A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

ANOTHER ELEGY, AND YES, IT’S BEEN A BAD WEEK: I just got the unpublished copy of Richard Rushfield’s recap of last night’s ANTM:

Shock, grief, anger, betrayal. Those, of course, were only the most immediate reactions of the audience to the premature departure of tall, fair, be-extensioned, impeccably-jawed Lauren from America’s Next Top Model. Other emotions following somewhat later, though not attributable with scientific certainty to the ouster, were melancholy, reverie, discontent, panic, arousal, that delicious combination of panic and arousal, ennui, mishegas, and discomfort at Yiddish proficiency. Lauren herself remained indifferent to the end, proudly overmedicated and possibly incapable of understanding the injustice visited upon her, but we, the audience, felt an additional emotion omitted from the above list: unbridled jubilation in knowing that for Lauren, whose illimitable talent in being tall and fair and impeccably-jawed has now – or at least after sequesterville – been loosed to the world, the journey is just beginning.

I am deeply sad (there’s another one!) that Lauren is dead. That death makes us reflect upon our own lives – our successes; our failures to reach the lofty goals we set; our tendency to lament the deaths of people who are still alive. And yet, this death is a call to arms. Other people should have died first – fake Whitney and Jerseyish Dominique, SLEEP WITH ONE EYE OPEN – and every minute that they remain alive is a minute that Lauren is not stomping clumsily around in our hearts, a more artfully-composed Frankenstein. “BLOOD,” the audience seemed to scream, at least in my house where I live alone, “WE DEMAND BLOOD.”

In the sleepless hours following this monstrous unfairness, my thoughts turned to who, aside from the other contestants, must be blamed, confronted, and killed. Covergirl, yes, for demanding that their spokesmodels be capable of speech and movement. The fashion industry, for demanding unrealistic levels of “ambulatory stability” from its catwalk-walkers. And Dr. Tyvorkian, the Angel of Death, for spreading her bat-wings and casting a shadow on our dead-eyed angel. We may debate for years who else is to blame, but for now, let us rejoice in our time with Lauren, however bitter and threatening our particular type of rejoicing may seem.

The narrative I constructed for myself of Lauren out of nothing but a handful of confessionals and my beauty-struck febrile imagination went something like this: Born, grew tall, liked punk rock, knew nothing of fashion, grew impeccable jaw, learned rudimentary communications skills sufficiently to express basic food and hygiene needs, developed “signature walk” so unique that it, coupled with Italianish dialogue, caused second-nicest girl in house to double over in laughter, and then, poof, snuffed out, like a flame or an elderly person with a fully-vested insurance policy. No other contestant’s story could match the depth and poignancy of this brave woman’s poetic (but Ginsburg- or maybe Plath-poetic, not like Frost or anything like that) struggle against punk-rock-affiliation – and I don’t want to hear it, miss female circumcision, you shut your yap. No one could match her intensity, diffused though it was, but we take comfort in knowing that the Lauren juggernaut will not be slowed, and like many before her who came to this show, even if they did not make it to the final-two ghost-themed fierce-off, her career will undoubtedly continue and we will see its fire again and again in the years ahead whenever Tyra brings models back to talk about their nonexistent success. And then Lauren will be elected the first weirdo punk-rocker President of the United States, and she will invent a car that runs on air and excretes clean drinking water, and she will win the Nobel Prize for modeling and politics.

Surely, this is not the greatest injustice from which our nation has had to heal. It is not even the third-greatest, because of the Dred Scott decision, the Carly Smithson debacle, and the estate tax. But we have survived each of those, except technically for the estate tax, and we will survive this. And so I close tonight with the following by the great poet Richard Rushfield: “The following things are awesome about you/Your courage/Height/Fairness/Impeccable jawline/And courage/Fly away, flightless bird.”