In Honor of the Onion's Horoscopes

The Forer (or Barnum) effect

Description
A psychological phenomenon in which people tend to ignore inaccurate assessments of their personality while interpreting general claims to be true. Unconsciously, people tend to force-fit generalizations about their character into the way they view themselves or would like to view themselves. Psychologist B.R. Forer liked to amaze people with his ability to ‘divine’ their personality traits but all he used were the sweeping generalizations found in ordinary horoscopes.

[You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself.]

You look over people’s shoulders
To see who’s looking at you.
Your hair’s in place, your shoes are right
But the package just won’t do.
It’s all wrong!

[While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them.]

You do the comb-over when you must,
For those little flaws you cannot trust
To escape the notice of every voyeur
Searching for cracks in your pin-neat foyer.
(They’re there . . .)

[You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage.]

It’s true your reservoir is filled to the brim
But isn’t there always some gossamer scrim,
Tough as chain mail, hot as fire,
Keeping you from your deepest desire?
Damn it to hell.

[Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside.]

Indeed you’re a model of pure poise and grace,
Having practiced so long to put smile on face,
Keeping the real fissures hidden from view
Known only to head shrinks, and, sometimes, to you.
Jell-O has more character.


[At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.]

Prufrock and Hamlet were lucky—weren’t they?
A nifty black typeface to hang out in all day.
The red tie? The blue dress? Low-cal or premium?
And larger questions—well, that’s just a screamium.
I wouldn’t put myself in my hands.

[You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.]

Aren’t too many people all the same way?
Really, the best course: a quick getaway.
And staying in one place? So damn domestic—
Would make any sane person completely dyspeptic.
I’m moving to Dendrobia!

[You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof.]

The individual mind is like a chain of blue lakes,
Seen from a hilltop where tin-bright air slakes
All memory of cant and hypocrisy,
Which is to say, factual statements rife with inaccuracy.
Please say something—anything—I can believe.

[But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.]

But why should you let others swim in your lakes?
They tend to throw rocks, and bring water snakes.
Which doesn’t suit your blueness at all.
Best to stay this side of quiet: don’t write, don’t call.
[Insert brood (A) into sulk (B) here; secure with Scotch tape.]

[At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved.]

But then you do! (write and call) Aren’t people curious?
They’re lithe and funny (also mean and spurious).
It’s so hard to know when to let them know you,
What if you (they?) don’t like what they (you?) do?
Inconsistency is so unreliable, not to mention, irritating.

[Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.]

Okay, so your reach and your grasp don’t always agree,
Maybe this makes you flawed perfectly.
You’d like to think so, anyway—
How else to get through the day?
Lunch!

Profilesque

When I was in my 20s, some important things to me were rereading F. Scott Fitzgerald stories ("The Diamond as Big as the Ritz," "Winter Dreams"), taking bizarre detours to crisscross the city in search of a coffee eclair, walking the West Village, and hopping the train to Vassar College. Vassar has good trees and is easy to get to from the station.

These days, I'm trying to perfect my popovers and figure out how to play tennis again. My material-goods daydreaming revolves around which kind of new bicycle to buy and where I will take a road trip.

There's also an early Albert Maysles photo exhibit put on by Syracuse University.

A Talker in the City

Clyde Haberman's NYC column in yesterday's New York Times dials up one of my biggest pet peeves: cell-phone conversations on the street.

I admit!: I speak on my cell phone on the street--but not gleefully. If I can find a pay phone to lean into, all the better. I miss pay phones (especially the old ones with the doors). Privacy in the middle of potential bedlam is very relaxing.

The column is full of interviews with MacArthur "genius" award-winners, all of them extolling the virtues of being disconnected. According to them, it allows for reflection, for rumination, and for dreamcasting.

Agreed.

I think, too, it allows for an experience that is hard to come by--namely, the experience of walking in one of the world's major cities, and certainly in America's greatest pedestrian one. To be talking into a cell phone (I prefer the yellow banana) is to be somewhere else mentally, which is to say: to be a pod person.

Certainly I'm a pod person when I'm walking and talking into my little phone, invisible rays bouncing all around me. I walk and don't appreciate the sidewalk under my feet, generally view the scene before and around me as a giant sensoround video screen, and try not to get hit by a car.

The column also discusses the iPod as disconnector. This reminded me of how years ago, I plugged into my Walkman. It didn't last long. I missed out on the city, and so I missed the city despite walking around in it. There's a lot to miss. The eyeballs can listen and the ears can see. Conversation happens bodily, not just orally. I like the way people carve highway lanes into the sidewalks at rush hours.

The city has a lot to say. It's a call I don't want to miss.

Kate Gathers Some Moss

A friend I told about my annoyance with the Kate Moss controversy asked about our deep knowledge of another glam gal of sorts, Paris Hilton.

"Why do I even know who Paris Hilton is?" he asked.

No idea. Because we can't run far enough or fast enough? Then again, there will always be a Paris Hilton.

Has anybody ever traced her rise to familiarity? Did she start with David Patrick Columbia? Quest magazine? Get Candace Bushnell on the phone.

And by the way: this concludes the appearance of the words Kate alongside Moss on Notes From New York (unless she steps in to save Newtown Creek or secure the closing of Indian Point, in which case, I take it back.)

An Ordinary Day

A wedding this weekend at a lightly rustic retreat spot in Massachusetts place called Woolman Hill had the entire gathering pronouncing a couple to be man and wife. We also affirmed their vows along with them--"We will!," "We do!"

The Garrick Club Punch, was renamed for the occasion: Felicitation Punch. It was gin-based, with lemon juice, maraschino syrup (I think--it may be liqueur), and topped with Jameson. One of the guests, a cocktail whiz, had put the punch together.

And guests baked the several cakes, which were introduced with little cards.

This morning, I pulled a thistle from one of the table vases as everybody was eating breakfast, because smell has the longest memory. This afternoon, new friends dropped me at the 6 station on 96th Street. Took out the thistle; worked just fine.

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs

I am shocked, just shocked. Fashion models are now being confused with role models.

When I saw the Daily Mirror photos of Kate Moss doing lines, my initial reaction was, “Well, that photographer’s career is going very well.” I've known for years--along with the rest of the world--that Kate Moss, waif of yesterday, sexy model, fashion designer muse did drugs. Indeed, she did drugs much the way people in just about every other business do drugs: not on the front page of a tabloid.

How we got from Kate Moss doing cocaine in print to Kate Moss being dropped by companies whose image issues dictate that they make her the smirch girl for their Plus-Size case of hypocrisy, well, I just don’t know. Somebody rolled back the clock? Clearly we’ve entered a time warp that has landed us in a wacky period piece circa 1955.

A spokesman for the cosmetics firm Rimmel said, "Rimmel London is shocked and dismayed by the recent press allegations surrounding Kate Moss's behaviour. We are currently reviewing her contract."

Translation: We have now bypassed the cultural moment in which the emperor has no clothes and entered a spin cycle that could confound Rod Serling. Apparently we are all spokespeople now.

You'd think somebody would give the woman points for being well turned out. She was wearing black, that's appropriately glam for doing lines, isn't it?

Was I the only one who found it hilarious that fashion designer Helga Vjornson blamed the media for Moss’s loss of millions of dollars’ worth of work. The media? The media is doing what it’s always done. The Daily Mirror isn’t trying to moralize.

Somebody needs to pave the runways with copies of Harry Frankfurt’s little book On Bullshit—surely it’s the perfect accessory for fall. What I really want to know is why the Mirror published the photos at this point in time.

So:

Dear Burberry, Chanel, and H&M (and possibly Christian Dior, Rimmel and H Stern),

I find your brand of hypocrisy so very tacky.