Furthermore: Where the Headlines Take You

Scandalous Scandal!

Okay, so the news about Arnold Schwarzenegger's infidelity wasn't all that shocking - though I was surprised it had been kept quiet for so long - but it seems like if you choose the life of celebrity, you also choose the life of "fathering children with household staff", or flashing the paparazzi as you get out of your fancy SUV or punching people in the face.  Why is Hollywood so full of scandal?  Is it because actors spend so much time pretending to be someone else that they don't know what reality is anymore?  Is it the constant pressure on those in the limelight to be perfect, and so they become really, really not perfect?  Is it that we are all like this, but most of us are not under the media's microscope and no one really cares about our missteps?  Who knows what makes Hollywood the way it is, but it sure is great fodder for the little (or big) gossip in all of us!

So, gossip...if you're like most of the population (whether you'll openly admit it or not), you probably like a little gossip now and again.  If that's the case, you probably don't want to read Six Degrees of Paris Hilton, because it's not a little, it's a truckload!  Journalist Mark Ebner goes on a veritable gossip-spree in his book, dishing the dirt about Hollywood's most elite as told from former gangster and Paris Hilton buddy Darnell Riley.  Riley is described as "a thug from Los Angeles who managed to infiltrate Hollywood's most exclusive circles, exposing the shocking greed and hypocrisy he found among the rich and famous." 

Along the same vein, we've got a travel guide to California's seedy underbelly! Kristan Lawson and Anneli Rufus' California Babylon is (as it's subtitle states) a "guide to sites of scandal, mayhem, and celluloid in the Golden State."  As with most guidebooks to California, you'll find information on Disneyland, but instead of it being portrayed as the "greatest place on earth" you'll learn about all of the terrible accidents that have befallen visitors to the park.  And the Golden Gate is not described as one of the top tourist attractions in the Bay Area, but as "the world's most popular suicide spot".  As for scandal, this book has it's fair share, from Michael Jackson's plastic surgeries to Bugsy Siegel's mobster ties.  It's enough to spark the flames of any budding gossip!

If you'd like something with more meat to it, try Matthew J. Kinservik's Sex, Scandal, and Celebrity in Late Eighteenth-Century England.  The book jacket explains that "this book tells the story of the bitter feud between the Duchess of Kingston and the actor, Samuel Foote, which resulted in a pair of scandalous trials in London in the revolutionary year of 1776. Set against the backdrop of the American Revolution, the duchess's state trial for bigamy and Foote's criminal trial for attempted sodomy engrossed the attention of Londoners, including George III, Parliament, and the nobility."  Kinservik, a Professor of English at the University of Delaware, has written a thoroughly researched, in-depth and yet still readable book, and he does a good job of capturing the cultural sense of the time.  

And so we see people have always been engrossed in the scandals of others.  This fascination for gossip is explored in Laura Kipnis book titled How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior.  Plus it looks at why people feel the need to behave so badly on the national (and international) stage!  Published last year, Kipins uses four recent media sensations as examples including the astronaut-in-diapers Lisa Nowak and the memoir-turned-fiction writer James Frey.  She doesn't make any earth-shattering discoveries in her book, but her writing is smart and humorous and tends to hit the nail on the head when looking at why folks are seduced by, and in some cases addicted to, these juicy scandals.  And if this isn't enough for you, the library has plenty of other scandalous titles to feed your appetite!

And I just want to say, that even with all the hubbub, Terminator will always be one of my favorite movies of all time!