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MODEL_X

                                             January 5, 2014


                                                     REDEEMING_NEWYORK
On a weekday in New York, on a
very hot day in late June, 2002,
I was sitting in Tea & Sympathy
and a woman came in the door
who without much preliminary,           At first I had the vague feeling
began telling the two women who         they must know each other
work there about her younger days       already, perhaps she was a
in the fashion modeling world.          regular?  As she kept going I
                                        got the sense that the ex-model
The staff responded in-kind,            was a little crazier than that:
oohing and aahing at each               she tells all this to everyone.
detail-- either they were
sincerely interested, or doing              If you've seen the recent Woody
a good job of supplying the                 Allen movie "Blue Jasmine", you
promised Sympathy.                          know the kind of woman this was.
                                            Slim, pretty, just showing a
It wasn't possible to avoid                 touch of age.  Attractive at
listening to this-- she went                first, until you notice that
on with great indignation,                  strange jittery edge...
talking about how sleazy it
all was.

   One of her details: one of her
   friends was taken aside by a
   photographer for a special job
   where he "wanted her to get in
   touch with her sexual side", and
   she had to explain to her friend
   "No, no, that is pornography."

   I remember idly thinking -- I wasn't
   trying to pay attention to this,
   remember, it was unavoidable -- "well,
   I guess this is more or less what I
   would've expected."  And then: "But
   isn't it what everyone would have
   expected?  Why is this supposed to be
   some great revelation?  And where would
   you find a teenage girl so naive she
   didn't understand pornography?"

   This ex-model was clearly another
   drama queen...

       Around that time-- ten years back,
       shortly after 9/11-- it seemed to
       me that there was a lot of this
       going around, and I thought
       vaugely about cranking out a
       "nation of drama queens" rant.

   But this tendency to tell self-aggrandizing,
   dramatic tales (of dubious veracity) is
   perhaps a syndrome of the sketch, something         And the "post-9/11 era"
   that comes out of the, if you'll forgive            might be regarded as a
   the expression, the lower strata of humanity.       time when the mentally
                                                       ill were dominating the
                                                       national discourse...

                   DEGREES




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