.</p><p>BIRTHDAYS: Kenzo rang in its 40th birthday with a magical circus show, and VIPs donned masks at a society ball to blow out 90 candles for French Vogue.</p><p>ECO-MINDED: Dresses were adorned with wheat and pheasant feathers at McQueen, Vivienne Westwood had a "buy less, buy better" mantra and Jean-Charles de Castelbajac quoted the caring-for-the-planet message of the "Little Prince".</p><p>FISH-NET TIGHTS: Seen at Emanuel Ungaro and Alexis Mabille and out of context at Jean Paul Gaultier - as a bustier over a white blouse or above the designer's trademark powder-pink corset.</p><p>GLASSES: There were lollipop-coloured, 1950s pin-up shades at Christan Dior, space-age visors at Pierre Cardin, and a whole top pieced together from retro sunglasses at Jean-Charles de Castelbajac.</p><p>HEMLINES: Right on the knee for skirts, like at Valentino or Celine, sometimes lower at mid-calf or ankle length. Evening gowns swished and swept the floor.</p><p>IVORY: Designer after designer opened their shows with white.</p><p>KARLIE KLOSS: Sexy sailor for Dior, big-haired at a 1970s Sonia Rykiel or in 3-D prints at Gaultier, the US model headlined some of the week's most sought-after shows.</p><p>MINI-SHORTS: Sparkly silver under floaty see-through tops and petticoats, in knitted stripes or paired with sharp tailored jackets, mini-shorts were a big theme - and nowhere more risque than at Chanel.</p><p>NINETEEN-TWENTIES: Gypsy shawls, feathers, fish-net, fur collars, crystal earrings and slicked back hair: the 1920s were in the air from John Galliano to Ungaro.</p><p>ORANGE: From Yves Saint Laurent to Kenzo, Lanvin or Dries Van Noten, paired with pink or on its own, orange was the colour of the season.</p><p>OSTRICH FEATHERS: Adorned a giant red-and-black headdress, puffed out jackets, spiced up hemlines - or clothed a model head to toe at Chanel, in a coral dress that swept caressingly around the legs.</p><p>PLEATS: Swishing and dramatic at Lanvin, in an ivory dress at Chanel, at Jean Paul Gaultier, or in a clever dress that bounced up and down at the master of pleats Issey Mikaye.</p><p>ROCK AND ROLL: A punky, rocker's spirit shook up the runways at Balenciaga and Balmain while Yohji Yamamoto paid tribute to Jimi Hendrix and Gaultier invited Gossip frontwoman Beth Ditto to open his show.</p><p>SHIRTS: Dutch duo Viktor and Rolf took a city shirt as the start point for their whole, playful collection, while mannish shirts set the tone at Dries Van Noten.</p><p>VETERAN MODELS: Chanel, Emanuel Ungaro, Balenciaga, Galliano: designers made space on the runways for veteran models, plus-sizes or street-casted unknowns, alongside waif-like regulars.</p><p>WINGS: An orange dress was entirely made from butterflies at McQueen, while Giles Deacon at Ungaro had giant flower-covered butterflies propped atop a garden-party decor.</p><p>XMAS: Economic hard times may soon be behind us, but gifts and freebies - usually a Fashion Week staple - were in short supply, at best a make-up kit at Chanel, or a fancy tea-saucer at Shiatzy Chen.</p><p>YVES SAINT LAURENT: Fashionistas saw tributes to the master everywhere - from jumpsuits to reworked tuxedos at Felipe Oliveira Baptista or Chloe, where deep blue and emerald stripes also conjured Saint Laurent's Moroccan period.</p>?<p>John Isner and Sam Querrey, Caroline Wozniacki and Elena Dementieva (inset, right) head the list of competitors attending this year's warm-up for Wimbledon. The World Tour competition, which began in 1974, featured only women's tennis until last year, when financial constraints forced the Lawn Tennis Association to merge the championships with the men's precursor to Wimbledon, the Nottingham Open.</p><p>That means more great tennis for fans to enjoy in Eastbourne's Devonshire Park. It also means more stars of the grass court to spot at the seaside resort's premier stopover, The Grand Hotel.</p><p>But then, this vast white Victorian confection, which takes up a whole block at the west end of King Edward's Parade, is no stranger to famous faces. Claude Debussy (said to have been inspired by the sea views to finish "La Mer" while staying here in 1905) and Winston Churchill, Celine Dion and Eddie Izzard reveal the hotel's enduring popularity over the past 135 years. This may be the kind of place that demands you need to pack a jacket and tie for dinner, but the polished quality of the lodgings and the gracious service manage to be both timeless and with the times.</p><br><br><p>The rooms</p><p>The Grand Hotel has resisted the temptation to trash tradition with a modernist makeover. Under the present owner, Elite Hotels, it continues to glory in embellishing its antique furnishings and plush upholstery with swags and ruches, though the style is restrained, never chintzy. There are seven categories of bedroom, from deluxe to the penthouse suite, increasing in size as you ascend the tariff. But you don't have to pay through the nose to secure a sea view, so choose carefully. All rooms have satellite TV (there are DVD players in the master suites), broadband internet access, and Molton Brown toiletries in the bathroom.</p><br><br><p>The food and drink</p><p>The hotel has two restaurants. The Garden Room is the main dining room, seating 180 and serving a wide selection of fancy ? if traditional ? English fare, from breakfast through to dinner daily. Mirabelle, the 50-seat gourmet option, open for lunch and dinner from Tuesday to Saturday, raises the bar, putting similarly fresh produce to more creative use under head chef Gordon Roser, with recommendations including high praise from The Good Food Guide and two red AA rosettes. Dinners start at £37 per head without wine, at both restaurants, with tasting menus in Mirabelle from £54. Afternoon tea is served daily in the Great Hall. For a historic take on this English tradition, book for afternoon tea with the Palm Court Strings (next performing on 29 August), which takes place on the spot where the BBC Palm Court Orchestra used to broadcast from every Sunday night in the 1930s.</p><br><br><p>The extras</p><p>Check out the Health Club, which includes indoor and outdoor pools, gym, spa and children's playroom. Head east to explore the fleshpots of Eastbourne and its pier; head west for a walk along the white cliffs at Beachy Head and Seven Sisters. For tickets to the tennis tournament, visit lta.org.uk. Get further information about the area and current events at visiteastbourne.com.</p><br><br><p>The access</p><p>Children are welcome, paying just £10 if they share their parents' room, including breakfast, with age-appropriate services offered to suit babies, kids and teenagers, from board games and laptop access to milk and biscuits at bedtime. The ground floor is accessible for wheelchair users and there is lift access to the floors above. There is a specially modified room for people with disabilities and facilities for those with impaired hearing.</p><br><br><p>The bill</p><p>During June, book a night's B&B at £195 and dine in the hotel to get a second room free.</p><br><br><p>The address</p><p>The Grand Hotel, King Edward's Parade, Eastbourne, East Sussex BN21 4EQ (01323 412233; grandeastbourne.com).</p>?<p>The Fab Four notched up 17 number ones during their relatively brief eight year chart domination, but split more than 40 years ago.</p><p>But performers whose careers have decades longer in some cases - such as Sir Cliff Richard - have failed to outsell them, a new Radio 2 chart reveals.</p><p>A countdown to be broadcast today of the all-time biggest sellerssince the singles chart began in 1952 - the year the Queen took the throne - shows The Beatles are still unsurpassed.</p><p>Presley, who continued to have strong sales in the past decade thanks to a reissue campaign with tracks such as A Little Less Conversation, is ranked second.</p><p>Sir Cliff who has had 124 top 40 hits and 14 number ones finishedin third place in the list compiled by the Official Charts Company.</p><p>Madonna, who has made the top 40 more than 60 times, is ranked fourth.</p><p>There are some surprising entries with Rihanna, who charted for the first time in only 2005 is in tenth place, yet The Rolling Stones - who racked up their first hit in 1963 - make it to only number 13. However, although the wrinkly rockers have continued to release singles over the years, they have failed to dent the top ten since 1981.</p><p>Tony Blackburn will count down the chart from 2pm to 5pm which shows US rapper Eminem (placed 18th) is ahead of enduring chart stars such as Sir Tom Jones and U2.</p><p>DJ and producer David Guetta (ranked 49) manages to finish ahead of big names such as Coldplay (60) and Duran Duran (51).</p><p>Sir Paul McCartney is listed twice for his Beatles years and his solo career (number 11), and George Michael is similarly in the chart twice, for his own hits (21) and as a member of Wham! (43).</p><p>Blackburn, who will play each artist's biggest hit in the Bank Holiday show , said: "This chart offers a fascinating look at the past 60 years in music and shows the impact that modern stars like Rihanna and Katy Perry have had.</p><p>"The list is really varied and will provide something for everyone. There are definitely a few surprises in store - Coldplay beingat 60 for one! It is sure to be an interesting listen and will be a great way to spend the Bank Holiday afternoon."</p><p>Radio 2's head of music Jeff Smith said: "This list is intriguing, Adele is missing and we've all forgotten just how huge artists such as Shakin' Stevens, Boney M and UB40 were in the UK in the Seventies and Eighties."</p><p>The Top 60:</p><p>1. Beatles</p><p>2. Elvis Presley</p><p>3. Cliff Richard</p><p>4. Madonna</p><p>5. Michael Jackson</p><p>6. Elton John</p><p>7. Queen</p><p>8. Abba</p><p>9. David Bowie</p><p>10. Rihanna</p><p>11. Paul McCartney</p><p>12. Kylie Minogue</p><p>13. Rolling Stones</p><p>14. Rod Stewart</p><p>15. Take That</p><p>16. Stevie Wonder</p><p>17. Oasis</p><p>18. Eminem</p><p>19. Whitney Houston</p><p>20. Spice Girls</p><p>21. George Michael</p><p>22. Robbie Williams</p><p>23. Bee Gees</p><p>24. U2</p><p>25. Shakin' Stevens</p><p>26. Britney Spears</p><p>27. Status Quo</p><p>28. Lady Gaga</p><p>29. Boyzone</p><p>30. Blondie</p><p>31. Slade</p><p>32. Black Eyed Peas</p><p>33. Boney M</p><p>34. Westlife</p><p>35. Celine Dion</p><p>36. Beyonce</p><p>37. UB40</p><p>38. Olivia Newton John</p><p>39. Mariah Carey</p><p>40. Tom Jones</p><p>41. Madness</p><p>42. Police</p><p>43. Wham!</p><p>44. Phil Collins</p><p>45. Diana Ross</p><p>46. Jam</p><p>47. Bryan Adams</p><p>48. Pet Shop Boys</p><p>49. David Guetta</p><p>50. Adam Ant</p><p>51. Duran Duran</p><p>52. Frank Sinatra</p><p>53. Frankie Goes To Hollywood</p><p>54. Prince</p><p>55. Katy Perry</p><p>56. Wet Wet Wet</p><p>57. Everly Brothers</p><p>58. Shadows</p><p>59. Pink</p><p>60. Coldplay</p>?<br><br><p>She will share today’s headlines with Taylor Swift, the 20-year-old Country-pop singer, who made a total of four appearances on the winner’s podium, collecting the night’s top honour, Album of the Year, for her 2009 record, Fearless.</p><p>Beyonce’s record haul included prizes for R&B Song, Female Vocal Performance, Contemporary R&B album, Traditional R&B Vocal Performance, and Female Pop Vocal performance. It far eclipsed that of every other perfomer at this year’s event, and takes her lifetime tally of Grammys to 16.</p><p>She came within a whisker of taking to the stage of the Staples Centre in Los Angeles to collect an unprecedented seventh award. However her husband, Jay-Z, ironically beat her to top honours in the crucial category, for Rap/Sung performance.</p><p>Collecting her final award, Beyonce thanked fans for “an amazing night". A more exuberant set of victory speeches came from Swift, who was collecting her first Grammys after shooting to fame on the back of teenage love-songs written on her bedroom floor.</p><p>“Oh wow! Thank you so much! I just hope that you know how much this means to me that we get to take this back to Nashville,” she said, breathlessly. “Our families are freaking out in their living rooms. My dad and my little brother are losing their minds in the living room right now!”</p><p>Earlier, Swift - whose second album Fearless was the music industry’s best selling record of 2009 - had provided one of the night’s most memorable musical moments when she duetted with the Fleetwod Mac singer, Stevie Nicks.</p><p>The other standout performance of the evening, in a show that lasted almost four hours, belonged to Lady Gaga, who performed an extended and highly theatrical duet with Sir Elton John.</p><p>One of the few major prizes that didn’t go the way of a female star was Record of the Year, which was won by Kings of Leon for “Use Somebody,” their third award of the night. “I’m not going to lie… we’re all a little drunk. But we’re happy drunks,” said the group's lead singer Caleb Followill.</p><p>Away from the business of handing out awards, the show also saw a tribute to Michael Jackson. The late singer's daughter Paris and eldest son, Prince, made their first public appearance since his memorial service to speak at the event.</p><p>"First we’d like to thank God for watching over us for these past seven months and our Grandma and Grandpa for their love and support,” Prince said, in a touchingly-personal speech. “We’d also like to thank the fans. Our father loved you so much since you were always there for him.”</p><p>The children’s appearance followed a special 3-D tribute to Jackson featuring a video clip he made of “Earth Song.” It was introduced by Lionel Ritchie and performed by an eclectic collection of five singers: Usher, Carrie Underwood, Celine Dion, Jennifer Hudson and Smokey Robinson.</p><p>Many performers, including The Black Eyed Peas - who were the night’s other big winners, with three awards - wore Red Cross buttons in support of Haiti earthquake relief.</p><p>Among them were Mary J. Blige and Andrea Bocelli, who sang a version of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” to both celebrate the 40th anniversary of the song’s big Grammy wins, and to raise money for the people in Haiti. It will be sold via iTunes.</p><br><br><br><br><p>Winners in selected major categories at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards:</p><p>Record of the Year: Use Somebody, Kings of Leon</p><p>Album of the Year: Fearless, Taylor Swift</p><p>Song of the Year: Single Ladies (Put A Ring On it), Beyonce Knowles</p><p>New Artist: Zac Brown Band</p><p>Pop Vocal Album: The E.N.D., The Black Eyed Peas</p><p>Female Pop Vocal Performance: Halo, Beyonce Knowles</p><p>Male Pop Vocal Performance: Make It Mine, Jason Mraz</p><p>Rock Album: 21st Century Breakdown, Green Day</p><p>Rock Song: Use Somebody, Kings of Leon</p><p>R&B Album: Blacksummers' night, Maxwell</p><p>R&B Song: Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It), Beyonce Knowles</p><p>Rap Album: Relapse, Eminem</p><p>Rap Song: Run This Town, Jay-Z, Rihanna and Kanye West</p><p>Best Rap/Sung Collaboration: Run This Town, Jay-Z, Rihanna and Kanye West</p><p>Country Album: Fearless, Taylor Swift</p><p>Female Country Vocal Performance: White Horse, Taylor Swift</p><p>Male Country Vocal Performance: Sweet Thing, Keith Urban</p><p>Latin Pop Album: Sin Frenos, La Quinta Estacion</p><p>Contemporary Jazz Album: 75, Joe Zawinul & The Zawinul Syndicate</p><p>Classical Album: Mahler: Symphony No. 8; Adagio from Symphony No. 10</p><p>Traditional Gospel Album: Oh Happy Day, various artists</p><p>Dance Recording: Poker Face, Lady Gaga</p><p>Electronic Dance Album: The Fame, Lady Gaga</p><p>Alternative Music Album: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, Phoenix</p><p>Spoken Word Album: Always Looking Up, Michael J. Fox</p><p>Comedy Album: A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All! Stephen Colbert</p>?<p>Beyonce - who had topped the nominations with 10 nods - won the prestigious Song of the Year award for her hit "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)", which also earned her the best female R&B vocal award.</p><p>The former Destiny's Child singer also snagged Grammys for best R&B song for "Single Ladies" and best contemporary R&B album for her chart-topping "I Am ... Sasha Fierce" as well as best traditional R&B vocal performance for "At Last."</p><p>"Wow thank you so much. This has been such an amazing night for me," Beyonce said after collecting the best female pop vocal performance, her sixth award of the night at the Staples Center.</p><p>However Beyonce - who dazzled the audience with an electrifying performance - was forced to share the honors in the other blue riband categories of Record of the Year and Album of the Year.</p><p>Swift scored a stunning victory in Album of the Year for "Fearless" while the Kings of Leon looked as surprised as anyone else when they were named winners of Record of the Year for "Use Somebody."</p><p>"Oh my god," Swift said after winning Album of the Year. "I just hope that you know how much this means to me. Oh my god.</p><p>"Our families are freaking out in their living rooms right now. This is the story we're going to be telling over and over again when we're 80-years-old."</p><p>Swift's "Fearless" also won her best country album.</p><p>"I just keep thinking back to when you're in second grade and you sing at your talent show and people say 'Maybe we'll see you at the Grammys one day' and it feels like an impossible dream," the 20-year-old said. "I just feel like I'm standing here accepting an impossible dream right now."</p><p>Swift, who had received eight nominations also won for best female country vocal performance for her single "White Horse" and followed it up with victory in the best country song category for the same track.</p><p>Meanwhile the Kings of Leon were wrong-footed by their Record of the Year success. "I'm not going to lie we're a little drunk but we're happy drunk," said frontman Caleb Followill.</p><p>Elsewhere Sunday, oddball New York singer Lady Gaga picked up two Grammys with her smash hit single "Poker Face" taking best dance recording of the year and "The Fame" winning best dance album.</p><p>The 23-year-old singer, famous for her outlandish outfits, had brought the curtain up on the show in a wacky duet with legendary songwriter Elton John where the couple performed a medley of "Speechless" and "Your Song."</p><p>Pop powerhouses the Black Eyed Peas also enjoyed success, picking up three Grammys for best short form music video, best pop performance by a duo or group and best pop vocal album.</p><p>Indian composer A.R. Rahman was also another early winner, scooping two Grammys for his music from the Oscar-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire."</p><p>Rahman won in the best compilation soundtrack for a motion picture category before his "Jai Ho" won in the best motion picture song category moments later.</p><p>"This is insane, god is great again," Rahman said as he accepted his second award before a VIP audience.</p><p>The Grammy success comes after Rahman earned two Oscars for his music in "Slumdog Millionaire" at last year's Academy Awards.</p><p>One of the most popular segments of the show was a tribute to tragic "King of Pop" Michael Jackson which saw Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Hudson, Celine Dion, Smokey Robinson and Usher give a rendition of his track "Earth Song."</p><p>The performance saw the star-studded audience rise to their feet for an ovation before Jackson's two eldest children Prince Michael and Paris appeared to accept a lifetime achievement award on behalf of their late father.</p><p>Meanwhile Rihanna enjoyed a triumph of sorts after winning in the best rap/sung collaboration category for "Run This Town" with Jay-Z and Kanye West.</p><p>Rihanna was assaulted before last year's Grammy ceremony by then-boyfriend Chris Brown, an incident which largely overshadowed the awards.</p>?<p>The big news this year is that Piers Morgan and Simon Cowell are out (the former to focus on his high-profile career of making famous people cry on his chat show; the latter only until the live shows, so he can concentrate on launching X- Factor USA later this year); David Hasselhoff and Michael McIntyre are in. So, how did this "talent" do?</p><p>Hasselhoff, whose most impressive judging to date has been picking buxom blondes for Baywatch, was mildly diverting ? primarily due to his hideous choice of a Union flag jacket. McIntyre, meanwhile, appeared to be furthering his career as an MC, leading the audience in "Hey Jude" and refusing to buzz off no-hopers.</p><p>At least he was funny; the only holdover judge, Amanda Holden seemed to be there just to show off her hairdresser's portfolio; styles included American newsreader quiff, little-girl bob, 1980s Selena Scott. Did she say anything of interest? No. And the main reason is there was nothing of interest to say. Cowell is right to have stepped aside for the early shows: it's series five and BGT is a tired format. Presenter Ant, or maybe Dec (hard to tell in a voiceover) said after 55 minutes: "The talent has been a huge disappointment." No kidding.</p><p>The show's opener played the harmonica while doing a chicken dance. She didn't get through. Neither did support worker Christine Fraser, chancing her arm as a comedian. The jokes were no good ? but, ITV, did she really deserve you turning off the sound to make it seem as if there was total silence from the audience?</p><p>Those who predictably did get through included nine-year-old comedian David Knight, decked out like a mini Peter Kay; handbell-ringing couple Alan and Gay Cooper (presumably for their oddness and Alan's under-beard rather than their version of Celine Dion's "My Heart will Go On"), dog trainer Donelda Gay, and 19-year-old Michael Collings. Now, a lot has been written about Collings, who lives in a caravan park and is clearly being sold as this year's SuBo ? who'd expect a man in a hoodie to be able to play a guitar and sing? But his take on Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" was no more than adequate.</p><p>And what does all this tell us about Britain today? Despite the pervasive YouTube, people are still desperate to grab their 15 minutes live on TV. It's just a shame we've seen it all before. At least in the past we had the pleasure of seeing Simon Cowell rip into the more hapless of the wannabes.</p>?<p>Thousands of teenage fans poured on to the streets of London last week to welcome the Canadian singer, who had arrived in the UK to promote his new film, Never Say Never. He also picked up a Brit award on Tuesday for Best International Breakthrough Act. At the age of 16 he is undoubtedly social networking's first global superstar: he has 21 million friends on Facebook and is the most viewed person on YouTube. But already he faces a challenge from would-be successors.</p><p>The latest emerged last week in the form of 10-year-old Heather Russell. She sings and plays the piano with a facility way beyond her years. She even writes her own songs. Simon Cowell saw her on YouTube, and the unknown prodigy quickly joined Susan Boyle and Leona Lewis on his Syco label.</p><p>The most likely heiress apparent is Charice Pempengco, the Philippines' answer to Whitney Houston and a veteran at the age of 18. Her television debut aged seven led to TV appearances in the US by the time she was 16. She made an appearance in two of the gala events surrounding Barack Obama's inauguration and debuted on British TV screens in Glee this year.</p><p>With record companies facing a global collapse in sales, there is a desperate scramble to find the Next Big Thing, even if it is barely out of nappies.</p><p>Websites such as YouTube play a big part. Peter Robinson from the pop commentary website Popjustice said: "Record label talent scouts do look at YouTube. If you want a pop icon for your roster, trawling the clubs of Camden isn't the way to do it any more. Five or six years ago there was no direct link between an artist and the fans. There is now a completely direct route."</p><p>Jaden Smith, 12 and Willow Smith, 10</p><p>With a combined age of 22, actor Will Smith's offspring are the epitome of precociousness. Between them they boast the titles singer, songwriter, rapper, actor and dancer. Jaden first appeared alongside his father in the 2006 film The Pursuit of Happyness and rapped alongside Justin Bieber in the song "Never Say Never". His younger sister Willow, meanwhile, launched her music career last year, signing to Jay-Z's label. She released a single, "Whip My Hair", which reached No 11 in the US.</p><p>Heather Russell, 10</p><p>Canadian Russell was signed by Simon Cowell after he spotted the youngster on YouTube. She cites Prince and Queen among her influences. Russell started her career auditioning for talent singing shows, aged eight. Posting a clip of herself performing her song "Every Step of the Way" on the internet video site, she initially attracted more than 100,000 viewers, including celebrity fans Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, who helped to spread her name by tweeting about her.</p><p>Jackie Evancho, 10</p><p>A mezzo-soprano, Evancho sings in the classical crossover style of Sarah Brightman or Susan Boyle, though she is young enough to be their granddaughter. She was inspired to sing by watching a DVD of The Phantom of the Opera at the age of seven. Participating in talent contests she started her own YouTube channel, which caught the public's notice: appearances on Jay Leno's and Oprah Winfrey's TV shows followed.</p><p>Charice Pempengco, 18</p><p>The Filipina singer hailed by Oprah as "the most talented girl in the world" is the first Asian solo artist in history to land in the top 10 of Billboard's album chart. Raised by a single mother, she helped to support her family by entering singing contests from the age of seven. But it was a performance aged 15 on a Korean TV talent show ? later seen by millions on YouTube ? that brought her international notice. Not content with comparisons to Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston, Pempengco has moved into acting with appearances in Glee.</p><p>Bianca Ryan, 16</p><p>After winning the debut season of America's Got Talent five years ago, the 16-year-old singer and guitarist recently toured the world. Her father, a Rolling Stones fan, named his second child after Mick Jagger's ex-wife. In 2006 she signed a five-album deal with Syco Records, becoming the first US artist to sign with Simon Cowell's record label.</p><p>Jamia, 14</p><p>Born Jamia Simone Nash, she made her national televised debut at the age of five, performing on the US music show Showtime at the Apollo. Born in 1996, the US child sensation began singing at the age of two and has since shared the stage with Stevie Wonder and Alicia Keys. She also counts acting among her talents and appeared in the 2007 film August Rush. In 2008 she sang the film's main song "Raise It Up" at the Oscars ? the youngest performer to do so at the ceremony.</p><p>Makisig Morales, 14</p><p>At only 10 years old, Filipino Morales competed alongside his sister Mayumi in the TV singing contest Little Big Star. It was his big break and led to him signing with the country's Star Records, becoming lead singer of the boy band Mak and the Dudes. The group is the youngest in the Philippines. They released a debut album, Oldies But Kiddies, in 2007. Morales has accumulated a string of acting roles, in children's films and TV shows.</p><p>Amy Diamond, 18</p><p>As the youngest person in Sweden to release a best-of album, Diamond ? born Amy Linnea Deasismont ? has already made her name in Scandinavia as a pop singer, actress and television presenter. Her first single, "What's in It for Me", released in 2005 when she was 12, became the most-played song in Poland that year. An album followed on the back of its success. Now, with six albums to her name, she is a firm fixture on Swedish television.</p><p>Keke Palmer, 17</p><p>Born Lauren Keyana Palmer, but known as Keke. Her family saw her star potential at a young age and relocated to California from Chicago so she could pursue her singing and acting ambitions. Palmer signed her first record deal with Atlantic when she was 12; the following year she was performing in packed stadiums. Her debut album So Uncool was released in 2007. Keke also launched a cut-price fashion line through Walmart.</p><p>Zara Larsson, 13</p><p>Born Daniel Sunebrink in 1997. Zara's parents noticed her singing talent at a young age and helped to get her singing career off the ground. She first appeared in a stage production of The Sound of Music before going on to compete as a finalist in the Swedish talent show Stjamskott in 2007. A year later, she won the Swedish version of Britain's Got Talent, performing versions of Whitney Houston's "One Moment in Time" and "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion.</p>?<p>Frenchwoman Celine Lesage told the court yesterday the children had been born alive. She strangled two and suffocated the others.</p><p>Lesage, from Valognes in Normandy, bowed her head and avoided looking at anyone in court while the charges were read. Afterwards, she said in a soft voice: "I acknowledge the facts." She is charged with aggravated homicide.</p><p>She was arrested in 2007 after her new partner discovered the corpses in plastic bine bags in the basement of their apartment building in Valognes.</p><p>Her lawyer. Veronique Carre, said Lesage "does not contest the facts ... but isn't explaining them either". Several medical and psychological experts are expected to testify in the four-day trial.</p><p>"We are here to try to understand you before judging you," the judge told Lesage.</p><p>Her former partner, Pascal Catherine, the father of five of the children, was detained for questioning after Lesage was arrested in 2007.</p><p>The court was told the father of the sixth was the partner who discovered the corpses, Luc Margueritte.</p><p>At the time of her arrest, prosecutor Michel Garrandaux said she described giving birth to the first five alone in the apartment she shared at the time with Catherine.</p><p>Mr Garrandaux said the boyfriend "was far from unaware" of her pregnancies. However, the investigation against him was dropped. He will give evidence as a witness today.</p><p>The prosecution says that when Lesage and Catherine split up in 2006, Lesage, who also has a son of 14, moved in with her new boyfriend and brought the plastic bags from her old basement to her new one.</p>?<p>After just a few hours in the capable hands of the personal stylist Eliisa Makin I'm feeling liberated from the bonds of my achingly safe dress sense. It feels good. So good, in fact, that I temporarily think I'm Gisele and pick up a pair of small, silk, black shorts that look like lingerie but are in fact outerwear. Back at Liberty's private shopping area, where Eliisa is advising me on the much more chic pieces she has picked out in advance, it soon becomes clear that the shorts and I were not meant to be, but I' m having fun and experimenting, and that's the point. Eliisa is helping my wardrobe get its mojo back.</p><p>You might think that working in fashion would give a girl confidence in what she wears; but much of the time it's made me dress in an overly cautious way for fear of making the very fashion mistakes I've castigated celebs for in the past. My default look consists of black dresses, blue skinny jeans, dark blazers, the odd "interesting top" and flat pumps. Fortunately, with acres of experience working as a stylist at The Independent and other publications, Eliisa has come to the rescue. She has developed a real knack for helping people to delve into the deepest recesses of their sartorial psyches and create a signature look.</p><p>The first stage of the personal styling process was answering Eliisa's questionnaire, which consisted of practical questions about size, favourite colours and lifestyle, and more individual ones such as "which celebrity or person in the public eye's style do you most admire or relate to?" Eliisa says that this is the most revealing question and apparently my hastily brainstormed list ? Jane Birkin, the singer Francoise Hardy, Lou Doillon, Kate Bosworth and, perhaps predictably, Alexa Chung ? showed that I wanted a rocky, sexy, quirky look. I know Celine-style understatement is the mood du jour, but right now I also want something a bit more exciting.</p><p>After having my hair styled at Trevor Sorbie ? where Eliisa can arrange a 20 per cent discount for clients as part of the personal styling package, along with numerous other offers and access to the private shopping areas of key stores ? we arrived at Liberty. Eliisa had already prepared a rail of clothes which included a pair of red cropped trousers by Sessun which I loved, paired with a drapey grey vest, platform boots and a silk scarf; a dark-pink leopard print APC cardigan to go with skinny, grey J Brand jeans ? makes a change from blue ? and killer stilettos, and several dresses. After looking over the rail and trying things on we headed into the store for a joint recce, then back to the luxurious, boudoir-ish room for a monster styling session. My favourite looks were the red trousers pictured and a colourful scribble print Theory minidress with platform ankle boots.</p><p>Apart from the benefit of Eliisa's considerable experience and taste, which includes genuinely useful advice about how to beat days when nothing looks right, I also found that shopping with her made me less inhibited about making a statement. She would never push anyone into wearing anything they didn't feel comfortable in and she's also an absolute delight to be around. After all, fashion is meant to be fun.</p><p>Half a day with Eliisa Makin is £300, </p><p>Harriet Walker: finding that uptown, groomed look</p><p>When it comes to clothes, I definitely fall into the "current" bracket rather than the "classic" one. I like pieces that are dramatic, challenging, a bit quirky and that come in a palette of grey, black and navy. I own a dress that has geometric holes cut into the armpits and another that is slashed directly across the crotch (to be worn with sturdy pants or cycling shorts). I do not own a suit; ditto anything that doesn't stretch.</p><p>So imagine my horror at the new season's trend for crisp, sleek tailoring and grown-up classic pieces in subtle camel, blush pinks, khaki and white. Most of the pieces in my wardrobe are drapey and voluminous ? in part an aesthetic choice, but also because I don't like ironing. In the field of "grown-up chic" I'm utterly at a loss as to how to pull it off and I need a helping hand.</p><p>Beth Dadswell has been a stylist for more than 12 years, working across editorial shoots for The Independent, commercial work for high-street brands and, more recently, personal appointments for those who find themselves in the fashion wilderness. She has overhauled wardrobes for clients who have had a change of heart or a change of scene; she has even been bought as a birthday present.</p><p>Before we meet, I fill in Beth's online form, which includes essential questions about sizing and price, aspirational ones about who I want to look like (Patti Smith in a high-powered job), and sensitive evaluations to gauge how confident I am about my look, my body and my shopping techniques. By the time I have filled it in, I already have a clearer idea of what I want and also of what I want to change.</p><p>When I meet Beth in Selfridges, we spend a few moments discussing further the ways in which I want to change my look. We scuttle around the shop for quite a while, and I take a step back, allowing Beth to pick up things that would never normally have even caught my eye ? a crisp white shirt, some grey-wool cigarette pants, and a chic cream skirt that makes me wonder how long it would take me to spill red wine or chocolate all over it.</p><p>As we select pieces and Beth holds them up against me, she talks me through the version of classic that she has in mind. It isn't so scary a departure, I realise, as visions of Thatcher's pussy-bow blouses melt away.</p><p>Beth's great strength is that she is able to process and tailor trends directly to the individual she is working with. The sort of classic chic that I should be aiming for, she tells me, is the clean, modern minimalism that is so prevalent ? nothing too fussy or too frilly.</p><p>My final outfit is a high-waisted, A-line skirt from Miu Miu, which is much more structured than anything I normally wear. I also generally avoid anything on the waist, because I don't really have one. But when Beth tucks in a pale pink vest from Cos, there's a definite whittling effect and I suddenly look like someone I might take seriously. A pair of ladylike court shoes seals the deal: I've achieved the uptown, groomed look that I've hankered after for so long. Whether I have the discipline to maintain it is another matter, but Beth sends me a "styling prescription" reiterating what we discussed and suggesting ways of integrating my new look with my existing wardrobe. I'm not sure where the slashed-crotch dress fits in, though.</p><br><br><p>Half a day with Beth (four hours) is £250, </p>?<p>A car for the head</p><p>Celine may have a big budget, but all new drivers are expected to pay generously for their initial insurance premiums. Young drivers are more likely to be involved in an insurance claim, so premiums are higher. It is rare that a new driver will pay less than £1,000. Certainly a higher specification vehicle will mean a higher insurance quote. So Celine should not blow all her budget on the car of her dreams. She has mentioned the word "stylish", several times in her initial question. Well that should be the least of her concerns ? just getting mobile is the main thing, and the one problem with small, cheap cars is that you can't always get an automatic gearbox. For me the obvious choice would be a Fiat Panda Dynamic Eco. It's quite an old car now, which may help when getting a discount (around £800), but still looks pretty funky and it costs £8,565. To add an automatic gearbox costs £800, although the specification includes air conditioning. The insurance is in lowly Group 3.</p><p>A car for the heart</p><p>Then again if Celine does not like the look of the Fiat Panda there is always the Peugeot 107 (pictured). This has a lovely friendly shape. It is a small, light and nimble car which is perfect for buzzing around town and beyond. Its engine is a three-cylinder and on longer journeys Celine might notice that it is a bit noisy. But that's the price you pay for truly astounding petrol consumption. The stats show that the 1.0 litre engine will return over 60mpg. Even though Celine wants an automatic gearbox, I don't think that will make a huge difference to the figure. The other important figure for Celine is that this is in insurance Group 3, so should be relatively cheap to cover. A three door 1.0 Urban costs £9,345, although there are some £500-£700 discounts available if Celine shops around. The automatic gearbox option adds £500 to the price, while air conditioning is £535. Incidentally, the Verve model ? which has air conditioning as standard ? costs £9,145.</p><p>Looking to buy?</p><p>Please write to Car Choice, Features, Independent on Sunday, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5HF or email James Ruppert at carchoice@ independent.co.uk, giving your age, address and phone number, details of the type of vehicle in which you are interested, and your budget.</p>?<p>If that list just opens up a whole new stratosphere of confusion, Gap have handily divided their 'pants' into eight clear styles, providing a bluffer's guide to the trouser universe. Gap hasn't translated the catwalk word for word but that's the beauty of its approach ? these are timeless styles rather than slavish rip-offs.</p><p>Gap's head of design, Patrick Robinson, approached the new collection by translating the brand's 'denim attitude' into tailoring, and when he says the result is 'leg-lengthening shapes that take our customers through seven days a week,' he's right ? it's capsule wardrobe heaven. But I do have one reservation, which is that ? on me ? the 'Perfect Trouser' didn't live up to its name. However, the 'Relaxed Cropped' ? a loose tapered style which falls elegantly and doesn't bunch (right) ? and the 'Boyfit', which oozes slouchy cool with heels or flats, are instant hits, while the 'Modern Boot' soon dispelled my fears about not-at-all-modern, first-time-around bootcuts a la Victoria Beckham circa 1999. This style is lean on the thigh with a sleek kick flare and genuinely creates the appearance of willowy legs and a pert bottom. Not bad for £35. In store 27 July, 0800 427 789.</p>?<p>In Italy, of course, there were recurring themes, but box-ticking dressing came second to creativity and colour and wearing beautiful designer pieces that really are distinctive and arresting enough to transcend trends. However, in terms of channelling some of this sartorial joie de vivre, there was a theme that stood out: red. Whether it was a Celine bag or Isabel Marant's Escarpin suede stilettos, in a season heavy on the camel, grey and navy, these flashes of colour really lifted an outfit. Scarlet shoes, in particular, have a talismanic quality ? think 'The Red Shoes' or 'The Wizard of Oz' ? they draw you in and whisper of magical fashion powers.</p><p>The "bit of red" that had me ? and another fashion journalist ? gripped with the kind of urgent monomania that only strikes at the shows, were a pair of red trousers worn by an editor from US 'Vogue' (so chances are they weren't from the high street). On the catwalks for autumn/winter, red leather cropped trousers appeared at Isabel Marant, flares at Pucci and, left, cropped red tailored trousers at Givenchy. Sadly, the only "homages" I could find on the high street were in a cheap shiny fabric that looked like a fast food chain's staff uniform. Another observation from Milan: sometimes there's nothing like the real thing.</p>?<p>Many of the rest of us loyal servants of fashion are no less surgically attached. The "It-bag" tag might have expired, but the appeal of a nice bit of arm candy never will. It's a sort of unswervingly loyal, leathery friend. There's nothing like a new best friend though, which is why at the start of the season, a girl's thoughts turn to a new bag ? and unlike the Queen, we want something extraordinary, please.</p><p>That said, the Maggie-Thatcher-meets-Her-Majesty look is one of spring's multiple bag trends, alongside bold colours, stripes, natural shades, shoppers, briefcases, satchels, Seventies shoulder bags and micro-bags.</p><p>On the most wanted list are: Proenza Schouler's latest 'PS1' satchel in black leather, brown suede and beige linen, Prada's canvas briefcases in bold stripes, Vuitton's two-tone bags, and Celine's ultra-simple leather shoppers. Then there's Jil Sander's luxe version of a plastic bag and Mulberry's lovely Tillie briefcase, which is what the Alexa would look like if it grew up and got a job.</p><p>So what to buy? I'm avoiding mini-bags because unlike the Queen, I need to carry more than just lipstick, and oversized shoppers because I'll waste time rummaging. Bright or neon bags such as Miu Miu's shoulder bags will modernise an outfit, and the mid-sized, natural-coloured satchel is a versatile classic.</p><p>On the high street, look to Asos for great satchels under £70, including a cobalt one, Cos for a sleek tan shopper and Whistles for a grey suede satchel that evokes the Proenza Shouler 'PS1' but not too closely. Slavish copies of designer bags are not so much ordinary as extraordinarily tacky.</p>?<p>Perhaps some people really are too naturally chic to give it any thought. The rest of us, however, attempt to try and dress in a way that, while it might not get us photographed by 'The Sartorialist', will at least escape the kind of judgemental looks that could freeze volcanic lava.</p><p>So the shows start, you've got a few trophy pieces, a bag that would cost the same as a Caribbean holiday if you hadn't found it at a sample sale, and some passable Zara substitutes for Rick Owens/Celine and you're feeling pretty darn fly. What you haven't bargained for, however ? and here is where the experience becomes universal ? is 'things that let down your look'. Unplanned bursts of scruffiness that ruin an ensemble faster than you can say 'red-wine stain'.</p><p>First faux pas: bad umbrellas. When the heavens opened at London Fashion Week in February, many a look was spoilt by a bedraggled umbrella with wonky spokes or a pattern akin to a pub carpet. Smarten up with a Marc by Marc Jacobs pink leopard version (netaporter.com, £40), or visit brolliesgalore.co.uk. Next up, leaving the price tag on your shoes. Smug if they were expensive, embarrassing if they weren't. Remove. Then there's a functional wallet. Most fashion folk have this covered, but after I hastily picked up a nylon purse thing from around the house in which to hold my euros at Milan fashion week, my friend Alice drily enquired if I had been camping. Alas, this wasn't helped by using a rucksack as hand luggage. The solution? A stylish wallet such as Lara Bohinc's art deco Tatjana in navy (£259, 020-7730 8194, below) or a very ladylike pink purse by Vivienne Westwood (£100, netaporter.com) and a Barbour leather holdall; a timeless investment at £199 (barbourbymail.co.uk). Yes, the devil is in the detail.E</p>?<p>Last Milan Fashion Week, faced with the the bi-annual pressure to look au courant while attending the shows alongside the likes of the impossibly cool, Balenciaga-clad staff of French Vogue, we made our regular between-shows dash to Zara to supplement our wardrobes with some cheap chic.</p><p>Whether it's a floor-grazing maxiskirt or some killer heels, Zara always delivers. Mixed in with designer pieces, Zara can pass for much more expensive than it really is, and that "high-low" mix is popular with all but the loftiest of fashion editors.</p><p>Much of the chain's skill is in which trends and catwalk looks it chooses to pay homage to. It tends to bypass anything particularly outre in favour of grown-up looking, wearable clothes. Last autumn/winter it hit all the right notes by picking up on the pared-down tailoring seen at Chloe, Celine and Stella McCartney. Also in the mix were lashings of leopard-print, to add sex appeal, and red, the sleeper hit of the season.</p><p>The prices are reasonable at about £50 for a dress and £100 for a winter coat, but the clothes are not so cheap that they will not survive more than a few wears. The stock within the store also changes fast enough to keep pace with consumers' insatiable appetites for new trends, and the brand has a rapid turnaround from factory to shop floor.</p><p>Another reason for Zara's popularity is that the chain's designs appeal to women of all ages. It recognises that older age groups are often just as interested in fashion, but usually less inclined to wear overly revealing or novelty-driven clothes, and Zara's designs tend to be flattering. Many of the clothes are also smart enough to be worn to the office.</p><p>The brand recently launched a transactional website, the design of which reflects the tone of the stores ? light, functional and minimal. Inside the shops, there's no superfluous branding or tacky in-store promotions to distract from the main event, which is, of course, the joy of fashion. </p>?<p>Alexander Wang bagged three nominations, while Marc Jacobs and Lady Gaga are to be bestowed the lifetime achievement and fashion icon awards respectively.</p><p>CFDA chairwoman Diane von Furstenberg, who announced the nominees in New York March 16, said of Jacobs's reaction: "He's very happy, but he says it's only a half lifetime award because he's only halfway finished." Lady Gaga "started a fashion revolution," according to von Furstenberg.</p><p>Here is the full list of nominees:</p><p>Womenswear designer of the year<br>Alexander Wang<br>Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez for Proenza Schouler<br>Marc Jacobs</p><p>Menswear designer of the year<br>Michael Bastian<br>Patrik Ervell<br>Simon Spurr</p><p>Accessory designer of the year<br>Alexander Wang<br>Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez for Proenza Schouler<br>Reed Krakoff</p><p>Swarovski Award for womenswear<br>Joseph Altuzarra<br>Ashley Olsen and Mary-Kate Olsen for The Row<br>Prabal Gurung</p><p>Swarovski Award for menswear<br>Alexander Wang<br>Phillip Lim<br>Robert Geller</p><p>Swarovski Award for accessory design<br>Alejandro Ingelmo<br>Eddie Borgo<br>Jason Wu<br>Pamela Love</p><p>Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award<br>Marc Jacobs</p><p>International award<br>Phoebe Philo for Celine</p><p>Media award<br>Hilary Alexander of The Telegraph</p><p>Founders award<br>Hal Rubenstein of InStyle</p><p>Fashion icon award<br>Lady Gaga</p><p>Special tribute award<br>Arthur Elgort</p><p></p>?<p>The site was created by Chris Baker and William Spencer, two advertising copywriters from the US, their first target comedian Larry David (to whom they have no connection), and their aim is to encourage him to join the social networking site. At the time of writing they had raised more than $7,450 in pledges from those who want to see the curmudgeonly comic tweeting.</p><p>Chat show host Conan O'Brien looks likely to be the next victim, with a number of users wanting to see him interview a guest while wearing an eye-patch.</p><p>"What's really fun; what gets people excited, is the element of uncertainty," Baker told the LA Times.</p><p>"We're putting celebrities in an awkward situation without them knowing about it. If we went to them ahead of time and set everything up, it would lose a lot of the fun." It would also lose a lot of their persuasive power. The advent of Twitter means that the public are able to interact with an increasing number of actors, models and musicians. At the same time, we the public are choosing an increasing number of the next generation of famous people through weekend-wasting reality shows, which seems to fuel a feeling of "ownership" of those stars. While emotional blackmail of celebrities used to be the preserve of tabloid newspapers, it is now available to anyone with web access. The internet pressure method has been used to great effect recently.</p><p>Last year YouTube videos of a couple of US Marines asking Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis to be their dates to their annual ball, went viral. The generous stars (promoting a film together at the time) announced that they would be happy to go. But had they exercised their basic right to turn down a date, they could have expected widespread criticism. The charitybribes.org technique is reminiscent of that employed by Bob Geldof before Live Aid, where the Irish rocker said some bands had confirmed to play before they had.</p><p>The effect was that if any of them denied that they were playing, they were the ones who would look bad rather than the concert organisers.</p><p>Similarly, any celebrity turning down the "bribes" offered by the site will only appear to be hurting the charity. The other side of the coin, is that for those taking part (like for those who perform, for example, on Comic Relief or Sport Relief) doing such activities only helps to raise the participants' profile.</p><p>"We're trying to make sure that the bribes are really positive," says William Spencer. "We don't want to get into anything that's mean-spirited or degrading to celebs."</p><p>Users of the site will be able to suggest future bribes and then vote. So if you want to see Russell Brand give up sex, the Beckhams choose their outfits from a charity shop or for Dame Vera Lynn to learn to ride a skateboard (our suggestions), then visit the site and let the emotional blackmail begin...</p>?<p>But as well as raising hundreds of thousands of pounds, it looks set to reignite the cross-Atlantic charity single war which began when "We Are The World" written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie for famine relief in Ethiopia wiped the floor with Sir Bob's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" a quarter of a century ago.</p><p>The American offering this time is a re-recording of that same song sung by Snoop Dogg, Celine Dion and Pussycat Dolls among others: not quite in the same league as the 1985 supergroup which included Bruce Springsteen, Madonna and Stevie Wonder.</p><p>Sir Bob's Band Aid spent five weeks at number one and sold 3.5 million copies in the UK alone. The biggest selling single of all time is Elton John's tear-jerking re-write of "Candle In The Wind", which was released as a tribute to Princess Diana.</p><p>The charity single is an essential stepping stone for anyone seeking celebrity status; you're nobody until you've done at least one. Flailing stars in need of a career boost inevitably try their best to get in on the action too. Frankly, some of the offerings here beg the question who was donating ? and who was receiving ? charity.</p><p>Do They Know It's Christmas?</p><p>Band Aid/November 1984</p><p>The daddy of all charity singles, it sold a million copies in the first week and brought worldwide attention to the Ethiopian famine. On the downside, it gave Bono and Bob Geldof enduring saint status.</p><p>We Are The World</p><p>USA for Africa/April 1985</p><p>The US rock and pop glitterati turned out a much better song, which was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and went on to win three Grammies.</p><p>Living Doll</p><p>Cliff Richard and Young Ones/April 1986</p><p>It wasn't that great in 1959 and it certainly wasn't good in 1986, but at least it was sort of funny, raised money for Comic Relief, and Rick, from The Young Ones, got to record a song with his all-time hero.</p><p>Everybody Wants To Run The World</p><p>Tears for Fears/May 1986</p><p>Hounded down by Sir Bob after they failed to turn up for Band Aid, the band offered up this musical gem, a re-jigged version of "Everybody Wants To Rule The World", for Sport Aid.</p><p>Let It Be</p><p>Ferry Aid/March 1987</p><p>In aid of survivors of the Zeebrugge ferry disaster, in which 193 people died. The recording was organised by The Sun which had sold cheap tickets for the ferry, Herald of Free Enterprise, on that day.</p><p>With A Little Help From My Friends</p><p>Wet Wet Wet/May 1988</p><p>Before the addiction, before the really terrible songs, the Scottish pop pin-ups recorded this Beatles cover at the height of their success, for Childline.</p><p>Running All Over The World</p><p>Status Quo for Sport Aid/August 1988</p><p>After "Rockin' All Over The World" became the unofficial anthem for Live Aid, the Quo came back with an uninspired re-jigged version for Sport Aid, to very little critical acclaim.</p><p>Help</p><p>Bananarama and Lananeeneenoonoo/February 1989</p><p>Funny women Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Kathy Burke took the opportunity to do their bit for Comic Relief with the biggest-selling female group of the 1980s.</p><p>Ferry Cross The Mersey</p><p>Various artists/April 1989</p><p>Recorded by popular Liverpool artists such as Holly Johnson, The Christians and, of course, Paul McCartney to raise money for those affected by the Hillsborough football disaster.</p><p>Use It Up And Wear It Out</p><p>Pat and Mick/April 1990</p><p>Surely, the worst charity song of all time. Capital Radio DJs Pat Sharp and Mick Brown took it upon themselves to release eight tortuous singles. At least this one raised some money for Help a London Child.</p><p>The Stonk</p><p>Hale and Pace featuring Brian May/March 1991</p><p>Teachers turned comedians Hale and Pace released only one charity song (for Comic Relief) which was based on a fictitious dance craze: The Stonk. Brian May should have known better.</p><p>Absolutely Fabulous</p><p>Absolutely Fabulous/May 1994</p><p>Starring Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley from Absolutely Fabulous (the clue's in the title) and produced by the Pet Shop Boys, the song for Comic Relief features dialogue from the show. Not really funny.</p><p>Candle In The Wind 1997</p><p>Elton John/September 1997</p><p>Originally written as a tribute to Marilyn Monroe in 1973, the remake was in memory of Princess Diana and started with: "Goodbye England's rose..." It is the biggest selling British single of all time. No more need be said.</p><p>Perfect Day</p><p>Various artists/November 1997</p><p>This beautiful Lou Reed song seduced a whole new generation after it was used by the BBC in an advertising campaign to promote its music coverage. The single for Children in Need elicited high praise from the man himself.</p><p>Uptown Girl</p><p>Westlife/March 2001</p><p>The only reason why the Billy Joel original wasn't naff was because he had a great voice and sounded like a 1930s American doo-wop singer. The Westlife version for Comic Relief had none of these qualities, and so was naff.</p><p>Spirit In The Sky</p><p>Gareth Gates and the Kumars/ March 2003</p><p>There have been some great versions of this song, but this definitely wasn't one of them. Oh well, got to Number One, raised loads of money for Comic Relief, so who cares?</p><p>I'm Your Man</p><p>Shane Richie/November 2003</p><p>This is one of George Michael's and Wham's best ever songs, so why would anyone let Shane Richie get his hands on it? For Children In Need, why else?</p><p>Is This The Way To Amarillo?</p><p>Tony Christie and Peter Kay/March 2005</p><p>Now this was absolute genius. The video featured Shakin' Stevens, Mr Blobby, Michael Parkinson and Mahatma Gandhi to name a few, helping it to become the year's best-selling single for Comic Relief.</p><p>Old Clash Fan Fight Song</p><p>Johnny Clash, aka Billy Bragg/August 2007</p><p>Billy Bragg's alias was inspired by his heroes The Clash and Johnny Cash. The song raised money for Bragg's Jail Guitar Doors project which aims to rehabilitate prisoners through music.</p><p>Everybody Hurts</p><p>Various artists/February 2010</p><p>Today's release for the Haiti earthquake appeal came after Gordon Brown asked Simon Cowell to put his magic to good use. Rod Stewart, Coldplay, Take That and Mariah Carey are among the stars. Buy it, it's for charity.</p>?<p>When her production comes to an end, Cher will have performed approximately 200 shows during the course of her three years at The Colosseum at Ceasars Palace. Her act, titled Cher, features the artists's hits including "If I Could Turn Back Time" and "Believe" as well as a look back on her career, including vintage footage of her performances with Sonny Bono.<br><br>Cher's schedule includes concerts from September 25 through the end of October, followed by a two-month break before the final round of shows get underway. The legendary performer will then perform 16 shows from January 11 through February 5.<br><br>Cher debuted at The Colosseum in May 2008, after Celine Dion fulfilled her contract at the venue. Dion is set to return there on March 15, with more than 50 shows booked through August.<br><br>Tickets will be on sale on September 25 beginning at 10:00am PDT. Prices are $95, $140, $175, and $250.<br><br>For more information, visit .<br><br>For tickets, go to (keyword "Cher").</p>?<p>She opened the show, only her second for the label, with funnel collared navy wool coats and reefer jackets, some double-breasted with discreet navy buttons, and contrasting black patch pockets set low.</p><p>There was a smart but sexy secretary look to her formal white blouses with elongated neckties flowing behind, over a navy midi split to the thigh or a sage green tweedy knee-skimming skirt. In some cases, shirt and skirt were conjoined, no longer separates, which looked like a speedy solution for the time-poor getting up in the morning.</p><p>Glove-fine leather vests, ribbed sleeveless knits with big cowl collars worn over fine white wool T-shirts, creamy lace ensembles and boucle wool coats, were all key to her pared down, practical vision of a 21st century winter wardrobe.</p><p>The show was packed to the gunnels despite the bitter cold snap in Paris and the out-of-the-way venue, indoor tennis courts practically in the suburbs.</p><p>For his own label, the presiding genius at Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld, appeared to have poured his models into their second skin pencil pants in what looked like some glossy synthetic plastic.</p><p>No way, he assured AFP after the show. The material had been treated to give it a lacquer finish but was natural and could breathe and had absolutely nothing in common with the "disgusting" latex favoured by the porn industry.</p><p>But there was no denying a certain voyeuristic edge to the collection, particularly in the prevalence of zips, running down sleeves or up legs, giving tantalising glimpses of layers beneath.</p><p>Models had their hair swept back with a wide shiny band of the new fabric, while their skintight pants in gleaming pewter, silver, black and liquid chocolate were a constant in the collection. For day they were paired with matching skinny mini skirts and kimono-folded matt jackets or coats, while for evening he veiled them with sheer silk chiffon.</p><p>"I love the colour of chocolates, even though I never eat them", confessed Lagerfeld, who has drastically slimmed down in recent years.</p><p>Singaporean designer Andrew Gn's collection celebrated the opulence of Rococo and the Regency period in France, inspired by a Louis XV commode in his own drawing room decorated with gilt scrolls and acanthus leaves.</p><p>Even for daytime sweaters were lavishly trimmed with velvet and rows of metal buttons, while sculpted ruffles cascaded down cleavages and ruched silk jersey clung to well-honed derrieres.</p><p>Forearms were encased by metal bracelets of acanthus leaves, which also wound round the bosoms of grand evening gowns in rich figured velvets. Peplums burst from the strangulated waists of siren dresses with matching trains.</p><p>More couture than ready-to-wear, there were some beautifully executed individual pieces, but too much to digest at one sitting.</p>?<p>with no need for the trite, cheesy, sequinned and seemingly irrelevant Euro-pudding. Where do Bucks Fizz and Brotherhood of Man, after all, stand within the British pop and rock canon? Footnotes at best.</p><p>Cynicism because the centre of Eurovision has shifted resolutely eastwards since the UK last won, in 1997, with Katrina and the Waves ? the arrival of former communist states leading to block-voting that even drove the relentlessly good-humoured Terry Wogan into quitting his BBC post as Official Amused Onlooker. And kitschy glee because, well, the whole thing is as camp as a row of tents ? as well as the last refuge of wind machines, big hair and leather mini-skirts. Just as long as you don't take too seriously the lingering solidarity between old Soviet Union comrades and their erstwhile Eastern Bloc satellites.</p><p>But in 2011 are there reasons to be cheerful, to quote a cockney pop poet who had no need for Eurovision to sell his wares? Is this year's songfest going to see a drift back to its Western European heartlands? And, more importantly for British viewers, is the UK, with Blue's "I Can", in with a shout after recent debacles ? the Royaume Uni, as we're known in Francophone countries, having finished bottom of the continental pile three times in the past eight years (and second bottom once)?</p><p>Indeed, Britons might be forgiven for feeling paranoid, if those entries had not been so truly awful. Josh Dubovie's "That Sounds Good to Me" didn't sound good to anybody else in 2010, while the X Factor bin-man Andy Abraham's "Even If" was trashed in 2008 ? even if Abraham garnered 14 more points that Jemini in 2003. Their "Cry Baby" had the scouse stage-school duo shedding tears of humiliation in Latvia after earning "nul points" for the first time in the UK's involvement in the event. Until 1998, it should be recalled, Britain had only finished outside the top 10 on two occasions.</p><p>So are resuscitated boy band Blue about to end 14 years of hurt? Could Duncan James, Lee Ryan, Antony Costa and Simon Webbe restore national pride when they belt out their Obama'ish ditty "I Can" in the German city of Dusseldorf tonight? The historical omens are good in the year of a royal wedding ? Bucks Fizz having won in the year of Charles and Diana's nuptials. "We have a good as chance as winning as anybody", says Costa, with admirable realism, although the bookies reckon Blue has more of a chance than most ? placing them as second favourites to scoop the top prize. The bookmakers' favourite, however, is France, with a mournful operatic power ballad called "Sognu", delivered by long-haired Gallic dreamboat Amaury Vassili, the world's youngest professional tenor. Interestingly enough "Sognu" is being sung in the Corsican language ? perhaps a belated recognition by France that Eurovision voters have a soft spot for the underdog.</p><p>On which subject, Ireland are sixth favourite ? surprisingly since they're represented by The X Factor novelty leprechauns Jedward. But then maybe the quiffed twins will seduce the European public and judges in the same way they won over Simon Cowell, and are worth an each-way punt. The Republic have won the song contest more than any other country, after all, virtually owning it in the 1990s when the ruinous cost of repeatedly hosting the event nearly bankrupted the state broadcaster RTE. There's a famous 1996 episode of Father Ted in which the Craggy Island priests' tuneless song is entered in an attempt to sabotage Ireland's Eurovision hopes and save the country a fortune ? and perhaps in economically-stricken 2011, Jedward is the Dublin government's secret plan for a similar cost-saving exercise.</p><p>For 2011 however, it's Germany hosting the contest, with a French favourite and a British second favourite ? all very Old Europe, and quite a throwback to the 1950s when Eurovision was first dreamt up by a Swiss executive of the European Broadcasting Union, Marcel Bezencon, as a way of uniting the various national broadcasters of the western half of the continent around a live event ? quite a feat in those days. The initial Eurovision Grand Prix, as it was known back then, was held in the Swiss town of Lugano, being won by, well, Switzerland. The next time the Swiss won was in 1988 with "Ne partez pas sans moi" ? sung by a certain French-Canadian wearing a costume seemingly scrambled together out of a charity shop. Come on down, Celine Dion.</p><p>Ever the laggard in Europe, Britain joined in 1957, winning its first contest in 1967 with a barefoot Sandie Shaw padding around to "Puppet on a String". Lulu followed that win in 1969 with the quintessential Eurovision ballad "Boom Bang-a-Bang", but not before Spain had bribed its way to victory in 1968. General Franco was so eager to stage the event that he bought a whole pile of European programming he had no intention of broadcasting, and otherwise purchasing votes to ensure that Spanish ditty "La, la, la" (the song contained 68 la la las in all) pipped Cliff Richard's "Congratulations!" in front of a visibly surprised audience at London's Albert Hall.</p><p>Despite this skulduggery ? Eurovision's image in its early years was of genteel, middle-of-the-road light entertainment studiously ignoring the youth revolution happening around it. The year of Cliff's "Congratulations!" was, after all, also the year of the Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man" and the Beatles' White album. But while it may have been something of a cultural irrelevance in the West, on the other side of the Iron Curtain, Eurovision was having an unsettling effect on the populace. An excellent documentary on More4 last weekend, The Secret History of Eurovision, documented how the communist regimes bordering Western European countries first attempted to jam Eurovision broadcasts, and then produced their own version of the contest ? the Sopot International Song Contest held each year in Poland. Interestingly, Beatles lookalikes were permitted, but anyone resembling the Rolling Stones was considered beyond the pale.</p><p>It's worth remembering the illicit thrill generation in Eastern Bloc countries when you consider their current enthusiasm for the event, as well as savouring the irony of Moscow hosting the most extravagant Eurovision of all time, in 2009, after the long history of the Soviet Union attempting to supress the contest. And before anyone accuses the Baltic states of unfairly voting for each other, they should recall how Estonia (in 2001) and Latvia (2002) triumphed at pivotal moments in their disengagement from the collapsed Soviet Union.</p><p>The Balkan states also tend to vote for each other ? despite a recent history of internecine bloodshed. This fact prompts apologists to argue that this "block voting" is not political but cultural ? the public in Bosnia, for example, appreciating the music of Serbia (the 2007 winners), while not necessarily wanting Serbian tanks parked on their front lawn. But when the 2008 contest was held in Belgrade, and Russia came out the winners (a result he had predicted), it all became too much for Sir Terry Wogan, and he quit hosting the annual broadcast that in many ways he had made his own.</p><p>And let's face it. For the majority of viewers in this country, Wogan and Eurovision were almost synonymous, although some reckoned that Wogan was becoming increasingly xenophobic as he fell out of love with Eurovision ? that he was becoming more and more (in so far as it was possible for an Irishman) a Little Englander. Wogan argues that he was just having a harmless laugh at Euro-preposterousness, and most people would agree with him, but either way, his successor on the BBC broadcast, Graham Norton, is arguably more in tune with the new Eurovision sensibility ? not least because Norton is openly gay.</p><p>At least since Dana International dragged the competition out of the closet in 1998 (the transsexual Israeli singer named in camp honour of 1970's squeaky clean and devoutly Catholic Irish winner Dana), Eurovision has had an overtly gay following ? nowhere more than in countries such as Poland, Serbia and Russia where homosexuality is still enthusiastically oppressed. During the 2008 Moscow contest, as protesting gay activists were being beaten up by police thugs outside, inside the city's Olimpiysky Arena, the contest was being won by Norwegian gay icon Alexander Rybak with his song "Fairytale" in front of row-upon-row of gay fans</p><p>But what of the artistic worth of this annual bardic babel? What is the cultural value of Blue, for example, a boy band well beyond their teeny-bop prime. "I Can" is a pleasant enough but unremarkable ballad whose chorus might be of use to beginner students of the English language ("I can, I will, I know..."), and the "boys" (their average age is 30) are attractive enough, although again rather more unremarkable than the narcissism of the accompanying video perhaps warrants. But are they enough to restore national pride? National pride? Do we perhaps care more than we let on about the UK's diminished standing in Eurovision?</p><p>We certainly seem to be getting more serious about it. Having seen that leaving it to the Great British Public to vote for their preferred song, in BBC1's annual Song for Europe contest, didn't seem to be working, Andrew Lloyd Webber was drafted in to the national cause, penning the fifth-placed "It's My Time" for future Sugababe Jade Ewen, while last year's entry was written by Pete Waterman of the Stock, Aitken and Waterman hit factory.</p><p>But Eurovision has become so bloated now that it requires two semi-finals and almost the only way to stand out is with some sort of gimmick or to make a loud noise ? or both in the case of Finland's 2006 winners, the face-masked Visigoth heavy-rockers Lordi (imagine Lady Gaga crossed with AC-DC playing at a Lord of the Rings convention).</p><p>Perhaps normal is the new gimmicky. Last year's German winner, Satellite, was a light and catchy electro-pop tune, sung in Teutonic-accented English by the 19-year-old Lena Meyer-Landrut, unaccompanied ? especially by anyone in a beard ? and wearing a simple black dress. There was a breezy self-confidence to the song that seemed to announce that not only Germany, but Eurovision itself had come of age. Maybe instead of recycling boy bands and The X Factor rejects, we should be actively encouraging the real talent of tomorrow ? the next Adele, Duffy or Ellie Goulding. It's a Plan B, you could say. And maybe it's also time to show Eurovision what we're really made of.</p><br><br><p>The Eurovision Song Contest is at 8pm tonight on BBC1</p>?<p>The official was not authorised to be publicly identified because the investigation is under way.</p><p>No other information was immediately available. The prosecutor for the Nord region is planning a news conference later today.</p><p>France has seen a string of cases in recent years of mothers killing their newborns and saving and hiding the corpses. In one case, Celine Lesage acknowledged in court in March that she killed six of her babies, whose corpses were found in plastic bags in her basement in north-west France. Another Frenchwoman, Veronique Courjault, was convicted last year of murdering three of her newborn children. Her husband discovered two of the corpses in a freezer while they lived in South Korea. Psychiatrists testified that she suffered from a condition known as "pregnancy denial".</p>?<p>Nikki Jayne Guest</p><p>"I only got five episodes in, will catch up on the rest soon but it was a very credible attempt to film a complex and multi-layered novel.</p><p>Can't wait for the next series as A Game of Thrones is the least interesting of the books."</p><p>Hagbard Celine</p><p>"It was amazing... just if they have another season no character is as strong as Ned (Sean Bean)."</p><p>Jake Rubinsky</p><p>"It is involving, enthralling and has become a must-see. Even the rude bits."</p><p>Ruari McCallion</p><p>"An ample budget to maintain an illusion of a fictitious world with suitable props and set dressing. Stunning Irish landscapes top this off with a lush backdrop for what is promising to be another award winning production from HBO."</p><p>Mark Harris</p><p>"It's been over-hyped, I feel. It's very slow, the premise is quite dull and the acting is patchy. Sean Bean, in particular, seems disinterested and tired of it all ? but maybe that's the characterisation and he's supposed to come across that way. "</p><p>Joseph McArthur Field</p><p>"It's like The Wire meets Lord of the Rings."</p><p>Richard Taylor</p><p>"Love it. A breath of fantasy-fresh air. It's been good to see so many British actors showcasing their talents. Roll on series two."</p><p>Maxine Thinnestofthinice Hayter</p><p>"The story and the acting are both fantastic."</p><p>Tracey Baxter</p><p>"It's original because the unexpected and the taboo actually happen. I've never been so affected by, or engrossed in, a TV show. They're doing something very right with this one."</p><p>Jenifer Mangione Vogt</p><p>"A new benchmark for fantasy adaptations. I hope HBO can give science fiction the same treatment someday ? Asimov's Foundation series would be a great place to start!"</p><p>Alex Ross</p><p>"As a big fan of the books, I was pleased to see that the essence of the novel has been well preserved, with large chunks of dialogue remaining largely unharmed in the adaptation to the script."</p><p>James Addison</p><p>"Cheesy."</p><p>Sarah Lamb</p><p>"Love the way they just kill off main characters, if the plot requires it."</p><p>Brian Reichholf</p><p>" I've not wanted a Monday to come round so quickly for ages!"</p><p>Nick Garrod</p><p>"The acting isn't bad, and unusually for this genre, there are some great roles for women. The costumes are brilliant and sometimes defy belief. Rather a lot of sex and nudity which will not be to everybody's taste. Definately not for viewing by younger children."</p><p>Tasmine Lee</p><p>"Watched the first three episodes, very slow and badly acted. I promptly removed the series link ."</p><p>Bryn Thorburn</p><p>"Not quite as boring as the books but close."</p><p>Eddie Riff</p><p>Next week in Culture Club: Bad Teacher</p><p>New comedy 'Bad Teacher' stars Cameron Diaz, see interview opposite, as a gold-digging educator on a mission to woo a rich co-worker, played by Justin Timberlake. Email cultureclub@ indepen dent.co.uk with your thoughts: the best responses will be published here Thursday.</p>?<p>Photographs: Katya De Grunwald</p><p>Model: Smita at IMG</p><p>Make-up: Angela Davis-Deacon at Sue Allatt using Chanel Hydra Beauty Serum</p><p>Hair: Jan Przemyk at Naked Artists using Kiehl's</p><p>Retouching: Samuel Bland</p>?<p>* During the phone-hacking crisis, one major player has been lying extremely low. I write, of course, of George (ne Gideon) Osborne, who has avoided the issue by occupying himself with what he no doubt claims are pressing economic matters. A likely story. Still, as she deflected the interrogatory bullets fired at her by the Media Select Committee this week, former News International chief exec Rebekah Brooks pinged at least one stray round in the direction of No 11 Downing Street ? suggesting that it was Gideon who had personally recommended the hiring of Andy Coulson as the Conservative Party's comms director in 2007. Given that it was Coulson's News of the World which had, in 2005, published the notorious photograph of the young Gideon posing with a prostitute and a modest heap of unidentified white powder, either the now-Chancellor is an extremely forgiving chap, or Coulson has something really bad on him. I know which I'd prefer.</p><p>* This column has thus far chosen to ignore the (frankly, rather dull) travails of the eurozone, due to its distinct lack of custard pies or Hugh Grant. However, the phone-hacking saga is undergoing a lull, and needs must. So to Brussels, where the eurozone leaders met yesterday on, coincidentally, "Belgium Day". On 21 July 1831, Leopold I took the constitutional oath as the low country's first king; 180 years later, the date marks its 400th day sans government.</p><p>However, with Belgian politicians failing to form a viable coalition, the civil service has calmly continued to run the country, despite its inability to approve any new spending. Thus Belgium's debt has been reduced at a pace envied across the EU, and (I'm told, by somebody more conversant with the subject than myself) approved of by the crucial ratings agencies. Sir Humphrey to the rescue...</p><p>* And Europe ? would you believe it? ? yields not one item today, but two. For last month in Totnes, 89-year-old grandmother Eileen Noakes emailed her Conservative MEP, Giles Chichester, to ask him to vote for a 30 per cent EU emissions reduction target. Mr Chichester replied to his constituent, politely informing her that while he supported such targets, he would not vote for it without competitor countries doing the same. Mrs Noakes, unimpressed, replied a tad tetchily: "Dear Mr Chichester, is this what you teach your children ? don't do the right thing until everybody else does it too?"</p><p>Mr Chichester, clearly taken aback, consulted his staff, who told him he ought to respond, which he duly did. "Your fatuous and ill-informed comments, clearly intended to insult, merely serve to prove how silly you are," he raged. "How dare you personalise this issue by involving my children? What sort of contemptible person are you? You obviously can't mount a serious case. Yours, Giles Chichester MEP." Another vote lost. Ho-hum.</p><p>* In Chipping Norton the natives are restless. The townspeople, it's said, are fed up with their name being dragged through the Oxfordshire mud. Those responsible ? the so-called "Chipping Norton Set" ? don't even live in Chipping Norton, but towards Burford on the A361. "It's a terrible shame that these spivs have brought the town's name into disrepute," former town councillor Gerry Alcock told the Witney Gazette. Fellow resident Keith Ruddle, 61, was more sympathetic, offering the unemployed Brooks a job with the Chipping Norton newsletter.</p><p></p>?<p>Her second collection for that label, which was yesterday's first big show, will no doubt be equally well-received. This was a perfect display of looks that most women, whatever their age, would love to wear, provided that their budgets will stretch to it.</p><p>Navy wool coats and jackets had chic funnel collars, leather pockets and just the odd highly polished fastening ? this was still a basically minimal view. Trousers, worn high on the waist, cropped at the ankle and with a dead straight leg, were immaculately cut. Skirt suits came tailored close to the body, but never overly so, in Lurex tweed ? for just that touch of sparkle. New this season was ivory lace, again gracing a silhouette that fell cleverly between the demure and the dignified. Footwear ? ultra-high suede loafers or soft leather riding boots with a fashionable mid heel in gold ? will no doubt fly off the shelves.</p><p>Since Philo started her career as Stella McCartney's right-hand woman at Chloe in the late 1990s, she has been widely perceived as a woman who can do no wrong. The designer, who took over from McCartney when she left Chloe to start up her own label in partnership with the Gucci Group in 2001, went on to give the world money-spinning accessories, including the Paddington bag. More generally, the sweetly feminine aesthetic with a cool, London-girl edge that Chloe came to represent was coveted ? and widely copied ? the world over. Now ? and following a five-year break to spend time with her family ? Philo is once again working her magic at Celine. While this latest offering didn't have quite the youthful freshness of the one that came before it, it reinforced the fact that Celine is establishing itself as the revitalised status label to watch.</p><p>There was nothing much easy on the eye about the Comme des Garcons collection shown the previous evening. This powerful vision was as challenging and uncompromising as might be expected of fashion's most consistently innovative and inspirational name. The label's founder and designer, Rei Kawakubo, said she was thinking about "inside decoration": where other designers might use jewellery for the surface of their collection, this was about externalising what you do to protect yourself inside.</p><p>And what clothes these were. The most arresting and unconventional silhouette was achieved by stuffing garments with anatomically shaped padding, edged with a small frill which, flying in the face of fashion's obsession with a slender and flattering line, made even the world's slightest models appear positively hefty and strong, interestingly enough ? by comparison.</p><p>All the Comme des Garcons signature fabrics were in place ? pin-striped wool, polyester, tartan and more. Kawakubo's ability to breathe new life into these season after season is remarkable. In the end, however, the brilliance of this particular fashion statement lay in the fact that it went to prove that the confrontational may indeed be beautiful ? and even romantic. Put very simply: it takes a courageous spirit to flag up fat as fashionable, but Kawakubo did just that.</p>?<p>Pulling in lady fans to score two UK gold and US platinum albums, that's easy enough (he's a looker) but the fact men adore the former child actor just as much, if not more, makes Drake the sort of clever conundrum that could remedy the many faux pas hip-hop has willingly entertained over the last 20 years. He'll say himself that he's more concerned with reckless good times, than thuggish bravado, welcoming tonight's sold out crowd to "the greatest fucking club in the world, club paradise" - and for at least 90 minutes, he pulls off one heck of a party.</p><p>It's not an easy job either, as he's joined only by a six-piece band, a few visuals, and a humble light show (and not evenan outfit change). However, he runs laps along the O2 stage as track after track fromhis latest album Take Care crash brilliantly around the arena, like? 'Under Ground Kings'. ??"I bet we can make tonight the greateststory ever told, cause I'm down to spend whatever, lately I've been on aroll!" yells the rapper as the crowd effortlessly screams along. </p><p>Other big hitters like'Headlines' and 'Over' - where urgent, grandiose beats meethis hooky, monotonous flow - also light up the proceedings, and even when hegoes into R&B mode a la Craig David and delivers the emo-ballad'Marvin's Room', he's still winning.?That is, until a knucklehead thuggishness makes an appearance by way ofhis excessive use of the N-word ("Tonight we're gonna let it slide,"he smiles) and references to "bustin pussy" sound way too wrong tobe consensual.? </p><p>Perhaps his mentor LilWayne is to blame for gutter moments, coming off a bit try-hard for a guy namedAubrey who hails from the land of Celine Dion and takes every possible gap togush about how much he loves his fans. But as far as hip-hop shows go, Drakedoes a good job in showing he's earned the hype, and with a heartfelt approach tothe genre that's tougher than you'd imagine. </p>?<p>The 25-year-old singer's sister and sometime assistant, Grace, scuffles about the kitchen, comfily attired in sweatshirt, leggings and leg-warmers, and busy with the coffee and toast. She is 36 months her pop-star sibling's junior but, by flighty Flo's own admission, light years ahead in the grounded, practical stakes. One Welch sister is, you might say, Pre-Raphaelite; the other, post-gym. They make a great team, especially when touring.</p><p>Which is exactly what Welch has just been doing. She's fresh(ish) off a plane from Japan, where she'd journeyed from South America. Hence, she apologises, her occasional "vacant" expression and the 1,000-yard stare that speaks of mind-melting jet lag.</p><p>She'd better get used to it: Florence and the Machine's second album, Ceremonials, has been out for little over three months but has already sold 1.8 million copies around the world. There's a lot of life in it yet, and a lot of touring.</p><p>And, one suspects, a fair few awards ceremonies. On Welch's to-do list in the days after our meeting: a visit to the National Gallery in the company of BBC2's The Culture Show ? with her mother Evelyn, a professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of London, Welch has a keen interest in art. And beyond that engagement, the singer has to wade into rehearsals for her appearance at Tuesday's Brit Awards.</p><p>For Florence and the Machine, it's a big do. Welch and her band are renowned for their fashionable and theatrical flair, whether in photoshoots (Welch is hot from the cover of Vogue and a Karl Lagerfeld collaboration in Paris), videos or on the television stage ? they've previously wowed the watching millions with appearances on the Oscars, the Grammys, the MTV Video Music Awards and the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.</p><p>On top of that, the Brit Awards represent a sort of homecoming for the band that Florence and Isabella Summers (aka the Machine), a friend from Camberwell College of Arts, formed in 2007. The newbies won the event's Critics' Choice Award in 2009, and Best Album the following year for their debut, Lungs.</p><p>"It's going to be a celebration of this album," Welch says of her performance at London's O2 arena of "No Light, No Light", her punchy, dramatic, harp-flecked, aerobic-gothic new single. "And of coming back to the Brits with a record that I'm really, really proud of. We haven't really done any big UK TV stuff for this record ? or anywhere for that matter. So this will be the first time we get to create something around this record. That's quite exciting. And," she dimples, "it's very nice to be invited back."</p><p>And this time, at least, she brings with her the experiences ? and the fabulous frock memories ? from other awards ceremonies from around the world...</p><p>The Brit Awards, London 2009</p><p>Florence and the Machine won the second-ever Critics' Choice Award. She didn't perform at the actual Brit Awards, but did at the launch event. "That gig was the first time I ever [bought] a dress for something. I've still got it ? it's over here somewhere..."</p><p>Welch clatters off to her room and comes back with a mint-green brocade in sheer lace gown of 1930s vintage. It was, she recalls, like slipping on her armour for her first big TV exposure ? especially useful as she was, at the time, bunkered in a London studio working on Lungs with producer Paul Epworth. She wasn't used to the spotlight.</p><p>The inaugural winner, Adele, told me she'd had to battle suspicion that the Critics' ChoiceAward had been invented just for her. "I was dead embarrassed winning that bloody award," she said to me afterwards. "What's the point of being awarded something when you ain't done anything yet?"</p><p>This year's winner, Emeli Sande, has no such fears: she's already had a number-two single (with "Heaven") and been to number one courtesy of her guest slot on Professor Green's hit "Read All About It". And she's finished recording her debut album, Our Version of Events, released last week. ("I wanted the Brit so much," Sande admitted to me, "more than anything. Why was it so important? Cos it's an appreciation of the music.")</p><p>Welch can't confess to such self-possession four years ago: "It was a really terrifying experience, a baptism of fire. I was completely unprepared ? I was hyperventilating when I was getting the award. It was almost like having Second Album Syndrome first. I had that really intense press scrutiny, and it was my first experience of everyone really focusing on me, waiting on this record. And I still really didn't have any idea what kind of record it would be. I was still making it and figuring out the sounds.</p><p>"So it was like a lift-off, really, yet the pressure that came with that was really intense. But it has helped in the long run. It seems like I was established from the beginning."</p><p>The NME Awards, London 2009</p><p>The other end of the spectrum from the slick extravaganza that is an American awards show: a boozy, none-more-indie night at London's Brixton Academy, where pre-planned bad behaviour is de rigueur.</p><p>"I performed with Glasvegas," recalls Welch. "We sang 'Suspicious Minds', the Elvis song, together, and drank Buckfast. I got really drunk and don't remember what happened next. A very chaotic night. And a literal bunfight ? there were handbags being thrown."</p><p>The Brit Awards, London 2010</p><p>One year on from her "unveiling" at the Brits, Florence Welch returned, victorious. Lungs (which to date has sold four million copies) won Best Album, and she performed on the show with Dizzee Rascal. In the glorious ? and sometimes inglorious ? tradition of one-off collaborations at the Brits (PJ Harvey and Bjork; Estelle and the Ting Tings), they sang a mash-up, "You Got the Dirtee Love". Released as a charity single, it promptly went to number one.</p><p>Why collaborate with Dizzee Rascal?</p><p>"He was an underground artist who worked his way up to the mainstream, a self-made man. It felt like it was a really triumphant night for both of us."</p><p>As for her choice of song ? based on her album's cover of the Source/Candi Staton rave classic "You've Got the Love" ? she admits she was playing to the Brits TV audience at home. She wanted to "cater for a wide spectrum of musical interests". And it worked.</p><p>"Oh yeah! That was the biggest single we've had, ever! The Brits performance just took 'You've Got the Love' to another level. Dizzee and I sang it together again on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury ? which was another moment altogether ? and at Wembley for a Capital Radio event. It really took on a life of its own from the Brits."</p><p>On every level, for Florence Welch it was a brilliant surprise. "I didn't even know it was going to be released as a single."</p><p>The MTV Video Music Awards, Los Angeles 2010</p><p>"You have to not think about the millions of people who'll be watching an awards show on TV. That's the scary thing about them. Playing live feels for me very free, but when you're on TV you are within the constraints of a box ? and it's preserved in that box. If you mess up it will be on YouTube forever, go round the world in seconds.</p><p>"What was really nice about the VMAs was that they allowed us to recreate the video for 'Dog Days are Over' ? we were up for an award for Best Video, so they allowed us to go full throttle. That was brave of them ? we were a really unknown act in America. And to give us this huge scale of a performance with all the bells and whistles ? well, it could have gone one of two ways: 'Oh my God, this crazy English girl... go back home!' Or they could embrace it.</p><p>"So we arrived at the VMAs, painted 27 people blue, massive psychedelic choir, spinning podium, drummers, Busby Berkeley dancers, me in a kind of Grecian, pink extravaganza with no shoes on, lying on this podium, waiting for it all to start, looking at the ceiling thinking: [strangulated wail] 'What am I doing here?'</p><p>"And after the performance I was the most Googled person in the world for about... 10 minutes, I hope, I like to think. 'Who was that, and what was she doing?' That performance really kicked everything off for us in America.</p><p>"But afterwards it didn't really hit me what had just happened. There's always five minutes after I do an awards thing where I'm like, 'Was it OK? Did I sing? Did words come out of my mouth? Was I waving my hands?' Five minutes of denial that it went well.</p><p>"But I remember Chelsea Handler was the host that year and I passed her in the hall, and she went, 'YOU FUCKIN' RULE!' And I thought, 'Yes! Maybe it did go well.' Then I remember us all running down this corridor screaming."</p><p>The Grammys, Los Angeles 2011</p><p>This time last year, as Adele was dominating the Brits, Florence and the Machine were in America. The VMAs performance of "Dog Days are Over" rocketed their profile in the US, a process further accelerated by the song's usage in the Julia Roberts feel-good flick Eat, Pray, Love.</p><p>She was, as a consequence, very much in demand. At the beginning of February she was at the Grammys. At least, she thinks she was.</p><p>"God, I can't believe that was just last year. What's going on? Right, yes: I did an Aretha Franklin tribute with Christina Aguilera, Yolanda Adams, Martina McBride and Jennifer Hudson. There were some big voices up there ? then me, English girl, at the end, looking like this..." Welch makes a lost-rabbit face.</p><p>The rehearsals, she remembers, were "really fun and relaxed". Any diva tendencies were parked at the door, although Aguilera did induce microphone envy with her custom-made jazzy red microphone stand. Hudson's cuter-than-cute infant son broke the ice by doing his Michael Jackson impersonation. Welch, meanwhile, did her best "crazy English girl" impression, dancing around backstage, much to Hudson's titillation. "There was a real warmth and it was quite celebratory. But the actual performance was really frightening ? you're singing in a line in a tribute to the Queen of Soul, and you're like, 'Oh my God, my turn's coming.' I had to hold the 'Freedom!' line for about five minutes. Then Christina comes on and does her thing...</p><p>"But LL Cool J did say my name when he introduced me, which was the best thing ever."</p><p>It wasn't a performance in which she had much creative input ? "I was just there to pay homage to Aretha." Apart, that is, from her costuming.</p><p>"I wore three dresses that night. That was a big evening for my outfits. An Elie Saab pink sequinned thing to the show, a Riccardo Tisci for Givenchy swan bird-like thing to the entrance. Then, to actually be at the awards ceremony, I wore a custom-made YSL lavender gown. So, a good award show for dresses. You don't get to keep most of them, though. I still have the YSL one cos it was custom-made. But the others had to go back. It is Cinderella: you do get to wear it, and love it ? but for only one night."</p><p>The Oscars, Los Angeles 2011</p><p>"God, this is a rollercoaster," exhales Welch as she's reminded that she appeared at the 83rd Academy Awards two weeks after the Grammys. It was a last-minute booking: Dido, nominated in the Best Original Song category for "If I Rise", from Danny Boyle's 127 Hours, was unavailable to sing ? she was pregnant and chary of the transatlantic flight.</p><p>AR Rahman, writer of the song, duly called Florence Welch. The Indian composer had seen the Titian-haired Englishwoman at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Norway two months previously. "That was one of the ones I enjoyed most, actually ? we got to do it with a 60-piece orchestra and a 30-odd choir. It was all acoustic, and the King and Queen of Norway were there. It was so fun to play there in that scale at an event of that calibre."</p><p>The Oscars were very different. She had to learn to sing a song where the lyrics were "emotive sounds", soundtracking as they did the moment in 127 Hours where trapped hiker Aron Ralston hallucinates and starts contemplating hacking off his arm to free himself from a boulder that had trapped him.</p><p>"The thing AR said to me was that he wanted the audience to levitate. It was to be a very serene performance, which was light years from the Grammys performance."</p><p>Lost in said serenity, Welch ? accompanied on stage only by Rahman and his "electric sitar" ? didn't spot any Hollywood A-listers staring in rapt attention.</p><p>"But during rehearsals they had those Guess Who?-style face cards that go on all the chairs. That was weird ? Brad and Ange, Celine Dion, Justin Timberlake, Robert de Niro..."</p><p>And then to the after-party: Florence and the Machine also performed at Elton John's fabled, celeb-studded post-Oscars bash. She and Elton sang "Tiny Dancer", and he sang "You've Got the Love". "That's some big hobnobbing," she says proudly. "But we just ended up drunk backstage. We always do this, me and the band, back at the hotel room, dressing up, drunk." k</p><p>Alco-amnesia, Florence Welch cheerfully admits, is something of a theme for her at awards shows. After the Grammys, she had a "big conversation" with Win Butler, lead vocalist and songwriter of Arcade Fire, one of her musical heroes. What did they discuss? She has no idea.</p><p>"I once had a two-hour conversation with Beyonce, apparently. And she met my sister at something and cos she's really polite, she was like, 'Grace! Hi! I've heard so much about you!' And I was like, 'Hmm... what did I say?'"</p><p>Merrily gladhanding her way round the world's premier gong-giving bashes, Florence Welch takes her Brit-muso ambassadorial role seriously. "I hope I'm not letting the side down!" she laughs. "I think I'm flying the flag. I think they'd be disappointed if a Brit was sober and boring..."</p><p>The Brit Awards, London 2012</p><p>No, Florence Welch can't tell us what she's planning for her performance in the O2 on Tuesday night. But more than likely it will be something grand. Yes, much as she loved Adele's unadorned performance of "Someone Like You" last year, that's not Welch's awards-show style.</p><p>"For me as a maximalist who's really prone to excess, that stuff is what excites me ? like Lady Gaga's performances. But then you get Adele and it's that sense of being really zoomed in on someone and you're as close to them as we are now."</p><p>Mostly, she beams, she'll be there to enjoy herself. "It always feels to me that the Brits is a great British musical. It felt like that the last time we performed ? everyone's running around backstage, half-dressed. Gaga's going in one room, Dizzee's in another, Lily [Allen] is coming out of that one, and there was me in some funny brocade dressing gown, barefoot, chatting to everyone. It does have that sense of a celebration. I guess I think about it in that way to help myself process it. I understand musicals."</p><p>Florence and the Machine are nominated in two categories, Best Album and Best Female. Would she like to win? She frowns and glances up at the kitchen dresser, where her Critics' Choice Brit stands next to a Q Award and some charity shop bric-a-brac ("Where's the Best Album?" she asks Grace, puzzled. "In the office," comes the reply).</p><p>"I mean, it would be nice to win," she eventually decides. "But I'm not gonna put pressure on myself to win; that would spoil it for me. I'm just really looking forward to going, enjoying being there, seeing everyone, and getting a bit drunk.</p><p>"Anyway," Florence Welch smiles, "I've got two. I don't want to be greedy."</p><p>The Brit Awards will be televised live at 8pm on Tuesday on ITV1</p>?<p>This was, of course, in the pursuit of knowledge not thrills, though I have to say, it was a pretty good read (an interview with two gay butchers in Beijing!). Butt was the first publication to be launched ? in 2001 ? by the Dutch team of writer/editor Gert Jonkers and art director Jop van Bennekom, who on Tuesday night unwrapped their third project in Paris. At a party of cherry-picked guests in a plush maison particuliere in the rue du Bac, the first copies of The Gentlewoman, a new fashion and culture magazine for women, were circulated among the 80 attendees.</p><p>Expectations for The Gentlewoman ? aimed at a thoughtful and sophisticated female reader ? have been high among the planet's style afficionados. It follows in the footsteps of Jonkers and Van Bennekom's second project, a perfectly manicured men's style magazine called Fantastic Man which crept up on the fashion world in 2005. Where Butt was undressed and sexy ? there's a lot of hairy chests, naked bottoms and visible excitement among those dense pages of Courier type ? Fantastic Man appeared like some fabulously well-attired alternative. Interview subjects are referred to as "Mister"; clothes are modelled by handsome 30- and 40- somethings with smart day jobs (they've included Giles Deacon and Roland Mouret); each issue has pages of recommendations by arbiters of taste, from graphic designer Peter Saville to Tate Modern curator Stuart Comer; and only a Fantastic Man's tailor needs to know if he dresses to the right or the left. It has, says Jonkers, " a nice formality to it" ? a formality that sometimes teeters just this side of ironic and camp.</p><p>Jonkers and van Bennekom's publishing empire is something of a cottage industry (no pun intended), operating from a small office in Amsterdam and another in Shoreditch, central London. They met on Boulevard, a Dutch lifestyle magazine, and have a range of experience. Jonkers , 43, was fashion critic of de Volkskrant for many years; van Bennekom, 40, is cultishly celebrated for a ground-breaking magazine called Re, which dealt with one subject per issue (including 'The Home' and 'Boredom').</p><p>Money made on projects is reinvested, all expenses are spared. There is a smattering of staff and no-one earns much. Which all goes to prove that you can make a successful high-end fashion magazine without a vast flower and limousine budget; a certain kind of perfectionism is free. The response to the twice-yearly Fantastic Man has been, well, fantastic, with a current international circulation of around 70,000. It talks directly to its reader who, it implies, shares its values, its wardrobe, its deep concern for life's finer details. It is not aspirational; it politely assumes you've arrived. It profiles men who have interesting lives: in fashion (Tom Ford, Claude Montana); architecture (Rem Koolhaas); or art (Steve McQueen, Frieze director Matthew Slotover); or others (they interviewed a chemist once). "We're always looking for people who don't have anything to sell," explains Jonkers. "Where there is no hidden agenda."</p><p>Jonkers and van Bennekom have a long and healthy relationship with the fashion world. Belgium designer Bernhard Willhelm appeared on Butt's first cover (Wolfgang Tillmans took the pictures). Karl Lagerfeld came upon the launch issue by chance in Colette in Paris and immediately placed an order for all subsequent copies (it comes out ? mostly but not always ? four times a year). Gucci was the first advertiser, thanks to Tom Ford's appreciation of the product, and then Dior Homme (because Hedi Slimane totally got it too). In autumn 2006, Helmut Lang chose Fantastic Man to reintroduce himself to the world, after leaving his own label when it was sold to Prada in 2004. Bruce Webber took the photographs. Now, the much sought-after Phoebe Philo has chosen to give one of her very few interviews, in her new role as creative director at Celine, to The Gentlewoman, and she is its cover star.</p><p>Jonkers and van Bennekom see The Gentlewoman as inevitable. "It was the natural thing to do. If you're interested in style and imagery and stories, it's strange to exclude 50 per cent of the world," says Jonkers. They have worked on the idea for two years, finally settling on an editor, Penny Martin, last year. "I feel like the honorary girl in the sixth form at the boys' school, " she says.</p><p>Martin came from the experimental world of Showstudio ? a ridiculously cool and well-connected website almost entirely financed by photographer Nick Knight which largely explores what can happen to fashion online. She put in seven years as editor-in-chief there.</p><p>She is also Professor of Fashion Photography at the London College of Fashion and has an (unfinished) PhD on British Vogue to her name. At first she was terrified of "joining the brand that everyone loves. You feel you can only let everyone down". But then "I realised that the magazines I grew up reading didn't exist anymore. Back then, you had Marina Warner and Antonia Fraser writing in Vogue. Now the focus is all on merchandise, and the readers are consumers."</p><p>Martin, 37, is Scottish which means, she says, that she conveniently holds the same Protestant values as her new Dutch employers (Jonkers' father was a Protestant preacher; Martin's was in the Average White Band).</p><p>She is passionate and political and married to a man she met when both were 21 and who works in public health, not fashion. "I'm surrounded by bright women, and I don't see them represented," says Martin. "My idea for the magazine was to give them a voice. There's been a silencing going on. Look at Sex and the City. That programme is absolutely corrupt. The characters in it are not people, they're projection objects." The magazine's name and logo was conjured up by van Bennekom. "It's an ambitious title," he says, "that poses a question about behaviour, and a very modernist logo that makes it clear it is of today and tomorrow, and the very opposite of a 19th-century gentlewoman."</p><p>In Martin's hands, it becomes an exploration of many things that women can be ? a world of personalities that includes wine makers and long-distance swimmers, and rather fewer models and actresses than we are used to seeing crammed in between the advertising.</p><p>"We really wanted Chelsea Clinton," muses Martin. But she got American artist Jenny Holzer, a woman who makes incredible ice cream, and an interview with Japanese architect Kasuyo Sejima (by myself) instead. Fashion is of the Prada, Comme des Garcons, Jil Sander variety ? graphic and grown-up; photography is unromantically clear.</p><p>"We do not deal in fantasy," says Jonkers. "From Butt onwards, we wanted to make reality-based magazines with long interviews. This started when I was looking at gay magazines and thinking, 'Why am I supposed to like reading about Kylie, or a spa in Thailand?'" For the many women who feel the same flicking through the female equivalents, The Gentlewoman will be good news indeed.</p>?<p>Having said that, I find it touching that so many gay people want to get married, and this month the Government starts a consultation process aimed at changing the law, something the Prime Minister enthusiastically supports. Most heterosexuals (myself included) have shown repeatedly that we are hopeless at marriage. It's one thing that practice doesn't necessarily make perfect. And not all gay men and women want to get married ? many are satisfied with civil partnerships But why should those who do be denied the same rights as everyone else?</p><p>The Church of England has behaved disgracefully over this issue. Far from welcoming a new and vibrant source of supporters, it opposed civil partnerships, then dragged itself into the modern world by grudgingly accepting them. Officially, the church still refuses to hold formal blessings or services for couples in a civil partnership, although many vicars privately do so. Instead of being inclusive, many leading clerics wring their hands and fail to adopt Christian values. In short, under the feeble Rowan Williams, who exhibits all the leadership skills of a plate of tapioca, the church acts as if it's an exclusive club that can afford to be hyper-choosy about new members. In reality, the CofE is on the skids, increasingly irrelevant in modern Britain. In surveys we say we believe in God, but we don't want to get involved with his sales force. The debate about female bishops moves at a snail's pace ? thank God these old farts aren't running a FTSE 100 company: it would have gone bankrupt decades ago.</p><p>The language used by modern church leaders is utterly out of step. Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, says marriage can only exist between a man and a woman and thinks David Cameron is acting "like a dictator", and the Pope yesterday condemned the Prime Minister's plans too. Far from articulating the mood of his flock, Dr Sentamu is the shrill voice of the minority ? according to a 2009 Mori poll, the majority of Brits want gay people to have exactly the same rights as everyone else. In the real world, as opposed to that of the dessicated, inward-looking theologians of the high church, it's not an issue. The Church of England is in total disarray: Rowan Williams opposes gay marriage, but the new Dean of St Paul's has said he doesn't have a problem, as has the former Bishop of Oxford, and the new Bishop of Salisbury. </p><p>The Roman Catholic church is in meltdown: a letter railing against gay marriage was expected to be read out in 2,500 churches during mass today. The leader of the Scottish Catholics calls the proposals "grotesque", and compares them with legalising slavery, while Catholic convert Tony Blair backs gay marriage. As for other faiths, the British Jewry Reform movement, the Unitarian Church and the Quakers all support a change in the law. Muslims and Orthodox Jews oppose it. The truth is, whatever dictats religious leaders issue to their congregations, it's highly likely that gay marriage will end up on the statute book. </p><p>That result will be bad news for the Church of England, which passed up an opportunity, as the church of the establishment and our monarchy, to re-engage with the British people. As Dr David Ison, the new Dean of St Paul's says, "We need to make sure that the virtues that you see in married relationships are available to people who are gay." Precisely. The most important thing for our society is stable relationships which form a solid bedrock enabling communities to flourish. People in loving, respectful, committed relationships deserve, no matter what their sexuality, to be treasured and nurtured, not demonised in the name of dogma.</p><p>Osama bin Laden was probably shopped to the authorities because his eldest wife was unhappy that he had transferred his attentions to a younger wife. He had dozens of children by different wives. Is that arrangement more acceptable than a relationship between two gay people who commit to love, respect and care for each other for the rest of their lives? What terrible social injustices are committed in the name of religion. For God's sake, let gay people get married.</p><p>Gilbert and George know how to make the headlines</p><p>Does bigger mean better? Committed chroniclers of London life Gilbert and George were a huge success at Tate Modern with a massive retrospective in 2007 ? the swear-box souvenir is one of my most treasured possessions. </p><p>In the past fortnight they have unveiled new work in four White Cube Galleries, one in Hong Kong and three in London. The 292 (72 are on show in London) pictures use slogans from thousands of Evening Standard billboards pinched over several years, reworked into formal panels, reflecting common themes ? violence, crime, money and death. It's all about PAEDOS, OAPS, TOTS and GUNS. </p><p>The result is like walking through a modern version of Dickens. I've always collected billboards, but these guys have come up with some corkers ? GUN FOUND IN MAN'S BUM and GIRL BOTTOM-BOOSTER PILL PERIL are favourites. </p><p>Gilbert and George have an unerring knack for tapping into the pulse of London in a way no other contemporary artists can match. There's misery, cliche and cash galore, but you emerge smiling at this tidal wave of catastrophe which is recreated new every day. </p><p>Art for All has always been their mantra, and the £10 catalogue (signed) and souvenir bag are excellent value. Truly, a modern version of music hall.</p><p>The lean new look that works </p><p>Terrific news for women's fashion ? Hedi Slimane is returning to Paris as head designer for Yves St Laurent. </p><p>At Dior Homme he changed the male shape, and women loved his narrow line. I still wear his sharply tailored jackets; my favourite in black silk was made for the Queen's first Women of Achievement lunch at Buckingham Palace in 2004. </p><p>Others were in hats, frocks, jackets and fussy two-pieces. My simple black man's suit looked fantastic and utterly modern. Like Phoebe Philo at Celine, whose pared down collection received rave reviews last week, Hedi doesn't do retro.</p><p>No room at the bank for women</p><p>Nick Clegg opened trading at the London Stock Exchange to celebrate International Women's Day surrounded by a football club executive, an interior designer, a model and the usual mix of high-profile females, all lined up like gurning acolytes. </p><p>Did any of them know that as a result of a high level reshuffle at Deutsche Bank last week, not a single woman remains on the board? Well done! Instead of posing like dummies for a photo, perhaps these successful women ought to be campaigning for equality where it matters ? in the boardroom. </p><p>The City just used Clegg and Co as window dressing. </p>?<p>Along with tipples of reds and whites, waiters dished up a palette ranging from pungent blue to goat-milk creaminess and crusty buttery cows' milk slabs. "What do they have in common?" said master cheese-maker Herve Mons. "They're made of raw milk."</p><p>Of the 100-150 available raw milk cheeses available, three disappear each year, meaning around 40 have become extinct in the last decade.</p><p>Held ahead of National Cheese Day, feting its 10th edition this weekend, the tasting was organised by a grouping bent on saving ancient cheeses from falling off the food map - the Association Fromages de Terroirs.</p><p>"The paradox," its president Veronique Richez-Lerouge told AFP, "is that we're known as the land of cheese yet we're losing an increasing number."</p><p>Long known as a country of avid cheese-eaters, with more than 1,000 varieties in a symphony of creams, pale yellows and subtle shades of orange, overall cheese consumption is on the rise in France, but industrially-made products are outgunning traditional farm-crafted varieties.</p><p>One of the last to go was the much-regretted and extremely creamy "Vacherin d'Abondance", named after the Alpine slopes in Savoy where Celine Gagneux grazed her race of cows for a cheese matured under an ancestral recipe. Then, in 2004, when aged 72, she gave up, unable to manage.</p><p>"Her daughters refused to take over and she refused to hand over her know-how to an industrial concern," said Richez-Lerouge.</p><p>That is the fate of many of the rare raw milk cheeses - produced for centuries in small corners of France from milk flavoured by local flowers and grasses and brought to maturity by mere handfuls of cheese-makers.</p><p>And when a cheese becomes extinct, say the raw milk enthusiasts, the countryside too suffers.</p><p>"Cows are sold and pastures planted with corn, which pollutes and transforms the land," said Richez-Lerouge. "Keeping old cheeses alive is a key to sustainable development."</p><p>While Americans, Australians and Britons are increasingly going for unpasteurised cheese, in France raw milk cheeses dropped to 179,750 tonnes in 2008 against 183,500 tonnes in 2006.</p><p>"The problem," said Laurent Mons, the cheesemaker brother of Herve Mons, who exports to 19 countries, "is economics. Small producers are unable to cope. They regroup and eventually sell out to large conglomerates."</p><p>In comparison to wine, where small organic and natural labels are on the up and up, cheesemaking was a highly technical art requiring 365-day-a-year attention.</p><p>"Consumers need to be made aware of the existence and variety of cheeses available outside the supermarket shelves," he said.</p><p>However on National Cheese Day on Saturday, some 1,200 supermarkets across the country will be offering unpasteurised cheese.</p>?<p>Ninety-one catwalk shows in the official diary alone will keep the fashion crowd on its toes for nine days starting Tuesday, without counting the off-calendar and showroom events favoured by many smaller designers.</p><p>Once the day is done, Paris is also set for a burst of extravagant partying, with fashion magazines and brands competing to attract the in-crowd to a string of late night events - a way of drawing a line under the economic slowdown.</p><p>For the first time in close to two decades, the Paris shows are deserting their traditional venue under the Louvre Museum, for a giant tent set up at the foot of the Grand Palais, a vast domed exhibition hall near the River Seine.</p><p>Four rooms nestled under the Louvre pyramid long formed the nerve centre of the Paris ready-to-wear shows, hosting up to eight shows a day.</p><p>But the jump in event numbers, and designers' growing taste for offbeat locations meant fashion week had started to outgrow the Louvre location, and this year shows will be spread across venues on both sides of the Seine.</p><p>Day one, as dictated by tradition, will put the spotlight on young designers: Aganovich, from London, and Anthony Vaccarello who was singled out for attention by Vogue's influential doorstep-thick September issue.</p><p>But from then on all fashionista eyes will be on a quatuor of classic houses - Balenciaga, Balmain, Celine and Givenchy - that have received a burst of fresh energy with the arrival of talented new designers.</p><p>At 88, Pierre Cardin is returning to the catwalks after a long absence, while fresh faces coming to Paris include the US designer Zac Posen, 29, and the New York-based duo Proenza Schouler, receiving on invitation-only.</p><p>Kenzo is marking its 40th birthday with a show at Paris' Winter Circus.</p><p>Other people to watch include Sarah Burton, who stepped up to replace Alexander McQueen following his suicide in February, and who is unveiling her first collection to the Paris crowd.</p><p>Britain's Giles Deacon is also showcasing his first collection for Ungaro while Jean-Paul Gaultier - with perhaps a touch of nostalgia - will unveil his last for Hermes, where he is handing over to Christophe Lemaire.</p><p>A Japanese trio - Junya Watanabe who claims US First Lady Michelle Obama among his fans, Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto - join forces with Australia's Collette Dinnigan to defend Asia's colours in the world capital of fashion.</p><p>And French designer Roland Mouret who has bought back the rights to his own name, held since 2005 by his former financial partners, will show an eponymous collection - dropping the "RM by Roland Mouret" tag of past seasons.</p><p>The spring/summer 2011 fashion shows wrap up on Wednesday October 6 with collections by Hermes, Vuitton and Miu Miu, Prada's line launched to woo the young and wealthy crowd.</p>?<p>Was director and screenwriter Richard Linklater hinting even then that this documentary-style study of a love affair was just beginning? Nine years later he made a sequel, Before Sunset. Now, almost another decade on, his cast has hinted they will make a third next year.</p><p>That they have not penned a script or started shooting yet should not present a problem. The second film was made in 15 days and was largely improvised. More difficult would be what to call it, now that the dusk and dawn conceit has been exhausted. "Before Death" perhaps.</p><p>In any case, haven't audiences already seen enough? Before Sunrise defined an era when it was released in 1995. In it, an American man and a French woman in their early twenties start chatting on a train from Budapest. Both beautiful, passionate and uber-intellectual, or at least trying to be, they hit it off and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) convinces Celine (Julie Delpy) to abandon her journey and join him for a day in Vienna, where he has to catch a plane the next morning.</p><p>Nothing much actually happens ? they walk, they talk and yes, eventually make love ? but somehow this simple tale, told in startlingly realistic long takes and a meandering script in which the couple discuss everything from war to reincarnation, so resonated with young audiences that the film doubled its budget at the box office.</p><p>The film played on the seductive theory that life will happen to you when you least expect it. Just 14 when I first saw it with some friends, all greasy hair and teenage pimples, we wondered when we would have the freedom to InterRail around Europe.</p><p>In retrospect, though, part of what makes the film so realistic is that it is underwritten with a tangible sense of insecurity and a fear of growing up. At the end, they arrange to meet up in six months. In Before Sunset, which takes place nine years later, we discover that their reunion never happened because Celine's grandmother fell ill.</p><p>They meet again though, and the connection is still there. Like the first film, the second, though more sombre and reflective, leaves us on tenterhooks. "Baby, you're gonna miss that plane..." sings a still very sexy Celine to a Nina Simone song. "I know," Jesse grins back at her. Fade to black. But will he?</p><p>Both films worked because of an exquisitely balanced tension: despite an insistence on realism, our hopefulness that things will somehow work out persists. Time constraints, in the form of Jesse's departure, force the issue to a climax as both films end.</p><p>Could a third film really replicate that tension without it seeming contrived? Another will they/won't they plot would feel tired and unlikely. If it turns out that they have ended up together after all, I wonder if the lack of the mystery so integral to its predecessors might be felt too keenly.</p><p>There's no doubt that Hawke, Delpy and Linklater are talented enough to produce a fascinating study of ageing dreams, of love after it has been realised. But is the poetry of day-to-day life what we want from this couple? Like a slow-burning version of Francois Ozon's 5x2, that gloomiest of marriage studies, might further scrutiny of Jesse and Celine not pollute the magic of their first encounter in the very way they themselves dreaded? The teenager in me wants their future to remain a question. The answer would be just one long take too far.</p>?<p>"Sorry I'm late," said the bubbly 22-year-old model and singer, ordering a soft drink from the hovering, rapt waiters before sitting down to discuss the latest sartorial trends in the army-ruled country.</p><p>She is busy promoting her first solo album and named singing stars Beyonce and Celine Dion as her main influences, but Chan Chan made her name through clothes modelling, a job she claimed "every girl" in Myanmar wants.</p><p>"More and more girls like to wear short skirts. We're growing every day and finding every new fashion. We go on the Internet and chat and see lots of fashion from the West and Asia," she said.</p><p>"So in the last three years we've had more confidence to wear these kind of things. No one looks at you if you wear short pants... It's not a problem now."</p><p>The military regime appears to disagree.</p><p>"Decadent alien culture such as scanty dresses is unacceptable in Myanmar society," said a recent comment piece in the New Light of Myanmar newspaper, a junta mouthpiece.</p><p>"Appropriate measures need to be taken by one and all to protect own culture," the English language article warned.</p><p>Myanmar's traditional dress, which is still mandatory in high schools, universities and most state workplaces, is the demure "longyi" - a sheet of cotton or silk cloth wrapped around the waist which runs to the feet.</p><p>Sported by the country's detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi in her rare public appearances, the often intricately patterned and brightly coloured longyi is still widely worn by both men and women across the country.</p><p>But the younger generation, especially urbanised young women, are increasingly shunning the national garb and embracing unconventional alternatives as they brush aside concerns about morals and modesty.</p><p>"Now they know the fashion has developed in our country and now they feel very comfortable wearing short skirts. They know the freedoms. They believe in themselves and they've got lots of self-confidence," said Chan Chan.</p><p>Male fashions are evolving too - there's a growing taste for the rock music-inspired youth style known as "emo", for example - but women's changing dress sense has unsurprisingly drawn more attention in the conservative nation.</p><p>One expatriate worker suggested the noticeable development began in the commercial hub Yangon after the regime moved the seat of government and its officials away from the city in 2005.</p><p>The timing coincided with the "Korean wave" - the South Korean cultural invasion that has swept up Myanmar as it floods much of Asia and the wider world with its soap operas, films, "K-pop" and clothing.</p><p>"South Koreans look so fabulous and stylish in our eyes," enthused Chan Chan, who said the top K-wave fashion items - such as little skirts and jackets, shorts and leggings - were easy to buy and wear in Myanmar.</p><p>The craze for all things Korean is particularly striking in a nation widely known for its impoverished and isolated status after decades of military rule. Even Korean celebrity look-alike contests are now held in Yangon.</p><p>"The problem is that Myanmar's traditional fashion cannot overcome the Korean fashion," said designer Ma May Myo. "It can't compete because young girls want to wear something light and different and cute.</p><p>"They want to show off and you can't do that in a longyi."</p><p>The 34-year-old dressmaker, who set up her popular label in Yangon five years ago, said the demand from her customers for Korean-influenced styles shows no signs of abating.</p><p>"The situation has changed a lot," she said. "We can see through the Internet what is happening abroad: what designers are doing and the latest trends. It's not difficult like it was before."</p><p>In November, Myanmar is holding its first election in two decades, but observers are widely expecting an unfree and unfair poll that will keep the army regime in charge under a cloak of civilian rule.</p><p>Aung Naing Oo, a Myanmar analyst based in Thailand, said that the lack of political change was unlikely to curtail the evolution of fashion or the desire of Myanmar's youngsters to emulate their more affluent Asian neighbours.</p><p>"I don't think the military can actively stop something like that, a cultural invasion," he said. "The new generation is wanting something different after being choked for so long."</p><p>Ma May Myo said there have been attempts to modernise the style of the longyi, with Myanmar's officials sponsoring designers to promote the traditional dress.</p><p>"But the people don't listen. They put on the clothes they want," she said. "It's a good, exciting time for fashion in Myanmar."</p>?<p>Bookmakers indicate that France's Amaury Vassili with his operatic "Sognu" ("I Would Dream About Her") - belted out in the Corsican language - is the favourite to take top honours in Duesseldorf, western Germany.</p><p>"I don't have a perfectly trained opera voice yet but my voice is really well adapted to performing in front of large audience," said Vassili, 21. "I will give it my very best."</p><p>But stiff competition comes from Ireland, who have won Eurovision a record seven times. This year the Emerald Isle's hopes rest on quiffed twins Jedward and their song "Lipstick".</p><p>The 20-year-olds appear to have more of a chance than 2008's shouting-and-farting Irish entry, Dustin the Turkey, who managed a surprisingly good 15th place with "Irelande Douze Pointe".</p><p>Making a Eurovision comeback meanwhile is Israeli transsexual pop diva Dana International, the 1998 champion whose victory ruffled feathers among the country's influential ultra-Orthodox community.</p><p>Bookmakers give her latest effort, "Ding Dong", long odds of 200-1, however.</p><p>Also having another go is Germany's homegrown Lena Meyer-Landrut, who won last year in Oslo with her ueber-catchy ditty "Satellite", this time performing the darker "Taken By A Stranger", still in her slightly Bjork-esque accent.</p><p>It is because of Lena's victory that the competition is being held in Germany this year, since the winner's country automatically becomes host for the next Eurovision, one of the world's longest-running TV shows.</p><p>The competition is broadcast live throughout Europe, but also in Australia, Canada, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Jordan, Korea, New Zealand and the United States, even though these countries do not participate.</p><p>This week, a series of qualifying rounds have been whittling down the 43 official entries to 25 for Saturday evening's grand final. The "Big Five" of Britain, France, Spain, Germany and Italy automatically qualify.</p><p>Viewers at home and juries from each of the 43 countries then vote on each song, ranking them from their favourite, which gets a full 12 points, to the biggest howler, which gets zero. The results are also announced in French.</p><p>All the entries can be seen on the Eurovision website, www.eurovision.tv, where the final can also be watched live.</p><p>Britain, which last year came last, is hoping for fewer "nul points" scores with squeaky-clean boy band Blue and their upbeat "I Can". The last British victory was Katrina and The Waves back in 1997.</p><p>Another favourite is Finland, hoping for a repeat of 2006 when rockers Lordi, dressed as orc-like creatures, won the competition with "Hard Rock Hallelujah".</p><p>This time Finland is sending Paradise Oskar with his song "Da Da Dam", a environmental ballad about a nine-year-old boy who "went out in the world to save the planet" and who "ain't coming back until she's saved".</p><p>Victory at the Eurovision can be the start of a glittering career, as it was for Sweden's ABBA, who won in 1974 with "Waterloo", or Canadian Celine Dion, who won for Switzerland in 1988. But for many, it is their one moment of fame.</p>?<p>Frenchwoman Celine Lesage told a court the children had been born alive. She strangled two and suffocated the others.</p><br><br><p>Lesage, from Valognes in Normandy, bowed her head and avoided looking at anyone in court while the charges were read. Afterward, she said in a soft voice, "I acknowledge the facts."</p><br><br><p>She was arrested in 2007 after her partner at the time discovered the corpses in plastic garbage bags in the basement of their apartment building in Valognes.</p><br><br><p>Her lawyer Veronique Carre said Lesage "does not contest the facts ... but isn't explaining them either." Several medical and psychological experts are expected to testify in the four-day trial.</p><br><br><p>"We are here to try to understand you before judging you," the judge told Lesage.</p><br><br><p>She told investigators that the father of five of the children was ex-boyfriend Pascal Catherine, who was detained for questioning after Lesage was arrested in 2007.</p><br><br><p>She said the father of the sixth was the partner who discovered the corpses, Luc Margueritte.</p><br><br><p>At the time of her arrest, prosecutor Michel Garrandaux said she described giving birth to the first five alone in the apartment she shared with Catherine, her boyfriend at the time.</p><br><br><p>Mr Garrandaux said the boyfriend "was far from unaware" of her pregnancies. However, the investigation against him was dropped. He will give evidence as a witness tomorrow.</p><br><br><p>The prosecution say that when Lesage and boyfriend Catherine split up in 2006, Lesage, who also has a son of 14, moved in with her new boyfriend, and brought the plastic bags from her old basement to her new one.</p><br><br><p>Her trial for aggravated homicide comes after a more highly-publicised case involving a Frenchwoman convicted last year of murdering three of her newborn children.</p><br><br><p>Veronique Courjault's husband discovered two of the corpses in a freezer. During the trial psychiatrists testified that she suffered from a psychological condition known as "pregnancy denial."</p><br><br><p>Germany also has seen a string of similar cases. In one, a woman was convicted of manslaughter in 2006 and sentenced to the maximum 15 years in prison for killing eight of her newborn babies and burying them in flower pots and a fish tank in the garden of her parents' home near the German-Polish border.</p>?<p>Celine Lesage faces life in prison if convicted in a trial that began Monday in the courthouse in Valognes, near the Atlantic coast.</p><p>She is charged with "aggravated homicide." She was arrested in 2007 after her partner at the time discovered the corpses in plastic bags in the basement of their apartment building in Valognes.</p><p>Her lawyer Veronique Carre says Lesage "does not contest the facts." Several medical and psychological experts are expected to testify in the four-day trial.</p>?<p>Although she had not starred in a serious film for the best part of 30 years, the double Oscar-winning actress is now believed to be one of an elite group of just 14 self-made women able to claim to be a billionaire in her own right.</p><p>Having negotiated some of the most lucrative film deals ever witnessed in Hollywood during a lengthy acting career ? she was paid $4m (the equivalent of $47m today) to appear alongside her future husband Richard Burton in Cleopatra, nearly bankrupting 20th Century Fox ? she spent the last decades as a virtual one-woman brand.</p><p>A deal with Elizabeth Arden in 1991 to market her own perfumes, White Diamonds and Passion, has since turned over a combined $1bn, earning the British-born actress a considerable cut. Pioneered long before the celebrity scent became de rigueur among famous women such as Celine Dion, Jennifer Aniston and even Katie Price, the cosmetics giant reported combined sales of Taylor's fragrances last year of $69m. It said it intends to continue to produce the products despite the star's death last week from congestive heart failure at the age of 79.</p><p>Her jewellery collection was reported to be worth $150m as far back as 2002. As well as some outsize diamonds, she also owned the celebrated La Peregrina pearl, formerly the property of Mary I.</p><p>It was also reported that Taylor had a portfolio of real estate valued in excess of $150m, including her ranch-style home in Los Angeles replete with 18th-century English furniture and antiques she bought from Nancy Sinatra in 1981.</p><p>There were also settlements from her eight marriages. In 1996, when she divorced her last husband, Larry Fortensky, Taylor was said to be worth $608m. Taylor also deployed her money-making skills to help others, raising $270m for her AIDS Foundation, which is also likely to benefit from the sale of her jewels.</p><p>The rest of her fortune is expected to be shared among Taylor's four children, although who will benefit from her future earnings is yet to be established, according to commentators in the US yesterday. One friend was quoted as saying: "The one thing she didn't do was understand that, much like Elvis and Michael Jackson, she might be worth more in death."</p><p>Elizabeth's riches</p><p>* Taylor was a product of the Hollywood studio system, and was being paid $750 a week by MGM as a 13-year-old following the success of 'National Velvet'. As a result, she earned more in a month than the average American earned in a year. Six years later, in 1950, she signed a new contract that paid her $2,000 a week.</p><p>* A shrewd deal in 1991 with cosmetic giant Elizabeth Arden saw her launch the trend for celebrity fragrances. Her brands White Diamonds and Passion have generated sales of over $1bn (£625m), with White Diamonds the biggest-selling celebrity perfume in history.</p><p>* Her lovers and her studio chiefs lavished jewels on the young actress. Her collection, valued at $150m, included a ruby and diamond Cartier necklace from husband Mike Todd, the 33.19-carat Krupp diamond from her fifth husband, Richard Burton, and a crystal and diamond lily of the valley brooch from Rex Harrison. She also owned the famous 69.42-carat pear-shaped Burton Taylor diamond, given to her in 1969.</p>?<p>On his lawyer's advice, the couturier kept quiet on Tuesday after he was sacked as creative director of Christian Dior. But no sooner had he issued an "unreserved" apology, in which he accepted that accusations of anti-Semitism made against him had "greatly shocked and upset people", he learnt that prosecutors in Paris had decided to put him on trial over the affair.</p><p>Galliano, who continues to deny the claims, was suspended from his post at the French fashion house last week after allegedly launching an attack on a couple sitting on a cafe terrace in Paris. Footage later emerged of a separate incident which appeared to show him abusing drinkers in the same bar and telling them he loved Adolf Hitler.</p><p>Just minutes after Galliano broke his silence, prosecutors said he would stand trial some time between April and June. He faces up to six months in jail and ?22,500 in fines if convicted.</p><p>In his statement, Galliano said delays in his case had led to him to speak out. He claimed there would be witnesses who had told police he was verbally abused and subjected to an "unprovoked assault" during the incident last Thursday, and that an assailant tried to hit him with a chair.</p><p>"For these reasons I have commenced proceedings for defamation and the threats made against me," he said. "However, I fully accept that the accusations made against me have greatly shocked and upset people.</p><p>"I must take responsibility for the circumstances in which I found myself and for allowing myself to be seen to be behaving in the worst possible light. I only have myself to blame and I know I must face up to my own failures and that I must work hard to gain people's understanding and compassion."</p><p>His future remains uncertain, however, with the news of his dismissal from Dior, one of the most prized jobs in the business. Galliano was the latest in a string of illustrious names at its helm, including Gianfranco Ferre, Yves Saint Laurent and of course Dior himself. When Galliano was appointed in 1996, there was outrage in the world of French couture at the choice of a young Gilbraltarian-British upstart, but he soon won over critics. His dismissal has, however, raised the inevitable questions about his successor.</p><p>Pundits are looking to other big names on the fashion scene, but it is more likely that Dior will look on the Paris circuit for its next star. Currently in throes of fashion week, the city saw Lady Gaga modelling for Nicola Formichetti's first womenswear collection for Thierry Mugler last night.</p><p>The contenders: Who could take over the house of Dior?</p><p>9/4 Hedi Slimane</p><p>Current job: Photographer</p><p>CV: As creative director of Dior Homme, Slimane revolutionised modern menswear with his super-skinny and severe silhouette; his clothes were so lusted-after that even Karl Lagerfeld went on a diet to fit into them. He was made art director at YSL in 1997, moved to Dior Homme in 2000, and left in 2007.</p><p>The look: Goth on a diet.</p><p>8/1 Haider Ackermann</p><p>Current job: Head of his eponymous label</p><p>CV: A graduate of the acclaimed fashion college in Antwerp, Ackermann launched his own label in 2001 and has become a cult name among the cognoscenti for his flattering and sophisticated draped and romantic pieces.</p><p>The look: Cocktail hour meets witching hour.</p><p>4/1 Kris Van Assche</p><p>Current job: Creative director at Dior Homme</p><p>CV: A former assistant of Slimane's, Belgian designer Kris van Assche is the quiet powerhouse behind Dior Homme, specialising in classically tailored menswear which is as effortlessly stylish as it is easy to wear, and has broadened the brand's appeal.</p><p>The look: Sporty but elegant, informed by utilitarian workwear.</p><p>11/8 Stefano Pilati</p><p>Current job: Creative director at Yves Saint Laurent</p><p>CV: Pilati gave up his training as a surveyor to move into the fashion industry, starting at Cerruti as an intern, before moving to Armani as an assistant in 1993. From there he became assistant designer at Miuccia Prada's Miu Miu label in 1998, before joining Yves Saint Laurent in 2000 and taking the top job two years later.</p><p>The look: Strict and darkly coloured feminine tailoring, with a hint of whimsy. Recent collections have included strawberry motifs and votive wimples.</p><p>10/1 Phoebe Philo</p><p>Current job: Creative Director at Celine</p><p>CV: Saint Martin's graduate Philo won the British Fashion Council's Designer of the Year award last December for her work at Celine. She began working as Stella McCartney's assistant at Chloe in 1997 before succeeding her as head designer. In this role she created some of the brand's most famous clothes before leaving in 2006 to spend more time with her family. She took charge at Celine in September 2008, and has been credited as the force behind the recent resurgence of a more pared down aesthetic.</p><p>The Look: Sleek and modern minimalism.</p>?<p>Janet Jackson took up a front-row seat to watch the models step out in a riot of hats, gypsy scarves and fur collars, each outfit intended to be as singular as a portrait said the British designer.</p><p>Models in over-the-top make-up twirled in light, flounced dresses cut from fragile, transparent fabrics, for Galliano's spring/summer line for 2011 unveiled mid-way through Paris' marathon ready-to-wear shows.</p><p>A skirt was hemmed with ostrich feathers or Spanish shawl fringes, ultra-wide pants were layered with black tulle, and trenches were cut from translucent grey organza that left the structure and seams on full display.</p><p>Galliano took his inspiration from Maria Lani, muse to some of the greatest artists of her day including Amedeo Modigliani, whose portrait adorned the invite to the show.</p><p>There were pink and orange - everywhere this season - but also butterfly motifs on a frou-frou bustier dress or see-thru jacket.</p><p>At sundown, Galliano's woman stepped out in cristal- and gold-incrusted gowns, mostly white, displaying an artisan's touch unusual for a ready-to-wear collection, however luxurious.</p><p>Galliano says he was inspired for evening wear by Constantin Brancusi's metal sculptures. The kinship is far from obvious, but the result is delicate, feminine, with laser-sharp tailoring, and terribly desirable.</p><p>Cheers of delight rang out earlier as flavour-of-the-moment designer Phoebe Philo unveiled her third collection for Celine, a summer look brimming with elegant sophistication.</p><p>Caramel leather, desert-hooded weaves and flowing pants in ivory silk, with navy and sharp green bands lining the waist and side like a tuxedo: at each new piece, the room held its breath in admiration.</p><p>The magic was in the details, like a simple white jacket in starched cotton that left the back bare and fastened with a plain leather strap, or a white cotton blouse with a deep pink leather collar.</p><p>High-waisted leather skirts just covered the knee, curling around the hips to end in a gentle diagonal panel in the small of the back.</p><p>A sleeveless top in butter-soft maroon leather was paired with roomy trousers in vivid blue, while a long cotton damask tunic, like a sleeveless kimono was split on either side of the body, over a pair of pants.</p><p>A Moroccan flavour came from a green silk top with geometric motifs, hemmed with a band of orange, while a fluid, bare-armed navy dress robe plunged to a deep V shape at front an back - while its modest, sister piece offered long sleeves and demure neckline.</p>?<br><br><br><br><p>A television audience of 125 million from the Atlantic Ocean to the Caspian Sea is expected to watch the 56th annual pop music competition that is, like the performing acts themselves, taken seriously in some places and lampooned in others.</p><br><br><p>Germany's Lena Meyer-Landrut, who won last year's contest in Oslo with a British-style pop song "Satellite", will be up against performers from 24 countries in Saturday's final after a field of 43 nations was reduced in two semi-finals.</p><br><br><p>While the Eurovision Song Contest is derided as a monument to mediocrity and bad taste in some countries, it has legions of enthusiastic followers in others - especially in this year's host country Germany, where 2,500 journalists are covering it.</p><br><br><p>It has been a launching pad for international careers. Swedish pop group Abba became famous after winning in 1974 with "Waterloo" and Canada's Celine Dion took top honours in 1988 with "Ne partez pas sans moi" while competing for Switzerland.</p><br><br><p>A singer named Ruslana won for Ukraine in 2004 and was later rewarded with a seat in parliament.</p><br><br><p>From its start in Switzerland in 1956, the contest conceived by the European Broadcasting Union has grown into a giant event watched by millions in a glitzy live broadcast where spangly costumed performers belt out their songs in different languages.</p><br><br><p>Fans draped in their national flags or clad in outrageous outfits will pack the 36,000 seat arena in Duesseldorf and cheer the 25 finalists who will mix glitz and kitsch, ballads, rock 'n' roll and disco to try to win the highest number of votes.</p><br><br><br><br><br><br><p>Predictions on potential winners are notoriously wrong in many years because the outcome is determined - partly - by viewers from around Europe who call in their votes which are then awarded to the various acts on a scale of 12 to 0.</p><br><br><p>One of the most talked-about performers ahead of this year's contest, Stella Mwangi from Norway, was already eliminated in Tuesday's first semi-final round.</p><br><br><p>That has not dampened the enthusiasm of punters. Oddsmakers have identified Ireland's pop-rap duo Jedward, identical 19-year-old twins, as a hot favourite.</p><br><br><p>France's opera singer Amaury Vassili, a tenor, and Britain's boy band Blue are also tipped as favourites by bookmakers. As the main financiers of the contest, France, Britain, Spain, Italy and Germany get automatic spots in the final.</p><br><br><p>Lena, a fresh-faced 19-year-old, said she hopes for at least a spot in the top 10. She became an instant national hero a year ago for ending Germany's three-decade Eurovision drought that made many Germans anguish over why Europe so disliked them.</p><br><br><p>After winning Eurovision, "Satellite" went to the top of pop music charts in six nations and a top 10 hit in seven others.</p><br><br><p>Lena admits to being nervous about her title defence - the first attempt since Corry Brokken of the Netherlands tried it. Brokken won in 1957 but was last in 1958.</p><br><br><p>"I'm terribly, terribly excited, super nervous and as usual have stage fright before it starts," Lena told German public TV network ARD, which has spent 16 million euros ($22.35 million) as host broadcaster.</p><br><br><p>"It's the same before going on stage or to a press conference: I'm totally impatient and want to start. Then the nervousness disappears. Waiting is always hard, my palms get sweaty, my legs go numb and my throat dries out. It's horrible."</p><br><br><p>History is against her. Only one performer won more than once: Ireland's Johnny Logan in 1980 and then in 1987. Ireland has the most wins (7), although the last victory was 15 years ago.</p><br><br><p>Some other famous participants in past contests include Julio Iglesias, Olivia Newton-John, Secret Garden, t.A.T.u., Lordi and Patricia Kaas. Riverdance was created in 1994 when Ireland hosted the contest.</p>?<p>Under the serach term "Les Paul," filtered for "uploaded today" and rated by "view count," the top five most-watched efforts on YouTube are:</p><p>1.?Google Doodle Guitar - Les Paul by balasvdo?<br><br><br>2.?Les Paul's Guitar Chords in Google's Home Page - Les Paul Google Doodle by SkyingBlogger<br></p><p>3.?Google music guitar logo?by kanagJ?<br>? ??</p><p>4.?Les Paul Google Doodle Guitar by balasvdo<br></p><p>5.?Google Les Paul - ?????? by overconda?<br></p><p>Recorded on June 9 at 3:00PM GMT.?</p><p><br>Though not in the top five, some contributions of popular songs include:</p><p>My Heart Will Go On - Celine Dion by jedeedayah<br> </p><p>One - Metallica - by miguelhp89<br> </p><p>Star Spangled Banner -- Francis Scott Key by habsye<br> </p><p>Stairway to Heaven - Led Zepplin by CSWagner2<br> </p><p>Imagine - John Lennon by Arturoathbp<br></p>?<p>MacGibbon's last collection for Chloe - fall/winter 2011 - was not met with enthusiasm during Paris fashion week and had many onlookers speculating about whether her contract would be renewed.</p><p>After ten years of working for the label and three of being at its helm following now-Celine designer Phoebe Philo, MacGibbon is set to be replaced by former Pringle of Scotland designer Clare Waight Keller.</p><p>A statement by Chloe CEO Geoffroy de La Bourdonnaye reads: "We warmly welcome Clare to Chloe as we continue to define feminine elegance for the radiant, active and effortlessly graceful woman of today...Clare's unique talent and skilled eye is enriched through her deep experience across global fashion players and her highly acclaimed rejuvenation of a major heritage house [Pringle of Scotland]."</p><p>A job-searching Hannah MacGibbon further adds to the current designer merry-go-round, which also saw well-known designer Patrick Robinson being sacked by the Gap last week.</p>?<p>Ten years on, and the world has been through another boom-and-bust period. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that an equally protracted attachment to opulence ? and indeed often a quite literal interest in the Eighties ? has by now been supplanted by an aesthetic that is free of the ribbons, bows and furbelows that characterise fashion at its most light-hearted. There is a renewed focus on design and determinedly worldly clothing, where there’s no place for meaningless surface embellishment or indeed traditionally bourgeois proportions. In place of the indiscriminate flashing of flesh comes a discreet, peek-a-boo style eroticism. A body-conscious line, equally, has been replaced by a more subtle, often veiled silhouette.</p><p>Inevitably “minimalism” and “utility” are, once again, buzzwords, as early Prada and Yohji Yamamoto have both proved considerably influential. Mid-Nineties Jil Sander too is a reference. More than any other designer, however, the aforementioned Mr Lang is the fashion hero of the hour. The man himself resigned from his own label five years ago ? he said that he had become “a victim of his own success”, and was clearly uncomfortable with the burgeoning scale of the brand he presided over and the increasingly obvious commercial demands that went with that. But while at age 53 he is happy pursuing a career in fine art, his signature remains all-pervading. And so, Lang’s handwriting was all present and correct at Stella McCartney, where layered chiffon tunics had fluttering tails, and at Celine, where strictly conceived lace more than whispered of the oeuvre of this designer. At Givenchy, Riccardo Tisci’s skinny, sexy tailoring was indebted to Lang’s own, as indeed was the show presentation itself ? it took place in a vast warehouse space where models, male and female, stormed around on concrete at ground level, like a particularly glamorous urban army.</p><p>Add to this, the soft-bondage draping of Rodarte, the cutaway little black dresses of Antonio Berardi, and the hard-to-identify mix of traditional and tech fabrics at Balenciaga...And so the list goes on.</p><p>It seems only apposite, given all of the above, that over the past year or so Lang has finally made the decision to split up his archive and donate it to fashion institutions the world over. It is incomplete ? the designer began his career in a critically acclaimed but relatively small and quiet way in Vienna, moving to New York in 1997, at which point he left most of the early work behind. Even so, galleries as diverse as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Kyoto Costume Institute in Tokyo, the Musee de la Mode et du Textile in Paris, the Groninger Museum in Amsterdam, MoMu in Antwerp and London’s V&A are now very happy to have at least some of his work and to preserve it for posterity. And Lang being Lang ? and always a designer who worked outside the box ? it’s not only the most obvious fashion collections that will benefit from any generosity.</p><p>The Fashion Museum in Bath is today in proud possession of no fewer than 23 women’s wear and 16 men’s wear looks, all of which go on display this month and throughout the rest of this year, much to the delight of any serious fashion follower who happens to visit and indeed that museum’s principle curator, Rosemary Harden. “The donation is absolutely magnificent,” she says. “We have a fine collection but we’re still a provincial museum and this is unprecedented. The earliest look is from Autumn 97/98.” It’s a layered, crumpled, white demi-sheer shift, remarkable not least for the fact that more than a decade later a woman wearing it would be the envy of any onlooker. It hasn’t dated in the least. “One is from 2000 another from 2001, but we mainly have from 2002 onwards.”</p><p>The fact that Lang has presented the museum with both men’s wear and women’s wear is entirely in character. Amongst his other accolades, this was the first designer to show both men’s and women’s collections on the same catwalk, safe in the knowledge that this was a reflection of life as we know it ? as opposed to some rarefied vision the fruits of which must be the preserve of the privileged few. The aesthetic connections between Lang’s men’s and women’s wear have always been manifold also: the flat-fronted trousers and skinny jackets for him and her, the cuffs, fluttering canvas straps and splits in T-shirts at shoulder-line and/or elbow (the latter is a reference to the wearing of gloves and haute couture, incidentally), the flashes of Day-Glo colour and strips of PVC...To label his style as androgynous would be reductive, however.</p><p>“Girls have been wearing trousers since the 1920s, so I found it really shocking that it was still an issue,” he once told me of any reaction to his early work. “It was like when Stella Tennant appeared on the runway for the first time and they all said that she was this androgynous woman. I thought, how weird. She’s a really great looking woman. What’s androgynous about her? That she doesn’t have long hair? In the end, I do think it’s insulting to men and women to insist that they fit a certain profile. I never understood that. But it was not a mission of mine in any way. We like our men to be quite manly, with all possibilities, and our women to be quite feminine, with all possibilities.”</p><p>The term minimal, too, receives short shrift. In fact, Lang’s work is often extremely elaborate, although elaborate in a determinedly modern as opposed to nostalgic way. “Of course, we used to be seen as minimal, but that was at the beginning. When we started out in Paris it was all about Mugler, Montana, Gaultier, that’s where we came in; by comparison our clothes just looked completely different.”</p><p>Later, he added: “It’s not trashy and loud. That’s not our thing. But it’s often very ornate ? just not old ornate.” However one chooses to describe them, Lang’s designs are a million miles away from the blandly beautiful style of the red carpet. In his final years working as a designer, he agreed to include the odd floor-length gown in his collection, but even these were far from conventional, one most memorably sprouting bristling tufts of horsehair.</p><p>“Over the past decade there has been this red-carpet aesthetic that has been very influential,” Harden confirms, “and Helmut Lang does something very different. His is a very clear aesthetic, a very unfussy aesthetic but it’s also a very complex aesthetic. It’s still very pure, and not compromised at all. The craftsmanship is incredible, the materials are beautiful.” Lang always used black and white substantially, but that was only a small part of the story. As Harden says, “I don’t think Helmut Lang should be written off as monochrome, minimal, androgynous. That just seems derisory.”</p><p>More than anything else, however, Lang’s clothing is just as relevant today as it always has been. This is extremely unusual, and to say, therefore, that the designer was ahead of his time would be something of an understatement.</p><p>Born in Vienna in 1956, Helmut Lang began designing in his hometown with no formal training in 1977 and first showed in Paris in 1986. What he presented had absolutely nothing to do with the prevailing aesthetic, mood or even time.</p><p>“Somehow Helmut Lang had already formulated the correct conclusion to the excesses of the Eighties, right in the thick of them,” wrote Jo-Ann Furniss in Arena Homme+ following a rare interview with the designer in his Spring Street Studio in 2008. “He was essentially divining and designing the future.”</p><p>And while today more than a few other designers are picking up on that fact, for those who bow down at Lang’s altar his style ? which, after all, is exceptional for being heartfelt over-and-above a oneseason reference courtesy of the hand of another ? is inimitable. Despite pressure from friends and admirers, however, Lang, as reluctant to step into the limelight as he ever was, shows no sign of returning to the fashion arena.</p><p>“You can look at things from a variety of angles and use your own judgement, especially if you go through changing times as we are now,” he told Furniss. “That’s the run of things. If you really have your own identity you’ll keep on doing what you think is really right for you, and you’ll also understand the next step you want to take.”</p>?<p>Denis Lavant plays M. Oscar, a protean passenger who uses his back seat as a dressing-room of disguises, playing businessman, beggar, assassin, victim, family man, old woman ? it's like Mr Benn back there. In the most antic and violent sequence, he's an orally-fixated leprechaun who kidnaps a glamour model (Eva Mendes) and carries her off to his lair, a twanging erection in full view.</p><p>Ferrying M. Oscar about the place is his chauffeur, a chic older lady named Celine (Edith Scob), the steady centre of this fast-dissolving fugue. There is a sense that Carax is simply taking us where his fancy leads him; these are vignettes rather than linked chapters, their only connection the strange, satyr-like presence of Lavant in his various personas.</p><p>What does it all mean? Damned if I know, though its conjuring of different identities could be an allusion to past lives, or to the chaos of a schizoid personality, shattering into pieces. It's not a film so much as a spell, and however enigmatic or opaque it becomes you feel it working ? worming ? its way into your head.</p>?<p>Daniel Bedard, 36, allegedly forced entry to the 'My Heart Will Go On' singer's Quebec mansion on Monday (05.09.11) by taking keys and a garage door opener from one of her husband Rene Angelil's unlocked cars, before having a snack and filling the tub with hot water.</p><br><br><p>Police spokesman Franco Di Genova said: "He saw one of Rene's vehicles that was there and unfortunately the doors were not locked, the keys were in the ignition and there was also a garage door opener.</p><br><br><p>"He opened the water faucets, was pouring a nice warmish bath and he even managed to eat some pastry that was in the fridge."</p><br><br><p>Celine, Rene and their three children, 10-year-old son Rene-Charles and nine-month-old twins Eddy and Nelson were not at the Canadian home at the time of the incident.</p><br><br><p>The suspect triggered the alarm and according to Di Genova, was shocked to find a swarm of police when he descended the stairs.</p><br><br><p>He added: "The suspect was coming down the big staircase and was asking, 'Hey, guys what are you doing here?' So the officers replied, 'What are you doing here?' and they proceeded to put him under arrest."</p><br><br><p>Mr. Bedard has been charged with breaking and entering, auto theft and causing damage to property and is due back in court on November 21.</p><br><br><p>The police spokesman admitted there was a similar incident at the mansion in 2009 although the suspect was stopped by security before entering the house.</p><br><br><p>Source:Bang Showbiz</p>?<p>Hours before the verdict at a court in Normandy yesterday, Celine Lesage pleaded guilty to killing the infants at birth.</p><br><br><p>Prosecutor Eric Bouillard had sought a 16-year prison sentence for Lesage with no early release before half the term was served.</p><br><br><p>Lesage was suspected of killing her six newborns between August 2000 and September 2007. She was charged with aggravated voluntary homicide and could have received a life sentence.</p><br><br><p>"Yes, I killed the babies," she said under questioning.</p><br><br><p>Bursting into tears, she added: "I did it but ... I can't explain it."</p><br><br><p>Four of the babies were smothered and two others strangled with small cords, a medical expert told the court at the trial in Coutances, in Normandy's Manche region of north-west France.</p><br><br><p>Lesage was arrested in 2007 after her partner at the time, Luc Margueritte, discovered the tiny bodies in plastic binbags in the basement of their apartment building in Valognes. He is the father of the last newborn and was a civil party in the case.</p><br><br><p>On the fourth and final day of the trial, Lesage told the court "she had prepared nothing" ahead of the deaths but nevertheless acknowledged that she had given birth in her bedroom with plastic bags and cords next to her.</p><br><br><p>Lesage has a 14-year-old son.</p><br><br>?<p>The 42-year-old actress unveiled a chin-length bob style while promoting her latest movie 'Just Go with It' in Madrid.</p><br><br><p>She completed her new look with a black Theory tank top, Celine pants, Fred Leighton jewels and Pierre Hardy shoes, and was joined at the event by her co-stars Adam Sandler and Brooklyn Decker.</p><br><br><p>A source said: "Jen looked great with her short style. It was a surprise to see her with a new look because her hair was still long before she arrived in Spain."</p><br><br><p>The screen beauty had long locks at the German premiere of the comedy film in Berlin on Monday (21.02.11) and made the decision to take some inches off before making her next stop on the promotional trail.</p><br><br><p>The new haircut is reminiscent of her most famous style 'The Rachel', which she sported when she first played the character of the same name in hit sitcom 'Friends'.</p><br><br><p>Jennifer recently described the style - a bouffant-type layered cut created by her pal Chris McMillan in 1994 - as the "ugliest haircut ever".</p><br><br><p>She said: "I love Chris but he's the bane of my existence because he started that damn 'Rachel', which was not my best look.</p><br><br><p>"How do I say this? I think it was the ugliest haircut I've ever seen."</p>?<p>Every triumph ? a record-breaking $10m deal with Warner Music, four million albums sold, consecutive No 1s, a brace of Classical Brits ? plays out to a discordant backing track of gripes. Jenkins is, her detractors sniff, an under-trained starlet who has the temerity to sing using a microphone rather than her diaphragm; Classic FM made voluptuous flesh. As The Guardian puts it, writer's quill quivering with indignation, "calling Jenkins's music 'classical' is to test the limits of the Trades Description Act". Her latest venture, ITV's Popstar to Opera Star, in which she mentored faded chart stars as they attempted to sing arias, drew yet more stinging criticism. "It would appear Ms Jenkins has never appeared on the operatic stage", wrote Philip Hensher in this newspaper. "Is it too cruel to wonder whether... she has ever actually seen an opera?"</p><p>Jenkins rolls her huge, immaculately inked eyes. "We don't think people really got the idea. We never once said that within six weeks these people are going to be singing at Covent Garden. It was meant to be fun." And the niggling that she's never sung an opera? "I have never said that I'm an opera singer, that's one thing that really grates me." She gives a sigh which she tries, half-heartedly, to turn into a laugh. "I sing opera arias when I do concerts, I put them on my CDs, I trained at the Royal Academy. I've always said that I count myself as a classical cross-over artist. To be a cross-over artist, you have to have the core classical training, which I did for many, many years, but also be interested in the pop side of things. You can fit in somewhere in the middle. I feel I do that really well."</p><p>Ever since her debut, singing "Worms", aged four, in her school talent show ? "The audience", she recalls, somehow, "erupted into applause" ? Jenkins has been an unashamed crowd-pleaser. To say that she does crossover "really well" is an understatement; every aspect of her image hums with all-round appeal. Her journey from church choir to arena has buckets of home-spun charm sprinkled with a touch of stardust. Her ever-growing repertoire ranges from Carmen to "Cwm Rhondda", from Lionel Richie to Andrew Lloyd Webber. Her album-sleeve looks range from barefoot girl-next-door to tabloid-friendly, "diva-statingly sexy", with the result that little girls want to be her, middle-aged women want to mother her and their husbands want to marry her. She's both the official mascot for Welsh rugby and the unofficial Forces' sweetheart.</p><p>The only bum note was last year's scandal when she admitted, in an interview with high priest of the celebrity confessional, Piers Morgan, that she had experimented with cocaine. The story seems only to have strengthened her brand, balancing the voice of an angel with something edgier. "I really thought when I did it, 'OK, this could be the end of my career'," she says. "I wasn't surprised by the big reaction to it, but I was surprised that people were so quick and lovely in the way that they supported me. Since then, things have changed ? in a good way." The "Sordid Drugs Past!" headlines were a little over the top, after all. "It was written like it was more of an issue than it was ? because it was literally just a couple of experimental... it wasn't that big a thing. People see you in long dresses, singing in a certain way and you're put on a pedestal like you have never made a mistake in your life. I did start to find that quite difficult. I'd read articles about myself and they'd say, you know, 'perfect', 'voice of an angel' and I'd think, God I don't think they really understand me."</p><p>With that messy business out of the way, the queen of cross-over is free to focus on the next step: world domination, or thereabouts. She has just completed a UK tour, selling out stadiums with a sort of classical Cirque du Soleil show which saw her belting out arias while swinging from a trapeze. This week she released her seventh album, Believe, which includes the title ballad from Love Never Dies. Andrew Lloyd Webber invited her to his house to ask if she'd be interested in recording the song. "I said, 'Well let's just sing it now. Let's get round the piano.' So I sang it to him and he said 'the song's yours'." Would she ever do a West End musical? "I would, but not now. Maybe in years to come. I haven't got the time to be dedicated to something like that."</p><p>For now, Jenkins has her sights firmly fixed on America. She is "international priority" at Warner this year which, for her, means being on a plane all the time, and for the company means making Jenkins, at £5.8m for five albums, the most expensive classical signing of all time, work for her money.</p><p>"Nobody knows me", she says. "I'm realistic that it's a big undertaking and it might not work." Her team to crack America includes Madonna's publicist, Liz Rosenberg, and David Foster, the platinum-plated producer behind Celine Dion, Michael Buble and crossover stars Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban. Jenkins is clearly being lined up as their female equivalent and as such has been touted around various gigs from galas in Vegas to an impromptu, jet-lagged performance of "O Mio Babbino Caro" at Barbra Streisand's birthday party. "All the way through it, I could see Barbra, stroking her dog, Samantha, just watching me".</p><p>Believe is her bid to become the global princess of popera ? "it's probably the most commercial-sounding album I've ever made" ? a smooth line-up of ballads and pop songs (and an inexplicable cover of "No Woman, No Cry") delivered in her rich mezzo-soprano.</p><p>It's a businesslike approach and today, Jenkins, in person an appealing, if unreadable mix of sweet and steely, is dressed for business ? pristine blonde hair pulled back in a high ponytail, airbrush-perfect make-up and a designery ensemble of towering heels, tight black trousers and power-shouldered jacket. "Although I love fashion, I try and think, 'OK, is this suitable for you and what you're doing right now or are you just trying to follow everyone else?'", she says primly. "I like to try and always be classy. Record companies always try and have their input. Sometimes there's a way of them pushing that skirt a little bit shorter. You know..."</p><p>Sing-song voice and doe-eyed smiles aside, Jenkins clearly likes to be in control. "Yep. You have to oversee everything. I don't really want to be the puppet that's told 'wear this' and 'sing that'. That's not me." It's certainly not. Though it drives the groundsmen mad, she always insists on wearing her "Millennium Stadium heels" whenever she's invited to sing the Welsh national anthem from the centre of the hallowed rugby pitch. "I don't own a pair of flat shoes".</p><p>She operates a strict regime for her voice ? no spicy food ("acid reflux!"), no dairy ("for clarity") and she doesn't drink for a week before she's performing. At this year's Brits, she got all dressed up in McQueen, called into Jay-Z's party for half an hour and went home. "It's a rare thing that I go to parties anymore. If I know I haven't got to sing and it's planned, I can go out and enjoy it properly. But other than that, it's in and out." She practises most days in her music room at home. "And I like to do all my vocalising in the shower in the morning". I have no idea what this means. "You remember to clean your teeth", she says patiently. "I remember to do these things."</p><p>She's equally strict when it comes to her private life. She met her boyfriend, Gethin Jones, when the Blue Peter presenter was competing on Strictly Come Dancing and she sang on the show. "We're not together for any publicity reasons!" she says. "Things are going well. We just don't talk about it because you've got to draw a line." It can be quite hard to draw a line when you have paparazzi parked permanently outside your house, though. "I'm not moaning", she says. "It just becomes a bit unfortunate when you have to start thinking, 'do I really want another picture of me without make-up on?'"</p><p>There are upsides. This week she has five albums in the classical top 40; her first, Premiere, hasn't left the charts for nearly six years. Given that her first record deal, aged 22, was for a million pounds, she must be pretty rich by now? "You don't get a million pounds straight off", she points out. She did, though, treat herself to a grand piano when she signed with Warner and her North London home has a whole room set aside for her couture stage dresses. "I'm still pretty reasonable. My mum taught me to be sensible with money."</p><p>The green, green grass of home is never far from Jenkins's thoughts. She grew up in Neath, where her mother worked as a radiographer and her father worked in a factory. The whole family sang in the church choir. When she was 11, Jenkins won the Welsh Choirgirl of the Year competition. "Looking back I think, 'how did I not get bullied?' There's nothing that makes you stand out more than singing to your year in assembly on a regular basis." Her parents were encouraging, rather than pushy, driving her around to sing at weddings and with male-voice choirs at the weekends. Did they think she'd be a star? "My Dad did." He never saw it happen, though, dying from lung cancer when she was 15. Jenkins, a straight-A student, went through a brief "stroppy" phase after his death. Her mother wanted her to go to Cambridge but Jenkins, itching to sing, won a place at the Royal Academy when she was 17.</p><p>She planned to spend a couple of years after graduating teaching in order to earn enough money to enrol on the opera course. "I was too young. My voice wasn't quite there", she says. "I thought maybe I'd be lucky enough to get into an opera chorus and slowly, slowly work my way up. I didn't think I'd have a career until I was at least 30."</p><p>Of course, it didn't quite work out that way. A producer friend of her then boyfriend (Steve Hart of boy-band Worlds Apart) passed her demo onto Universal. Within half an hour of meeting her, they'd signed her for six albums. "I knew people made albums but that's not discussed at a place like the Academy." She'd like to go back there now and teach students about the business.</p><p>She's still learning, too. She fits in lessons with her old teacher Beatrice Unsworth whenever she can and (how glamorous!) Placido Domingo has been tutoring her on the side. "It's the best thing ev-er", she whispers. "He's like, 'You should be doing opera! You study with me and we can do this!' If he thinks I can do it..." Her dream role is Carmen. "It's always been something I've wanted to do. I know when I do it, I'll get slated." Carmen at Covent Garden? "Oh gosh, I don't know. I'd love to. We'll see."</p><p>'Believe' is out now on Warner Bros Records</p>?<p>It seems they want me to pay for their ticket, while they contribute nothing. Why not leave it to the beloved free market? Or better still, the Big Society?</p><p>Howard Pilott</p><p>Lewes, East Sussex</p><p>With each passing day, the uprising in Libya has become more shocking, and with each new twist and turn the appearances of Gaddafi himself have become ever-increasingly surreal.</p><p>When the protests began in Tripoli on Tuesday evening, Gaddafi made a weird appearance that seemed to be based on Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain, sitting in what looked like a cross between an old-fashioned Renault 4 and a Robin Reliant, while holding up an umbrella and wearing what appeared to be a Davy Crockett hat and a leather jacket.</p><p>"I'm in Tripoli," he declared. It must have been met with some disbelief by most of those watching that Gaddafi knew where in the world he was.</p><p>His next speech a day later, from an even more embattled Tripoli, saw him ranting, in what appeared to be a half-finished home-improvement extension, that he would devolve even more powers to the masses, despite having ostensibly devolved all such powers long ago when he wrote his Green Book, which he brandished relentlessly during his speech.</p><p>He then compared himself with the Queen, saying "no one criticised her for invading Iraq" (surely she would have left that to Prince Phillip?) and asserted that Bin Laden was to blame and that the protesters were all on powerful mind-bending drugs.</p><p>I was beginning to wonder if it wasn't Gaddafi who had been slipped some mind-bending mickey finn.</p><p>Gaddafi appears a cross between Basil Fawlty and Adolf Hitler, dispensing faux largesse by proposing to devolve powers already devolved, while calling on his supporters to kill the "cockroaches" on his streets. Are crazy despots fans of John Cleese?</p><p>Henry Page</p><p>Newhaven, East Sussex</p><p>It is all very well for the Prime Minister to apologise for the delay in getting British nationals evacuated from Libya but it is hardly surprising there have been delays when the contract for the chartering of the plane at Gatwick airport was signed only at 09.30 on Wednesday morning.</p><p>If the Americans, Austrians, Belgians, French, Germans, Polish (indeed one Briton got out on a Polish plane), and Russians could get their nationals out, why not Britain? Turkey started evacuating their nationals a week ago. No apology can compensate for the unexplained delay in taking steps to evacuate our nationals to safety.</p><p>Valerie Crews</p><p>Beckenham, Kent</p><p>Why did the Foreign Office not send military planes in to rescue UK citizens in Libya, as did other countries? Could it be because they were outsourcing the rescue to the private sector, which we all know is far more efficient at organising such things?</p><p>Hilary Mobbs</p><p>Leeds</p><p>Listening to radio reports of British warships in Benghazi, fighting in Tobruk, evacuation to Malta and planned SAS raids in the Western Desert, I thought I'd woken up in 1941.</p><p>Steve Travis</p><p>Nottingham</p><p>Ancient woods are protected</p><p>The claims by the Woodlands Trust that the Government is considering the weakening of planning protection on ancient woodland is simply untrue (report, 21 February). There are no such planning changes being proposed. No government document has ever floated the downgrading of such protection. The Coalition Agreement actually commits the Government to protecting important environmental planning designations.</p><p>The Coalition Government is seeking to consolidate the 1,000 pages of Whitehall planning policy guidance into a shorter document. This will not undermine the local environment. Protection for ancient woodland in the existing guidance will be carried over. It will also help make the planning system more accessible to the public.</p><p>At present, only full-time planning professionals ? from lawyers, to developers, to council officers, to NGOs ? are fully able to navigate through these 25 volumes. Pruning such excessive government paperwork may actually save a fair few trees from the paper mill.</p><p>Greg Clark MP</p><p>Minister for Decentralisation,</p><p>Department for Communities and Local Government</p><p>Don't blame us baby boomers</p><p>Mervyn King's solution for the large rise in inflation is keeping interest rates low, which is all very well if there is anybody taking advantage of it to invest in jobs and producing saleable exports but useless in terms of financial gain. We need government-led investment initiatives to improve our economic situation, not cuts leading to a financial doldrum.</p><p>As a baby boomer, I am fed up with being blamed for the present financial state by inexperienced, selfish Thatcherite children. The parlous state of the world is not my fault. I have been educated by the state (thank you very much), had a career as a teacher (payback). I have had a conscience about local affairs and been part of the army of volunteers that David Cameron thinks he invented, and stood and gained a seat on the local council. I have even stood for Parliament.</p><p>It is all not my fault. We baby boomers have worked hard, paid tax, contributed to pension funds (where have they gone?) and given to the community. I blame those people who have led us into this sorry financial mess, the establishment with their inherited wealth who think they can govern and can't, and the nouveau generation who believed that using non-existent assets to gain wealth is not cheating and who led us into the sub-prime mortgage crisis.</p><p>This country needs freeing up for entrepreneurs, investment in actual products and reform of the property and land laws which lead to such a disproportionate distribution of wealth around the country. And which is the generation who will suffer most from the cuts in pensions, health and care? Why, the baby boomers of course.</p><p>Gail Coleshill</p><p>Crewkerne, Somerset</p><p>As a baby boomer, I am getting somewhat irritated by the media's continued rubbishing of this age group. I grew up in the austere Fifties; it was not great. Yes, I went to university, all fees covered, but at that time very few people went and the country needed to improve its graduate cohort.</p><p>I am now retired on a modest pension (I think I am, strictly speaking, living in poverty), after teaching special needs for more than 35 years in schools in deprived areas.</p><p>Most voluntary work for my age group demands low-level skills. Any government worth its salt should be looking to utilise this well-educated group who can offer a wealth of experience and skills. Baby boomers are not a rich elite but a force for good overlooked in our ageist society.</p><p>Pauline Dando</p><p>Narberth, Pembrokeshire</p><p>Smaller fish are endangered too</p><p>Steve Connor's article ("Out with tuna, in with sardines ? a recipe for saving the seas", 19 February) actively encouraged readers to "do our bit for the balance of the oceans" by choosing sardines, anchovies and herring over threatened larger fish such as tuna or cod.</p><p>Yes: big fish are in trouble, but what your article doesn't make clear is that because of over-fishing, piracy and pollution, we are losing our populations of small fish too. Anchovy stocks in particular are undergoing the depletion predicted by (of all things) Futurama; herring and sild from most fisheries, and sardines from some fisheries, are also becoming rare and should be avoided by the ethical consumer.</p><p>Yes, it is one of the biggest idiocies of our time that these delicious and threatened small fish are ground up for fertiliser and farmed fish-food; but aquaculture on its present scale is entirely unsustainable.</p><p>The ecological damage of the waste chemicals and super-bugs released from intensive fish farms is huge, particularly in developing countries, and eventually we're going to run out of viable water systems to farm in.</p><p>It is also misleading to imply that we're in for a bonanza of tasty small fish because we've removed the predators; experts agree that what we're actually in for is a takeover by simpler organisms like jellyfish, and more toxic areas in which no oxygen-creating plankton can live, which will in turn accelerate climate change.</p><p>Miranda Rose</p><p>Oxford</p><p>A pension 'race to the bottom'</p><p>I was saddened by your leading article on public-sector pensions (21 February). You seem to be arguing that because wages and pension rights have been driven down in the private sector (apart from in the boardrooms), similar conditions should apply in the public sector.</p><p>Thus we become engaged in a ghastly "race to the bottom", with people paying heavily for a pension which will be worth little by the time they come to retire. The Local Government Pension Scheme is viable, with assets of £130bn invested mainly in the UK. We are already having to work longer before we can draw our pensions. This should be enough.</p><p>Anthea Beaumont</p><p>Highworth, Wiltshire</p><p>Could do better</p><p>Your article, "Teachers 'will face faith discrimination'" (18 February) is inaccurate. The provisions in the Education Bill to which you refer relate to voluntary controlled and foundation schools, yet you assert that they will apply to Catholic schools. No Catholic schools are voluntary controlled or foundation schools.</p><p>Maeve McCormack</p><p>Catholic Education Service for England and Wales,</p><p>London SW1</p><p>Perspectives on Burchill's views</p><p>A capital crime at the wrong time</p><p>With Julie Burchill for a friend who needs enemies? I refer to the strange travelogue under "Opinion Britain" (24 February), penned by her in capital letters on our behalf.</p><p>She advocates travel to Israel in preference to other countries in the Middle East ("gone there because they WEREN'T Israel" and "Dubai ? WHAT a dump! and "PATHETIC!"). The article must have raised a few eyebrows in Israel, if, indeed, Burchill's column is read or appreciated there. Her immediate reason are the bloody events in Libya.</p><p>Yes, they are appalling as have been others for the past 60 years in Israel/Palestine itself, in the Lebanon and in Gaza.</p><p>This is hardly the time to make comparisons and excuses; injustice, persecution and violence are equally unacceptable wherever they occur. But please, no more CAPITAL LETTERS.</p><p>Professor PP Anthony</p><p>Exeter</p><p>The Arab world is a haven to many</p><p>The Arab world awakens hopefully to a new hopeful dawn. But there can be no excuse for Julie Burchill's offensive and ignorant remarks. Whatever ails the Arab world, it has offered over the centuries a haven and a home to waves of immigrants fleeing persecution. Minorities, including my family, who originally came from various corners of the world, Armenians, Circassians, Greeks and others still live there in harmony.</p><p>I was not surprised to see Egyptian crowds spilling into the streets to articulate their desire for political freedom, making a point of showing their unity as Christians and Muslims in the wake of the recent disgraceful attacks on Coptic churches.</p><p>Those less ignorant of history will know that Damascus is as important to the history of Arab civilisation as Venice was to the European renaissance.</p><p>Satanay Dorken</p><p>London N10</p><p>The blame game</p><p>Julie Burchill is right, Israel gets blamed for a lot of things, including: bombing Gaza; blockades; building settlements on occupied Palestinian territory, and having nuclear weapons.</p><p>Celine Skinner</p><p>Coulsdon, Surrey </p>?<p>The "Next Steps" report of 1988, product of a team led by Sir Robin Ibbs, argued that efficiency would be improved, first, by carving up Departments and hiving off routine work into free-standing "agencies", and second by giving individual managers responsibility for decisions on budgets, personnel and the purchase of stuff like office equipment.</p><p>A unit was set up within the Cabinet Office to push through these changes. Semi-autonomous "agencies" were created (some of them now seemingly tarred with the same brush as the derided "quangos"). Central provision of services such as advertising (Central Office of Information) and printing (HM Stationery Office) was deemed wasteful. Pay and other personnel matters were decentralised (the Civil Service Department had already been jettisoned); departments were told to negotiate their own terms and conditions of service.</p><p>Now, along comes another ? Green ? knight, not to chop off limbs but, in effect, stitch them back together: economies of scale are the new "Next Steps". Meanwhile, in the NHS, budgetary control is to pass from primary care trusts to the service's smallest unit, the GP surgery.</p><p>You couldn't make it up.</p><p>C Sladen,</p><p>Woodstock, Oxfordshire</p><p>"Staggering waste," says Sir Philip Green of central government's lamentable failure to make use of its scale and buying power. He should turn his lens next on the same central government's deliberate policy of atomising the education service.</p><p>Successive governments presided first over the demise of highly efficient central purchasing departments like those run by Essex, the West Riding and the GLC. More recently in the name of "freedom for heads" they have allowed every school to organise its own contracts for goods and services, to place extravagant advertisements for staff and to determine salary scales and conditions of service.</p><p>Does anyone really believe that corner shops are cheaper and more efficient than Tesco or Sainsbury? Whereas heads used to be able to devote most of their time and expertise to leading their teams of professional teachers, now they are expected to oversee administrative services which once were provided economically by their local council.</p><p>Devising an economical schools service does not seem to be high among Michael Gove's or his department's priorities. Instead of doing that, their aim seems to be to fragment the service and encourage schools to compete against each other with ever more rose-tinted advertisements and ever higher salaries, and make each school accountable directly to the centre. For "freedom" read "divide and rule."</p><p>John Mann,</p><p>London NW2</p><p>Agenda behind the Big Society</p><p>Furious arguments rage about whether this, that or the other budget should be cut and by how much, or this that or the other quango abolished ? hardly any about the ideology behind it all.</p><p>Behind the windy rhetoric of Cameron's Big Society is an ideological agenda which seeks to end the gains painfully achieved over the past century, supported by the likes of Lloyd George, Keynes, Beveridge, and the 1945-51 Labour government, based upon the notion that the state has a duty to protect the poor and vulnerable against the worst effects of free-market capitalism, and provide small but significant benefits which would slightly reduce the vast inequalities that it creates.</p><p>In the Big Society, with the state's role in education, health, housing, old age and poverty relief minimised, it will be everyone for him- or herself. Inevitably it will be the rich, powerful and cunning who will win out.</p><p>The deficit, combined with the abandonment by Clegg and others of everything decent that they stood for, provide a wonderful opportunity for Cameron and his party to achieve a historic change, using the disguise of a government bringing in expedient measures to cope with a short-term crisis.</p><p>It important to defend one's corner against the cuts. In the long term it is more important to fight against the ideological agenda behind them.</p><p>Jim Cordell,</p><p>Manchester</p><p>With the inquest into the 7/7 London bombings under way, it is well worth remembering that the UK once had the Civil Defence Corps, effectively disbanded in 1968 by Labour, and the Royal Observer Corps, dismantled by the Tories in 1995.</p><p>Both of these volunteer organisations would have been very useful in several of our national emergencies, such as the 2001 foot-and-mouth epidemic and the London bombs. Instead of squandering them, the goodwill and expertise of the thousands of people manning these useful bodies could have easily been channelled to fulfil post-Cold War needs.</p><p>It is irksome to hear politicians blather on about the "Big Society" when it is they who have destroyed it.</p><p>Stephen Gash,</p><p>Carlisle</p><p>The "Big Society" idea cannot work in today's self-obsessed society. Most of us are too preoccupied with what we have, materially, and not with who we are, as human beings. We are now simply too selfish and only concerned about having the latest gadget, following celebrity fashions, climbing the social and housing "ladder" and updating our Facebook pages.</p><p>The idea of altruistic behaviour and concerns about ethics are now rare.</p><p>Mark Richards,</p><p>Brighton</p><p>A pizza and a forced smile</p><p>I read your article on Pizza Express training their staff to "flirt" with customers and nurture a special relationship, with a depressed sigh (14 October). This is yet another example of the phoney "buddying" these giant conglomerates try to pile on us via their overworked and underpaid staff.</p><p>Forced small talk builds a relationship only slightly more meaningful than the one we have with the garlic bread. Usually during this bogus love-in, we both know that they simply want to get on with their jobs, get home and enjoy life. We simply want to let them.</p><p>At my gym, the Virgin Active staff bellow "Hello!" at me as I walk through the door, even though I haven't noticed them and they are 30 feet away. Later on they yell "Bye!" at me as I crawl out of the door. I recently witnessed an external staff trainer chastising one of them for not doing it.</p><p>If Richard Branson wants to get to know me and make me feel "special", then I'll happily pass on my details and we can maybe talk space travel or beards over a lemongrass milkshake. But making his poor staff force hollow, manufactured greetings on to customers from a distance is just weird.</p><p>We do not want to be best friends with giant corporations. We want them to treat their staff with the respect they deserve, stop making their jobs harder, not steal their tips and stop treating us like pliable cretins.</p><p>A Burns,</p><p>Manchester</p><p>Swearing an oath to Israel</p><p>Dr Jacob Amir writes from Jerusalem (letter, 16 October) that Israel "does not strive to be a purely Jewish state" and the "requirement to be loyal to the Jewish and Democratic state of Israel refers to 'Jewish' as a people not as a religion".</p><p>Of course, this confusing sleight of hand between Jewish ethnicity and religion could easily be avoided by simply requiring people to be loyal to the state of Israel, not to any particular ethnic or religious group within that state.</p><p>Unfortunately, this loyalty oath is strongly promoted by Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister, who most definitely wants Israel to be a purely Jewish state, as he regularly calls for the ethnic cleansing of Arab Israelis. It appears Israel increasingly prefers his road to fascism over its traditions of democracy.</p><p>Chris Webster,</p><p>Abergavenny</p><p>Dr Jacob Amir writes: "Many democracies demand a swearing of allegiance as a part of becoming a citizen. The proposed Israeli Law of Allegiance is no different". The proposed Israeli Law of Allegiance is very different, because it applies only to Arabs who apply for citizenship. Jews who immigrate into Israel do not have to swear allegiance.</p><p>Just as 80 per cent of Israelis are Jewish, so approximately 80 per cent of Americans are Christians. One can imagine the protests if Jews were required to swear an oath of allegiance to the United States of America but Christians were not ? and they would be quite right to object to such discriminatory treatment.</p><p>John Naylor,</p><p>Ashford, Middlesex</p><p>Last hope for honest politics</p><p>Michael O'Hare (letter, 15 October) no doubt reflects the views of a great number of voters who feel let down by politicians. He says he is joining many others in becoming politically cynical. But before people do that, there is one party left to consider.</p><p>The Liberal Democrats have betrayed a huge number of people: students, the middle class, the working class, pensioners, disarmament campaigners, and others. They promised to introduce a new politics: if that new politics involves crossing your fingers when signing pledges, it's understandable that people are cynical.</p><p>But the Green Party still stands for everything the Lib Dems used to stand for. Free higher education paid for out of general taxation. Proper, proportional, voting reform. Proper action on climate change, not sham, green-washed action. Opposition to NHS privatisation. A living wage. A decent pension. Genuine action on the estimated £100bn of taxes that are avoided by the rich each year. The scrapping of Trident. And sensible, not populist or oppressive, policies on migration.</p><p>If disaffected Lib Dem or Labour voters are off to join the ranks of the politically apathetic, I would ask them to think once more, and go for a party which, up and down the country, in councils, assemblies and parliaments, is still with them: and is still keeping its promises.</p><p>Elliot Folan,</p><p>London N20</p><p>Mike Brayshaw (letter, 16 October) asks how Labour voters would feel if the Lib Dem party were to get all they wanted in the Coalition.</p><p>Well, as a former Labour supporter for 65 years I will tell you. I voted Lib Dem out of disgust at the expenses fiasco. I hoped to see a three-party system that would supply checks and balances to raise the level of ethics in British politics. What did I get? Thatcher Mark 2. I will now vote for the Green Party. At least they are not the puppets of right-wing media tycoons, or exclusively concerned with their bank balance.</p><p>Dave Lienard,</p><p>Newcastle upon Tyne</p><p>Universities are a social good</p><p>Andrew Meads (letter, 15 October) suggests that D J Powell's upholding of the view of education as providing social and not merely individual benefits (letter, 14 October) is "undermined" by his example of firms paying graduates higher wages. What a wonderful example of the narrow accountancy mentality which created the problem in the first place!</p><p>Why ever might we see the benefits here as just economic? Why would we not see them rather in terms of happier, more whole, more broadly fulfilled individuals and organisations operating, as we all do, in the social domain, greater financial fulfilment being just one part of this?</p><p>The grim, atomised philosophy that sees only a few professions (teaching, medicine) as yielding "positive externalities" for society is surely not one most of us subscribe to; yet this is just what the Browne report would foist on us.</p><p>Michael Ayton,</p><p>Durham</p><p>The world financial system was brought to the brink of meltdown by allowing financial institutions to give large loans to people who were not in a position to pay them back. And now we learn that a new proposal is to be laid before Parliament to reform the university system by ... er ... forcing a generation of young people to take out loans of £30,000-£40,000 to pay for their education, in the expectation that many will never be in a position to pay them back. This, we are told, is "progressive".</p><p>Rory Ridley-Duff,</p><p>Sheffield</p><p>Latest outrage against English</p><p>I had just about come to terms, after a long time, with "level playing field" and "at the end of the day", but I'm finding it very difficult to accept the latest in-phrase. Its use has become more and more prevalent during the past couple of years, and now it has well and truly entered mainstream usage.</p><p>Last week the term "up for grabs" was used many times in respect of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. Fiona Bruce on the BBC news stated that there were many medals "up for grabs".</p><p>Last week in my local paper, a headline read "£1,000 of free parking 'up for grabs' ".</p><p>This term is now used, it seems, to cover anything that can be won, competed for, achieved, is available or is attainable. I feel that it may indicate a change in society whereby an aggressive rather than patient approach reaps the rewards. Its demeans whatever has been achieved.</p><p>Geoff Manning,</p><p>Frinton on Sea, Essex</p><p>Safe sex films</p><p>So "Fear infects the LA porn industry after star tests positive for HIV" (report, 14 October). During the past 10 years you have published letters from me about the need for all filmed pornography to show protective sex. Is this such a difficult proposal to enact?</p><p>Mike Bor,</p><p>(Principal Examiner, British Board of Film Classification, 1993-2000)</p><p>London W2</p><p>Perspectives on defence spending</p><p>Stay out of those foreign fields</p><p>Let us hope that the defence review will be just that ? a review of how we defend our island nation, and not how we attack other people.</p><p>The idea that attack is the best form of defence may be true as a tactic, but as a strategy it is disastrous. It leads to the American idea of pre-emptive attack ? attacking countries we don't like because we think that they may attack us.</p><p>Politicians never properly estimate the consequences of their warlike actions. They make decisions about our lives on an over-optimistic view that they will always win, and win quickly at low cost. They never seem to ask the question, "What if we lose?". And we do.</p><p>We have found ourselves embroiled in two recent wars, both of which we are likely to lose at a far greater cost than anyone estimated. Our only successes have been in those cases where we co-operated with the UN, usually at the request of the existing government (Kuwait, Kosovo). Why do we never think that people will fight back when we invade their country? It's their home and we would do the same thing.</p><p>The defence review should concentrate on "defence" and not on "offence" ? defending our country and not on attacking others. The English Channel and the North Sea are our biggest defensive asset, so we need a strong air force and a strong navy. We do not need a big army if we don't intend to attack another country.</p><p>Given that we are now in a Union with the rest of Europe, our defences need to be in concert with our friends. The only time when we need an expeditionary force is to defend British possessions elsewhere, such as Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands. This would not be the invasion of an enemy but the rescue of a friend, and would not need the kind of force that we are presently using in Afghanistan.</p><p>The French have the same problem with their overseas territories so they are again a natural ally.</p><p>John Day,</p><p>Port Solent, Hampshire</p><p>Why we are in Afghanistan</p><p>Dr Mark Campbell-Roddis (letter, 14 October) has a short memory. We went into Afghanistan because of the 9/11 attack in New York, planned and carried out by Bin Laden, who escaped from Afghanistan years ago. So why are we still there, killing thousands of innocent people?</p><p>I quote the words of the late Peter Ustinov: "Terrorism is war of the poor and powerless. War is terrorism of the rich and powerful."</p><p>Celine Skinner,</p><p>Coulsdon, Surrey</p><p>Grounded</p><p>A carrier at sea without aircraft is an Exocet strike waiting to happen. Portsmouth is rather short of car parks. The Royal Navy is rather short of money. Should the new flightless carrier be leased to NCP?</p><p>John Morris,</p><p>Worthing, West Sussex</p><p>***</p><p>Send letters by email to: letters@independent.co.uk</p><p>By post to: Letters to the Editor, The Independent, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5HF</p><p>By fax to: 020 7005 2399</p><p>Please include your street address and daytime phone number.</p><p>Letters may be edited. </p>?<p>In her second season at Celine ? the revitalised status label du jour ? designer Phoebe Philo certainly drove that message home. Narrow coats with funnel collars and impeccably cut shift dresses with big leather pockets were the stuff that fashion editors' ? and perhaps even more so, buyers' ? dreams are made of. And so too were vertiginous black suede loafers and riding boots with polished gold heels. This was a cleverly thought out and executed collection of real clothes ? and real clothes are the story of the season ? promoting a basically minimal mindset that was present on this as well as many other catwalks.</p><p>Yohji Yamamoto's aesthetic has its roots in men's workwear, and this season saw an immensely dignified and impeccably edited reprisal of this particular theme. Although Yamamoto is most famous for his allegiance to black he has also always been in love with navy, and navy gabardine in particular. So here were some of the finest coats, fisherman-knit dresses and kilts suspended from a single diagonal strap, jumpsuits and overblown skirts.</p><p>In the Future</p><p>"The revenge of nice clothes" was how one fashion editor in particular summed up the season, and it is true that the catwalks were less pyrotechnic this time around and ? for editorial purposes at least ? potentially challenging for that.</p><p>It would be all too easy for Nicolas Ghesquiere, designer at Balenciaga, to send out an impeccable collection of tailoring ? his is some of the finest in the business. While the Balenciaga selling collection will no doubt include such staples, Ghesquiere's main line is more of a laboratory, or "the brains" of the label, as he puts it. And this designer has more ideas than most of those working in fashion put together.</p><p>There was, as always, a futuristic feel to bright white, quilted coats with scaled up collars, knitwear that stood away from the body in Pop Art colours, and a final sequence of "bubble" dresses ? shot through with text from the French press critiquing the art world ? in equally pretty, but this time metallic, hues. Fabrics were as technically advanced and difficult-to-identify as ever, as experimentation dominated on every level and throughout.</p><p>No one would ever expect Comme des Garcons' Rei Kawakubo to play safe either ? it's simply not in her nature. Even by this great designer's standards, however, clothing that boasted organically shaped padding trapped between layers of classic Comme des Garcons fabric ? from pinstriped wool to demi-sheer polyester ? making models appear at least twice their real size, was "strong", to use that company's own parlance. The idea, according to a spokesperson, was to externalise the way in which we protect our inner selves, and it was a lovely one ? as indeed were the clothes.</p><p>In a Jacket</p><p>There's been an emphasis on the jacket for some time, but this season there's more choice than ever. Stefano Pilati's collection for Yves Saint Laurent, which was black almost in its entirety, boasted a fine selection ? this is the spiritual home of the Le Smoking tuxedo. In particular, a fluidly tailored design, wearable with arms in or out of sleeves and teamed with wide-legged trousers, was the height of elegance. For his finale, Pilati introduced a sequence of vivid shades.</p><p>Cocktail dresses in fuchsia, emerald, violet and gold were pure Yves Saint Laurent in flavour. More tailored jackets were on display at Givenchy, where models with sparkling crimson pouts wore inky black tailoring with a markedly Gothic edge, at Stella McCartney where mid-Nineties minimalism was key, and at Hussein Chalayan, whose American road trip opened with the type of androgynous, no-frills look loved by the New York uptown girl. Chalayan's collection was remarkable for its authenticity: he is as determined to maintain individuality as he is to dress women in an interesting and elegant manner.</p><p>In the Cold</p><p>Controversially, and for the first time in years, autumn/winter clothing actually looked like autumn/winter clothing this season. Oversized knitted bed jackets woven with ribbon in sugared almond colours were as pretty as a picture at Dior. Snow boots lined with faux fur as white and fluffy as cotton wool were the order of the day at Junya Watanabe, and as for Chanel on ice ? think yeti boots with Perspex heels...</p><p>The most beautiful coat of the season was, perhaps, Alber Elbaz's black blanket design for Lanvin. With a broad, softly rounded, dropped shoulder, and nothing but a giant safety pin disrupting its soft surface, this was a fine example of why Elbaz ? a technician par excellence with a proudly romantic heart ? is continuing to whip up a quiet storm at that label. From the sublime to the plain insane over at John Galliano, where fashion's favourite fantasist had what is described in fashion circles as "a moment", with quite the bravest, boldest coats imaginable ? best with a dropped waist and big bouncing skirt, and worn with equally oversized hat. This came courtesy, as always, of the milliner Stephen Jones.</p><p>In the Army</p><p>Patch pockets, epaulettes, camouflage prints and a veritable deluge of green were on display everywhere in Paris. Demonstrating a technical virtuosity that is second to none, Junya Watanabe's intricately worked flight and bomber jackets and parkas, army rib knits and softer pleated, draped and folded jersey dresses and skirts were an exploration of this particular theme from start to finish. Then there were sweet puffed taffeta skirts in sludgy military hues and sprouting silver-grey fringing at Vivienne Westwood, and cavalry jackets in tweedy fabrics worn with ruffled chiffon at Dior. At Dries Van Noten, meanwhile, army green jackets, coats, jodhpurs, skirts and more saw the designer adapting a principally functional mindset to suitably metropolitan effect; very chic in a quintessentially Parisian manner. Also of note here were ultra-luxe sweatshirts that were perhaps the most desirable take on the re-emergence of sportswear-influenced clothing of the season. They looked brilliant worn with opalescent dirndl skirts.</p>?<p>Some 360,000 families make swift exits from their properties each year because of disruptive neighbours; whether it's down to extensive and seemingly unnecessary redevelopment of high-value houses in classy parts of town, or aggression, violence and fear on sink estates, the effect of disputes can take a huge toll. Long-term mental scars can be caused by the constant stand-offs, but there are also financial costs related to trying to put things right ? including the ultimate solution of moving house.</p><p>There are countless ways in which neighbours irritate us, and while they are finding new ways to do so, we're inventing new ways in which we can take offence. A quick survey undertaken on Twitter to unearth stories of readers' altercations with neighbours returned dozens of answers ranging from the distressing to the amusing ? but they were mostly centred around the way people's otherwise-private behaviour suddenly becomes public.</p><p>This can encompass things like unwelcome displays of nudity or out-of-control pets, but the most obvious manifestation is noise; the past 20 years have seen a soaring number of complaints about domestic noise to environmental health officers, and while much of this may be down to our increased awareness of our right to complain, the problem of nuisance noise is endemic ? despite the threat of £5,000 fines and prosecution for the worst offenders.</p><p>But while local authorities struggle to cope with the number of noise-related disputes they're requested to attend with decibel meters, there is little acknowledgement of the disruptive effects of noises that may not reach the required threshold for action to be taken ? in other words, it's not all about volume.</p><p>Richard Moore, who lives in Dalston, east London, describes his experience of an upstairs neighbour with a Celine Dion fixation: "Night or day, she only plays two songs, "The Power Of Love" and "Think Twice". Again and again. Sometimes just one repeated, sometimes both repeated, sometimes one skipped to go to the other, and then impatiently back to the first."</p><p>Elizabeth Stokoe, professor of social interaction at Loughborough University, wrote a paper in 2005 that examined public manifestation of people's domestic lives, and she acknowledges the potential for low-level irritations to grow into something far greater ? particularly in the case of noise. "You can't disattend those things," she says. "It's similar to the way you start to hear your own clock ticking at night, and then you can't stop hearing it, and you need to take the battery out to sleep."</p><p>Many neighbour disputes centre around such things; others might deem them insignificant, they can't be easily complained about, and they're more difficult to mediate. "You come across people who, for example, want to appropriate public space," says Stokoe. "For example, people get upset about somebody parking outside their home but they don't own the street."</p><p>The recent case of a skip falling through a Chelsea street and becoming embedded following basement excavations in one property would be a more understandable reason for residents' fury but we can become just as distressed over something as inconsequential as a neighbour painting their fence an unpleasant shade. "You do get people putting things on their house or on their roof or in their garden," says Stokoe, "and if neighbours can see that when they look out of their homes, some will attempt to appropriate the view, as well. They want control over that. But it's very hard to work that up into a valid complaint and not come across as unreasonable."</p><p>A story emerged a couple of weeks ago concerning a dispute between Charles Saatchi and his wife Nigella Lawson and their Belgravia neighbours that provides a vivid example of this. Saatchi objected to some scaffolding that had long-obscured the view from the back of his home; he eventually snapped, took matters into his own hands and paid his own workmen to remove the scaffolding, but in doing so caused an alleged £50,000 worth of damage to tiles. While some neighbours supported Saatchi's actions, others were baffled; one, Paulo Marques, expressed his view to a reporter that "some people will complain about anything". But while the anger that can be provoked by seemingly innocuous situations can be labelled irrational, it's incredibly hard to pinpoint the stage where genuine grievance spills over into intolerance.</p><p>"Small things to some people are big things to others," says Stokoe, "but once people are entrenched in a position it's like any other dispute ? it becomes incredibly hard for them to find their way back from that position." Anyone who, for example, observes their neighbours' inability to deal with refuse might sympathise with Saatchi's distress. But when neighbour disputes revolve around issues of aesthetics and personal preferences, arguments can become as disproportionate and intense as if everyone were living under the same roof.</p><p>The "menace" of leylandii is well documented; in many cases the fast-growing trees end up dwarfing houses, causing disputes that can sometimes turn violent. But while the law is clear on the permitted height of leylandii, and organisations campaign to keep them under control, a significant proportion of us would say: "What's the problem?" While inappropriately towering trees might provide an immediate indicator that all is not well in a neighbourhood, most neighbour disputes would go unnoticed by passers-by or prospective buyers of a property.</p><p>Homes are emotional purchases; we become invested in their suitability very quickly and the prospect of bad relationships with neighbours is rarely considered. According to Ed Mead, director of Douglas & Gordon estate agents, this is a big mistake.</p><p>"The single biggest thing that's going to affect your quality of life in a new home is the behaviour of your neighbours. But it's the one thing you're utterly powerless over ? so you have to ameliorate that problem to the biggest extent you can, while acknowledging that you're not really going to have a proper idea of what they're like until after you move in." While it's a drawback of property that it's impossible to "test run" it, Mead stresses that there are things you can do. "As part of your strategy you should go and spend time there on a Saturday afternoon or a Friday evening, just walking around the area. But I know from experience that less that 5 per cent of people will actually bother doing that kind of thing."</p><p>Under the terms of the Estate Agents Act and the Misrepresentation Act, sellers are obliged to tell prospective buyers about anything that would materially affect their purchase ? including unruly or unreasonable neighbours ? but according to Mead, people tend not to give these details a second thought. "This is particularly the case in a rising property market," he says, "because people figure that that if it's a disaster they'll just sell up and make a bit of money anyway. But at times like this, where people are more likely to stay put for longer, the neighbour issue needs to be looked into more seriously."</p><p>There is a small crumb of comfort for anyone embroiled in the problem of difficult neighbours, and that's that neighbourhoods are transitory states that are constantly changing; it's entirely possible that the people currently causing you distress may be gone in the near future. But it's a warning to the rest of us that such people may be heading in our direction. And that we may require all our powers of diplomacy to achieve that "perfect blend" so beloved of Ramsay Street.</p><p>CHATROOM COMPLAINERS</p><p>Neighbour complaints from Twitter: is this as bad as it gets?</p><br><br><p>@Cornettofairy My neighbours dug up my garden in the night, flattened it, and have put up a marquee which they use as a church.</p><br><br><p>@NadiaKamil I used to live beneath backpackers who at night threw themselves down the stairs & photographed it for fun.</p><br><br><p>@SoooooZee An ex-neighbour once stood outside & yelled "WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY LOUNGE?" Then stood there looking embarrassed until I closed the blinds.</p><br><br><p>@dodgrile An old neighbour used to superglue cigarette butts to my house and car in the middle of the night. That was fun.</p><br><br><p>@clarehr A neighbour appeared at the window opposite with a sign: "HELP I'm hostage at gunpoint." We called the police; when they arrived she denied all knowledge.</p><br><br><p>@jamescator I have a crazy preacher neighbour who rings a handbell at 4am for an hour whilst chanting religiously.</p><br><br><p>@karlhodge My neighbour bangs on my door at 6.30 in the morning shouting for "Andy". No one in my house is called Andy.</p><br><br><p>@moonjam One neighbour tried to drunkenly open our front door with their key. And put an entire washing machine in the communal bin.</p><br><br><p>@stuartdredge I had a neighbour who took a boat-load of strange drugs and ended up being led away after shooting our milkman with a BB gun.</p>?<p>"We are not together anymore," it read. "It's very difficult and very personal and we hope everyone can respect our privacy."</p><p>This break-up is the latest in a line of failed relationships for the 50-year-old serial monogamist, who is currently promoting his film The Ides of March, which will open in Venice this summer.</p><p>Despite having the looks and charisma of a matinee idol, Clooney is known for being unlucky in love. At least, that's how the thousands of women only too ready to settle down with him see it.</p><p>"I was married," Clooney told Piers Morgan in an interview last January. "I gave it a shot. I wouldn't have the patience and dedication you need to take care of a family. I admire those qualities in other people, but it's not for me."</p><p>He married actress Talia Balsam in Las Vegas in 1989, but the couple separated after four years, and Clooney's dance card has been marked by a series of models since then. In 1995, he dated TV presenter Karen Duffy; from 1996 to 1999, he was linked to Celine Balitran, a French law student from Paris, who was 23 and working as a waitress when she met him.</p><p>Balitran subsequently moved to LA to be with him, where her looks secured her modelling contracts with lingerie label Victoria's Secret, among others. Then came UK model and TV presenter Lisa Snowdon, who was on and then off again with the actor for five years, and more recently, Vegas waitress Sarah Larson, who Clooney dated for a year in 2007.</p><p>Despite his own stellar reputation, Clooney has had relationships with fairly low-profile and ordinary (beyond their incomparable beauty, of course) women ? friends say this is to do with the actor's own rather modest, and often humble, outlook on life and the nature of his fame.</p><p>"I am sincerely fond of him," said actress Tilda Swinton in 2008. She became firm friends with Clooney when they worked on Michael Clayton and Burn After Reading together.</p><p>"Would it be too peculiar to say that I feel somehow protective of him? He tends to decide the mood of the room, which must feel like a bit of a strain for him. I don't know whether he always found himself in this position, or if this is a by-product of superstardom."</p><p>Certainly, Clooney is known to see his career as a vocation, and takes his duties to his fans very seriously.</p><p>Such is his solicitousness and reputation for being a "nice guy" that Michelle Pfeiffer, his co-star in 1996's One Fine Day, once bet him $100 that he would marry again (Clooney dated Pfeiffer's sister Dedee in the early 1980s). He took the bet and let it inflate to $100,000 (£62,260).</p><p>Nicole Kidman, with whom he starred in The Peacemaker in 1997, also bet $10,000 that he would be a father by his 40th birthday. When she was proved wrong, Kidman sent Clooney a cheque, which was duly returned with a note that read: "Double or nothing for another 10 years."</p><p>"If I need to surround myself with children and feel like I have this big extended family. I can always call Brad and Angie [Pitt and Jolie] and ask them to stay with me, just to remind me why I'm so happy," Clooney said in his Piers Morgan interview.</p><p>"I'm a firm believer in marriage," his most recent ex, Canalis, told an Italian magazine this month. "In the future, I will be married, but for the time being, I'm happy as I am." She also told journalists that she expected the maternal instinct to kick in at some point "like a lightning bolt".</p><p>Clooney was clearly frightened off by the remarks. He often plays lone wolf characters in his films, such as Syriana and Michael Clayton, both of which feature isolated and unsocialised protagonists. In both films, his love interests, Greta Scacchi and Jennfier Ehle respectively, were written out with Clooney's approval. "If he's loved, then he has a buffer," he told the New Yorker of the Clayton character in 2008, "and somehow it isn't as awful."</p><p>But despite this, Clooney is known for his fun-loving and sociable side, not to mention his voracious enjoyment of the company of attractive women. "Who wants 70 virgins?" he joked in 2005 about suicide bombers. "I want eight pros."</p><p>He also owns an 18th century villa on the edge of Lake Como, to which he regularly invites friends and holds large parties; it became a regular haunt for the fabulous during Milan's twice-yearly menswear shows.</p><p>"He loves the guys and the camaraderie of the guys," actor and friend Richard Kind told the press.</p><p>Clooney has a soft spot for practical jokes, and once bought a fleet of motorbikes for him and his friends. "I have my friends ? nine guys for 25 years," he has said. "They're the guys I see every Sunday."</p><p>In other words, being George Clooney's girlfriend seems an auxiliary and temporary role, calling to mind Hollywood's great golden age romancers Errol Flynn and Clark Gable. And what more might you expect from a man who once sold a kiss at a charity auction for more than £200,000?</p><p>Ladies, form an orderly queue ? just don't expect a happily ever after.</p>?<p>Wilson, director of the celebrated Central Saint Martins MA fashion course, is showing me around the college's new campus in London's King's Cross. Known as the Granary Building, it opens to students on Monday. And she's on a roll. She talks ? that's when she's not shouting or laughing, both of which she does a lot ? at breakneck speed, jumping between subjects. The efficiency (or lack of it) of builders, the wonders of fold-down hooks and enormous mirrors might capture her attention one minute; government cuts, the mores of the fashion industry or a high-octane tutorial consume her the next. She is brilliantly intelligent, relentlessly quick-witted, side-splittingly funny and, above all, passionate. Saying exactly what she thinks is something she does as if she just can't help herself. Her lack of diplomacy is dazzling.</p><p>Her reputation as a formidable taskmaster ? and even fiercer critic ? precedes her. Wilson is the single most well-known fashion educator, certainly in this country, if not the world. But her success rate is more remarkable still. She's run the course in question since 1992 and, with a skeleton, cleverly chosen team, has seen everyone from Christopher Kane to Mary Katrantzou and from Louise Gray to Louise Goldin make it on to the professional catwalk in recent years, to name but a few. She gets frustrated, she says, by the description "star maker" because that overlooks the fact that her former students are also currently in significant positions behind the scenes at Louis Vuitton, Celine, Lanvin, Balenciaga. Pick an internationally-respected label ? any label ? and the chances are they will be there. Over 90 per cent of her graduates go straight into employment. And that is unprecedented.</p><p>We meet a month before the college opens its doors and building work is still in progress. "Look for the bathroom shop. It's opposite that. I'll meet you at the front gates because I'm kind," she says by way of directions. We grab a cup of tea at the local cafe that can hardly be described as heaving ("They're not going to know what's hit them when over 3,000 students turn up here") and then move into Granary Square. In fact, the new school will eventually house around 4,500 students.</p><p>"I think I'll miss John Lewis," Wilson says of her relocation from Charing Cross Road, where the fashion arm has resided for decades ? John Galliano, Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan are among those who cut their teeth there. "I'll have to go to John Lewis on my weekends off. That's it. I can put it as succinctly as that." Saturday trips to Britain's favourite department store aside, Wilson is determinedly upbeat, and this despite the fact that the project has attracted its fair share of critics. How will Central Saint Martins (CSM) function without the seedy environs of Soho to inspire its students? Given that Soho is about as seedy these days as Henley-on-Thames, that is unconvincing. Or, didn't the formerly make-do-and-mend facilities make students all the more resourceful? In light of the magnificence of the space students will soon occupy, this appears retrogressive in the extreme. Far from being counter-creative, this is a site that maintains many of its original features ? expanses of the most beautiful old brickwork have been left exposed, ranks of original columns support floors and ceilings. They are fused with a spare and appropriately industrial modernity that ensures the atmosphere is as raw-edged and expressive as might best befit its soon-to-be occupants. The scale of the place, meanwhile, is nothing short of awe-inspiring.</p><p>"You can't refuse to move forward when you're educating in design," Wilson says, "because that's what we're asking students to do the whole time." She's been working throughout the summer moving materials, putting fixtures and fittings into place and supervising the installation of everything from Pax wardrobes ("I love Ikea, it's non-design but it works") to cutting tables. "It's all focused and completely rejuvenating. When you're responsible for leading a group of young people, you have to be positive. If you're not, you shouldn't be in your job, should you?"</p><p>There's much to be happy about. The college press department estimates that 2.4 million man hours spread out over 882 days have gone into the development to date. Overall, it boasts a massive 10 acres of floor area. "There are so many unique spaces," project director, Phil Crew, says in the most recent edition of CSM Time magazine. "You can't walk more than 20 steps without entering a completely different environment. It's not just a formulaic collection of identical studios, it is a collection of spaces that have been adapted to Central Saint Martins' needs." The art studios, for example, have walls of windows facing on to a terrace and ideally positioned to catch north-easterly light.</p><p>Both BA and MA fashion courses are known for their excellence worldwide, but the college's reputation as a hive of creativity is by no means restricted to the design of clothing. Central Saint Martins is also alma mater to artists Gilbert & George, Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach; Harold Pinter, Mike Leigh, Sade, Polly Harvey and the Clash are all former alumni. The Sex Pistols played their first ever show there. In recent years, cross-fertilisation between disciplines has been hampered by the fact that students have worked in separate buildings scattered across London. At Granary Building, they will all be in one place.</p><p>"Until now, we had lots of different buildings all over the place and that's not really a community," the head of college, Jane Rapley, confirms. "And the original Saint Martins [School of Art & Design] and the original Central [School of Speech and Drama ? the two merged in 1989] were not about ghettos. They were about students mixing with each other. As we've got bigger and bigger, that has become more difficult. Very often the most interesting stuff is where the disciplines start to overlap and you get someone like Hussein Chalayan or Anna-Nicole Ziesche. It's that overlap that really gets the new thinking going."</p><p>On a practical level, too, the move was necessary. "In terms of all sorts of legislation, to update our old building was going to cost more than developing this one," Rapley argues. "And the logistics of doing it would have been an utter nightmare and would have taken twice as long."</p><br><br><p>even so, such an ambitious project has not been cheap. Central Saint Martins is part of the University of the Arts London (UAL) ? the London College of Fashion, London College of Communications, Wimbledon, Camberwell and Chelsea are all under its umbrella. "The Central Saint Martins redevelopment has cost just under £200 million," the UAL rector, Nigel Carrington, explains, "which is a very big number at any time." UAL has been responsible for funding the development, which has been achieved "by a combination of selling our old properties and borrowing £100 million. I think there's been some perception in the media that we had a choice, but at least some of our properties were rented and the leases were coming to an end. Central Saint Martins has been a world centre of excellence for a very long time and we knew we had to do something to ensure the best long-term facilities."</p><p>For her part, Wilson is no stranger to raising money in an economic climate which is squeezing education, and arts education in particular, like never before. She works with the fashion industry's main players continuously, many of whom sponsor course projects on a regular basis. Last year, she launched a fund asking designers and retailers to contribute £20,000 to the college's benefit. So far, Donatella Versace, Alexander McQueen, John Rocha, Net-a-Porter, Converse, Stella McCartney, Joan Burstein, American Express and Dries Van Noten are among the 21 companies that have chosen to donate ? maintaining a healthy working relationship with Wilson and her team is nothing if not a sound investment for the future.</p><p>"Yes, the Government should support education," Wilson says, "but times have changed, the system is changing and because of that it is vital to partner with industry to ensure that talent can always be supported. It can be quite a small amount of money for a company but it makes a big difference to four or five students. Because education has always been there, it's never been in any doubt. If the NHS is failing then there's an uproar about it, but it is a given that we have great art colleges. Now you do have fees, you do have the recession and, whether they understand it or not, people need to support it. This is an art college and it feeds into all the industries so I feel very passionately about that."</p><p>louise wilson was born in Cambridge and grew up on the Scottish Borders ? "my formative education was in Jedburgh." She describes her father as a "gentleman farmer" and merchant banker; her mother "dealt in antiques and things like that. Flower arranging. Member of this. Member of that. Horses. She had a very active life. She loved beautiful things. She owned Dior couture. That makes her sound fabulous but it's true. And there were always copies of Vogue around the house."</p><p>At school, Wilson excelled in art. "In those days, fashion didn't exist like it does now. You had Wallis shops and they had a bad YSL rip-off and that was about it. So you made your own clothes to go out in at the weekend. You did home economics at school. You bought your bits of fabric and you sewed. It seems very quaint now."</p><p>Advised by her teachers to pursue further education, she applied to and was awarded a place on the MA fashion course at Saint Martins. "There wasn't really any press on the colleges back then," she says, "but everyone knew about Saint Martins. Still, it was within your grasp. It worries me now because I hear anecdotally that people are told they shouldn't try for it, because they won't get in ? but that's totally wrong. It's usually the student who's being told that who will. You know, apply, because it's about the work and we're looking for many different things. There's no given formula."</p><p>At the time Wilson was a student, Bobby Hillson, famous for identifying the talent of Alexander McQueen in particular, ran the course. She also founded it.</p><p>"I was much thinner then," Wilson says of herself as a student, "and wore white mascara. That was very trendy at the time. And so were Japanese designers. We all saved up and bought their clothes at that Yohji shop at the bottom of South Molton Street and then starved to make up for it. That was my time. Leigh Bowery, Andy Warhol, Cafe de Paris. I think the difference between then and now is that young people know a lot more about fashion today. I was taught by Ossie Clark but Ossie Clark wasn't Ossie Clark to us because there hadn't been a resurgence of people wearing his vintage. It sounds so disrespectful and if I had my time again I would make absolute use of being taught by Ossie Clark..." She pauses for thought. "But then maybe when you're young, the beauty of it is that you really don't think anybody else is much good, do you? And that's the way it should be."</p><p>After graduation, Wilson worked first in Italy for Les Copains and Gianfranco Ferre and in Paris for Daniel Hechter. After that came a spell designing for denim companies, including Guess jeans. In the early 1990s, she became pregnant and moved back to London to teach as an associate lecturer on the Saint Martins MA fashion course and then, following Hillson's retirement, as director.</p><p>In 1997, Wilson was head-hunted by Donna Karan and became creative director there. "There was this seismic change in education and in art colleges in particular and it all became research-driven," she says. "The Government gave schools more money if they had a research rating. I did feel I wasn't valued. I didn't spend ages thinking about, you know, fabrics that massage your arms or anything. I was much more about true fashion, about gut instinct."</p><p>She stayed in New York for two years. "When I arrived in America, I remember it vividly, they were all sitting at their desks every morning reading Women's Wear Daily. I read i-D and Dazed and just thought, 'Why on earth would you want to do that?'. It just left my jaw on the table." It's difficult to imagine corporate life suiting Louise Wilson and it is therefore not surprising that, before long, she returned to her old job, although now with a professorship. "I continued working for Donna until 2002, though," she says. "I did both. Donna would wake up as I got home from here. I remember getting massive boils all over me. Talk about burning the candle at both ends. I loved it in a way. I love hard work, energy, feeling involved."</p><p>The designer Peter Jensen, Wilson's former student and now head of menswear on her team, will testify to that. "I do teach at other colleges and there's a huge difference," he says. "Louise works on every single little thing, with every single student. I think she knows exactly what it is that each person is about and where the value of their work lies and even if she doesn't like that work she still wants them to do the best they possibly can."</p><br><br><p>much has been made of the tears-and-tiaras-style theatrics for which Wilson is famous. "It's sort of true and not true," Jensen says, laughing. "She will hate me for telling you this but there was one time when she was screaming so much at the students that I literally thought she was going to have a heart attack and die right there on the cutting table. I had to tell them all to leave to make it stop, but then she just started screaming at me." Emma Cook, another of Wilson's proteges, has said that she'd rather not share her memories of Wilson's tutorials, because "I'm worried she might be arrested if we put it into print".</p><p>"But all those stories, really, that's not what it's about," Jensen concludes. "Louise is scary. Of course she is scary. But what you always have to remember is that she really, really cares."</p><p>Missing from Louise Wilson's new and still far from finished office is a sign that occupied her former lair. It reads: "Same shit, different year". "That's what it's like," she says. "It's the same set of problems, the same small group of students that cry. But they're not really crying because of what I do, they're crying because of the state they've got themselves into. They arrive here at the top of their game and then they plummet to become the worst students known to man. I think that every MA course has that effect. They don't understand about sourcing and sponsorship and context. I hate the word 'market' but it's very valid. Where does their work sit and why? So then they have to climb up to the top again. They cry. I cry. I cry in front of them all time. It gets emotional."</p><p>"Louise puts them through it, she won't compromise," says Jane Rapley. "She takes them apart and then she reconstructs them. Teaching is a fix for her. She loves it. The way our culture and education system is going, everything is becoming homogenised and that worries me. What I've always said about Central Saint Martins is that it's about managed anarchy and that's exactly what it should be. Louise is a one-off and she's the sort of one-off who fits in a place like this. If we can't host people who are that passionate, that outspoken, that unconventional, then this place shouldn't exist."</p><p>Today, Wilson is an institution, but it wasn't always that way. "I'm of an age now where we've all grown up together," she says. She's 48. "When I took over the course it was a different age and I knew hardly anybody in the fashion industry. Alastair Mackie, who I taught, is now a seminal stylist. I didn't know a seminal stylist in 1992. I don't think there were any. I know Kim Jones. He's design director of Louis Vuitton menswear. I didn't know the design director of Louis Vuitton back in 1995. Was there one? So I've amassed knowledge which it would be very foolish of the university not to tap into. I'm interested in the industry and, yes, I understand education, my business is education. But I try to sit on the periphery of all of it."</p><p>Above all, she says, and for all her outspokenness, she loves working with her students ? teaching is her life blood. "As much as I might decry the students, as much as they're a nightmare, it is a privilege to be among youth. I'm 50. I'm walking about town and there's no way that young people would be stopping and speaking to you normally. But they do because I'm working with them, I taught them. There's no way in real life I would be going out for a drink with Christopher Kane because our age group is different. We would never have met. In fashion, you're very privileged because you're consistently working with a vanguard of youth."</p><p>Should anyone think that Louise Wilson might just be romanticising her position, she's quick to assert that that is far from the case. "People always ask me, are you proud of the students or of what has been achieved, but that's not a word I would ever use," she says.</p><p>"When one group has gone, you're just relieved. They've gone. You start again. You think to yourself: 'Wow, we got through that'. And I think that's the ethos of the course and in fact of Central Saint Martins as a whole. 'Wow, we got through that'."</p>?<p>"In L'Amour A 20 Ans, Colette was mean to Antoine, thought of him only as a kind of surrogate brother, while he was clearly head over heels in love with her," said Pisier. "So Francois thought of reuniting the characters to see whether they had learned anything from what had been a platonic, one-sided relationship." She suggested switching Colette's adult job from psychoanalyst to lawyer, a knowing reference to the fact that, during the 1960s the actress had honoured a promise to her mother and completed a law degree in parallel with her film career.</p><p>Pisier was also a favourite of the director Andre Techine, who cast her in four films, including Barocco, a political thriller starring Isabelle Adjani and Gerard Depardieu, for which she won the Best Actress ? Supporting Role Cesar in 1977. The previous year, she had won the same award for her "Second Role" as the jealous wife of Victor Lanoux, who seems to only have eyes for his distant cousin Marie-Christine Barrault in Cousin, Cousine, Jean-Charles Tacchella's engaging comedy. That film's international success brought an offer from 20th Century Fox to star in the revenge drama The Other Side Of Midnight but the movie was eclipsed by the studio's 1977 release, Star Wars.</p><p>Considered an intellectual, Pisier was a supporter of the left and an advocate of women's rights. During "Les Evenements" of May 1968, she helped smuggle her then-boyfriend Daniel Cohn-Bendit from Germany back to France. "I dyed his red hair in the bath," she recalled. "The colour was awful. When he showed up for the next protest meeting at La Sorbonne, people were horrified." In April 1971 she was one of the celebrities who admitted to an illegal abortion and signed Simone de Beauvoir's pro-abortion Manifeste Des 343 Salopes published in the weekly news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur.</p><p>However, she always tried to avoid being pigeonholed. "It didn't help my career because people, including film directors, are more comfortable when they can put a label on you. And that can help you become a star but it also gets in the way," she explained. She featured on the covers of Lui ? holding a machine gun and wearing black leather boots ? in 1966, and the French edition of Playboy in June 1979, "to prove that a face can be sexier than a body" as she put it, and she was nicknamed "Miss Cinematheque" by Jean-Paul Belmondo, with whom she starred in the 1976 thriller Le Corps De Mon Ennemi, and L'as Des As, the 1982 Second World War comedy which attracted over five million cinema-goers in France.</p><p>She was born in 1944 in Dalat in what was then French Indochina, and is now Vietnam, where her father was governor, but she had a far from charmed childhood in New Caledonia and then the south of France. "My parents divorced when I was very young and the sentimental fall-out lasted for years," she said. "I saw my mother struggle to bring up three children. She had abandoned her studies to marry my father, so when she insisted I pass my baccalaureat and continue with my law degree alongside my film career, I understood where she was coming from. Women need qualifications to assert their independence."</p><p>By the mid-1950s, Pisier was living in Nice, and taking part in amateur dramatics. In 1961, Mario Brun, a local photographer, showed her picture to Truffaut, who was looking for "a real teenage girl, not a Lolita, not a biker type, nor a little woman. Must be fresh and cheerful. Not too sexy," to cast opposite Leaud. Her screen test unearthed a "very modern, very frank, very direct girl," according to Truffaut, who made a habit of falling for his leading ladies. "He wouldn't really look at me. He seemed only interested in my voice. He said it was my best asset but also a handicap," she recalled, alluding to her occasionally staccato delivery.</p><p>After Love At Twenty, she made several genre films with the actor-director Robert Hossein, most notably as a German cabaret singer in Le Vampire de Dusseldorf in 1964. Two years later, the Nouveau Roman author Robbe-Grillet cast her in Trans-Europ-Express, a picture vaguely reminiscent of Last Year In Marienbad, the film he had written for Alain Resnais at the start of the '60s. In 1974, she appeared in Le Fantome de la liberte (The Phantom Of Liberty), the penultimate picture by Luis Bunuel, and Rivette's bewitching fantasy Celine Et Julie Vont En Bateau (Celine and Julie Go Boating), another film she co-wrote.</p><p>A versatile actress, Pisier became a fixture on television screens in continental Europe with Les Gens De Mogador, a period drama series that began airing at the end of 1972, and periodically returned to television and the theatre throughout her career.</p><p>Souvenirs D'En France (French Provincial, 1975), her second film with Techine, was another family saga, while in Les S?urs Bronte (1979) by the same director, she played Charlotte to Adjani's Emily and Isabelle Huppert's Anne. Apart from Chanel Solitaire, a 1981 British-French coproduction in which she portrayed Coco Chanel, few of her '80s and '90s pictures gained a UK release, though Pourquoi Pas Moi? (Why Not Me? 1999) won plaudits at lesbian and gay film festivals, and Le Temps Retrouve (Time Regained), adapted from the Proust by director Raul Ruiz, and starring Catherine Deneuve and Emmanuelle Beart, was nominated for the Palme D'Or at Cannes in 1999. In her last film she was cast against type, as a slightly racist bourgeoise, in Anne Depetrini's Il Reste Du Jambon? (Any Ham Left?) in 2010.</p><p>Pisier directed two autobiographical pictures, Le Bal Du Gouverneur (The Governor's Party, 1990) from her best-selling novel, with Kristin Scott Thomas in the lead, and Comme Un Avion (Like An Airplane, 2002), which dealt with the suicides of her parents. She was found dead by her husband in her swimming pool at their second home, in Saint-Cyr-Sur-Mer. The cause of death is being investigated but foul play is not suspected. She was looking forward to participating in a tribute to Belmondo at the Cannes Film Festival next month.</p><p>Pierre Perrone</p><p>Marie-France Claire Pisier, actress, writer, director: born Dalat, French Indochina (Vietnam) 10 May 1944; married firstly Georges Kiejman (marriage dissolved; one son), secondly Thierry Funck-Brentano (one son, one daughter); died Saint-Cyr-Sur-Mer, France 24 April 2011.</p>?<p>Promoted to the Cabinet in the misapprehension that he is the grandson of Jackie Milburn, whom Mr Tony Blair saw at St James's Park while a foetus, Wor Alan is an inspired choice.</p><p>Although there was no more vigorous defender of the New Labour policies that produced the most dramatic reversal of social mobility for decades, his own life beautifully illuminates the escape route from childhood poverty. Become a Trot, jettison everything you once professed to believe when it becomes expedient, ingratiate yourself with power, fight for policies such as university top-up fees that might have prevented the young Alan escaping his own working-class roots, and flounce out of government to make some dough when the going gets sticky. Do all this, and you too might one day pick up an annual £30,000 for spending a few days as "an adviser" to private healthcare firms and the global warrior for social justice that is Pepsi-Cola.</p><p>* If there's one facile criticism of newspapers that drives me mad, it's the one about online message boards being a repository for the embittered, deranged and not so bright. Take this, posted last week on the Daily Mail site beneath a report about an academic's musings on the eventual need for the human race to colonise space. "I believe next to nobody would listen to Stephen Hawking if he wasn't crippled in a wheelchair," wrote CBD from Melbourne. "I'm not saying he doesn't have the right to his views, but if he was another astrophysicist who talked and walked around the same as the rest of us do, his views wouldn't get listened to nearly as much ..." Now who could argue with that?</p><p>* Not everyone is as thrilled as Alan Milburn by his new appointment, alas, and as ever when a former colleague is called to service by the coalition, John Prescott denounces him as a "collaborator". Once again, the mouth of the Humber makes a mistake. The term that Baron Prescott of Croquet-Mallet in the County of Hyprocrishire was seeking but failed to find is "class traitor". If it hasn't come to him soon, perhaps one of his new pals on the red benches might help him out.</p><br><br><p>* Returning to Sir Philip Green, it was good to hear him tell the Today programme that the Monaco residency of his wife, nominal owner of Arcadia, in no way makes her a tax exile. Once Greeny has the cost-slashing under control ? his first moves will be to cancel the booking of Beyonce for the Dept of Work and Pensions Christmas party, I gather ? no doubt he'll find a moment to explain any semantical distinction.</p><br><br><p>* As that interview ended, meanwhile, a presenter emitted what was either a mirthful snort or a cough. I suspect it was Jim Naughtie chuckling over his script for the one-man show ? a few ballads, some whimsical stand-up about his 2005 reference to the Labour party as "we", a finale involving the Dagenham Girl Pipers and Bernie Clifton's ostrich ? he is taking to Colchester's Mercury theatre on Friday evening. If the show is a hit, Jim could take it to Vegas, where he is regarded as the ideal warm-up act for Celine Dion at Caesar's Palace.</p><br><br><p>* The campaign to reopen Dr David Kelly's inquest has its most significant boost so far, thanks to a David Aaronovitch Times column headlined "There is no mystery over David Kelly's death". In the light of this contribution from the man who said he'd never trust a word any politician said again if no WMD were discovered in Iraq, the Justice Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, is expected to announce a fresh inquest within the week. </p>?<p>The Montreal, Quebec-based entertainers have created "Michael Jackson The Immortal World Tour," set to debut October 2011 with ticket sales beginning November 6.<br><br>The writer and director of the show will be Jamie King, it was announced yesterday. King has been Madonna's creative director for the last dozen years, including her 2008 Sticky and Sweet world tour, and has also worked with Rihanna, Celine Dion, Asian superstar Rain, Pink, and Christina Aguilera.<br><br>The concept of the presentation centers on "Michael's inspirational Giving Tree - the wellspring of creativity where his love of music and dance, fairy tale and magic, and the fragile beauty of nature are unlocked," according to the release.<br><br>Cirque Du Soleil's fusion of visuals, dance, music, and acrobatic production will celebrate Jackson's legacy, featuring 60 international performers who showcase the King of Pop's choreography, literally turning "his signature moves upside down." The show has been approved by Jackson's estate.<br><br>Opening on October 2, 2011 at the Bell Centre in Cirque's home of Montreal, the 30-city tour will cross Canada before debuting in the US in Seattle on November 9, 2011. Stops include Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver, Las Vegas, Miami, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Madison Square Garden in New York on April 3, 2012.<br><br>Exclusive presale tickets are available to Cirque Club members and MichaelJackson.com subscribers online until tickets go on sale to the general public Saturday at noon EST. Membership is free at .<br><br>Ticket prices, which range from $50 to $250 for VIP, can be purchased by calling 1-866-858-0008 or online at .<br><br><br><br>RC</p>?<p>Here are current and upcoming recording projects:</p><p>"Everybody Hurts"<br>Music impresario Simon Cowell organized an all-star rendition of the 1993 R.E.M. song "Everybody Hurts" in an effort to raise funds for the Haiti earthquake relief. Released to UK radio this week, the single can be downloaded on February 7 with the CD available the next day.<br>The 20 participating performers included Susan Boyle, Robbie Williams, Michael Buble, Rod Stewart, Leona Lewis, Jon Bon Jovi, James Blunt, Mariah Carey, and Kylie Minogue, plus more. Funds will be split between the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) and the Sun newspaper's Helping Haiti campaign.<br>Hear it at www.hmv.com, www.play.com and www.amazon.co.uk</p><p>"We Are the World"<br>Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie gathered a supergroup of more than 70 singers the day after the Grammy Awards to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Richie's "We Are the World," a song written with Michael Jackson in 1985 for African famine relief. The 2010 update will benefit Haiti earthquake relief.<br>Instead of Bruce Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper and Bob Dylan, this version included Usher, John Legend and Pink. The diverse talents ranged from Barbra Streisand to Kanye West, Celine Dion to Snoop Dogg, the Jonas Brothers to the Beach Boys, Miley Cyrus and Tony Bennett, and actors Jeff Bridges and Vince Vaughn.<br>The video, by Oscar-winning Crash director Paul Haggis, will debut February 12 during the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics.</p><p>"Bridge Over Troubled Water"<br>The Grammy tribute with soulful Mary J. Blige and tenor Andrea Bocelli performing "Bridge Over Troubled Water," by Simon and Garfunkel, at the Grammy Awards telecast was another effort to raise funds for Red Cross efforts in Haiti. The song and video are available at: iTunes.com/Target</p><p>'"SOS Saving Ourselves - Help for Haiti"<br>On February 5, another benefit event will be telecast from Miami's American Airlines Arena on BET (Black Entertainment Television), featuring performances by Ne-Yo, Justin Bieber, Keri Hilson, Chris Brown, Akon, Ludacris, Nas, Damian Marley, Busta Rhymes, India.Arie, Robin Thicke and more.<br>Hosted by Queen Latifah, Sean "Diddy" Combs and Pharrell, appearances include Missy Elliott, Gloria Estefan, Pete Wentz, and The Dream. In addition to BET, the show airs on MTV, VH1, and TNH in Haiti at 8 pm ET/PT. Tickets are available at www.ticketmaster.com. The show also streams live on www.bet.com<br>Proceeds benefit Yele Haiti, CARE, Project MediShare, and Children's Safe Drinking Water.</p><p>"Hope for Haiti Now"<br>MTV and George Clooney's telethon on January 22 has raised more than $66 million. Featuring Stevie Wonder, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Shakira, Christina Aguilera, Dave Matthews, Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Coldplay, Bono, Rihanna and Jay-Z, among the 21 all-star performances. The ‘Hope for Haiti Now" charity album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard.</p><p>RC</p><p>?</p>?<p>Eschewing Galliano's signature passion for bigger-than-life theatrics, the lower-key presentation saw some of the world's top models emerge from a tall mirrored door into two adjoining drawing rooms to pose in a limited number of outfits with an unmistakeable 1920s flavour.</p><p>Notable among the guests was Sidney Toledano, chief executive of Christian Dior, which abruptly fired Galliano - facing trial later this spring for alleged anti-Semitic remarks - on day one of Paris fashion week last Tuesday.</p><p>"In trying times, you have to move forward and stay the course," Toledano told AFP, adding that while he has never missed a Galliano show, he wanted this time "to be here to support the teams" which put the looks together.</p><p>Christian Dior, a cornerstone of French tycoon Bernard Arnault's global luxury goods empire, holds a majority stake in the John Galliano label.</p><p>The mood on Sunday was a world away from the funereal atmosphere that haunted the full-scale Christian Dior show on Friday where the venerable Paris fashion house resolutely distanced itself from its chief designer of 15 years.</p><p>Tactfully left unstated, too, was the fact that Sunday's elegant venue on Avenue Foch was the Hotel Blumenthal, built in 1900 for a rich American leather merchant and art collector of German Jewish heritage.</p><p>But while the 50-year-old designer is reportedly getting help for alcoholism at an exclusive substance abuse clinic in Arizona, his imagination - and his fascination with times past - very much informed the designs.</p><p>As Galliano would have had it, the teenaged American model Karlie Kloss opened the presentation in a checkered grey tweed jacket, mottled skirt cut just below the knee, and tall black felt hat.</p><p>More tweeds and furs followed, belted tightly at the waist, testifying to Galliano's strong sense of tailoring, with evening wear distinguished by sheer flowing fabrics in deep violet and somber green shades.</p><p>No doubt relieved not to walk a runway for a change, the models struck elegant poses against such trappings of 1920s decor as teddy bears, rocking horses, hunting-dog paintings and Louis XVI chairs.</p><p>Gibraltar-born and London-bred Galliano, 50, was seen by many as one of the finest designers of his generation before he was grilled by police over a complaint that he uttered anti-Semitic remarks at a chic Paris cafe.</p><p>Then a mobile-phone video emerged in which he is seen at the same cafe, La Perle, apparently drunk and saying "I love Hitler" - prompting Dior to sack him as prosecutors announced he would be charged over his purported remarks.</p><p>Through his lawyers in London, Galliano apologised for his conduct, but firmly denied being anti-Semitic.</p><p>But as he reportedly sought help for alcoholism - incidentally, only fresh fruit juice was served at Sunday's presentation - his future in fashion remains very much in question.</p><p>Equally unknown is who will follow him at the creative helm of Dior or the label that bears his name. Asked by AFP what thought has gone into naming a successor, Taledano just waved his hands and flashed a beguiling smile.</p><p>In other shows on Sunday, Phoebe Philo at Celine - another brand in the Arnault stable - did not fail to disappoint her many fans with a tastefully elegant fall-winter collection that blended leather and fur.</p><p>Hermes, the family-owned house that Arnault wants to acquire, unveiled its first collection from its new designer Christophe Lemaire, formerly at Lacoste, at its new Paris boutique situated in a one-time swimming pool.</p><p>Alexis Mabille meanwhile sent out styles for an insouciant and eclectic woman that mixed vintage and contemporary ideas and drew inspiration from the young couturier's far-flung travels.</p>?<p>The first record I bought was...</p><p>Alex: The Marshall Mathers LP. It was a little bit naughty, which I loved.</p><p>Rob: “Make Way For The Indian” by Apache Indian. I was about 14 and in town with some girls who loved hip hop, so I bought it thinking I'd look cool!</p><p>Jon: Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me”. I was young and naive! It was £2.50 on cassette.</p><p>Steve: “Spaceman” by Babylon Zoo. What a disappointment that was. Once the Levi’s ad chorus was over, it turned into a dirge.</p><p>Elliot: “Boom Shake The Room” by Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince. What a great track that was.</p><p>The first gig I went to was...</p><p>J: My own, supporting an even worse band than us at the YMCA in Chelmsford. We had no transport so I ended up standing in the rain after with my drums trying to hitch hike home.</p><p>A: Foo Fighters at Wembley Arena around 2001. They have such an incredible live sound and they’re such a tight band.</p><p>R: Cover bands down the local pub. The way even the worst 'dad bands' on the planet swooned the ladies sold it for me.</p><p>My favourite album is...</p><p>J: Muse, Origin of Symmetry. I worked out all the piano, bass and drum parts a month after getting it, and it made we want to become a musician. For that reason - thank you, Muse.</p><p>R: A Night At The Opera by Queen. I studied it at college and it’s mind-blowing. Some of it is so camp and in places it’s just plain weird, but it has a very high sentimental value.</p><p>E: Fat of The Land by The Prodigy. I remember listening to it for the first time and thinking “this will be a 'best of' album for years to come”. Every track was an anthem.</p><p>S: What's the Story Morning Glory by Oasis probably had me skipping the least amount of tracks. Noel Gallagher’s approach to melody and simple chord patterns has rubbed off on me, and he always manages to paint a great picture with his words.</p><p>But my parents always liked...</p><p>A: Frank Sinatra, Westlife and The Jam. I had to just ring my mum up and ask that, I didn’t have a clue!</p><p>E: Every car journey we’d listen to Eric Clapton Unplugged album or Otis Reading. Occasionally Celine Dion would come on and me and my brother would complain until it was removed from the CD player.</p><p>R: Chas ‘n’ Dave, honky tonk, soul and blues. Lots of cool influences.</p><p>S: My Dad is a big classical music fan, but I just don't have the attention span for it. My Mum likes Cliff Richard!</p><p>J: Country and Western - yuck! Every car journey as a kid, no matter where we went, it was Daniel O'Donnell or Tammy Wynette! When you’re force-fed it, it puts you off very quickly.</p><p>I couldn't marry someone who liked...</p><p>E: Death metal. I don't mind the occasional metal song, but not all day long. And Celine Dion fans should stay well away.</p><p>J: Bondage or Cher Lloyd.</p><p>A: Jedward or Glee.</p><p>R: Waking up too early in the morning, unless it was with a cup of tea, a Hob-Nob, or something of equal value.</p><p>S: I’m no music snob but if you're cranking up David Hasselhoff on every car journey, I think there would be issues.</p><p>In the studio I like to wear...</p><p>E: Something that’s not going to chafe. It’s got to be comfortable and stylish. It's important to look the part in the public eye, and you never know which band may be in studio two!</p><p>J: Something sexy or revealing, because the cameras are always rolling.</p><p>A: Dressing gown and slippers. I’m only a pipe away from being a 60-year old in the studio.</p><p>R: Something comfortable I can wipe my hands on - studio time is always accompanied by coffee and pizza.</p><p>S: I go for style over comfort. I like to look good when I'm working - it puts you in the right frame of mind.</p><p>I'd love to have on my show...</p><p>E: Charlie Sheen fuelled on Tiger Blood. Just imagine it.</p><p>A: The chuckle brothers Cameron and Clegg, Jeremy Paxman to give them all a good grilling, Jonathan Ross to take the mickey and Stephen Fry for his sarcasm. I'd ask a load of questions we rarely get to hear the answers for.</p><p>J: Jeremy Clarkson, so I could ask him in return to go on his show. You know you’ve made it when you do a lap on Top Gear.</p><p>S: Pyrotechnics. That’s when you know you've made it, when venues let you blow stuff up indoors!</p><p>One thing that must change in the music industry is…</p><p>A: Illegal downloads are crippling the industry. Young people today don’t expect to pay for music. At a festival this year a young girl about 14 came up to us and she was a massive fan. She told us she’d downloaded all our songs off of YouTube…</p><p>J: It’s piracy. When you spend more money than you have, and pour sweat and blood into a recording, it breaks your heart to see people ripping it off rather that spending 79p online.</p><p>E: The way artists get ripped off more than anyone. Behind the scenes, they are skint.</p><p>R: The amount of censorship and control. When you are a band who have something valid to say, the man still wants to shut you down.</p><p>A great album cover is...</p><p>E: The Prodigy’s Fat of The Land. I remember trawling through the shops looking for their new album. It was the coolest bit of artwork in the shop.</p><p>J: Nirvana’s Nevermind will go down as probably the greatest. Even today it’s on t-shirts and posters.</p><p>R: Green Day’s Dookie, because the whole thing is a doodle by Billy. As a scribbler myself, I thought that was ace.</p><p>S: Without blowing my own trumpet too much, I think our Greatest Show on Earth EP has awesome cover art. It sends a strong message about the problems our society is facing.</p><p>On my iPod I listen most to...</p><p>E: I've just bought the new Bon Iver album, I’m liking that.</p><p>A: One minute I’ll be listening to The Specials, the next I'll be screw-facing to some Dubstep, then relaxing to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” by The Beatles.</p><p>J: I love new metal: Linkin Park, Funeral For a Friend, Paramore. Something about that sound that makes me unwind.</p><p>S: A lot of Blur. We're working on tracks for album two and I’m starting to hear Graham Coxon and Damon Albarn influences.</p><p>If I could have written any song it would have been...</p><p>J: “Ghost Town” by The Specials. It’s the perfect song and very thought-provoking.</p><p>A: The orchestration for “I Am The Walrus” by The Beatles.</p><p>R: “I Get Around” by The Beach Boys.</p><p>S: Something like “London Calling”, “Guns of Brixton”or “That’s Entertainment”. Songs written in times of civil unrest, a snapshot of that moment in history.</p><p>E: “Billie Jean”. I’d love to write a song as timeless as that.</p><p>The worst song I’ve heard is…</p><p>A: “Swagger Jagger” by Cher Lloyd. Just awful. I hope most people bought it for a joke otherwise there's something really wrong [entire band agrees on choice].</p><p>J: “Friday” by Rebecca Black as well, though. I could write a book on how much that song has affected me and the rest of music as a whole.</p>?<p>So is it the glamour of Titanic that compels us? It's been dramatised so many times (many of them silly, some of them with Celine Dion to add to the anguish), that we feel we know this story inside out. The pathos is undeniable: bright young things wearing beautiful frocks, mingling with an impoverished underclass, all trying to reach the same few lifeboats.</p><p>The Titanic story is one in which myth and legend have become so tightly wound ? did the band really play on? Was it women and children first? Had the White Star Line really claimed the ship was "unsinkable"? ? that it has almost reached a separate level of truth, in which the narrative matters more to most of us (other than the Titanoraks ? a word I have happily discovered this week) than the facts.</p><p>But an undeniable fact about the whole affair is that it has had a dramatically higher impact on our news cycle today than either the death toll or the temporal distance can really explain. And the media is merely reflecting genuine public obsession: a memorial cruise even left Southampton 100 years to the day after Titanic did, full of high-paying passengers dressed in Edwardian outfits.</p><p>And given the enthusiasm for an anniversary in the media, those who aren't especially interested in Titanic have had a culturally deserted few weeks. By the time you'd switched off the Julian Fellowes programme (remembering in your irritation that Downton Abbey began with the sinking of Titanic, so it's not like you weren't warned), and discovered that the cinemas are showing a new 3D version of the James Cameron Titanic movie, you might have been tempted to go to see Battleship instead. And even that has ships sinking in it.</p><p>But you couldn't go and see football tomorrow to take your mind off it, at least not if you support Liverpool. Since the Hillsborough disaster on 15 April 1989, Liverpool have refused to play on its anniversary. While you might think this a perfectly reasonable response to a major tragedy, not everyone agrees. Alan Davies moaned about their behaviour on a podcast this week, because of the impact it has on other teams' schedules.</p><p>The predictable outcry went up. Davies's argument appeared to be that if Liverpool were going to mark the deaths of their own fans at Hillsborough, why did they not also mark the deaths of the 39 Juventus fans who died at a match against Liverpool on 29 May 1985? A spokesperson for the Hillsborough Justice Campaign confirmed that it had rejected the £1,000 donation Davies had offered to make, explaining, "While we accept his apology, we would prefer that he genuinely tried to understand why the decision never to play on the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster is so important." But however crassly he made his point, doesn't Alan Davies ask a reasonable question? How long do we mark tragedies for? And how many of these anniversaries should we keep? Liverpool has maintained the anniversary of Hillsborough for 23 years now, but other football clubs don't do the same. Major football tragedies aren't so numerous that all teams couldn't mark all of them, and yet they don't. Does that mean they don't care, or does it just mean that they choose not to make a public statement?</p><p>When it comes to anniversaries, round numbers matter in the media far more than they do in real life. Last year's 11 September memorials were a big deal because it was the 10th anniversary. I suspect the 11th anniversary will receive far less coverage, and I bet the ninth anniversary did too. But a line has to be drawn at some point, when we shift from commemorating every year to every 10, or 50, or 100 years. Otherwise we would do nothing but remember losses every day, from every war, every disaster ever to befall humanity.</p><p>And media anniversaries aren't just negative. They're often marking events of social and cultural importance: battles, discoveries, legal rulings and the rest. In addition to the Titanic sinking, 14 April marks the completion of the human genome project (2003), the first edition of the Highway Code (1931), and the publication of The Grapes of Wrath (1939). Remembering these anniversaries is one of the ways we anchor ourselves to our history.</p><p>Objectively, it doesn't matter if it was on this day or another that Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth, or that the Yorkists won the Battle of Barnet. But dates do matter to us ? whether we are historians, trivia buffs or just holding out for a birthday gift. Without them, we're lost. Which is something that ancient historians knew perfectly well: Livy dated his history of Rome ab urbe condita ? from the founding of the city ? in 753BC. Everything else was measured according to when it all began.</p><p>My only plea in our mania for anniversaries today is that we try to expand our horizons to encompass more than one or two at a time. This coming July, for example, will mark the 75th anniversary of the deaths of Amelia Earhart, Guglielmo Marconi and George Gershwin, and the 75th anniversary of the births of Hunter S Thompson, and the processed lunch meat Spam. It's 40 years since the first Gay Pride march in London, and 25 years since Thatcher ratified the agreement to build the Channel tunnel.</p><p>So there's no excuse for the monomania we saw at the start of the year, when no one could have missed that 2012 is the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens. The BBC began the year with a big Dickensian bang; the Museum of London has a special exhibition on until June, and Portsmouth has begun advertising itself as the place where Dickens was born. It's enough to make one wonder what will fill the airwaves and galleries this time next year. Or it would be, if I didn't know that 2013 is the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice. </p>?<p>Rather, fierce would be a more accurate description of the surreal flowers, tangled branches and violently coloured reptiles that crawl across Nicolas Ghesquiere's clever volumes at Balenciaga. The patchwork baby blanket print on inky black leather at Christopher Kane is equally an unsettling juxtaposition, if ever there was one. Mary Kantrantzou's print is more precious than perverse, inspired as it is this time by everything from Ming Dynasty porcelain to Faberge eggs and establishing this designer as a name to watch. Less splashy souls might like to opt for the season's ubiquitous polka dot, as seen at Marc Jacobs and Stella McCartney, checks (Prada, Marni and Burberry, of course) and less classic geometries most lovely in jewel colours at Dries Van Noten.</p><p>1940s</p><p>The exaggerated shoulderline at Miu Miu which touches everything from twisted Zoot suit-style coats and jackets to sequinned tea dresses in black, white and more typically Prada-esque shades of sludge drive home the fact that the 1940s ? and with that more than a degree of apparent austerity ? are on fashion's agenda right now. The latter, in particular, are already among the most photographed pieces of the autumn season. Then there are the shoes to consider (and copy should anyone be foolhardy enough to dare): glitter-dipped ankle boots have a trompe l'oeil vintage sandal upper applied to their front. A more strict silhouette characterises Marc Jacobs' take on this era ? think a high shoulder, peplums aplenty and a narrow, mid-calf length skirt.</p><p>This was also seen at Jonathan Saunders, the London-based designer who's been on something of a roll for several seasons now. More than a hint of the Forties also at Louis Vuitton and also John Galliano's swansong collection for his eponymous label.</p><p>Androgyny</p><p>The mannish trouser suit is as much a part of a modern woman's wardrobe as the little black dress, say, or a cardigan jacket. And Chanel Karl Lagerfeld features them all. The classic Chanel jacket was this time styled over masculine shirts and wide-legged black trousers designed not to be worn with the requisite talon heels but with laced military boots finished with tufted wool cuffs. Jil Sander, Celine and Paul Smith all regularly borrow from menswear, as so too does Yves Saint Laurent ? that house's namesake famously appropriated men's tailoring and sent it down the couture catwalk on a woman in the first place. Such gender blending works both ways: Rick Owens is a designer as happy putting a man in elevated wedge heels as he is a woman in a single-breasted jacket with signature elongated skinny sleeves. Stella McCartney, for whom the Savile Row tailoring tradition adapted to fit the female form has long been part of the agenda, comes up with perhaps the most accessible take on a time-honoured theme.</p><p>1960s</p><p>Coming in a close second to the Forties, as far as any heartfelt nostalgia is concerned, are the Sixties. Enter Yves Saint Laurent, who first gave the world the youthful trapeze-line back in 1958 at the beginning of his brief tenure as successor to Christian Dior and carried it forward when he started his own line. More than half a century later and Stefano Pilati, today creative director of the house, has reinvented it, in everything from studded patent leather to more sensible black wool and monochrome tweed. Miuccia Prada, too, has long been indebted to the modernity of this decade also and her take on the Yves Saint Laurent Mondrian dress is just as strangely beautiful as might be expected. At Jil Sander, Raf Simons' colour blocking is a more muted treatment on a similar theme and it is well known that Swinging London is among the Burberry designer Christopher Bailey's favourite references.</p><p>Sweet Wrappers</p><p>Summer's much lusted-after neon brights have, for autumn, been replaced by a decidedly festive, upbeat and not even remotely shy take on sequins, sparkle and a palette that appears to owe more to a family size tin of Quality Street than anything more obviously hi-tech by nature. Certainly, such an unabashed display of shimmer and shine is likely to brighten up the party season. Gold is ubiquitous ? gold stars at Dolce again ? gold glitter from head-to-toe at Vivienne Westwood, big gold frilly knickers at Comme des Garcons and very slightly more decorous gold lame shorts at Lanvin. Then comes the colour: the most unforgiving turquoise, bubblegum pink, spearmint green and tangy orange. It takes more than a little front to step out dressed like a sweet wrapper, but rest assured that a little fashion folly never hurt anyone, bringing a smile to even the most po-faced lips. Sometimes it's good to look marginally ridiculous ? dressing to impress is meant to be fun, after all.</p><p>Fetish</p><p>Designer-clad French maids. The Night Porter and Allen Jones. These are the things a fashionable being would do well to consider when she's dressing this autumn. It was the story from start to finish at the Louis Vuitton show, where everything from handcuffs and black rubber boots to high-shine corsetry and monogrammed army caps accessorised a look that is ultimately just as chic as it is politically incorrect. Givenchy, too, features visible (and quite formidable) patent leather underwear worn under black silk tulle and Roxy Music-inspired black panthers. For Giles Deacon at Ungaro, showgirl feathers, leather and lace reveal a similarly obsessive take while, for the designer's own label, an overtone of ultra-strict Victoriana more than hints at the fact that this is not simply a one-century wonder ? shades of the madwoman in the attic here. Finally black leather greatcoats at Acne and leather motor-cross trousers courtesy of Junya Watanabe are a suitably tough take on an over-arching theme.</p><p>Shopping by Gemma Hayward</p>?<p>Hope Powell's valiant side have spent much of their careers seeking equal status with their male counterparts and last night, perversely, they got it in time-honoured fashion. Just as the men suffered World Cup shoot-out agony in 1990, 1998 and 2006 so did the women in 2011.</p><p>And as the dust settled on a tumultuous night, it became clear this was an end of an era as both England coach Hope Powell and her captain Faye White prepared to step aside from the international scene.</p><p>Yet it could, perhaps should, have been so different. Powell's team were within three minutes of winning before a French equaliser took the game into extra time.</p><p>The Everton midfielder Jill Scott had given England a 58th-minute lead, but Elise Bussaglia brought France level. The Arsenal striker Ellen White missed a good extra time chance to regain the lead, but the match ended 1-1 and the shoot-out was lost when Faye White ? with the last kick of the contest ? struck the bar to hand France a 4-3 penalty victory.</p><p>"Faye is desperately upset," said Powell of the 33-year-old Arsenal central defender, who had stated that this would be her last World Cup and finished it with tears streaming down her face. "That's football," Powell added, "the game has to end some way, and it was the wrong way for us."</p><p>Powell knows all about shoot-out misery after being a midfielder in the England team that lost on penalties to Sweden in the 1984 European Championship final.</p><p>"This one felt worse," she said. Her players had come so close to securing what would have been the national team's first World Cup semi-final ? at the third attempt ? but she admitted that she had never felt the game was safe as France pressed in the closing stages.</p><p>"It felt very, very tense and I was just trying to wind the clock quicker and quicker, but it wouldn't shift. It's never over until the final whistle and you have to give credit to France. They were the better team in the first half, and although we showed our resilience in the second half they pressed and pressed and finally got the equaliser. We were so desperately unlucky."</p><p>There was no denying that France were the better team. England started brightly, the striker Kelly Smith having a goalbound shot turned round the post by the central defender Laura Georges after only 16 seconds.</p><p>But Bruno Bini's team quickly gained control, and by the end of extra time the shots-at-goal count, 33-7 in France's favour, told a brutally honest story. The goalkeeper Karen Bardsley, blamed for the goal that led to Mexico sneaking a 1-1 draw in the opening group match, was England's outstanding player with a series of fine saves that kept the French at bay.</p><p>The New Jersey Sky Blue keeper kept out good first-half efforts by Gaetane Thiney and Louisa Necib, while Camille Abily also went close and, just after interval, Marie-Laure Delie sent a 10-yard shot inches wide.</p><p>When England took the lead it was again the run of play, but it was a fine goal by Scott.</p><p>The midfielder dinked a 20-yard shot over Celine Deville after Smith ? with the help of an undetected handball ? and Rachel Yankey had combined to set up the opening.</p><p>As France hit back strongly, Bardsley had to make two excellent stops from Abily. But the save of the match was made by a striker: Ellen White diving to head the right back Laure Lepailleur's 86th minute header off the line.</p><p>Powell's team were eventually undone when Bussaglia, collecting a weak clearance 20 yards out, curled a shot in off a post.</p><p>Extra time brought few opportunities, though in the 103rd minute Ellen White shot wide when well placed 15 yards from goal. And so to penalties, Bardsley diving to keep out the first one by Abily. But first the substitute Claire Rafferty and then, decisively, White missed to leave England once again losers in a World Cup quarter-final.</p><p>England Bardsley (New Jersey Sky Blue); A Scott (Boston Breakers), F White (Arsenal), Stoney (Lincoln), Unitt (Everton); J Scott (Everton), Williams (Everton); Carney (Birmingham City), Smith (Boston Breakers), Yankey (Arsenal); E White (Arsenal). Substitutes Houghton (Arsenal) for A Scott, 81; Rafferty (Chelsea) for Unitt, 81; Asante (NJ Sky Blue) for Yankey, 84.</p><p>France Deville; Lepailleur, Georges, Viguier, Bompastor; Soubeyrand (Thomis, 67), Bussaglia; Abily, Necib (Bretigny, 79; Le Sommer, 106), Thiney; Delie.</p><p>Referee Ms J Palmqvist (Sweden).</p>?<p>Scorn and indifference because Britain is the country of the Beatles and the Stones, punk, post-punk, New Romanticism and a hundred other innovative youth fads thereafter. Along with America we are the pop and rock creative workshop of the world, with no need for the trite, cheesy, besequinned and seemingly irrelevant Euro-pudding.</p><p>Where do Buck's Fizz and Brotherhood of Man, after all, stand within the British pop and rock canon? Footnotes at best.</p><p>Cynicism because the centre of Eurovision has shifted resolutely eastwards since the UK last won, in 1997 with Katrina and the Waves ? the arrival of former communist states leading to block-voting that even drove the relentlessly good-humoured Terry Wogan into quitting his BBC post as Official Amused Onlooker.</p><p>And kitschy glee because, well, it's as camp as a row of tents</p><p>But in 2011 are there reasons to be cheerful, to quote a cockney pop poet who had no need for Eurovision to sell his wares? Is this year's songfest going to see a drift back to its West European heartlands? And, more importantly for British viewers, is the UK, with Blue's "I Can", in with a shout after recent debacles ? the "Royaume Uni", as we're known in francophone countries, having finished bottom of the continental pile three times in the past eight years (and second bottom once)?</p><p>Indeed, Britons might be forgiven for feeling paranoid (does nobody like us?) if those entries hadn't been so truly awful. Josh Dubovie's 'That Sounds Good to Me' didn't sound good to anybody else in 2010, while X Factor bin-man Andy Abraham's "Even If" was trashed in 2008 ? even if Abraham garnered 14 more points that Jemini in 2003. Their "Cry Baby" had the scouse stage-school duo shedding tears of humiliation in Latvia after earning "nul points" for the first time in the UK's involvement in the event. Until 1998, it should be recalled, Britain had only finished outside the top 10 on two occasions.</p><p>So are resuscitated boy band Blue about to end 14 years of hurt? Could Duncan James, Lee Ryan, Antony Costa and Simon Webbe restore national pride when they belt out their Obama'ish ditty "I Can" in the German city of Dusseldorf tonight?</p><p>"We have a good as chance as winning as anybody," says Costa, with admirable realism, although the bookies reckon Blue has more of a chance than most ? placing them as second favourites to scoop the top prize. The bookmakers' favourite, however, is France, with a mournful, operatic power ballad called Sognu, delivered by long-haired Gallic dreamboat Amaury Vassili, the world's youngest professional tenor. Interestingly enough Sognu is being sung in the Corsican language ? perhaps a belated recognition by France that Eurovision voters have a soft spot for the underdog.</p><p>On which subject, Ireland are sixth favourites ? surprisingly since they're represented by X Factor novelty leprechauns Jedward (assuming that John and Edward make it through Thursday's semi-final). But then maybe the quaffed twins will seduce the European public and judges in the same way they won over Simon Cowell, and are worth an each-way punt. The Republic have won the song contest more than any other country, after all, virtually owning it in the 1990s when the ruinous cost of repeatedly hosting the event nearly bankrupted the state broadcaster RTE.</p><p>There's a famous 1996 episode of Father Ted in which the Craggy Island priests' tuneless song is entered in an attempt to sabotage Ireland's Eurovision hopes and save the country a fortune ? and perhaps in economically-stricken 2011, Jedward is the Dublin government's secret plan for a similar cost-saving exercise.</p><p>For 2011 however, it's Germany hosting the contest, with a French favourite and a British second favourite ? all very Old Europe, and quite a throwback to the 1950s when Eurovision was first dreamt up by a Swiss executive of the European Broadcasting Union, Marcel Bezencon, as a way of uniting the various national broadcasters of the western half of the continent around a live event ? quite a feat in those days.</p><p>The initial Eurovision Grand Prix, as it was known back then, was held in the Swiss town of Lugano, being won by, well, Switzerland. The next time the Swiss won would be in 1988 with 'Ne partez pas sans moi' ? sung by a certain French-Canadian wearing a costume seemingly scrambled together out of a charity shop. Come on down, Celine Dion.</p><p>Ever the laggard in Europe, Britain joined the following year, winning its first contest in 1967 with a barefoot Sandie Shaw padding around to Puppet on a String. Lulu followed that win in 1969 with the quintessential Eurovision ballad Boom Bang-a-Bang, but not before Spain had bribed its way to victory in 1968. General Franco was so eager to stage the event that he bought a whole pile of European programming he had no intention of broadcasting, and otherwise purchasing votes to ensure that Spanish ditty La, la, la pipped Cliff Richard's Congratulations! in front of a visibly surprised audience at London's Albert Hall.</p><p>Despite this skulduggery, Eurovision's image in its early years was of genteel, middle-of-the-road light entertainment studiously ignoring the youth revolution happening around it. The year of Cliff's Congratulations! was, after all, also the year of the Rolling Stones' Street Fighting Man and the Beatles' White album.</p><p>But while it may have been something of a cultural irrelevance in the West, on the other side of the Iron Curtain, Eurovision was having an unsettling effect on the populace. An excellent documentary on More4 last weekend, The Secret History of Eurovision, documented how the communist regimes bordering West European countries first attempted to jam Eurovision broadcasts, and then produced their own version of the contest ? the Sopot International Song Contest held each year in Poland.</p><p>It's worth remembering the illicit thrill generation in Eastern Bloc countries when you consider their current enthusiasm for the event, as well as savouring the irony of Moscow hosting the most extravagant Eurovision of all time, in 2009, after the long history of the Soviet Union trying to supress the contest. And before anyone accuses the Baltic states of unfairly voting for each other, they should recall how Estonia (in 2001) and Latvia (2002) triumphed at pivotal moments in their disengagement from the collapsed Soviet Union.</p><p>The Balkan states also tend to vote for each other ? despite a recent history of internecine bloodshed. This prompts apologists to argue that the "block voting" is not political but cultural ? the public in Bosnia, for example, appreciating the music of Serbia (the 2007 winners), while not necessarily wanting Serbian tanks parked on their front lawn. But when the 2008 contest was held in Belgrade, and Russia came out the winners (a result he had predicted), it all became too much for Sir Terry Wogan, and he quit hosting the annual broadcast that in many ways he had made his own.</p><p>And let's face it. For the majority of viewers in this country, Wogan and Eurovision were almost synonymous, although some reckoned Tel was becoming increasingly xenophobic as he fell out of love with Eurovision ? that he was becoming more and more (in so far as it was possible for an Irishman) a Little Englander. Wogan argues he was just having a harmless laugh at Euro-preposterousness, and most people would agree with him, but his successor on the BBC broadcast, Graham Norton, is arguably more in tune with the new Eurovision sensibility ? not least because Norton is openly gay.</p><p>At least since Dana International dragged the competition out of the closet in 1998 (the transsexual Israeli singer named in camp honour of 1970's squeaky clean and devoutly Catholic Irish winner Dana), Eurovision has had an overtly gay following ? nowhere more than in countries such as Poland, Serbia and Russia where enthusiastically oppressed. During the 2008 Moscow contest, as protesting gay activists were being beaten up by police thugs outside, inside the city's Olimpiysky Arena, the contest was being won by Norwegian gay icon Alexander Rybak with his song Fairytale in front of row-upon-row of gay fans.</p><p>But what of the artistic worth of this annual bardic babel? What is the cultural value of Blue, for example, a boy band well beyond their teeny-bop prime. 'I Can' is a pleasant enough but unremarkable ballad whose chorus might be of use to beginner students of the English language ("I can, I will, I know..."), and the "boys" (their average age is 30) are attractive enough, although again rather more unremarkable than the narcissism of the accompanying video perhaps warrants. But are they enough to restore national pride? National pride? Do we perhaps care more than we let on about the UK's diminished standing in Eurovision?</p><p>We certainly seem to be getting more serious about it. Having seen that leaving it to the Great British Public to vote for their preferred song ? in BBC1's annual Song for Europe contest ? didn't seem to be working, Andrew Lloyd Webber was drafted in to the national cause, penning the fifth-placed "It's My Time" for future Sugababe Jade Ewan, while last year's entry was written by Pete Waterman of the Stock, Aitken and Waterman hit factory.</p><p>Eurovision Song Contest is on BBC1 at 8pm</p>?<p>Stepping out into a courtyard, the first model wore a cropped white jacket with a long tail falling down the back, over a black skirt and transparent petticoat that stretched down to thick, dizzying heels.</p><p>Singers Lily Allen and Courtney Love, Justin Timberlake and Liv Tyler were among the famous faces who watched as designer Riccardo Tisci sent out organza tops secured at the back with leather straps that hinted at bondage gear.</p><p>Faces were powdered white with darkened lips, the hair stern and short, or gathered on each side of the face amd tipped with small plaits.</p><p>Golden zippers ran all over a sleeveless black jacket, above sleek pants with a copper belt hooked at the top of the thighs.</p><p>A few pieces in the palest pink provided a brief distraction, but the show returned swiftly to a darker register, with a whole series in leopard-skin.</p><p>Short skirts were layered over pants - then covered over by long petticoats in see-thru fabric or fish-net.</p><p>A tight, starched blouse like a fencer's suit had a transparent back, while a thick, breastplate-like piece flowed into a cape sweeping down the back.</p><p>For his men's collection in June, Tisci also built around black, his trademark colour, and leopard-skin, dressing models in Mexican-wrestler style leather masks with grids for the eyes and mouth.</p><p>But the designer broke with the gothic tone of his spring/summer line for 2011, unveiled mid-way through Paris' marathon ready-to-wear shows, stepping out to salute the crowd in a bright blue-checked shirt.</p><p>A world apart, John Galliano chose a 1920s artist's muse as inspiration for his luxuriant new summer look.</p><p>Janet Jackson took a front-row seat to watch the models step out in a riot of hats, gypsy scarves and fur collars, each outfit intended to be as singular as a portrait said the British designer.</p><p>Models in over-the-top make-up twirled in light, flounced dresses cut from fragile, transparent fabrics.</p><p>A skirt was hemmed with ostrich feathers or Spanish shawl fringes, while ultra-wide pants were layered with black tulle, and trenches were cut from translucent grey organza that left the structure and seams on full display.</p><p>Galliano took his inspiration from Maria Lani, muse to some of the greatest artists of her day including Amedeo Modigliani, whose portrait adorned the invite to the show.</p><p>There were pink and orange - everywhere this season - but also butterfly motifs on a frou-frou bustier dress or see-thru jacket.</p><p>At sundown, Galliano's woman stepped out in crystal- and gold-encrusted gowns, mostly white, displaying an artisan's touch unusual for a ready-to-wear collection, however luxurious.</p><p>Galliano says he was inspired for evening wear by Constantin Brancusi's metal sculptures. The kinship was far from obvious, but the result was delicate, feminine, with laser-sharp tailoring, and terribly desirable.</p><p>Earlier, Celine set Paris abuzz with a summer look that was all butter-soft leather, fluid cuts and sober sophistication.</p><p>Cheers of delight rang out as flavour-of-the-moment designer Phoebe Philo unveiled her third collection for the label.</p><p>Caramel leather, desert-hooded weaves and elegant, flowing pants in ivory silk, with navy and sharp green bands lining the waist and side like a tuxedo: at each new piece, the room held its breath in admiration.</p><p>The magic was in the details, like a simple white jacket in starched cotton that left the back bare and fastened with a plain leather strap, or a white cotton blouse with a deep pink leather collar.</p><p>High-waisted leather skirts just covered the knee, curling around the hips to end in a gentle diagonal panel in the small of the back.</p><p>A sleeveless top in butter-soft maroon leather was paired with roomy trousers in vivid blue, while a long cotton damask tunic like a sleeveless kimono was split on either side of the body.</p><p>A Moroccan flavour came from a green silk top with geometric motifs, hemmed with a band of orange, while a fluid, bare-armed navy dress robe plunged to a deep V shape at front an back - while its modest, sister piece offered long sleeves and demure neckline.</p>?<p>The gala features the Parade of Nations with 2,500 athletes from more than 80 nations who will compete in 86 winter sports. With a capacity of 60,000, it will be the first indoor arena for the opening night in Olympic history. An estimated three billion people will watch the televised ceremony.</p><p>The producer of the opening and closing ceremonies is David Atkins, the Australian who created the opening ceremonies for the 2000 Sydney Summer Games and the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar. It's expected he will reference the 30 tribes of the First Nations in Canada for the program, with elements such as the mythological mascots and symbolic Inukshuk logo of a traditional stone landmark.</p><p>Atkins' presentation will represent Canada's cultural diversity and linguistic duality to a global audience, highlighting performances by leading Canadian artists. The choreographer for the opening ceremonies is Jean Grand-Maitre, the artistic director of the Alberta Ballet, but other details remain confidential to provide an element of surprise.</p><p>Which of Canada's many contemporary musical artists will perform is the subject of much speculation. The country boasts popular performers such as Shania Twain, Celine Dion, Avril Lavigne, Alanis Morissette, and Michael Buble as well as the Quebec-based Cirque du Soliel. Singer Sarah McLachlan has written "One Dream," her theme song for the Olympic Games.</p><p>A lineup of more than a dozen North American acts will perform at the Victory Medal Presentations, including Barenaked Ladies, Feist, Usher, Devo, and The Fray. The acts perform at Whistler Medals Plaza, February 13 to 27.</p><p>Canadian artists will also perform representing the regions they are from, including Nelly Furtado on British Columbia night, INXS with frontman J.D. Fortune from Ontario, Canada, The Guess Who's Burton Cummings on Manitoba night, and Great Big Sea for Newfoundland and Labrador.</p><p>Also, typically, the final torchbearer who lights the cauldron when the Olympic flame arrives at the stadium is kept a secret. Speculation includes Canada's hockey hero Wayne Gretzky, among other possibilities. There have been 12,000 torchbearers, the most in any single country. The ceremonies are mandated by the International Olympic Committee to promote international peace and understanding, honoring the world's greatest athletes, and celebrating humanity.</p><p>In addition to the planned performances, NBC television will include the world premiere of the video by an all-star supergroup singing "We Are the World" 2010 to benefit Haiti recovery during the coverage of the ceremonies February 12.</p><p></p><p>RC</p>?<p>She is talking about Celine, the French fashion label she took over in 2008 in a blaze of publicity, and transformed into a global phenomenon almost overnight. Until Philo's arrival, Celine had been floundering. Under Michael Kors, who stepped down in 2004, it was beloved by the monied New York professional. However, despite the brand's longevity ? it was founded in 1945 by Celine Vipiana ? it lacked a heritage to rival the more well-known French fashion houses. There was no trademark tuxedo or pussy-bow blouse to think of, for example, nor anything remotely as famous as Dior's New Look line skirt or Chanel's boucle wool suit.</p><p>"Some of the brands I respect most in the world have that core," Philo continues, "so I'm proud that people are now coming back and asking for the same thing."</p><p>With that in mind, and just a little over two years after Philo's arrival, the Celine look is already instantly identifiable. There's the collarless white shirt with ultra-long cuffs, designed to be worn with tails trailing behind; the fluid, wide-legged trousers; the sleeveless dress that stands away from the body as opposed to clinging to its curves; the crepe jumpsuit. Celine has several highly covetable bags, such as the soft leather "cabas" and the equally protean, small but perfectly formed "classic" with its brushed gold clasp, to name but two. "There are elements that have become classics to us. They sell really well. The response has been good. Trousers, tailoring, shirts, skirts. 'Category pieces'. I hate these kinds of words but they've sort of become[she pulls a face] staples..."</p><p>However one chooses to put it, it is safe to say Celine is today the ultimate stealth wealth tag for the intelligent, modern woman to see and be seen in. And if that level of attention is fashion's Holy Grail, more impressive still is the fact that Philo relies not on anything obviously publicity seeking or high impact. Instead, the appeal of her work lies in its apparent simplicity and unassuming, no-frills approach. This is an aesthetic aimed squarely at a discerning and confident customer who would rather not parade any obvious fashion credentials and for whom both modesty and discretion are of prime importance. And, for that, it is a breath of fresh air.</p><p>The Celine autumn/winter pre-collection, which goes on sale this month, is very much a variation on a similar theme."It does feel quite British," Philo says. "I wanted to move into something that felt a bit closer to home. It's pretty masculine. That's how I dress and I think it's quite liberating for women not to have to be so preoccupied with different silhouettes, with different things."</p><p>More importantly, perhaps, and although it may seem like the most obvious thing in the world, Philo says of the work in question: "I like it." There are those who might argue that she would say that, but the fact remains that what Phoebe Philo likes, sells ? and it always has done. And she therefore finds herself in the happy position of having been given a fair amount of what she likes contractually by the LVMH-owned Celine in return. The powers that be behind this, the world's largest luxury goods conglomerate, courted her for some time and have been unusually flexible where any working arrangements are concerned. This is testimony both to the fact that they know a good thing when they see one and that it is possible for a woman to get to where she wishes to be, should she be talented and industrious enough and have the determination to ask for it.</p><p>Philo's position is pretty much unique among fashion designers. Celine is based in Paris. Not wishing to re-locate and being crystal clear about that from the moment negotiations began, she lives and works in London. She has suitably grand, though certainly not ostentatious, offices in a Georgian townhouse in Cavendish Square and the technicians who produce her designs travel from France on a weekly basis to show her any prototypes or work in progress.</p><p>Philo insists on a reasonable working day. "I think that's a discipline I've taught myself," she says. "We're just organised. Everybody in this building knows when I arrive and when I leave and the important things are done within those hours. That's just the way it is. And it works.</p><p>"I have a fantastic team and it's much easier having children, because that creates a natural limit. If I have a good time with them before they go to sleep, it's worth everything to me."</p><p>Being a self-proclaimed control freak and "extremely passionate about what I do", she does make exceptions, clearly, especially during show time. It also soon becomes apparent that there's the requisite hefty dose of caffeine involved. "They even have espresso machines in hotel rooms now," she says happily. Nobody's perfect, not even Phoebe Philo. For the most part though, she makes sure she's home to put her children to bed each night ? she has two by her long-time partner and husband, the art gallery owner Max Wigram.</p><p>When, in 2006, Philo left Chloe ? according to the press statement at the time, "for personal reasons, including spending more time with my new baby in the coming months" ? the label was at the height of its success. She arrived there in 1997 as Stella McCartney's first assistant and when sales were on the floor. She was made creative director in 2001 when the latter went into partnership with the Gucci Group to launch her own label.</p><p>It was widely understood that the secret of Chloe's turnaround had been Philo's ability to identify what the label's young customers might like to wear even before they'd realised it for themselves. When she took to the helm, that fact was driven home. Boyish tailoring and sweetly flirtatious voluminous tunics, the money-spinning Paddington bag with its ultra-cute and chunky padlock, equally clunky wooden-heeled shoes, butterfly pendants and more, sold like the proverbial hotcakes. Philo resigned in a genuine and openly expressed bid for a well-earned break and without knowing what the future would hold and in no way consciously playing hard to get. None the less, she found herself in the fortuitous position of becoming hotter property still ? speculation mounted over what Phoebe might do next.</p><p>Visitors to Celine's London premises are greeted by a seascape courtesy of the aptly-named French photographer Marine Hugonnier and a twinkling Tim Noble and Sue Webster light installation that reads, "forever". Philo's office, on the second floor, is dominated by huge windows and and a ceiling so high it's safe to assume this is probably where any entertaining might have been done in days gone by.</p><p>The designer is wearing a masculine white shirt and cropped black trousers, men's shoes which appear to be several sizes too big for her and a shrunken, black leather biker jacket, with articulated quilting at the elbows that she says she bought in Japan. "I wear it all the time," she laughs. "It's taken on my body shape." Her sandy blonde hair is pulled back from her classically beautiful face, her pale, blue eyes are huge, her cheekbones chiselled and her skin is as nature intended ? entirely make-up free. She says she looks "a bit butch, I suppose". If that refers to the fact that she's never knowingly been spotted in a floral dress, then that's true.</p><p>Philo, it has been said before on numerous occasions, is the best possible advocate of her own designs. Alsooft-repeated: she is clearly in possession of the best possible taste. In the past, she has been described as aloof and even cold, but that is unfair. Philo is wary, clearly, but disarmingly straight-talking and not one to suffer fools gladly. Given that interviews with the designer are extremely rare, it's safe to assume she's ill at ease in the presence of journalists. Certainly, her reluctance to talk about her private life is palpable. "I'm not like that on purpose. It's just about my comfort zone," she says, not unreasonably.</p><p>Philo doesn't tweet, blog or communicate via Facebook. When she shows her collections, her backstage area isn't open to the media. "Once the show has happened there's no need to control any image," she says, "but I don't like the idea of people sending out images before we've even done it. We don't allow anyone to do that. I don't like all that 'model backstage standing around having her picture taken in a stupid pose'."</p><p>In an age where fashion designers are expected to step out on the red carpet alongside the people they are required to dress at every given opportunity, Philo refuses to play that game. In light of the media circus that the fashion industry has become, that is refreshing ? as ultimately forward-thinking as her clothes.</p><p>"Do you hate being interviewed?"</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"I just feel it's really unnecessary."</p><p>"But it's a requirement of the job?"</p><p>"It is. But I think that the clothes say it all much better than I can. I always find it strange after a show when everybody comes backstage and says: 'What was it all about'? It's like: 'You've just seen it. What do you mean?' My instinct is to say: 'What did you think? What did you get from it?' And yet they want you to fill in even more.</p><p>"To me, the show is quite a complete story. There's nothing more for me to say and, anyway, it doesn't matter what it was meant to say. It's out there. It can be whatever anyone watching it thought it was, surely."</p><p>To sum up, Philo is deliberately ? and uncompromisingly ? media unfriendly and, while that might frustrate those queuing up to gain access to her (and queue up they do), it has served her well. Despite the zeitgeist, history has proved that leaving at least something to the imagination has never done anyone any harm.</p><p>"I do like the idea of women not showing too much," she says, "of them being quite reserved in a way, and quite covered," and she might just as easily be talking about herself as a person as her designs for Celine.</p><p>"The only way I can do it is by being completely honest. Everything I do here is authentic to me and I do it as if it was my own."</p><p>Here's what is known about Phoebe Philo. She was born in Paris and grew up in West London. She went to South Harrow comprehensive and was bought her first sewing machine aged 14.</p><p>"I never had a massive desire to buy clothes," she says. "I liked to customise the clothes I already had or was given when I was younger. If I didn't like them that much, I made them how I wanted them to be. This is always a bit difficult to talk about, but I don't really like shopping. I don't get a great feeling out of it."</p><p>After school, Philo completed a foundation course at Wimbledon College of Art before applying for the fashion BA at Central Saint Martins, from where she graduated in 1996. She was, she has said, especially interested in the fashions of the early 1990s, a fact that is still evident in her aesthetic to this day. Her ad campaigns for Celine are shot by Juergen Teller ? among the most ground-breaking photographers of that era with a comparative lack of gloss and a focus unflinchingly directed towards the product.</p><p>"I guess that period informs me because of my age," Philo says. "I don't see how one can get away from that. When I was growing up, that was what magazines and books were all about. That was how people on the street were dressing. When I go through old i-Ds or other magazines, they bring back that time when I was 20 and I remember that image or soundtrack or holiday. It brings back a nice familiar feeling."</p><p>There are subtle references to the 1970s, too. "That comes back to nostalgia as well," she says. "I was born in 1973, during the Vietnam War and the first wave of feminism, and I have a love/hate relationship with that time. I feel that, politically, a lot was going on, but there's a frivolity to some of the images of women during that period that I don't really identify with."</p><p>Until she left art college, Philo was unaware that it was possible to make a living as a fashion designer. "I've always been interested in the way people look and dress and very opinionated about what I choose to wear, but I had no idea it could be a profession. Thank God.</p><p>"I feel now people are almost too aware and, for students, that seems like a heavy load to carry. I felt very free for not knowing. I did drawing and sculpture, a bit of everything, but very much enjoyed the time I spent doing fashion. Then I discovered it was possible to specialise and I worked hard on my portfolio to get into Saint Martins. It wasn't until then that I knew. I was 18 and that's quite old when you think that, today, probably even 12-year-olds are aware you can become a fashion designer."</p><p>Just a year after leaving Saint Martins, she went to Chloe with McCartney and the rest is history. That is until September 2008, when, with at least a degree of fanfare, it was announced that Philo would be designing Celine.</p><p>Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of LVMH, hosted a celebratory lunch in Paris and brought in a new president and director, Marco Gobbetti, responsible for overseeing Givenchy's reversal in fortune, for Philo to work alongside. Pierre Yves Roussel, CEO of LVMH's fashion division, told Women's Wear Daily: "By giving her [Philo] Celine, we're allowing her to express her vision. For Celine, which is a bit more grown-up as a brand, the fit is very good in terms of her style, her personality and where she is in terms of development."</p><p>Philo herself, spare and to the point, said only: "In the current climate, customers are looking for something that will get them interested and excited about buying again. I want to create clothes, shoes, bags and accessories that are relevant to right now ? modern exciting designs that women will desire and appreciate."</p><p>And, true to her word, that is just what she did.</p><p>Celine started life as a made-to-measure children's shoes business that soon grew to encompass women's and children's shoes and accessories. The company began producing ready-to-wear in the 1960s, at which point it was known for classically bourgeois designs intended to stand the test of time. In 1996, it was bought by LVMH and, a year later, the aforementioned Kors took to the helm as designer. After his departure, two consecutive and comparatively low-profile designers failed to breathe new life into the label.</p><p>"I hadn't ever thought much about Celine before I was approached," Philo says now, "but then I looked at everything they were doing and it felt very irrelevant.</p><p>"Historically, the bits of Celine I knew from researching, generally over the years, were typically Parisian ? a pleated skirt, a silk blouse and a blazer. And I quite like the conservativeness of that, that Parisian chic, that conservative woman. Bourgeois. A bit saucy. That's the element that I thought was intriguing and wanted to carry forward."</p><p>When the approach came: "I was heavily pregnant with my second child and LVMH contacted me to find out what I was up to. I remember having this huge tummy.</p><p>"We agreed it wasn't the right time to go into detailsbut I said I was looking at going back to work at some point. So, I had my baby, and I think when he was four months old and I was ready, the conversation began again."</p><p>In the first instance, discussions were about the creation of a completely new, eponymous brand. "We looked at a business model for that. We talked about the products I wanted to do and the vision I had for it. And then Celine came into the picture. LVMH seemed very happy to allow me to do everything I would have done for my own label there, basically giving me the same amount of control, and it just felt right."</p><p>For the publicity shy Philo, it couldn't have worked out more perfectly. "It's never been important to me that my name is above shop windows," she says, "and I get a lot of comfort out of having something I can stand behind. Let Celine be the name and the front of it, and I just quietly come to work every day and get on with it. It's nice. It fits."</p><p>It is not insignificant that Philo's first runway collection for Celine was shown in October 2009 and in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. With sales in luxury goods plummeting worldwide, the streamlined, neutrally shaded, and embellishment free collection she showed on the Paris catwalk was very well judged. With a view, perhaps, to contextualising this aesthetic, Philo was immediately upheld as at the forefront of "the new minimalism", although she herself has little time for such monikers. "What does that mean?" she asks. "All I ever said was that it was clean, stripped back and reduced ? and that's not the same thing at all.</p><p>"Of course, I was reacting to the world. I'm a human being. My eyes are open. I try to have my feet on the ground. I guess I'm informed by lots of things, but it wasn't a political statement. It wasn't anything to do with the recession. It felt right instinctively. It was what I wanted to say."</p><p>Still, the subtlety and relative sobriety of Philo's vision, and its focus on quality over and above quantity has struck a nerve. "The fabrics we use are the best," she says, "and I'm fairly adamant about that. The emphasis is also on perfecting the cut. That's something I spend a lot of time on and, when I get it right, I feel very satisfied. The atelier is mainly French and they've come from the best houses and the craft they've learnt you can't find anywhere else.</p><p>"I absolutely love fashion. I love doing new things and finding ways to swerve in a different direction. But one of the reasons why I try to use fabrics and cuts that don't go out of fashion is because I like the idea of women buying the clothes and then... I don't know what the word is... cherish sounds over-emotional for a relationship with a piece of clothing... but for a woman to feel proud, satisfied, comfortable and powerful in them, to wear them and get on with their lives."</p><p>Finding the balance between moving fashion forward and establishing a timeless signature is probably the single most difficult challenge for a contemporary designer and Philo is well on her way to achieving it.</p><p>The interview's over and for the first time since it began, Phoebe Philo leans back in her chair and relaxes.</p><p>"Shall we have a fag?" she says.</p>?<p>Alexander McQueen's Sarah Burton said that her show, which buzzed with golden honey bees, was "a celebration of femininity", and that could be a mantra for the season as a whole.</p><p>In place of ephemeral, trend-driven fashion, spring's focus is on character, of putting a look together more than stepping into a single statement piece. The Paris catwalks, still home to the most gifted designers, are the place where individuality shines. And so it did, brightly.</p><p>If there is an overriding mood, it is a minimal one. That could be seen in the pure lines and fondant-bright colours at Hussein Chalayan, in the prevalence of white and in a love affair with the trapeze line given to the world by Yves Saint Laurent but this season all over other designers' runways too.</p><p>Raf Simons's debut ready-to-wear collection for Christian Dior was so full of ideas it was difficult to keep track of them, on the runway at least. Simons paired a fine-gauge knit sweater with an overblown silk skirt, elaborate bell tops with black shorts and veiled black, strapless cocktail dresses to lovely effect. This was a huge collection, most impressive, perhaps, for its diversity: almost every piece told its own story.</p><p>Nicolas Ghesquiere's collection for Balenciaga not only upheld the new season's central contradictions ? hard and soft, masculine and feminine, black and white, often in a single garment ? but also had a humanity to it that was good to see. Models looked as if they'd stepped straight off the street in their own clothes ? albeit amazing clothes ? wearing tiny golden charms round their neck and rings on every finger. The new so-called "minimal ruffle" (can there be such a thing?) found its spiritual home here ? it is, after all, a name famed for architectural rigour. Tailoring ? with sharp, laser-cut edges and in double-faced fabrics that stood away from the body ? was masterful; the elaboration on dresses extraordinarily complex but never fussy.</p><p>"Crushing. The energy of an explosion," was how Rei Kawakubo summed up her Comme des Garcons collection and, with scrap-metal crowns made of battered upturned paint cans and broken toys, that rang out loud and clear. The clothes began with toiles ? pieces of garments in raw-edged calico squashed together to form dresses, tops and skirts: a sweet frilled sleeve here, a ragged shoulder there and the odd padded protuberance. Glittering pale silver and gold followed and finally black, which was where this collection truly sang. Comme des Garcons pretty much invented the non-colour of modern fashion and uses it less these days now that everybody else does. This was a masterclass in invention: brilliant, brave and bold.</p><p>The spirit of punk that swept the London collections was evident in this collection and in Dries Van Noten's show, too. Here arms were stripped off jackets and wadding was on show, the tartan beloved of the movement was cut in finest silk chiffon, and black leather thongs tied the open backs of tops and jackets to suitably deshabille effect. There were shades of grunge, too, as Dries Van Noten's woman layered a boyfriend sweater over a shirt, over a pair of floral-print sheer trousers, over tailored shorts.</p><p>"Friendship, beauty, support, life" were the words that Phoebe Philo used to describe her collection for Celine, which was her most gentle so far and wonderful for that. Clothing that caressed its wearer was deceptively simple ? the low-slung but still hugely elegant proportions are clearly worked on to the nth degree. The pairing of white and ivory shouldn't work but it did. The teaming of sandals that make Birkenstocks look light with coloured mink was equally unexpected: witty and surprisingly pretty. The finest raw-silk dresses were finished with coarse cotton fishnet, the most lightweight pale-gold trench coats were fashionably frayed all to discreetly but extremely desirable effect.</p><p>Next season's Miu Miu girl is equally relaxed and mischievous too, as always. Miuccia Prada's take on film-noir heroine meets nerdy student was as upbeat as it was ? for all its maverick playfulness ? chic. An exaggerated A-line silhouette was here juxtaposed with a more distressed, narrow one as aged fabrics and skins ? including bags ? rubbed shoulders with the super-shiny and new. Add to the mix giant fur stoles, long leather gloves and elegant court shoes gorgeous in rose pink… We could all be forgiven for wanting to be this person. Maison Martin Margiela's muse was something of a swot too, with her heavy glasses (sans lenses), jewelled nose clips and in clothes that were ultimately French classic with a huge twist.</p><p>How great to see yet another new lease of life on the Chanel catwalk, where a youthful and fresh play on scale ? shoes, bags and pearls were huge, clothes were teeny tiny in places, bell-shaped and swinging on bodies in others ? was on show. The Chanel suit, meanwhile, was barely recognisable: bolero jackets, A-line dresses and colours that one might not unreasonably want to eat.</p><p>At Junya Watanabe, the Puma logo appeared on the back of some of the designs ? a collaboration, perhaps? No. Watanabe simply acknowledged the fact that he'd borrowed high-performance fabric from the PPR-owned brand. Lucky Puma. This show took sport couture to a new level: bright, clashing colours, T-shirts and trousers with curvilinear go-faster stripes, techno-stretch dresses that made the body-conscious look cool (that's not easy) and spiked, studded silver head pieces all made for a look that the sartorially discerning bright, young thing will love to wear.</p><p>The shadow of Helmut Newton loomed large over collections including Peter Copping's Nina Ricci (black fishnet, zips and underwear as outerwear more dominatrix than David Hamilton in flavour), Givenchy (a lovely juxtaposition between the curve of an oversized frill and a more sharp-edged silhouette) and Lanvin, where a particularly powerful vision of a woman was upheld as Parisian style was duly reinvented. The "underpinnings as outerwear" theme that ran through the aforementioned Burton's collection also nodded to this woman, all while showcasing the fetishistic attention to detail this house is now known for.</p><p>More "butter wouldn't melt" than siren was a perfectly pitched show by the Valentino designers, Pier Paolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri, the refinement of which doubtless fills that house's namesake with pride. And finally ? fashion heaven courtesy of the Louis Vuitton designer Marc Jacobs. Perfect set, perfect soundtrack and perfect clothes all worn by not-quite-identical twins who were more beautiful than nature ever intended.</p>?<p>If you've ever tried to buy a coat only to be told that they sold out in August, pre-collections will doubtlessly be right up your street.</p><p>Like many things sartorial, they're actually nothing new: pre-collections ? also known as resort or cruise ? were originally for ladies who holidayed in winter and needed a wardrobe deemed 'out of season'. But in recent years the pre-collection has become something altogether more practical, not to mention commercially minded; its purpose now is to bridge the gap between a label's autumn and spring collections, which can, for restless retailers and skittish shoppers, often feel interminable, not to mention lagging behind when they have already been shown to the public six months previously.</p><p>Pre-collections add colour to the shopfloor during dreary months; they diversify from the standard seasonal variations; and, because they're a little more low-key, pre-collections can often be up to 20 per cent cheaper than their main collection equivalent. Buyers now report that pre-collections make up at least 50 per cent, if not more, of their orders per label per season.</p><p>"The season has grown in importance," wrote Bernadine Morris for The New York Times in 1989, "as European designers gain strength in this country and require new merchandise to fill their shops between fall and spring. In recent years, they have all added collections they call 'cruise' for American stores. They also find that these collections are gaining ground in Europe."</p><p>"In the past these pre-spring collections began arriving in November," says Ruth Runberg, buying director at Browns, "but many shipping dates have moved as early as 15 October. This is because brands realise that the earlier the goods are delivered, the longer selling window they have."</p><p>At this time of year, boutiques fill up with new things, which invigorate the rails ahead of Christmas and remain shiny until well into the new year, when tired autumn stock begins to be discounted. Pre-collection pieces rarely make it into the bargain bins, because they are less temporally oriented. These are quietly wearable clothes, which are not designed particularly for extremes of temperature so they don't get stale in the same way as the main collections can, arriving six months after they were first shown on the catwalks, only to remain in-store for another three.</p><p>Nor are they as conspicuous as the autumn and spring ranges, which define trends and make headlines, with certain pieces becoming a byword for certain designers, from Stella McCartney's polka dots to Celine's palazzo pants. Both set trends on the high street before the originals were even available to buy. Celebrities are frequently snapped on red carpets in pieces from collections that have only just been aired, wearing them a full half-year before anyone else can. Ubiquity becomes slightly inevitable and that, coupled with a rising awareness among savvy shoppers, is the kiss of death for any label.</p><p>"The catwalk show is a way for designers to really express themselves and create the mood for their collections and profile for their brand," explains Liberty's womenswear buyer Stephanie Jones. "The whole world has access to the show images ? but in reality, they still need to create wearable fashion that real women will buy into. So pre-collections often aren't as exciting, but they're still very important."</p><p>"It's probably our biggest collection in terms of sales," says designer Jonathan Saunders. "It's more of a wardrobe suggestion as opposed to a silhouette suggestion or message for the season. It's like a core wardrobe that my customer wants and that's what's interesting about working on it. Often in collections, when you're trying to put a message forward, you see the same skirt in seven colours and the same silhouette."</p><p>If the pomp and ceremony of the autumn and spring collections is the time for showcasing concepts, skills and imagination, then the pre-collections are a chance to test-drive them first. Hence, the Balenciaga resort range by Nicholas Ghesquiere ? which is available now ? prefigures the futuristic and boxy tailoring of the spring collection he showed in October and renders it less extreme (only slightly less, however). They're also a means of establishing a keynote for a label, of distilling its essence into a smaller capsule of pieces. As such, Phoebe Philo's pre-collection at Celine features the classic everyday staples for which she has become known: blouses, pleated skirts and modern, minimal trenchcoats. And it's also a chance for designers to work with new shades and see how they fit within an established repertoire ? Prada's resort 2012 range foreshadows the pastels and rich hues, as well as the ultra-feminine silhouette, of the label's Fifties-esque spring show.</p><p>Pre-collections attract less publicity then the twice-yearly shows, but many labels do hold events for them. On the whole, New York is the venue for most ? where fashion is more intensely commercial anyway ? but Karl Lagerfeld showed his most recent resort collection for Chanel at the world's most expensive hotel, the Hotel du Cap in Antibes, having flown in models and much of the front row especially. The show featured classic Chanel boucle suiting, spun in lemon yellow and lilac, as well as signature white tweed jackets to wear over black bandeau swimwear. "Resort" for some still means exotic holidays, after all.</p><p>"At Elle, we've been shooting pre-collection stories for around five years now," says acting editor Jenny Dickinson. "But in recent stories, we've placed more prominence on them. Pre-collections are beneficial all-round ? the stores benefit from early deliveries; the designers benefit from getting a more commercial take on their catwalk offers; and the consumer benefits from something new and the designer's more accessible design."</p><p>In fact, pre-collections have become so intrinsic that even nascent labels and young designers are introducing them. London Fashion Week's Peter Pilotto launches its pre-collection this season, while up-and-coming designers are learning that they too must think about them and students are being inculcated at college.</p><p>"I think the growth of the internet in the past 10 years has led to a speeding up of the fashion system," says Andrew Groves, course director for fashion design at the University of Westminster, where students create a pre-collection during their final year. "We teach them to understand the key to a company's aesthetic signature and how to meet a customer's desires. They also need to understand the key pieces that make up a pre-collection, which can transcend seasons."</p><p>This has altered the mindset of the next generation of designers and shoppers, skewing them towards the pragmatic inter-season ranges rather than the more traditionally muscular main lines. Designer Tze Goh, 33, graduated from the acclaimed Central Saint Martins MA course last year.</p><p>"Since it is the buying and wearing of garments that really contribute to what fashion is, I would have to say that pre-collections are more important," he says. "I'm definitely considering and planning for pre-collections."</p><p>It's another example of how hard fashion has to work to stay relevant in a digital age of sell-sell-sell and nonexistent attention spans. The pre-collection may have been born out of mid-century millionaires needing to dress for Barbados in January, but it has turned into something inherently modern.</p>?<p>New York wonder boy Alexander Wang, who had been nominated in three categories, in the end 'only' bagged the Accessory Designer of the Year Award, while darlings of the US fashion industry Proenza Schouler took home the most coveted prize for Womenswear Designer of the Year. The Swarovski-supported award in the same category went to Michelle Obama favorite Prabal Gurung. Michael Bastian and Robert Geller convinced the jury with their menswear designs.</p><p>If it hadn't been for the International Award, there wouldn't have been any designing women represented as part of this winning roster, but Phoebe Philo was honored for her work at Celine in this category. She was joined by The Telegraph's retiring Hilary Alexander whose Media Award felt like a lifetime achievement award.</p><p>The actual Lifetime Achievement Award, however, which went to the merely 48-year-old Marc Jacobs, was subject to much debate, and even the designer himself had stated previously that he's "not done yet." Just as controversial, while seemingly inevitable, was the choice of Lady Gaga as Fashion Icon, following in the footsteps of a much more conventionally fashionable Iman.</p><p>Here is the full list of winners:</p><p>Womenswear Designer of the Year<br>Jack McCollough & Lazaro Hernandez for Proenza Schouler</p><p>Menswear Designer of the Year<br>Michael Bastian</p><p>Accessory Designer of the Year<br>Alexander Wang</p><p>Swarovski Award for Womenswear<br>Prabal Gurung</p><p>Swarovski Award for Menswear<br>Robert Geller</p><p>Swarovski Award for Accessory Design<br>Eddie Borgo</p><p>Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award<br>Marc Jacobs</p><p>International Award<br>Phoebe Philo for Ce?line</p><p>The Media Award, given in honor of Eugenia Sheppard<br>Hilary Alexander, The Telegraph</p><p>The Founder's Award, given in honor of CFDA Founder Eleanor Lambert<br>Hal Rubenstein, InStyle</p><p>Fashion Icon Award<br>Lady Gaga</p><p>Board of Directors' Special Tribute<br>Arthur Elgort</p><p></p>?<p>She was awarded an OBE by the Queen yesterday, so had to look smart. When she heard she was on the list, Lennox said she was honoured, but also feared someone at the Palace might have done something "terribly wrong".</p><p>So what's she being rewarded for?</p><p>In 2003, she heard Nelson Mandela describe the AIDS epidemic as genocide. The speech inspired her to activism, and in 2007 she founded the SING campaign. In partnership with Comic Relief, it raises funds and awareness to help stem the spread of the disease in Africa.</p><p>Isn't she too busy singing? In recent years, Lennox has been more absorbed by charity work than by boosting her musical career. She often combines the two though: in 2003 she brought together 23 female artists including Madonna, Dido, k.d. lang and Celine Dion to record "Sing", which raised £100,000.</p><p>Sounds like she's mellowed...</p><p>Perhaps. Her last album, A Christmas Cornucopia (she was born on Christmas Day), was a reworking of her favourite carols. Elegantly turned out yesterday, her royal purple silk dress and pearls were a far cry from the leopard-print pillbox hat she'd joked would be dusted off for the occasion.</p>?<p>Katrantzou is Greek; she was born and raised in Athens. Her name may suggest her Greek origins, but her designs do not: "I think when you think Greece and design you think Grecian goddess or Sophia Kokosalaki," says Katrantzou, laughing. Katrantzou laughs a lot ? a highly-infectious, honest and very loud laugh that makes it impossible not to smile. She exudes confidence and exuberance, even during the 17th hour of the 19-hour days she is working with her tight-knit team in the build-up to her latest collection, which is showing at London Fashion Week on Tuesday.</p><p>Her first catwalk show for autumn/winter 2009 was inspired by Coco Chanel's maxim "A woman who doesn't wear perfume has no future", and was obsessed with placing the sculptural forms of perfume bottles across dresses. It also inspired that opening question, from a buyer ? who would actually want to wear it? "The prints are out there," admits Katrantzou, "but I always work on the body and see how they relate to that. That gives them a realism."</p><p>Realism isn't the word that always springs to mind looking at Katrantzou's pieces: hyper-real is more apt, with the occasional feeling that these garments have been airbrushed on to our mundane real life. Trompe l'oeil is the phrase the press grabs a hold of to describe her bold prints, colour-saturated and Photoshopped into infinity, but maybe the English translation is better. Katrantzou's signature is to trick the eye.</p><p>As with many things that may seem effortless, Katrantzou's print process is fiendishly complicated. The designer scans imagery, blowing it up, repeating, airbrushing: she calls them 'engineered' prints, to describe how they are tailored to perfectly fit each pattern piece. There are no rules and no boundaries: her prints have fused perfumes bottles by arch, pre-war couture rivals Chanel and Schiaparelli, combined elements from the rococo portraits of Nattier and Boucher, and mirrored the interiors on the images of the fashion photographers Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton. Katrantzou creates each print herself. It's painstaking work involving endless trial and error, but the mind-boggling results are worth it.</p><p>The biggest pay-off, arguably, is the sheer number of women buying Katrantzou's garments. It's something they've done steadily since her first collection ? a series of simple print shift dresses, spin-offs from her Constructivist-inspired Central Saint Martins MA collection and showcased as part of the British Fashion Council's NewGen exhibition, rather than as a catwalk show.</p><p>Katrantzou was entirely unprepared for her work's immediate appeal: "I told my parents, 'When I sell 30 dresses, that's an extreme success'. In the end I sold much more! I went thinking I won't sell anything ... I didn't even take order forms with me. I was writing my orders on the back of my press releases!" That first season netted Katrantzou an impressive 20 stockists, many of which are still with her today, part of a list that now includes over 100.</p><p>Witnessing the trickle-down effect in Katrantzou's designs is fascinating. A prime example is her show-stopping 'Jewel Tree', the Faberge egg-inspired frock embroidered with sequins, crystals and a few hundred fist-sized three-dimensional flowers. A key piece of her autumn/winter 2011 collection, inspired by the ornate interiors of mid-century couture mavens like Babe Paley and the Duchess of Windsor, 'Jewel Tree' costs at least as much as one of those Imperial easter eggs. But Katrantzou has a printed version ? drop-dead flattering, cap-sleeved and to-the-knee ? that will retail at three, rather than five, figures. "Of course, there's always the commercial counter-piece, for the woman who'd rather have a pretty, colourful dress than buy into the idea," she says, matter-of-factly.</p><p>Indeed, Katrantzou's take on the creativity versus commerce debate is refreshingly down-to-earth. "It is important not to limit yourself creatively but you have to keep in mind that this is not something hanging in a gallery. This is something that you want a woman to wear, and you want it to feel good on her."</p><p>That said, Katrantzou's work has taken a leap forward in the past few seasons ? from the simple shift-dresses of her early collections to something more structured and certainly more ambitious. Spring/summer 2011 was the collection that really set Katrantzou apart on a global scale; her first stand-alone show, it featured a kaleidoscope of print inspired by those slightly Surrealist vistas peopled by the fashion mannequins of Bourdin and Newton in the Seventies. Katrantzou originally studied architecture ("You can get a job in Greece with an architecture degree") and first specialised in interior textiles at Central Saint Martins before moving to the MA fashion course. Her mother is an interior designer, so you could say the collection was in the blood.</p><p>Figuratively and literally, the stand-out pieces were the lampshade skirts ? both shape and decoration taken from prissy, chintzy, Victoriana wired lampshades, dripping with fringe. "I had them in my line-up as an abstract idea for a skirt, but then I thought, yeah! Let's do a lampshade!" Katrantzou reinvented them, with a long backwards glance at the absolutely fabulous Christian Lacroix, as postmodern party wear for a new generation. That's an era that takes some guts to resurrect in our clean, mean, Celine-obsessed times. "It was beating a little to its own drum, a little against those ideas of practicality and 're-building a woman's wardrobe' that have been going on," say Katrantzou, laughing again. "But I think when you are a young designer you have to make a statement and do what you feel you do best. Hopefully if it's good, it will appeal to a woman."</p><p>Katrantzou certainly does. Her lampshades were among the signature editorial pieces of the spring/summer 2011 season; Vogue Japan's Anna Dello Russo sported a micro-mini lampshade to Miu Miu, the closing show in Paris; and Mary herself wore one for a profile in LOVE magazine.</p><p>Hardcore fashionista fan-base aside, however, Katrantzou sold 26 of them ? "and this season we sold 16 of 'Jewel Tree'," she proudly declares. They were bought by fashion collectors placing private orders, as well as retailers searching for statement pieces in an increasingly saturated marketplace (net-a-porter.com shelled out for it in all its crystal-crusted glory). "They do sell, I think because they're seen as unique. There's the excitement of finding something new."</p><p>The new, of course, is what's really exciting Katrantzou right now. Amid her creative chaos this season are blown-up pictures of flowers, photocopies of scrunched-up metal and several thousand Swarovski crystals. "It's about a dual story ? hard and soft, about doing something I've never done before," she says enigmatically. "We challenge ourselves as a team to push and to be creative." Given that this comes from the woman who's dressed the fashion fraternity in lampshades for the past two seasons, prepare to be amazed all over again.</p>?<p>I am indeed. They are blue. They are a whopping size 9. And they officially belong to my son who, incidentally, wouldn't be seen dead in them, either.</p><p>They're finishing my look, obviously, which otherwise consists of an also blue Theory sundress. My hair is tied on top of my head where it looks, I believe, not unlike a curly pineapple.</p><p>This is by no means the only time I have been seen in clothing that no less than two generations ? one older, one younger than mine ? believe should be consigned to the bottom drawer, or even the dustbin.</p><p>Let me think… My favourite vests are from Muji and I seem to have owned them since the late 1990s. I daren't throw them away, as not only are they ? unbelievably ? still quite nice, but also the indestructible nature of the fibres they are made from would be bad for the planet, surely. I've got ripped, faded blue jeans, too, which are overly reminiscent of denim circa Club Tropicana for anyone old enough to remember it to consider fashionable. It's just that they're so soft. They're like tracksuit bottoms, in fact, which only makes me want to hang onto them more, carefully folded alongside all my other tracksuit bottoms… What am I saying?</p><p>And what of leggings, the 100 per cent Lycra kind: no new-fangled jeggings for me. Mine are cropped just below the knee and finished with a row of three white buttons that are, debatably, a detail too far (thank you, American Apparel). I look like Louie Spence in them, I'm told, and I don't think that's meant as a compliment.</p><p>Dressing to impress, at least some might think, is something that goes hand in hand with a lifetime spent thinking and writing about fashion. In fact, more often than not ? and for me at least ? when off duty quite the opposite is the case. No, I don't sleep with a Celine handbag tucked under my pillow or wearing a vintage 1930s petticoat.</p><p>"Actually, if I say Crocs with a sundress are fashionable then maybe that means they are," I duly inform my mum, who remains sceptical. As indeed, when Monday morning comes around again, and I unthinkingly actually go out of my front door to buy the papers in them, do I.</p>?<p>The truly brilliant ? and the visionary stylist in particular ? will, at this point, demonstrate their extraordinary foresight by dressing in a manner the rest of us won't embrace ? or better still even understand ? until a further six months down the line. The high-profile magazine editor, meanwhile, will pick autumn's key pieces from big name designers ? Balenciaga, Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, Givenchy, Celine ? and work them for all they're worth. That's a lot, obviously, in this most sartorially obsessed of all possible worlds, both in terms of fashion credibility and cold, hard, cash.</p><p>In fact, the British contingent is famously less fierce than most. There are those, for example, who are happy to wear high street ? you won't see Mesdames Roitfeld (pictured), Alt, Wintour, Sozzani et al doing that. We are also, generally, just a little more frayed around the edges than our international contemporaries, although scruffy doesn't necessarily mean bad. At least some of the time, such idiosyncrasy is where London's reputation springs from.</p><p>Whatever, the clever fashion follower will always opt for the odd addition to their wardrobe: maybe one designer purchase, a canny thrift-shop find, a classic piece that never dates and maybe a shiny ? or not so shiny, depending on one's taste ? new pair of shoes and bag. Times are hard and a head-to-toe new look is, at best, unintelligent and at worst, plain uncouth.</p><p>However laissez-faire we may or may not be, though, the opening days of the shows are far from a walk in the park. Remember the first day back at school after the long, summer break? A harbinger of things to come, perhaps, for me this was a minefield, not because of who I would or wouldn't be sitting next to over the forthcoming term, and certainly nothing even remotely concerned with any anxiety over academic achievement. The issue, then as now, was always what to wear.</p><p>s.frankel@independent.co.uk</p>?<p>That is, only as it applies to handbags laden with gleaming hardware, strangely elaborate vertiginous footwear, and huge jewel-encrusted pendants. The waiting list for the season's most desirable bag (such as Celine's Classic Box bag, below) shoe, piece of costume jewellery and so on is in no way a thing of the past. That would be to cut off fashion's lifeline.</p><p>It's simply that, for the next six months at least, such objects of desire will be rather more discreet in their, well, in their desirability. Fashion is undergoing a modest, and even sensible, moment in line with an all-round less ostentatious mood, and admitting to one's wealth ? what wealth there is left ? is deemed unseemly. It's nothing short of tacky to be rich right now. Or to show that you are rich, at least.</p><p>Think therefore, for now, in terms of the non-statement statement, the type of sartorial gesture that those in the know will immediately recognise as something to kill for, but anyone outside of that particular club will not register. In some ways this mood is as elitist, if not more so, than its more obvious predecessor.</p><p>It's not unlike the difference between owning either a floor-length mink coat or a battered old raincoat lined with fur; an all-singing, all-dancing Ferrari or a vintage Bentley Continental. In each case only the most privileged may apply but, as far as the two alternatives are concerned, the owner is not just monied but also highly discerning. Or so the argument goes.</p><p>Whichever way one chooses to look at it, the non-statement statement is more difficult to pull off and also to copy. It's all about perfection of proportion, the use of only the finest materials, and design with a capital ? if not flashing ? D.</p><p>In much the same way as it takes more time and effort to look effortless than to dress up like the proverbial Christmas tree, the non-statement statement is nowhere near as relaxed and/or understated and/or easy as it seems.</p><p>Elitist doesn't cover it, then. Instead, any apparent relaxation of dress codes is but smoke and mirrors. Make no mistake: this is fashion at its most impenetrable and unforgiving.</p><p>s.frankel@independent.co.uk</p>?<p>Age can certainly not wither either Stella Tennant, named model of the year (41), or Kristen McMenamy (soon to turn 47 ? happy birthday), currently in the throes of well-deserved career revivals.</p><p>It takes quite a woman to carry off the Alexander McQueen pearl-embroidered, ivory organza dress with super-high white python boots to match that McMenamy chose to wear. She looked all the more extraordinary for the fact that her wildly long, poker-straight tresses are also snowy ? her hair turned grey some time ago and, far from trying to disguise it, she’s exaggerated the look.</p><p>Given that Tennant ? and her signaturecrop ? was the face of Nineties’ androgyny, it was less than surprising that her attire was more garconne than ice queen in flavour. Dressed in a by now classic Celine all-in-one Le Smoking, slashed to the navel, hers was the perfect wardrobe solution for those who like to respect a black-tie dress code, but would rather not be weighed down by the accompanying underpinning and froth.</p><p>To say that this look is as easy as Tennant makes it appear would be misleading. She is currently among the faces of Celine and her preternaturally tall and boyish frame wears it well.</p><p>Still, if you’ve got it, flaunt it and there’s no point in the rest of us being bitter, particularly when Tennant herself is so modest. She thanked the team of people who work on any photographs of her ? the hair and makeup artists and David Sims, who presented her with her gong, “for his lighting”. He has long upheld her unorthodox charm.</p><p>Neither of these women has ever fit into the picture-perfect stereotype that more mainstream modelling still all too often seeks out, and the older each becomes the more refreshing that seems.</p>?<p>Regular readers of this column will doubtless have little difficulty identifying what side of the sartorial fence this particular fashion follower will be sitting on for the next six months ? if not, truth to tell, the rest of her days.</p><p>For the uninitiated: I would rather have my fingernails pulled out than wear anything a) pale and/or candy-coloured, b) diaphanous and c) floral or d) bearing even the slightest hint of a ruffle. All the aforementioned are, in my book, about as metropolitan as a cowpat. Nymphs and shepherdesses have never been my aesthetic role models.</p><p>So, who are the main protagonists ? or should that be offenders ? where a return to the notion of overtly feminine dress is concerned?</p><p>Valentino, obviously, is a frontrunner here (pictured below). This is arguably pretty's spiritual home and, suffice it to say, if it isn't diaphanous, pale and/or candy-coloured and frilly ? often from head to toe ? then it doesn't figure. Christopher Bailey's collection for Burberry Prorsum is also on the soft side, although there is a rigour here (to what might at first sight appear like big girl's blouse clothing) that is ultimately more pleated than ruffled and where colour is at least dusty, lending a certain realism to the overall effect.</p><p>Nothing much real about Chanel, where an unashamedly bucolic view ? think everything from appliqued meadow flowers to puffed sleeves ? is only marginally undercut by the raw edges that are ubiquitous right now too.</p><p>In the blue corner ? that'll be utility wear ? Chloe is bringing back the sandy-hued, super-chic look of safari: ultra-relaxed tailoring worn with nothing more prissy than a paper-flat leather sandal. Celine's is a brilliantly minimal, no-frills view of womanhood that, with its short, sweet, A-line skirts in neutral colours worn with bodies or white shirts is more functional than tough (tough being very last season). Military and sportswear details, meanwhile, are everywhere from Comme des Garcons to Balenciaga, luckily for some.</p><p>Of course, it might be argued that the best way to view any such creative dichotomy is to mix and match. Why wear one trend when any fashion credentials may better be flaunted by piling on two? The truly modish, then, will no doubt already be channelling every English rose one might care to mention and wearing a (new?) pretty dress with nothing more girlish than, say, a Parka and, if you're Helena Bonham Carter/ Sienna Miller/Keira Knightley (pick any London girl), a pair of big, bad and preferably dirty boots.</p>?<p>Or maybe their irresistible WAG charm simply seduced him. But will we, the onlookers, be quite so fascinated by the behaviour of Abigail Clancy, Sabrina Keogh, et al as we once were?</p><p>That seems unlikely.</p><p>True, the sight of these real-life Barbie dolls frolicking about town with Balenciaga/Prada/YSL and, if they’re really on top of things, Celine handbags in tow may add a feminine flourish to the predominantly male, beautiful-game-obsessed news pages in June. The type of rampantly conspicuous consumption that this group of women represents, however, is about as intriguing these days as a trip to Iceland (the low-budget supermarket, not the volcano, which really is exciting).</p><p>Is anyone really interested in what these pretty, privileged souls are wearing and buying as they neck Bacardi Breezers, trailing after their men in packs like well-groomed ponies? Perhaps the WAGs will have to sharpen up their acts and adjust their not-entirely-shy lifestyle to suit more restrained and serious times.</p><p>A few tips they would do well to embrace, but will no doubt ignore entirely.</p><p>Despite claims that the status handbag is back, an easily identifiable current “it” bag, laden with trinkets and hardware, is not fashionable. Satchels are, although it’s unlikely that any WAG worth her credentials will be buying hers in the John Lewis school uniform department.</p><p>Next, and equally challenging for this particular breed: while short, body-conscious clothing is still enjoying a mainstream moment, anyone looking forward is embracing the distinctly un-WAG friendly maxi skirt (they’ll do theirs Sienna Miller style no doubt) or dirndl. Douze points for any WAG who chooses not to reveal her shapely orange limbs.</p><p>And talking of orange, while that mother of all absent WAGs (AWAGS!), or should that be the famous fashion designer, Victoria Beckham may be wedded to her all-round, gravy-toned glow, naturally sun-kissed skin ? the sort that is protected with Factor 15 sunscreen at all times ? is today the way forward. Will the WAGs leave their Saint Tropez behind in their suburban mansions? The sight of pigs flying gracefully on the South African horizon is surely more likely.</p><p>s.frankel@independent.co.uk</p>?<p>And, safe in the knowledge that a short life span is the fashion industry’s life blood, those ahead of their game are only too pleased to offer a more conspicuous alternative.</p><p>The new bag to see and be seen carrying sets itself apart not by the re-instatement of anything so obvious as branding or back-breakingly cumbersome heavy metal bling. Instead, colour is key: the more bold and bright the better.</p><p>Versace’s metallic leather bag is so shiny that anyone interested can see their own reflection in it (no need to carry a mirror, then, which is good). On the catwalk in Quality Street gold and ultraviolet these will lift spirits, not to mention the most minimal outfit, even on the rainiest of days. Not quite so razzledazzle but still far from understated are hot pink bags, courtesy of both Mulberry and Prada. This, we all know, is not the easiest of colours to wear. In the form of a handbag, however, any sugar and spice factor is decidedly more manageable and perhaps even ironic in a, “yes, I know it’s unashamedly girlish but I’m woman enough to pull that off” kind of a way.</p><p>Over at Celine ? and it’s not insignificant that designer Phoebe Philo is the woman who stripped things back in the first place ? no-nonsense navy clothing is accessorised by a sunny orange purse: a glorious flash of citrus does much to alleviate any seriousness and that, presumably, is the point.</p><p>Colour will be everywhere next spring ? nothing as easy as an accent will be on the agenda by then. It may pay to practise with accessories before going the full mile. Such practicalities aside, a bag in a look-at-me hue suggests luxury (and by default) wealth because anyone carrying one is unlikely to be restricted to a single choice. A coral-red box bag (Marni) is all well and good but you wouldn’t want to use it day in, day out. That would be boring and therefore missing the point.</p>?<p>It started gently with a tie-waisted, charcoal grey, James Perse stretch jersey design that might best be defined as the tracksuit bottoms of skirts. It's chosen bearing comfort in mind, then. My skirt's mid-calf length, which is fashionable this season. With flat shoes ? some things never change ? the effect is somewhat WPC-like in the lower leg department at least, however, and it's breezy around the ankles to boot. "You look chic," says my dinner companion, though, and given that, skirt aside, I'm dressed as I always am, I can only assume that it must take the credit for this, not me.</p><p>Day two is a full-on fashion Azzedine Alaia skirt day and I'm feeling quite pleased with myself. My skirt is cut like a flower from the front. From behind, there's more body to it, mimicking the effect of a modern-day bustle. Does my bum look big in this? Yes. And I love my skirt, which swooshes around my legs in an entirely feminine way.</p><p>Day three and, clearly warming up to the task in hand, I put on an Alexander McQueen pencil skirt (slightly more office-appropriate than the one pictured here), something of a legend in fashion circles for its transformative effect. And (lo!) I can't walk and (also lo!) people are reacting as if I'm walking the streets in nothing but my underwear. Who would have thought that this time-honoured silhouette could live up to its hyper-sexualised reputation quite so effectively?</p><p>I have lunch with a colleague who's dressed in Celine ? loose-fitting jeans and a striped, granddad shirt, to be precise. "I bet you've never seen me in trousers before," she says. "And you've never seen me in a skirt," I reply. Only then I look down and notice that my legs need waxing.</p>?<p>This much we know. That sentiment might express itself in a "look at me in total-look Junya Watanabe being a beautiful alien" kind of way. Or it might be a more discreet statement than that. The term used to describe the latter is "stealth wealth": only a select few onlookers will understand the extreme credibility ? and indeed expense ? of a perfectly simple, and even more perfectly proportioned, lightweight cashmere coat, say. Whatever, either path is adopted by people who care about their physical appearance, however they might argue to the contrary, and, importantly, about what other people think of their choice of clothes.</p><p>The puritanical British often frown upon such peacock tendencies that they perceive as an expression of wanton vanity, however subtle they may be. Others, though, will oblige, cooing in quiet admiration over a pair of Celine trousers, for example, which they know are Celine trousers because the person wearing them is on stilts. </p><p>Is Mario Balotelli looking for such tacit approval when he wears a T-shirt printed with WHY ALWAYS ME? beneath his sky-blue strip? There's nothing much stealthy about a slogan T-shirt, it has to be said, particularly not when its owner chooses to flash it for the fans at the least given opportunity. The same goes for Balotelli's RAFFAELLA TI AMO that is understandable, perhaps, given the woman in question's indisputable assets but is childishly indulgent nonetheless.</p><p>Just as sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, the slogan T-shirt is the lowest form of statement dressing. We've all winced at the sight of girls striding out in a T-shirt that shouts STOP LOOKING AT MY BOOBS when, far from achieving ironic, post-feminist status, quite the opposite reaction is provoked. Ditto: T-shirts that read GORGEOUS, HELLO BOYS and so forth. </p><p>Lurking in my bottom drawer is the exception that proves the rule. The garment in question is a black T-shirt, now green with age, emblazoned with: PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT. Its decrepitude decrees that I no longer wear it, but both sentimental value and the brilliance of the words, make me incapable of parting with it. My T-shirt was written not by an unimaginative opportunist, you see, but by Jenny Holzer. And that makes it art.</p>?<p>Dior's 1947 full-skirted New Look saw hemlines drop a good few inches in keeping with more optimistic times. The 1960s, emancipation and the Youthquake, meanwhile, established the thigh-grazing mini-skirt as the silhouette to see and be seen in, worn, more often than not, over opaque tights and with go-go boots to prove just how strident a type of girl (to use the word advisedly) ruled the roost.</p><p>A quick glance at last week's Grazia was proof, if ever any were needed, that it is today an overall look ? or mood ? that dictates what we will be wearing, as opposed to anything as specific as the cut of a single garment (been there, done that). The length of skirts, in particular, is a free-for-all. "The maxi length has gone stellar," says page 13 of the magazine, followed, on page 50, by a spread dedicated entirely to the Whistles concertina pleat skirt that is such a hit on Twitter one might think it had changed the world. As if to reiterate the store's credentials as a mid-market haven for women who would rather not either break the bank or bow down to the whims of the catwalk entirely, the powers that be have cut it to both knee and mid-calf length. Confused?</p><p>In fact, if the world's more directional designers are to be believed, it is the mid-calf-length skirt that is most fashionable just now, as seen everywhere from Dries Van Noten to Dolce & Gabbana and from Versace to Celine. Safe in the knowledge that it's not an easy style to pull off, however ? read: it won't be flying off the rails any time soon ? away from the runway, anything goes. There's something for everyone out there, then, which, some might argue, is play-safe to the point of inert but, given the economic climate, makes sound business sense if nothing else.</p>?<p>Good things about being a woman: lovely hair, nice smell and the ability to carry a handbag at all times without ever feeling even remotely blowsy.</p><p>While for seasons, and even years, the unfailing mantra of fashion credibility and indeed status all round was "the bigger the bag, the better", now we're expected to carry one barely big enough to fit a mobile phone (an itsy bitsy one that ensures no-one over the age of 11 will take you even remotely seriously), a lipstick, a change purse and a credit card. Forget about anything as useful as a diary, say, favourite scent, make-up bag, change of clothes, book, iPod, small dog or ? heaven forbid ? packet of Marboro Lights. Those with anything as pedestrian as a life, then, need not apply.</p><p>The advantage of such small but perfectly formed accessories is, of course, that they are easy to carry (no visit to the osteopath is ever likely to be blamed on them), they have the appeal of jewellery being, by nature, bijou (no need to buy any costly trinkets) and, last but not least, so long as they're not crocodile/python/designed by Judith Leiber, they're likely to be less expensive than their more roomy big sisters. This season, Chloe's are small and square, Fendi's are mini shoulder bags ? the large, glittering gold clasp of which threatens to upstage even the most jewel-like colours ? D&G's are flowery and Mulberry, never a brand to miss a trick, has attached its mini bag to bigger bags of the same design, a bit like Kanga and Roo. The cutest and campest designs come courtesy of Chanel (tiny, little quilted gold confections) and at Hermes (pictured) a Birkin the size of a purse is attached to the wrist by a band of leather (the finest, most desirable leather in the world, of course).</p><p>In the end, for all not in possession of a chauffeur, a bigger, more practical bag will need to be carried alongside, which perhaps begs the question, why not just buy that in the first place. Whatever, to this end, and in fashion circles, the dead simple Celine shopper is favoured.</p>?<p>A future-proof investment</p><p>Robert Pattinson (above) is proving to be highly marketable. A DavidMichod drama, The Rover, also starring Guy Pearce, is being sold to independent distributors before cameras have even rolled. Michod wrote it based on a story he conceived with Joel Edgerton, set in a dystopian future Australian outback.</p><p>Women behaving badly </p><p>Paul Boardman (above), who usually writes with Scott Derrickson, is going solo. He's been hired to write an adaptation of the James Patterson novel Guilty Wives for Trudie Styler and Celine Rattray's Maven Pictures. It tells of four married women on a weekend of excess who wake up with two dead men.</p><p>The Dark Knight of the litigation </p><p>Who will get what from the agency work from The Dark Knight Rises director Christopher Nolan and his producer wife Emma Thomas Nolan (above)? The Nolans filed lawsuits against their former agency CAA and current agency William Morris Endeavor to determine who should receive commissions on the hit. </p><p>A new push for Sherlock helmer </p><p>Fox is backing a new take on Frankenstein via a script by the Chronicle scribe Max Landis. Paul McGuigan, hot after directing three episodes of the BBC's Sherlock, aired in the US, is in line to direct the newly stitched-together project. McGuigan (above) is also known for movies Lucky Number Slevin and Push. </p><p>Secret's out for Banks's latest? </p><p>The adaptation of Laura Lippman's crime drama Every Secret Thing has secured Elizabeth Banks (above) to star with Diane Lane. Amy Berg is to direct in February 2013 from a script by Nicole Holofcener. It tells the tale of two 11-year-olds convicted of murdering a baby who, freed at 18, attempt to adjust to life.</p>?<p>Sade raked in $16.4m last year after her first tour in North America for a decade and the release of The Ultimate Collection, eclipsing Adele, the only other Brit in the top 10, who earned $13.1m.</p><p>Taylor Swift topped the list, according to trade publication Billboard's calculations, with earnings of $35.7m. She was followed by Irish rockers U2 on $32.1m and another country star, Kenny Chesney, who earned $29.8m. Touring remained the biggest source of income for the top earners, although album sales saw Adele, The Beatles and Justin Bieber perform strongly.</p><p>Adele's earnings would have been boosted had she not been forced to cancel 10 sold-out US shows after undergoing throat surgery. Yet she broke records in the country as her album 21 spent 23 weeks at No 1, with album sales hitting 6.7 million.</p><p>Sade, the sixth-highest earner in the list, is the name of the singer and songwriter behind the four-piece band of the same name. Their career has spanned more than a quarter of a century during which time they have sold more than 23 million albums.</p><p>The jazz singer was born Helen Folsade Adu in Ibadan, Nigeria, and came to England at the age of four when her parents separated. She became a musician by chance, after friends approached her to sing while she was studying fashion.</p><p>She signed to Epic records, bringing three members of the band Pride with her, and had a top 10 hit with "Your Love Is King" in 1984, followed by her first album Diamond Life. In 2008, after a hiatus of seven years, the band reformed to put together a new album, Soldier of Love. It was released worldwide in 2010 and debuted in the US at the top of the Billboard 200. The band won a Grammy for best R&B performance at last year's ceremony, their fourth, and released The Ultimate Collection in May.</p><p>The tour, opened by John Legend, raised a total of $45.7m in revenue, with the group taking home $15.4m. On Billboard's top 40 music money-makers list, country singers had a particularly strong year with 11 artists. Taylor Swift's earnings came in at 17 per cent higher than the previous year's winner Lady Gaga. Last year Lady Gaga, who released Born This Way in May, dropped to fourth with $25.4m.</p><p>The cast of hit TV show Glee proved the 11th highest musical earners in the US last year, thanks to a popular tour. The 23 arena concerts brought in close to 266,000 fans, as album sales hit 2.1 million. The show also inspired the extraordinary revival of the band with the 12th-highest earnings, Journey, whose 1981 hit "Don't Stop Believin'" saw an extraordinary revival, going platinum in March. The band played 50 shows in the US last year and sold 703,000 albums.</p><p>The only Briton to make the top 10 the previous year was Paul McCartney, whose international tour saw him net $14.1m, although he was beaten by his old band The Beatles. Sales soared after their back catalogue was remastered and made available on iTunes, with 1.2 million albums downloaded and 4.7 million individual tracks sold. Total US sales were valued at $6.7m.</p><p>BIG IN AMERICA THE 2012 TOP 40</p><p>1. Taylor Swift: $35.7m<br>2. U2: $32.1m<br>3. Kenny Chesney: $29.8m<br>4. Lady Gaga: $25.4m<br>5. Lil Wayne: $23.2m<br>6. Sade $16.4m<br>7. Bon Jovi: $15.8m<br>8. Celine Dion: $14.3m<br>9. Jason Aldean: $13.4m<br>10. Adele: $13.1m<br>11. Glee cast: $12.6m<br>12. Journey: $12.3m<br>13. Elton John: $11.97m<br>14. Katy Perry: $11.96m<br>15. Toby Keith: $10.4m<br>16. Britney Spears: $10.1m<br>17. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band: $10m<br>18. Rascal Flatts: $9.6m<br>19. Tim McGraw: $9.3m<br>20. Michael Buble: $9m<br>21. Brad Paisley: $8.6m<br>22. Rihanna: $7.7m<br>23. Enrique Iglesias: $7.5m<br>24. The Beatles: $6.74m<br>25. Sir Paul McCartney: $6.72m<br>26. Lady Antebellum: $6.67m<br>27. Keith Urban: $6.57m<br>28. Zac Brown Band: $6.5m<br>29. Rod Stewart: $6.4m<br>30. Usher: $6.3m<br>31. Foo Fighters: $6m<br>32. Rush: $5.8m<br>33. Backstreet Boys: $5.7m<br>34. Sugarland: $5.6m<br>35. Justin Bieber: $5.5m<br>36. New Kids on the Block: $5.5m<br>37. Steely Dan: $5.38m<br>38. Motley Crue: $5.37m<br>39. Kanye West: $5.36m<br>40. Linkin Park: $5.2m</p><p>Source: Billboard</p>?<p>Savile Row tailors have reported a jump in enquiries from gentlemen keen to copy the extra-long tailored coats sported by actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Holmes in the new BBC series, Sherlock, which drags Holmes into the 21st century.</p><p>Though the series, which ends tonight, has only aired for three weeks, it has won both critical and fashion plaudits. Debenhams' menswear department has already reported a surge in enquiries for similar coats. Designer Paul Costelloe moved to meet the demand, offering tailored coats and scarves based on the series, while Savile Row bespoke tailor John Pearse said many of his clients were inquiring about the actors' clothes.</p><p>Ruth Attridge, a spokeswoman for Debenhams, said: "Although it's early days for autumn/winter fashions to hit the high street, our menswear department is already seeing interest in modern re-workings of these Victorian designs, as modelled by Cumberbatch on screen. Dark, extra long tailored coats with pronounced collars and raised lapels are a key look for the new season."</p><p>Womenswear designers have also taken inspiration from the sweeping cape worn by earlier incarnations of the detective. Designers interpreted the trend in different ways at the autumn/winter 2010 shows, from Aquascutum's dramatic dark wool cape to Celine's tan leather version, and Yves Saint Laurent's pink satin number.</p><p>"Capes are going to be massive. We've seen them around for the last two seasons, but a lot of people chose to open their shows with capes this time around," said Emma Elwick, market editor of Vogue.</p><p>Celebrities such as model Daisy Lowe are getting in on the act and sporting cloaks, despite the warm weather. The website style.com noted that Dolce & Gabbana was already channelling "Sherlock Holmes chic" in its spring 2010 show, while US Vogue dedicated a double page spread in this month's issue to the cape.</p><p>Emma Elwick added: "There is something elegant and dramatic in the swoosh of a cape. They are also a really practical item, with all the bikes popping up all over London; you can easily cycle in them."</p><p>It's not the first time the Victorian detective's attire has caught the public imagination. Last year's film Sherlock Holmes, directed by Guy Ritchie, brought the Victorian steam-punk look into the mainstream, with actor Robert Downey Jr's striped coat becoming a coveted item.</p><p>Sarah Arthur, costume designer for the BBC series, explained how she achieved the detective's look: "Holmes wouldn't have any interest in fashion so I went for classic suits with a modern twist: narrow-leg trousers and a two-button, slim-cut jacket. I also went for slim-cut shirts and a sweeping coat for all the action scenes ? it looks great against the London skyline."</p><p>Those wanting to buy the original coat, worn by Cumberbatch, may be disappointed to learn the £1,000 Belstaff coat has been discontinued. But then, there are always vintage shops.</p>?<p>Michael Kors<br>Paris, France</p><p>Following his European outlets in London, Milan, and Munich, American designer Michael Kors - who celebrated 30 years in business this season - has set up his first standalone store in Paris, which is also his largest store in the world to date. Kors, who spent many years in Paris during his time at French label Celine, offers all of his collections at the address, with a strong focus on accessories.</p><p>279 Rue Saint Honore</p><p></p><p><br>Longchamp<br>Hong Kong</p><p>The French handbag label has opened its biggest Asian flagship, called La Maison 8, in Hong Kong.?To mark the occasion, a limited-edition bag has been released, featuring prints of the label's history.</p><p>8 Queen's Road Central</p><p></p><p><br>Stella McCartney<br>Las Vegas, NV, USA</p><p>A giant white horse made of 8,000 Swarovski crystals is the centerpiece of the British designer's new store, created by London's APA architects who also worked on her Milan and Paris boutiques. The crystals hint at the store's location at Crystals at CityCenter. An exclusive "Welcome to Vegas" t-shirt has also been made for the occasion.<br><br>Crystals. At CityCenter, 3720 S. Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas</p><p></p><p><br>Loewe<br>London, UK</p><p>The first new European store since 2002, Loewe's new London flagship in Mayfair mainly stocks the Spanish brand's luxury accessories.</p><p>125 Mount Street</p><p></p><p><br>Bottega Veneta<br>Sydney, Australia</p><p>Designed by the Italian label's creative director Tomas Maier, Bottega Veneta's first Australian store has come to the Westfield shopping center in Sydney, offering a broad selection of Bottega Veneta products, including handbags, women's and men's shoes, fashion jewelry, luggage, eyewear, and items for the home.</p><p>Westfield Sydney Shop 3029/30, 188 Pitt Street</p><p></p><p><br>adidas Y3<br>London, UK</p><p>Coinciding with the retrospective of Yohji Yamamoto's work at the Victoria & Albert museum, the designer's Y-3 line for sportswear brand adidas got a new home in London's Mayfair. The boutique, not far away from Yamamoto's own, sells the women's and men's collections as well as the kids' range.</p><p>54 Conduit Street</p><p></p><p><br>Issey Miyake<br>Tokyo, Japan</p><p>The Japanese designer has gone ahead with the launch of a new concept store in the city's Ginza district, opened the same day that the devastating earthquake ravaged the country. Apart from offering all the label's collections, the shopping destination also incorporates a cafe, art exhibitions, and concerts.</p><p>4-4-5 Ginza, Chuo-ku</p><p></p><p><br>Rebecca Taylor<br>New York, USA</p><p>The US designer, whose new location in Tokyo's Harakuju is currently open two hours a day until conditions improve, also celebrated the inauguration of her new boutique in New York's Meatpacking District.</p><p>34 Gansevoort Street</p><p></p>?<p>Whether it's a red carpet showstopper, a gown for an inauguration ball or an everyday dress to wear to work, the killer frock is a guaranteed attention-grabber.</p><p>Its ability to make an impression is reflected in the fact that sales of dresses have soared 20 per cent over the last three years, with about 66 per cent of women aged 16 to 24 buying dresses in 2010, up from 46 per cent in 2007, according to research by Mintel.</p><p>Dresses have dominated the catwalks for much of this period, with the "statement dress" ? often a short, embellished cocktail style ? attracting numerous copies.</p><p>Memorable designs include Lanvin's short ruffled orange dress from spring/summer 2008, Balmain's green sequinned cocktail style from spring/summer 2009 and Gucci's tea dresses from spring/summer 2006. Of course, the dress never fell out of fashion. But there was certainly a renewed emphasis on it, and it was reinvented to suit numerous different occasions, from smart to casual.</p><p>While jeans and a decorative top were de rigueur for a night out until about six years ago, and wearing a dress was deemed old-fashioned and too smart, the trend for vintage clothes was one factor in making the dress cool again. Celebrities were also integral to the dress's rehabilitation, from Lily Allen in vintage ballgowns teamed with chunky sports trainers to Kate Moss in small retro tea dresses, which she later produced for her clothing range at Topshop. Kate Middleton has also been seen wearing an array of dresses, from a Topshop patterned dress to the blue Issa dress she wore for the royal engagement photos. Apart from the fact that the garment was daringly low, it looked far less formal than the bright blue skirt suit worn by Princess Diana when she and Prince Charles announced their engagement in 1981.</p><p>It might seem strange that spending on dresses would increase during a recession, but they require little thought, are versatile and the same garment can be dressed up or down for different occasions. According to Mintel, the clothing market for those aged 16 to 24 has also seen solid growth despite the recession, increasing by 17 per cent between 2005 and 2010 to stand at £10bn, outperforming the overall clothing market.</p><p>Tamara Sender, senior fashion analyst at Mintel, said: "This growth has been driven by a increasing fashion for dresses, with 2010 seeing a boom in styles such as maxi dresses, which this generation would not already own and therefore would need to add to their wardrobe.</p><p>"Skirt purchasing, however, has suffered as a result of this and also because of the trend towards wearing leggings more often, which can often be worn together with certain styles of dress, but less commonly used with skirts."</p><p>Without the financial demands of mortgages and families, this age group is able to keep up with the rapid pace at which modern fashion trends emerge. Suzanne Pendlebury, a buyer at Harvey Nichols, said: "Previously our younger shoppers would shop more leisurewear brands for premium denim and luxury basics, such as fashion tees and loungewear. Today's shopper is far more aspirational."</p><p>However, this fashion-aware group should know that despite the popularity of dresses, trousers have recently stolen their thunder when it comes to high fashion. For autumn/winter 2010 labels such as Chloe, Celine and Stella McCartney all put the trouser centrestage, and this season wide palazzo pants are a key trend, along with maxi and midi skirts and shirts.</p>?<p>Rineke Dijkstra</p><p>Dijkstra, a Dutch photographer, tends to work in series, concentrating on individual portraits. She focuses on people in a transitional stage of their life, such as women after giving birth and new recruits in 'Israeli Soldiers', of which the image here is part.</p><p>What is your aim when taking pictures?</p><p>I want to show things you might not see in normal life. I make normal things appear special, but it has to be based on reality.</p><p>What equipment do you use?</p><p>I use a 4x5-inch field camera with a standard lens and a tripod.The negatives are the size of postcards, which gives you really wonderful sharp detail and contrast. The end result is that your photograph is almost more real than reality.</p><p>How do you edit your pictures?</p><p>I might leave them for two weeks because you need distance to see properly. It happens to me that I take a picture and I think it doesn't work at all and then I look at it three years later and I think it's a great picture. It's probably linked to having something in mind and being disappointed that your expectations weren't met, then realising later that it was a lucky moment.</p><p>What art form does photography come closest to?</p><p>Perhaps sculpture. I think it's important that people understand and look at photography in a more abstract way. It's about being able to imagine looking behind the image as if it was three-dimensional.</p><p>William Eggleston</p><p>Often referred to as the "father of colour photography", Eggleston was already experimenting with colour in the early 1960s, when black-and-white was the norm. He became famous for monumentalising everyday subjects.</p><p>How do you decide if something is worthy of being captured?</p><p>I never know beforehand. Until I see it. It just happens all at once. Even the most uninteresting, ugly or boring places can for an instant become magical to me.</p><p>What goes through your mind when you are framing a shot?</p><p>I compose very quickly and without thinking, but consciously. I take a picture instantly and never more than one. A long time ago, I would have taken several, but I was wasting a lot of time looking at these damn near identical pictures.</p><p>What makes one image stand out more than another?</p><p>I don't have favourites. I look at pictures democratically. To me they are all equal. There are still so many pictures that I wish were seen.</p><p>When did you first get interested in photography?</p><p>A friend made me buy my first camera ? a Canon ? when I was studying at Vanderbilt University in Nashville in 1957. I was fascinated immediately. Do you think it's important to be technically proficient? You become technically proficient whether you want to or not, the more you take pictures.</p><p>Naomi Harris</p><p>In 2000 Harris photographed Haddon Hall, the last hotel in Miami dedicated to senior citizens. Thanks to that project she got her first assignment with The New York Times Magazine and has been working as a documentary photographer ever since.</p><p>When did you start taking pictures?</p><p>I never really had an interest until I studied printmaking at university. I thought it would be worth taking a photography course. When I saw the contact sheets I thought, "Oh dear, I think this is what I want to do".</p><p>How do you get the best out ofyour subjects?</p><p>I'm always very honest with the people I photograph. I open up a lot and tell people about my own experiences and answer their questions honestly. I'm asking my subjects for something, so I want to give something in return.</p><p>Is it important to be technically proficient?</p><p>Yes. Regardless of whether you use lights or not, you should know what the effect would be.</p><p>Do you think a photographer needs a philosophy to do good work?</p><p>Most good artists are a bit on the crazy side. Most of my photographer friends are either on medication, in therapy or should be. It's the off-kilter quirkiness that allows you to see people in a different way.</p><p>What advice would you give to a budding photographer?</p><p>Only you can make it happen. Work on your own project when you're not shooting for an assignment. It's not enough to be a talented photographer, you have to be a good business person too.</p><p>Boris Mikhailov</p><p>Born in the Ukraine in 1938, Mikhailov's photographs demonstrated a satirical criticism of the Soviet regime during the 1970s and 1980s. Following the downfall of the Soviet Union, his focus shifted to capturing the social disintegration.</p><p>What attracted you to photography?</p><p>A picture I made of a woman holding a cigarette. That was a radical break from the norms: you were only supposed to show Soviet women as an ideal. Photography was where I could express myself as a citizen and a human being.</p><p>Did you have access to international photographers' work?</p><p>Not really. But I understood after a while that it wasn't important for me to look at. They have a really strong aesthetic,which corresponded to the Western environment. In my life there is dirt, things are broken. I needed to concentrate on what was real.</p><p>What do you think about when you are framing a shot?</p><p>I don't look in the frame. I look later. First I look in life.</p><p>David LaChapelle</p><p>Fashion photographer LaChapelle is famous for creating surreal, uncompromisingly original visual worlds, saturated in colour.</p><p>To what degree did your mother, who was also an artist, inspire you to become one?</p><p>My mother was the first person to introduce me to creativity. My parents didn't have much, but she would decorate the house in the most amazing way at Easter and Christmas. She frequently transformed our house into a wonderland.</p><p>Do you think formal education is important?</p><p>I think art history is crucial for anyone in the visual arts. You have to understand how ideas evolve.</p><p>What makes one image stand out more than another?</p><p>Images that stand out are those that haven't been taken just to shock or impress you.</p><p>What advice would you give?</p><p>Take the pictures you want to take. Don't think about what sells, or what an editor might say. The key is to photograph your obsessions, whether that's old people's hands or skyscrapers.</p><p>Do you need a philosophy to do great work?</p><p>I don't know. I think you certainly have to think beyond the latest model.</p><p>Alec Soth</p><p>An avid traveller, Magnum nominee Soth spent three years taking pictures along the Mississippi river with an 8x10 camera. He continues to create images infused with lyricism and melancholy.</p><p>How did you get into photography?</p><p>I studied painting at high school, but the thing that really got me excited in photography was going to a Joel Sternfeld lecture in college. I'll never forget how he showed an image of his little car in a vast landscape and it was so exciting for me. I thought, "God, I could drive around America".</p><p>What do you think when you shoot?</p><p>All thoughts leave my head. It's the nine hours of driving around beforehand [when I do my] thinking. And I think right after I've taken the picture how it's going to fit into the series.</p><p>What's your theory of photography?</p><p>Photography is very related to poetry. It's suggestive and fragmentary and unsatisfying in a lot of ways. It's the art of limitation: framing the world.</p><p>Does a photographer actually need a philosophy to do good work?</p><p>You need to find your own voice, as corny as it sounds. You need to know the tradition [of photography] and find your little voice in that tradition in order to bring a glimmer of newness to it.</p><p>Mary Ellen Mark</p><p>A contributing photographer for The New Yorker, Mark achieved worldwide recognition following her 1981 book Falkland Road: Prostitutes of Bombay. Her images often depict people at the edge of society.</p><p>How did you develop your own way of seeing?</p><p>I don't think you can develop or learn a "way of seeing". It's who you are, how you think and how you create images.</p><p>Do you know what you want to say before you take a picture?</p><p>I prefer not to think ahead about what I'm going to say; I would rather be surprised and see what my subjects bring to the photograph.</p><p>How important is patience in your job?</p><p>You have to wait for the right moment. There is so much we see today that is not about the subject but about the clever ideas the photographer might have. Most often the ideas the subjects have are a thousand times better. I was photographing an animal trainer who had a massive ego. He took the trunk of his beloved elephant Shyama and wrapped it around his neck like a necklace. I would never have thought of something that clever.</p><p>Do you think that a documentary photograph can ever be objective?</p><p>All documentary photographs are subjective. But great photographers are special because of the way they see the world. They have a personal vision.</p><p>Extracted from 'Image Makers, Image Takers', by Anne-Celine Jaeger, paperback, £17.95 (Thames & Hudson)</p>?<p>She scaled back her presentation to the showroom six months ago because she was pregnant with her third child and therefore preferred to avoid excessive stress. Now, though, she is back on the runway schedule and all eyes are fixed on the woman who spearheaded an understated and perhaps more thoughtful approach to womenswear at the end of the first decade of the new millennium ? a viewpoint that continues to resonate powerfully on catwalks other than her own and in the way women dress more generally to this day.</p><p>Philo chose to show in a relatively intimate manner in a typically grand, chandelier-bedecked Parisian town-house on Avenue Foch in the 16th arrondissement. This is one of the French fashion capital's most exclusive residential districts.</p><p>The Celine Spring/Summer 2013 collection, the designer said backstage, is about: "Friendship, beauty, support... Life." There was indeed a softness here in the form of blouses, dresses and trousers which appeared almost to hug their wearer: the effect of a boyfriend or husband's sweater worn tied around the shoulders or hips was cleverly built into garments although they never looked overwrought.</p><p>Equally gentle were layered ivory silk and white cotton shift dresses with delicate, frayed edges and oversized, unlined trench coats in pale gold.</p><p>For all her pragmatism, Philo is nothing if not a rule breaker, though she does this quietly too, never shouting any more radical credentials from the rooftops. And so narrow, raw silk, racer-backed evening dresses had panels of cotton fishnet inserted at the neckline (they looked almost like they'd been cut from a man's string vest), the crotch of trousers dropped so low they resembled Dhoti pants but never at the expense of their more classically androgynous status.</p><p>Masculine, flat leather sandals, meanwhile, were lined with red, yellow, white and candyfloss pink fur and fluffy, talon-heeled courts, went so far as to demonstrate that rare thing, a sense of humour: a cute touch.</p><p>Since her arrival at Celine in 2008, Philo has consistently argued that the frenetic and quintessentially ephemeral "in one season out the next" mentality that once characterised designer fashion is outmoded. The designer's collections evolve as opposed to changing track entirely on a seasonal basis.</p><p>She told The Independent last year: "What I love is this idea of a wardrobe, the idea that we're establishing certain signatures and updating them, that a change in colour or fabric is enough. I do think that the world doesn't need many more frivolous bits and bobs that end up left in cupboards or landfills."</p><p>With that in mind, the Celine "classic" and "cabas" bags, the Crombie coat, the perfectly simple white shirt, pair of black trousers and silk crepe tuxedo are now firmly established as part of the brand's vocabulary and are all present and correct this time around too. They make a discreetly luxurious and essentially timeless statement ensuring that discerning women of means who would rather not flaunt their wealth on their sleeve remain in safe hands. At the same time, Philo's latest offering was a hugely confident move forward and one that told a warmer story.</p>?<p>The campaign group Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) claims that Britain’s beaches are being damaged by the “growing problem” of marine litter and the discharge of effluent into the ocean.</p><p>An unusually warm April has already led to packed beaches but to coincide with the official start of the bathing season next month, SAS will launch a new warning system whereby beach users - from families with buckets and spades to professional surfers and body-boarders - will be able to receive real time sewage alerts that will warn them that the water they are intending to swim in is unclean.</p><p>The alerts will be sent by text and tweet and will cover up to 50 of Britain’s best beaches. The warning system is being set up in conjunction with three of Britain’s biggest water companies, South-West, Southern and Welsh. The alerts are part of a wider surfing campaign called “Protect Our Waves” and will be accompanied by an arresting poster campaign featuring some of Britain’s star surfers.</p><p>In the most shocking image of a campaign produced by the advertising agency M&C Saatchi, which includes the Conservative Party, Coca-Cola and the Department of Health among its client roster, the champion British body-boarder Jack Johns is pictured covered head-to-toe in what appears to be excrement (it is in fact brown coloured polystyrene). Johns, 24, who began surfing in his native Cornwall at the age of 16 and is the current world belly-boarding champion, said Cornish waters were generally clean but he had encountered severe problems off the east coast of England. “I have been surfing in Yorkshire among raw sewage and it’s horrific ? you don’t realise until it is right in front of you,” he said. “There are amazing waves in Yorkshire when the conditions are right but raw sewage is being pumped into the North Sea so often and there’s nothing stopping it.”</p><p>Gehret, 30, who is shown entirely shrouded in marine refuse, is a four times Swiss champion surfer who is based at Fistral beach in north Cornwall. She recalled once trying to surf at Whistand Bay in south Cornwall and finding that the water was brown. “We didn’t go in because it didn’t seem safe. The waves were good but you couldn’t surf.” Hugo Tagholm, director of SAS, said: “I have suffered from stomach bugs and throat infections. If you visit any beach in the UK there will be marine litter and there has been a 120 per cent increase since 1994.”</p><p>Among the beaches being covered by the new warning system are Bude, Porthleven and Porthtowan in Cornwall, Brighton and the Welsh beaches of Newgale and Broadhaven. “These real time alerts are about giving people reassurance. If pollution incidents are being reported in real time then people using bathing spots can have confidence in whether or not the water they are using is clean.”</p><p>SAS hopes that Yorkshire Water will join the alert system next year and that the remainder of Britain’s water companies will eventually sign up to the scheme. The images of champion surfers covered in sewage and detritus will be shown in magazines and on strategic billboard sites, such as alongside the River Thames, which conveys large amounts of marine litter into the ocean. Graham Fink, executive creative director of M&C Saatchi, said: “Most people think of the seaside as quintessentially British with fresh air, sea and sand. But it’s not all what it seems. Lurking under the surface are hidden horrors. We wanted to smack people in the face with a wet fish and show the problem in an arresting way.”</p>?<p>Quick to pick up on the style is LA-based J Brand, purveyor of some of the finest jeans in the world and now the 'low-rise modern riding pant' (below), basically a cropped skinny crafted in the softest cotton twill with suede knee patches.</p><p>Always a sucker for a new pair of jeans ? and, yes, I know that I've promised not to buy any more ? I find myself strutting around the house in a pair. Were I Mystic Meg I'd predict these will be a big hit, the successor, perhaps, to last year's Houlihans ? but I like them better, not least because they don't have dirty great saddle bags at the hips.</p><p>"I think you should practise a bit before you wear your chaps to work," says my other half, who is clearly struggling with the technicalities of clothing descriptions, and/or thinks I'm Christina Aguilera.</p><p>Not that I'd let a little thing like that put me off. My new trousers are both very flattering and a brilliant colour. It's described as 'vintage stallion', which roughly translates as a mushroom-y brown/grey ? perfect for those who like a neutral wardrobe but are, only whisper it, just a little sick of black.</p><p>How to wear them? Well, if I said I'd be donning a hacking jacket and a pair of riding boots (Hermes, perhaps?) with my jeans and then galloping off into the sunset, I'd be lying. I'm not a To the Manor Born kind of person and even if I were, that would be too literal. Instead, a black cashmere sweater, or perhaps a white shirt will suffice as, too, will a pair of flat pumps, an ankle boot or even a trainer. Easy, then, and that's worth the price tag alone.</p><p>Susannah Frankel is Fashion Editor of The Independent</p><p>s.frankel@independent.co.uk</p>?<p>They're not cheap, certainly. You're paying, though, for the size: it's so light that carrying it around ? in my case, between shows ? is a revelation. And lo! I can fit it into my handbag and even stand up straight when I walk. It's priceless, then, if you ask me. Many small things are expensive: diamonds, La Perla underwear, micro-pigs... That is their allure. For aesthetic and pragmatic reasons.</p><p>Of course, the iPad is even tinier and much cheaper than the MacBook Air. What's more, it's fashionable, as many a designer name behind an iPad wallet would no doubt agree. (I give you... the Celine-clothed iPad.) But even with a wireless keyboard it's not easy to touch-type on an iPad and as there's so far no Word app designed for it, editing fully-formatted documents is not possible.</p><p>And so, I love my new laptop. I can use it on my knee, live from the runway. I can work in bed with it and am not disturbed by any whirring of fans and so forth. The screen is as sharp as anyone could wish for. Internet shopping ? and indeed watching TV on it ? is a joy. No problems here where poring over truffle shavings on MasterChef.</p><p>Finally, of course, the Air is indeed pretty. Just like a magazine or a powder compact, in fact. And these things are important too, you know.</p><p>Susannah Frankel is Fashion Editor of 'The Independent'</p><p>s.frankel@independent.co.uk</p>?<p>The problem is not quite so representative of Everywoman as it might at first seem. You see, in her role as Catwoman for the soon-to-be-released The Dark Knight Rises, she has to wear a (no prizes for guessing...) catsuit. "It was a psychological terrorist," she said of the offending outfit. "Thoughts of my suit, changing my life so I would fit into that suit... It dominated my year. I went to the gym for 10 months and didn't come out." The words "drama" and "queen" spring to mind, which is apposite at least.</p><p>As it happens, I've had my own issues with an all-in-one recently ? it's not skin-tight, though, so to my mind it's not really a catsuit. Instead, it's a boned all-in-one which I've hardly ever worn, not least because it takes a minimum of two people to dress me in it, which is an interestingly retro concept but something of a challenge on a practical level.</p><p>"You look like you're going abseiling," says one member of my family (male, 12) and it's not clear whether this is a good or a bad thing. "Is that a onesie?" wonders his friend. I think that might just be bad.</p><p>I love the idea of wearing just the one piece of clothing and having done with it. If I was maybe 2ft taller I'd seriously consider taking out a mortgage to invest in a black crepe Celine all-in-one, as worn by Stella Tennant, who we all could be forgiven for wanting to be. If, meanwhile, I was a pop star, I would wear a skin-tight Pam Hogg catsuit, gleaming with panels of gold, black and scarlet. In that instance, I would think I was Siouxsie Sioux, which I could happily live with.</p><p>I would never, though, wear a onesie. Paris Hilton, One Direction, Tinky Winky (or is the latter technically just naked?)... Whatever, none of these is really representative of a look I was ever knowingly aiming for, although the good news is that no fitness frenzy would be required.</p>?<p>The brand certainly has a knack for delivering what shoppers want. In the past few years, it has hit upon several best-selling and paparazzi-friendly handbag designs.</p><p>"Mulberry has found itself a good position as 'affordable luxury,'" said Harriet Quick, fashion features director at Vogue. "Their prices are much lower than Marc Jacobs or Celine, for example. They're still premium accessories, but they're more within reach."</p><p>With some designer handbags retailing at over £1,000 and most around the £700 mark, Mulberry's £400 to £800 bracket is one that both diehard designer shoppers and aspirational high street consumers can slot into.</p><p>"There are several bags that underpin our success," said the chief executive and chairman, Godfrey Davis, of the 44 per cent increase in retail sales, "the Bayswater, the Alexa, and the Daria. They're great classics."</p><p>The company was founded in 1971 by Roger Saul, aged 21, in Somerset. Alongside his mother, Joan, they made leather goods, mainly luggage, in their garage, but gradually moved into the fashion accessories market too. Mr Saul was ousted from the company in 2002.</p><p>The current boom kicked off in 2002 with the Roxanne, which was seen in the elbow crooks of Sienna Miller, Keira Knightley and Kate Winslet, and continued with the Mitzi, Tillie and Edie ? and, of course, the Alexa satchel, named for Ms Chung, the television presenter, a fan of the brand.</p><p>Creative director Emma Hill ? who last year scooped Best Designer Brand at the British Fashion Awards ? consistently designs bags that are attractive not only to trendspotters, but those who favour practicality. And season upon season, Mulberry has successfully perpetuated the notion of a singular "must-have" bag; consumers have been only too happy to follow their directives.</p><p>"Emma Hill's bags have a very friendly sort of handwriting," added Harriet Quick. "There's a sort of loveworn, casual feel to them ? they're not as uptight or designer-ish as other brands. They're never too precious, so there's an ageless appeal, and there's always a design element, so you can have the funky turquoise animal print, or the lovely battered calfskin."</p><p>Ms Hill's hallmarks are supple and slouchy leather complemented by shiny brass hardware, and shapes that are classic without being too formal; the release of the Alexa bag for spring/summer 2010 reinstated the satchel on the fashionable scene ? and the impact of its launch is still rippling through high street stores. Such was its success that it sold out several times over, has been recreated in "mini" and clutch styles, and is a conspicuous presence on the shoulders of shoppers in every major city.</p><p>"We have significant international growth too," said Mr Davis, "and we're seeing a lot of tourist business. A lot of people are coming to London to visit Mulberry and shop there."</p><p>The brand's popularity abroad is spurred on by the vogue for all things British and posh; fellow heritage label Burberry has also felt the effect of this, announcing a 40 per cent rise in profits last month.</p><p>Mulberry also celebrates its 40th birthday this year and recently published a book detailing what goes on behind the scenes at its Somerset production plant, where all of the brand's designs are still manufactured, and where the recently extended ready-to-wear clothing collection is developed.</p><p>"There's a lot of goodwill and faith for heritage brands among British shoppers ? they connect more," said Ms Quick. "Some bags can look so anonymous, but there's a friendliness to Mulberry. They've done it very, very well."</p><p>Luxury bags that made the brand</p><p>Bayswater</p><p>Launched in 2000, Mulberry's classic tote pays tribute to the simple styling of the Hermes Kelly bag, with its flapdown top and postman's lock.</p><p>Daria</p><p>Britney Spears was a fan of Mulberry's 2009 bag the Daria, which came as a shoulder bag and a satchel. Many believed the enlarged logo was out of keeping with the brand's traditional tastes, but it was an overnight success.</p><p>Alexa</p><p>Mulberry's hit bag of 2010 was the Alexa satchel, named after hip party girl Alexa Chung and its runaway success continues to resonate now, with the brand producing new versions of the style. Its vintage, preppy cool was an instant hit with shoppers of all ages.</p><p>Roxanne</p><p>The bag of the season during the boho summer of 2003, when Sienna Miller et al had it dangling from their shoulders, the Roxanne mixes traditional luggage detailing with something a little edgier.</p><p>Mitzy</p><p>2008's hit bag was the Mitzy tote, a slouchy, casual offering that became near ubiquitous, thanks to an accessible price and range of jaunty colours.</p>?<p>£1,415, brownsfashion.com</p><p>After the success of the label’s PS1 satchel schoolbag, the PS11 takes Proenza Schouler’s accessories into more grown-up territory: it’s modern and minimal, roomy and tough, and the colour will keep even the most fashionable shopper happy.</p><p>2. Prada</p><p>£1,500, Prada.com</p><p>In the show, this applique leather bag was carried alongside all manner of clashing prints ? you don’t need to do this, as it makes quite the statement on its own. A bit Seventies, rather nostalgic and uniquely strange, this number has Prada written all over it. Not literally ? they’re flowers.</p><p>3. Chanel</p><p>£1,830, 020 7493 5040</p><p>Chanel’s Boy bag is named after Mademoiselle’s great love, Boy Capel, and is a new take on the classic Chanel quilted bag. This versatile version has more of a gothic flavour, which will fit in perfectly with autumn’s dark romantic trend.</p><p>4. Gucci</p><p>£1,760, gucci.com</p><p>Forget what you think you know about velvet ? Gucci’s Frida Giannini has reinvigorated it with a gothic equestrian feel. The gold hardware forms part of the brand’s signature, while the panelling feels new and modern but isn’t about to date any time soon, either.</p><p>5. Miu Miu</p><p>£1,195, miumiu.com</p><p>At Miu Miu this season, the doctor’s bag is a key accessory. This tan leather version is less traditional, with its double clasps, but feels all the more special for it. The classic, warm and natural tone will go well with everything else in your wardrobe too.</p><p>6. Alaia</p><p>£1,400, net-a-porter</p><p>Make the ultimate understated statement with this perforated leather tote bag by fashion’s demigod Azzedine Alaia. It’s chic, classically elegant and spacious ? and will only look better with age.</p><p>7. Louis Vuitton</p><p>£2,510, louisvuitton.com</p><p>We know we’ve been banging on about this North South tote from Louis Vuitton, but it truly is something to behold. The luxury label’s classic monogram print is picked out in twinkly paillettes on felt and will add a bit of sparkle to your routine.</p><p>8. Dolce & Gabbana</p><p>£1,810, 020 7659 9000</p><p>This season, the classic Dolce & Gabbana shape gets a baroque tapestry update ? two of the biggest trends of the new season ? and features one of the Italian duo’s favourite things: gold. It might look like something your nana did in front of the telly, but this ladylike bag is pure luxury.</p><p>9. Celine</p><p>£1,195, celine.com</p><p>If you don’t already own a floppy, over-sized clutch bag, where have you been? This fold-over version from one of Paris’s most desirable labels is one of the best around, showcasing all the sleek hallmarks of designer Phoebe Philo’s minimal style. And you can fit everything you need in it without too much trouble.</p><p>10. Marni</p><p>£250, net-a-porter.com</p><p>Is it a bag or is it Puffa jacket? Marni’s utilitarian and sporty shopper is like carrying a lightweight sleeping bag on one arm, and if you don’t want to add bulk to your body with the Puffa trend this autumn, why not try it out with accessories instead?.</p>?<p>2. Miu Miu</p><p>£225, net-a-porter.com</p><p>In one of the hottest shapes of the season, the pink-tinted lenses will add a romantic touch to your vision that will make everything seem to be coming up roses.</p><p>3. Giles</p><p>£350, cutlerandgross.com</p><p>Available in four colourways the "Sonic" design was a continuation of the designer's drawings of swans and mirrors the "elegant mystery" of that majestic fowl.</p><p>4. Christian Dior</p><p>£210, 01423 520 303</p><p>Candy colours are inescapable for summer and a bright pair of sunglasses is a fun way to wear the trend if classic neutrals are more your thing clothes-wise.</p><p>5. Erdem</p><p>£350, cutlerandgross.com</p><p>Erdem Moralioglu's collection for spring/summer was a symphony of lace and florals. Here lace is encapsulated within acetate for a feminine, modern style.</p><p>6. Marc Jacobs</p><p>£219, Marc Jacobs, 01423 520 303</p><p>Aviators come in almost all shapes and sizes. This acrylic pair isn't flight regulation thanks to the oversize frame and fun and frivolous colours.</p><p>7. Louis Vuitton</p><p>£291, louisvuitton.com</p><p>Continuing the ice-cream shades throughout Marc Jacobs' spring/ summer collection, this pair has retro styling reminiscent of flight goggles with feminine curves.</p><p>8. Burberry</p><p>£159, sunglasses-shop.co.uk</p><p>Classic aviators are a perennially popular style. This luxurious pair comes replete with the house's signature check as a discreet detail on the arms.</p><p>9. Prada</p><p>£196.20, sunglasses-shop.co.uk</p><p>If you're struggling to choose between this season's cat-eye or round shapes, this angled pair offers the best of both worlds and is flattering to boot.</p><p>10. Celine</p><p>£220, brownsfashion.com</p><p>The keyhole detail on this pair of tortoiseshell shades references classic preppy styles. Honey and brown tones will flatter blondes who may find black too harsh.</p>?<p>Neither was McCartney alone. Nothing more outre than camel coats and roomy trousers were the scene-stealing look of the season for the Chloe designer, Hannah MacGibbon. More trousers, not of the dropped crotch, awkwardly cropped variety that have been fashionable for some time, but ultra-flattering, high-waisted and ( whisper it) very slightly bootcut came courtesy of Frida Giannini at Gucci. Navy coat dresses (not quite like those the Queen likes to wear but still) and black boots with an only averagely high, burnished gold heel were the order of the day at Phoebe Philo's apparently indomitable Celine. It seems not insignificant that these are all female designers, indebted, for the time being at least, not to any street-inspired, too-cool-for-school aesthetic but to the creation of timelessly elegant pieces that will serve their wearer well for seasons and even years to come, and work everywhere from the boardroom to the (generally not even remotely cool) school gates. Neither is it surprising that as these women have become older, they have cast aside any obviously seasonal ? or sensational ? preoccupations in favour of a more enduring mindset as perhaps best befits their own lifestyles.</p><br><br><p>If the women stood out, they were by no means the only ones to tap into this mood. The Burberry designer, Christopher Bailey, followed the barely-there chiffon dresses and equally teeny-tiny trench coats that filled his summer collection with flight jackets, parkas and even a classic pea coat for autumn. Hussein Chalayan sent out an idiosyncratic spin on the type of slick, early-Nineties tailoring that once made the heart of any Uptown Girl worth her credentials beat faster. Across the board there were fisherman knit sweaters, neutrally coloured classic outerwear, skirts in all shapes and sizes just so long as they were below the knee, bearing modesty in mind, dominated. Modesty? That's a word that hasn't been used concerning contemporary fashion for a very long time. Footwear, meanwhile, given a collective consciousness familiar with designs so far-fetched they resemble gravity-defying machinery or the claws of sequinned lobsters rather than mere sandals, was, equally, nothing short of sensible by comparison. As for the now defunct "It" bag, anything stamped with logos or weighed down by hardware is henceforth banished to fashion Siberia. Instead, satchels worn across the body leaving madam's hands free to follow pedestrian pursuits such as actually being able to reach for her purse, neat little clutches and paper-flat totes with barely a fastening or designer name in sight are the things to see and be seen carrying.</p><br><br><p>To drive fashion's new message home, the cover of Vogue's August issue ? the one that introduces the new collections to any interested party in this country at least ? reads "THE RETURN OF REAL CLOTHES". And, in a world now saturated with garments so short and/or tight and/or revealing and/or whimsical, they invariably dare a woman to wear them over and above gently enticing her into their luxurious folds, it is the very pragmatism of this quietly revolutionary new aesthetic that makes it remarkable.</p><br><br><p>It's not news, of course, that the type of here-today-gone-tomorrow trend-driven designs that characterised the first decade of the new millennium are now about as fashionable as a loaf of sliced white. Neither is it any longer appropriate to view fashion as disposable. The rise and rise of budget copies of designer clothing that meant a new outfit for every day of the week for any fashion knowledgeable woman aged between 14 and 40 appears at best outmoded, at worst plain irresponsible. Conspicuous consumption, be that ironically dipped into by the chattering classes, or heartfelt in unashamed WAG/Sex in the City manner, has lost its legs. Instead, never has the term "investment piece" held so much sway. And investment pieces are best either precious to the point where they may be handed down as heirlooms and tend to be available to only the very few ? hence the relative buoyancy of haute couture ? or under-stated, with none of the tell-tale detail, indulgent frills, furbelows and bare-faced folly that will render a garment irredeemably dated six months down the line.</p><br><br><p>"I'm into clothes that are practical," Philo tells Vogue. "I don't like being held back by what I'm wearing. I like comfort and ease. I don't need more complications. There are enough challenges." And here's Gucci's Frida Giannini talking in equally down-to-earth terms. "There's less of a desire for show-off fashion," she says. "What I want is beautifully chic clothes that make me feel like a woman." Their words could be the mantra for the season as a whole.</p><br><br><p>Of course, now, as always, fashion is a cultural barometer reacting to the social issues of the age. And so, just as the pared down looks of the early Nineties were a backlash against the type of over-blown, highly staged aesthetic represented by Thierry Mugler, Claude Montana and more, today's understated mindset marks a similar move away from both fast fashion and the exorbitantly over-priced statement dressing best exemplified by Christophe Decamin's 1980s-obsessed Balmain, where a pair of jeans might cost upwards of £1,000 and a sequinned T-shirt rings in at almost three times that amount ? and that's with or without intentional ageing. With this in mind, and safe in the knowledge that there truly is nothing much new in fashion, the work of the original minimalists ? Prada, Jil Sander, Yohji Yamamoto and, perhaps most noticeably, Helmut Lang ? who rose to fame during the recession that hit back then are currently being referenced by a new generation eager to tap into an equally modern ? and understated ? mindset now that the entire luxury goods industry teeters on the edge of economic meltdown once more.</p><br><br><p>Here's American Vogue's Anna Wintour commenting on Lang's impact in particular more than 10 years ago. "Helmut came along and at first it was 'Wait a moment, what's this? This is not the spirit of the mid-Eighties which was all about opulence.' But then everything crashed and fashion reflected that and Helmut was there to take advantage."</p><br><br><p>While it would be unfair to argue that any new-found reality check is taking advantage of financial uncertainty, it is doubtless the case that serious times demand serious clothes to match. To flaunt one's wealth is no longer appropriate ? cash just isn't classy right now. Not everything in this most practical of all possible worlds is quite as simple as all that, though. It should come as no great surprise that both Prada and Louis Vuitton ? Miuccia Prada and Louis Vuitton designer Marc Jacobs are both notable for the fact that they set the mood as opposed to fall in with it ? are following a discreetly different path. While both these superpowers might appear ? and even claim ? to be designing real clothes for real women, it is here that it becomes crystal clear that such labels remain relative.</p><br><br><p>"It's normal clothes. Classics. Revising the things I did in the Nineties," Miuccia Prada told Style.com backstage following the unveiling of her autumn/winter collection in Milan. To this designer's mind, however, "normal" denotes a heavy black wool 1950s-line dress (sleeveless) with conical breasts built in, Aran knitwear so chunky it is far from obviously flattering, ribbed tights in the colours of sludge that, again, all but the stick thin of limb will find far from easy to wear. Miuccia Prada's reality, you see, dictates that "normal" doesn't necessarily mean easy or rooted in vanity and hats off to her for thereby lifting even a comparatively restrained collection way out of the realm of the banal. Over at Louis Vuitton , meanwhile, where the show notes announced "And God Created Woman" and Elle Macpherson returned to walk the runway for the first time in years, the aim was clearly to promote a more grown-up and curvaceous aesthetic. Macpherson might be more grown-up and curvaceous than most of today's models, but let's not forget that she has long been known as "the body". She's hardly Everywoman, appearing not only exceptionally long and lithe but also a good 10 years younger than her years.</p><br><br><p>To dwell, finally, then, on terminology, the word "real" in itself takes some explaining. To the fashion frontrunner even a show-piece as extreme as Gareth Pugh's infamous black Latex poodle suit is real. In as much as it's been worn, it is wearable, and, in fact, there's no arguing with that. To the fashion insider real may mean anything from a photograph that hasn't been obviously re-touched (even the most gritty of images almost invariably have been though) to a garment that is clearly not intended for wear by an on-duty showgirl. Real, as it applies to this season's collections in particular, meanwhile, is a blazer with just the two sleeves, a skirt length that doesn't mean knickers on display for all to see and shoulders narrow enough to fit through the average doorway. With this in mind, the look Vogue is currently holding up for inspection is real because it is, more or less, understandable by many as opposed to just an elite few. And the women who it's aimed at may be real too. (In the wider scheme of things models, perhaps strangely, are seen as anything but.) Strictly speaking, one doesn't have to be conventional model age or size to wear the new collections. Make no mistake, however, it doesn't hurt to be. And, where designer clothing in particular is concerned, however real it may be, it is as, if not more, expensive than the more challenging (read unreal?) variety that preceded it. To make matters less viable still, this is a style much more difficult to copy than anything more pyrotechnic in flavour. Any appeal, in the end, lies in the polished perfection of proportions, subtlety of colour and choice of only the finest of fabrics where real clothes are concerned. They're a non-statement statement, if you will, but ? and this almost goes without saying ? any apparent effortlessness ultimately requires considerable effort to pull off.</p>?<p>Earlier this year, we saw Robert Pattinson similarly ride around New York in a limo in David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis. Juliette Binoche grabs a lift in one particularly memorable scene. Scenes in cars, as opposed to the usually elongated car chases, have made up some of the most memorable moments of movie history.</p><p>Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami is a master of the art: his film Ten was made up entirely of characters chatting in cars, and it's a theme he carries on with his new film, the Tokyo-set drama Like Someone in Love.</p><p>Kiarostami says that conversations in cars are great because, "I think that it's a very private and intimate place for dialogue… and you can just keep quiet also."</p><p>The following list gives credence to Kiarostami's words.</p><p>Pulp Fiction (1994)</p><p>There are two great car scenes in Quentin Tarantino's pulp noir. One demonstrates Tarantino's excellence at writing quotable dialogue out of seemingly mundane conversations. Vincent Vega (John Travolta) explains to Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) the differences between Europe and the US, buying beers at the cinema in Amsterdam and why a quarter-pounder is called a Royale with Cheese in France. The second and best car scene shows Tarantino's skill at making graphic violence funny. Vega and Jules are driving their friend Marvin to a rendezvous when, out of the blue, Vega accidentally shoots Marvin in the face and then tries to excuse himself by accusing Jules of driving over a speed bump.</p><p>Crash (1996)</p><p>Cosmopolis director David Cronenberg has some previous when it comes to car scenes. In adapting J.G Ballard's novel he filmed some of the most controversial sex scenes committed to celluloid, and unsurprisingly in a tale about people getting turned on by car crashes there are several noteworthy car-sex scenes. But it's the sequence in which James Spader explores the wounds of Rosanna Arquette that are the most eerie and memorable.</p><p>Thelma and Louise (1991)</p><p>One of the all-time great road movies ends with a conversation between Thelma and Louise (above) where they decide to drive into the Grand Canyon in a scene that should be depressing but is surprisingly upbeat. Refusing to get caught, they hold hands while driving to near-certain death.</p><p>Night on Earth (1991)</p><p>Taxis are as popular as limousines in movies and this Jim Jarmusch film takes place in five different taxis around the globe. It's mostly disappointing apart from one very funny sequence that sees Roberto Benigni play a taxi driver who picks up a priest in Rome and wants to confess his sins.</p><p>Drive (2011)</p><p>While car chases have been banned from the list, this one is different in that Nicolas Winding Refn shoots the getaway sequence from the inside of the car. For the most part it's an example of brain power over horsepower as Ryan Gosling uses a local sports game to get lost in the crowds and escape the pursuing police.</p><p>Se7en (1995)</p><p>Towards the end of David Fincher's serial killer movie, detectives are driving John Doe to what he claims is the location of his final victim and on route they all get into a heated discussion about the nature of good and evil. One of Kevin Spacey's best-ever scenes.</p><p>Blues Brothers (1980)</p><p>Surprisingly, the best car moment of this film doesn't involve the brothers on a "mission from God" but their Nazi enemies. A city chase sequence ends with the Nazis literally reaching the end of the road and, as they fly in slo-mo at an impossible height over the city skyline, one turns to the other and says, "I've always loved you."</p><p>Wayne's World (1992)</p><p>Mike Myers started a whole host of copycat singing in the car sequences after this moment where he and his best friends drive through town singing and headbanging to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.</p><p>Taxi Driver (1976)</p><p>Robert De Niro takes a job as a taxi driver and, as he picks up passengers, gives a depiction of New York at it's crime-ridden, inner-city nadir at the end of the 1970s. But the best moment is from the director himself. Martin Scorsese has a cameo as a husband spying on his cheating wife from the cab.</p><p>La Dolce Vita (1960)</p><p>Marcello Mastroianni seems to spend the whole movie in his 1958 Triumph convertible driving a bevvy of beauties through the streets of Rome. The big moment is when Marcello Rubini finally tells his depressed girlfriend Emma that she is suffocating him, and after an argument and some protestation she jumps out of the side of the car. The next scene sees him picking her up at dawn, which says more about their relationship than an hour's worth of dialogue ever could.</p><p>Every Which Way But Loose (1978)</p><p>Clint Eastwood's plays a truck driver whose sidekick is an orangutan named Clyde. The animal is also his confidant, and one particularly funny conversation sees Eastwood try to bounce his thoughts off Clyde, with the orangutan's facial expressions providing the perfect responses.</p><p>'Holy Motors' is out on 28 September</p>?<p>Stripes, too, were a major motif in this collection, and they also appeared in two-tone navy or purple with white at Jil Sander, and in multicolours at Versace. Etro and Marni are known for pattern, and this season was no different as Etro delivered paisley scarf prints and Seventies florals, and Marni offered wallpaper and psychedelic florals, spots and stripes. At Versace, the Greek-key pattern which forms part of the brand's logo was reinvented as a colourful repeat print.</p><p>Hippie-rock-luxe</p><p>It would be a crying shame if there weren't a few labels living up to Milan's reputation for sexy, maximal glamour. Fortunately, Peter Dundas at Pucci and Roberto Cavalli in his mainline collection both offered a jet-set, rock 'n' roll, hippie-luxe vision for minimal-phobes. At Cavalli, spray-on, laced leather trousers were teamed with unhemmed, fringed leather tops, while chiffon maxis came in snake print or with typically revealing cutaway sections. At Pucci, Dundas showed peasant tops, skinny flares and laced, over-the-knee boots, as well as the famous house print on microscopic swimsuits, bikinis and long dresses. Both collections call for a model figure and a bohemian lifestyle. When these lovingly crafted collection are copied more cheaply, however, that's exactly how they are going to look.</p><p>Seventies</p><p>Next season the Seventies trend is set to be bigger than the queue for Studio 54. After Marc Jacobs went to town on the decade in New York, many of the Milan shows reinforced the theme. There were flares (MaxMara), and maxidresses (snake-print chiffon at Cavalli, scarf-print at Etro, floral chiffon at D&G), while peasant blouses (Fendi, Moschino), jumpsuits and hippy influences all added to the revival. The spirit of YSL in his heyday informed numerous collections, from a laced-front, safari-style tunic and fawn suede trousers at Pucci to trouser suits at Salvatore Ferragamo and MaxMara.</p><p>Bright, block colour</p><p>At Jil Sander ? widely pronounced to be the show of the week ? there were felt-tip pen and highlighter brights such as shocking pink, purple, magenta, coral red, electric blue, grass green, yellow and orange. Raf Simons took the colours from nature, he said, and from such specific sources as "the heart of a flower's stamen", using specially engineered fabrics to enhance their impact. "But will people actually dare to wear such bright colours?" questioned one fashion director.</p><p>Of course. Paired with classics such as a white T-shirt or a grey cashmere sweater, hot-pink trousers become eminently wearable.</p><p>Miuccia Prada loves a bit of disinfectant green and biohazard orange, and along with cobalt blue these shades were blocked on simple jackets, tops and shirts with dropped shoulders, while striped dresses combined black with cobalt, hot pink and orange, yellow and green. At Gucci, Frida Giannini's jewel colours ? including amethyst and emerald ? were inspired by Guy Bourdin. MaxMara offered head-to-toe red, tangerine, buttercup, lemon and violet.</p><p>White</p><p>Another trend that first emerged in New York. It was Dolce & Gabbana who made the strongest commitment to this innocent shade, showing a collection based around the traditional wedding trousseau of a Sicilian bride, which featured all-white dresses, jackets and skirts in lace, crochet-knit, embroidered linen and macrame. At Versace, white figure-hugging dresses, and skirts and jackets with yellow or red patent trims, provided a contrast to brights, as did white dresses and separates at MaxMara.</p><p>The new simplicity</p><p>"I preferred that this season should be simple," said Miuccia Prada, and the clean outlines in her collection were taken from the menswear show. However, given that she is also "tired of minimalism" these came with a decorative twist that she dubbed "minimal baroque". Round-shouldered, boxy shirts and jackets, as well as fitted dresses ? some with frilled skirts ? all provided a canvas for bright colours and patterns. At Jil Sander, too, designer Raf Simons took our breath away with his purity of both line and colour. Plain white T-shirts came with couture-inspired skirts that looked like they belonged on ball gowns, while utilitarian parkas and trenches were teamed with tailored trousers in radiant brights.</p><p>Off the catwalk</p><p>The French Vogue look has been the gold standard of cool dressing for several seasons, but right now the Italian fashion pack, with their more creative and colourful look, are the ones to be inspired by. The latest fashion super-heroines are Giovanna Battaglia, fashion editor at L'Uomo Vogue, and Anna Dello Russo, fashion editor of Vogue Nippon, and her two matching assistants Aurora and Viviana. Meanwhile, mere mortals wore:</p><p>1. Ribbed boyfriend knits from Stella McCartney or Topshop, worn with jeans and heels or leather mini skirts.</p><p>2. Red accessories: red handbags (ideally Celine), red Isabel Marant Escarpin stilettos.</p><p>3. Marni sandals (after all, it was still hot).</p><p>4. Leopard print: on dresses, court shoes and wedges.</p><p>5. Socks and sandals.</p><p>6. Fluorescent accents.</p><p>7. Silk shirts.</p><p>8. Skinny belts and high-waisted trousers.</p><p>Accessories</p><p>Plastic bags Handbags inside plastic bags at Missoni, supermarket-style carrier bags at Jil Sander.</p><p>Multicoloured shoes Brothel creepers and tango shoes at Prada, sandals fastened with zig-zag scarves at Missoni.</p><p>Hats Sombreros at Prada, leather skull caps at Marni, Lawrence of Arabia turbans at Giorgio Armani.</p><p>Goggle sunglasses Prada, Marni, Jil Sander.</p>?<p>It's all in the bag</p><p>Leather jelly bags and oversized granny purses provide a witty twist, or why not carry a more minimal envelope?</p><p>Hand me the jewels</p><p>Jewellery is increasingly ornate ? both delicate and dramatic. Pile on necklaces, bangles and more.</p><p>If the shoe fits</p><p>Flames, fishnet and flats are all fashionable. Anything goes so long as it's extreme.</p>?<p>A cross between "a bird, a vampire and a porcupine" has been identified from a piece of rock from South Africa. The palaeontologist who discovered it named the strange-looking species Pegomastax africanus, or "thick jaw from Africa". It is thought to have lived 100-200 million years ago. </p><p>Twitter users go Gaga for singer</p><p>Lady Gaga has become the most followed Twitter user in the world. The 26-year-old pop star has reached 30 million followers and gains 30,000 new ones each day. She is followed closely in the Twitter charts by Justin Bieber, who has 28 million followers, and Katy Perry, who has27 million. </p><p>Fresco restorer gains Halloween fame</p><p>It could prove to be one the most popular Halloween costumes this year. Inspired by an elderly woman who failed to restore a 19th-century painting of the face of Jesus, a US internet user known as "Spinjump" has crafted a costume dubbed "Ruined Spanish Fresco Monkey Jesus", a picture of which has gone viral. </p><p>Abba's Agnetha back in the studio</p><p>Agnetha Faltskog, one of the former members of Swedish pop band Abba has returned to the recording studio after more than eight years of musical silence. She is working alongside Swedish songwriter Jorgen Elofsson, who has previously penned and produced songs for Celine Dion and Westlife.</p><p>Security checks are a piece of cake</p><p>A man triggered an alert at Stansted Airport after a birthday cake inhis luggage tested positive for explosives. Justin Barret was on his way to Spain when the Sainsbury's 'Wiggles the Caterpillar' cake, a present for his son, was flagged up. After further checks by guards, Mr Barret and the cake were given the all clear.</p><p>Boris warns of airport 'catastrophe'</p><p>The London Mayor, Boris Johnson, has launched his strongest attack yet on Government aviation policy, saying delays making firm decisions set a course for "economic catastrophe". He described the Government as paying "lamentable attention" to the pressing issue of more airport capacity, but said that a third runway at Heathrow airport was not the answer. </p><p>Presidential race heats up after debate</p><p>President Barack Obama's campaign was rushing to regroup yesterday toprotect its momentum following a fiercely belligerent debate performance by the Republican challenger Mitt Romney, as the presidential contest seemed to have travelled from nearly foregone to competitive overnight. </p><p>Britain faces heavy rain and floods risk</p><p>Homeowners have been warned to brace themselves for more floods aheadof heavy downpours over the next two days. The Environment Agency has flood warnings in place in 11 areas ? mainly in the north-east of England ? but warned that other parts of the country were also likely tosee adverse weather conditions. </p><p>MPs authorise action against Syria</p><p>Turkey's parliament authorised the country's troops to carry out cross-border operations inside Syria yesterday, over clashes which drew Syria's neighbour into its 18 month long civil war. The political and diplomatic moves came after the shelling of the town of Akcakale on Wednesday. </p><p>Ex-banker named as suspended official</p><p>A former Goldman Sachs banker in charge of private contracts for the Department for Transport was named yesterday as one of the officials suspended for their alleged role in the West Coast rail franchise fiasco. Kate Mingay, head of commercial at the DfT, is believed to be the most senior of three staff suspended. </p><p>King Abdullah calls early elections</p><p>King Abdullah II issued a royal decree to dissolve parliament yesterday in a move that paves the way for early elections in Jordan, the state's official news agency said. He has promised political reform after anti-government unrest following the Arab Spring demonstrations last year.</p><p>Clubbers' drug may beat depression</p><p>Horse tranquiliser ketamine, also used by clubbers, could be about toenjoy a renaissance as a front-rank treatment for depression. Researchers say small amounts can provide immediate relief to patients for whom existing antidepressants do not work.? </p><p>Imran Khan march puts safety at risk</p><p>The cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan and a group of human rights activists yesterday vowed to brave a risky march into the Taliban's heartland in Pakistan to highlight the civilian cost of the USdrone missile programme. </p><p>Third man in Savile case cited for sex abuse</p><p>A well-known television personality has become the third man to be accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Jimmy Savile's BBC dressing room. The entertainer, who denies the allegation and cannot be named for legal reasons, is accused of sexually assaulting the girl while Gary Glitter and Savile abused others nearby. </p>?<p>With her nipped-in, corsetted waist, full skirt and, perhaps most significantly, comparatively ample embonpoint, the feminine ideal upheld was a voluptuous sight indeed. And Mr Jacobs was not the only designer to knock the procession of skinny-hipped, flat-chested teenagers who have ruled the runway for so long off their pedestal.</p><p>Miuccia Prada, too, embraced a rather more womanly silhouette than she has done, or "normal clothes", as she herself described her vision. There are those who might argue, however, that the exaggerated fullness of models' breasts ? achieved by both anatomy-enhancing seaming and rows of sweet, woolly ruffles at the decolletage ? was rather more hourglass than nature ever intended or indeed normality strictly entailed.</p><p>Then, of course, there is Dolce & Gabbana to consider. The Italian mega-brand has brought back its signature corsetry in all its glory for the past year: the padding and underpinning of almost every look ensures that this particular heroine is more Fifties Italian starlet than waif in flavour.</p><p>Such a turnaround, of course, called for equally unprecedented casting. Mr Jacobs closed his show with Elle (The Body) Macpherson, whose relative age and considerable physical attributes make her far from a stalwart of the international catwalk where, for the most part, any disruption of line is seen as an unnecessary impediment.</p><p>Over at Prada, meanwhile, Catherine McNeil, Lara Stone, and Miranda Kerr (Mrs Orlando Bloom), walked the walk and, in their case also, such curvaceousness was surprising.</p><p>Whichever way one chooses to look at it, column inches declaring that a less-than-emaciated body shape ? not to mention the proud ownership of anything over an AA cup ? is fashionable once more proliferate. Has fashion suddenly developed a conscience, one might not unreasonably wonder? That, it almost goes without saying, is less than likely. While it is true that at least part of the story here is rooted in pragmatism ? and to be precise in an awareness that designer clothing is not generally aimed at the pre-pubescent market ? any new-found interest in roundness is predominantly rooted in aesthetics rather than any heartfelt acceptance of women in their most natural form. Those ahead of their game ? and both Jacobs and Prada are fashion frontrunners par excellence ? are far from famed for a lengthy attention span, after all. They are most likely simply bored by a world that dictates that a narrow shoulder, dropped waist and androgynous silhouette is the look to aspire to, just as it has been for seasons, if not years.</p><p>And so a New New Look is born. If any cultural context is to be read into that, it may perhaps be found in a look back at the old New Look and the circumstances out of which it sprang. Christian Dior's 1947 New Look was a nostalgic ? and extravagant ? glance back at a prewar period where fabric rationing was about as far from the collective consciousness as women going out to work. In 2010, however, as the luxury-goods industry emerges shakily from the worst crash since the Thirties, such excess ? both where the clothes themselves and the women who choose to wear them are concerned ? is a similarly welcome flight of fancy in an all-too-downtrodden world.</p><p>Why not celebrate femininity in its most idealised and exaggerated incarnation under such circumstances? And what's the harm of enveloping it in metres of eye-wateringly expensive materials if that tells the world that the designers who do so are a) powerful enough not to concern themselves with anything as po-faced as seemly understatement, and b) brave enough to fly in the face of any adversity, safe in the knowledge that aspiration, over and above hard-bitten reality, is what their customer is currently looking for.</p><p>Perhaps predictably, things are not quite as simple as all that. If, at first glance, cut and proportion that seems romantic in the extreme, and a projection of femininity that, in the real world, the heterosexual male may only dream of seems to be the order of the day, the style in question is not, as has been argued, straight out of Mad Men. That would be too obvious by far. Pastiche is not something that the world's most directional designers readily resort to.</p><p>This time around, ample hips, a soft shoulder, tiny waist, and breasts so prominent that even the most politically aware onlooker might be forgiven for gawping at them (hello boys!), are dressed in colours and fabrics that are less chintzy and more tweedy, less pink and pretty and more sludgy than M Dior ever intended. At Prada, print is reminiscent of Fifties soft furnishings and Formica tabletops than anything more readily associated with clothing. The Louis Vuitton dress photographed here, meanwhile, references staples of mid-20th century haute couture including quilting, feathers and silk chiffon, but in a manner that is anything but conventional: the quilting is on the outside of the garment, and in fabric so impossibly fine that the feathers show through. It's all just that little bit wrong, then ? the wanton juxtaposed with the more dowdy ? and seems relevant and, more importantly, no less beautiful for that. The court shoes that finish the style, equally, are nothing short of radical in their conformity, given the increasingly ridiculous, heavily articulated, platform-soled monsters that have rocked fashion ? often quite literally ? for longer than is strictly advisable.</p><p>Will such an unadulterated celebration of overt femininity ever last? Not if Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton or Miuccia Prada have anything to do with it, truth to tell. The ability of these two designers to change their minds at breakneck speed, as all while the rest of the fashion world struggles to keep up with them, is at least part of the secret of any success here. And so, inevitably, the former has moved on to uphold the values of anything and everything that is kitsch next season, from Lurex to bugle beads, while the latter is more interested in strictly functional fabrics, eye-popping block colour and a particularly fetching, not to mention quite witty, banana print.</p><p>As for designers' choice of models: a more diverse view of womanhood, and one that takes personality into account, does seem to have taken hold. Throughout the spring/summer collections, which closed earlier this month, everyone from Yasmin Le Bon (as lovely as ever at John Galliano) to Ines de la Fressange (for Chanel) made an appearance and, yes, there was more than a little evidence too that those with an unrealistically boyish frame are no longer the only option, although most casting still decrees that slenderness is the Holy Grail.</p><p>Six months from now, however, the well-endowed will no longer be pouring themselves into cantilevered gowns safe in the knowledge that their cleavage is their greatest asset. Fashion is nothing if not contrary ? which means that, almost across the board, a low-cut neckline and/or full breast will be replaced by an exposed back, as proudly on display everywhere from Celine to Yohji Yamamoto, and from Givenchy to Marios Schwab. Suffice it to say that, in such capable hands, it looks lovely. Some things are obvious though, among them the fact that this is not a look ever likely to be embraced by those in need of anything as pedestrian as, for example, a bra.</p>?<p>Was director and screenwriter Richard Linklater hinting even then that this documentary-style study of a love affair was just beginning? Nine years later he made a sequel, Before Sunset. Now, almost another decade on, his cast has hinted they will make a third next year.</p><p>That they have not penned a script or started shooting yet should not present a problem. The second film was made in 15 days and was largely improvised. More difficult would be what to call it, now that the dusk and dawn conceit has been exhausted. "Before Death", perhaps.</p><p>In any case, haven't audiences already seen enough? Before Sunrise defined an era when it was released in 1995. In it, an American man and a French woman in their early twenties start chatting on a train from Budapest. Both beautiful, passionate and uber-intellectual, or at least trying to be, they hit it off and Jesse, (Ethan Hawke) convinces Celine (Julie Delpy) to abandon her journey and join him for a day in Vienna, where he has to catch a plane the next morning.</p><p>Nothing much actually happens ? they walk, they talk and yes, eventually make love ? but somehow this simple tale, told in startlingly realistic long takes and a meandering script in which the couple discuss everything from war to reincarnation, so resonated with young audiences that the film doubled its budget at the box office.</p><p>The film played on the seductive theory that life will happen to you when you least expect it. "Sitting for weeks on end looking out of this window has actually been kind of great," Jesse notes sagely. Just 14 when I first saw it with some friends, all greasy hair and teenage pimples, we wondered when we would have the freedom to InterRail around Europe, jumping off at exotic destinations whenever we chose.</p><p>In retrospect, though, part of what makes the film so realistic is that it is underwritten with a tangible sense of insecurity and a fear of growing up. As an adult it is striking how young the couple seems, and how naive and pretentious their conversations are ? "I hate that the medias are trying to control our minds," insists Celine. "It's a new form of fascism."</p><p>At the end, they arrange to meet up in six months. In Before Sunset, which takes place nine years later, we discover that their reunion never happened because Celine's grandmother fell ill.</p><p>They meet again though, after Jesse writes a book about their experience, and their connection is still there. Like the first film, the second, though more sombre and reflective, leaves us on tenterhooks. "Baby, you're gonna miss that plane..." sings a still very sexy Celine to a Nina Simone song. "I know," Jesse grins back at her. Fade to black. But will he?</p><p>Both films worked because of an exquisitely balanced tension: despite an insistence on realism (Sunset even takes place in real time) our hopefulness that things will somehow work out persists. Time constraints, in the form of Jesse's departure, force the issue to a climax as both films end.</p><p>Could a third film really replicate that tension without it seeming contrived? Another will they, won't they plot would feel tired and unlikely. If it turns out that they have ended up together after all, I wonder if the lack of the mystery so integral to its predecessors might be felt too keenly.</p><p>There's no doubt that Hawke, Delpy and Linklater are talented enough to produce a fascinating study of ageing dreams, of love after it has been realised. But is the poetry of day-to-day life what we want from this couple?</p><p>Like a slow-burning version of Francois Ozon's 5x2, that gloomiest of marriage studies, might further scrutiny of Jesse and Celine not pollute the magic of their first encounter in the very way they themselves dreaded?</p><p>The teenager in me wants their future to remain a question. The answer would be just one long take too far.</p>?<p>"It's a wardrobe essential for real women today," MacGibbon told Elle magazine of her penchant for pants, adding that her target customer isn't a 'fantasy' woman: "Women have demanding lifestyles."</p><p>Pants have long been regarded as a liberating garment, and jeans have always been top sellers season-round. But this fall, the emphasis is off denim and on sturdy trousers with a more grown-up, relaxed silhouette.</p><p>Riding on the trend, both mass market and high-fashion labels are marketing collections centered around the "perfect" pant. This past September, Gap rolled out its line of "Black Magic Pants," a collection in seven shapes and styles that promises to flatter every body type out there. Among the offerings is "The Perfect Trouser" ($59.50, or 45 euros), which Gap describes as: "A perfectly tailored silhouette gives way to a slightly flared leg."</p><p>Now, Phoebe Philo, the creative director of the French house Celine, is launching a highly anticipated collection of five pants she deems "building blocks" for every modern woman's wardrobe, due in stores worldwide on December 15. Dubbed "Five Perfect Trousers," the styles include a cropped tube leg (370 euros, or $489), a classic tapered leg (420 euros, or $555), a high-waisted wide leg (570 euros, or $753), a menswear-inspired straight leg (590 euros, or $780), and a pleated tapered leg (440 euros, or $582). Each of the pants feature Philo's signature expert tailoring and channel Celine's minimalist chic aesthetic. According to the Wall Street Journal, the five-piece collection will be permanently available with slight changes in fabric and style according to the season.</p><p></p><p>?</p><p>?</p><p></p><p></p>?<p>Wear the trousers</p><p>Trousers are the new skirts. Often, however, they are worn with a tunic and/or dress ? a case of enjoying the best of both worlds which is always good. At Junya Watanabe flocked velvet dresses are worn over tailored pants borrowed from menswear; Marc Jacobs styled narrow, empire-line dresses over cropped designs for his own label and at Louis Vuitton and at Prada too the shoulders are narrow, the hemlines wide by comparison.</p><p>From left to right: Marc Jacobs, Prada</p><p>It's a wrap</p><p>Stating the obvious: it's autumn so a coat is important. This time that coat must be big. It looks lovely in its masculine incarnation at Dries Van Noten, has a military borrowed from menswear toughness at McQ, is a signature cut in soft gabardine at Yohji Yamamoto and also in wool at Maison Martin Margiela. Jean-Paul Gaultier's parkas have a luxe-utilitarian appeal and Chalayan's oversized grey wool version is trimmed with neon: to ensure any wearer will be seen in the dark? Left: Chalayan</p><p>Baroque is beautiful</p><p>The fragility of surface embellishment was once its very appeal but now the opposite is the case. Crystals the size of cough sweets feature at Miu Miu. Marni's jewelled buttons are the size of saucers. At Lanvin lace, fur, ribbons and bows are piled onto jewelled cocktail dresses.</p><p>From left to right: Lanvin, Miu Miu</p><p>The new gothic</p><p>Givenchy's Riccardo Tisci has long channeled a gothic mood and made many a well-dressed woman and indeed man about town very happy by so doing. At Gucci, Frida Giannini is of a similar frame of mind this season; Peter Copping's take at Nina Ricci is more scary fairy and sweeter for that; Karl Lagerfeld's vision for Chanel is also softer though still spooky. Finally, at Versace a predominantly dark collection is embroidered with jewelled crucifixes. Vintage.</p><p>From left to right: Nina Ricci, Gucci, Givenchy</p><p>Hell for leather</p><p>Leather is more prevalent than ever in the form of full mid-calf length skirts at Christian Dior and Hermes and total look and totally black in the totally great Loewe and Valentino collections. For Stefano Pilati's final collection for Yves Saint Laurent belted racing green and ox-blood tunics are the height of tough luxury and then there's Celine leather which we all want.</p><p>From left to right: Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent, Celine</p><p>Winter flowers</p><p>More fairies, this time flowery ones. There's nothing more lovely than blooms printed, embroidered or appliqued in the autumn season. Valentino's are delicate in all the shade from pales pink to black. Dolce & Gabbana's are more exuberant. Christopher Kane's flowers are plain nasty in funereal flocked velvet and Giles Deacon's crushed roses on white satins and silks unashamedly romantic. At Alexander McQueen, Sarah Burton's blossom-encrusted designs appear almost to be growing on models frames like otherworldly flora and fauna.</p><p>From left to right: Alexander McQueen, Dolce & Gabbana, Giles Deacon</p><p>The big easy</p><p>Dare to wear clothing that is oversized in the extreme and ? at Comme des Garcons and also, more discreetly, Celine ? flattened. Sci-fi inspired sweatshirts with moulded sleeves at Balenciaga make for some of autumn's most covetable clothing as does voluminous wool tailoring at Haider Ackermann ? most beautiful in blue. For Raf Simons' final collection for Jil Sander, the new Dior designer developed an oversized haute couture-inspired silhouette for an audience that was visibly moved by it. Acne's take is tough and utilitarian.</p><p>From left: Comme des Garcons, Haider Ackermann, Balenciaga</p><p>Punk princesses</p><p>Punk's riotous spirit is all present, correct and as anarchic as expected in the British capital where Meadham Kirchhoff's Leigh Bowery-inspired glamour girls, Louise Gray's brilliant mix-and-match colour and pattern, Kinder's twisted prints and Sister by Sibling's leopard knits with masks and ears are loud and proud. And of course, Vivienne Westwood is still the trailblazer here.</p><p>From left to right: Meadham Kirchhoff, Louise Gray</p>?<p>Other top downloads include the cast's covers of Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" and Celine Dion's "Taking Chances" as well as a rendition of Heart's "Alone" by guest star Kristin Chenoweth.<br><br>Top ten Glee downloads, based on data from Nielsen SoundScan:<br><br>1. "Don't Stop Believin'' (698,000 downloads)<br>2. "Somebody To Love" (242,000)<br>3. "Defying Gravity" (237,000)<br>4. "It's My Life'/'Confessions Part II" (233,000)<br>5. "Halo'/'Walking On Sunshine" (227,000)<br>6. "Take A Bow" (150,000)<br>7. "Sweet Caroline" (141,000)<br>8. "Keep Holding On" (132,000)<br>9. "Taking Chances" (130,000)<br>10. "Alone" (125,000)</p><p>The musical series Glee, about a high school singing club, launched on US television in May 2009 and now airs in more than 20 countries. Two albums have so far been released featuring the Glee cast; the first two sold half a million copies each in the US, and the first, the only one out so far in the UK, reached number one on the UK album chart. A third album, The Power of Madonna, is due out April 20 in the US and April 26 internationally.<br><br>Find YouTube links for the top ten Glee performances at .</p><p>?</p>?<p>Photographs: Julia Kennedy</p><p>Model: Nika at Next</p><p>Hair: Cher Savery at My-Management using Kiehl's and Wahl</p><p>Make-up: Jose Bass at Frank Agency using Lancome</p><p>Photographer's assistant: Mike Mills</p>?<p>Resurrected by way of a hi-tech 3D hologram that had taken months to develop, Tupac's return to the stage was the talk of the festival, with audience members tweeting their disbelief at how life-like the hologram was.</p><p>"I think I might have cried when I saw Tupac," wrote popstar Katy Perry, while Questlove of The Roots said, "That Pac hologram haunted me in my sleep". Rihanna simply tweeted "#TupacBACK #unbelievable". The hologram was developed by AV Concepts, using technology licensed from Musion, a British company that developed the technique and which retain a global patent on it.</p><p>Using updated Pepper's Ghost technology (a Victorian-era illusionary method), it is a high definition 3D holographic video projection system allowing 3D life-size moving holograms to appear within a live stage setting.</p><p>The system works by placing thin metallised film across the front of the stage at an angle of 45 degrees towards the audience. Recessed below the screen is a bright image supplied by an LED screen or powerful projector; when viewed from the audience's perspective, the reflected images appear to be onstage.</p><p>"It's an ongoing process but the technology just gets better and better," says James Rock, Director of Musion. "When people cotton on to what can be done, I'm certain we'll see a lot more instances of deceased performers being brought back to life. Obviously there are issues with the estate and licensing the content from them but the technology is there."</p><p>It is by no means the first time holograms have been used in live music. Just last November, the singer Mariah Carey performed five simultaneous concerts in five countries as a 3D projection. Holograms of The Black Eyed Peas performed at the NRJ Music Awards earlier last year.</p><p>The technology can also be used for musical performances by non-human acts. Musion created the Gorillaz holograms that have performed the majority of the virtual band's live shows since 2005, and the animated Japanese pop star, Hatsune Miku, has also been brought to life to perform concerts with the same method.</p><p>Of course, it is markedly eerier when such technology is used to bring artists such as Tupac back from the grave. For his 50th birthday party, Simon Cowell hired Musion to create a hologram of his (deceased) hero, Frank Sinatra, singing "Pennies From Heaven" that performed for his 400 guests. And in 2007, American Idol viewers were shocked to witness Celine Dion duet with Elvis Presley on his hit "If I Can Dream" (although this was done using a process called rotoscoping, which allows you to take one image from a pre-existing piece of video and put it in a whole new environment, as opposed to using a hologram projection).</p><p>It seems that anything is possible: The Beatles reunion tour featuring all four members; Freddie Mercury fronting Queen once again.</p><p>Someone should certainly inform the London Olympic organisers, who unwittingly provided much hilarity last week after it was reported they had approached The Who's manager to ask if Keith Moon would be available to perform with the other members at the opening ceremony.</p><p>Moon might well have died in 1978, but with all this amazing new technology, perhaps The Who's original line-up could still entertain the crowd after all.</p>?<p>War Horse will deliver all of this, and yet nearly every frame of it had me clenched in unhappy resistance. Neigh, neigh, and thrice neigh! Indeed, I think it will dismay anyone who has seen the National Theatre's unforgettable stage production, still running in London. A quite flimsy play, adapted from the novel by Michael Morpurgo, it is redeemed by the magical coup de theatre of a puppet horse, its articulated limbs projecting something so lifelike and noble that one's heart aches for it. Who knew that a puppet could do that?</p><p>Spielberg, attempting to translate the story to the screen, drops this wonderful mechanism for an actual horse, losing both the theatrical majesty of the creature and the storybook quality of the tale. It is woefully misconceived, an object lesson in why certain narratives are suited to one medium and not another. To fit the analogy to the subject, he has put this horse up for the wrong race. Those who haven't seen the stage play will possibly wonder why such a plodding, unfocused story was considered ripe for film.</p><p>Those doubts set in early as it transports us to a Devonshire village sometime before 1914. Peter Mullan plays a feckless farmer who in a moment of befuddled pride buys at auction a thoroughbred he admires, instead of the plough horse he needs. His wife (Emily Watson) despairs of it, but their teenage son Albert (Jeremy Irvine) loves the very bones of the animal and trains it up to work the land.</p><p>Everything from the play has been literalised, from the pastoral setting to the adorable puppet goose that patrolled the farmyard. When war is declared the farmer breaks his son's heart by selling the horse to a cavalry officer bound for the Western Front. As the army moves out, Albert promises his faithful steed, "Wherever you are, I will find you", weirdly echoing Daniel Day-Lewis's words to Madeleine Stowe in The Last of the Mohicans. The screenwriters, Lee Hall and Richard Curtis, have been set the puzzle of adapting the play's theatrical language ("my splendid boy") to its newly realistic setting, and they never solve it. I'm not sure who could.</p><p>Meanwhile, the middle section of the war pursues the horse into the killing fields of France. Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston have a few telling scenes as officers preparing the cavalry for battle, only to find themselves in a grotesque mismatch with German machine-guns. Spielberg still knows how to orchestrate big set-pieces, and the suicidal charge of the horses into a storm of keening metal is one of the best things in the film. It makes you wonder what he might have done with a more realistic account of the First World War ? Her Privates We by Frederic Manning, for instance ? the sort of challenge he met head-on for the D-Day carnage of Saving Private Ryan. A later battle scene on the Somme, where the frightened horse runs the length of a parapet while gunfire rains down from either side, is another striking example of Spielbergian artistry, a gruelling fresco of mud, blood and barbed wire.</p><p>The uneven episodic rhythm of the story was noticeable on stage, too, but there, almost like a conscience, was the puppet horse, sometimes in the background but always present. Saddling an actual horse with the lead is doomed; despite all the sprinting and rearing and leaping, it hasn't any great expressive potential. Needing a central performance to anchor it, the film can't stay with a character long enough to secure one. The likes of Cumberbatch and Hiddleston are no sooner commended to our interest than they vanish from the scene, and the film gallops off down another avenue. Now the horse has been requisitioned by the German army, and becomes the object of affection to two young brothers in the infantry; then it passes into the ownership of a French farmer (Niels Arestrup) whose granddaughter (Celine Buckens) makes the same adoring connection with the animal as our Albert did. They too fade from view as the fate of the horse takes another turn.</p><p>Newcomer Irvine is perfectly fine as Albert, though he remains out of the picture for long stretches. Not enough of his life in Devon achieves an emotional traction: we gather there's been a rivalry with the son (Robert Emms) of the mean landlord, but it doesn't resonate at all during their later encounter in the trenches. Toby Kebbell has a significant role in the concluding section, displaying British pluck as he staggers through No Man's Land on a rescue mission. This act of heroism, however, doesn't earn him so much as a proper name ? he's listed in the credits only as "Geordie soldier".</p><p>The emotional finale that follows returns us to the original problem of theatricality ? of a whistle being heard across a chaotic field hospital, of crowds of soldiers parting as though in a stage musical, of a recognition scene that's straight out of panto. The conventions of the stage keep grinding against the rock-hard realism of war. Of course, you can't help welling up a bit when the pieces fall into place. The film makes sure you can't help it ? hell, you've just been Spielberged.</p>?<p>Eric Clapton, Clapton<br>Number four on Amazon's rock chart, the legendary guitarist releases his 19th solo studio album and first in five years on Reprise Records. The 14-song collection boasts an all-star guest list featuring Steve Winwood, Wynton Marsalis, Sheryl Crow, and Derek Trucks on music ranging from the blues to ballads. Allen Toussaint joins the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Famer on vintage Fats Waller tunes.<br></p><p>Seal, Commitment<br>Number eight on Amazon's R&B chart, this 11-song collection on Reprise Records follows up his Soul album, also produced by David Foster (Whitney Houston, Celine Dion). With 15 million albums sold and the Grammy-winning "Kiss From A Rose," this artist's new disc was released in many countries on September 20.<br></p><p>Neil Young, Le Noise<br>Number five on Amazon's rock chart, the venerable singer/songwriter releases an album on Reprise Records, produced by Grammy-winning Daniel Lanois (U2, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel) in his home studio. Recorded between releasing Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 of his Archives, this eight-song collection features the rocker on acoustic or electric guitar and without a backing band or overdubs.<br></p><p>Also, several artists are releasing albums for the first time in several years:</p><p>- Phil Collins, Going Back, 18 covers of Motown and soul songs on Atlantic Records<br>- Doobie Brothers, The World Gone Crazy with Willie Nelson and Michael McDonald<br>- OMD, History of Modern, leads with "Save Me" featuring Aretha Franklin<br>- Yaz, Reconnected Live, a 2-CD set recorded from their first tour in 25 years.</p><p>RC</p><p>?</p>?<p>While the standard of Oscar winners for Best Film is getting markedly better ? No Country for Old Men, The Hurt Locker, Crash, The King's Speech ? the actual soundtracks are hard to recall. Perhaps, of course, that's the point. An overbearing or prominent soundtrack may detract from the film's images, plotline, acting and so on. But the winners of the best soundtrack in the past 10 years have been distinctly underwhelming ? the likes of Frida, Finding Neverland, Babel, Atonement and last year's The Social Network. All pretty unexceptional. The only exception being Pixar's sumptuous Up in 2009. And animation (particularly the animations by Pixar) is the one area which excels with its soundtracks. Michael Giacchino's work on Up was memorably stirring, enhancing this gorgeous film's weep-factor. Similarly, Randy Newman's work ? including the songs "You've Got a Friend in Me" and "We Belong Together" ? on the Toy Story trilogy is outstanding.</p><p>However, gone, it seems, are the days when you leave a cinema humming the score. John Williams, in particular, was a master of the unforgettable soundtrack, composing the background music to Jaws ("Der-dum der-dum dum dum dum dum"), Star Wars ("Der der der, der der-der, der der-derrrr"), and Raiders of the Lost Ark ("do do-do do doo do do, do do-do do doo do do") during a giddy two decades ? 1970s and 1980s ? for film soundtracks.</p><p>John Barry was also a wonderful scorer of action movies, perfecting the James Bond sound ? a heady blend of jazz, brass and lush melodies ? on 1964's Goldfinger, 1967's You Only Live Twice and 1971's Diamonds Are Forever. Ennio Morricone was, of course, a whiz at the spaghetti Western, scoring and enhancing (immeasurably) A Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West, employing whistles, jaw harps, trumpets and gunshots to create an aural sensation. Before Morricone there was Bernard Herrmann, the composer who was a key component of Hitchcock's masterpieces, scoring Psycho, North by Northwest and Vertigo, and before Herrmann there was the great Max Steiner, who scored King Kong (1933), Casablanca (1942) and Gone with the Wind (1939).</p><p>Apart from Turner's compositions for Submarine and Daft Punk's decent work on the baffling Tron: Legacy, pop and rock acts just don't seem interested in creating exceptional scores anymore. Air were outstanding on The Virgin Suicides (but Sofia Coppola's film was made in 1999) and Badly Drawn Boy excelled with "Something to Talk About" and "Silent Sigh" on About a Boy, but this was nine years ago. And then there's Quentin Tarantino, whose use of music on Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown was undeniably ingenious. (How much different would the ear-lopping scene have been if some solemn or even manic strings had been used instead of the humorous "Stuck in the Middle with You"?). However, Tarantino, by rifling through his record collection and selecting his favourite songs, may have sounded a death knell for original material on movies. Why bother creating new songs when there's so much pop music out there you can use? And film scores feel sloppy as a result. The same tired tracks ? ELO's "Mr Blue Sky", Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star", or anything by Coldplay used again and again. It makes you hanker for Harold Faltermeyer's synth work on Beverly Hills Cop and it definitely makes you pine for the rousing soundtracks on 1980s teen gems such as Pretty in Pink (featuring OMD's "If You Leave"), Risky Business (featuring Tangerine Dream) and The Breakfast Club (featuring Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget about Me)").</p><p>Perhaps Elvis Costello's original song, "Sparkling Day", written especially for Lone Scherfig's adaptation of David Nicholls's One Day will spark a revival. But, then, as long as crunch-bang-wallop bombast predominates in action fodder such as Transformers and Captain America, there seems little hope of a full-blown film soundtrack renaissance. Maybe we just need better films...</p><p>'Submarine' is out now on DVD; 'One Day' is released nationwide on 24 August</p>?<p>The delight of seeing wild marine mammals up close is drawing more and more holidaymakers to whale-watching excursions, in the West Country, Wales and especially in Scotland, where in 2008, the last year for which there are figures, nearly a quarter of a million people took boat trips to search for cetaceans ? the generic term for whales, dolphins and porpoises.</p><p>We've caught on to this form of marine safari rather late ? in the USA, nearly five million holidaymakers annually take whale-watching trips from places like Provincetown on Cape Cod, while in Australia about 1.6 million, and in Canada about 1.2 million visitors a year similarly set out on cetacean watch. But we're catching up. More and more seaside resorts, whose small-boat skippers might once have offered only fishing trips or tours round the bay, are setting out in search of more majestic sea creatures, sometimes in a RIB, a rigid inflatable boat, which is very fast, or sometimes in more leisurely craft.</p><p>Bottlenose dolphins, which have two resident populations in British waters, in Cardigan Bay in Wales and the Moray Firth in Scotland, are the most commonly seen cetaceans around our coasts, followed by the more diminutive harbour porpoises, and the much larger minke whales, which are the smallest of the great whales.</p><p>But there is often a chance to see other dolphin species, such as common dolphins, which have a broad pale stripe along their side, and more of the great whales, such as the humpback with its tremendous "breaching" or leaping clear of the water, while the world's second largest fish, the huge basking shark, can frequently be seen in summer months.</p><p>Perhaps the greatest prize of all ? certainly the most dramatic ? is to come across a pod of killer whales or orcas, the striking black-and-white hunters which are the largest members of the dolphin family. Your chances of seeing them improve as you go north, with perhaps your best chance of all in Northern Scotland.</p><p>"People used to believe that it was impossible to observe whales, that the only way to study them was to harpoon them," says Vassili Papastavrou, whale biologist at the International Fund for Animal Welfare. "But we're now coming to understand what makes these great animals tick, their social behaviours."</p><p>"Whale watching is a huge industry ? around 13 million people currently enjoy a trip each year in 120 countries, generating revenues of over $2bn," said Vanessa Williams-Grey of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. "We have promoted responsible whale watching as a wonderful way to connect with whales and dolphins in the wild and also to enjoy the wider marine environment.</p><p>"When done well (which means responsible boat handling and adherence to local regulations or guidelines governing behaviour around the animals), whale watching inspires, exhilarates and educates in equal measure."</p><p>Our whale-watching guide is not exhaustive; lack of space allows us to name only a few representative operators in each area. Listing them is in no way an endorsement, and we are sorry for those which are left out.</p><p>But we hope this guide will trigger your interest (if you're not interested already) and of course, as nearly all whale-watching tour operators are listed on-line, a more comprehensive picture is easy to build up.</p><p>It certainly makes a big change from sand castles and ice cream.</p><p>Wales</p><p>The main attraction in Wales is the resident bottlenose dolphin population in Cardigan Bay: as they're residents in the area, they can nearly always be seen. New Quay and Aberaeron (small towns loved by poet Dylan Thomas) are the two main starting points.</p><br><br><p>New Quay: Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre<br>cbmwc.orge, 01545 560032, evenings 01545 580444/mobile and boat: 07796 135490.<br>Sail out to see the dolphins in the survey vessel Sulaire.</p><p>New Quay: New Quay Boat Tripse<br>newquayboattrips.co.uk, 01545 560800. Trips to Ynys Lochtyn peninsula.</p><p>Aberaeron: SeaMor<br>seamor.org, 07795 242 445<br>Explore Llanina Reef and New Quay Bay.</p><p>St Davids: Voyages of Discovery<br>ramseyisland.co.uk/whale/index.shtml , 0800 854 367 A 2- hour RIB trip.</p><p>Neyland Marina, near Milford Haven: Sea Trust Dolphin Surveys<br>seatrust.org.uk/site/Boat-Trips.aspx OR seatrustwales@gmail.com, 01348 875639<br>Excursions to Pembrokeshire's coastal waters.</p><p>Dale, Pembrokeshire: Dale Sea Safari<br>pembrokeshireislands.co.uk, 01646 603110<br>Explore the beautiful Skomer Marine Nature Reserve.</p><p>Aberystwyth: Cardigan Bay Yacht Charter<br>eryr.net/cyc, 07789 680309<br>Scan the sea to try and catch a glimpse of dolphins while you relax aboard the 33-foot sailing yacht Celine.</p><p>Gwbert, near Cardigan: A Bay to Remember<br>baytoremember.co.uk, 01239 623558<br>Explore your wild side on an adventure wildlife trip in Cardigan Bay.</p><p>Pwllheli: Shearwater Cruises<br>shearwatercruises.com, 01758 740899<br>Step on board a purpose-built catamaran and take a trip that will allow you to explore the many beautiful sites of the Snowdonia coast.</p><p>The West Country</p><p>Minke is the main whale seen off the south-west, with occasional humpbacks. Good for less familiar species such as Risso's and white-beaked dolphins, but common and bottlenose seen as well, and plenty of harbour porpoises. Fascinating big fish: ocean sunfish (sometimes) and plenty of basking sharks.</p><br><br><p>Penzance: Elemental Tours<br>www.elementaltours.co.uk01736 811 200/07971 540280<br>Cruises around the Land's End and Lizard Peninsulas.</p><p>Penzance: Marine Discovery<br>www.marinediscovery.co.uk01736 874907<br>A voyage on a sailing catamaran.</p><p>Falmouth: Orca Sea Safaris<br>www.kingharryscornwall.co.uk/frl/orca , 01326 214928<br>Trip to explore the Manacles reef in 12-seater rigid inflatable boats.</p><p>Newquay: Atlantic Diver<br>www.atlanticdiver.co.uk, 01637 850 930<br>Two boats offering some close encounters with marine life.</p><p>Plymouth: Plymouth Hoe Cruises<br>www.plymouthhoecruises.co.uk, 07971 208381<br>Short, dedicated eco-trip with nature commentary.</p><p>West Bay, near Bridport, Dorset: Naturetrek<br>www.naturetrek.co.uk, 01962 733051<br>A tour that shows you the seabirds and the cetaceans of Lyme Bay.</p><p>Northern Scotland</p><p>The farthest to travel to, but often the most rewarding: the island groups of Orkney and Shetland offer the best chance of seeing humpbacks, killer and pilot whales from the deep oceanic waters, as well as minke whales and a range of dolphin species. Watching can be done from the shore.</p><br><br><p>Orkney : Sea Orkney, Kirkwall<br>seaorkney.webs.com, 07808 811819<br>Tailored trips on the eight-metre Nicky Tam</p><p>Shetland : Shetland Nature, Vidlin Marina<br>shetlandnature.net, 07786 982773<br>Tours in the waters between the islands of Skerries, Fetlar and Yell.</p><p>Eastern Scotland</p><p>Like Wales, Eastern Scotland has its own population of bottlenose dolphins, resident in the Moray Firth, north-east of Inverness. There are two land-based watching centres, at Spey Bay and North Kessock; locals suggest spotting the dolphins from Chanonry Point.</p><br><br><p>General: Dolphin Space<br>dolphinspace.org, 07921 106144<br>Local agency listing Moray Firth dolphin operators.</p><p>Cromarty: Ecoventures<br>ecoventures.co.uk, 01381 600 323<br>RIB trips from Cromarty Harbour.</p><p>Cromarty: Cromarty Ferry Company<br>cromarty-ferry.co.uk, 01381 610 269<br>Ferry between Cromarty and Nigg: tends to attract the local dolphins.</p><p>Avoch Dolphin Trips Avoch<br>dolphintripsavoch.co.uk, 01381 622383<br>Small but tough boat with water-jet engine.</p><p>Buckie: Gemini Explorer<br>geminiexplorer.co.uk, 07747 626 280<br>Comfortable and stable former lifeboat.</p><p>Banff: North 58°<br>north58.co.uk/tours.html, 01261 819900<br>Fast-paced trips on RIB boats.</p><p>Banff: Moray Firth Boat Charter<br>morayfirthboatcharter.co.uk, 01340 820 007<br>If you are interested in a private charter then this firm offers them on the 31-foot Alucia.</p><p>Western Scotland: Mainland and the Hebrides</p><p>The widest range of options. One of the attractions of a whale-watching cruise in the Western Isles is that you may see golden eagles, sea eagles, seals, otters and a vast range of other wildlife, including red deer back on the land. Bottlenose dolphins, harbour porpoises and minke whales are all present.</p><br><br><p>Stein, Isle of Skye: Diver's Eye<br>divers-eye.co.uk, 01470 592219<br>3-hour daily wildlife trip.</p><p>Kyle of Lochalsh: Sea Probe Atlantis<br>seaprobeatlantis.com, 0800 980 4846<br>Glass-bottomed boat, semi-submersible.</p><p>Kyle of Lochalsh: Spirit of Adventure<br>the-spirit-of-adventure.co.uk, 01471 822716<br>Tailored dolphin trips around Skye and the Crowlin Islands.</p><p>Tobermory, Isle of Mull: Sea Life Surveys<br>sealifesurveys.com, 01688302916.<br>Multiple boats and a wide range of daily tours.</p><p>Tobermory, Isle of Mull: Hebridean Adventure<br>hebrideanadventure.co.uk, 01688 302875<br>Daily and evening cruises in the Sound of Mull and Loch Sunart.</p><p>Gairloch: Gairloch Marine Life Centre and Cruises<br>porpoise-gairloch.co.uk/index.php, 01445 712636<br>Informative tours with expert guides.</p><p>Gairloch: Sealife glass bottomed boat<br>glassbottomboat.info/contact.htm, 01445 712540<br>Get up close and personal in a glass-bottomed boat.</p><p>Gairloch: Hebridean Whale Cruises<br>hebridean-whale-cruises.co.uk/index.php, 0800 008 6833<br>If you have the time then you can take longer trips into the whale feeding grounds of the North Minch.</p><p>Arisaig: Forever Changes<br>seawatchfoundation.org.uk, 01326 373360<br>Cetacean observation surveys for the Wildlife Trusts.</p><p>Oban: Highland Tiger<br>highland-tiger.com, 01631 720 609<br>Full-day whale-watching tours.</p><p>Oban: Chalice Charters<br>mvchalice.com, 01631 720609<br>Full-length shipboard Scottish wildlife and culture holidays.</p><p>Oban Seafari,<br>seafari.co.uk, 01852 300003<br>The company's RIBs have some specially adapted child seats for the younger wildlife enthusiasts.</p><p>Seil, south of Oban: Sealife Adventures<br>sealife-adventures.com, 01631 571010<br>Three-hour trips to the Corryvreckan whirlpool.</p><p>Ardfern: Craignish Cruises<br>craignishcruises.co.uk, 07747 023038<br>The company's 60-foot catamaran takes wildlife enthusiasts on cruises to the Corryvreckan whirlpool.</p>?<p>High-waisted or low-rise, high-end or low rent, it's a perennial favourite that doesn't look bad on anyone. It's also uniquely versatile during times of economic unrest and a summer that's more like monsoon season.</p><p>There was a profusion of the blue stuff on the catwalks for spring/summer, with designers harking back to denim's more functional past.</p><p>The icons were all there, with full-on, near-cartoonish Americana at Moschino and Navajo touches at Diesel, but the new direction for denim was as tunics, dresses, shirts, skirts, even tailored trousers, rather than riveted jeans.</p><p>These were actual clothes, in a way, with designers using the fabric to create garments that had very little to do with denim's more well-known workwear heritage.</p><p>Phoebe Philo at Celine showed boxy tunic and palazzo pant combos in overtly twilled thick denim, while Derek Lam paired flares with vests and shrunken waistcoats. It's quite a cry from the days when we all laughed at B*witched for matching their jeans to their jackets, shoes and bags.</p><p>The key though with all this matchy-matchiness is to be discerning in your choice of denim. It's fine to sculpt an entire outfit from the same yarn, as long as it's the right yarn. Old-school tough denim, of the variety you might have found in Madchester or on Axl Rose, won't work for this, as the overall effect will be too straight-faced and predictable. Designers are creating a new code for denim; part of the reason denim this season is tidier, clinical even, in its clean lines and boxy geometry this season, is because it's a break from the norm.</p><p>Tweedier versions, like those seen at Celine, are right for this, as are chambray pieces ? some of which are so light as to be almost cotton. Wear them minimally, with as little adornment as possible, like the styling at Stella McCartney, where blue tones weren't interrupted by anything more glitzy. One aspect of this trend's appeal is its easiness: there's a reason why some of these pieces look a bit like tabards or overalls ? they're supposed to be practical and utilitarian (although in a different way from, say, some faded jeans) so don't worry about dressing them up.</p><p>Of course, this isn't to say you can't just kick around in your favourite blue jeans, especially during a summer that hasn't yet managed to get going ? what could be better? Margaret Howell showed slouchy lightweight styles and Gap has created its own similar version, elasticated waist and ankles bringing a whole new dimension to casual denim.</p><p>Meanwhile, there are several exciting new collaborations to explore, thanks to a new wave of denim invigoration after the influx of cult jeans labels, such as Acne, Citizens of Humanity and J Brand, in recent years. Take a look at the Levi's capsule for hipster emporium Opening Ceremony for pretty denim daywear (www.endclothing.co.uk), and check out Vivienne Westwood's Anglomania range for Lee if you're feeling more anarchic (www.asos.com). And for those who like their jeans ultra-luxe, there's a collaboration between Current/Elliott and Marni, which features oversized and inside-out boyfriend jeans, as well as whimsical printed shorts (www.marni.com). Whether you opt for classic or current, head-to-toe or one statement piece, you can't go wrong. Just leave the ripped stonewash pair at home.</p><p>And, no, the bootcut hasn't been rehabilitated quite yet, either.</p>?<p> What do Madonna, Janet Jackson, Cher, Lady Gaga, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Celine Dion, Mary J. Blige, and J. Lo have to say about each other? As evidenced by this filled with choice quips from our favorite divas talking about other divas over the years — carefully curated by 's brilliant Rich Juzwiak — a lot.</p> <p>[Via ]</p>?<p>In this week's compilation of pop culture crap, Celine Dion scats to her baby twins, a nun dances at her 103rd birthday party, and Gayle King tries to impress Lady Gaga.</p> 1.) Celine scats.<br> For her 27th appearance on Oprah (she's actually been on the show more than any other celebrity) Celine showed off her new babies, and generally acted like herself. 2.) Monkey business.<br> Evil monkeys in Japan were becoming a public nuisance, so hot springs were built for them in Nagano so they could chill out and take baths and not get so angry. The site has since become a tourist destination, where you can watch the monkeys lounge. You're still not supposed to look them in the eye, though. 3.) Gayle King greets Lady Gaga in fishnets and one-piece Spanx.<br> She was trying to shock the pop star but Gaga either didn't notice, or didn't care. Also, it was apparently a private show, just for Gaga. Gayle didn't let the cameras get a look at her bod. 4.) Let's get hiiiiiigh.<br> That's the message that comes across during this commercial for Rite Aid's prescription home delivery program. 5.) The Situation doesn't have hair on his balls.<br> Or that's what he seems to be implying here. 6.) Stoner baby.<br> This two-year-old boy has brain cancer and his parents have opted to treat him with medical marijuana despite the hand-wringing of a lot of other people. 7.) Hef talks about Holly.<br> Crystal says that Holly is cool with their engagement, but Hef says she has "mixed feelings." Speaking of "mixed"—he mistakenly called Holly "Crystal" at one point during this interview. 8.) Hamster wheel models.<br> Tyra will never ever allow us to think that this show has maxed out on ridiculousness, because she will always, always take it to the next level. 9.) Cameron Diaz loves porn.<br> Do you think she got her arms so defined by using the ol' butter-churner method of masturbation? 10.) Obligatory little old lady clip.?<br> <p>#13 Tara Reid<br> <br> <br> Why she's ridic: She repeatedly gets ; she is the go-to cautionary tale for party-loving starlets; 80% of the time, you can see where the extensions are attached to her head.<br> That's what she said: "I wish all the mean people, if you want to be mean to each other, just buy a country together and blow each other up. Then we'd have no terrorists left. Like, don't kill innocent people for no reason. It's not fair. We love everybody. We'd even like them if they said they're sorry. It's not fair that innocent people are getting hurt. It makes me sad." - Her thoughts on terrorism and world peace from her sorely-missed travel show Taradise<br> Why she's fun:<br> <br> </p> <p>#12 Kathleen Turner<br> <br> <br> Why she's ridic: She sounds like the personification of an ashtray full of cigarette butts when she talks; she pissed off Nicholas Cage after she accused him of stealing a dog; she didn't correct rumors of being a drunk because she didn't think that being known as a drunk would hurt her career.<br> That's what she said: "I find the idea of today's icons being teenagers incredibly uninspiring."<br> Why she's fun:<br> <br> </p> <p>#11 Bai Ling<br> <br> <br> Why she's ridic: She loves to ; she loves to ; she can spend the day crying, but be damned if she won't pick herself up by the bootstraps, go out to a porn star's birthday party and .<br> That's what she said: "My name is Bai Ling. That means white spirit, and I really feel like sometimes I'm not existing."<br> Why she's fun:<br> <br> </p> <p>#10 Celine Dion<br> <br> <br> Why she's ridic: She doesn't seem to eat; she's very French Canadian; she tried to be f once.<br> That's what she said: "I've never been cool, and I don't care." - Regarding her adult contemporary radio success<br> Why she's fun:<br> <br> </p> <p>#9 Elizabeth Taylor<br> <br> <br> Why she's ridic: Larry Fortensky; Michael Jackson; pills - lots and lots of them.<br> That's what she said: "The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues."<br> Why she's fun:<br> <br> </p> <p>#8 Keyshia Cole's Birth Mom Frankie<br> <br> <br> Why she's ridic: is a former crack addict who gave birth to Keyshia Cole. Keyshia was mostly raised by her foster mom and both women remain in her life and, thankfully, her BET reality show Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is. Frankie always speaks her mind, although some of might not make much sense. But she's relatable, since two of her favorite things are "eating Popeye's chicken and watching horror movies."<br> That's what she said: "I was smoking like a broke stove. Crack. For real." - In regards to why she was in prison, from from the second season of Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is<br> Why she's fun:<br> <br> </p> <p>#7 Mariah Carey<br> <br> <br> Why she's ridic: She met her much-younger husband at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards; she has likened herself to a mermaid on several occasions; a few titles from her discography are Daydream, Butterfly, Rainbow, Glitter, Charmbracelet, and E=MC2.<br> That's what she said: "I don't mind being compared to Whitney, there are people miles worse to be compared to."<br> Why she's fun:<br> <br> </p> <p>#6 Liza Minelli<br> <br> <br> Why she's ridic: She married at least two gay men; she had the ever assembled; she says her "esses" weird, making them sound like "shh."<br> That's what she said: "I feel like I haven't done my best work yet."<br> Why she's fun:</p>?<p>Fact: Unless Ricky Gervais is hosting, awards ceremonies are boring. But the red carpet arrivals can be rather fun! So grab your appeteasers and white zinfandel, and let's get this glittery dog and pony show on the road. </p> <p>For straight-up fashion ogling, check out our continually updated .</p> <p>5:45 pm Just turned on the television to catch the E! pre-show (which, technically, would be the pre-pre-show) and Giuliana is wearing a dress that is very…big. Perhaps too big, a bit too billowy for someone who is, y'know, not even actually attending the ceremony. She's dressed like a nominee! Don't outshine the nominees! It just gives A-listers another reason to be annoyed with her.</p> <p>Kelly Osbourne, meanwhile, looks amazing. To quote the great Martin Lawrence: Damn, Gina.</p> <p>5:48 pm So it's 2:48 pm in LA. What time do you think Giuliana gets dressed on a day like today? I'll put the over-under at 9am.</p> <p>6:00pm The E! smorgasbord begins in earnest, complete with some sort of quick-cut montage that is making me a bit dizzy.</p> <p>6:02 pm First up, Jennifer Lawrence — Seacrest pulls her in by physically touching her. Is that allowed? Where are her handlers?</p> <p>Kelly and Giuliana are gushing about Jennifer's red column dress. Kinda wish it was just Kelly.</p> <p>6:06 Giuliana is suggesting baby names for Natalie Portman. Like Babylon. She's said "bump" 3 times in 3 minutes.</p> <p>6:07 Isn't Kelly the spokesperson for St. Tropez? Because Giuliana stole that show.</p> <p>6:12 Melissa Leo is roped in. Seacrest: "Tell me about your dress. Because I can see myself in it." He's talking about the mirrored embellishments on her gown, but I prefer to read more into it.</p> <p>6:14 Mila Kunis looks hot. Gorgeous gown, though the wispy fabric along her boobs is almost too sheer — i.e., not a lot of color, such that it looks like she's got 6 nip-slips going at once.</p> <p>6:17 Armie Hammer. Arm and Hammer. And now I'm thinking of the rotting broccoli in my fridge.</p> <p>6:19 Why is Daphne Zuniga there?</p> <p>6:23 Hailee Steinfeld looks adorable! Marchesa! So grown up. She's handling Seacrest very well.</p> <p>As an aside, these first 25 minutes have been low on the Giuliana. From a sanity perspective, I like this. From a shitshow entertainment perspective, I'm a bit disappointed. Wondering if the network (or the Academy) has officially banned her from the red carpet?</p> <p>6:26 Quick shot of Michelle Williams and Busy Phillips reveals hand-holding.</p> <p>6:28 Mila and Seacrest have the obligatory "I Starved Myself For Black Swan" discussion. "I was on a portion-controlled diet of 1200 calories a day." Seacrest makes a mental note.</p> <p>6:33 I think Russell Brand is wearing a bit of contouring makeup under the cheekbones — kind of like Giuliana, but 100x more restrained (not that he needs it). He's with his mum, which buys him a pass on whatever stupid thing he might do later.</p> <p>6:34 Okay, more Giuliana. She's so restrained! Like, sane. Also: Where the hell is our GLAM CAM 360?</p> <p>6:39 Oh, Amy Adams. Honey, no. Dress could work but not with that necklace.</p> <p>6:41 And we've got Hathaway in some dramatic red. Verdict is out on this, but it's strikingly similar to what Jennifer Hudson is wearing. Somewhere, Rachel Zoe is going bananas.</p> <p>6:50 Ruffles! Er, Ruffalo. His wife looks pretty cool, if only because her dress is interesting.</p> <p>6:54 Usually, when Giuliana's in action, Seacrest is on damage control. But when Seacrest is in just plain ol' control — seeing as he's clearly the only one allowed to talk to the celebs — it's no more interesting than his incredibly uninteresting radio show.</p> <p>6:56 Jennifer Hudson is wearing a verrrry low-cut Versace which is not doing her tan lines any favors. And you can't really see it in this screen cap, but her nipple petals are peeking out. This is classier than a nip-slip. Also, I love nipple petals. Wear 'em all summer.</p> <p>7:00 HOW MANY TIMES CAN THE CAMERA CUT TO FLORENCE WELCH?</p> <p>7:03 Scarlett Johansson only speaks sexyface.</p> <p>7:05 James Franco, Oscars co-host, Best Actor nominee and currently the Best Thing To Ever Happen To The Internet, just a pic of himself getting ready.</p> <p>7:08 Giuliana and Kelly are dancing around the fact that they dislike Melissa Leo's dress. "It's...bold." What, can you not say you dislike a nominee's dress?</p> <p>7:10 Meanwhile, ABC is attempting to do their own red carpet coverage. Tim Gunn asked Mila Kunis about ballet. Snooze. Back to E!.</p> <p>7:20 Sharon Stone looks scary. Just scary eye makeup, dark dead-bird dress...it's all a bit macabre.</p> <p>7:22 Giuliana on Hillary Swank: "Feathers are so in right now." Can something like that be true if you will it so?</p> <p>7:23Kelly and Giuliana tackle the tricky topic of HBC (who looks pretty great):<br> Kelly: "What I respect about her so much...is that she's not here for the fashion. She's an actress."</p> <p>Giuliana: "She always wears the same pair of sunglasses...that's why we love her!" Yep. That's why.</p> <p>7:25 Celine Dion's got a rock hanging from her neck that's quite large...she'll probably drop it into the ocean after this ceremony. And maybe happily die in her sleep after?</p> <p>7:27 Javier Bardem, just fuck me. No point in dancing around it. Let's go.</p> <p> 7:30 Kevin Spacey is babbling about the internet and revolution and Facebook and, I think, Wikileaks...file under: things not to talk about on the red carpet.</p> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> 7:33 Okay, Gwyneth, you win. <p>7:43 Oh, good: Giuliana's talking about Celine's smoking post-baby bod.</p> <p>7:45 So there's this little scroll down at the bottom of the E! screen, with really important news updates, like: "JENNIFER LAWRENCE ACTUALLY ATE A CHEESESTEAK TODAY...AND A YOGURT."</p> <p>7:47 Penelope Cruz's cleavage is so tightly packed, she can't even lose a breadcrumb down there.</p> <p>7:50 Mark Wahlberg says he's "already won the real statue" — his wife. His wife is a statue. He said this on television. She is a trophy wife, literally.</p> <p> 7:57 Meanwhile, over at CNN, red carpet expert Camille Grammar is talking about JENNIFER LAWRENCE'S NIPPLES. (All Jennifer Lawrence updates will be in caps, per the cheesesteak scroll.)</p> <p>7:58 Natalie Portman looks great in Rodarte. Fingers crossed for an awkward and giggly acceptance speech.</p> <p>8:00 E! is done, now we have to switch to ABC red carpet. Tim Gunn calls Jennifer Hudson "superbly svelte." And she's talking a mile a minute, like a Five Hour Energy commercial.</p> <p>http://www.viddler.com/explore/jezebel/videos/1158/8:04 The more James Franco tries to be serious, the more ridiculous/funny he is. Love.</p> <p>8:08 Who is this dude comparing Colin Firth to the Packers?</p> <p>8:10 Looks like we've got a Brangelina no-show. She decided to stay at home with her lipgloss...</p> <p>8:13 Kidman, in her incredible Fail Gown: "Having been the business a long time, I know most of the people here, which is lovely." Which is like an enormous, all-encompassing name-drop, something one would assume Nicole needn't do.</p> <p>8:15 If Christian Bale wins, I'd like to see him shave that Oscars Beard on stage. Or maybe Franco shaves it. Now that would be a show.</p> <p>8:20 You know what would be cool? If this goddamn show would start.</p> <p>8:23 No one has mentioned Charlie Sheen. He whose name shall not be spoken.</p> <p>8:26 "I'm sitting here with Halle Berry...So, Halle, how's your custody battle going?" </p> <p>8:30 Oh, look, hey! The show is starting! Onward, pop culture soldiers!</p>?<p>Welcome to our Oscars fashion coverage! Click each image to enlarge and ogle away! We'll be continually updating as the pics come in; share your Joan Rivers-esque insights in the comments. </p><p></p>?<p>In this week's (abbreviated holiday edition) compilation of pop culture crap, Celine Dion's Florida compound, a drunk man crushes a dog at a party, and Snooki and JWoww's non-lezebel tongue kiss.</p><p><br></p>?<p>personally for my father's stance on DADT. I love my father very much and we disagree. Project your anger at politicians and the president via web<br> McCainBlogette</p>?<p>Welcome to the show! Get ready for a night of dramatic speeches, hopefully-decent performances, Gaga costume changes, and good times with your fellow commenters.</p><p></p> <p>11:28: And there you have it, crew! Thanks for hanging out with me tonight! We'll have more on the show, fashions, gossip, and all, in the morning. Have a nice night!</p> <p>11:25: And Album of the Year goes to....Taylor Swift.</p> <p>11:25 Oh, thank goodness, the final award.</p> <p>11:20: I'm still pretty saddened by the overall lack of Gaga.</p> <p>11:18 THIS IS THE SHOW THAT DOESN'T END! YES IT GOES ON AND ON MY FRIENDS!</p> <p>11:14 Either my tv is messed up or the censors are out in full force for this Eminem/Drake/Travis Barker/Lil' Wayne performance.</p> <p>11:13 You guys? When did Quentin Tarantino turn into Robin Williams?</p> <p>11:12Quentin Tarantino is just so...Quentin Tarantino sometimes, you know? Dial it back, dude.</p> <p>11:05:I really loved that singer's gold dress and hair swirl. "Mmm...hair swirl." sounds like something Homer Simpson would say. Can you tell I'm kind of losing it, you guys? I need Gaga to show up and ride a unicorn around while shooting fireworks out of her ears to save this show at this point.</p> <p>11:01: And now the In Memorium montage. Sorry we had to rush it, you guys, but Academy guy needed 19 hours to talk about how awesome the Grammy Museum is earlier tonight.</p> <p>10:59 And now Roberta Flack has joined Maxwell for a duet.</p> <p>10:57 The audience has no idea how to move to this song. It's hilariously awkward. Maxwell, however, is great.</p> <p>10:56And now it's time for Maxwell. The differences between this set and the Black Eyed Peas set are striking, no? It's like the Grammys took us out to the club and now they want us to come back to their house for a drink or something.</p> <p>10:55 Ladies Love Cool James!</p> <p>10:50 There's not enough Gaga in this show, man.</p> <p>10:48 And the winner for Best Female Pop Performance is...Beyonce, for "Halo."<br> <br> You guys, my entire childhood toy chest is coming to life tonight. First, it was Lady Gaga as Jem, and now it's Fergie, as She-Ra.<br> <br> 10:42 You guys, I can't hear this band without thinking of John Edwards now, and it's seriously creeping me out.</p> <p>10:41And now it's time for the Dave Matthews Band. Will someone please do something exciting? Where is Kanye when we need him?!</p> <p>10:39: Oh, here we go: the lecture on illegal downloads has begun. And now Adam Sandler is here, for some reason.</p> <p>10:36: Here comes the Academy guy to talk about the Grammy museum, because everyone wants to hear about this right? Good thing we stole those 9 extra seconds from Stephen Colbert so that we could pat ourselves on the back, eh, Grammys?</p> <p>10:34 How are you guys doing out there? I can't believe they've only given out like 2 awards.</p> <p>10:25 Wyclef is giving a shout out to Haiti in Creole before introducing a tribute song for Haitian relief performed by Mary J. Blige, David Foster, and Andrea Bocelli.</p> <p>10:18And the award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration goes to "Run This Town." Rihanna and Jay-Z are there to accept, but Kanye isn't.</p> <p>10:15 I feel like people who didn't live through the 80s have kind of ruined 80s nostalgia for everyone, and that includes this song.</p> <p>10:11: I wish Bon Jovi would just bring back his giant Aqua Net hair. That's due for a revival, right?</p> <p>10:00: And now Prince and Paris Jackson arrive to accept the Lifetime Achievement award on their father's behalf. Prince is holding it together well. "We will continue to spread his message and help the world. Thank you." Paris: "Daddy was supposed to be here...Daddy was supposed to perform this year....Thank you, we love you Daddy."</p> <p>9:58The ridiculousness of celebrities singing "What about us!?" while wearing designer gowns and jewels is almost too much too take, right?</p> <p>9:55Uh, this is apparently being shown in 3-D, which is awesome, if you have 3-D glasses, but for the rest of us, it just looks like our televisions are totally screwed up.</p> <p>9:53 Lionel Richie is here to introduce the Michael Jackson tribute, with Carrie Underwood, Usher, Jennifer Hudson, Smokey Robinson, and Celine Dion singing "Earth Song" alongside Michael.</p> <p>9:52Oh, dear.</p> <p>9:50This is easily the worst performance of the night. Even Stevie can't save it. I fear the Taylor Swift backlash (which , by the way), is just around the bend.</p> <p>9:47 And here comes Stevie Nicks to sing Rihannon alongside Taylor Swift, which is great for those of us who love Stevie Nicks, but terrible for Taylor Swift, as her vocals seem really off compared to Stevie's.</p> <p>9:45Ryan Seacrest is back, unfortunately, to introduce "the phenomenal Taylor Swift." I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I think she's very talented, but the Taylor Swift worship brigade is kind of weirding me out.</p> <p>9:42STEVIE NICKS! With..Taylor Swift? What song?</p> <p>9:40 Celine Dion is on the way you guys. Is there any Celine Dion as great as super-over-dramatic awards show Celine Dion?!? I think not.</p> <p>9:38: The audience is kind of confused and kind of amazed, I think. They aren't used to a country band that doesn't involve a blonde girl or a rap performance by Kid Rock.</p> <p>9:35 And now tonight's Best New Artist, the Zac Brown Band, featuring Leon Russell. The crowd that was just blaming it on the alcohol 2 seconds ago is now really feeling it for America.</p> <p>9:34Side note: I'm pretty sure there wasn't one band in that category where the main members were under 35 years old.</p> <p>9:33And the award for Best Rock Album goes to...Green Day.</p> <p>9:32Katy Perry's dress is much, much better on stage than it was on the red carpet. She also just fucked up reading the cue cards, though I doubt she really cares.</p> <p>9:30 It's 9:30 and they've only given out 5 awards. I believe that's grounds for calling shenanigans.</p> <p>9:26 I kind of wish Andy Samberg had come to the awards with Rihanna in character as Shy Ronnie.</p> <p>9:25Poor Ke$ha! They made her present with Justin Beiber. It looks like she's been forced to sit at the kid's table.</p> <p>9:21:It's always a bad idea to show crowd shots of people "dancing" at award shows. It's so, so awkward. And here comes Slash. Ugh. Everything about this performance is so played out.</p> <p>9:20 Oh, dear.</p> <p>9:19And now Robert Downey, Jr. comes out, in crooked glasses, to introduce a Jamie Foxx performance. Rihanna is half-ass clapping in the audience, and Jay-Z is giving a really forced, kind of nerdy smile about the entire thing.</p> <p>9:18 Ringo! And the Grammy for Record of the Year goes to....Kings of Leon!?!?<br> <br> Beyonce's performance attire, for those who may have missed it.<br> <br> 9:14 That was seriously kind of ballsy and rude, considering Colbert did them a favor and kicked off the hostless show with a solid routine.</p> <p>9:13 No, really: they just played Stephen Colbert off. Who DOES that?!</p> <p>9:10 And the award for Best Comedy Album goes to: Stephen Colbert. "It's a Christmas album, so obviously I have to thank Jesus Christ." OMG THEY ARE CUTTING OFF STEPHEN COLBERT! WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS SHOW!?!?</p> <p>9:09: It kind of pisses me of that the show can spend 4 hours on dumb presenter banter, but can't spare 30 seconds to let the actual winners give their speeches.</p> <p>9:08 The dude in Lady Antebellum kind of looks like he's dressed to play Danny Zuko in Grease, right?</p> <p>9:07: Don't forget, crew: Sadie is constantly updating the front page with red carpet gowns, so go take a look!</p> <p>9:05: And now Lady Antebellum takes the stage. Have they seriously only given out three awards at this point? Should they just throw the whole awards part out altogether and just be honest about the fact that this is just a big concert?</p> <p>9:04I don't "get" the Jonas Brothers. Could someone please explain them to me? Do you need to be in the Tiger Beat demo to be a fan?</p> <p>9:00: I'm a bit wary of "Earth Song" being the centerpiece of the Michael Jackson tribute. That song is really kind of depressing.</p> <p>9:00: "Welcome to the future!" Autotune and overproduction!</p> <p>8:59 It is my sincerest hope that the Black Eyed Peas' view of the future will inspire some young genius child out there to build a time machine to take us all wayyyy back into the past.</p> <p>8:57: This is like Gaga on a budget, isn't it?</p> <p>8:54 I always hear the lyrics to this song as "I'mma pee." Related: a Black Eyed Peas performance is a great time for a bathroom break, no?</p> <p>8:49: Seriously, though, how rude was that?</p> <p>8:48 The Grammys are such a bitchy popularity contest, aren't they? Taylor Swift would NEVER get played off the stage like that.</p> <p>8:47: And the Best New Artist award goes to The Zac Brown Band. Confession? "Chickenfried" is kind of a jam, you guys. Not even going to lie.<br> <br> This, boys and girls, is the aftermath of awesomeness.<br> <br> 8:42 Pink strips down to a very skimpy Cirque du Soleil-esque outfit and the acrobatics begin, as they did during her performance at the American Music Awards.</p> <p>8:40 After a very brief shout out to Leonard Cohen by Seal, Pink takes the stage. Glitter is definitely back in, you guys. I feel like it's only a matter of time before people start taking roll-on jars of it to their faces again.</p> <p> <br> The gold microphone really makes it right? She's the closest we have to a real-life Jem.<br> <br> 8:32 Pretty sure Beyonce just forgot the words there for a second, but she recovered pretty well.</p> <p>8:31 For those who can't get to a television: Beyonce is wearing a short black studded leather dress and silver ankle boots. She's also now singing "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morrissette.</p> <p>8:29Beyonce has an entire army surrounding her. It's very Michael/Janet, choreography wise, no?</p> <p>8:28 Simon Baker just gave Beyonce the least enthusiastic intro of all time.</p> <p>8:26: Taylor Swift's fake-shock expression is getting really tired, isn't it? She won two Grammys already today, though this is the first one she accepted "on national television."</p> <p>8:25: And, no surprises here: Taylor Swift wins for Best Country Album.</p> <p>8:24: Poor Kristen Bell. She's been promoting this turd for weeks. They won't even give her a break at the Grammys. She's Veronica Mars, dammit! Let her do what she wants!<br> <br> Side note: I love Britney, but WTF is she wearing, you guys?<br> <br> 8:19 I am really over the High School Musicalization of the universe, you guys. Sorry.</p> <p>8:16 Ugh. BRB, watching .</p> <p>8:14 Jennifer Lopez is talking about Green Day's American Idiot as if it's their first album. And now we're watching the cast of American Idiot: The Musical or some such performing with Green Day. Watching a Green Day musical is...weird. I feel really, really old all of a sudden.</p> <p>8:14 Ugh, really shitty planning, Grammy Awards. Beyonce can't accept the award...because she's too busy getting ready to perform. Not really well thought out, eh?</p> <p>8:12 And Song of the Year goes to: Beyonce, "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)"</p> <p>8:11 Colbert whips out an iPad to read off the nominees for "Song of the Year." BTW: is this award really early this year, or do they always hand it out this soon?</p> <p>8:10: Colbert: "Justin Timberlake may have brought the sexy back, but Susan Boyle sent it away again. Goodbye, sexy! We're going with really good singing this year."</p> <p>8:09 Stephen Colbert is now doing a bit with his teenage daughter: "Have a good time honey. Stay away from Katy Perry."</p> <p>8:07 And the crowd loves it. So far, so good. Stephen Colbert is up to present the first award (or maybe just open the show?). "We are here tonight to celebrate what I believe is our most precious right. The right of celebrities to congratulate each other." The audience gives that joke a half-ass clap.</p> <p>8:06 The Sir and the Lady are now doing a jazzy version of "Your Song," which, I predict, will be all over the radio tomorrow. Or at least all over the internet. So good!</p> <p>8:04:Oh shit— I think part of Gaga's costume just fell off. Her glasses?</p> <p>8:03: Gaga is "turning us all into monsters." And out comes a dual piano, with Gaga on one side and Elton John on the other. There are also a ton of severed arms on top. Typing this out is cracking me up.</p> <p>8:02 Gaga is wearing huge green shoulder pads, pink triangles around her eyes, and, as expected, no pants. "Poker Face" is kicking things off. There's definitely a backing track, though I can't tell if she's singing or not. I'm 98% sure she is.</p> <p>8:01: And we kick things off with Gaga doing a spin on "Steam Heat" from The Pajama Game. Welcome to the Fame Factory, crew.</p> <p>8:00: Here we go! "Tonight, it's ladies night."</p>?It was like everyone who attended the New York premiere of Madonna's W.E. were well-aware of the the film has been getting, so they dressed accordingly, with Madge at the top of the heap of terrible. I'm not going to lie: This will be unpleasant.?<p>Remember that weekend editor position we mentioned late last year? Well, we're still working on it. But until then, please welcome our Monday morning edition of Snap Judgment, in which we publish (and "annotate") the celebrity snaps that came in over the earlier part of the weekend. Our first batch, including pics of Halle Berry, Gwen Stefani and Jared Leto, begins in a gallery below.<br> </p>?<p> I like to think of myself as a fairly accomplished shouter of songs. The other week, for example, I accurately sang probably 75% of the notes to Celine Dion's The Power of Love while in the shower, and the other day I sang the part of Cabaret about goin' like Elsie without my voice cracking/glass shattering. Glee star Amber Riley is a human reality check to the notion that I am capable of singing any songs with any degree of skill. Case in point: her DNC-opening rendition of The Star Spangled Banner.</p> <p>Riley announced her convention-opening gig via Twitter on September 1st. After discouraging a generation of American Idol wannabes with her pipes, she later admitted that, like everyone in America who is not that racist old lady who thinks Michelle Obama "" she kind of crushes on the Mom-in-Chief.</p> <p>Get in line, Riley.</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>The premiere airing of Anderson Cooper's new show, Anderson, will feature some very special guests: Amy Winehouse's father, Mitch; mother, Janis; and boyfriend, Reg Traviss. They will talk about the singer's life, death and career. Cooper says: "Her music is extraordinary. And she's such a remarkable talent.?What's remarkable about this family is they've been so public before her death about trying to get her help." []</p> <p>Now here is a dynamite duo: Angelina Jolie and Dame Jane Goodall. A film about the famous primatologist and anthropologist, Jane's Journey, will include details about her charity work with Angelina. "I was delighted when she told me she would be excited to be a part of the film," says Dr. Goodall. "Sometimes, caught up in the moment, people promise to give their support but don't, or can't come through. That was not true with Angelina." This is why we worship St. Angie, y'all. All praises due and that's a blessing. []</p> <p>Madonna was asked about fans admiring her — including Lady Gaga. Quoth Her Madgesty: "As for Lady Gaga, I have no comment on her obsessions related to me, because I do not know if it is based on something profound or superficial." Oh, girl, come now. OBVIOUSLY it's profound. She's crazy for you! Touch her once and you'll know it's true. She never wanted anyone like this… It's all brand new. She's crazy. Crazy for you. []<br> BTW, Gaga wears no makeup on the new cover of Harper's Bazaar. []<br> Gaga on surfing: "I fell off a lot in the beginning," she says, "but one of the surfers said to me, 'Now that you can stand up, just look into the future and enjoy the ride.' I thought that was an interesting metaphor about life." []</p> <p>In a world where no one likes paying for music, Lil' Wayne's new album sold one million copies. One million. []<br> Or wait. Did Lil' Wayne only sell 964,000? []<br> Okay, yeah, seems like Weezy sold 964,000, which is nothing to sneeze at. In fact, it's the the biggest sales week for a hip-hop album (or any set by a male artist) since, uh, Lil' Wayne's Carter III. But 2011's biggest debut remains Lady Gaga's "Born This Way," with 1.11 million. []</p> We heard this rumor a while ago, and it turns out to be true: Ben Flajnik The Kisser ™ is the new star of The Bachelor. Will Jennifer Love Hewitt get a rose? []?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>When most people break up with someone there are a few months of Facebook relationship demotions, awkward run-ins and a feverish return to the gym so that you can look hotter first before it all fades into an unpleasant memory. But not so for celebrities, who can be reminded of their past mistakes on an ongoing global basis for the rest of their natural lives. Take Angelina Jolie who will no doubt be thrilled to learn that her ex-husband Billy Bob Thornton has decided to make a movie inspired by his time with her. Entitled And Then We Drove, it's being positioned as an "ethereal" story about a man who picks up a "wild woman" while on a road trip and learns a thing or two about life and love ? which sounds like a mix between a Reese Witherspoon rom-com and Rochelle, Rochelle aka "a young girl's strange, erotic journey from Milan to Minsk." Sidebar: Angelina be looking even better these days - she's aging like a pro. []<br> Billy Bob Thornton says he and Angelina Jolie are still besties and spend their days gabbing via their princess phones. Though perhaps not for much longer. []</p> <p>The investigation into Whitney Houston's death is moving at a lightening speed when compared to that of Michael Jackson or Anna Nicole Smith ? with the doctors who prescribed her the medication found in her room facing questions and possible legal action. If the pills match her medical records then all is okay, but if they were prescribing them illegally then shit is going down. "[Authorities] need to determine that no one is criminally negligent," said a source. "There still could be charges in this case." []<br> Managers at the hotel where Whitney's body was found asked that her body not be removed until her famous friends had finished partying downstairs. []<br> But Sharon Osbourne wasn't one of them ? she was baffled why anyone would want to keep on partying after what happened. []<br> Whitney's secret son Tweets his feelings about her death. []<br> President Obama is the latest public figure to offer his condolences to Whitney's family. []<br> From one icon to another, Paul McCartney pays his respects to Whitney. []<br> Glee is officially dedicating their Valentine's Day episode to Whitney. []<br> Well-meaning brainiac Celine Dion says that drugs are to blame for Whit's untimely death. []<br> She managed to hold it together throughout her great Grammys tribute, but Jennifer Hudson says she is devastated by the loss of her friend and has been crying ever since she heard the news. []</p> <p>It may shock you to learn that the son of a man who built a softcore pornographic empire has a troubled relationship with women, but here we are ? Hugh Hefner's son Marston was arrested for domestic violence after attacking his girlfriend, and Playmate of the Year, Claire Sinclair. Sinclair told police that he kicked and punched her and refused to let her leave their Pasadena home, and while Hefner Jr. admits to having a fight he denies hitting her. Though the bruises on her body tell a different story. []<br> Update: Sinclair doesn't want him to do time but expects a public apology and a promise that he'll undergo psychiatric help. []<br> Hugh Hefner had this to say about his son's arrest: "If they care about each other, they'll patch it up." Really? If he cared about her maybe he shouldn't have hit her in the first place. []</p> <p>Eyes were rolled when it was revealed that Demi Moore would be playing Gloria Steinem in the Linda Lovelace biopic, and that went double when Sarah Jessica Parker was named as Moore's replacement ? but Ms. Steinem herself has come out to say that she's "honored" for SJP to play her. "I'm grateful that she wants to do it so much, because of the subject matter ? because she understands how important sex trafficking and forced prostitution is," she said. "And Linda Marciano's story can happen to anyone. And that's my role, I believe, in the movie to say that. So I'm very honored that she wanted to do it … I think that Sex And The City was one of the few pop cultural admissions that friendship among women is crucial." []</p> <p>Magda Szubanski ? aka Sharon from Kath & Kim ? has come out in support of same-sex marriage and, subsequently, outed herself as a lesbian. Which is a pretty big deal Down Under as she's hugely popular with the over-40s suburban set. "I am 1,000 per cent in favour of gay marriage," she said in an official statement. "We pay taxes, fight wars for this country, nurse you when you are sick, make you laugh, sing and dance for you, play netball for you, star in your movies, cook your meals, decorate your store windows … All Australians, including gay Australians, should have exactly the same rights, including the right to love, marry and take care of our partners." The statement comes a day after two bills to legalise same-sex marriage were introduced in Parliament. []<br> It shouldn't come as a huge shock considering he has three kids with his Hollywood publicist boyfriend, but Matt Bomer also came out ?at an awards show with a lovely speech. []</p>?<p></p> <p>"It's very simple," she told a reporter. "There was a nasty rumor that it was about a relationship that started with a rape and torture - and it's not." She also said: "The film is about the experience that a lot of different people, on all different sides, have as war takes its toll… A couple that maybe would have lived a certain life, had the war not begun, end up having a very different story because of the war." And: "It's absolutely to be handled as delicately as possible." []</p>?<p></p> <p>"I'm 5'6, I'm 51 years old, and I've never been to The Waldorf [Astoria Hotel in New York, where the alleged affair occurred]. I would like for someone to get the word out." Samuelsohn was the only coach listed in the credits, but there were other dialect coaches on the film. Still, he says: "The thing is this is all crap. I'm sure it was not a dialect coach. If it was somebody I'm sure it was not a dialect coach." He also says that Angie is "sweet" and "great." []</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p></p> <p>Says Betty: "I don't care who anybody sleeps with. If a couple has been together all that time — and there are gay relationships that are more solid than some heterosexual ones — I think it's fine if they want to get married. I don't know how people can get so anti-something. Mind your own business, take care of your affairs, and don't worry about other people so much." []</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p><br> In what may mark a high point in presidential campaign history for the whole "gravitas" department, Hillary and Bill announce her campaign song in the manner of the Sopranos. It is very awkwardly done. The song, not to be a bonerkiller, is by Celine Dion. Never having actually heard the song, we are certain it was the worst choice on the Boomerlicious , which was not exactly up our musical alley but at least involved The Police. What's wrong with Hillary Clinton supporters? (Menopausal vaginas for ears?) Seriously though, our mom has better taste than this. [We're having a little problem with the video player. Click on comments to view the video if you are too. -Ed.]<br> []</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>Canadians: Such a wildly unexpected bunch! According to a conducted by Canadian's women's magazine , 1 in 5 Canadian women has cheated on her partner, yet half of the women surveyed list "loyalty" as the quality they desire most in a mate. Which makes sense, we suppose, because really — isn't there only room in a relationship for one cheating partner? More interesting, though, were women's responses to, um, slightly less dissertation-worthy questions:</p> Wow. What to make of these riveting statistics? What broad, sweeping generalizations can we make about our sisters up north? <p>How about they're:</p> Case in point: Celine Dion!<br> [CTV.ca]<br> Related:?<p>Today, Celine Dion was on Oprah. Watching those two women have a discussion was like watching an unbirthday party at the Mad Hatter's place: Confusing, ridiculous, and fun. Also, after the jump, lots of animated gifs of Celine.</p><p> <br> <br> <br> She's really the most gif-able woman in the world:<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> </p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>Last night was Celine Dion's last-ever show at Caesars Palace and, believe it or not, some of us actually care. More to the point: We care about understanding the psyches of those . Though while we think of Celine as a sort of Quebecois sideshow attraction, others think she is God. One such person is M J Wylie, a 49-year old woman from Denver, CO who took special care in preparing for last night's performance (her 62nd). Not only did she attend in black-tie attire, but she also wore a pendant bearing the show's logo, and carried a Judith Leiber clutch bearing the show's logo (not to mention her own body, on which the show's logo is also tattooed).</p> <p><br> <br> Such devotion is why Canadian reporter Carl Wilson set out what exactly makes people love Celine in his just-published book Let's Talk About Love: A Journey To The End Of Taste. "It's hard to imagine an audience that could confer less cool on a musician," muses Wilson in his tale of the big voice, the saccharine lyrics, and the insane fans. For months, Wilson listened and listened and listened to nothing but Dion, hoping to overcome his visceral hatred for her and her music and understand what so impassions her fans. His conclusion? "Her voice itself is nouveau riche... a luxury item, and Celine wants to share its abundance with her audience...It deals with problems that don't require leaps of imagination but require other efforts, like patience, or compromise" and while it may be "lousy music to make aesthetic judgments to," it "might be excellent for having a first kiss, or burying your grandma, or breaking down in tears."</p> <p> [NY Times]<br> [NYMag]</p>?<p>Celine Dion accidentally flashed some front-row audience members at the Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival in...Jamaica. ?The Canadian singer performed in a dress that she admitted was probably a little too short even though she also explained that she's worn it before with no problems, "Because," she said, "normally when people are level the length is fine. But people were like this [looks up].... So it was like I didn't think of the people downstairs and me there." ?Though Celine Dion lives in Las Vegas and warm weather is probably not that big a deal to her anymore, I think if you've spent your Canadian childhood swaddled in heavy winter clothes, wearing a bare minimum of clothes because the weather's warm must still be pretty liberating. ?Also, she looks fantastic and had a good chuckle about the whole thing, so if anyone's upset about this, get over it — celebrities have real human parts under their very expensive clothes, just like us normals. []</p> In more news about the ladyparts of musical divas, Christina Aguilera performed a of "At Last" at a Los Angeles for the late blues singer, Etta James, and that would probably have been all there was to say about such a solemn occasion if pictures taken of Aguilera's performance hadn't revealed a some sort of dark fluid dripping down her leg. ?Some helpful commenters on Oh No They Didn't have pointed out that we could all be making a fuss over nothing because spray-tanner apparently also drips in rivulets when someone is, say, sweating profusely because she's all of a sudden been hit with the epiphany that a childhood of hairbrush-singing her idol's music has prepared her to mourn that idol's passing on the whole world's behalf. ?That's some pretty heavy shit, and whether this is just a case of spray-tanner betrayal or evidence that Christina Aguilera had to deal with an uncomfortable personal situation during a really important moment, she gets a pass. ?[, ]?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>After six attempts at in-vitro fertilization, has announced that she is pregnant with twins. According to her husband, Rene Angelil, the couple is "ecstatic." Congrats! []</p>?<p> Today during her twenty-seventh record-setting appearance on Oprah, let cameras into her home to capture the serene child rearing that takes place within. We'll confess the combination of adorable twins, Celine cooing at the babies in French, and the story of her struggle with infertility warmed our cynical hearts. (But not completely; It's too bad that Ana Gasteyer isn't on SNL anymore, because her parody of Celine impersonating her baby would've been hysterical.)</p> <p>The main reason we tuned in today was to see the amusement park Celine constructed on her Florida estate. You see, it's too hard for her huge family to head out to Disney World like the rest of us, so she constructed a theme park getaway in her backyard. It's really very practical ... if you're a lovably loopy celebrity with money to burn, that is.</p> <p></p>?<p>In a very arty, wacky spread for V Magazine, Celine Dion poses in multiple photos, alternately wearing a bunny mask, stuffed-animal pants, white leather, thigh-high boots and hot pants, and most notably, . There's no nip, but you can actually see some underboob in one of the shots. It is at once the most ridiculous and most gorgeous she has ever looked in her life. []</p>?<p>Last night talked about her new babies—Nelson and Eddy—on , where she also went into a nonsensical explanation about women's fertility, as well as how she mixed up her unnamed twins.</p><p><br> <br> And as always, .<br> <br> </p>?<p><p> <p> 's memorial service was a surprisingly tasteful affair, which was probably for the best. However, we still wish would have shown up to reprise her performance of "Bad." Clip at left. []</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p></p> <p>I'm not even going to try and summarize this, lest I take away from its overall...effect. So:</p> <p>"At the restaurant Charlie, his assistant and two male friends, with all their escorts were in a private room. Charlie was wasted," the source said.<br> "At one point he convinced Capri to go to the bathroom with him. When they got into the bathroom he started snorting cocaine and then took off his pants.<br> "Charlie wanted to have sex with Capri and tried but she stopped him and demanded her $12,000. He didn't have the money on him so she left him in the bathroom!"<br> Capri returned to the table and even though it was a private room, waiters and busboys were coming in and out of the room and noticed the commotion. Charlie's assistant got nervous when he didn't come back and asked Capri where he was. She told him and the assistant went to the bathroom to get Charlie.<br> "When the assistant opened the door, there was Charlie standing there naked with cocaine all over his face! He was delusional and just completely lost. Totally out of it."</p> <p>Two and a Half Men, folks — Monday nights on CBS, 9/8c!</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p></p> <p>The threesome involving the star of the upcoming film gaystravaganza Burlesque and LiLo's ex allegedly occurred in Mexico last month, according to Sam Ronson's producer. At the link, more rampant speculation and some pictures of Xtina posing with a perfume bottle. I bet there's a really fragrant genie inside! []</p>?<p><br> Today in extreme and questionable geekery: a British company has almost sold out the 2,000 available tickets for two cruises that promise to recreate the Titanic's ill-fated maiden voyage on the 100th anniversary of the disaster next year. Floating piece of door and Leonardo DiCapriosicle not included.</p> <p>The cruises are part of another reswelling of interest in the lore of the lost gigantic ship— next year, James Cameron's Titanic will be rereleased in 3D, festivals marking the 100th anniversary of the boat's demise will occur on both sides of the pond, and crazy, rich bastards will be able to pay a Russian company $59,000 to take a submarine down to the site of the wreckage.</p> <p>The Titanic cruise passengers will thankfully cross the Atlantic on a ship that isn't named Titanic II: Titanic 2 Titanic, but rather the MS Balmoral. According to the Independent, exquisite has been paid to every detail, so that the passengers willing to pay the $10,000 or so the trip costs will be treated to the nerdiest, most historically accurate disaster recreation ever. They'll follow the exact path of the ship to the point where the vessel hit an iceberg and went down in the north Atlantic. Passengers will be served food from the same menu served to passengers during the Titanic's journey. Relatives of passengers on the original Titanic will be aboard. Presumably, half of those on board will lose their virginity to a poor lad with a heart of gold, after he draws them like he draws one of his French girls. Diamonds for everyone! The ship will briefly halt at the exact location where the Titanic went down, so that on April 15 at precisely 2:20 am, passengers will participate in a memorial service for the passengers lost to the chilly waters exactly 100 years before.</p> <p>No word on whether or not Celine Dion will be providing the endlessly repeated soundtrack.</p> <p> [Independent]</p>?<p></p> <p>Celine Dion started a new leg of her latest Las Vegas residency show last weekend and her setlist included a cover of Adele's ubiquitous "Rolling in the Deep," which you can hear above.</p> <p>What I love about this is how well someone who is widely considered to be the antithesis of cool can slide back in and completely own something as culturally approved as the contemporary standard that is "Rolling in the Deep." Adele, with her objectively pristine voice and ability to move units like no one else (in its 67th week on the , 21 sits at No. 2 with a bullet), has helped loosen up the stigma on adult contemporary music that arose toward the end of the '90s. She's a natural descendant of the likes of Celine, but now Adele's the one opening doors. If this goes viral (and it's looking like it will), it'll become Celine's most widely heard performance in at least a decade.</p> <p>I value Celine Dion mostly as , but vocally the woman is beastly. This is a nice reminder.</p> <p>Her cult is also really fascinating — I'll never stop recommending Carl Wilson's . It's not just a sharp assessment of the polarizing effect of this woman and her mostly milquetoast music, but it's also an overall ingenious exploration of popular taste versus critical consensus. The contradictions are sometimes astounding.</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>The old Anna-Wintour-for-ambassador rumor is back. You may recall that in 2009, following superlative service to the Obama campaign as a fundraiser and amidst rumors that her contract renewal negotiations at Conde Nast had stalled (remember when people actually thought non-Anglophone Carine Roitfeld was going to get her job?), the Vogue editor's name was as a candidate for ambassador to France. By Page Six magazine. And people nonetheless took this rumor seriously for about one (very heady) day. Well: Wintour is still a topObama fundraiser — she's bundled over $500,000 at last count, and endured from the right wing media for daring to step out of her frivolous, silly, fashion-lady box. And the post of U.S. ambassador to the U.K. is expected to be open later this year. The rest of this rumor goes something like "And isn't Anna Wintour, like, from Europe or something? She'd be perfect!" Think about it, folks. Please. []<br> One reason why the above rumor will never come true: Vogue's decision to print a glowing profile of Asma al-Assad in March, 2011 — just as the nascent Syrian uprising was being met with brutality by the forces of dictator Bashar al-Assad — is back in the news today, thanks to its enduring value as a . (Which is doubtless why Vogue deleted from its Web site all references to the infamous story and the Norman Rockwell-style Assad family portraits, shot by famed photojournalist and war correspondent James Nachtwey, that accompanied it.) Anna Wintour released the following statement when pressed for comment by the New York Times:</p> <p>"Like many at that time, we were hopeful that the Assad regime would be open to a more progressive society. Subsequent to our interview, as the terrible events of the past year and a half unfolded in Syria, it became clear that its priorities and values were completely at odds with those of Vogue. The escalating atrocities in Syria are unconscionable and we deplore the actions of the Assad regime in the strongest possible terms."</p> <p>Riiiiiight. Meanwhile, the story's author, former Vogue Paris editor Joan Juliet Buck, said she regretted the headline that Vogue had given the piece ("A Rose In The Desert") but that Asma al-Assad was "extremely thin and very well-dressed, and therefore qualified to be in Vogue." As previously , the Assad regime secured the profile with the help of a $5,000-a-month Washington, D.C., P.R. firm. The death toll from the Syrian uprising currently at over 14,000. Most recently, journalists and U.N. monitors who finally reached the burned-out homes of the town of Qubair, where the Syrian armed forces allegedly perpetrated a massacre last week, are "appalling terrors," including pools of blood and body parts. According to the BBC's Paul Danaher, "The stench of burnt flesh was still hanging in the air." []</p> Photojournalist Steve McCurry — famous for sneaking into Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion to take the photo of 12-year-old Sharbat Gula that he titled "Afghan Girl" — will shoot this year's . Karlie Kloss is rumored to be among the models featured. [] Cindy Crawford is on the new cover of S Moda. [] Here are some early agency test photos of a young Kate Upton. []?<p>If you don't already know, let me be the first to apologize for ruining what should have been a placid Sunday of Grammy-snarking — Whitney Houston, the diva that even Bret Easton Ellis's misogynistic, socially-numb serial killer held in high esteem, died last night at the heart-breaking age of 48. Houston's hairdresser and bodyguard were the first to find the singer with her face underwater in her bathtub at the Beverly Hilton where she was staying. Details are still scant, but, with typical journalistic stoicism, TMZ is already reporting that a probably caused Houston to lose consciousness and drown in the tub. With ironic cruelty, fate determined that as members from the music community gathered at the Beverly Hilton to celebrate another year in mediocre music, they would mingle with the Los Angeles County paramedics transporting Houston's body from her hotel room to the coroner's office for an autopsy. Though Houston was plagued by years of drug abuse and a tumultuous 14-year marriage to Bobby Brown, she became the most-honored female singer of all time over her 25-year career, collecting more than 400 awards — including 6 Grammys and 30 Billboard Awards — and selling more than 170 million albums worldwide. She had a movie career that includes the VH1 go-to Saturday afternoon movie, The Bodyguard, as well as the more respectable and awesomely titled Waiting to Exhale. She's also credited with influencing the generation of female singers who followed her, a group that includes the likes of Beyonce, Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, and Celine Dion, who, along with just about every other disconsolate celebrity, poured their sorrow and dismay through the social sluice ways late last night:</p> <p>I just can't talk about it now. It's so stunning and unbelievable. I couldn't believe what I was reading coming across the TV screen. My heart goes out to Cissy, her daughter Bobbi Kris, her family and Bobby.</p> <p>- Aretha Franklin</p> <p>Heartbroken and in tears over the shocking death of my friend, the incomparable Ms. Whitney Houston.</p> <p>- Mariah Carey</p> <p>I've know Whitney since she was a little girl and I loved her. She was like family to me. I will miss her.</p> <p>- Smokey Robinson</p> <p>No words! Just tears #DearWhitney.</p> <p>- Rihanna on Twitter.</p> <p>She was just a gift in voice ... She was just so innocent in the business, and that voice was so pure and her life was so pure. That's what I'm holding on to. I think what we're going to do in the long run of her life story is focus on the voice, not the tragedy, but the voice.</p> <p>- Lionel Richie to CNN.</p> <p>That voice — it could hit all the octaves, making it so very hard to choose a favorite of her songs and so unnervingly easy to empathize for a brief moment with Patrick Batemen, who settles after a brief deliberation with "The Greatest Love of All," which as he explains, "Is one of the best, most powerful songs ever written about self-preservation and dignity. This universal message crosses all boundaries, instills one with the hope that it's not too late to better ourselves. Since it's impossible in this world we live in to empathize with others, we can always empathize with ourselves." Much respect, Whitney Houston, and may the pulp tabloids resist the urge to trample your grave with sordid details of your final hours. [, , , ]</p>?<p></p> <p>According to , a blog of questionable reliability, Reggie bought a ring and was waiting for the right time and place to propose. But one day he was using Kim's laptop and these IMs from Kanye came through and Reggie answered them as if he were Kim. Reggie found out that Kanye and Kim had been hiding the sausage for months, behind Reggie's back. He confronted Kim, she confessed, and that was that. If you think this sounds kind of like poorly written fanfic to you you're not alone. [, ]</p>?<p></p> <p>"My ex-husband has been in and out of jail for 10 years. My children and I gave him a chance to get to know them again, and he clearly blew that chance!" And: "I have had a criminal order of protection from the domestic violence sector since 2005. He was not supposed to even be harassing me by phone." Lastly, if you're still listening: "My heart is breaking for my children that he could do this. He has no visitation anymore and is six months behind in child support. The authorities have been alerted!" []</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p></p> <p>As if there aren't enough stinky smells out there, Hilary Duff has now blessed the world with her own signature perfume. She joins Beyonce, Donald Trump, Jennifer Lopez, Celine Dion, Britney Spears, Kimora Lee, Jessica Simpson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Diddy and Paris Hilton in the perfume parade. We think this trend should have ended when Liz Taylor launched White Diamonds back in the nineties.</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>Last night's Glee was pretty funky, and not in the amusing Marky Mark sense of the word. Will sang an uncomfortably sexy song to Sue, Quinn learned a Very Special lesson about racism, and Terri lusted after an underage boy.</p><p>The episode starts with Jesse St. James informing the New Directions kids that he's transferred back to Carmel High because, "You guys were awful to me. You never accepted me. You never listened to my clearly superior ideas." In their defense, it's hard to bond with a guy who takes three weeks off to attend another school's spring break excursion. Jesse and Vocal Adrenaline perform "Another One Bites The Dust," and TP the McKinley rehearsal room, sending our heroes into a deep depression... OK, a "funk."<br> </p> <p>Sue reveals that she let Vocal Adrenaline into the McKinley auditorium because she plans to turn the chorus room into her trophy annex when New Directions loses sectionals. Will, who as you may recall is an adult, responds by grabbing the trophy she's holding and smashing it. She replies, "You know, for me trophies are like herpes. you can try to get rid of them, but they just keep coming. You know why? Sue Sylvester has hourly flare ups of burning, itchy, highly contagious talent." Point: Sue.</p> <p>Next Terri turns up to sign the papers finalizing her divorce from Will. Afterward she tells him tenderly, "You're still that 16-year-old boy to me. You always will be," which was kind of the whole problem with their marriage, no? Well, that and the fake pregnancy thing.</p> <p>Will decides to share his marriage woes with his students and Santana, who has managed to steal my heart with with only about two lines per episode, asks, "Besides creeping us out, why are you telling us this?" Will's point is that the kids should pull a revenge prank on Carmel High.</p> <p>Unsurprisingly, Will's plan backfires when Puck and Finn are caught slashing the Vocal Adrenaline kids' tires. In lieu of expulsion, Finn and Puck agree to pay for the damage by getting jobs. Terri hires them at Sheets 'N Things and they all sing Beck's "Loser," which is cut short so Terri can fantasize about Finn. If you thought Terri would get to redeem herself, forget it; She's following up her pregnancy scam storyline with seducing a 16-year-old boy.</p> <p>Back at McKinley, Will commences Plan B: Assign the kids "funk" songs to combat the soulless singing robots that comprise Vocal Adrenaline. He also attempts to seduce Sue Sylvester by serenading her with the song "Tell Me Something Good." Besides creeping us out, he's trying to throw her off before the cheerleading nationals. For some reason Sue allows him to rub his brillo-y hair on her and writes later in her diary:</p> <p>Dare I admit it? I have feelings for one Will Schuester — sexy, non-murdering feelings. Oh it all makes sense now journal. True love always springs from true hate! I'll admit in the past I've fantasized about waking up next to Will's head on the pillow next to me, except now I picture it attached the to rest of his body.</p> <p>Will asks Sue out on a date (she dresses up by wearing pearls with her track suit), but he stands her up. Sue's ensuing funk causes the Cheerios to unravel (Brittany can't even dress herself properly) and Kurt explains to Mr. Schue that Sue may not need another cheerleading trophy, but the kids do.<br> </p> <p>Meanwhile, Quinn performs James Brown's "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" at glee rehearsal and brings in other girls from the Unwed Mothership Connection to act as her backup dancers. (Are there are five other pregnant teens at McKinley we've never heard of?) Artie initially remarks that the pregnant ladies' dance is "offensive," but my only issue with the number is that it's poorly lip synced.</p> <p><p> <p> </p> <p>This leads to a Mercedes/Quinn scene that may actually be offensive, but I'm still not sure what they were talking about. Quinn apologizes to Mercedes for unknown reasons and says that while she's only going to be pregnant for nine months, "You've had to deal with this your whole life. People making assuptions, calling you names." At first I thought she was talking about being overweight, but it seems being knocked up has given Quinn insight into being a minority. Either way, the scene was too preachy for my tastes. The point is Quinn is going to move into Mercedes' house, which doesn't seem that important since we didn't know where she was living for a considerable chunk of this season.</p> <p>Later, Jesse calls Rachel and asks her to meet him in the school parking lot. She runs toward him in slow motion and manages not to get hit by a bus Mean Girls-style, but's it's a trap; the Vocal Adrenaline kids jump out ad pelt her with eggs. Jesse says, "I loved you," then smashes an egg onto her forehead. The only explanation for this behavior is that Jonathan Groff isn't coming back for season two, so like Idina Menzel, his storyline needs to be tied up quickly. The lesson for Rachel: Bonding with guest stars always leads to heartbreak.<br> <br> Sue gets over her funk and wins cheerleading nationals, thanks in part to Kurt's "14 and a half minute Celine Dion medley." She threatens to put the trophy in the chorus room unless Will kisses her. He agrees, but she changes her mind at the last minute because, "Even your breath stinks of mediocrity. It's making me sick."</p> <p>Finally, New Directions performs "Give Up The Funk" for Vocal Adrenaline, leaving them in awe of their superior funkiness.</p> <p>Next week: Sectionals! My bet: The kids lose miserably and glee club is finally disbanded.</p>?If you're a cheater, Gwyneth Paltrow is willing to forgive you, even if your spouse won't. She explains, "Life is complicated and long and I know people that I respect and admire and look up to who have had extra-marital affairs." Gwyneth adds, "It's like we're flawed — we're human beings and sometimes you make choices that other people are going to judge. That's their problem but I really think that the more I live my life the more I learn not to judge people for what they do. I think we're all trying our best but life is complicated ... If death by virus was a punishment for extra-marital affairs there would only be three dudes left in this world right now." []?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>People — writers, fans, music executives — don't really know what to do with an aging female musician. I'm not talking about someone like Celine Dion or Cher, whose popularity was never based on some amorphous idea of coolness or relevance. I'm not even talking about our beloved , who still plasters short, tight dresses on her meticulously muscled frame and projects an image of socially desirable sexuality. I'm talking about Patti Smith, who was by Deborah Solomon in this weekend's New York Times Magazine and asked more than one question about her use of conditioner and reigning status as "the queen of split ends." And even more so, I'm talking about Kim Deal, the lead singer of the Breeders and former Pixies bassist who headlined a big summer concert yesterday in Brooklyn to support the Breeders' April release, Mountain Battles.</p><p>The Breeders success has always been painted by rock critics as . It all started when the Pixies fell apart in the early 90s, which was due, in part, to Kim's mounting popularity. Some say that lead singer Frank Black couldn't handle being second banana, and so Kim struck out on her own, forming a rag-tag band which eventually included her identical twin sister Kelley, who was working as a computer programmer and had never played guitar before. According to Ethan Smith, who wrote a telling and entertaining profile of the Breeders for the Times Magazine when they released Title TK in 2002, "In most musical eras, this would hardly be a recipe for chart-topping success. But courageous amateurism was all the rage in the early 90's. In their quest for authenticity, fans and record executives alike were seeking underdogs to make into heroes."</p> <p>Well, it's 2008 now, and a love of ballsy dilettantism has been replaced by a . When I arrived at Brooklyn's McCarren Pool for the Breeders show yesterday, I expected a bunch of fellow 90s enthusiasts who remembered when Last Splash was a big hit in 1993 and wanted to worship (and reminisce) at the altar of the sisters Deal. Instead, I found a park filled with 19-year-olds in unholy hybrids of short shorts and mom jeans (see fig. A at the bottom of this post).</p> <p>It was hot, and even the snuggly confines of the free-booze filled VIP section couldn't make up for the sun's unyielding rays on our aged flesh. My friends and I ended up putting a makeshift tarp over our heads and offering sunblock to scantily clad and quickly reddening youngins like the crazy old ladies that we were. We got there around 3 and the Breeders didn't take the stage until 5:30 or so, which meant that we spent the better part of two hours counting the number of girls wearing rompers (12) and Keds (7) and rompers and Keds (1).</p> <p>When the Breeders finally came on, we didn't have the energy to push our way to the front of undulating mass at the front of the stage, so we hung back in the shade and listened to Kim and Kelley (fig. B). I was hoping for one of the twins' famous public spats (from the 2002 Times article: "Suddenly the slumber party has become an episode of ''Judge Hatchett.'' Close your eyes and the twins' flat-accented, not-quite-identical altos — a source of fascinating musical effects on disc and stage — sound like one extremely unhinged woman on the brink of wringing her own neck.") but the Breeders' performance was smooth and professional. Though after decades of hard living, at 46 they're looking a little worse for the wear, Kim's clear and femme voice sounded the same as it ever did, which is to say occasionally transcendent. Most of the romper-clad audience didn't appear to be superfans , but they certainly appreciated the rock that Kim and co. were slinging almost as much as they appreciated self-consciously watching each other's outfits.</p> <p>We left early, before the encore, because we didn't want to have to wait in the endless line that would undoubtedly form at the park's exit. I was happy to see that the hipster masses would still congregate in droves to hear Kim Deal, but I can't say I loved the show. I'm too old and cranky to deal with the crowds and the smell and the lines and the rancid portapotties. This was the second time I'd seen the Breeders. The first time was in 2002. What's remarkable about Kim Deal is that through several different band changes and life changes, she's been remarkably consistent. She still makes the same lo-fi, stripped down rock and keeps the same unkempt, fuck-you image that made her a commercial success in 1993. Though critics might not know what to do with aging female rock stars, female rock stars know what to do with themselves: keep making music.</p> <p>Wait! One more thing. 40something female rock stars keep making music, but they also revive amazing flame wars in glossy magazines with similarly aged dude rockers. "You know, [Pavement's Stephen] Malkmus is being a bit of a bitch in interviews recently," Kim in April to Time Out. "One thing he said last summer referred to me as 'trashy mouth.' And he just did this article in Spin where he alluded to me unpleasantly, saying [something like], "You know, I always thought that Pavement could have had one of those big hits in the early '90s with ‘Cut Your Hair,' but I guess people preferred ‘Cannonball.'…God, man, "Cut Your Hair" isn't as good of a song as 'Cannonball,' so fuck you. How's that? Your song was just a'ight, dawg." Kim, I might be too old and lame to like concerts, but you're still my hero.</p> <p>Fig. A: a denim romper: </p> <p>Fig. B: our crappy, old lady view from the back of the crowd:</p> <p> [New York Times Magazine]<br> <br> [Village Voice]<br> <br> [Time Out New York]</p> <p>Relateed: [Style.com]</p>?<p>I don't remember a lot of specifics about watching Titanic in theaters in 1997, but I was 15 years old, which means my two biggest concerns were 1) locating romance, and 2) not dying in a nautical catastrophe. So I think we can safely assume that I fucking loved that movie. I watched Titanic again on TV with my sister a few years later, making sure to switch it off right before that whole stressful iceberg thingy—a strategy that turns the movie into a pleasant romp about two teenagers who take a perfectly safe boat ride and then bang in a jalopy. The end. Charming! Watching Titanic for a third time this weekend—in advance of Wednesday's big 3D reopening—I cannot imagine what I was thinking that second time around. I could not wait to get to the second half and watch all these motherfuckers drown. </p> <p>Here's the thing about Titanic, and the reason 15-year-old girls love it so much: James Cameron is a 15-year-old girl. All of the characters are either 15-year-old girls in disguise ("Parents just don't understand!" "Waaah, make the boat go faster!" "I know we literally met 20 minutes ago, but I love you with a suicidal fervor!"), or the kind of goofy caricatures that 15-year-old girls would write if we let 15-year-old girls write our blockbuster screenplays. It's She's All That on a Boat, only with Kate Winslet as Freddie Prinze Jr., Leonardo DiCaprio as that girl who isn't famous anymore, and also everyone freezes to death in the north Atlantic at the end.</p> <p>Titanic is three hours and 14 minutes long, which—fun fact—is longer than the actual journey of the Titanic. It is sooooo ballsy to just assume people will watch your movie for three hours and 14 minutes! Especially when everyone already knows exactly what happens in the end (spoiler: the boat is Keyser Soze). Sorry, Epcot Center, I'mma let you finish, but James Cameron's balls are like the giantest balls of all time. It would take three hours and 14 minutes just to walk around the circumference of James Cameron's balls.</p> <p>Anyway, here's what happens in Titanic. In case you forgot, it is terrible:</p> <p>It starts out on a modern-times submarine. Bill Paxton is snooping around on the ocean floor trying to find a big necklace to . His character is clearly James Cameron's idea of what a cool person is like—he does stuff like wear male earrings and say "sayonara" in a sarcastic voice. Awww, yeeeeah. Pretty cool. Bill Paxton finds this old safe in the ocean, expecting it to be full of Titanic jewelz, but instead it's just an old doodle of some boobs. Total rip-off! ...OR IS IT?</p> <p>An old lady recognizes her boob-doodle on the news and goes to visit Bill Paxton on his rock and roll treasure boat, where they make her watch a graphic CGI reenactment of the Titanic sinking (I believe the working title is Hey Granny, Fuck Your PTSD). Then she tells her story. Which is hella not pertinent to treasure-hunting, unless by "treasure" you mean "three hours of nonsense, garbage, terror, death, and delightful Italian stereotypes."</p> <p>Turns out, that old lady used to be Kate Winslet, and one time she rode a big boat named Titanic. But she wasn't too happy about it! "It was the ship of dreams to everyone else," she says. "To me it was a slave ship, taking me back to America in chains." Yes. Because imprisonment, rape, and unpaid forced labor are just like having to marry Billy Zane and live in a fur-lined bon-bon palace for-literally-ever. (Also, it's 1912 right now, which means that real slavery has only been over for like…40 years? Maybe a little too soon for the flippant slavery metaphors?) She continues: "I saw my whole life as if I'd already lived it, an endless parade of parties and cotillions, yachts, and polo matches. Always the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter. I felt like I was standing at a great precipice, with no one to pull me back, no one who cared, or even noticed." Nobody notices me! Everyone is so fake! My polo pony is the wrong color! As you can see, Kate Winslet's life is just like slavery. She decides to just kill herself immediately so she doesn't have to face another terrible, terrible cotillion.</p> <p>Luckily, along comes Leonardo "I Am Definitely Wearing Lipstick" DiCaprio, who is traveling to America with his friends Fabrizio (Human Olive Garden Commercial) and Tommy (five leprechauns standing on each other's shoulders wearing a long coat). Leonardo DiCaprio rescues her from suicide and she repays him by letting her entire family treat him like human feces for the last few days of his life. Then they fall in love.</p> <p>Leonardo shows up at fancy dinner even though he is a stinky poor and Kate Winslet's mom hates him: "My mother looked at him like an insect—a dangerous insect that must be squished quickly." After dinner, Leonardo says, "Time for me to go row with the other slaves!" Again with the slave thing. YOU GUYS ARE HELLA NOT SLAVES. PLEASE READ A BOOK.</p> <p>In an act of defiance, Kate Winslet sneaks downstairs to party with the simple folk. And look who's down there dancing a jig! "Aaaaaaaay! It's-a me, Fabrizio!" Fabrizio treats everybody to all-you-can-eat breadsticks and then invents the mafia. Can someone tell me why this movie wasn't entirely about Fabrizio? At the very least could I get a fan edit called Titanic 2: Fabrizio's Quest? (It is a quest for lasagna.) Get on it, somebody.</p> <p>Okay. Next there's a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't involve Fabrizio at ALL, so w-evs. It's the Celine Dion part ("I'm flying!"), the boob-sketching part, and the aforementioned jalopy-banging part. All of it is incredibly awkward and boring. Then Theoden, King of Rohan, drives the boat into this big iceberg ("Are you calling me fat, James Cameron?" ? the iceberg) and the ocean starts coming inside the boat ("Heyyyy, ocean!" ? poor people).</p> <p>Bill Paxton interrupts the old lady's interminable story and is like, "BOAT SCIENCE. EXPOSITION. BOAT SCIENCE" for a while. Nobody cares. Onward!</p> <p>Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio run around the boat in circles for a long time holding hands. I think we're supposed to admire Kate Winslet for having terrific moxie or something, but really all she does is yell about how no one can tell her what to do and then just does whatever Leonardo DiCaprio tells her to do. (Sometimes he tells her things like this: "You're so stupid! Why did you do that? You're so stupid, Rose!!!" and "SSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHH.") Feminism!</p> <p>Fabrizio shows up (FINALLY) to tell them that they're fucked because all the lifeboats are gone: "The boats-a! They're all-a gone!" "Where's your life jacket, Fabrizio?" Leonardo asks. "Ees-a okay!" says Fabrizio, "I've-a got this-a beeg ravioli! Abbondanza!" Then he drowns (oops).</p> <p></p> <p>Fortunately for Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio turns out to be the world's #1 expert in surviving ocean liner disasters—offering genius advice like, "We have to stay on the ship as long as possible! Come on!" Eventually, though, they end up in the ocean, where Kate Winslet sits on a board and cries. Leonardo makes one attempt to get on the board with her, but falls off, so he decides to just die instead. Kate Winslet is sad. Then she gets rescued by Mister Fantastic from the Fantastic Four movie.</p> <p>Finally, even though she knew Bill Paxton was searching for the necklace, and he hella patiently listened to her stupid story (it's like she writes erotic fan fiction about herself), that old lady just goes and drops it into the ocean at the end!!! Like, seriously, old lady? First of all, you're a dick. Second of all, that necklace belongs in a museum. Third of all, you're a dick! I wish Bill Paxton would drop YOU into the ocean at the end. Then, to wrap things up, there's a dream sequence where the ghosts of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio walk down the Titanic's grand staircase and everyone on earth applauds for no reason. You know who are the only people that think the world owes them a round of applause? Fifteen-year-old girls and billionaire directors who own submarines. I rest my case.</p> <p>I feel like James Cameron has never met an actual person before. Titanic is basically a 3.5-hour-long Zales commercial, only slightly less emotionally compelling. Fabrizio and Victor Garber aside (I forgot to talk about the unbearable melancholy of Victor Garber, but SOB!), I cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone would want to watch this movie—much less watch it in 3D. Hey, do you want to watch a 3.5-hour extravaganza of terror and death with a plastic cage strapped to your face? Hey, did you like the original Titanic, but wish you could also have a headache? Hey, are you a 15-year-old girl? Oh, you are? Okay. Go nuts. If you'll excuse me, I have to go die of old age now.</p> Related on Deadspin: <p></p>?<p>By now, we've all come to love the single-serving tumblr blogs like , and — but this latest creation may just be the best.</p> <p>Kitten Covers is exactly what you think it is: popular album covers with the artist's face and body replaced with kitties! Sure, it's not the most original idea in the world (see: ) but I have no complaints.</p> <p>[]</p>?<p>Now that George Clooney is reportedly dating (above, the couple in Milan today), we wonder why he's established a pattern of dating women much less professionally successful than himself. Let's take a tour.</p><p></p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>Hot on the heels of NYC socialite Alex Kuczynski's in the New York Times Magazine comes news that the majority of women who have undergone in vitro fertilization their extra eggs. According to the Times, "53 percent did not want to donate their embryos to other couples, mostly because they did not want someone else bringing up their children, or did not want their own children to worry about encountering an unknown sibling someday."</p> <p>And that's not all! Of the 50,000 embryos currently being stored in the United States, "Forty-three percent [of the women] did not want the embryos discarded. About 66 percent said they would be likely to donate the embryos for research, but that option was available at only four of the nine clinics in the survey. Twenty percent said they were likely to keep the embryos frozen forever," the Times says.</p> <p>The cost of keeping embryos frozen is about $200 a year, which isn't much when compared to the cost of IVF treatments, which usually run to tens of thousands of dollars. Someone like Celine Dion, who has , obviously doesn't have to concern herself with costs.</p> <p>Doctors say the major problem is that patients who have their embryos frozen are not given up front. Dr. Anne Lyerly, an OB/GYN at Duke, tells USA Today that the issue of what to do with extra embryos should "absolutely should be raised at the beginning" of fertility treatments, and adds that the storage bill should mention it. And the Times notes that some parents even want unconventional embryo disposals that include "holding a small ceremony during the thawing and disposal of the embryos, or having them placed in the woman’s body at a time in her cycle when she would probably not become pregnant, so that they would die naturally."</p> <p>All of this is sticky business when it comes to and the choice ramifications that go along with it. According to EurekAlert, This study "reveals previously unexplored concerns that patients have about their embryos, and it comes at a time when several states and even the federal government are attempting to enact legislation that would either assert an embryo is a person, allow abandoned embryos to be adopted by another couple, or allow unused embryos to become 'wards of the state.'" First world problems, people. First world problems.</p> <p> [People]<br> [USA Today]<br> [EurekAlert]</p> <p>Earlier: </p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>I generally love watching Fox News, if only because watching it is not nearly as mindnumbing as subjecting yourself to those "There's the week, there's the weekend, and then there's the day when I would rather listen to Celine Dion in hell than watch this commercial again and that day came a LONG TIME AGO" New York Times ads that lord over CNN, but all day most of its anchors have been on this preposterous rant about Starbucks tipping sparked by a that requires the company to pay $100 million in lost tips to baristas. (Starbucks didn't keep the tips for itself, but it allowed shift supervisors and managers to share them, which violates the law and also prompts the question as to, if the company is so worried about reclaiming its lost culture, why it doesn't pay managers more.) But the issue: not a single person on Fox seems to think tipping at Starbucks is appropriate. In fact, they seemed truly astonished that actually giving such tips was such a widely-shared practice that, even in a guilty liberal state like California, the money in question could ever amount to more than a few thousand bucks. And the astonishing rationale behind this shared opinion: that the coffee costs so damn much already.</p><p>There are moments when the true sinister black hole in the place of a heart of the Right reveals itself, and I would think this to be one. You know where they don't tip, Roger Ailes? Fucking FRANCE.</p> <p>A citizen of this country should not be fucking buying a $4 cup of coffee if he or she can't slip in a dollar - or shit, you know, some larger coins — into the lucite box. The end.</p> <p>No, not the end. Seriously. I spent many years as a barista, at Starbucks and elsewhere, so I have perhaps a measure more sympathy for their plight than Neil Cavuto, but tipping is the only way I can justify going there. Some days tipping is the only way I know I'm still human. Tipping wherever possible, wherever it is allowed, is your civic fucking duty. Whatever your political stripe, your beef with the way things work in this world— that hard work is insufficiently valued anymore, that market capitalism unfairly rewards elites and hucksters, that the meritocracy is dead or that welfare dissuades anyone from working or that cynicism has permeated our every action these days — tipping is your quickest, easiest, most painless mode of dissent.</p> <p>Okay, soooo... T.G.I.F.! See you in church!</p>?<p>This just in! Re-enacting the opening scene of Bridget Jones' Diary (gorging yourself on ice cream, cigarettes, and booze while singing "All By Myself" with even more bravado than Celine Dion) is no longer en vogue for single women! A new study out of Edinburgh University that singletons are pretty uniformly happy, trumping what the researchers refer to as the "Bridget Jones-theory" (and no doubt sending millions of smug marrieds into tailspins of despair and schadenfreude). []</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p> is three months pregnant, says a paper with a questionable reputation. But!</p> <p>Apparently she has been notifying friends that she is with child. And her boyfriend, Jamie Hince, was overheard telling her to "calm down, especially in your state." []</p>?<p>Titanic 3D is about to hit theaters, and its re-release is forcing Kate Winslet to come face-to-face with something she is constantly trying to avoid: "My Heart Will Go On," the movie's aggressively swoopy theme song by Celine Dion. It's been 15 years since the movie came out, so it's understandable that Kate's over the song, but it's more than that, she says hearing it makes her feel, "like throwing up." Sounds like she's got a case of the ol' Titanic seasickness. </p> <p>She revealed her distaste for the song in an interview with MTV, and she says it's a particularly unfortunate affliction because it's still played everywhere, and people never tire of bringing it up to her: "I wish I could say, 'Oh listen, everybody! It's the Celine Dion song!' But I don't. I just have to sit there, you know, kind of straight-faced with a massive internal eye roll." That would suck—and sometimes people even try to make her sing it. She recounts one such time:</p> <p>I did a talk show recently in Italy and they actually had a live pianist who started gently playing the theme song. I was not even gently, rather severely, urged to go and sing it as though I had in fact sung it myself in the first place. It was like, "No! I'm not going to do that." They're like, "Oh no, come on it will be funny." No, it won't be funny. At all. And I'm not going to.</p> <p>Ack. Good luck spontaneously belting out a Celine Dion song, person with normal vocal chords. She still seems to think the good things about the movie (like the fact that it made her career) outweigh the fact that she's haunted by the angelically annoying voice of Celine Dion. Plus, as obnoxious as all of it must be, she can take comfort in the fact that her affliction isn't nearly on the level of a Cuba Gooding Jr. "Show me the money" problem—or worse the dreaded Robert De Niro "You talkin' to me?" life-ruiner. []</p> <p>Do you have an ice pack nearby? Because you are going to need it after taking in all these glorious photos of Jon Hamm in Esquire UK. If you can even concentrate with all of the visual, ummm, stimulation happening here, you might be interested to know Hamm's feeling on being Don Draper:<br> "There is no Don Draper. Don Draper was blown up in a ditch in Korea. That whole 'Be Don Draper' thing, I feel it's… sad. This is a fundamentally f**ked up human being." Agreed, but never has something so fucked up been so nice to look at. []</p> <p>Please note that Beyonce has had a lovely crib delivered to her office in New York. It is "an all-white, frilly, vintage-style iron crib, with a matching hanging frame." One assumes it is for her blessed child, Blue Ivy?, to nestle in when she comes to work with Mommyonce. You know what I somehow just realized? Blue Ivy? is going to constantly get to listen to her mom sing. Damn, even if she wasn't going to grow up to be the richest child in history, she is still the luckiest. Of course, for the first 20 or so years of her life, she'll probably think her mother's voice is the most embarrassing thing in the world. []</p> <p>Do you ever get jealous of certain celebrities because of how wonderful their lives appear to be. Nope? Yeah, me neither. For instance, I am not at all jealous that Penelope Cruz and her totally unsexy husband Javier Bardem have just rented a luxury apartment in London that is right across the street from Kensington Palace, where boring old Prince William and Kate Middleton live (and now Prince Harry, too!). I mean, that must be totally lame, right? To have to ask to borrow a cup of sugar from a Princess. Pshhht. []</p> <p>We've known that vowel-heavy couple Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard are expecting a second baby, and now they've revealed they're having a girl. They already have a five-year-old daughter, Ramona, so now Sarsgaard will be totally outnumbered by the ladies. Sidenote: On a scale of one to ten, how happy would it make you if they named this baby Beezus? Would you settle for an official name of Beatrice if they agree to nickname her Beezus? C'mon M & P, just do it. What's the worst that could happen? Other than your daughter resenting you for the rest of your life? []</p>?<p>Last night on Live, shared the trailer at left for her (sadly fake) biopic. It's probably the only Lifetime movie we've ever wanted to see, especially since is played by .</p><p>Later on in the show, while plugging her new memoir, Official Book Club Selection, Kathy ran down the list of which celebrities are and are not speaking to her. (It seems safe to say Kate Gosselin is now in the latter category.) While she's still friends with Lance Bass and , it seems doesn't enjoy the nickname "Gaiken" and doesn't like Kathy implying that she had sex with her husband when she was nine. As for , Kathy says, "She may not be aware of who she's talking to."</p> <p></p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p><p> <p> <br> You're probably familiar with Celine Dion's Vegas show A New Day — which just wrapped last month after a five-year run — even if only through Kathy Griffin's description of it in her stand up. Well, a two-disc DVD set of the show was released, with tons of extras and hours upon hours of documentary footage. Does this all sound severely lame to you? Trust us, it's very entertaining. Our friend spent his Christmas vacation getting to know and love the Canadian songstress, and created the clip show above, which adroitly demonstrates that while her music may be conventional, Celine Dion herself is one unique individual.</p> <p> [FourFour]</p>?<p>A UK Channel 4 series called : From Riches To Rags focuses on Lily quitting touring and opening a clothing store with her sister. Lily, who miscarried six months into her pregnancy, says: "It was a really long battle — and I think that kind of thing changes a person." The singer also discusses her unhealthy relationship with her body. "I used to vomit after meals. It's not something I'm proud of. But, I tell you what, a lot of people came up to me telling me how great I looked and I'd be on the cover of every magazine. thought I looked good and it was great to be able to try on clothes and feel a million dollars. But I wasn't happy, I really wasn't. I would love to be the skinniest minniest person in the world but I can't do that without being unhappy - I like food." She adds: "I'm a pop star, not a model. Don't make me feel shit for not being really skinny and having an eating disorder." [, ]</p> <p></p> <p>Kate Winslet is simply stunning with cropped, platinum blond hair on the April cover of British Vogue. Gorgeous. []</p> <p></p> <p>Christina Aguilera has signed on as a coach for the new NBC show The Voice. She joins coaches Cee-Lo Green and Adam Levine. All of this sounds good, but since Carson Daly is hosting, I just don't think I can watch. []<br> BTW, Christina Aguilera is selling her house, which she bought from Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne in 2008. Post-divorce house to come. []</p> <p></p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>Lindsay Lohan sat down today with Matt Lauer for a "no holds barred" interview. We were expecting all kinds of shocking revelations, but, at least from what's been released so far, it sounds like LiLo has managed to do the most shocking thing of all: pull herself together. </p> <p>So what does this clean and sober version of Lindsay see herself doing now? Less partying and more working, if she has her way. Lauer asked her directly if she's still able to go out and be at parties. She said,</p> <p>That's not my thing anymore. I went out, actually, a few months ago with a friend. And I was so uncomfortable. Not because I felt tempted, just because it was just the same thing that it always was before. And it just wasn't fun for me. I've become more of a homebody. And I like that.</p> <p>In terms of going back to work, Lohan recognizes that she's got a long way to go to regain people's trust in her ability to not totally flake out and cost them millions of dollars:</p> <p>I think that takes time. And I think that it's actions. Because people can say things all they want, but I think I still need to go through the process of proving myself, you know, with SNL, being on time, being, you know, keeping my can't say the word but stuff together.</p> <p>She's definitely on board for playing Elizabeth Taylor, and she promised to Matt that she wouldn't let anyone down. OK, all of that sounds nice, but I certainly wouldn't describe this interview—or at least these excerpts—as in any way hard-hitting. Maybe Lauer is saving the most juicy bits for when the full interview airs on The Today Show this Thursday. Fingers and legs crossed. []</p> <p>Angelina Jolie, her now independently famous right leg, and her twins, Knox and Vivienne, all went shopping with Brad Pitt's mom, Jane, yesterday. They went to a kids store and loaded up on stuff for the twins, who are now almost four. Speaking of kids, Brad Pitt joked that they are due to add more to the family, since they've been averaging about two a year. Sure he cracks wise now, but who'll be laughing when they return from a trip to Siberia or Ulan Bator having adopted an entire family of seven, including the parents. [, ]</p> <p>Yesterday, Kid Rock performed at a campaign event for Mitt Romney in their shared home state of Michigan. It's an unusual pairing, especially since Kid Rock supported President Obama in 2008. But apparently Kid Rock thinks Mitt is a better choice to help Michigan. So he played "Born Free" for the crowd, and let's just thank our lucky stars that Mitt didn't try to join in. That would have been the most awkward jam session of all time. []</p> <p>Anne Hathaway would like you to know she's not as much of a square as she seems:</p> <p>Lindsay Lohan and I have more in common than people think. We've all done things we shouldn't. It is just that I did stuff at college when nobody knew about it, so I'm not a saint. I wasted time doing self-destructive things. I found you can only dance on so many table tops. I got all that out of my system and I am healthy and grounded.</p> <p>OK, we get it. You experimented in college, but I think we can all agree that Lindsay Lohan went way past the point of just dancing on a few tabletops. []</p> <p>Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence has told Glamour UK that she has no desire to achieve Twilight levels of fame:</p> <p>I look at Kristen Stewart now and I think, I'd never want to be that famous. … I can't imagine how I'd feel if all of a sudden my life was pandemonium.</p> <p>Well, seeing as your movie hasn't even come out yet, and we're already paying attention to you. I'd say you'd better brace yourself, dear, because you're going to be insanely famous whether you want it or not. []</p>?I'm a sucker for when Oprah makes dreams come true. Last season she had on a young girl named Charise from the Philippines whom her producers had discovered singing on YouTube. Her voice is amazing, and Oprah had arranged it so that she spent the summer performing with some of her idols, including Andrea Bocelli. Charise's favorite singer though, is Celine Dion. Yesterday, Oprah invited Charise back on the show to sing the first song she ever learned, "My Heart Will Go On," and then surprised Charise with Celine herself, live via satellite. Celine then invited Charise to sing a duet with her onstage at Madison Square Garden. Clip above.?<p>Welcome back to Missdemeanors, in which we issue virtual wrist-slaps to popular gossip bloggers for Crimes Against Womanity. This week? Pregnant still=fat. WTF people?? Also, Celine Dion must be an animal, since she has body hair; Jamie Lynn Spears must be a Star Wars villain, since she is pregnant; and Liv Tyler is a "pale fattie." All this and so much more, after the jump. Let the Jezebel justice system begin!</p><p><br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> The Accused: DListed<br> <br> The Crime: Disrespecting the Queen of Soul.<br> <br> : "Aretha Franklin better unlock the bra, because someone is in dire need of a titty slapping! ... Aretha won't be homeless, but if she needs dough I have a suggestion. Motorboat videos! Aretha's gigantic chichizillas were made for boob sexing." Honestly, words cannot convey accurate feelings about this, so I'm reduced to using an emoticon.<br> <br> : (<br> <br> The Sentence: A day spent shopping for a comfortable, supportive, attractive, full-figured bra. So fucking hard to find!</p> <p>The Accused: The Skinny<br> <br> The Crime: Monitoring a pregnant woman's weight gain ounce by ounce.<br> <br> : "Contrary to what I said in my last Jessica Alba post, she does now seem to be gaining weight all over." Well, she is feeding a parasitic human. What do you expect?<br> <br> Additional Crime: Alluding to the fact that Lauren Conrad may be heavy.<br> <br> : I've gotten a few emails from people saying that Lauren Conrad is piling on the weight. ...She does look a little heavier since the last time we saw her..."<br> <br> Combined Sentence: A vacation. Seriously. If she thinks that pregnant is fat and LC is fat, Rian needs to step away from the celeb pix and dig her toes into the sand. As do we all.</p> <p>The Accused: Yeeeeah<br> <br> The Crime: Mocking a woman's incredibly normal and oh-so-fine and really almost transparent body hair.<br> <br> : "Well, my early childhood mind always imagined that poor bare Fuzzy Wuzzy looked a lot like [Celine Dion] from the knee up. Mostly skin from far away, but up close, covered in an almost transparent downy fuzz, like an old man's ear canal or a fetus left in utero too long. Unfortunately, [Celine] finished gestating close to 40 years ago, so chances are she just forgot to shave above the knee for the last two or seven months." Listen, it's not normal for women to be completely hairless. Also, this is clearly a case of odd lighting. But! In any case! Who shaves above the knee???<br> <br> The Sentence: Being repeatedly nicked by a razor while slathered in sting-inducing antibacterial soap.</p> <p>The Accused: Yeeeah, a second charge!<br> <br> The Crime: Equating pregant with fat; comparing an impregnated teenager to Jabba The Hutt.<br> <br> : "It's nice to see that Jamie Lynn Spears has finally chinned up. All three of them. When asked for comment, she said, "Bring me Solo and the Wookiee. They will all suffer for this outrage!" Perhaps multiple chins are the true source of Jedi mind trick immunity."<br> <br> The Sentence: A big heaping serving of for breakfast, lunch and dinner, for the next nine months.</p> <p>The Accused: What Would Tyler Durden Do<br> <br> The Crime: Suggesting that creamy-skinned Liv Tyler is pasty and obese.<br> <br> : "Liv Tyler was in the Caribbean last week, possibly because she heard there was an island where pale fatties with hilariously small heads were revered as gods. Now she's all set." Liv Tyler is not fat and her skin is gorgeous. End of story.<br> <br> The Sentence: Talk shit about someone clearly enjoying their vacation and you know what you get? Sunburn and diarrhea.</p> <p>The Accused: Drunken Stepfather<br> <br> The Crime: Baiting us. He knows what's wrong and offensive, what will really set us off, so now that's exactly what he writes. Plus he's trying to be my friend on Facebook now. Lots of you guys suggest we ignore him, but here's the thing: You may not even realize how much women get bashed, criticized and judged on the Web. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away. A reminder — of how unfair, tired, shallow and systemically denigrating people can be is important. Why should we let him get away with being sexist and misogynistic without calling him out on it? Anyway.<br> <br> : "I am guilty of liking skinny chicks and appreciate any means a girl takes to get herself skinny. I am talking eating disorders, drug addiction, laxatives, extreme cardio, terminal illness, pretty much anything the world offers them to maintain their skinny bodies, because it takes some commitment, determination and it's a lot better seeing a girl frail from starving herself, than watching a girl sit on her fat ass eating donuts. Maybe I'm crazy."<br> <br> The Sentence: We're still open to suggestions on this one. Thanks in advance.<br></p>?<p>Cameron Diaz was caught <br> <br> Jennifer Aniston's ex, British model Paul Sculfor, yesterday. For those of you keeping track, Diaz has also been linked to Aniston's current beau, John Mayer. Incestuous! ? Brazilian soccer megastar Pele was by a gang of 10 with knives and guns while sitting in traffic in Sao Paolo. They stole Pele's bling and his phone, but he luckily was unhurt. ? Celine Dion's version of the AC/DC classic "You Shook Me All Night Long" was voted the by Total Guitar magazine. The best cover song evs? Jimi Hendrix's version of Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower". [ , , ]</p>?<p>While many (most?) mysteries remain unsolved, Lost's series finale "The End" was, nonetheless, satisfying because it didn't purport to have all the answers. Instead, viewers were comforted with just one: If you live together, you won't die alone.</p><p>Maybe I loved the finale so much because it validated one of my theories—giving me a Tracy Flick "ME!" moment—a theory I proposed in the season: , aka, death cycles. (I'd thought that the Island was what the Losties had dreamed up for their bardo phase, when it was actually the sideways universe that was the dream.) But mostly, I loved the finale for its emotional aspects, which could've come off as schmaltzy, but didn't. I usually go for the mythology and geek shit, but I couldn't help but feel incredibly emotionally tied to the show's characters, and I think the writers did a great job in recognizing how important to fans these ties would be, while also not robbing us of the most fun aspect of the show—coming up with our own theories about what just happened.</p> <p>Anyway, moving on…a component of Tibetan Buddhism, bardos are the different phases the deceased experience between dying and rebirth. It's a dream-like reality, created by the "awareness" (or a soul) that is freed from the body upon death. Because of the disconnect of the awareness from the physical body, the deceased doesn't immediately realize that he or she is dead. In the different bardo phases, the "awareness" needs guidance—from different deities, or, you know, guides (hello, Desmond)—to attain enlightenment, i.e., realize that they're dead. A karmic mirror (remember ?) is held up to the deceased so that s/he can reflect and eventually recognize. Once this happens—and it can happen in any of the bardo phases, depending on how much emotional baggage a person has packed for the afterlife—the deceased achieves Nirvana, and can "move on." Depending on your belief system, this can be heaven, reincarnation, or some kind of simulated reality, like Eloise Hawking for herself and her son. The final scenes in last night's episode showed Jack's first and final bardo phases, occurring simultaneously. (Because time is no longer relative.)</p> <p>Let's begin in the sideways universe/bardo realm. This, apparently, was the place that the Losties had created to reconnect with each other after they had all died. (It's a lot like that episode of Little House that Sawyer watched, in which Pa tells Laura that the people that you loved in your life don't go away, even when they die.) It was then their duty to help each other realize that they were dead, enabling them to move on. This happened in various ways, sort of recreating pivotal events and familiar feelings from their lives. Like Kate helping Claire deliver her baby.<br> <br> <br> Isn't it funny that Claire's vagina is what enlightened Kate? She was like, "I recognize this puffy chucky."<br> <br> <br> And seeing mother and child brought it all back for Charlie.<br> <br> <br> Sayid's motivation to protect Shannon brought them back together.<br> <br> <br> Which was orchestrated by Hurley and Boone.<br> <br> <br> Locke regaining feeling in his feet again is what helped him remember, while Juliet performing a sonogram on Sun enlightened the Kwons. (And helped them remember that they speak English.)<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> Oh, and speaking of Juliet, she was Jack's ex-wife (and mother to his son) in the sideways universe. (More on that in a bit.)<br> <br> <br> When Juliet and Sawyer touched one another's hands, they instantly remembered.<br> <br> <br> <br> There were actually several key moments about this scene:<br> 1.) Did anyone else notice that the Apollo bar that Sawyer bought sat at ? (Which was also the number of Desmond's table at the concert.)<br> <br> <br> 2.) When Juliet died in the first episode this season, she was drifting in and out of consciousness, talking about going dutch on coffee, and most importantly, saying—in death, via Miles' communication with her—that "it worked." The collective thought at the time was that she meant that the hydrogen bomb had worked, creating this alternate timeline. However, she was just verbalizing the flirty conversation that she was having with Sawyer in her bardo, discussing the vending machine.</p> <p>3.) As Sawyer was trying to get his candy out of the vending machine, Juliet told him about a "trick" she knew, saying, "You have to unplug it and plug it back in." That's actually a really common fix to many of life's problems, namely, my internet router. But also, it applies to the heart of the Island.<br> <br> So now we know the importance of Desmond, and it all goes back to the Hatch. As Jack and Mocke lowered Desmond down the glory hole, Mocke mentioned the similarities of that incident to when they first peered down the Hatch hole. (Even though Mocke stole that memory from Locke.) The camera angles were even very similar.<br> <br> <br> It would seem that Desmond had to push that button in the Swan station for three years so that he could prepare for this moment. He was building up his resistance to electromagnetic energy, which was basically what was corked up in the glory hole. And just like he had used the fail safe key in the Hatch, he was the fail safe key for the heart of the Island. He needed to be the person to reboot it.<br> <br> <br> To me, the heart of the Island looked like a butthole after buffalo wings pass through.<br> <br> <br> Anyway, once Desmond uncorked it, the Island temporarily lost its "magic." This meant that Mocke was now mortal, as evidenced by the blood he spilled after Jack clocked him.<br> <br> <br> There was no other way to kill Mocke unless that butt plug was removed. It would seem that Jacob hoped this would be a last resort, and that his brother wouldn't have to die. I have to say that this was one of the best action scenes I've ever witnessed on network television.<br> <br> <br> Now the neck and abdomen wounds in the sideways universe make sense. They were his death scars. Once Mocke was killed, the Island needed its butt plug replaced to reignite the "magic." Jack took on this task, knowing he would die anyway, as he believed it all to be his destiny. And then it became clear that Hurley was the true candidate all along.<br> <br> <br> After Hurley was inducted into the secret society of Island protectors, Jack replaced the butt plug and saved the world. But he also saved everyone else on the Island, something for which he always had a boner. And thus, he saved himself.<br> <br> <br> I have to say that I loved the exchange between Hurley and Ben, as Hurley became the new Jacob and Ben became the new Richard.<br> <br> <br> It was fitting because Ben had done many things for which he wanted to repent, and, like Richard before him, he now would have time to do that. Speaking of Richard, he's alive! And aging! Now that his duties to the Island have come to an end, he discovered his first gray hair, freeing him from eternity and allowing him to move on.<br> <br> <br> Lapidus is also alive. After surviving a sub explosion and drifting in the ocean for a few days, he was ready to get the fuck off that Island.<br> <br> <br> Miles, Richard, and Lapidus all returned to the Ajira plane, and performed some magic of their own. I don't know how safe I would feel flying in a plane literally held together with duct tape.<br> <br> <br> Kate, Sawyer, and Claire (who was having a meltdown on the beach before finally agreeing to rejoin society, and, hopefully, wash that hair) showed up just in time for take off.<br> <br> <br> I know that Richard has made off-Island trips here and there over the years, but it was always all business. Wait until he inevitably discovers internet porn.<br> <br> <br> Before moving on, here are some other notables about last night. We got to see Eloise.<br> <br> <br> And Dr. Chang.<br> <br> <br> And Daniel and Charlotte.<br> <br> <br> Why is she a vampire?<br> <br> <br> Speaking of monsters, Miss J would refer to Claire as a no-neck monster.<br> <br> <br> Also, as annoying as I found Kate to be for most of the series, I was really happy that a chick saved the day.<br> <br> <br> Also, we learned that Rose, Bernard and Vincent time traveled to 2007 with everyone else, and because their little camp was so tucked away on the Island, it had been preserved for the 30 years that they were not there. So they were fine. Everything was the same. Rose was still an asshole.<br> <br> <br> OK, so let's bring it back around to where we started (which is exactly how Lost resolved) with the bardo cycle. Jack went to the church where everyone was gathering. (The same church that was the DHARMA Lamp Post station that housed Eloise's sorcery science dungeon.) But things were sort of different there. For one thing, it was multi-denominational.<br> <br> <br> As soon as Jack touched his father's coffin he began remembering his life (I sort of wished that Celine Dion's "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" began playing. Because it's a good song.) And then his father appeared.<br> <br> <br> And that's when Jack became enlightened. His dad's speech sort of explained everything. Is this real life? No. It's real death.<br> <br> <br> I know that some fans were still confused. Like, why would Jack have a son in the sideways universe? My theory is that the baggage that Jack took with him to the sideways universe were his daddy issues (a common and major theme of Lost). He sorta took care of the needing to fix things thing back when he was still alive. His major issue, in his death cycle, was his relationship with his father. Many people say that when you have your own children, you begin to heal from your own childhood and your issues with how you were raised. (Or at least, that's what Madonna told Oprah after she had Lourdes.) But it makes sense. Once you become a parent, you begin to have a better understanding of what your parents went through. You learn to forgive them of their mistakes and (hopefully) rectify them by putting an end to certain patterns and cycles. And it was at this point—when he found the baggage he'd brought on that second Oceanic flight—that Jack finally let go.</p> <p>In the church, the important people from Jack's life—who were finally at peace with their lives and what had occurred—had gathered, to move on, as a unit, to spend their death as they should've spent their lives: together.<br> <br> <br> Back on the Island, we saw Jack stumbling from his wounds, past his father's bloody, white tennis shoe, to collapse in the place where it all began for him on the Island. As he looked up at the sky, he saw the Ajira plane fly above his head, and he looked fulfilled. And just as Jack was taking his final breaths, Vincent emerged from the trees, to sit with him, so he wouldn't have to die alone.<br> <br> <br> Anything that involves dogs always makes me cry.</p> <p>During the credits, we saw the wreckage from the original Oceanic 815 on the beach. And some footprints. I don't think it had any meaning other than that: a footprint. It symbolized that they were there.<br> <br> <br> Because a part of the shared human experience—which is basically what the entire show boiled down to—is that we want to leave our mark, so that people know that we'd been here. (I mean, that was the point of all the different shit, like the statue, and hieroglyphs and the empty Dharma barracks. They were all just footprints of the people who had been on the Island before.) And a large part of that, of leaving a footprint, or a mark, is to establish a basic need: To know that we matter.</p> <p>This show was fucking awesome.</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>Since the dawn of metrosexuality and the entrance of manscaping as a legitimate term in our language, this moment has been inevitable. Guys getting waxed "down there" has finally become a trend, and business is booming as men discover the joys of having hot wax swabbed all over your genitals and the subsequent rush of having said wax ripped off with alarming force, freeing the tiny hairs from their shafts and momentarily knocking your soul loose from its moorings. So what can we expect now that there'll be no more beating around the man bush? So, so much—maybe even a little too much.</p> <p>If you care to know what exactly "down there" hair care involves, it's basically just like what we women do, removing either all or some of the hair in the most painful way possible. Who, exactly, is subjecting themselves to this? Guys of all kinds, if you believe the New York Times:</p> <p>"What we're finding is, it's everybody," said Mike Indursky, the president of the Bliss chain of spas, which offers a men's Brazilian called the Ultimate He-Wax for $125. "It's the gay community, it's the straight community, it's very conservative guys, it's very liberal guys. All different age groups are coming in. It's much, much bigger than we ever thought."</p> <p>LITERALLY EVERYBODY. I challenge you to find even one man that's still walking around without a waxed package. (Santa Claus doesn't count.) So, why don't we hear from a convert to the cult of clean living:</p> <p>Evan Scott, 32, a music producer who lives in Murray Hill, has been getting a more-basic bikini wax for about two years. "I like to represent myself in a certain way, from no clothes to fully buttoned up, and I think that this is an extension of my overall presentation," he said. Noting the prevalence of bikini waxes among women, Mr. Scott also suggested that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. "If I have that expectation of someone else, I probably would want to return the favor," he said.</p> <p>So now we're waxing as part of managing our own personal brand? Very cool. The sentiment about wanting to "return the favor" seems well-intentioned, but I don't think anyone would hold it against you for not ripping your pubic hair out before a date. Just as one hopes you would not hold it against a woman for not buying into the Waxing Industrial Complex.</p> <p>Actually, when you really get down to it, for many guys it's probably less about seeking waxing equality with women than it is about creating a useful optical illusion:</p> <p>Some men think there's an added perk of getting a Brazilian: an enlarging effect for the main attraction. "It accentuates it, because there's nothing to obscure the, you know, implement down there," said Ramon Padilla, the director of Strip: Ministry of Waxing, a salon in SoHo, which charges $85 for a so-called Boyzilian.</p> <p>Boyzillian, heh. Wait, implement? You can smear melted wax on someone's anus, but you cannot refer to a penis directly by its given name? Interesting. Of course, this trend isn't just about looks; it's also about feelings. According to Bliss Spa's Indursky, guys get addicted to the confidence it gives them:</p> <p>Guys try it and look and go, "It's better than the mess I had down there," and it is. You feel more confident. It actually makes you feel more masculine, instead of less masculine, to get waxed.</p> <p>Wax on, wax off. Meh. Enough with all of this masculine positivity and boosting of confidence—let's get into the dark truth about this waxing trend. What's really driving this? Well, if we are to believe Ramon Padilla of Strip, it's not about masculinity at all. Dun, dun, dun! It's actually about a kind of emasculation, he says:</p> <p>The vast majority say they're doing it because their wife or their girlfriend told them to do it," he said. "The wives bring them," saying "If I'm going to do it, you better do it as well."</p> <p>It was the Wife in the Bathroom with the Epilator! You know wives, always expecting physical perfection from our husbands and equal participation in every personal care category. It's why we insist that our men wear panty liners for a few days out of the month. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, without exception.</p> <p>But, seriously, gents. Don't even try to stick this on us. If you want to shave or wax or pluck (ahh!) your man bits to within an inch of their life, you go right ahead. But don't do it on our account. A little trimming now and then wouldn't kill you, but most of us are just fine with being able to see the tree for the forest… Ugh, you get it.</p> <p>Listen, If you do dare to go bare, be sure to take good care of your freshly denuded skin because ingrown hairs are a bitch. You might even consider going one step further and doing a little redecoration. Wait, everybody grab your eyeballs so you can rip them right out immediately after reading this:</p> <p>[Face to Face] salon offers a full Brazilian called South of the Border for $70, along with partial treatments. Also on its menu is something called "pejazzling," in which crystals in patterns like stars and dolphins are affixed on newly defuzzed skin.</p> <p>[Insert as many "no's" here as there are hairs being pulled off during the South of the Border treatment.] Seriously, no. There are a lot of things this world can withstand—earthquakes, wars, famine, Celine Dion—but a rhinestone dolphin pejazzled on your ding-dong is just not one of them.</p> <p> [New York Times]</p> <p>Image via olly/.</p>?<p>The Ryan Lochte/Prince Harry Vegas bacchanal news continues, now with additional cavorting! Undoubtedly under the spell of , England's prodigal son Harry played a game of strip pool in Las Vegas that ended with him butt-naked, freaking with the girl next door (see above), and Wales lawyers were undoubtedly like, "Say it wasn't you," and Prince Harry was like, "Alright," but then that ploy didn't work because it was clearly him, which leads me to the inevitable conclusion that there are IMPORTANT FLAWS IN SHAGGY'S LOGIC.</p> <p>I'll tell you one thing: that Lochte boy is a bad influence, and Harry should not be spending any more time with him. I give it approximately one week before we learn that they accidentally killed a grifter a la The Secret History. Point being, Prince Harry's butthole was the eye of the storm, here covered with a red star. Now move along. []</p> <p>OH. Here are Boy George's thoughts.</p> <p>Prince Harry, where was his security? People are so cheap, such rubbish photos! The Queen should behead TMZ and send the bitches to da Tower</p> <p>— boygeorge (@BoyGeorge) </p> <p></p> <p>Important things are important. []</p> <p>Sometimes people you forgot about are still around, and sometimes they marry each other: Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger and Avril Lavigne have announced their engagement after a whirlwind six-month courtship. This is Kroeger's first and Lavigne's second marriage (she split from Sum 41 guitarist Deryck Whibley in 2009). She also dated Brody Jenner. HURK, sorry, just lost my will to live for a second. Anyway, "Avril Kroeger" sounds like a drug conglomerate, but here's to you two crazy kids! []</p> <p>Mia Wasikowska was disgusted and appalled by Shia LaBeouf's behavior on the set of Lawless, says Shia LaBeouf without any apparent trace of remorse. The actor bragged about binge-drinking moonshine ("[it's] like heroin") to get Into Character For The Part, but actually To Act Like A Jackass And Get Paid Gajillions Of Dollars For It:</p> <p>[Wasikowska] was calling her attorney, like, ‘Get me the [bleep] out of here,'" the apparent method actor told the magazine. "Mia was ready to walk away from the movie. I was really pretty aggressive about it, and not in any kind of weird, strange way, but I don't think she had ever experienced anything like that.</p> <p>Oh, right. She wasn't irritated by the fact that you were staggering around drunk at work, she was intimidated by your craft. []</p> <p>Kristen Stewart crawled out of her sadhole! To carry a bunch of flowers down the street! She wore a "low-key outfit consisting of a baseball cap, cropped T-shirt and grey skinny jeans" and looked "pale and preoccupied." She has literally always looked that way, though. So there's that. Who are the flowers for?! []</p> <p>Former New York Giants player Michael Strahan is the frontrunner to co-host Live! With Kelly alongside Kelly Ripa after she and the network auditoned at least 59 possibilities. In case we weren't clear on why they decided that Ripa and Strahan make an "interesting visual couple," it was helpfully pointed out for us:</p> <p>He's 6-foot-5. He played at 275 pounds. He's black. He's got the most famous front-tooth gap since Lauren Hutton.</p> <p>[]</p>?<p>Nick Cannon has had a two big health scares in the past few months. First, there was his alarmingly vague case of "mild kidney failure," and then he developed two life-threatening blood clots in his lungs. It seemed strange that someone young and otherwise healthy would be having these things happen, but today Nick revealed that, in fact, he has a serious-sounding autoimmune disease. </p> <p>The 31-year-old told Us Weekly that he has an "autoimmune disease . . . like a lupus type of thing, but no one else in my family has it." He didn't give any more details; so now we're all left to scour the internet trying to figure out what's like Lupus but isn't. Apparently whatever it is has been causing all his recent health trouble, but he says, "It's a lot of stuff, but it's all in order now . . . I feel blessed to be alive." Let's hope he can keep it that way, even though he seems to do more work in a week than most people do in a lifetime. []</p> <p>Oh no, it looks like we're dealing with a little case of unrequited love when it comes to Tim Tebow and Taylor Swift. Someone who saw them having dinner earlier this week reports that Taylor was looking at Tebow, "like a little puppy dog." Apparently Swift had plenty of time to stare because during the two-hour meal she only had a latte, while Tebow, "tucked into chicken paillard, fettuccine bolognese and cappellini." That actually sounds really good right about now. Anyway, a second mysterious source gave this assessment of the situation: "Yes, she has a crush on him. She is a massive fan, but I don't think he sees her that way." How soon do we think it'll be until Taylor releases a song about her heartbreaking dinner with Tim Tebow? []</p> <p>Yesterday we found out that Demi Moore was no longer in rehab, but now we know where she is: She's on vacation in the Turks and Caicos. She's reportedly been seen hanging out on the beach of a private villa near Parrot Cay—which, incidentally, is where her ex-hubby Bruce Willis owns a home. Apparently her hideaway is accessible only by boat, and she has a ton of security with her too. So if you were thinking of flying down there and trying to casually bump into her, don't bother. []</p> <p>Aww, Angelica Huston and Kelly Ripa are gal pals. They met at a party, and as Angelica describes it on Live with Kelly, Kelly saved the day:</p> <p>It was about two and a half years ago and I was feeling pretty blue. I had lost my husband a few months before and we met at a party and I kind of monopolized you all night. I told you my tale of woe and you did the sweetest thing. The next day, a little box showed up and you sent me this bracelet, which I haven't actually taken off since.</p> <p>Ripa then explained, "Somebody gave me this bracelet when I really needed it. And I feel like it works, so I felt like you really needed it." Isn't that one of the most heartwarming celebrity friend stories you've ever heard? []</p> <p>So, William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman are each getting a Hollywood star—together! That's right, in a rare occurrence, they're being given a double star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. They're going to be only the second married couple to get their stars on the same day. Further proof that they are an exceptional couple, and especially by Hollywood standards. I wonder if there's a double star tradition where you smear cement in each other's faces after you do your handprints—kind of like you do with the cake at a wedding? []</p>?<p></p> <p>I'm sick of fine presidents and good presidents and mediocre presidents. I'm sick of Rutherford B. Hayes and James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce and Millard Fillmore. We got Barack Obama! Barack Obama, for crying out loud!</p> That's Win Butler, lead singer of the Arcade Fire and a supporting character in a piece predictably self-consciously devoid of the word "hipster." Which is to say, it's a story about my generation and how we hate ourselves but love Barack Obama despite our fears of being associated with the "naive moron vote," or something. The thing is long and reference-redolent but if you're feeling free-associative the tags are BARACK OBAMA and STYLE and BELLE AND SEBASTIAN and GWYNETH PALTROW and THE ARCADE FIRE and TWEE and I scrolled far enough to read "Keith Gessen" and "McSweeney's" when it occurred to me that if there is one thing I'm kind of over w/r/t my generation it's parsing trend stories uselessly analyzing its uselessness in the New York Observer. (Although: no I have never dropped in on a game of .) Look, Thomas Frank's Wall Street Journal on income inequality is probably a more worthwhile read, because even though Thomas Frank was I don't think he was ever called "twee," and neither has , who talks sturm und earthquake and minimum wage labor with me ATJ. <p>MOE: Ok I guess we should start this now. I heard a commentwhore war broke out in the comments last night so uh...thanks bro, for caring enough to defend my glib assertions that West Virginia's margins have something to do with the stuff like how "Two in 10 white West Virginia voters said race was an important factor in their votes. More than 8 in 10 who said it factored in their votes backed Mrs. Clinton, according to exit polls," according to the <br> MOE: In other news the .<br> MEGAN: Oh, Moe, haven't you learned? There is no racism in this race, it's all just who is a better candidate. Which the 65% of people in West Virginia determined through a thorough analysis of the two candidates' positions on a variety of issues, including health care, the War in Iraq, their economic stimulus plans, their divergent opinions on the gas tax holiday and not even a little bit based on and, oh, by the way, belongs to a church that excludes white people so that they can better plot against us.<br> 8:50 AM<br> MOE: Assuming you saw Pareene's re this meme.<br> MEGAN: Yeah, shit, Alex, dammit, we don't want them back. We already fucking carry Richmond and Hampton Roads and shit, we don't need Charleston and whatever the other towns in the state are called.<br> MOE: I have gotten to the point where I cannot even have this argument drunk at a bar but in those overwhelming margins. Not just like, "hey, a first black president, cool," but CODE WORDS FROM MALCOLM X<br> 8:55 AM<br> MEGAN: I feel dirtier having read that, actually<br> MEGAN: Like, wow, viscerally dislike anyone much based on nothing more than your own personal taste?<br> MOE: In other news, your Day In Disaster: Burma is getting and China's earthquake is<br> Because now that the poor are all buried under their crappy communist construction there seem to be a lot fewer people.</p> Incomes in rural areas, for example, averaged 4,140 yuan a person last year, or about $590 at current exchange rates. That represents an increase of 91% from a decade earlier, not adjusted for inflation. Urban disposable incomes, by comparison, rose by 150% during the same period, to an average of 13,786 yuan last year. <br> 9:00 AM<br> MEGAN: I don't like reading hate in the morning, it makes me confused and upset. It's why I don't watch Fox and Friends. But at least she doesn't make the argument that all black supporters of Obama are blinded by visceral reactions to him and his race... Oh, wait, she does. So, she viscerally disliked him the first time she saw him and still does because she thinks that when white people like him they're denigrating her so she dislikes him more and her African-American colleagues are just blinded by race and, OMG, brain starting to melt, yes, let's talk about things abroad now.<br> MOE: Yeah she's just a hater.<br> MEGAN: Ok, phew. I am confused at how Communists party aparatchiks think that people don't notice that they pay themselves better and live in nicer houses than everyone else. It's not that people don't know there's income inequality, it's that they don't care until it really fucks them over. Being a nominally Communist dictatorship means managing expectations, scaring them a little and hoping that nothing exposes more of your flaws then you are ready to admit. It's sort of like dating.<br> MOE: Wait, back to "I'm black and I hate Obama and the only reason black people like him is because his wife is dark-skinned and the only reason white people like him is because his mother is white but absolutely no black people believe the sort of racially divisive things Jeremiah Wright says STEREOTYPE MUCH??" — I mean, it seems more credible because she's for Clinton but like dude don't similar margins of black people vote Republican in general elections? Of course, it's also about hating the smug white privileged egghead conspiracy...dude, Clarence Thomas said it all in a much more entertaining fashion.<br> MEGAN: Aww, I thought we were done discussing the hater lady. I guess we're not allowed to like the same things except when we like the things she likes first and those things aren't Barack Obama? Or something? I'll bet it drives her crazy that we listen to hip-hop and rap and she might even still be mad about jazz but she's cool if we like Celine Dion.<br> 9:10 AM<br> MEGAN: Also, I literally felt like I had the creeps reading that piece. Like, next time warn me because in my head that lady was yelling and spitting a little while she tried to explain why the whole world was wrong about Barack Obama and he's just a huckster and a charlatan with the worst intentions and possibly and Manchurian candidate or something and I don't even get that going in my head when SinRoo is yelling on the comment boards.<br> 9:15 AM<br> MOE: Sorry I've been momentarily transfixed by the appearance of Teen Vogue editor Amy Astley on my TV.<br> MEGAN: On Fox, I assume? MSNBC is all about China. Gosh, Burma, check this out! You can actually let reporters show your military helping out the people affected by a natural disaster not of your doing and no one will try to topple your regime! I mean, I guess the Chinese military isn't stealing all the supplies meant to help the survivors or hiding bodies to prevent a good death toll from being determined, but, you know, details.<br> MOE: Dude speaking of MSNBC did you check last night? : "Terry McAuliffe raised some serious expectations for Hillary's speech on MSNBC. <p>"You're going to see a great speech tonight from Hillary Clinton. Talked about it on the way down. I saw it. It's going to be a great speech. One of the greatest speeches, Chris, ever given," he said.</p> <p>"Better than the second inaugural of Lincoln, perhaps," Matthews said after he got off the air.</p> <p>"Better than stuff in the Bible," said Olbermann.</p> <br> MEGAN: I know, I saw that, Terry was on fire last night, totally all adrenaline if that wasn't coke. He even lost his voice and was yelling down Chris Matthews after the speech, too. Like, what does that guy do for fun besides yell?<br> MOE: He's yelling because I'm reading it now just to check up on my "tags say it all" radar. Here are the tags:<br> * Style<br> * Barack Obama<br> * Belle and Sebastian<br> * Gwyneth Paltrow<br> * The Arcade Fire<br> * Twee <br> MOE: Uh dude I think this story might need its own post.<br> MEGAN: Well, I guess if there's one good thing about not being thin or overly cute it's that no one will ever call me "twee."<br> MOE: I didn't learn the word "twee" until someone accused me of it on the basis of my attachment to my ex-boyfriend's quirky independent newspaper. (You may check the here. It's also important to note that the newspaper was REALLY REALLY WIDE.) I think I responded by saying "Fuck you." Related: has another column in today's Wall Street Journal.<br> MOE: I confess that I am fascinated by the mechanics of this huge social reconfiguration - in the same sense that I am fascinated by the industrial procedures of a slaughterhouse, or by the strategies that enabled small Confederate armies to win victories for slavery over much larger Union forces...Aside from the outsourcing, offshoring, and firing-at-will that make up the best-known weapons in the corporate arsenal, Mr. Greenhouse reveals how managers extract unpaid work through an array of ingenious tricks, from eliminating bathroom breaks to electronically erasing hours from workers' records. <br> 9:40 AM<br> MEGAN: Ah, the good life.<br> MOE: "reveals" and "ingenious" are really poor word choices but maybe he's friends with Greenhouse?<br> MEGAN: I think he's being sarcastic. He later says, "It has not merely 'happened'; it has been done to us." He blames! I like blame.<br> MEGAN: It is, in other words, a political disaster, with tax cuts, trade agreements, deregulatory measures, and enforcement decisions all finely crafted to benefit one part of society and leave the rest behind. Few of the voters who gave Ronald Reagan his landslide victories, it is fair to say, intended for this to be the outcome. They wanted their country to stand tall again, certainly; they wanted the scary regulators off their backs, maybe; but I can recall no conservative who trumpeted those long-ago elections - or any of the succeeding contests, for that matter - as a referendum on plutocracy. <br> 9:45 AM<br> MEGAN: Hey, Reagan Democrats! It's your fault. You didn't like the panty-waisted Carter, you felt emasculated by the Iranian hostages, and you liked the big actor-fake-cowboy thing and so you voted for him. And, by doing so, you voted for the decline of your own jobs, and your own industries, of your towns and your cities. You voted for your kids to move away to find a job or to join an increasingly-utilized military. You voted for the ascendency of Wal-Mart and of the super-rich. And now you're mad at people for that? Look in the mirror. Then go cast your vote for McCain like you know you want to because you find Obama scary because he doesn't wear a damn flag pin and do the same thing to your kids and their kids that was done to you because who needs health care reform when we can have tax cuts.<br> MOE: Or go cast your vote for McCain if you are still afraid of people who name their kids "Apple."<br> MEGAN: But then inexplicably wear short skirts and high heels.<br> MOE: Srsly though the only grating thing is that, I guess, having spent some time among minimum wage earners, since they are fucking EVERYWHERE, it still mildly grates to think Thomas Frank — or Barack Obama, or whatev — needed to credit a book for teaching them about the death of the bathroom break. Dude, have you ever had a conversation with someone who worked retail? NOT INCLUDING THE APPLE STORE.<br> MEGAN: Yeah, dude, I made $4.35 an hour, which was 10 cents higher than minimum wage and when I took my 30 minute lunch on my 8 hour Saturday shift thanking people for coming into the B. Moss Clothing Company and clearing out dressing rooms and entering SKUs by hand because we didn't have a reader, I didn't get paid. And I didn't get another break, either. I lost weight at that job just from standing all day.<br> MOE: We had our bathroom breaks taken away when I worked phone sex. I'm sure it was just labor optimization software since it's not like the phone sex company was any big corporation.<br> MEGAN: The only time I didn't get docked pay for coming back 5 minutes late for lunch was the temp gig I did in a packaging plant back home one summer when I started my period and discovered that a factory filled with men does, in fact, not stock the tampon machine and I had to go to three other factories and then to my former Junior High School across the street and bed the principal for a tampon and she recognized me and took pity on me, and then I got back late and the boss started to yell so I said, my period started and the tampon machine was empty and the room went quiet and I didn't get docked.<br> MEGAN: But I made $5.25 an hour there.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?Celine Dion was on Oprah today to talk about "special kids" who overcame adversity in their lives. Of course, the most special kid to Celine is her 7-year-old son Rene Charles. Rene has a very long mane of hair that goes all the way down his back. When I first noticed how long it was a few years ago, I thought that maybe he was going for a surfer dude look, even though at the time, the family lived in the desert city of Las Vegas. But now his hair is straight-up girlie, and Oprah noticed it, too and asked Celine about it. Celine said that Rene has never had a haircut and that he'll cut his hair when he's ready. Clip above.?<p>When Britney's "Hold It Against Me" premiered last week, it was hard not to miss all the product placement, including the promotion of Britney's fragrance Radiance. </p> <p>There's a long tradition of in music videos and such placement often helps . The products promoted in videos sometimes signal a special partnership between the artist and a company (think Lady Gaga's in her "Telephone" video).</p> <p>But increasingly, products promoted in videos are created by the artists themselves, taking advantage of an obvious opportunity to promote their own diverse personal business brands, which often include a fragrance collection. Notable singers-turned-perfumers include Katy Perry, Jennifer Lopez, Faith Hill, Jessica Simpson, Shakira, Celine Dion, and Mary J. Blige (and Rihanna and Lady Gaga are due to join the mix soon).</p> <p>Pop stars like , , and have chosen to sing in their fragrance commercials. Others, like Britney, turn their music videos themselves into commercial opportunities.</p> <p>What can we learn from all of this musical spritzing and dabbing? Let's take a look.</p> <p>—</p> <p> , "Not Myself Tonight"<br> Christina uses the spritzing of her self-titled fragrance to get ready for her moment of seduction. It's all about the understated sexiness in this video. She starts at the neck and we're pretty sure she ends it with a quickie coochie spritz. Judging by what happens next, it seems to have worked.</p> , "With Love"<br> How to smell pretty on the run? Just take the big glass bottle of "With Love…Hilary Duff" out of the pocket of your trench coat and spritz your neck area three to four times. As you walk away, feel free to graze your neck and wave at the man following you. (This video actually doubled as the official commercial for the fragrance back when it came out in 2007. Two birds, one highly fragrant stone.) Mariah Carey, "Angels Cry" (Featuring Ne-Yo)<br> Mariah's not stooping to the level of spritzing EDT in this video-she's a high-end perfume kind of gal, which mean she applies perfume with an applicator. Perfume can be a fun group activity too-Mariah dabs it on her friend who leans in and lets Ne-Yo enjoy a whiff. As Mariah showed and , she definitely has a method to her fragrance application madness. , "What The Hell"<br> Even the New York Times this weekend that Avril's video "doubles as an advertisement for her perfume" (and a double advertisement at that — keep watching the video and you'll see a second placement at about :48) But that's not the point! The point is that she teaches us that you can use one of her fragrances before ambivalently embracing your lover and seconds later you can use another one to celebrate locking him out. The Queen of Fragrance Cameos, however, is most definitely . But beware - her spritzing strategies vary from video to video. Trying to perform them all at once could prove hazardous. <p> "3"<br> In the video for "3," we begin by learning that all it takes is three quick spritzes of Circus (twice) and you'll be ready to writhe on a bar too.</p> "Circus Fantasy"<br> You'll need ten spritzes of Circus Fantasy to dance with two massive lions at the circus like Britney. "Hold It Against Me"<br> And to do whatever Britney was doing in "Hold It Against Me," (hawking products?) you just need one spritz of Radiance.?<p>Sometimes it isn't just the starlets who get stuck with the stereotypical parts in films. Serious Actresses can get stuck with stupid shit too, especially since most anytime soon! In the latest round-up of new castings in Hollywood, Natalie Portman sets her sights on an adaptation of Wuthering Heights and Marcia Gay Harden is set to star in a sure-to-be-cancelled new drama series on CBS about journalists who help save the world. Also in the mix, two well-known Spanish actresses lower themselves to supporting roles in American films, but the good news is they are probably getting paid more than they did in any starring role in their Spanish films. More on the latest hookers, victims and doormats in Hollywood, after the jump.</p> <p>?Natalie Portman, : Portman is slated to play Catherine Earnshaw, the female lead, in this new adaptation of Emily Bronte's novel. Catherine is in love with her adopted brother, Heathcliff, but marries a more suitable man and is then driven to madness over her decision. Verdict: Catherine is a variation of a hooker, marrying for stability and then being punished for it.</p> <p>?Elsa Pataky, : Spanish actress Pataky (who is perhaps better known to American audiences as Adrien Brody's girlfriend) is set to play Celine, the kidnapped sister of an American flight attendant. Verdict: Beautiful kidnapped woman? Victim, duh.</p> <p>?Marcia Gay Harden, : In this new CBS drama, Harden will star as a millionaire who buys a newspaper where the journalists not only break stories but also solve mysteries! Verdict: The plot might sound a bit boring, but Harden's character might come out OK, for the time being.</p> <p>?Paz Vega, : Vega, from Talk to Her and Spanglish, will play the girlfriend of a a colleague of Mark (Colin Farrel), a photojournalist, who investigates the mysterious disappearance of her boyfriend. Verdict: While the details are skimpy, the tragic girlfriend character just screams "Victim."</p> <p><br> [XKCD]<br> [Variety]<br> [THR]<br> [Variety]<br> [THR]</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>Here is an internal document that lists the brands to feature in upcoming editorial spreads, ranked according to priority — and helpfully divided between "Advertisers" and "Non-Advertisers." This is how your ladymag sausage gets made.</p><p>A careless staffer left this brand list (click to enlarge), along with call sheets for three shoots, on the desktop of an L.A. hotel's public computer, where a Racked tipster . It's not exactly a shocker that ladymags are in thrall of their advertisers — the "editorial" that was comprised only of clothes from , Ralph Lauren, and Ralph Lauren? — but it is rare that concrete proof of these relationships emerges.</p> <p>Everyone knows that editors, especially editors at fashion magazines, take into account the views of advertisers when planning their editorial content. But a list of 14 advertisers to include, vetted by Harper's Bazaar editor-in-chief , ranked by their respective ad buys, shows precisely to what extent fashion magazines (which are largely coextensive with women's magazines) have allowed their editorial judgment to be corrupted by the luxury brands that shower them with advertising money.</p> <p>In a subsequent post, Racked printed the call sheets for the magazine's shoots, but forgot in one instance to redact the magazine's name. (Although the documents were swapped out for fully redacted versions, Racked editor confirmed the magazine was Harper's Bazaar in .)</p> <p>So: this spring, look out for Harper's Bazaar spreads featuring , , , , Chloe, Versace, Akris, , , Celine, , Hermes, and . (Givenchy might be there, too — once someone is doing "checking" their advertising money merits inclusion.) Not because the editors of that magazine necessarily think those brands have the most beautiful, most interesting, or well-designed garments and accessories, but because those companies are the biggest spenders.</p> <p> [Racked]</p>?<p></p> <p>The clothes are '70s-inspired and very tailored, with a heavy reliance on capes and flared, shoe-eating pants. The line includes accessories and footwear, and it'll retail for $250-$700. "I'm a Virgo and I'm more — I don't want to say negative — but I'm the girl who thinks no one's coming to my birthday party, no one's buying my clothes, no one's reading my book, no one's watching my show — that's just how I think," says Zoe. "The same applies to this. I don't want to let people down." []</p>?<p></p> <p>"I'm not sure if she's been clinically diagnosed, but I'm convinced that if she were to lie down on a doctor's couch, a psychiatrist could surmise within minutes that Kim is a wack job. [Kim] without question [is] the most superficial person I have ever come across in my life. If Kim doesn't have labels and nice cars and an expensive home, she will literally die ... gag me with two spoons." []</p>?<p>After being rushed to the hospital Tuesday, and then again last night, uber-enceinte Reese Witherspoon is still pregnant, but totally fine. However, Tuesday's visit involved "complications" with the pregnancy, according to the source, making Witherspoon and husband Jim Toth very nervous. The baby is due in September, and doctors supposedly say that it's perfectly fine if she delivers any time from now until then.</p> <p>Please also note that Robert Pattinson is allegedly hiding out on her Ojai, California ranch, so if the baby comes out sparkly, it's because of her proximity to the vampire moping in her guest room with Friends reruns and a box of Devil Dogs. []</p> Patz will, in fact, be walking the red carpet with the Twilight cast, ex-girlfriend Kristen Stewart most notably, to "save her from embarrassment and any female fans booing her," says a source, hopefully the same one who knows everything about what's going in and coming out of Reese Witherspoon's Wonder Orchid. <p><br> Meanwhile, K-Stew has been burying herself in the works of Gandhi ("who she decided to find out more about after watching Eat, Pray, Love") and here are those pictures of her stepping out in Los Angeles with flowers yesterday, although they actually look more like asparagus. JOURNALISM. [, , ]</p> <p>It might be time to start reading the articles: the September issue of Playboy contains an editorial by editor-in-chief Hugh Hefner on behalf of same-sex marriage.</p> <p>The fight for gay marriage is, in reality, a fight for all of our rights. Without it, we will turn back the sexual revolution and return to an earlier, puritanical time. Today, in every instance of sexual rights falling under attack, you'll find legislation forced into place by people who practice discrimination disguised as religious freedom. Their goal is to dehumanize everyone's sexuality and reduce us to using sex for the sole purpose of perpetuating our species. To that end, they will criminalize your entire sex life.</p> <p>Hef then cites a number of birth control restrictions in Arizona, Kansas, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and South Dakota for attempting to do just that, and says in closing:</p> <p>No one should have to subjugate their religious freedom, and no one should have their personal freedoms infringed. This is America and we must protect the rights of all Americans.</p> <p>[]</p> <p>An hour after those naked pictures hit the Internet, a "sheepish" Prince Harry said goodbye to some friends in a Los Angeles parking lot. He and his shamed secret gingerparts return to England today to face the wrath of the Queen's infamous Call me, maybe? [, ]</p> <p>Jay-Z is suing a former 40/40 Club sous chef (and Hov's former personal chef) for $1.5 million dollars over a secret chicken wing recipe. That's not judgment in my tone; there is literally no better reason to sue someone. Apparently Mike Shand was hired to overhaul the club's menu, but left with the recipes for "popular menu items" such as—guess. The chef eventually handed over the recipes for all of the stuff except his spice mix recipe, which is his own, and nobody can take that away from him. []</p> Calvin Klein made Alexander Skarsgaard .gifs because there was no good reason not to. []?<p>When we heard that the tumblr blog had been ordered to shut down by the singer's legal team, we thought that seemed a little...extreme.</p><p>Now when you visit Ridiculous Pictures of Celine Dion, there are no ridiculous pictures to be found. Only one post remains: an update letting the blog's followers know that the dream had died.</p><p>"Subject: Celine Dion vs. Yourself"<br>hey y'all<br>celine dion found our blog, and she didn't like it. we just got a letter from celine's lawyers that the blog has to be shut down.<br>though this blog is well within the realm of ‘fair use', i don't have the money or time to get a lawyer to respond. the dream is over.<br>thanks for following and being a celine superfan<br>i'll always remember u<br>i'll never let go</p><p>Dion's team has handled this non-situation situation in manner that all but ensures that the internet will giggle even more over her pictures. And, as the Huffington Post , a simple googling of the phrase "hilarious Celine Dion pictures" will return plenty of results. Here are a few.</p><p>All images via Getty.</p><p> [Ridiculous Pictures of Celine Dion]<br> [HuffPo]</p>?<p>, Germany's national mail service, is producing a perfumed novelty postage stamp. May we suggest "McGraw", ' "Hidden Fantasy" or, for especially passionate missives, "Enchanting" by ? [</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>Salma Hayek wasn't always the ridiculously beautiful and successful actress/producer that you see before you, according to Salma Hayek. Complimented on her skin by a journalist over at Lucky, she of the enviable cleavage let out a snort before schooling the magazine on her decidedly different youth. "My skin?! When I was 25 and I left being a soap opera star in Mexico to go try to be a movie star in Hollywood and all of Mexico was laughing at me? And I could barely get work as an extra? You want to talk about bad skin?" she vaguely threatened. "I had acne. And this acne was so bad, it sent me into a severe, severe depression. Like I couldn't leave the house. I'd wake up in the morning and lie there and touch my face before I got up, just to prepare myself to look in the mirror." Packing on the pounds thanks to some sustained depression eating, Salma says she lost the weight and got her shit together thanks to a gentle blend of meditation and Accutane. "The next stage with that sort of depression is food: too little, or too much. Guess what I did? … I didn't want to [use Accutane], but it cured it. Since then my skin's forever sensitive and dry." []</p> <p>While some celebrity types seem to be pregnant forever there are those who pop them out overnight, like in the case of Emma Heming and Bruce Willis's brand-spankin' new child. Weighing 9 lbs., 1 oz. — ouch — little Mabel Ray Willis was born yesterday and is happy and healthy. "[They] are overjoyed about the newest member of their family. Both mother and baby are healthy and doing beautifully," said a rep. []</p> <p>We can thank Titanic 3D for the untapped diamond mine that is Kate Winslet's big mouth of late, the actress dropping little gems each time she speaks to press about the film. she confessed a hatred for Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" and now she's calmly explaining that the hands of time have been a bit kinder to her than her former co-star Leonardo DiCaprio. "We do look very different, we're older. Leo's 37, I'm 36 ? we were 21 and 22 when we made that film," she said. "You know, he's fatter now ? I'm thinner." []</p> <p>It's the story that will never die (I type with one hand while giving it CPR chest compressions with the other), but perhaps it is time to give Kris Humphries credit where it's due, after the mouth-breather said he won't divorce Kim Kardashian unless she makes a "public apology" and admits "the entire wedding was staged by her and her family." Awesome. "Kris wants Kim to admit to fraud, to admit the whole thing was staged for publicity, to make a public apology to him because he really wanted a marriage," said an alleged friend. []<br> Kris continues his slide into semi-decency by making 16-year-old New Jersey Nets fan and cancer patient Kaely Kwitek the guest of honor at one of his games. []</p> <p>Say what you will about Madonna because her kids certainly do, the singer saying that Lourdes, Rocco, Mercy and David aren't the biggest fans of her work. My kids are brutally honest when it comes to what they don't like," she said. "They have no tact whatsoever. They'll just say, 'Mum, get that song off' even when [it's] mine. It's hurtful but at least they're honest." []</p> <p>Clearly a fan of quality television programming, Molly Sims is wondering what the effect of a constant stream of Dateline and 48 Hours is going to have on her unborn child. "I'm addicted to Dateline and 48 Hours. Lately, when I turn it on, I pull the sheet over my belly to make sure my kid is not, like, a serial killer," she said. "I love those shows, but I'm like, 'Can he or she hear what they are saying?' So I cover my belly." That'll totally work. []</p>?<p>While you were waiting for Riggs and Murtaugh to have a fifth go of it in a glorious bid to remind everyone that Mel Gibson can't be a vitriolic bigot because his longtime cop buddy is a black guy, Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy handcuffed themselves together for what sounds like a hilarious romp through the organized crime underworld. 20th Century Fox and Chernin Entertainment have signed the two actresses for a buddy cop movie about an uptight FBI agent (Bullock) who has to partner with McCarthy's "unconventional" Boston cop (read: shoots people for like no reason and says "wicked awesome") in order to take down a Russian gangster, hopefully played by Viggo Mortensen, but that's not a dealbreaker or anything.</p> <p>Bridesmaids helmsman Paul Feig will direct from a script by Parks and Recreation writer Katie Dippold, so everything seems pretty promising except for a gnawing concern I have that this movie will do to doughnuts what Bridesmaids did to enormous hoagies, i.e. turn them into possible sex toys. []</p>?<p></p> <p>Sandra says of her decision to divorce: "I'm sad and I'm scared." Louis was born in New Orleans, and Sandra and Jesse began the adoption process four years ago, and brought Louis home — in secret — in January. Only close friends and family knew about the child. Sandra is clearly smitten with Louis, saying,<br> "He's just perfect, I can't even describe him any other way," and "It's like he's always been a part of our lives." [, , ]</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>Scarlett Johansson is . You don't have to know us to know how we feel would usually feel about this: stabbilicous. That lady has less singing talent than that reaaaaaally spacey (and "spacey" = euphemism) Texan girl from the American Idol auditions who told everyone she was going to sing "The Power of Love" by Celine Dion but then sang "If You Asked Me To," and even I know the difference between those songs, why I am not sure. Anyway. So Scarlett does not deserve a record deal. However this reminded us of a piece of positive ScarJo information that we hadn't shared with you yet that has recently disposed us kindly to her. When she volunteered for the Obama campaign in Iowa a Jezebel reader found herself phone banking with Scarlett. She called people and introduced herself as Scarlett Johansson, a volunteer for the Obama campaign just like everyone else! Photographic evidence after the jump.</p> <p><br> "Not very eloquent but seemed really sweet," our reader wrote.</p> <p>And yeah, if you are wondering, got the same twinge learning that America Ferrerra was stumping for Hillary, even though it's probs because her . (Oh Jesus, KIDDING.)</p> <p>On we remind ourselves any Democrat would be good right now.</p> <p></p> <p><br> <br> <br> <br> <br> [Us Weekly]<br></p>?<p>After a fairly difficult past few months, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver have reunited to help their 13-year-old son who was on Sunday. He is currently being hospitalized in serious condition after suffering "a collapsed lung, broken bones and broken ribs."</p> <p>In the statement, his parents say, "While it has been a very scary week, Christopher is surrounded by his family and friends. He is a brave boy and is expected to make a full recovery."</p> <p>His parents also extend their gratitude to the first responders and those providing their son's care.</p> <p>"On behalf of our entire family, we want to sincerely thank the paramedics and lifeguards who responded so swiftly as well as the doctors, nurses, emergency room and hospital staff who have cared for our son," the statement continues.</p> <p>"They have been extraordinary to him and to us. We thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers and ask for respect and privacy for Christopher and our family."</p> <p></p> <p>Casey Anthony's lawyer Jose Baez has been holed up in New York City hotel room with a bunch of networks who are vying for her story. According to , "NBC looks like the frontrunner so far, but ABC is in the game. We're told CBS "is a distant third." We're told NBC is paying for Baez's hotel room."</p> <p></p>?<p>During the last days of my pregnancy, I had some time to reflect on the life I've lived. For the most part, I was happy with what I've done, and even if I was wasted during much of my youth, I don't feel like I wasted that youth. I'm well-traveled, feel fairly accomplished, tried most of the drugs, had a very active "social" life, and in genera had a lot of irresponsible fun. Still, I've realized that there are a few things I wish I'd tried, and am slowly coming to terms with the fact that certain experiences are either must be put on hold indefinitely — or are completely out of the question — now that I'm a mother and need to put an end to any and all selfish impulses. </p> <p>1.) I wish I'd gone to a rave.<br> My coming of age happened at the height of rave culture, but at the time I'd rejected it for two reasons, the first being that most of the people I didn't like from my high school were totally into it, and more importantly, I simply didn't like the aesthetic associated with ravers: The plastic hair extensions, the giant jeans, the inexplicable use of whistles as jewelry, etc. And I didn't like the music, although I hadn't realized at the time that drugs can make those beats so much more bearable. And I know that because I've done my fair share of Ecstasy. In fact, when I lived in London, it was way cheaper to buy three pills than to get drunk at a club. But now that I'm not nearly as self-conscious as I was when I was 17 or 18, I kind of wish that I could go to a rave and dress and dance and act like a total idiot in an atmosphere that completely supports that kind of thing. But, alas, being a raver isn't really very motherly.</p> <p>2.) I wish I'd gone to Japan.<br> I've traveled all over the U.S., back-packed through Europe (during one particularly harsh winter), farted around Mexico (literally), honeymooned in Indonesia, and gambled at some of the best $1 tables at various casinos around the Caribbean, accompanied by my mother and some free white wine. But I've always dreamed of going to Japan, because I always sort of equated it with taking a trip to the future. I'm not really sure when it's cool to start traveling with a baby, but I can certainly say for myself that I don't want to take a 14-hour plane ride with anyone's screaming kid — especially my own. Plus, even if I didn't take her with me, it's super expensive and I'm going to have to put someone through college now.</p> <p>3.) I wish I'd seen Celine Dion in Vegas.<br> Like an idiot, I'd missed out on her first residency in Vegas for A New Day..., and I have to admit that when she announced—just weeks after I discovered I was pregnant—that she'd be returning to Caesars Palace for , I was a little bit crushed. Will I make it there this time? Or will I be too busy to shirk my new responsibilities for a long weekend doing kitschy things in Nevada?</p> <p>4.) I wish I'd applied to be a contestant on Big Brother.<br> Without a doubt, I think I have what it takes to engage in a three-month-long power struggle for $500,000. I've studied every season, have a strategy in mind, and am confident in my abilities to manipulate other people ( a skill I would most certainly need because, other than quizzes and puzzles, I'd suck at all the competitions). But there's just no way that I could leave my kid — especially a baby — for an entire summer. I mean, it was kind of a pipe dream to begin with, but now It just seems completely unattainable.</p> <p>5.) I wish I'd owned a Mustang convertible.<br> I actually have never really owned my own car, because I didn't get my license until I was almost 18 (after getting caught stealing my mom's car and accidentally crashing it through the house), and then I moved to NYC just a few months later. I'd never driven a convertible before—and had actually only ridden as a passenger in one twice in my whole life—so last year, when my friend Rich and I went to Disney World, I decided I'd rent one. Even though I got some wicked sunburn (and a horrible seat belt tan line), I couldn't believe I hadn't been living like this all along. And I was totally surprised by my enthusiasm for muscle cars—I could make really sharp, fast turns with them without feeling like I could die, as I normally do in my husband's rickety old Toyota Camry. Even though the weather and the parking situation in Brooklyn isn't very amenable to convertibles, I'd decided that I really wanted to get one once I'd saved up enough money. Seeing as how convertibles and whipping winter temperatures aren't particularly kid-friendly, I think I'll have to wait about 18 years or so before I can finally get out of my dreams and into my car. Several months ago, while visiting Arizona, I rented another Mustang convertible. This time I got four speeding tickets, all through those camera things. So at least I have pictures of myself driving one.</p> <p>6.) I wish I'd had a pet monkey.<br> I think it was the combined childhood influences of Michael Jackson and Pippi Longstocking, but I've wanted to have a pet monkey (preferably a chimpanzee) for as long as I can remember. And I always imagined that we'd communicate through sign language, just like in . (I actually took American Sign Language as my foreign language in college as a step in the process of realizing this fantasy.) And he or she would wear corduroy overalls and we'd sit on the couch and watch sitcoms together and laugh and laugh. And if I couldn't reach something in my cabinet, my monkey would climb up and get it for me. If I suggested an idea that my monkey wasn't into, s/he would make a farting noise with his/her mouth to express disapproval. We'd argue sometimes, but that's just because our relationship would be kind of layered and complex. But monkeys are a lot of responsibility and I don't think I could handle it now. I mean, I guess my kid will be able to do a lot of the things that a monkey could do, but there's no guarantee she's going to be as fun as a chimp.</p> <p>7.) I wish I'd taken topless photos of myself.<br> I've always been incredibly against taking nude photos—even before this digital/social media age—because you just never know if and when they'll turn up and embarrass you. But let me tell you something: Pregnancy and motherhood completely alters your tits to the point at which they are unrecognizable. By the end of my pregnancy, I had gone from a 36C to a 40E. My areolas started off as very light pink and darkened to an eggplant color. They were the size of salad plates. And my nipples have decided to point south, like someone who's hanging their head out of embarrassment and shame. Now I wish I'd taken a picture of my pre-pregnancy boobs because it's really hard to tip a 40 to their memory when I can barely even recall their former glory.</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>Certain European fashion houses are that blogs have posted their Spring/Summer ad campaigns before they break in February fashion magazines. Are we really still having this debate?</p><p> to Women's Wear Daily, the brands reacted with "puzzlement and consternation" when scans of their ads appeared on the likes of Modelinia, Fashionologie — and the Wordpress-hosted of Conde Nast-owned Love. That magazine's editor in chief, Katie Grand, told WWD that "practical steps have been taken to ensure no unauthorized campaign content can appear on the blog at any point in the future."</p> <p>The campaigns that have been taken down appear to be Dior's, Balenciaga's, and Celine's, although they can still be easily on , less institutional . (Love's blog still has authorized advances of Spring/Summer campaigns from Burberry, Givenchy, Valentino, Loewe, , and more. The accompanied commentary from creative directors and photographers is a sign of how hard it is to talk intelligently about visuals, or maybe how many fashion people aren't much with words. Example: "It was all the things I expected it to be and it was super fun doing it!")</p> <p>The impact of premiering a campaign in a key print buy has already been lessened by the digital age, crowded with other visual amusements and almost impossible to control. So shouldn't these houses be happy anyone wants to look at their ads at all? Especially when they're being posted free on the sites of magazines they normally have to pay to display their campaigns? Then again, giving these companies the benefit of the doubt, trumped-up controversy is its own selling strategy.</p> <p> [WWD]</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>Well, this is weird. Apparently the second-least-famous Baldwin, Stephen, is suing noted Wolfdancer Kevin Costner—but, strangely, not for oily soul-patch infringement. Baldwin alleges that Costner screwed him "out of a deal Costner sealed to sell oil-separation machines to BP." You might remember that a few years back Costner and a business partner invented a magic machine that extracts oil from water and turns it into delicious drinkable urine. Well, apparently, "the 46-year-old Usual Suspects star claimed he and a friend, Spyridon Contogouris, were duped by Costner and partner Patrick Smith into believing there wasn't any interest in the technology." They sold their shares and lost a bunch of money. There's only one way to settle this: Everyone drink Kevin Costner's urine!!! []</p> <p>Remember when Kate Winslet said that listening to "My Heart Will Go On" makes her want to barf and we all laughed? And then Billy Zane was all, "Awwwwwwwwww, come oooooon," and we all remembered about Billy Zane? Well, according to eagle-eyed Today Show watchers, the whole thing totally hurt Celine Dion's French-Canadian feelings: "She didn't say so specifically when asked - she spent most of her answer talking about how special the song is and how honored she is to be associated with it, etc. - but just look at her expression at the 3:48 mark. That is a legitimately sad diva." Sidenote: It is basically impossible to find a stock photo of Celine Dion looking sad. The woman is a fountain of delight at all times. []</p> <p>Julianne Hough's family is pressuring her and frosty-tipped wood sprite Ryan Seacrest to get married. "While the two are not engaged, Seacrest, 37, did prank Hough last month on American Idol when he fooled her into thinking he was going to pop the question during one of their live shows. 'There's something that's been on my mind for a while,' he teased. 'It's a question I've been meaning to ask you and I don't want you to feel uncomfortable,' he added before reaching into his jacket to pull out...not a ring, but a note for her Rock of Ages costar Tom Cruise." GOOD ONE, YOU DICK. []</p> <p>After a radio DJ said that her single "Starships" is "wack and corny," Nicki Minaj canceled her appearance at Hot 97's Summer Jam in New Jersey. Not only that, Minaj vows to never play another Hot 97 Summer Jam EVER until the END OF TIME. "The President has spoken," she Tweeted, referring to label head Small Wayne. "I go above and beyond for my fans. But won't ever go against wayne's word. What he says, goes." It is written. []</p>?<p></p> <p>"I am thrilled when I see these pictures," says Gary Dakin, the head of Ford +, the Ford division that represents some of the world's top plus-size models. "Firstly, it shows that these girls can work with great photographers and amazing magazines like V and be taken more seriously for the work they do. For my girls, it means that the word ‘plus' can — hopefully — go away soon since they are now working in every major magazine in the world...Glamour, French Vogue and a host of other publications have ensured that this segment of the industry is here to stay and a force to be reckoned with." []</p>?<p> Superfeminist Gloria Allred has never met a video camera she didn't want to sternly lecture about sexual harassment, and this week's press conference was no exception — she theatrically walked in with her arm around the waist of her newest client/star Laren Odes like Odes had just gotten her period and Allred was taking her to buy pads. And now — shock of shocks — it seems that a former client of Allred has come forward to accuse the attorney of using her clients to keep herself in the spotlight. But how could someone who pretends to care so hard possibly be disingenuous?! </p> <p>Here's a supercut of some of Allred's most caring moments, patched together for your enjoyment. We wanted to present it to you with Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On playing over it, but we'd probably get sued for copyright violation. So just imagine that My Heart Will Go On is playing as you watch. It will enhance the experience.</p> <p>[]</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>Maybe you were visiting with family all week and couldn't check your favorite Gawker Media sites. Or maybe they're all still around and you could use a distraction. Whatever the case, we've got you covered. Here are some of the best videos we watched during the week that was. </p> <p></p> <p>We hope you found some great Black Friday deals today, while avoiding situations like this riot over a two dollar waffle maker at Walmart. This is your reward for waking up and standing in line at three in the morning? </p> <p></p> <p>In the PC version of role-playing game Skyrim, there is a string of code which will allow players to spawn dragons. The creatures, as previously mentioned, aren't exactly flying around in huge packs in the game. </p> <p></p> <p>When taking into account the fact we eat them for Thanksgiving every year, it's not hard to understand why turkeys seem to harbor disdain for people. But just in case you've remained unaware of the phenomenon, here are 10 videos of some angry toms and hens exacting revenge upon us evil carnivores. </p> <p></p> <p>Okay, so maybe it wasn't as officially-rapping-with-Nicki-Minaj as they would've liked, but if you're at the American Music Awards and you're famous and you're rapping along with the person on stage as if you're just two friends in a Jetta... </p> <p></p> <p>Michigan punter Will Hagerup's muffed attempt to receive a snap in the second half of the Wolverines' battle against rival Ohio State left him mortified—and it's even better when slowed down 20x and set to indie music. </p> <p></p> <p>Why, it's two turkeys in a pair of matching Corvettes drag racing across my hometown and wrecking their cars in completely stupid fashion. </p> <p></p> <p>Back in July, Mariah Carey made an insane two-hour live appearance on the Home Shopping Network, which I distilled down to the most entertaining four minutes. Well, guess what: she's baaaack! </p> <p></p> <p>Frozen Planet's cameramen Hugh Miller and Doug Anderson have captured the formation of a brinicle for the first time ever. I didn't know what a brinicle was until I saw this video. </p> <p></p> <p>This is Lara and Taylor playing the theme music to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Lara is the one playing piano and singing, Taylor is the violin player. </p> <p></p> <p>What do Madonna, Janet Jackson, Cher, Lady Gaga, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Celine Dion and J.Lo have to say about each other? </p> <p></p> <p>Just how obsessively geeky is NBC's recently shelved sitcom, Community? So much so that they have been sneakily incorporating the name "Beetlejuice" into the script, once per season, for three seasons. </p> <p></p> <p>Aggressive Women's Magazine Photographer: ERIN! Hey girl, what's poppin'? Today we're supposed to be snapping you in action at your job at the Baylor-Oklahoma football competition...what is it again, let me see here...SIDELINE REPORTING. </p> <p></p> <p>Jennifer Lopez and Chrysler may have deceived customers in a Fiat 500 commercial that's essentially about authenticity. Specifically, The Smoking Gun is reporting that instead of using the real Jennifer Lopez in a recent ad for the 500, Fiat used a body double for scenes filmed in her old neighborhood. </p> <p></p> <p>Every year puts together a compilation video of simple, but impressive, science tricks. So if things have gotten a little tense, or a little boring, at dinner today, here's ten surefire ways to liven things up. </p> <p></p> <p>Even though New York First Mistress Sandra Lee is forever partial to Halloween—if you don't know why, do yourself a favor and —she still made time to visit tonight's Late Night and prepare a Thanksgiving meal with Jimmy Fallon. </p> <p></p> <p>Some of you are playing The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. YouTube user AJLStunts is doing that, and then some. Just... watch. </p> <p></p> <p>Sometimes you wake up thinking you're going to have a perfectly fine day, a day in which nothing unusual or particularly remarkable will happen. You might eat some food; </p> <p></p> <p>What a week for Old People Discoveries: Yesterday, NBC's Providence affiliate launched a special investigative report into the "potential dangers" of a "new game" called beer pong. </p> <p></p> <p>Justin Bieber visited the Late Show tonight for a chat with David Letterman. At one point, Bieber noted that he'd been to "every continent." But after being challenged by Letterman to actually name each of them, Bieber was less than successful. </p> <p></p> <p>The Opel Insignia OPC is the hotted-up version of Opel's big, soft family sedan. Hot translates to 325 hp from a turbocharged 2.8-liter V6, and this is what it's like to drive it flat out-in a parking lot. </p> <p></p> <p>Using stop-motion animation and imagery from Google Maps Street View, director Tony Jenkins provides a look at how a lonely desk toy manages to escape his confined world and take a cross country drive to the Pacific coast. </p> <p></p> <p>The hosts of this video, HouseholdGamer, call this series of Skyrim tweaks a "Team Fortress 2" mode. I can see the resemblance, but to me, it looks like like a Killer7 mode. It looks this weird because there are no textures. </p> <p></p> <p>Tonight, Fox News hosts Bill O'Reilly and Megyn Kelly got to talking about a UC Davis police officer's appalling use of pepper spray on nonviolent protesters over the weekend. </p> <p></p> <p>For some people, the horrific footage of pepper-spraying at UC Davis has apparently been an inspiration rather than a deterrent. A woman at a California Walmart allegedly pepper-sprayed her fellow shoppers in order to get the stuff she wanted. </p> <p></p> <p>This video has made the rounds this week, but it hit me in the heart, so I'm posting it. I wish I could say it gets better, kid, but it doesn't. It really doesn't. </p> <p></p> <p>To the naked eye, the intricate paper patterns attached to these bike wheels look like nothing but a blur when it's in motion. But when filmed with a video camera, the limited frame rate reveals omplex animations. </p> <p></p> <p>This is me writing the lede to a post that features a video of Arnold Schwarzenegger's DVD commentary for Total Recall. This is me telling you that Schwarzenegger's commentary is literal to the point of hilarity. </p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p>The candy aisle of Walgreen's won't let you forget that the holiday of dating and love and kissing and cooties is right around the corner, and since we've already talked about some of the shittier aspects of love today, let's flip the script and discuss some of the good things, the things that make your heart flutter in your chest and make you smile with your entire face and make you feel clean and light inside and that make Celine Dion songs really mean something, you know? Let's talk about the first time someone told you that they love you, in a more-than-a-friend type way.</p><p>I was a junior in college, studying abroad in a Mediterranean country, and was a couple of months into dating my first ever serious boyfriend, another American college student in my program. We had been out to dinner earlier that evening and then gone to a club called, creatively, "In Da Club," which was the only club in that particular Mediterranean city that played American hip hop music.</p> <p>I was pretty drunk by the time I got home, and we were arguing about something stupid that drunk people argue about. His ex girlfriend? The fact that I was talking to the DJ? I don't remember.</p> <p>Things got a little heated, and he broke down and told me that he was afraid to lose me because... because... he loved me.</p> <p>I felt dizzy. I'll be right back, I said, and I scurried off to the bathroom that I shared with my four other roommates and proceeded to throw up all of the contents of my stomach. When I tried to flush the toilet, the puke clogged the shoddy plumbing (in this country, you can't even flush toilet-related refuse paper down the toilet, as the pipes couldn't handle it) and the toilet proceeded to overflow, puke and all, onto the marble floors of the bathroom.</p> <p>Shit, I thought.</p> <p>I ended up cleaning up the bathroom sufficiently, over the course of 15 minutes or so. Romance!</p> <p>Now that I look back on it as another sterile Thing That Has Happened, it seems kind of cheesy, pretty weird, and a little gross, but at the time, it meant something to me, and I hope that I never get to the point in my life when it doesn't mean something. Love, or the chance of love, is worth all of the gross foreign pukey stories in the world.</p> <p>So, readers: when's the first time someone told you that they loved you?</p>?So. Celine showed some weird shoes for spring. Weird, furry shoes. Um, okay. What better way to combine the frumpiness of fluffy novelty bed slippers with the acute discomfort of 4" heels??<p>Are women stupider than men? This woman, Charlotte Allen thinks so, but she was smart enough to hack into the sophisticated hierarchy of retard-screening and get "Women Aren't Very Bright" published in Sunday's Washington Post, so we are not yet sold. The essay, which about 978 of you emailed us over the weekend, appears to mark the conclusion of a years-long campaign to preserve the storied tradition of . ( may be part of this campaign as well...developing.) Anyway, drawing from a deep, rich store of evidence, from the writings of eighteenth century English nobility to the success of Grey's Anatomy, to studies indicating women kill fewer people in car accidents, Charlotte Allen, a Weekly Standard contributor and Beliefnet editor, suggests women should embrace their stupidity and call this whole "feminism" thing off. Click "more" to read me and Megan Carpentier, of the blog , break down Allen's argument into 100-calorie pack sized bites and ponder the finer points of this most momentous piece of...uh...is "scatgitprop" a word?</p><p><br> <br> <br> MEGAN: Hey, you fucking dyke.<br> <br> MOE: Hi. Good morning. The opinion editors of the Washington Post did our work for us today by publishing the demented ravings of some lady named Charlotte Allen in a piece called . The headline on the website initially "Women Aren't Very Bright," has been to read "Why Must Women Act So Dumb?" I think there is something somewhat "meta" going on here! But let's not dismiss her like the feminist drones we are! Let's take it paragraph by paragraph. Drink in the contrarian genius of her well-constructed arguments, provide an abridged version that our feebleminded readers will find easier to follow.<br> <br> Her inspiration appears to have come from watching women at a political rally for Barack Obama. Women tend to get very emotional and irrational over such affairs, in stark contrast to men with their clever little public statements of dissent i.e. "Iron My Shirt", or that guy who shot his brother-in-law after the Democratic debate...</p> <p>Here's Agence France-Presse reporting on a rally for Sen. Barack Obama at the University of Maryland on Feb. 11: "He did not flinch when women screamed as he was in mid-sentence, and even broke off once to answer a female's cry of 'I love you, Obama!' with a reassuring 'I love you back.' " Women screamed? What was this, the Beatles tour of 1964? And when they weren't screaming, the fair-sex Obama fans who dominated the rally of 16,000 were saying things like: "Every time I hear him speak, I become more hopeful." Huh?</p> <p><br> <br> MEGAN: 1. The French Press is smarter than the American press.<br> <br> 2. Despite what every poll says, most Obama supporters are women.<br> <br> 3. They're all stupid bitches who care only that he's hot and speak well and care nothing for policy but that's okay because they're too stupid to understand policy anyway.<br> <br> MOE:</p> <p>I can't help it, but reading about such episodes of screaming, gushing and swooning makes me wonder whether women — I should say, "we women," of course — aren't the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex, our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial. Women "are only children of a larger growth," wrote the 18th-century Earl of Chesterfield. Could he have been right?</p> <p><br> <br> Clearly the Earl of Chesterfield never met an Olsen twin.</p> <p><br> <br> MEGAN: 1. Some guy in the 1700s had teh wimmins all figured out.<br> <br> MEGAN: 2. It's not women's faults that they're overly emotional and easily distracted because they'd simply designed that way.<br> <br> MEGAN: 3. OMG, the Olsen twins are, like, soooo thin.<br> <br> MOE:</p> <p>I'm not the only woman who's dumbfounded (as it were) by our sex, or rather, as we prefer to put it, by other members of our sex besides us. It's a frequent topic of lunch, phone and water-cooler conversations; even some feminists can't believe that there's this thing called "The Oprah Winfrey Show" or that Celine Dion actually sells CDs. A female friend of mine plans to write a horror novel titled "Office of Women," in which nothing ever gets done and everyone spends the day talking about Botox.</p> <p><br> <br> MEGAN: 1. Women are bitches to one another.<br> <br> MEGAN: 2. Celine Dion does kind of suck, though.<br> <br> MEGAN: 3. This woman is particularly bitchy to other women.<br> <br> MOE: 3. "Office of Women" sounds like a really good book. I mean, talking about Botox, that is truly an ingenious subject for a horror novel. Almost like if they did one called "Office of Men" and all the dudes did was play fantasy football all day. Truly horrifying. And very subversive.<br> <br> MOE:</p> <p>We exaggerate, of course. And obviously men do dumb things, too, although my husband has perfectly good explanations for why he eats standing up at the stove (when I'm not around) or pulls down all the blinds so the house looks like a cave (also when I'm not around): It has to do with the aggressive male nature and an instinctive fear of danger from other aggressive men. When men do dumb things, though, they tend to be catastrophically dumb, such as blowing the paycheck on booze or much, much worse (think "postal"). Women's foolishness is usually harmless. But it can be so . . . embarrassing.</p> <p><br> <br> MOE: It would be less embarrassing if more of us got into this whole school shooting racket.<br> <br> MEGAN: 1. This woman makes me want to poke her with pointy objects.<br> <br> MOE: I know I would be less embarrassed.<br> <br> MOE: Although I think we are making headway re the spending whole paychecks on booze thing.<br> <br> MEGAN: I am embarrassed to have her as part of our gender. Can we expel her?<br> <br> MOE: I have definitely almost accomplished that myself.<br> <br> MOE: She is not very pretty; I looked her up.<br> <br> MEGAN: But is she BOTOXED?<br> <br> MOE:</p> <p>Take Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign. By all measures, she has run one of the worst — and, yes, stupidest — presidential races in recent history, marred by every stereotypical flaw of the female sex. As far as I'm concerned, she has proved that she can't debate — viz. her televised one-on-one against Obama last Tuesday, which consisted largely of complaining that she had to answer questions first and putting the audience to sleep with minutiae about her health-coverage mandate. She has whined (via her aides) like the teacher's pet in grade school that the boys are ganging up on her when she's bested by male rivals. She has wept on the campaign trail, even though everyone knows that tears are the last refuge of losers. And she is tellingly dependent on her husband.</p> <p><br> <br> MEGAN: 1. Which debate did she watch again?<br> <br> MEGAN: 2. Tears are the last refuge of losers? Man, seriously, the men can have this one.<br> <br> MOE: 1. She was totally asking for it with that "Iron My Shirt" guy.<br> <br> MEGAN: 3. TELLINGLY DEPENDENT?<br> <br> MEGAN: says the woman who references her husband eating at the stove in the third paragraph.<br> <br> MOE: 3. Every time her husband steps in everyone comes back and supports Hillary again because only her husband can make it all better. And remember that time Bill Clinton fucked up? It was soooooo catastrophically harmful, and so unembarrassing, compared to Hillary's foolish little foibles i.e. crying and botching universal health care.<br> <br> MOE:</p> <p>Then there's Clinton's nearly all-female staff, chosen for loyalty rather than, say, brains or political savvy. Clinton finally fired her daytime-soap-watching, self-styled "Latina queena" campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, known for burning through campaign money and for her open contempt for the "white boys" in the Clinton camp. But stupidly, she did it just in time to alienate the Hispanic voters she now desperately needs to win in Texas or Ohio to have any shot at the Democratic nomination.</p> <p><br> <br> MOE: 1. Hispanic voters are almost as stupid as women.<br> <br> MEGAN: 2. Little racist much, dearie?<br> <br> MOE: 2. It was clearly a huge mistake to fire chief strategist Mark Penn because he is a man.<br> <br> MOE:</p> <p>What is it about us women? Why do we always fall for the hysterical, the superficial and the gooily sentimental? Take a look at the New York Times bestseller list. At the top of the paperback nonfiction chart and pitched to an exclusively female readership is Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love." Here's the book's autobiographical plot: Gilbert gets bored with her perfectly okay husband, so she has an affair behind his back. Then, when that doesn't pan out, she goes to Italy and gains 23 pounds forking pasta so she has to buy a whole new wardrobe, goes to India to meditate (that's the snooze part), and finally, at an Indonesian beach, finds fulfillment by — get this — picking up a Latin lover!</p> <p><br> <br> MEGAN: 3. Latino voters in Texas really care that much about Patti Solis Doyle (sorry Patti)?<br> <br> MEGAN: 4. What's up her butt about Patti Solis Doyle?<br> <br> MOE: Wow, now those are some pretty damning observations about Eat, Pray Love the likes of which I have never heard coming from a woman.<br> <br> MEGAN: Right, because we all like that book because it's genetic or something.<br> <br> MEGAN: Also, I could do with a Latin lover right about now, FYI.<br> <br> MOE: Dudes do read comparatively intelligent books; I have seen it on the airplanes.<br> <br> MOE:</p> <p>This is the kind of literature that countless women soak up like biscotti in a latte cup: food, clothes, sex, "relationships" and gummy, feel-good "spirituality." This female taste for first-person romantic nuttiness, spiced with a soup?on of soft-core porn, has made for centuries of bestsellers — including Samuel Richardson's 1740 novel "Pamela," in which a handsome young lord tries to seduce a virtuous serving maid for hundreds of pages and then proposes, as well as Erica Jong's 1973 "Fear of Flying."</p> <p><br> <br> 9:20 AM<br> <br> MOE: Here she has a point; growing up I totally dug Anna Karenina and Jane Eyre and all the boys were reading Tolkien.<br> <br> MEGAN: Oh, well, gosh, if the bitch uses a French word, she must be smarter than me.<br> <br> MOE:</p> <p>Then there's the chick doctor television show "Grey's Anatomy" (reportedly one of Hillary Clinton's favorites). Want to be a surgeon? Here's what your life will be like at the hospital, according to "Grey's": sex in the linen-supply room, catfights with your sister in front of the patients, sex in the on-call room, a "prom" in the recovery room so you can wear your strapless evening gown to work, and sex with the married attending physician in an office. Oh, and some surgery. When was the last time you were in a hospital and spotted two doctors going at it in an empty bed?</p> <p><br> <br> MEGAN: Also, I read a ton of shitty romance novels as a kid, and you know what I got out of it? The word soupcon.<br> <br> MEGAN: And doctors definitely never, ever have extramarital sex or affairs or bone in the office because they're waaaay too smart for that, unlike women. Women doctors are basically sexless, didn't you know? Vagina-less robots.<br> <br> MOE: Television has become more puerile and unrealistic with more romantic subplots to appeal to women.<br> <br> MEGAN: Also, if you like Grey's Anatomy you're obviously stupid, but Hillary only pretends to watch it<br> <br> MOE: I have to say Grey's Anatomy is a really stupid show. Every time I see it I am sort of awestruck by its idiocy.<br> <br> MOE:</p> <p>I swear no man watches "Grey's Anatomy" unless his girlfriend forces him to. No man bakes cookies for his dog. No man feels blue and takes off work to spend the day in bed with a copy of "The Friday Night Knitting Club." No man contracts nebulous diseases whose existence is disputed by many if not all doctors, such as Morgellons (where you feel bugs crawling around under your skin). At least no man I know. Of course, not all women do these things, either — although enough do to make one wonder whether there isn't some genetic aspect of the female brain, something evolutionarily connected to the fact that we live longer than men or go through childbirth, that turns the pre-frontal cortex into Cream of Wheat.</p> <p><br> <br> MEGAN: Men aren't hypochondriacs? Bitch, please. Also, not that I'm married, but I'll be damned if every guy that I've ever known well enough to know when he's sick (my father included) doesn't stay in bed for 2 days when he has the sniffles.<br> <br> MOE: The Washington Post actually just ran a story wherein men, too, got disease.<br> <br> MOE: But I had never heard about it before the article.<br> <br> MOE: Because no women I know have gotten that.<br> <br> MEGAN: Oh, right, going through childbirth makes us dumb.<br> <br> MOE: The brain supposedly contracts slightly in the ninth month of pregnancy.<br> <br> MEGAN: Dumb dumb dumb<br> <br> MOE: Or something. Scienc<br> <br> MOE: I don't know how that works duh.<br> <br> MEGAN: Science is hard<br> <br> MOE:</p> <p>Depressing as it is, several of the supposed misogynist myths about female inferiority have been proven true. Women really are worse drivers than men, for example. A study published in 1998 by the Johns Hopkins schools of medicine and public health revealed that women clocked 5.7 auto accidents per million miles driven, in contrast to men's 5.1, even though men drive about 74 percent more miles a year than women. The only good news was that women tended to take fewer driving risks than men, so their crashes were only a third as likely to be fatal. Those statistics were reinforced by a study released by the University of London in January showing that women and gay men perform more poorly than heterosexual men at tasks involving navigation and spatial awareness, both crucial to good driving.</p> <p><br> <br> MOE: Women don't like killing people with their cars and that is bad.<br> <br> MEGAN: Which is why men's insurance rates are higher?<br> <br> MEGAN: Fuck that noise.<br> <br> MEGAN: Also, gay men are stupid?<br> <br> MOE:</p> <p>The theory that women are the dumber sex — or at least the sex that gets into more car accidents — is amply supported by neurological and standardized-testing evidence. Men's and women's brains not only look different, but men's brains are bigger than women's (even adjusting for men's generally bigger body size). The important difference is in the parietal cortex, which is associated with space perception. Visuospatial skills, the capacity to rotate three-dimensional objects in the mind, at which men tend to excel over women, are in turn related to a capacity for abstract thinking and reasoning, the grounding for mathematics, science and philosophy. While the two sexes seem to have the same IQ on average (although even here, at least one recent study gives males a slight edge), there are proportionally more men than women at the extremes of very, very smart and very, very stupid.</p> <p><br> <br> MOE: I love that sentence — "women are the dumber sex — or at least the sex that gets into more car accidents"<br> <br> MEGAN: Also, I have to say, my sister is a motherfucking neuroscientist and can't navigate for shit (sorry, if she's reading this, but everyone knows it's true) and I can navigate really well but know shit all about neuroscience, sort of like Charlotte Allen.<br> <br> MOE: This is true, that there are more men at either extreme. Um, who cares. Also: my brain does lack the capacity to rotate three-dimensional objects around inside it I think. That would be cool. Women and men are different. At least one recent study seems to concur with Charlotte's thesis.<br> <br> MEGAN: Men and women are different, that doesn't make us stupid.<br> <br> MOE:</p> <p>I am perfectly willing to admit that I myself am a classic case of female mental deficiencies. I can't add 2 and 2 (well, I can, but then what?). I don't even know how many pairs of shoes I own. I have coasted through life and academia on the basis of an excellent memory and superior verbal skills, two areas where, researchers agree, women consistently outpace men. (An evolutionary just-so story explains this facility of ours: Back in hunter-gatherer days, men were the hunters and needed to calculate spear trajectories, while women were the gatherers and needed to remember where the berries were.) I don't mind recognizing and accepting that the women in history I admire most — Sappho, Hildegard of Bingen, Elizabeth I, George Eliot, Margaret Thatcher — were brilliant outliers.</p> <p><br> <br> MOE: Dude, Sappho.<br> <br> MOE: Can we xpost this to Fleshbot now?<br> <br> MEGAN: that would be awesome.<br> <br> MEGAN: Also, she doesn't know how many pairs of shoes she has? Couldn't she just count them? Or would that be too hard because she's just a stupid girl?<br> <br> MOE: I never really thought about how many pairs of shoes I had until a man too it upon himself to for me and eloquently weigh in as to their physical state. "Discusting" — get into it.<br> <br> MOE:</p> <p>The same goes for female fighter pilots, architects, tax accountants, chemical engineers, Supreme Court justices and brain surgeons. Yes, they can do their jobs and do them well, and I don't think anyone should put obstacles in their paths. I predict that over the long run, however, even with all the special mentoring and role-modeling the 21st century can provide, the number of women in these fields will always lag behind the number of men, for good reason.</p> <p><br> <br> MEGAN: Wait, what? How will the number of female Supreme Court Justices always and forever lack behind the number of men when, for the last decade, women have outpaced men in law school admissions and graduations by a lot?<br> <br> MEGAN: Also, men are more often fighter pilots because they were the only ones allowed to be for a really long time by the male military hierarchy.<br> <br> MEGAN: Also, MY SISTER IS A NEUROSCIENTIST<br> <br> MEGAN: And women outpace men in medical school admissions/graduation as well.<br> <br> MOE: You know but people like Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas are more brilliant than women the women just fall into the middle doing things like nonprofit law and stuff<br> <br> MEGAN: If Charlotte was on TV, I would be throwing crap at the screen.<br> <br> MEGAN: You know why people think women are stupid, Charlotte? Look in the mirror, girlfriend.<br> <br> MOE: We already learned all the women in law school are tragic plastic surgery-obsessed gym rats who run into traffic because they were molested by their fathers . She's just repeating what she read on Jezebel.<br> <br> MEGAN: Oh, darn, right.<br> <br> MOE: And the brilliant conclusion:</p> <p>So I don't understand why more women don't relax, enjoy the innate abilities most of us possess (as well as the ones fewer of us possess) and revel in the things most important to life at which nearly all of us excel: tenderness toward children and men and the weak and the ability to make a house a home. (Even I, who inherited my interior-decorating skills from my Bronx Irish paternal grandmother, whose idea of upgrading the living-room sofa was to throw a blanket over it, can make a house a home.) Then we could shriek and swoon and gossip and read chick lit to our hearts' content and not mind the fact that way down deep, we are . . . kind of dim.</p> <p><br> <br> MEGAN: Well, I do have to admit I feel dumber having read the article, that's for damn sure.<br> <br> MOE: I have no ability to make a house a home. Maybe I am a brilliant outlier like Thatcher.<br> <br> MOE: I am exhausted from all that reading I must say.<br> <br> MEGAN: You know how you make a house a home? You unpack and then live there. The end.<br> <br> MOE: Should we talk about how Hillary says Obama is ? Or how Ms pretty pretty pretty thinks America caused 9/11 but faked the moon landing? Because I feel like Charlotte was robbed of the opportunity to make a really compelling case for her thesis and adding these two anecdotes might have made her argument sooooo much more convincing.<br> <br> MEGAN: Ah, the French! So reliably anti-Bush.<br> <br> MOE: So, one other thing we know about Charlotte Allen is that she stood up for , who was not, we maybe should point out, one of womanhood's brilliant outliers.<br> <br> MEGAN: Ahem. Also, I love how the Teri Schiavo case — which she decries as little less than murder at Michael's and the doctors' hands — prompts her to place all her trust for her feeding-tube-laden future on her husband and not to ever in a million, zillion years sign a living will. I think Charlotte is, indeed, quite dim.</p> <p> [Washington Post]<br></p>?<p>Beware, you guys, for the has come. And while the soothsayer's warning failed to save Caesar from his fate, perhaps we can save each other from lesser dangers on this treacherous day.</p> <p>It's your turn, dear commenters. Warn away!</p>?Welcome back to Midweek Madness! The tabs cooked up delicious stuff today: Is Kate Middleton pregnant? Does Bobby Flay's wife know he's seeing January Jones? What will Heidi Montag look like at 64? Are Glee's Artie and Tina in love??<p>Welcome back to Midweek Madness, in which we "read" the celebrity tabloids so you don't "have" to. Today, we get a good look at the newborn babies of Kim Zolciak and Alicia Silverstone. We spot Suri Cruise shopping for a $6,000 leopard skirt. We hear that both Jennifer Aniston and Lady Gaga might be pregnant, and we learn which celebrities have "outtie" belly buttons. </p> <p></p> <p>Ok!<br> "Reality TV Shockers!"<br> Not sure how this is a "shocker," but Amber from Teen Mom is worried that she'll lose her daughter. The "shocker" for Teresa from RHONJ is that if her husband Joe goes to jail, she will probably file for divorce. Intern Ramona thinks this won't happen as "they really love each other." Ashley from The Bachelorette's "shocker" is that she has already been dumped by the guy she chose to propose to her. JP Rosenbaum did indeed ask her to marry him — he was contractually obligated, we think — but he "did a 180." Ashley and JP had formed something called "Team Cupcake," but it seems he was just using her to be famous. Let's move on. Britney Spears is "acting weird again," in that she's been "bingeing on candy." We're not convinced, but the story claims she is "hurtling toward another major meltdown." Brad Pitt is "hurting" Jennifer Aniston AGAIN by taking Angelina Jolie to a restaurant in Malta — called de Mondion — which he'd taken Jen to in 2003. Yawn. "Kim Will Be A Size 2 Bride — No Matter What!" reveals that Ms. Kardashian is training with the notorious Tracy Anderson — resistance training and another hour of cardio, six times a week. And! She's eating a low-carb diet with green juices, veggie-filled broths and protein bars. If we were working out two hours a day and all we could eat was BROTH we would fucking kill someone. Probably Tracy Anderson. No wonder Kim's a bridezilla: She's STARVING.<br> Grade: F (called pregnant when you're just fat)</p> <p></p> <p>Life & Style<br> "Betrayed Again!"<br> Bachelorette Ashley is really into this one guy Ames, but the mag reports that he has a secret girlfriend, Jackie Gordon, who was on The Bachelor. Our exclusive in-office source thinks Ames and Jackie MUST have met on Bachelor Pad, because there's one "surprise contestant" coming soon. Ames? Anywhoozle. Ames and Jackie were seen on vacation in Napa, California, and he wore a hat, trying to hide. Ames would like to become an actor, and isn't really even into Ashley. Ashley is super into JP, because his kisses are "magical," but "that's only because he's had tons of practice. He's had dozens and dozens of girlfriends," according to the mag. Gah. Moving on: Suri Cruise was seen shopping for a $6300 leopard print Celine ensemble. (See Fig. 1) Kim Kardashian wants to have a baby "nine months to the day" after getting married. Jessica Simpson will get married in Hawaii in 2012. Last, but certainly not least, Kim Zolciak landed two spreads featuring herself and her new baby, K.J. (See Fig. 2) Although her husband is named Kroy, the baby is NOT Kroy Junior. He is Kroy Jagger. Kim says he has the "most kissable lips." Her daughters played "Tardy For The Party" and "Google Me" for the poor kid, and Kim says: "It calmed him down when he was fussy." Those tracks have the same effect on us!<br> Grade: D- (called pregnant when you have gas)</p> <p></p> <p>In Touch<br> "A Baby For For Teresa!"<br> Teresa is "prepared" to give her jailbird husband what he's always longed for: A son. The baby's name would be Franco IF she gets pregnant and IF it is a boy. But she's not sure she wants to get knocked up, yadda yadda. Lady Gaga is "ready to be a mama" because she has been "sporting a fuller midriff." There's an actual arrow pointing to her abdomen, where her internal organs live, with the words "a tell-tale bump?" (See Fig. 3) Presented without comment: "Outtie Of The Closet!" Okay, no here is a comment: The fruit comparisons were a nice touch. (See Fig. 4) In other news, Tori Spelling's kids are terrifying. (See Fig. 5) Jennifer Aniston's friends are concerned, because she is "changing everything" for her man. She cut her hair! She got a tattoo! She wore red! She ditched Courteney Cox to hang with (gasp!) Terry Richardson! Bachelorette Ashley is having a bad year, guys: Bentley is already dating another woman. Suri is having a "lonely summer," because she always plays by herself and doesn't have any friends her age. She learned to swim at a condo spa, "surrounded by stone-faced bodyguards," and was the only one in the pool, sniffle. Sounds like the perfect life, right? A source says: "It's the perfect life for an adult, not a kid." Bruce Jenner is worried about Kylie and Kendall, since he just found out that 15-year-old Kendall is already on birth control. Also: Both Kendall and 13-year-old Kylie "cozied up to older men" while on vacay recently. Leo is upset that Blake has been spending so much time with Ryan, but she has to, because they're promoting the shitty-ass Green Lantern movie. TMI Alert: Eddie and LeAnn like to walk around naked and have sex in every room of their house. Owen Wilson's friends are worried he will have another mental breakdown following his split from his baby mama. Justin Bieber bought Selena Gomez a $30,000 Chanel watch after she was rushed to the hospital, because Chanel cures all ills. Now that Ashton has that job on Two And A Half Men, Demi Moore is worried that he won't have enough time for her. When you marry a younger man, you expect him to be unemployed and walking around naked with just an apron on all day, right? House husbands should stay in the house! The best thing in this issue is the article called "Stars Love The Fat Whisperer." Mary Ascension Saulnier does cellulite techniques that involve saying "I command you to get out" to the fat. "I look into the body and the body talks to me," she says. "The after I see what the real story is, I tell the fat which way to move out of the body." Mary also reveals that women get cellulite on the backs of their legs because "fear is holding them back in life." Her clients include Renee Zellweger, Anna Paquin and Kim Kardashian.<br> Grade: D- (called pregnant when you're just constipated)</p> <p></p> <p>Us<br> "Lauren's Broken Heart."<br> Lauren Conrad and Kyle Howard have broken up after 3 years, because he could not get past her "reality show roots" and he didn't want to be distracted from his goal of being the next Robert De Niro. He hated The Hills so much, he would never hang out with any of her friends. Jerk. Re: Lauren? "She thought he was the one." It just wasn't working out: She always had to drive to Malibu to see him, but he would never drive to Westwood to see her. In other split news, George Clooney was spotted flirting with women in Mexico in November, so his breakup from Elisabetta Canalis might have actually happened a while ago. Katy Perry flies her cats to visit her while she's on tour. Teen Mom's Leah is back with her ex, the one she was with before the guy she had kids with. Ashlee Simpson is only hanging out with the dude from Boardwalk Empire to make Pete Wentz "insane with jealousy." Prince Harry hung out with Chace Crawford and Matthew Morrison in London. The chaps did shots of Patron and watched The Killers. Leighton Meester was spotted making out with Garrett Hedlund at a pool in West Hollywood, but then the very next evening she was gushing about her recent dates with Justin Long. There are six pages here about how in love Blake Shelton is with Miranda Lambert, and how he used to be a partier, hooking up with ladies after every show, and she's calmed him down. Now if he sees someone pretty he doesn't even fuck them on the spot! Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz's secret wedding on June 22 happened six months after "friendship turned to romance" on the set of their movie, Dream House. When they met, they were both in five-year-long engagements. He ended his relationship with producer Satsuki Mitchell last summer, and Weisz ended her engagement to Darren Arronofsky — with whom she had been for nine years and with whom she has a son — in November. The whole thing is a little happysad, with all the exes by the wayside, but whatever. Finally: Noted neo-hippie Alicia Silverstone did a photo shoot with her kid! The vegan animal rights activist poses here with her newborn baby — Bear Blu — her head wreathed in flowers, and her husband, musician and hipster hottie Christopher Jarecki. Sample quote: "We all take baths together sometimes." Alicia says her baby is "part squirrel, part monkey and part peanut." (See Fig. 6)<br> Grade: D (called pregnant when you've just eaten lunch)</p> <p></p> <p>Star<br> "70 Best & Worst Summer Beach Bodies."<br> Beach bodies are not to be confused with bikini bodies, or . Or dead bodies. In addition to declaring some womens' bodies good, the mag also calls out which celebs have fake boobs (Heidi Montag, J-Woww, Vienna Girardi) and arranges a Real Housewives Bikini Battle, pitting East Coast against West Coast. No winner is declared, however. There's also a page of "hot mamas" in bikinis — Jen Garner, Padma Lakshmi — and "dangerous curves" in bikinis — Coco, Amber Rose. The guys have their own spread, "Hunks & Chunks." Then there are "beach bombs," like Ke$ha and Stephanie Seymour. Also inside: Avril Lavigne met up with her ex, Deryck Whibley in St. Tropez. Justin Theroux's ex, Heidi Bivens, spoke to Star on June 22. When asked about the end of their relationship, she said, "It's unfortunate. I'm not going to comment unless they comment first." Classy. Meanwhile: The magazine draws a yellow circle around Jennifer Aniston's perfectly flat tummy and asks, "Is that a bump?" (See Fig. 7) Prince William is worried about Kate Middleton's weight. She is "pin thin" and determined to lose seven more pounds off of her already 114 lb.-body, so she can fit into sample sizes. Will was afraid to talk to her about it, because he didn't want her to feel self-conscious, so HARRY had a little chat with her. If your husband's little brother came up to you and said, "You're looking really skinny," how would you react? There's a feud between the Real Housewives of New York and the Mob Wives, and Jill Zarin is "protected and connected." Jill is "made." But the other housewives had better cool it, otherwise the Mob ladies will cross the bridge and make trouble. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is a "wild child" who likes to party like a rock star. Amanda Seyfried has maybe reunited with her ex, Dominic Cooper. Nikki Reed might be pregnant with American Idol spawn, since she's gained about 10 lbs. and is refusing alcohol. Michael Sheen has moved into Rachel McAdams' house in Toronto. A "high-placed female producer" was fired from Bachelor Pad after one of the contestants accused her of sexual harassment. She "aggressively pursued" him, sending him "racy text messages" and pictures of herself in a dominatrix ensemble. He refused her advances… But did make out with her, worried he would not get on the show if he didn't. And guess what? When he didn't sleep with her, he was booted from the show. Christina Aguilera's won't let her boyfriend work. She wants him to be available so he can do tasks for her, and she wants to come home to a nice meal and a glass of wine, is that too much to ask? The guy gets an allowance of $1500 a week. House husbands should stay in the house! The piece called "Single, Stoned & Starving" is about Lady Gaga. She barely eats, so she can fit into her costumes; she's into drugs; and she's lost the love of her life, Luc Carl. Sob. If you're into that Hollywood poker ring story, there's an interesting article here, in which the Russian mob and Shannon Elizabeth are mentioned. Absolute final note: Amy Winehouse has three months to live.<br> Grade: D+ (called pregnant when you're just retaining water)</p> <p></p> Addendum <p>Fig. 1, from Life & Style</p> <p>Fig. 2, from Life & Style</p> <p>Fig. 3, from In Touch</p> <p>Fig. 4, from In Touch</p> <p>Fig. 5, from In Touch</p> <p>Fig. 6, from Us</p> <p>Fig. 7, from Star</p>?<p>Every Wednesday, we hear the siren song of the weekly tabloids. And each time, we hope that the song will be a beautiful and sweet melody of gossip. Instead, we usually find a dischordant cacophony of non-news and half-baked rumors. The horror! Anyway, this week, tab faves Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt win 3 out of 5 covers: If you believe OK! they're happy as clams; if you believe In Touch, their family is on the verge of being ripped apart by Africans. If you believe Life & Style , then you may be convinced that Brad spent the night with an unidentified blonde at a hotel. We rate the ballads of bad gossip, after the jump.</p> <p><br> <br> <br> <br> OK!<br> "Secrets Of Our Happy Home" the cover promises, and inside we find that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are "closer than ever" and may spend Thanksgiving in Missouri with Brad's family — if Angelina's filming schedule allows. Last year the Jolie-Pitts were in Vietnam and the year before that, Ange was helping earthquake victims in Pakistan. So a Midwestern Turkey-Day (which would be Pax's first!) seems imminent. Also making Thanksgiving plans? Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal, who'll take Ava and Deacon Phillippe over to Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard's. OK! has an interview with Reese, who says being a single working mom is difficult and that her daughter wants to be a scientist while her son wants to be a pizza-delivery guy. Ooh, and is Reese voting for Hillary? "I think it's exciting that there is a potential for [a woman president]," she says. "I think women are fantastic negotiators and incredible multitaskers." In Britney Spears news, her "body and soul" makeover involves more Lipodissolve (she got some in Vegas over the weekend) and prayer. Since Brit's already tried Christianity, Kabbalah and Hinduism, OK! suggests she could also attempt Hare Krishna, Buddism and Scientology. (For the love of God.) Meanwhile, Jessica Simpson is sad because she wasn't allowed to walk the red carpet at the Country Music Awards — it's based on honor and merit (?!?!). Plus a great quote from Jennifer Hudson: "I have the height of a model, the breasts that people pay for and the lips everybody wants, so why should I change?" Damn, girl. Preach it!<br> Grade: C+ (Celine Dion)<br> <br> <br> In Touch<br> "Zahara's Family Wants Her Back" claims the cover, but the story is more about how Zahara is not technically an orphan, since her mother is alive. In Touch spoke with the mother and grandmother...in Ethiopia! But um, the adoption is legal because the family gave up little Z. And Angelina believes that even though an adoptee may have a biological parent, that parent has to "earn the right" to be with their child. Paging John Voight! The magazine's Britney angle this week is that she's trying to lose her kids, loves the paparazzi, fails her drug tests on purpose and might want to move to New York, even though that would exacerbate the custody issues. Hills star Audrina may have dumped JustinBobby for a male model named Tyson Paige. And hey, you know how Jennifer Lopez is pregnant? It's twins! A boy and a girl! (Bitch always has to have everything.) Additional Hills news: Lauren Conrad tells IT, "My life's not fake!" but then admits that she does do-overs for the benefit of the cameras. Guess what Vince Vaughn wants for Christmas? "A hot tub, a couple of girls from Brazil and a Do Not Disturb sign." Plus! Hollywood's biggest commitment-phobes: Zach Braff, Orlando Bloom, Mario Lopez, Heath Ledger, Jaime Foxx, Tommy Lee, Matthew McConaughey, George Clooney, Brody Jenner and John The Player Mayer.<br> Grade: C+ (Wayne Newton)<br> <br> <br> Life &Style<br> "Brad Walks Away...And Drives Off With Another Woman," the cover claims. At the Beowulf premiere, Mr. Jolie-Pitt left for a hotel with an unidentified woman (and another person) and was spotted leaving at 4 am. He feels eclipsed by Angie, claims a source. When he was with Jen, he got to lead down the red carpet. Yawn! Also inside: Britney's kids have pink eye, and they got it from her, natch. Christina Aguilera had a "gaggle" of drag queens at her baby shower. Sheryl Crow says of Ashley Olsen dating Lance Armstrong: "That's pathetic, Ashley's a kid." Oh, snap! Are the Kardashians krazy about plastic surgery? Five out of six family members seem to have had procedures. (The littlest one wasn't included).<br> Grade: C- (James Blunt)<br> <br> <br> Us<br> "20 Best Makeovers: No Surgery!" Cheers the cover. Standouts: Carrie Underwood used to have huge hair! Hayden Panettiere, 18, now looks 25! Rihanna got a haircut! And some other boring before-and-after photos. Conan O'Brien's stalker priest was also a former Harvard classmate. Uh, scientists were paid to judge the reaction of lab mice to a cardboard cutout of Paris Hilton, though we're not sure why. Sarah Michelle Gellar is now Sarah Michelle Prinze — 5 years after marrying Freddie. The new hot Sex And The City bag is Fendi and totally fug. It has like, dreadlocks. It can be yours for $3,860!<br> Grade: D (Paris Hilton)<br> <br> <br> Star<br> "Jen Breaks Down!" cries the cover. See, Courteney Cox didn't visit Jennifer Aniston on set in Oregon because David Arquette said it wasn't a good time. Courtney told Jen she was being selfish, and they haven't spoken since! Jen is dealing by e-mailing funny messages to Brad Pitt. Uh-oh! Plus: 13-year-old Ali Lohan looks "unrecognizable" in her seductive promo shots for Dina's new reality show: Could she have gotten a nose job? Intern Sharon says, "It's so wrong! She looks sexy!" The Britney story in Star is about "smart lipo" — Brit had a $12,000 procedure that she thinks is a bargain. Apparently, the incision so small that no stitches are necessary and fat is permanently melted away. Jennifer Lopez's twins' nursery will have everything hand-embroidered in cream and pastel green — and the furniture will be gilded with 18K gold. Subtle! Tyra Banks is petrified of being seen without her wig — she's afraid that if a guy wakes up next to her and she's untressed, he won't call back. "Extreme Bodies After Babies" is a bunch of celebs who dropped pounds after dropping kids. Mel B went from 150 to 110 but still eats burgers. Naomi Watts says she's small because she breastfeeds, but people are saying she's too thin and they can see bones. Heidi Klum's secret? A contract with Victoria's Secret. Nothing sheds pounds like the threat of losing your job!<br> Grade: D- (Jennifer Lopez duet with Marc Anthony)</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?<p><br> <br> Tyra was extra awesome last week, with , an entire hour acting the fool in front of Chris Brown, the obligatory weekly episode about weight obsession, and about sex. But my personal favorite was when Tyra went undercover to expose the dangers of dating, with Tyra talking through a microphone into the ear piece of an actor she hired to be the date rapist. Except, instead of the show being like, "Look! It's so easy to get date raped," it was more, "Look! It's so easy to date rape!" Seriously, it was like a how-to for aspiring rape artists. Oprah had Celine Dion on as a guest, but better still was the two-part episode about the family of hoarders who can't walk through their 3,600 sq. ft. home anymore because of the clutter. Oh, and The View had some excitement last week as well: Sherri Shepherd showed up with cornrows! Clip above and pictures and cheap shots after the jump!</p><p>So the awesomest thing happened. When Tyra was dancing around like a lunatic in front of Chris Brown, the jumpsuit that she was wearing split up the ass. She said the split was this big:<br> <br> </p> <p>So instead of changing or whatever, she decided to just tie a sweater around her waist, like she got her period and it leaked all over or something.<br> <br> </p> <p>Periods + Tyra = a dry weave joke somewhere.<br> <br> </p> <p>And this doesn't really have much to do with anything, but when I saved my video file before recording her date rape episode, I named it "the rapist," but you know, for file purposes, there were no spaces, so it looked like "therapist." I felt they were both oddly fitting.<br> <br> </p>?<p>We've all wished and hoped and prayed it would not come to this, but it seems even a collective scream of "Nooooo!" from all of humanity was not enough to stop Bobbi Kristina Brown from getting engaged to her "adopted brother" Nick Gordon. We've been hearing rumors of their coupling and giving the side eye to their documented PDA and the she's been sporting, but now a source has confirmed to Us that the pair's love is real and they're ready to join in holy matrimony.</p> <p>Bobbi Kristina, who in case you need reminding is only 19, is said to have "a very deep connection" with Gordon. They're apparently living together in one of Whitney Houston's houses in Atlanta, and they still call each other brother and sister, which is, umm, odd for a soon-to-be-married couple. Cissy Houston, Bobbi Kristina's grandmother, is reportedly very unhappy about their relationship and feels it is reminiscent of Whitney Houston's marriage to Bobby Brown. You know, this is too much. What do you say we just buy into the delusion that this is actually going to work out great—because the alternative is too incredibly depressing to contemplate. [, ]</p> <p>The outlaw George Clooney has been released from police custody after earlier today during a protest at the Sudanese embassy. He joked with reporters about his experience. "It was really rough, you can imagine. Have you ever been in a cell with these guys?" he asked, referring to his father, Nick Clooney, and their fellow arrestees. He said they, "Paid a fine, we were all in a cell together, it was nice." God, everything really is better when you're George Clooney. []</p> <p>Our celebrity baby tracking devices are already overloaded with information, but now we've got to add yet another lady to the list of famous moms-to-be because Neve Campbell is pregnant. The father is her boyfriend of one year, actor J.J. Feild. This is the 38-year-old actresses first child. Very exciting, but not as exciting as if she was pregnant with triplets, because that would mean everytime her family walked into a restaurant, the host could make a Party of Five joke while seating them. As it is, she'll probably get plenty of Scream jokes whenever the baby cries. []</p> <p>We are learning a bit more about Jackson, the baby Charlize Theron adopted this week. He's four months old, and he likes to be swaddled. Charlize told Ryan Seacrest, "I gotta say, I didn't think I would be a fan of the swaddling, but the swaddling is pretty amazing. … At first it looks like a straitjacket, and you feel like it's child abuse. But for some reason they just love it." I prefer to think of swaddled babies as baby burritos—it's a more delicious, less scary image than the straitjacket. []</p> <p>Speaking of marriage and babies, it's time, once again, for our favorite question: Is Jennifer Aniston wearing an engagement ring? Does the Pope have a funny hat? If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to see if it has a baby bump, will it ever get married? Who even knows anymore? Anyway, Jen has a ring on her ring finger. You can either spend the rest of your weekend inside scrutinizing of her hand, or you can spend it stumbling into crowded bars and drinking too much green beer. Your call. []</p>?<p>Victoria Beckham, who reportedly has a slipped disc, is under doctor's orders not to wear her customary high heels until her back gets better. That's what Posh would be punished with if she were an uppity mortal in a Greek myth who got on the wrong side of Aphrodite. []</p> Spanish Vogue's September cover is out, and it features Helena Christensen, Claudia Schiffer, and Eva Herzigova. [] Alexa Chung's collections for Madewell continue to look cute, understated, and highly wearable. [] 17-year-old Dutch-Greek model Ros Georgiou has already walked for Celine and Dries van Noten, but as soon as this September's New York fashion week is over, she'll be heading back to Athens for high school. "I'll come back next year, after I graduate," she says. "I think when I go back [to Greece] I'll work more, but for Greek magazines, doing jobs after school. Finishing school is important, and I want to do that before I take anything big on." Smart girl. [] Grammarians, get out your pearls! Old Navy is selling a line of t-shirts that say "Let's Go [Sports Team Name Here]." Only they forgot the apostrophe in "let's." And...clutch. []?<p>I think it's safe to say that Jennifer Hudson and Celine Dion were the biggest voices in the new, appropriately star-studded version of , which just aired on NBC. More info - including donation options - .</p><p>Longer video, here:</p> <p></p>?<p></p> <p>Then Joseph introduced Britney to Gaga and the ladies exchanged numbers; they're planning on working together when Gaga finishes her tour. Allegedly. []</p>?<p>, the 38-year-old French woman in whose apartment the bodies of six newborns were found in 2007, has admitted to killing them. Lesage faces life imprisonment. [ Image via ]</p>?<p>A very long, but insightful and interesting in today's WWD attempts to tackle the issue of women in fashion. More and more females are heading big-name fashion houses or are gaining prominence with their own labels. "In the early Nineties," says Floriane de Saint Pierre, head of a consulting firm in Paris, "the creative directors of fashion houses were nearly all men." For example: Michael Kors at Celine and Tom Ford at Gucci, who were succeeded by Ivana Omazic and Frida Giannini, respectively. Could it be part of a larger context, considering Hillary Clinton is running for president, and prominent politicians include German Chancellor Angela Merkel and China's vice premier, Wu Yi?</p> <p>Pamela Golbin, curator of 20th-century fashion at the Museum of Fashion and Textiles in Paris, notes that Coco Chanel, Madeleine Vionnet, Jeanne Lanvin, Elsa Schiaparelli and Madame Gres were the queens of Paris fashion in the early part of the century. After World War II, women "went back to the home," and the post-war names in design were men like Christian Dior, Pierre Balmain and Cristobal Balenciaga.</p> <p><br> <br> Men still dominate high fashion, but women seem to be gaining. "I sincerely hope we are witnessing a major and permanent change, not only in the fashion industry, but also in society in general," says Marni's Consuelo Castiglioni. Donatella Versace adds, "The worlds of banking and management are opening up to women at long last. But in fashion, specifically, I think it points to an understanding that women are instinctively in tune with the female customer." Versace also says Italy is leading the way in appointing female designers and that this fits in with the nation's culture, "as we have long been a matriarchy!" (See: Gucci designer Frida Giannini, Miuccia Prada, Angela Missoni and new hires Alessandra Facchinetti at Valentino and Christina Ortiz at Salvatore Ferragamo.)</p> <p>Could it be that women are actually better at designing clothes for women? "When seeing the Milan fashion shows and then immediately going to Paris, one sometimes has the sense of going from real clothes to fantasy-made-for-the-catwalk clothes," said Mary Gallagher, a Europe-based associate at Martens & Heads, a New York executive search firm. "Maybe that's why there are so many prominent women designers in Italy. They are the ones wearing the clothes, so they know what feels and looks good on them and what works in a woman's busy life."</p> <p>The argument is that men tend to be more "conceptual" but less concerned with the practical. And since the fashion world is becoming less and less focused on couture, women who design with "practical" aspects in mind will succeed. The problem there is the underlying prejudice: If couture is art, for which men are celebrated, then a woman's ready-to-wear becomes mass market seamstress patternmaking, and the respect and impact are sucked out.</p> <p>The truth is, if the fashion world had any kind of equality in it, women and men would design for women — and men.</p> "I would like to think that a good design speaks for itself," added Linda Fargo, senior vice president and fashion director of Bergdorf Goodman. "When we use our senses, whether it's taste, sight or hearing, for example, we don't first think, hmm, was this chef a woman? Or, was this music performed by a man? Hopefully, we have evolved enough not to judge these things first through a sexist or ageist prism, but through the strength and merit of design." But in the billion dollar fashion industry, women have yet to "evolve" enough to dominate. And though there are a growing number of female creative directors, the worst result would be if this were just a trend, or a cycle. Because trends fade quickly. Cycles end. In this story, Vera Wang says, "It's a good time to be a woman designer again." Hopefully it will never be a bad time. Because if women around the world are spending billions on clothing, female designers should be able to reap those rewards. And even when a man does design for women, he usually has a muse, a woman who inspires him. Says Diane von Furstenberg, "Women do not need muses... they are their own muses." <p> [WWD]</p>?<p>I always thought I was pretty cool, to be honest. But then I had a baby and suddenly was filled with earnestness, concerns about chemicals and safety hazards, a newfound interest in organic foods and a desire to experience conflict resolution.</p> <p>In other words, I got pretty lame for a minute. If cool is defined by a certain lack of caring tinged with bits of nihilism and scoffing — always the scoffing — then I became the most deeply caring, meaning-finding optimist you ever did see. I am like a walking Celine Dion record. </p> <p>And I embrace it. Nonetheless, I am always hearing how hard it is for childless people to deal with their new-parent friends and the realities of schedules, attention-deficit and all-around friendships taking a dive. You know, 'cause you're different now, you're distracted now, you don't get all gussied up and hit the town like you used to. Your alcohol tolerance is for shit and you're not even fun anymore.</p> <p>But now all I can think is, duuuuhh, it's definitely harder for the person with the baby? I mean, sure, it's hard to lose out on a friendship and have a person go in a different direction when you had a thing going — I get it; that has happened to me. But that can't possibly hold a candle to the thing with the baby where you have to actually keep it alive and stuff? And all the caring? It's so much caring.</p> <p>And yet, these antagonistic feelings about new parents persist. Is it because we are Ghosts of Your Future that you childless people aren't ready to face? Is it our lack of hygiene? Is it the Toms? (They are so comfortable!) Is it our hypocrisy? It's true, now I won't ever buy fruit that isn't organic, but before the baby I was practically eating gas station burritos every day.</p> <p>But here I am! I've jumped to the other side. And here are some things you (and I) used to think about new parents that aren't even fair or true, and we both know it.</p> <p>"New parents are selfish." Sure, I'll bite. Having a baby is selfish, it's true — it's literally a forced externalization in human form of yourself. But there are so many ways to copy yourself for more instant gratification that are cheaper and probably more satisfying if being replicated is what you're after, like buying a Real Doll with your exact style of pubic hair, or becoming famous.</p> <p>If it's selfish to have a baby, what exactly is the payoff? It's one hell of a long-ass con where in exchange for not killing something you get no guarantees that it won't one day write a memoir about you. Plus, it's a form of being a good ancestor to produce a good person. True, it's not the only way to be a good ancestor — you can invent things or just be really nice to homeless people. But having a baby is definitely the most efficient way to earn karma points, because if you just pop out a baby and do nothing and it becomes a social worker, you have already won. Doing nothing good or making a bad person, however, is negative karma for all possible lives. Mama needs some snake eyes!</p> <p>Also: Not having a baby is totally selfish, too! Because you don't make any new yous to keep paying for stuff and shouldering the cost or whatever. You know, like the whole giant oneness thing. You're just a big old taker. Hope you solve the financial crisis or something, gaahhhh.</p> <p>"People with babies are a pile of bullshit excuses." I'll have you know I was a veritable treasure trove of excuses before I ever thought of conceiving. But true, having a baby is a get-out-of-social-jail card for practically any event that runs late or, hell, runs at all. So is a pet. But in exchange for this built-in bail you get two decades of never actually being able to cut loose for real again. Fair trade? You decide. Most people use that card wisely, knowing that pretending your kid is sick just ain't worth the weird karma it generates.</p> <p>"People who have babies immediately become lame." If by lame you mean no longer down to party in the spontaneous sense, then yes, Lamesville coincides with becoming a parent. But this finger-point of a playground insult ceases to mean much when your choices are now basically "be cool" vs. "parental neglect." One of the lamest things I've ever seen is a parent trying super hard to be considered still with-it. "Yeah I just had a kid, or whatever, but at least I can still get it together to listen to some chillwave." Yes, the fact that I just namechecked chillwave a year late only proves how lame I am, too, and I couldn't be happier about it.</p> <p>"Parents are always saying they are tired but, come on, they are not that tired." Tired is relative — granted. But baby tired is a kind of eye-bleeding, crazy-tired that you can never really actually opt out of. Not really. Sure, someone can take a kid off your hands for a day, but 'tis a brief respite. Other kinds of tired seem to have built-in exit doors that actually open when things reach a critical mass, whereas having a baby is like a faux mural that looks like an exit door but when you try to hit that bar thingy to go outside, it just laughs at you.</p> <p>"Parents change immediately when they have a baby." Childless people are all, "I know she had a baby, but isn't she still supposed to be her own person with an actual identity?" Sorry, hon. No, she isn't. Not really. At least, not for a hot minute. It's taken me two whole years to feel basically like myself again due to breeding, and by "myself" I mean somewhere in between a sea lion and a sloth.</p> <p>Having a kid is such a huge, monumental gut-punch of an experience, so what would actually be weirder is popping out your baby and going on Facebook talking about how the same you are. I call bullshit on that shit. How can anyone not be totally utterly changed by parenting? It's impossible for me to not see parenting as transformative, both because I can no longer wear my old shoes but also because I now feel like a gently undulating walrus with a muffin top.</p> <p>"All new parents can talk about is their kid." If you're not thinking about your kid constantly right after you have it, call social services. You're doing it wrong. If someone talking about Fifty Shades of Grey is more interesting than an entirely new person you just made, well then I just don't know what. Moreover, keeping a new baby alive trumps all friend's haircuts. And in extreme cases, it also trumps everything but maybe 10 minutes of a breakup story.</p> <p>"Parents aren't funny anymore." Well, OK. Listen, I admit it. There were jokes I probably thought were funny when I was childless that make my heart actually wince now. It's a strange, strange thing. I also wouldn't change this new open-heartedness for all the laughs in the world. It happens to you for a reason, and it is good. There will always be enough people in the world for whom nothing is off limits, which is also good, but those of us who have crossed over to the soft side will just have to hold up the pillows.</p> <p>Tracy Moore is a writer living in Los Angeles. She watched some movie about a kid and a dolphin today and actually thought it was kinda good. Suggest more middlebrow on Twitter .</p>?In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.?Where does inspiration come from? Sometimes, apparently, it's born at poolside.<br><br>The first time Dan Crane went to the Chateau Marmont he had to sneak by security, and he ended up in the pool, skinny-dipping with friends and marveling at the star-dusted glamour of the storied hotel on Sunset Boulevard. Drenched and giddy, he looked up to see a blond starlet on a billboard watching over him. "I felt like I was floating on the leftover high of Jim Morrison and and all the orgies in all the bungalows through the years."<br><br> The next time the Colorado musician padded across the patio, he actually had a room key. The year was 2005, and he was celebrating an anniversary with his girlfriend and once more drinking in the history of the place along with his cocktail. Then walked by, movie script in hand, and pulled off his shirt. The actor plopped down on a chaise lounge and began rehearsing his lines. "He was sitting there in blue jeans and loafers -- with no socks, of course -- and he kept mouthing these lines and making that Matt Dillon face, you know, that intense one . . . somewhere between and ."<br><br>All of this was swirling in Crane's mind when he wrote a loopy ode to the decadent, "Le Chateau," which he performs with his bandmates in Nous Non Plus, a faux French band based in New York. The lyrics are arch and a bit smug, like a dandy admiring himself in a lobby mirror.<br><br>The sun is shining on the Chateau<br><br>Last night's party -- too much blow<br><br>Rockstars, models, some guy named Terry<br><br>Garcon, s'il vous plait, un autre Bloody Mary<br><br>In Room 68, je fais le soixante-neuf<br><br>With a starlet who was pleasant, though somewhat aloof<br><br>The group got its start as a cabaret venture, but now its sound is electronica-kissed and deeply beholden to 1960s French pop. Think ye-ye camp, champagne bubbles with a whiff of psychedelia. It's all like some sort of beret-filtered version of the B-52s, or a low-fi Flaming Lips performing a tribute to Pepe Le Pew. ("Well, I can see the B-52s thing," sniffed Crane, "but I don't like to pull that Pepe Le Pew reference.")<br><br>On stage, Crane goes by the indelicate stage name of Jean-Luc Retard. (There's another singer in the group, billed as Celine Dijon -- the really funny thing is that she's actually French.) Crane is also making a name for himself in other ways: He has another alias, Bjorn Turoque (it's pronounced "born to rawk"), and gained fame in the sly mockumentary "Air Guitar Nation." His next goal? Playing a poolside show at the Chateau Marmont.<br><br>"It's just so classic. It's like an oasis. It's feels so strangely pure. It doesn't seem polluted when you're there. And I don't want to be polluted. I want to be pure."?Regardless of which way you voted in the recent presidential election, most of us can agree that we'd rather avoid the following TV-watching scenarios:<br><br> There you are, sitting on the couch with your 6-year-old nephew and 67-year-old dad, when suddenly Joey Tribbiani's sister asks the "Friends" exile to feel her breasts. Or, flipping over to in search of a mind-less list show, you come across a nearly naked Brigitte Nielson on "Surreal Life," and soon the romping Swede is locked in an ickily suggestive embrace with one of her housemates. Or, after a passing glimpse at "The O.C.," your nephew adds a new and colorful word to his vocabulary, one that you're going to have a hard time explaining to his mom.<br><br> Or how about this: You check out "Third Watch," where detectives discover the naked body of a dead girl among the trash in a Dumpster, or you sample any of the "C.S.I.s," where severed body parts and kinky crimes (clown fetishes?) are more common than hors d'oeuvres at a holiday party.<br><br> It's not really a stretch to say that we're living in a TV environment that inundates viewers with sexual situations and innuendoes, casual profanity and an astonishing range of violence. Even the relatively gore-free and admirably watchable "NCIS" has featured loving close-ups of severed limbs, and it's nearly impossible to find a network sitcom that doesn't make an offhand reference or 20 to sex (in most cases because the writers have nothing truly funny to say).<br><br> And while I'll staunchly make the case that programs featuring blood, sex and swear words can make for worthy TV entertainment, the fact is, that's not the sort of thing I want to sit down and watch with any middle schooler I know.<br><br> There are a few more-or-less guaranteed family-friendly shows on network TV. In the scripted realm, there's "Joan of Arcadia" and "7th Heaven" and in the unscripted genre, "American Idol" and are guaranteed crowd-pleasers.<br><br> But if you're in search of more family-friendly programs -- shows the whole family can watch without risk of a risque hot tub scene, naughty words or grisly violence -- we have a few suggestions.<br><br>View-for-all<br><br> We channel-surfed to come up with our list of best family shows<br><br> Whether or not you're concerned about "moral values" or what those are up to, or whether you've ever been tempted to call the FCC to register a complaint about what's transpiring on your TV screen, chances are, at some point in your TV-watching life, you've wished you had at your disposal a list of programs that won't make you blush in front of your dad.<br><br> This is our list, one we compiled after ranging far and wide through the TV schedule for overlooked gems. The Family Friendly Programming Forum compiles its own list for its Family Television Awards presentation. This year's 6th annual awards took place last week, honoring "Joan of Arcadia" for best drama and for best .<br><br> But we'd love to hear what your favorite family-friendly fare is: E-mail your suggestions to moryan@tribune.com, and we'll post the best responses at chicagotribune.com/tribtv.<br><br> One final note: This is not a list of good TV for kids (and please don't e-mail suggestions along those lines). There are a ton of great shows out there right now for young kids, tweens and even older kids. What we've listed here are shows that are entertaining and perhaps even thought-provoking for all manner of kids, teens and adults.<br><br> Note: The times and days listed below denote when new episodes usually air, but many shows, especially cable programs, repeat several times a week. Consult your TV listings for additional airings of these programs.<br><br>BEST SCRIPTED DRAMA<br><br> (7 p.m. Sundays, NBC): Before you fire off that e-mail, we already know that this NBC show has an unwed mother in its cast. But the thoughtful "Dreams' " greatest strength is its ability to take seriously the moral decisions faced by members of the Walker and Pryor families, who are struggling to maintain their composure and even find some prosperity as the turbulent '60s unfold. It's refreshing in this age of knee-jerk cynicism that on "Dreams," questions of faith aren't played for laughs or stripped of their complexity (in a recent episode, Patty Pryor asked a nun at her school how Pryor could become a saint, and, perhaps by doing so, help bring her missing-in-action brother home from Vietnam. Even the nun was a bit flummoxed by that one). And the music education that younger folk will get from seeing current-day music idols re-create vintage performances by the likes of Fontella Bass, and is a big bonus.<br><br>BEST REALITY SHOW<br><br> "Cold " (9 p.m. Tuesdays, PAX): This reality show features many of the familiar staples of the genre: a group of residents living together in a funky mansion, personality clashes and parties by the pool (though, thankfully, there's no hot tub). But the participants gathered together on PAX's first high-profile reality series are all trying to kick smoking, not win money or find a mate. Their struggle to lose that habit is compelling, as well as a modest hit with viewers (a new season of "Turkey," which finishes its first run on Tuesday, has been ordered for next year). Sure, you can ask family members to steer clear of smoking, but it might be more effective to have them tune in to the gripping episode where the "Turkey" group meets a woman with advanced lung cancer.<br><br>BEST HISTORICAL REALITY SHOWS<br><br>?Another in America. And as important as the awards are, all eyes will be on the red carpet as celebrities arrive, en-masse, greeted by throngs of adoring fans and the flashes of thousands of paparazzi cameras.<p>So you want to look your best right? Wrong! Tonight we'll take a look at what many fashion critics have called the ten worst dresses in Oscar red carpet history.</p><p>Coming in at number ten: beautiful actress , who arrived at the 2001 Oscars in an outfit that made us wonder if she was a missing Mandrell sister.</p> <p>Number nine: country singer . In 2002, Faith looked like she rolled herself in one of those cotton candy machines before she rolled down the red carpet.</p><p>Number eight: , wildly considered one of the most beautiful women in the world. So why would she show up to the 2000 Oscars dressed like Morticia Addams? I wonder if she got dropped off in a hearse instead of a limo!</p><p>Number seven: . OK, I've gotten dressed in the dark before, but I never managed to put my clothes on backwards. Check out Celine's reverse white zoot suit from the red carpet in 1999.</p><p>Number six: Laura Flynn Boyle. Why would she show up to the Oscars in 2003 wearing my little sister's dancing review tu-tu? What a mess!</p><p>Numbers five through three: the queen of the Oscar's worst dress category, . Here we are in 2000, where the Oscar winner looks more like the host of a bedazzler commercial than a serious actress.</p><p>How about this little see-through number from 1988, the year she won best actress for "Moonstruck." Kinda fitting, as you can see the moon through that dress.</p><p>And here we are in 1985. Take a look at this wearable train wreck. Aw, forget it. There are no words.</p><p>Amazingly though, Cher doesn't even make it into the top two worst dresses.</p><p>Number two goes to , who wore the same thing to the 2004 Oscars that wore to marry .</p><p>And number one could only be own , who in 2001 looked like she ran over a swan and then wore it's body as a dress. Certainly one of the most bizarre outfits to ever grace the red carpet.</p><p>So, here's to the 2011 oscars, and the hopes that there are no fashion disasters. But we all know that won't happen.</p>?Every pocket of affluence in this country seems to have one stellar independent designer boutique, and in Newport Beach it's A'Maree's.<br><br>Over the last 35 years, the family-owned business has grown into an international fashion force, showcasing cutting-edge labels such as Celine, Balenciaga, Azzedine Alaia, Dries Van Noten and the Row.<br><br> And now that it has moved to a new location at Newport Harbor, a waterfront space inviting comparisons to 's Palazzo in Venice, Italy, A'Maree's is also one of the most beautiful boutiques in the retail universe. Boasting soaring arched windows and glass portholes in the floor to allow views of the fish swimming below, it even has its own boat slip for those who want to dock and shop.<br><br>As the yachts float gently by, sunlight pours over cases of sparkling jewelry by Irene Neuwirth, Aurora Lopez and Lanvin. Racks are filled with lace-trimmed Sacai sweaters, asymmetrical Junya Watanabe military jackets and wispy Dosa dresses.<br><br>The Modernist building was designed in 1961 by Pasadena architects Thornton Ladd and John Kelsey, who would go on to design the Norton Simon Museum. Formerly occupied by the Windows on the Bay, Stuft Shirt and Cano's restaurants, the space had been vacant for 13 years before the store's owners leased it nearly a year ago.<br><br>The business has been a labor of love for family matriarch Nancy Brown since 1971, when she bought into the clothing boutique after a divorce. Back then, A'Maree's was on Eastbluff Drive and was a destination for conservative togs from the likes of JG Hook.<br><br>But almost immediately, Brown's three daughters — Dawn Klohs, Denise Schaefer and Apryl Schaefer — began to change all that. "If we didn't like something in the store, we'd hide it," says Denise, who was a teenager at the time.<br><br>Nancy took her daughters out of school to go on buying trips. "I learned so much from them," she says. "Even as little kids they wouldn't clean their rooms, they would arrange them. They were already merchandising."<br><br>Self-described "low maintenance girls who don't wear makeup," they have a point of view that is less about fashion than it is about being comfortable and casual. "It's the lifestyle here in Newport," Denise says.<br><br>Over the years, they introduced Newport to new designers such as Marni, Byblos and Moschino. At night, Nancy would bake chocolate chip cookies for customers to enjoy. She also did all the alterations.<br><br>In 1991, A'Maree's moved to a larger space on Westcliff Drive, where they stocked cashmere from Lucien Pellat-Finet and jeans by Current Elliott.<br><br>"For us, finding new talent is the most exciting thing," Dawn says. "We don't want to compete with designers who have opened at South Coast." (Bouchra Jarrar is a new favorite.) "And I can't tell you the number of things I've sold off my back. We've learned to keep tags on the things we wear in the store."<br><br>Even though Nancy retired a decade ago, she still dresses out of the store. "Except for these shoes," says Denise, covering up her mom's scuffed flip-flops with her own Golden Goose sneaker. "I just came off the golf course!" her mother protests.<br><br>Shoppers at A'Maree's are far from the "Real Housewives of Orange County" stereotype. They are buttoned-up women in wool slacks and cashmere sweaters, carrying Birkin bags and buying Lanvin ballet flats.<br><br>The sisters wouldn't share how much the store renovation cost, and they acknowledge that the last two years have been challenging for the retail enterprise, given the slumping economy. (A'Maree's recently opened a sale shop on Balboa Island.)<br><br>Still, they are hopeful about the future. "We have an edge on big department stores because we know our clientele," Dawn says. "People who shop here buy everything here, from their fine jewelry to their Wolfords to their cheese platters they are giving as gifts. We want to have the best of the best."<br><br>A'Maree's, 2241 W. Coast Highway, Newport Beach. (949) 642-4423. http://www.amarees.com<br><br>?In the first since his death last June, was saluted in an elaborate tribute that mixed 3-D technology, a rousing all-star chorus and a poignant appearance by two of his children.<br><br>After an introduction from , television viewers and the audience were instructed to put on 3-D glasses and view footage for a film originally produced for . The film showed a little girl in an ecological paradise that is destroyed by bulldozers.<br><br> As images of the girl playing in lush forests unfolded, Jackson's voice was heard speaking about his awe for nature. After the opening lines of "Earth Song," , , , and appeared one by one to accompany Jackson's voice.<br><br>Some in the star-studded crowd applauded politely, while others cheered with urgent enthusiasm. Beyoncé could barely stay in her seat, and filmmaker vibrantly bobbed his head. Beyoncé's husband, , did not wear the 3-D glasses.<br><br>However, everyone seemed captivated by two of Jackson's children, and Paris, when they appeared on stage to accept their late father's lifetime achievement award. It was one of the first public glimpses of Jackson's children since their emotional appearance at his televised memorial service last year.<br><br>Prince Michael said his father's songs had a simple message -- love -- "and we will continue to spread that message." Paris said her father had planned to perform at this year's Grammys. Both children ended their short speeches with "I love you, Daddy."<br><br><br><br>Times staff writer Geoff Boucher contributed to this report.?Although I never thought I would say these words in this lifetime, what I really missed was .<br><br>While watching "," ABC's ill-paced, sanctimonious and overly stuffed four-part miniseries airing this weekend, it is impossible not to compare it with the film of the same name. Completely unfair to screenwriter (creator of ) or anyone else associated with ABC's "Titanic," but as the more than 1,500 folks who lost their lives on that fateful night 100 years ago could tell you, life is often completely unfair.<br><br> But where I expected to miss the sweeping cinematic imagery of the ship itself or the absurd but still affecting love story at its center, what I really missed was that crazy theme song. Not because it has insidiously woven itself around the historic incident but because it symbolized a clarity of storytelling utterly lacking here.<br><br>Not that I envy Fellowes his task, which was to figure out a way to tell the story of the famous liner that sank in a matter of hours four days into its maiden voyage without putting a tragic love story at its center. A problem he solved by … putting a dozen tragic love stories at its center.<br><br>Promoted as telling what really happened the night of April 15, 1912, aims to illustrate the disparate nature of those doomed 1,500 — rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief (or in this case, police-murdering Russian anarchist) — while also touching on the various causes of the tragedy including an out-dated maritime law that allowed too few lifeboats and a British class system that valued, quite literally, the lives of those in first class over those in second; the vast majority consigned to steerage were, essentially, exterminated. Also addressed are the issues of Irish home rule, America as the promised land, the various "celebrities" on board and women's suffrage.<br><br>In other words, steamer trunks, duffel bags and jewel cases are not the only baggage weighing down this RMS Titanic.<br><br>Each hourlong episode follows a similar timeline, from ship's boarding to assignation with iceberg, intended to allow events to be seen from the perspective of the various characters, some historical and some fictional. Unfortunately, this diminishes whatever natural tension the actual tale still has and makes it even more difficult to keep track of who loves whom and why.<br><br>Front and center are Hugh, Earl of Manton (), his glacially snotty wife, Louisa (), and their daughter, Georgianna (Perdita Weeks), who is being taken to New York in hopes she will abandon her feminist leanings. They are tended to by their servants, Barnes (Lee Ross) and Watson (Lyndsey Marshal), who have one of those uneasy alliances that so often turns to love. The Earl's solicitor, John Batley (), is also on board, albeit in second class, to the chagrin of his proud, unhappy wife, Muriel (Maria Doyle Kennedy), who bristles under Louisa's autocratic gaze.<br><br>There are dozens of other characters as well, including an Irish Catholic engineer fleeing the oppression of Belfast with his family, the obligatory pert parlor maid type falling for the obligatory Italian porter and, of course, famous folks like Molly Brown. Still, for the record, unsinkable.<br><br>So many characters, in fact, representing so many issues — the Russian anarchist's story line is particularly ridiculous — all colliding on the tilting decks and struggling to say the words they never said and get their womenfolk into the boats that it's difficult to care too much about one death or the other (although the children who did not get into boats remain heartbreaking).<br><br>Which just adds one more layer of tragedy to that horrible night — the cast is universally fine, but there's honestly nothing much it can do to avoid being swamped with Fellowes' arrogant attempt to capture the social dimensions of turn-of-the-century Britain, oh, and the sinking of this big boat too. Anniversary or not, if you can't think of something interesting to say about the Titanic, you'd be better off not saying anything at all.<br><br>?Partying until daybreak, flying the red eye, cramming all night for an exam — these are just a few reasons for skimping on beauty sleep. And rarely in these circumstances is there the luxury of taking the next day off to nurse oneself back to happy, radiant wellness. No, life often requires suiting up for work, school or something as nerve-racking as the first meeting with the significant other's family.<br> <br> But there are ways to minimize the pain. Or at the very least, to fake it by looking fabulous through the magic of makeup or by having a restorative treatment.<br> <br> Minimize damage<br> <br> If your all-nighter involves alcoholic beverages, try drinking water alongside your cocktails. Order clear liquor, such as vodka or gin, rather than red wine, whisky, bourbon or anything too sugary. And eat before you drink. These steps can all reduce your chance of a hangover, sleep experts say. If the damage is already done, drink water or electrolyte drinks the morning after and eat eggs (they break down acetaldehyde, the toxin released by the liver during a hangover).<br> <br> Dr. Daniel Norman, a Harvard-trained sleep expert who is on staff at the California Health and Longevity Institute in Westwood, says if you're on a red-eye or have jet lag, don't drink alcohol, which will interrupt sleep. He recommends using a sleep eye mask, trying jet-lag bright and adjusting to local time by staying active if it's daytime in your arrival time zone. Drink water and be generous with moisturizer.<br> <br> Restore and energize<br> <br> The Hangover Helper, $75; Hangover Makeover, $85, and After Party Detoxifying Facial, $120 at Nite Spa<br> <br> 1301 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice<br> <br> nitespa.com, (310) 396-5122<br> <br> This cozy, eclectic bungalow of a beauty spot is pure hippie-chic Venice on a strip known for its night life. It's open until midnight, so you don't have to wait until morning to start the recovery process. The Hangover Helper features massage and reflexology, pressure point detox for feet and scalp, a neck and shoulder rub replete with relaxing lavender essential oil and other soothing, detoxifying and antioxidant-packed ingredients. The Hangover Makeover repairs morning-after problem areas via a facial or makeup application. The After Party for jet lag and late-night revelers releases toxins and rejuvenates.<br> <br> Sonya Hangover Facial, $250<br> <br> 9975 Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills<br> <br> sonyadakarskinclinic.com (310) 553-7344<br> <br> This skin-care rehab works to erase signs of a distressed (and alcohol-saturated) complexion by brightening, detoxing and depuffing skin to restore glow and evenness. "If you're throwing up the morning after, your skin is going through the same trauma too," Dakar says.<br> <br> Jet Lag Recovery: Long Haul at the Peninsula Beverly Hills, $325<br> <br> 9882 S. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills<br> <br> peninsula.com/beverlyhills (310) 975-2854<br> <br> A facial and eye treatment using holistic products followed by a face, neck and shoulder massage is designed to reverse the ravages of "travel trauma," improve circulation and lymphatic flow, soothe a stressed nervous system and reenergize.<br> <br> The Punta Mita Tequila Massage at the Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills, $170<br> <br>?"NEVER BEGIN anything with a quote!" is the advice given by that fascinating observer, .<br><br>But we began the Liz column ages ago with an opening quote and consider it bad luck to start changing everything around now.<br><br> So I was heartened to see a big celebrity saying something astute in Time magazine. Here's -winning on what she feels whenever she hears the omnipresent music of "My Heart Will Go On" from the 1997 movie "Titanic."<br><br>Kate: "I wish I could say, 'Oh, listen, everybody! It's the song!' But I don't. I just have to sit there, you know, kind of straight-faced with a massive internal eye roll. I do ."<br><br>"" finally passed the $2 billion dollar mark in lifetime ticket sales over the weekend -- the recent 3-D re-release edged it up. Thus, James Cameron is the only director to have two movies under his belt that have reached that milestone -- "Avatar" was the other one.<br><br>Mr. Cameron does not feel like throwing up.<br><br>FIRST OFF, I extend my sincere congratulations to and Brad Pitt on their upcoming wedding. They are nice people and good stars. That is, they are as glamorous as we're going to get these days, so we might as well accept it and enjoy it. And they do good deeds in a naughty world.<br><br>But (sorry, but there's always a "but"!) the announcement of this engagement is truly a surprise. Can everything we're hearing be true -- the French chateau, the lavish preparations, the big ring, etc? Really? A wedding like that seems to fly in the face of the manner in which this couple has lived their life together for seven years. The explanation is that they are "doing it for the children" who have begun to ask questions as to why the pair are not married, because "people get married in the movies." It was never my impression Brad and Angie's kids were watching a lot of movies where people get married, or watching a lot of movies, period.<br><br>And if the children's angle is true, why go through all this fuss? How about a quick marriage with close friends, family and concerned kiddies attending? How about a secret wedlock just sprung on us? No need for months of hysteria.<br><br>And yes, it can be done. Nobody should ever forget the great example set by Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. The media wasn't quite as pervasive as it is today, but it was plenty intrusive. Yet, John and Carolyn were literally on their honeymoon by the time the first photos of their intimate wedding were being released to a stunned media.<br><br>I don't question Angelina and Brad's affection or sincerity, but I wonder about this uncharacteristically "movie star" moment. They generally save that sort of thing for public appearances at award shows -- Miss Jolie's leg pose at the Oscars is still a subject of hot debate.<br><br>And to be honest, I feel for in all this. Oh, not because she harbors any lingering feelings for her ex. But this means an eternity of "poor tragic Jen" on the covers of the weekly glossies. She is hardly that, and such a perception of her makes her crazy.<br><br>I will only assume that if the Jolie-Pitt wedding culminates in the already expected extravaganza, proceeds from the sale of photos, etc., will go to charity. That will be a positive thing.<br><br>IT DID my heart good to see the amount of space given to the rumor of 's possible departure from "" after the third season airs. (It is filming now.) This news topped a number of online gossip and movie sites. It is a credit to the wild popularity of the show, but also to Miss Smith's legendary status as one of the most vivid, talented and long-lasting actresses of her time. Of any time! (Youngsters know her as Minerva McGonagall in the "" movies.)<br><br>Miss Smith -- who won the Oscar in 1970 for "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie -- apparently thinks three seasons on TV is enough, even if it is . The rumors suggest she wants to get back on the big screen and stage.<br><br>Miss Smith's Dowager Countess will be missed, if the tale of her leaving is true.<br><br>It doesn't get any better than this exchange between the countess and an unwelcome guest to Downton Abbey:<br><br>"I don't think you'll be seeing me again," the guest says.<br><br>"Do you promise?" says the countess, wringing all that is scathing and dismissive out of three little words.<br><br>I'VE warned my theater readers several times already that the memoir of the late Shubert titan, Gerald Schoenfeld, is about to come out from Applause Books. Many a star, director, producer, etc. will be trembling in their boots.<br><br>Almost every time I go to Swifty's nifty restaurant up on Lexington Avenue near 72nd Street, I run into Gerry's widow, the ubiquitous Patricia Schoenfeld, and she reminds me. I see this lady, too, at every opening night. She is the living memorial to Gerry.<br><br>These days, my long-lost relative, Mr. Phil Smith, is running the Shubert Organization and things are much calmer, if not quite as exciting, for those of us who try to follow "theatah."<br><br>So, if you want to get invited to the book party Pat is giving for her dear, departed husband, you have to e-mail rory/(at)shubertorg.com and explain why you are worthy to come celebrate the advent of "Mr. Broadway."<br><br>I loved Gerry Schoenfeld, a man who dominated the theater world for many years, and I also had many contentious run-ins with him. But I admired and got a great kick out of him. He had a wonderful sense of humor. His memoir should be a blast and I'll tell you all about it once I read his book and if I can get into his party on April 30 at 6 p.m.<br><br>(E-mail at , or write to her c/o Tribune Media Services, 2010 Westridge Drive, Irving, TX 75038.)<br><br>?CANNES<br><br>Spaniard Antonio Mendez Esparza's emigration "Aqui y alla" won the 51st Critics' Week top nod, the Nespresso Grand Prize.<br><br> "Aqui," Esparza's feature debut, turns on a man who returns to his mountain village in Mexico after having lived in the U.S. for years and struggles to reclaim his place in society.<br><br>Pic is produced by Aqui y Alli in Spain and Torch Films in the U.S. New French sales agent Alpha Violet is handling international sales.<br><br>Pic was chosen by a jury of film critics, including Variety's Robert Koehler, and headed by helmer Bertrand Bonello.<br><br>The new Visionary Prize, backed by pubcaster France 4, went to Bulgarian Ilian Metev's "Sofia's Last Ambulance," a darkly-comedic documentary following three overworked paramedics in Sofia, a city of more than 2 million people where there are only a dozen ambulances.<br><br>Repped by Berlin-based Films Boutique, doc sheds light on Burgaria's crumbling medical system.<br><br>It is produced by Sia, in association with Chaconna Films, Sutor Kolonko and Nukleus Film.<br><br>The Visionary jury was headed by French director Celine Sciamma and was made up of young film critics.<br><br>Israeli Meni Yaesh's theological thriller. "God's Neighbors." won the nod of Gaul's Society of Authors, Directors and Composers, decided by a jury of filmmakers that included Bertrand Tavernier.<br><br>"Neighbors" is sold by Gaul's Rezo, which will also distribute in France.<br><br>The ACID/CCAS support for distribution was awarded to "The Wild Ones," the directorial debut of Argentinean screenwriter Alejandro Fadel, who co-wrote Pablo Trapero's "White Elephant." "Wild" is sold by Memento Films Intl.'s arthouse label, Artscope.<br><br>A key platform for emerging talents, this year's Critics' Week was the first under new artistic director Charles Tesson.<br><br>Only selecting first and second films, Critics' Week has discovered numerous helmers, notably Olivier Assayas and Jeff Nichols, whose "Take Shelter" won last year's Critics' Week Grand Prize. Nichols presents "Mud" in Cannes competition on Saturday.<br><br>Click for more film news on Variety.com.<br><br>?NEW YORK-- wasn’t so sure there needed to be a second film in his “Before” series starring and . But he feels pretty good about a third entry, “Before Midnight,” which fans will be happy to know he’s finished shooting and will now set about editing.<p>The director, who has just returned from the film’s below-the-radar Greece shoot, said that the ending of the previous installment made this one a natural.</p><p>"With 'Before Sunset' I felt like me, Ethan and Julie were the only ones who really wanted it,” the director told The Times at an award-season event here this week for his recent black comedy “But given how 'Before Sunset' ended, a lot of people would come up to me and ask about what happens next."</p> <p>The original “Before Sunrise” was an art-house hit in 1995, a key text in the slacker subgenre that has Hawke’s Jesse and Delpy’s Celine meeting on a train, then walking and talking around Vienna over the course of a 24-hour period.</p><p>Nine years later Linklater followed with "Before Sunset," in which the pair reunite for the first time in Paris as early thirtysomethings. Jesse, a novelist, is now married with a child, while Celine is an environmentalist in a troubled long-term relationship. The film ending leaves open what happens next.</p><p>Linklater said the new film will imagine their latest reunion, this time in Greece, where they’re now at a different stage of life: in their early 40s. (Linklater, who made the first movie while in his early 30s, has moved steadily with the characters, though about a decade ahead; he's currently 52.)</p>The director made the movie independently with a modest budget—it does not yet have distribution--and aims to take it to a festival in early 2013, he said. (The previous two movies debuted at the .)<p>If “Before Midnight” winds up coming out in 2013, it will form a kind of neat symmetry in which each sequel follows nine years after the previous movie.</p><p>Asked if he’s trying a kind of scripted version of ’s “7-Up" series, Linklater laughed, “I’m not sure it was that intentional. But it kind of works out.”</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow me on Twitter at </p><p></p>?LOS ANGELES -- It's a tribute to the Grammys' success at becoming more amusical spectacle than an awards show that on the night she madehistory, was just another face in the crowd.<br><br>Pop's reigning diva earned six Grammys on Sunday, more than anywoman on a single night of the 52-year-old awards show. Her anthem"Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)" was song of the year. But shedidn't come onstage to accept that - her collaborators said she wasprepping for a performance - and four of her other awards cameduring the non-televised pre-show.<br><br> The Grammys' four biggest awards were split four ways:20-year-old country chanteuse won album of the year;family rockers won record of the year for "UseSomebody"; and the was named best new artist.<br><br>The Grammys in recent years have tried to emphasize the musicmore than the awards, particularly by pairing younger performerswith veterans. This year, producers nailed it, with a doublealbum's worth of memorable performances.<br><br>Among the best were the , who sang "I GottaFeeling" with a stage filled with what looked like dancingtomatoes and robots. was predictably over the top,singing "Poker Face" and getting tossed into a bucket of firebefore emerging singed and combining forces with an equally dirtiedand bemused .<br><br> turned its "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" into asoaring beauty by joining the cast of a new musical based on its"American Idiot" album. Opera singer held his ownwith a powerful, and heart-breaking rendition of "Bridge OverTroubled Water," done for the benefit of Haitian victims.<br><br>An acrobatic turned her "Glitter in the Air" into aCirque de Soleil-like performance, hanging suspended over theaudience as she sang. "That was amazing," an impressed said after she was done.<br><br>Memorable pairings included the white-haired, white-bearded andwhite-hatted Leon Russell joining the Zac Brown Band; andRobert Flack singing a silky-smooth "Where is the Love"; and, looking like a protective mom, joining Swift on her and 's "Rhiannon."<br><br>An arresting performance of "Forever" and "Drop the World"with rappers Drake and was rendered virtuallyincomprehensible by craters of silence inserted by CBS censors. Andthe 3-D tribute to proved overrated, with , , , and looking like they'd joined a production number from "AmericanIdol."<br><br>Swift, who won four Grammys, was the night's most visiblewinner. She beamed during her duet with Nicks, and seemed thrilledin her two acceptance speeches - while staying poised enough tothank her record company for letting her write her own songs, andexpress pride at bringing the album of the year prize to Nashville.<br><br>"This is for my dad," she said. "Thank you for all the timesyou said I could do whatever I wanted to do."<br><br>Beyonce was low-key during her one time onstage to accept hersixth trophy of he night, for best female pop vocal on the ballad"Halo." She offered thanks to her fans for their support.<br><br>Stagecraft was smooth; Lady Antebellum singer Hillary Scott, hitin the head by a falling curtain, calmly brushed it aside withoutmissing a note.<br><br>Host followed the new model of awards showhosts: coming out in the beginning for a handful of jokes thendisappearing - except to accept a Grammy of his own, for hissurrealistic Christmas musical.<br><br>He bemoaned the absence of from Grammy night.<br><br>"You may be the coolest people in the world," Colbert said, abarely amused looking on, "but this year your industry wassaved by a 48-year-old Scottish cat lady in sensible shoes."<br><br>-----<br><br>?<p>The three guys in greasepaint are up to their usual shenanigans, splattering paint, eating Twinkies and making primal music with PVC pipe. It’s vaudevillian fun in the age of technology. “My favorite part of the show is when we go out in the audience and interact with different people, from the 5-year-old who is really excited to the middle-aged guy who hasn’t rocked out in a while to the older folks who are a little unsure of the Blue Man but end up pleasantly surprised at what a great time they are having,” said longtime Blue Man Scott Kinworthy.</p><p>Nightly, 7 and 10 p.m.; <br>additional performance <br>at 4 p.m. Sept. 2 <br>Dark Aug. 30 and Sept. 3</p><p><br>The Venetian Hotel-Resort-Casino<br>3355 Las Vegas Blvd. South<br>702.414.9001; 800.BLUEMAN<br>$59, $83.50 and $125<br>www.blueman.com<br></p><p>—Anne Burke, Custom Publishing Writer</p>?PARIS French director Bertrand Bonello and Portuguese helmer Joao Pedro Rodrigues will serve as jury presidents at the 51st Cannes' Critics Week.<br><br>Bonello will preside over the Grand Prize Nespresso Jury of four international film journos, who will award one of the seven features playing in competition.<br><br> His "The Pornographer" played in Critics' Week in 2001 and nabbed the Fipresci nod. His most recent film, "House of Tolerance," played in the Official Competition section at Cannes last year.<br><br>Rodrigues will preside over the Discovery Jury, which will honor the best short in Critics' Week.<br><br>One of his best-known films is Un Certain Regard player "To Die Like a Man" in 2009.<br><br>The 2012 edition -- French critic Charles Tesson's first outing as artistic director -- is comprised of mainly non-English-language feature debuts.<br><br>Prizes will be awarded during the sidebar's closing ceremony on May 24.<br><br>In a separate move, Gallic director Celine Sciamma, whose soph pic "Tomboy" was a critical and sales hit at Berlin last year, will preside over a jury of four student or young professional film writers who will award a new Critics' Week kudo, the Prix Revelation France 4.<br><br>Click for more film news on Variety.com.<br><br>?There were Daiquiris aplenty but no butter sculptures at the Double Seven Meat District after-party for Radius-TWC's "Butter" preem. Regarding Hollywood's first-ever up-close look at a previously low-key enterprise, "Butter" star set the record straight Thursday night at AMC Lincoln Square theater in Gotham. "Butter sculpting is a huge deal," said the thesp. "When we say that more people saw butter sculpting at the Iowa State Fair than saw 's farewell concert tour in Vegas and the combined, we mean that! It is that popular." The satiric, politically oriented comedy originated on screenwriter Jason Micallef's post-college road trip where, in the midst of a Des Moines heatwave, he found himself at Butter Hall. Butter sculpting is "pretty funny," the scribe said. "But up close they're great! These are talented people. You wonder why they don't pick up a chunk of marble instead of marble, but why not?"<br><br>Click for more film news on Variety.com.<br><br>?PARIS -- French paybox has ordered the first season of Haut et Court-produced series "Les Revenants," a E11.4 million ($15 million) skein with strong international potential.<br><br>Scribe-helmer Fabrice Gobert, whose feature debut "Lights Out" preemed in Cannes' Un Certain Regard, loosely adapted the series from Robin Campillo's 2004 movie "Les Revenant" (They Came Back). The skein, which had been in development for over four years, comprises eight one-hour episodes.<br><br> Co-helmed by Gobert and Frederic Mermout, the French-language "Les Revenants" turns on a group of people of different ages and backgrounds who died years ago and mysteriously return home, determined to resume their lives, without realizing they've been gone for a while.<br><br>Gobert collaborated with several high-profile scribes, including Celine Sciamma ("Tomboy"), Emmanuel Carrere ("La Moustache"), Nicolas Peufaillit ("A Prophet") and Camille Fontaine ("Coco Before Chanel").<br><br>Cast boasts several up-and-coming thesps, notably Clotilde Hesme and Gregory Gadebois, who both nabbed Cesar nods for their breakthrough perf in "Angele and Tony," as well as Cesar-nommed Guillaume Gouix ("Jimmy Riviere"), Celine Sallette ("House of Tolerance") and Frederic Pierrot ("Polisse").<br><br>" 'Les Revenants' marks one of rare homegrown fantasy TV productions," said Jimmy Desmarais, who is producing the skein with Benjo.<br><br>"It's not a show about zombies: Fabrice Gobert depicts the complexity of each character with genre atmosphere and a realistic approach; and as the series advances the plot turns supernatural."<br><br>Founded by Caroline Benjo and Carole Scotta, Haut et Court is a leading independent shingle, which has produced such critically acclaimed arthouse pics as Palme d'Or winning "The Class" and starrer "Coco Before Chanel."<br><br>Canal Plus' fiction department, headed by Fabrice de la Patelliere, has been powering up with original French shows -- for instance "Braquo," "Spiral," Pigalle La Nuit" and "Hard" -- which have scored hit ratings on the paybox, sold to major international territories and helped increase the net's subscription basis.<br><br>Click for more articles on Variety.com.<br><br>?After performing at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino's The Joint for a few years, has moved his residency onto the Strip to his new home, Mandalay Bay's more intimate House of Blues.<br><br>In some ways, Santana is a strange fit for Las Vegas. While the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer is one of music's most innovative, enduring and talented performers, he doesn't have the wealth of top 40 hits that fellow Vegas residents like , or draw upon to lure in the tourists and conventioneers. Instead, his show, billed "Greatest Hits Live: Santana-Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow," is more about unyielding musicality. Songs meld seamlessly into each other, unified by an unparalleled level of musicianship and his glorious guitar playing.<br><br> Santana, who moved from the Bay Area to Las Vegas during the Hard Rock residency, often talks about his concerts as spiritual experiences, and watching him play with eyes closed, head tilted back just far enough so that his hat doesn't fall off, it was easy to believe that the music flowing through him was channeled from some higher place. No matter how many of the dozen musicians on stage were playing at any one time, his razor-sharp notes rose above all. There was a purity, grace and crispness to his playing that remains undiminished since he stunned audiences at Woodstock in 1969.<br><br>Though enjoyable, it took a few songs for the show to find its footing on opening night. About 30 minutes in, Santana launched into "Black Magic Woman," which is really the melding of three songs: "Singing Winds, Crying Beasts," "Black Magic Woman" and "Gypsy Queen." By the time Santana howled into the ferocious "Gypsy Queen," it felt as if the room could levitate.<br><br>While singers Tony Lindsay and Tommy Anthony certainly added to songs like "Maria, Maria" and "Smooth," and served as cheerleaders of sorts to rally the enthusiastic crowd, this show was about the players, not the singers. Santana and timbales player Karl Perazzo, congas player Raul Rekow and drummer extraordinaire Dennis Chambers often got locked into such a Latin funk/jazz pocket that it felt as though they were one. As hyperbolic as that sounds, there was something transcendent about seeing, feeling and hearing musicians communicate at this level that, at its pinnacle, was breathtaking.<br><br>Santana spoke little, but when he did it was to spout his now familiar and heartfelt, if esoteric, messages about eternity and positivity. "I want to talk about forward thinking," he said, after performing "A Love Supreme," by his musical hero . "Forward thinking is being present with love. Do it with love or just don't do it at all. When you put love in it, everything is delicious."<br><br>The encore included a sweeping, expansive version of instrumental "Soul Sacrifice," which he played at Woodstock. Although the audience was rapturous in its applause, Santana seemed to feel he could have done better. He somewhat abruptly thanked the crowd, adding "This is our first time here. We intend to make more everything: more finesse, more energy." With a two-year residency ahead of him, he'll have more than enough time to sort out any kinks, even if he's the only one who can see them.<br><br>Click for more music reviews on Variety.com.<br><br>?<p>With his droopy trousers and hairdo styled by a monkey with an eggbeater, hardly looks the part of the successful Vegas headliner. But underneath that unruly mop lurks the mind of a prop-comedy genius. There’s the Amish blow dryer (a flexible hose — blow in one end, point the other at your hair), the redneck Kindle (a piece of glass over an open book), the Kardashian marriage certificate (it comes with a built-in timer) and the Hooter’s job application (a piece of cardboard with two holes that you “just fill out”). It’s ridiculously funny and sometimes just ridiculous, but always a good time.</p><p>Nightly (except Tuesday), 8:30 p.m.<br>Dark June 26 to July 5 and Aug. 7 to 14<br><br>Carrot Top<br>Luxor Las Vegas<br>3900 Las Vegas Blvd., South<br>702.262.4400<br>Starting at $49.95<br>www.luxor.com<br></p><p>—Anne Burke, Custom Publishing Writer</p>?<p>Good news for Celine Dion fans. After a four-year absence, the super diva is returning to Las Vegas.</p><p><br>Dion will be back in familiar territory — the Caesars Palace stage that was the setting for her record-shattering 2003 to 2007 residency. Her new engagement calls for the five-time Grammy Award winner to perform 70 shows a year over three years. The premiere is March 15. The first leg of 54 shows concludes Aug. 14.</p><p><br>Backed by 31 musicians — a full orchestra and band — Dion will sing a mix of Hollywood classics and fan favorites from her own catalog.</p> <p><br>Dion set a high bar for Vegas headliners with her first residency at the 4,300-seat Colosseum, which was custom built for the Canadian-born entertainer. She was originally contracted for three years but stayed for two more years due to the show’s resounding success. “A New Day” went on to sell out 715 times.</p><p>VIP packages include premium seating, gift vouchers to the Celine Dion store at The Colosseum, complimentary drinks, priority entrance and other perks.</p><p>CELINE DION<br>The Colosseum at Caesars Palace<br>3750 Las Vegas Blvd. South<br>$55 to $250<br>VIP packages $385 to $1,375<br>www.ticketmaster.com</p><p>Fifty-four performances: March 15 through Aug. 14, 7:30 p.m.</p>?WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. ( KTLA) -- Singer gave birth to twin boys Saturday at a hospital in , Florida, according to her rep.<br><br>The babies were born at 11:11 a.m. and 11:12 a.m. at St. Mary's Medical Center.<br><br> One baby was 5 pounds, 4 ounces, and the other was 5 pounds, 10 ounces. They're said to be doing well, but will be in an incubator for a few days.<br><br>The 42-year-old singer was hospitalized Monday, four weeks before her due date, as a precautionary measure to prevent the babies from being born too early.<br><br>Doctors had wanted her to carry the twins until at least the first week of November -- when she would have been 37 weeks along.<br><br>After six rounds of in-vitro fertilization, Dion and her husband, Rene Angelil, 68, announced her pregnancy in July.<br><br>They already have a nine-year-old son.?<p>Remember when Cher’s 2002 farewell tour became the can’t-say-goodbye tour that played through 2005? Well, it looks like she's overcome her fear of farewells.</p><p><br>After 200 performances, a gazillion costume changes and enough bare flesh to make a sailor blush, the curtain finally drops Feb. 5 on Cher at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. Cher will hand the keys to the Colosseum kingdom to Celine Dion, who begins a three-year residency March 15.</p><p><br>Fans may want to move quickly on Cher tickets. After a holiday-season hiatus, the Academy Award-winning singer-actress returns to the stage Jan. 11 for just 16 shows. No one knows what Cher and director/choreographer Doriana Sanchez have up their sleeves, but audiences can expect 90 minutes of chart-topping hits, ultra-glitzy Bob Mackie creations and nostalgia-inducing video montages.</p> <p><br>The set list flashes back to the “Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour” era — Cher sings a touching video duet with her late ex-husband on “I Got You Babe” — and marches forward to the 1989 comeback hit “If I Could Turn Back Time.”</p><p><br>The traditional curtain closer is 1998’s smash, “Believe.” Of the hit tune, Cher has said: It’s “just that kind of magic song — like ‘I Got You Babe.’ Usually, you get one of those magic songs once in a career, I was lucky to get it twice.”</p><p>CHER<br>The Colosseum at Caesars Palace<br>3750 Las Vegas Blvd. South<br>866.510.2437 <br>$95, $140, $175 and $250<br>www.ticketmaster.com</p><p>Jan. 11, 12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 22, 23, 25, 26, 29 and 30 and Feb. 1, 2, 4 and 5</p>?<p>Songstress and coach is talking about her weight ... again. In the Sept. 29 cover article for Billboard magazine, Aguilera revealed that while promoting her 2002 album "Stripped," she "got tired of being a skinny, white girl." Aguilera plans to embrace her current curves while promoting her new album , out next month. []</p><p></p><p>Funnyman will host the next . Known for creating the series "Family Guy" and "American Dad" MacFarlane made his film directorial debut this year with No word on who will dress MacFarlane for the big night yet, but we're guessing a bow tie of some sort will make an appearance. [].</p> <p>" star married Adam Schulman on Saturday in Big Sur. The actress chose a dress with a long train and veil. []</p><p>There was an unexpected opening in the Paris Fashion Week calendar Monday after Turkish designer Hakaan Yildirim's entire collection disappeared with no explanation. Invited guests were sent emails Monday informing them that the preview was canceled. [News release]</p><p>French crystal purveyor Baccarat has named James Taffin de its new creative director. Givenchy is a New York-based high-end jewelry designer who owns the jewelry brand Taffin. [] (subscription required).</p><p>ALSO: </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Jenn Harris on or </p>?<p>Reports -- including one we linked to on Monday -- that told Billboard that she was "tired of being a skinny white girl" seem to have been unfounded. A purported sneak peek on the Us Weekly website of an interview the singer did with Billboard contained the alleged quote, which Aguilera's reps and Billboard both say is fake. </p><p>Hedi Slimane debuted his first collection for Yves Saint Laurent on Monday night and it was one of the defining moments of , Los Angeles Times Fashion Critic Booth Moore writes. The collection melded the spirit of the late Laurent with a Los Angeles ladies-of-the-canyon vibe. </p><p></p> <p>Follow Moore's continuing coverage of on our blog.</p><p>Fashion A-listers packed the Saint Laurent show. Pierre Bergé, the late Saint Laurent's partner and keeper of the legend, sat on the same row as French first lady Valerie Trierweiler; Vogue's and Grace Coddington; actress Jessica Chastain; and designer . Also attending were and her wealthy businessman husband, ; model and indie rocker husband Jamie Hince; couturier Azzedine Alaia and his frequent collaborator, gallerist and publisher Carla Sozzani. </p><p>Not at the show: New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn, who wasn't invited -- apparently due to a beef Slimane has with her over a review she wrote in 2004 giving designer credit for slim tailoring and more or less saying that without a Raf Simons there wouldn't be a Hedi Slimane. <br></p><p>Meanwhile another dazzling array of guests attended the Paris fundraiser for 's re-election campaign put on by the Anna Wintour-supported Obama Victory Fund on Monday evening. Luminaries included , , , and . </p><p>The first installment of 's new film/ad/interactive catalog, "Falling for You," goes live on target.com Tuesday. The film -- starring , and Zachary Burr Abell -- has a plot involving two Target employees pitching marketing ideas to their boss and a set and props that are made up of items Target sells. And a viewer smitten by one of those items can purchase, right from the film, at the click of a mouse. <br></p><p>Lisa D'Amato, winner of "America's Next Top Model" all-star cycle 17, reportedly married Adam Friedman in Los Angeles on Sunday. The bride wore a white A-line gown by San Patrick. </p><p> bassist Jared Followill wed model Martha Patterson on Saturday in Charlotte, Tenn. He wore , and she wore a strapless Monique Lhuillier gown, with a corset-style bodice and feathery skirt. <br></p><p> of "Girls" is somehow becoming a fashionista, appearing on the cover of ASOS magazine, among other things, even though, she says, "I could put on the classiest thing in the world and...and I kind of look like someone who’s new to being a drag queen." </p><p>'s Karl Lagerfeld announced plans to open a Paris boutique in February that will contain all things Karl, blending his various fashion lines with an assortment of objects including photographs, design books and sunglasses he has curated. </p><p>ALSO: </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><br></p>?<p> As farewell speeches go, it wasn't the best of all time. But it was memorable.</p><p>Because after second-half goals from and lifted the U.S. women's soccer team to a 2-1 exhibition victory over Australia on Sunday, Coach grabbed a guitar and serenaded the crowd in Carson with a bluesy stanza of 's "Jailhouse Rock."</p><p>It was a fitting ending for Sundhage, who opened her first meeting as coach five years ago by singing 's "The Times They Are a-Changin'."</p> <p>In between, she managed to squeeze in 90 wins, two Olympic titles and a runner-up finish. Now, however, she has run out of challenges in the U.S., and with the next World Cup three years away and the next Olympics a year beyond that, there's no reason to stay.</p><p>So after Wednesday's exhibition rematch with Australia in Colorado, Sundhage is returning home to Sweden to coach the national team there. Cue 's "It's Hard to Say Goodbye."</p><p>"It's a special feeling being around winners. It's a special feeling being around this team," said Sundhage, 52, who led Sweden to two World Cups and the 1996 Olympics as a player. "It's hard to explain how much that meant to me and my coaching. I am a much better coach today than I was five years ago."</p><p>Sundhage was hired two months after the U.S. failed to the make the final of a 2007 World Cup made notable when goalkeeper was kicked off the team following her verbal attack of Coach Greg Ryan. Two months later Solo was back in goal for Sundhage's debut — and the U.S. has lost only three of the 73 games Solo has started since then.</p><p>"She's done so well for us," forward said. "Getting us all together. It's not easy. We've got personalities on this team that are hard to deal with."</p><p>That now will be someone else's headache.</p><p>"When the opportunity showed up and I got a chance to coach Sweden, that was very …challenging, because this [U.S.] team is the best team in the world right now," she said. "There are things I probably can take from the American way of playing soccer, the American attitude. And hopefully it's contagious so I can bring that home to Sweden."</p><p>And it's that attitude Sundhage says she'll miss most. Well, that and Wambach.</p><p>"The atmosphere, being around proud Americans," he says. "It seems like people are very proud of this team and being a winning team. That is something that is just hard to go away from. And of course I will look back and I will say, 'You know what? I stood close to Abby Wambach and I talked to her.' That is cool.</p><p>"[But] I've been away from Sweden now six years. So it's time to go home."</p><p></p>?<p>More than a quarter of adult Americans – that’s nearly 60 million people – went to commercial casinos in 2011, according to the American Gaming Assn. And a quarter of those folks don’t even gamble.</p><p>It’s partly by focusing on other attractions, such as nightclubs, fine dining, galleries, roller coasters and bold-faced performers such as , that the country’s gambling halls are now seeing an .</p><p>The 492 non-tribal casinos in the U.S. took in $35.6 billion in revenue last year, a 3% improvement from 2010. They employed 339,000 people – a nearly imperceptible dip of less than half a percent from the previous year. But those workers’ pay fell 3% to $12.9 billion in wages, benefits and tips.</p> <p>Las Vegas remained the country’s epicenter for casinos, making more than $6 billion in revenue. Statewide, Nevada’s gambling revenue increased 2.9%, with a boost of more than a million visitors compared with the previous year. A January report from the state’s Gaming Control Board, however, showed that Nevada’s largest casinos still suffered a $4-billion loss in 2011.</p><p>Atlantic City, whose $3.3 billion in revenue represented a 7% slide, was displaced by the scattered Pennsylvania market as the second largest in the U.S., according to the American Gaming Assn. report.</p><p>After federal authorities shut down three of the Internet’s most popular gambling sites last April, many players abandoned their computers and began to get their fix. Visitors nationwide last year ended up spending more at casinos than they did on music, movies and outdoor equipment combined, according to the AGA report.</p><p>The favored form of gambling, according to more than half of respondents, are slot machines and video poker. California, with 70 tribal casinos and 89 card rooms, hosts 67,600 of the 837,000 slot machines around the country.</p><p>Nearly a quarter of survey respondents said they prefer playing blackjack; 7% said poker was tops, while 3% named craps and roulette as their gambling picks. Roughly half budget less than $100 when trying their hand at the tables.</p><p>RELATED:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Tiffany Hsu onand</p>?If they ever give an Academy Award to the best moviegoer of the year, I would have to be a nominee. No one enters a packed theater with more flair (or more popcorn).<br><br>"How about over here?" I ask.<br><br>"How about over there?" says my date.<br><br>I prefer aisle seats. In fact, I'm a little nutso about it. I'd rather plop down in an aisle seat up close than be hemmed in farther back.<br><br>My date, on the other hand, would climb over 20 people to secure two seats in the middle of the theater. Personally, I hate climbing over strangers. I fall in love too easily. To have me climbing over strangers is to invite heartache and restraining orders.<br><br>"How about that spot down there?" I say, pointing to the third row.<br><br>"How about in there?" says my date, pointing to two inside seats.<br><br>"OK," I say, and begin to climb past the other customers like a fat fullback chasing a fumble out of bounds.<br><br> "Whew," I say when we finally arrive.<br><br>"You OK?" asks Posh.<br><br>"I think I lost my pants," I say.<br><br>See, this is why I deserve an Oscar. I'm one of the few audience members willing to do nude scenes.<br><br>"It's really quiet in here," I whisper after we get settled.<br><br>"Not from where I'm sitting, it isn't," she says, giving me that glare.<br><br>I'm telling you it was creepy quiet. You know how everybody says movie audiences are rude and noisy these days? Well, not at this jam-packed Pasadena theater. In the movie's first quiet moments, there is not a peep -- no throat-clearing, no rustling of jackets. I'm pretty sure the rest of the audience has died.<br><br>Meanwhile, I crunch my popcorn self-consciously and try not to trombone the straw up and down in my drink. (I got the No. 2 combo, a half-keg of Coke and an acre bag of popcorn. Dropped from planes, it could feed both the Carolinas.)<br><br>"Shuuush," says Posh.<br><br>"I was just . . . ."<br><br>"Shuuuuuuuuuuuuuuush," she shushes.<br><br>?She has never released a record or performed in concert, but everybody in the music business is talking about an 18-year-old singer named Gina Longo.<br><br>Longo, whose stage name is simply Gina, is at the center of the latest controversy surrounding Death Row Records, whose owner Marion "Suge" Knight is in County Jail for possible probation violations.<br><br> Gina attained instant notoriety last month when it was discovered that she had signed a record contract with Death Row while her father was monitoring Knight's probation from a 1992 assault conviction.<br><br>With her father under investigation for a potential conflict of interest and her boss in jail, the buzz in the entertainment industry is that Gina's record deal had more to do with whom she knew than how she sings--a contention she vehemently rejects.<br><br>"I'm no Milli Vanilli," said Gina, referring to the pop duo that lost a Grammy award after it was discovered they had lip-synced their debut album in 1990. "The reason I'm on Death Row has nothing to do with my dad. I got my deal because I can sing. I know the perception out there is that everything was just handed to me on a silver platter, but that's not the way it went down. I'm my own person and I got my own contract."<br><br>Gina signed a multi-album deal with Death Row in January worth an estimated $50,000. Executives at competing companies say that figure is "unusually low" even for an undiscovered act who has not written or recorded an album.<br><br>"This was no sweetheart deal," Gina said in an interview conducted in the Westwood office of her father's attorney. "It's not like they just give you this money either. You have to pay it back. But that's the way the business works. You have to prove yourself when you first start out."<br><br>Signing with the hottest rap label in the business was a "dream come true," said Gina, who has studied dance and singing since she was 6.<br><br>Gina, whose singing is in the style of such white R & B divas as Teena Marie and , also plays keyboard and guitar. Although a fan of classic rock music, she cites black soul icons like , and as her primary musical influences.<br><br>Before signing the Death Row deal, Gina's public performances were limited to appearances in neighborhood holiday shows, banquets and events at Malibu's Colin McEwen College Preparatory School, where she graduated as valedictorian in 1994, a year ahead of her class.<br><br>She was discovered by Death Row when she was 17--only a few months after her father, Deputy Dist. Atty. Larry Longo, recommended a plea bargain in court that allowed Knight to avoid nine years in prison. Superior Court Judge John Ouderkirk suspended the prison term and imposed five years' probation. He also ordered that Knight serve six months of house arrest, the first 30 days of which was to be done in a halfway house.<br><br>The Feb. 9, 1995, plea bargain--under which the record executive pleaded no contest to two counts of assault--stemmed from a 1992 altercation in which Knight attacked two aspiring rappers at a Hollywood recording studio.<br><br>Knight served the 30 days in a halfway house on a work furlough program that began July 20 and ended Aug. 19, 1995, according to court records.<br><br>In June, Gina said, her brother Frank gave a copy of her demo tape to Knight's chief defense lawyer, David Kenner. Frank Longo, who is also an attorney, said he was shopping the tape to several companies and met Kenner while pitching an unrelated music proposal on behalf of relatives of deceased rapper Eazy-E.<br><br>At the time, Gina was living in Santa Barbara taking summer classes at the . In July, her brother told her that he had set up an audition for her with Death Row.<br><br>A few weeks later, she was belting out "The Greatest Love of All," a ballad made famous by , in front of Knight in a private practice room at the same Tarzana studio where rap stars , Tha Dogg Pound and had recorded much of their hit music.<br><br>*<br><br>She said Knight applauded and told her how impressed he was with her "voice and look." Before committing to a contract, however, Knight requested that she record a few tracks at the studio to see how well she could follow directions from a professional producer.<br><br>Between September and December, Gina holed up in the studio four days a week with a producer and house musicians, laying down tracks until they came up with something that met Knight's approval.<br><br>?VILLERS-AU-TERTRE, France -- A French woman who admitted suffocating eight of her newborns and concealing their corpses in the garden and garage of her home has been charged with manslaughter, a prosecutor said Thursday.<br><br>Dominique Cottrez, a 46-year-old nurse's aide with two grown daughters, said that after a bad experience with her first pregnancy she never again wanted to see a doctor.<br><br> She admitted delivering the babies herself and placing the corpses in plastic bags.<br><br>She buried two of the newborns in the garden and hid the other bodies in the garage, prosecutor Eric Vaillant said.<br><br>"She explained that she didn't want any more children and that she didn't want to see a doctor to take contraceptives," Vaillant told a news conference.<br><br>"She was perfectly conscious of the fact that she was pregnant each time."<br><br>Cottrez's husband, who was not charged, was in a state of shock but the family remained united behind the mother, his lawyer said.<br><br>"I want to emphasize that, as we speak, there is a sacred union within the family," attorney Pierre-Jean Gribouva told AP Television News.<br><br>"That is to say there is a strong union between the children, the father and this mother of two (grown) children. There is no rejection and they are very united," he said.<br><br>Cottrez and her husband Pierre-Mariewere detained Wednesday after two corpses in plastic bags were discovered in a garden by the new owners of a house that had belonged to the woman's father in the town of Villers-au-Tertre in northern France.<br><br>Under questioning, the woman admitted that there were six other corpses and told investigators that they were in plastic bags in the garage of her home, where they were found, officials said.<br><br>The woman remained in detention and will undergo further psychiatric testing, Vaillant said. Her husband was freed from custody and not charged, although he remains under judicial control. He claimed he knew nothing about his wife's pregnancies.<br><br>"As for Mr. Cottrez, the sky is falling on his head he told us," the prosecutor said. "He told us that he was absolutely not aware that his wife was pregnant."<br><br>Vaillant noted that Mrs. Cottrez is quite heavy, making it easy to conceal a pregnancy.<br><br>The prosecutor had said earlier in a statement that the husband could be charged with failure to report a crime and concealment of corpses.<br><br>The husband's lawyer said his client was unjustly stigmatized for not noticing his wife's numerous pregnancies, but "we can make the same analysis about other people who should have noticed and haven't," a reference to colleagues, neighbors and others.<br><br>The couple's two grown daughters, who are in their 20s, have been questioned, Vaillant said. He refused to provide further details about them or what they said.<br><br>Neighbors in this village in northern France expressed shock after learning that Cottrez had killed her newborns.<br><br>"It's revolting. It is monstrous," said Janique Kaszynski, who lives next door to the couple. "For me ... they aren't human beings. It's monstrous to have killed eight viable babies."<br><br>?The rules for wearing denim with denim are about to be broken. Though it was a major no-no in the 1990s (think and in their bedazzled denim ensembles complete with denim hats and accessories), today the combination of jeans with a chambray shirt or a denim vest is not only acceptable, it's current.FOR THE RECORD:<br> Denim trends: In Sunday's Image section, photo credits accompanying an article about wearing denim in layers said that hair stylist Janine Jarmon and makeup artist Craig Beaglehole were with the Exclusive Artists agency. They are with Solo Artists. —<br> <br><br>Celebrity stylist Nicole Chavez recently wore a light-colored chambray button-down shirt with a pair of medium-blue skinny jeans and Celine's tan wedge clogs to brunch at the Soho House, a sure sign that denim on denim really works. "It's a fresh twist on a classic," says Chavez, whose client has also been known to sport a few layers of denim. "It's been such a faux pas since the early 90s, so now it feels like a rebellious and modern way to wear" it.<br><br>The denim on denim look is very much part of this season's "work wear" styles such as overalls, button-down shirts and vests and patchwork detail on jeans, and the use of washes that add a slight variance in color as well as texture to the fabric, providing a distressed, almost vintage look.<br><br>Walk into any number of stores and you might see jeans that look as though they've been worn every day for the last five years, with abrasions on the thighs and seats, and denim vests with frayed arm holes that appear to be the result of someone ripping the sleeves off a jacket whose owner has endured a long day of manual labor outdoors. In a way, wearing denim has gone back to basics, when people wore the sturdy fabric for practical purposes and an all-blue outfit wasn't a bad thing.<br><br>There are scores of possibilities when it comes to washing and treating denim. And much of that processing happens in Southern California.<br><br>Jerome Dahan, founder of Citizens of Humanity and one of the denim industry's most seasoned veterans (he's been connected to Guess, Lucky Brand, Circa, and 7 for all Mankind at one time or another) is wash-obsessed, testing, creating and formulating new ideas like a mad scientist. He owns the CM Wash House in Gardena, where Citizens of Humanity and his business partner Adriano Goldschmied's line Goldsign jeans are washed, sandblasted, baked and treated.<br><br>"For the past 10 years, L.A has been the place where everybody from all over the world comes to wash their denim," Dahan says. He cites and Italy as the other denim washing and processing capitals, but names L.A. as the center of washing denim in America. "People from Europe and Japan are coming here to wash and do some sewing. They know the quality is here as well as the price point. Denim comes from America — think Levis, Wrangler, Lee. You've got to come back to where it all started."<br><br>Thirty thousand pairs of jeans — arriving in their raw, stiff, indigo state — come through Dahan's wash house each week. The process depends on the design of the garment. "Every season there are between 40 to 50 different washing processes," says Dahan, who incorporates dyes and chemicals in the wash process, but also uses pumice stones, twist ties and machinery to get the right whiskering and abrasion on each pair of jeans. "It's like today you make a pasta, tomorrow you make a risotto and the day after that, maybe make a roast chicken. It's like food to me, because to cook a good meal it takes time. You add different ingredients to get different results."<br><br>The various "ingredients" and steps in the wash process can be extremely involved. For example, jeans designed to have gathering around the upper thigh are put onto 3-D forms, hand-gathered and starched before being baked with resin to seal the effect into place. You know those lighter areas on the thighs and seat of your jeans? Those are hand-sanded by employees who stand under a pair of jeans pulled onto a suspended 3-D form, keeping at it until the abrasion and lightness are perfected. None of this happens by accident. Every treatment, knick, pleat, hole and gather has been formulated specifically with the end result in mind and the sometimes complicated process is a good part of the reason denim prices can climb past $300.<br><br>This season's looks are more subtle than in seasons past — think tie-dye and '80s-style bleaching, or over-dying and color saturation — thus, the possibility of denim on denim.<br><br>But stylists warn that garments should have at least a variance in color, while staying in the same family of blue or doing faded black with blue or railroad stripe with chambray shirts. "I think the most modern way to rock the look is with a chambray button-down and jeans that are a shade darker or lighter," Chavez says. "Anything too matchy-matchy is never a good thing."<br><br>melissa.magsaysay@latimes.com?The final strains of the Toronto Film Festival belong to and longtime collaborator .<br><br>Dion has recorded "Unfinished Songs" as the end-credits tune for "Song for Marion," which closes the fest Saturday night at the Roy Thomson theater. Written by Warren, who's been nominated six times for but never won, "Unfinished Songs" is among more than a dozen collaborations with Dion, including "Because You Loved Me."<br><br> "We go way back and I think we're a good combination, particularly for this song," Warren told Variety. "She had done her show from 7:30 to 9:30 that night and then recorded between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. That's why Celine is Celine -- she really has an amazing work ethic."<br><br>Warren said "Unfinished Songs" fits well with "Song for Marion," a music-based dramedy starring , and . Pic centers on a grumpy elderly man whose wife persuades him to join an unconventional local choir. The Weinstein Co. is handling domestic release.<br><br>Cutting Edge Group CEO Philip Moross, who is producing alongside Ken Marshall, brought together Dion and Warren, who saw the film in rough cut. It's the first feature production credit for Cutting Edge, which has provided music services for more than 200 films.<br><br>"As a connoisseur of great movie songwriters, my dream has always been to work with Diane Warren," Moross said. "What Diane was able to do with her work on 'Song for Marion' was to find the heart of the movie and put that heart into a beautiful chorus for Celine. It was amazing to witness."<br><br>Four-year-old CEG has gained notice by ponying up the money for scoring, clearances and music supervision in a film; it then recoups from such sources as soundtrack and sheet-music sales, licensing and royalties from international ticket sales and TV deals. Earlier this year, it closed a multi-picture slate deal with Endgame Entertainment and entered into an agreement last month with Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures.<br><br>CEG has invested in over 200 films, most notably "The King's Speech," in exchange for music publishing rights. CEG's films at include the opening night selection "Looper," "Song for Marion," "End of Watch," "Seven Psychopaths," "Imogene" and "Writers."<br><br>As for Warren, she hopes that "Unfinished Songs" may lead to that elusive Oscar.<br><br>"I'm a six-time loser," Warren said, "so maybe this is my lucky seventh."<br><br>Click for more film news on Variety.com.<br><br>?Ellie Greenwich, the New York songwriter behind a string of 1960s hits that gave effervescent voice to unbridled teen romance including "Da Doo Ron Ron," "Chapel of Love" and "Be My Baby," many of them in collaboration with producer , died Wednesday of a , according to her niece, Jessica Weiner. She was 68.<br><br>She was being treated for pneumonia and "some other issues" at St. Luke's- Hospital Center in New York when she suffered the heart attack, Weiner said.<br><br> "She was the greatest melody writer of all time," Brian Wilson told The Times on Wednesday. The chief creative force of the , whose music was strongly influenced by many of the hits Greenwich and her husband Jeff Barry wrote with Spector, has often cited "Be My Baby" as his favorite record of all time.<br><br>FOR THE RECORD:<br> An earlier version of this story included an incorrect word in the lyrics for "Do Wah Diddy Diddy." The correct line is "There she was just walkin' down the street," not "There she goes just walkin' down the street." —<br> <br><br>"Those songs are part of the fabric of forever," said songwriter Diane Warren, whose compositions have been recorded by , , , , and dozens of others. "Her songs were written in the '60s, and it's 2010 almost, but they are as relevant and meaningful today as the day when they were born. "<br><br>Greenwich and Barry were part of the fabled Brill Building stable of professional songwriters that also included the teams of and , and Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil as well as , and .<br><br>Greenwich also broke ground as one of the first female record producers, working with Barry in crafting Diamond's early recordings, including "Cherry Cherry," "Solitary Man" and " Kentucky Woman."<br><br>Diamond had struggled as a songwriter until he came under the wing of Greenwich and Barry, who'd already logged numerous shimmering pop hits for groups such as the Ronettes, the Crystals, the Dixie Cups and Ronnie Spector.<br><br>After recording some demos of his songs with Greenwich supplying backup vocals, Diamond recalled her telling him, " 'I think you're pretty good -- maybe you'd like to meet my husband, and we could sit and talk.' . . . They got me a contract, as a writer with [Jerry] Leiber and [Mike] Stoller's Trio Music."<br><br>The songwriting-production team of Leiber and Stoller, who had written many of 's hits and dozens of other chart-topping '50s songs, had been impressed with Greenwich's songs and brought her into their company.<br><br>"The songs that they wrote were simple but very wonderful," Stoller said Wednesday. "She was very gifted at writing that kind of a song. She was just terrific."<br><br>Their collaborations with Wall of Sound creator Spector are regarded among the greatest singles ever created. The music publishing rights organization Broadcast Music Inc. lists more than 200 songs she wrote or co-wrote, including "Then He Kissed Me" (the Crystals), "I Can Hear Music" (The Ronettes, Beach Boys), "Hanky Panky" (a hit for Tommy James & the Shondells), "Maybe I Know" (Lesley Gore) and the song Spector considered his greatest recording, "River Deep, Mountain High" (Ike and ).<br><br>Greenwich has said that the title phrase of "Da Doo Ron Ron" was never intended to be part of the song; it was improvised as a nonsensical space filler until she and Barry could come up with a real line to follow the tune's opening lyric: "I met him on a Monday and my heart stood still."<br><br>"We got all the rest of the words and music together, but we couldn't find anything for this bit," she said in 2005. "Believe me, it doesn't mean a thing." On the other hand, when she and Barry wrote "There she was just a walkin' down the street" to start another song, she responded with what she imagined a young girl skipping down a street would sing: "Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do." "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" became a No. 1 hit in 1965 for the British group Manfred Mann.<br><br>Eleanor Louise Greenwich was born Oct. 23, 1940, in , N.Y., to a Catholic father and a Jewish mother. They moved to Levittown, , when she was about 11, and she began studying accordion before switching to piano.<br><br>She enrolled at Queens College when she was 17 and in 1958 released a single with two songs she had written, "Silly Isn't It" and "Cha-Cha Charming." She transferred to , where she met Barry. She graduated in 1962, and married Barry the same year.<br><br>Their common interest in music also gave birth to a songwriting team. On a visit to the Brill Building, she was plunking out notes on a piano while waiting to meet with another writer, and Leiber looked in thinking he was hearing Carole King. Greenwich introduced herself, showed off some of her songs and soon Leiber and Stoller offered her a songwriting contract at Trio Music.<br><br>She and Barry recorded a few songs as the Raindrops, but their biggest hit reached only No. 17, "The Kind of Boy You Can't Forget."<br><br>Leiber and Stoller also had been working with Spector, who clicked with Greenwich and Barry and crafted many of his biggest successes with their help.<br><br>We just got Phil," she said in 2001. "We made him laugh. And we understood him. We accepted his idiosyncrasies. . . . I think he just felt safe with us. Plus, we turned out some really good stuff."<br><br>Greenwich suffered a nervous breakdown after she and Barry divorced in 1965, and the hits stopped flowing. The public's attention was shifting to the Beatles and other British invasion bands as well as a rising crop of self-contained singer-songwriters such as , putting many Brill Building pros out of work.<br><br>"When my marriage fell apart and my style dropped out of fashion, it seemed there wasn't anything left," she told an Australian newspaper in 2005. "It's easy to say I had plenty left, but that's not how it seems when you're there."<br><br>In the '80s she created a musical titled "Leader of the Pack" that included many her pop hits and told the story of her rise to fame and equally steep fall. She bounced back with new songs, and scored Tony and Grammy Award nominations for her show.<br><br>As recently as 1997 one of her songs, "The Sunshine After the Rain," became a dance-pop hit in England and Australia. , Nona Hendryx and Desmond Child were among artists who recorded her compositions in recent years.<br><br>Greenwich is survived by her sister, Laura Weiner. Services will be private.<br><br>?-- The 14th Buenos Aires Festival of Independent Film opens April 11 with debut helmer Armando Bo's local dramedy "El Ultimo Elvis" (The Last Elvis), about an impersonator.<br><br>Bo co-wrote "Biutiful" with Mexican director .<br><br> Ursula Meier's Berlin-winning "L'Enfant d'en haut," a sibling tale set in a Swiss ski resort, will close the country's biggest festival, and showcase for Latin America, on April 20.<br><br>The fest will screen 449 films with a focus on helmers' first and second features.<br><br>The main competition, for international films, includes 15 titles competing for film, director, screenplay and thesp kudos.<br><br>Argentina has three world premieres in the lineup: Gabriel father and son "La Arana vampiro" (The Vampire Spider), Maximiliano Schonfeld's farm drama "Germania," and Alejandro Fadel's "Los Salvajes" (The Wild Ones), which follows a group of kids in the outback.<br><br>Others making their world preems include Chilean Elisa Eliash's seducer tale "Aqui estoy, aqui no" (Here I Am, Here I'm Not); American Zach Weintraub's "The International Sign for Choking," about a scriptwriter trying to find himself in Buenos Aires; and "La Casa Emak Bakia" (The Search for Emak Bakia), a documentary by Spaniard Oskar Alegria.<br><br>Also in the competition are Australian Justin Kurzel's serial killer tale "Snowtown," Chilean Cristian Jimenez's love story "Bonsai" and U.S.-Canadian co-production "Francine," directed by Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky, about a woman coming out of prison.<br><br>Other entries are Philippine Marlon N. Rivera's satirical comedy "The Woman in the Septic Tank," Dutch helmer Sacha Polak with father-daughter story "Hemel," Israeli Nadav Lapid's "Policeman," about a clash between anti-terrorist forces and young rebels, and Serbian Maja Milos' "Clip," about a sex-crazed teen.<br><br>Rounding out the slate are Valerie Massadian's childhood story "Nana" and Celine Sciamma's "Tomboy," about a girl who changes her identity, both from France.<br><br>Fourteen features, most of them world premieres, will compete for film and director in the Argentina competish. Entries include Berlin-screened holiday drama "Salsipuedes" by Mariano Luque, Nadir Medina's coming-of-age tale "El Espacio entre los dos" (The Space Between Us) and Luis Ortega's street tale "Dromomanos" (Roamers).<br><br>There also is an 19-strong competish for new cinema including the world premiere of "Crazy and Thief," a childhood adventure tale by American Cory McAbee.<br><br>The 9th Buenos Aires Lab, one of the world's biggest markets for Europeans to find Latin American co-productions, will run April 13-15.<br><br>Click for more international news on Variety.com.<br><br>?<p>ARIA<br>877.25.ELVIS<br>Fridays-Tuesdays (7 & 9:30 p.m.): “Viva Elvis” by Cirque du Soleil<br><br>BALLY’S<br>888.739.4111<br>Saturdays–Thursdays (7:30 & 10:30 p.m.): “Donn Arden’s Jubilee!”<br>Tuesdays–Thursdays & Saturdays (2:30 p.m.); Fridays (7:30 p.m.): <br>“The Price Is Right Live!”<br><br>BELLAGIO<br>888.488.7111<br>Wednesdays-Sundays (7:30 & 10 p.m.): “O” by Cirque du Soleil <br>(additional dark dates April 13–17)<br><br>BOULDER STATION<br>702.432.7575<br>March 4: The Alan Parsons Project<br>March 5: Roy Clark<br><br>CAESARS PALACE<br>800.634.6661<br>March 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26; April 1, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15-17: Celine Dion<br>Fridays–Sundays: Matt Goss<br><br>COSMOPOLITAN<br>702.698.7000<br>March 12: The Strokes<br><br>ENCORE<br>888.320.7110<br>March 25 & 26; April 8 & 9: <br>Garth Brooks<br><br>EXCALIBUR<br>702.597.7777<br>Wednesdays–Mondays (6 p.m., additional 8:30 p.m. performances Thursdays–Sundays): <br>“Tournament of Kings”<br>Nightly: <br>“Thunder From Down Under” <br>Tuesdays–Sundays: <br>The Australian Bee Gees Show</p><p><br><br>FLAMINGO LAS VEGAS<br>702.733.3111<br>Nightly: Vinnie Favorito<br>Tuesdays–Saturdays: <br>Donny and Marie<br>Tuesdays–Saturdays: <br>George Wallace<br>Tuesdays–Sundays: Nathan Burton<br>Nightly: “X Burlesque”<br><br>GOLDEN NUGGET<br>702.385.7111<br>Tuesdays–Saturdays (9:30 p.m., additional 5:30 p.m. performances Fridays & Saturdays): Country Superstars<br>Tuesdays–Saturdays: Gordie Brown<br><br>GREEN VALLEY RANCH<br>702.392.7313<br>March 11, 19 & 25; April 8 & 22: Nashville Unplugged<br>March 12: Huey Lewis & The News<br>March 19: Aaron Lewis<br>April 29: Foreigner<br><br>HARD ROCK HOTEL AND CASINO<br>800.473.7625<br>April 20, 22–24, 27, 29 & 30: <br>Supernatural Santana: <br>A Trip Through the Hits<br>March 5 & April 2: Tiesto in Concert<br>March 12: Disturbed, Korn, <br>Sevendust, In This Moment<br>March 18: Juanes<br><br>HARRAH’S LAS VEGAS<br>702.369.5000<br>Nightly: Defending the Caveman<br>Nightly: Dueling Pianos<br>Mondays–Saturdays: <br>“Legends in Concert”<br>Tuesdays–Saturdays (1 & 3 p.m.): “The Mac King Comedy <br>Magic Show”<br>Tuesdays–Sundays (8:30 & 10:30 p.m.): “The Improv at Harrah’s”<br>Thursdays–Saturdays: <br>Mr. $ Mrs. Smith<br><br>HOOTERS CASINO HOTEL<br>866.584.6687<br>Wednesdays–Sundays: “Men of X”<br>Thursdays–Sundays: Purple Reign<br>Thursdays–Saturdays through April 2: Bobby Slayton<br>Saturdays–Thursdays: <br>“Dirty Joke Show”</p><p>HOUSE OF BLUES<br>702.632.7777 <br>March 27: <br>The Pink Floyd Experience<br>Fridays: Steel Panther<br><br>LAS VEGAS HILTON<br>702.732.5755<br>March 5: Teena Marie Tribute<br>Wednesdays–Sundays: “The King” starring Trent Carlini<br>Fridays–Wednesdays: “Nunsense”<br>Saturdays–Wednesdays: Greg London: Impressions That Rock!<br><br>LUXOR<br>702.262.4102<br>Wednesdays & Thursdays (7 p.m.); Tuesdays, Fridays & Saturdays (7 & 9:30 p.m.): “Criss Angel Believe”<br>Wednesdays–Mondays: Carrot Top<br>Nightly (Visit www.luxor.com for showtimes): “Menopause The Musical”<br>Nightly: “Fantasy”<br><br>M RESORT<br>702.797.1000<br>Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays: <br>All-New Love Jazz Nights<br><br>MANDALAY BAY<br>702.632.7580<br>Mondays–Thursdays (7:30 p.m.); Saturdays & Sundays (4 & 8 p.m.): Disney’s “The Lion King”<br><br>MGM GRAND<br>800.929.1111<br>March 3–9 (7:30 & 10 p.m.; additional 4:30 p.m. show March 5): <br>David Copperfield<br>March 5: Eric Clapton, Los Lobos<br>March 12: Cotto vs. Mayorga<br>March 19: Bon Jovi<br>March 25: Monster Ball Tour <br>starring Lady Gaga<br>Tuesdays–Saturdays (7 & 9:30 p.m.): “KÀ” by Cirque du Soleil<br>Wednesdays–Mondays (8 & 10:30 p.m.): “Crazy Horse Paris”<br><br>MIRAGE<br>800.963.9634<br>March 4 & 5: <br>Michael Waltrip Comedy Garage<br>March 11 & 12: Wanda Sykes<br>March 18 & 19; April 1 & 2: Jay Leno<br>March 25 & 26; April 15 & 16: <br>Ray Romano<br>Tuesdays–Saturdays: Terry Fator (additional dark dates April 26–30)<br>Thursdays–Mondays (7 & 9:30 p.m.): “The Beatles Love” <br>by Cirque du Soleil <br>(additional dark dates April 7–11)<br>MONTE CARLO<br>702.730.7777<br>Sundays, Mondays & Thursdays–Saturdays: Jabbawockeez<br>Tuesdays–Saturdays: Frank Caliendo<br><br>NEW YORK-NEW YORK<br>800.693.6763<br>Fridays-Tuesdays (7:30 & 10 p.m.): “Zumanity” by Cirque du Soleil<br><br>ORLEANS<br>702.365.7075<br>March 5 & 6: Marshall Tucker Band<br>March 12 & 13: Richard Marx<br>March 19 & 20: Don Rickles<br>March 26 & 27: Steven Wright<br><br>PALACE STATION<br>702.547.5300<br>Tuesdays–Saturdays: <br>Louie Anderson<br>Wednesdays: Brian McComas<br>Thursdays: Evenflow<br>Fridays & Saturdays: ’Nuff Said<br><br>PALAZZO<br>866.263.3001<br>Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays & Fridays (7 p.m.); Saturdays (6:30 & 9:30 p.m.); Sundays (3 & 7 p.m.): “Jersey Boys”<br><br>PALMS<br>702.942.7777<br>March 5 (8 & 11 p.m.): Nick Cannon<br>Sundays (10 p.m.): Franky Perez<br><br>PARIS LAS VEGAS<br>702.739.4111<br>March 18–20 & 25–27: <br>Barry Manilow<br>Thursdays-Sundays & Tuesdays: Anthony Cools<br><br>PLANET HOLLYWOOD<br>702.785.5555<br>Thursdays-Tuesdays: “Peepshow”<br><br>RED ROCK RESORT<br>702.797.7777<br>March 5: John Popper <br>& The Duskray Troubadours<br>March 19: The Funky Meters<br>March 26: Toad The Wet Sprocket<br>Fridays: Zowie Bowie<br><br>RIO ALL-SUITE HOTEL<br>800.752.9746<br>Thursdays–Tuesdays <br>(8 p.m., with additional 10:30 p.m. performances Fridays & Saturdays): <br>“Chippendales The Show” <br>Saturdays–Wednesdays: <br>Penn & Teller<br>Thursdays–Saturdays: “Show in the Sky”</p> <p>RIVIERA<br>702.734.5110<br>Mondays: <br>“Outrageous Comedy Hypnotist”<br>Nightly: “Crazy Girls”<br>Mondays–Saturdays: <br>Sandy Hackett’s Rat Pack Show<br>Tuesdays–Saturdays: <br>Amazing Kreskin<br>Wednesdays–Mondays: <br>“DAO – The Asian Celebration”<br><br>SAHARA<br>702.737.2111<br>Wednesdays–Mondays: “The Magic & Tigers of Rick Thomas”<br>Tuesdays–Sundays: <br>“Striptease The Show”<br><br>STRATOSPHERE<br>702.380.7777<br>Sundays–Tuesdays (7 p.m.); Wednesdays, Fridays & Saturdays (6:30 & 8:30 p.m.): “American Superstars”<br>Fridays–Wednesdays: “Bite”<br><br>TREASURE ISLAND<br>800.392.1999<br>Nightly: “Sirens of TI”<br>Saturdays–Wednesdays (7 & 9:30 p.m.): “Mystère” (dark March 2)<br><br>TROPICANA<br>702.739.2714<br>March 3–6: <br>Vic Dunlop & Tim O’Rourke<br>March 7–13: Butch Bradley & Pam Matteson<br>March 14–20: Bob Zany & <br>Greg Vaccariello<br>March 21–27: Tom McTigue & Tymon Shipp<br>March 22–24: Brad Garrett<br>March 28–April 3: Rondell Sheridan & Jimmy Burns<br><br>VENETIAN<br>877.883.6423<br>March 4, 5, 11 & 12; April 1, 2, 8 & 9: Tim Allen<br>March 18 & 19: David Spade<br>Nightly (7 & 10 p.m.): <br>Blue Man Group<br>Mondays, Wednesdays & Saturdays: Rita Rudner<br>Tuesdays–Fridays (7 p.m.); Mondays & Saturdays (7 & 9:30 p.m.): “Phantom – The Las Vegas Spectacular”<br><br>WYNN LAS VEGAS<br>877.321.9966<br>Fridays–Tuesdays (7 & 9:30 p.m.): <br>“Le Rêve” <br>Mondays–Saturdays: <br>”Sinatra Dance With Me”</p><p></p>?If the chromed ceramic tiles blanketing the foyer walls and the warren of 14 rooms appointed in glossy black furnishings and white Barcelona chairs evoke the sexy thrill of an exclusive nightclub, then the new look of the Escada shop at the mouth of Rodeo Drive has accomplished its mission.<br><br>The thrill is Escada's too. The five-month-long, $5-million renovation of the flagship — a 6,000-square-foot corner of the Regent — marks a new chapter for the Munich-based fashion brand as it strives to revitalize its image.<br><br> Charged with this balance is 36-year-old Damiano Biella, named creative director just six months ago and whose trendier, more youthful imprint is already evident in the short-sleeved, full-length minks and chiffon dresses featured in the revamped store.<br><br>As if to sear the new concept into the minds of VIP clients and media at the opening bash Thursday night, celebs such as , , and Gabrielle Union traipsed a carpet colored black, in lieu of red. A platinum chanteuse flown in from Paris howled live on a wireless microphone against a thumping soundtrack, while singers Jewel and Amerie stood by, posing dutifully in the label's friskier party dresses.<br><br> <br><br>Host seemed to take the velvet-rope notion to heart. Sequestered in the very back room, the actress, dressed in a great black-sequin cocktail sheath of Biella's design, was shielded from the partying plebes by a handler who emphasized the actress was "not doing any media tonight." Never mind the point of the event.<br><br>Just steps away stood Biella, more than willing to talk. "I couldn't be more happy," he gushed. Since leaving art school in Milan, Italy, at 19, where he studied graphic design and advertising, the affable designer has honed his craft under Tom Ford (at ), Celine, Carolina Herrera and, most recently, Valentino Garavani himself. <br><br>From them he learned to appreciate color and femininity as opposed to turning women into fashion experiments, he said the following morning under quieter circumstances.<br><br>"For me, what is important is uncomplicated clothing for women. Escada is about making women feel beautiful and sensual without being vulgar."<br><br> Although he didn't set out to study fashion, it came to "mean something at a very young age," Biella said. "My first memory is of my two older sisters taking me to the Fiorrucci store. All those colors, the clothes! It made a big impression on me."<br><br>That "love of color and joie de vivre" is also in the DNA of Escada, he noted. And he very much intends to keep it that way. <br><br>With the old store's brass and ivory traded in for black, silver and plum, Biella calls the more dramatic, graphic look "a perfect combination to display the clothes. It's not about having this museum-like environment but about being able to move from room to room, in very chic spaces that feel like a luxury home, very feminine and sexy. It's probably a very different idea than what people have about Escada."<br><br>That said, he's quick to add: "We intend to keep our longtime customers too, with a more updated world. When I say young I don't mean in age, but in attitude." But age does matter. <br><br>Like St. John, which is striving to placate its core fans while brandishing in its ads, Escada has its eye on the future. But unlike its historic competitor, Escada's new management so far appears to be making all the right moves, down to Chief Executive Frank Rheinboldt, who took the reins from company founder Wolfgang Ley 16 months ago. (Ley and his wife, Margaretha, founded the brand in 1976 on the winnings from a racehorse called Escada.) <br><br>Although the appearance of a very pregnant at last week's opening celebration fueled speculation that she may, in fact, be still considering appearing in Escada's next ad campaign, the current one features a very fresh-faced anonymous blond against a Los Angeles nightscape. The city is significant to Escada's success for more than the celebrity factor. This one store accounts for 20% of the total retail sales in the U.S. About a quarter of the Beverly Hills store's space is devoted to handbags and other accessories. There are more than 400 Escada stores worldwide. <br><br>Thankfully, Biella won't be required to visit every one of them. "But I will see many," he said, noting he would be off to Tokyo the following morning. "The house has a fantastic history, and I want to evolve that. But we also need to recognize where we want to go next."<br><br>?Toss the leggings and pick up a pair of boot-cut pants. Replace the bateau stripe shirt with an olive drab tee. Give the boyfriend jacket back to the boyfriend, and pick up a military jacket instead.<br><br>Now that designers have shown their collections for fall in New York, Milan and Paris, department store fashion directors and boutique owners have to figure out how to translate the big ideas to the racks. Chanel's faux fur fantasy, Junya Watanabe's military march and Celine's luxe vision of minimalism were memorable on the runway, but what do they mean for a woman's wardrobe? And what about , whose untimely death cast a shadow over the season? His final runway pieces, with their ecclesiastical references and couture-like details, were extraordinary. But can the brand live on without him?<br><br> Here, retailers offer their take-aways from the season, and how the trends might trickle down to you. Those from stores stocking the McQueen runway collection share their opinions on that as well.<br><br>Stephanie Solomon, fashion director, Bloomingdale's<br><br>Big idea: Military. It's the most pervasive and salable trend. While it's more about safari at the moment, it's going to segue into military for fall.<br><br>Must haves: Olive drab anorak jacket, preferably with a fur trim hood. Shearling flight jacket as seen at Burberry Prorsum. Military jacket, nipped at the waist, with brass buttons or epaulets that can be worn as part of a suit or on its own. Boot-cut pants as seen at , Balmain and Akris. Knits — slouchy caps, blanket-sized scarves, hand warmers, knee socks and leg warmers. Fur evening bag.<br><br>Will the new minimalism sell? Slowly. We've been in a cycle of more is more for seven years now. But I do believe it will influence fashion with A-line skirts, shift and pants suits becoming more popular.<br><br>Ken Downing, senior vice president and fashion director, <br><br>Big idea: Contrast between masculine and feminine in a 1970s, Charlie girl sort of way.<br><br>Must haves: Pants, whether they be narrow, high-waisted or menswear-inspired. A feminine touch, such as a Chantilly lace blouse, something shimmery or velvet to juxtapose with the masculine. A boyfriend coat, as seen at Lanvin (it's the evolution of the boyfriend jacket). Anything olive green, for a military influence. Fur, real or fake. Vests, fur or plaid. Structured bags and pointy-toed .<br><br>Will the new minimalism sell? It's the newest message and it's happening for fall, but we'll see more of it going into spring 2011.<br><br>McQueen's final collection: It was spectacular. McQueen's tailoring and dressmaking skills were so superlative; he challenged everyone at every moment. We didn't buy all 15 of his final pieces, but we bought some. Beyond a designer leaving this world, he left behind a sewing team and a design team. It's a business, and I assume they will move it forward.<br><br>Colleen Sherin, fashion market director, Saks Fifth Avenue<br><br>Big idea: Outerwear and building a coat wardrobe for every aspect of your lifestyle and every time of day. Coats are pieces you can get a lot of use from because you can wear them day after day like a handbag.<br><br>Must haves: A coat (anorak as seen at Rag & Bone, duffel coat as seen at Proenza Schouler, embroidered shearling as seen at Roberto Cavalli or a camel coat as seen everywhere). A new knit piece, whether it be Fair Isle, patchwork or a lighter-weight knit such as the lace knit turtleneck seen at . A fur accessory such as a bag, shoe, bootie or shawl collar.<br><br>Will the new minimalism sell? For a certain woman interested in investment dressing, luxurious fabrications and tailoring.<br><br>McQueen's final collection: It was the highlight of the season, like couture. We ordered all 15 pieces, which range from $12,000 to $50,000. The commercial collection in the showroom was very solid too. I am confident they have a strong team in place to carry on the tradition.<br><br>Julie Gilhart, fashion director, <br><br>Big idea: Less is more — less about ornamentation and more about a designed silhouette in terms of great tailoring, and heavier or more structured fabrics to create shape, as seen at Celine and Stella McCartney.<br><br>Must haves: Army green jacket as seen at Junya Watanabe. Anything leather as seen at Altuzarra. A leopard or cheetah print accent (Dries Van Noten had great scarves and Rochas had flat boots). An amazing sweater, such as Stella McCartney's camel-colored cardigan. Fringe — Rodarte had knitted fringe skirts. A tote bag from Celine or Proenza Schouler and a lace-up shoe boot.<br><br>Will the new minimalism sell? Yes, the pieces we bought are beautifully cut in fabrics that can be worn year-round. I think a woman who is stylish will take a Celine tunic and put a great necklace or bangle with it or an amazing pair of boots and create her own look.<br><br>Elyse Walker, owner, Elyse Walker boutique in Pacific Palisades<br><br>Big idea: Girlishness as seen at Nina Ricci, Valentino, Miu Miu and Stella McCartney.<br><br>Must haves: A fur from J. Mendel, Prada, Blumarine, Isabel marant or Wyler Designs by Jennifer Fisher, which looks like a lot for the money. I ordered 50 to 70 furs for a store that's a mile from the beach. But it gets cold at night, and it's a fashion statement that will be in every ad and editorial. Fur trims on sweaters (Brunello Cucinelli) and scarves (Gucci). (We will have faux fur as well.) A little bit of lace (Alexander Wang dresses with lace insets). A little bit of leather (time to invest in a pair of leather leggings if you haven't already). A touch of burgundy or bordeaux, as seen at Halston and Givenchy. Lanvin also has a great pair of bordeaux ballet flats with a rhinestone bow. Camilla Skovgaard shoes, a Stella McCartney vegan handbag and a Miu Miu turnlock belt to accessorize a plain black dress.<br><br>Will the new minimalism sell? I don't see it.<br><br>?Even as a style-obsessed teen growing up in New York City, I had no idea when it was fashion week, the twice-a-year occasion when designers roll out their collections for a season hence for select store buyers and influential editors. But now, it's impossible to ignore. There are banners on lampposts announcing the event and features on the taxi TV video loop promoting it. On Wednesday, Mayor Bloomberg even renamed the No. 1 subway line "The Fashion Line" for the week.<br><br>Which is all to say that this fashion week belongs to the city.<br><br> And why not? Fashion is one of the largest industries in the city, and it is everywhere — on TV, where the shopping extravaganza known as Fashion's Night Out is a plot line on ; in film, with outfitting the cast in the upcoming film "The Romantics"; at the Museum of the City of New York, where the exhibit "Notorious and Notable: 20th Century Women of Style" opens Tuesday; in bookstores, where star Tim Gunn's new title, "Gunn's Golden Rules," is making a splash; and all over the Internet, with bloggers now being tapped to style shows, model in shows, host parties and even design collections.<br><br>The move of this Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week from Bryant Park to , home to the New York City Ballet and the Metropolitan Opera, underscores fashion's rising profile in the worlds of arts and entertainment. Last weekend, I was sitting on the steps of the plaza at the fine arts complex, watching the "Carmen" live on a big outdoor screen as part of the opera's free "Live in HD" series. Forty-eight hours later, I was watching "Fashion's Night Out — The Show," the largest public fashion show in New York City history, which was taped for broadcast on CBS on Sept. 14. (Imagine if the regular runway shows were screened in HD on the plaza.)<br><br>Being at "Fashion's Night Out — The Show" was almost like being in a music video. Produced by Vogue magazine and Spec Entertainment on Tuesday, the event drew 1,500 ticketed guests. The world's top models (Gisele, Karolina, Chanel, Naomi — first names are appropriate for this bunch) were there, 150 strong, some descending from a double-decker bus on Columbus Avenue and others mounting the steps from the sidewalk to the strains of "Empire State of Mind."<br><br>They hit the runway fast, a blur of full skirts, fur purses, bias-cut gowns and painted finger-wave hairstyles. In just 15 minutes they walked the crowd through this fall's top trends, those available in stores now — including '50s flair, go-global and Jazz Age cool — represented by mix 'n' match looks from designers A to Z: Ann Taylor and Celine to and Zac Posen. Then the dance party started; Pharrell Williams took center stage and got the crowd to its feet.<br><br>The usual fashion show hierarchy was largely absent. For starters, the ring-shaped runway made all of the seats either first or second row. (This was about being accessible, after all, bringing fashion to the people and jump-starting retail sales with in-season styles, not those that will hit stores months from now, as in the usual catwalk drill.) Still, there were enough familiar faces to satisfy a craving for eye candy — fashion designers, including Diane von Furstenberg, Tory Burch, , Phillip Lim, and , and celebrities representing a generous cross section of New York notables.<br><br>But the "real" people were there too, and happy to be. Nicole Gale, a 15-year-old from Manasquan, N.J., likened her luck at seeing the show to scoring concert tickets. For her, the models and celebrities were as exciting as the clothes.<br><br>Designers have upped the entertainment factor during fashion week in other ways too: opening pop-up shops (Elizabeth & James and footwear label Florsheim, to name two) and allying with music acts, both for Fashion's Night Out events and for the designers' shows and parties —Calvin Klein's Francisco Costa with , with Janelle Monae, Cynthia Rowley with Nick Cave and Tommy Hilfiger with the Strokes.<br><br>The real challenge is how to capitalize on it all.<br><br>"Fashion's Night Out — The Show" has a lot of potential. It was conceived as a companion to Fashion's Night Out, the international global shopping event held Sept. 10 this year. But the broadcast that will take it into homes across America is not scheduled to air until after the fact. How much more powerful could it be if it were aired in advance, as a teaser?<br><br>Another idea: Since the show features in-season styles, why not incorporate a shopping element for viewers at home, perhaps with some kind of point-and-click mobile technology?<br><br>Wherever it all ends up, there's no doubt that what we're seeing with "Fashion's Night Out — The Show" and Fashion's Night Out, the event, is the beginning of a new fashion cycle, one that is oriented toward the subway-riding public rather than the chauffeured editor.<br><br>It's a good thing for the industry because the more consumers watch, read and hear about fashion, the more they are going to want it — in a New York minute.<br><br>booth.moore@latimes.com?Fashion designers began showing their collections of clothes for next spring and summer on Thursday, and the big question is how Phoebe Philo's influential fall collection for Celine, which put minimalism back in fashion's vocabulary, will reverberate now. The answer so far is more about ease of dressing and feel-good clothes than uniform-like simplicity.<br><br>The setting was New York Fashion Week, which continues for the next several days and will be followed by designer showings in other major fashion hubs (such as Milan and Paris) over the next few weeks.<br><br> Lisa Mayock and Sophie Buhai went back to their roots in Southern California, marrying color-blocked geometric motifs inspired by the Memphis design school with West Coast ease. It was all about the everyday made interesting — a greige pants suit that a young woman would actually wear, in a soft-tailored knit with tapered pants finished with zippers at the hips and ankles; culottes and long pleated skirts tied with leather cord belts; and a Mexican-style hooded poncho done in a metallic knit.<br><br>The result proved why their label, Vena Cava, is becoming an important player. (The designers were tapped by Bloomingdale's to do a collection for the store's private label, Aqua, which is in stores now.)‬‪<br><br>Kimberley Ovitz, also a native Southern Californian, continues to succeed in creating the kinds of collections that a woman can live in from dawn to dusk — a fluid white trench coat that could double as a dress, a white stretch tank dress with pleated front details that is office-appropriate with a jacket but sexy enough for a night on the town on its own.<br><br>For other designers, ease meant escapism.‬‪‬‪<br><br>Peter Som knocked it out of the park with his sweet-as-candy, 1960s-era beach girls, who were all legs coming down the runway in sky-high platform sandals, dressed in a pink postcard-print tank top and malachite print shorts, a flamingo-pink snakeskin shift dress, and a sleeveless dress with "popsicle" tweed appliqués.<br><br>L.A. designer Gregory Parkinson's fanciful‬‪ collection was another tropical vacation in the making, with pleated mixed-print skirts, wrap-front kimono tops and duster coats hand-dyed in every color of the rainbow, made to emerge from a suitcase in a rumpled state of perfection.<br><br>Trina Turk brought her sunny image of SoCal to New York, with maxi-dresses, breezy tops and dresses in "Laguna plaid," "tiger leaf" and "cactus flower" prints. She mixed in tailored pieces, including a crisp, white sleeveless jumpsuit with cropped pants, and a pleated white skirt that hit below the knee.‬‪ (Longer skirts are most surely going to be a trend.)<br><br>At Bensoni, Benjamin Channing Clyburn and Sonia Yoon added romantic details and neon pops of color to wearable classics. Standout pieces included a lace-print denim jacket, a botanical-print button-front blouse and a swishy floor-length skirt with neon-pink eyelash fringe.‬‪‬‪<br><br>Carly Cushnie and Michelle Ochs weren't quite so optimistic; you had to look only at the killer heels in their show, designed by Alejandro Ingelmo, with rubber spikes jutting from the toe and ‬‪back of the heel, to know that.<br><br>Their Cushnie and Ochs collection was enchanting all the same, with a black short-sleeved "destroyed" chiffon top; a "twisted floral" silk georgette dress with pleated leather side panel, and a papery black leather four-point dress.<br><br>Because nobody said life was always going to be easy.<br><br>booth.moore@latimes.com?Financing and production plans for Steel Mill Pictures' comedic thriller "Filth" have firmed up, with principal photography set to start next week.<br><br>Cast includes , , , , Joanne Froggatt and Imogen Poots. Based on the novel by Irvine Welsh ("Trainspotting"), "Filth" is written and directed by Jon S. Baird ("Cass"), who's also producing through Logie Pictures.<br><br> Ken Marshall of Steel Mill is producing in partnership with Jens Meurer and Egoli Tossell Film. Financing the film and also producing are Maven Pictures' and Celine Rattray, Film House Germany, Film I Vast and Creative Scotland. Will Clarke exec produces.<br><br>Sierra/Affinity announced during Cannes last May that it would represent international sales on "Filth" for Steel Mill, with Lionsgate releasing in the U.K. and Icon distributing in Australia.<br><br>Story is centered on an Edinburgh police detective who manipulates everyone in his path to secure a promotion and win back his wife and daughter.<br><br>Shooting is set for Scotland, primarily Glasgow, as well as locations in Sweden, Belgium and Hamburg.<br><br>It's the second feature for Maven, which is in post on "Imogene," starring , and .<br><br>Click for more articles on Variety.com.<br><br>?A couple’s first dance is an opportunity to be creative and celebrate the beginning of a new life together — and it should be fun, exciting and unforgettable. <br><br>Unexpected songs, custom choreography, spins, lifts, dips and even costume changes are designed to wow the crowd and make the reception to follow a smash hit.<br><br> “We wanted to blow it out of the water,” said Joe Campanella, who first-danced with bride Renee Piane-Campanella to a foxtrot-triple-time-swing-foxtrot medley at their Los Angeles wedding reception in 2005. “And we did.” The Marina del Rey couple said they kept their dance lessons a secret for added impact. <br>For Sara and of Woodland Hills, who married Jan. 8 also in Los Angeles, “It was the first time we were showcasing each other to our families and no one thought we were good dancers,” said Sara, 38. “We wanted to make it special.” <br><br>And they did, too, performing a foxtrot to ’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and — just when the audience thought they were finished — Scott, 33, threw off his jacket and they burst into a sexy triple-time free-style swing to “The Way You Make Me Feel” by . <br><br>Experts such as John Cassese, owner of The Dance Doctor Productions in Santa Monica, a longtime entertainment industry choreographer and instructor, and Harmony Walton, owner of the Bridal Bar, a bridal consultancy in West Hollywood, agree that “Dancing with the Stars” and other TV shows have influenced the trend of making first dances highly theatrical. “When couples see that people from all walks of life can dance, they know they can,” Cassese said. <br><br>Experts like Cassese believe that the first dance is as important as the ceremony. “It sets the tone for the entire reception,” he said. “Today’s wedding guests expect to be entertained, so the first dance should be the kick-off to high gear excitement.” <br><br>Don’t worry if you have two left feet. “If you can walk, you can dance,” said Cassese, who choreographed first dances for the Loves and the Stewarts as well as for celebrities including and wife Jacqueline Titone, U2 guitar player The Edge and wife Morleigh Steinberg, and “The Bachelorette’s” Trista Rehn and Ryan Sutter. “At first I teach them a few simple steps, and we build from there.” And after that, the possibilities are endless. <br><br>GET CREATIVE<br>Cassese recommends beginning with a romantic dance like a foxtrot and then breaking into a fast-paced sizzler. But there are plenty of combinations to choose from, including the foxtrot-hustle and salsa-swing-foxtrot. <br><br>Jennelle Wax, owner of Bella Ballroom Dance Studio in Newport Beach, recently choreographed a three-minute “dancing through the ages” medley featuring a waltz to ’ “Come Away with Me,” a few steps to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” a disco hustle (with the finger point) to “Staying Alive,” moves from “Ice Ice Baby” by and a finale of spins and dips to “Yeah!” by Usher. <br><br>“Couples should be clear on what songs they want to use before they research a dance coach,” Walton recommended. Then let the instructor make suggestions on dance styles and choreography.<br><br>DRESS IT UP<br>“Consider how much moving you’ll be doing when you’re choosing your dress,” Walton said.<br>Cassese tells his brides to have their tailors devise a way to “bustle up” the train. Walton also recommends that brides buy an inexpensive dress in a similar shape to the wedding dress to wear during the lessons. And to practice at least once or twice in your wedding shoes. “This helps break them in and eliminate dance floor surprises.” <br><br>Some brides have a special dress made for the first dance. April Love designed a strapless gown with a short feathered skirt for her dance ensemble. Cassese recalled a student who designed her bridal gown with two skirts. Midway through the first dance, her husband pulled off the long outer skirt, revealing a dance-worthy cocktail-length skirt underneath — to the crowd’s roar of amazement. <br><br>Damon and Monique Rachell of Newport Beach changed into fiery costumes — his a bull fighter-style outfit and hers a red Flamenco-style gown — for their sexy paso doble first dance at their 2010 wedding. <br><br>DANCE THERAPY<br>Couples often get more than just fancy footwork out of preparing for the big dance. “Dance lessons are a great reducer,” Cassese said, “because you have to focus on just one thing — the dance. It forces you to concentrate on each other.”<br><br>“It’s the best thing for a couple to do – the dance lessons brought us closer together,” Campanella said.<br>“We experienced a different kind of bond with the lessons, which surprised us,” said Claire Benson, 31, who married Joey Sila, 29, Oct. 1. “It was cool because we got to be a team to accomplish a goal together,” she said. The Marina del Rey couple performed a fast-paced foxtrot to the Beatles’ “In My Life” at their destination wedding in Big Bear Lake. <br><br>“The dance lessons gave us some fun time out from the frenzy of wedding planning and put the romantic enjoyment back into our relationship,” said Rianna Loving Giammarco, who with husband, Giovanni Giammarco, wowed their guests with a “Dancing with the Stars”-caliber display of foxtrot spins and dips to ’s “The Power of Love” at their May 24, 2003, wedding in Santa Monica. <br><br>Now living in Pacific Palisades with busy professional lives and two children, ages 5 and 1, the Giammarcos have returned to Cassese for weekly Saturday dance lessons. “It’s our ‘date night,’” Rianna explained. “Every Saturday, we enjoy a dance lesson and dinner out. It’s a wonderful way to break out of the domestic routine.” <br><br>— Barbara Beckley<br>Custom Publishing Writer<br><br>?The volume seemed to be turning up: and Dave Rawlings were moving away from acoustic austerity, growing comfortable rocking out. Their last album, "Soul Journey," saw these Nashville alt-folkies jolting their sound with electricity and a backbeat. Rawlings has stepped out as a producer — indie rockers , the shambling — and the duo guested on the Decemberists' breakout, "The King Is Dead." Could this mid-career acoustic duo — in its first release in eight years — be ready for a similar lunge into the mainstream?<br><br>Well, probably not. With their new album, "The Harrow & the Harvest," the two have done the opposite of what folkie did when he plugged in at Newport in 1965: They've made room for a quiet, contemplative record that includes desperation, heartache and resolve.<br><br> And this couple has also brought their musical union — of two voices, two interlocked acoustic guitars — to an even finer pitch: On songs such as "Dark Turn of Mind" and "The Way the Whole Thing Ends," they make the Stanley Brothers sound estranged.<br><br>It was that tradition of Appalachian brother teams to which the two — Rawlings describes himself as part of a two-piece band called Gillian Welch — were hoping to return.<br><br>"We were very committed to the duet this time," says the lank, fair-skinned Welch, relaxing next to her 1956 Gibson guitar outside the Echo Park home of Conor Oberst. "We had a lot of pent-up fire for it; we'd been away from it for a long time. So that's the first thing we knew about this record — that there was not gonna be anyone else on it."<br><br>"Harrow" is not only their first release in eight years, it's also their first album in the acoustic style with which they've been associated since 2001's "Time (The Revelator)." Their tour, which comes to the Music Box in Hollywood on Thursday, will be similarly spare, with just the two onstage, strumming and singing in an almost religious reverie.<br><br>Despite the years of creative drought — the two kept writing songs, none of which struck them as stylistically balanced or emotionally true — they've grown even closer as musicians, and they're now a hip "influence" on the new acoustic scene. The All Music Guide calls the new album "stunning in its intimacy, its lack of studio artifice, its warmth and its timeless, if hard won, songcraft."<br><br>Regional as universal<br><br>From the beginning of her career, around her T Bone Burnett-produced 1996 debut, "Revival, " Welch has been dogged by accusations based on her origins. On the album cover she looks like something out of a photograph, but she is a New York City native, former Westsider and graduate of Santa Monica's elite School. Her adoptive parents were not Dust Bowl refugees but a former comedy team who wrote music for "The Show."<br><br>Even before being asked about it directly, Welch is a bit defensive on the matter. "Man, I grew up in my room," she says. "I could have been anywhere. I grew up in my room, with my record collection."<br><br>Her memories of Los Angeles are vague — they mostly involve, she says, running around on the fire roads above her parents' hillside home and doing ceramics in high school. But one aspect of her childhood was crucial: What she calls her "hippie grade school" — Westland on Mulholland Drive — where her class sang Carter Family and songs nearly every day.<br><br>In one key way, in fact, she had a pre-modern upbringing: While she grew up singing classic folk and country music, she never heard recordings of them. She knew the songs only through an oral tradition. Years later, she attended Santa Cruz, and was at first a bit lost, personally and musically — she sang briefly in front of a psychedelic surf band — but was exposed to old recordings by a bluegrass deejay housemate.<br><br>"And I have this complete, strange epiphany," she recalls. "I'm hearing these sounds I've never heard before, but they're the songs I've known since I was a kid." The experience turned her head around. "And then presto, we're done. And then I'm just like every other person who just needed a record player, these records and a door that locked."<br><br>Rawlings, meanwhile, was growing up a freak in a Rhode Island mill town. The offspring of a long line of engineers, he's earnest and solicitous, with the temperament of both a poet and a mathematician.<br><br>"I can talk about people I like," he says when asked about his distinctive single-note crosspicking. "But my preference for particular notes is something born into me — that did not come from listening to anyone."<br><br>Beyond tradition<br><br>"The Harrow & the Harvest" is a purist's return to the prewar music that brought these two together as students at the Berklee College of Music in the early '90s. "There were 10 of us, in the entire college, who knew who the Stanley Brothers were," Welch says of those dark days before the "O , Where Art Thou?" soundtrack.<br><br>"This is something that Dave and I kind of inherited from that tradition," she says. "As a duet, you do everything in your power to change the texture of what you're doing — you're constantly fighting stasis. You only have four things" — two guitars, two voices. "This is part of why we gravitated to the dissonance in our music — why Dave will often sing dissonant intervals."<br><br>In a lot of ways, this duo — two nocturnal musicians who walk around their adopted hometown of Nashville after midnight, dreaming of the ghost of , and Hank Williams — has come full circle.<br><br>"When we started down this road, around the time of 'Revival,'" Rawlings says, "we felt we were very much alone in the acoustic wilderness. There wasn't a lot of stuff that we felt connected to us. was cutting the 'Titanic' vocal in the studio while we were making our little record. We just felt like freaks.<br><br>"It's surprising to look up years later and see all these people working in this genre — , , . It's surprising to see us and go, 'Whoa, we're veterans.'"<br><br>?AFTER MUCH trumped-up suspense, 's campaign announced this week — via a YouTube spoof of the last episode of "The Sopranos" — that the votes are in. <br><br>No, sorry, not those votes. You'll have to endure another year of stilted YouTube spots before the last presidential primary votes are cast.<br><br>I mean the votes from the Clinton campaign's YouTube "pick our theme song" contest. And, in case you missed this major national event, the winning song was "You and I," by .<br><br>Clinton staffers have declared the "pick our theme song" contest a resounding success. And who knows what her wacky campaign will do next? Maybe Clinton will soon have YouTube viewers select her campaign's strategy for ending Iraq's civil war or reducing greenhouse gases. If she's going to base her decisions on the lowest common denominator, Clinton could just eliminate her cadre of overcompensated consultants and pollsters and go straight to YouTube for all her policy needs.<br><br>And Celine Dion really is the lowest common denominator. If the SAT's analogies section tested politics and pop culture, even the dimmest teenager would agree that "Hillary Clinton: Politics = Celine Dion: Music." Both Clinton and Dion have enjoyed astounding career success. Both showed early talent but are now widely accused of being sellouts. Dion's interesting, edgy early songs were replaced, during her bid for superstardom, by trite and formulaic crowd pleasers; Clinton's interesting, edgy early policy positions were replaced, during her bid for elected office, by trite and formulaic crowd pleasers. <br><br>Selecting "You and I" may ultimately come to seem like a Clinton campaign blunder. For one thing, Dion's name summons up, unbidden, thoughts of other major Dion hits, such as the "Titanic" theme song and the title track from Disney's "Beauty and the Beast." Neither suggests helpful associations.<br><br>In any case, "You and I" is not exactly in its first run as a theme song. It has already been used by Air Canada. Not just "used": Air Canada commissioned the song, and the airline's advertising consultant wrote the lyrics. (Art at its purest, it ain't.) This isn't the first time a presidential campaign has relied on a song that's basically an advertising jingle, but I think it's the first time a campaign has relied on someone else's advertising jingle. <br><br>That the "someone else" is a foreign country's national airline doesn't help. The Canadian-born Dion released "You and I" at an Air Canada event in October 2004. "Wearing a stylish new Air Canada uniform," an Air Canada news release gushed, Dion sang with "a chorus of Air Canada employees," telling the admiring crowd, "[It's] an honor … to promote Air Canada and this great country around the world…. We are all ambassadors for Canada." Oy. <br><br>Speaking for myself, having an "ambassador for Canada" run for president might not be the worst thing in the world — Canada's been looking good to me lately. (Though I can't call Air Canada uniforms "stylish.") Clinton's critics, however, were quick to pounce: Clinton's so unpatriotic that she outsourced her campaign song! To a Canadian! Who speaks French! <br><br>This misses the point. The real problem with "You and I" isn't that it was sung by a French Canadian — the real problem is that, like most of Dion's oeuvre, it's just a crummy song. Superficially, it sounds like "music," but it isn't really. It's just the product of a well-paid advertising agency's successful formula for producing persuasive — and mildly sedative — background noise. <br><br>"You and I" is suitable as elevator music and as the soundtrack for visits to the dentist, but that's about it. And its selection as campaign theme song may ultimately underscore what Clinton's critics have long charged: that her policy platform offers more pablum than principle, more formula than inspiration. <br><br>Not that this will necessarily matter. As media critic Howard Kurtz noted Tuesday, it increasingly appears as if "Hillary Clinton is inevitable." Well … so are death and taxes, but I don't have to like them. (I'm more in sync — politically, not musically — with YouTube's Obama Girl.) <br><br>We'll probably end up with Hillary Clinton leading the Democratic ticket. And inevitably, sooner or later we'll all find ourselves in the dentist's chair, numbed by Novocain, listening glumly to piped-in Muzak by Celine Dion.<br><br>--<br><br>rbrooks@latimescolumnists.com<br><br>?This was the year that the finally had a chance to be hip, if CBS could just keep everyone's wardrobe in place.<br><br> In retrospect, keeping , , and Pharrell Williams from imitating the Beatles would have been a good idea, too.<br><br> Yet even the Grammys' penchant for overblown musical numbers couldn't undermine a strong showing by , who took home five awards to lead a night of overdue recognition for R&B and hip-hop.<br><br> Beyonce's five trophies tied a record set by , and for the most by a female act.<br><br> 's genre-bending commercial and critical hit, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, was honored as album of the year and best rap album. The hit "Hey Ya!" took the award for best urban/alternative performance.<br><br> OutKast's Antwan "" Patton and Andre 3000 accepted the best album award after Andre closed the show with an outrageously choreographed "Hey Ya!" featuring a marching band.<br><br> Beyonce teamed with to open the show with a medley of songs from Purple Rain, a landmark album celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.<br><br> "Performing was enough for me," she told the crowd moments later, accepting the best contemporary R&B album award for Dangerously in Love. "I'm just so honored."<br><br> Beyonce also was honored for best female R&B performance for the song "Dangerously in Love," as well as for best R&B song and rap/sung collaboration for the hit "Crazy in Love," which she recorded with boyfriend Jay-Z. That song won for best remixed recording.<br><br> She shared the award for R&B performance by a duo or group for "The Closer I Get to You" with , a nominee in five categories.<br><br> Vandross, who was unable to attend because of a stroke last year, was saluted with a musical tribute by Alicia Keys and .<br><br> He took home the best male R&B vocal performance award and best song trophy for "Dance With My Father," a song he co-wrote with . Dance With My Father also was best R&B album.<br><br> It was the evening's most sentimental victory - the R&B crooner's first win in a major category in his 20-year-plus career. He was unable to attend but sent a videotaped message, his first public remarks since his April 2003 stroke.<br><br> "I want to thank everyone for your love and support," said a weak-looking Vandross. "And remember, when I say goodbye it's never for long, because" - and he sang a line from one of his many hits - "I believe in the power of love!"<br><br> Although the focus was on R&B, a few rock acts managed to take major awards. Evanescence prevailed over favored as best new artist and took best record for "Clocks," an award they dedicated to and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.<br><br> Overdue for mainstream acknowledgment by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, hip-hop and R&B stars were showcased last night at the in Los Angeles.<br><br> In addition to Beyonce, , OutKast and producer Pharrell Williams were each up for a leading six nominations.<br><br> Nine acts were nominated for five awards each, including Vandross, , , , producer Chad Hugo, country singer Ricky Skaggs, rapper 50 Cent and rock band Evanescence.<br><br> The Wind, the final album from rocker , also garnered five nominations. It took home the award for best contemporary folk album. The song "Disorder in the House," a duet with , won for best rock performance by a duo or group.<br><br> Johnny Cash, who died at 71 on Sept. 12, won for best short form music video for "Hurt," his version of a song. Cash's wife, June Carter Cash, was honored for traditional folk album for Wildwood Flower, released after her death last spring. She also won best female country vocal performance for "Keep on the Sunny Side."<br><br> had been scheduled to introduce the Vandross tribute, but didn't attend after the "wardrobe malfunction" at her performance with Timberlake.<br><br> There were no one-liners about the incident, but Timberlake apologized as he was accepting the award for male pop vocal performance for "Cry Me a River."<br><br> "It's been a rough week on everybody," said Timberlake, who also won for pop vocal album for Justified. "What occurred was unintentional, completely regrettable, and I apologize if you guys are offended."<br><br> Despite a tightly scripted show devoid of outrageousness or spontaneity, Janet Jackson's breast flash remained the major subplot. CBS and Jackson offered conflicting reports about why she was not at the show, which was televised on a delay to avoid anything like the Super Bowl incident.<br><br> CBS need not have worried - the already staid Grammys were even more conservative than usual. Curses and cleavage were in short supply, with the exception of 's dangerously low-cut pink dress.<br><br> The Orlando Sentinel is a Tribune Publishing newspaper. The Associated Press contributed to this article.?Prolific songwriter and " American Idol" judge 's Spanish-style home in the Hollywood Hills is on the market at $1,649,000.<br><br>The gated house, built in 1964, has city and canyon views, wood-beamed ceilings, an open floor plan, extensive decks and a spa. Three bedrooms and 3 1/2 bathrooms sit in 3,400 square feet. She added an outdoor cedar sauna to give the secluded property a spa-like feel. The guest unit has its own entrance, living room, kitchen and bathroom.<br><br> DioGuardi, 39, who joined the panel of the Fox singing competition in 2009, brings a wealth of experience to the role. She has written hundreds of songs, including more than 165 on multiplatinum albums, and worked with , , , , Pink and "Idol" winner among others. A record producer and singer too, she owns Arthouse Entertainment, a publishing company.<br><br>She has used the house as a frequent site for her songwriting. Public records show DioGuardi bought the two-story house in 2004 for $1,199,000. Last year she married Maine home builder Mike McCuddy.<br><br>Ginger Glass of Coldwell Banker's Beverly Hills North office has the listing.<br><br>He takes a gamble on beach rental<br><br>Professional poker player Joe Sebok, host of "Poker2Nite" on Fox Sports, and designer Kristan Cunningham of "Design on a Dime" fame have teamed up to outfit his new apartment on the Strand in Hermosa Beach.<br><br>Sebok recently signed a year lease on the two-bedroom, one-bathroom ocean-view unit at $3,150 a month. For the card player, who spends much of his time traveling and staying in hotels, it's his first place of his own.<br><br>But in typical Sebok social networking fashion, this is no ordinary client-decorator working relationship.<br><br>"The coolest part is we basically decided to do the whole thing on and Facebook," said Sebok, who has a large following on .<br><br> Sebok and Cunningham use social media as a communication and decision-making tool and as a way to allow others to track their back and forth. "It just made sense instead of having meetings," Cunningham said.<br><br>She will take videos of thrift store and flea market finds, for example, and put them online for Sebok and Facebook fans to see and comment on. Or she'll compile a collage of potential items for one of his rooms. The pair also go over costs online to show people how a look could be accomplished differently.<br><br>With tournaments, a TV show and a website, Sebok needs a primary residence that can serve as the nerve center for his businesses and a place to entertain friends. He envisions an environment that's "young, casual, hip — a cross between modern and a beach residence."<br><br>With no previous decorating experience, Sebok turned to Cunningham, whom he met through an acquaintance.<br><br>"What I do best is help people figure out how to do things on a budget," Cunningham said. "He started with nothing but a mattress. We'll stay under $15,000 with sheets, art and accessories."<br><br>To keep costs down, many of the furnishings are being purchased from big-box stores. "Everything we buy can't be the ultimate lifetime piece, although there are some quality pieces that can go along with him to other places," Cunningham said.<br><br>One of the challenges of designing the space has been working within 750 square feet.<br><br>"Both bedrooms are barely big enough to hold a bed," Cunningham said. "We decided to take his bedroom and make it about the bed, just a bedroom. The second bedroom is going to be a men's dressing room/closet with a large bench that could also be a guest bed."<br><br>She thought it would give the unit a more luxurious feel to devote the square footage to something so indulgent. "The space only needs to work for him."<br><br>?On an overcast morning that reflected their somber mood, Capt. Lee McNett bellowed out to his fellow firefighters lined up in front of Santa Monica Fire Station No. 2: "Present Arms!"<br><br>The 12 firefighters, dressed in their navy-blue work uniforms, drew their right hands to their foreheads in salute. One man lowered the U.S. and California flags flying in front of their station to half-staff.<br><br> On Thursday at 6:59 a.m. PDT, the time at which the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed seven years ago, a minute of silence was observed.<br><br>The firefighters stood still, eyes fixated on the flags as they flapped in the breeze. They thought of where they were when they first heard of the attacks. <br><br>Three of the four hijacked jets were bound for Los Angeles. The other was headed for San Francisco.<br><br>They remembered the fellow firefighters who rushed to help. They thought, too, of the many U.S. service members still fighting and dying for their country. <br><br>The minute passed.<br><br>"Detail dismissed," McNett said. He asked if any of the men wanted to say something. No one did.<br><br>McNett said that seven years after the attack many memories remain vivid. That morning, he gathered around a fire station television with colleagues. <br><br>He remembers hearing a distinctive warbling sound in some of the footage of the Twin Towers. He recognized it as the sound of many, many personal locater alarms, which go off when a firefighter has not moved for more than 60 seconds. <br><br>"That's when we all realized it's just . . . " McNett trailed off, shaking his head.<br><br>He said the anniversary made him think of the costs of a free society and the wars in and Afghanistan. <br><br>"We have to remember we're dealing with terrorists and have to do what we have to do for freedom," he said. "Unfortunately, the answer to that is war. I look forward to the day when we can say the war is over."<br><br>A banner, put up a few days earlier, flew over the station's front windows: "Join us to commemorate Patriot Day Sept. 11." <br><br>During the ceremony a dozen or so residents walked by, but no one stopped. McNett said he wished they had hung the banner sooner.<br><br>"I just think people don't have a place to go and commemorate Sept. 11," he said.<br><br>A few blocks away, Celine Uribe, 22, took a smoking break from her job as a barista at one of the area's many coffee shops.<br><br>Earlier, Uribe and her roommate talked about the terrorist attacks after they saw a story about the dedication of a new memorial at the Pentagon, where an jet bound for Los Angeles was forced to crash. <br><br>But she did not attend the fire station ceremony.<br><br>?The new Palms resort boldly hypes itself as Las Vegas' sex-iest adult playground--a way-cool, celebrity-studded, off-Strip boutique hotel and gambling joint. It's a big boast in a town that calls itself Sin City.<br><br>My wife and I decided to find out for ourselves, making the 4-month-old Palms our anchor for a weekend of classy food, high-class art and classic rock 'n' roll.<br><br> For context, know that Jeanne and I are a combined 100 years old, enjoyed Liberace when he performed at the Las Vegas Hilton, and a year ago paid to see --and actually liked him.<br><br>For our getaway last month, we booked a standard room a few weeks in advance at $159 a night plus tax. But Vegas hotel rates fluctuate almost daily, and the night before our arrival, I noticed prices had dropped to $139. A Palms clerk cheerfully adjusted our rate.<br><br>After a smooth Friday evening check-in, we were in our supposedly "oversized guest room" with "extraordinary views of the world-famous Las Vegas Strip."<br><br>Well, not quite. The room felt cramped, and while we could see the Strip a few blocks away, our view was mostly the glare from the building's exterior floodlights. In fact, at bedtime we had to push two chairs against the curtains to cut the amount of light pouring in.<br><br>A large armoire held a 27-inch TV and a mini-bar. (Be advised: If you take a beer out of the fridge to make room for dinner leftovers, a computer will detect the motion and charge you for the beer. Call the front desk to have the charge removed.) The bathroom was nicely appointed but surprisingly dark, and as we competed for the same sink and mirror, we wished the vanity were larger.<br><br>Then we were off to dinner at Nine, an offshoot of a popular Chicago steakhouse. The walls are spare, the room done in silver and black, and the center occupied by a caviar bar beneath a vaulted ceiling illuminated in soft lavender light. Jeanne thought it a pleasant, spaceship ambience. It was as noisy as an engine room, too, with conversations competing with canned music heavy on the bass. Am I sounding crotchety?<br><br>We were won over, however, by a fine dinner. Jeanne started with lobster bisque poured around a spring roll; I had a Caesar salad. We both chose filets, done perfectly, and shared two sides, sautéed spinach with caramelized garlic and a "Yukon gold potato puree trio"--twice-baked potatoes to you and me--each topped with lobster, horseradish or caramelized onions.<br><br>We capped the evening at Ghost Bar and its open-air balcony on the Palms' 55th floor, as famous for who's seen inside as for the view that can be seen outside. The cover charge on weekends is $20, but the hostess at Nine (who didn't know I was a reporter) phoned our names upstairs and we slipped in for free.<br><br>Inside a chrome-and-glass room with undulating couches apparently taken from the Jetsons' home, the sport is people-watching. The DJ's selections included the Beatles, hard rock and something he called electro jazz.<br><br>Because we're 100, we didn't stay long.<br><br>We strolled around the casino and found it lacking distinctive features. It has a sports book, a poker room, plenty of the newest slot machines and blackjack tables covered in lime-green felt. The ceiling created an industrial ambience, highlighted by what looked like burlap-covered turbine blades. Tropical meets techno.<br><br>Saturday was more to our taste, far from the cacophony of casinos. We headed first to Steve and Elaine Wynn's art gallery, the Wynn Collection, at what had been the Desert Inn. Wynn, who introduced fine art to Las Vegas when he built the Bellagio, continues to grace the community with masterworks, including Picasso's "Le Rêve" (The Dream), for which he has named his next casino, soon to be under construction at this site. We don't know what Wynn paid for the painting, but the previous time it sold at auction, it went for more than $40 million.<br><br>The gallery is unpretentious, with 13 works by Cézanne, Gauguin, Manet, Matisse, Modigliani, Van Gogh and (a portrait of Wynn). Listen to Wynn's recorded commentary and you'll learn a few things--and laugh too.<br><br>While you're there, examine the pattern of the rug, then the background of "Le Rêve," and ask yourself whether the similarities are just coincidence or reflect Wynn's subtle fun with interior decorating.<br><br>We drove a couple of blocks to the Venetian to view the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum's inaugural show, "Masterpieces and Master Collectors." It is the historic collaboration between the in New York and the State Hermitage Museum of Russia, the show unabashedly situated in Las Vegas so that the masses can enjoy the masters.<br><br>The 44 pieces included works by Pissarro, Gauguin and Picasso that have been held in St. Petersburg and never before viewed in the United States. The bright gallery, designed by architect , is itself spectacular: The paintings hang by magnets on rust-colored, Cor-Ten steel walls that look almost velvety.<br><br>Unlike Wynn's gallery, where a tour includes recorded commentary, the Guggenheim Hermitage folks charge extra for audio accompaniment that's not as detailed.<br><br>?I was sitting on the banks of the Garavogue River in Sligo on a spring day last year when a local woman parked her bike and sat down next to me. We chatted about this and that, and then she asked whether I liked spas. It was like asking Santa whether he liked reindeer.<br><br>"I find most spas very fussy," she said, "but I think you'd find the Voya seaweed baths in Strandhill really different. It's less than 10 kilometers from here."<br><br> Because locals are my favorite guidebooks, I jumped into my rental car, and off I went.<br><br>Planning your trip<br><br>Voya Seaweed Baths, 011-353-71-916-8686, , $36 for 50 minutes for a single private room.<br><br>Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery, 011-353-71-916-1534. About 2 1/2 miles from Sligo's town center.<br><br>Strandhill is a lively little seaside resort with the requisite surfers, ice cream and T-shirt shops, pebble and sand beach, wooden boardwalk and a view over the shore-seeking waves of the Atlantic. Across from the sea, a sign on a low, off-white building with a modern glass entryway read: Voya Seaweed Baths.<br><br>Inside, at the reception desk, two friendly young women were surrounded by Voya spa products.<br><br>I quickly envisioned another ho-hum spa experience with some expensive essence-of-seaweed extract drizzled into a tub of hot water.<br><br>Wrong. Nicola, one of the two women, handed me a towel, robe and slippers and escorted me to a private bath room. She flipped a switch to turn on a steam shower.<br><br>"Please go into the steam for five to 10 minutes," she said, "and switch it off when you are done. Then go into the bath for 30 to 35 minutes. The cold water is salt water. Rub it all over your skin, hair and face to release the oils.<br><br>"Then pull the plug in the tub, scoop up the seaweed and put it in a bucket. Remember to drink plenty of water, and you'll find the bath is excellent if you are stressed or overworked."<br><br>Whenever I am given multiple instructions, I manage to get them muddled and I end up talking to myself, trying to repeat what I was supposed to do. "Steam," I said, as I entered the shower. "Bath," I said, as I prepared for my soak.<br><br>When I looked into the white claw-foot bathtub, I thought I was hallucinating. It was filled with huge, long fronds of seaweed. I stepped inside and sank into the all-engulfing strands, afraid I would emerge half an hour later looking like Botticelli's Venus if she had been strangled.<br><br> "You are stressed and overworked," I told myself. "This is good for you."<br><br>I wasted the first five minutes in the hot seaweed soup fretting because I had forgotten to turn off the steam shower. The next 15 minutes were spent in futile attempts at clearing my mind and relaxing. I ended up popping the seaweed pods as though they were bubble wrap. Then I picked up some of the slimy wild seaweed and ran it over my face and hair. Just as Nicola had promised, the oil of seaweed was released and I began to enjoy the glutinous, aloe-vera-like experience. I ran organic fucus serratus seaweed over every inch of me, actually giggling aloud, and when 35 minutes were up, I didn't want to leave.<br><br>I remembered to scoop out the seaweed with my now-soft hands and place it in a wooden bucket, where a sign told me it would go to fertilize a local organic garden. The experience felt as wholesome and Earth-friendly as buying a hybrid car.<br><br>When I returned, glowing, to the crowded reception area, I was surprised to meet Ben, age 3 1/2 , and 1-year-old Celine waiting with their parents, Noel and Moya Quinn, to enter a bath room. Who brings a toddler to a spa in America? Parents go there to get away from their kids. Nicola told me that the youngest seaweed bather they had hosted was a few days old. "Of course, the kids don't go in the steam shower," she said.<br><br>More than 40,000 people come to Voya each year for the seaweed bathing experience. A century ago, bathing in wild seaweed -- which was touted for its minerals, vitamins and trace elements -- was all the rage in . There were more than 300 bathhouses throughout the country, and nine in little Strandhill. In 1961, Hurricane Debbie destroyed the last of them. People left the Atlantic coast, and nonorganic spas throughout the country catered to the soak-loving population.<br><br>?Prolific songwriter and "American Idol" judge 's Spanish-style home in the Hollywood Hills is on the market at $1,649,000.<br><br>The gated house, built in 1964, has city and canyon views, wood-beamed ceilings, extensive decks, an outdoor cedar sauna and a spa. There are three bedrooms and 3 1/2 bathrooms in more than 2,700 square feet. The guest unit has its own entrance, living room, kitchen and bathroom.<br><br> DioGuardi, 39, joined the panel of the Fox singing competition in 2009. She has written hundreds of songs, including more than 165 on multi-platinum albums, and worked with , , , , Pink and "Idol" winner among others. Her songs have won multiple BMI Pop Awards. A record producer and singer too, she owns Arthouse Entertainment, a publishing company.<br><br>Public records show DioGuardi bought the two-story house in 2004 for $1,199,000. She married Maine home builder Mike McCuddy last year.<br><br>Ginger Glass of Coldwell Banker's Beverly Hills North office has the listing.<br><br>?London is swinging again thanks to bride and princess-to-be . Millions are hanging on her every move — where she shops, where she primps, what she eats and drinks.<br><br> Although the couple live (part of the time) in a rented farmhouse in North Wales, Middleton and Prince William will likely move to London's Palace at some point in the future. And Middleton certainly spends a lot of time in London — especially now that the wedding is a month away — mostly in the swish neighborhoods of South Kensington, Chelsea, Knightsbridge and Mayfair, all of which are in close proximity to Hyde Park and the Buckingham and Kensington palaces.<br><br> A "Sloane Ranger" through and through (in America, she would be a preppy — in the most traditional sense), she has cultivated an image that is anything but flashy. It's a look of accessibility rather than high fashion, (although that could well change after she becomes the ultimate "smug married," as Bridget Jones might say).<br><br> Middleton, whose family owns a party supply business, has been known to frequent chain stores and discount outlets. When it comes to dining, her choices are similarly un-exotic. She does enjoy a cocktail, frequenting clubs that cater to the "trustafarian" set. But although they may be referred to as private clubs, they aren't really, meaning that you just have to look the part (or be a prince's girlfriend) to get past the velvet rope.<br><br> Here is a guide to some of her favorite hangouts.<br><br> Middleton has been called "the high street princess," and by high street, we're talking about the kind of mainstream chain stores you'd find in the mall. There are lots of high streets in London, but Middleton's shopping strip of choice is King's Road, which long ago kissed its punk and hippie roots goodbye and instead is a who's who of contemporary British fashion boutiques, beginning at the Sloane Square end with Duke of York Square, and heading west all the way to the Bluebird Cafe.<br><br> Middleton and her family have been loyal clients of celebrity hairdresser Richard Ward for years (the TV personality issued a "news statement" on his website congratulating the happy couple and confirmed it was one of his stylists who "enhanced Kate's look" for the engagement press day). The hairstylist's salon in the new, pedestrian-friendly outdoor mall at Duke of York Square is certainly luxe, with its own boutique, cappuccino bar and Philippe Starck mirrors at every stylist station.<br><br> The clientele is decidedly upscale — think camel coats, jeans tucked into riding boots and Tod's handbags. A blow-dry will set you back $105 at current exchange. But for those soft Middleton waves, it might just be worth it. An hour-long "Velvet Hands" manicure costs $114. And for polish, only OPI's pale pink Princesses Rule will do.<br><br> Whistles, where she bought the scalloped-edge ivory blouse she wore in some of the engagement photos, is in the same shopping complex, fronting King's Road. The brand is a bit like Madewell, not sexy but sweet. For spring, that means a smart-looking fluorescent pink knife-pleat skirt ($154), a black tie-shoulder jumpsuit ($406) and a lucky horse print blouse ($138).<br><br> Next door is L.K. Bennett, where the style icon in training goes for her sensible kitten heels. The round-toe, 21/2 -inch Sabira heels resemble Christian Louboutin's Simple pumps but at a fraction of the price, just $147. L.K. Bennett is reminiscent of Ann Taylor pre-makeover — lots of office-appropriate pencil skirts and feminine polka dot blouses (both $203), along with conservative silk jersey dresses ($300) and diamante clutch purses ($276).<br><br> Jigsaw London, at the west end of Duke of York Square, is where Middleton worked as an accessories buyer in 2007. It has the prettiness of and the bohemian appeal of Anthropologie. For spring, that means $57 Breton stripe shirts, $80 T-shirts with silk rose appliqués, along with fluttery metallic floral dresses ($317) and some very cool-looking Hunter wellies with a distressed finish. (Although Middleton braves the elements in her trusty suede Aquatalia boots.) The rest of the accessories are somewhat lackluster, including fabric bead necklaces, raffia clutches and woven leather totes ($89 to $479).<br><br> Across the street is Reiss, where Middleton scored the sleek cream dress she wore in her engagement photos. It was an older style (the bride-to-be apparently raided her closet for the Mario Testino photo session, rather than going on a shopping spree), but the dress was reissued after the photos came out and customer demand surged. Reiss is similar to Club Monaco, with super-chic, modern clothes in the style of and such as a fuchsia silk top with a fluid sleeve ($185), an A-line suede skirt ($365), royal blue silk trousers ($195) and asymmetrical cutout wedge sandals ($295).<br><br> Back down King's Road at Sloane Square, Peter Jones is the Middleton family's go-to department store. (In fact, when I was chatting with the saleswoman while buying my very own black feather royal fascinator headpiece, she informed me that Kate's sister, Pippa, had been in the store just that morning.) The store, which feels like a or Bloomingdale's equivalent, features some of the same brands found on the high street, along with selected designers, including British accessories brand . Perhaps this is where Middleton picked up the postman's lock clutch she carries so often.<br><br> In January, Kate and her mother, Carole, were spotted browsing the post-holiday sales racks at the store, leading to speculation that the royal couple might have a small gift-registry at Peter Jones for close family and friends. (They issued a statement to the public asking for charitable donations in lieu of gifts.) If that's true, surely they logged some time on the home accessories floor, checking out the Orla Kiely bed linens ($71 to $102), seven-day custom curtains, Nespresso coffee makers ($356) and Beatles throw pillows ($81). Something tells me Middleton won't need any china, although commemorative royal wedding plates and tankards are for sale at the store.<br><br> An even bigger attraction is the hat department at Peter Jones, which stocks feathered and flowered styles by one of Middleton's favorite milliners, Whiteley Fischer (about $290). You might remember that her famous jaunty black beret was by the hat manufacturer, which has been in business for 60 years.<br><br> Another source for Middleton's extensive hat wardrobe is , who will design wedding hats for members of the royal family. His salon is east of Sloane Square on Elizabeth Street, along a stretch of retail that could cater to a princess bride's every need — Jenny Packham for dresses, Peggy Porschen for cakes, and Allegra Hicks for honeymoon beach cover-ups. At Treacy's shop, floral headbands go from $487 to $1,300 and couture creations, such as the silver starburst hat in the window that was made for Grace Jones, can run well into the thousands.<br><br> A short walk north on Sloane Street toward Knightsbridge, and you'll pass stationery and leather goods store Smythson, the source of Middleton's leather-bound wedding diary, and upscale department store Harvey Nichols, where she has picked up those famously smoking-hot silk jersey plunge-front gowns by and .<br><br> Beauchamp Place, a swanky street that's just a few blocks down Brompton Road past Harrods, was one of 's stamping grounds and is a Kate Middleton hangout as well. In January, rumors started flying that British designer Bruce Oldfield was designing her wedding dress when Middleton was spotted coming out of his Beauchamp Place boutique with her mother and sister.<br><br> Though Oldfield, who designed the prime minister's wife Samantha Cameron's wedding dress, has been dismissed by many royal watchers as too old-school to be the dressmaker, his windows were full of styles suited to a young bride, including one slinky lace creation in Middleton's signature body-conscious silhouette.<br><br> Middleton also loves a bargain, and on Kensington High Street just a few blocks away from Kensington Palace is TK Maxx, the British version of TJ Maxx. Middleton reportedly enjoys riffling through the racks of last season's mirrored sandals ($291 down from $991), tops ($242 from $731) and dresses ($761 from $2,567). Perhaps she can send a footman down to check out the latest "designer labels for less." As if.<br><br> When it comes to dining, Middleton is a creature of habit. She loves Bluebird, where the rich and highlighted come in their fur vests to nosh on eggs Benedict and hamburgers. Housed in a former garage, Bluebird is actually two restaurants, with a gourmet grocery store and a clothing boutique stocking Azzedine Alaia, , and more.<br><br> On her 29th birthday, she and sister Pippa ate at Tom Aikens, a modern French restaurant in South Kensington, where the French waiters are so heavily accented, you just have to grin and nod. The creative cuisine runs the gamut from a tomato-less gazpacho to truffle panna cotta. Prices are steep ($390 for dinner for two), but the more casual, less expensive Tom's Kitchen next door (same owner) is also a favorite with Kate and the prince.<br><br> When Kate joined her future stepmother-in-law, Camilla Parker Bowles, for lunch recently, they hit Koffmann's at the Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge, which attracts helmet-haired ladies of a certain age and men in three-piece suits who enter through the discreet side entrance. This is not a place for diners looking to experience modern culinary revolution (it is traditional French, helmed by chef Pierre Koffmann). Kate and Camilla dined on rabbit and foie gras. Black pudding is also on the menu.<br><br> When she wants to let loose, Middleton doesn't go to the exclusive Soho House like princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, the daughters of Duchess of York and . Instead, she hits clubs such as Boujis and Mahiki, the tiki bar with the velvet rope in the heart of Mayfair. (Nightclub impresario Guy Pelly, the rascal friend of the princes, has been involved in managing five clubs in London, including Mahiki and his newest venture, Public on King's Road.)<br><br> The tropical-themed Mahiki serves its own house rum from Barbados and spins classic rock tunes. The cocktail list includes Guinness punch, a Coconut Grenade (served in a real coconut) and the $203 Treasure Chest, which serves eight and contains rum, brandy, peach liqueur, lime and sugar, topped with a bottle of Moët & Chandon.<br><br> Of course, Middleton probably won't be having any more freewheeling nights once she is officially inside the royal bubble. Then again, maybe Pelly can open his next club inside Kensington Palace.<br><br>?<p>Many big-name L.A.-based designers — , Gregory Parkinson, , , Skaist-Taylor and among them — have already shown their fall 2012 collections at New York Fashion Week. Now in the middle of Los Angeles Fashion Week, it seems like a good time to meet other designers and labels that are shaping the L.A. fashion scene and giving it global reach.</p><p>Of Two Minds</p><p>The look: L.A.'s answer to Isabel Marant.</p> <p>The goods: Designer Sunjoo Moon marries Parisian chic and West Coast cool for a world-traveler vibe seen in fur vests, maxi-length dresses done in relaxed 1970s silhouettes, cozy knits and trousers festooned with subtle tribal patterns. Prices run $180 to $1,000.</p><p>The back story: After years of working for European fashion houses including , Thierry Mugler and , as well as her Paris-based line and boutique, Moon brought her talents west to create a contemporary collection. With the eclectic and free-spirited line in its third season, Moon continues to reinterpret the Left Bank to Los Angeles inspiration that encourages layering and print-on-print dressing.</p><p>Where to find it: Ron Herman, Fred Segal.</p><p>A.L.C.</p><p>The look: Modern wardrobe essentials with a twist.</p><p>The goods: The perfect striped T-shirt, the wear-everywhere leather jacket and the dress-up or dress-down pleated maxi-skirt are mainstays of the line, $295 to $1,895. For fall, designer Andrea Lieberman plays with tweeds, paisleys and rubber-coated lace on oversized coats, silk T-shirts and skinny pants.</p><p>The back story: A graduate of Parsons School of Design, Lieberman always knew that having her own line was in her future, even as she segued into styling tour and concert wardrobes for , , , Eve and other music world stars, culminating in her working with on theL.A.M.B. clothing line. Lieberman launched her own collection, A.L.C., in 2009 and has recently expanded the offerings to include jewelry, such as mini-screw stud earrings and twisted nail cuffs.</p><p>Where to find it: , , Net-a-porter.com, Shopbop.com and Intermix stores.</p><p>Raquel Allegra</p><p>The look: Artfully distressed.</p><p>The goods: Tie-dye print jackets and shorts, shredded jersey and lace layering pieces, cocoon-shaped T-shirts, soft shirt dresses and, for fall, rib knit skirts and leather leggings.</p><p>The back story: Allegra first gained a following in 2006 for turning reclaimed L.A. County Jail tees into one-of-a-kind shirts with her signature shredding and tie-dying technique. That idea has since grown into a full line of soft and tailored separates, priced at $150 to $1,300.</p><p>Where to find it: Barneys New York, Net-a-porter.com, RaquelAllegra.com.</p><p>Newbark</p><p>The look: Bohemian jet-set accessories hand-stitched in Los Angeles.</p><p>The goods: For fall, the classic pancake flat Newbark slipper gets an updated silhouette and a tiny heel. There are also mules covered in caviar-like crystals, ankle boots that can be worn with the backs folded down or up, reversible tartan totes, structured pony-skin bags and soft leather pochette purses with clear plastic windows for displaying a special photo. Prices are $425 to $1,000.</p><p>The back story: Stylist sisters Maryam and Marjan Malakpour launched Newbark in 2009 with the goal of producing comfy shoes that could be worn at home, on set or while traveling. Since then, their soft, foldable slippers have become such a hit that they've branched into more structured footwear and bags with a similar utilitarian appeal.</p>?When returns to his limited engagement next month in Las Vegas, some of those in line at the Encore box office may be surprised to find that the price of a ticket has nearly doubled.<br> <br> The increase — from $125 to $225 — has observers along the Strip — and, apparently, the country superstar himself — wondering whether the tickets are within reach of Brooks' exceedingly loyal but solidly middle-income fans.<br> <br> "My only concern is the audience," Brooks said in a statement issued by PR people at , owner of Encore. "Right now, the Vegas audiences are some of the best I have ever played for, and I'd hate to see that change for whatever reason."<br> <br> As steep as they are, tickets to see Brooks are now on par with that of other big stars. When returns in March to the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, more than three years after the close of her record-setting show "A New Day," the best seats will sell for $250, not including taxes and fees. The only other star able to ask — and get — $250 a pop is , who performs a limited number of Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings at Paris.<br> <br> Looks like we made it, indeed. In Sin City in 2011, the crooner's tickets will sell for what upscale rooms used to fetch. And even though those rates also are forecast to climb in the New Year, Las Vegas' 150,000-plus hotel rooms will still be a bargain compared with rates at other popular travel destinations.<br> <br> During the first three quarters of 2010, room rates in Las Vegas climbed by slightly less than 2% to a September average of just more than $97 a night. In the same month three years ago, rates averaged more than $142.<br> <br> "During the 'bubble,' Las Vegas certainly got ahead of itself from a pricing perspective," said Bill Lerner, a principal with Vegas-based Union Gaming Group, an investment bank that researches gaming trends worldwide. "Next year, I think we could see … maybe 3% to 5% rate increases citywide." That's only slightly different from the 2% to 6% increases expected by analysts at Business Travel.<br> <br> When this year's numbers are crunched, Lerner expects that as many as 37.5 million people will have visited Vegas. Next year, he predicts 39 million.<br> <br> Lerner also expects that the larger number of visitors, driven mainly by increased convention traffic, will drop more dollars during their stays.<br> <br> "People are feeling more confident about their personal balance sheet," he said.<br> <br> But are they confident enough to drop more than $500 — fees and taxes included — to see Barry, Celine or Garth? Lerner thinks some — particularly international travelers — will gladly fork over the money.<br> <br> The investment banker added that favorable exchange rates will make those international travelers "the type of folks that will consume these expensive shows" with limited performance dates and seating.<br> <br> "I think the average consumer comes to this market with a budget," Lerner said. "If it's spent incrementally on entertainment, it comes out of some other part of the trip budget — gaming or food and beverage — for sure."<br> <br> — Jay Jones?Through June 19<br><br> Asian Contemporary Art<br><br> Where: CENTERpiece Gallery (CityCenter)<br><br> Highlights: Part of CityCenter's commitment to bringing quality art to Las Vegas, this exhibit features works in various media by leading artists from China, Japan and Korea. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. daily.<br><br> Info: (702) 739-3314, <br><br>Through July 4<br><br> Letters to Troops<br><br> Where: Palazzo<br><br> Highlights: Among red, white and blue floral displays in the resort's waterfall atrium, guests are encouraged to write a letter to a soldier, to be distributed by the USO.<br><br> Info: <br><br>Through mid-July<br><br> Storytime in the Square<br><br> Where: Town Square Park (South Strip)<br><br> Highlights: From 11 a.m. to noon each Wednesday, kids and their parents will be treated to classic children's tales, enhanced by singing and dancing.<br><br> Info: (702) 269-5001<br><br>Through August<br><br> Mac King Magic Show<br><br> Where: Harrah's<br><br> Highlights: During the summer, this family-friendly show is offering half-price tickets with a California ID.<br><br>?--Finnish auteur nabbed the Louis Delluc Prize for "Le Havre" at a ceremony held on Friday in Paris. The film, which reps in the foreign-language Oscar race, bowed in competition at Cannes and won the Fipresci nod. "Le Havre" has played at a flurry of fests around the world, notably at Karlovy Vary, Locarno, Dubai, Pusan, Chicago and New York. Pic is sold by The Match Factory, and produced by Finland's Sputnik, France's Pyramide Prods. and Pandora Film. Described by Kaurismaki as a "semi-realistic fairy tale," E3.8 million ($5 million) offbeat dramedy turns on Andre Wilms as a Bohemian scribe-turned-shoeshine man on a mission to help an African stowaway. "Le Havre" beat Valerie Donzelli's "Declaration of War," ' "The Artist" and Celine Sciamma's "Tomboy," among others. Djinn Carrenard's "Donoma" nabbed the Louis Delluc prize for best first film. A comedy produced by Donoma Guerilla, the pic was reportedly made on a $200 budget. "Donoma" played at Cannes in 2010. The Louis Delluc prizes were chosen by a jury presided by prexy Gilles Jacob, and comprised of French film journos.<br><br>Click for more film news on Variety.com.<br><br>?Director has wrapped production on "Before Midnight," a sequel to the helmer's indie hits "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset."<br><br> and reprise their roles as star-crossed lovers Jesse and Celine.<br><br> Linklater's longtime collaborator, John Sloss of Cinetic Media, exec produced the pic and will handle domestic sales.<br><br>Producers include Linklater's Detour Filmproduction, Christos V. Konstantakopoulos and Sara Woodhatch of Faliro House and Jacob Pechenik of Venture 4TH, as well as Martin Shafer and Liz Glotzer of Castle Rock Entertainment. Pic will be released worldwide next year.<br><br>Written by Linklater, Delpy and Hawke, "Before Midnight" lensed under the radar in Messinia, Greece. "It's great to be back together again, this time in beautiful Greece to revisit the lives of Celine and Jesse nine years after Jesse was about to miss his flight," the scribes said in a joint statement. The trio previously earned nomination for co-writing 2005's "Before Sunset."<br><br>Stuart Ford's IM Global specialty label ACCLAIM is handling international sales.<br><br>Linklater's dark comedy "Bernie," starring , and , is currently enjoying a long run in arthouse theaters after opening in May.<br><br>Click for more film news on Variety.com.<br><br>?<p>Before Monday night’s show with , the first of three fireworks-punctuated nights at the Hollywood Bowl culminating with Independence Day, one question came to mind: What does a Barry Manilow crowd look like in 2012? <br><br>After nearly 40 years of massive pop hits and even a few memorable commercial jingles (the insurance company that’s “like a good neighbor”? That’s Manilow), the answer should have been obvious -- the crowd looks like you, me and just about everybody else. With the Bowl filled with families, couples and obviously longtime Manilow fans, the question quickly became less one of who sees Barry Manilow on a summer night and more of wondering who wouldn’t.<br><br>Entering to a stomping beat accented with alarmingly modern techno squiggles that had white-jacketed Los Angeles Philharmonic musicians pumping their instruments, Manilow arrived like a conquering hero as a crowd armed with swirling, Bowl-provided light sticks greeted him with a delirious ovation.</p><p></p><p>Yes, the show was nostalgic and even a touch campy in its brisk, lounge-ready pace at just under an hour, but it quickly became obvious that Manilow has enough classic, irony-free showmanship to win over even the most eyebrow-arching hipster.<br><br>Despite armloads of immediately recognizable songs that framed a generation of radio listeners in the late 1970s and early ’80s, however, Manilow has yet to enjoy a pop culture reappraisal similar to the ones that have fueled left-field resurgences by , Tom Jones, and even , whose emotive oeuvre was examined with enough head-spinning detail by critic Carl Wilson in the “33 1/3" book series to make one question why you listen to music in the first place.<br><br>Manilow’s not asking. He’s obviously having too much fun. Though the L.A. Phil often faded into the background during bigger moments and Manilow’s voice sounded pretty thin at the higher registers (there was enough thickening echo on his microphone during an early take of “Could It Be Magic” to fill an Olympic swimming pool, and some concertgoers complained about the night’s overall sound), there was no denying his enthusiasm, which gave every impression that the singer was having a ball opening his first national tour since becoming a Vegas act in 2006.<br><br>“I was the of the ’70s,” Manilow cracked before launching into “Even Now” behind his piano at the right of the stage. “Ask your mother,” he added.<br><br>Which even Manilow would admit is overstating it a touch, in part because what’s so endearing about him is the goofy, unabashedly un-cool charm of his performance. During the disco-adjacent “New York City Rhythm,” which featured Manilow cycling at his piano with two other keyboardists (including music director Ron Walters), Manilow moved surprisingly well for a guy who’s had multiple hip surgeries, and even led a mini-conga line with his backing singers as he playfully asked, “Should I go on ‘Dancing With the Stars’?” The crowd seemed to think so.<br><br>But for all of Manilow’s impishly nerdy appeal, which included his wedding reception-ready merengue in “Copacabana” and calling for help from the crowd as he strolled the stage during the undeniable “I Write the Songs,” it was his forlorn ballads that carried the most weight in leveling any resistance, which once ran so strong that an L.A. oldies station in the ’90s briefly marketed itself by pledging not to play any of his songs.<br><br>A requisite turn at “Mandy” was affecting despite his voice’s being reduced to a hoarse whisper at the song’s opening, and the three-hanky “Weekend in New England” elicited a swooning chorus of female voices from the crowd as his lovesick question “When can I hold you?” echoed across the night. As the ladies roared their approval, briefly interrupting the song, Manilow looked genuinely surprised, even puzzled.<br><br>“At the Bowl?” he asked quizzically while casting a disbelieving look at his band. “I still got it!”</p>?For years, L.A.-based author Lizzie Garrett Mettler thought "tomboy" was a dirty word.<br><br>"I was a definite tomboy when I was a kid," she says. "It was a nightmare for my parents to get me into a dress for a stretch of years."<br><br> As she became a teenager and young adult, she pushed that side of herself away. That changed when she started reading street fashion blogs like the Sartorialist and A Cup of Jo, and saw comments from readers who couldn't get enough of Alexa Chung and 's "tomboy style."<br><br>Maybe, Mettler thought, there was something to her lifelong fascination with Belgian loafers, tattered polos and Barbour jackets.<br><br>Indeed, in recent years, men's wear-inspired fashion for women has gone mainstream. It's seen at , where you can find a "schoolboy blazer"; on the streets, where the Breton sailor stripe shirt trend won't go away; and on the runways, in Scott Sternberg's neo-preppy collection and in the 1970s-inspired trouser and oversized button-down shirt looks by Phoebe Philo at .<br><br>"Something clicked in my head," Mettler says. "So I started a blog to answer my own question about what makes a tomboy stylish."<br><br>That blog, launched in May 2010, inspired the book "Tomboy Style: Beyond the Boundaries of Fashion," which was published this month by Rizzoli. The book is a visual history, documenting 80 years of women who blur the gender lines.<br><br>In her research, Mettler realized she discovered her own tomboy style while at boarding school, trading clothes with her frilly best friend Kingsley Woolworth, who favored bubble-gum pink bed linens and diamond stud earrings. By borrowing some of Kingsley's things and mixing them with her old favorites, many of them borrowed from her older brother, Mettler found her own style vocabulary, epitomized by a shirtdress cinched with a men's ribbon belt.<br><br>"A tomboy is a girl," Mettler explains. "Tomboy style is about a woman who channels her tomboy childhood, and mixes masculine and feminine elements in her wardrobe. It's not just wearing men's clothes."<br><br>And it's not just wardrobe; it's substance too.<br><br>Mettler had a particular interest in how tomboy style pertains to the past, "to women who pushed the boundaries," she says. These women include , and Jane Birkin, as well as those we're not so used to seeing in the style pages, such as , pictured after a deep-sea dive off the coast of Block Island in 1929, and presidential progeny Susan Ford, barefoot in shorts and a T-shirt in 1976, washing her car in the driveway of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.<br><br>"I was looking at everything from 1980s movies like 'Some Kind of Wonderful,' in which the drummer Watts is a huge tomboy, to photos of women skiing from the 1950s. I noticed a broad range of women, but a neat thread that bound them together was a rebellious, adventurous confidence," Mettler says.<br><br>She consulted out-of-print fashion books and the Life magazine archives. "There are the obvious icons you'd expect, but there's also ," she says. "I always thought of her as 's dance partner, this super-feminine, glitzy woman. But she also had a ranch in Oregon where she fly-fished and canned her own vegetables. I have a photo of her in her waders sitting outside on the ground."<br><br>Mettler organized the book into seven tomboy style archetypes. The "rebels" are rocker chicks , and poet laureate of punk, who would buy an expensive coat and immediately throw it into the washing machine to distress it and make it her own. The "sophisticates" include Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, , and tomboy godmother , who turned a fascination with borrowing duds from her paramours into a new way of dressing and introduced it as sportswear to the women of the world.<br><br>A 1940 photo of Osa Johnson dressed in safari gear, riding a zebra in Africa, exemplifies the "adventuress" archetype. The "jocks" push their bodies, along with the bounds of society. There's , pictured mid-game in 1972, wearing a butterfly-appliqued tennis dress and ruffled panties, and , swinging a bat while playing ball with the boys in in 1952. In the "prep" category, there'sMonaco's Princess Caroline, having a smoke outside her family's French villa in 1982, bundled up in an Irish fisherman sweater and rain boots and snuggling her German shepherd.<br><br>Attitudes about tomboys have certainly changed over the years, Mettler says. And tomboy style doesn't seem to be going away.<br><br>To that end, she plans to continue her blog, spotlighting tomboy style icons such as Françoise Sagan and tomboy style resources such as New York-based label Thom Dolan. "There's always something new to find," Mettler says, "whether it's a music video or a family photo someone emails<br><br>me of their mother scaling the Alps."<br><br>?LONDON — With smiles on their faces and gold medals hanging from their necks, gathered and together late Saturday night at North Greenwich Arena.<br><br>The three shook hands.<br><br> Who knows what time and upcoming talent will do to the pact the players made to return for a fourth Olympics at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games? But this much is as clear and convincing as the U.S. women's basketball team's 86-50 victory over France: What a run it's been and remains.<br><br>"I usually don't get very emotional when we win," said. "But for some reason, when I was walking through the arena afterward, it hit me: You know this might be my last. It also might not be. But after three of them, they're really hard, even if you win by 30.<br><br>"The whole process is really difficult to try to get 12 really good players to buy into one thing. It takes a lot of effort and sacrifice. But in the end, we succeeded."<br><br>Indeed, the most dominant program at these Games posted its 41st straight Olympic triumph and collected an unprecedented fifth straight gold medal. Fittingly, all 12 players scored, a testament to the depth that defined this 8-0 run with an average margin of victory of 34.3 points.<br><br>The 36-point victory marked the largest margin for a gold-medal game in Olympic history.<br><br>'s 21 points and 11 rebounds led the balanced offensive effort, and swarming defense forced France into 28 percent shooting with 21 turnovers. Captain Celine Dumerc, who helped lead France to its first-ever basketball medal, managed just 2-for-10 shooting and often couldn't even initiate offense due to harassing defense from Taurasi and company.<br><br>Parker's dominant second quarter featured 11 points, including six straight that featured a coast-to-coast drive and nifty finger roll to close.<br><br>"Candace was huge," said.<br><br>Parker averaged 10.5 points, one of four players to score in double figures in these Olympics. Taurasi's 12.4 points-per-game average led.<br><br>And when it ended, emotion washed over all.<br><br>"It does feel different," Taurasi said. "As you get older, maybe you reflect a little more on everything you had to overcome to get you here. I looked back at all the things I've been through — good, bad, personal on the court. And it was a good feeling."<br><br>With 11 points, Bird also reached double figures. She will be 35 when Rio's Games arrive.<br><br>"For me, Dee and Catch, it's pretty special to experience this three different times," she said. "They're great players. They're great people. It's been a good ride.<br><br>"We had a handshake. I don't know what handshakes mean. Ask me in three years. It'll depend on how I feel. There's so much talent in the U.S. There might be some little point guard who comes up and kicks my butt."<br><br>Taurasi will be 34 for the 2016 Games. Catchings, the oldest player on this team, will be 37.<br><br>"Each experience has been so different," Catchings said. "First, I had role models I had with Dawn (Staley), Lisa (Leslie) and Sheryl (Swoopes) and then the second time I got a little more responsibility and then this year stepping into a leadership role and trying to help the younger players. It just builds off our legacy and the players and teams that came before us and are still to come."<br><br>Taurasi, as is her nature, wouldn't let go. Granted, the program remains in capable hands. This year's team got huge contributions from the 26-year-old Parker, the 23-year-old and the 23-year-old .<br><br>Long after the handshake, Taurasi remained in Catchings' ear.<br><br>"I said this is my last one, but Diana is yelling, 'One more! One more!' " Catchings said, laughing. "This is likely to be my last one. And that makes it special."<br><br>As Catchings spoke, the gold medal glistened as noticeably as the tears forming in her eyes.<br><br><br><br>Twitter @kcjhoop?From the mayor's office:Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa; Daniel Grunfeld, deputy chief of staff of policy; Nancy Sutley, deputy mayor for energy and environment; Dario Gomez, director of international trade; Celine Cordero, associate director of the Office of Public Safety and Homeland Security; Matt Szabo, associate communications director; Jonathan Powell, press aide; Aaron Monarrez, special assistant<br><br>From the City Council:Councilwoman Wendy S. Greuel, District 2; Councilman , District 3; Councilman , District 5<br><br> From the :Terry S. Hara, deputy chief for operations, West Bureau<br><br>From the Emergency Preparedness Department:James Featherstone, general manager of emergency management<br><br>From Los Angeles World Airports:Alan Rothenberg, president, Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners; Sylvia Reyes-Patsaouras, commissioner, Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners; Gina Marie Lindsey, executive director<br><br>From the Port of Los Angeles:Douglas P. Krause, commissioner, Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners; Molly Campbell, chief financial officer<br><br>From the Department of Water and Power:Nick Patsaouras, president, Los Angeles Board of Water and Power Commissioners; David Nahai, chief executive officer and general manager<br><br>Community leaders:Danny Alpert, co-chair Israeli Leadership Club; Dr. Nur Amersi, executive director of the Afghanistan World Foundation; Jacob Dayan, consul general of ; Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, ; John R. Fishel, president, Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles; Aaron A. Grunfeld, legal counsel, Law Offices of Aaron A. Grunfeld & Associates; Rabbi , founder and dean of the Simon Weisenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance; Rabbi Zoe Klein, senior rabbi at Temple Isaiah; Bruce Saito, executive director of Los Angeles Conservation Corps; Yaniv Tepper, co-founder and managing partner of the Angeleno Group; The Rev. James Tolle, senior pastor of the Church on the Way in Van Nuys<br><br>Source: Mayor's office?When I set out to visit the smallest countries in Europe, I put Luxembourg at the top of the list. Among the Continent's mini-states, it comes to mind maybe as quickly as Fredonia, from the 1933 Marx Brothers movie, "Duck Soup." <br><br>Then I opened my atlas and found that Luxembourg comes in sixth, behind Andorra, on a list of Continental Europe's dinkiest nations. It is almost as big as Rhode Island, with an area of 998 square miles and nearly half a million people.<br><br> Everything's relative, of course. You can drive across the grand duchy in 30 minutes. It looks so much like neighboring Germany, France and Belgium that you'd miss it altogether if you didn't know it was there. <br><br>But I was watching for Luxembourg when I crossed into it in the summer, intending to get to know another little, lost European country right out of the Brothers Grimm. Apparently I was in denial that it joined modern Europe long ago.<br><br> Esch was the first town I came to after crossing the French border. It's in the industrial south, which helped make Luxembourg a world leader in the production of iron and steel in the early 19th century but has little to interest tourists -- except lunch, I hoped.<br><br>I spotted a cafe, parked and was putting coins in the meter when a muscular, heavily tattooed man, apparently the owner of the car in front of mine, came out of a shop and started yelling at me in French, pointing at a ding he claimed I'd put in his back fender. Eventually his girlfriend calmed him down and I escaped to an indifferent plate of steak frites.<br><br>After that I got caught in traffic near Luxembourg City, home to the government of the grand duchy, museums, historic sites, international corporations, branches of the and 180 banks. I tried to circumvent the capital on back roads but finally admitted I was lost when I found myself in a roundabout I'd already circled twice.<br><br>It's a good thing, as it turns out, to get lost on winding country roads north of the capital. Most of them lead into the deep, dark forest of the Ardennes. Stippled by mountains about as high as the Appalachians and deeply creased by the Sure, Alzette and Woltz rivers, the region was deemed impenetrable by medieval armies and desperately contested in the Battle of the Bulge. Now the carefully husbanded Ardennes is as fine a fine place for walking, biking and driving as can be found in Northern Europe.<br><br>To reach the country inn in western Luxembourg where I had booked a room for two nights, I drove through hamlets with names out of a nursery rhyme: Brouch, Saeul and Hobscheid.<br><br>Eventually I arrived in Gaichel about 50 yards from the Belgian border, marked by a small sign hidden in the tree branches. The village has an inn, gas station and nine-hole golf course that straddles an international border, meaning golfers can drive in one country and putt in another.<br><br> The venerable old inn, which occupies two buildings on a crossroads, was founded in 1853 and thereafter maintained by six generations of women (with help from their husbands). <br><br>Soon after I checked in I met Celine Guillou, whose grandfather Rene Jacquemin, a Dijon, France-trained chef, won the kitchen's first star in 1968. Her grandmother Marie Therese lived at La Gaichel as a little girl during World War II when the Germans occupied it.<br><br>Since then, the inn has grown and prospered. Besides the elegant 12-room Hôtel-Restaurant La Gaichel, it includes the more modest but thoroughly charming, 17-room Auberge de la Gaichel, with its own bistro. I dined on the terrace, choosing a Pinot Blanc from eastern Luxembourg to accompany an entree of succulent, roasted young chicken in a nest of spring vegetables.<br><br>The next morning I took a bicycle from the inn to the pretty town of Eischen just over the hill, then found a one-lane road bordered by pastures leading to the ruins of the 13th century Cistercian Abbey of Clairefontaine. The abbey's still-standing neo-Romanesque chapel has a potent reminder of the Middle Ages in the tomb of Countess Ermesinde, another strong, capable Luxembourgian woman who ruled the region from 1226 to 1247.<br><br>By a stroke of luck it was Whit Tuesday (which follows Sunday in the Christian calendar), the day of the Dancing Pilgrims Procession in the town on Echternach in eastern Luxembourg. <br><br>No one knows precisely when or why the festival began, though it centers on the town's magisterial Benedictine Abbey and Basilica of St. Willibrord, a monk who arrived in 698 to lay the groundwork for one of the most accomplished schools of manuscript illumination in the early Middle Ages. <br><br>The strange Whit Tuesday dance supposedly imitates the symptoms of diseases such as epilepsy that the pilgrims sought to mitigate through St. Willibrord's intercession.<br><br> Echternach was reduced to rubble in the war but rebuilt so that its Gothic marketplace, town hall and basilica make an outstanding backdrop for the dancing procession. <br><br>When I arrived, the town was jammed with tourists, mostly speaking German (French and Luxembourgian are also official languages), lined up along the winding main street. I found a place at a sidewalk cafe and was ordering an espresso when I heard the boom of an oompah band and caught sight of clergymen in elaborate vestments at the head of the procession. <br><br>?AS the traditional record business continues to unravel, musicians who are trying to keep lucrative careers alive don't seem to be worrying about whether the glass is half full or half empty. Instead, they're finding as many glasses as possible and putting a little something in each.<br><br>So, this year, for the 11th edition of Calendar's annual Ultimate Top 10, which previously has combined performers' North American concert tour revenue as measured by Pollstar with U.S. album sales as tallied by Nielsen SoundScan, we're also including money generated from sales of digital tracks through iTunes and other online vendors to give a fuller picture of which pop acts generated the most money during 2007.<br><br> Once again the list is topped by the act that played the biggest concert tour of the year -- in this case, the Police. The trio's reunion spurred sales of its album catalog, but by far it was the money , Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland pulled in on the concert trail that put them at the top of the heap with a combined $140.7 million.<br><br>The good news amid the overall 15% sales slide the record business experienced last year is that the Police's Ultimate Top 10 take is close to what other acts have posted this decade. topped the list the previous two years, with $150.9 million and $168 million. The record, however, still belongs to 'N Sync, which registered $212.9 million in 2000 at the peak of the boy-band phenomenon.<br><br>As for including digital tracks, the champ in that arena during the year was Fergie, who logged $7.4 million in digital track sales, using 99 cents as an average cost for downloaded singles. But because she didn't tour extensively, she didn't come close to making the Ultimate Top 10, even though her debut solo album, "The Dutchess," was the eighth most popular album of 2007 and sold more than 2 million copies.<br><br>Likewise, although some performers are developing comfortable incomes from ring-tone sales, the mostly young R&B, hip-hop and pop acts who placed highest on SoundScan's ring-tone/master-tone tallies aren't anywhere near the top of either concert tour or album sales rankings. So ring tone isn't included -- yet -- because it wouldn't affect any rankings in the Ultimate Top 10.<br><br>1. The Police ($140.7 million). The only surprise about the Police reunion tour was that it happened at all, given the acrimony among the members that led them to disband in the '80s. But once it was a reality, it defied even concert-industry experts' expectations. The North American tour pulled in $131.9 million at the box office, according to Pollstar, while worldwide revenues hit an eye-popping $212 million, according to Billboard. Add to that $8.8 million in U.S. album sales (using $13 as the average price of a CD), much of it undoubtedly from excited concert-goers. The average ticket price of $111.99 also helped ratchet up the total take, but it wasn't by far the most expensive face value show of the year.<br><br>2. ($105.9 million). Maybe 2007 wasn't the year of Josh Groban -- there were too many other things going on, including 's pay-what-you-will Internet release of "In Rainbows" and the continued slide of rap music album sales, which fell 30% for the year, compared with the drop of 15% for the industry overall. But the wildfire response to his "Noël" holiday album, spurred by multiple appearances on 's talk show, turned it into the year's biggest hit and generated $62.9 million in album sales. Added to the $43 million he took in on tour, he has vaulted into the top ranks of pop performers. Average ticket price: $77.07.<br><br>3. ($96.8 million). The "SexyBack" man raked in $70.6 million on tour in North America during the year, to which he added $20.8 million from album sales. Worldwide, Billboard put his concert take at $126.8 million. Timberlake is the first artist to benefit in the Ultimate Top 10 ranking from digital sales, which added $5.4 million to his total. That pushed him up three slots from where he would have finished if only tour and album revenues were counted. All in all, 2007 cemented the former 'N Sync singer's grown-up power as a full-fledged grown-up pop star. Average ticket: $77.57.<br><br>4. ($94.8 million). Year in and year out Chesney has proved himself a reliable road warrior, and 2007 was no exception. He pulled in $71.1 million on tour -- all of it in North America; country music is a genre that doesn't typically translate into big numbers overseas. He also notched $23.4 million in album sales, and $300,000 in digital tracks, another arena that hasn't been huge for country artists. Average ticket: $62.62.<br><br>5. Tim McGraw/Faith Hill ($92.9 million). The husband-wife team's Top 5 finish in the Ultimate Top 10 might warrant an asterisk, since their combined Soul to Soul II tour, which generated $52.3 million at the box office, allows them to add in each star's individual album sales. That increased their total by $39.9 million. McGraw also posted nearly $700,000 in digital sales of his two big 2007 singles. Average ticket: $90.51.<br><br>6. Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus ($86.6 million). On the hottest tour of the year, the Disney Channel character and its star pulled in $36 million. They sold $50 million worth of the double-disc soundtrack album that also served as Cyrus' solo debut and posted $550,000 in digital track sales. The average ticket price of $54.16 was the lowest in the Ultimate Top 10, but that's just a fraction of the real-world prices commanded after hysterical demand from young fans and their distraught parents pushed resale prices into the thousands.<br><br>7. ($83.7 million). The squeaky-clean country trio pulled off the trickiest balancing act of the year, its combined take almost evenly split between concert revenue ($41.5 million) and album sales ($40.7 million). Plus, the youth-minded group added $1.5 million in digital track sales, positioning it promisingly for whatever the music business' uncertain future may bring. Average ticket: $58.21.<br><br>8. ($75.7 million). The Canadian diva drew $65.3 million from her final year of performances at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and $10.4 million in album sales. Now that she's going back to touring the old-fashioned way, moving from town to town and venue to venue, it's unlikely she'll still be able to command her Ultimate Top 10 high ticket average of $141.26.<br><br>9. ($62.6 million). Even more than the Police, this was the reunion tour that pop fans least expected to last beyond opening night. But and Eddie Van Halen kept the old wounds at bay long enough to gross $56.7 million on the concert trail. They were further rewarded with $5.9 million worth of catalog album sales. Average ticket: $111.56.<br><br>10. ($59.6 million). Last year's ballyhooed reunion of with wasn't even the top New Jersey rock band tour of 2007. Jon Bon Jovi and his mates posted $41.4 million on tour, $17.8 million in album sales mostly from its recent "Lost Highway" collection, and about $350,000 in digital track sales. Average ticket price: $109.14.<br><br>Rounding out the Top 20: ($58.8 million), the Eagles ($55.6 million), ($52.5 million), Bruce Springsteen ($49.9 million), ($45.1 million), ($47.1 million), ($41.1 million), ($39.1 million), "High School Musical 2" ($38.5 million) and ($38.3 million).<br><br>?Maven Pictures' and Celine Ratray have come on board "Rollin' Thunder," a comedy set in the world of the Atlanta hip-hop scene, with Federal Films' David Schulhof and Monte Lipman also producing.<br><br>Screenplay has been penned by Kenny Smith, Jr., co-executive producer, writer, and director of the series "." Lipman is also president and CEO of Universal Republic Records, which will handle the soundtrack.<br><br> "Thunder" centers on a former bowling champ turned ex-con who sees in a city-wide bowling tournament the chance to get back in the game, prove his innocence to the tycoon who owns Atlanta's biggest bowling alley, and mend bridges with his estranged teenaged daughter.<br><br>"This film paints a unique picture of a world that hasn't been portrayed onscreen," said Styler and Rattray. "Between Kenny's sharp writing and the opportunity to work on a music-driven project based in the world of hip-hop, it's something new and exciting for us here at Maven."<br><br>Smith's credits include "The Show" and "Pair of Kings."<br><br>Maven's first feature, Kirsten Wiig comedy "Imogene," premiered at the and sold to Lionsgate/Roadside. The banner is in post-production on "Filth," starring , , , and Imogen Poots.<br><br>Schulhof, currently managing director of G2 Investment Group, and was formerly VP of Miramax and Dimension Films with executive music supervisor credits on "Chocolat," "The Cider House Rules" and "Life Is Beatiful." Universal Republic Records handled soundtracks for "Ted" and "The Hunger Games."<br><br>Smith is represented by Gersh; Josh Adler, Mike Goldberg, Matt Ochacher and Mike Pelmont at New Wave; and Rick Genow at Stone, Meyer, Genow, Smelkinson & Binder.<br><br>Click for more film news on Variety.com.<br><br>?Maven Pictures' Trudie Styler and Celine Rattray have come onboard to produce the screen adaptation of Colum McCann's ballet story "Dancer."<br><br>Davide Azzolini will produce along with Maven.<br><br> "Dancer" is the story of Russian dancer Rudolph Nureyev, who was born during , defected at the age of 23 and became one of the best known dancers in the world before dying of in 1992.<br><br>"It's a moving tale -- one that really fits with Maven's commitment to stories with riveting characters," said Styler and Rattray.<br><br>McCann's book imagines Nureyev's story from the perspectives of those who knew him. The tale follows Nureyev throughout his life, from a 6-year-old making his first dancing appearance, for wounded soldiers, to a brash young man leaving his family to study in Leningrad to a dance world sensation traveling Europe.<br><br>"Dancer" received the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year Award. McCann was the recipient of the National Book Award for his 2009 novel "Let the World Spin."<br><br>Maven currently has "Filt" and "Imogene" in post-production. Azzolini just finished producing the documentary "Enzo Avitabile Music Life," directed by .<br><br>Click for more film news on Variety.com.<br><br>?LOS ANGELES -- two oldest children made an appearance at the in Los Angeles Sunday night during a tribute to their father.<br><br>Music stars , , , , and mingled their voices with a recording of the late king of pop in a musical tribute, while a special 3-D video clip Jackson made of "Earth Song" for use in his was shown.<br><br> Free 3-D "Grammy" glasses were distributed at Target stores nationwide so viewers could watch the show in 3-D from their living rooms.<br><br>Clad in black suits with red armbands, , 12, and Paris, 11 accepted their father's lifetime achievement award from Smokey Robinson.<br><br>"Through all his songs his message was simple: love. We will continue to spread his message and help the world," Prince said.<br><br>Sunday evening's Grammy Awards marked the first public appearance for Prince Michael and Paris since the public memorial service 12 days after their father's death last summer.<br><br>The children were originally going to take part in a much smaller Grammy event Sunday, at which they were going to accept their father's Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.<br><br>Instead, the children appeared on stage after a change agreed to by their grandmother and legal guardian, . Jackson's former manager, Frank Dileo.<br><br>The youngest of the three Jackson children, 7-year-old did not attend the awards show.<br><br>Michael Jackson was 50 years old when he died June 25, 2009, just two weeks before he was to begin the London concert series.<br><br>The Los Angeles County coroner ruled his death a homicide resulting from a combination of drugs.<br><br>Jackson's personal physician, , has been the focus of a criminal investigation, but no charges have been filed. Murray was with Jackson at the time of his death.?A movie doesn't have to be jampacked with cinema style to have a memorable fashion moment or two, and in the course of screening the slate of holiday-season films, we found all kinds of clothes, accessories, hairstyles and makeup worth a mention.<br><br> <br><br> Yes, 's "Hugo," based on a book by Brian Selznick, is a movie about an orphaned boy living in a Paris train station. But it's also a filmmaker's film about a filmmaker making films, and as such even the costumes and makeup (designed by Sandy Powell and Morag Ross respectively) layer in subtle references to past films and historical figures.<br><br>For example, Powell explains that the striped scarf worn by one of the supporting characters (Monsieur Frick, played by ) had its roots in another movie. "It was similar to the one ' character wore in a movie called 'The Lavender Hill Mob,' she says. "It was my little tribute to that."<br><br>To find inspiration for the hair gracing the face of Station Inspector, Ross didn't have to go any further than the boss' body of work. "Taking a mustache and balancing it out for Sacha's features… you get a mustache that's kind of reminiscent of Daniel Day Lewis' in 'Gangs of New York' so that's the reference I went with," she says.<br><br>During a chase scene through the train station, sharp-eyed viewers might be able to recognize background actors with facial hair groomed to resemble the distinctive mustaches of jazz guitarist , artist and writer .<br><br>—Adam Tschorn<br><br>"Iron Lady"<br><br>The costumes in the unconventional biopic about former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that opens in limited release Dec. 30, say a lot about political power dressing. , who plays Thatcher, has nearly 40 costume changes in the film, and almost all of what she wears is blue, a color the PM favored because it set her apart from a sea of men in gray suits.<br><br>"She used blue in all forms, from the most pastel and girlish to the most deep," says the film's costume designer, Consolata Boyle. "We used blue in a very deliberate way in the film, as a metaphor and a tool to convey Margaret's emotions and her ideas."<br><br>Early in her career, Thatcher takes advice from political consultants who tell her to lose her ultra-feminine, fussy style, particularly her hats. She agrees to all but one thing: "The pearls are nonnegotiable." That double strand of pearls, a copy of Thatcher's own, is one of many pieces of her jewelry re-created for the film. "She was a great collector. It's such an iconic look she had with the pearls and the brooch on the shoulder," Boyle says.<br><br>All of Streep's costumes were handmade — from the pretty, pale blue suits her character wears early on to the sharper ones with defined waists and strong shoulders that she wears later in her career. "But this wasn't slavish copying," Boyle says. "Everything had a heightened intensity to move the story along."<br><br>There is evidence, she says, that Thatcher thought a lot about her clothes. During the 1982 Falklands War, for example, Thatcher wore a lot of bow-front blouses. "There was a mixture of femininity and strength in how she presented herself then."<br><br>Still, Thatcher came from a lower-middle-class background and was always an outsider among the elite Tory party. Ultimately, her social status was reflected in her perfectionism, Boyle says. "It was not a confident way to dress. There was nothing nonchalent about it. It was armor."<br><br>It's also worth singling out the makeup artists on the film, a team nearly 12 people strong, who succeeded in aging Streep so artfully, the actress was virtually unrecognizable.<br><br>—Booth Moore<br><br><br><br>The transformation of into a 30-year-old was no small task. It required the actress to spend three hours a day in hair, makeup and wardrobe to look not like the heavy-lidded glamour girl with a crimson pout who is most familiar to the public, but like the pared-down woman behind the icon.<br><br>"My Week With Marilyn" focuses on the tense working relationship between Sir and Monroe during the filming of the 1956 movie "The and the Showgirl," as well as on a budding friendship between the voluptuous actress and a young director's assistant.<br><br>?Astral Weeks Pop Quiz: Name the piece of music responsible for these flights of fancy:<br><br>Example one: "About fifteen minutes [in] . . . I have entered a different reality and am in a strange part of the universe where you can sit on the tail of a flaming guitar and fly through the sun. It's fantastic."<br><br> Example two: "[I]t starts with just a one-string riff which late at night, everybody asleep, sounds like the world being born or something. It only lasts for a second. But it's this one note just sitting there. Do you even know what I mean? When I got to that point it was like I was flying so high above your world and I was so free. . . . "<br><br>Example three: " 'Now comes the wonderful movement: first of all the goblins, and then a trio of elephants dancing. . . . [L]ook out for the part where you think you havedone with the goblins and they come back,' breathed Helen, as the music started with a goblin walking quietly over the universe, from end to end. Others followed him. They were not aggressive creatures; it was that that made them so terrible to Helen. They merely observed in passing that there was no such thing as splendour or heroism in the world. After the interlude of elephants dancing, they returned and made the observation a second time. Helen could not contradict them, for once, at all events, she had felt the same, and had seen the reliable walls of youth collapse. Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness! The goblins were right."<br><br>The first two passages come from recently published novels: Martin Millar's "Suzy, , and Me" (Soft Skull: 222 pp., $13.95), a charming autobiographical novel with the band's epic 1972 Glasgow show as its life-defining event; and John Darnielle's brief, intense "Master of Reality," the fictional diary of a troubled acolyte (Continuum: 102 pp., $10.95). (The songs in question above: "Dazed and Confused" and "Lord of This World.")<br><br>The third passage -- "panic and emptiness!" -- comes from E.M. Forster's 1910 novel, "Howards End," and describes Helen's vivid responses not to any sort of proto-heavy metal, but to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. (Though perhaps this "sublime noise" is proto-heavy metal?) In all three, shimmering worldviews and entire universes are born or destroyed.<br><br>What is it that makes us respond narratively to music, far beyond what the lyrics (if any) might indicate? ("The notes meant this and that to her, and they could have no other meaning, and life could have no other meaning," Forster's Helen thinks, after the concert.)<br><br>Spontaneous conjuring -- shapes and colors, creatures and deities, fantasy and recollection -- is commonplace. So are long-lasting associations, for melodies weave into a life to such a degree that they can emerge, years later, as if on a hair trigger. Millar's and Darnielle's books effectively capture this two-sided ability, featuring narrators who built their teenage alternative realities on tenacious, life-changing sounds, sounds that echo down the decades.<br><br>Millar is a Scottish writer whose two recent U.S. titles ("The Good Fairies of New York" and "Lonely Werewolf Girl," both from Soft Skull) mix fantastic creatures with contemporary settings. For some reason those books haven't quite clicked with me, but "Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me" makes me want to try again. Form does not follow function here -- despite the narrator's Zep obsession, the novel doesn't try to replicate the sprawling grandeur and virtuosic excess of the band's music. Instead, it unfolds in irresistibly short chapters ("Short enough for your limited attention span") and simple prose. (Toward the end, Martin explains his revision process: "If I find any fancy adjectives have crept in I replace them with small words like 'nice' and 'big.' ") This makes for an entertaining -- and at times quietly -- story that winds up saying a lot about teenage angst, middle-age angst, the ecstasies of fandom, the virtues of " Buffy the Vampire ," how to judge literary contests (Answer: Give the award to the most attractive entrant) and the pants styles of yesteryear.<br><br>The novel toggles between the narrator's present-day London conversations with his friend Manx (a single mom with lingering postpartum depression) and episodes filled with the anxiety and embarrassment of being 13, when the promise of hearing -- and seeing -- your heroes perform could make everything right. Awkward Martin has a close friend (Greg), an unwanted admirer (violin-playing social misfit Cherry), a hero (charismatic Zed) and a hopeless crush on the titular Suzy (attached, alas, to Zed).<br><br>Martin and Greg have their own secret fantasy world, like a game of "Dungeons and Dragons" without any rules -- a realm of sorcerers and orcs that the music of Led Zeppelin (equally informed by the blues and Tolkien) intensifies. Martin and Greg, "joint masters of the Fabulous Dragon Army of Gothar," fight the Monstrous Hordes of Xotha, and the two friends await reinforcements from Atlantis, the only other region that has held out against the enemy.<br><br>So: Why can't they get girlfriends? Actually, they can: Cherry, deemed even less socially redeemable than Martin, wants to join them, but she's insensitively rebuffed. (Millar is excellent and clear-eyed when it comes to the small brutalities of adolescence.) Though the book's construction seems casual, Millar expertly maneuvers his characters toward the climactic Led Zeppelin show (with young Martin imagining actual zeppelins materializing over Glasgow, bearing prematurely dead icons like ) and presents how the event resonates in each of their interconnected lives -- complicating some things, clarifying others. Even readers who last listened to "Houses of the Holy" during the Reagan administration will find much to enjoy here. For 200 pages, Glasgow circa 1972 shimmers like a vision of Atlantis, a lost world.<br><br>John Darnielle is the single constant behind the group the Mountain Goats and arguably the most rewarding lyricist working today. Taking into account his prolific wordsmithery ("Laugh lines on our faces / scale maps of the ocean floor") and affinity for horror both cinematic and literary ("Heretic Pride," the most recent Mountain Goats album, has song titles naming Fu Manchu creator Sax Rohmer and H.P. Lovecraft), it shouldn't come as a surprise that he'd contribute to Continuum's "33 1/3" series of short books pegged to iconic albums. But "Master of Reality" departs brilliantly from the typical "33 1/3" format, not just by choosing fiction over criticism or recording history, but in its structural gambits and unwavering sense of purpose.<br><br>(Following on the heels of Carl Wilson's fascinating, probing 2007 book, "Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste," "Master of Reality" makes me think that the "33 1/3" line should devote itself to albums that aren't critical darlings -- the insights are fresher, the risks more worthwhile.)<br><br>Like one of Lovecraft's shattered narrators, teenager Roger Painter is writing from the other side of sanity -- or what we on the outside would call sanity. It is October 1985, and he is keeping a journal for his social worker, Gary, at the psychiatric center where his stepfather has deceitfully deposited him. His personal effects have been confiscated, and when the book opens his entries are terse bursts of all-caps rage. The words are all Roger's, writing toward an uncomprehending, withholding captor -- or god. "If you want me to focus you should let me do it the best way I know how!" writes Roger, in a conciliatory mood. "You should at least give me back Black Sabbath MASTER OF REALITY. It is my favorite."<br><br>Roger patiently explains what Black Sabbath means to him, and what makes the band unique: "Ozzy, he is the singer, he was singing about witches and wizards and corpses. . . . But there were barely any stories. Not like in Rush songs, where there is a wizard or whatever, there will be a whole story, like a book." The songs are direct in a way that most art isn't, at once frightening and exhilarating. 's voice "doesn't sound like anybody else's, and also it sounds kind of like you know him. Like, when is singing for Led Zeppelin you can't really think you're ever going to see that guy at the arcade and play doubles on Galaga with him." (Some of Millar's characters would disagree.)<br><br>But it all falls on deaf ears, and Roger's situation resonates with the album's title: Who masters this reality? The asylum setting channels Roger's writing into an impassioned articulateness, words to ward off panic and emptiness -- yet his depressing fate shows how Gary literally holds all the keys. Then the thing splits open. Darnielle jumps ahead: Here is Roger, 10 years later, writing to Gary in complete sentences and brushed-up grammar but with not one iota of rage displaced. He listens to Sabbath from this new perspective -- call it wisdom -- but whether Gary ever gets the letter (in both senses of the verb), we'll never know. Darnielle's lost world stays lost, and it's a powerful, excruciating chronicle.<br><br>Ed Park is a founding editor of "The Believer" and the author of the novel "Personal Days." Astral Weeks appears monthly at .?LOS ANGELES -- More than 75 mega-stars gathered Monday tore-record the 1985 charity anthem "We are the World" in the sameHollywood recording studio where the original was cut 25 years ago.<br><br>, , , the , ,<br><br> , , Akon and other musical luminaries stood shoulder to shoulder on risers at Henson Recording studios,singing their hearts out and hoping to help .<br><br> , who produced the 1985 anthem, announced last weekthat he planned to redo the song to benefit recovery from thedeadly Jan. 12 in Port-au- .<br><br>Written by and , the original "WeAre the World" thundered up the charts when it was released on theradio and in record stores in March 1985.<br><br>An unprecedented number of top pop musicians gathered at A&M thenight of Jan. 28, 1985, following the , torecord the tune. The song featured 45 American superstars,including Jackson, Richie, , , ,<br><br> , , and .<br><br>The record raised more than $30 million for USA for Africa, anonprofit organization founded by the singers to fund hunger reliefin African nations.<br><br>True to her diva reputation, recorded her soloover and over, completely absorbed in the recording process andstopping only to correct her pitch.<br><br>While reporters watched a video feed of the session in a nearbyroom, stars like West mingled outside with friends, greeting hisbuddy, , with a hug.<br><br>Julianne Hough from "Dancing with the Stars," who is also acountry singer, was only 3 years old when the original tune cameout. She said she felt honored to lend her voice to the effort andsing next to so many talented musicians.<br><br>"It's just iconic. Celine (Dion) is just so gracious andamazing and such a pro," she said.<br><br>The session was all the talk at Sunday night's Grammyfestivities. Music producer RedOne said being asked to participatewas "the biggest honor a musician can ever do."<br><br>"Having Quincy, our father of music ... and Lionel Richieasking me to contribute and help, I said of course, because this isnot about me," he said. "It's about Haiti."?<p> Harry continues to receive flak for nude photos taken of him while he was recently partying in Las Vegas. Can't a prince have any fun? Not when you're a member of the Windsor family. The British Press Complaints Commission has unsuccessfully attempted to put a lid on the situation. Tabloids across the pond are still having a field day with the prince's "crown jewels." </p><p>The Web is buzzing about a topless photo shoot for Vmagazine. The French Canadian singer was shot holding her leather glove-clad arms over her bare breasts. The photos appear in the September issue. </p><p>Katie Holmes is bouncing back from her divorce from with a little retail therapy of her own design. The actress is slated to show her collectionHolmes & Yang during New York Fahion Week Sept. 6-13. Holmes' collection is a collaboration with her stylist Jeanne Yang. </p> <p>Did she or didn't she? That's the question surrounding rumors that country pop singer crashed the wedding of beau Conor Kennedy’s cousin, Kyle Kennedy, last weekend in Boston. Taylor's reps are fiercly denying the rumor while wedding attendee Gifford Kennedy claims Swift was not welcome. </p><p> and looked cozy together in Dodger gear (Kunis in a jersey, Kutcher in a cap) when they were spotted at a game together Wednesday night. The two actors were photographed chowing down on hot dogs and pretzels. </p><p>Academy Award-winning costume designerColleen Atwood will curate the Art of Elysium's sixth annual Heaven Gala on Jan. 12. A fashion show of Atwood's designs and musical performances are planned for the event, according to a news release. Actor will receive the Spirit of Elysium award for bringing the arts to hospitalized children. This year's committee includes , Shepard Fairey, and Jaime King, to name a few.</p><p>ALSO: </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Jenn Harris on or </p>?One spring morning last year, I stuffed my rucksack with things I bring on camping trips in the U.S.: fleece, books 'n' socks, toothbrush, bug spray, sunshades. Then I shouldered my mandolin case, unlatched my apartment gate and stepped into the sunshine.<br> <br> I suspected this trip would be a bit different from my previous trips to American national parks. OK, a lot different: I live in Hanoi, and I was heading to fledgling national parks in southwestern .<br> <br> My first challenge was getting to the parks on a shoestring budget — that is, without flying. A sultry overnight train ride left me at the -China border. From there I hopped an all-day bus to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. During the next two weeks, I would spend more than 30 hours riding more buses and minibuses.<br> <br> Then there was the question of what to do. In 2008, China's State Forestry Administration declared Yunnan, a biodiverse area bordering Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Tibet, a demonstration area for the country's first national parks. And in 2009, an official at the Yunnan National Park Management Office told me that five of province's planned 12 or 13 parks were drafting development plans.<br> <br> Several U.S. and Chinese conservation experts say these aren't national parks in the American sense, partly because China doesn't have the equivalent of a National Park Service. The Yunnan government has embraced the national park concept, noting in a 2009 memorandum, "Establishing national parks is an important measure for Yunnan government to build the good image of ecological conservation."<br> <br> Westerners wouldn't know, because for all its enthusiasm for "national parks" the Yunnan government isn't aggressively marketing them to English-speaking tourists.<br> <br> Before hitting the trail in Yunnan last April, I met with Yue Wang, acting director of the Yunnan program at the Nature Conservancy China, which reportedly introduced the "national park" concept to Yunnan officials in the late 1990s.<br> <br> "Which of these national parks do Chinese hikers like?" I asked the conservation policy expert. We were sipping Pu'er in a posh Kunming tea garden. Wang, who wore a white blouse and a red skirt, considered my ripped jeans and dusty rucksack. Then she laughed.<br> <br> "For now," she said, "Chinese tourists don't travel like you, carrying a backpack into the mountains and going camping. A very small group of Chinese people are doing that, but most of them are just getting on buses and going to overlooks."<br> <br> Into thinner air<br> <br> Despite Yue Wang's advisory, I was determined to do some Thoreau-style exploring.<br> <br> A few days and minibus rides after my Kunming orientation, I landed in Shangri-La (a.k.a. Zhongdian), a city in northwest Yunnan that Chinese officials claim is the actual fictional setting of James Hilton's 1933 novel, "Lost Horizon." From Zhongdian, I planned to visit a protected area that the Nature Conservancy reports is slated to become the beautiful-sounding Meili Snow Mountain National Park.<br> <br> Yue Wang had said that when visiting Meili, I should be flexible — no one knew when local officials would close a crucial access road for construction. In Zhongdian, a travel agent said Meili-bound travelers could be stranded in Diqing, the nearest city, for as long as 10 days.<br> <br> I couldn't risk that delay, so I opted for Plan B: Pudacuo National Park. Yue Wang had cautioned me that the 4-year-old protected area, one hour by minibus from Zhongdian, feels more like a city park. But I figured that any park so close to Tibet was bound to be some shade of spectacular.<br> <br> The road to Pudacuo was flanked by boxy Tibetan-style houses, and the roadside fields were crawling with yaks. As my minibus climbed above 8,000 feet, sunlight graced the snow-capped Henduan Mountains, and the air rushing through my window felt crisp and cold.<br> <br> I was riding with a friendly Taiwanese couple whose new hiking boots and breathable jackets suggested a commitment to outdoorsiness. When the minibus stopped at Pudacuo's visitor center, I followed them inside, hoping they would lead me to good hiking trails.<br> <br> But after we each paid $27 in park fees, a man in a suit directed us to an "environment shuttle bus." Boarding it, I saw a dozen more smartly dressed hikers — none of whom, apparently, preferred to walk. was crooning in surround-sound.<br> <br> As the bus rolled through the park, we saw alpine hillsides, fluttering Tibetan prayer flags, crumbly thatch huts and real-live subsistence farmers. "It's like the movies," my new Taiwanese friends said. Soon a park representative was lecturing us via onboard microphone. Cameras clicked.<br> <br> This place is a bit city-park-ish, I thought. Scenery aside, I felt like a Midwesterner cruising Manhattan on a double-decker.<br> <br>?<p> plugged his plan to increase taxes on millionaires yet again Wednesday morning, but this time with a new twist – appearing alongside rich people who support the signature tenet.</p><p>The proposal would require that people earning $1 million a year or more pay at least the same tax rate as middle-class families. Obama calls it the “ rule” after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has famously complained that he pays a lower rate than does his secretary.</p> <p>To help make the point, the endorsers showed up with their assistants. Appearing on stage with Obama were Abigail Disney, president of the Daphne Foundation, and her assistant, Celine Justice. Whitney Tilson, managing partner of T2 Partners LLC, appeared with her assistant, Kelli Alires; Google retiree Frank Jernigan joined with his assistant, Teresa Gardiner; and Lawrence Benenson, of Benenson Capital, appeared with his assistant, Carmen Peterson.</p><p>None of those millionaires has told him they’re excited about paying more taxes, Obama said.</p><p>But “they agree with Warren,” he said. “This should be fixed.”</p><p>The measure is highly unlikely to pass the divided Congress this election year. But the message was live on network television this morning, same as Tuesday, giving the president’s “tax fairness” message the kind of exposure that money can’t buy.</p><p></p><p>Original source: </p>?<p>Mink-lined Birkenstock-style sandals? Check. Fuzzy, wuzzy mink pumps? Check. The runway show was all about such cheeky luxe lounge statements.</p><p>When it comes to fashion now, Celine designer Phoebe Philo has that je ne sais quoi. You only have to look at the fashion pack to know. Celine's minimal color-block totes and smooth calfskin clutches are the It bags du jour -- small pieces of the polished, pared-down aesthetic that Philo has helped popularize, and which has now trickled all the way down to Zara.</p><p> trends</p> <p>So anticipation was high for Philo's spring-summer 2013 collection, shown Sunday afternoon in a grand apartment on a leafy street near the Arc de Triomphe. Everyone wanted to see what she'd do next.</p><p>The look: Millionaire slouch. Luxe lounge wear, right down to those fur-lined sandals, which kind of look like haute Ugg bedroom slippers. Silk pants with the ease of pajamas. Twist-front satin T-shirts. Boxy cropped jackets. A navy blue racer back slip dress with a black fishnet inset at the V-neck and a raw-edge hem. A milky white silk trench coat-meets-dressing gown. Paper-bag-style fold-over leather clutches. Twist leather cuffs that will sell like hotcakes. A cream, gray, navy and black color palette with a few bright accessories.</p><p>The scene: A must-see show, so every editor in chief plus , who has called Philo one of his favorite designers.</p><p>The verdict: A unique take on relaxed luxury for those who can treat a $2,000 T-shirt like it costs $10. Celine plans to open a store on Rodeo Drive in February.</p><p>ALSO: </p><p></p><p></p><p></p>?<p>PARIS -- is having a moment here at , where an exhibition celebrating 60 years of the French house just opened at the Palais de Tokyo museum.</p><p>Founded by Gaby Aghion in 1952, the brand was a forerunner to the kind of effortless, high-low, dressed-up/dressed-down style that defines the way women dress now, particularly on the West Coast. Many designers, including Karl Lagerfeld, and Phoebe Philo, have taken turns designing for Chloe, which has been helmed by Clare Waight Keller since 2011.</p><p></p> <p>Keller showed her spring-summer 2013 collection on Monday afternoon under a clear tent revealing sunny skies in the Tuileries gardens.</p><p>The inspiration: The words of Chloe founder Aghion, "I don't explain anything, I have lived...I lived the life I wanted."</p><p>The look: Cool, casual femininity. Softly sculptural volumes. Play with transparency and proportion. Nubby linen, sharp V-neck coat paired with rounded pants. Oversize T-shirts, some with a long sheer layer revealing a hint of midriff. Bermuda shorts and flippy pleated skirts, some adorned with floral cut-outs. Crisp cotton sunburst pleat tops and dresses with easy volumes. Fluid silk evening suits with sparkly embroidered arrows down the sides. Diaphanous sheer pleated dress over white shorts. Palette of white, black and navy blue with blush pink and coral.</p><p>The verdict: Playful yet real. Keller tapped into a lot of the trends of the season, namely modern femininity, sheer layers and ruffles, in a down-to-earth way.</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>?<p>PARIS -- An organ solo. A procession of models in short dresses with wispy, wing-like panels pinned at their backs. No doubt, Riccardo Tisci had his Catholic roots in mind when he designed his spring-summer 2013 collection, shown Sunday night during . But he was also worshiping at the church of couture, paying homage to the old master Hubert de Givenchy, who founded his French fashion house in 1952.</p><p>The inspiration: The 1960s Givenchy archives, the traditional dress of nuns and the style of Italian architect Carlo Molino.</p><p></p> <p>The look: Couture meets ecclesiastical with a modern, romantic twist. Classic fabrics such as silk radzimer, duchesse satin, jacquard, taffeta and lace, with a soft color palette of sky blue, dove gray, white and black. Tuxedos with elongated jackets and apron tops layered underneath. Black pencil skirts with cloud-like white organza bubble tops. Pants worn with sheer, flyaway tunics anchored to the shoulders with gold clips. Cocktail dresses with single sleeves, soft ruffles at the collars and down the sides. Ankle strap sandals with wood block heels decorated with nails and rivets. Brass necklaces that brought to mind priest collars.</p><p>The scene: A model and celeb heavy crowd including , Rachel Zoe, Natalia Vodianova and Erin Wasson.</p><p>The verdict: Heavenly. Classically elegant and softly sculptural. Tisci had some really interesting details, such as those metal clips and angel wing-like panels. But he knew where to draw the line so that things didn't get overly tricky.</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>?<p>PARIS -- It was a 1970s, rich-hippie, ladies-of-the-canyon moment on the runway at Monday night, when designer Hedi Slimane -- who has been working primarily as a photographer in Los Angeles since leaving his post at in 2007 -- staged his debut runway show for Saint Laurent Paris. (Slimane renamed the brand and redesigned the logo shortly after being hired earlier this year, and has said he will be designing the collection from L.A.)</p><p>But the spirit of its founder, who died in 2008, was still very much alive in this collection, which with ' debut at Dior on Friday, was a defining moment of the Paris season, as these two designers attempt to forge a new future for French fashion.</p><p>The scene: It was a small show for such a big brand, which is owned by Group, probably only 500 people. Yves Saint Laurent's partner was there lending his support, as was YSL muse Betty Catroux. Several designers were in the house as well, including , Diane Von Furstenberg, and Alber Elbaz, who took a turn designing for YSL before landing at . (Needless to say, Tom Ford and Stefano Pilati, who also tried their hands at YSL but did not find favor with Berge, were not present.)</p> <p>Jessica Chastain, face of the new YSL fragrance, was front row in a vintage YSL frock from L.A. store Decades. And was also there.</p><p>Slimane, who recently had a photography exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, staged his show in a black box-like space at the Grand Palais. Enormous mechanized black shades on the ceiling tilted toward the runway to signal the beginning of the show, as lights swung into position. Then the music started thumping, music by Junior Kimbrough, edited by Daft Punk, according to the program notes.</p><p>It was dramatic all right, almost like the beginning of a concert. And indeed rock 'n' roll performers have been favorite subjects for Slimane's photos, and avid fans of his menswear while he was at Dior Homme.</p><p>The look: ladies-of-the-canyon rich hippie. Skinny tailoring reminiscent of what Slimane did at Dior Homme. Tuxedo jackets and slim leather jeans. Maxi-dresses with billowy sleeves. Sequin evening jackets. Suede dress with front lacing. Witchy woman capes trimmed in feathers, lace and sequins. A spectacular gold chain fringe maxi skirt. Fringe pendant necklaces. Every look was accessorized with a wide brim hat.</p><p>The verdict: Respectful of the brand. More like a greatest hits album than a revolutionary new sound. Slimane will surely turn up the volume on his own vision more in the coming seasons. In the meantime, these clothes are going to look great in L.A.</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p>?<p>PARIS -- showed her spring-summer 2013 collection at the glorious rococo-style Opera Garnier on Monday morning during . But the clothing on the runway couldn’t have been more different from the gilded environs.</p><p></p><p>The scene: Proud papa was front row, as he always is, along with M.I.A., and .</p> <p>The look: Masculine-meets-feminine sportswear. Down to earth but special. Graphic and sheer. Oversized. McCartney’s popular contour illusion dress reinterpreted for the spring season as a series of micro-plisse dresses and pencil skirts with sheer paneling and giant ellipses on the fronts. Oversized blouses and knits worn over slouchy trousers. Crisp white cotton pique wrap dresses with low belts. Tapered jackets hitting at the hips, paired with asymmetrical wrap front pencil skirts. Oversized eyelet shirt dresses or eyelet pants worn over shorts. Delicate floral garden party dresses with fluttering vertical pleats on the front. Palette of black, white, sunshine yellow, mint green and blue. Platform Lucite wedge sandals.</p><p>The verdict: Lots to wear. McCartney has a knack for adding her own kind of edge to everyday pieces.</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>?'s thriller "Guilty Wives" is headed for the bigscreen, with Maven Pictures' Celine Rattray and and James Patterson Entertainment onboard to produce.<br><br>Leopoldo Gout will produce along with Maven; James Patterson and Steve Bowen of James Patterson Entertainment exec produce.<br><br> "Guilty Wives," penned by Patterson and David Ellis and set to be published in March, is the story of a woman who had everything -- a handsome, successful husband; beautiful children; and cool, jet-set friends. But she steps into a terrible trap on a girls' weekend in Monte Carlo and wakes up sentenced to life in the treacherous French prison system and begins a quest to set things right again.<br><br>The prolific Patterson's best known for his series centering on psychologist Alex Cross, with "Along Came a Spider," "Kiss the Girls" and the upcoming "I, Alex Cross" adapted into features. He is also the creator of detective series "'s Murder Club," from which the ABC series was adapted.<br><br>Rattray and Styler said, "It's an ideal project for Maven as we expand into more commercial territory."<br><br>Maven's first feature film, "Imogene," starring , and , is currently in post-production, and Maven is in development with New Regency on "Second Act," with set to produce and star, as well as " Vixen," with starring.<br><br>Maven's also producing with on "A Fair Marriage" as a potential starring vehicle for Parker through her Pretty Matches banner with partner Allison Benson (Daily Variety, Oct. 21).<br><br>Click for more articles on Variety.com.<br><br>?, the influential but erratic producer best known for his layered "Wall of Sound" recording technique, was arrested on suspicion of murder early Monday after an actress was found shot to death at his hilltop mansion in Alhambra.<br><br>Police said they were called to the gated estate about 5 a.m. by a limousine driver who reported hearing shots fired after he dropped off the couple in Spector's Mercedes-Benz.<br><br> Officers arrived to find the body of a woman identified as Lana Clarkson, 40, of Los Angeles, an actress who attracted a cult following from her roles in films by director , and has appeared widely in TV programs and commercials. Her body was sprawled in the marble foyer, Los Angeles County sheriff's investigators said.<br><br>FOR THE RECORD:<br>This article, published Feb. 4, 2003, misidentified a source of information. The article said that Bob Merlis, a music publicist, told The Times about Spector's ex-wife and her employment status. That information in fact came from a different music industry source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. —<br> <br><br>Alhambra police immediately arrested Spector, 62, the soundboard genius behind such hits as "Be My Baby" and "You That Lovin' Feelin'." He was released late Monday on $1-million bail, accompanied by his defense attorney, Robert Shapiro.<br><br>Sheriff's investigators would not describe the relationship between Clarkson and Spector. Sources said they had met the night before.<br><br>Investigators said Clarkson and Spector were the only people in the house at the time of the shooting, although other people may have been on the wooded estate, which towers improbably over a middle-class neighborhood of single-story homes.<br><br>Legendary in the music industry for his work in the 1960s and '70s with such varied artists as the Beatles, the Righteous Brothers and the Ronettes, Spector built a reputation by the 1980s as a recluse, chased behind mansion walls by personal demons, haunted by drinking and reckless behavior. Friends said they thought he had put that behind him in recent years, and expressed bewilderment at the charges.<br><br>"None of this equates," said guitarist Dave Kessel, one of Spector's closest friends. "He has been in great spirits and great shape, and feeling so good about everything. This doesn't fit into what I know about him and where he is."<br><br>Lt. Daniel Rosenberg, the sheriff's homicide detective in charge of the investigation, said investigators recovered a gun that was believed to be the murder weapon.<br><br>Although Rosenberg would not say how many times the gun was fired, one neighbor, who declined to identify herself, said she heard three or four shots.<br><br>Asked if Spector had admitted committing the crime, Rosenberg said, "No. There has not been a confession by Mr. Spector."<br><br>A large team of investigators, led by six sheriff's detectives, pored over the estate throughout the day Monday, paying special attention to the foyer, where the shooting is believed to have occurred, and the driveway, where the newly purchased black Mercedes-Benz sat facing the front gate, its driver's-side door agape.<br><br>Spector purchased the Alhambra chateau -- built with 33 rooms in 1926 by a Basque rancher and dubbed the Pyrenees Castle -- for $1.1 million in 1998. Spector commented later in Esquire magazine that he had bought "a beautiful and enchanting castle in a hick town where there is no place to go that you shouldn't go."<br><br>That derisive tone was repaid in kind Monday by some neighbors, who said their only contact with Spector was the occasional glimpse of him speeding by in a luxury car. "I just saw him driving by waving, the feudal lord to the serfs," said Lynn Browers, who lives on a street behind the Spector estate.<br><br>But Spector's move to Alhambra also appeared to reflect his desire to stay out of trouble after his wild years, when he was dogged by accusations of domestic abuse and public drunken rages.<br><br>The Ramones accused him in 1980 of brandishing a gun in the studio; singer called him a madman out of control three years earlier.<br><br>In an interview with The Times in 1991, Spector fretted that his reputation as a recluse and tales of his drinking and violence would taint his legacy, and he compared himself to a late friend, troubled comedian . "I started asking myself, 'Do they remember Lenny Bruce as the philosophical genius and great comic mind -- or do they remember him as some sick, stupid morphine addict?' "<br><br>?<p>, the world's greatest living tenor, has bestowed his admiration on Lady , arguably the world's biggest pop star.</p><p>In an interview that recently ran in the British tabloid the Daily Mail, Domingo said he believes "Lady Gaga has a very good voice. Absolutely. She has a wonderful voice."</p><p>He added: "I know she's very wild in her performance, and clever, and she does all these things to please the youth. But when you listen to her, the voice is good."</p> <p>The ran in advance of Domingo's June appearance in "Turandot" at Wembley Stadium in London. The tenor also complimented the vocal talents of , , Madonna and the late .</p><p>Domingo has occasionally teamed with pop singers. He has performed alongside Dion, , , and others.</p><p>Domingo also said he isn't a fan of the . "My No. 1 rule is I do not put anything in my ears. No iPod, nothing like this. Even on a plane I won’t put the headphones on to watch a film," he told the newspaper.</p><p>"When I am teaching, I tell all the young musicians 'never put something in your ear to hear music.' Hear it naturally. Then memorize it. The ear is the most precious thing a singer has."</p><p>Domingo is the general director of L.A. Opera. His most recent appearance on the mainstage was in the title role of Verdi's "Simon Boccanegra."</p><p>RELATED:</p><p>Placido Domingo</p><p></p><p></p>?Some people are happy collecting fast cars or nice watches. But the ultimate vanity purchase may be the private island.<br><br>Billionaire Richard Branson owns several. Magician David Copperfield has a dozen. Singer is trying to sell hers. And tech titan is closing a deal to buy nearly all of the Hawaiian island of Lanai.<br><br> Although private islands are often associated with the very rich, they aren't always that exclusive or even all that expensive.<br><br><br><br>Private Islands Inc., a Toronto-based island marketing firm, lists about 500 islands worldwide from less than $50,000 to more than $100 million, Chief Executive Chris Krolow said.<br><br>U.S., Canadian and British buyers make up about 80% of the market; far-flung locales such as the Caribbean have a more international buyer base, he said. The Bahamas and Belize are hot, as is Panama. In the Mediterranean, Greek islands are popular.<br><br>"Before the recession, a lot of islands were priced by owners who had what we call Coke-bottle glasses," Krolow said. "They put crazy price tags on their islands."<br><br>Price drops in areas such as the Bahamas and a sense that values have bottomed out have brought increased interest in island ownership.<br><br>"It has opened the door to people looking," Krolow said. "They are more comfortable now."<br><br>Ego, extravagance and identity play roles in some high-profile trophy purchases, experts say, but others are motivated by privacy and security.<br><br>"These types of people are looking to create something for themselves, to put up a flag and say, 'This is my own little country,'" Krolow said. "They all tend to be very entrepreneurial. Not just the wealthy, but those who are determined to do something different."<br><br>Celebrities have long populated the ranks of island owners, including , and . Even those not pursued by paparazzi can understand the desire for seclusion these days, said clinical psychologist Stephen Goldbart, co-founder of the San Francisco-based Money, Meaning & Choices Institute.<br><br>"We are all living in a world where there isn't much privacy," said Goldbart. One of his clients has bought an island, and several others are interested in making their own purchases. "The need for feeling safe and secure has increased radically since the economic downturn."<br><br>Island buyers tend to fall into two groups: people who are making lifestyle choices and entrepreneurs developing resorts.<br><br>Oracle Corp.CEO Ellison's recent deal to buy 98% of Lanai could be considered an example of a trophy purchase since ownership has been a money-losing proposition for seller David Murdock, the Los Angeles billionaire who controls Dole Food Co.<br><br>The estimated $500-million deal makes little sense from a financial standpoint, said , who teaches real estate at the Anderson School of Management. Among the reasons he cites are a lack of resort potential because of a mostly rocky beachfront and scant infrastructure.<br><br>"It is probably more of a quality-of-life investment — a pride-of-ownership purchase," Habibi said. "Who wouldn't want to own a Hawaiian island?"<br><br>Murdock, though unloading the 141-square-mile island, is keeping his Lanai home and some other assets, including a woodworking shop and 1,000 rare orchid plants.<br><br>Dion and her husband, Rene Angelil, put their private island up for sale in Quebec in late spring. The couple, who also own a home in Florida, could seldom get to their island mansion because of Dion's touring schedule, so they listed it for sale at more than $29 million.<br><br>?<p>Billionaire plan to sell off his entertainment division raises a major question about the fate of the company's AEG Live subsidiary, the concert industry's No. 2 powerhouse.</p><p>The multifaceted AEG owns, operates and exclusively books dozens of venues across the country, controls stakes in the and sports franchises and promotes hundreds of concerts and other live entertainment events each year. Industry veterans are speculating whether AEG will remain as a single entity under new ownership or be split into several pieces and be sold off.</p><p>Among AEG Live's most prized concert world components are in Los Angeles, the in London and the in Indio, of which it shares ownership with festival founder Paul Tollett.</p> <p>Since AEG Live was launched about a dozen years ago, it has become the closest competitor to the concert business' leader, . Last year, AEG Live sold 12.2 million tickets to events it produced and promoted worldwide, compared with 22 million tickets for Live Nation-sponsored shows, according to Pollstar, the live entertainment industry tracking publication.</p><p>Two Wall Street analysts, who declined to speak publicly, said it is difficult to put a price tag on privately held AEG Live.</p><p>But others said the value of the company's concert division has less to do with ticket sales or gross revenues than with the people who run it.</p><p>"You're buying their expertise and their relationships with all of the artists," Pollstar editor Gary Bongiovanni said. "If you bought Coachella and you don't have Paul Tollett, what do you really have? You bought the name but not the people who bring in the talent."</p><p>He also cited Brian Murphy, the head of AEG Live's West Coast office, who has close ties with . John Meglen and Paul Gongaware of AEG's Concerts West division worked with . Louis Messina, one of the nation's biggest promoters who formed a partnership with AEG Live, has handled tours for and Kenny Chesney.</p><p>Chesney's summer stadium tour with fellow country star sold more than 1 million tickets and grossed more than $96 million over 23 shows, making it the most popular and highest-grossing concert tour of the year, according to Pollstar figures.</p><p>"These people have very strong relationships with talent," Bongiovanni said. "The value of the company will depend on whether these people will stay."</p><p>AEG Live had about 650 employees and generated about $1 billion a year in ticket sales as of 2011, according to AEG Live president , who on Wednesday declined to comment for this report. AEG President and Chief Executive Tim Leiweke also declined through a spokesman to comment beyond their statements in Tuesday's news release announcing the sale.</p><p>"We run this like a business," Phillips told The Times last year. "Even though AEG Live is a strategic play to protect AEG's venues, we need to make money as a stand-alone business."</p><p>AEG Live did turn a profit in 2010 and 2011, Phillips said, with last year being its most profitable year ever. He declined to state how much money the division made.</p><p>Even if AEG had disclosed its performance, its businesses are too tightly intertwined to easily separate the pieces, said John Tinker, an analyst at Maxim Group.</p><p>AEG Live can get a good rate for the venues it owns (take Staples, for example). Otherwise, concert promotions is a low-profit business, with margins averaging 1% to 4% of revenue, Tinker said.</p><p>"If you don't control the building, you're just another guy without an angle," Tinker said.</p><p>To AEG, however, the concerts business helps the company fill its stadiums and concert halls in between the sports matches of teams AEG owns or has a stake in.</p><p>"It's the whole package that's interesting. The concerts business by itself is not," Tinker said.</p><p>The prospective sale also raises questions about the future of AEG's individual components.</p><p>"I don't think it will have any impact on day-to-day business, unless a new owner comes in and starts selling pieces off," said a veteran concert promoter who has dealt with AEG and Live Nation who asked for anonymity. "Its business is fractured: it has sports arenas across the country [and] a lot of little businesses that somewhat complement each other, but I don't know if they're enmeshed.</p>?Pyramide Films has acquired French rights to 's Venice Competition hit "Killer Joe."<br><br>Sold by Voltage Pictures, which also produced with ANA Media, "Joe" stars as a Dallas detective hired by a drug dealer () to kill his mother for a $50,000 insurance policy.<br><br> A black comedy with memorable violence, "Joe" scored top marks in a Venice critics' poll. Liddell Entertainment has U.S. distrib rights.<br><br>For French critics and auds, "Joe" has many things going for it: A Hollywood director whose ability to make multi-prized films within the Hollywood system -- "The Exorcist," "The French Connection" -- ranks him as a serious auteur; plus film noir overtones, which appeal to a country with its own film noir tradition.<br><br>" 'Joe' is a bit out-there. Some scenes can achieve cult-status. French critics should love it," said Pyramide prexy Eric Lagesse.<br><br>One of top arthouse labels, Pyramide has also acquired French distribution and foreign rights to "Here Below," from Jean-Pierre Denis, whose latest movie, "Murderous Maids," played Berlin's Panorama.<br><br>Preeming at the 14th Unifrance Paris Rendez-Vous, which begins Wednesday, "Below," based on true events, toplines fast-rising actress Celine Sallette ("House of Tolerance," "Rust and Bone") as a nun who falls for a French Resistance fighter.<br><br>The story of "increasingly desperate, destructive love," in Denis' words, bows on around 50 prints in France Jan. 18.<br><br>Click for more international news on Variety.com.<br><br>?<p>Hollywood continues to go crazy for toys and games.</p><p>, the company behind the hits and "" and the flop has signed a deal with independent production and finance company Emmett/Furla Films to make movies based on the board games Hungry Hungry Hippos and and the toy Action Man.</p><p>Hasbro announced the three-picture deal Thursday and confirmed that the first movie would be "Monopoly," on which the companies hope to start production in 2013.</p> <p>Along with sequels to "Transformers" and "G.I. Joe" at Paramount, Hasbro has other properties set up around Hollywood, including Candyland at and Stretch Armstrong at .</p><p>—Ben Fritz</p><p>Crime case for Kinsey Millhone</p><p>"B" is indeed for burglar.</p><p>Mystery writer Sue Grafton, whose bestsellers are titled with letters of the alphabet, reports that her Louisville, Ky., home is one of several in her neighborhood that has been broken into.</p><p>Grafton, a Louisville native, said she went to put away some pieces of silver recently and noticed that her set of forks, knives and miscellaneous serving pieces was missing.</p><p>Police said there has been a string of burglaries in the area in the last several weeks.</p><p>"B Is for Burglar" is the title of the second novel in Grafton's series of Kinsey Millhone detective novels.</p><p>—Associated Press</p><p>Get your fix of 'House of Cards'</p><p>"House of Cards," the first original series from , will be available for streaming starting Feb. 1.</p><p>Starring and and executive produced by , who directed and "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," "House of Cards is a political set in Washington.</p><p>The show, based on a 1990 miniseries, is being produced by Media Rights Capital.</p><p>For Netflix, "House of Cards" is a big bet. It is paying about $4 million per episode for the show, and it ordered 26 episodes before even seeing a pilot. All 13 debut-season episodes will be available at once, as opposed to offering new shows on a weekly basis the way a traditional does.</p><p>Netflix is making a big push to offer more original content to distinguish itself from other streaming services and also so it is less reliant on Hollywood for movies and TV series to feed its customer base.</p><p>Other shows in the works at Netflix include new episodes of the cult series "."</p><p>—Joe Flint</p>?Some babies have all the luck. The recent birth of Skyler Morrison Berman, for example, inspired a series of baby gifts that could have been lifted from the pages of Vogue: a custom-made sweater the size of a tea cozy from Angela , a child-size china setting from and a shearling snuggly from Georgina Chapman.<br><br>Of course, when Mom is — celebrity stylist-turned-reality TV star-turned-designer — and the gift-givers are members of fashion's reigning class, glamour is expected.<br><br> On a recent sunny afternoon, lounging by the pool of his Los Angeles home with his nanny by his side, Skyler is wearing a blue striped Petit Bateau "1940s-style swimsuit," as Zoe describes it, and brown Bonpoint fisherman's sandals. It's a milestone, the first day the 3-month-old wears shoes, though he already has more than a dozen pairs in his nursery, including loafers.<br><br>Yet the new mother makes it sound as if life in Zoe land isn't quite as glamorous as it used to be. "My whole day is about whether my son poops or not," she says.<br><br>"The next thing you know, we'll be moving to Brentwood and I'll be driving a minivan."<br><br>Doubtful.<br><br>Zoe is wearing a pair of flared tuxedo pants so long they nearly sweep the floor, and a sparkly cropped navy blue jacket. Both items are from her new line, the Rachel Zoe fashion collection landing in stores this month, and they allow her to exude a sort of career-woman vibe, to play the role of "execubitch." (And don't worry — that particular term is a Zoe-ism.)<br><br>Zoe's career trajectory has been impressive, going from no-name stylist to red carpet tastemaker, earning $6,000 a day, with clients including , and . The next step was full-fledged celebritydom, with a reality show, line and, now, a fashion collection. And she's done it all in a decade.<br><br>The fall collection, with prices that range from $250 to $700, oozes '70s style, which should come as no surprise to fans of Zoe's trademark flowy peasant dress/oversized sunglasses look. But don't expect "bohemian glamour," Zoe says. "I wanted androgyny and the powerful woman look. I've grown up a lot. I wanted an amazing white tuxedo for under $1,000 and a cocktail dress for under $500."<br><br>Most of the pieces are quite tailored and have a vintage vibe. "It's very -y and -y and Bianca Jagger-y, with a splash of sequins, a little , thrown in," Zoe says.<br><br>There are trouser suits with flared legs, plunge-front blouses that tie at the neck, leather-trimmed capes with toggle closures, faux fur jackets, disco-short dresses with tiers of chiffon or splashes of sequins, and diaphanous chiffon maxi-dresses. Accessories include 51/2-inch platform pumps (not for the faint of heart) and chain-handle clutch bags.<br><br>The collection — backed by LF USA (a division of Li & Fung, a Hong Kong-based global sourcing giant and producer of clothing, toys and furniture) — is selling in "contemporary departments" alongside clothes by designers such as and . (It's been reported that Zoe could earn as much as $20 million from the line.) bought the collection for all 41 of its stores, and teased the launch with an "Oh So Zoe" Facebook challenge that let users style virtual looks and share them with friends. is planning to devote the windows of its store at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan to the collection.<br><br>"In entertainment, they talk about people who can act, sing and dance as being triple threats. Rachel Zoe is a triple threat in fashion. She has a great eye, a larger-than-life personality and a whole entertainment world built around her," said Catherine Moellering, executive vice president of New York-based trend forecasting firm Tobe Report.<br><br>Zoe's entree into fashion follows the direction in which the industry has been heading for some time, putting a premium on charisma over craft. "In terms of a business model, or Rachel Zoe would be the model for fashion today," Moellering said. "Instead of being known for an iconic top or dress, they are iconic personalities themselves, which allows them to be more flexible in how they branch out into other categories."<br><br>Although Zoe's design studio is in New York, Rachel Zoe Inc. is headquartered in Los Angeles. (She plans to fly back and forth.) Her husband, Rodger Berman, is president of the company, which has different spaces for styling services, product development, digital media (including production of her daily style blog at RachelZoe.com) and the stylist's fashion archives. There are about 15 employees at the company, including design director Eric Sartori.<br><br>Those archives must hold a lot of her clothes because the walk-in closet at her house isn't nearly as stuffed as one might expect. There are purses and Birkin bags tucked into tidy cubbies. And hanging on a peg is her newest purchase, a vintage , bamboo-handled bucket bag so large it's easy to wonder if Zoe could fit inside. A rolling rack in the center of the closet is filled with pieces from her fall collection, which she has been wearing out and about recently, in full view of the paparazzi tracking her every move from nail salon to posh baby boutique.<br><br>Zoe knows how to play the game.<br><br>"How about wearing my white tuxedo dress?" she says, plucking the double-breasted "Cameron" style from the rack. "When I saw that picture, I froze. For the first time in my life, I got a taste of what it feels like to a designer when someone wears their clothes."<br><br>Lopez's stylist, whom Zoe says she does not know, pulled the dress from the showroom, and Lopez was photographed wearing it June 15 in Paris. "I can't believe how kind and gracious stylists in L.A. have been, pulling my designs," Zoe says, referring to her competition pulling clothing for their celebrity clients to borrow for appearances and red carpet events. "I figured since I was a stylist, and they're stylists, they wouldn't want it."<br><br>Zoe is ready to get back on the red carpet herself after a hiatus. Although she managed to style longtime client Oscar host in eight different looks for the show in February, she missed the runway shows in New York and Europe that month because she couldn't travel so close to giving birth. She also took a break from QVC, but will return in September with new additions to her Luxe Rachel Zoe line of outerwear and accessories, which tops out at $180.<br><br>And on Sept. 6, returns to Bravo for a fourth season.<br><br>The show began as "fashion porn," she says, in reference to plotlines that have taken viewers behind the scenes at fashion shows with , and styling sessions with flamboyant figure skater Johnny Weir. But this season will be a little different. "It will be more about seeing me as a career woman."<br><br>Don't expect any more drama with her assistants, as in past seasons. (Two of her former assistants, Brad Goreski and Taylor Jacobson left the reality show in snarky plot twists that some observers say were engineered to boost ratings. ) "I've learned lessons," Zoe says. "But you move on, and you realize everyone is replaceable on some level. Except my husband. And my son, of course."<br><br>Skyler will have screen time during Season 4 and will be sitting on Mom's lap front row at the next round of runway shows in September. (Zoe plans to show her spring 2012 collection during New York Fashion Week.)<br><br>Later on this day, the Bravo TV crew is coming to the house to shoot a barbecue, featuring Rodger's turkey burgers and Rachel's brownies. "I do have a private life," Zoe says. "I'm an executive producer, and when I say we're not shooting today, we're not shooting today. But as long as people enjoy [the show] and get the feeling that they are getting enough, great. When I feel that's not possible anymore, then we move onto the next thing."<br><br>The next thing could be a home accessories line. Another TV show is also a possibility.<br><br>Zoe talks a lot about Oprah and , and clearly sees them as lifestyle-branding models. "I would love to do a ," she says. "I don't have any formal fashion training, and the reason I got into this business is because I love people. So for me, sitting down and digging into peoples' minds … digging into designers' minds … would be really fun."<br><br>?Ludwig van Beethoven -- genius, madman, cosmic musical prophet. In the one-man show "Beethoven, as I Knew Him," writer-actor Hershey Felder finds a whole new angle on the composer: Vegas camp superstar.<br><br>Not that we ever see Beethoven wearing a glittery cape, though he does wrap himself in a sequined blanket at one point. Instead, this narrated account of his life shamelessly amps up the sentimentality, purple clichés and big weepy tragedy. It's as if had jumped in a time machine and taken up residence in the German composer's body.<br><br> "Beethoven, as I Knew Him," at the Geffen Playhouse through Sept. 28, represents the final chapter in Felder's trilogy of composer . (He previously tackled Chopin and Gershwin.) Filled with unintentional hilarity, this over-the-top fantasia is a misshapen and incoherent free-association that's in dire need of dramatic tuning.<br><br>The most jarring note comes from Felder's decision to frame the story through the eyes of Beethoven's friend Dr. Gerhard von Breuning, who recounts the composer's life through anecdotes and a greatest-hits list of compositions (including the "Moonlight" Sonata, "Für Elise" and the "Ode to Joy") played on a grand piano.<br><br>At times, Felder morphs without warning into Beethoven himself, though it's never entirely clear if we're watching the composer or Von Breuning's conception of him. In any case, these scenes provide the evening's hammiest moments as the actor tears into Beethoven's life like a lunatic on furlough from the asylum.<br><br>In one scene, Beethoven mourns the passing of his idol, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, by playing the Requiem on the piano and singing the part of the chorus in a screeching falsetto. It's a pure camp moment that's transfixing in its Liberace-esque audacity and embarrassing in its total sincerity.<br><br>If only the play contained more such wacky moments. Mostly, "Beethoven, as I Knew Him" meanders through the composer's life without much purpose or direction.<br><br>Simply on the level of biography, the show possesses as much depth as a Wikipedia article. Entire events and compositions are omitted or alluded to in passing. Of course, no biographical play could ever hope to cover every aspect of its subject's life, but Felder's script fails to locate a common thread that would impose order on his scattershot talking points.<br><br>As a pianist, Felder proves himself more than capable of portioning out Beethoven's music into easily digestible, buffet-style serving sizes. But these musical interludes, beautiful though they are, disrupt the storytelling flow, creating pockets of dead narrative air when we should be moving forward. Perhaps scared that he might lose his audience, Felder frequently narrates as he tickles the ivories, giving the show the feeling of a lounge act.<br><br>Joel Zwick directs the production with a perceptible nod to its full camp potential. The black velvet set suggests a cross between a department store window and a high-class prostitute's boudoir. At times, the show feels like it has more lighting cues than at the Colosseum. And Felder's German accent, apparently on loan from , is so overdone that it becomes otherworldly.<br><br>By the time Beethoven loses his hearing, the play itself has become tone-deaf to all storytelling technique and finesse. The natural place for this show is, of course, the Strip. With shinier clothes, a bigger fright wig and a drink minimum, Felder could have an instant classic on his hands. In the meantime, we'll have to make do with this rather tedious muddle.<br><br><br><br>"Beethoven, as I Knew Him," Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Los Angeles. See for show times. Ends Sept. 28. $40 to $115. (310) 208-5454. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.?After four weeks of runway shows parading designers' visions for this coming fall and winter, here's what retail buyers — who will bring the looks home to you — are saying.<br><br>Amanda Brooks, fashion director, <br><br> The season's big idea: Designers realize that women rarely wear their looks head to toe, so it's about designing great items and putting them together in a contextual way so that women can incorporate them into their wardrobes.<br><br>The must-haves: Longer skirts, around the knee or below, or all the way down to the ground — especially pleated skirts as seen at and . Loafers, both flat or on a heel. , and Valli all had loafers. Fur and novelty things with fur, such as the fur dickeys we saw at Celine. And 1960s volume, which was beautifully done at and , with cape-back dresses fitted in front. Capes themselves are also a humongous trend. Python is big for accessories, such as the trompe l'oeil boots at . And it's not about a hobo bag this season, it's more "lady." had beautiful structured bags.<br><br>What won't fly? The more literal 1960s look, mod. It's too specific and doesn't translate as well as other eras to the way modern women want to dress.<br><br>Will women go ? I'm more interested in the grunge silhouette and proportion than grungy prints or deconstruction. had a great take on the long sweater, long skirt look, which you could say was influenced by grunge. showed a similar silhouette. It's grunge, but it's glamorous grunge.<br><br>Holli Rogers, buying director, Net-a-porter.com<br><br>The season's big idea: There are really two. The first is a continuation from spring, the 1970s look is huge. And bubbling underneath is a new oversize proportion with exaggerated shoulders as seen at , and .<br><br>The must-haves: As part of the '70s look, capes, blouses and the wide-leg pants. And it's a sleek cape, not one that's ostentatious. We loved the capes at Lanvin, which was one of the strongest shows. Chelsea boots are quite important, and we're seeing more of a return to a flatter shoe in general. As far as bags, we're moving away from a lot of hardware to a more simple and lighter-weight bag. The Chloé bucket bags, for example, were really simple with just a tassel detail.<br><br>What won't fly? Extreme heels. We're still going to buy some, but we're also doing a lot of loafers.<br><br>Will women go grunge? Yes, but in a dressed-up way, not like it was in the 1990s. We're seeing it in all the checks and plaids too, at Carven and in other collections. And in the new emphasis on casual. Baggy trousers with a slouchy shirt is a very cool look.<br><br>Jeffrey Kalinsky, executive vice president of designer merchandising, Nordstrom<br><br>The season's big idea: Richness. The most important clothes have pure emotion and desirability, such as a gorgeous print velvet dress from or a luxe coat from Prada.<br><br>The must-haves: In New York, we loved the cocktail looks and gowns at . In Milan, the new volume at Jil Sander really struck a chord. In Paris, we had a lot of favorites. At Haider Ackermann, we loved the coats. One was black with the bottom done in white and another with the bottom in a multi-bouclé. I also think the long slit bouclé skirts are going to come in and go out. At Lanvin, the beginning of the show was particularly beautiful. One of the short dresses, bare up top, with gorgeous jewels — [designer] Alber Elbaz showed it with men's shoes. It was so new. At , there were so many gorgeous things, including a military shirt with embroidery all the way down the sleeve and mixed-media dresses. And all of Junya Watanabe's black leather was perfect. That is going to be a real trend. And , the velvet skirt with the trumpet detail in back, that alone is the kind of richness we're talking about.<br><br>What won't fly? We don't think about what we're not going to buy. We zero in on what we think is important and try to put together the puzzle of the season.<br><br>Will women go grunge? Yes. The designers inspired by grunge really offered a more modern, glamorous take.<br><br>?Maybe the pop world is finally ready to believe what Calendar predicted nearly four years ago: that by concentrating on cutting-edge rock and rap music, upstart Interscope Records would become the envy of the music industry.<br><br>The Westwood-based company, which launched in late 1990 as a joint venture with , stunned its competitors last fall by becoming the first label in the modern pop era to capture the four top positions on the nation's album charts in a single week, thanks to releases by Bush, , and No Doubt.<br><br> Battling rivals 10 times its size, Interscope went on to dominate the competition throughout most of the lucrative Christmas rush--nabbing the top spot on the Billboard chart for the past eight weeks.<br><br>Previously branded as a "gangsta rap" or "radical rock" label, Interscope emerged in 1996 as a full-service record company with a string of mainstream hit acts ranging from the radio-friendly No Doubt to roots-rockers the Wallflowers to traditional R&B purveyors Blackstreet.<br><br>Interscope's success is even more amazing when you consider it was just 15 months ago that Time Warner Chairman Gerald Levin made the shortsighted decision to dump the label following a rap lyric controversy. Interscope co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field quickly cut a more profitable deal with Seagram-owned MCA, which purchased half of the company in February for $200 million.FOR THE RECORD:<br>Record executive--A Jan. 5 Pop Eye column incorrectly identifiedrecord industry veteran Henry Droz as one of several top executives whowere fired during a corporate shake-up at the Warner Music Group. Droz,who now runs MCA's distribution arm, retired from his post as chief ofdistribution at Warner in 1993 after 16 years on the job.<br>With Interscope in tow, MCA instantly gained new credibility as a rock powerhouse and even jumped temporarily from last to first place last fall in terms of new album sales (when older, catalog titles are counted, MCA is fifth in overall album sales). In addition, MCA bolstered its image by recruiting several of the top executives recently fired by Warner, including Doug Morris, Henry Droz and Bob Krasnow. Highly regarded veterans Mo Ostin and Lenny Waronker also resurfaced at 's MCA-distributed label.<br><br>To be sure, the dramatic restructuring of MCA has focused the eyes of the industry on a bold new corporate player: Seagram chief , whose empowering and charismatic approach is being likened by some to that of the late and beloved Warner titan Steve Ross.<br><br>Although it will take time to determine whether Bronfman's revitalization plan will pay off, many already believe that Time Warner's days as the undisputed industry leader are numbered. Indeed, power shifted last year in the $12-billion business, with , PolyGram, BMG, MCA and the independent label sector already beginning to close the gap on Warner's lead.<br><br>Here's how the major companies fared last year, based on SoundScan estimates of U.S. market share as well as interviews with key industry figures, who evaluated labels on both image and performance. The corporations are listed in order of domestic market share for new product only (excluding older, catalog albums) through Dec. 22.<br><br>WARNER MUSIC: 21%<br><br>Warner Bros: New co-Chairmen Bob Daly and Terry Semel have succeeded in calming the waters at Time Warner's troubled music division, but few insiders believe the new triumvirate of label chiefs will be able to return the corporation to its glory days. While Warner continues to dominate the domestic market, the talk is that the Bunny really no longer has anything special to offer artists over the competition.<br><br>With R.E.M.'s latest release getting off to a slow start, it was 's tiny Maverick Records that saved the day, delivering the year's best-selling album, from . Warner also counted on , , Seal and to keep the cash registers ringing. It's still too early to tell what kind of imprint Chairman Russ Thyret will put on the label, but outside of re-signing R.E.M. and pink-slipping practically the entire black music department, things so far have been exceedingly quiet during Thyret's tenure.<br><br>Atlantic: Val Azzoli, on the other hand, shook things up at Atlantic last year, axing dozens of employees and artists as well as cutting ties with several unprofitable joint ventures. The verdict is still out on whether Azzoli has the creative vision to revive Atlantic, but the label quietly nudged along such acts as , Donna Lewis, Seven Mary Three, Poe, Junior M.A.F.I.A. and . Hootie & the Blowfish's second release has sold only about a fifth of the 10 million chalked up by the band's debut. Old Atlantic standby bombed.<br><br>Elektra: Is there anyone left who still thinks a black woman can't run a rock label? If so, they obviously weren't paying attention to Sylvia Rhone's spectacular results last year at Elektra, which she took over in 1994. For the second year in a row, Elektra ranks as Warner Music's most profitable label, thanks to an eclectic string of hits from such acts as , , Keith Sweat and . Possible goof: Prodigy, the techno-dance wonder Rhone trimmed from the roster during massive cuts two years ago, became the target of the biggest ongoing bidding war.<br><br>SONY: 14.4%<br><br>Epic: Among the crucial details unmentioned in Vanity Fair's vindictive profile of Sony Music chief Tommy Mottola was the fact that Sony Music posted record results in 1996 and delivered four of the year's Top 10 selling albums. The whopping success of 's 6-million-selling "Falling Into You" offered proof that Mottola's wife, , is not the only pop star benefiting from the masterful Sony marketing machine. Epic's David Glew and Richard Griffiths--with 550 Music's Polly Anthony--also pumped out a stream of hits from Oasis, Rage Against the Machine, and, though somewhat disappointing, . In addition, Jeff Ayeroff and Jordan Harris finally put their Work label on the map with a new album from media darling .<br><br>Columbia: Aggressive Chairman Don Ienner took charge again last year at Columbia, transforming underground rap act the Fugees into one of the year's biggest mainstream pop hits. Ienner's hot label produced a broad range of hits from Mariah Carey, , the Presidents of the United States of America, Stabbing Westward and Alice in Chains, as well as breakthroughs from a number of new acts, including and Primitive Radio Gods.<br><br>?<p>With summer in full swing, it's time to hit the beach — for sunning, yes, but also for shopping.</p><p>There's a new level of sophistication in shopping along the coast. Locally owned boutiques with a curated point of view are changing the flavor of beach towns from beer-soaked spring break haunts to chic retail and dining destinations.</p><p>The style renaissance is fueled in part by the success of Venice's Abbot Kinney Boulevard, which this spring was dubbed by GQ magazine the chic-est street in America. With stores in Craftsman-style houses and beach bungalows, along with ping-pong tables and comfy outdoor seating that encourage visitors to linger, even the retail scene has a friendly sense of community.</p> <p>"Abbot Kinney has an energy that you cannot find anywhere else in L.A.," says fashion maven Jeannie , who recently opened a second outpost of her popular 3rd Street boutique Satine on Abbot Kinney Boulevard, selling $500-plus designer clothing by and alongside wetsuits by for Roxy. "No matter what day of the week or time of day, there are always people on the street. Since we have been open I noticed that we have little to no down time. The level of traffic coming into the store is intense."</p><p>Stylish, new independent boutiques have been cropping up in Manhattan Beach (Dawn Baker), Hermosa Beach (Deep Pocket Jean Co.) and Long Beach (Port, Long Beach Trading Co.) too, as fashion industry vets have moved from L.A. to the beach cities and designers and merchandisers who came of age working for surf and skate industry giants have left to start their own lines and retail endeavors.</p><p>"Hermosa is filled with authentic creativity," says David Borgatta, who opened Deep Pocket Jean Co. on Pier Avenue in Hermosa eight months ago after working as a designer for 25 years at , Guess, Hollister and other brands. "The old Hermosa is changing. It's more about lifestyle, and not just partyers and drunks. We also have a lot of pro athletes living here."</p><p>We surveyed the scene and came up with coastal shopping itineraries that sample stores in Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, the South Bay and Long Beach. But let's start with the most chic of streets, Abbot Kinney.</p><p>VENICE</p><p>On Abbot Kinney, just steps away from the sand, the boardwalk and the drum circles, high-end fashion and design stores sit alongside pot pharmacies and bike shops. Although the area is steeped in the powerful legacy of the surf-skate culture stretching back to the neighborhood's 1970s Dogtown days, even its beach T-shirt shops have been elevated now to something more special. It adds up to an eclectic mix of shopping opportunities from Venice to Westminster boulevards.</p><p>With a bright blue exterior painted with two bunnies by local graffiti artist Jules Muck, the new Satine (1508 Abbot Kinney) can't be missed. Lee's vision of luxury fashion in Venice comes in a relaxed beach bungalow setting. There are cheery dresses, cuddly Jenni Kayne sweaters, Ancient Greek Sandals footwear, Eugenia Kim straw hats, Meredith Wendell macrame clutches and sleek totes, as well as eclectic goodies such as green tea Kit Kats and crochet covers, inspired by Lee's love of Japan.</p><p>At the other end of the street, Heist (1104 Abbot Kinney) was one of the first fashion boutiques to open on Abbot Kinney at the dawn of the street's renaissance, in 2004. It has a European flavor, featuring floral dresses and fringed sweaters, Of Two Minds tweed jackets, Dieppa Restrepo booties, K. Jacques sandals, Jerome Dreyfuss totes and Pippa Small semiprecious stone jewelry.</p><p>Pamela Barish (1327 1/2 Abbot Kinney) also opened her store in 2004. A die-hard Venice local, Barish has adopted her own 100-mile-radius rule, and all of her clothes are made within it. Her spring collection includes picnic-ready gingham, eyelet and polka dot fit 'n' flare dresses, solid sheaths, skirts and tops with Peter Pan collars.</p><p>There's lots here for the more avant-garde set too, beginning at Guild (13351/2 Abbot Kinney), where you'll find lace shorts, distressed Greg jackets and Ronald Pineau studded clutches. Salt (11381/2 Abbot Kinney) is less rock 'n' roll, with modern-looking clothes from Elaine Kim, Hache and Hartford.</p><p>Mona Moore (1112 Abbot Kinney) is the place to find cutting-edge shoes by , and Martin Margiela, while Waraku (1225 Abbot Kinney) has hard-to-find kicks for men and women, like gingham check Nikes, Marimekko print and split-toe Sou-Sous, alongside Japanese streetwear brands.</p><p>For leather accessories, San Francisco-based designer Kendall Conrad (1121 Abbot Kinney) specializes in bags that incorporate traditional techniques of Spanish saddlery, including sleek styles with fringe, tassel or whipstitch trim and brass hardware, as well as leather wallets and cuff bracelets.</p><p>You'll find men's canvas totes, messenger bags and accessories at Jack Spade (1132 Abbot Kinney), and Lucite bracelets and other fashion jewelry at Alexis Bittar (1612 Abbot Kinney).</p><p>And for an olfactory treat, Venice-based Strange Invisible Perfumes (1138 Abbot Kinney) and New York-based Le Labo (1138 1/2) recently formed a "Perfume Commune," co-existing in side-by-side storefronts where they spritz the art of custom perfumery.</p><p>The Stronghold (1625 Abbot Kinney), L.A.'s first denim brand circa 1885, worn by in the "Little Tramp" and in "Grapes of Wrath," has its flagship on Abbot Kinney. The place has an old-fashioned vibe and features the house-label jeans, alongside goods from other American heritage brands, including Alden shoes, Russell moccasins, Filson bags and Dickies shirts. Don't miss the chic carpet bags for women either.</p><p>Steven Alan (1601 Abbot Kinney) has a preppy vibe, with button-down shirts for men and women, Lauren Moffatt cotton dresses in delicate prints, Clare Vivier envelope bags and Soludos espadrilles.</p><p>In Venice's boho spirit, L.A. designer Karyn Craven recently opened her first Burning Torch (1627 Abbot Kinney) store here. The atmosphere is warm and welcoming, with breezy tunics in bright silk prints, exotic beaded bed jackets and dresses, woven leather tops, upcycled blouses and chunky necklaces.</p>?Going to Las Vegas without seeing a show is like getting married there without an Elvis impersonator.<br><br>But how do you score the best bargains in a town where 75 ticketed shows are playing? How do you beat the ticket brokers and the high rollers to get a decent seat at a decent price?<br><br> The stakes have never been higher.<br><br>The average cost of a production-show ticket (excluding tour headliners) is $68.94, an 11% increase from last year according to numbers released in April by the Las Vegas Advisor, a bargain hunter's guide to the city.<br><br>And big shows will cost you even more.<br><br>There are 17 shows for which tickets cost more than $100, an increase from just 12 such shows last year. They include , , , "The Producers," "Mamma Mia!" and the shows such as "O" at the Bellagio and "KÀ" at the MGM Grand.<br><br>In Vegas, $100 can quickly seem like a bargain. The best tickets to the blockbuster shows — if you can even get them — run $200 or more.<br><br> "It's an uncomfortable reality, but there are very few strategies to do anything but pay face value for the hottest shows," said Anthony Curtis, publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor.<br><br>But don't give up. For those willing to prospect and be aggressive and flexible, there are some tricks, Curtis said.<br><br>First, plan at least three months in advance.<br><br>Then check out your options. Most hotels offer reserved-seat show tickets through a closed in-house system or through corporate networks such as .<br><br>"What you get out of those is the convenience and security of booking in advance. But you won't necessarily get the best deal," said Curtis.<br><br>To save money, he said, take those seats in the back.<br><br>With so many shows boasting custom-built seating, sometimes the cheap seats in the third tier can still have a pretty good view, and you'll save big. They're also a good place to watch the audience, which in shows such as "Mamma Mia!" can be just as entertaining. The cheap seats for that show cost $49.50.<br><br>Another strategy: Companies eager to sell you a time share sometimes will tempt you with tickets. If you can sit through the one- to two-hour pitch, you may be able to score some freebies.<br><br>Oriana Leckert, 27, of New York, got two free tickets (worth at least $150) to "Mystère" after listening to a two-hour pitch to invest in Tahiti Village, a new vacation ownership resort on the Strip.<br><br>"I knew going in we weren't going to buy anything," she said. "But it was a great way to get good seats and free tickets."<br><br>If you don't care where you stay, check to see which hotel-casinos have packages that include tickets to the most popular shows. For example, if you stay at Caesars Palace on Aug. 17, you can get two orchestra seats to Dion's show, two drink tickets and a $260 room all wrapped into a $654 one-night package.<br><br>"Try to stay where you play," said Alexis Kelly, an associate editor at Fodor's who is putting together its 2008 guide to Las Vegas. "You'll save big that way."<br><br>?CHICAGO -- Sex scandals have derailed countless pop-star careers, but 's has remained robust, even with his long-delayed trial on 14 counts of child pornography looming.<br><br>Jury selection began Friday.<br><br> The singer, 41, has sold more than 12 million records and videos since the charges first surfaced in June 2002. Last year he scored three top-10 R&B singles, and his 2007 album, "Double Up," sold nearly a million copies despite an industry-wide economic slump. His last major tour, in 2006, earned revenue of $8.3 million.<br><br>Kelly has maintained his bestselling status by remaining prolific; he has produced an album a year since the indictments and has a new single, "Hair Braider," on the pop charts. In addition, he has continued to make music suffused with sexually explicit themes, and his fans don't seem to mind. On the contrary, they continue to buy his records -- and his concerts sell out.<br><br>"His music is just so compelling to his audience that they're not hung up on" the sex charges, said Marv Dyson, former president and general manager of WGCI-FM, the powerhouse Chicago R&B station that broke numerous Kelly hits over the years. "You know how forgiving people are nowadays."<br><br>Indeed, after some initial reservations about how the sex charges would be received by the public, radio programmers have continued to play Kelly's music. They say Kelly has continued to release music their listeners want to hear.<br><br>"If the song is great and people want to hear it, we're going to play it regardless of what's going on in his personal life," said Erik Bradley, music director of Chicago top 40 station WBBM-FM (96.3).<br><br>No matter what happens at the trial, said Billboard magazine's R&B editor Gail Mitchell, "R. Kelly's going to be OK just because his writing and producing talent have remained consistent. I don't think he's missed any steps in terms of bottoming out."<br><br>Alan Light, former editor of Vibe and Spin magazines, said Kelly's work ethic has served to insulate him from a debilitating career slide.<br><br>"There was no retreat," Light said. "There was no hiding from anything. He just kept his head down and kept doing his work. I can't really think of anybody in these kinds of scandals [who has acted that way]. Their first impulse is to hide."<br><br> grew up on the South Side of Chicago. While in his teens, he brought a portable keyboard to elevated train stops and sang for tips.<br><br>He was signed to a record deal based on a performance at a backyard barbecue, and he was an instant success with a style that combined hip-hop's thuggish street pose with R&B's pleading vocals in a way that appealed to millions of young listeners.<br><br>"It's no secret sex sells," Kelly told in a 1994 interview. "If you go to a movie and there's no sex scene, it's not a good movie. In every one of James Bond's movies he had a fine girl. Same with every hero."<br><br>Kelly's 1993 album, "12 Play," sold 8 million copies, and soon he was among pop's most successful quadruple-threat artists: singer, songwriter, producer and performer. He helped launch the career of R&B singer (he also married the then-15-year-old in secrecy, only to have the marriage annulled soon after) and collaborated with , , Kirk Franklin and , among others. His self-empowerment ballad "I Believe I Can Fly," featured in the movie "Space Jam," crossed him over to a huge mainstream audience.<br><br>Some of Kelly's explicit ballads brimmed with dark undercurrents, and the conflict between sexuality and spirituality was central to his 1998 album, "R." He wrestled with personal demons on tracks such as "When a Woman's Fed Up" and "Suicide."<br><br>During a Chicago concert by gospel singer Kirk Franklin in 1997, Kelly strolled onstage and obliquely addressed some of his private turmoil: "It amazes me when I look back eight months ago -- cars, women, money, the media. I had everyone's attention," he said. "Some may think it's a gimmick, but I tell you, here stands a broken man. Every day I seem to be falling in love with the Lord. I've come to find out that whatever it is you want, it's in the Lord."<br><br>Though the singer didn't mention it at the time, he was dogged by rumors of improper sexual activities. Civil proceedings followed over the years. At least three women filed lawsuits stating they had sex with him before turning 17. A fourth reached an out-of-court settlement with the singer.<br><br>When the child-pornography charges were pressed, Kelly's career briefly stalled. A 2002 album, "Loveland," was scrapped and a joint album with hip-hop kingpin , "The Best of Both Worlds," flopped.<br><br>But his 2003 release, "Chocolate Factory," sold 2 million copies and flaunted Kelly's reputation as a sex freak. The first single, "Ignition," strung together transparent sexual metaphors ("Let me stick my key in your ignition, babe"), and it rose to No. 2 on the R&B charts and sold 1 million copies.<br><br> On the rest of the album, the disconnect between Kelly's lyrics and his sordid legal troubles verged on the preposterous.<br><br>"Anything you want, you just come to daddy," Kelly purred in the album's opening seconds.<br><br>"In the midst of this fame my life is like a buffet: Quick to drink, quick to smoke, quick to fornicate," he fessed up on "Apologies of a Thug."<br><br>This pattern continued on subsequent albums, with Kelly becoming even bolder in his sexual come-ons, with occasional attacks on his critics. The exception was his 2004 release, "Happy People"/"U Saved Me," split between ebullient up-tempo tracks and gospel songs in the tradition of "I Believe I Can Fly." He even broke into sobs as he addressed God, echoing his onstage confession with Franklin seven years earlier: "After I've been so bad, how did you manage to love me?"<br><br>Skeptical listeners might've heard a disingenuous pose, but more than 3 million buyers made the double-CD one of Kelly's biggest commercial successes.<br><br> In 2005-06, with the implausible, 22-part video "Trapped in the Closet," he turned his reputation for outlandish sexual escapades into an absurdist soap opera. This was comic-book sexuality, so over the top it verged on a joke.<br><br> If anything, the charges against him appeared to embolden Kelly to test how far he could push his sexually explicit material. Nobody ever accused Kelly of being particularly deep or profound as a lyricist. But his knack for wrapping his between-the-sheets obsessions in sing-songy melodies and dramatic rhythms had made him the most successful R&B performer of the last decade.<br><br>"I don't know that the trial is going to make a difference" in Kelly's career, said Billboard's Mitchell. "For whatever reason, people are able to divorce" the artist from allegations about his private life. He has a sixth sense in terms of what's hot."<br><br>What's more, Kelly is a prolific songwriter and has at least three unreleased albums in his archive. Even a conviction and a prison term might not be able to slow the tide of new material.<br><br>Chicago Tribune reporter Mark Caro contributed to this report.?"I've always wanted to do a song about L.A., and now I have one."<br><br> , calling during a recent tour stop in South Africa, said her romance with Southern California began almost two decades ago when she came to Malibu to work with producer David Foster on music that would help launch her to American superstardom. "That time means a lot to me. I loved Los Angeles then and still love going there. The shopping on Rodeo Drive and the palm trees. . . . "<br><br> That may be, but the L.A. song that Dion recorded for her new album, "Taking Chances," hardly matches that glitz. "Skies of L.A." is in fact a despairing song about the global environmental crisis.<br><br>I don't know if tomorrow has a day<br><br>I don't know if the rays will shine my way<br><br>All I know is that I'm standing in a place where<br><br>My future looks like the skies of L.A.<br><br>Skies of L.A., skies of L.A.<br><br>I don't know if my body can take much more <br><br>We're in the land of the richest riches<br><br>But my mind seems so poor<br><br>The song was written for Dion by a songwriting team led by the red-hot studio duo of Tricky and the Dream (their birth names are Christopher Stewart and Terius Nash) who were behind 's "Umbrella," the biggest radio hit of 2007. The Dream said that, like Dion, his first visits to L.A. left a major mark on him, but instead of Malibu glare, he remembers El Segundo haze.<br><br>"I got to , and in the back of the car looking out the window I couldn't believe the sky. I grew up in Atlanta, and in the South it's blue when you look up. I loved L.A., beautiful place and beautiful people. But it is different."<br><br> The Dream and his team were in a Las Vegas studio at the same time Dion was there working on her album. The Dream saw an opportunity, and in less than 24 hours, he had "Skies of L.A." ready. He said he hopes it dovetails with 's "Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology)."<br><br>"This song is about a topic that you don't hear about much in urban music," he said. "But this is something that's in our faces -- we can't ignore it. I'm from the 'hood and this is something that people need to talk about everywhere, top to bottom."<br><br> Maybe, but the call to action may be lost on some. Dion describes the song as "a little jewel," but it's clear that even after recording it, she was captured by its melody, not its message. "I didn't know that it was about environmental things, to be honest. It made me think of palm trees," she said. "And that's OK -- songs mean different things to people."?WHEN IT comes to health clubs, do you prefer the enormous, multilevel variety where you can retain your anonymity even after years of blood, sweat and towels, or do you opt for the small mom-and-pop "Cheers"-type gym where everybody knows your name?<br><br>A friend says she'll only join the behemoth kind because "I don't want to talk to anyone who sees the kind of grotesque faces I make in there unless I'm sleeping with them. And even then, I'm kind of self-conscious." A tad too much information, but I understand her point. Others say the larger gyms are better for just getting in there, getting the job done and going home. Got it.<br><br> But for me, the punier of the pair also offers a second, indisputable health benefit: human contact.<br><br> <br> I belong to just such a no-frills gym in the Valley -- one level, with Lilliputian locker rooms dividing the unfussy aerobic and weight resistance stations. No major amenities, unless you consider the motion-detecting paper towel dispensers as such, especially on those days when they're actually working.<br><br>As exercise-averse as I am, I'm always there three mornings a week, and it's at least partly to swap tidings and bon mots with the likes of: Jay, a gregarious actor-writer with a loud, infectious laugh who gabs about his TV series roles, which began with "The Show" in the late '50s and ended with "Gunsmoke"; or Ted, a supportive, friendly retiree who might begin a conversation with, "You know who really doesn't get enough credit for her acting talent? -- ."<br><br>And then, in another corner, are three energetic women -- all named Patty -- who hang out together, laughing and chatting it up with two other women -- both named Debby. It's an exclusive club that can only be entered, apparently, by having one of two names. (I call the former three "The All Beef Patties," which occasionally amuses them.)<br><br>Several couples come to the gym to work out together, like the outgoing Jeff and Cat, whose hard-fought battle to keep a out of their neighborhood seemed a bit counterproductive to maintaining a healthful lifestyle. But OK, OK, the traffic. And there's always Trader Joe's.<br><br>There are also several fortysomething guys (myself included) who opine about popular culture, slippery stock prices, occasional joint pain, wives, girlfriends and women we'd like to have as either. One of them, Mark, a computer systems analyst, has become a great friend, a frequent Vegas buddy and fellow dragon roll junkie.<br><br>But my sweetest small-gym acquaintance has to be a nearly deaf woman, Liz, who asked if I wanted to see her sing in sign language. I said yes, and what followed -- 's "The Power of Love" -- brought a bean-sized tear to my eye.<br><br>And as I've read in these very pages, emotional release is a health tonic made in heaven.<br><br>Actor-writer Dan Frischman has been a regular on two TV series. His website is .?<p>Film characters are smoking more on the big screen, and studios that have pledged to clamp down on such portrayals remain among the worst offenders, according to a new study.</p><p>There were nearly 1,900 portrayals of smoking and other tobacco usage among the 134 highest-grossing films at the box office in 2011, according to researchers at UC San Francisco.</p><p>The total number of "tobacco incidents" per movie was up 7% from 2010. Among films rated G, PG or PG-13, and thus more easily accessible to younger audiences, that figure increased 36%, the researchers added.</p> <p>UCSF professor of medicine Stanton A. Glantz said the consequence of more on-screen smoking portrayals will be "more kids starting to smoke and developing tobacco-induced disease."</p><p>The study was funded by the American Legacy Foundation, a public health group dedicated to reducing tobacco use among young people.</p><p>—Ben Fritz</p><p>Older sister of 'Mona Lisa'?</p><p>A group in Switzerland is claiming that Leonardo Da Vinci created an earlier version of his masterpiece "Mona Lisa."</p><p>The Mona Lisa Foundation, based in Zurich, announced its findings Thursday. The group contends that the painting known as the "Isleworth Mona Lisa," which resembles the original but whose provenance has been contested for many years, is actually a Da Vinci work.</p><p>The foundation said it is basing its claim on mathematical analysis, historical research and other methods. It said the painting predates the "Mona Lisa" by about 11 years.</p><p>—David Ng</p><p>Grammy tribute to </p><p>, and Usher will pay tribute to the late Whitney Houston in a one-hour TV special.</p><p>"We Will Always Love You: A Grammy Salute to Whitney Houston" will tape Oct. 11 at the Nokia Theatre in downtown L.A. It will air Nov. 16 on CBS.</p>—Associated Press<p> is big on Billboard</p><p>Despite diversions such as skateboarding and deposition hearings, Lil Wayne is still breaking ground in music.</p><p>With his guest appearance on the Game's single "Celebration," he officially became the male artist with the most entries in the Billboard Top 100, besting in the process.</p><p>It's Weezy's 109th notch on that chart, which counts his appearances as both main artist (42) and guest artist (67).</p><p>There's one caveat: The Billboard chart launched in 1958, and by that time, Elvis already had several hits, such as "Heartbreak Hotel," that surely would have added to his total.</p><p>Lil Wayne has a way to go to catch the all-time leader in the category. The cast of has 204 single credits on the chart.</p>?Millions of people visit the gambling and entertainment mecca each year, and most know what to see: Bellagio's fountains, the Venetian's gondoliers, the new-and-improved Forum Shops.<br><br>But Las Vegas is loaded with bad choices too. Because the average visitor pops in for just a few days, wrong turns can be a huge waste of time and money. And nothing is more shameful in Sin City than wasting money that could instead be fed into a slot machine.<br><br> Local resident Steve Friess offers this slightly irreverent and highly subjective list of the city's seven biggest tourist pitfalls -- and proposes some underrated alternatives.<br><br>1. VIEWS<br><br> Avoid: The Stratosphere<br><br>The raison d'être of this Seattle Space Needle rip-off is to provide a bird's-eye view of the city. Trouble is, it's expensive ($9), the waits can be excruciatingly long at peak times, and there are several better vantage points on the Strip. The hotel's revolving Top of the World restaurant is a costly waste of time too with dull food and a boring view of flat terrain for much of the hour it takes to make a circle. The tower does have one thing going for it: Its thrill rides, including Insanity and the High Roller, are the city's terrifying best.<br><br>The Stratosphere, 2000 Las Vegas Blvd. S., (702) 380-7777, .<br><br>Instead: Mix at the hotel at Mandalay Bay<br><br> This new bar-lounge on the Strip gives you everything you can see from the Stratosphere, except closer up. Plus, its $750,000 chandelier — made of 13,000 pieces of blown glass — is a spectacle in itself, as are the women's toilets and men's urinals, which stare right out over the skyline. The lounge opens at 5 nightly and is free until 10 p.m. After that, the cover charge is $20. If you're a high roller, you might want to try Mix restaurant, where entrees start at $30.<br><br>Mix at THEhotel, 3950 Las Vegas Blvd. S., (702) 632-7777, .<br><br>2. GETAWAYS<br><br> Avoid: The Casino Gold package at the Imperial Palace<br><br> The Imperial Palace mainly thrives off its center-Strip location, but that's no reason to blow $170 for a weekend of tramping through a shabby casino that has a section where cards are dealt by Elvis and impersonators. The Casino Gold package — which wisely replaces the Palace's notorious room-of-mirrors-everywhere offerings of years past — includes a gym day pass that's invalid on Fridays and Saturdays, passes to a buffet that's invalid for dinner and a why-bother $5 blackjack match play. The pluses: The updated deluxe rooms are more palatable, and the free passes to the auto collection are worth half an hour of fun.<br><br>Imperial Palace, 3535 Las Vegas Blvd. S., (702) 731-3311, .<br><br>Instead: The Casino package at Westin Casuarina Hotel<br><br>OK, so it's a bit more expensive than the Imperial Palace, but at $219 for a weekend night, it's still a steal when you figure you get a 24-hour buffet package, gambling lessons and a basket full of trinkets. The Westin, which boasts Heavenly Beds and Baths, is just a two-minute walk from the corner of Flamingo and the Strip, home to the Bellagio, Caesars Palace and Bally's. The Westin is the newest incarnation of what was once the Maxim. The owners have poured money into the place, turning a run-of-the-mill cafe into the surprisingly solid Silver Peak Grill. The just-opened resident show, the Strip parody "Forbidden Vegas," is a scream.<br><br>The Westin, 160 E. Flamingo Road, (702) 836-9775, .<br><br>3. FREEBIES<br><br>Avoid: "The Sirens of TI" at the Treasure Island hotel<br><br>?Songwriter, singer and former "American Idol" judge has put her house in Studio City back on the market at $7.995 million — slightly more than 20% off the $10 million asked last fall.<br><br>The estate features a 7,600-square-foot French chateau renovated and expanded by DioGuardi and her husband, home builder Mike McCuddy. Among the house's features are a 23-foot-tall stone fireplace, beamed walnut ceilings and herringbone walnut floors. The five-bedroom, 61/2-bathroom manse sits on about 3 acres with a studio, an 50-foot-long infinity pool and a hot tub.<br><br> DioGuardi, 41, gained recognition as a judge on "American Idol" for two seasons starting in 2009, but her real claim to fame is the hundreds of songs she has written for pop stars including , , , , Pink and "Idol" winner among others. Last year she was a judge on "Platinum Hit."<br><br>Public records show that DioGuardi bought the property in 2004 for $3.5 million.<br><br>Blair Chang of the Agency in Beverly Hills and Andrea Korcheck of Wish International Realty in Sherman Oaks are the listing agents.<br><br><br><br>Follow me @LATHotProperty?Southern California is home to strip malls, mini-malls, mixed-use malls, outlet malls and rarefied luxury malls.<br><br>But, unlike any other mall, the Beverly Center is a microcosm of the state of fashion and culture today. The behemoth at the edge of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills has eight levels — five of them for parking. The directory of stores, from to Forever 21, with very little in the middle price range, is indicative of today's high-low approach to shopping and getting dressed. And what's inside the stores — status handbags at and , $165 J. Brand skinny jeans and $65 James Perse T-shirts at — reflects that ethos as well.<br><br> This is a young person's mall, and in many ways, fashion has turned into a young person's pursuit, with too many designers and labels ignoring a large swath of the population (older than 50 and larger than size 12) in favor of churning out miniskirts for the Kardashian-obsessed set.<br><br>You'd be hard-pressed to find many suits, trousers or blouses, except perhaps at , , and the small Missy department of Macy's. But there are four sunglasses stores and two free-standing denim stores. The Bebe, Guess, , True Religion and Forever 21 stores represent some of the biggest names in the California apparel business and are responsible for carrying the notion of "California casual" out to the world.<br><br>When the Beverly Center opened in 1982, it was a regional mall, anchored by the California-owned Bullocks and Broadway department stores. Now, there is no such thing as a regional mall, and the Beverly Center is anchored by Bloomingdale's and Macy's, both owned by Federated, the Cincinnati-based victor in the department store consolidation of the late 1990s and early 2000s.<br><br>The Macy's store is a mess of too much merchandise without a strong point of view, although it does have the distinction of being one of the few area stores to feature the budget-minded Impulse collections.<br><br>Bloomingdale's is more organized and edited, with an emphasis on denim (almost half of the top level is devoted to the stuff) and briskly selling contemporary labels (Vince, Marc by , ).<br><br>Henri Bendel, founded in 1895 and once a mighty department store on New York's Fifth Avenue, has slowly been transformed into a national chain of specialty stores since being purchased by Limited Brands in 1985. And at the Henri Bendel store on Level 7 near Center Court, you can get the full experience of this high-end tchotchke shop, where the Bendel's famous brown-striped shopping bag motif has become a kind of logo, splashed on $148 enamel bracelets and $368 handbags.<br><br>Most brands in the mall are national or international chains. One exception is Traffic on Level 6. Despite the decline in the number of independent boutiques in today's retail environment, the men's and women's Traffic boutiques, opened by L.A. locals Michael and Sara Dovan in 1984 and featuring edgier designers such as Iro, and , have survived and thrived, even attracting a celebrity clientele.<br><br>You used to be able to see stars at the mall's Hard Rock Cafe too, the first U.S. outpost of the theme restaurant, back when theme restaurants were just beginning to get big. The shiny Cadillac protruding from the exterior of the building on San Vicente and Beverly Boulevard was a landmark until the restaurant closed in 2006. Now the space is a clubby, buttoned-up Capital Grille chain restaurant.<br><br>The Beverly Center also boasted a state-of-the-art mega-sized theater complex when it opened in 1982, where 16 films could screen at one time. The theater closed in 2010 to make way for a mega-sized Forever 21, as the phenomenon of cheap-chic-shopping-as-entertainment ($2.99 belts! $14.99 dresses!) took hold. Where you once might have spent an afternoon whiling away the hours in front of a movie screen, now you can while away the time at Forever 21, and, for about the same amount of cash, leave with six shiny new things.<br><br>The mall's Level 8 is cheap-chic central. H&M has a massive space, and this is one of the lucky stores to receive all of the designer-collaboration collections, most recently for H&M.<br><br>The young women tearing through the racks of $14.95 faux fur vests and $49.95 party dresses at H&M have expensive Louis Vuitton and handbags on their arms, which they could have purchased from one of the mall's tenants on the newly created luxury row on Level 7 near Macy's.<br><br>For many years, Louis Vuitton was the only luxury boutique in the mall. In the last two years, as the Beverly Center has tried to shed its mid-market image, Burberry, Gucci, Prada, Fendi, Tiffany & Co., Omega and now and Jimmy Choo have all moved in — despite already having locations fewer than three miles away in Beverly Hills. Their Beverly Center locations sell mostly logo-adorned bags and shoes, which are the lifeblood of the luxury business (luxury for the masses). At Yves Saint Laurent, the women's clothing is relegated to one small rolling rack.<br><br>In 2005, Apple took over the old Gap space on Level 6. The San Francisco-based brand that Donald Fisher founded on the principle of providing the best basic jeans and T-shirts and that played such a big role in shaping culture and shopping habits in the 1990s was supplanted by Apple, the Silicon Valley-based brand and Steve Wozniak founded on the principle of providing the best, most basic and user-friendly gadgets for the technological age.<br><br>That single retail corner, where Gap turned into Apple, is a snapshot of how much things have truly changed since the Beverly Center opened its doors in 1982. The Internet has turned the world topsy-turvy, undermined the staying power of fashion trends and sent many shoppers online.<br><br>And yet, we still can't resist the call of the mall.<br><br>Location: 8500 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles. Bordered by 3rd Street and La Cienega, Beverly and San Vicente boulevards. From the 10 Freeway, take the La Cienega exit north.<br><br>Hours: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mon.-Sat.; 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sun.<br><br>Known for: Being the former site of an amusement park. Older Angelenos like to talk wistfully about taking pony rides there as kids, in the shadow of the oil wells.<br><br>What you'll find: Macy's and Bloomingdale's are the anchor stores, but the Forever 21 is just as big. A mix of luxury boutiques emphasizing accessories offerings, and mall regulars such as , , Steve Madden, Aldo, Express, Club Monaco and .<br><br>Vibe: The Beverly Center is frequented by locals, tourists and celebs alike; its biggest asset is that it's centrally located at the edge of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. Opened in 1982, the mall still has an '80s vibe.<br><br>Survival strategies: Enter off San Vicente to avoid traffic congestion on La Cienega. Try to park on Level 2, which is less crowded. Don't forget to pay for your parking at one of the parking stations before exiting.<br><br>Take a break: The food court is under renovation, though California Crisp, Chipotle and other places are open. There's also P.F. Chang's and California Pizza Kitchen, which have to be entered from street level of the mall. But the best spot could be Obika Mozzarella Bar on Level 6 near center court, where you can get a salad with fresh buffalo mozzarella imported from Italy three times a week and a glass of wine. For snacks, check out Pinkberry and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.<br><br>Holiday cheer: The Ice Palace, a 22-foot dome with a magical snow and light show and polar ice cap footage from Earth. Get your photo taken on the Ice Throne or with Santa.<br><br>Nearby: The Beverly Connection across La Cienega Boulevard has Old Navy, Nordstrom Rack, Marshalls and other stores. The boutiques on Robertson Boulevard are several blocks west of the mall.<br><br><br><br>?Candid friends of will admit that the bodyguards who prowled the night with the famed record producer were really in the business of protecting him from one dangerous person -- himself. So it's telling that five months ago, Spector apparently decided that the wild life was so far behind him that he no longer needed a hired shadow.<br><br>He came to that decision at a shining, hopeful moment in his life. His friends say he had been sober for three years and far removed from the days when he was notorious as a raging, erratic genius with a penchant for guns. He also was giddy at a chance to return to the studio and reclaim his legacy after two decades in music industry exile.<br><br> His friend, divorce attorney Marvin Mitchelson, now rues the moment Spector, 62, let the bodyguard leave his Alhambra mansion. "I can't help thinking," Mitchelson said, "that if he still had a bodyguard, none of this would have happened."<br><br>What has happened is the death of Lana Clarkson, a 40-year-old actress who also worked as a hostess at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip. Sheriff's investigators say the actress was shot in the face and found in the foyer of Spector's home about 5 a.m. last Monday. A short time later, Spector was arrested and subdued by police (law enforcement sources say a taser-like device was used) and booked on suspicion of first-degree murder. He is now free on $1-million bail. More than one gun was recovered at the scene, these sources say.<br><br>The events of that Monday morning remain hazy, but based on two dozen interviews with Spector's friends, authorities and others, it appears that a man who had been hailed for his recovery was in recent weeks in a darker place. A chance to produce a comeback album had fizzled, and he acknowledged he was on medication used to treat . It also appears that he was drinking again, at least in the hours before his arrest.<br><br>The owner and staff of Dan Tana's, one of his favorite restaurants, said that Spector had two rum cocktails there after 12:30 a.m. Monday morning. Sources also say he then went to the House of Blues, where he bought a Bacardi 151 rum drink. House of Blues employees have said they saw Clarkson leave with Spector in his chauffeur-driven Mercedes S430 about 2:30 a.m.<br><br>Friends grimly greet the news of him drinking again. "I haven't seen him drink in years," said Bob Merlis, a longtime music industry publicist. "The Phil I have known in that time is charming and witty. He's a unique character. I've never met anyone like him. You know how they say you shouldn't meet your heroes because they will disappoint you? Phil didn't disappoint."<br><br>Taking Medication<br><br>In January, though, Mick Brown interviewed Spector for the Sunday Telegraph of London, and his article presents an edgy Spector, one more reminiscent of his state in the 1980s or '90s. "I have not been well," the article said. "I was crippled inside. Emotionally. Insane is a hard word. I wasn't insane, but I wasn't well enough to function as a regular part of society, so I didn't. I chose not to. I have devils inside me."<br><br>Spector also was quoted as saying he took medication used to treat schizophrenia, although he "wouldn't say I'm schizophrenic .... I have a bipolar personality, which is strange. I'm my own worst enemy." Still, he stated, he was benefiting from the medication. "I'm a completely different person than I was three months ago, six months ago, nine months ago."<br><br>The Telegraph article presents him as a Norma Desmond-type, a show biz eccentric in a shaggy toupee locked behind mansion walls. The piece was published a week ago Sunday, less than 24 hours before his arrest. The producer also had been hearing his name in the press in the days before that with coverage of 's plan to excise all of Spector's contributions to the Beatles' "Let it Be" album and reissue it.<br><br>There have been other recent changes in Spector's life. Besides the departure of his bodyguard, former LAPD officer Jay Romaine, another of his familiar circle was gone. The producer divorced Janice Spector more than a decade ago, but she had remained his secretary. That changed in the last few months, Mitchelson said. She could not be reached for comment. She and the producer had twin children, Nicole, 20, and Philip Jr., who died of leukemia at age 10.<br><br>Many of Spector's friends have not seen him since the holidays, when they say he was gregarious, sober and stable. Mitchelson even noted that Spector rolled his eyes at one party when the pair encountered a well-known personality who was tipsy.<br><br>It was not unusual for Spector's friends to go weeks without seeing him and keep in contact through his many e-mails, most of them jokes or curious snippets of philosophy. A recent one bemoaned the unfairness of old age and imagined a life in reverse, finishing with years of glee, warmth in the womb and climaxing in conception.<br><br>Mark Ribowsky, author of the unauthorized Spector biography "He's a Rebel," said an alarming theme ran through much of it. "It's always guns," Ribowsky said. "Guns. Stories about him pointing a gun at somebody. He made it the 'in' thing: guns, dark sunglasses, bodyguards. He was the first mad genius of rock 'n' roll."<br><br>Last week, Johnny Ramone recalled how Spector used guns to exert control in the 1980s. "We were prisoners at his house; he wouldn't let us leave," said the member of the former punk rock group the Ramones. "Dee Dee [Ramone] said something, and he pulled out a gun and started waving it around ... he kept saying, 'You're not leaving, nobody's leaving.' "<br><br>But much of the lore is hyperbole, said Dan Kessel, a guitarist who appeared on many Spector projects, including ones with and . Kessel "practically lived with Phil for seven years" but later saw him mostly at Spector's annual bowling parties in Montrose. Those parties have been a Spector metaphor -- they used to be wild scenes but in recent years have taken on the bonhomie of a company picnic.<br><br>"A wild rock guy? Right," Kessel said. "And do you think goes to sleep with the snakes? A lot of the stuff in the old days was just show biz, theater."<br><br>In any case, Kessel and others said, he had walked away from that life, and the most important step was away from liquor. Spector never went into a formal rehab program, Mitchelson said, but he was under psychiatric care and three years ago realized that "the drinking was destroying him, physically and emotionally."<br><br>?Spring merchandise has officially hit the stores, and one trend should be immediately noticeable: bright colors. They were everywhere on the spring-summer 2011 runways, including at the show, where candy colors managed to look minimal when shown with crisp white shirts or layered with sleek black coats, and at and Burberry, where various tones of shocking aqua and cobalt were paired for a cool (and somehow punchy) look. Color blocking, as seen on the runway, is another major trend.<br><br>Other designer and contemporary brands explored the color wheel as well. "For spring we bought a lot of color, from acid pinks to orange-red to cobalt blue to tangerine," says Jeannie Lee, owner of 3rd Street's Satine Boutique, which stocks lines from designers including , , and .<br><br> Retailer Hillary Rush, who owns her eponymous boutique, also on 3rd Street, has already starting seeing the color craze take effect with customers. " The oversized raglan shirt from Monrow has totally sold out in the hibiscus color," a coral-orange Rush says. "When a bright color like that sells out before the black or white, it's always a statement that people are wearing color that season."<br><br>On the other end of the spectrum, shoppers are likely to encounter lots of white. The natural, yet luxe look of an all-white ensemble (which also works in winter, but is a lot more practical in the warmer months) looked fresh in the runway collections of , and .<br><br> is also turning out a number of white items, from easy button-downs to wide leg trousers, all in shades of white and off-white and in stores this summer. And there's no shortage of white jeans, which are showing up in the spring and summer lines of J Brand, MIH and 7 for All Mankind.<br><br>Shoppers may also notice a '60s and '70s aesthetic dictating the shape of denim this season.<br><br>"Denim flares are really hot," says Caprice C. Willard, vice president-regional planning manager for Macys, where brands such as and Levi's have incorporated the style. Flared and wide-leg jeans are also big sellers on the boutique level; Satine's Lee says wide-leg jeans have been flying off the shelves.<br><br>On spring-summer 2011 runways such as 's, models wore wide-leg jeans with tucked-in white button-downs and chic wedge sandals. On the street we're bound to see a more relaxed version of the look, with women wearing bell bottom-style jeans with T-shirts and sandals or perhaps flared jeans with a tucked-in tank top and a blazer for evening.<br><br>The other denim trend for spring is a gamine, '60s crop. The pant leg ends at least 2 inches above the ankle. The jeans look great with ballet flats or a low-mid wedge sandal.<br><br>The '70s vibe also includes versions of the maxi-length skirt and dress. Floor-grazing styles were featured in the collections of and Jil Sander and are showing up in stores such as the Gap, and Club Monaco.<br><br> "The maxi-dress is really important this season and we are seeing a resurgence with it," Willard says. "The maxi length actually stays important in Southern California all year long."<br><br>?<p>Is it just me, or are you too starting to feel a little left out of this presidential race?</p><p>Because, The Times’ Mark Z. Barabak Sunday, California -- heck, for that matter most of the states -- won’t count in November.</p><p>Instead, President Obama and, presumably, will battle over -- and the race will be decided by -- voters in about half a dozen states, including (sigh, again) Florida, plus Ohio and such stalwarts as Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire.</p> <p></p><p>Isn’t democracy great? The next president may be elected by a bunch of senior citizens who can’t figure out a ballot and another group of folks whose idea of sophistication is neon lights and .</p><p>(No, I don’t think my heart will go on!)</p><p>Now, I like Iowa. If I want bacon or corn on the cob, Iowa is one of my favorite spots. I’m less familiar with Ohio, though I enjoyed watching the Cincinnati Reds growing up, and I’ve always been amused by the story of the time Cleveland’s river caught fire.</p><p>But I don’t want those states picking the president.</p><p>Of course, about here you think I'm going to give you one of those learned arguments about doing away with the electoral college. Wrong. I don’t know about you, but the minute I read the words “electoral college,” I’m back in high school civics class, and I start to doze off.</p><p>My solution is much simpler: Let just New York and California decide.</p><p>New York is home to the world’s greatest city. It’s the financial capital of the nation. Plus the people there are pushy, opinionated go-getters (in other words, real Americans).</p><p>California is the most populous state. Its economy -- both agriculture and high-tech -- is enormous. Plus Los Angeles is where the movie stars live, and it’s warm and sunny all the time, meaning the people here are mellow and opinionated (in other words, real Americans but with a bit less go-getter-tude).</p><p>If New York is where all the money is made (checked your 401(k) lately?), and California is where all the culture is made (go ahead, argue with me that “The Matrix” isn’t culture), then why shouldn’t these two states choose the president?</p><p>I hear Texans screaming already. Well, sorry, Chuckwagon: Your governor is , and your other governor was George W. Bush. With apologies to the Who, we won’t get fooled again.</p><p>Florida? Sunny, yes, but old. Ohio? Two words: Rust Belt. New Hampshire? Seriously, you’re lucky to be a state. Iowa? Most of the state moved to Long Beach decades ago. Nevada? Don’t bet on it.</p><p>It’s time to let the grown-ups run things.</p><p>Just sit back, let us make the money, make the movies -- and make the president.</p><p>Don’t like it?</p><p>You can always move.</p><p>ALSO:</p><p><br></p><p></p><p></p>?May 6<br> <br> The Beaver<br> <br> A once-successful toy executive and family man suffering from depression begins communicating through a beaver hand puppet. With , and . Written by Kyle Killen. Directed by Foster. Summit EntertainmentFOR THE RECORD:<br> Summer movies: In a list of summer movies in the May 1 Calendar section, the entry for August's "The Perfect Age of Rock 'n' Roll" identified one of the stars as Rose Atropos. That is the name of a character in the film; she is played by actress . Also, the Aug. 17 listing of "High Ground" was incorrectly titled <br><p><br> Jumping the Broom<br> <br> Two very different African American families — one posh, one down-home — come together for a wedding on Martha's Vineyard. With , , and . Written by Elizabeth Hunter and Arlene Gibbs. Directed by Salim Akil. TriStar Pictures<br> <br> Last Night<br> <br> Seven years into a happy marriage, a husband on a business trip and his wife back in New York each experience a night of temptation. With , , and . Written and directed by Massy Tadjedin. Film<br> <br> Mia and the Migoo<br> <br> A young girl races to rescue her father and battles shady developers with the help of shape-shifting forest spirits in this animated film. With the voices of , , and . Written by Benoit Chieux, Antoine Lanciaux and Iouri Tcherenkov. Directed Jacques-Rémy Girerd. GKIDS / Media International<br> <br> Passion Play<br> <br> A washed-up jazz musician gets mixed up with a beautiful, mysterious woman and a cold-blooded gangster. With , , and . Written and directed by Mitch Glazer. <br> <br> Something Borrowed<br> <br> Complications ensue after a mild-mannered lawyer sleeps with her best friend's fiancé. With , , , and . Written by Jennie Urman and Jordan . Directed by . <br> <br> There Be <br> <br> An investigative journalist goes to Spain to research a book about the controversial Catholic organization Opus Dei, but he hits a wall when his most promising source, his own father, proves uncooperative. With , , and . Written and directed by Roland Joffé. Films<br> <br> Thor<br> <br> The warrior-god Thor is cast out of his magical homeland and sent to live among humans on Earth, where he becomes a hero. With , , Tom Hiddleston and Stellan Skarsgård. Written by Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz and Don Payne. Directed by . In Imax 3-D. Paramount Pictures<br> <br>?<br><br>Dreamer and Dissenter<br><br> Ingar Sletten Kolloen<br><br> Press: 378 pp., $40<br><br>Knut Hamsun<br><br>The Dark Side of Literary Brilliance<br><br>Monika Zcaronagar<br><br>University of Washington Press: 344 pp., $30 paper<br><br>In the spring of 1891, 31-year-old Knut Hamsun, penniless and hounded by debtors, embarked on a lecture tour of his native . He had recently published his first successful novel, "Hunger"; now, he hoped to bolster his reputation with a public assault on the old guard of Norwegian writers, including playwright . Hamsun padded lecture halls with friendly artists and publishers, and in , at the majestic Hals Brothers auditorium, he gave Ibsen a front row seat.<br><br>"We have grown so used to believing what the Germans say about Ibsen that we read him assuming we will find words of wisdom," Hamsun said in Oslo, looking directly at his chosen target. In fact, Hamsun continued, Ibsen had never offered any insight into the modern condition; he was a writer of the most shallow social drama, hobbled by an "indefensibly coarse and artificial psychology." The playwright sat impassively through the tirade. But as Ingar Sletten Kolloen writes in his incisive new biography, "Knut Hamsun: Dreamer and Dissenter," he may have been threatened by the young upstart, and for good reason.<br><br>Hamsun, the coarse son of a shareholder, represented everything that Ibsen did not. He had no use for what he termed the "rigidity" of Ibsen's writing, and he sought to establish a new literature, sharpened by anger, political turbulence and existential unrest -- a literature, in short, to match the realities of the modern age.<br><br>"Hunger," based in part on Hamsun's experiences, traces a man's descent into a madness that is religious in ardor; the man wishes to prostrate himself on the floor of the world. He ponders suicide. He wanders around the streets of Oslo. He starves. He attempts to chew off his own finger and then, a few hundred pages later, he leaves without explanation on a ship bound for foreign shores. There is nothing in the book but madness -- Hamsun skips the periods when his protagonist has food and comfort.<br><br>In an 1890 essay, Hamsun wrote that a true portrait of the human spirit could never be conceived linearly or politely. Life was not a story, but a scattershot series of episodic flashes, fast-burning and painful to remember. To thrive, an artist must leave the city for the rough living of the country. He must immerse himself in "the unpredictable chaos of perception, the delicate life of the imagination held under the microscope; the meanderings of these thoughts and feelings in the blue, trackless, traceless journeys of the heart and mind, curious workings of the psyche, the whisperings of the blood, prayers of the bone, the entire unconscious life of the mind."<br><br>In his prime, Hamsun always wrote like this -- beautifully, poetically and savagely. Within a decade of the Oslo speech, he had finished two additional novels, the naturalist ode "Pan" and the disorienting "Mysteries," which, together with "Hunger," count as cornerstones of contemporary literature. "The whole school of fiction in the 20th century stems from Hamsun," Isaac Bashevis Singer once proclaimed, and it is no stretch to say that there would never have been Kafka's "A Hunger Artist" without "Hunger."<br><br>And yet Hamsun, personally and politically, was a monster. He berated his friends and cheated on his wives; he could be horrible to his children. He was possessed from an early age by a rage he never managed to shake, which came from fears of inadequacy -- fiscal, sociological and above all intellectual -- and the certainty that he was misunderstood. Famously, he was a fascist. Less famously, he was a career racist, who called blacks in America, which he visited in the 1880s, "a people without a history, without traditions, without a brain."<br><br>He allied himself early with the . He met with and shipped his 1920 for Literature to as a tribute. He saw salvation in the Third Reich, which would finally unite, "in kinship and blood," the people of Northern Europe. Meanwhile, Hamsun was happy to ignore the means. "If the [German] government have gone so far as to set up concentration camps," he wrote in a letter to the organization War Resisters International, "then you and the world have to understand it must be for good reason."<br><br>When the war ended, he was found guilty of crimes against Norway; he remained, to the end, scathingly unrepentant. He wrote one more book, "On Overgrown Paths," in which he reprinted the entirety of his defense speech to a civilian court, and died in 1952, at 92, deaf, near-blind and dressed in rags.<br><br>What to make of such a man? The answer is by no means clear. This year marks the 150th anniversary of Hamsun's birth, and in Norway, a yearlong national commemoration is underway. A six-story Hamsun Center has been unveiled, along with a 7-foot-tall statue of the man, dressed dapperly in a top hat; the queen of Norway even appeared publicly with the remnants of the Hamsun clan.<br><br>Clemency for Hamsun hasn't come quickly. It's taken decades -- and the fading memory of the post-war years -- and still, not everyone is on board. In February, a former member of the Norwegian parliament told the New York Times that Hamsun's work "is completely overshadowed by his behavior as a Hitler lackey."<br><br>The great strength of "Knut Hamsun: Dreamer and Dissenter" is Kolloen's willingness to tackle the Hamsun paradox. He details, often at excruciating length, the vitriol Hamsun continually spewed and ably navigates the excuses that have been made for the disgraced Nobel Laureate. In the end, Kolloen presents a nuanced, dynamic analysis: Hamsun had a lifelong hatred of England; he believed in the primacy of the Germanic people; he delighted in provocation; and he was enchanted with the anti-intellectual spirit of Nazism, which also ran deeply through his work.<br><br>Strangely, for the first of the modern novelists, Hamsun, like Wagner, "succeeded in arousing antipathy towards the ideals and values of modernity, as well as a yearning for a return to the earth and a natural way of life," Kolloen writes. "The dream of a golden age. A paradise." Koellen never forgives Hamsun -- for either his anger or his irrational fear. Instead, he shows how the author's prejudices aligned with, and made him perfectly susceptible to, the "Nazi ideal."<br><br>It's an intriguing explanation for a set of choices that have long seemed inexplicable, and the scholar Monika Zcaronagar explores it further in her superb new academic study, "Knut Hamsun: The Dark Side of Literary Brilliance."<br><br>Unlike Kolloen, Zcaronagar takes a circuitous approach to her subject -- each chapter filters Hamsun's work through a different lens, from his obsession with race to his 1947 trial. "My study is offered as a corrective to studies that treat Hamsun's Nazi support as a peripheral and unimportant detail in an otherwise literary life of achievement," she explains.<br><br>Here, one imagines, Zcaronagar is pointing not to Kolloen, who doesn't shy away from Hamsun's most dangerous impulses, but to the type of critic who has sought to pry the accomplishments of "Hunger" from the moral failings of its creator. The same impulse can be found in recent writings on Ezra Pound and Louis-Ferdinand Celine: a separation undertaken not necessarily in the name of postmodernism -- the "reclaiming" of the text -- but simply because it makes it easier on the reader. Such a strategy belies the challenges of any of these writers: to see them whole, their lives and work as part of the same continuum, which makes for an uncomfortably complicated moral and aesthetic response.<br><br>In this way, "The Dark Side of Literary Brilliance" and "Dreamer and Dissenter" are daring, frightening books. What if instead of attempting to separate Hamsun's politics and his art, Kolloen and Zcaronagar seem to be hinting, we took it for granted that the two were inextricably intertwined -- that one would never have been possible without the other? Where would we be then?<br><br>Shaer writes regularly about books for and Bookforum, among other publications.?Last Tuesday's Oscar nominations were both exciting and intriguing -- and only intermittently outrageous. But they remind us that Academy Award races are usually taken seriously for the wrong reasons (their possible commercial effects) and not seriously enough for the right ones (their lasting cultural achievements).<br><br> There were cultural achievements justly applauded on Tuesday: "The Pianist," "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" and "Gangs of New York" would be exceptional movies in any year. And though I wasn't knocked out by either "The Hours" or "Chicago" -- the gaudy -inspired movie musical based on the 1942 noir comedy "" -- motion picture academy members apparently are. The front-runner so far, with 13 nominations, "Chicago" joins another 2002 Oscar juggernaut: parent studio Miramax, which racked up an awe-inspiring 40 nods for six films.<br><br> There were other early winners: Little Focus Pictures (home of "The Pianist" and "Far From Heaven") took the spotlight and so did the competitors in all of the acting categories, especially the unusually strong female ones. There were controversial nominees: notably and . Indeed, the best picture in this year's Oscar race, "The Pianist" suffers from the fact that director Polanski is too controversial: widely seen as a felon and fugitive unworthy of honors. And the best director, Scorsese, has been nominated for a film so disliked by some that his probable win has already been stigmatized as undeserved payback for past efforts.<br><br> Still, contest in which Scorsese and Polanski are controversial nominees and gets squeezed out of the best actress lineup the same year she breaks the record for most nominations in a career. is not in bad shape. As for Miramax, their success only proves that blitz publicity works -- and that it also helps to make the kind of movies critics and Oscar voters prefer.<br><br> The nominations this year gave the lie to charges that those critics suffer a disconnect in taste from the audience. If they do, it's a disconnect also suffered by filmmakers themselves. All five of the best picture nominees were among the 11 best reviewed movies of 2002, according to Moviecitynews.com.<br><br> What do the nods mean?<br><br> So what does it all mean? Will an Oscar night victory for "Chicago" (Miramax) help spark a renaissance of the movie musical? Will a win for "The Hours" (also Miramax, with Paramount) inspire more literary subjects and stories about women? Will a director's trophy for Scorsese (Miramax again) mean he finally gets the Oscar monkey off his back?<br><br> Far too many articles are churned out pondering how Oscar nominations will impact the box office and far too few grappling with the artistic or social merits of films like the ones just mentioned -- and "About Schmidt," "Adaptation" and "The Quiet American." Or, even "Chicago" -- which, after all, has very pointed things to say, expressing through its razzle-dazzle numbers a massive genial cynicism about the justice system and the media.<br><br> This year there is also an unusually large cargo of backstage -- including 's successful battle (despite Miramax) for his "Quiet American" nomination. In Polanski's case it's sordid drama that has already cheapened some of the discourse about the great film that got him back in the limelight. Without downplaying the gravity of the charges against him -- Polanski, now 69, fled the country to avoid sentencing after pleading guilty to a statutory rape charge involving a 13-year-old girl -- we should recognize, here as elsewhere, that the art and the artist are separate. Polanski's past really shouldn't affect consideration of the merits of "The Pianist": for me, the best dramatic feature ever made about and an achievement that will long survive its maker.<br><br> Of course, the scandal will affect the vote; for many in Hollywood, honoring a convicted rapist may be comparable to genocide. They forget that great art sometimes is produced by people of dubious character, morality or sanity. Yet 's operas or the novels of Louis-Ferdinand Celine or are not diminished because the first two were virulent anti-Semites or the last a fascist collaborator, and we don't trash 's plays because of his criminal character, or the music of Schubert or Delius and the paintings of Manet because the artists may have died of venereal diseases. Polanski's past is not irrelevant to the law's treatment of him, but it shouldn't count against the superb movie he made, partly by distilling his own horrific past as a Jewish boy from Krakow eluding the during the Holocaust years. "The Pianist" is easily the best movie in competition -- unless you count all three parts of "Rings" as one film -- but it probably can't win.<br><br> Scorsese probably will win, but he has been subject to abuse as well, just not for his private life, but because some writers detest "Gangs of New York" and believe that -- like ' 1935 "Dangerous" Oscar, 's for "Scent of a Woman" or 's for "True Grit" -- any "Gangs" Oscar would be sentimental compensation for past efforts,<br><br>Delayed Oscars tradition<br><br> But would that be bad? Delayed Oscars are as much a part of Academy Award tradition as long TV shows and egregious omissions -- and the fact that Scorsese was beaten out before by John Avildsen (for 1976's "Rocky"), (for 1980's "Ordinary People") and (for 1990's "Dances With Wolves") in the years he was up for "Taxi Driver, "Raging Bull" and "GoodFellas" doesn't mean that the mistakes should never be addressed. Nor should he suffer the same unjust fate of well-deserving directorial non-winners such as , , , or .<br><br> I happen to think "Gangs of New York" is a terrific film -- if a flawed one -- and I suspect it's being attacked in part for the same reasons "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull" and "GoodFellas" were trashed in their day: because some voters feel it's too profane, violent and disturbing, even if they claim it's bad storytelling that offends them.<br><br> What about the slight suffered by another director, the unnominated , whose ongoing "Lord of the Rings" trilogy is the most popular with audiences? Here, more than likely, many voters deferred on "Rings" as a work in progress.<br><br> "This year, it's `Chicago,'" my smartest movie-reporting friend told me right after the announcements. "Next year, `The Lord of the Rings' runs the table."<br><br>Ripple effect<br><br> What's most interesting about the race may be the ripple effect of the possible victories. I think "Chicago" is overrated -- a great musical show vividly translated but lacking great musical performances. But I'd welcome its victory if it sparks more interest from the studios in movie musicals, a form sadly moribund since 1972 and the movie "Chicago" most copies: "Cabaret."<br><br> On the good side, we can applaud the wealth of great female performances in the acting categories -- something not as notable even five years ago. On the bad side, isn't a foreign language film process that continually eliminates films such as "City of God" and "Talk to Her" (made by surprise best director nominee ) -- and that nixed past classics such as "Persona," "Ran" and "Three Colors" -- drastically in need of reform? (A suggestion: Add five discretionary picks a year by the academy itself, so films such as "Talk to Her" or "Ran" aren't penalized if their countries fail to submit them.)<br><br> Finally, we should note the sheer formal and stylistic daring of many nominated films. Some have gutsy content ( "Bowling for Columbine"), some are technical marvels (feature cartoon "Spirited Away") and a number play excitingly with the idea of narrative, stripping bare storytelling mechanisms with admirable panache -- like "Adaptation" (a movie about writing movies), "Far From Heaven" (a movie pastiching other movies), "The Hours" (a three-stranded narrative in which life duplicates art) and even "Chicago" (a bravura theatrical piece that may take place inside the anti-heroine's mind). The public generally dislikes such film experiments -- just as critics often love them -- but this year the moviemakers liked them as well.?-- Gaul's kudos season kicked off Friday with ' "The Artist" winning best film and actress for at the Lumieres Awards, the French equivalent to the . The pic, which has been on an award-winning spree ever since bowing at Cannes, and is nommed for six Golden Globes, beat out other Cannes titles vying for the Lumieres best film nod: Pierre Schoeller's "The Minister," Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache's smash hit comedy "Intouchables," Bertrand Bonello's "Apolonide" and 's "Le Havre," winner of the Louis Delluc prize, which is handed out by French critics. "The Artist," which was produced by Thomas Langmann's La Petite Reine, was released Stateside in November by The Weinstein Co. Competing against Hazanavicius, Bonello and Kaurismaki, Maiwenn picked up best helmer for her third feature, "Polisse," a gritty ensemble centering on cops working in a child protection unit. Omar Sy, who stars opposite Francois Cluzet in "Intouchables," won best actor, beating out "The Artist's" , among other strong contenders. Before his breakthrough performance in "Intouchables," Sy was best known in France as a small-screen comic on "SAV," a daily comedy show that airs on . Sy also starred in Nakache and Toledano's previous two films, "Those Happy Days" and "So Happy Together." "Intouchables," Gaul's second biggest B.O. hit ever, was produced by Quad Films and co-produced by Gaumont. Weinstein Co. has acquired the film for multiple territories, including U.S. distribution and remake rights. Denis Menochet nabbed best newcomer for his part in "Les Adoptes," a family dramedy that marks the directorial debut of thesp (""); while three of "Apollonide's" thesps, Alice Barnole, Adele Haenel and Celine Sallette, shared the best female newcomer prize. Quebec helmer Denis Villeneuve's heart-wrenching drama "Incendies," based on a play by Wajdi Mouawad, won best foreign film in the French language. A critical success, "Incendies" repped Canada in last year's foreign-language film Oscar race. Taking place during the Unifrance's mini-market, Rendez-Vous, the Lumieres Awards are voted on by foreign correspondents based in Paris.<br><br>Click for more articles on Variety.com.<br><br>?IT'S a dark and crowded theater in New York. The curtain has only been up five minutes, and Steve Wynn, the billionaire owner of the Wynn hotel, leans in, grips my knee and whispers in my ear: "Eric," he says, "this will be great in Las Vegas."<br><br>"Yes," I say, "it will."<br><br> Then I realize, slightly disappointedly, he means "Spamalot." My future as a billionaire's date is still up for grabs.<br><br>"Can I give you a ride home?" he asks nicely. I'm thinking 6th Avenue, but he means L.A. Well, OK. He flies us home in a plane bigger than my boarding school. There are dogs on board, so my wife is happy. All the way he plays the cast recording, regaling his passengers with his version of scenes from the show. Later he leaves a message on my phone in a British accent so good that for a moment I think it is .<br><br>A month later he flies me to Las Vegas to stay at the Wynn and see the car park that is to be our new home. He has bought the Vegas rights for "Spamalot" and is filled with feverish plans for it. I am a little concerned. How will it play out here in the desert?<br><br>As part of my research, I decide to visit all the major attractions. Nothing quite matches the intensity of the plot of "Jubilee," which grips me with its thrilling story of 150 bare-breasted ladies seducing Samson and causing the Titanic to sink. At the Crazy Horse, the girls have blond wigs, perfect derrieres and genuine French names like Fifi and Suki. They remind me what the '70s was all about: light shows and shagging. But the show is a little thin on plot. And clothing.<br><br>The rest of the entertainment is all French Canadian, from Celine to the many Cirques. Monty Python was a Flying Circus, but does that qualify as a Cirque? We have no acrobats, no contortionism, apart from Silly Walks and only a few French people yelling abuse, farting in our general direction. What will the nipple-sated Nevadans make of our little show?<br><br>A tweak here, slashing there<br><br>I know upfront that I will have to cut 20 minutes from it. What said of American lives is definitely true of Vegas -- there are no second acts. Partly this is because they want you back in the casino, and partly it's because they want you back in the casino. In fact, with our low ticket prices I figured out that you will actually save money if you spend 90 minutes in "Spamalot." And if you sleep during the show you can save on a room.<br><br>Surely to cut 20 minutes won't be that difficult. The original movie was only 83. Even the final is only 90 minutes, so how hard can it be?<br><br>On paper it isn't and our London cast read it aloud for , our director, and Casey Nicholaw, our choreographer. Seems fine, we say. But will it really be that easy? Won't it be harder in Nevada? (A slogan I am trying to sell the Tourist Board.)<br><br>Last month we launched "Spamalot" in the new Grail Theater. I do a bit of stand-up: "I was in Vegas last night and I missed my wife so much I paid for a woman to come up to my room and ignore me.... "<br><br>I introduce our new King Arthur, producing out of a can of Spam. Then we ham it up and dance a tango together. Why? Because I can't do the pasodoble. And of course we bring on our beautiful girls, wearing only white lingerie. Why? Do you need to ask? I announce that, as an added attraction, some of our shows will be topless, but only in John's part.<br><br>Steve Wynn is very funny. He says he has been trying to kill Broadway in Las Vegas and what better way than to put on "Spamalot." Earlier I had tried half-heartedly to persuade him to put his elbow through a painting. "It'll be a big laugh," I say, but he sensibly declined. "Bad enough I am known as the Inspector Clouseau of the art world," he laughed.<br><br>So now we are ensconced in a rehearsal room in the less salubrious side of Las Vegas, among the bail bonds and the pawn shops (no, not porn shops). This is the last place you see before the desert. Our modern studios are pleasant, and the cast is confident as they run it for Mike and Casey and me. It's not bad, but we caucus thoughtfully in a conference room. The play was 50 minutes, then a nice intermission, and then Act 2. Now it is 90 minutes straight through, and that's a completely different dramatic shape. We roll up our sleeves and set to work. I have a wonderful feeling of nostalgia. It's like two years ago when we were on 42nd Street. Ah, happy days.<br><br>Mike gives a master class. He talks to the actors for about 50 minutes, but in that talk he says everything they will ever need to know about drama. He is spectacular. Not just about truth-telling in acting, or storytelling or about the shape and types of scenes, but how to ask: What is this like? Who am I being like? What does this remind me of? He ends by reminding them not to be funny. Just say the words. Don't act.<br><br>Meanwhile, I am cutting and pruning and trimming. Casey puts the girls into "Always Look on the Bright Side." Their beauty and their energy lift the number, which for us is a crucial transition into Act 2.<br><br>Then I bring in . I confess to the cast that what I had told them about all the Pythons being dead is not true. They are thrilled to meet the legendary Gilliam. Terry says he is going home to persuade to come for the opening. Michael has announced he is staying at home because he is writing a Travel Book. is scheduled to attend, but then he plays God, and we know they both move in mysterious ways. Sadly can't make it. He is wrestling with chemo. Pity, I rather hoped he would be here wrestling with keno.<br><br>A hitch in the get-along<br><br>THINGS are going well until the third night of previews, when we have a major glitch. Our elevator fails, and instead of the Lady of the Lake and her Laker girls emerging in their skimpy fronds, nothing happens.<br><br>King Arthur stands gesturing to an empty stage. "She's a bit late," says O'Hurley manfully. From below we can hear the Lady of the Lake singing away, but nothing emerges. Oh, dear. We are going to have to stop.<br><br>Some deep showoff instinct kicks in and I find myself rushing down through the audience and up onto the stage. The place goes wild. Easiest standing ovation I ever had. "This is what in theatrical terms is called a screw-up," I say. "A huge helicopter was supposed to land onstage ... oh, no, that was another show." I ad-lib for about 10 minutes, thinking how would be proud of me doing improvisational stand-up in front of 1,600 people. Luckily the glitch ends before I do and I can escape back into the audience and the show continues.<br><br>Will "Spamalot" succeed? Who knows? Dare I say it, it's a crapshoot. If we make 'em laugh we'll have a shot. If not, well, we have the tour, we have Broadway, we have London and soon Australia ... and I shall just have to get used to not having dinner with billionaires again.<br><br>"Spamalot" opens at the Wynn Las Vegas on March 31.?<p>"The Voice's" premiere week wrapped up three-night marathon Wednesday with a passel of perfectly fine performances and a few contestants we barely glimpsed who made it onto teams. I guess, with 64 slots to fill by the end of the blind auditions, you've got to cut a few corners. Not that I'm complaining.<br><br>First we met Samuel Mouton, from Ft. Collins, Colorado, a 19-year-old reggae lover who works at his family's restaurant and said the show perfectly suited him "because I sound different than I look." Mouton's father quipped that he was "really proud" of his son for taking this important step, since he'd "been a loser forever." Dads! <br><br>Mouton's ultra-Marley "Redemption Song" spun first , then , and finally . Blake Shelton, the only coach who didn't push his button, tells Mouton his song was "really cool" but not as cool as the bickering between the three other coaches was about to be. Aguilera did the hard flirt, saying she wanted to know what Mouton's "what your turn-ons are." Green said he'd captured the Marley flavor without imitating him. But Levine reeled in the first fish of the night, telling Mouton he was a "scholar of reggae music" who "made us feel something." <br><br>Afterward, Aguilera said she'd "definitely expected some dreads" and certainly "wasn't expecting white kid with a baseball cap on."<br><br>After we saw Chris Trousdale, a 26-year-old former member of the boy band Dream Street, now a server at a sushi restaurant, sadly fail to turn a single chair (though he did manage to shame Shelton into showing off his moonwalk), we met a 32-year-old -born, Baltimore-based singer who goes by the name of Nelly's Echo. <br><br>Nelly told us he and his family were forced to flee Nigeria amidst political unrest. "Our lives were in danger," he said. They had to leave behind their father, jailed for a crime Nelly said he did not commit, though he eventually joined them in the U.S. Through the hard times, "music was a big part of the coping mechanism for us," the singer said.<br><br>His "Ain't No Sunshine," on which he accompanied himself on guitar, turned Aguilera almost immediately, and later Levine, who'd waited to hear a specific section of the song before pressing his button. Levine's pause carried consequences. Nelly, who seemed perhaps to not know much about the judges, picked Aguilera. "You turned your chair first to me," he told her. "I'm going with you."<br><br>Next up, a mother-daughter duo Allison and Krystal Steel, who perform as 2Steel Girls. Mom Allison believes in their dream of musical success so fervently, she has sold the family's house and car and given up her job to try to make them come true. "Huge things can happen to you if you just keep trying," she said.<br><br>Shelton announced before they even sang a note of "Before He Cheats" that he was "getting this one." But then he fingered his button, pushing it only after Green pushed his.<br><br><br><br>Levine explained that he hadn't pushed his button because duos confused him and he didn't know how to handle them, but compared their power to a "freight train of angry jilted women."<br><br>Green called them "exceptionally good," but his heart didn't seem to be in it. Shelton, meanwhile, said "I really want y'all badly" and then pledged to protect their mother-daughter relationship against the ravages of the "savage, dirty world of entertainment." I'm guessing no one was surprised when they said, "We're gonna go with Blake."<br><br>Was Green's heart in it? "You didn't sell it at all, Cee Lo," Aguilera chided. And then we got a quick cut of two Aguilera snagging two singers in a contest with Green and Levine swiping another one.<br><br>Green had no competition for Domo, a 26-year-old hip-hop dancer and singer from the , New York, who said she could dance like Michael and Janet and sing like Mariah, Whitney, and Celine. "In China," she told us, "I am like ." She certainly didn't lack for confidence. But only Green turned for her rendition of the Pussycat Dolls' "Don't Cha," which he wrote. He couldn't seem to get enough of her spitfire moves. "Cee Lo is currently in heat," Levine warned Domo. "I would run." <br><br>But Green just purred that Domo's voice was even better than his song and welcomed her "home" to his team.<br><br><br><br>Last to make a team was a self-described "hippy" from Berlington, Vermont, Nicole Nelson, whose "Hallelujah" ultimately made all four judges turn. Aguilera called Nelson's voice "great" and "magical" and thanked her for waking her up and exciting her. Green gave "praise and thanks." And Shelton tried to find common ground with the earthy singer by saying he too was "an organic kind of guy." But Levine pointed out that he had spun way before he fellow judges, and that seemed to do the trick. "I'm gonna go with Adam," Nelson said, bringing a "Voice"-packed week to an end.<br><br>Hallelujah.</p><p>Also:</p><p><br></p> <p><br></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>?The early rains this season sent many of us scrambling to closets in search of umbrellas, others to for new windshield wipers and certain adventure-minded outdoor-types to the mountains for the thing they crave most: snow.<br><br> Southern California's ski resorts opened early this year after wintry weather arrived in October. None opened earlier than Mountain High in Wrightwood, which welcomed visitors before for the first time in its 54 years.<br><br> Last month I hit the slopes. Wrightwood hadn't seen fresh snow in nearly two weeks, and the temperature and humidity were such that Mountain High's operators couldn't use their snowmaking equipment. Conditions were far from ideal.<br><br> A week later, it was another story. An unexpected storm left more than a foot of fresh powder, and the resort opened about 90% of its lifts and trails. As of the Travel section's deadline, that number dropped to about 50%, with future access tied to temperatures and snowfall.<br><br> Unpredictable weather plays to Mountain High's greatest strength: location. Set off the Angeles Crest Highway near the border of Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, the resort is at most a two-hour drive for most people in Greater L.A. As its cheeky brochure happily notes, "In the time it takes one bad TV show to rot your brain, you could be at Mountain High."<br><br> It may not be able to compete with Big Bear's resorts in terms of vertical drop or total acreage, and its snow conditions certainly don't match up to those of Mammoth, but you gotta love the underdog personality of this place, not to mention its convenience.<br><br> I took Interstate 15 north past San Bernardino, then Highway 138 just long enough to connect with Angeles Crest Highway (California 2). It was a straight shot up the hill past Wrightwood to Mountain High, which is divided into east and west sections.<br><br> Snow was receding so quickly the weekend I visited that the east resort was closed to recreational activities and just the one trail on the west side mountain was open. The upside was negligible crowds. I don't think I waited more than 45 seconds to board a chairlift.<br><br> Prices were lower too. During the early season, Mountain High knocked $10 off lift tickets: An eight-hour ticket was $35; a four-hour ticket, $30. (That discount ended with the latest bounty of snow, but starting in January, Ralphs stores will sell all-day tickets for $7 off the regular $45 price.)<br><br> The high-speed Blue Ridge Express quad lift was zooming from the base at 6,400 feet to the 8,000-foot peak in about three minutes.<br><br> It had been years since I had gone skiing — one of the things that happens when you have kids. My first trip down turned into more of an adventure than I had expected.<br><br> My trusty 15-year-old boots couldn't take one more season in the cold, and they disintegrated shortly after I hopped off the lift, leaving me to schlep down the mountain, my skis and dignity slung over my shoulder. When I got to the bottom, only the boots' black rubber liners kept my feet out of frozen slush.<br><br> I tried to turn this negative into a positive by trying out the new generation of shaped skis. I rented a pair — and boots — for $25 and was quickly back on the slopes. (It's possible to rent boots and skis or a snowboard for about $15 in town.)<br><br> The shorter skis did make turning easier and were faster. Even with the granular snow caused by repeated freezing, grooming, thawing and refreezing, by the third or fourth trip down the hill, my skiing wasn't bad. Daredevil snowboarders, who outnumber skiers at least 20 to 1, rocketed by me, but I still had plenty of trail to navigate. I came upon only three or four patches where the snow was so thin that I needed to steer around protruding rocks.<br><br> When snow is bountiful and the entire resort is open, Mountain High has a half-dozen bunny hills for beginners. The rest are divided fairly evenly between intermediate (blue) and advanced (black) runs; only two trails are double black diamond. Later in winter, the west resort is open for night skiing and snowboarding.<br><br> The Bullwheel Bar & Grill, which had been open a few days earlier, shut down for the weekend as the snow and crowds thinned out. I was happy with a hot dog and chips from a stand outside the resort's lodge. Others took longer breaks inside the lodge, where the cafeteria offered bowls of chili, pizza slices, hoagies and wraps for about $4 to $7.<br><br> That's where I talked with Misha Garza, 14, of Garden Grove, who was planning to wring every minute out of the eight-hour pass she had bought that morning with her mother, Julie Boswell; her stepfather, Scott Boswell; her brother John, 11; and friends Austin Andrews, 15, and Michael Wilson, 14.<br><br> Michael pronounced the snow "too slushy" and groused, "My toes are freezing." Yet within a few minutes of downing a snack, he joined his friends as they headed back to the slope.<br><br> Half an hour before my lift ticket was to expire, I felt my legs doing just that, so I called it quits. There was more of Wrightwood I wanted to explore.<br><br>?LINING the Strip, billboards the size of aircraft carriers herald the faces of headliners like the battle flags of nations: , , .<br><br>But on one weekend in November, a star whom some would describe as the biggest in all of Las Vegas sat wedged into a decidedly nonpower central booth at Caesars Palace , unmobbed and unnoticed by the vast hordes of tourists trooping through. In the last couple of years the shy, quiet 20-year-old's face has probably been watched by more people than that of any other headliner working the Strip. With 15 million views on one site alone and probably at least that many from the multitudes of copied and pirated versions circulating the Internet, Gary Brolsma at one point had more Google searches for his name than did "naked women," the Web's platinum standard.<br><br> In December 2004, before the dawn of , the then-18-year-old Brolsma sat in front of his computer in his parents' home in Saddlebrook, N.J., and whiled a few moments by into his webcam to an obscure song by the Romanian O-Zone. He then posted the video to a user-generated site called Newgrounds so he could share his creation with a few friends. Two weeks later, his grandmother awoke him one morning saying there was a TV news crew at the front door and his answering machine was filled with messages from reporters demanding interviews. What followed was one of the first viral video explosions in Web history, as the "Numa Numa Dance" video was forwarded, linked to, imitated and parodied.<br><br>And nearly two years later, he found himself at Caesars Palace, flown in by 's TheComedy Festival for "Viral Videos Live," a night of onstage video reenactments of the groundbreaking works of the new medium. Assembled together on one stage in a rejiggered conference room would be the stars of the new era, headlined by the young man who just a week later was to be awarded a lifetime achievement award at age 20, Mr. Numa Numa Dance himself. About 200 people were in the audience.<br><br>A few hours before showtime, Brolsma felt relaxed enough to disappear among the hoi polloi and enjoy a cheeseburger with his managers, who have flown from Minnesota. Next stop was Hollywood for " Live," where he appeared Nov. 21. Last month, Brolsma released a new video on a website put together by the managers (), which is also sponsoring a contest with $45,000 in prize money for the best fan-created Numa videos.<br><br>All this, however, is merely a setup for a top secret Gary-centric project in progress. "All I can tell you," said his manager James Egge, "is that it won't be released for more than a year, and it will be shocking." Pressed, he insists the shock will not involve nudity on Gary's part.<br><br>Brolsma, for his part, seems quietly amused by the spectacle his project created. He tells how after the initial burst of interviews he decided to stop giving interviews, which led to a series of what he labels "wrong" articles, driven chiefly by a New York Times story that claimed he was depressed about his stardom. "I was just ignoring everyone and just went on as before. I was overwhelmed by it, but I was fine," he said. However, Brolsma did admit, nodding his head sagely, that the marriage proposals continued to flow in. "A lot of women say, 'If you come to my state you can stay at my house,' " he said. He insisted that he had not followed up on these offers and remained unengaged.<br><br>The stars of cyberspace<br><br>THREE hours later, Brolsma gathered with his fellow Web sensations backstage in a small lounge created by curtain partitions in what otherwise seemed to be a service hallway. Yes, the assembled group has been seen by, according to event organizers, a combined total of 300 million people. But the effect was less like a green room conclave of superstars than awkward strangers waiting in a doctor's office. Seeing them gathered together was somehow stranger and more thrilling than seeing a cluster of film stars at a Hollywood function. These people are not just stars but phenomena, having exploded from nowhere and nothing through the Web ether onto the world stage.<br><br>Slowly, the frost thawed and the titans of the new age began to make shy acknowledgments of their peers. Along one wall, Stephen Voltz, who has captivated millions with elaborate fountains created by , chatted in his lab coat about video hosting services with Charlie Todd, from , a New York-based website that recently created mass havoc when they sent a team of hundreds to move in slow motion through a store. Along another wall, the Urban Ninjas, two young men in full martial arts costume, famed for dazzling leaps from the tops of buildings, nodded to Marco Tempest, the Virtual Magician, master of head-scratcher camera-phone-taped tricks.<br><br>Talking with each superstar, it becomes clear that despite coming from wildly different disciplines, each of them has walked a remarkably similar path to fame and that this path is likely to become the road map that many more will attempt to follow. Voltz's tale is in many ways similar to Brolsma's. Voltz, whose calm, intense gaze and serious countenance make him very believable in his on-screen scientist role, recalls that he was merely keeping an eye open for unusual projects for the Maine theater he directs when he stumbled upon the news that a Mentos pill dropped in a Diet Coke bottle could produce an explosion.<br><br>"I said, 'This is something we could do,' " he recalled.<br><br>Like many Earth-changing ideas, this one came in the cabin-bound dead of winter. Maine's bitter cold prevented the stepping into wide open spaces necessary to realize the exploding Diet Coke and Mentos dream in all its grandeur. So Voltz and his partner Fritz Grobe spent long hours indoors experimenting with the concept. "I kept saying," Voltz recalled, "we're not spending more then 70 bucks on soda, not more than 50 on Mentos. But there was always budget creep." Tinkering with exploding soda bottles through the long months, creating mass synchronized explosions, Voltz, like all revolutionaries, was tormented by the thought "Is this really cool or are we totally nuts?"<br><br>With the spring thaw, he got his answer. In June he was finally able to stage his first large-scale outdoor experiment. Dressed in lab coats, Voltz and Grobe built a symphony of dozens of synchronized explosions, bursting, waving and circling in patterns reminiscent of the dancing water fountains outside the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. On June 3, a Saturday, they posted the video on their own site, , and at the video hosting site Revver.<br><br> "I figured we'd put it up, tell our friends, and in July we'd proceed and do something else with it," Voltz said. One of Voltz's friends posted a link to the tape on the popular online aggregator Fark.com. By midday, tens of thousands of people had visited EepyBird.com to watch. On Monday, "Late Show With " called. On Wednesday, . It was soon reported that EepyBird.com was the third-fastest-growing site on the Internet. To this day, it is Revver's most-watched video (and not incidentally has earned the EepyBird team $35,000 through the site's profit-sharing arrangement). Follow-up videos garner audiences in the millions.<br><br>Onstage, the show was a range of the little, little screen skill sets that, shocking as it seems, translate fairly well to the live setting. What has made each of these acts succeed, inspiring people to watch them over and over and pass them along to friends and link to them on their sites, is the ability to create some sort of performance so shocking or jarring or hilarious or even so annoying that it leaps out of a 1-inch screen, cuts through the clutter of a billion Web pages and IMs pinging and the boss walking by, and forces people to stay for two full minutes.<br><br> From the cleverness of mass pranks to the rapid spectacle of the feats, to the clever use of the online medium to make a train car full of passengers disappear, to catchy satirical songs like the Gray Kid and Daniel Stessen's parody "PaxilBack," to the completely infectious exuberance of a naturally shy and awkward young man like Gary Brolsma lip-syncing his heart out, backed up by a row of semiclad dancers, to a Romanian pop song — as culture producers, the stars of the new era may not be, say, , but they are, and with each successive wave will continue to be, originals.<br><br>richard.rushfield@latimes.com<br><br>?Elegant French-Canadian chanteuse Celine Dion has soared high in the entertainment stratosphere for so long that it sometimes seems like she was born a star. Yet in fact she rose from humble beginnings, overcame substantial obstacles and employed an uncommon work ethic to become one of the world’s most successful performers, selling more than 200 million albums to date. Now, adding another jewel to an already crowded career crown, Dion will be returning to the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for a three-year residency beginning on March 15.<br><br><p>The 4,000-seat Colosseum was purpose-built for Dion’s previous Caesars Palace run — five consecutive years of sold-out shows for her “A New Day” extravaganza, which set a new standard for Vegas residencies. When it ended in 2007, Dion embarked on a triumphant yearlong world tour that was seen by more than 3 million fans. She then took a well-earned break, during which she gave birth to twins. But her sheer passion for singing and the stage brings her back to Vegas with an all-new show designed exclusively for the Colosseum.</p><p><br> “I’m coming back home to the Colosseum at Caesars Palace and I’m very excited about it,” Dion said in a statement. “With the orchestra and the band we’re going to be able to perform our songs like never before. The repertoire is going to be extraordinary … a mix of timeless hit songs made famous by some incredible artists, along with all the favorites that my fans like to hear me sing. It’s going to be a very beautiful show, and I think we’ll be raising the bar higher than we’ve ever done before. There’ll be some truly wonderful moments.... I can’t wait!”</p><p><br>The youngest of 14 children, Dion grew up in the small town of Charlemagne, Quebec. Her family, though of modest means, was rich in music. She was singing in her parents’ piano bar by age 5, her style already being shaped by the music of Aretha Franklin, the Bee Gees, Barbra Streisand and Michael Jackson (Dion would eventually collaborate with all of these artists).</p><p><br>By the time she was 12, with help from her mother and brother, she had written and recorded her first song (“Ce n’etait qu’un rêve,” which translates to “It Was Only a Dream”) and mailed it to manager René Angélil. When Angélil subsequently invited Dion to sing for him at his office, he was moved not only to tears but to mortgage his home to fund her first album. By 1983 she had a gold record in France — and was just 15 years old.</p><p><br>Yet the ever-ambitious Dion craved more and was willing to work for it. Success in the United States had eluded her, in large part because she sang entirely in French. The tenacious Angélil pulled his charge out of the spotlight for a year while she took intensive English lessons and underwent a comprehensive image makeover. When she re-emerged with her debut English album, 1990’s “Unison,” her patience and hard work paid off. The soft-rock collection was embraced by adult contemporary radio stations and the single “Where Does My Heart Beat Now,” a mid-tempo ballad, hit No. 4 on America’s Billboard Hot 100.</p><p><br>Dion sealed her superstar status when she duetted with R&B crooner Peabo Bryson on the Academy and Grammy Award-winning title track to Disney’s animated “Beauty and the Beast” movie in 1991. Meanwhile, her relationship with Angélil had become a romantic one. The couple initially feared the public reaction to this news and kept it under wraps for years, but their extravagant 1994 wedding at Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica was cheered by fans and even broadcast live on Canadian TV.</p><p><br>Working with furious focus, she managed to release no fewer than six albums between 1992 and 1996, culminating in the double Grammy-winning “Falling into You.” Dion’s tear-jerking “My Heart Will Go On,” the theme song for the 1997 blockbuster “Titanic” movie, became a colossal hit and remains her signature tune to this day.</p><p><br>After a decade during which she released 13 albums in both English and French, Dion took a break in 2000, in part prompted by her husband’s diagnosis with throat cancer. Angélil beat the disease and Dion gave birth to her first child (a son, René-Charles) in 2001.</p><p><br>Early in 2002, Dion announced her next career move: a three-year, 600-concert contract to perform five nights a week at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Created by Cirque du Soleil director Franco Dragone and titled “A New Day” (in reference to Dion’s 2002 “A New Day Has Come” CD), the elaborate production was so popular that its run was extended into late 2007 and would ultimately gross $400 million. In May 2010, a Harris Poll named Dion the most popular singer/musician in the United States, ahead of the Beatles, Elvis and U2.</p><p><br>After the staggering success of her previous Caesars Palace run, Dion was keen to return to the Colosseum following a year of personal time and the birth of twins Eddy and Nelson. And it speaks volumes about her joy in performing that, though she has nothing left to prove commercially and could have comfortably retired years ago, she is so eager to hit the stage once again.</p><p><br>Celine Dion’s love for Las Vegas, and for Caesars Palace in particular, is evident: She and Angélil even renewed their marriage vows at an elaborate Arab-themed ceremony at Caesars in early 2000. Now it’s time for her to renew her commitment to her fans there with what promises to be her most magical performance yet.</p><p>—Paul Rogers, Custom Publishing Writer</p><p></p><p>Tickets for Celine Dion’s first 54 performances (March 15 through Aug. 14) at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace are available now.<br><br>Call 877.4CELINE or log on to www.ticketmaster.com (keyword “Celine Dion”). Prices range from $55 to $250, not including taxes and fees. <br><br>For additional ticket and show information visit www.celineinvegas.com.</p><p><br></p>?<p></p><p>And for the most refreshingly candid actress goes to ... star !<br><br>Check out the above video of Winslet making the media rounds in advance of the re-release of "Titanic," the mega-blockbuster that made her a household name and earned her an Academy Award nomination for best actress. Winslet had two options going into this interview. She could have done the whole Hollywood-smiley-face thing and gushed on and on about how the 1997 movie changed her life, about how much she loves it, about the on-screen magic she shared with co-star ... blah, blah, blah.<br><br>Or Winslet could have told it like it is.<br><br>Winslet said that she feels "like throwing up" when she hears the soaring theme song of "Titanic." In fact, she said, the signature ballad "haunts" her.<br><br>"I wish I could say, 'Oh listen everybody! It's the Celine Dion song!' But I don't. I just have to sit there, you know, kinda straight-faced, with a massive internal eye roll," she said.<br><br>It's no wonder she feels that way: "My Heart Will Go On" follows Winslet wherever she goes.<br><br>"Every time I go into either some kind of a bar in a hotel where there's a live pianist or into a restaurant where they are changing their music according to who walks in the door ... it's thrilling for people to 'surprise' me with the Celine Dion song," she said.<br><br>Winslet is so entwined with the "Titanic" theme song that, during a recent appearance on an Italian , the host urged her to go onstage and sing it with the live band.<br><br>"It rather haunts me," she said of the song. "Bless you, Celine, but it does rather haunt me."<br><br>Winslet said a similar thing happens "every time I get on any boat of any kind." People start cracking jokes. She said she now makes it a practice to walk on board and tell everyone to let their jokes rip once and for all: "Lets get them out of the way ... and move on."<br><br>And then there are all the people who want her to walk to the front of the ship and re-create her famous pose, arms flung wide.<br><br>All the half-joking and half-griping aside, Winslet said, "I am able to talk about ["Titanic"] with ... great joy."<br><br>Winslet said she's thrilled at the re-release of "Titanic" to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the ship's demise. The British passenger ship -- said to be unsinkable -- hit an iceberg and sank on April 15, 1912, during its maiden voyage from England to New York City. More than 1,500 people died.<br><br>"Titanic" uses this tragedy as the backdrop for the epic romance between Rose and Jack, making them one of the most beloved movie couples in Hollywood history.<br><br>She's grateful, she said, that "a whole new generation of people are going to be able to experience it on the big screen." Among them: her children, who will be seeing "Titanic" for the first time.<br><br>"It's great, it looks spectacular," she said, adding that over time, the experience of watching "Titanic" has become "completely different."<br><br>Directed by , "Titanic" was nominated for 14 Oscars and won 11, including best picture, best director and best original song. (It seems as if everyone but DiCaprio was nominated for an Academy Award for the film.)<br><br>For years, "Titanic" reigned as the single most expensive movie in Hollywood history -- and its most successful. It made more than $1.9 billion worldwide, to Box Office Mojo. Those records were surpassed in 2009 by Cameron's sci-fi epic, "Avatar," which raked in $2.78 billion.<br><br>ALSO:<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>Join Rene Lynch on , or </p>?<p>Seeking a quintessential Los Angeles fashion experience? Here are our picks of the top boutiques where you can have one.</p><p>Elyse Walker</p><p>The vibe: Beachy casual with a metropolitan edge, a shop that includes evening gowns and flip-flops.</p> <p>The goods: The 6,500-square-foot store has everything a woman needs to take her from carpooling ( jackets, Inhabit sweaters and Mother jeans) to a business meeting ( suits, separates) to a museum gala ( and gowns). Owner Elyse Walker, whose family was in the shoe business, puts a huge focus on accessories, including bags by Nancy Gonzalez, and , shoes by Christian Louboutin and Pierre Hardy, and jewelry by Husam el Odeh and Lanvin.</p><p>The back story: Walker opened her store in 1999 with 800 square feet of selling space, gambling that women in Malibu and the Palisades would rather shop with her than trek to Beverly Hills. Personal shopping services are a specialty, and sales associates can text or email clients photos of styles they might like or deliver rolling racks of clothes to their homes.</p><p>Where to find it: Just off Sunset Boulevard at 15306 Antioch St., Pacific Palisades, (310) 230-8882, http://www.forwardbyelysewalker.com.</p><p>American Rag Cie</p><p>The vibe: Southern California high-low style and culture in all its glory — vintage mixed with denim and workwear, contemporary clothing and streetwear, plus books, DVDs and housewares, and a see-and-be-seen sidewalk cafe.</p><p>The goods: American Rag is really three stores in one. The main shop features designer clothing (Cynthia Vincent, Funktional, Free People, Comme des Garçons Play) and shoes (Dr. Martens, Toms, Creative Recreation) alongside a superbly edited selection of vintage clothing and accessories. The World Denim Bar has work wear and denim (Denham, PRPS, Levi's Made & Crafted, Ksubi), and the housewares store features outdoor furniture, glassware and accessories with a French Mediterranean twist to match the restaurant's menu.</p><p>The back story: Since opening on La Brea in 1985, founder Mark Werts has grown American Rag Cie from a modest vintage business into a mega boutique with locations in Los Angeles and Newport Beach.</p><p>Where to find it: 150 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 935-3154, http://www.amrag.com.</p><p>Freecity Supershop</p><p>The vibe: The antidote to cookie-cutter fashion. Hippie chic-meets-Pop Art-meets commune.</p><p>The goods: Unisex T-shirts, sweat shirts, sweat pants, cargo pants and knit caps, as well as cases and Quoddy moccasins hand-printed with doves, rainbows, bicycles and other feel-good graphics, and slogans such as "Share Food," "Basic Goodness" and "Life Nature Love." The shop-cum-art gallery, which has a different theme each year (now it's bikes), also sells patchouli perfume, brown bread, ceramic pots and books on subjects like Oscar Niemeyer, Corita Kent and Yoko Ono.</p><p>The back story: Nina Garduno, the former menswear buyer for Ron Herman at Fred Segal, opened the Freecity Supershop in 2005. Her goal? Put the focus back on the art and craft of fashion.</p><p>Where to find it: 1139 N. Highland Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 461-2226, http://www.freecitysupershop.com.</p><p>Fred Segal</p><p>The vibe: The godfather of the L.A. fashion scene, nearly every designer and stylist in town has worked here at one time or another.</p><p>The goods: High-end designer clothing by , Proenza Schouler, , Carven, , Raquel Allegra and A.L.C., mixed with more affordable stuff by L'Agence, Current/Elliott, and Elizabeth & James, shoes, accessories, beauty products and housewares at the Melrose location. Mauro Cafe, also at the Melrose location and open since 1994, is still one of the most fashionable lunch spots in town.</p><p>The back story: What started as L.A.'s first high-end jeans bar in 1960 has grown into a community of boutiques including Ron Herman, Ron Robinson, Conveyer, Madison and Zero Minus Plus, under the Fred Segal umbrella in two locations.</p>?<p>Toronto - Lionsgate is on a buying spree. The company known most recently for its "Hunger Game" franchise has scooped up four new titles from the in the last 24 hours. In conjunction with its partner, Roadside Attractions, the studio has purchased 's the sex-addiction comedy starring and 's "The Stories We Tell."</p><p>All four films generated interest from a variety of buyers, but Lionsgate appears to be the most aggressive at this year's confab.</p><p>Whedon's modern take on one of Shakespeare's most accessible plays was a 12-day black-and-white project filmed in his house. His cast features both Whedon loyalists like and and some newcomers, and it charmed audiences attending the 11-day event.</p> <p></p><p>The deal marks a repairing of Whedon and Lionsgate who previously worked together on "Cabin in the Woods," which Whedon wrote and produced.</p><p>"They are exactly the mad fools we want to be partying--I mean working--with," said Whedon of the company.</p><p>The news came just hours after the company sealed a deal with Olympus Pictures for the U.S. rights to "Thanks for Sharing," the sex-addiction comedy starring , and . The film marks the directorial debut of Stuart Blumberg, screenwriter behind </p><p>The movie, which tracks the journey of three at various stages of recovery, is likely to be released next summer, sparking a renewed conversation on the validity of sex addiction. Yet according to star Ruffalo, the themes addressed in the movie relate to any addiction, whether its alcohol, drugs or sex. And the movie, which depicts the 12-step programs closely, could be one of those films a lot of people find relatable.</p><p></p><p>"You either are an addict or you love one," quipped the actor.</p><p>The two purchases come on the heels of the company's other recent buys: the comedy which in addition to starring Wiig features off-beat performances from and . The film marks the first feature from ('s wife) and Celine Rattray's new company, Maven Pictures. Lionsgate grabbed Polley's documentary, earlier Monday, marking the second significant buy of the festival after Focus Features purchased the -starrer The movie traces the revelation of a family secret that had been buried with her mother when Polley, an actress and filmmaker, was 11.</p><p>RELATED:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p>?<p>NEW YORK — Robert Pulcini and 's debut feature, the offbeat comic book adaptation "American Splendor," was greeted with so much success when it came out in 2003 that the filmmaking duo couldn't imagine things going any other way.</p><p>"We had this level of delusion that a lot of first-time filmmakers have but maybe multiplied because of the reception," Pulcini said of the movie, which HBO's film division allowed them to make with little interference and which went on to become nominee and art house hit. "We thought, 'It's always going to be this easy.'"</p><p>It wasn't. They battled with Harvey Weinstein over tone and scenes in their 2007 adaptation of the bestseller "The Nanny Diaries." Then they had to contend with viewer and critical skepticism on their 2010 cross-dressing quirkfest "The Extra Man." They became mired in rights issues on their based-on-a-true-story HBO film "Cinema Verite" in 2011. And those were the movies that the husband-wife team got made.</p> <p></p><p>But at the on Friday, Pulcini and Springer Berman will get a shot at redemption when they unveil a comedy about a thirtysomething playwright () trying to hold her life together and deal with the dysfunctional people around her, including her gambling-addict mother () and her mother's boyfriend (). The hook is that Wiig's character stages a suicide to attract the attention of an ex but fakes it so convincingly she ends up attracting the attention of psychiatrists.</p><p>The setting adds an extra dollop of color — "Imogene" takes place partly at the Jersey Shore.</p><p>The movie is the first Wiig shot after was released in spring 2011. (She was cast before "Bridesmaids" came out, and Pulcini and Springer Berman watched with excitement as that movie grew into a phenomenon.) Given the other appealing stars in "Imogene" — up-and-comer Darren Criss is also featured — and a relatively relatable premise, Pulcini and Springer Berman hope the movie will return them to the film world's good graces.</p><p>"We knew coming in that 'Extra Man' was going to be a challenge. This has always seemed to us like a more accessible story," Springer Berman said, sipping drinks with Pulcini at a downtown cafe this week.</p><p>The movie, seeking a U.S. distribution deal at Toronto, was shot last summer during Wiig's short hiatus from It was produced by (wife of ), Celine Rattray and Anonymous Content. The first draft was written by a rookie, Michelle Morgan, who based some of the story on her own experiences.</p><p>Though the subject matter and structure of "Imogene" are rather different from "Splendor" — the earlier movie had a more complex story line based on the life and graphic memoir of the late comics artist Harvey Pekar — the films do have things in common.</p><p>"I think both movies are about characters who are likable but not in the obvious ways," Springer Berman said. "What we appreciated about both Paul and Kristen is that they don't try to make you like them in every scene."</p><p>The New York-based filmmakers, both 48, began collaborating at Columbia University film school. They cut their teeth making documentaries and found that "Splendor" benefited from their nonfiction background.</p><p>The pair take turns writing, sometimes taking weeks before swapping pages. On set, they divide labor such that Pulcini spends more time behind the camera while Springer Berman interacts more with the actors.</p><p>The pair don't expect a "Splendor"-like reaction at Toronto. (The initial screening of that film, at the , generated a huge response and had in the audience to boot.) But they do believe that viewers will go for something different, and even difficult, if it comes wrapped in a certain humanity.</p><p>"There are ways to put our stamp on a film and also attract mainstream interest," Pulcini said. "I think we learned that on this film."</p><p></p>?In concert tracker Pollstar's wrap of the 2011 concert biz, U2's 360 tour was the dominant road show internationally, grossing $156 million in and $231 million worldwide. The top 25 North American tours grossed $1.19 billion collectively, off about 4% from $1.24 billion in 2010. The top 25 worldwide tours brought in a $2.1 billion gross, virtually flat compared to last year. U2 sold 1.7 million tickets, at an average cost of $91.67, in North America during the year, for an average of 81,000 tickets per show. The elaborate stadium tour mounted 25 shows in 21 markets. Domestically, country was hot this year, with (grossing $97.7 million) and ($84.6 million) occupying the No. 2 and No. 3 slots respectively among North American attractions. Other top North American live acts included ($63.7 million), ($57.1 million), ($51.8 million), Sade ($48.6 million), and ($48.3 million), ($44.4 million) and ($41.2 million). Dion is something of an anomaly in the top 10, since the Canadian did not actually tour: Her gross was produced by 57 shows at Las Vegas' Caesars Palace. The singer boasted the highest average ticket price in the top 10 at $166.71 per ducat. Worldwide, the British boy band Take That, whose reunited lineup includes U.K. solo superstar , ranked No. 2 behind U2, taking in $224 million off 34 appearances. Other top international acts included Bon Jovi, Swift, , John, , Chesney, Sade and . Pollstar editor Gary Bongiovanni said the touring outlook for 2012 looks positive, with reunion jaunts by the , , Black Sabbath and , dates by top attractions like Madonna and and a possible 50th anniversary trek in the offing.<br><br>Click for more music news on Variety.com.<br><br>?After your surgery, the report will help doctors determine the stage (from 0 to 4) of your . This is based on the size of your tumor and whether cancer is in your or has spread beyond the breast. The pathologist determines whether cells are cancerous, precancerous (at high risk of becoming cancerous) or benign (harmless). This information is key for your medical team to develop a treatment plan. Before you read the report:<br><br>Go to and find the celebrity talking dictionary. You can hear words that you may see on your report pronounced and then defined by the likes of , or .<br><br> When it's time to go over the results, first check the top of the report to make sure the name and procedure are yours.<br><br> <br> Be sure you have all the pieces of information. Sometimes tests lead to more tests so wait to get all the results. You will need the whole picture to help make decisions about your treatment.<br><br> describes the parts of the report. They include:<br><br>Clinical diagnosis: This is the diagnosis doctors were expecting before your tissue was tested.<br><br>Gross description: This talks about the size, weight, and color of each sample.<br><br>Microscopic description: This describes the way the cells look under the microscope.<br><br>Special tests or markers: This section reports the results of tests for proteins, , and how fast cells are growing.<br><br>Schedule time with your doctor just to go over the report. The language can be intimidating. Don't be afraid to ask questions. And don't be afraid to ask for a second opinion. It is a common request and most doctors are comfortable with it, says the American Cancer Society. In fact, some insurance companies require you to get one before you start treatment.?<p>The passing of was a sad undertone to this year's show. But several marquee artists -- including , Usher and -- will pay tribute to the pop icon in a telecast special that airs Nov. 16 on CBSand tapes in a concert in Los Angeles.</p><p>The , "We Will Always Love You: A Grammy Salute to Whitney Houston," will be taped at the Nokia Theatre on Oct. 11. The event features sets by those artists performing from Houston's catalog, along with clips from her most beloved performances and several artist interviews.</p><p>Tickets to the show . Ticket prices range from $25 to $50, not including service fees. Orchestra and VIP packages are available for $125 and above.</p> <p>The concert coincides with the release of Houston's new posthumous greatest hits album, "I Will Always Love You -- The Best of Whitney Houston," which comes out Nov. 13.</p><p>Houston died on the eve of the in February from an accidental drowning, complicated by and cocaine use, in her Beverly Hills Hotel room in February.</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>?Visual effects, it seems, are in Montreal's DNA. A couple of the most innovative and influential vfx software outfits of all time -- Softimage and Discreet Logic -- were homegrown ventures. Their legacy continues today with such providers as Rodeo FX, Moment Factory and Hybride Technologies. In fact, so robust is the effects biz in Quebec's largest city that it's pulling back many artists who had once left for other centers, says Rodeo FX prexy Sebastien Moreau, who himself spent years working at Industrial Light and Magic in San Francisco before returning home to set up his own shop six years ago. His chief technology officer Jordan Soles caught the Montreal effects fever too -- leaving Imageworks to join Rodeo a couple of years ago. The Quebec tax credit for visual-effects work done in the province is a big factor in this boom, but so is the quality of the work being done in the city, Moreau says. "They get good value for the money they spend." Rodeo worked for all the major Hollywood studios, including the "Twilight" franchise, "Mirror Mirror" and "." Multimedia company Moment Factory raised its profile earlier this year when it provide the eye-popping visuals for 's halftime show. It had already made its mark through its work for , Jay-Z and the stunt at the music festival during which it launched 1,500 illuminated beach balls into the crowd. Moment Factory co-founder Sakchin Bessette says Montreal's high-tech prowess is due to synergies among the city's theater and performance scene, its robust vidgame business, and its tradition of vfx software development. All this "makes people think, 'Yeah we can do it!' It makes the impossible seem possible," Bessette says. "Like the . If they can pull it off, why can't we?" Located several miles north of Montreal, Hybride celebrated its 20th anniversary last year. The studio was bought four years ago by French games giant Ubisoft, which has a major presence in Montreal. Hybride has worked with all the main Hollywood players over the past two decades. The company collaborated with on several pics; came calling to complete work on "Avatar"; and "Hunger Games" lists the company in its credits. Hollywood is not coming to Quebec just for the tax-credit savings, according to Hybride prexy Pierre Raymond, echoing many of his colleagues. "They're coming for the production values," he says. "If they can get more shots without jeopardizing the quality, then they'll call." Marc Bourbonnais, head of vfx shingle Modus FX, stresses that town's shops are not dependent on Hollywood films shooting in Montreal; they're looking to provide effects for films shot anywhere. "Montreal has depth," adds Emilie Dussault, head of business development at Mokko Studio, which recently worked on the "Chronicles of Riddick" sequel, set for a 2013 release, and built its rep with Discovery docu "Last Day of the Dinosaurs." "I don't think people realize yet the potential that Montreal can offer."<br><br>Related Links:** Canucks give U.S. a break<br><br>Click for more international news on Variety.com.<br><br>?Say "so long" to short skirts and hello (again) to the 1970s. Get ready to banish black from your wardrobe and get creative with color.<br><br>Now that the spring runway shows are over in New York, Milan and Paris, it's up to department store fashion directors and boutique owners to package the big ideas. Chanel's garden party, Balenciaga's punk brigade and Marc Jacobs' 1970s show were all memorable on the runways, but will they make it to store racks?<br><br> Here, retailers offer their takeaways from the season, and ideas about how the trends might trickle down to you.<br><br>Ken Downing, senior vice president and fashion director, <br><br>Big idea: The vintage effect, fueled by the major YSL retrospective exhibition that just closed in August in Paris. On the runway, designers nodded to Saint Laurent's rich peasant look, Orientalism and "le smoking" [his signature tuxedo].<br><br>Must haves: Fluid, sheer fabrics and longer hemlines (just above the ankle or to the floor) as we saw at Lanvin, and wide-leg trousers and a white pantsuit with Bianca Jagger swagger. The tuxedo jacket, it's not just evening wear anymore. For accessories, it's all about flat sandals because as a woman begins to add longer hemlines to her wardrobe, flat sandals work best with the new proportion.<br><br>I'm also loving what I'm calling the "Helmut language" [a reference to Helmut Lang's utilitarian designs from the early 1990s], and the idea of adding a sporty attitude to dressed-up clothing using color-blocking, buckles, straps or parachute fabrics.<br><br>Will punk take to the streets? Not now. We just cycled through a moment when the 1980s were really influential, along with strong shoulders, so punk doesn't look new to me. But where it ends up, we'll have to watch the runways to find out.<br><br>Colleen Sherin, fashion market director, Saks Fifth Avenue<br><br>Big idea: The color story. Bold, bright, vibrant color worked into color-blocked effects and combining colors in unexpected ways.<br><br>Must haves: A longer-length skirt or dress as seen at and Proenza Schouler in New York, D&G and Fendi in Milan and Chanel in Paris. Open-weave knitwear in natural white, ivory or beige crochet, macramé, mesh or fishnet, as seen at Rag & Bone, Alexander Wang, for Tse, Alberta Ferretti and Celine. And a crisp poplin shirt. We saw it with slouchy wide-leg trousers and skirts for a pared-down look. We also saw it as a play on masculine and feminine at Balenciaga, Stella McCartney and Celine. A trench coat looks great with a longer hemline peeking out. I love the sheer organza ones at Phillip Lim and Christian Cota, and the matte python trench at Emilio Pucci.<br><br>In terms of accessories, fringe is everywhere — on handbags, jewelry and scarves. A shoulder or flap bag is key because it fits into the 1970s trend, as does a pair of platform wedges.<br><br>Will punk take to the streets? Not in a big way. We've done that trend recently with leathers and studs and grommets, and not enough time has passed to go back. But it may be something we will touch on in our contemporary department.<br><br>Stephanie Solomon, fashion director, <br><br>Big idea: Color and print. And this is a serious shift because we've been in love with black for so long.<br><br>Must haves: A dress or skirt with a hemline hovering around the knees or below. In New York, Alexander Wang, Diane von Furstenberg, Derek Lam, Marc Jacobs, and Rebecca Taylor all had great longer lengths. In Milan, we saw it at Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Jil Sander and Roberto Cavalli. Sometimes these longer skirts have asymmetrical hems or slits, which we saw at Fendi, Yves Saint Laurent, Lanvin and Stella McCartney.<br><br>It sounds like a myth that hemlines matter, but they do because when you go longer, you have to change your shoes and you have to change your coat. You need flat, wedge or platform sandals. And the long trench coat is chicest with this length. I'm also liking boyfriend jackets over longer skirts.<br><br>Will punk take to the streets? In a way. You have to have the rock 'n' roll element, otherwise it would get too boring. I would take a studded leather jacket, something that looks worn and torn and ragged from Burberry Prorsum or Givenchy, and put it over a really frothy feminine dress like we saw at Dior. That dichotomy looks right. Or you can be a punk one day and a virgin the next!<br><br>?Behind every American coming-of-age story stands a single passage, in which George Willard, 's alter-ego, sits in a carriage of the B&O railroad, waiting to leave Winesburg, Ohio:<br><br>The young man, going out of his town to meet the adventure of life, began to think but he did not think of anything very big or dramatic. Things like his mother's death, his departure from Winesburg, the uncertainty of his future life in the city, did not come to mind. He thought of little things -- Turk Smollet wheeling boards through the main street of his town in the morning, a tall woman, beautifully gowned, who had once stayed overnight at his father's hotel, Butch Wheeler the lamp lighter of Winesburg hurrying through the streets on a summer evening and holding a torch in his hand, Helen White standing by a window in the Winesburg post office and putting a stamp on an envelope. The young man's mind was carried away by his growing passion for dreams. One looking at him would not have thought him particularly sharp. With the recollection of little things occupying his mind he closed his eyes and leaned back in the car seat. He stayed that way for a long time and when he aroused himself and again looked out the car window the town of Winesburg had disappeared and his life there had become but a background on which to paint the dreams of his manhood.<br><br> Is such escape still possible? Or does Facebook and other social networking sites that reconnect you to the librarians and lamplighters of your own personal Winesburg, Ohio, make getting away a fantasy? We're all swamped by the effluvia of our junior varsity selves now. The whistle blows, the car rattles, but it's always the same town outside the same window.<br><br>"Winesburg, Ohio" is a founding text of the coming-of-age genre, but I prefer to think of it simply as writing to get back what you lost, all those lamp-lit evenings when Helen White followed you through Hern's Grocery store -- an earlier time in your life but also an earlier time in the life of the republic. The railroad that carried you away runs through your story like a bottom line. It is where God transferred the short-term memories into the safer, long-term memory banks.<br><br>To me, the above passage is more than Anderson's lyrical exit from his novel; it's an admonition to strike out for new territory. Here's what he is saying: As your ancestors crowded into ships that took them over the sea, you must crowd into Hondas and Toyotas, hatchbacks full of luggage, brains packed with memories, and go away from your land to possess your land.<br><br>This notion of the writer as someone who must lose his friends to preserve his friends, or have them back in another way, echoes from Anderson to Hemingway to Naipaul: Hemingway, who had to move to Paris to write about Michigan; Naipaul, who had to move to London to write about Port of Spain.<br><br>In the last couple of years, however, the geometry of this transaction has changed. For those plugged into Facebook -- and this is more and more of us -- there simply is no getting away. Perhaps you first signed onto the site as the hero of Celine's "Journey to the End of the Night" signed on with the army, in an air of holiday amusement, to see what it was all about, only to find yourself returned to the past as a disobedient dog is forcibly returned to the scene of his accident. Photos, updates, friend requests: This arcanum rises above you like a wave, a tremendous roller that flashes for a moment before soaking you in junk and debris you believed had been left behind.<br><br>For this reason, a kind of reminiscence -- a tone, really, a sense of "Goodbye to all that" -- must soon vanish from our literature.<br><br>First, there is the simple matter of safety. To write about kids from, say, Central School, , Ill., circa 1982, you need the illusion that you have left that party and gone on to another, better party, where you can trash your old friends without fear of consequence. They can't hear you, can't reach you, don't even know where you are. I mean, when you write such a book, what are you doing if not talking behind the back of an entire town?<br><br>You're a boll weevil, an eavesdropper, a diary reader, a secret stealer, a dirty rat.<br><br>A writer should be judged by how honest and brutal he will be: by the quality of the secrets he tells, as well as by the panache with which he tells them. It's what Czeslaw Milosz meant when he said, "When a writer is born into a family, that family is finished."<br><br>A few years ago, the New York Times ran a story in which a reporter visited Traverse City, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where Hemingway set his first stories. The people of the town, all those years later, the very old ones, were still angry with Hemingway, for the confidences he violated, for the way he distorted, for how he got it all wrong. He wrote as if the people in Traverse City had died, as if Michigan were gone, as if there were no one left to look over his shoulder or complain.<br><br>The past is another country, that's how someone put it. (It was another country; there has since been an Anschluss.) Hemingway had to leave Michigan to write about Michigan. By writing about Michigan, he made return to Michigan impossible. By writing about Michigan, he both destroyed and preserved Michigan.<br><br>It's a Faustian bargain. He got it and lost it. But if he were publishing today and was on Facebook -- and I am sure he would be, as Hemingway wanted to taste everything -- he would be flooded with friend requests, each accompanied by a comment:<br><br>Ernest . . . I will have you know Mr. and Mrs. Eliot are now expecting their second child. Check your facts!<br><br>Ernie . . . Krebs was fine when he got back, and is fine now. Maybe you were confusing him with Clay, who is nuts, but was never in the army.<br><br>Ernest . . . As far as I'm concerned, we never were dating, so I'm not sure how you are certain you could get me back.<br><br>Facebook, with its flow of useless particularity, makes it impossible to forget, thus impossible to remember. Memory is really the story left behind by forgetting -- the essence that remains when the years have stripped away all that useless particularity. You remember as much by forgetting as you do by remembering. But on Facebook, the past becomes the wound that is never allowed to heal so never scars into deep experience.<br><br>The Buddhists say do not describe the water until the mud has settled and you can see its true essence, but the mud never does settle online. The water is continually stirred up, making remembering impossible. The memory in your mind is replaced by a detail posted on a Web page, which may be more accurate but is probably less true. Gone is the friend you knew from home. Gone is the sled and the lake and the winter. Gone are the stories that existed in the gap between imagining and knowing and, with them, the distance that turned the particular into the universal and the mundane into the romantic.<br><br>In this way, the past, seeming to get closer, actually gets further away. In this way, even the most daring of us become cutters, spending our lives on the streets of Winesburg. In this way, Helen White writes on George Willard's wall: "I never had those feelings for you, George. It was all in your messed up brain."<br><br>Cohen is the author, most recently, of "Sweet and Low: A Family Story." His new book, "Israel Is Real: An Obsessive Quest to Understand the Jewish Nation and its History," will be out in August.?SERIOUSLY, NOT even now? You can't even summon the decency to jump on the Ducks bandwagon now? Or whatever lame version of a bandwagon it is when, instead of a parade for winning the Stanley Cup, the celebration consists of hanging out in the Honda Center parking lot at 6:30 on Saturday and waiting for free Wienerschnitzel hot dogs, Pepsi and Aramark barbecue potato chips. That's not a celebration. That's Day 3 for Katrina victims.<br><br>Hollywood Boulevard should be covered in ice. should be permitted to make another movie. Small children in little No. 25 sweaters should be hitting each other with sticks. You should be getting that joke. <br><br>Hours after the Ducks became California's first Stanley Cup winners, when the L.A. Times briefly filled its website with a huge, unavoidable banner headline, the article was only the No. 2 most-viewed story, after one about Caltrans shutting down part of California 138 for roadwork. Jiggy stopped an Antoine Vermette penalty shot, and yet you're more surprised by traffic in Los Angeles? I can't believe the game wasn't preempted for breaking news of a speeding violation. By Thursday, the Ducks were off the most-viewed list entirely. Do they have to become the Los Angeles Ducks of Anaheim to get your attention? <br><br>L.A., I hate your brainless refusal to give hockey a chance, despite all it's given you. At the beginning of the season, when the Ducks were already favorites to win, The Times planned to save money by not sending reporters to cover hockey "away" games. I would find this even more infuriating if The Times weren't also considering saving money by not sending reporters to the office. <br><br>Sure, my love of hockey — which admittedly started when I was a wimpy, nerdy kid who didn't relate to any sports because I couldn't play them and longed to seem different — is a little pathological. So is wasting space in a paper writing about hockey. In fact, because Op-Ed columns and hockey are both dying mediums, I'd probably be more effective making a daguerreotype about bocce.<br><br>And it's not just L.A. The whole country is bafflingly uninterested in hockey. Only nine of the cities that have teams bothered sending reporters to Anaheim for the finals; the New York Times only sent someone to Game 1. News conferences were held over the phone. Monday night's game was tied for the lowest-rated TV show in the history of NBC, the network that brought us "Manimal." Earlier playoff rounds were on a channel called Versus, which is so irrelevant it isn't even owned by . An overtime playoff game on NBC was ditched in favor of a pre-race show — which was just live coverage of a petting zoo. Hockey is the only thing Jerry Bruckheimer is involved in that America doesn't watch. <br><br>I've tried explaining the beauty of the sport to too many people, too many times. These are normal-size guys playing a contact sport while also ice skating, spinning beautiful ballet while beating the crap out of each other. Imagine how awesome "The Nutcracker" would be if they actually did what the title promised. <br><br>But for the same reasons Americans can't follow soccer, you shun hockey. You can't comprehend that far more exciting than scoring is the possibility of scoring. It's the tension of hope extended, uninterrupted by huddles and time-outs. But apparently appreciating the moments in between is too much to ask of you. Is it surprising that our first response to a situation is to go to war given that we prefer sports where pituitary cases pile up scores like 110-109? If gets any better, Iran is in serious trouble.<br><br>Sure, hockey is a little white, but you know what? Those are my people. Actually my people are the Jews, but I'm not going to fly to Boca for the national mah-jongg championships. I like country music, hockey, Tolkien, cycling, crisp white wines and the movie "Ordinary People." Seriously, I need hockey to make me seem less gay. <br><br>The Ducks are an amazing team. Vicious checking that somehow never clogs the game. 's smiling misdirection with the puck in front of the net. The Niedermayer brothers finally on the same side of the ice. If you can't show that you deserve this team next year — by, say, watching them — I hope Canadian teams win the cup for the next 20 years. And I hope Canada does something that will actually bother you, like releasing more albums.<br><br>And don't make me yell at you again when the Tour de France starts next month. This is Santa Rosa resident Levi Leipheimer's big year.<br><br>--<br><br>jstein@latimescolumnists.com<br><br>?<p>ALIANTE STATION<br>702.547.5300</p><p>Dec. 8: The Guilty Pleasures<br>Dec. 9: Eve 6<br>Saturdays: Caliante Noche Latina featuring Volume 1<br>Saturdays: Jeremy Cornwell Project</p><p></p> <p>ARIA<br>877.25.ELVIS</p><p>Tuesdays – Saturdays: <br> “Viva Elvis” by </p><p></p><p>BALLY’S<br>888.739.4111</p><p>Saturdays – Thursdays: <br> “Donn Arden’s Jubilee!”<br>Wednesdays – Sundays:<br>“The Price Is Right Live!”</p><p></p><p>BELLAGIO<br>888.488.7111</p><p>Wednesdays – Sundays: <br> “O” by Cirque du Soleil <br> (additional dark dates: Dec. 7–20)</p><p></p><p>BOULDER STATION<br>702.432.7575</p><p>Dec. 2: Boney James<br>Dec. 3: BJ Thomas<br>Jan. 7: Dennis Wise<br>Jan. 20: Ray Price<br>Thursdays: Van De Guzman<br>Thursdays: Jerry Tiffe<br>Fridays: La Nueva Live Mix<br>Saturdays: Yellow Brick Road<br>Saturdays: The Twins<br>Sundays: Banda Tierra Sagrada</p><p> </p><p>CAESARS PALACE<br>800.634.6661</p><p>Dec. 3: Jeff Dunham<br>Dec. 26 & 27: <br>Dec. 28, 30 & 31; Jan. 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18 & 20–22:<br>Tuesdays – Sundays: “Absinthe”<br>Fridays – Saturdays: Matt Goss</p><p></p><p>ENCORE<br>888.320.7110</p><p>Dec. 2 & 3; Jan. 5–7, 27 & 28: </p>?A little more than a year ago, the makers of took the to the Ontario Mills 30 multiplex for a test screening. The talking-animals film had been scheduled to be released in October 2010, but the brass were so electrified by the audience feedback — the marks from kids were so good that one executive thought that the data must be wrong and needed to be recalculated — that the studio decided to move "Zookeeper" into the heart of this summer's box-office battle.<br><br> had other reasons to shift "Zookeeper" to July. With the next movie delayed until summer 2012, the studio was short on big releases for the season. "It plays like a big, big summer movie," Rory Bruer, Sony's distribution president, said of "Zookeeper" at the time of the release-date switch. "And this move is all about opportunity."<br><br> But now that summer's here, that window of opportunity may be narrower than it seemed.<br><br>"Zookeeper" is opening this Friday, the weekend after Paramount's third blockbuster and a week before ' final "" film, both rated . The PG-rated, $80-million "Zookeeper," which Sony co-financed with , is struggling to attract audience interest, pre-release surveys show.<br><br>The only other new movie in wide release this weekend, Warner Bros.' R-rated comedy looks poised to deliver better opening returns than "Zookeeper" by a comfortable margin.<br><br>Hollywood's polling, though, has been a bit unreliable this summer: Surveys suggested that Sony's Disney's Paramount's and Universal's all would do less business on their opening weekends than they actually did. Sony executives declined to comment for this article, but some at the studio are quietly hoping that Hollywood's surveys are faulty again.<br><br>The most recent audience surveys show negligible interest in "Zookeeper" from any demographic group aside from very young children. But even if "Zookeeper" grosses less than $20 million in its premiere weekend, some believe the film could play to relatively full houses for weeks afterward if the word of mouth is good.<br><br>A mediocre opening for the film would be a setback for James, the veteran of CBS' "The King of Queens" whose last Sony movie, "," did surprisingly big business in 2009. Made for about $26 million, "Paul Blart" cast James as a security guard who foils a heist at a New Jersey shopping center.<br><br>The film debuted to three-day returns of $31.8 million over the Presidents Day weekend and by the time all the North American tickets were sold, had grossed $146.3 million — more than "Taken," "Angels & Demons," "Terminator Salvation" or made in domestic release. In 2010, James costarred with in which grossed $162 million domestically, but this January's where James played opposite , was a washout, taking in just $48.5 million.<br><br>At the start of "Zookeeper," James' character, Griffin Keyes (who is, of course, a zookeeper), is dumped by his fiancée as he's proposing to her. He then starts taking advice from some unusual therapists — the caged creatures he cares for, voiced by Sandler (a monkey), (a lion) and directors (an elephant) and Jon Favreau (a bear). Before long, Keyes is the king of the dating game jungle.<br><br>At a Las Vegas convention of movie theater owners this spring, Sony showcased "Zookeeper" by building a small petting zoo inside Caesars Palace and screened the film at the Colosseum, the theater that normally hosts . Reaction was largely positive, with several theater owners predicting that the movie would be one of the summer's surprise hits.<br><br>But "Zookeeper" never really gathered much momentum afterward. People who worked on the film say that when talking animals appear in a film's previews, the movie can look as if it's aimed at a younger audience than it really is. Sony couldn't easily sell the film's cameo voices, and by pitching too much of the romantic comedy story, the studio risked alienating families. And just because James can sell tickets in January — as he did with "Paul Blart" — doesn't mean he can do the same in July.<br><br>At the same time, the definition of "family entertainment" seems to be rapidly evolving. Anybody who's been in a multiplex lately knows that many parents have been taking their preteen children to see grown-up fare like rated PG-13 for "sci-fi action violence, mayhem and destruction and for language, some sexuality and innuendo."<br><br>Even if "Zookeeper" can establish a small toehold this weekend, it faces "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2" in a week. Audience surveys hint that the final movie about the boy wizard could come close to the opening weekend record, currently held by 2008's "The Dark Knight" at $158.4 million.<br><br>Cleaning up after the animals, it seems, may be the least of Kevin James' problems.<br><br>?<p>We grabbed a chat with as she launched the British Designers Collective pop-up boutique at Bicester Village yesterday.<br><br>Now in its third year, the shop offers emerging talent the chance to showcase their collections at the designer outlet centre. <br><br>Speaking at the event, the style icon explained she was delighted to be involved in the concept, saying: 'This pop-up will showcase all these brilliant new talented designers we have to the hundreds of people from all over the world that Bicester village attracts.’ <br><br>Unveiling the bright, green faux-hedge fronted store, alongside chairman of the British Fashion Council Harold Tilman, Alexa exclaimed she couldn’t wait to start rummaging through the rails. <br><br><br><br>Wearing a floral Celine skirt, a quirky Bella Freud jumper and Nicholas Kirkwood shoes, the model-turned-TV-presenter said she was going to have a browse and choose ‘whatever takes my fancy.’ <br><br>Designers for the 2012 boutique include Jonathan Saunders, Marios Schwab, Peter Pilotto and Bella Freud, as well as accessories from Lily & Lionel, Holly Fulton, Pauric Sweeney, Nicholas Kirkwood and Mawi. <br><br>The retail therapy at Bicester was a relaxing break for Alexa, who told Marie Claire just how busy her life has become: 'My whole summer is going to be spent criss-crossing the world for various projects. I’m off to Hong Kong next week to DJ for my friend, creative director Giullaume Henry, but first I’m off to bag some bargains.’ <br><br>The pop-up boutique is open now until May 9 and a menswear phase follows from May 16 until the end of June. <br><br>Race you there! <br><br><br><br><br></p>?<p>As one half of the Eurythmics and, later, as a solo artist, has sold tens of millions of records. Yet, as JSP discovers, she has managed to be successful on her own terms, using her celebrity to champion the causes she cares about.<br>