On her Web site, Banks reveals that her first title will be "Modelland" (which she explains is not pronounced "Mo Dellund" but "Model Land") -- the story of a "fantastical place" full of "drop-dead beautiful, kick-butt fierce" beings known as "Intoxibellas." It sounds like Narnia -- with eating disorders! And did C. S. Lewis ever appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue? Bitch, please.

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A media-savvy governor, upon learning that her daughter's ex-boyfriend and baby-daddy had granted an interview to talk-show host Tyra Banks, might have pounded a fist on a table, uttered a handful of salty expletives, crossed her fingers that nobody would tune in and quietly hoped that it would all get swept under the carpet.

Not Sarah Palin! No, this wizard decided the best way to tackle the (understandably irritating) problem of her loose-lipped would-have-been son-in-law was to publicly rebuke the kid, in a grandiose statement of denial and affronted morals, the weekend before the offending interview was to air, thereby ensuring that the episode of "Tyra" would become must-see television.

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Please avail yourself of the clip on Banks' Web site, in which the talk show host grills him about whether Sarah Palin knew if he was having sex with her daughter ("I’m pretty sure she probably knew … moms are pretty smart") and if the couple practiced safe sex.

"Yeah," he responds, in a flat, utterly unconvincing way, like the kid who tells you he was not eating chocolate even as it is smeared all over his face.

"Even when the baby was conceived?" Tyra asks.

"We were."

Banks persists. "And there were just … wardrobe malfunctions?"

"I guess."

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If you've watched "America's Next Top Model" or "The Tyra Banks Show," you're probably familiar with the Tyra shtick -- overcoming adversity through hard work, the importance of an elongated neck, "fierceness" -- and this week's feature doesn't offer much in the way of new material. But that doesn't stop the Times' Lynn Hirschberg from gushing profusely. "Like a star athlete who has perfected a jump shot or a curveball, Banks has studied, honed and mastered the smile ... Banks always treated modeling as a kind of beautiful science," Hirschberg enthuses in the piece's opening paragraph. To show off Banks' scientific credentials, the profile offers an accompanying video and photo gallery, in which Banks demonstrates seven smiles from her 275-smile repertoire. We get "the smile without eyes," "the smile with eyes only" and the extremely scary "surprise smile," among others. Some of the expressions display discernible modeling skill; in others, Banks just looks nuts. (I do wish the piece shared more smile names, like those for 251-253 -- at that point, don't you get into "thinking about peanut butter" or "Mormon"?) The tutorial is potentially useful for aspiring models, and entertaining for anyone with a mirror and half an hour to kill. But there's something unintentionally "Zoolander" about Banks -- who catches a fair amount of flak for being narcissistic -- boasting about spending enough time in front of the mirror to develop several hundred distinct facial expressions.

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"Jennifer Love Hewitt is a healthy, not emaciated, woman. She is a healthy girl. These are unflattering camera angles on her. You want to see someone who's fat, I'm sorry, Tyra Banks is fat."

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This week, Tyra Banks decided to devote an entire hourlong show to the vulva. As part of the production, she invited a woman named "Dr. Debby" to teach women a bit about their anatomy by means of a velvet and satin replica of a vulva. Please picture the resulting scene: Tyra Banks chatting with Dr. Debby, who looks totally normal, except for the fact that she is holding a giant puppet vulva. To Tyra's left, a very uncomfortable-looking blond woman who remains silent for the duration of the clip, and who can't move because Tyra's got an arm around her. (I tried to figure out who she was from the show's recap, but still was left confused. Was she Sarah, a young woman "terrified of the gynecologist until Tyra accompanied her to Dr. Francis' office"? Or Brianna, who was so inspired by the show that she "was able to get over her tampon fear and tried one for the first time"?)

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During the eighth cycle of the show, which ended on Wednesday night, Tyra and her staff seemed to be modeling through it most of the time. The judging discussions weren't heated or contentious, the photo shoots lacked flair, and the aspiring models were missing brains but they were never humiliated (a "Top Model" tradition) or called to task by Mama Tyra for their bad behavior. Even when Jael harassed 50 Cent at a "glamorous Hollywood party" until he threw her into the pool, and then mumbled her typical consonant-free, garbled excuse, the judges could barely work up the indignation to scold her. And that's not to mention Brittany, who threw a big, ugly temper tantrum and blamed her taxi driver when she was disqualified from the go-see competition for being late. Where was finger-pointing Tyra, who so memorably berated Tiffany for having the audacity not to weep big salty tears when she was eliminated during cycle four? Who knew we'd miss that woman? Tyra's patience has grown with the length of her enormous fake eyelashes, and the show is much worse for it.

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Oh, and here's another quality clip from Tyra's show. She recently celebrated Black History Month by celebrating herself and encouraging women of color to "dream big" ... like appearing on the cover of a sports magazine in a bikini.

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We live in a service economy, after all, where the ultimate goal is to pay other people to do every single mundane activity that might be asked of us, so that we can spend our time doing more important things, like eating crème-filled crullers and flipping idly through Christmas catalogs for gifts we might want our maid/assistant/aromatherapist to purchase for our family. (Actually, since she's the one who writes them letters and fields their phone calls, she should probably choose their gifts, too.)

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It was just days ago that the 31-year-old Victoria's Secret supermodel turned talk-show host revealed her own insecurities about her appearance on her show. Among Banks' so-called flaws: She thinks her mouth is too small and tight. Her eyebrows are too far apart. Her eyelashes are too short. Her calves are too small. And she has cellulite, not just on her butt, but on her arms.

Then, Banks went and made herself really self-conscious, if only for a day.

For an upcoming show, she dressed up in a fat suit, posing as a 350-pound obese woman, and then returned to the thin side to report that being fat really sucks. Banks told the Associated Press that it was "one of the most heart-breaking days of my life," and that she undertook the stunt to confront what she dubbed the "last form of open discrimination that's OK."

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Just look at Tom Cruise! Not only does the market system work on a very personal level, but it makes life way simpler! Instead of treating our innermost thoughts and feelings as a complicated universe meant to be explored through arduous therapy sessions, we simply revise our marketing strategy, rethink our target demographic, and focus on making our personal brand more robust! Don't cry to me, girlfriend -- get a haircut and hire a new publicist!

Sadly, though, upon locating our target market and moving our product at a reliable clip, many of us begin to overestimate the reach of our personal brand. Perhaps our sales team is a little too motivated by their incentive package, or maybe we're taking the glowing talk from the marketing department a little too seriously. Before long, we begin to imagine that we might someday have the word "Enterprises" or "Omnimedia" after our brand name, even though cross-platform, cross-market seamlessness is hardly an achievable goal for our particular product.

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Let's start with this week's crop of dysfunctionals, which include heroin and cocaine addicts (HBO's "Rehab"), burlesque dancers (Bravo's "Forty Deuce"), deluded rich people (Fox's "Arrested Development"), and one con man (Comedy Central's "Con"). And that's just a random sampling of shows. When you throw in a wider segment of the fictional and reality programming population, what do you get? Bounty hunters, circus freaks, amateur models, morticians, spoiled rich teenagers, plastic surgeons, corrupt cops, weepy separated couples, backstabbing publicists, and Brigitte Nielsen bringing Flavor Flav home to meet the family.

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These are just a small handful of the thrills and spills afforded to those lucky girls on this season of "America's Next Top Model," a show that consistently transcends its simple premise with a brilliant mix of cattiness, absurdity and voyeuristic fun. By pushing these young women through a gauntlet of difficult photo shoots, forcing them to grapple with wildly egocentric fashion experts, and making them live in impossibly close quarters with each other, model-turned-actress and singer Tyra Banks has crafted one of the most consistently entertaining reality shows on TV.

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Delighted, my boyfriend and his two friends got naked and also dove into the pool, which was now filled to the brim with naked models. As I bade my time by the side of the pool, my mind raced through all kinds of weak, pathetic thoughts. I wanted to rewind the night and drink several more glasses of red wine at dinner. I wanted to rewind the year and join a gym. I tried to will myself to strip off my clothes and frolic with the models, but I felt certain that someone would shout, "Who threw a lumpy mortal into our model soup? Would somebody please fish it out already?"

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Lissome young Violet (Piper Perabo) has left her home in suburban New Jersey to try to make it in New York as a songwriter. She's too frightened to sing, but boy, can she write. The only problem is, she's broke. A chance encounter leads her to a pseudo-Western bar called Coyote Ugly, where the great-looking female bartenders (Bridget Moynihan, Izabella Miko and Tyra Banks) hop up on the bar and dance, in a mildly raunchy manner, for the customers whenever the spirit moves them. Their moves are mostly along the lines of country line dancing, although they do make it a point to wear skimpy tops and tight pants.) Soon enough, Violet takes a job. She feels awkward at first, but soon she gets the hang of it. Later, her stage fright is cured.

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There were no streakers, no shocking political diatribes, no Sally Field moments (unless you count the commercials), no "king of the world" declarations and no Debbie Allen dance routines to ridicule.

Celine Dion didn't show up in a backward dress. (In fact, she didn't show up at all.) Gwyneth Paltrow didn't cry. Cher displayed precious little flesh. Roberto Benigni even seemed to have mastered English and to have remembered to take his lithium.

Oddly enough, after all this time, Oscar has learned, if not to stay within his allotted time, at least to stick to his script. When you get excited about Jane Fonda saying, "It is my privilege to prevent ... to present this Oscar," you know you're hard up for a non-teleprompted moment.

Nevertheless, a few choice quotes managed to add a hint of texture to an otherwise super-slick affair. So here, without further ado, are the best on-air celebrity quotes of Oscar night 2000:

"Are you saying I was nominated because I've got a good ass -- is that what you're saying? Maybe the Wall Street Journal should do another poll about that." -- Kevin Spacey, getting frisky in his red-carpet interview.

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