A Brie Grows in Brooklyn

Icon of the Week: Ruth Ann Steinhagen

It’s been a while since I’ve done an icon  post, but I’ve fully ceased to be interesting to myself, so I’m forced to turn to outside sources. Fortunately for me, I stumbled upon the obituary for Ruth Ann Steinhagen in The New York Times last week, who I immediately knew would make the perfect subject to be memorialized in one of my idiotic posts.

Ruth Ann Steinhagen was both the most famous Ruth Ann ever to live in the 20th century, as well as the most famous stalker ever to become the subject of a Robert Redford movie. Born in 1929 in a small town in Illinois to German immigrants from Berlin, it was pretty clear from a very young age that Ruth Ann Steinhagen was not your average girl.

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Icon of the Week: Lana Del Rey

I’ve been thinking a lot about Lana Del Rey the past few days. Her album is dropping on January 30, which means that the publicity elves underneath her must be whirring their magic machines, bringing her to the attention of people like me, who enjoy music but don’t follow it. I’m the last stand before she hits the Michael Buble market.

Lana del Rey, apparently, has been around for a while, or at least a few months. She first appeared on the music scene in June, when she released her single “Video Games.” Since then, she’s become one of the most hated musicians in the industry, derided for her past, her lack of musical talent, her good looks, her record deals, her music videos, being sexy, eating food, walking, and the way she came out of the womb.

People hate Lana Del Rey so much that Maura Johnston of The Village Voice named “Video Games” the“2nd Most Infuriating Song of 2011.” They hate her so much that they write long, nonsensical essays giving her the power to define what’s wrong with an entire generation of young women in America, like Amy Klein of the indie band Titus Andronicus, who says:

“Lana Del Ray is waiting for you to come home so you can go to bed and act out all of your wildest fantasies which is exactly what she wants to do—what you want to do, that is. Lana Del Ray is waiting for you because she is your mirror.

(This sounds awesome to me.)

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Icon of the Week: Maria Shriver

My friend said she’s going as Maria Shriver for Halloween, so I’ll make her my icon.

(Can you pick out Eunice?)

Maria Shriver was the daughter of Sargent Shriver (from whence she begot her name) and Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Eunice Kennedy Shriver was the fifth child in the most famous of all of the Kennedy Clans. All of her older siblings died horrible deaths (JFK, Joseph and Kathleen), or were lobotomized (Rose). Her little brother Bobby was shot while he was walking through the kitchen of the hotel. By the end of the 1960s, she was the oldest child remaining to Joseph P. Kennedy; father, lover, and former ambassador to England.

(There’s Maria, second from the left)

In other words, Maria Shriver is the niece of JFK, and the first cousin of JFK Jr.

The scary part about all of the information above is that I didn’t even need to look it up on Wikipedia. I knew it all already after reading Reckless Youth by Nigel Hamilton, a brash biography of JFK in his early years. Good read, highly recommend.

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Icon of the Week: Claire Forlani

Not many people appreciate Freddie Prinze Junior movies for the masterpieces of millennial teenage kitsch that they are. 

F—k Can’t Buy Me Love. Doesn’t anyone remember She’s All That? I certainly do. My senior year of high school, I became of the embodiment of Laney Boggs when one of the star basketball players in my grade noticed that I had finally gone through puberty. Every day on my way to AP Latin, him and his teammates would sing “There She Goes” from the doorway of their Regents Spanish class (Sixpence None the Richer, anyone?). Just like Laney, he asked me to prom. And then he broke up with me the week after. And that’s where the similarities between Laney Boggs and I end.

For Laney Boggs never suffered from such an abrupt dismissal. After she broke up with Freddie Prinze Junior, he realized how much he really loved her, got in his sweet ass Range Rover, and came to beg for her forgiveness. He helped her father clean his pool, or some shit, and it all ended happily ever after. Unless Freddie Prinze Junior was like my basketball player, in which case he’s probably living at home with his parents.

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