MICK MARS REVISITED!
Although it’s rumored that Love Makes the World Go Round, gals in the know will tell you the truth: it’s really Cute Guys! In celebration of this worthy adage, Fran Pelzman and Martha Thomases put their considerable talents of observation, collective living experience and good taste to the wayside and dreamed up the book to beat all Boy George and Michael Jackson bios—namely, Cute Guys: All You Need To Know.
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MICK MARS REVISITED!
CUTE GUYS: ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW by Fran Pelzman & Martha Thomases (Holt, Rinehart & Winston)
L. E. Agnelli
Although it’s rumored that Love Makes the World Go Round, gals in the know will tell you the truth: it’s really Cute Guys! In celebration of this worthy adage, Fran Pelzman and Martha Thomases put their considerable talents of observation, collective living experience and good taste to the wayside and dreamed up the book to beat all Boy George and Michael Jackson bios—namely, Cute Guys: All You Need To Know.
No matter what your taste in the male sex (boys ’r men and vice versa— cute is ageless, one soon learns), there’s at least five guys you can find to drool over in the pages of Fran & Martha’s tome. Even a worldly critic of male talent such as I learned a passel of fax and info—imagine how invaluable to the novice guywatcher!
Although most probably written to a median young teen audience, Cute Guys: All You Need To Know features an impressive assortment of hunks in categories ranging from “Cute Guys in Rock ’n’ Roll” and “Cute Guys in Literature” to “Cute Guys in the Bible” (did you know that Saint Sebastian was a heartthrob as well as an early Christian martyr?). I was not impressed with “Cute Guys on Television” (’cause I only watch it for re-runs of Bewitched), but cannot help but marvel at the scope of this ambitious mass pulpphilosophical treatise artistic statement on The Art of Being Cute.
On the factual side, “Cute Guys Questionnaires” were made up, handed out, and tallied, with the last word on composite cute revealed in the chapter entitled “Results: The Cute Guys Questionnaire.”
Written in a 16 Magazine meets The Kinsey Report style, the inherent sincerity of this charming, pix-a-plenty trade paperback ensures any reader with a sense of humor two hours worth (20 min. for Evelyn Wood grad-U-8’s) of goodnatured mirth. Imagine what would happen if Mary Tyler Moore worked at a teenzine instead of a newsroom, and you’ve got a good notion as to its tone.
Go ahead, laugh at me, but it’s
my fave book all year (next to the new Diane Arbus bio). Doesn’t matter if you retitle it Cute Guys: How To Be One Or How To Get One, truth resonates on every page, so it’s OK! Writers Pelzman and Thomases convey the basic premise that Cute Is A State of Mind, so who could be offended?
Any book which states that consideration, kind manners, and moptop haircuts are foreverly Cute vogue—and includes great photos of Gram Parsons, Lou Reed, and Joe Ely—rods, OK??!
