Edith Laughs. Andrew McCarthy Probably Has Mixed Feelings, As Usual...

I've returned to my computer, lo this sunny afternoon, freshly haircutted, looking absolutely divine, if a tad sweaty (my ensemble, which was so appropriate for a cool summer morning, turned out to be a bit much for an almost-sultry afternoon), to find that two different people named Kate have posted comments relating to Andrew McCarthy. One of them has landed, confusingly, with my entry on Rebecca Mead's book about weddings -- so poke around until you find it. Miss Edith cannot help but smile that there are so many Kates with so many opinions -- that is, of course, as it should be...

Mannequin. Probably not really about what you think.

Miss Edith will cheerfully admit to having a little thing for Andrew McCarthy, star of one of the most under-rated movies of the 1980s (Heaven Help Us, which also starred Mary Stuart Masterson, John Heard, and Donald Sutherland, if memory serves; it also features very nice turns by Jennifer Dundas and Wallace Shawn – why don’t people talk about Jennifer Dundas’ film work more? She always played genuinely interesting kids – I admire her from afar, though I don’t follow her stage work much). Andrew McCarthy was the guy I liked best in St. Elmo’s Fire; he was the obvious choice if you were, like Miss Edith, one of those punk-goth-pretentious teenage girls who found Rob Lowe just boring, too pretty to take seriously.

One of the things I liked best about Andrew McCarthy was that he starred in a movie of a book I loved. The movie was called The Beniker Gang, and I’ve never seen it, actually – unfortunately for me – but the book it’s based on, Dear Lola, was one of my favorite YA books when I was a kid. I still re-read it fairly regularly. Its author, Judie Angell, was hands-down one of my favorite YA writers, and I have kept copies of her books all these years. I know it’s silly but I always thought Andrew McCarthy earned points for being in a movie based on one of her books. Had they ever made a movie of Ronnie and Rosey, he’d’ve made a good Rosey, too.

For all my affection for Andrew McCarthy, though, I’ve never been able to sit through one of his most popular movies, Mannequin. I just have never cared for this bit of fluff.

The reason I’m bringing up all this nostalgia is that I recently stumbled on a website that made me crow with joy – it made me wish I owned a clothing boutique and were a rich woman so that I could justify spending lots of money with these people. There’s a company called DecoEyes that makes replicas of early-to-mid-20th century mannequins, mostly busts. (As Auntie Mame says to a befuddled Patrick, “That’s the head, you know.”) If you go to their website, you’ll see something that may bore you or it may creep you out, I don’t know, but if you’re like me, you’ll just sort of sigh and sink into your chair and fall into a kind of daze… As I say, I wish I had a reason to do business with these people, but since I don’t, I just wanted to thank them for their work and their website, which has made me, for no good reason, very happy.