A book on ”hype” defined it as the practice that causes commonplace products and people ”to be promoted out of all proportion to their merits.” If you`re tired of obscurity, tips to achieve acclaim far beyond your intrinsic substance can be found in the December issue of Model. It`s a 5-month-old publication self-heralded as ”a sizzling new magazine of fashion, style, news, direction and spontaneity” for women 16 to 24 ”on the move,” and it is run by a partnership of Times Mirror Magazines and the folks (Family Media Inc.) who bring you Savvy Woman, Health, Golf Illustrated, Science Digest, Taxi and Discover.
This 400,000-circulation effort is glossy and, though supposedly geared to serious souls disinclined to having fashion dictate their lives, seems obsessed by dress and the intellectually vibrant world of modeling. The cover features Princeton graduate Brooke Shields, star of the Hollywood epic ”The Blue Lagoon,” wearing a $278 black wool dress and sporting Moisture Whip Natural Blush. A long interview discloses that she uses Neutrogena soap.
Mark Coleman`s sporadically droll treatise on hype contains seven suggestions for attaining cometlike attention: Change your name via an earthy nom de hype; make up your personal history; when in doubt, go out, because staying at home never did Emily Dickinson much good; try not to pay for anything; work a phone or room, talking frequently about yourself; memorize all names in gossip columns; and ”seize the day” and make sure you`re ”on” every moment. It seems to have worked for Geraldo Rivera.
– Newsweek (Nov. 21)-A special election issue is terrific, devoid of the slick cynicism that marked its campaign coverage. It includes material the magazine agreed to keep confidential until after the election. There are unremitting details of the ignorant flailings of dozens of mercenary consultants, Democratic consultant Tom Matthews trying to persuade TV`s Bill Moyers to run for president, Bush campaign manager Jim Baker privately bad-mouthing Dan Quayle, and a female friend of Gary Hart`s wife, Lee,
brandishing a butcher knife in the Hart home during the Donna Rice fiasco and declaring, ”Lee, you`ve just got to cut his thing off. When you see him, just BAM! Cut it off.” This is superior to Time`s special issue, except for a dandy essay by the redoubtable Garry Wills. Wills bashes Mike Dukakis for ignoring Jesse Jackson, and the Republicans for cynically hiding Dan Quayle, concluding that George Bush`s ”mandate” is to be a ”figurehead for what America has become, a frightened empire hiding its problems from itself.”
– Inside Books (December)-The second issue of what claims to be Miami`s first national magazine, a very solicitous look at the world of best-selling books, includes interviews with Jackie Collins, Janet Dailey, Ross Thomas and prolific Isaac Asimov. This has possibilities but seems an adjunct to the public-relations arms of booksellers. It could use tales on the economics of the industry and strategies used to hawk what often is junk.($2.50, Box 370773, Miami, Fla., 33137).
– Popular Science (December)-Looking for Christmas gifts? This heralds the 100 most outstanding new products, including the Minolta Maxxum 7000i
; Black & Decker Sweepstick cordless power broom; Panasonic`s PV-4826 VCR, programmable via your telephone; ultrasonic tapeless measurers; and, for that really special someone, the Air Force`s new B-2 intercontinental bomber that`s invisible to radar.
Fall-Winter Ontario Review has poetry from John Updike, including an acerbic effort on a tourist`s view of Washington, as well as poems by Maxine Kumin, Gary Soto and Northwestern`s Reginald Gibbons ($4.95, 9 Honey Brook Dr., Princeton, N.J., 08540).
