Okay, people, can we get started? Okay. I hope someone remembered to get me some cigarettes – okay, thank god. Pass that ashtray down here and let’s get this over with.

The first order of business today – I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again: I don’t care what you wear on your feet around the office, and I don’t care what you wear on your feet at home, but I must remind everyone once again NOT to wear unstylish shoes while entering and leaving the building. As the editors of Millennium Woman magazine, we need to wear millennium woman shoes. If our readers see us in Birkenstocks, they’ll either subscribe to Elle in a huff or start thinking they don’t really need Louis heels and box pleats, or lip liner either, and then nobody in this room has a job. Just get as far as the elevator in the pumps, that’s all I ask. Okay? Everybody clear? Great.

All right, next item. Thank you to everyone on staff who entered this month’s “pick the ‘new black'” contest – I enjoyed a great many of the suggestions, and I think we can use quite a few in future issues. For the current issue, I’ve decided to go with Melissa’s suggestion, so for this month, white is the “new black.” We can really work this angle as a radical departure from the usual “new blacks” like brown and grey, so let’s try to throw around words and phrases like “blank slate,” “negative becomes positive,” the usual clichÈs. I would, however, caution the editors to take it easy on the virgin angle. Any other thoughts on this before we move on? Daria? Excellent idea, I think a Clorox ad tie-in would work very well with this. Of course, the clothes Selena ordered for the shoot would disintegrate at the mere sight of a washing machine, but we don’t need to tell the Clorox rep that. Oh, that reminds me – let’s use our more emaciated models for this layout. White does tend to add pounds, and some of these outfits would make Gwyneth Paltrow look like a sumo wrestler, which won’t sell the clothes. And Elise, our new assistant editor, had an idea, something about “from work to wedding and back again” – did I get that right, Elise? Okay, we’d want to do something with pinstripes and crinolines, but together, you know, something readers will find utterly preposterous but at the same time worthy of striving for, because let’s face it, if they don’t have at least two fingers down their throats by the time they get to the photo credits, we haven’t done our jobs.

This brings me to my next point – namely, that I looked through our past few issues over the weekend, and I find that lately we’ve concentrated too heavily on clothes the average woman would actually consider wearing. The June issue, for instance – entirely too many hip-and-thigh-friendly pieces in the “navy is the new black” layout, and I believe I counted no fewer than four blouses that retail for under three hundred dollars. I mean, my friend’s niece showed up at a pool party in one of the outfits we profiled in July, and I don’t mind if What’s-Her-Face Bessette Kennedy tries one of our looks, but evidently Macy’s has already watered down our ideas and started hawking them to college sophomores, so we clearly need to rethink our approach. Let’s not lose sight of the essential phoniness and planned obsolescence inherent in fashion, folks. We cannot let our readers view looking good as an attainable goal, or we might as well just admit to them that we all wear khakis, in a size 12. With this in mind, I’ve compiled a list of sartorial elements I would like to see included in the next couple of issues: accordions; vinyl hats; metal undergarments; fire; clay; the disarticulated limbs of other people; broken glass; and stains. Feel free to improvise your own outrages, but before you pitch me any ideas, ask yourself – will it make Milla Jovovich look like a complete moron? If so, show me an outline.

All right, let’s take a look at the make-up section. Amber suggested spotlighting the new “Broken Hymen” lip glaze, which if I recall correctly comes in an environmentally correct hemp tube and costs forty dollars, so let’s go with that. I know for a fact that they test the stuff by injecting it into newborn kittens, but as long as our advertisers don’t get wind of it, I don’t see a problem. Now, I assigned Elise to select a facial feature to emphasize this month, just so she’d get the hang of it. Keep in mind, Elise, last month we said strong lips, so we can’t use those for a couple of months, but any other part of the face you may consider fair game. The chin? The chin. Interesting. Okay, let’s run it this way: minimal lips, minimal eyes; mention the chin’s proximity to both the mouth and the neck to make it sound more erogenous; comb the photo file for pictures of celebrities with strong chins. Don’t forget the emphasize/de-
emphasize tips. What do you mean, “how”? How would I know? I don’t use blush, for god’s sake. In their hearts, they know these cosmetics pointers don’t work, so just wing it for two hundred words, okay?

On to fragrances. I don’t feel particularly inspired this month, so let’s re-run the piece we did in April. People can never keep their florals and musks straight anyway, but just in case they recognize it, let’s call it a clip ën’ save to make it seem fresh. Also, if someone – Naomi, maybe – could work up a sidebar on what the shape of your perfume bottle says about you, that would work, and let’s throw that up on the web site as well. No, Naomi, as a matter of fact I don’t care what the shapes say. Make up a list of back-handed compliments and assign them at random. I don’t have time to hold your hands, people!

Melissa, you already submitted your women’s health issues piece to me – excellent work on the dangers of underwires, and I think everyone should take a look at it. But in light of the fact that the letters page has felt a bit limp the last few months, I’d like to throw a real scare into the readers this time around, so let’s add a special report on an obscure venereal disease that everyone long since forgot about – syphilis, perfect. We should probably call the CDC and make sure people still get syphilis, and if they do, track down some “it happened to me” sob stories. Yes, Elise? Well, magazines like ours exist to make women feel good about having no self-esteem, and articles about the dangerous pitfalls of having a sex life work toward that end. That way, you see, the reader feels justified in not having gotten laid in four years. Do you follow? Oh, not at all, you can’t learn if you don’t ask questions.

Culture section – Naomi, I’ve compiled a list of chick flicks, so pick two that won’t make you puke and write them up. I know, I know, but just use words like “engaging” and “fascinating commentary.” Yes, you have to watch the whole thing. I also have a stack of Prozac date-rape memoirs in my office and the building manager tells me that they’re creating a fire hazard, so Edie, take the top two, review them, and call maintenance and have them cart away the rest. Oh, and while you’ve got them on the phone, ask them to fix that irritating whine coming from the radiator in my office – I can’t stand it anymore, it’s like sharing a cubicle with Camille Paglia. Over to Darren for the sensitive-man profile. Right, everyone else has had Nic Cage, which means we have to have him too, but for the love of Jesus try to do something about the chest hair – send Selena over mid-shoot with a turtleneck or something, do what you have to do, but I won’t have an ape in my magazine. Who have we got for the “Coolin’ It” feature for this issue? Oh, sorry, Elise. The “Coolin’ It” page takes a peek inside a famous person’s refrigerator. Well, I wouldn’t use the word “ridiculous,” but I don’t quite see the appeal either, although the readers seem to like it. Okay, whose fridge have we invaded? Jennifer Lopez, eh. Did she have a can of Crisco on the top shelf? Oh, come on – you’ve seen the caboose on that girl. All right, all right, just don’t shoot her from the side, okay?

Well, I think that about covers it for today. Mindy, if you could meet me in ten minutes, I’d like to go over that cappuccino machine memo, and everyone else, let’s meet back here after lunch to draw straws for the horoscopes.

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