I’m Not Usually Vain Enough For Vanity Fair
October 8th, 2008. Filed under: Tuesday's Tempting Reads.I’m also too cheap frugal to put out the money for it. Well, almost always. I just purchased the first issue in years. What, might you ask, is so special about this issue to pry that much money from my hands for a magazine that isn’t sewing, knitting or garden related? I walked past the display and then had to backtrack to look at the beautiful woman on the front. I stopped and looked some more, checked out the articles in that issue, picked it up, put it back and walked out. But it kept haunting me. I didn’t make a special trip back for it, but I had to run out to Target to buy a bunch of moth balls and a couple cans of that expanding foam insulation. That story comes later. I decided that if I saw the magazine at the checkout, I would fork over $4.50 US for it. Now that’s a lot considering our economy has no upside right now, and I vowed to cut back even more on my expenses. There it was. The only copy left. I grabbed it like it was some precious jewel.
I could hardly wait to get home and start reading. Talk about disappointment. I had to wade through a half inch of adverts before finally finding my article. Ah, the disappointment was only momentary. There she was in all her glory. Marilyn. And if you don’t know who I’m talking about, you aren’t old enough to truly appreciate her. Marilyn was from the era of beautiful women with names like Liz, Audrey and Brigitte. Everyone knew them by their first names. Monroe, Taylor, Hepburn and Bardot weren’t needed to identify these ladies. Marilyn was the one who haunted us, while Liz dazzled us, Audrey gave us style and grace and Brigitte was the daring one. The mystery of Marilyn’s death is 46 years old. Was it suicide? Was it an accident? Was it a conspiracy? There’s still much speculation. Two locked filing cabinets and more than two years documentation of the contents are the basis of the article, “The Things She Left Behind.” A collection of her papers, fur, jewelry and other items were photographed by Mark Anderson. What do all these things reveal about Marilyn and her death? You don’t have to shuffle through 319 pages of ads to get to the article. It begins on page 320.
This is the 25th anniversary issue of Vanity Fair. In it you will also find interesting articles about Dominick Dunne, Annie Leibovitz, Brooke Astor, Anne Hathaway and Vladimir Putin. Also in this issue is the 14th annual “New Establishment” list of 100 leaders of the information age.
No, I don’t regret spending the money on this Vanity Fair. I know it’s highly unlikely I will do it again. Sometimes a woman just has to have a little splurge before going back into frugal mode.