Hold That Nose

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The recent plastic surgery boom--in 1998, Americans underwent 2.2 million plastic and reconstructive procedures--is both producer and product of our narcissistic culture, suggests author Elizabeth Haiken in Venus Envy. Doctors first set out in the 1890s to fix faces marred by war, disease, or genetic bad luck; after World War II and the introduction of antibiotics, surgeons turned to the aging middle class to ply their trade. Not only were women (and men) worried about appearances, but the ethos of the time encouraged people to find private, personal solutions to social problems. 'Beauty, in America, meant youth,' Haiken writes. 'While aging gracefully continued to hold sway as a popular ideal, many Americans saw little grace in the reality, and no category comparable to the intriguing, attractive older woman the French so descriptively termed the 'femme d'un certain ?ge.''

As the baby boom heads into its 50s, will a midcentury face-lift become a rite of passage, or will generational optimism--in the form of knife-free self-acceptance--prevail?
--The Editors

I'm a Jew. I'm not even slightly religious. Aside from attending friends' bat mitzvahs, I've been to temple maybe twice. I don't know Hebrew; my junior-high self, given the option of religious education, easily chose to sleep in on Sunday mornings. My family skips around the Passover Haggadah to get to the food faster. Before I dated someone from an observant family, I wouldn't have known a mezuzah if it bit me on the butt. I was born assimilated.

But still, I'm a Jew, an ethnic Jew of a very specific variety: a godless, New York Cityñraised, neurotic middle-class girl from a solidly liberal-Democratic family, who attended largely Jewish, 'progressive' schools. When I was growing up, almost everyone around me was Jewish; I was stunned when I found out that Jews make up only 2 percent of the American population. For me, being Jewish meant that on Christmas Day my family went out for Chinese food and took in the new Woody Allen movie. It also meant that I had a big honkin' nose.

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