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"There's a kind of low-key genius..." Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood-Elsewhere.com
"Ford, author of an analysis of American Jewish journalism, Yesterday's News Tomorrow, is one of the most controversial figures in the blogging world." Jewish Chronicle

Here are some WireImage photos from the L.A. Direct Magazine "Remember to Give" Holiday Party. WENN Photos.

Official website for L.A. Direct Magazine.

From the LAT:

She'll tell you that she prefers being a DJ to modeling because "it actually takes talent," which might explain her eagerness to try any new venture. She launched a line of swimwear -- D'Amore by Marceau -- at the Las Vegas trade shows, and it's scheduled to roll out next summer. (Her first line, a collection of tank tops called H. Starlet, hit the market five years ago.) She says she plans to start a line of hemp bags, but one wonders if that's possible, especially because she says she's turning all her attention to acting. D'Amore recently appeared alongside Vincent Pastore, Talia Shire and Ronnie Marmo in "Pizza with Bullets," a Mafioso-mozzarella romantic comedy involving a pizza parlor owner and a dying don. Her role -- the girlfriend of pizza shop owner Johnny Casanova -- had a familiar feel for D'Amore, who in August opened a D'Amore's Pizza restaurant with her younger sister Bonnie in Tarzana, eschewing the lure of Hollywood because she wanted to do it right. "I wanted to have something cute with my sister," she said. "And keep my dad's legacy going and keep it in the family." She has also co-written a pair of movie scripts, one with her fiancé filmmaker Matthew Ross. "One's about a blackjack player, and the other one's about a female DJ, go figure, right?"

From the LAT June 2005:

In 1992, the year silicone implants were banned for general use, an estimated 32,607 women underwent augmentation — elective surgery to enhance breast size. Since then, augmentations have soared to an estimated 252,915 a year, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

"Breasts sell," said Ann Kearney-Cooke, a Cincinnati psychologist who has studied body image. "Whenever you have a body part that there is such a high charge around in the culture, I think that is when you see people getting obsessed and dissatisfied." In part, the popularity of augmentation surgery can be traced to the growing overall acceptance of plastic surgery.

Cosmetic procedures have increased 26% since 2000, the plastic surgeons group says. "The whole idea of remodeling your body has become a fashion statement, almost like changing your wardrobe," says Rita Freedman, a clinical psychologist in Harrison, N.Y., who has studied body image and breast implants. Even taking that trend into account, breasts have become bigger than ever.

Aggressive marketing and advertising, fashion trends and cosmetic surgery television shows such as "Extreme Makeover," have all contributed to a culture in which full, bouncy, youthful breasts are part of the ideal female body image, says Freedman.

Large breasts "are advertised indirectly every time a Victoria's Secret ad comes into your house," she says. A woman fresh from a plastic surgery center may still elicit the occasional snicker, but many more women undergo augmentation with no embarrassment.

A brassiere manufacturer, Bra straps.com, recently introduced a new bra intended to create the appearance of breast implants by lifting and separating each breast to achieve that can't-be-natural look.

The rounded, high profile of implants may not be normal, but they can seem to be the norm. In some social circles, there may even be pressure to conform. "It's the fashion to have done it rather than not to have done it," says Freedman. "People used to go to South America and have it done in secret. Now people come back after surgery almost bragging about what they've done."

Once a procedure — whether Botox or face-lifts or implants — achieves critical mass, women can find themselves questioning why they aren't undergoing a makeover of some sort. Shunning cosmetic surgery, in some social circles, can be a new version of "letting yourself go."

"Cosmetic surgery has a way of creeping down the block," Freedman says. "You catch the need for it. Something that seemed OK to you before, when you see someone else has corrected it, it's not OK any more. [The need] travels among the family. It travels among the social circle."

 

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