For some inscrutable reason, former Senator Arlen Specter felt compelled to describe Sarah Palin this way in his new memoir, Life Among the Cannibals:

“Still, she [Palin] was a total charmer, very friendly. The few things she said were intelligent. We were sitting virtually knee to knee in the cramped bus, and she radiated sensuality. Her skirt rode above her knees — not exactly short, but close.”

Let the record show that Specter isn’t the only geezer who’s gazed lovingly at the Palin gams. On the other hand, Specter, apparently being an equal-opportunity gasbag, also gawked at John freaking Thune:

“John Thune, who looked like a movie star in or out of clothes, was constantly stretching. His lanky body seemed to have some kinks to iron out.”

All I can say is: good thing this isn’t a novel.

(Via The Jane Dough.)

This shot of Sarah Michelle Gellar on Bravo TV’s Watch What Happens Live earlier this week was, I deemed, worth further investigation:

Since it is no particular secret that I’m a sucker for the classic little black dress, even when half of it is actually sort of blue, I went scraping through several dozen sources trying to find a shot where she’s standing. I did find one, but apparently she wasn’t happy about something:

Come to think of it, the dress isn’t all that wonderful either. Maybe the person in the second shot is actually the evil twin from Ringer.

Under scrutiny: Jennifer Lawrence, perhaps best known as Ree Dolly in Winter’s Bone, for which she got an Academy Award nomination, at this week’s People’s Choice Awards. At least part of the reason you’re seeing this here is that I’m enthralled by this little cobalt-blue number conjured up by Viktor & Rolf:

I even like the shoes — Sergio Rossi — except for one minor detail:

I mean, these are about a size and a half too big for her.

About a week ago, I did a short piece about Louise Mensch, a British MP who claims that discussion of her appearance had “obscured” her political statements, and I followed up with a look at Home Secretary Theresa May from here down [gestures], suggesting that the press, being obsessed with this sort of thing, would likely provide more blogfodder.

With that in mind, here is Caroline Flint, currently MP for Don Valley (in South Yorkshire) and Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change — I’m guessing she’s for the former, against the latter — as she appeared in Observer Woman in 2009 at the age of forty-seven:

Said Elizabeth Day, who conducted the interview with Flint:

Caroline Flint is undeniably glamorous and, professionally, that posed her a problem: should she ignore her looks and seek to play them down or should she accentuate them and wear clothes that showed her to best advantage?

If she had taken the former route, Flint would no doubt have been mocked for her lack of style in acerbic newspaper opinion pieces asking why our politicians are so dispiritingly dowdy in comparison with the French. By opting for the latter, Flint made herself an easy target for the grey men in government who want to dismiss her as a flibbertigibbet whose pretty little head was not up to the job.

And what does Flint think about it?

She went on to say that she found the attention paid to her looks could be insulting “when it gets in the way of the other things I hope to contribute … It’s a bit of a double-edged sword how you look … I don’t think you can win on it.”

She’s probably right about that.

Caroline Flint was first elected to the Commons in 1997; Labour has held this seat since 1922.

(Title from a Kirsty MacColl tune.)

The Yardbirds used to say that “cars and girls are easy come by in this day and age,” and while this doesn’t match my own personal experience, well, hey, I’m not a rock star either.

With that in mind, here’s a car and a girl you can’t have: Canadian model Jessica Stam in a Mercedes-Benz concept car.

Actually, you might have a shot at the car: this particular Mercedes is supposed to indicate the design direction for the new A-Class, which up to now has been a rather dowdy sort of vanlet at the bottom of the line. (It’s even front-wheel-drive, fercrissake.) And when you get right down to it, there are worse things in life than you and the girl next door hitting the road with a CD full of Jeff Beck tunes.

From last week’s Jack and Jill premiere in Hollywood, we’re happy to present Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg, better known these days as Jane Seymour:

The woman portrayed on the backdrop, I assume, is “Jill,” played by, um, Adam Sandler.

Somebody, somewhere, is imagining Famke Janssen on a bicycle. If it’s you, then this is what you’re looking for:

So far as I can tell, this dates to mid-August, but she’s been an avid cyclist for some time.

And today she’s 46 years old, which seems as improbable to me as it might to you.

(Title source, in case you missed it.)

Out here in blogdom, where classical music is definitely a minority taste, what everyone seems to remember about Yuja Wang is That Orange Dress. I mentioned, not long afterward, that I was perplexed by offerings of her recordings: her label, Deutsche Grammophon, is asking top dollar, but the downloads they vend are at least technically superior to those offered elsewhere.

Then last night, I was busy snagging A Very She & Him Christmas (on sale!) from Amazon when their Robot Suggester told me that I could get Wang’s 2009 Sonatas & Études for a mere $7.98. I jumped. The timing seemed odd, but then it occurred to me that the first sonata in the set is Chopin’s No. 2 in B-flat minor, the third movement of which is the famous “Marche funèbre,” a useful piece of music to have on hand around Halloween.

Buying the download got me only a tiny square of artwork, which is to be expected. And since it doesn’t scale upward very well, I clipped this photo (by Chen Chii-quan) from a Taiwanese news site:

A little more modest, but no less lovely.

What’s on the album, besides the Chopin: two études by Ligeti, Scriabin’s “Sonata-Fantasy” in G-sharp minor, and the Liszt Sonata in B minor. Obviously she’s not going for the “easy” stuff.

Kristi Harrison at Cracked.com (what, them again?) apparently suffers from Why Do Guys Fall For This Type When I’m Right Here? Syndrome.

And by This Type, she means, well, this type:

The plaint:

If “cute” was a commodity Zooey would be the Federal Reserve. Scratch that. She’d be China and the rest of us girls would be used food stamps that once doubled as Clue scorecards. THANK GOD cute is not a commodity is what I’m saying.

Do you remember back when Friends was big, and every girl you knew had Rachel’s haircut? (AC)ZD is the Rachel of girl people right now. If you’re of the female persuasion and you don’t want to dress like syphilis in a tube top, this is who you’re probably getting some fashion cues from. And if you’re a guy, a reasonable facsimile of this girl is who you’re trying to meet, not to have dirty, filthy sex with, but to marry and make babies and dirty, filthy noodle casseroles with.

But you never, ever will. Everevereverever. You have a better chance of meeting a meatball lady and making SpaghettiO babies with her. Here’s why.

There follow various minor issues, but the real one seems to be this:

What made the nerds of the world ever think she was one of them?

At what point did ordinary guys who were maaaaaybe a little too into video games or anime or not-sports look at a girl with perfect skin, a tiny little figure, a face that’s pretty by every measurable standard we’ve got and say, “Yeah, that’s attainable.”

Now answer me this: What is the color of the sky on that hitherto-undetected planet on which Ben Gibbard, front man of the indie band Death Cab for Cutie, who grew up in the midst of the Pacific Northwest grunge explosion in the Nineties, who has a college degree in Environmental Chemistry fercrissake, is not a nerd? And we know what the Z-girl thinks of him: she married him. For all I know, they’re making filthy casseroles together at this very moment, while Kristin drops another $7 at Panera and sobs into her tea.

(Not surprisingly, a lot of people sent me this link, though Dave was first.)

Ideological differences, if any, aside, HuffPo’s Fashion Whip says there’s one reason to prefer Sarah Palin over Michele Bachmann: better shoes.

Okay, that’s technically two reasons, or at least two at a time. Chunky sandals in this context, declares the Whip, are just so last century:

Women’s shoes still speak volumes in the political arena, whether or not we like to admit it. In 2005, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice conveyed U.S. power in knee high boots at a time when America was facing a global PR crisis. More recently, Sarah Palin traipsed from Wasilla to Washington punditry on glamorous stiletto heels, while Michelle Obama encouraged women to feel dressed-up in a pair of pointy flats. The perpetually stylish Jill Biden show how to elongate one’s legs with her daring, nude stiletto heels.

One wonders whether Bachmann’s schlubby shoes are merely her latest political calculation — a two-and-a-half-inch signifier of the everyday mom turned national candidate. Perhaps Bachmann’s jumbled look conveys the aura of a person who can dress for success after more than a decade in elected office, yet is not so pointy-toed as to have stepped beyond her Minnesota roots.

Political calculation is not, of course, impossible, but I don’t think that’s the issue: I’m going out on a limb here and guessing that the same malevolent force that gives Bachmann her migraines might also cause her massive pain at any heel height deemed fashionable.

(Tweeted in my general direction by Michael Bates; a tip of her choice of headgear to Tabitha Hale.)

An offhand observation from the spring of 2010:

Presumably owing to business considerations, the picture of [Laura] Soave being circulated by Chrysler is carefully tuned for maximum blandness. In person, she’s much more striking.

In case you’d forgotten, Laura Soave, a former Volkswagen exec, was hired by Sergio Marchionne to head up the Fiat brand in the US. Somewhere in this photo is a Fiat 500:

Incidentally, the current Cinquecento is supposedly available in 14 colors, but every last one I’ve seen on the roads in this town has been this shade of Cinnamon Red Hot(s).

(Photo snitched from Autoblog.)

Lynn spent some of yesterday surfing through The Sartorialist, and happened upon several outfits she deemed worthy of note, or at least snark. Whether she’s analyzed this particular ensemble correctly, I don’t know, but I’m willing to throw the question open:

I have never understood why anyone would wear shorts with a sweater. If it’s warm enough for shorts it is too warm for a sweater; if it’s cool enough for a sweater it’s too cool for shorts, therefore it always looks silly when you put the two together. All I can think of is she’s thinking, “It’s a bit cool outside but my legs are too awesome not to show off so I’ll suffer.”

Sounds plausible enough. And besides, this was in New York, where it can be a touch on the chilly side in the morning, and then you roast alive in the afternoon, or so I’m told.

Update: See also this Seattle incident.

Orange socks, yet, from London’s Jonathan Aston:

MyTights.com advises that these socks are “incredibly stretchy and really soft. They will look great with your pants or ankle boots and a skirt.”

This completes the Orange Trifecta, unless of course something else comes along that draws my attention.

Boston Globe columnist Beth Teitell, musing about the Duchess of Cambridge’s wardrobe selections of late, finds herself questioning the wisdom of fashionistas:

There she was getting off a Royal Canadian Air Force plane in Canada, looking polished in a navy lace overlay dress, a coordinating clutch — and sheer hose. And there she was greeting adoring fans in Ottawa, looking lovely in a cream dress from Reiss, red shoes — and sheer hose. OK, I know she’s traveling with her hairdresser and spends more on a single clutch than I do on my entire handbag wardrobe, but I found myself thinking that maybe if I just wore stockings things would happen for me, too.

Blasphemy! I hear you cry. And yet:

American women understandably rejoiced when the fashion gods freed us from stockings, but it turns out that the only thing worse than being forced to wear stockings in summer is not being allowed to wear stockings in summer.

Then again, it was 110°F in Oklahoma City Saturday. Hosiery of the non-sock variety was nowhere to be seen until well after dark, if then. Meanwhile, the Duchess is simply following protocol.

Jezebel’s Margaret Hartmann observes:

Now I own a few pairs of stockings and like to wear them when faced with blisters, frigid temperatures or particularly clingy dresses. I also tend to break them out for extremely formal affairs, and I’d count any day you’re addressed as “Duchess” as a formal occasion. But I’m not particularly attached to pantyhose. I’m just hoping (probably in vain) that Kate manages to make stockings slightly more acceptable, thus putting an end to the feuding over what leg attire a woman chooses on a given day.

This is the point at which I am required to mention that the usual garb at 42nd and Treadmill is T-shirts and jeans, and that sigh you just heard may represent either relief or frustration. Or both.

(Via Broke & Beautiful, which finds the newsworthiness of it all just slightly risible.)

Paragon of studliness that he undoubtedly is, the Instant Man had no trouble at all pointing to this possibly-dubious set of assertions:

Middle-aged men are being chased so much by single women that they are becoming deluded about their sex appeal.

A drought of mid-40s single men, compared with single women of the same age, means they are fiercely pursued, inflating their opinion of their attractiveness.

KPMG demographer Bernard Salt, author of The Big Tilt: What Happens When Boomers Bust and Xers and Ys Inherit the Earth, says the imbalance has created a monster he dubs the “hotness delusion syndrome”.

At fifty-seven, I’m a bit too old for this phenomenon, and I’m assuming the demographics were different when I was in my middle forties; certainly nothing like that ever happened to me back then. Moreover, I think I can safely say that I have never overestimated my own sex appeal, and I’m pretty sure the readership can back me up on that.

This being a piece from an Australian newspaper, I have to wonder: is this something that only happens down under? KPMG, of course, operates worldwide, but I don’t get the impression that Salt is coming up with this stuff at the behest of KPMG. Then again, Salt once proclaimed, presumably tongue-in-cheek, that the Australian regions with the best economic performance were those in which motion pictures starring Sigrid Thornton were made.

For reference, Sigrid Thornton is now 52, and looks something like this:

Probably too late to lure her to Detroit, though.

Thursdays the Oklahoman runs a section called “Mood,” which basically takes the existing “Life” section, turns it from portrait to landscape orientation, and glams it up with whatever fashion news seems pertinent at the moment. Last week there was a bit about Summer Shoes, which I of course read — I have to read the section, because that’s where they move the contract-bridge column on Thursdays — and I caught a glance of “Lorissa” by Sam Edelman, worn by [insert name of anonymous model with nice legs]. At the time, I didn’t think much of it; cute pump, peep-toe, what appeared to be some random animal print out back. Certainly it wasn’t going to make it onto these pages.

The paper eventually posted a Webified slideshow of the shoes in that section, in which the quality of newsprint photos was not a factor, and holy mother of pearl, that’s not some random animal print out back, as this more-detailed photograph reveals:

Stones and studs, sharp edges, perhaps excellent for impromptu training of your inept dance partner, but downright dangerous in the hands of on the feet of a novice. (Just putting them on, I fear, could be hazardous.) Zappos stocks this in various colors — you’re looking at Nude Leather — for $199.95; I’m sure the “killer heels” description on site was intended to be metaphorical. For the data collectors: 4½-inch heel, ½-inch platform, weight (at size 7) 14 ounces. Maybe all that mineral weight in the back will keep you from pitching forward.

The first place I hit this afternoon was the Belle Isle Library, which is getting a new roof. I’m guessing that it was damaged in the same hailstorm that took out chunks of my roof last June, and they’re just now getting around to fixing it. (Metro Library, unlike too many others, is not hurting for money, but they don’t move with incredible speed either.) Various bits of equipment took up about half of the west-side parking lot, which meant that parking near the north door was at a premium.

The second place I hit this afternoon was the Homeland store at May and Britton, which is being remodeled, perhaps in response to the impending arrival of Whole Foods (four miles away) and Sunflower Farmers Market (two miles away). They’d already redone the produce section; today, much of the flooring had been de-tiled in preparation for whatever new stuff is to be put down. Truth be told, what I want most from them is a reduction in scanning sensitivity on the self-checkout machines: about once a month the robotic voice goes into a spaz about an unexpected item in the bagging area. I have occasionally cussed at the damn thing: “Well, I expected it. What the hell is wrong with you?”

From the Department of Having Seen Too Many Movie Romances: I pulled into traffic behind this Fabulous Babe on a red Vespa. (Actually, I couldn’t tell much from her face except what I could see in her rear-view mirrors, but being on a red Vespa garners Fabulous Babe points all by itself, and, well, nice legs were in evidence.) She had her purse stuffed into a saddlebag, but one of the two buckles on the saddlebag was not cinched down. I started conjuring up a story about how the purse went flying, and how I amazingly managed to retrieve it without causing a wreck, and from this highly-unlikely Meet Cute, we lived happily ever after.

And speaking of unbelievable stories, at 6 pm, to greet the end of the world, I took off my clothes — no sense littering the place — and went out back to meet the Heavenly Host. (Hey, I came into this world that way, I can jolly well leave it under those circumstances.) I got two visitors, both birds, but no other aerial activity was manifest, so I went back inside and started typing.

Consumer Reports showed up yesterday, and one of the smaller articles had to do with women’s razors, which are apparently exhibiting the same sort of multiple-blade madness that men — other than yours truly, anyway — presumably enjoy. (I have stuck stubbornly to a twin-blade setup all these years, except for a brief period when I regressed to a single blade.) The progress, if progress it be:

• Gillette bolts three blades into the Venus;
• Schick responds with a feminine variation on the four-blade Quattro theme;
• Gillette upgrades Venus to “Embrace” with five blades.

The leading-edge technology, for the moment, comes from Korea and is sold by places like CVS; it has six blades. Target.com has a six-bladed razor with its own built-in supply of shaving cream, be nice and clean, shave every day and you’ll always look keen.

The CR testers, for their part, were evidently unimpressed by this constant hardware escalation.

HelloGiggles.com is the project of these three excellent babes:

More specifically:

Founded by actress/musician Zooey Deschanel, producer Sophia Rossi and blogger/web personality Molly McAleer, HelloGiggles.com is the ultimate entertainment destination for smart, independent and creative females. Everything hosted on the site will be lady-friendly, so visitors need not worry about finding the standard Boys Club content that makes many entertainment sites unappealing to so many of us.

There are moments when I revel in fratboy humor, and moments when I am utterly appalled by it. (And sometimes, yes, those moments are adjacent to one another.) Their first piece, a three-minute spot for Teleflora, is cutely whimsical, and I have a high tolerance for whimsical cuteness, which gives me another excuse to keep an eye on HelloGiggles.

Last spring, I cast an aspersion or two at the idea of socks with sandals, especially high-fashion (and presumably high-dollar) sandals, a notion the readership generally was not inclined to embrace, especially with serious sox.

Now this isn’t a sandal. It’s a pump with peep toe — from Christian Louboutin, yet, though it’s hard to detect the red — and those are some presumably non-serious socks, based on the perhaps-arguable notion that the shoes run £385, not an inconsiderable sum, and the socks come from the Marks and Sparks bargain bin, three pair for £2. For some reason (the color scheme, perhaps?), I find this particular combination somehow risible. Then again, I’m inclined to find the entire outfit, such as it is, somehow risible.

(The full photo is here. The young lady on the stool is Kara Scodelario. I thought of tossing this into the Rule 5 bin, but she looked far too bored. The shot comes from the UK version of InStyle, last July.)