Being surprised by what Bo knows

It didn't take long for "Girls" to capture the love I'd previously bet on "Luck". They're entirely different shows, and the confused exuberance of "Girls" has the legs for the long run that "Luck" probably never would have mustered. Even if the racehorse controversies hadn't befallen the latter. I don't think I'm alone in keeping an eye out for more of the story on the takedown of "Luck" - some tragic horse deaths led to protests and, eventually, to questionable claims of credit for shutting the show down. In what I thought was one of those related stories, Saturday's NYTimes had an interesting Q and A with none other than Bo Derek. I'd previously read about Derek's animal advocacy. Some of it was pretty flaky. Yet what I saw here impressed the hell out of me. Her thoughtful, pragmatic responses about racing oversight (she serves on the California Horse Racing Board) get buried a bit. Mainly because lots of people are focused on a portrait she shot for this month's "Vanity Fair" of Chantal Sutherland. Derek shot Sutherland as a very racy Lady Godiva. That might be enough to merit a mention. But the accompanying text for "VF" that Bo wrote is good. Really good. So much so that I forgot all about the "Luck" pivot point that got me into this. Check out Bo's work - behind the camera, not in front of it. It caused me to check my snarkiness without uttering even one mention of her movie career. Well...maybe just one..."Bolero"

Letting go of Hitch. Then picking him up anew.

I'm seldom shocked by the death of someone known to be terminally ill. And Christopher Hitchens was famously sick. His most-recent writing for "Vanity Fair" delved into his diagnosis of esophogeal cancer and the contemplation that followed. As serendipity would have it, I just read his latest article therein yesterday afternoon. I was surprised by the sense of optimism I took from this last piece. He'd survived the radiation and hadn't lost those things he feared being without most - his voice and the ability to type. Coupled with his famously unrepentant atheism, Hitchens provided a window through which to observe something almost too intimate. Cancer and the treatment currently used to combat the disease are twin demons that consumed and weakened him. My first read of the news of his death yesterday came in the form of a text message from a friend and fellow fan. Since then the reflections have come from all over the map, but with the same general angle. Hitchens lived hard, wrote voluminously, defied convention and walked the thin highwire required to be consistently original. My recent hunger for essay collections has proved rewarding (John Jeremiah Sullivan's Pulphead and Jonathan Lethem's The Ecstasy of Influence are both fantastic and highly recommended). Now I've decided to dive headlong into the latest mass of essays from The Hitch (Arguably, which landed on so many people's "best of the 2011" lists). I'm sheepishly pleased to name drop that Christopher Hitchens and I share the same literary agency. I'm sad to think that I'll never meet him, even though I realize how presumptuous it sounds to think that might have happened. Still, I'm wholly saddened by his passing. Because I truly admired him as a writer who so totally slashed his way through the wilds of this age we live in. The Hitch will absolutely be missed.

Deconstructing Lindsay Lohan's throwback style.

I've been clipping newspaper ads this month. Yes, people still do that. Or at least this people is doing that. I don't really know what I'll end up doing with them. My original point has been to look for Holiday ads that feature fur coats and accessories. The NYTimes and the Seattle Times are daily touchstones. I'm sure you can guess which one has a larger number of those ads. As a result, I'm becoming more attuned to look for fur garments featured in print or online. For example, "Vanity Fair" included a mink stole from the designer Akris in "Punch Hutton's Holiday Gift Guide". Which led me to check out Akris - Swiss designers with a boutique in NYC and on the very fashionable and funky Newbury Street in Boston. See how research works? Then I caught sight of (cough!) the newly-leaked Lindsay Lohan spread in "Playboy". I've scrutinized all the photos, of course. As a matter of research, Officer. It's a total throwback - all inspired by Marilyn Monroe's iconic calendar pose that was reprinted in 1953 as the first centerfold of "Playboy". The reason I bring it up before Playboy's roiling tank of lawyers jump all over the folks that leaked them is to deconstruct one picture in particular. In which Lindsay's wearing nothing but a mink stole. Add that to the overall 1950s theme. If you were going to choose one oversexed garment to nail down (again COUGH!) that era, I can't think of a better choice. I'm sure I'm one of less than a carload of people pointing to that part of the pictorial right about now. Still...clip that and put it your ol' briefcase, Professor.