News-Record.com

From the L.A. Times obit:

A religious woman in her later life, Page was mystified by her influence on modern popular culture. "I have no idea why I'm the only model who has had so much fame so long after quitting work," she said in an interview with The Times in 2006.

"I want to be remembered," she said, "as I was when I was young and in my golden times. . . . I want to be remembered as the woman who changed people's perspectives concerning nudity in its natural form."

Remember Eliot Spitzer, the New York governor who was felled in a money-laundering/call girl scandal?

Well, the people running the service are facing federal charges -- including one woman who simply booked appointments.

But Spitzer himself? Not so much.

Of course. Why charge the money laundering John when you can go after the hookers, the service and the folks who answered the phones?

Sounds like justice to me.

Proper Attire condoms are, apparently, a new brand of condom catering to people who don't feel traditional condoms are "stylish" enough.

The brand's slogan: "Proper Attire: Required for Entry"

From their website:

Old stereotypes about who should buy condoms are so last season! PROPER ATTIRE® condoms are the "must-have" accessory and were designed with sexually active, stylish women in mind.

The fashionably chic PROPER ATTIRE design helps ensure that now you can feel completely comfortable buying condoms and carrying them with you. With 5 trendy styles — Basic (regular); Color (colored); Dots (studded); XL (extra large); and Proper Attire’s Yigal Azrouël Sheer (ultra thin) — PROPER ATTIRE condoms are a safe yet fun way to protect yourself and your partner and do it with style!

While I'm populist in many ways I'm not the kind of guy who shakes his head at brand preference and tells you that it's all the same stuff. There are a number of brands (including condom brands) to which I'm loyal. But the idea that prophylactics just aren't stylish enough is pushing it a little far, isn't it?

It's hard enough being a young guy buying condoms for the first time without worrying that your date is going to think your condoms are "so last season."

Last week columnist Jeri Rowe stopped me in the newsroom with a huge grin on his face.

"I've got something for you," he said. "It's for the blog, but I'm going to need it back."

"Okay," I said.

"No, really," he said. "I'm going to need it back."

"Fair enough," I said, a little curious now.

That's when he hit me with this -- an advanced copy of Chuck Palahniuk's new novel, Snuff.

Jeri needn't have worried: I finished it in one night.

Strippers "in heat" get better tips.

No, really.

There's a study.

Tom Ford, former creative director of Gucci and Yves Saint-Laurent (and graduate of Parsons, where Project Runway takes place, as it turns out), struck out on his own in 2004.

Since then he's been shaking things up with a menswear collection George Clooney loves and swank Madison Avenue men's store...

...a Vanity Fair cover that got Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley naked (thank you, Tom)...

...and now, a cologne (one of many scents Ford has created at $165 per 1.7 oz. bottle) whose print ad campaign strips the niceties away from the "sex sells" ethic and just puts the tiny bottle between a woman's naked, glistening thighs, resting on her waxed pubis.

A not even kind of work-safe link to the actual ad here.

Even more explicit flash intro to Ford's website here.

Holy. God.

If Ford were straight I think people would be saying he hates women. Because he's not people will just accuse him of being a perverse design school guy who gets off on shocking people.

Which is, I imagine, fine with him.

In this week's posts you can:

* Read my musings on Britney Spears looking like a drag queen (and the possibility that she'll spend the rest of her life performing for them).

* Find out whether Disney Channel's High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens (and new star of inadvertent teen amateur Internet pornography) is into the Brazilian wax!

* Check out pictures of Maggie Gyllenhaal in the new Agent Provocateur lingerie ad campaign!

* Consider "The N Word" with comedians Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle -- all of whom used it to greater effect than Eddie Griffin, who was bounced from a Black Enterprise event for dropping it this weekend.

* Tell me whether you got screwed when Apple dropped the price of the iPhone just two months after its release (and whether the $100 store credit they're giving customers makes up for it).

* Check out clips from shows coming out on DVD -- including 30 Rock, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and, of course, Flight of the Conchords.

If you missed any of it, it's all archived. Enjoy.

Also -- talk back, you lurking bastards!

Well...not here, of course.

But the pictures are out there.

It seems Vanessa Hudgens, Zac Efron's brainy love interest in the popular High School Musical franchise (and demonstrably less brainy love interest in real life) took some nude photos of herself. And, of course, they leaked onto the Internet.

Where I found them in about three minutes.

Would get fired (and possibly sued) for linking to them from here but I will note a few things:

1) There are a series of photos of her in progressively less clothing, in provocative poses, until she's posing naked and smirking for what seems to be a camera with a self timer.

2) She's doing so in what is clearly a bedroom and not (as has been reported) a bathroom. The curtain behind her just looks like a shower curtain. There's a bed and dressers in plain view.

3) The sort of creepy part about this (I mean -- besides her being the star of Disney films) is that, though she's 18 years old, the bedroom looks very much like the bedroom of a very girly high school girl. Christmas lights are strung along the ceiling of the room. Stuffed animals are visible on the fluffy bed on which she poses on all fours in what appears to be her sports bra.

4) Though she's turned out the big lights, turned on the string of Christmas ones and lit a series of tea candles on the dresser to "set the mood" she's left a half-finished plastic bottle of Dannon water (exactly like the one I'm drinking out of right now, eerily) on the dresser right beside her. This sort of kills the teenage girl faux romanticism of the scene and gives it a creepy, "I'm going to need to stay hydrated" porno shoot vibe. While the photo is undeniably aesthetically pleasing (in the strictest anatomy-drawing class sense, of course) the room and the way she's set it up sort of torpedoes any potential sexiness and just sort of makes my skin crawl. Mostly.

5) Female friends of mine who are hostile to the idea that every woman needs a Brazilian wax to be sexy have a new hero in Vanessa Hudgens. She makes their argument forcefully.

The number of news stories on these photos this morning is sort of staggering -- and many suggest that this is going to ruin her career with Disney, maybe even take down the entire High School Musical franchise. But as I look at them I wonder -- can that be right? It's not like she's doing anything really awful in them. They don't even rise to the level of misbehavior of some recent beauty pageant contestants. She just did what some (maybe an increasing number, and we can talk about and be disturbed by that if we're so inclined) 18 year old girls do when they're young and beautiful -- she privately documented her nudity for her boyfriend. I don't think it was for mass consumption -- though with Paris and Lindsay as warnings along the path of young fame she probably should have known better.

Let's hope this mistake doesn't doom her.