(This happened) pic.twitter.com/2HAgweTNP8— Rich Juzwiak (@RichJuz) November 26, 2018
Paula Abdul's Career-Spanning Show Is Totally Surreal (and Occasionally Surrealist):
Saturday’s performance often reminded me of the final act in a Made episode, in which the subject gets to show off the skills she has accrued in her training.This article by Rich's former co-restaurant reviewer is also very good and beautifully photographed:
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On-screen skits also included . . . a reenactment of her audition for the cheer squad of the L.A. Lakers, in which she repeatedly was cut from the lineup only to reenter by slightly altering her appearance and name
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My sister, with whom I enjoyed Abdul’s music in my youth, and I sat in the third row on the right. This was close enough that during the sing-along portion of “Straight Up,” Abdul was able to make eye contact with me as she sang the chorus’s line, “...Are ya really gonna love me forever?” and I felt obligated to respond to her call: “Oh oh oh,” I mouthed. (I mean, sure I wanted to, but the way her eyes burned into me made it clear that I had to.)
A strange journey to the glitter factory
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He also did not want me to visit his glitter factory. The jovial Mr. Shetty told me over the phone that people have no idea of the scientific knowledge required to produce glitter, that Glitterex’s glitter-making technology is some of the most advanced in the world, that people don’t believe how complicated it is, that he would not allow me to see glitter being made, that he would not allow me to hear glitter being made, that I could not even be in the same wing of the building as the room in which glitter was being made under any circumstance, that even Glitterex’s clients are not permitted to see their glitter being made, that he would not reveal the identities of Glitterex’s clients (which include some of the largest multinational corporations in the world; eventually, one did consent to be named: thank you, Revlon, Inc.), and that, fine, I was welcome to come down to Glitterex headquarters to learn more about what I could not learn about in person.
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When I asked Ms. Dyer if she could tell me which industry served as Glitterex’s biggest market, her answer was instant: “No, I absolutely know that I can’t.”
I was taken aback. “But you know what it is?”
“Oh, God, yes,” she said, and laughed. “And you would never guess it. Let’s just leave it at that.” I asked if she could tell me why she couldn’t tell me. “Because they don’t want anyone to know that it’s glitter.”
“If I looked at it, I wouldn’t know it was glitter?”
“No, not really.”
“Would I be able to see the glitter?”
“Oh, you’d be able to see something. But it’s — yeah, I can’t.”
I asked if she would tell me off the record. She would not. I asked if she would tell me off the record after this piece was published. She would not. I told her I couldn’t die without knowing. She guided me to the automotive grade pigments.