Gone To The Dogs
Trophy wives are out and trophy dogs are in, at least if the Christmas purchases of New Yorkers is any indication. And don’t be surprised if the trend spreads quickly.
Dogs achieved a new high status among the trendy about three years ago - “about the time socialites and celebrities stopped taking small children to parties and began bringing tiny dogs,” says New Yorker writer Mimi Swartz.
“First there were trophy wives, then there were trophy children - now it’s trophy dogs,” says David Feld, an editor at House & Garden magazine.
Retailers responded quickly and offered up Christmas merchandise such as a leather-trimmed canvas dog carrier ($850) and foul-weather dog gear - a neoprene scubasuit with reflective trim ($780 for the small size). (From Dec. 28 New Yorker)
* Setting the record straight: Feminist Gloria Steinem on why Ms., the magazine she helped found in 1972, won’t accept ads, as it did at one point: “Advertisers won’t buy ads for women’s products unless the magazines provide complementary copy - fashion articles, food articles, beauty articles.
“We wrote a story about Russian women and lost (a major advertiser) because they said the women didn’t have enough makeup on. Look, Esquire doesn’t have to write about shaving to get shaving-cream ads,” says Steinem. (From Dec. 14 Newsweek)
* From the odd-but-true file: Tokyo commuter Katsuo Katugoru caused some chaos on a crowded subway train when his homemade rubber underpants, designed to inflate to 30 times their original size in the event of a tidal wave, accidently inflated when he reached into his pants. (From January Esquire)
* Facts of night: Percent of Americans who sleep on their back: 14. Percent who sleep on their stomach: 25. Percent who leave a light on: 3. Percent who wear nothing to bed: 15. (From October American Demographics)
* Facts of night 2: The average adult gets 6 hours and 57 minutes of sleep per night during the workweek; 7 hours, 31 minutes on weekends.
Twenty-seven percent have used a medication to help them sleep in the past year; 9 percent report using medications to help them stay awake in the past year. (From January House & Garden)
* Quote of the week: “He’s my president. He’s the last president since Kennedy who was getting some sex. … Then we had all those old presidents. They weren’t getting any. They were mad and uptight and stuck up - we went to unnecessary wars. As soon as we got Clinton, everything turned around. The economy got better. Everybody was going back to work” - Michael K. Kolyar in Emerge magazine. (From Jan.-Feb. Utne Reader)