Now that Phil Donahue has been to Russia and Ron and Nancy have toured the Kremlin, who`s next? None other than Richard Simmons, who will lead a fitness crusade to Moscow, Kiev and Leningrad this fall. Simmons has taken his crusade to Mexico and Australia, but this is his most ambitious trip so far. He`s calling it ”my personal-exercise glasnost,” and it will culminate with a whole lot of Russians and Americans working up a sweat in Gorky Park. Says Simmons: ”I`m determined to get our Russian friends to put down those blintzes and jog for joy! To sip mineral water instead of vodka! To just say
`nyet` to high calories.”
A good rule of thumb: Never let anyone who carries a notebook use your bathroom. This is a rule that Panama`s Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega won`t break again. The September Penthouse says ”a friend” made a pit stop in the general`s bathroom, and that friend reported that it`s ”cluttered with male cosmetics. They include Grecian Formula hair coloring, pimple medication and a dozen or more bottles of cheap colognes.” But at least the sink was clean.
Whoever thought the country would become nostalgic for Tupperware, Mr. Potato Head, Slinkys, Stopette deodorant, boomerang-shaped ashtrays and housedresses? Well, we have. According to ”Fifties Style: Then and Now”
(Courage), by Richard Horn, ”the `50s live again.” Postwar furniture is being snapped up by private investors for big bucks and even winding up in museums. Today`s magazines, album covers and advertisements often look like updates of `50s graphics. Both haute couture and new wave fashion have a decidedly retro look. Horn says part of our looking back is ”nostalgia. We miss the fabulous `50s . . . a heady, nearly-10-year-long shopping spree.”
