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Actress, model, and singer, Hillary Duff is an American pop culture icon.  She has appeared in movies, commercials and television shows, and has released three music albums that have all topped charts in North America.  Hillary Duff was born on September 28th, in Houston, Texas.  She is the second child to parents Robert Duff, an owner of a chain of mini-markets, and Susan Cobb, a homemaker.  Hillary’s acting career would begin with a series of local theatre productions, alongside her sister, Haylie Duff.  At age six, Hillary and Haylie performed in a San Antonio production of the ballet ‘The Nutcracker Suite’.  Susan and her two daughters then moved to Los Angeles so that the sisters could pursue a performance career more seriously.  Robert Duff remained in Texas to stay in control of the family’s store chain.  In the coming years, Hillary and her sister would appear in a number of television commercials.  Hillary landed a couple of uncredited movie roles in the late 1990’s, but her first significant movie experience was the 1998 production ‘Casper Meets Wendy’.  The movie went directly to videos and did not get a lot of attention.  In 1999, Hillary had a supporting role in a television movie called ‘The Soul Collector’, for which she won a Young Artist Award for her performance.  Although she was dropped from the 2000 television show ‘Daddio’ before it aired, she landed a starring role in the series ‘Lizzie McGuire’ shortly after, a role that would gain her widespread recognition; she began appearing on teen magazines around the country.  In 2002 she starred in the independent film ‘Human Nature’, which was rated highly by critics.  Hillary Duff’s first major film role was in the 2003 movie ‘Agent Cody Banks’, which got enough attention in the box office to make a sequel, also starring Hillary.  Also in 2003, she appeared in the movie ‘Cheaper By the Dozen’ with Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt.  In 2004 she appeared in ‘A Cinderella Story’, and starred in ‘Raise Your Voice’.  Her most recent movie was ‘The Perfect Man’, and is starring in several upcoming movies. Hillary’s music career began with songs she performed for TV series Lizzie McGuire.  She also recorded a holiday album, Santa Claus Lane in 2002.  She recorded her first non-holiday album, Metamorphosis in 2003, which went to number one on both U.S. and Canadian charts.  Hillary’s second album, simply titled ‘Hillary Duff’, came towards the end of 2004 and also topped charts in North America.  Her third album, ‘Most Wanted’, debuted at number one when it was released in 2005.  There have been many rumors about a feud between Hillary and fellow American pop culture icon, Lindsay Lohan, though neither Hillary or Lindsay have ever said anything to confirm any hard feelings between the two. A girl of many talents, Hillary has already created a stirred in the music and acting industries.  With more movies and music on the way, Hillary Duff is a name that will likely remain in spotlights for some time to come. (0)

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If you are like me and grew up in a house with men any time between 1953 and now, you likely had some exposure to Playboy magazines.  They were furtively stowed away under the beds, stashed in bathroom cabinets, and in some bolder homes displayed on the living room coffee tables. And even if female, if you were anything like curious, you opened Playboy magazines to see what all the excitement was about.  Wow.  Wow.  Softly filtered light, unusually golden hues and exaggerated curves and darker toned areolas.  Big hair or long hair or…in certain times and places…no hair.   Full page cartoons and sketches featuring perverted men, nymphomaniacal women, mythological beasts, and Granny in a see-through negligee.  Interviews with popular writers.  And articles and ads on politics and cars and current events and colognes. So the cliché went, “I just read the articles.”  Well, once you got through the first couple of issues, concerned woman that you were, you did usually read just the articles, for Playboy Magazines had (and have) some cutting edge writing and some informative interviews and op-eds.  I really did just read the articles—usually—and especially loved the fiction.  My Mom had shelves of books and on the topmost shelf (where I had to climb to reach, of course—I would snatch down Updike, Nin, Mailer, and all the other racy authors of the decade, so finding the same authors in interview and in fiction sections in the Playboy magazines was a curious delight.  So THIS was what the adult world consisted of: naked bodies (well, naked women), clandestine extra-marital affairs, macho resentments, macho glorifications, and an encapsulation or capturing or the mindset and malaise of a time when the word “exploitation” was just being revised and the act of exploitation was just starting to be challenged.  A year ago, I was moving out of one home and into another.  The current roommate, who collects Playboy Magazines and has every issue from conception to contemporary, had tossed out duplicates.  The issues he discarded happened to be from the time period when I had discovered and was reading Playboy—thirty years ago.  I saved those issues and every once in awhile revisit a secret savoring, fascinated now by the period as it was depicted—the cars of the seventies, the hair, the bodies (more muscled, more flattened, and fleshier, respectively)…and the articles.  Were then and still are some of the best in periodical literature. (0)

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I came into the world of media and entertainment with a bad attitude—that public television was for geeks, for eggheads, for rich people who could afford the guide they send only if you donate, for people who didn’t believe in allowing their children to watch anything but one-point-five hours of television a day and ONLY public television at that.   I thought, that is, that public television was too much quiet documentary and snore-inducing symphony to bother with it.  But then I discovered a couple of kids’ shows that utter blasted, demolished my myopic assumptions. And how I made my discovery is pretty good, too.  I watch television (not public television) all the time that I am at home.  I live alone, work at home for the most part, and have the TV on for background quasi white noise or for selected programming when I am not working.  One night I turned off the television by remote and must have somehow hit channel 9 (which was then and out here the channel public television airs on).  The next morning, waking up with my legs half off the bed in preparation for bolting to the bathroom and kitchen for the morning wake-up rituals, I clicked on the remote.  The channel was 9, and the first image that appeared was so freakishly compelling that I was riveted to the bed’s edge as I watched: A massive baby’s head, centered in a cartoon sun that had spikes throbbing and flapping in the breeze.  Four stuffed doll like things with antennae, dressed in Dr. Denton-like footie pajamas of primary colors, puppet faces but real human bodies clearly inside these costumes that were the size of children.  And eerie galactic voices that were babyish yet mature cooing “Lala” in a lilting sing-songy way, and “Uh-oh,” in a giddy manner. What the hell had I done?  Had I gotten stoned on some invading gases during the night?  Was public television brainwashing us with utterly absurd images and sounds?  Was I being punished for my hard angles on public television broadcasting techniques?  Was I still asleep?  Turns out, as I was laughingly informed by my college students that semester, the show is called Teletubbies.   It is strange but hugely popular.  It is targeted toward a toddler audience, yet is highly controversial for adults/parents.  (One Teletubby, for instance, is male, but carries what is interpreted as a purse! Oh my!!)  So public television has some chutzpah after all! Public television also has Max and Ruby.  This show I also found by accident, having worked through one night till it was time to channel surf at 6 a.m..  On the show are cartoon big sister and cartoon little brother, both of whom are (anthropomorphized) rabbits.  Ruby constantly fusses over Max and Max is the quintessential toddler, getting into mischief, trying to get out of serious events and behaviors such as formal dinner parties and dressing up and staying clean.  The thing that is so amazing to me, though, is these sibling rabbits live in a house, eat, play, learn, sleep, have snacks, etc., all without any parental presence.  There is no mother or father living in the house.  So the concept of Ruby, who is about 12 (bunny scout age) and Max, very young, completely subsisting on their own strikes me as most interesting. It probably goes without saying, then, that I watch Teletubbies and Ruby and Max faithfully now.  And therefore, I now watch public television.  Sort of. (0)