Reblogging Julia

Scrunchy pulp fiction.

Christ, I so want to believe in the ongoing relevancy of the NYT, but they are making it so difficult.  If they aren’t reviewing a fake memoir, or publishing stories about call girls who aren’t, they are writing puff pieces on a rich girl with bad extensions who thinks she is living the life of a fictional character.  Thankfully, if the NYT is getting around to reporting on a ‘trend,’ it is long since over.  Since the reporter doesn’t appear to be in the business of fact checking, well, allow me to retort:

• “She frequents sleek and buzzworthy bars with her girlfriends. She has danced at Bungalow 8, the celebrity-rich club in West Chelsea. She has devoured cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery, and she can sprint in five-inch heels.”  All of which were relevant over a decade ago, like 4 Non Blondes.  And I don’t believe she can sprint period, let alone in heels.  The only thing she chases is attention and she clods after it like a horse.  That is about the only way she is Channelling Carrie Bradshaw.
• “If Carrie Bradshaw were coming to New York today,” Ms. Allison says with no hint of self-consciousness, “she would be me.”  Had the reporter done her research, she would have known that the Pink Lady has no self-consciousness or self-awareness.  And that Carrie didn’t come to New York, she was from New York*.  Our Lady of Introspection is a suburban Midwestern girl playing dress up in NYC to the SATC soundtrack.  She’s the girl who wears the scrunchy, in the form of bad Elvira extensions.  YOWZA!
• Asked how it feels to end a relationship in public like that, Ms. Allison nods her lovely head and gazes into the distance. “People were preying on my pain,” she says, her voice not quite cracking. “It was hell.”  Yes, Our Lady was a victim of people preying on her, and certainly not someone who announced on Gawker the private professional and health matters of her ex-boyfriend after blogging about their breakup around the clock.  You have no idea the hell she suffered.
• “Ms. Allison lives alone in a small studio in Hell’s Kitchen “the size of my toenail,” as she puts it.”   As opposed to the more spacious place she lived in, rent-free, on her ex-boyfriend’s dime, for nearly a year.   Carrie bought her apt from her ex when they broke up.  Scrunchy that.
• “I think you should be able to make a living doing something that really appeals to you without being judged.”  Being a professional gossip really appeals to the Pink Lady, except for, you know, the whole “people preying on her pain” part. 
• Most emailed?  Nope. Most blogged?  Nope.
• You would think the Pink Lady would know something about makeup for the camera, and that excessive blinking is indicative of lying.   You would be wrong. 
• Of course, you would also think the reporter would fact check the representation that the Pink Lady has surrendered her ‘pink encased loaded weapon’ for ‘Silent Reflection Time.’  You would be wrong about that, too.  Welcome to the new New York Times.  They report, you debunk.   Thereafter, they will publish an awkwardly worded correction that nobody will read, but the schwag bag from the SATC movie publicists will have been totes worth it.

*[Ed Update:  A JA loyalist schooled me that the Carrie Bradshaw character was not, in fact, from New York, as it was implied once (in 94 episodes) that Carrie moved to New York when she was 17, and therefore only lived in NYC for half (but not all) of her character’s life.  The tipster’s superior knowledge of Sex in the City** is duly noted (your Pink Lady jacket is in the mail), and the author’s egregious factual error is left intact for the reader to mock relentlessly.  My readers deserve fact-checking skills that are above the NYT variety and this is my awkwardly worded correction that nobody will read.]

[** Ed. Update, Part II:  Damn, the loyalists are uppity about SATC accuracy.  Got ANOTHER correction that it is Sex AND the City, not Sex IN the City.  Same standards apply regarding the author’s shameful and regrettable error.]