End of ADS-L Digest - 5 Aug 1997 to 6 Aug 1997 ********************************************** Subject: ADS-L Digest - 6 Aug 1997 to 7 Aug 1997 There are 7 messages totalling 310 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Birthsurfing; Facelift; Less Is More; Supermodels 2. Research position vacant 3. Vonnegut and "culprit zero" (was: "Is...is") 4. RE>Vonnegut and "culprit zero" (was: "Is...is") 5. "Culprit Zero" attribution (2) 6. parky ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 7 Aug 1997 00:14:48 -0400 From: "Barry A. Popik" Subject: Birthsurfing; Facelift; Less Is More; Supermodels BIRTHSURFING WHERE IS GARETH BRANWYN? GET HIM OVER HERE! I'M COINING A NEW WORD! ****BIRTHSURFING**** Yes, when you see this in American Speech's "Among the New Words," remember you saw it on ADS-L first! Today is Hiroshima Day, the anniversary of the day the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. People dress up in death masks and chant "Never again!" It is also, naturally, my birthday. I was reading some mail and news and sports scores. I didn't realize the time, but it must have been 12:01 a.m. I received a flashmail message on AOL from HunnyBeth: "Happy Birthday!" I don't know a HunnyBeth. She "birthsurfed" my AOL bio, found out that today was my birthday, and was the first person to wish me a happy birthday. I thanked her. "It's my birthday, too!" she wrote. I checked her AOL bio. She's a seventeen-year-old girl from Michigan. "17!" she wrote. I wished her a happy birthday--I mean, what did she want me to do? A few moments later, I got a flashmail message from ILuvDakota. "Happy birthday!" wrote ILuvDakota. She's an eighteen-year-old girl from Connecticut. I was about to reply, when there was ANOTHER flashmail message-- "Happy birthday!" wrote EboneQueen, an eighteen-year-old girl (WHERE OH WHERE IN MY AOL BIO DID I WRITE THAT I WANTED THIS?!) from North Carolina. This is the first time that I had been online on my birthday at 12:01 a.m. Last year I was in Scotland at an ICOS conference (on Names). The year before I had Panix, not AOL. And if this is happening to me, it's probably happening to loads of others. Ask your AOL friends to sign on at 12:00 a.m. on their birthdays if they want the attention. It probably works for young kids. One says "Hi," the other says "Hi," and maybe they get together. For others, however, the flashmail birthday messages can be a real pain in the ass. There should be a word for this, so: BIRTHSURFING: Wishing a "Happy Birthday" to a complete stranger on his/her birthday, usually at the stroke of midnight. BIRTHDATING: "Dating" a person who has just "birthsurfed" you. BIRTHBAIT: What happens when you have been "birthsurfed" by "jailbait." I talked briefly to all three, but how? I tell them my age and they call me a pervert, when I didn't even do anything in the first place! I was in my apartment reading! PRESIDENT CLINTON: I want every thirteen-year-old on the internet! Thanks, Prez. For my next birthday, I'm going to sleep. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- FACELIFT A recent movie was titled FACE/OFF. I found some stuff about this on my way to "supermodel." Vogue for 1 November 1971, pg. 68, col. 3, has an ad for a product called "FACE-LIFT." Vogue for 15 September 1971, pg. 115+, has an article "FACE-LIFTS/when?...how?...if?" by Simona Morini. She credits Dr. Charles Conrad Miller of Chicago for giving the first "face-lift" in the early 1900s. In 1912, a Madame le Docteur A. Noel of Paris noticed this and began giving face-lifts in Europe. An article in the New Republic, 25 November 1931, pg. 40, col. 1, "Beauty for Sale," begins: "BEFORE an audience of fifteen hundred women in the Grand Ballroom of the Pennsylvania Hotel in New York City, a plastic surgeon performed what was described in the newspapers as 'the first public face-lifting operation on record.'" OED has 1934 for "face-lift" and 1922 for "face-lifting." It appears to be way off the mark on both entries. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- LESS IS MORE A Vogue article on swimsuits was titled "Less is More." Hard to disagree with the photos that were provided. The December 1971 Vogue, pg. 169, cols. 1-2 on Piet Mondrian is titled "'Less is more' art." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------- SUPERMODELS One more try. Vogue, June 1972, table of contents (I don't see a page number), has "Naomi Sims, Supermodel--in real life." The article itself on page 122 says "'BEAUTY SURPASSES PREJUDICE'/NAOMI SIMS/SUPER MODEL." No space in one, a space in the other. A check of Vogue in 1978 (the SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE year) found in September 1978, page 463, "Supermodel 'Ultima' woman, actress Lauren Hutton." I didn't see any "supermodels" in Vogue earlier than this June 1972 citation; certainly, it was not there in the May 1972 portrait of Veruschka (Newsweek called her a supermodel a few years later). In March 1, 1972, pg. 118, "Cybill (Shepherd) at twenty-one is a top model." On page 123, "Fashion designer Halston said of her (Donna Jordan), 'She's an original, a superstar! Extravagant-looking, flamboyant, superchic, mad...'" Two things--which you wouldn't find on a NEXIS search strictly for "supermodel"--may be important. Vogue, December 1971, pp. 102-103, is about the Andrew Lloyd-Webber & Tim Rice rock-opera JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, "Why is Super-star a super-hit?" Also, in the October 15, 1971 issue, Vogue introduced Dr. Robert Atkins's "SUPER DIET." Page 148 lists THE SUPER RULES, THE SUPER VEGETABLES, THE SUPER SALAD MATERIAL, THE SUPER PLOT, and SUPER NO-NO'S. Pages 104-105 introduce the thing: It's a Social Smash with the Lunch Group...it's the Thin Thing Inside an Obsessive Cook... it's a New Achievement Plan for a Lean Loner... it's SUPER DIET It would appear, therefore, that both "superman" and "superstar" gave us "supermodel." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------- BIRTHSURFING, again I'm writing this online. Weasle2614 and RaraWeebol both sent Happy Birthday e-mails. Flash messages of "Happy Birthday" came from BethB213 (in Indiana), It sleeps (a nineteen-year-old girl), and MRWINN1. "Birthsurfing" is clearly a phenomenon to be recorded for the ages. GET ME GARETH BRANWYN! WHERE IS GARETH BRANWYN?? P.S. Marilyn, if you're out there, could you sing something...?