On 'The Life of a Showgirl'

There’s a 1976 Eve Babitz essay about a magazine reporter who noses into a scoop while watching Elizabeth Taylor eat room-service caviar with onion, right in front of the used car salesman whom she’s supposedly dating. Surely, the reporter thinks, the one and only Elizabeth Taylor would not subject a lover to onion breath? Indeed not—the telltale allium portends that at this very moment, dear Liz is deep in secret negotiations to remarry Richard Burton! That’s world-historic gossip. I don’t usually go as far out of my way to think about Taylor Swift’s upcoming wedding to Travis Kelce, but then she announced her new album on his podcast, and one track on it is a song-length dick joke. At least everyone’s having a giggle—I don’t even know what happened to the poor used car salesman.