Salon.com > Anna Holmes

Why won’t this man blink?

Mon, 02 Feb 2004 22:47:00 +0000

As everyone now knows, Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark is a retired Army general who served as the supreme allied commander during the U.S. military operation in Kosovo. But when I tell you that Clark doesn't blink, I don't mean that he doesn't blink in the face of adversity (although for a war hero and big-shot military man, that certainly seems true). I mean that he literally doesn't bat an eyelash, or does so very infrequently.

According to researchers, the average adult human blinks between 15 and 20 times a minute. That's once every three to four seconds. But, according to my rough calculations, Clark blinks between two and four times a minute, once every 15 to 30 seconds. This may not seem startling in writing, but in action, it can be truly extraordinary, as can be seen in this clip available from Clark's own Web site.

It's so noticeable that the Clark campaign has even prepared a spin for it. "Gen. Clark is aware [that he blinks infrequently] and that's just him," says Bill Buck, Clark's national press secretary, adding after a beat: "Basically, I'd say that the American people can rest assured that as president, Wes Clark, when facing down terrorists, will not blink."

Cashing in on cord blood

Mon, 22 Sep 2003 16:59:00 +0000

"[It has] a perfect marketing plan, a product you can't not buy, assuming you can afford it and you find out about it in time." So wrote Josh Goldfein, a New York lawyer and writer, in the New York Times Magazine this past July. Goldfein wasn't referencing TiVo or the Segway scooter, but the fairly new and rapidly growing industry of private cord blood banks, which profess to offer a sort of biological insurance for the newly born via a deceptively simple idea: store the blood from your baby's umbilical cord (rich with stem cells) and you may have the material you need to cure his or her future diseases. And although Goldfein is admittedly unimpressed by the pressures these private companies put on expectant parents -- "I think [these companies'] entire marketing strategy is based on fear," he says -- in the end, he did bank his newborn son's blood.

In grossness and in health

Mon, 11 Aug 2003 19:00:00 +0000

"One of the signs that a female gorilla is in love is that she can be seen picking nits off her male companion." So said "Sex and the City's" Carrie Bradshaw in a recent episode of the hit HBO series. Although these words of wisdom -- written by SATC staff writers Julie Rottenberg and Elisa Zuritsky -- were being used as a metaphor for overly critical women, they nonetheless touched on an issue I've been wondering about for a while. Namely, why exactly women love to pick at their partners. And I mean picking, in the literal -- not metaphorical -- sense. As in: skin, hair and nails. As in: popping, squeezing, sloughing, scraping, trimming. No one admits to it (unless, well, pressed) but almost everyone does it.

Girls in heat

Sat, 24 Jun 2000 19:30:00 +0000

On May 25, David Letterman welcomed actress Sarah Jessica Parker onto the set of his zany late-night talk show with a warm, lingering embrace and sweet nothings whispered in her ear. A few minutes into their interview, a Ferris Bueller-like smirk crossed his face. Apparently Letterman had in his possession the promo for the new season of "Sex and the City," Parker's hit HBO series and, judging by the way he squirmed in his seat, he was also extremely taken with it. (Luckily, he has a desk to sit behind.)

"Sex and the City" first aired on HBO in 1998, a creation of "Melrose Place's" Darren Star based on Candace Bushnell's New York Observer column of the same name. The show quickly attracted a cult following of "Arli$$" haters and "Larry Sanders Show" leftovers. During its second season, however, the show became a full-fledged phenomenon among young, professional females: Women began explicating dialogue and plot lines over cocktails; they planned "Sex and the City" viewing parties; often, they so identified with the show's depiction of single-girl life they went as far as to cast one another in the show's lead roles ("I'm Miranda and you're Charlotte!"). Last year, the show was nominated for two Emmys and won two Golden Globes, one for best comedy series, further heightening its profile. And last week, TV Guide not only did a cover story on the show, but offered readers a choice of four "Sex and the City" collector's covers from which to choose, calling the show "a bona fide smash" and "pop culture touchstone."

The masculine mystique

Wed, 24 May 2000 08:00:00 +0000

The panel at the Art Directors Club on 29th Street in Manhattan was just getting into an interesting discussion about fashion and status when the impatient, standing-room-only audience started getting antsy, downing drinks and conversing loudly. The fashionable crowd had assembled for a party to celebrate the release of "Material Man" -- a collection of essays on "Masculinity, Sexuality and Style" -- and the exhibition accompanying it (which closed Saturday). But the sound system lacked clarity, and the discussion seemed unfocused, ranging from topics like tattooing and male jewelry to Brooks Brothers and ambivalence toward fashion. By the time the book's editor, Giannio Malossi, took the stage, the din in the room was too much to bear, and the panel quickly broke up.

Lack of clarity and purpose can do that to a crowd -- and to a book. Supposedly a rumination on the influence of style on masculinity and sexuality, the book is less about its text than its photographs, despite the large number of essays from academics such as Valerie Steele and Alain Weill. It is these photographs -- including those of individuals from a smiling William Jefferson Clinton and Rudy Giuliani (in drag) to Lou Ferrigno and Evel Knievel -- that, at times, make "Material Man" so compelling. Unfortunately, the book's producers got a little carried away and, instead of sticking with one theme, went after three of them, making the book about as easy to read as having (or hearing) a coherent discussion amid a liquored-up crowd at a book party.

How nosy political reporters measure up

Mon, 17 Apr 2000 16:00:00 +0000

Future presidential wannabes have a brand new worry, thanks to snooping reporters this season determined to find out exactly which bubbles the candidates penciled in while young and miserable and not thinking much about how it would reflect their intelligence and self-worth in the future.

It started in November, after Yale University students acquired and threatened to publish alumnus George W. Bush's SAT scores. Employing what now seems like quaint discretion, they chickened out. So the New Yorker printed them in Talk of the Town (Bush's verbal: 566; Bush's math: 640 ). A few months later, Slate revealed Bill Bradley's verbal SAT score (485). Then, just last month, two Washington Post reporters released loads of academic information about Al Gore, concluding that the vice president "was often an underachiever" (verbal: 625; math: 730).

When asked what he thought of all this, the New Yorker's political correspondent, Joe Klein, said he adamantly opposes publishing the scores. "I'm against these types of things coming out," he raged. "I think it's an invasion of privacy, I think it's none of our business, and I think these scores are a leading indicator of zip. Zero. I would much rather have a president who screwed around, did serious drugs and learned a lot from it than someone who had 800 boards."

Rudy's favorite smear: You're nuts!

Wed, 22 Mar 2000 09:32:00 +0000

When New York Mayor href="/politics2000/directory/senate_candidates/rudy_giuliani/index.html">Rudy Giuliani accused href="/politics2000/directory/senate_candidates/hillary_clinton/index.html">Hillary Rodham Clinton Tuesday of
"projection," he exposed a penchant for
psychobabble that he indulges in with surprising regularity.

Clinton had claimed the mayor
racially polarized the city in the wake
of the shooting of
Patrick Dorismond, an unarmed black man
killed March 16, by, among other
reasons, releasing the records of
Dorismonds criminal history. But
instead of
simply rebuffing or countering Clinton's
remarks, Giuliani lashed back with Psych
101-speak. "There's a process called
projection in psychology," he said at a
news briefing. "It means accusing
someone of what you're doing. That is
precisely what Mrs. Clinton is doing."